#long ranty reply oops

[potofsoup]

i love your fourth of july comics every year but this years feels extremely optimistic about biden’s abilities in the face of him letting roe get overturned and funding a gen*cide at worst or letting it happen at best by taking the bare minimum of regulatory action… i mean can he really be trusted at all anymore to do the right thing or act in line with the people’s demands? and how do we know the people behind project 2025 won’t just rig the election again to get in under false pretenses?

Hihi! Thank you for reading and enjoying my July 4th comics every year! I am in a non-US airport en route to a month-long trip in a place with sketchy internet, so sorry in advance for sloppiness in my response (and potentially going radio silent).

But:

I don't think he "let" Roe get overturned, since that was the Supreme Court's overwhelming conservative majority, which really started with Mitch McConnell refusing to approve Obama's appointee and forcing it into a 2016 election issue. The fact that Trump got to appoint 3 Supreme Court Justices is what got us here.

Re: Biden and the Israel/Hamas war ... on the one hand, there's definitely more that he could have done, but on the other hand, they are a whole other country over there. It's Hamas that initiated the Oct 7 attacks and took the hostages. It's Netanyahu and his right-wing government who decided to retaliate to such extreme extent. Biden can talk about how he would really like Netanyahu to stop fighting and step down, but at the end of the day that's not his call, any more than he can stop the Sudan fighting that is near-genocidal either.

So, to come to your question #1: "Can he really be trusted at all anymore to do the right thing or act in line with the people’s demands"?

For me, it's a resounding YES. Guyz, he has passed so much good domestic policies. My spouse works in green energy and the passing of the Inflation Reduction Act halved his anxiety and gave him legitimate hope. The tumblr post I linked to in my comic has links to many of the other great things that Biden has done. Tbh I voted for him in 2020 because "a moldy onion is still better than Trump", and I've been pleasantly surprised. Like how he tried to cancel student loans, the Supreme Court overturned it, and then he came back 6 months later with a different way to do it that didn't lead to a court challenge.

Is he perfect? Hell no. There's tons of stuff that I wish he did more about, or he went further on, but also he's just one guy heading one branch of government who is heading into an election year. (Just like FDR promising not joining WWII, while behind the scenes doing all the Lend-Lease Act stuff). And "the people" have lots of demands, many of them conflicting.

I'd also like to push at the unspoken part of your question... "Can he really be trusted to do the right thing..." compared to whom? Because right now the answer is "compared to Trump." And compared to Trump... I don't even trust Trump to respect the results of a legitimate election. Heck, he might just take his favorite state secrets, sell them to the highest bidder (or just show them off to someone for funzies), and then claim Presidential immunity. A decent Democrat who got stuff done vs someone who probably wants to pardon himself and all his friends and do Project 2025 stuff is not even on the same level. (Do I wish that there was a viable Democratic alternative to Biden? Sure! But who?) Heck, at this point -- imagine if it's Kamala Harris vs. Trump. Who would you vote for?

As for your question #2: "How do we know the people behind project 2025 won’t just rig the election again to get in under false pretenses?"

We don't. But also what can we do besides showing up to vote?

Actually, I need bullet points for this:

The 2022 midterm elections brought in fewer-than-expected election-deniers into crucial electoral offices at the state level, which means that hopefully most state electoral boards will continue to have integrity

Yes, voting is harder but at least we can still vote. So it's about getting out there and getting your vote counted. For some states, it involves waiting in 8 hour lines. For some states, it involves bringing 2 forms of ID. Document. Track. Make sure it's dropped off in a real ballot box and not a fake one. Don't believe messaging that the voting is happening on a different day or location, etc.

A 50.1% majority is easily challenged. A 55% majority, less so. Which means getting people out to vote.

The more people know about and think about the reality of a second Trump term (versus being disappointed by a Biden term), the more they will be motivated to vote against Trump.

Finally, let's be real here: I'm braced for a 2nd Trump term. That said:

I'm still going to go and vote for Biden, because the only way to prevent a 2nd Trump term is to vote.

A Trump term where either the House or Senate is controlled by the Democrats will be *very* different from a clean Republican sweep.

Even with a clean Republican sweep on the federal level, States have so much more power now, and voting the state level stuff will help shore up Democratic goals for the future. States get to draw voting districts however they want. States get to decide on abortion policies. If you live in a deep Red state, there still might be things to vote for that make it easier to live in now, and turn it purple a few elections down the line.

So at the end of the day, it's "Vote AND". Vote and keep living your best life. Vote and tell others about Project 2025. Vote and have hope. Even if Trump wins, at least you'll have voted against him. Vote and stay to build up a progressive wave for the next election.

[justanearth-boundmisfit]

I can't believe anyone treat metas seriously anymore. Apparently, Dean Cas exaggerated drama is for GA so they can see romantic subplot. What romantic subplot?! For god's sake, we have 2019, who still treats gay storyline like that? Like it's something to be ashamed of? If TPTB want Destiel to be canon, they would start treating it like any couple on tv, not tiptoeing around it, which they're not doing anyway cause there is nothing but bait there anymore. How blind can metas be to not see it?!

Well, there’s this group of people that wants to believe no matter what, and that have been fed this meta destiel endgame for more than three years now, I guess it’s hard to let go. Also admitting you were wrong, or that you were following a cult-like minded people can be a slap to the face, not many are going to do it. Some are really seeing these metas, for what they really are, bullies, that will attack anyone that doesn’t think like them, but many others are afraid to speak up.

Those of us who can speak or are willing to do it, have to keep going because it’s not right how this group is treating people. Besides, through the years, their metas have been proven wrong and wrong again and that’s why they are desperately lashing out. 

We can see how their “destiel endgame” is falling apart, and how they really do not care about the ship, or Dean or Cas, they just care about “being right” and when that doesn’t happen they are going to keep twisting their stories to fit their writings no matter what.

GA audiences are NOT going to see a romantic subplot when one of them is saying “you’re dead to me” to the other, they are going to see one man lashing at the other, and one VERY forced storyline that is pushing towards drama and angst just for the sake of it. More so when Dean and Cas have been barely interacting with each other through the last two seasons. There’s no romantic subplot, because it’s just NOT there. Yes, there’s, like I said, a forced, I hate to use the word, narrative, towards Dean manpain! through feeling guilty about lashing out, that we have seen before, nothing new, and nothing that screams ROMANTIC. Because if anything, 14.18, just put on the table how many times Dean has treated Cas like shit. If people want to see romance through abuse (and have no doubt that IS abuse, albeit not a conscious one), that’s their prerogative, but it’s going to be really hard in an era where tv shows and movies are changing so much, to see a story like that, and tag it as romantic plot. Times have changed. 

Metas see it or lie about it, because they can’t go back, after saying that destiel was going to go canon on season 13. Now that the show is ending, the possibilities for them to keep lying season through season, are limited, and that’s why they are grasping at straws. What these metas are doing is underestimating everyone, even GA, who don’t react to spn the same way they do. And like you said we are in 2019, the way spn writers present a story is barely used anymore. Yes, there are some shows that use the same formula of forced drama, but they are not good, as well as spn is not good and not that deep of a show.

I wonder how many other shows these metas watch? If any? Because if you compare the quality of the writing and the amazing subtext of shows like Sharp Objects, True Detective (especially seasons 1 and 3), Killing Eve, Big Little Lies, The Americans, Black Mirror, The Terror, The Leftovers, Hannibal, the new Twilight Zone (the last ep, destroyed me), Orphan Black, and going a little backwards shows that really were game changers like The L Word and Queer As Folk (I’m more fond of the UK version), it’s not hard to see why spn is subpar and stuck in time. And I’m not only talking about homoerotic subtext or lgbt+ stories, because some of the shows that I listed don’t have any, I’m talking about subtext in general, how a good writing can add to the story through music, art and even landscape,yes, but it has to be REALLY well done for it to work, a thing that spn lacks in spades, because they use the little subtext they have to queerbait, and that’s why, imo, they fail over and over again, and they have to recycle old story lines, to go back to a point where they know audiences came back because of Dean and Cas. 

That’s why we are seeing the same from them all.the.time. They have an overused formula they can’t get out of, because they have a dinosaur at the helm like Singer, that is still writing and directing like he was in a show in the 80′s. That old dudebro, aggressive male that lashes at everyone and everything, and it’s a douche in general when he doesn’t get his way, it’s what we had in shows from that era (and some from the 90′s too) and that’s what spn is giving us, and what some people are justifying. Maybe because they’re too young to remember? Maybe because, they don’t watch other shows to compare to? Idk, but they accept this aggressive, repetitive formula, saying that we don’t “get it” when some of us have seen it SO many times on television before. A way of telling stories that is being buried more and more, thank the gods…

And this is too long already, and as usual I apologize, there’s so much still to say about these metas… If they are showing anything is their absolute ignorance of tv shows, old and new, no matter how much they want to turn the tables and say that we are the ones that are not smart enough to understand spn. And I named just a few shows, because I’m sure you have yours, and people following me can also name lots of shows that are amazing at writing subtext and delivering a good story, without going for the manpain! at every end of a season. 

Take care!

[cognitiveleague]

I have a question: I know you recommend that people go with lower-deductible, mid to high premium health plans if possible here in the US, but does that apply to someone like me aka someone with high medical expenses but also access to several private plans?

I have high health expenses due to a chronic disorder and the clinic I visit most often, which provides a treatment I need 2-3 times a week, is out of network anyway. They will however file for reimbursement (when I hit my out of pocket max). Between that clinic and all my other medical visits, (most of which are with specialists) I regularly blow past my out of pocket max (and my in-network max and my deductible, of course).

I used to be on a lower deductible plan via my employer until I did the math and saw that a higher deductible plan might benefit me because even though the deductible was higher they covered more once you hit your max, which I was doing anyway.

Good question! I did allude a bit in my previous post to the general advice I was giving being more aimed at people with more limited ongoing health costs, and I’ll go back and make that a little more explicit and link to this reply once I’m done typing it up, but I didn’t go into a lot of detail on the other post because it was getting pretty long already since I get super ranty when I’m all fired up about stuff like this.

In cases where you have higher ongoing healthcare expenses, it’s hard to give advice quite as broadly, which is in large part because of the amount of variation between individual healthcare plans - even within the same insurance company, there are often so many plans it’s hard to generalize.

One reason a lot of people have medium-to-high deductible plans, aside from the intentionally baffling nature of all the options we’re presented with, is that they do often have some alternative draw to offset what bullshit the deductible itself is. Sometimes that’s just the lower monthly premium I mentioned, which makes it tempting for lower income folks, but there can be other factors, too, and some of those can come into play and change what the priority should be in cases more like yours, Anon.

If you know you’ll hit the deductible and fast, even a higher one, that changes the priorities. For someone with major and/or chronic health issues, while I’d still recommend a lower deductible in a hypothetical scenario where you’re choosing between two otherwise equal plans, I’d look most at two other key places instead: first, as you mentioned, the Out of Pocket maximum, which we once again want as low as we can afford to get; and second, whether the deductible applies to specialists you know you’re likely to need the most frequently.

I’m sure I’m going over some stuff it sounds like Anon already knows, but just for the benefit of anyone less familiar: the deductible is the amount you have to spend on healthcare yourself before insurance pays for a damn cent (unless it’s waived for the services in question), and the OOP maximum is the amount you have to spend before insurance pays for the rest of EVERYTHING that you’re eligible for under your plan’s coverage until the annual reset date. I’ve seen plans where it’s the same number, but it’s definitely not always, so be really careful to check on that.

If the plan with the higher deductible has a substantially lower OOP than the lower deductible plan, that’s a scenario where someone with higher projected medical costs would want to consider picking the higher deductible plan, because the OOP is what puts a cap on expenditures that you already know are going to be high - hitting the deductible slows down the rate at which you have to spend your own money on treatment, which we want, but the OOP is a much sharper sort of limiting factor on your costs, so it’s more important to consider if you know those costs are likely to be high.

Example time again - let’s say I have a plan with a $2K deductible, 15% coins after deductible, and a $10K OOP maximum, and a plan with a $5K deductible and a $5K OOP max. For someone highly unlikely to spend $5K on medical costs in a year, the first plan would be the better option - they’d pay 100% of the insurance’s negotiated rates to their providers for the first $2000, then their costs would drop by 85% for any remaining services until they reset for the year, unless they have much higher than projected expenses and hit the $10K limit. BUT for someone whose projected medical expenses would be more than $5K, the second plan would be better, because even though it would take longer to hit the deductible, the lower OOP max would kick in earlier and make insurance take care of their remaining costs for covered, in-network services until the annual reset date.

One thing that IS the same as my original advice is that it’s worth looking into what services have the deductible waived with various plans - if you’re able to find one that waives the deductible for the type(s) of specialists you need the most often and the copay is manageable? That should be a BIG factor, like I’d almost say a deciding one unless that plan comes with a big drawback like completely unaffordable premiums or a much higher OOP max than other options under consideration. (This was a key factor in picking a plan for me and my wife - we both have ADHD and function Real Bad without meds, one of us is autistic and has PTSD, and like, life is anxiety-and-depression inducing sometimes, so for us, a plan with the deductible waived and a pretty low copay for the types of behavioral health specialty care we need was a big deal.)

It sucks that a big part of your treatment is out of network for you, Anon, but I’m glad you’re at least on a plan with some type of out of network reimbursement option - actually, that’s also a good thing for other folks with chronic health stuff to deal with to keep an eye out for when comparing plans, particularly if the specialists needed for their condition(s) are more difficult to find and there might not be in-network options in their area!

I hope this is helpful, feel free to ask if there’s like, anything else you’re wondering about that I didn’t go into detail on or that I worded funny or something, lol

[wanna-17]

yoon jisung first meeting! AU

summary: in which you are flaked by your friend on open day and meet a cute uni tour guide 

length: 1.7k

a/n: oops this turned out very long but hope you guys enjoy it regardless

you couldn’t believe the fact that you’re friend had flaked you for the uni open day 

well she didn’t exactly flake you as she really was very sick and had a fever 

you even went to her house to check if she was alright 

the uni open day was basically a day in the holidays prior to start of uni where all the first years could go and visit the uni they were gonna start attending and be able to meet people in their degree and get a tour of the uni by older uni students and receive aesthetic booklets and freebies you wanted the freebies lmao

and like in order to get a spot, you needed to sign up 

and you were really shy so you mostly relied on your friend to do the talking

but you had no choice but to go bc you’d already signed up and you also wanted to see the uni properly since you never got the chance to go as it was in the city 

idk if this is a thing for anywhere in the world like in Australia we have open days but its not like compulsory or anything just beneficial lol

so there you were at your uni open day 

you almost hopped on the wrong train and it took you a good 15 minutes to find the meeting area

luckily you’d given yourself extra time in the morning so you were right on time

you told the girl at the desk your name and grabbed the files and freebies bag that was pre-prepared and you also had to awkwardly explain to them that your friend was sick and that you also had to get her freebies bag lmao

after getting all that stuff, you awkwardly hung around in the corner of the big room by yourself pretending to be scrolling through your social media me 24/7

everyone around you had at least one friend keeping them company and everyone was chattering 

and you were just.......there feeling super shy and awkward and self conscious 

and then suddenly there was a tap on your shoulder

you looked up and met eyes with a boy smiling brightly at you 

it was probably the brightest smile you’d ever seen in your life 

and when he smiled, his eyes would sort of crinkle in a cute way and it made his eyes look like crescents?????

you were low key blown away, why was such a cutie talking to you?

“hey, so i saw you standing by yourself, did you need any help?” asked the boy cheerfully

“oh-uh-i-am-fine” you stuttered awkwardly in reply

firstly you were an awkward bean and secondly this guy being cute did not help your emotions at all 

you had been to an all girls high school and you had basically turned socially awkwardly and lost the ability to talk to those of the opposite gender except for your dad lol me

“oh ok! are you waiting for someone?” asked the guy 

“um i was meant to come with my friend but she got sick so ‘m also grabbing my friend’s stuff” you replied quietly with your head slightly bowed down 

“cool! that’s so nice of you!” chirped the guy, “i’m jisung by the way, what’s your name?” 

“i’m y/n, nice to meet you jisung” you replied 

“well i can keep you company before the open day officially starts, we never start on time” 

for the next few minutes you guys chatted briefly and had small conversation 

you were in awe at how nice and patient he was 

most people would have probably gotten annoyed at you because you were quiet, shy and super awkward 

he was like a ray of sunshine, super cheerful and slowly he made you feel more comfortable even though your replies were short and boring 

the open day started and the person at the front who you assumed was a professor called out for the tour guides to come to the front 

jisung who was standing next to you walked up to the front 

you were surprised because wow you were talking to a uni tour guide??? who was so nice???? and cute????

jisung happily went to the front and joined the other uni tour guides who were forming a line at the front 

the professor made them say their name and to share anything about themselves

when it was jisung’s turn you paid extra attention 

he was just so bright and lovely and you couldn’t get over how his smile could light up the room 

“hello freshmen! my name is jisung and im a second year. to be honest, i graduated high school a few years ago and had to put off uni for a couple of years due to problems. when i started last year, i was quite nervous and insecure because i was older than most of the students but here i am now! uni is a great place and no one at uni cares about your age, your circumstances, your background and all that. i’ve made a lot of friends and have been welcomed by so many people. so why am i saying this? i’m sure that there are some of you that are very nervous and worried so my goal is to help you guys adjust to uni and help you to love it and make the most of your time here!” says jisung in his speech 

the professor nodded in approval and all the first years clapped

“hey guys no, clap like this! it’s called the jisung clap” says jisung as he deomonstrates a cute yet silly clap where it was he clapped in a circle 

everyone laughed and followed along 

*cue everyone in the hall clapping the jisung clap for a solid minute* 

you laughed along with everyone jisung was definitely a fun and nice person 

after the tour guides finished all their intros 

the professor was like “ok first years get into groups of about 15 people and you’ll be allocated a tour guide”

you stood there awkwardly frozen in your spot as everyone around you made groups with their friends and were introducing themselves to new people

you felt really worried and intimidated as a gush of anxiety rushed over you 

just as you were planning to escape with your bags of freebies a voice called out your name which you recognised, “hey y/n, come and join my group!” 

it was jisung, he was a couple of metres away from you already and he used his hands to wave you over

you gave him a meek smile and had no choice but to join his group

the tour went for a good 2 hours as the uni was massive 

jisung was so nice that he looked at everyones timetables and showed them where the lecture rooms and tutorials would be held

he also gave everyone tips along the way, told everyone where the best and worst bathrooms and just really fun facts about uni that actually made the tour interesting 

and throughout the tour you couldn’t help but find yourself slowly falling for jisung

yes he was handsome, but his personality glowed - he was so sweet and down to earth and humorous 

but you felt hopeless because your last crush was in grade 10 when a boy opened a door for you and you felt your heart racing lmao 

and you couldn't help but think that jisung sorta paid extra attention to you during the tour??????

like when the other first years were chattering amongst themselves he’d appear beside you and chat with you 

and during lunch he squeezed tomato sauce on your sausage sandwich and it was probably one sided but as he was squeezing the tomato sauce, the sausage sandwich was on a fragile cheap plastic plate and it nearly toppled over and both of you guys had tried to save the sausage lmao and in the process your fingers made contact 

and you were blushing so hard that you couldn’t look up

but little did you know he was smiling to himself bc you were so cUTE 

he’d also offered to hold your numerous freebie bags and your stuff when you had to go to the bathroom 

bc tbh you knew he was so nice to everyone so it wouldn’t have any special meaning 

and tbh it was probably just a fleeting small crush lol

as the tour came to an end, you wondered if you’d ever see jisung again bc the campus was so big and he was a second year so you didn’t have classes with him 

just as you were prepared to leave, you looked at jisung one last time who was chatting to the professor 

you silently said goodbye dramatically in your head as you took one last longing looking at him you were too shy to say goodbye even though he had said goodbye to all the first years in his tour group lmao introvert problems ME 

just as you had taken like 7 steps you heard someone call your name 

it was jisung’s voice which you had come to recognise as he had talked nonstop for 2 hours 

“y/n!!!!” 

“hello jisung” you said shyly

“y/n you didn’t even say goodbye to me” pouted jisung 

“haha oh sorry..” you replied unsure of what to say 

“so like are you heading home now? wanna go together?” asked jisung

you looked at him in shock and started blushing before nodding 

“well if you were wondering, i dont mean to be creepy but i had a look at your application form and you actually live 2 streets away from me so i was thinking it’ll be nice if we could travel to uni together if you want, but that’s only if you want no pressure!” said jisung 

you were so surprised that you didn’t know what to say so you just nodded as he smiled brightly beaming at you 

“let’s go now then, we can grab some ice cream place that just opened!” said jisung 

and as you two walked out the uni, you couldn’t help but think this year was going to be really great and that uni was something you could look forward to and that maybe you could overcome your shyness in talking to guys

and if your friend hadn’t flaked on you, you probably would never have met jisung, so you were thankful to your friend !!

omg i feel like this is terribly written and super long and ranty. it was actually 2k at first and i had to cut it down lmao. as always, please let me know how you find this!! im still not over seeing wanna one in real life TT 

find others here: daehwi (x), sungwoon (x), woojin (x) and guanlin (x)

[televinita]

kateschechterxthorwasmyfirstotp replied to post: If you did not watch the last episode, they kind of righted that wrong...

Eh...I read what they tried, but I deemed it Not Good Enough. That was a pretty fundamental betrayal of my deepest shipping principles and too many years apart for me to ever feel okay about them again.

#I have been trying to coherently explain it for like 20 minute and I keep getting bogged down in anger and sadness at the memories so tl;dr: no

EDIT: actually you know what, I am gonna explain it, via copy-pasting the long ass 4-part blog post I made about it the night it aired (I didn’t watch because I was behind on the season, but I hung out in the Tumblr tag and read live reactions), which incidentally was the night after we put my dog to sleep so those two Sadness Memories are wrapped around each other. I always meant to post at least part of it to Tumblr and I regret not doing that.

February 2013

Wednesday: Unedited Ranty Version LOL NOPE BYE. Literally just...not accepting this. Never watching the episode, done with future episodes, the show can just stop here. Unlike with Glee, I am above this. I don't feel it hard enough to be canon, and god, I am so much better for it. Sucks for all the fans who can't just handwave it and decide not to believe. I'm not even going to bother repeating all my Kurt/Blaine rage from last fall, because Sara and Grissom met late enough in life that they aren't in quite the same category of fairytale romance, even if they are soulmates, but -- my anger about relationships losing their magic if you break up in the middle and see other people after finally getting together? So very applicable. (Honestly, show, what happened to them having a marriage that worked for them and no one else needed to understand? Why couldn't you just leave that alone? Why did you have to pick? There was no reason to pick. No picking! /nasally Seinfeld voice.) I'm kind of sorry they already lost their spot in the Top Five All-Time OTPs Kingdom to Kurt and Blaine, because I would have really enjoyed kicking them the fuck out tonight. If I believed this were happening. Which I realized, 5 seconds after writing the above, that I am not. Goodbye, and good luck. Thursday morning (a.k.a. just kidding I’m still mad as hell and back to yell) I like how they keep talking about "implications into next year" and how the story will continue. No, it won't. You've separated them before, a fact I had forgotten about because I refused to watch 9x05 and it was clearly just a pause button on the way to spinny-camera grand reunion kissing as opposed to a real breakup, but there's no way to fix this now. There is no more to the story; you don't get to tell a story after this. Glee already proved to me that there is no way to make a worthwhile arc out of a vile bomb drop. Although I am kind of sorry that this relationship could actually have withstood cheating and it would have been easier to swallow than divorce. Maybe because it still feels like cheating. You're meant to be with someone, you can't have extracurricular people! I have some unfinished business with those first 7 episodes of season 13, and I'm not sure what to do with that -- they were great and I hate to leave them unwritten about, but if I go back there is a slim chance it will get devious like Grey's Anatomy and suck me back in underhandedly, and I'd rather spite myself than give it that opening. So I'm not totally sure if this is the end. But it sure has that really certain Bones Episode #100 level sense of THIS IS UNFORGIVABLE. GAME OVER. Thursday night Reading other people's opinions is always a dumb way to go, because instead of saying my piece and being done, now I'm riled up and feel like I need to FORCE people to understand something they just don't seem to be getting, whether they're being practical and pragmatic or writhing about it in "but they were my first real ship!" angst. (as if they are only a ship, instead of so much more) The thing is, this isn't just a dumb writing choice you can complain about. This isn't even about whether it's in character or not. It is literally. Not. An option. Some couples just aren't allowed to break up. A UST couple that takes more than 5 years to get together is one of them. And once they get married, that's absolutely it. A victory for permanent commitment and contentment. There's no divorce in good storytelling, there are no separations. That lazy nonsense is reserved for books, movies, and silly soap opera types like Grey's Anatomy. Couples like Grissom and Sara, they are foundations. Institutions. When you want to change the look of your house or test out something new, you work with the existing structure. You don't knock it down and build it back up from the floorboards. To be fair, I was always upset by the "long distance marriage" - there was no reason for it; there was never a reason Grissom couldn't be off screen right here in Vegas, teaching at a local university or simply pursuing his own research supplemented with travel when necessary. The longer it went on, the less happy I felt. But since they told us it worked, I put up with it for the joy of having Jorja Fox back on my screen. I see now that was a mistake, and the only way to keep them safe was to push them away. The point is: TPTB broke television law. I can't judge this like other shows as a good or bad direction for the characters, or wonder how it will affect Sara in the upcoming episodes, because they are untouchable. It's honestly laughable that anyone thought it was okay to even try this. Can you imagine if the second X-Files movie followed through on its misdirection and went "lol yeah Mulder and Scully haven't seen each other in 5 years"? I

[2017 edit: FYI I have not stopped being angry about the bitter irony of this comment since the revival spoilers hit.]

If you need more universal examples, that's like tuning in to find out the Brady Bunch has split back up into two separate households, or Disney is going to experiment with a new movie where Minnie elopes with Goofy.

You don't get to pretend you're setting up for a season or two-season arc. This isn't an arc. This is a slash and burn project. Let's pretend, for a minute, that this is planned as an emotionally complex journey that will force them to examine what they mean to each other and get them back together, Costa Rica style, in next year's season finale. Do you think that would be worth it? Do you think the struggle to get there will make the ultimate conclusion heartwarming, fill you with elation as you see them beat all the odds? It will not. It will be long tainted by then, a sour coda to an unfixable mess, because what you had wasn't important enough to preserve. You can't ever get back to what you were, and it's already too late. That is the best case scenario. There are no character motivations to explore. There is nothing to dig into. A death warrant was signed and went up as effectively as a brick wall in stopping the development of this relationship in its tracks. Televinita out. #breakingupwithCSI #I reject your canon and substitute my own Thursday: Post-Essay Messiness Oops. Reading my old reviews because I can't remember GSR's chronology off the top of my head, and...there is no way I'm letting anyone use this as justification for being in character, but this conversation does seem sort of relevant all over again. "Sooner or later a relationship in stasis withers. You get angry. You need more than the safety of knowing that you're not alone." "Then he should've just walked away." "Well, maybe he couldn't. Maybe he needed her to leave him." Apparently I also got kind of angry in the early part of season 9 when Sara left again, and may have threatened to break up with this show at that time? *chagrined look* But 2008 Me seems to have still accepted this as a possible, if highly undesirable, turn for the couple. What changed? And am I crazy, or is it possible to decide neither of the times Sara left were actual breakups as opposed to pause buttons? Oh, that's right. What changed is they got married. I repeat, when it comes to long-running couples on TV, wedding bands are as much a promise to the audience as they are to the people involved. You put a ring on it after proper courtship, that's a universally accepted sign for "you win: permanent freedom from being jerked around for Drama/Conflict/ratings."

[tearsofahime]

hi I saw your post about your writing and I checked out ao3 and while other writers may have better technique or flow or w/e, what I read made me smile? Your writing has a lot of heart to it, and I think that that's the most important thing in a fic. I read and write fics for the emotions they pull out of me, and the best-written fic is useless if it doesn't make me feel something. //too scared to send this off anon lol oops anyway you don't need to answer this just wanted you to see it ^^;;;

I mean, thank you. I appreciate you taking the time and energy to write this message to me. I'm glad that you like them. Although I'm afraid that does little in helping me rid myself of my insecurities in my writing. Lately I feel like it's lacking whatever smoothness and flow in execution and style compared to that of the more popular authors on AO3 and it makes me feel really gross that i just can't seem to improve or even know WHAT or HOW to improve?? I mean I've even once found out a couple months ago that someone did a mocking live tweet on twitter of one of my fics and it still stings to this day just remembering it even though the tweets with the evidence have long since been buried in an archive under months of other tweets and meanwhile i was so boring as an RP-er that few people wanted to interact with my haru blog and the ones that did ALWAYS dropped our threads after two replies so eventually i closed it down.I remember i used to actually find a sense of joy and satisfaction and even a sense of community from writing fic but lately I just feel like it's more of a painful almost-chore now because these stories used to mean something and i keep writing because hate leaving things unfinished but at the same time i know they would have been better appreciated on a bigger scale had someone else written them and it's gotten to the point now where it almost feels... numb if not painful when i read other people's works of my fave characters/ships/fandoms because they seem like they're doing it so much better than me. And i know for a fact that's not supposed to happen, those were supposed ro make me happy. And i know this negativity is no way to feel about such things and i wish i could stop it but i just can't apparently. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get this depressing and ranty especially since I know you were just trying to help, Anon. I guess my state is really not helped by the 2 am depression feels and the exhaustion from cramming for a test I don't want to take lmao.