#which is an entirely different metric

[rxttenfish]

listen to me. listen.

sometimes things are better when theyre worse.

[blockofhoney]

actually y’know what. let’s just go for it. give me a random number n i’ll talk about the dsmp au / fic it corresponds to

[aw-dag]

Section 1557 is the law that guarantees trans protections in the us. Saying she supports that law is not “not giving a shit about trans rights lol” just because you don’t know to what law she is referring.

Lovely how libs has spent a year going "yeah well Harris is gonna back and fund a genocide but at least she will stand by trans people in the US" just for her to come out as not giving a shit about trans rights lol

[lucky-clover-gazette]

god. the way she’s so rude specifically to the doctor. how she keeps reacting like he’s condescending to her, even though both ruby and ricky are speaking the same way. the fact that she’s smitten with ricky and able to run and perform complex tasks when he asks, but resists the doctor’s doctor-ing at every turn. the cold open is her reacting to him with immediate disgust and blocking him. “i thought that you just looked the same.” “i knew i was right to hate you.” “he’s going to be so disciplined.” “he’s not as stupid as he looks.” the doctor keeps being like “the monsters must be differentiating who to eat for some [superficial, silly] reason - height, perfume, astral signs, etc,” and for the slug monsters it is something silly, it’s the first letter of their last name, but at the end we realize that to these actual human beings, race is the metric through which they judge the quality of the people around them, and despite him literally being The Doctor of Doctor Who, the Guy Who Saves People And That’s the Show, he is not worth their time… fuck.

like, if it was any other doctor, the entire episode would have unfolded differently. they would have taken the ride in the tardis. but with this doctor, they don’t. and then it ends.

[toskarin]

sorry to ask, but can you explain your last post to someone who knows nothing about the musician community youre talking about... it sounds like a really really good post if i just understood it better

this is another one of those posts where I'm transcribing a stream of consciousness, so I'll throw in a courtesy readmore

the musician community, as a whole, is much more segmented than the visual artist community

this leads to good and bad things, but generally it allows for more awareness of one's position and an acknowledgement that the needs of an underground folk artist are going to be different than the needs of a composer who receives a name credit. this means there is always going to be heavy pushback when someone tries to impose ethics downward

one element of this is the inward acknowledgement that the monolithic musician community isn't actually real in a way that isn't really mirrored in the visual artist community. besides making music and navigating the financial (and legal) landscape of that, there is very little that intrinsically unites musicians

this acknowledgement allows discussions about concerns among poorer musicians to exist without being completely shut down by someone who has different concerns, because they're not seen as the subject of the discussion unless they are respectfully contributing to it

one big reason for this being possible is that musicians are less respected than visual artists in the professional world

that might sound absurd if you only know of one landscape, but think of how many game (and movie, and tv, and etc. etc. etc.) franchises with identity-defining composers go on to swap out the composer at the first sign of a labour dispute, to very little protest as long as the quality of music isn't seen as dropping

hell, if someone else can copy your style satisfactorily, there's often no fuss at all! this leads to a pretty violent disillusionment with your place in the creative world

even beyond that, there exists an entire industry based around creating a parasitic body of IP landlordism for anyone whose music isn't attached to another product. the musician is, in a way that is deeply and thoroughly beaten into them, a labourer

the visual artist community (until recently) didn't tend to have this disillusionment, so it often follows the sway of its most popular and established members

in fact, the modern visual artist community as a broad cultural body is carved almost entirely from social media discussions that treat the community as one entity. accordingly, becoming established basically requires participation in this online entity

to further poison the well, the position of a visual artist is regularly talked about in spiritual terms rather than labour terms. there is something special that makes you a visual artist. it's the exact mentality that people rightfully made fun of in those ordinary people vs creative people comics. it's the unspoken cultural assumption that natural talent exists, even if most people would deny believing in it if put into explicit terms

while this does feel very good, it means that acknowledging labour-originated conflicts of interest is a bit rude

when a community unites itself around a spiritual core, it can't properly assert "your experiences are not applicable to what is being discussed and you should not be imposing yourself" because, by all metrics, an artist is a fundamentally unique demographic that can speak in all conversations about art

it's a warped form of anti-gatekeeping, a one-way gate through which you can strike down at other poor artists, but not up, enforced from below and framed as a desire for openness

the visual artist community's relative homogenisation of popular consensus is, on the whole, very very very bad for what it does to its norms. it hashes out and legislates within itself with an unspoken assumption that its most prolific members are simply further along the artist lifecycle, and therefore the most trustworthy

discussions with direct parallels ("is it okay to be obviously influenced by someone else's style?") come to much hazier conclusions which lean towards the opinions held by people with the most followers

most egregiously, this manifested in how visual artists react to piracy

the past ten years (in large part because of patreon making viable the paywalling of material behind a regular subscription) have been consumed by arguments about piracy that all seem to terminate in the assumption that piracy is theft, with little stratification of opinion between the hobbyist and professional scenes on this matter

this assumed spiritual core of the community is felt strongly in every conversation. look at the difference in attitudes around the distribution of cracked VSTs and the distribution of brush packs. hell, even on the corporate level, look at the difference in attitudes around pirating DAWs vs visual art programs

even when people are implying an approval of piracy, they find ways to frame it from a position of revenge on a company for something wrong it did, because they still need to conform to the community understanding of piracy as theft

individual visual artists can be (and often are!) more conscious of this stuff, but even then, people react with shock when these visual artists aren't horribly concerned about the possibility of their paywalled work existing on a torrent site

in a word, if you can see the ways these conversation spaces are different and similar, it's all so exhausting

[ohnoitstbskyen]

Have you ever gotten into power scaling? Do you have any thoughts about it and/or its culture?

I haven't engaged with it enough to have any deep knowledge of the culture of it so I won't comment on that. Like, I used to watch Death Battle, that's basically it.

For myself, I think power scaling is a fun intellectual and creative exercise, especially when you're trying to reconcile power sets from disparate properties that have vastly different thematic meanings and try and figure out some common metric by which they might be measured.

The part about power scaling I dislike is how easily it feeds an obsession with power as the primary metric or worth or value, and the ways in which it can lead to some really reductive and at worst anti-intellectual interpretations of media. Like, there's a subset of One Piece fans for example who insist that Nami - the navigator of the goddamn pirate ship - is "the most useless Straw Hat," entirely because she doesn't win a lot of big fights. Or there's a subset of Batman fans who very defensively insist that Batman could ALWAYS win ANY fight with ANY opponent so long as he has time to prepare, because their metric for whether or not he's a good hero is entirely measured by who he could take in a fight.

That sh*t is annoying, juvenile and often pretty reactionary, but like most such things it also comes from a very loud but very small minority of the fandom group, who probably shouldn't be held up as representative of the whole.

tl;dr power scaling is fun, people who make power scaling the center of their engagement with media are not fun

[thezombieprostitute]

Tech Tuesday: Steve Rogers

Summary: It's only your first day on the job. That's way too soon to have an office crush. Right?

Warnings: Workplace stress and bullying. Please let me know if I missed any!

A/N: Reader is female. No physical descriptors used.

Part 1

Tech Tuesdays Masterlist

Bucky sits across from Steve, a cocky smile on his face. Steve raises an eyebrow and Bucky says, "I gave her my number." Steve doesn't know that it wasn't about a date, but he doesn't have to know.

"You didn't."

"I did," Bucky smirks. "Which means, it's your turn."

"It's...it's not the same," Steve tries to argue. "You've known your Sweetie for months now, right? This girl is still a newbie. She's barely been here a month!"

"Deal's a deal, Punk," Bucky shakes his head. "One of us gives our number, the other one has to as well."

Steve's cheeks are incredibly pink from embarrassment. He's never been good at flirting, always stumbling over his words. Sure, his body attracts attention, but inside he's still the scrawny kid who always got laughed at when he tried to talk to a girl. Especially a girl as sweet and pretty as you.

The two of you had run into each other in one of the break rooms a few times. Every time Steve talked with you, he found himself getting lost in your eyes, but that led to him not knowing what you were saying. His face would turn red and he'd quickly run out of the room. Another time you'd complimented his art and he got scared you'd see one of the drawings he did of you so he quickly closed his book and you felt bad, like you had overstepped.

And now, thanks to Bucky, Steve needs to admit he'd like to spend more time with you. Admit that he thinks about you every day. Admit that he likes you. He can do this, right?

You were crying in the ladies room for the third time since you were hired. There was so much, so fast and your coworkers were already blaming you for things. Especially things you didn't even know were your responsibility. No one had told you or shown you how to do them but they still blamed you! It's not like you were entirely new to this kind of work, but the systems were very different and, most importantly, you didn't know what was and wasn't part of your job because they hadn't told you! When you finally calm down, you head to the sinks and wash your face, trying to hide the tears.

As you tiptoe back to your cubicle, trying not to draw attention to yourself, you end up literally running into Steve, the dreamy guy from the IT Department. He manages to catch you before you fall, bringing you in for an accidental hug. You find yourself instinctively hugging him back, squeezing him tight.

"Are...are you okay?" Steve isn't going to complain about being hugged by you, but he's worried you're not in your right mind.

"Oh, sh-shoot," you break the hug and jump away. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean...I'm just..." you fight a resurgence of tears and run to your cubicle. When you get there, Maggie, your least favorite new coworker, is glaring at you, arms crossed.

"Really, Newbie," she admonishes, "you've been here a month and you still don't know how to update the most basic fields in the database?"

"I...every person does it diff--"

"Enough!" she cuts you off. "Really, you should be able to do this. You're killing our metrics!"

"I'm...I'm sorry," you hang your head, trying to not cry again. "I keep getting told different things about how to do the updates."

"Empty apologies and excuses!" Maggie retorts. "I don't know why you got hired. You're bringing us---"

"Margaret," Steve interrupts her. You jump, not realizing he had followed you. "Tell me, Margaret, how do you think your boss would react if he knew you'd been spending half your day on Facebook?"

She fumes at both of you for a minute before going back to her own cubicle.

"I really wish you hadn't done that, Steve," you whisper. "I'm already on their sh-crap list. This is only going to make it worse."

Steve takes a breath, "you're right, I'm sorry. I just really hate bullies."

"Me too," you nod. "But right now I've gotta make these bullies happy, okay?"

"It's not okay," Steve shakes his head. "But I promise I'll be more careful."

"Thank you."

Tagging: @alicedopey; @darsynia; @delicatebarness; @ellethespaceunicorn; @icefrozendeadlyqueen;

@jaqui-has-a-conspiracy-theory; @late-to-the-party-81; @lokislady82; @ozwriterchick; @ronearoundblindly

[gay-jesus-probably]

Okay so I have a lot of thoughts about the whole thing of the Gerudo being a race of entirely women, with the only exception being one man born every hundred years, and that man automatically being their king. Now this worldbuilding comes from Ocarina of Time, and there's obviously a metric fuckton of unfortunate implications there, because it was 1998. And it seems that Tears of the Kingdom is sticking with the lore of Gerudo men being extremely rare and becoming the King of their people, which once again has a metric fuckton of unfortunate implications because it's 2023 and Nintendo has somehow gotten even worse about this shit.

But let's set aside the whole... everything, and look at this from just the in-universe perspective. How does it work? I mean, it's pretty clear that there is no overlap between the kings; the old ones are normally long gone by the time a new one is born, but the Gerudo manage to take care of themselves during the hangtime. So they must have an established system of government and leadership that doesn't involve a king, and somehow that system is set up in a way that does a smooth transfer of power once a new king is born and old enough to take the throne. But why bother always declaring a random guy to be your King when you already have a perfectly functional system in place?

I mean again, the whole thing has a lot of sexist implications, but we're not looking at this from a real world context, we're examining it in-universe. And we could just go the lazy route and say that their king is in charge just because he's the only man, but I don't like that. I mean come on, the Gerudo are a race of entirely women, and most of their outside problems come from Hylian men being creepy about it. They are entirely a matriarchy; there is literally no reason for their culture to have an inherent respect for men, even if the man in question is one of them. And they're desert people; they live in an extremely harsh and dangerous landscape, if they don't have their shit together, they will die. By sheer necessity, their culture needs to put a lot of value in being practical, because if they're stupid about things, people die. They really can't afford to have a shitty leader take over, and just letting some guy take the wheel doesn't really fit with the way their culture must otherwise work.

So again, why the fuck do they bother having a King?

I think it's mainly just a ceremonial position. Yes, if the guy is a good leader he'll be in charge, but if he isn't good at being a King or isn't interested in the job... fuck it, they've already got a functional government system that's been leading their people the whole time, why fix what isn't broken? The title of Gerudo King isn't about leadership or power. I think it's more about belonging. Because the Gerudo are a culture where every single one of them can be defined in the same way... and there is exactly one exception once a century. Men are considered to be inherently outsiders at the best of times, and more often they're enemies. A man born into this culture is a natural outsider; he is completely unique, and that means he doesn't really fit into his community. And well... when someone is fundamentally different from the rest of their community, they tend to be ostracized.

So I think that's why the position of Gerudo King exists. It isn't about them needing or even wanting a man to lead them. The title of King doesn't need to involve any leadership at all. It's about giving the man born every century a place in their society. It's a way of saying yes, you are one of us, you are a Gerudo, you belong here, you are wanted and you are loved.

The Gerudo know that every hundred years, one of their children will be fundamentally different from all of his peers. And so their society is built to ensure that a child who is completely different from them will still be loved and accepted. He will always have a place in their society. He doesn't need to earn their love, he has it just for existing. These are his people.

The title of Gerudo King isn't an inherent position of authority. It's a promise of acceptance.

[gffa]

It has been about eight months since I came back to BATFAMILY fic and this will be my ninth set of recs, which means I'm at about 500 or so for this one fandom, which is kind of blowing my mind a little, but also tracks pretty well, given how amazing the fic in the fandom can be. There's just so much that's scratching the itch of softer Batfam content or really digging into the angsty possibilities or exploring the characters in ways the source material won't/can't or just finding a dozen different ways to hit my id straight on and make it such a fun, exciting experience to be swimming through all this amazing fic. And, in that vein, yeah I may have a Dick Grayson Is The Most Important Guy In The World Problem, but I also have Dick Grayson Is The Most Important Guy In The World Solutions which is basically a metric truckload of fic by incredible authors and trying to lure more people into crying about these characters with me because I AM CRYING A LOT ABOUT THEM because fandom has PROVIDED ME WITH THE TOOLS TO DRAG YOU IN AND I AM GOING TO USE THEM. And, okay, I've got some good Jason, Tim, Damian, Babs, Steph, and Bruce stuff in there, too. Fandom is great at helping me get some really great variety in, too! Basically ALL THE BATS ARE MY LOVES AND I WANT TO DRAG OTHERS IN WITH ME.

BATFAM FIC RECS - BABY DICK IS THE CUTEST FERAL ROBIN I'M NOT HEARING ANY ARGUMENTS: ✦ Robin is Looking for a Sidekick by Writer_loves_tropes, dick & bruce, 4k     Eight year old Dick Grayson is already a crime fighting Robin and he needs a sidekick. Batman seems like he would be a good choice. Robin and Batman has a nice ring to it. Bruce has thoughts about that. aka, How could Bruce resist adopting this tiny child? ✦ The Pancake Predicament by Lightsider, dick & bruce & alfred, 2.1k     On his second Father's Day at Wayne Manor, Dick decides to make pancakes. -or- The reason Dick's not allowed unsupervised kitchen use, which isn't fair. The pancakes were delicious, and he was 10! ✦ Counting Elephants by PrincessMariana, bruce & dick & alfred, 3k     When kidnappers break into the manor, Dick runs straight to Alfred. Alfred will do anything to protect his family. Or, Dick gets scared, and Alfred is a badass. ✦ World's Finest: Christmas Morning by WingFeathers, dick & bruce/clark & ma kent & alfred & cast, 9k     Twelve hours of a Christmas morning in Gotham: Bruce foregoes sleep and grapples with change, Clark navigates Christmas at Wayne Manor and his boyfriend's emotional distance, and Dick gets the best presents. Also: Ma and Pa Kent and Alfred are the greatest. ✦ There is a Monster at the End of This Book by Trekkele, dick & bruce & cast, vampires, 2.6k     There was something deeply wrong with Bruce Wayne. This wasn’t exactly news, of course. Opening any one of the local Gotham tabloids would give you plenty of evidence to back his claims up, but Tyler liked to think his profession gave him an edge, an added insight into the strangeness that was Gotham’s ‘beloved billionaire’. ✦ Safe by Jinmukang, dick & bruce, 2.5k     Or, a baby Robin wakes up very lost and very alone in the middle of Gotham. ✦ Stars, Hide Your Fires by FidotheFinch, dick & bruce, 10.8k     Dick Grayson doesn't want to leave the circus he's called home his entire life. When he overhears Pop Haly talking to a strange man about sending Dick away for 'training,' he decides he'll do whatever he can to stop it. Even if he has to make a deal with a demon. ✦ It's who I am by Tiredteengaer, dick & bruce & wally & artemis & conner & kaldur & m'gann & cast, 44k     how each member of the team found out Robin's real identity. ✦ Drowning, Headaches, and being beaten by Penguin by PandasandDucks1, dick & bruce & wally & artemis, 1.7k     He couldn’t breathe. ✦ The Eldest Wayne's by Remarcely, dick & bruce & alfred & cast, 3k     ‘With all their talks about how to behave, Bruce had the upmost faith in Dick to talk to the other Gala-attenders with respect under his supervision. When Dick grew bored and wandered off, entirely unnoticed by a Bruce deep in conversation, he’d be lying if he pretended that faith didn’t waver’ Or Bruce and Dick throughout the years as they slowly learn how to be a family.

BATFAM FIC RECS - ADULT BATSON AND BATDAD ARE MY KRYPTONITE, I FOLD LIKE WET CARDBOARD FOR THEM: ✦ Rebalancing by SirenAlpha, dick & bruce & damian, 2.5k     Bruce was back from his trip through time. Dick expected to heal up from surgery, head back to Blüdhaven, and be Nightwing again. He did not expect Bruce to have a discussion on the nature of Batman, Nightwing, and if Robin really only needed one of them. ✦ Capitulate by Antiquity, dick & bruce, 5k     After Wally's death, Bruce tries to hold Dick together before he shakes himself apart. ✦ No Good Deed by I_Have_To_Get_Off_This_Planet, dick & bruce, 1.2k     While trying to stop a robber, Dick breaks two ribs. It's not a good time. ✦ Superficial Wounds by fleetfoot1, dick & bruce, ~1k     Bruce swore softly as he tilted Dick’s face to the side, his gaze flicking down the bruises covering his cheekbone. Dick swallowed, before opening his mouth. “I--” his voice cracked on the syllable. God, he was just so tired of arguing. ✦ fabric (frayed but holding) by Tevya, dick & bruce & cast, 5.1k     A few months after Dick returns to speaking terms with Bruce, he gets stuck in Gotham with the flu. ✦ aristocracy by brandywine421, dick & bruce & jason & tim & damian & cass & steph & alfred, 2.4k     "I really wish it was for a different reason. I - need a favor." "There are no favors between us, Dick, you know that," Bruce said, moving around the desk to take the seat beside him. "Tell me." "God, it's so stupid, I - could handle it myself, but - I don't want to. I just want - I just want to forget it ever happened," Dick said. That didn't sound like Dick. "Tell me," he repeated. ✦ Memories Fade by Lady_of_Lorule, dick & bruce & cast, 2.2k     “Miss Gordon sent in her daily report and Master Tim called to inform you that he will be in San Francisco for a few days. Also, Master Dick is upstairs.” Bruce froze. “Dick is here?” “Yes, sir.” “I thought he was in Central City visiting Wally West.” Alfred raised an eyebrow, pale eyes piercing. “It seems that he is back, then. I believe he is waiting for you.” ✦ On-Call by motleyfam, dick & bruce & jason & oc & cast, 1.6k     Kiran Devabhaktuni, medical doctor and close family friend of the Waynes, agreed to join them for one more Thanksgiving at the Kent Farm. It's a good thing he did, too. ✦ a day before midnight by batofgoodintent (crownedcrusader), dick & bruce, 2.1k     After you lose pieces of yourself, they don't always fit back the same. - Post-Ric Grayson.

BATFAM FIC RECS - EVERYBODY LOVES DICK: ✦ the more i look inside (the more you're real to me) by starsonthewalls, dick & bruce & john/mary & tim, 2.8k     Dick tensed defensively. “It’s not like I can do anything about that, Dad,” he grumbled, accepting the glass to clear his throat. “You know how B is about patrols.” “And who is ‘B’ supposed to be?” his mom asked. “One of your video game friends?” Dick froze- what did mom mean, who is B? ✦ You Won't Wake Up Alone by DawnsEternalLight, dick & bruce & jason & tim & damian, 5.2k     Dick's captured and drugged and probably about to die. The last thing he wants to do is die in front of his family, especially not his baby brothers, all he wants is to be with Bruce and feel safe again. ✦ Jason's Gift by Neoinean, dick & bruce & jason & tim & barbara & cast, 17.3k     As Dick’s birthday goes from mediocre to bad to worse, he finds himself so wrapped up in the chain of events that he fails to correctly piece together the clues. Will he discover the truth before its too late? ✦ they don't know me and you by konan_konan, dick & bruce & jason & tim & barbara & zatanna & cast, de-aged!dick, 4.5k     "The cold helps neutralize him," says Bruce, talking about Dick like he's a threat. "It'll keep him from hurting himself," says Barbara, talking about Dick like he's a child. They're both correct right now, and Jason hates it. ✦ If You Don't Know by TylerM, dick & bruce & jason, 10.2k     An exploration of Sick!Dick Grayson from little and big Jason's point of view. Because I honestly don't believe in there ever being too many of the same damn fic.

BATFAM FIC RECS - JASON TODD IS AN ASSHOLE CAT, I'M GONNA THROW HIM AT THE OTHER BATS BECAUSE IT'S FUNNY: ✦ bury me softly by Nokomis, jason & steph, 4k     After a tunnel collapse, Stephanie and Jason bond while trapped together.

BATFAM FIC RECS - DICK AND DAMIAN WERE THE BEST BATMAN & ROBIN, I'M NOT HEARING ARGUMENTS ABOUT THAT EITHER: ✦ ties bind none by eryndew, dick & damian & bruce, 2k     Bruce discovers a son. Repercussions and choices follow. ✦ restless heart by emavee, dick & damian, 2.3k     It’s ridiculous to act like this one weekend really means anything in the grand scheme of things, but he can’t help it. It isn’t fair. He only gets these few days, and now Grayson is up in space fighting aliens or whatever and Damian is alone on the couch watching Jeopardy by himself. Or: Dick goes off world and Damian misses him ✦ Need To Know Basis by WordsAblaze, dick & damian, 1.1k     day sixteen, where damian has zero tolerance for dick hiding injuries from him… ✦ a killer time by konan_konan, dick & damian & alfred & bruce, 4.1k     The vent cover clatters to the floor, and Dick flings the knife at Croc, trusting that he's going to be a more of a threat than his goons. Croc roars in pain, or maybe just rage, and Dick scrambles toward the vent, Damian already inside, and - And Killer Croc grabs him by the ankle, slams him into the wood. He feels something break, and he gasps, hardly able to catch his breath. Some sort of metallic clang echoes from behind, and he thinks if Damian comes out of the vent and gets us both killed… ✦ as love carries its strength, but not its labels by AlterHarpia, dick & damian, 2.7k     Bruce is on a trip beyond Earth’s Solar System for longer than he intended, making Dick and Damian fall into an old pattern. “I'm not Batman.” A mere reminder, perhaps, but when said to Damian it always sounds like an apology.

BATFAM FIC RECS - BATKIDS ALL HAVE MANY SIBLINGS AND THEY'RE ALL PETTY ASSHOLES AND/OR WONDERFUL BABIES AND I LOVE THEM WITH MY WHOLE BEING: ✦ a study by bernard dowd by cv_angels, tim/bernard & conner & cassie & bart, 4.8k     Bernard opens the laptop, spinning it to face Tim with a flourish. It’s a powerpoint with a truly hideous red background, and Tim feels a moment of relief that Bernard isn’t breaking up with him before he registers the words on the slide. REASONS WHY TIMOTHY DRAKE-WAYNE IS A SUPERHERO, A STUDY BY BERNARD DOWD. ✦ princess carry by CreamofTomatoSoup, tim/bernard & duke & tam & damian, 3.1k     Tim almost gets shot during a public speech, which is a pretty average Tuesday. Being rescued by his civilian boyfriend, however, is not. ✦ beep beep!! by CreamofTomatoSoup, tim/bernard & bruce & dick & jason & tim & cass & duke, 6.1k     Bernard learned to drive from his henchman uncle. The last place he expects to use this skill is at a dinner with his boyfriend's family. ✦ little menace by InkpotSprite, bruce & dick & jason & tim & damian & alfred, de-aged!tim, 16.2k wip     "Did a two year old just outrun you?" Jason asked, wanting to make sure he wasn't hallucinating. Bruce clenched his jaw. "I didn't want to hurt him." He growled. "Liar!" Tim piped up from under the desk. Jason was starting to like this version of his successor. ✦ It Wasn't Supposed to Be Like This: I wouldn't Change a Thing by Grayson1996, bruce & dick & steph, 4.1k     She smiled tightly at him and stiffly beckoned him forward. If Bruce had to guess they weren’t close in the future, or perhaps she just didn’t know him. Regardless he stepped forward, though he didn’t turn to look at the figure on the bed just yet. For a moment the two simply stared at one another before Stephanie rolled her eyes at him. “Here’s where you apologize for pushing me against the wall.” Bruce felt guilt stir at the words despite the fact that she was clearly joking. ✦ in the lungs by hellsreluctantheir, tim & steph & cast, 2.8k     It went bad the way things always went bad. All at once. Steph had taken out two thugs (and maybe picked up a sprained wrist though she wasn’t counting her chickens before they hatched) and Tim was almost finished up with his third, when she saw him get launched backwards, head hitting the railing at the side with a resounding clang. She saw him slump to the deck, saw him struggle weakly as the thug pulled him up by his cape and looked at him for a moment, before tossing him directly into the Gotham River.

BATFAM FIC RECS - I SAY THIS IS A BATFAM REC LIST BUT SOMETIMES YOU JUST GOTTA SHOVE THOSE ASSHOLES OUT OF THE WAY AND READ SOME SUPERFIC: ✦ Troublemakers by Kannika, clark & lois & conner, ~1k     Introducing Conner and Lois is the worst mistake Clark has made in a long time. Because they're getting along. ✦ oh brother by corvidspectre, conner & lois & jon, 1.2k     “So what are you being for Halloween?” Kon had asked when he got to the Kent's place. “Superboy!” Jon smiled, making Lois chuckle under her breath. ✦ Gut Feeling by Ao3time, lois & conner, 18.7k wip     Lois Lane rescues a teenager who looks a lot like someone she knows...

BATFAM FIC RECS - TAKE THE ANGST DIAL, TURN IT UP TO ELEVEN, AND BREAK THE KNOB OFF, THAT'S WHAT I'M HERE FOR: ✦ my threads are coming loose by dizarys, dick & talia & cast, ~1k     “Oh good, I see both you and Bruce are on the same page about unrealistic expectations for grieving,” muttered Dick. Talia sucked her teeth and turned back to the grave, long hair swinging. The sound was so much like Damian’s iconic tut that fresh tears welled in Dick’s eyes. ✦ Fatherhood; a Knife that Never Stops Cutting by minnow_doodle_doo, bruce & dick & alfred, no powers au, 2.1k     There always seemed to be a thread that tied all their histories, from Alfred to Bruce back to Dick. Repeated over and over. And now it seemed that Dick found that the thread had been longer than he first thought. ✦ Tap Out by withthekeyisking, bruce & dick & jason & tim & damian, read the tags, 4.8k     Dick knows the importance of tapping out in training, so your partner doesn't accidentally hurt you. It becomes instinct, so heavily ingrained in him. He doesn't understand why his brothers don't do it, too. (Until they do, and it's too late.) ✦ A Death in the Family by PrincessMariana, bruce & dick & jason, yandere!bruce (?), read the tags, 12.4k     The Joker has killed Jason Todd. Bruce tells Dick immediately, and Dick returns to the manor. Bruce will do anything to keep his remaining son safe and close. Dick thinks it's the grief that's keeping him exhausted. ✦ Car Crashes and Hot Chocolate by PrincessMariana, bruce & dick, yandere!bruce (?), read the tags, 2.3k     Dick almost dies trying to escape Bruce. Neither of them are happy about the outcome, and so they talk about it. This is a follow-up oneshot for A Death in the Family and is set before Into the Gilded Cage. This can technically be read alone, though it does have spoilers for A Death in the Family. ✦ Into the Gilded Cage by PrincessMariana , bruce & dick & tim, yandere!bruce (?), read the tags, 17.5k     Tim investigates if Dick Grayson is being held against his will by Bruce Wayne. He somehow ends up spending the summer with the two at Wayne Manor. It might be a prison for Dick, but the more Tim stays, the less he wants to leave. This follows A Death in the Family, but you don't need to read that to read this. It might be useful, though. ✦ The Third Robin's Flight by PrincessMariana, bruce & dick & tim, yandere!bruce (?), read the tags, 13.7k wip     Tim accepts his place as Bruce' third - and most loyal - son. When his mother dies and his father returns to Gotham, Tim once again must pick a side, but Bruce never lets go of his children easily. Meanwhile, Dick struggles with the ramifications of finding the Joker, and Bruce remembers why Batman needs a Robin. This follows Into the Gilded Cage. ✦ Family Crisis by librarylexicon, bruce & dick & tim & cass & steph & leslie & barbara & selina & amy & cast, read the tags, 78.1k wip     At the close of the gang war, Batman uncovers an attempted deception concerning the life of his former protégé Stephanie Brown, and suddenly nothing is as important as his family. While Dick seeks absolution, Tim struggles with grief, Cassandra searches for belonging and Steph rebuilds her sense of self, Bruce faces the return of ghosts from his own past and psyche. (War Games AU) ✦ New Again by dustorange, dick & bruce & thomas wayne jr., 10.1k wip     “I’m not a good man,” says Thomas. “No," Dick hesitates, then comes closer, "but you're not an old man either." (a.k.a. Earth 3's Thomas Wayne Jr. "helps" Batman and Robin get back to their world, only for Bruce alone to be sent back, leaving Dick stranded in Earth 3—with Thomas.) ✦ not anything, anymore by emavee, dick & bruce, 2k     Bruce kicked him out four months ago. Apparently these particular kidnappers didn't get the memo.

✦ dreamer by day by justbeyondstars, dick & bruce & jason & tim, 5.3k     In the next room over, Jason and Tim are laughing, and it startles Dick back into his body to remember he’s not alone. He feels impossibly empty, unmovable, untouchable. He almost forgets he's still on the phone until a voice says, “Is there anything I can do for you, Dick? Anything you need to make this easier?” Or: Dick is a lot of things to a lot of people. After getting some bad news, he has to grapple with the fact it might not always be enough. ✦ watching the world go dark by daringyounggrayson, dick & bruce, 3.5k     It wasn’t that Dick was suicidal exactly, but if an opportunity came about where he would have to actively save himself from death, he might just let go. He might not be suicidal, but he's not self-preserving either, and it’s becoming a real problem. Luckily, Bruce is a worried parent with a few detective skills. ✦ hold me like water (or hold me like a knife) by dizarys, bruce & dick & tim, 2k     Dick's recovery after a amnesiac year as Ric Grayson is taking longer than expected. And has some difficult side effects.

BATFAM FIC RECS - SOMETIMES YOU JUST NEED TO TAKE ALL THE SERIOUSNESS OUT OF THE ROOM AND STAY SOFT FOR AWHILE: ✦ And There Was Only One Bed: Family Edition by RandomReader13, bruce & dick & jason & tim & damian & cass, 1.7k     “You’ve gotta be kidding me.” Dick stood on his toes to peek over Jason’s shoulder into the hotel room and grimaced. “Uh, Bruce…” “There was a mix-up with the reservation,” Bruce grunted. ✦ so everyone's just a fucking scalie huh by destiny919, bruce & dick & jason & tim & damian & cass, 1.1k     "Birds are animals, Jay." "What the fuck? No. Aren't they basically reptiles?" Jason demands. "First of all, no, you're thinking of dinosaurs, which is what they actually are in the Flintstones. Second of all, reptiles are animals." "Bullshit." "Okay, I..." Tim pinches his nose. "Okay. I think I see the problem here." "Yes, Todd sustained a traumatic brain injury the other night and didn't see fit to inform anyone before we left on this inane trip." ✦ The Batmobile (and other Bat things) by JeanjacketCarf, bruce & dick & clark & justice league, 2k     “Batmobile?!” Barry looked incredulous. It was clear he was missing the point of the story. “He called it the Batmobile? Out loud? In front of you?” Clark shrugged. “Yeah, twice. I’m sure I heard it right.” “Batmobile, my god,” Barry said shaking his head. “I can’t believe it.” Or Apparently, the Bat-Man is not a cryptid, he's a guy who gives his stuff silly names ✦ Vampire Bats by Sohotthateveryonedied, bruce & dick & jason & tim & damian & cass & steph & duke & cast, 4.1k     Despite the many, many obstacles, having his kids turn into vampires isn’t as tragic as Bruce anticipated it would be. Whenever one of them is grounded, all Bruce has to do is hang a cross on their door and they’re sufficiently contained. And the energy boost has been incredibly helpful on patrols. ✦ Adventures in Batsitting by raven_of_hydecastle, bruce & dick & clark & lois & justice league, 10k wip     "What, you're telling me the great Batman couldn't stop a nine-year-old from sneaking out?" Green Lantern scoffed. "At least come up with a believable excuse." It was Batman's turn to scoff. "Like anyone else could do better. If you can keep Robin off the streets for a week, I'll buy you a Porsche." *** AKA The JLA stages an intervention with Batman to get Robin off the streets. it goes downhill from there.

BATFAM FIC RECS - THROW BABY DICK AT BATTISON, C'MON DO IT, IT'LL BE HILARIOUS: ✦ though the sun and sky may fade (all shall be remade) by queenofthestarrrs, dick & bruce & alfred, 1.8k     Dick Grayson asks a lot of questions. ✦ My Little Robin by tyrianzzz, jim & dick & bruce, 1.6k     After being Partners with the Bat for so long Gordon tries not to question his life choices. Until Robin comes along. ✦ I Wish My Father Had More Sons by shipNslash, bruce & dick & jason & alfred, 9.4k     Jason Todd and Dick Grayson, from strangers to brothers to enemies and back again.

[shamebats]

[a text post from r/trans that titled Intersexism within the trans community that reads: "Hi everyone, I'm an intersex enby. As I interact with the trans community, it's becoming more clear to me that a lot of perisex trans people don't understand the intersex experience as much as they think they do and it's creating some problems.

First, intersexism exists, and it's not inherently transphobia. Given the current political climate, is a lot of intersex hate also directed towards trans people? Yes, it is unfortunately. That does not mean that all intersex hate is also trans hate. I've faced intersexism from trans people from this very community, which is why I'm making this post in the first place. If an intersex person tells you about their experience, listen to them! If an intersex person tells you how what you said is leaving out or erasing intersex people, listen to them! If your response is "well you're wrong because I can reduce this down to a binary", that is the entire backbone of intersexist thinking. You need to consider that nothing is binary when it comes to personal identities and that there is always room for nuance.

Second, I've like to cover AGAB. AGAB for perisex people is very different from AGAB for intersex people. No matter how you define AGAB, AGAB describes the way perisex people were assumed to be when they were born. Whether this assumption is correct or not generally determines whether they're cis or trans. For intersex people, AGAB moreso describes the "side" that was picked for us or direction we were forced to transition to. Regardless if that was the "correct" side/direction, it's not a useful metric for determining the transness of intersex people. Using any definition of AGAB and applying it to all intersex people leaves out a lot of nuance that many intersex people have to live with since the day we were born. Many of us detransition after we discovered we were forcibly transitioned, such as myself. Many of us feel that our gender and sex aren't capable of fitting into any binary, such as myself. By using AGAB alone to determine if an intersex person is trans for example, not only are you reducing us to yet another binary you're expecting us to conform ourselves to, you're also essentially saying "You need to base your entire identity on what was forcibly taken from you, not based on any conclusion you came to about yourself."

Third, which kind of plays into the previous point, labels are nothing more than tools that are used for people to understand themselves and others better. If someone has labels that you don't understand, just politely ask them and try to understand where they're coming from. If they don't make sense to you, trying to "correct" the other person won't do anything except upset both of you in a petty argument that won't go anywhere. Even if you don't "agree" with the labels that someone uses for themself, it's not your life and you have no right to tell someone how they should interpret their own life. This is especially true for intersex people who often have complicated and messy relationships with sex and gender that perisex people just aren't able to understand. Label policing only causes infighting and hurts the LGBTQ+ community.

Tldr: just listen to intersex people when they tell you about themselvess" end ID]

Link to post.

[max1461]

Would you say that the distinction between high-context and low-context languages is real? I was skeptical at first, but japanese seems to leave a lot more information implicit in a typical utterance than english.

No such distinction is used (or at least commonplace enough that I have heard of it) in linguistics. If one were to introduce such a distinction, they would have to put forth some way to measure or operationalize "low/high-contextuality"; in the absence of that there's very little I can say about it scientifically.

What I can say is that laymen's subjective impressions about "what different languages are like" are very often more grounded in bias than in fact. There was a good post that went around here a few months ago to the effect of

People everywhere: "[Language I learned in childhood] is so subtle and emotive, whereas [language I learned in adulthood] is so cold and logical".

Often, these subjective impressions then get filtered through the cultural-theorizing-industry and elaborated more and more, becoming more entrenched as "established wisdom" about X or Y language among non-linguists, and in the process getting farther and farther from any real or verifiable truth.

Well anyway, I think the claim that "Japanese is more contextual than English" is probably one of those. Until someone comes up with a real metric for "contexuality", at least, I will probably continue to judge that to be the most reasonable hypothesis. Here are two ways such an impression could have come about:

For English speakers who learn Japanese as adults, things which are left to context in English but not in Japanese will not appear to be "absent" and they won't notice any gaps, whereas things that are left to context in Japanese but not English will strike them as "absent" and they will be more aware of them.

English speakers who speak some Japanese but are not proficient will not in fact be fully familiar with the rules governing the interpretation of utterances, and so things which are actually grammatically determined may appear to rely on nebulous "context".

Here is a salient difference between English and Japanese: in Japanese, any noun phrase may be dropped "when its meaning can be contextually determined". For example, you might say

(1) kinou inu ga nikki tabe-chat-ta! yesterday dog SUBJ diary eat-COMP-PST "yesterday my dog ate my diary!"

(2) wanpaku da yo naa naughty COP ASS TAG "he's sure naughty"

In (1), we see that where English has possessive pronouns ("my"), Japanese doesn't use them. In (2), the noun phrase referring to the dog is dropped entirely. In fact, in both of these sentences, not dropping these things would be considered unnatural and stilted. Overuse of pronouns and NPs is a common marker of non-fluent Japanese as spoken by Westerners. Saying

(3) kinou watashi no inu ga / yesterday me GEN dog SUBJ / watashi no nikki tabe-chat-ta! me GEN diary eat-COMP-PST "yesterday my dog ate my diary!"

instead of (1) would technically not be ungrammatical, but would be markedly foreign sounding and corrected immediately in any intro Japanese class.

However, this already tells you something: the fact that (3) is unambiguously unfelicitous tells you that there are some underlying rules here, it isn't just "drop when you feel it". These rules are called information structure rules, and every language has them. In fact, Japanese explicitly marks information structure in a number of ways that English does not.

Some of the basic rules in Japanese of relevance here (this is a fairly crude analysis and does not account for various things, but it's probably good enough for our purposes) are:

Every discourse has a topic

If no topic is specified, the speaker is by default assumed to be the topic

A non-topic subject may be introduced into the discourse with ga

A noun already in the discourse may be made into the topic with wa

A salient subject already introduced, but not explicitly topicalized with wa, may be implicitly topicalized

Empty NP positions and unmarked possessors should be taken to refer to the topic

Items that are (semantically speaking) likely to be possessed should be interpreted as possessed before they are interpreted as indefinites

These rules are not inviolable, and in particular (5) requires some contextual definition of "salience" and (6) is certainly not this simple in reality (there are often multiple empty NP positions and the full ruleset for interpreting them seems complex; for instance subject positions are favored for topics over object positions and so on), so there is still some amount of combinatorics with referents and syntactic positions that presumably is going on somewhere in speakers' brains or whatever. But the point is that these rules narrow down pretty starkly what interpretations are "reasonable", and the actual role of context in disambiguating between reasonable interpretations is not so vast.

Anyway, using the above rules, it is not so hard to go through (1) and (2) again, and see that only a single reasonable interpretation actually presents itself.

As mentioned, Japanese very often makes information structure explicit using the particles wa, ga, and wo (not mentioned above, but the object equivalent of ga), which is somewhat uncommon among the languages of the world. English, on the other hand, does not do this. English speakers do not drop noun phrases, but they still replace noun phrases with pronouns very readily, and disambiguating pronoun referents uses pragmatic and information structure rules of exactly the same type! Consider, for instance

(4) My boyfriend went on a "boys trip" with Will and Tod last weekend... I told him not to let them pressure him into skinny dipping again. What was up with that anyway?

Think about what you're doing when you assign referents to these pronouns. It's automatic so you don't notice it, but is it unambiguous? Not at all! You know, for instance, that "him" refers to the boyfriend and "them" to Will and Tod, and you know in the second sentence that "that" refers to peer pressure skinny dipping. Some of this (in particular the referent of "that") I think has to be chalked up to pure context; it's the semantics from which we derive the correct assignment. But some of it is mediated by syntactic or information structure rules as well; for instance consider

(5) Jacob went on a "boys trip" with Will and Tod last weekend... I told him not to let them pressure him into skinny dipping again.

We are still able to produce the correct pronoun assignments in this sentence, even though the semantic context which informs us about which one of these people the speaker is most likely the closest to has been removed. This is, again, a product of information structure rules: Jacob is the topic here, and so (by whatever rules operate in English; not identical but not dissimilar to those in Japanese) we infer that "him" refers to Jacob.

Anyway, the point is that all languages make reference to context very freely in matters of interpretation (which is a big part of why language models had to develop implicit world knowledge before they could speak convincingly), and also languages make reference to context in a structured way which can often be described fairly precisely, and which leaves less open to chance and misinterpretation than might initially be assumed. The gulf between English and Japanese is not so large here. It might be the cases that the [pronouns + unmarked topicalization]-English system is more explicit than the [empty NP positions + marked topicalization]-Japanese system, but I don't know. And of course it might be the case that in some other domain of grammar Japanese is more explicit than English. So one must be careful with any broad assertions.

[alexanderwales]

Notes on 3000 miles

Last year my doctor told me that I had high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and a high resting heartrate. So I started biking on an exercise bike, and by my best estimations, I'm either close to hitting 3000 miles or have already gone past that.

I should clarify that this wasn't all at once. I took many breaks.

So here are some notes.

When I started, I was on an exercise bike that my wife had gotten from her work. It wasn't the best, but it was free, and I made a deal with myself that if I biked every day for a month, then I could justify getting something better. I really really did not want to buy a piece of exercise equipment that would just sit in the house gathering dust, because that would feel awful ... but I do kind of wish that I had gotten the better bike sooner, because it removed some of the "friction" of exercise, where it felt like there were too many reasons not to get on the bike. The new exercise bike (a refurbished Peleton off Facebook marketplace that my wife got me for Christmas) really does just feel and move better. I think the general principle of not doing costly monetary commitments until you've shown costly personal commitment is a good one, however.

Blood pressure is in normal range. Cholesterol is in normal range. Resting heartrate is in normal range. This was all the case three months in, and this level of cardio is more than enough to maintain it.

Right now, I bike for thirty minutes a day, going 8-10 miles according to the bike. That range is enormous, because it represents vastly different amounts of work. Going 10 miles in 30 minutes is 20 miles an hour, and I keep the resistance relatively high, so by the end of it I'm always panting. By contrast, going 8 miles makes me feel like I didn't put in enough work.

My goal every day is sweat-based and completely qualitative. I want to soak through a shirt. This means that doing more laundry than I'd prefer to, which is an unanticipated consequence of the biking. It's also, compared to all the metrics the bike gives me, a very clear sign that I am actually exercising my body "properly" in a way that's achieving something.

I did some of the Peleton classes, and found a lot of the metrics to be motivating, but ... eh. Exercise is mostly about being healthy and maintaining my body, so my current strategy, for the last six months, has been to either shut the brain down or keep it fully engaged in something that passes the exercise time. Usually this means a TV show, especially a foreign one with subtitles, which need slightly more brainpower.

The final two minutes is always the worst. I'm just ready to be done with it. Sometimes there's gas left in the tank, but I still feel sweaty, thirsty, and overheated. I have a water bottle, and I drink from it while I bike, and I have a fan pointed at me that I turn on once I'm warmed up, but I always have a sense, in those last two minutes, of "finally I'm done". I tried the thinking man's solution, only biking for 28 minutes, and this did not help. In my entire year of biking a half hour a day, I didn't ever elect to go into overtime.

I initially lost ten pounds, then slowly gained it back. I am, in fact, overweight, but I'm holding more or less steady now, and there have definitely been some body composition changes, with muscle replacing fat. I went down about four inches at the waist. I've changed very little about how I eat (which is 90% meals that I cook myself, and a daily coffee drink of some kind, usually made myself with sugar/cream/chocolate). Biking amounts to 300-400 calories a day or something like that, so I'm presumably eating more to compensate and just not realizing it.

Mental health has been rocky, but that's just sort of how it is for me. I definitely feel less mentally well on days that I don't bike, and feel better afterward, but I have no idea how tight the correlation is, and if I had been keeping track on a mood tracker, I'm not sure I would be able to sus out from self-reported mood alone whether or not I was biking.

During the summer I replaced a lot of indoor exercise bike stuff with outdoor biking. My son has only recently learned to bike, so he's been with me many of these times. Usually that means that we're either biking a lot less distance, or we're biking for a lot longer time at much lower intensity, sometimes both. There's a bike path that's downhill from our house which goes for maybe six miles, with some good, clear turn back points, but that means a fairly arduous uphill to get back home. If I lived in a place where the weather wasn't frigid for almost half the year, I would probably be doing outdoor biking more.

I think the most important thing, if you're doing exercise every day, is making sure that you're doing it in such a way that it's sustainable and virtually incapable of injuring you. This mostly means proper form. Early on, I had a habit of pressing down the right pedal with the outside edge of my foot, and after fifteen minutes of doing that, the muscles in the foot would be aching and uncomfortable. I'm not sure why I was doing that, but it was difficult to get myself to bike in a way that wouldn't be putting strain on me.

I think it's okay to skip a day ... if it's for the right reason. Of the days that I've skipped, I always try to make sure the reason isn't "fuck it, I don't want to". I should either be feeling sick, feeling like I need to rest, or replacing biking with some other form of exercise like a hike in the woods or some weightlifting or something. If I start skipping days because I just don't feel like it, that's where the whole scheme falls apart.

I am currently sort of wondering how long this is going to go on for, and I think the answer is "for the rest of my life", or at least until I'm unable to keep it up for whatever reason. I don't think there's any particular reason to prefer an exercise bike (or regular bike) over running or rowing or some other form of cardio, but I think I have proven to myself that this is cardio I can do daily and stick with it to the level that is probably necessary for me to stay healthy. I'm not committed to doing it for the rest of my life, since in theory some other form of cardio might come along and sweep me off my feet.

I do wish that I had started earlier in my life, even if daily exercise has not been the panacea for mental health that I had been kind of hoping it would be. I hope that I have the willpower and wisdom to keep up with it indefinitely.

[utilitycaster]

Inspired actually by me nonstop thinking about the Young Witch Solving The Disappearance Of Her Neighbor's Cat In The Alps tweet since last night and a number of other unrelated posts I have been thinking about the concept of maturity in media, because I think there's a lot of different dimensions to that. It's a series of spectra, rather than a binary, and if you use the terms "mature" or "immature" you can quickly realize that a lot of our societal metrics for what's adult-appropriate vs. child appropriate are very skewed in specific and in my opinion untrue and unhelpful directions. This could honestly be a 10 page essay and I may very well write that when I'm on break but just to give you my outline here:

Stimulation - is it grabbing your attention with bright lights and loud sounds and fast action, or do you have to actively focus? Action films can be just as "jangly keys" as children's animation despite being an "adult" work, whereas something like Mad Men can have vivid colors but would bore a child to tears in terms of pace and action. However, and this will be an ongoing theme, you can have a very choppy, fast-paced narrative that is complex and a very slow and dull one that is incredibly simple and childish.

"Ratings" Subject Matter: Sex/Violence/Profanity. This is the one I think is most misleading, because you can have an incredibly puerile R-rated film, and you can have an immensely complex narrative without any of the above. [note: I have zero patience for people who act like sex and violence are inherently unnecessary wastes of time; they are merely things within a narrative that can be executed well or poorly, but it is true that something can have a simple plot and constant bright lights and stimulation and essentially be big old jingling mobile for infants but there's a sex scene in it so it's Adult Now. Unfortunately a lot of people are like "and this is why YA is inherently better" which we shall see is not the case.]

Other Difficult Subject Matter (I don't have a good name for it, but to give examples, death, racism, genocide, abuse, serious or chronic illness, etc). This one is tricky because all of the above are topics present in works for quite young children, because they can experience all the above or have someone close to them experience them, and fiction is a powerful teaching tool. Obviously the nature of how this is presented varies, and later points will cover it, but while in my opinion the simple presence of these topics says nothing about the work's level of maturity on its own I'm including it because you do get people who think that children should be shielded from all the above and would consider the mere inclusion of those topics as inappropriate. They're wrong, but it's definitely an axis of judgement/categorization that exists.

Adult-level processing of information (probably a misnomer in that teens can do this but like, teens read adult books all the time, and as Tumblr has shown us, many adults cannot do this): does the narrative require you be able to pick up on subtext? Do you need to understand what is relevant to the story and what isn't? Do you need to be comfortable with or at least able to tolerate not knowing entirely what is going on right away? Do you need to have a sense of irony? Is there an unreliable narrator?

Adult-level processing of moral complexity (in my limited, not a parent or educator experience, I honestly think teens do better with the information processing than this, ie, this is one of the last things to develop; also Tumblr is even worse): does the narrative require you accept that sometimes things are unfair and will never be fair? Do you need to accept a story in which the Quote Unquote Bad Guys walk free without real consequence? Do you need to accept a story in which no one's actions are entirely defensible or in which no choices are easy and clean and harmless? Do you need to attempt to understand an alien perspective? Is there senseless tragedy? This incidentally is how you separate out the children's books from the adult books on topics like illness or catastrophic events; a lot of children's books end with a message of "it's hard and sad, but it will be okay eventually" and focus on very relatable POV characters which is understandable! But, to use an example as someone who went to a Jewish school with a robust Holocaust education, elementary schoolers read Number the Stars in which the (entirely fictional) Jewish family escapes to Sweden; middle schoolers read Night in which Wiesel's (real) father dies painfully in front of him.

None of this is to say that escapism/cozy fiction/whatever you want to call it is bad - I am not interested in a diet entirely made of thorny moral quandaries and no happy endings. I enjoy a stupid turn off your brain action movie, or a fluffy romantasy. But I do think that a demand that every ending be happy and that Justice Be Served in every story is no less immature than saying "ew, there's kissing in this???"

[qqueenofhades]

I'm a little confused by the left's repeated assertion that they're "trying to hold Biden accountable" and push him left, things they've been talking about since before he was elected, and the ramifications of that at this point in time. I do think we need to be calling out things we disagree with and making our feelings known, but seeing people like Nina Turner complain about student loan forgiveness when it's been made abundantly clear Biden is doing all he can and he can't actually cancel anything as just the President (without being sued or having it reversed by Republicans - please correct me if I'm wrong and there's more he could do here?) doesn't feel like it's that? I just don't understand the logic behind people on the left adding to this narrative that he isn't trying hard enough on what we want, rather than the Republicans are preventing things from being done. We need to not sit back and get complacent, yes, sure, but I feel like the line where it goes from helpful and necessary to harmful and more beneficial to the right was crossed a while ago.

The thing is, you're confused by it because it's a bad-faith argument. Actually "holding someone accountable" means honestly assessing what they can do, what they have done, what they can be expected to do in the future, and if they haven't done it, what's stopping them (i.e. have they just not done it or are they being actively stopped from doing it by factors beyond their control)? It doesn't mean "constantly moving the goalposts to constantly criticize someone if they don't magically get everything done immediately, regardless of reality." The way Online Leftists use it, "holding Biden accountable" means "relentlessly criticize him every instant he doesn't magically transform into the Socialist Messiah overnight, the end." That's not actually a useful, honest, reliable, or constructive metric.

This is also the case because their version of good policy is "someone thinks the Correct Thoughts all the time and any failures to achieve it means they are not thinking the Correct Thoughts hard enough." I'm not sure how anyone could have missed what SCOTUS is doing right now, but Online Leftists remain determined to discount, minimize, or otherwise totally ignore its role, because that would mean a) there is in fact a difference between the parties, b) Hillary Clinton would not have made the same appointments Trump did, and c) they might therefore have some responsibility in not voting for her, none of which can be countenanced. As such, if Biden has failed to wave a magic wand and get all student debt erased for everyone overnight, He Is Just Not Trying Hard Enough. SCOTUS very notably outlawed his first forgiveness program? BIDEN'S FAULT!

Even though Biden extended the Covid-era payment pauses as long as he could (it was Congress that passed the law mandating an end to them, because THE PRESIDENT IS NOT AN ABSOLUTE MONARCH!), and even though he's now rejiggered the entire repayment program so that your monthly payments can get lowered to $0, these count as payments, and no interest accumulates as long as you "make" them, which in practice adds up to full forgiveness -- this still isn't good enough for the Online Leftists, because it happened after trial and error, is a partial solution, doesn't snap its fingers and erase everything, and relies on slow and careful policy work. And yet, it's going to be a lot harder for SCOTUS to overturn than just "the president forgives your debt," which was the first thing he tried to do and it didn't work! With a different SCOTUS, it might have! But we have this nightmare court BECAUSE OF TRUMP, and all the Pure Thoughts in the world won't get rid of it!

Biden is the most liberal president we have ever had, period, full stop. It's not sexy and it's not exciting and it's not something the Online Leftists will ever acknowledge, but it's the truth. And whenever he is actually and extensively pushed, he goes more left, not less. I suspect at least part of the recent negative press barrage he's gotten is because he's openly come out with a plan to raise the tax rate on billionaires to 25%, and the corporations and oligarchs that own the mainstream media Really Don't Like That. (They've always been unfair to Democrats, but look for it to be especially so.) That would be, BY FAR, the highest the top-rate tax bracket has been since Reagan. Biden is the first president ever to actually address the scam of "Reaganomics" and take credit for "Bidenomics," which actually does represent a major rearrangement of the way capital is envisioned and distributed in this country for the first time in the 40+ years since Reagan wrecked it. That's why the capitalist media is really, REALLY determined to muckrake him as much as possible, and to do Kamala even dirtier than they did to HRC in 2016.

Anyway also: Holding someone accountable also implies that you're working with them and will reward them (i.e. voting for them, engaging with them) if they do the things you expect, which is another thing the Online Leftists won't do. So yes. This. The end.

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 沙海/Tomb of the Sea/Sand Sea.

Sand Sea is the 2018 installment of the DMBJ/Lost Tomb franchise, which tells the story of the search for an ancient desert city, a fight against a secretive assassin family, the raiding of more than a couple tombs, and a whole bunch of other action-packed bullshit.

Have you ever watched an anime adaptation that outran the as-yet-incomplete manga it was adapting, necessitating it throw together a largely befuddling ending based on the available clues? That's Sand Sea. At time of production, only ~75% of the Sand Sea novel had been written. As I am making this post, that's still all of the Sand Sea novel that has been written. I finished watching the show and had a lot of questions about its loose ends. I read the book. It didn't help.

So, I'm not going to try and summarize the story, much less try to sell you on the show on the strength of the plot. What I am going to try and do is convince you it's a good time anyway.

As I mentioned earlier, it's part of a larger franchise, but you shouldn't let that stop you from diving in here. Most of the DMBJ shows and books are narrated by Wu Xie, the series' special little birthday boy. Sand Sea takes a different tack -- your main POV characters are completely new to the world of the tombs, meaning that the show explains things to you while it's explaining things to them. Wu Xie's still a major character, but you're seeing him through the eyes of a befuddled teenager who wasn't even supposed to be here today.

I'm going to give you five reasons to watch this series, and all five of them are relationships. I'm pitching it to you this way because, as was the case in my rec for Reunion (one of the other tomb-raiding dramas), I'm assuming you have zero familiarity with DMBJ, which means that any appeals to the larger franchise or its twists and turns will have no impact. Instead, I am here to sell this to you on the strength of character interactions. If you're interested in what the characters are doing, the plot will come.

1. Dudes Rock

The aforementioned teenager narrator is Li Cu, a too-cool-for-school underachiever who lives with his abusive father and has no direction in life. He comes with his two best (and only) friends: earnest pushover Su Wan and neighborhood bully Yang Hao.

They're a trio of problem children who cannot succeed by the metrics of society at large: Li Cu and Yang Hao are both from family circumstances that have hampered their ability to perform academically, while Su Wan, bless his heart, is just not that bright. They do, however, all do well when put in situations that play to their strengths and given appropriate mentorship. (Alas that all of their mentors are terrible people; see point 4.)

They're set up as an intentional next-generation parallel to the Iron Triangle, which is the term DMBJ uses for Wu Xie and his two closest people. Normally, the Iron Triangle would be the core of a DMBJ story -- but since that threesome is broken by Circumstances at the moment, these boys become the substitute triad whose friendship is one of the main bonds holding the narrative together.

They have such teenage boy dynamics, it's great. They're stupid about girls and alcohol and money and homework and all the other things teen boys are stupid about, while also being stupid enough to get themselves entangled in shadowy international conspiracies. Huge parts of the plot are fueled entirely by their dumbass decisions. But they also barely have any competent adult supervision in their lives, so you know, when you're seventeen and basically feral, renting a warehouse so you can beat a bunch of frozen snakes to death actually sounds like a good solution to the problem at the time.

It's not all comedy, though. Li Cu and Yang Hao in particular are deeply traumatized young men even before the story starts, and events of the series make it worse. They're definitely the "feelings are for girls!" type of young men, and they need Su Wan there as their eternally bippy buffer. When he's not, they can get mean.

What's also charming about this trio is that they're all pretty darn straight. In a franchise chock full of (unintentional?) homoeroticism, these three manage to keep their platonic dude dynamics pretty platonic. I mean, I myself come at most things with slash-colored glasses on, and even I'm of the opinon that they're befuddled heterosexuals struggling with how the entire tomb-raiding industry's gay. And even if you assume everyone in this entire show is straight, these boys are still going to get a bunch of real-time lessons in how to love other people, whether they like it or not!

So if you like a Teen Boy Squad of goobers who don't want to admit they're close or have emotions or anything like that, right up until they're all each other have, this may be just the thing for you.

2. The Only Good Het in the Tombs

DMBJ is not known for its high-quality heterosexual romance, to put it mildly. Most of the time, it makes the smart decision to not even try. When it does, you mostly wish it hadn't.

Therefore, you cannot imagine how shocked I was to find myself falling head-over-heels for the incredibly weird canonical love story between horny hot mess Dr. Liang Wan and emotionally constipated 80-year-old virgin and arsonist Zhang Rishan.

Their relationship goes a little something like this: He needs something from her, so he contrives a plan to ask her out. She declares him her boyfriend. He continues the relationship in order to continue getting things from her. She thinks he's hot, so she's fine with that. He warns her that continuing their relationship will involve messing with some very bad members of the Tomb-Raiding Industrial Complex. She's like, again, you're incredibly hot, so that's not a problem. He makes her memorize maps and sends her to a desert. She dresses up like him and pepper-sprays him. And somewhere in the midst of all that, he falls for her and she gets sick of his shit, and they wind up for-real dating as equals.

Part of what's so delightful about their relationship is how awful they are to one another. It'd be bad if that awfulness were one-sided, but man, they each give as good as they get. He's heartless and exploitative, and she's neurotic and insecure. She makes constant demands of him that he's almost too confused by to refuse, and he keeps putting her in situations no sane person should want to be part of. He comes from a cutthroat world of complete bastards, while she wears her heart on her sleeve whether she wants to or not. They're extremely good for one another, because he trusts her competencies and is going to make her demonstrate every one of them, while one of her chief skills is calling him on his bullshit.

It is at this point I need to sing the praises of Liang Wan, hottest of the hot messes. She's one of the principal POV characters for the novel, where she's just as boy-crazy (though for a different boy, because Zhang Rishan's not in this book) and just as far in over her head. The adaptation has absolutely done her character justice. What makes Liang Wan so charming to me is how much she absolutely refuses to let herself be stopped by being completely out of her depth. She doesn't know what the hell is going on most of the time, but fuck it, she's rolling with it. She's just also going to be applying moisturizer and anti-aging serum the entire time, because you know what, sometimes when your whole world is falling apart around you, the one thing you can count on is your skincare routine.

Zhang Rishan is surrounded by people so cool, butter doesn't melt in their mouths. He can be balls-out naked in front of them without batting an eyelash. It is her thirsty disaster charms alone that have set fire to his frozen heart. I love them to bits.

3. Enemies to ... ???

This is Sand Sea's Wu Xie. You're not going to like him at first, because he spends the first several episodes tormenting a teen who only mildly seems to deserve it. What you find out as the show goes on is that Wu Xie is having a bad time -- more than that, he's having a straight-up bad decade. He has taken a lot of psychic damage and decided to cope with it by being absolutely insane. He's a bitch with no sense of self-preservation living in constant gremlin mode. He is no longer under the active supervision of his husbands, and he's going to make that everyone else's problem.

The show chooses to start out by inflicting Wu Xie on a bunch of strangers through an arc that's bizarre, lengthy, and mostly completely unrelated to the larger plot. It does introduce a few elements that will matter, though, and one of them is Su Nan.

When Su Nan appeared as the badass head of a mercenary outfit, I was braced for one (or both) of two things to happen. Thing one, I figured she'd die or otherwise leave the narrative after the first arc, which made me not want to get attached to her, if she wasn't going to stick around. Thing two, I was all but certain the show was going to try and make her Wu Xie's love interest, which made me make such a face, because [see last point].

Neither happens. Su Nan is still around in the final episode, and what she becomes to Wu Xie is much, much more interesting.

They're not friends. They're never friends. They can't be friends, because they absolutely can't trust one another. Except sometimes they have to trust one another, and in return they have to allow themselves to be trustworthy.

In the last relevant chapter or so of the novel, Wu Xie gets his throat cut and shoved off a cliff ... and because the novel isn't finished, we have no idea why that happened or who did it. The drama decides that when he goes over that cliff this time, throat unslit, Su Nan needs to go with him. This means they spend much of the later part of the series depending on one another for survival, getting real vulnerable, sharing trauma, and occasionally fucking one another over anyway, because they are both bad and untrustworthy people.

And they're ... kinda into one another? But because it's not textual, it winds up being great. If the show had tried to write their romance, I would have hated it. Instead, it chooses to leave things fraught and unspecified, with the two of them obviously having a lot of feelings but not even knowing themselves what all those feelings are, much less how to react appropriately to them. That is delicious. Pour that right into my mouth.

I also choose to interpret Su Nan as being transfemme (complimentary), if only because that's the most charitable explanation for her dedication to keeping her tits out and her lipstick game sharp even in wilderness conditions.

4. This Man Should Not Be Trusted With Children

As I mentioned before, all members of the Teen Boy Squad wind up paired with adult men who act as their mentors. Li Cu and Wu Xie are the main duo, since they're the main character of this show and the main character of the entire franchise, respectively. Yang Hao winds up in an even more abusive dynamic with a bitch of a man who takes advantage of Yang Hao's capacity for rage. But precious baby Su Wan is lucky enough to be adopted by, well...

If you read my rec for Reunion, you will recognize him as the guy I called "this giant fucking loser" with all the affection in the world. Hei Xiazi is both the worst and the best, which makes him the perfect man to take care of the tender soul that is Su Wan.

Su Wan's a poor little rich boy who is happy to be bullied by his friends, because it means he has friends! He's a dipshit because he's sheltered by his family wealth, and he's also a dipshit because he'd be a dipshit no matter how much money he had. He needs someone to kick his ass in a way that builds him back up again and helps him make the transition from doormat to functional adult.

The circumstances that bring these two together are so batshit, they're not worth recounting here. Suffice it to say that as one adventure arc ends, Hei Xiazi is tasked with taking Su Wan home. Su Wan expresses interest in whatever Hei Xiazi's whole deal is, and Hei Xiazi responds by offering (in a roundabout way) lessons in what exactly his whole deal is.

Hei Xiazi is a terrible teacher, but he's a perfect teacher for Su Wan, who is the kind of boy who would go find the nearest dictionary if you told him the word "gullible" wasn't there. They're preciously weird at one another. The work so well together because Su Wan believes the best of everything, which leads him to see right past the parts of Hei Xiazi that other people (correctly) find inscrutable and offputting. With Hei Xiazi's questionable guidance, Su Wan finds for the first time in his naive, privileged life a goal for himself that is both achievable and worth the effort.

Later books give evidence that all three of the boys eventually go to work for Hei Xiazi, which I think is great, especially since he is somehow the least toxic and terrible of all the mentor characters. ...Man, though, that bar is low. It's a miracle anyone in DMBJ survives into adulthood.

It's also cute to think about how the boys are no doubt context-appropriately homophobic, because it's so easy to picture their respective reactions to finding out that their strong, terrible male role models are queer. Cue Li Ci and Yang Hao's respective no-homo freakouts, while Su Wan just has a million slightly offensive but ultimately well-meaning questions about how bisexuality works.

And I'm just going to say, if you watched the Untamed and loved Xue Yang? You owe it to yourself to see that actor suddenly become the sweetest little butterscotch muffin ever. ...Yes, if you didn't recognize him earlier, that's Wang Haoxuan, and he turns in an incredible comic performance here. Su Wan is consistently one of the funniest characters onscreen. The bit with the saxaphone kills me dead.

Anyway, unlike the first three relationships I've talked about here, this is one you have to wait a good long while for. Su Wan shows up in the first episode, Hei Xiazi appears about a dozen or so episodes later, but it takes their storylines much longer to cross. It's worth the wait, though, knowing that eventually you'll get to see these two weirdos bounce merrily off one another.

5. Everybody Loves Pangzi

This is the Iron Triangle I mentioned earlier. Obviously there's Wu Xie in the middle. The perfect boy in the hoodie is Xiao Ge, who is at the time of this series slightly stuck in what's basically a giant time-lock safe, so you're only ever going to see him in flashbacks. (Xiao Ge is trapped, so you can't have Xiao Ge.) And then, over there on the left is the man whose nickname translates to "fatty," Wang Pangzi.

Hold on to your butts, because I am now going to wax poetic about how much I love this fictional man.

Pangzi is the best. The best. He's funny. He's kind. He's got terrible taste in men and only slightly less terrible taste in women. He's a gentleman. He's the party shock absorber. He's prone to making things explode. He's impeccably dressed. He's charmingly superstitious. He's not subtle. He's got an excitable little stammer and an atrocious Beijing accent. He's a flexible fat man. He's the most fuckable person onscreen no matter who's onscreen with him.

He's also usually the DMBJ everyman character, except Sand Sea has a ton of everyman characters for a change, so he winds up filling the role of a badass insider instead. His job is basically to hold down the fort while Xiao Ge's indisposed and Wu Xie's off being insane. In the absence of both his beloveds, Pangzi's going to do what needs to be done, and he's going to be incredibly hot while he's doing it.

Usually, DMBJ shows serve up a huge amount of Pangzi and Wu Xie interaction. Sand Sea only puts them in the same room near the very end -- but they're collaborating throughout. In fact, the only way the whole story works is if they're basically so much in each other's back pockets that they can function as a single unit even across great distances. The record will show that I read them as husbands -- but more importantly, they're good friends who understand and trust one another completely. As much as it pains me that they're apart for basically the entire thing, they're never really apart, you know?

However, because Wu Xie is physically elsewhere for so much of the show, Sand Sea provides a unique chance to see Pangzi interacting on his own with other characters. Wu Xie is the special little boy who always takes up all the oxygen in the room -- and of course Pangzi doesn't begrudge him this, because Pangzi loves him. Without Wu Xie around, though, we get to watch all the other relationships Pangzi has cultivated over the years.

One of the best is with Xie Yuchen, a.k.a. Xiao Hua. In other series, we see the two interact, but only in the context of having Wu Xie around. Sand Sea presents us with a little window into what is clearly a longstanding friendship. From the tiny bit we get of their interactions, it's obvious they hang out on a pretty regular basis. They're chilling and having spa dates while their husbands are out there getting sandy and fighting snakes, proving that these two urbanites are absolutely the brains of their respective marriages.

...Hold up a second,

I hear you say,

IS this show actually gay? Because you keep using words like "husbands" and talking like it's intentionally, onscreen, boys-kissing-boys gay.

On the one hand, no.

On the other hand: Is Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid gay? Textually, taking it at face value, and especially considering the context in which it was made, no, it is absolutely not gay, nor was it meant to be gay. But when you step back and realize everything it's doing, you kind of can't avoid the really romantic implications. Maybe Butch and Sundance never smooch, maybe they don't even want to, but they're each other's other halves. We would instantly recognize what they are if one of them were a lady. In a narrative setting where gayness is unthinkable, nothing they can do can be gay, which loops around to making everything kinda gay, and ... look, I'm just saying, if Pangzi were a woman, we'd know immediately what she is to Wu Xie (and holy fuck she would be so hot). If Xiao Hua were as female as the opera characters he plays, we'd have no questions about her relationship to Hei Xiazi. Keep everything beat for beat, line for line the same, and there'd be no missing it.

This is something you get a lot with stories about men written by men, this unintentional homoeroticism from male authors who don't realize their misogyny has actually poisoned them against heterosexuality. Remember what I said earlier about DMBJ's regrettable het? So much of it stems from the assumption that getting a girl and a boy together will inevitably to romantic feelings from at least one of them, so there's no reason to bother spending time giving either of the participants any actual reasons to like one another. (Sand Sea does this too! Just with a character I haven't mentioned here, because I'm trying to talk about the good dynamics.) This kind of thinking treats women not as people, but as as basically interchangeable desirable objects. But men are people, which means the male characters' feelings are worth discussing in the narrative! So what you get is these well-developed, intimate relationships between men described in loving detail, sat right next to perfunctory heterosexual couplings -- and we're supposed to believe that one is romantic and one is not based solely on the genders of the participants? Yeah, no, I call bullshit.

And -- if you'll permit me to loop back to the boys for a minute -- we now have a model for how a straight Iron Triangle would behave, and it is not the way the actual Iron Triangle members are about one another. Those teens love one another in a way that is fierce and strong and not what Wu Xie, Pangzi, and Xiao Ge have going. Maybe it could become that, but it's not now. It's not better or worse now for being what it is, but it is different, and it makes by contrast some things very clear (and very queer).

So that is why I feel justified in referring to them as husbands and will continue to do so despite the lack of explicit textual support.

Anyway, back to Pangzi!

Where were we? Right, Xiuxiu!

Pangzi's always at his best when he gets to be a knight for someone he cares about. This time around, that's Huo Xiuxiu, who who only shows up after you've met several of her matriarchal family's other members, all of whom would be at home in a Tank Full Of Dangerous Ladies. Xiuxiu is not a fighter like they are, but she does have an object that means everyone's out to get her, and as such she relies on her Pangzi to keep her safe while she's trying to survive the fucked-up games her family is playing.

And Pangzi clearly loves it. He absolutely thrives on being the big brother/bruiser figure for her. He loves how cool it makes him look to her. He doesn't have Wu Xie around to be a tank for, so he's going to tank for her. In fact, he's even going to bring in reinforcements to help him do it. (What's the deal with the cute Tibetan boy? Look, shh, just appreciate that you've got a cute Tibetan boy.)

Then there's his dealings with the rest of the Tomb-Raiding Industrial Complex, who are a bunch of shady dudes with impressive family pedigrees and expensive suits, all of whom are trying to play twelve-dimensional chess with one another. There's going to be lots of names dropped, of families and of individuals, and the show is going to act like you're supposed to be impressed. And if you're familiar with DMBJ canon, yeah, you could be impressed! Or you could be like Pangzhi, who rolls up in his amazing Holstein shirt, not giving a single fuck what any of these rich bastards think about him.

This is actually some character development for Pangzi, who has in the past been cowed (pun unintended) by the wealthy, mostly due to his own financial situation. That stage of his life is over now. Honey badger has ceased to care. The cool, pretty people are going to try and give him shit, and he is impervious to it. You better believe the Iron Triangle trashed this fancy restaurant the last time they were in here, and if you give Pangzi half the chance, he'll fucking do it again.

No wonder Zhang Rishan likes him. A pair of little firestarters.

Don't let me oversell you on how much Pangzi is in Sand Sea, because he's not. There's maybe a dozen of the 52 episodes that have any Pangzi content, and he's only in small parts of those episodes. Pangzi is a rare and precious event, like an eclipse. Cherish the Pangzi moments and all the wonderful interactions contained within.

caveat: You call that an ending?

Buddy, if you'd seen how most other DMBJ series end, you wouldn't be asking me that. But because I'm assuming you haven't: Yes, I call that an ending, because it actually attempts to do a winddown and conclusion, instead of just wandering off on a cliffhanger. The ending isn't wholly satisfying, but it is an ending. There is a narrative, and that narrative concludes. Does the conclusion make sense and tie up all the loose ends? Absolutely not! But it does follow basic story structure and resolve the action semi-competently.

As I said about the sweet disaster that is Psych Hunter (which was also directed by the guy who did Sand Sea!), I think knowing in advance that an ending sucks makes the ending suck less. It removes the disappointment factor and lets you enjoy what is there, instead of making you grumpy about what isn't. No, you're never going to understand a lot of things. That means whatever you want to be true can be true. The book is unfinished. The series is nonsense. Canon has no hold on you. You are free.

As compensation, here's a picture of Xiao Ge without his shirt on.

Are you feeling like it's Tomb Time?

There are a couple places you can get this one! Try Viki, WeTV, this YouTube playlist (which is missing the first episode for some reason), or this YouTube playlist (which has the whole thing). Note that subtitles vary in quality from place to place. The YouTube versions also have the bizarre, amazing in-character commercials, and it's up to you if that's a plus or a minus for your viewing experience.

I love this bonkers show. It is balls-to-the-wall weird, to a point that will make you question the translation. I got to the part where Zhang Rishan explains that ancient people worshipped fish with snakes in their eyebrows, caught the fish, took out the snakes, and implanted the snakes in their own human eyebrows -- and I thought, surely that's not what he's actually saying. Nope! The subtitles are accurate. It's the show that's off its rocker.

Anyway, once you've watched Sand Sea, scroll down to the bottom of my rec post for Reunion and find out how you can get even deeper into said tombs! Trust me, there's a lot down here.

As those other posts would indicate, this would not be my first choice for how to get into DMBJ. It is, however, how a fair number of people have gotten into DMBJ, so what the hell do I know! Or maybe this post has convinced you that Sand Sea is worth watching, but you'd rather build up to it than go into it raw. That works too! Whenever you get to it, it'll be here: under a bunch of sand, tattooed and inexplicable, and extremely gay whether it knows it or not.

Go to the desert, they said. Find Gutongjing, they said. Solve the mystery, they said. Fuck it, we nap.

[suzukiblu]

WIP excerpt for @definitelynotaminion; Clark panic-adopts his teenage clones. Yes, including the supervillain one. (( chrono || non-chrono ))

“I know. But you didn’t meet them because I introduced you to them,” Superman says, sounding–strange, somehow. Bothered, almost. Match has gone so far past not understanding this man that he might just give up on the idea entirely, and frankly the fact he hasn’t yet is beginning to look like a waste of mental resources. 

Thirteen just keeps looking uncomfortable, either way. Upset, maybe, but not in the way Match is used to seeing him upset. Normally Thirteen’s angry, when Match sees him. Normally Match is making Thirteen angry when he sees him. The expression the other’s wearing right now reminds him more of the first time they’d met than that, though. The first time they’d met, and the things that Thirteen had said to him, and the things Thirteen had said to Spence and the directors because of him. 

( or–FOR him, maybe. )

Those things had all been absolutely clueless and incredibly stupid and straight-up naive and a total waste of everyone in the conversation’s time on top of that, and Match never thinks about a single one of them. 

He knows better. 

“I mean, I know that? Like, obviously I know that. But I don’t get what it’s got to do with all this shit, man,” Thirteen says, gesturing expansively but directionlessly around them and looking increasingly frustrated. Match isn’t sure why the idiot’s still this close to him, if not actually outright behind him anymore. At this point it’s more like he’s just next to him. He supposes that makes it easier for Superman to give them their orders simultaneously, though he has a hard time believing Thirteen would’ve thought to do something even remotely practical. 

. . . though Superman doesn’t give Thirteen orders, really. At least, he never did when he was talking to Match and didn’t know the difference. He didn’t talk to him all that much, though, so it’s not like Match can really say it’s a particularly large sample size he’s basing that observation off. 

Though probably percentage-wise it is, considering. 

“Because you should have,” Superman says. “I should have brought you here a long time ago, in fact.” 

“Superboy hasn’t even existed for ‘a long time’,” Match says in exasperation, which is probably stupid to say, but–it’s irritating. That’s all. Superman just keeps saying total fucking nonsense combinations of words in vague approximations of logical statements and expecting them to understand what he means, and it’s not–if it’s a test, it’s not one with clear parameters or useful metrics. It’s not objective. 

Match hates the tests that aren’t objective. 

“I mean, he’s got a point,” Thirteen mutters under his breath, glancing away uncomfortably and folding his arms. Match is almost more annoyed that the idiot is agreeing with him than anything else, or would be if Superman wasn’t just constantly saying such absolute bullshit that the man’s just fucking up the curve beyond all reason. 

And he does, in fact, have a point. 

“I . . . that’s–true, yes,” Superman says slowly. “But has it felt like a long time to you?”