#pls correct me if you are from the relevant communities

[leverage-ot3]

time for the obligatory post about what episodes I want to see in the upcoming leverage season(s)

(for reference, I made this similar post in 2020 after the reboot was announced. I'm pasting some from that post bc I still want them to happen lol)

new ideas:

I mentioned a date night episode in the last post (apollo really did bless me with foresight for the date night job on that one) but for considerment: ot3 date night. possibly their first date night after they all get together. breanna and sophie know it's happening (harry is, like, peripherally aware) and some crime hijinks are going down and the three of them are frantically trying to stop bad things from happening that are going to interfere with the date. I want to see them going through it behind the metaphorical curtain. I want to see breanna fighting for her life trying to out-hack the hacker that is going to ruin their ten-part itineraried date. harry has to get in a fistfight and eliot is so proud about it when he finds out after everything is over

tree law episode. harry has been frothing at the mouth about it since it was made. his life has been moving him towards this penultimate moment. breanna thinks it's HILARIOUS and cheers him on 100% of the way. she is VERY enthusiastic about this con

I'm not going to mention certain things because I've seen jrogers posting on bluesky social and I know he might be already writing some of those plots

con that the food trucks have plot-relevance. like, one of his food truck stations is being harassed /victimized by, like, a local gang or something that takes advantage of food truck/cart workers and the team steps in. the actual (veteran) food truck workers get involved in the con. leverage international might just have gained a few retainer members

quinn should come back for an episode. I know the actor is friends with ckane. they should make it happen because it would be iconic and I said so

on a similar note, ckane is friends with jensen ackles and. guys. wouldn't it- wouldn't it be extremely funny if a flame from eliot's past named sean sylvester who is a rugged drifter with a questionable past

episode where tara or maggie (or BOTH, can you imagine how powerful that would be???) come back and there is slight flirting with sophie possibly??? that or very obvious chemistry from a past tryst. sophie has slept with both of them, I know it in my heart of hearts. bonus points if tara and maggie fall in love (I think it would be funny. maggie's taste in men is canonically atrocious, I think she deserves someone like tara at this point)

I just want a lot of side characters to come back, okay? sue me I miss them

gonna put the rest under the cut since this post has become obscenely long

not episode-specific, but I want more mentions of the korean leverage team. and all the other teams too! we know that in canon there is the south korean one, the nigerian one, and one in london (I think that's it for mentions so far, but correct me if I'm wrong!)

episodes addressing issues with american imperialism and its effects on minorities and marginalized communities, specifically within this country (there aren't a lot of episodes where they are actively out of country)

dear fucking god take a more abolitionist stance on policing I'm begging. would it KILL you to not be weird about cops? pls just punch some more cops. take down white supremacist cops, I'm sure you can scrounge something up bffrrn

women's rights episodes. I know it's kind of recent, but episodes about accessibility of stuff like birth control, abortion access, etc. y'all are capable of making excellent episodes on that I know it

more climate crisis-related episodes. god knows you're feeling it in the deep south

taking down a corrupt megachurch pastor (although lbr, there is no ethical megachurch anything and you can fight me on this)

something to do with ace rights bc I think it would be really cool to see the team advocate for that stuff, especially since breanna is canon ace

helping a polycule that is being victimized by X organization/entity (maybe a housing association or medical or something???). breanna is bombastic side-eyeing the ot3 the entire time. it is making hardison sweat. sophie thinks it's hilarious

taking down 'writers' that use ai and self-publish AND/OR people that take original/fan works off of like ao3 and wattpad and publish them for personal profits without the author's consent. breanna would have a field day with this (god herself could try to convince me that girl does not read/write fanfic and I wouldn't believe it)

episode about underfunded public schools. we saw corrupt private schools in the fairy godparents job but I want an episode that would make abbot elementary writers proud

episode addressing native/indigenous. eliot is from oklahoma, I'm sure he is well aware of the health/job/economic/etc disparities on reservations. I will email jrogers about it myself if I have to- it anyone can get people going about native rights through a tv show it would be leverage.

I sent an ask to wil wheaton once asking if he was open to returning to leverage and I think he said he would be down for it. but chaos either has to be a reluctant ally to leverage international and is being handled by quinn as a hitter OR he is just. in jail. bc he sucks.

bpas and/or pfas episode. breanna has mentioned microplastics before but I want more

the team tears the shit out of conversion therapy camp owners and plants the seeds for legislation that will punish parents that try to send their kids to those hellscapes

while we're at it, I'd love to see an ep where they tackle the trans bathroom issue. god knows the news doesn't talk about it nearly enough

something to do with foster care. they end up starting some sort of foster care network that past clients/allies can take part in. maybe a mentorship program for kids that want to do what they do one day (they are very reluctant to encourage kids to participate in crime BUT if that is the avenue that they are going to inevitably go towards, they guide them in the right direction). nana makes an appearance (*insert 'everybody liked that' meme*)

prison industrial complex episode. I KNOW we had the jailhouse job BUT we really need this in our year of 2024

another episode on corrupt influencers. maybe influencer parents? dear god pls take them down a notch

ep where there is an underlying message that tells you how to avoid becoming victim to scams or something, or like is a tutorial for how to identify scams you might fall victim to (sorry, I just have to say this after two separate people tried to pig butcher me in less than two (2) weeks))

not to say I want them to do an ep calling out cop city, but it would feel really good to watch the leverage team rip that concept to SHREDS

the minimum wage job. need I say more? we deserve the catharsis

pls go after goodwill execs, esp the ones in the pnw that have their sector as for-profit and have become millionaires+ because of it while paying their staff (especially disabled staff) fucking pennies

while we're on the topic, pls call out salvation army (the corporation)

I can probably go on for like five hours so I'll stop here

ep that we get to see harry and his daughter bond :)

job where they get to lower the price of insulin (and other drugs)

actually, you know what? an episode where the crew annihilates big pharma and terrible insurance companies

I think that breanna should be able to go off about mass/over consumption as a treat. I 100% believe she has Thoughts about it. like, she will absolutely call out the corporations that are responsible for these trends, but also she should be allowed to mention our tendency for overconsumption as a society. obviously there are a few corporations that are doing most of the world's pollution/ecological damage, but we should be doing our part too and I KNOW it would be in-character for her to go off on it

I bet she has a LOT to say about influencers, tbh. obviously not all influencers are bad, but there are sooooo many problematic ones and problems within the influencer industry

sizing discrimination in the modeling/clothing industry. let eliot talk about how there are no perfect bodies. also while I'm on the subject, can we PLS have more body-diverse background actors on the show? I know this is nitpicky but I'd really love to see some more people that look like me, even if they are just in the background

a thinly veiled writers' rights episode (I'm looking at you media execs and the stupid amount of time it took for you to comply to the WGA demands)

something to do with media companies making entire movies/tv shows and then fucking cancelling them/not releasing them and using them as tax write-offs. every time it happens it baffles me. that is cartoonishly stupid villain shit. I can't imagine lovingly working on a project for a year plus and then the company just going, nah, we aren't going to release it because you suck and it's a good business move

ai art and ai in general. please. let it BURN

okay now I'm done

ideas from the previous post that I still want:

comicon job. I said it before and I will say it again- we deserve it!!! come on, it's the age of the geek after all!!! (in the last post I also said a ren faire ep, but I will let the card game job count for that)

summer camp ep? I saw a tumblr fic about it and I think it could be cute. it could kinda be like the fairy godparents job- eliot in charge of some type of sports (archery, fencing, etc), hardison would be in charge of arts and crafts (this boy might be a genius with tech and in general tbh, but the show did such a good job of showing that he’s also very talented with the arts- sculpting the statue for the miracle job, forging the old diary in the king george job, etc), parker would LOVE to be in charge of a high ropes course. breanna would totally be down for some sort of nerdy kid robotics or simple, traditional camp games (can't go wrong with the classics. everyone loves making bracelets!) I feel like it's too stereotypical to have sophie have kids put on a play but we all know that's exactly what she would do. idk for harry? I think he has the same traditional camp activities vibe as breanna. he's in it for the nostalgia. OR something to do with videogames

please, please, please, please, please make an episode where they take down a cult, im begging. that would be such a good episode. definitely a mindfuck episode like the experimental job (4x11). I’ve seen a few posts about a job dealing with a cult (here’s one) and I think it would be really interesting 

MORE STERLING being DONE with leverage shenanigans!!! give me feral!sterling like in the frame-up job (5x10)!!! give me sterling that protests every step of the way but conveniently looks away and “whoops, the team just disappeared, I have no idea how that happened!!! diddly dang darn it, they got away again!!! sorry guys!!!” bonus points if mcsweeten is there too and also participates in intervening hijinks

the team takes down a circus that is still using and abusing wild animals!!! because first I’d LOVE to see acrobat!parker swinging up in the air like a pro and being in her element, but also because those places are the fucking worst and need to Go Down. give me eliot having to pose as an animal trainer with deep sympathy for the animals being abused, quietly talking soothing words to them when he thinks no one is around (correction: hardison is, in fact, around, and filming his boyfriend’s softness to save for later). give me charismatic hardison playing the role of ringmaster, running and flaunting about and being passive-aggressive to the circus master. give me eliot freeing the animals from their chains when they are finally able to shut the place down and relocate the animals to sanctuaries (his hands shaking just a little as twists the key in the lock, because he too was once an abused, caged animal in his own right and he knows how liberating it is to finally be free). 

[wumblr]

also can u elaborate on the consent point in ur AI post pls

i hope you wanted a long answer

it relates to the remark about bill gates winning the war on open source. information wants to be free. materially, you can't put AI back. it's out. demanding it be taken back is both pointless and naive

from a computer science perspective, it seems people are upset about fundamental features of statistics. this makes me think like... ok. go ahead and try to change statistics then. the theory for neural networks has existed for about 40 years before sufficient processing power emerged to allow it

a far more destructive problem is the mining required for widespread processing power to emerge. we all tacitly agreed to sacrifice mining communities in order to constantly have access to processing power that, by and large, almost none of us use. (did they consent? did we tacitly agree, by not objecting, or by continuing to participate? is this a useful question? no, our tacit agreement was coerced under threat of revocation of survival needs. did the state of bolivia consent to the coup for lithium? obviously no, or there would have been no coup. can a state consent? if it can, does this materially represent the actual concerns of all its citizens, or only some portion of them? consent is not a word that applies any useful analysis to these dynamics, it is a word that applies to interpersonal interactions)

if it was useful in this context, we would not have this problem where people are complaining about having 1) uploaded artworks, for which they have 2) not genuinely registered the copyright, as 3) indefinitely reproducible files, to 4) a company that operates a social medium, for 5) advertising revenue, on 6) a global network. the application of consent here collapses these multifarious interactions of massive distribution networks to one checkbox. this is not a coincidence, it's useful to the capitalist

most saliently, the problem originates from being held hostage for surplus value of labor by capital. the way this discussion proceeds is like arguing over what type of weapon capital uses to enforce and coerce, a fact that is not particularly relevant to the actual, material, physical, practical concerns at hand

suggesting that machine learning is the weapon capital uses to hold anybody hostage is absurd. it's the nuclear arsenal

one notion that i have developed to grapple with these concepts is "perverse dialectic," where we as chickens are offered two choices, two carefully collimated, honed, coiffed and censored sides of a discussion, which both lead us to the same slaughterhouse. neither side of these perverse dialectic discussions are correct, the correct answer would lead all of us out of coercive economic relations. i'm saying we should build the airplane from chicken run btw

[troglobite]

UPDATE/CORRECTING MYSELF

same thing applies pls don't make fun of the shows i watch lol

the mug said LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL which is distinctly more a specific reference and less of a gay thing but also ???? unclear.

also the sheer volume of ppl who are MAD abt the episode?!

y'all are fucking nuts.

like no i don't care abt being rude

it's fine if you didn't enjoy it, can't account for taste, etc., it's your prerogative

but also have you paid an OUNCE of attention to the plotting, foreshadowing, thematic elements, or ANYTHING of this show??? like holy fucking shit

no, ted and rebecca are not getting together. ship them all you want, but for ONCE, the majority het ship for a show is absolutely not happening. it's refreshing as fuck.

if you think the shandy thing is one and done and the way it ended so poorly is just--That's All? you have not paid attn to this show at all. they wouldn't punish keeley for trying to bring her friends up with her. there's something else waiting for them in the remaining 7 episodes. if i'm wrong, i'll eat my words! but yeah. //shrug

if you think the jack thing is ~inappropriate~ or ~bad~ or ~icky power dynamics~

i encourage you to remember that KEELEY kissed jack first. she was the one to invite her everywhere, to express interest, to grab the alcohol, to kiss her first, etc.

now, the frosted glass--absolutely something they're referring back to! the power dynamics ARE there! they're not as clear, cut, and dried as they might be otherwise. HOWEVER do i think they're going to explore the dynamics there? OF FUCKING COURSE. i'm sorry, but in what universe is THIS show going to do something like THAT and not explore it more fully??? seriously what the fuck? you literally don't trust the writers AT ALL? why?

i thought this show was going to be entirely heterosexual from the beginning to the end, and i've been surprised this season! suddenly i have permission to take all of the throwaway queer jokes as more than just straight ppl making JOKES (they were never at our expense so it wasn't a bother to move past them)

now they could MEAN something! now they feel INTENTIONAL! now they're COMPELLING!

and you're going to tell me that the ppl who had sam walk into rebecca's office and have her misunderstand, thinking he was asking her out on a date, then having him call her beautiful, to then foreshadow their relationship in season two--do you REALLY think they're going to leave ANY of this unexamined??? come the fuck on. these ppl play the long game.

i mean three seasons-long, but still.

they've had a narrative structure from the beginning, the details and notes have changed depending on the cast and input, etc., but they've clearly had ideas.

additionally, keeley is NOT going to stay with jack. you don't introduce somebody important past the halfway point in a story. jack is narratively relevant and important for keeley's growth, but they're not end game. i'm sure something abt their dynamic or something else will pop up.

where keeley ends up, i don't know! and that's AWESOME!

i have no idea how these characters are going to end up, and it's WONDERFUL.

bc THE CHARACTERS DON'T KNOW, EITHER!!!

THAT'S THE POINT!!!

it's genius and wonderful.

if everything feels haywire, that's bc IT IS.

but it is PLANNED, CONTROLLED CHAOS.

the narrative threads ARE falling apart just to come together, but DIFFERENT and BETTER.

and also if you genuinely think nate is dating that girl--i mean, yes, i think that's the initial reading. but it's also just as likely that they're just friends. she realizes she was being rude to him and wants to be friendly to make up for it. and she's a reminder that he does need to check his ego occasionally--and also that their way of communicating is kind of compatible!

it's a story that would be better w more nuance, but i understand what they were going for.

in real life, sure, they could go for someone else better for each of them.

narratively and thematically? i see what they're doing! it makes sense!

she's not a consolation prize. she's a reminder of who nate really is.

they've already been hinting at his growth. she's just part of that journey. and they may not even date.

also everyone abt roy and jamie--i went back and watched the trailer. i legitimately think the keeley/roy/jamie ppl are onto something. lol idk if they'll go THERE, bc that would make THREE footballers on the show queer--which like. idk, that might be a bit much for the show.

HOWEVER i think their dynamic TOGETHER as the THREE of them WILL be very important in the end.

anyway long story short, keep your negativity out of the tags maybe, please? like what the fuck.

i was riding HIGH off of that episode and wanna watch it again and again and again

like for example

the lamb shitting everywhere was foreshadowed bc that is literally the exact circumstance in which keeley and shandy reconnect

and it's thematically interesting that the cutest, softed, most innocent looking thing--leaves the STINKIEST shits and is the hardest to work with.

could be an interesting theme to play with outside of shandy's storyline!

also once again i am way more compelled by whatever the fuck henry did and the fact that we didn't hear abt it, and it was sort of just an instance for ted to prove to himself that he's grown and has started to learn to handle his panic. which is good for him! i'm happy!

but also tell me what the fuck henry did. lol

with all of this queerness everywhere, and colin's outing surely on the horizon (CHRIST i'm terrified abt next episode for him, at the same time that i am BURSTING AT THE SEAMS cannot WAIT to watch it), i am REALLY interested. in this whole. bullying topic.

like.

beard and roy immediately are like "we're going to kill this little fucker" or at least psychically torture them, per roy's instructions

and trent is like O_O abt it which like. yeah dude, mood. drops his let the good times roll mug on the floor at that. AGREED.

so i'm just sort of like [LOOKING INTENTLY] bc childhood bullying was mentioned--acted out by TED'S SON--in an episode with. a lot. of queer things. going on. 👀

so i'm just. I AM LOOKING. AND RESPECTFULLY ASKING FOR MORE INFORMATION.

anyway this is why i stay out of fandoms, y'all are fucking wild.

please learn to watch and read and think critically and look back at the past two seasons for hints and clues abt how they're handling stuff now.

if you don't like it, fine.

but this is the obvious and most compelling and narratively satisfying way to pursue a lot of these characters and stories this season, and i am INTERESTED.

do i wish they had more episodes and/or more time to do it? yep!

but i get it, man. i really do.

it's such a tightly written show. they know what they're doing.

i am in constant terror, worried that they won't handle colin correctly. but like. we'll see! i hope it turns out okay. it'll be hard for them to thread that needle. so i'm deeply concerned.

but trent has respected colin's privacy for this long. colin is clearly on his own journey.

i'm interested! i'm invested!

truly everything has just like gone BOOM hey beck start thinking critically abt this stuff! you're ALLOWED and ENCOURAGED to look back at all the possibly-gay shit, now! and TRUST it!

also can i just say that in each and every episode i have almost exactly called the plot points and "twists"

i knew from the SECOND michelle texted abt henry that HE had bullied another kid and not the other way around.

i literally--when jack showed up i went "....wait. no. really? i mean. keeley. kind of is, isn't she? no. but. i mean. would they do that? are they actually going to do that? .........idfk, shit."

bc i just DIDN'T THINK that the show would GO QUEER! AND THEY DID!

my point being, in every episode, i have anticipated a lot of the plot elements.

so trust me when i say--

this stage of the story is intentional.

also it takes basic reading comprehension and understanding of storytelling to know that THE STORY IS LITERALLY SEVEN EPISODES FROM BEING OVER. NO, shit is not going to STAY fucking tangled up and weird.

my god. have you EVER watched or read anything?

god i'm being so mean and nasty but honestly i'm just tired of ppl being like

i didn't like the thing :( so that means it's bad >:(

and then not even remotely thinking abt the fact that sometimes stories are SUPPOSED to give you complicated and/or negative feelings. in fact, i'd say MOST of the time they're supposed to do that!

NUANCE! LIFE! WHAT A CONCEPT!

anyway trust me when i say--

there's no universe in which ted and rebecca are end game. that way lies......nonsense.

ted will end up alone--but not thematically.

and rebecca will end up likely single--but with a family.

those are much more interesting, compelling, important, and thematically relevant endings for each of them than them ending up together. that's just. bullshit.

putting them together erases their history with their exes, their other complicated relationships, shits on this important friendship that they've built, etc.

ALSO small thing that got overlooked in all of the hubbub!

higgins thinking that TED is the problem with the team!

INTERESTING!

bc in a way, he's sort of right. he let zava blow right through them. he took a backseat. he's still reeling from everything going on. he's overwhelmed by a lot of stuff right now.

he's doing better handling his panic attacks--but that doesn't mean he's somehow Better and Fixed.

this speech that he gave at the end of this episode was really important. it feels like him getting back into form.

i think he might turn it around.

and season one ended with

"well then next season we'll get promoted. and after that, we'll do what nobody thinks we could possibly achieve. we'll win the whole fucking thing."

we are almost halfway through season 3.

i'd say according to the narrative arc, this is right about where we should be.

it's just baffling to me that ppl are seeing ppl not being their Best Selves and they're being like "this is bad writing >:(" no you numbskull, it's called GOOD writing bc THEY'RE PEOPLE AND PEOPLE ARE COMPLICATED

and also narratives have an arc! multiple arcs! they're a journey! if you end up the same as you were at the beginning, the story has ultimately failed--or is a tragedy.

people are changing DRASTICALLY.

i'm also baffled by the ppl who think rebecca's "still hung up on rupert"

she's not hung up on him. nor is she super preoccupied by him, specifically.

when he's there, making it a competition, yeah. she's blindsided. she's irresponsible and rash.

because he pulls that out of her.

case in point: when she stopped ted in the hallway of the west ham game and PREVENTED HIM FROM DOING HIS JOB only to yell at him and try to use reverse psychology to help him win. it was nonsense.

and this is clearly a logical part of her journey!

bc first of all--

she was with him for TWELVE FUCKING YEARS

and he is a HORRIBLE piece of shit who EXCELS at manipulation

it's barely been two and a half years at this point. of COURSE she's still capable of being sucked into his mind games.

but she also? told him to get his shit together and not fuck things up with bex and their baby diane.

she didn't let it destroy her. she didn't try to be petty with it. she has the connections, she could've taken it to the newspapers and tabloids.

but that just would've hurt people and continued the cycle of pain.

instead, she gave him the opportunity to be better.

that's incredible growth in such a short amount of time.

she's NOT the same person she was in season 1. then, she wanted to ruin his life and she didn't care who or how many people she had to HURT to do that.

season two, she grew some more.

and now in season three--she's honestly in the in-between stage. she both has given him the opportunity to be better, and in doing so, has been the bigger person.

AND

she also wants to hurt him by doing really well and rubbing it in his face.

like i'm sorry, have we never heard of the (horrible disgusting) phrase "revenge body"?

that's what she's doing right now. she's not trying to hurt him at the expense of others (though yelling at ted, she has lost her way a little bit bc of rupert's mindgames, etc.)

but she IS trying to hurt him by saying "look how much better off i am than you, and without you"

it's another phase she has to get through, clearly.

and i'm just frustrated that like.

yes i get it, you'd all like rebecca to move on and be better!

and apparently go and fuck ted, instead.

also the most cursed thing i read was the idea that sassy is going to be pregnant.

as fucking if.

a single mother child psychologist who regularly has flings? as if she's not going to be careful and use protection, and if she DID get pregnant, as if she wouldn't immediately consider abortion. tell me SASSY hasn't already HAD at least one abortion. come the fuck on. y'all are wild.

but it's just stupid that some ppl are like eugh rebecca's still hung up on rupert >:( but want her to be w ted as well?

like christ. just let her develop as a woman, please.

it's not shitty or misogynistic to say that she is still "hung up" on him or whatever, or for her to actually be that. like. that just HAPPENS. that's REAL. they had a massive, long term relationship that was incredibly public and incredibly awful.

it changed her as a person, and so has the breakup. and she's still finding her footing.

you'd be a fucking idiot to think anyone in that situation should just Get Over It lickety-split.

let women be imperfect. honestly.

also my only real Thought abt keeley and shandy is that it sucks that shandy was played by a non-white actress bc that like. is not. great. but i also don't think That's That, wrt her story, either.

it's not like them to just paint a character as Purely Cruel or Selfish and just move on.

even RUPERT has been given the opportunity to change.

and nate's WHOLE story is abt coping with confidence, ego, self-hatred, insecurity, community, trust, etc.

he went full villain and his whole story rn is abt changing and rediscovering who he is, taking the pieces that work and are important and growing from there.

so i have to believe that, though shandy was introduced late in the story (relative to everything since she wasn't in seasons 1 or 2), her story with keeley isn't over. i don't think it ends like that.

i DO worry that someone was right when they suggested that possibly shandy outs colin 😬

i worry abt that considering how rogue she was going

and i do think--if that does happen, idk, something would make her realize her mistakes, etc.

it's not that keeley was wrong lifting someone up--it's that, much like nate, a lot of power v quickly brought out the worst in her. and keeley said shandy's never been good w rejection. :/

so y'know i'm intrigued.

ANYWAY.

everyone's complaints abt the episode are v confusing to me bc if you understand stories and narrative structure and the sheer number of things they're tackling rn like. i mean. come on.

this all makes sense. and it'll work out.

much like ted said in tonight's episode

you have to ACTUALLY believe.

it can't just be a sign, word, or phrase. something you parrot.

you actually HAVE TO BELIEVE IT.

and these writers have proven over 2 seasons that their narrative choices make for compelling and thematically consistent stories.

so i'm here for all of it.

i think it's shallow to say you did or didn't enjoy something and leave at that. you're allowed to--not everything needs an essay written abt it. or rather, not everyone is obligated to write those essays--everything can and should have essays written abt it! lol but not everyone is obligated to write them.

but it's just sort of silly.

this show isn't "the same" as it was at the beginning and that's good. while it may be tonally difficult bc it's quite a big Tougher now than it was in the beginning (with all the feel good stuff), i think that's 1. rose colored glasses thinking and 2. narratively important.

if every character was the same at the end as at the beginning, and all that had changed was that they all became friends...

i'd be fucking annoyed. and bored.

i would've had some laughs and fun. sure it would be pleasant, i guess.

but people need to CHANGE. to GROW.

especially in the stories they're writing, here.

it's just. very interesting. and i'm glad to see messy, REAL people in these characters.

i've really gotta stop typing now. lol

anyway keep your negativity out of the fucking tags, like christ, that's fandom basics, y'all.

i guess i'll go back to not engaging w fandom at all, it was blissful without y'all's bullshit. lol

OHHHH ASDLKFMASDFY CUKGINF ASDLKFJLURAGLKJDFJ

more abt the shows i'm watching ONCE AGAIN please do not judge me for the shows i watch

okay ted lasso spoilers for the newest episode

OH MY FUCKING GOD I FUCKING KNEW IT I KNEW KEELEY AND JACK WERE GONNA GET TOGETHER IN SOME WAY AHHHHHH I LITERALLY SCREAMED AND FIST PUMPED IN THE AIR AND STARTED HYPERVENTILATING HOLY FUCKING SHIT ALSDKJFA LSDFHLASDFHLAKSDJF;AOSDFHLIAUSDFKLASJD FLK

okay also

TRENT HAD A FUCKING RAINBOW MUG IN THE OPENING SCENES

AND HE WAS HOLDING IT WHILE TALKING TO THE COACHING TEAM AND HIGGINS

AND THEN ROY WENT ON HIS GIANT RAGE BIT ABOUT WHAT YOU DO TO BULLIES

AND THEN TRENT OUT OF SHOCK AND TERROR DROPPED THE RAINBOW MUG

i mean it was frustratingly not a PERFECT gay rainbow, but it WAS a rainbow and it said IT'S THE RIGHT THING TO DO

WHAT IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO, POSSIBLY GAY TRENT MUG, PLEASE ENLIGHTEN ME

also the looks at colin when ted mentions shame

colin talking about musicals and the others joining in

colin refusing to partake in saying that anastasia is beautiful

trent walking around with higgins just for some reason i'm like !!!!! OKAY!!!! PART OF THE TEAM/FAMILY!!!!

also i am VERY COMPELLED abt rebecca's journey

i KNEW her main closing journey was going to be abt becoming a mom

and now it's not possible for her to carry or conceive HOWEVER!!! GUESS WHO HAS A FRESH BABY!!!

BEX

do it, rebecca. DO IT. GET HER TO DIVORCE RUPERT, SELL HER SHARES OF THE CLUB, AND CO-PARENT THAT LITTLE BABY, DIANE!!!!!

also compelling that the green matchbook and shite in nining armor were about past relationships, not abt the "RIGHT" one!

it's reflective!

and it's moving BACKWARDS.

which makes me think--

further backwards yet again is BEX

so raise her baby with her!!!!

okay once again i would like to FUCKING SCREAM ABOUT KEELEY AND JACK GETTING TOGETHER FUCK YES!!!!!!!!!!

I KNEW FROM THE SECOND THAT SHE WAS INTRODUCED WITH A "MAN'S" NAME AS A BAIT AND SWITCH

AND THEN WITH KEELEY IN THE TOILETS

AND THEN THEY LOOKED AT EACH OTHER AT THE BAR DURING THE GAME

i am.

EXPERIENCING HAPPY QUEER FEELINGS

THANK FUCKING CHRIST

I'M SO FUCKING THRILLED

KEELEY CONFIRMED BISEXUAL!!!!

JACK CONFIRMED BISEXUAL OR FORMERLY-DATED-MEN-LESBIAN!!!!!

i guess technically the same for keeley as well! but it seemed like she really loved and was very much into jamie and roy, so i'm definitely on Team Bisexual over here.

okay anyway

HINTS OF TRENT

that sleeve roll and his little bracelets so fucking gay, my dude, especially WITH THAT FUCKING MUG

and then jamie and roy still committed to working hard together i am LOOKING. WITH INTRIGUE.

okay that was a fascinating episode.

i also i called it as SOON as ted got that text abt henry that HENRY was the one who bullied the other kid.

i was anticipating MORE abt that storyline, but apparently it was just to show how far ted's come in terms of managing his anxiety and his panic attacks, which like, okay, sure. i appreciate them showing henry learning from his mistakes and trying to do better. that's lovely.

i WAS anticipating more. i was anticipating henry to have participated in like homophobic bullying or something. bc tbh we still don't know what he did. to some kid named doug. we didn't really learn anything. and i am INTRIGUED by that lack of detail.

anyway.

also yay for nate! i didn't actually expect him to end up dating restaurant girl--what the fuck is her name again? i legitimately forget even though i JUST watched the episode, which is genuinely hilarious considering her bit abt not remembering nate's name, etc.--but it actually kind of. makes sense.

nate does need someone who can keep him in check--but also they sort of know each other, and the restaurant is special to him. it's not like they have NO history, or their only history is her being rude to him.

quite frankly she's like the classic "be mean to the person you like" bullshit from childhood.

which is funny considering nate's like. behavior and modus operandi.

ANYWAY. i hope that gets more compelling and interesting, but yeah they've both been rude to each other and it's. interesting.

it's a good ego check for him.

and it was really nice for him to be able to recount all the good things that've happened to him! the fact that he ENDED that sentence w talking abt being promoted at richmond! that's really nice.

i don't have incredibly strong feelings abt him but i find the story is being handled p well.

nuance and critiques abound for various parts of the show, including nate and his storyline.

BUT.

that was. a really fucking good episode.

also bye zava! lol

i was really fucking worried that he was gonna out someone or say something shitty abt richmond, but truly, he's a self-important wishy-washy dickhead, but he's not a cruel person. and i appreciate that! very interesting character, v fun for the time he was there.

and unfortunately i can understand exactly how dani ends up hero-worshipping him. lol he speaks exactly the kind of language that dani would find super compelling. lol

anyway holy SHIT there are still seven episodes left AHHHHHH FUCK!!!!!!!

this was a good episode and FUUUUUUCK MEEEEEEEE KEELEY AND JACK ARE TOGETHER!!!!! well, they're fucking. who knows what any of it means. BUT FUCK YEAH!!!!! CONFIRMED BISEXUAL KEELEY!!!!!! FUCASDJFLKA SKLFJHAELIUAHDLSFHAILS EFJADSKFLJ

no. fuck. wait.

the next episode title and summary:

sunflowers

a friendly match takes the team to amsterdam, where one night out unlocks truths for many.

for MANY?!

HOW FUCKING MANY?!!

[SWEATS IN STRESSED OUT LESBIAN]

FUCK!!!!! AIDJ GKADHGCKAEHRLFGKADHKJGHCF ADLDHFKJFSD LKFJAD LFKJ DSOH FMADFYASD LFAJDLFKJASFLJ

[starilicious]

the bad batch as colors: a headcanon

》 word count: 1010 words

》 a/n: i thought this was a cute idea and i think i may have gone slightly overboard but let's just ignore that. enjoy!

》 misc. notes:

• pls correct me on the chakra if i'm wrong! i'm indian, but i'm not hindu, so there may be some inaccuracies that i didn't catch :)

echo: green 💚

calm and collected

soothing, much like how nature is

green is a survival color, and for two reasons

1) for anyone to survive out in the wilderness, you have to camouflage with your surroundings--hence why green is a common camouflage color

2) echo survived so much and has kept going, just like the soldier he is. he moved forward and regrew, so to speak. mad respect for this man

he also seems to be one of the most balanced members of tbb

not only with his skills, but with his mindset

it's really inspiring tbh

okay this just turned into an echo love letter….. moving on

tech: blue 💙

blue is THE color for technology

aka why it’s perfect for tech!

also calm and collected, like green

blue-colored stars are the hottest stars temperature-wise

and this is relevant because tech is very passionate about whatever topic he talks about, and passion is often correlated to heat!

but blue is also quite soothing and serene--a very constant color, much like what the outside of a ship looks like when you're in hyperspace

tech seems to embody the vishuddha chakra, which is coincidentally blue in color (if i remember my chakras right lol)! this chakra, when balanced, means you feel confident, are great at communicating, and are super creative (to name a few)

when unbalanced, it's difficult to express yourself well, something i think tech often struggles with because of his intelligence

he has so much knowledge he wants to impart on others, but people aren't always willing to listen to him

so he may feel like he needs to limit himself instead of expressing himself

okay that got a bit sad BUT THE POINT IS: tech has his ups and downs and he's working through them like the genius legend that he is

omega: pink 💖

pink usually reminds people of romance, but i think in omega's case, it means something more along the lines of sensitivity and innocence

as a kid, she still has that childish innocence despite growing up with a war raging around and now constantly being on the run

so basically what i'm trying to say is that pink embodies being young, which is exactly what omega is!

she's also pretty sensitive

not just emotionally, but sensitive to her environment as well

she can read the room in so many ways before you can even think to snap your fingers

such an admirable trait

the best part is that she knows that about herself and uses her skillset to her advantage like a queen

wrecker: yellow 💛

alright folks, as we all know, yellow = sunshine and sunshine = wrecker

therefore, by the the only geometric property i remember from my freshman year math class (transitive property), yellow = wrecker

thanks for coming to my TED talk

okay okay, on a much more serious level, yellow is the color for happiness and positivity and kindness, all of which wrecker is extremely attuned to

much like omega, he can read the room very well, probably better than omega can honestly

i'm convinced it's his superpower

it's such a warm color, just like his personality

slightly unrelated but wrecker is an actual heater, and therefore a soft, warm marshmallow–i don't make the rules

(wrecker is basically star wars baymax)

even though he’s the macho man of tbb and can get pretty physical, wrecker is quite mindful of himself and how what people can say/do affects others

he is so emotionally intelligent that it HURTS honestly

yellow people also give the best hugs

hunter: red ❤️

red is a power color, which is very important quality to have in a leader

going along with the theme of power, it’s quite a bold and confident color too

this definitely embodies hunter’s capabilities since he is willing to lead his squad through risky missions and come out victorious without any doubts

unrelated, but i just realized his bandana is red

(i shall let you draw your own conclusions about that)

even though red is known for being very bright and almost in your face, i feel like there’s something subdued about it, especially when it comes to deeper reds

there’s a quiet sort of familiarity, something that can ground people easily

so for example, in high stress situations, hunter can pull everyone back together and recenter them easily because it comes to him so naturally

it’s just another reason out of a bajillion as to why hunter is such a masterful leader!

crosshair: purple 💜

crosshair is a very subtle guy

he has a muted and dignified kind of confidence to him, kind of similar to hunter

i would argue that cross is not black as much as he is purple because of the fearlessly mysterious aura he carries–it’s not dark and brooding, like the way a black mystery would be

you can never tell what’s going through his head, what his next move will be–this feeds into the mystery

purple is also a very protective color

crosshair certainly gives off protective vibes, especially when it comes to tech in my opinion

(i imagine tech got bullied a lot for his intelligence/his manner of constantly speaking, so cross would make sure he could protect him because he really cares about his brother and wants him to feel safe)

regardless, he would do anything for his family...i know he’s fighting against that stupid biochip as hard as he can (there’s a reason his sharp shots are always missing his brothers by a hair and serving as “warning shots”)

he’s extremely strong in that sense–the fact that he is constantly at war with the soldier inside him goes to show that he has the strength to sacrifice anything to keep his family safe

if anything, it’s a terribly noble act

and in the west, purple is considered the color of power and nobility

i'll just let you sit with that thought

(my gosh, this really took a hard left into angst town, i did not mean for this to happen… whoops)

please consider reblogging! it really helps me and is super encouraging ^_^

[gh0ost]

my take on eiypo

eiypo = everyone is you pushed out

from what I've understood, eiypo means that depending on your assumptions of ppl and your general assumptions of the world around you, you are treated accordingly.

the ppl around you act as a mirror, a reflection of your inner thoughts.

for example:

if you think that your friends are ignoring you or purposefully leaving you on read and the like, this will lead to your friends actually showcasing said behaviour due to your assuming so and them mirroring your inner thoughts as a result of that. their behaviour will last until you take initiative and switch up your thoughts and affirm the opposite.

the "are other ppl just illusions?" question

simply put, it's a no. I wouldn't say the person themselves are fake, they're as real as you are, but it's just their behaviour or how they treat you vary accordingly w your assumptions of them.

the ppl around you are malleable, they're like clay; you mould them w your assumptions and perception of them.

so to summarise, ppl aren't exactly illusions, they just conform to your conceived assumptions of them.

eiypo and abuse

no one has ever manifested nor attracted abuse ever. that shit is never your fault.

as someone who's had a shitty family if someone came up to me and went "sorry lol that's just eIyPo 🤪", ong I'd be ripping the bitch to the ground.

but, this perfectly showcases how flawed eiypo seems as a theory when it's not applied in the right context. it is important to establish that eiypo is only relevant pertaining to when someone has a victim mindset, not when it's regarding trauma or abuse.

in conclusion, you did not manifest or attract the abuse and the trauma you went through. it was not your fault.

I feel like I could've elaborated more ab the eiypo and abuse bit but I feel like I'm not educated enough ab it to articulate myself properly so I'm not misinterpreted. perhaps I'll come back to someday 🤔.

Since I've only recently started looking into eiypo, as it's a widely discussed topic in the loa community, if you think I might be wrong ab some things I've said in this post, pls feel free to correct me. I'd love to hear your own thoughts and takes ab eiypo as well.

[disfordevineaux]

Chase x Julia (Chasulia) Headcanons

Part 1

Requested by @mimeless​ & @cyborglovesong​

Height difference. Enough said. 5′11 vs 5′2

Chase will do something, impulsive, against Julia’s wishes which will cause them both to get into trouble by Chief. Julia is already in lukewarm water with Chief (let's not even get into Chase’s stance with Chief, he’s basically just a tool to her at this point let’s be frank) and is devastated by this: ‘I’m not angry, just disappointed’ lecture they will both receive.

Following this will be the moment she does ‘snap’. It will be a cataclysmic event in which Chase is thrown down a flight of stairs breaking every bone in his body, metaphorically speaking of course. He will be put in his place and forced to stay there and reflect on his actions. The dynamic is forever changed, Julia has asserted her dominance as the bigger brain and it has terrified Chase.

Chase does take the time to officially apologise for his previous transgressions in a formal way. During the time before, he briefly touched on the notion of his wrongfulness towards her character but never completely said ‘I’m sorry’. He would sometimes trickle in a ‘well, you know I’m wrong so-’ or an ‘I guess you were correct all along-’ here and there. Her forgiveness (but insisting that she will not forget) soon weighs upon his good conscious and good-natured soul and devises up a script of repent he will definitely butcher upon presentation. Julia will be touched simply by the effort he put into trying to do the right thing and mend things as he bumbles it and makes sure he is aware of her appreciation and acceptance of his apology. On conditions.

Once Julia officially takes the lead in their partnership, people often mistake Chase for her assistant and or bodyguard because of how he is now forced to step back from the situation and mill about, shadowing her.

Julia begins to match Chase at his own ‘sass’ game and starts peppering in quick quips whenever she can. At first, they aren’t always the best but with enough practise and dedication, she is incredibly good at taking a jab at him.

Chase is very good at giving Julia compliments riddled with unintentional insults - a Complisult, Part insult, part compliment. Reference: Britta from Community.

‘‘You should stop taking slander from people Miss Argent, you deserve better than disrespect from those below you. Someone as ‘self-declared’ intelligent as you should be able to come up with something witty in the moment. You can practise on me if you need. I have thick skin.’‘

Chase does not have thick skin.

Julia will comprise a list of things Chase must and mustn't do for them to be able to work together without complications and for his own safety. All copies are laminated (waterproof) and she even made a mini one for his wallet. The main point on the list he will attempt to revoke will be: ‘Chase shall not drive any ACME vehicles unless given express permission from Julia Argent.’

Chase will always hold the umbrella between them when they need to share one on a rainy day because he always forgets to bring his own. He tells Julia that she should walk a little faster when he holds it above them both and Julia retorts that he should simply walk slower, as it’s not like he ever has anywhere important to go, being him.

Chase unintentionally memorized Julia’s coffee order, hot and cold. He insists it’s because she always makes him go and get it but that is only a small contributing factor.

On that note, Chase will sometimes volunteer or suggest to get her a coffee, even when he doesn't want one himself. He just sometimes feels like being nice, only to Julia because she always is nice back.

Chase becomes oddly willing to share his food with Julia or even go get her food and make sure she’s happy with it. He is the one who will send the food back at a restaurant if it wasn’t what she asked for. He tells her that life is too short and pain-ridden for settling for subpar food and that he is happy to make sure she is free from that.

They both agree that marriage is completely overrated. Chase insists it’s a financial scam used by the property market and bank organisations to force money stricken couples into overspending and gathering unneeded debt to commit to the social norms of companionship, as well as the source of overpopulation. Julia sees marriage more of a poor means of expressing one's true love but can see where Chase is coming from. Chase insists it’s a money-laundering scheme set up by patriarchal ideals no longer relevant in society and that it has nothing to do with love, just money.

Long stakeouts often consist of simple conversational fillers that turn into a critical analysis of the society and the poor way it operates, in Chase’s opinion. Julia just enjoys the stimulating, rather educated conversation, even if he often unravels once Julia puts her very unerring 2 cents in about how the world isn’t all bad.

Julia is far too nice in Chase’s opinion. Especially in regards to him. He will often state how if he was her, he would have been much harsher to himself. Julia finds this self-reflection a welcomed sign and in a moment of teasing, she then comments that he’s right and that she will be much harsher and unforgiving to him from now on. This wasn’t the desired outcome Chase was hoping for and ultimately regrets ever saying something.

Chase will fight anyone who disrespects Julia even to a minute degree. He jokes, in an unusual way to outsiders that insulting Julia is ‘his and only his job.’ that it is a ‘privilege, not a right’. At first, Julia didn’t find this funny but after an uncomfortable interaction with a slightly sexist and condescending governmental man, witnessing Chase sucker punch him right in the face in broad daylight allowed her to fully understand and appreciate the point Chase was cryptically trying to convey in a really bad way.

Julia insists that she can fight her own battles, like a functional adult. Chase says that he never said she couldn’t, that throwing that hot coffee over the rude officer and shoving the snobby personal assistant who said Julia looked like a knock off career barbie doll into the lobby ornamental fish pond was strictly based upon personal previous gripes with said individual.

When given the chance to relax and not feel like he is being rivalled, (why does he feel this way? Toxic masculinity forced upon him throughout his entire childhood he still can’t seem to shake or get away from, that’s what) Chase is endearing with his loyalty. It’s the best way he can show affection, romantical and non-romantical.

After screaming it far too many times, Chase has been banned from saying ‘LA FEMME ROUGE’ ever again and Julia stipulated that if he even murmurs it in his sleep she will take legal action against him for every penny he has. Chase at first took this with a grain of salt and yelled it as loud as he could laughing in defiance as she grimaced. The next day, Chase had a young man ask if he was in fact, ‘Chase Devineaux’ while waiting in line for coffee. Once he said yes, all the man said was say; ‘you’ve been served’ and handed him a formal document to say he is being sued by Julia Argent. Whom had, overnight, copyrighted the saying: ‘La Femme Rouge’ and is formally suing him for unlawful use of her saying in a public space. Chase no longer questions Julia’s intentions from this day forward and is equally terrified and in awe of her follow-through.

Julia has also banned Chase from using puns or wordplay in lieu of Carmen Sandiego’s name. With the previous threat having substance he does not test it. Chase still tells Julia for someone whose passion is history and literature, she lacks the theatrical flair that comes with it and thought someone like her would appreciate the wordplay, especially when it comes from someone whose first language isn’t English.

It’s safe to say that Chase becomes additionally thoughtful in his actions, more so because he doesn’t want to upset Julia by making an easily avoidable mistake. He wasn’t completely devoid of forethought, he just didn’t take time out for it, now he does.

There weren’t many instances before where Chase smiled, not being a cocky smirk. His genuine small smile is a welcomed thing they both enjoy at the right time.

It doesn’t take Julia very long to figure out that mints were a substitute for his cigarette addiction he later tells her is a ‘European thing’ when really it’s something he started doing at 14 to 1) look cool and 2) because he liked it. Now it mainly quells the stress that pools inside him. It started out with more mints and no cigarettes, then slowly adapted to all cigarettes and no mints. She makes an effort to always have some with her so he doesn't smoke as when he does because his clothes reek and also because it’s incredibly unhealthy. It’s especially apparent when they are in close quarters for days on end. Julia comments on how diligent he is on his appearance and insists that smell is a part of that too. Chase tries to deflect the awkwardness of Julia’s care and comments: ‘’Didn’t know you were so focused on my looks Miss Argent, I’m flattered.’’ Although, this comment immediately backfires as Chase found that this just made himself feel horribly more awkward with what it may imply.

Julia never thought or expected that Chase could talk with a hushed voice or even in a warm tone about normal things. Seeing him casually, sitting comfortably slouched as if relaxed in his car seat is humbling, comforting and humanising. It reminds her that he is, in fact, just another person trying to do their best at whatever they can.

Chase slowly comes to expect and enjoy Julia’s informational talks and explanations. When actually listening, because he has to now, he understands their relevance to the case on hand and finds it like watching the history channel on TV, except the presenter isn’t an unattractive 80-year-old man with an unbearable cockney accent. Her voice is oddly pleasing when not forcing himself to be angry at every second of his existence. He notes that she is a very good speaker.

Julia teaches him to slow down and Chase guides her on taking what’s rightfully hers.

Chase is a good shot. He is the type of person who is better with their hands than their mind. For some reason, it’s the one thing he doesn’t brag about when he really could be, as he is a really good shot. Julia learns of his skill and implores him to teach her. Absolutely vexed at the idea that he can finally teach her something he accepts. He teaches her well and with great success until they are kicked out of the shooting range because Chase decided to show off. He shot down every lane hitting each target in the head, chest and groin perfectly exclaiming that you get ‘triple points’ for combos. The manager of the range and other customers found this incredibly insensitive but with how joyful and upbeat it made him, seeing him smile with genuine happiness, Julia couldn’t help but laugh along too, accepting the lifetime ban from the range with pride.

[oh-mother-of-darkness]

ASKS (28)

----------------

Anonymous said: Hi ily💓

I love you too! There is love in my heart and you may take some

Anonymous said: Hey hey hey Amesssss!!! what was the first fic you ever wrote?

Well. Technically the first written piece was a play I wrote at around 13? It was about all of the characters from the Percy Jackson series watching Disney’s Hercules together

My first bat fic was this one, back in I want to say 2014

Anonymous said: You are a snack . So cute ❤❤❤❤

[Lizzo voice] baby I’m the whole damn meal 

Anonymous said: You may’ve done badly but you looked fine as heck doing it. (I’m aroace—I’m not hitting on you, I promise). Besides, everybody has off days. Even lawyers.

akhfasufgdlfeas I appreciate the clarification <3

Anonymous said: For my summer job I went through a lawyer’s disaster of an office and let me tell you. 90% of it was Westlaw printouts. Those things are the effing best. They tell you what’s going on, they give you the info you need, they’re not weirdly complicated and hard to find—Westlaw. It may be prohibitively expensive and a symptom of the flaws in our legal system, but by golly it’s the best option.

When you hit that “forms” button......... the magic....... the beauty.....

andromeda270 said: My legal research class got us two free weeks of westlaw(I’m still in college) and when I didn’t finish a paper I made a free trial for the wrong site but they emailed me anyway asking if I was interested in buying and could they talk over the phone. I fessed up and they gave me another free week to work on a paper for some class

That’s how they get you!!!!

collidinglegends said: Lexis is shinier, WestLaw is better

Amen babe

Anonymous said: Please sleep

Who’s got the time

Anonymous said: hi !! quick question . I’ve followed you for a while and i think i asked you this previously but im not sure... do you write Duke ?? would you be comfortable writing him if i sent in a prompt including others in the fam ?

Sure, if I like the prompt. I write Duke every once in awhile, although I wouldn’t say I’m confident doing it. He’s a fairly new character and I stopped reading weeklys about the time I hit law school three years ago

Anonymous said: Hope you feel better soon... I'll pray for you

Ah thank you friend I appreciate you

areverieofchaosdreams said: I'm probably pretty late to this cause I'm not great at time, but your thing is making All the Feelings tm. But in a good way. You and dapanda were the first batfam blogs I ever followed, and it's been a helluva ride. Your way of writing things just pulls me in a way that few do, so thank you. :)

A single tear falls from my lashes, followed by several more because I cry a lot 

hades-in-a-handbag said: Your thing is being the embodiment of goth mom energy Don't know if it's just your literal handle or what but you're so encouraging and motherly and also dark and emotionally scaring with your writing. Very sweet, very spooky

goth mom energy 

Anonymous said: Omgggg ames, ginny is so grown up!!!!!

She is! She’s a teenager 

morallyunequivocal said: not a prompt but oh no i just made myself sad with that last ask

that’s a mood

Anonymous said: You make plushies? Wtf, how did you get to be so talented and adorable at so many things. You’re amazing and I hope law school goes well.

Oh you’re so so sweet

Anonymous said: What law school things have you learned that you could see the bat family deals by with?

Well, I’ve had to take classes about forming and maintaining businesses, finding tax loopholes, writing and litigating contracts, and real property. Those are all things that WE would deal with on the regular. I also took classes on juvenile and adult criminal law, evidence, and police misconduct, which all seem Bat-relevant. At this exact moment I’m taking family law, which would include adoptions, and I have in the past taken classes about trusts and estates.

Anonymous said: Noooooooo no nono 🙏🙏🙏 dont ignore her 💔

Bad kittens get ignored instead of cuddled

crayolapumpkins said: hope the printing isn't too boring !! + I'm loving the fics , your work is always *chef's kiss* !! thank u for ur hard work ✨✨✨

[heart eyes]

Anonymous said: Since you have a big brother and a tiny sister, with that huge gap, what do you feel when you see those Dick & Damian fics or headcanons where Dick sees Damian as both a brother and a son? I know it's kind of canon now, but fandom has even gone as far as having Dick adopt Damian in various situations. Their age gap and their positions in the family allows for that kind of dynamic and I know it's reality for a lot of people too. But what's Your opinions on this? And maybe your brother's?

Huh, that’s a good question. My littlest brother and I are ten years apart, and Dave will tell you flat out I’m his favorite sibling because when I’m home we do everything together. I think the thing those fics are collectively missing is that there doesn’t need to be a brother/father hybrid because the role of Older Sibling With Age Gap is already its own distinct thing. 

Dave and I don’t have the same dynamic as the kids I actively grew up with. We had very limited contact during his growing up years, because I was off at school. Now that he’s a teenager, we communicate like adults but with the caveat that I am In Charge. I dictate the agenda, and I make the decisions unless I choose to delegate them. 

I’ve indulged a request about an adoption before, but I don’t really like that idea very much. Like I said, I don’t feel the need to add “father” into a dynamic that already exists on its own. 

hollyhock13 said: Listen. You’re a middle kid, but not the middle middle kid. You’re towards the older end, but not the oldest. Maybe second or third, depending on how many siblings you have

Correct!

Anonymous said: That is the coolest blanket I've ever seen!!

Isn’t it just 

Anonymous said: We're having a big adoption event tomorrow in Houston and we sent all the animals in our shelter down there. Our supervisors are in Houston too so us few kennel techs left at the shelter are scrubbing the place from top to bottom. We have music playing on the loud speaker and just ordered pizza. It's a great day. :)

:D

Anonymous said: Pls continue the Tim and hallucination Damian thing im on edge

Anonymous said: Bls bls bls continue the tim hallucinating dami fic, bc its killing me in the best way. My heart. It hurts. That shit hurted.

maybe

Anonymous said: Ames, thoughts on the new joker movie?

I haven’t seen it, although I probably will when I get the time

Anonymous said: Idk if this is a secret, more like a guilty confession. I really, REALLY hope Damian turns out asexual, or at least romantically unattached. I LOVE that most of his good interactions are with his vaious Bat siblings, Jon, Maps and his pets. Everyone loves shopping him with varuova characters and it makes me hesitate to share my opinion incase I'm looked at weirdly. But having a character I look up to be asexual would be amazing.

I would really like that too anon

Anonymous said: what do you think about Drake & his new outfit?

ugly

Anonymous said: Alfred Pennyworth is the baddest bitch

You are not incorrect

bruciewayneisbatman said: Amy and Kenza are the bittersweet queens of this fandom. The both of you are absolutely evil and tooth-rotting sweet at the same time. I love you two for that, btw.

<3 thanks Esther 

[egdocument]

About the EvaGeeks wiki and why you shouldn't trust it, concerning mainly one user.

On the subject of EvaGeeks: Let’s talk about the manipulation of information on the wiki, and perpetuated “nastiness” on the forums that has persisted for several years now. THIS IS A MIRROR OF THIS GOOGLE DOCS FILE. (My twitter post.) You can share this post or the original document freely, use parts of it, etc. I want this document to simply serve as a warning to new Eva fans and those less familiar with EvaGeeks and their history - as well as an update for people who haven’t seen the current state of it.

NOTE: If you can’t read any of these images, these are Imgur albums containing all of the notable ones: https://imgur.com/a/z2mGvvX https://imgur.com/a/oAgufc3

The intent of this document is not to “take down” the wiki or forum, obviously. The intent is simply to inform people of the dangers of trusting this site with their Eva info. It might be the best we have but that doesn’t mean we can’t improve it. I would actually love to see a more community cultivated version of the site with less biased information, but I fear that will never happen. The anxieties of any one (or many) individual(s), which have prevented consistent change until now are well justified, and it is not within reason to blame the outsiders for never bothering to correct the myriad of issues with the wiki. Please extend kindness to other Eva fans and approach sites like EvaGeeks with the appropriate scrutiny, if you aren’t already. We’re divided enough as it is.

Before I begin, I must state: All of the information presented is publicly available, either through main pages, chat logs or history. And yes, the link to join the Discord server and verify the information given in this is publicly available too. I will not link it myself, as I want to avoid any possible harassment of the users I speak about here. Harassment is NEVER the answer in any kind of conflict. This behaviour I don’t believe can go unchecked, but that doesn’t mean the consequences of it should be any kind of conflict towards any user. I will be naming them here so you are aware, but I really do have to advise you, as a reminder, DO NOT HARASS OR ENGAGE WITH THEM. The rule of thumb is that these issues are more systematic than you might think, and blaming or taking it out on a singular person or even a whole group is never justified. Targeted harassment, even with reason, especially never helps to remedy an issue, because it forces the person to double down on their behaviour and beliefs. Causing unnecessary pain to a person is never okay, and the ‘offences’ committed here aren’t deserving of it in the first place. Please also consider the feelings of the people who use the server and EvaGeeks site; not everyone is your "enemy" or your "target" (and frankly, no-one should be) and despite the feelings echoed in this document, EG is not a monolith of a singular opinion or belief.

The purpose of this document is to inform people of the ways EvaGeeks fails objectivity and has existed to push narratives and exclude outsiders for far too long. With new people coming into the Eva fandom (and there of course being others who have been around for quite a while but just aren't aware) I feel like now is the best time I could write this.

As for what prompted this, an anonymous member of the Discord server contacted me regarding the behaviour of one particular user they were concerned about. Said user had expressed considerable bias in the past and was admitting to making large edits to pages on the wiki very recently, and the person who contacted me felt unequipped to bring the issue to light themselves.

A decent amount of this document will be dedicated to presenting said user's contributions - while I feel someone always had to address the EvaGeeks Problem at large, it doesn't help that this user has essentially incriminated himself here to expose the problem in its entirety. 

There is quite a bit of pretense I must discuss before I get into the subject of the wiki pages themselves. I suggest you read all of it; the start of the wiki section will be in heading text if you’d like to skip to it. I’m sure information on the biased editing of wiki pages is privy to anyone who has used the server or the site itself, but at the server’s current status of 60 entire members, I know not everyone has, or is aware of what the problem actually is. Please note that the person who contacted me has requested anonymity and I will be complying. I will not include screenshots of their conversation with me, and anything I quote from them will be paraphrased so nobody can go full Sherlock and analyse their typing patterns. It sounds silly and it’s probably just paranoia, but they shared my concern here. Any conflict we can prevent is for the best. EvaGeeks, of course, has a culture very much promoting the idea that it’s the “number 1 source for all things Eva”, and for English speaking fans it definitely is - you’d be surprised the amount of people who still, after all these years, think this site is consistently reputable. For the sake of context, I’m going to assume that you are not all that familiar with the site’s history or nature, so I’m going to provide a little bit of information about it for those without any first-hand experience. The forums in particular cultivate a very join-us-or-get-out type community, where those who dare to go against the grain get incentivised to leave the site; they’ll claim this isn’t the case if asked and obviously the site is NOT a hivemind but that doesn’t mean it’s not insular. I can vouch for myself and many others who refuse to go in more than a few threads for fear of discussion turning particularly nasty. Even the server member who came to me about this has stated they feel it “might not be a hivemind but it sure feels that way.” Silencing dissent, even when officially-backed, is part of their culture. You don’t have to personally harass everyone who has an opposing thought to you for it to not feel acceptable, you just need to have a history of mocking those who do. If you want some previous, notable cases of “discussion turning nasty”, here’s some off the top of my head: 1. The AWL Incident - In which ADV VA of Rei and director of EoE dub, Amanda Winn-Lee, joined the forums for discussion and was promptly harassed by a user. Most of these messages have been deleted but you can view what remains of her post history here.  2. Recently brought to my attention: upon beginning translation of the Episode 24 drafts, EG forum user LiLi was subjected to incentive to leave, mostly in the form of homophobic disgust in replies to her thread or others they were mentioned in. Any information that goes against the cultivated narrative, even when it is literally officially licensed content, is only ever considered with a degree of reluctance. The fact these drafts co-exist with other pages concerned with this episode is almost a miracle. You can find plenty of repeat instances of the above if you want to (more to do with homophobia and misogyny than outward hostility, but honestly it’s the same thing.) A look at basically any EvaGeeks thread concerning pairings or the female characters will unearth a variety of awful comments from many other users, not that that would be surprising to anyone who has spent more than two minutes in the fandom. Now, of course, that’s very relevant to the topic at hand even if it doesn’t seem to be. The EG wiki and forum have quite a bit of overlap and circular influence on each other as you’ll see later if you aren’t already aware of it. For a short summary before we jump into things and analyse our subject of the day, this essentially means that anyone with an opinion or information the majority doesn’t like will never get in a position good enough to edit the wiki and keep the edits there. This has resulted in many articles filled with conjecture and fan speculation that serve to shut down other viewpoints, whether it’s intentional or not.

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ON THE TOPIC OF THE EVAGEEKS WIKI

The issue surrounding homophobia and downplaying of references to LGB content in Eva, through proxy of fan-dictated content control and translation is not a new one by any stretch of the imagination. I'm sure you're all very well aware. It’s far from the only issue present in the fandom but it will be our subject of conversation today. Any ‘one instance’ of this persistent behaviour from Eva fans is never going to be enough to summarise how insurmountable it really is, though, so today I instead draw your attention to one user of the wiki who goes by the name of FelipeFritschF and his recent, frequent updates to pages concerning Nagisa Kaworu.

[TOPIC: FELIPEFRITSCHF]

I must reiterate here: although this document is mostly concerned with this user and will contain a number of receipts from various places, it is NOT supposed to function as a hit piece or inspire any kind of mob. Leave this guy the hell alone, just be aware that he’s the one making most of these changes and isn’t a particularly impartial party, to put things lightly.

Now, before we really get into things, it should be stated that the EvaGeeks wiki requires approval to get your edits there, as stated at the bottom of the homepage, here:

This means that anyone making consistent edits to the wiki has in fact been approved, and this isn’t the result of lack of maintenance.  

What you’ll find is that it is consistently Felipe making edits to the pages in question. Kaworu’s bio page, for example, is almost entirely edited by Felipe, which we can see from the “History” tab of the article.

This is barely half of his edits made in the last few days. Take a scroll through it yourself if you’re so inclined. This hilarious bit of waffle was added by Felipe a few days ago and since revised since by him, as shown here. 

(As an added bit of comedy, the man who decided to add in the Japanese in the first place apparently didn’t know the difference between 好意 (kindness, what Kaworu actually says) and 行為 (action). It’s been fixed since but I still think it’s quite funny.) Now, as anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of Japanese knows, 好き is not actually a very ambiguous word at all. I think it goes without saying, though, and I’m not here to have an argument about translations with you all (for the record, Kanemitsu’s now scarily infamous translation of this scene is perfectly fine with me in a vacuum, it’s just literally everything else surrounding it that’s the problem. Also, regretfully, I will have to speak about this nonsense later when it becomes relevant.) I’m using this as an example instead, to show how utterly ridiculous this guy’s additions to these pages are. He’s not even making a point here. It keeps going past this excerpt, and I suggest you read the whole thing (Kaworu’s page is linked above.) The point of bringing this up - and when I eventually discuss the Netflix translation when it’s necessary - is not to complain about semantics, although I’d argue that’s what’s happening in these articles, honestly. It’s just helpful when proving the actual point of the editor being incredibly unreliable and biased in how he phrases and omits things.

On the page dedicated solely to Shinji and Kaworu’s relationship (which is basically identical to their section on Kaworu’s page as far as I can tell), we can see that Felipe has also edited this several times, and even credits himself with expanding the version on the Evangelion Fandom Wiki now copy and pasted back to EvaGeeks.

The kind of “discussion” (very much not discussion when added to a wiki page supposedly presented as factual information, is it, frankly?) would be fine if it was happening in the EvaGeeks forum itself (and happen does it ever, but that doesn’t change the inappropriateness of this particular behaviour.) What I find disturbing is that in the past few days, this user has gone out of his way to make some already worrying articles even worse, presumably in an attempt to silence discourse, or add more fuel to the flames, surrounding the new Netflix translation. He has a whole page on that one, too, one which is very up-to-date in some regards and not at all in others, despite only being added a few days before me compiling this information. Frankly, going through this whole page on its own is a huge waste of my time considering how BLATANT it is in its biases, but I’ll do it anyway. It IS only a Theory and Analysis page (which is essentially an EvaGeeks free-for-all), but I think it’s quite bothering that the site even allows Theory and Analysis pages that consider only one viewpoint and are written by one person. The forum, presumably, is connected to the site for a reason. 

I’m just going to link it here, for the sake of brevity. https://wiki.evageeks.org/Theory_and_Analysis:Kaworu%27s_lines_in_Episode_24 I suggest you read this before continuing. For a slight departure, the original theatrical Funimation dub of 3.0 is partially available for viewing online, although the audio is in cam quality so you may want headphones if you have plans to watch what’s there. The home media dub’s major changes are to issues with lore and localisation of jargon. While not directly mentioned in this article, it is implied from the subject that this is what it’s about; it’s been speculated that the very literal translation of Episode 24 in particular has come about due to Khara’s embarrassment with how Funimation’s theatrical dub of 3.0 handled Kaworu and Shinji’s relationship rather loosely. Despite these claims, every instance of the two sharing (honestly pretty awkward and unnecessary) flirtatious back-and-forths are still present in the home media version, barring an instance in the stargazing scene where Kaworu’s dialogue was translated even worse than it is in the final dub. If you don’t believe me, do the comparisons yourself. It may not be conclusive, but I think it puts mostly to death the rumour that “a Khara employee was there and saw how people laughed at the Kaworu and Shinji scenes and demanded it needed to be changed for the final release and now that’s being reflected on the new translation”, which is what it tends to boil down to. 

It also goes without saying that NO ONE PERSON is “the most qualified” (holy shit, is this entry not even bothering to hide how biased it is) to translate an entire TV show, let alone something like Evangelion. Let us not forget that Kanemitsu’s claims that he respects “ambiguity” are not even true to begin with. EvaGeeks itself is a shining example of Eva fans, of which Kanemitsu is one and this is even discussed in the article, not being impartial enough to be tasked with discussing Evangelion! (There is obviously issue with citing the ADV translation as a source of all truth; if you read further into the thread on my tweet [the kitchen scene in EoE], I provide extra context for those interested, which I am aware has been spread around Discord and other places without that context included. Of course, I’m not an unbiased source either as you can probably tell from my tweets nor am I claiming to be, so please feel free to discuss these things in other places if you want. I’ve just got the tweets I have on hand here. Sorry about that.) Next, the repeat claim that this is “Khara’s licensed translation and thus the most accurate version” is pretty obviously nonsense; I’m sure I don’t need to point out to the audience that Japanese companies meddling in localisation has ended poorly in the past, or that Khara uses questionable translations from the dubs of the Rebuild films on licensed merch from time-to-time, or that the translation was fairly obviously not overseen or even QA’d by anyone following Kanemitsu’s translation work judging from the myriad of grammatical errors, missing subtitles and overly literal, poor sounding phrasing present in the final work. (Do I need to source this? Just watch the damn thing.) It’s not even like the ways it was translated have been consistent through different versions on Netflix; some were translated from Kanemitsu’s English to other languages judging from the obvious mistakes being present in multiple tracks, and some were barely even translated at all - the Italian version, the dub of which is mysteriously now missing, was so bad people were commenting that it sounded like Shakespeare or that it was translated word for word from Japanese. I dunno about you, the reader, but something about “Khara only bothered to check very rigorously the English version for their specific requests with the translation” doesn’t sound like what really happened to me. It’s more like they’ve just sent a translator they have worked with before to work on a project of theirs. Apologies for engaging in speculation, but that’s all this whole article is anyway. It’s just something I noticed from skimming through the page, but I find it quite interesting that Felipe makes a blanket statement about the excerpts from Schizo and Prano “being wrongly attributed to Anno” and then the source he provides for that is just someone on the EvaGeeks forums saying the same thing with little proper sourcing, when that was never really the intent of their post anyway. An interview summary exists where Anno has stated he wrote both books himself, and if you haven’t seen it, here it is. It’s obviously flimsy at best, but Tokyo Otaku Mode is an officially licensed Evangelion distributor. If Felipe is going to parade around his love for the Very Official Khara Subtitles Of NGE he can at least extend the same gratitude to other forms of official information; I mean, frankly, this article is about as reputable as anything in the Netflix subtitles are.  Lastly, another thing I found quite interesting is his strange love for the ADV VHS subtitles. I really, really think this is obvious, but subtitles changed in later versions of the ADV release were changed because they were deemed incorrect. I don’t have sources for this so take it with an absolute grain of salt but I believe there’s even a commentary track on the Platinum release where the translator talks in depth about why she translated episode 24 as she did. It’s not exactly a better word than Kanemitsu’s, but if we’re considering translator’s word as law for whatever reason like Felipe is here, we might as well consider hers, too, right? Oh, and actually, have a look at the sources used on that article. Most of the sweeping statements he makes have absolutely no backing beyond what he’s piecing together from old and irrelevant interviews (when discussing the Netflix translation) as well as...linking Kanemitsu’s job history...I mean, sure, the guy is qualified, but do I really need to go over this again?

INTERMISSION: Speaking of sources, you might have noticed from perusing these articles yourself that EvaGeeks has a very low standard for sourcing to begin with, which is likely partially to blame for how things like these articles can even exist in their current forms in the first place. A site that doesn’t have such a lenient policy on sourcing, though, is Wikipedia. Felipe, of course, cannot stay within the confines of the fandom and has decided to have a go at providing some information to Kaworu’s actual Wikipedia page as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kaworu_Nagisa&action=history Felipe is far less to blame for the state of Kaworu’s Wikipedia article, which is honestly pretty bad to begin with. There have been plenty of other people editing this one and the rather homophobic “Relationship with Shinji” part of the article has been present for a while before he started editing it. (The fact this article literally uses someone being explicitly homophobic as a source is not surprising for Eva fandom, but holy shit, am I disgusted every time I reopen this page. I'm not even going to bother figuring out who added that one.) I do wonder if his reasons for not desecrating this page the same way he has on EvaGeeks is because he knows it wouldn’t stay up for particularly long. Reminder that he is also the main editor of the same pages on the Evangelion Fandom Wiki, which is essentially a copy and paste of EvaGeeks. Of note is this little tidbit I found:

This is what Felipe then deleted, as this is apparently not relevant, despite literally being about Kaworu’s relationship with Shinji. I mean, I’m sure this could have been put in somewhere else and perhaps phrased a bit better, but why the hell would you outright delete that kind of information? It’s supposed to be a wiki, not your own personal opinion chamber. BTW, this is the thread post he links as a rebuttal to that person adding it, and it’s probably for the best it’s presented here with context: https://forum.evageeks.org/post/886380/NGE-Ep24-Script-First-and-Second-Drafts/#886380

He clearly thinks he has a point here, but I’m not sure what exactly he’s going for. Basically everything he’s saying is conjecture, and while I can kinda see where he’s coming from it sure does completely fail to address the intent as explained in this interview. “Read the whole interview” is very dismissive, especially when the interview in full doesn’t exactly contradict the initial point. It does say quite a bit, how he will disregard official information when his wiki articles themselves are full of nothing but rambling.

Here’s another relevant and quite funny Discord screenshot:

Felipe is making a pretty hypocritical statement here. I’m sure he does have a point - there’s probably been quite a bit of vandalism happening to these pages which isn’t exactly surprising (again, Eva fans are not often rational people, please be honest with ourselves). That being said, I think there’s a particular irony to the man who has written many very, very long paragraphs on the wiki pages he has control over trying to stop people from thinking there might be anything but “ambiguity” between a pair he doesn’t like.

In the case anyone reading has forgotten: the purpose of a wiki should be to provide unbiased information on the material it discusses. Obviously the repeating of “innocuous” statements about how “ambiguous” it all is, in the vain of EG’s now made fun of ‘we don’t know what he really meant by that’ and ‘why Kaworu is so intent for Shinji alone to have happiness remains a mystery’  are pretty obviously intended to downplay the very, very obvious “subtext” and leagues of official information provided.

It kinda goes without saying that WE CAN INFER THESE THINGS FROM THE ACTUAL INFORMATION ON THE WIKI, you don’t need to add a disclaimer to everything going “well we just don’t know what it means!” (even in instances when we do know what it means, but that’s almost besides the point). You don’t need to add in these statements, unless you’re trying to sway people into ignoring what's presented by the show. If you want people to draw their own conclusions, you are in fact capable of presenting information without commentary - in fact, that's kind of the whole point of a wiki. Yes, Eva is ambiguous at times, but talking down to people like they need this reminded to them constantly is an absolute waste of time and energy. It’s almost as if the editor has been trying to cultivate a narrative and has been getting away with it because you can’t really prove these statements are biased unless you do the research. (I mean, you can from context, but it certainly hasn’t done much to get them removed, has it?)

You can view the editing history of any given EvaGeeks article on their own pages if you want to see just how many times these things have been added in by Felipe. And obviously, no, it isn’t just his fault - there are other users, several, in fact, credited with the editing of these pages, many of the edits serving the same point as Felipe’s paragraphs on “ambiguity”. He’s just the most concrete example of a biased editor. Also, yes, I do recognise this has all happened within the few days post the release of Eva on Netflix and that it was likely prompted by that. But we know at least one of the mods is aware of it given how Felipe talks about it in the EvaGeeks Discord server. It’s also quite funny I’ve seen people linking these pages like they're some kind of "gotcha" in response to tweets discussing the new translation, as if they haven’t been invented out of thin air in the past few days.

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Now, frankly I’m sick of staring at EvaGeeks, and if you want any more information on these articles and others with instances of the same thing happening, you can have a look at it yourself.

Originally, this document contained far more screenshots from Felipe. My desire for this to not turn into a hit piece has lead me to remove a great deal of these messages. I do suggest, if you want to, you join the server and make your own conclusions. Even beyond what the member told me about I found myself agreeing with him fairly frequently when he was being reasonable - this doesn't change my concerns regarding the presentation of information on the wiki, though. The anonymous member was mostly concerned about this user having basically all the control over Kaworu's wiki articles, seeing as he has far too high of a stake in everything. Not all of these messages are inflammatory or even necessarily bad or wrong, but I find that to anyone privy to the “revelations” about the EvaGeeks Wiki here, they paint an interesting story, to say the least.

It’s starting to sound like he perhaps has just had some bad experiences. The following few messages are part of the same conversation.

I find it interesting how he flipflops from not understanding anything about the whole Eva Parallelism Theory Thing to suddenly being all for it when it concerns things not about the gay stuff.

Comments on how ‘manipulative’ Kaworu is

Because Kaworu is very pro instrumentality, and this definitely isn’t just a theory, I mean, it’s even talked about on the wiki, guys! (And I’m not even touching on the yes-men in this server.) Oh.

Oh no.

For the record, this page is clearly still under construction, and to point out any one thing about how bad it is would be essentially just poking a stick at a beehive. At least this one is so absolutely poorly phrased it’s doubtful anyone could mistake it for any kind of proper information. I also find it incredibly funny whenever pages on the wiki use the forum as a source. Relevant: Qmisato’s post on his defending of Shinji sexually assaulting Asuka: https://qmisato.tumblr.com/post/183082754484/yesterday-i-was-invited-to-evageeks-official

In response much later. I really can’t see it as being framed as “fun teenage romance”, also why is the word romance suddenly being used to talk about Asuka and Shinji after the whole debacle with Kaworu? He’s said before he doesn’t see Asuka and Shinji’s relationship as romantic, either (and GOOD! It’s not!)

(Also - it’s not sexual assault when Shinji tries to kiss Asuka in her sleep, but it IS when Kaworu does the exact same thing to Shinji? Make up your mind, dude.) Turning this sort of thing into Shipping Discourse is frankly not the right way to go about it, but it is perhaps notable that despite what Felipe says, he is in fact an Asushin shipper. (I don’t feel the need to post all these images in the document as its cluttered enough as it is.) At this point it’s rather adhom and I feel irrelevant but I do think it’s relevant that through all of Eva fandom, those who have the most issue “understanding” (more like accepting, I suppose) LGB subtext, are those who also are really attached to a fairly morally grey het pairing themselves. Again, seriously, there’s nothing inherently wrong with any of this and assuming the worst of someone because of the pairings they like isn’t my intent here, it’s more that I find this pattern has always been prevalent and it’s bothering me I’m seeing it STILL in 2019. ESPECIALLY from a wiki editor who inserts so much of that into his work on the site. 

  You’re probably sick of reading all of this (and I’m getting sick of writing it), so I’ll wrap up the part on Felipe quickly: Yes, I just dedicated several pages to screenshots of mostly innocuous (when considered out of context) stuff one guy had to say. I feel more obsessive than I’d like to admit, and frankly I have no business with this person. We’ve spoken twice on EvaGeeks threads if you can even call it speaking. This task was given to me by a member of the community who was concerned about his behaviour but didn’t want to publicise it themself and I feel a little out of my depth here. I at least hope we can come to the conclusion I wanted to here, that I fear may have been lost in this whole great mess of language - no one person should have THIS much sway over the state of a wiki that’s supposed to be impartial, especially when they have not been quiet with their biases in the first place, and it is the failure of everyone involved in the maintaining of the wiki itself that this sort of behaviour has been allowed in the first place. 

The guy can have whatever opinions and theories he wants, obviously. I don't give a shit; he's not even that bad compared to the grand majority of Eva fans to begin with. Don't think this document exists to "cancel" him or thoughtpolice, I truly, genuinely, do not care what is said inside this server anymore. It doesn't concern me. I mean, it's a fucking cartoon, for god's sake. This only becomes an issue when opinions are expressed on a wiki, for reasons I have reiterated many times now. EvaGeeks lacks the objectivity required to function as a wiki and I'm trying to make that clear. 

[ON THE TOPIC OF THE EVAGEEKS WIKI AND COMMUNITY IN GENERAL] As for who can edit the wiki and what they’re allowed to say: As you can see from the nature of people’s posts in this thread, you’re given access to do very specific things, and although I haven’t bothered going through the process myself (as I find it would be quite redundant, trying to fix such an inherently broken system), I’m guessing it’s very easy to get your edits reversed if you post anything they don’t like. Take that as conjecture of my own.

I have it in decent faith that the approval process involves whoever of the mod team is there at the time coming to an agreement based on people’s applications. Obviously this is a decent idea for a system, and I’m sure there are legitimate reasons as to why EG has to be locked down as much as it is; judging from the state of other fanon wikis I’ve seen there’s likely to be a decent amount of vandalism, especially in a fandom as passionate as Eva’s is. However, I think it’s fair to say that the complete restriction of updating these pages to those approved by a mod team who, while I’m sure are very reasonable people overall, certain individuals of which have displayed concerning behaviour and biases of their own in the server during my brief look around. I won’t be naming anyone in particular from the mod team as I don’t feel like I need to add any more targets of shame to this already horrifically negative document, but I have gotten the general impression (in case it needed confirmation, following the remaining of these specific changes on the wiki) that some mods, not all, aren’t the most nonpartisan individuals themselves. I do happen to be decent acquaintances with at least one of them so, again, please don’t consider this a personal attack.

My concern here plainly is that I don’t think a group of mods who have routinely failed to prevent events like the ones mentioned earlier, nor seem to have much of an issue with the myriad of examples of people being openly homophobic and misogynistic on their own forum are really in the position to be choosing who of the Privelleged Few get to control the Eva meta-narrative here. As I was writing this, I was alerted to the state of the primary Japanese Evangelion wiki as a source of cross referencing for what these things can look like if done right. If you take a moment to browse it, even if you don’t speak any Japanese and have to use an automatic translator it should be very obvious how something like this differs greatly from EvaGeeks. Kaworu’s page, for a relevant example, doesn’t have present any of the nonsense statements about ambiguity or overwritten descriptions of everything. The wiki respects the reader’s intelligence enough to know that it is, in fact, a wiki, and thus tries its best to be factual. His page is fairly decent in size and states things we know are fact rather than theory. There’s no attempt made to influence or confuse.

Oh, and just in case you think the mods aren’t actually active or present enough to know what Felipe is doing, his particularly awful page on Kaworu in episode 24 got a shoutout from the official Twitter account two days ago.  

If you are going to join the Discord server to verify things yourself* or do further digging, again, please be cautious of other users inside and do your best not to start anything. I am an occasional contributor to the forums and I’d prefer not to get my account flagged or to experience harassment myself, if any EvaGeeks members are still reading this document and disagree with my conclusions. I may not have posted much since I joined earlier this year, but despite everything I find the forums to be valuable for connecting with other fans and have enjoyed the positive feedback to my SIRP translation! Those who have spoken to me there have been very kind (including Felipe himself), and I must reiterate that this is not targeted at the whole site, or even at just Felipe. I simply believe there is more than enough evidence to suggest there have been consistent, systematic failures to recognise and correct the utter lack of objectivity present. I seriously don’t have any personal issues or beef with this guy, either. I wouldn’t have done this if it wasn’t someone else who came to me about it.

*It should be noted that the person who spoke to me has pointed out certain members have been concerned about outsiders joining and screenshotting the chat. They may remove the public link to join if this document were to cause a huge issue. I will leave the server following the publication of this document and I have no plans to join again. I can’t speak for those who may join of their own accord but I do hope people have heeded the disclaimer I made initially.

Thankyou to all the people who have extended their own kindness and support during the creation of this document, to the anonymous person who tipped me off and the lovely Eva analysts I know for offering their own experiences with EvaGeeks and further supplementary information. If this whole document reads like the product of a bad mental health day, I guess it is. Also yes I know how hilarious it is that I’ve spent all this time creating what essentially amounts to an EVAGEEKS CALLOUT POST but I mean. Someone had to say it. Why not make an utter buffoon of myself in the process?

[nonbinaryresource]

pls forgive me if i mistakenly word something incorrectly/use the wrong term bc i’m still learning, but i’m questioning if i’m nb and i need some help.. i’ve never really felt like a girl, but i’m definitely not a boy either. i’m biologically female and i use she/her pronouns and don’t really want to change that and i also present myself somewhat femininely thru my style. is nb the correct term for me? or is there maybe another term that would fit me better?

Hi, there!

Since you’re new, I’d like to talk about terminology a little bit. This isn’t to scold you, just to share more perspective!

So “biologically female” can be useful for some people and if someone prefers to use that for themself, that should absolutely be respected. But it isn’t a term that should just be applied generally to everyone! I am nonbinary, therefore I am biologically nonbinary. There’s a lot of misguided effort in saying “biologically [gender]”, especially when it’s by cis folk and/or being applied as a blanket statement to all trans/nb people. Basically, unless someone is personally using it for themself, I consider it a sneaky way of misgendering trans people. It comes from the idea of the “sex =/=gender” split, which is supposed to help people new to the trans identity understand what trans means more easily.

Trans simply means ‘does not identify only and wholly as the gender they were assigned at birth’ (whereas cis means ‘identifying only and wholly as the gender they were assigned at birth’). Because the way we assign gender is... pretty simple and subjective. Doctors take a look at a baby’s outer reproductive genitalia, assign a gender based on that, and call it a day. Only it gets even more complicated when you include intersex people in the conversation. Intersex is a broad category we use for people with variations in their sexual anatomy that don’t match up with the binary anatomies of either external or internal genitalia and what typically goes along with each of those. These conditions can be anything from an extra chromosome to ambiguous physical genitalia to more. A lot of intersex conditions aren’t even visible at birth, so babies like this are marked as they appear to the doctor and may only find out at an older age that they are intersex if/when a health condition pops up. And intersex babies whose condition is visible? ...They are often mutilated: surgically made to appear as if they only have external or internal sexual genitalia. I think this is one of the clearest examples of just how subjective and simplistic the system that we use to assign people gender is, which is why “biologically [gender]” isn’t broadly useful.

Because a long time ago someone decided to take a rather simplistic view of gender and randomly assign people one of two genders based on random criteria, which happened to be visible genitalia. And we used this determination to separate people into two categories of social class and treat them differently because of this. When someone says “male” or “female” or “man” or “woman”, people have the same connotation regardless. So trying to separate sex from gender as two different concepts... well, it isn’t the greatest idea, as that means erasing a meaning/connotation people have for one of those terms and redefining it. It is much easier - and more accurate - to instead expand our understanding. As well, a method such as this, where you could understand that I have [x] set of genitalia and [x] set of chromosomes and am nonbinary regardless of all of that would result in much better healthcare because it would actually give doctors relevant information about my body and health, rather than relying on assumptions based on if I check an “M” or “F” box.

So if you find defining yourself as “biologically female” as useful, that’s fine and don’t let me stop you from defining your own experience! I know a few nonbinary people who find the “sex =/= gender” split useful for defining their experience and how they figured out they were nonbinary. But as a general rule, it’s just a description to not use in an umbrella way.

If you already knew that, sorry for being redundant! But since you said you were still learning, I thought it might be useful. ^^

So let’s move more onto your question. I’m just going to repeat it here, since it could have gotten a little lost after my explanation:

i’ve never really felt like a girl, but i’m definitely not a boy either. i’m biologically female and i use she/her pronouns and don’t really want to change that and i also present myself somewhat femininely thru my style. is nb the correct term for me? or is there maybe another term that would fit me better?             

So, as noted earlier, trans simply means ‘does not wholly or only identify as the gender you were assigned at birth’. More specifically for nonbinary, we can define this as: ‘not identifying wholly or only as the gender you were assigned at birth AND not identifying only or wholly as man or woman’. Note that this says nothing about your genitalia, pronouns, name, presentation, expression, or anything else superficial. Because all that stuff doesn’t have to define your gender! So you were assigned female at birth, dress femininely, use she/her pronouns, and don’t mind being read as a woman? You can totally still be nonbinary! There is no bar or test that you have to pass for your identity to be valid! All you have to do is identify as nonbinary!

As you have touched on in your ask, gender really comes down to how you feel. There’s two posts I want to suggest here where a couple other people go over what gender “is”. They’re good reads and when trying to figure out what the heck gender feels like, it’s always good to be able to get multiple perspectives to see if you can find one that’s helpful for you! They are “What is Gender? What Does it Feel Like?” by askanonbinary and “Gender is Art” by wedontcareaboutyourbinary. I’m not great at explaining open and subjective concepts like this, but for me, gender is an innate feeling of who you are. It’s a connection you make, either (or multiply) with a label(s), others, and/or yourself. It is something internal that can have external influences and expressions.

So when you say “i’ve never really felt like a girl, but i’m definitely not a boy either.” - this sounds like your gender!!! And, as we saw defined above, you don’t feel wholly and only like a girl or a boy, so it sounds like you do fall under the label of nonbinary!

That being said, I want to touch on “is nb the correct term for me?” and the answer is... that’s totally up to you! I really like how I saw nbandproud put it: “Gender is Not A Diagnosis”. There is no formula for determining your identity (although I know many of us would find it easier if there were!). You can’t just check off a list of feelings, expression, etc., and get a simple output that defines who you are. We describe our gender with a label, and labels are, first and foremost, for ourself. They are to help us describe how we feel and communicate this to others. And there is absolutely an important part of this that has to do with human emotion and connection. Two people could potentially have the same exact gender feels, yet could decide to use two separate labels for how they feel because that’s the term they connected with and decided to use. And neither of them would be wrong for doing so! That would be like me calling someone beautiful and another person arguing with me that the someone is actually gorgeous. We are using two words with similar meaning but used the word we felt at the time. Neither of us are wrong that ‘someone’ is beautiful or gorgeous. We simply used different words for it.

So only you can decide if nonbinary is the correct term for you. Often, the best way to decide this is to use the label for yourself for a while! How long that while is can be up to you. It’s fine if a while is months or years long!!! It took me a matter of several years to fall in love with the term nonbinary - and even longer to fall harder in love with genderqueer.  I simply wasn’t sure and struggled with accepting myself for that time, but in the end, those are the labels I’ve landed on (at least for now - it can always change in the future). Using the term doesn’t mean you have to come out, either. You can just use it privately. Think of yourself in regards to being nonbinary. Draw nonbinary people. Write nonbinary characters. See if the label fits you or if there’s always a disconnect with it. Experiment and decide if nonbinary is the correct term for you!

As perhaps implied above with my own identity, nonbinary doesn’t have to be the only correct term for you if that’s how you feel. You can use as many or as few labels as you want. You can use nonbinary as a specific and/or general term. You can use as specific or as general a term as you want - you can use a general term and an ultra specific one. It’s your identity: whatever you feel fits is the correct term for you!

I can suggest some more terms if you’re interested in hearing more, but there are a whoooooole lot of identities that could generally be described as “neither girl nor boy”. One of the more well-known terms I can throw based on this out would be agender: lack of a gender. If you are interested, I would suggest just flipping through some glossaries. Here are a few of my suggestions:

http://genderfluidsupport.tumblr.com/genderhttp://gender.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Gender_Identitieshttps://nonbinary.wiki/wiki/Main_Page

Then, of course, there’s whole lexicon blogs meant to help spread and share and celebrate terms that people are coming up with everyday. Blogs like @genderlist, @beyond-mogai-pride-flags, and @imoga-pride.

I will warn you that these blogs can be overwhelming, especially if you’re desperate for that One Perfect Term(TM). They’re a lot to go through because there’s a lot of different ways people can feel and feel about their gender! If you find them overwhelming, take a break! You don’t have to have that One Perfect Term(TM). I don’t! And I am finally comfortable in the fact that I simply don’t understand my gender enough nor am I able to so specifically pin it down that it can be described with a term and simple definition. So if you get overwhelmed, take a break, give yourself some self-care, and go back to reading later. Questioning can takes years, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Now... have a kitten for getting through all that text! And feel free to ask as many questions as you need!

[gif of a tiny white kitten getting its paw gently squeezed by someone with long, painted nails. the kitten places its other paw on the finger, sandwiching them in a teeny hug, laying its head down, and closing its eyes in complete peace]

~Tera

[blacknovelist]

I myself am not deaf/hoh but I was thinking of hc’s for my reader character in pyre (who I hc deaf) and I realized I never shared them so here i am. sharing them.

(Imma put these under the readmore bc holy shit there’s alot I copy pasted but please by all means add more or correct me if you got em)

(extra note: I myself am not part of the hard of hearing community, tho i do have family and friends who are. if there’s anything wrong, or things that should be changed, pls let me know)

It’s fairly obvious that speech is important in the CW (that and probably pictures) bc of the literacy ban, so, I mean, they gotta have stuff for ppl who can’t hear shit since it’s unfair otherwise (it’s never fair but hey they’ve got an image to maintain)

There’s definitely sign language for Sahrian. SSL, if you will

However!! Bc of how many races there are, that may make SSL….. complicated. There’s probably (definitely) different “dialects” and ways of signing depending on race

Like. A wyrm doing one action means the same as the hand signs for a certain word. It means you gotta learn how to interpret cur signs and wyrm signs separately, and some races come up w/ other little things specific to their races as far as nonverbal communication go too, but, like, it’s still SS, so, theoretically, anyone can use/learn it. 

Not that people in the Commonwealth do tbh

Harps kind of can’t really learn it bc the signs are adapted to everything but feet and wing. Plus they’ve mostly got wings, so, I like to think hands r a weird thing for them, bc to them its like “you have a second pair of weirdly-shaped feet on ur arms instead of wings wtf how do u live like this”

On a relevant note, the military has a kind of, pidgin language? A conlang adaptation of SSL??

It’s more reliant on finger movements than the hand-wrist-fullbody movements of actual SSL, which makes it easy to hide (esp from Harp eyes)

Jodi knows common SSL along with the military version

She taught Hedwyn some regular SSL but most of his knowledge on it is the military conlang, so, in the beginning, communication is a little funny (not hugely tho, military SSL is similar to civilian SSL outside of all the finger movements)

Jodariel is the one who recognizes the Reader cannot hear after Hedwyn patches them up and brings them in.

Reader can read the lips of curs, humans, saps, and wyrms. They can’t read Bog-crone lips bc they’ve never met one, but Bertrude already knows sign anyway (although, the reader is a quick learner so they do pick up some reading lips regardless since crone mouths aren’t that different anyway.) Is this a capital R reader thing? A little bit!

Subsequently they can kind of read Harp lips because they’re the same as human lips lmao. This makes communicating w/ Pamitha easier (but not that easy) when they first meet, though it’s some time until Pam can communicate w the Reader without a proxy translating SSL back and forth. Pam does pick up understanding it at a good rate though!

(Sometimes its hit and miss bc yknow, some ppl talk too fast or mush their words together or talk funny but it’s better than nothing)

The Reader experiences the Voice primarily through impressions (and occasionally in like, mental writing if something can’t be conveyed properly through images + feelings), and so they never hear AJ “properly”. Good thing the AJ way of talking is through direct mental projection because things would questionably get complicated otherwise

The reason they feel it in impressions is because of the nature of the Voice and the rites tbh. I know deaf/hoh folks usually think in sign - however, the Voice speaks English and SSL is in, well, Sahrian. So it… kind of can’t come across in the usual way the Reader thinks cause there’s no english sign language cause english is forbidden (*insert spooky noises here*)

The triumvirate feels the Reader in impressions, images and ideas too! Sometimes it translates in their heads as words they hear, but only in their own minds.

The thoughts of the triumvirate, those do come across in mental SSL impressions for the Reader! That’s because the other Nightwings couldn’t think in English if they tried (except for Volfred)

AJ, who has never met a deaf/hoh person doing the rites, has no clue the Reader can’t hear and still wants them to be his successor until the Volfred stuff.

The closest thing the Reader gets to hearing is the vague feelings they get through their triumvirate

If the Reader really, really needs to get everyone’s attention when politely tapping or wildly flailing don’t work (or if they’re too excited to try and want everyone to see something right now immediately), they’re not afraid to just make the biggest goddamn racket on planet Earth. Not like they’re bothered by it anyway, so it gets the job done. 

The first rite (in the book) was an experience because they figured the three would be talking to each other once they appeared, except the conversation actually presented itself in their head out of nowhere despite their faces being covered and the Reader not knowing for sure that they were actually talking (aka the Reader knew it wasn’t their imagination and this was stuff coming from the trio). 

Hedwyn nearly forgets the Reader can’t hear when he’s doing his “we’ll get free and we trust you so work with us here” speech, but he gets the feeling the Reader will understand anyway.

Gilman’s knowledge of SSL is also mostly from his time as a Wyrm Knight, but unlike the human army, wyrm civilian SSL is the same as wyrm military SSL, so there’s no issue there and the Reader learned all the SSL forms bc it’s not really like they had much else to do other than read up there u know?

When Volfred speaks into the Reader’s mind, it manifests in SSL like the others’ thoughts do, but if he’s speaking English it manifests as impressions and letters in the same way the Voice does during the rites. 

The Reader insists on learning how to use their Reader Powers to communicate “in case of the most dire of circumstances” 

They stick with SSL ever after tho bc of course they do

The Nightwings all learn how to understand human SSL but not everyone can use it, since the Reader can’t really teach it to everyone (u try imitating a wyrm effectively with ur hand and get back to me man, they aren’t gonna try)

Ti’zo already knows a little about understanding SSL, and the Reader helps him learn the rest.

He turns out to be incredibly adept in Imp Charades and using facial expressions. Though unaccustomed to being able to communicate through chirps and other usual imp noises, he enjoys the challenge. 

Together with Mae, the three piece together a makeshift Imp SSL. Ti’zo loves it.

Volfred asks to teach it to the Messenger Inps and learn how to understand it, despite knowing already how to interpret Imp speech. They teach the Inps and Volfred anyway.

Even though the Reader can’t hear it, strumming Tariq’s white lute is incredibly soothing. Something about the vibrations. Tariq himself is quite sad the Reader will never hear his or Celeste’s music

“Fetch the Reader for Lunch/Dinner” is a task given to a randomly selected Nightwing (usually the first person to arrive after Hedwyn rings the bell for mealtime), and consists of poking/slapping/pulling at the Reader, who is blissfully unaware, so that they can join everyone to eat. This is important, because the Reader can and will miss meals if not alerted.

It only applies to lunch and dinner because the Reader loves sleeping and can therefore be woken up with everyone else instead of them having to be hunted down due to early morning wandering

Jodariel signs quickly and uses a lot of older formal gestures that the Reader knows of but has never seen before meeting Jodi. 

Hedwyn, on the other hand, usually signs a bit slower than her, and his signs are mostly “modern” ones mixed with military SSL. 

Basically the way they sign matches the way they usually talk.

Rukey knows a bit of cur SSL and does his best to learn more, but he's… not great at it, especially since the Reader can’t really help him through all the motions as a human. He keeps at it, even though the Reader tells them he doesn’t have to because they know how to lip-read and he's got a very expressive face anyway. They’re very touched he’s going so far to try (and he gets it… eventually. He makes up a lot of abbreviations.)

Gilman signs like Jodi does (quickly and in a more “olden traditional” way), but with about twenty times the exuberance. And a lot more old signs and gestures, because no one’s bothered updating wyrm SSL in a while, I guess

Tariq doesn’t seem to know how to do SSL, but never has a problem communicating with the Reader. They keep forgetting to ask him about it.

The big heartfelt speech about freedom and stars and stuff (after the rites are said to be ending, u know the one) is told through a mix of SSL and the Reader’s abilities, because it helps them portray exactly what they wanted to say more directly, right when everyone needed it. 

Barker absolutely knows cur SSL and how to understand other SSL dialects, and is constantly broadcasting everything he shouts in cur SSL just in case (works well bc cur SSL heavily depends on body position and language), which actually helps bc otherwise the Reader would have 0 idea what he’s saying

Lendel knows the bare minimum of SSL (thru his time as a police dude or whatever they’re called) and definitely not enough to communicate fluently. 

Ignarius learned the military version but has long since forgotten. 

Dalbert knows how to understand it but doesn’t know how to sign himself, and his son only knows a little. 

Sir Deluge learned as a Wyrm Knight and forgot it fairly quickly. 

Manley doesn’t even know it exists, and it takes some time for him to realize the Reader isn’t ignoring him on purpose when his mask is on.

Witch Udmildhe has never cared for such mortal things, as there’s no way to convey the horror of the Astral-Born through mere hand signals anyway.

Tamitha has tried learning SSL as a way to get a leg-up on the CW (if harps could crack it, there’s a huge boon there bc on-the-field plans to could be disrupted before they happen) but hasn’t been able to get the resources for it.

As a side note, Pamitha does help form a Harp SSL following the Scribes’ Return (and before then, simply made sure to always face the Reader when she talked to them so they could read her lips or get someone to interpret)

Falcon Ron and his dad don’t know SSL as Downside natives, so someone always has to accompany the Reader when they go to the Slugmarket in order to interpret for them.

Actually, in general someone’s gotta be with the Reader all the time, because they can’t hear anything and therefore even a mcfreaking rockslide could sneak up on them. Howler nights mean nothing when you can't hear the howling. Even if it’s a Drive Imp, somebody’s gotta be there to be the Reader’s ears

It honestly doesn’t help the Reader is kind of an unintentional little shit like. They just wanna see the world and being deaf isn’t gonna stop them but they’re literally gonna die pls save them from themselves holy shit 

Oralech knows SSL, of course. As a doctor it was important for him to know military SSL at the least, but in order to communicate freely he learned civilian SSL as well

Sandra does not know it, as it wasn’t created in her time and no one’s spent enough time with the Beyonder Crystal to teach her. Since she projects in a similar manner to the Archjustice she doesn’t technically need to, as impressions and text do fine for communication between her and the Reader, the Reader teaches her anyway. She quite enjoys it.

The other Drive Imps learn to gather and move on hand-command via the Reader. It makes them feel powerful. (The imps are just happy to be getting the pets and snacks so w/e)

All of the Nightwings have their own sign, and there’s signs for the Nightwings as a whole too.

If the ‘wings are practicing with each other and want to refer to the Reader, they hold their closed hands to their heart and move it to their chest like an open book (or like they’re cradling something)

The SSL for “Nightwings” is the signs for “night” and “wings” together.

Technically they came up with signs for the other Triumvirates but im not coming up with all of those man

Ti’zo still complains abt what the Accusers sign is and thinks it should’ve been something less friendly

[sparxwrites]

I've noticed recently that I've become accustomed to capitalising words for Emphasis, both in the absence of italics and in tandem with them. As a language nerd, what does this suggest of language mutation going forward?

this isn’t language mutation! at least, not in the way i suspect you mean it. it’s more of a linguistic adaptation to the inherent limitations of text-based communication - which is a bit of a mouthful, and a lot to unpack, so, let’s start with the basics:

in spoken english, we have words and grammar and sentences, the same as we have with internet english. however, we also have facial expressions, and body language, and hand gestures - and most relevantly here something called prosidy, which internet english is lacking (at least in the traditional sense). prosidy is the changes in pitch and volume of your voice when speaking. this gives rise to stress and intonation in speech, which serves several purposes - one is distinguishing between words (ie. record the object, and record the action), another is conveying emotion, and another is providing emphasis.

the last one is the primary purpose of both italics and initial capitalisation in internet english. since we can’t have prosidy over the internet via pitch and volume, we’ve adopted other methods. 

words with the same spelling are usually disambiguated by context, so they’re not hugely relevant here, but there’s some interesting things going on with emotion and emphasis.

emotion is usually done with memes, emoticons, gifs, or other “verbal tags” - stuff like “/s” for sarcasm or “uwu” (which, interestingly, started off as a genuine expression of “i’m not mad at you!” and is now sarcastic and passive aggressive, so that’s a- lexical? possibly-lexical mutation there), or even acronyms like “tbh” and “lol” and “lmfao” which are now more often used to indicate the mood of a particular statement. for example: when was the last time you saw someone using lmfao to Actually Literally Mean “laughing my ass off”? now consider when the last time you saw someone using lmfao to mean “the previous statement is intended to be mildly humorous in a bleak and self-depreciating kind of way” was. think of the number of posts about “adults need to learn to text!” where people think their parents are angry because they ended a text in a full stop. think of all the wonderful variations on ellipses we have!! the way people use question marks as rhetorical devices, to indicate uncertainty in their statement, or to point out how obvious something is!! i love it. emotion tag-words are my favourite.

emphasis / stress is usually (or at least traditionally) done with italics in written english - it isn’t particularly a internet english thing, it’s been done by writers and comic book artists since well before the internet. this is part of what’s called prosodic stress in spoken english, and it’s used in a couple of different ways. aside from general the most relevant one here is to point out new information in a sentence (called focus in linguistics):

“However, it’s not enough to assume that turtles merely like the taste of pineapples. We must consider the possibility that turtles are deeply, sexually attracted to fruit.”

there’s also contrastive focus (a sub-type of focus, where the person you’re speaking to makes an assumption, and you’re contradicting / correcting them). wikipedia has some nice examples of how it’s often used both online and out loud:

I didn't take the test yesterday. (Somebody else did.)I didn't take the test yesterday. (I did not take it.)I didn't take the test yesterday. (I did something else with it.)I didn't take the test yesterday. (I took a different one.)I didn't take the test yesterday. (I took something else.)I didn't take the test yesterday. (I took it some other day.)

other things italics can do include indicating sarcasm (“Oh, of course, no one else has ever thought of this, because you’re so clever.”), and highlighting important/argument-relevant (“As I mentioned earlier: fish can feel love. This is just one reason amongst many, however, that fish-human marriage is undeniably ethically sound.”). i’m 90% sure that that latter one is probably also focus-related, but i don’t know enough about information structure generally to commit entirely to calling it focus - tbh, given how many different theories of focus there are, it may be focus under some theories, but not others (see also: that one theory on the wiki page where anything not given is focused, so if you’re specifically bringing up or reminding people of a relevant piece of information it’s probably not given and therefore focused). if the important / argument-relevant use is not focus-related, though, then it’s at least somehow related to information structure; perhaps italics are more generally useable to indicate something about information structure, without it specifically needing to be focus.

stress done with initial capitalisation, however, seems to be a little different - or at least, seems to occur in broader contexts than the one above. i suspect you could do an entire postgrad thesis on the similarities and differences between the two (and i also suspect that i don’t remember enough about syntax and phonology and information structure etc. to offer the best insight possible here), but let’s see if we can’t at least pick the differences apart a bit.

so! initial capitalisation can certainly be used in the same contexts as italics, for focusing new / relevant information and for contrastive focus. this evidenced by: (a) “omg, have u considered that turtles are Sexually Attracted To Fruit??” and “pls remember that Fish Can Feel Love” are both perfectly a-okay in internet english, and (b) by an edited version of the wikipedia examples:

I didn't take the test yesterday. (Somebody else did.)i Didn't take the test yesterday. (I did not take it.)i didn't Take the test yesterday. (I did something else with it.)i didn't take The test yesterday. (I took a different one.)i didn't take the Test yesterday. (I took something else.)i didn't take the test Yesterday. (I took it some other day.)

(initial capitalisation with “I” is always a little tricky (is it emphasis, or is it just normal capitalisation?), and in my expereince people tend to default to italics with it wherever possible for this reason. i’m also… unsure about how happy i am with the grammaticality (how “okay” a particular sentence is within a given language / dialect) of examples 4 & 5 (“The” and “Test”), but that might be because those two are a little unusual even with italics - “i didn’t take The Test today” looks much better, i think, and can mean both “i took a different one” and “i took something else”.)

however, it’s clear that initial capitalisation can occur in places where italicisation is either outright incorrect, or at least looks kind of weird:

[cute picture of a cat lying on its back, pulling a face, having knocked a plant pot off the table]

commenter A: “Why Do Cats Do These Things”

commenter B: “why do cats do these things”

commenter A’s statement is perfectly correct internet english; commenter B’s statement is just about interpretable, but quite clearly clumsy / not really acceptable in the opinion of most “native internet english speakers”. but why?? well, we’re clearly not focusing “do these things” (because it’s not really providing any information, it’s just sort of… pointing out that the cat in the picture is being weird and then asserting that this is prototypical cat behaviour. it’s trying to tap into a shared knowledge of “what cats do / are like” between “speaker” and reader), and though it’s somewhat humorous it’s not actually sarcastic, so italics are a no-go.

what commenter A is trying to do, however, is to indicate a specific usage / meaning of “do these things” via a specific “tone of voice”. commenter A is not just asking why cats behave specifically in this manner re: knocking pots off and pulling faces, they’re trying to indicate that they consider cats in general to act weirdly and look goofy; typing “why do cats do these things” would be mostly fine if you are indicating frustration / anger with a sudden plague of cats-knocking-off-plant-pots, but that’s not what commenter A is trying to communicate.

additionally, when i say “Why Do Cats Do These Things” out loud, there’s a specific tone of voice i use for it, that i suspect others do to - this kind of flat monotone, with a heavy weight on each word that’s not so much emphasis but a very careful over-pronunciation. it’s not quite emphasis, and definitely not focus-emphasis; it’s almost a comedy thing, or a joke; it’s drawing attention to a specific interpretation of this sentence that’s both humorous and typical within internet spaces; it’s indicating a kind of emotion (exasperation / affection / despair) more than anything.

some other examples of this, where capitalisation is a-okay but italics are somewhere between weird and entirely unacceptable:

“nah it’ll be fine, i’m Basically Immortal lol”

“getting run over would be Suboptimal”

“if word crashes and deletes this essay then, i swear to god, I’m Gonna Die”

“you’re a Terrible Human Being and i love it”

(if anyone can think of any examples where italics and capitalisation is okay, but are in the same style as the above, then let me know! or if people disagree with my analysis of what initial capitalisation sounds like out-loud. this sort of thing relies on native speaker judgements, usually, and although i am as close to a native internet english speaker as you’re gonna get, i’m only one person. other people may have other judgements.)

i suspect, from all of this, that the function of initial capitalisation is to indicate any kind of change in prosidy in the speaker’s voice (though primarily weird monotone), usually with an emphasis on a specific interpretation of the particular phrase that’s initially-capitalised. this is why it can be used for focus, and for sarcasm, and for more general emphasis the same way - but why it can also be used to represent a monotone (“I Would Prefer Not To”) in a way italics can’t, or to indicate that specific “you know what i’m talking about / i am referring to a concept we both share but that cannot be put into words” tone (“Why Are You Like This”), or that looping-up-and-down voice people use when they’re winding someone up (“I Am A Joy And A Delight, idk what you’re talking about :3ccc”).

italics can kind of be used for some of these, but only really as an extension of its function as an indicator of sarcasm - which means that italics are intelligible in that context, but just look weird, and like the person using them isn’t very fluent in internet english. that’s because initial caps don’t quite indicate sarcasm, though it occupies a similar teasing-dramatic tonal area; in some / most instances, initial caps seems to function similar to adding “lmfao” or “lol” onto the end, which suggests it’s also indicating a self-depreciating or bleak humour / drama to the sentence. initial caps seem to function, then, as a focus / emphasis device, but also as an emotion indicator, which is a sort of fascinating crossover of function - but very similarly to the way we see voice and prosidy being used for both focus / emphasis, and for conveying emotion.

so, you probably use italics + capitalisation in conjunction because you’re trying to convey two different things. for a sentence like “drinking three cups of coffee in a row is a terrible, awful, no good idea and oh my god Why Would You Do That”, the italics are conveying where you’re putting stress / emphasis in the sentence (on “oh my god why would you do that”). the initial capitalisation, however, is indicating that on top of emphasis, you’re saying “why would you do that” in a specifically unusual kind of prosidy, probably quite a flat and monotone one, and that it’s designed to be teasing / humorous.

i also suspect that italics + capitalisation can be used as a kind of “double emphasis”, or marking out an emphasised section within an already emphasised talking point. kind of the way bolding sometimes works?? (except the internet tends not to use bolding fsr, or only uses it for headings / as a way to highlight the most important sentences in a wall of information. it’s a structural-level organisational device, essentially.) so you can re-parse “it’s so important we feed cats and dogs different food, because cats are not dogs and have different dietary requirements!!!” as “[...], precisely because Cats Are Not Dogs and have different dietary requirements!!!”. in this instance, you’re emphasising that the reason for different treatment is that cats are not dogs and therefore have different dietary requirements, but also emphasising the fact in and of itself that cats are not dogs.

i also also suspect that, when we just need one form of emphasis and are choosing whether to use italics or initial capitalisation, we consider the context of our writing. in this “essay”, i’ve mostly used italics - they’re a little more “formal” as far as internet language goes (so, not very formal at all, but still more standard than initial caps), they’re more semantically accessible (i.e. if non-tumblr people find this essay, whereas they might be able to proactively work out what initial caps are intended to convey from context, they’ll probably intuitively understand the use of italics here), and they’re more visually accessible / they disrupt the visual flow of the text less. when i’m talking with friends (especially on platforms like skype and discord and tumblr messenger which, if they support italics at all, do so in a “non-intuitive” way, i.e. not using ctrl+i like word processing software does), in shorter / less formal settings, where the visual flow of the sentence is part of the meaning / emotion of the sentence in and of itself (how long are the sentences? do you use full stops? do you capitalise the beginnings of sentences? do you send each sentence as a new message? on a new line? how many dots do you use for ellipses? keysmashes? ?!??!??!?!?!?!!!! ?), i tend to use initial caps.

so tl;dr: italics seem to be primarily used to indicate focus - you’re pointing out a new or specifically relevant piece of information, or you’re correcting / denying a piece of information that your conversational partner has provided (or perhaps being sarcastic). initial capitalisation can Also/also be used for this purpose, but is additionally used to represent Any/any kind of change in prosidy that would occur if you spoke the sentence aloud (since we also mess about with intonation for other reasons beside focus). ...i sincerely hope someone has done / is doing / will do a thesis on this bc honestly this probably has some fascinating implications for information structure or prosidy or Something/something tbh.

regarding the “mutations” comment: these sorts of internet english quirks are not language mutations, per se, because we already have features for distinguishing this kind of thing in spoken english - and also because a lot of this stuff is what we call paralinguistic phenomena, which means that sarcasm and emphasis etc. communicate something, but it’s not actually strictly part of the language itself. it just adds an extra layer of meaning on top of the stuff being conveyed by the actual words.

instead, they’re adaptations of our orthographic (writing) system to cope with the increasing demands of written/internet english to convey these sorts of things. online, we don’t have people’s prosidy and their body language / expressions to read, so we need altered orthography or other visual indicators to ensure that people correctly understand the intent and mood behind your communication, not just the raw word-content of it. that’s why internet english has developed these quirks. essentially: our communication has always had these paralinguistic phenomena, these ways to convey emotion and emphasis; we’re just finding different ways of expressing them in response to environmental restrictions, i.e. the fact we’re all increasingly communicating via text on a regular, intensive basis. historically, we’ve primarily communicated verbally, so it’s not developed due to lack of need - but the internet has has created a heavily-used, text-primary environment, so now we do need it, and we’re collaboratively creating it as a result because humans (especially young humans) are excellent language innovators. it’s pretty neat!!

(as an interesting aside, i suspect that there’s also an element of in-grouping going on here. people want to mark out the community belong to, the people they’ve chosen as their “tribe” - irl, we do this via slang, and accents, and sometimes through certain types of wordplay or forms of prosidy / gesture etc. obviously, online, we can have slang (think about how often you’ve seen someone on tumblr say “top kek”, versus how ubiquitous that phrase is on reddit), but accents are a little harder. so we instead develop different ways of typing, different ways we use italics or capitalisation or emotes. some of this depends on platform constraints - if your community’s site doesn’t allow bold/italics, or automatically converts emotes into weird yellow smileys, you’re gonna have to develop workarounds for that - but some of it is us going “these are my people, and i can tell because we talk differently, and we’re Not Like You People”. this is why it can sometimes be linguistically disorienting going onto a different platform; i often find posters’ “tone” on reddit hard to read, because they seem to signal emotion differently to on tumblr!!

this may, perhaps, also be a reason why we’ve ended up with both capitalisation and italics - if one social group developed italics as emphasis, and a second social group (perhaps on a platform without capacity for italics) developed capitalisation as emphasis, and then the two groups merged or interacted, you’re gonna get this linguistic transference where the groups adopt one another’s styles without dropping their own original style. and then- voila! both italics and capitalisation for emphasis. but because language often tends towards getting rid of redundancy, the two styles specified out into having slightly different connotations / occuring in slightly different pragmatic environments. or, perhaps, the capitalisation style was always broader than italics, and there’s not been any change yet to reduce redundancy, but there will be in the future. who knows!)

(as a second interesting aside, all of this is probably partly why autistic people often report online friendships being easier / report preferring textual communication to face-to-face. whereas expressions and prosidy can be exceptionally difficult to learn to read if they’re not instinctual - think of the infinite variations of muscle contraction and relaxation in the face! the number of different pitches and volumes and patterns we can make with our voice! they’re very difficult to categorise because they overlap a lot and tend to gradient into one another - these kinds of “emotional tags” are usually quite easy and clear-cut. “/s” indicates sarcasm every time it is used, entirely unambiguously. stuff like “lol” or “tbh” are a little more ambiguous, but even then, they have a more limited set of emotional contexts that they’re used in than, say, the corners of your lips moving upwards. gifs and memes are even better; if they don’t outright say what they mean on the gif or in the meme, there’s entire websites dedicated to cataloguing and explaining memes should you be unclear of the usage.

additionally, internet environments can be a little more forgiving wrt people not picking up on tone, or using an incorrect / weird tone, when conversing; it’s hard to display tone online, and even allistic people (especially internet newbies or older people) struggle with it, so tonal faux pas or misunderstandings are a little more expected (and therefore forgiven) than irl.)

[interviewexperttips]

Sql Meeting Questions You'll Remember

The course has lots of interactive SQL practice exercises that go from easier to testing. The interactive code editor, data sets, and also obstacles will certainly aid you seal your knowledge. Nearly all SQL job candidates undergo specifically the very same stressful procedure. Here at LearnSQL.com, we have the lowdown on all the SQL method and preparation you'll need to ace those interview questions and take your profession to the next level. Reportage is finishing the facets of progress of de facto mop up of test cases defined in the style and neuter the reporting % in signed up with requirementset. If you're speaking with for pliable docket work, right here are 10 meeting inquiries to ask. Make sure to shut at the end of the meeting. And how might there be impedimenta on liberation comey. The initial event to memorialize or two the location is that individuals. We need to offer the invalid problem in the where condition, where the whole information will certainly copy to the brand-new table. NOT NULL column in the base table that is not picked by the view. Connection in the data source can be specified as the link in between greater than one table. In between these, a table variable is faster mostly as it is saved in memory, whereas a short-lived table is saved on disk. Hibernate let's us write object-oriented code and internally converts them to native SQL questions to implement against a relational database. A database trigger is a program that immediately implements in action to some occasion on a table or sight such as insert/update/delete of a document. Primarily, the data source trigger helps us to preserve the integrity of the data source. Additionally, IN Statement operates within the ResultSet while EXISTS keyword operates online tables. In this context, the IN Declaration likewise does not operate on inquiries that connects with Online tables while the EXISTS keyword is made use of on connected inquiries. The MINUS keyword phrase essentially subtracts between 2 SELECT inquiries. The outcome is the difference between the very first question and also the 2nd inquiry. In case the dimension of the table variable exceeds memory size, then both the tables do likewise. Referential stability is a relational database principle that suggests that precision and consistency of data must be kept in between key and foreign secrets. Q. Listing all the feasible worths that can be saved in a BOOLEAN data field. A table can have any type of variety of foreign secrets specified. Aggregate question-- A inquiry that sums up details from several table rows by utilizing an aggregate function. Get on over to the SQL Method course on LearnSQL.com. This is the hands-down ideal area to assess and also combine your SQL abilities prior to a large interview. You do have complete web gain access to as well as if you need more time, feel free to ask for it. They are a lot more concerned concerning the end item as opposed to anything else. But make no mistake concerning thinking that it will certainly be like any type of coding round. They do a through end to end look at your rational in addition to coding ability. As well as from that you need to evaluate and implement your approach. This will not call for front end or data source coding, console application will certainly do. So you have to get information and then save them in checklists or something so that you can make use of them. Item with the 2nd interview, you will certainly find far and away regularly that a extra senior partner or theatre director mostly carries out these. GeekInterview intend to make a move ahead their purchasing big businessman gets searched. Get discussions off on the right track with conversation starters that ne'er pave the way. The last stages of a find call should be to steer away from voicing frustrations as well as open up a discussion nigh the end result a outcome might pitch. Leading brand-new residence of york designer zac posen collaborated with delta employees to make the special uniform solicitation which was introduced one twelvemonth back. The briny event youâ $ re difficult to find out is what they understanding and also what they do or else now. And also this is a rather intricate question, to be honest. Nevertheless, by asking you to develop one, the questioners can check your command of the SQL syntax, as well as the way in which you approach solving a issue. So, if you do not procure to the best response, you will probably be provided time to believe as well as can absolutely capture their interest by exactly how you attempt to address the problem. Using a hands-on strategy to dealing with sensible tasks is oftentimes way more vital. That's why you'll have to take care of useful SQL meeting questions, as well. You might wrap up the two questions by stating there are 2 kinds of data source administration systems-- relational as well as non-relational. SQL is a language, developed just for working with relational DBMSs. It was established by Oracle Corporation in the early '90s. It includes step-by-step attributes of shows languages in SQL. DBMS sorts out its tables through a hierarchal fashion or navigational manner. This serves when it pertains to keeping data in tables that are independent of one another and also you do not want to transform various other tables while a table is being filled or modified. myriad of online database courses to assist you end up being an expert as well as split the meetings easily. Sign up with is a query that retrieves relevant columns or rows. There are four kinds of signs up with-- internal sign up with left join, best join, and also full/outer sign up with. DML allows end-users insert, update, recover, as well as remove information in a database. This is one of one of the most preferred SQL meeting concerns. A clustered index is used to get the rows in a table. A table can possess only one clustered index. Constraints are the depiction of a column to apply information entity and also consistency. There are geek interview of restraint-- column level and also table degree. Any type of row usual throughout both the result set is eliminated from the last outcome. The UNION key phrase is utilized in SQL for integrating several SELECT inquiries yet deletes duplicates from the outcome set. Denormalization allows the retrieval of fields from all regular kinds within a data source. Relative to normalization, it does the contrary as well as puts redundancies right into the table. SQL which represents Requirement Inquiry Language is a server shows language that provides communication to database areas and also columns. While MySQL is a type of Database Management System, not an real programs language, more specifically an RDMS or Relational Database Administration System. Nevertheless, MySQL additionally implements the SQL phrase structure. I answered every one of them as they were all basic questions. They informed me they'll contact me if I get selected and I was fairly certain since for me there was nothing that failed yet still I obtained nothing from their side. Basic questions regarding family, education, jobs, placement. And a little conversation on the responses of sql and also java programs that were given in the previous round. INTERSECT - returns all distinct rows chosen by both queries. The process of table style to lessen the data redundancy is called normalization. https://bit.ly/3tmWIsh require to separate a data source into 2 or more table as well as define connections between them. Yes, a table can have several international keys and also only one primary key.

Keys are a crucial attribute in RDMS, they are essentially fields that connect one table to one more as well as advertise fast information retrieval as well as logging with handling column indexes. In https://tinyurl.com/c7k3vf9t to data sources, a table is referred to as an arrangement of organized access. It is more divided into cells which include various areas of the table row. SQL or Structured Inquiry Language is a language which is used to interact with a relational data source. It gives a method to control and also produce data sources. On the other hand, PL/SQL is a language of SQL which is utilized to enhance the abilities of SQL. SQL is the language made use of to create, update, and also change a database-- articulated both as 'Se-quell' as well as'S-Q-L'. Before beginning with SQL, allow us have a quick understanding of DBMS. In basic terms, it is software that is used to produce as well as take care of data sources. We are going to stick to RDBMS in this short article. There are also non-relational DBMS like MongoDB utilized for huge data evaluation. There are numerous accounts like data expert, database administrator, and information designer that require the expertise of SQL. Besides leading you in your interviews, this write-up will certainly likewise provide a basic understanding of SQL. I can additionally advise " LEADING 30 SQL Meeting Coding Tasks" by Matthew Urban, actually fantastic book when it involves the most typical SQL coding meeting inquiries. This mistake normally shows up as a result of syntax errors on calling a column name in Oracle data source, see the ORA identifier in the mistake code. See to it you typed in the correct column name. Also, take special note on the aliases as they are the one being referenced in the mistake as the invalid identifier. Hibernate is Object Relational Mapping tool in Java.

[mindthewolves]

differential diagnosis of common problems in fic*

*not just fanfic, but you don’t see that much original fic from people just starting out because Gatekeepers

disclaimer – this is not a “god this is terrible writing how could you do that ever” but a “we all have blind spots and maybe would benefit from getting a beta reader” and yes, ofc that includes me too. also these are general Story Things as separate from Issues of Representation Things.

other writers, hello and feel free to chime in!

content:

characters that exist solely for another character’s development. write people as people, not objects.

relationships in which A Modicum of communication would save you 20 chapters of angst

infodumping, extensive and conspicuous exposition, the like

on the other end of the spectrum, not grounding the scene (can’t visualize what’s going on)

extreme violence without reason or as a shoddy excuse for character development, particularly as highly gendered tropes

perfection (I see this with kara a lot in supergirl fic. she’s invulnerable, with super strength, super nice, drop-dead gorgeous, and secretly a scientific whiz kid AND ALSO can paint you something to sell at Sotheby’s. this has gone too far.)

songfic with the entire song written out in the middle of the story while the plot slips through your fingers or random lyrics interspersed throughout. ditto poetry. ditto quotes by people who are supposed to lend Weight and Gravitas to the fic

medicine/science that is indistinguishable from magic. R&D takes a long time. you do not defibrillate for asystole. (hello, flash. i’m looking at you.)

the telepathic narrator: in which the POV jumps back and forth between characters (most commonly love interests) with every other sentence

see related cheat code: “character A knew that character B was feeling/thinking X, Y, and Z” just no

precocious toddlers Wise Beyond Their Years or grown-ass adults with the intellect and emotional maturity of children (again, unless done for effect)

extensive author notes that prescribe exactly what you should take away from the fic and what things were Supposed To Mean. stories do not work like that; they’re open to interpretation, AND they should stand on their own without explanation

formatting:

why is there extra white space on ao3 you guys

block text of more than ~5 lines per paragraph, i cannot read it

italics where they shouldn’t be; it’s like listening to an oddly accented musical line

weird formatting of glosses for non-English words

each character’s reaction/description should go with their dialogue

if character A is speaking:

incorrect: “What movie do you want to watch?” character B shrugged.

correct: “What movie do you want to watch?”

character B shrugged.

changing verb tense in the middle of a story

spelling and word choice:

the epithets, cease and desist. it’s distracting and it reduces your character to a single aspect (usually of their appearance) that is (usually) not relevant to the scene at all. particularly egregious: epithets based on race/ethnicity

unclear pronouns, esp with f/f or m/m ships

its =/= it’s, pls google. the first is possessive and the second is “it is”

their/they’re/there and your/you’re, remember google is your friend

lets =/= let’s and all other verbs in this pattern: the first is the verb conjugation (-s) for he/she/it in present tense. the second is “let us”

reign =/= rein. you reign over a kingdom but you “rein in” an impulse. like a horse.

taut =/= taught

weary =/= wary

bawling =/= balling

adverse =/= averse, you are “averse to” pickles but go out in “adverse” weather

it’s “another think coming” rather than “another thing”

there seems to be some confusion over the words lay and lie. you lie down on a bed, past tense lay, present participle lying, past participle lain. you lay an object down on a table, past tense laid, present participle laying. these are not the same word, despite the spelling overlap.

misspelling your character names. really?

that word does not mean what you think it means

see also: i looked this up in the dictionary no one will know it but ppl will think i am Smart

for the reader/audience side of things:

how to comment (an example, not an absolute)

thank the writer. fics are not tangible but they are still gifts

what did you like about the fic and why?

other things you’d like to see, meta about the characters, lines that stuck with you, what worked and what didn’t

if you want to offer suggestions and they are not constructive, stop right there. hard stop.

if you have constructive criticism, drop an ask and see if that’s something the writer is even interested in. you don’t walk up to someone who’s wearing a pair of gloves they just knitted and say, “that row of stitches, it’s going the wrong way.” keep in mind that ao3 or tumblr may not be the place for unsolicited critique, especially from strangers online with no established credentials. concrit is like dark magic and not to be tampered with lightly. people who actually know how to give it are probably not the people who roll up in your comments with Demands

should I even comment?

if you read The Thing, leave a comment. support your writers. it’s not just paying it back or being a good fandom citizen. language is about connection – we write to be read. the fic is the ask; the comment is the answer

fic is not a one-way street or it doesn’t have to be

& I promise that even a well thought-out comment will take a fraction of the time it took to write the actual fic

also if you are a reader who wants to write, or a reader who wants to read better, commenting (i.e. thinking about what makes fic work and putting that into words) will help up your game too

for betas and critique partners:

the diplomatic critiquer

more references

read fic that you admire, take it apart, see how it works

be clear about what the writer is looking for w a beta read AND what the beta reader is willing or able to do. for me this comes in three tiers: 

1. content editing, story problems, representation problems

2. sentence and paragraph-level problems: internal echoes, issues w writing voice, things that don’t make sense, etc. 

3. copyediting: spelling and grammar only

motion to add an opt-in “yes, looking for concrit” box on ao3

sites for critting original fic: critique circle, critters

[winniethepoohx]

pure angst abt the lads D:

ALSO KNOWN AS: PURE ANGST FOR DRACO, CERIDWEN, AND BERNIE LMAO

“i should stop while they still ain’t that bad!!” i said …….. i lied

bernie’s actually isn’t too angsty but like … idk she’s just an outcast royal rly whoops

TRIGGER WARNINGS?? blood mention, death/murder mention, suicide attempt mention, self-harm mention, parental abuse, emotional abuse.

DRACO EREBUS

okay so uhhh i had like … two hcs?? one abt draco’s blood being black and one abt his eyes being silver but then i rewatched 2010 alice in wonderland and it blew those hcs out of the wATER SO YEAH UHHH IMMA CORRECT THOSE <3333333

ONE: draco’s blood’s is a BRIGHT ( almost neon ) PURPLE. it glows in the dark and has lowkey magical properties in it?? imma explain more about that.

^^ that hc isn’t too relevant, but draco DOES get into fights and is lowkey uhh self-destructive?? so like … it is entirely likely that people WOULD see him bleeding at some point?? and neon purple blood ain’t exactly a NORMAL sight so yEAH lmao

TWO: draco’s eyes are two different colours. the iris of his RIGHT eye is a BRIGHT RED. the iris of his LEFT eye is a VIBRANT SILVER.

^^ you know circle lenses?? he basically looks like he’s wearing those all of the time, but it’s just how his eyes NATURALLY are.

^^ also not a very relevant hc but like … he has a tendency to just Stare at people so?? it could be Intimidating bc Them Eyes Tho ??? idk lmao

okay so in the 2010 movie, blood of the jabberwocky is used to take alice back home. so i’m thinking that it must have SOME kind of magical properties to it??

BECAUSE of the magical properties in it, draco’s blood still pumps through his veins DESPITE his absent heart.

also other magical properties??? i literally do not know what those magical properties are but … i highkey wanna figure it out aksjhkjah sO IF Y’ALL GOT ANY IDEAS OR SUGGESTIONS PLS LMK BC I AM UNCREATIVE AF

VORPAL SWORD - in the 2010 movie, the vorpal sword is the ONLY thing capable of killing a jabberwock. this is still a thing, but with TWO exceptions.

ONE: a jabberwock can kill another jabberwock. if two jabberwocks are in battle, it is entirely possible for one of the two jabberwocks to perish, even WITHOUT the vorpal blade.

^^ this is lowkey irrelevant too, but it has a purpose - basically, draco’s mother ( who was also a jabberwock ) wanted to raise draco as a SON and not just as a PET. this, however, made her WEAK and a DISGRACE to the name of the jabberwocky. therefore, the jabberwocky KILLED draco’s mother just a few hours after his birth.

TWO: a jabberwock can kill itself. HOWEVER, it must now the whereabouts of its own heart in order to do so. — because to kill itself, the jabberwock must kill its own heart, even WITHOUT the vorpal blade.

^^ also pretty irrelevant, but it’s for uhhh angsty science - draco has tried to kill himself in the past on a more than one occasion. however, since his heart is NOT in his chest and he does NOT know where is heart IS, every attempt had been a FAILED one.

also lowkey irrelevant but he doesn’t sleep much?? straight up has recurring nightmares about getting his heart carved from his chest soz draco

CERIDWEN BLACKWELL

due do not having been BORN to the infamous sea witch, ceridwen is not a full-fledged sea witch herself.

she had to LEARN and TEACH herself the magic, most of her studying having been done on the isle. therefore, it had all been one big guessing game with no right or wrong answer.

upon coming to auradon, she was pleasantly surprised that all of her studying had actually WORKED and she was OFFICIALLY a sea witch.

HOWEVER, due to her not being born with magical abilities, using the magic that she knows takes a bit of a toll on her physical well-being. her magic thrives on her energy, so using it makes her tired, weak, and simply all-around worn out. the more magic she uses, the weaker she becomes.

using too much magic has the potential to make her SICK and, in the worst possible case, even KILL her.

this is why sign language is her preferred method of communication, because it requires no effort and, therefore, does not have any effect on her.

however, she knows how TEDIOUS sign language is for most people, so she never even bothers to ask people whether they know it or not, because she does not want to be a bother to people.

she doesn’t tell ANYBODY about the effects her magic has on her, so nobody would actually know about it unless they pointed out how bad she looked and she had to explain why.

she refuses to stop using magic, because she fears being ORDINARY.

ursula always told her how she was not particularly pretty and she wasn’t talent, so magic was all she had — and she didn’t even have it NATURALLY.

she knows that she was adopted, but she doesn’t know by who. HOWEVER, ursula always told her that her biological parents gave her up because she wasn’t EXTRAORDINARY enough for them to want to keep her.

^^ due to this, she believes that she MUST be extraordinary in order for people to want her around. she just doesn’t want her friends to get rid of her like her biological parents did.

EXTRA NOTE: she does not know that she is actually a SIREN.

BERNADETTE BERNARD

bernadette was not always the angry soul that she is today.

IN FACT, when she was young, she was a happy, excitable princess who everyone in the castle adored. HOWEVER, she was never the ‘typical’ princess.

she NEVER allowed people to refer to her as ‘crown princess’ or ‘your highness’ or even ‘bernadette’. from the young age of seven years old, she had decided that she did not want to simply be a royal just because her PARENTS were royal — if she was going to be royal, she was going to EARN it.

she started going by BERNIE and refused to go by anything else, and everyone thought that it would just be a phase.

much to her parent’s dismay, though, they began finding her at royal events, correcting the kings and queens from neighbouring kingdoms when they called her  ‘princess  bernadette’. she would even go as far to give nicknames to informal nicknames to the adults she would meet.

most people didn’t mind for the first few years. she had just been a child, after all. HOWEVER, as she grew older, and she was expected to become more and more proper, people began to react differently to it. 

it drew ATTENTION to belle and the beast — attention that was neither good nor bad.

some people LIKED that that bernie was not so formal. they liked that she was relatable and realistic.

others, however, felt that her informalities meant that she would be an UNFIT QUEEN when she got older.

bernie never let the opinions of these people bother her all too much.

~lowkey switching topics here~

at the age of nine or ten, bernie began looking into different ways that she felt would help her earn her right as a royal. she began spending much time in her mother’s library, reading every book she could get her hands on

THIS was how she discovered the isle of the lost and the fact that her OWN PARENTS were the ones to ‘handle’ it.

she did as much research on the isle before she actually confronted her parents on the subject, and she was NOT happy with all that she found.

“are there children just like ME on the isle? why would you DO that to them?” — bernie, age ten, confronting her parents on the matter of the isle of the lost.

it was at the young age of ten that she PROMISED herself ( and the children of the isle ) that she would do anything she could to protect the children on the isle of the lost in whatever way she could.

now that isle children are allowed in auradon, she finally has a chance to keep the promise that she made all those years ago.

her parents don’t necessarily DISAPPROVE of her helping so many isle kids find jobs in auradon, but they would rather her keep it as LOWKEY as possible — just until they’re sure that everything will work out with the isle kids, since they are some people who are still wary of them.

also she would literally let auradon go up in flames before she let anyone mistreat someone from the isle lmao

also random fact but: bernie would literally NEVER accept help from cogsworth or lumiere. she didn’t want servants because she felt she should be doing everything on her own in order for her to grow up to be a good person akjhskjha

^^ she would actually do things FOR all of the servants in the castle pls

SMALL FACT: she tried to go to the isle once because she wanted to help, but her parents found out and they got so mad at her, they didn’t let her leave the castle for two weeks.

TL;DR:

i would put a tl;dr but legit there is too much for me to summarize i’m sORRY

[lightwormlol]

Overly analysing books and over use of problematic

I feel like at the rate fandoms are currently going, I envy those reading that aren’t jaded by the fandom’s thoughts\critiques of books. Don’t get me wrong - I love analysing my favourites scenes with my OTPS, re reading them etc - but honestly there is such thing as over analysing. (If you’re a reader who likes to go off at the slightest thing, this post will piss u off lmao)

I think the word ‘problematic’ should stop being thrown around so carelessly at the slightest thing because it detracts from the true meaning of it - reserve it for real issues pls, fandoms are too fucking much for me right now.

As a female hijabi, Pakistani woman - believe me I’m the last person to glorify racism\sexism (just to name a couple obv I can’t speak for ableism\homophobia etc) but I really feel like the word ‘problematic’ is being inaccurately used, its got to the point I just roll my eyes and scroll down every post I see meticulously critiquing every minute detail that could potentially be ‘toxic’ and thus rendering the author and their books 'problematic.’

You guys did this with cultural appropriation too, when that became a buzzfeed term that everyone and her mother was policing people for, its got to the point I don’t even give a shit anymore - most of y'all just want an excuse to attack people under the guise of 'defending your culture due to your blatant identity crisis as a second generation.

Yes, I am an advocate for diversity and stronger representation in books. Having said this, its fairly obvious to me when an author throws in a poc just for the sake of adding 'diversity’ to the book, without accurately portraying cultures - which to me is worse than omitting them. Lmao news flash people, most authors write what they know, and are more scared of misrepresenting and offending an entire culture (and thus being automatically labelled 'problematic’) hence why many tend to stick to white characters as the safe option. if you want to politicise this and act like the author is somehow a ‘problematic’ racist then… throwing out the word racism at every minor topic is what makes people roll their eyes at us when we call it out in genuinely serious topics. In 2017, the term ‘race card’ has people rolling their eyes for a reason, IT IS BEING MISUSED AND THIS NEEDS TO STOP. I’ve firsthand experienced  racism/xenophobia from a young age, so believe me I’m the last person to try and undermine calling out racism irl - what I’m addressing here is literature specifically.

I take English literature for fuck sake, I’m the last person who would normally criticise over analysis of a text - but I go on tumblr to share my feelings with like minded people, a community I used to love. The amount of vitriol dividing this platform right now is frankly disgusting and honestly, I’m just so done. The ‘well informed’ readers who like to enforce their opinions as fact, in addition to undermining/patronising those who don’t agree/ are somehow invalid as readers. Let people read books and enjoy them. Save politicisation for times when it is truly relevant, all you’re doing is perpetuating the archetype of the ‘offended sjw’ which makes people roll their eyes in the face of true discrimination. Frankly, you’re contributing to the problem with your attempts to constantly be politically correct in every fucking aspect of life.

So yeah - Soz for the rant lol - unpopular opinion. i seriously envy those who just read a book without having to encounter the amount of toxic behaviour I have seen recently. 

P.S - this isn’t made with the intention to undermine the opinion of those triggered by certain scenes (eg rape\abuse etc) You are completely valid to be triggered by those scenes/tropes and I honestly do not mean to imply or offend this. This is particularly addressing the focus on diversity within fandoms lol

[swipestream]

Wargame Wednesday: Battle of the Bulge OOBs for V Panzer Northern Sector

Orders of Battle

Small portion from the Campaign Series OOB file.

Any designer of historical simulations has to confront the question: what was the actual composition of forces at that place and time?  The harder one works for historical accuracy, the more elusive the answer. At times, the task is almost futile but the question must be asked.

The ancient up to the medieval periods are notorious for the lack of sources and exaggerated numbers.  Even with the advent of better record keeping historical accuracy remains difficult. Keep in mind every organization in this post was required to send daily status reports.  Despite the ubiquity of reports (and sometimes because of it), accessibility of primary sources can be problematic. Also, game designers, who often rely on secondary resources, will adjust the OOBs for reasons of playability or constraints of the game engine. I encountered a prime example of this issue when trying to determine the 14th Armored Group’s historical OOB:

Hugh Cole mentions “light tanks”.

In the 14th Cavalry in the Gap article, Col. Judge mentions 17 M-3 tanks.

The scenario OOB’s light tanks are M-24 Chafees.

A Panzer Leader OOB highlighted on the next page has a mix of M-1 and M-5 tanks.

At least most sources agree on the M-8 scout cars…

Additionally, I discovered a typo in the scenario’s OOB.  The 193rd VG Regiment was actually the 183rd.  A misnamed regiment won’t affect game play but unless caught and corrected in time, it may become a vector for inaccurate information for future games and posts.

This post will discuss the units available at the start of this scenario and compare the scenario’s OOB with one that comes to us via the Nafziger OOB collection then finish with some Panzer Leader OOB charts.

At the end of this post, the index and reference sections are beginning to flesh out and I have added a related games section. Let me know your favorite Bulge related games and I’ll add to the list.

Over on my blog there’s a post on Nafziger’s OOB for the units in this scenario and a screen shot of S&T’s variant of an Avalon HIll OOB.

German Forces at Scenario Start

LXVI Armeekorps (General der Artillerie W. Lutch)

Units available at the Corps level to be assigned between the two divisions.

x4 Werfer (rocket) Regiments.  36 150mm and 36 210mm rocket launchers.

460. Heavy Artillery Battalion. 18 Krupp18 170mm guns.

1/506 Heavy Panzer Battalion** 21 PzVIB aka Tiger II or King Tiger

  18th Volks-Grenadier Division (Oberst Hoffman-Schonborn)

    293rd Volks-Grenadier Regiment

294th Volks-Grenadier Regiment

295th Volks-Grenadier Regiment

18th Artillery Regiment

Each Volks-Grenadier regiment shares elements of the following formations:

Engineer Battalion.  They are able to construct foot bridges but cannot construct vehicle bridges.

Anti-tank battalion.

Assault gun brigade.

  62nd Volks-Grenadier Division (Oberst F. Kittel)

    164th Volks-Grenadier Regiment

183rd Volks-Grenadier Regiment

190th Volks-Grenadier Regiment

62nd Artillery Regiment

Each Volks-Grenadier regiment shares elements of the following formations:

Engineer Battalion.  They are able to construct foot bridges but cannot construct vehicle bridges.

Anti-tank battalion.

Assault gun brigade.

    Führerbegleit Brigade

The Führerbegleit Brigade entered the battle on the 2nd day and the scenario OOB will be covered in more detail later. A Panzer Leader OOB is below.

  **Historically, the 506 Heavy Panzer battalion was assigned to the VI Panzer Armee (sector to the north) but this battalion saw action at Andler, just northeast of Schoenburg.  They had to detour south, into V Panzer Armee’s sector but for the scenario, Feldmarschal Model (i.e. the scenario designer) has ordered this battalion remain in this sector.

  American Forces at Start

106th Infantry Division (Major General A.W. Jones)

The 106th ID was assigned to the VIII Corps (Major General T.H. Middleton) but in order to facilitate a game split into three equal sectors the scenario designer assigned the 106th to XIII Corps.  The reason is that the VIII Corps HQ is located on the far left side of the center map in Tenneville (almost 70km drive via Bastogne).  The 106th was on the extreme left flank of VIII Corps and looking at the game map serves to give an idea on how spread out the front line units were.  Communications, especially simulating commands to lower echelon units is not part of the CS game engine though supply is.  Supply is automatically determined by the computer at the beginning of the turn so it was easier for the scenario designer to assign the 106th to the XIII Corps which will eventually be released on the west side of the northern map.

422nd Infantry Regiment

423rd Infantry Regiment

424th Infantry Regiment

592nd Field Artillery Battalion. Starts with the 422nd Infantry Regiment. x12 155mm.

Each Infantry Regiment has the following formation equally shared between them:

4/563 AW Battalion. Each regiment gets 12 half tracks with M1 40mm anti-aircraft guns.

4/634 AW Battalion. A mix of 2 1/2 ton GMC truck towed Quad.50 cal MGs, and 40mm AA guns.

Engineer Battalion.  3 platoons each.  Don’t know their bridge building abilities but we’ll see their bridge demolition skills soon enough.

820th Tank Destroyer Battalion. 15 M18 GMS Tank Destroyers assigned to each regiment.

  14th Cavalry Group (Col Devine)

  18th Cavalry. 3 troops of 15 M8 Light Armored Cars and 1 troop of 15 M24 Chaffees.

32nd Cavalry. As above, 45 armored cars and 15 Chaffees.

Both the 18th and 32nd has a HQ Company with an engineer platoon, an AT platoon (5 37mm AT guns) and assault gun platoon (5 half tracks mounted with 37mm AA guns).

  Notes

My 293rd VG Regiment has two companies with bicycle troops (no anti-tank capability such as panzerfaust and no sub-machine guns so lower assault values) in lieu of the Volks-grenadier platoons which have both attributes in abundance.  This was done to recreate the use of troops in reconnaissance.

Most of the 62nd VG Division has lower morale than the 18th.  The 62nd VG Division was destroyed in Russia and the rebuilt formation had a sizable contingent of Polish and Czech conscripts who spoke no German.

According to Nafziger the 18th VG Division was formed in September, 1944 in Denmark from the cadre of a Luftwaffe field division and drafts from the Luftwaffe and the Kriegsmarine (navy).

Based on the Nafziger OOB some units that didn’t make the cut were the “Brüko” bridging units (I could use them) and the 813th Panzer Pioneer Company, equipped with the remote control “Goliath” self propelled mines (not in the game’s master OOB file).

Some of the missing railroad artillery batteries are represented by a naval gun battery in the northeast corner of the map.

Nafziger quotes H. Jung who estimated that a VG division would probably be at 58% of their total authorized strength (6410 men).  More on the Nafziger OOB on my blog.

  OOBs from Panzer Leader

During research I discovered Greg’s Panzerblitz site and found a few relevant scenario cards with OOBs on his 1944 Bulge page.  Greg links to the Imaginative Strategist page where there is a wealth of Panzerblitz and Panzer Leader material.  Clicking on any of the images below will lead you to Greg’s site.

14th Cavalry Group

  106th ID

I adjusted Greg’s card and removed two of the infantry regiments.  Both the 423rd and 424th have the same counters as the 422nd below.

Volks-Grenadier Divisions

The 18th will also serve for the 62nd VG Division as both OOBs seem identical. As with the I06th ID, I have removed two of the regiments.

Führerbegleit Brigade

Comparison Between Scenario and Panzer Leader OOB

There are significant differences which serve to illustrate a game designer’s (and game consumer’s) dilemma when trying to recreate a historical action.  Not only do primary and secondary resources differ but the way they are interpreted by gamers, bloggers, readers, etc., is different.  Finally, game designers will make judgement calls based on the restrictions of the game engine and the attempt to produce an enjoyable gaming experience.

No judgement call between the two but using the Volks-Grenadiers as the main example some of the biggest differences are:

No HQ below the regiment in the scenario OOBs for playability purposes.

More rifle platoons and a 81mm mortar section in the PL for VG regiments.

No Fusilier battalion in the scenario but the battalion’s organization (two rifle platoons and 4 SMG platoons) is closer what constitutes a company in the scenario (1 rifle, 1 machine gun section and 2 VG platoons).

No flak battalion for the VG Regiments.  I could use them the past two turns I played.

As discussed in the intro: for the 14th Armored Group the scenario OOB has M24 Chafees, the Panzer Leader OOB has a mix of M-5s and M-1s, and from Col. Judge’s article there were 17 M-3 tanks…..

  Next Week

I’ll start to compare some of weapons available to both sides and try to find an answer on the 14th Armored Group tanks. Krewinkle and other battles will have to wait.

    References (Publications)

A Time for Trumpets Charles B. Macdonald.

Battle of the Bulge, Hitler’s Ardennes Offensive, 1944-1945 D.S. Parker. One of the main sources for Nafziger’s OOB.

Das Heer 1933-1945, 1956 Vol I & II, Verband der Truppen der deutschen Wehrmacht und Waffen SS 1939-1945. Mueller-Hillebrand.  Cited by Nafziger.

Die Ardennen Offensive 1944-1945. H. Jung.  One of the main sources for Nafziger’s OOB.

The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge Hugh M. Cole.

The Battle of the Bulge, Charles B MacDonald. Cited by Nafziger on his OOB.

Verband und Truppen der detuschen Wermacht und Waffen-SS im Zweiten Weltkrieg 1939-1945. G. Tessin.  Cited by Nafziger.

  References (Links)

14th Cavalry in the Losheim Gap

Project 1944. Military historians practicing “living history”.

WW2 Armed Forces OOBs and Organizations by Dr. Leo Niehorster. Not much available for the Bulge but otherwise, an excellent resource.

Related Games

A Time for Trumpets  GMT Games.  Board game.

Battles for the Ardennes SPI Games.  Board game. Four games in one.  Simulations of both the Bulge in 1944 and Sedan 1940.

John Tiller’s Campaign Series Matrix Games. Computer game.  Currently, on sale for $9.99!

Panzer Leader Avalon Hill. Board game.  Along with Panzerblitz (East Front) on of AH’s best games.

The Ardennes Offensive SPI Games. Board game.

The Battle of the Bulge Avalon Hill. Board game.

The Blitz Wargame Club Eventual home for the updated (after this play test) V Panzer Army Campaign scenario.

  Index

Intro Bulge Series Post.

Part 1: Starting positions, terrain, game design considerations and Q&A with scenario designer.

Part 1: Map with starting positions.

Weather chart during the Battle of the Bulge.

Wargame Wednesday: Battle of the Bulge OOBs for V Panzer Northern Sector published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames