#i just like stats and i like learning about differences between countries

[masterbaiting]

has anyone done a poll for where six idiots tumblr fans are from..

[dionisms]

[ yuyu kitamura, demigirl, she / them ] — whoa! IZUMI TANAKA just stole my cab! not cool, but maybe they needed it more. they have lived in the city for SEVEN YEARS, working as a GRAD STUDENT / PART TIME WORKER @ COVER TO COVER . that can’t be easy, especially at only TWENTY FIVE. some people say they can be a little bit PEDANTIC and CONCERNED, but i know them to be METICULOUS and ATTENTIVE. whatever. i guess i’ll catch the next cab. hope they like the ride back to BROOKLYN!

STATS

character name: izumi tanaka / nicknames: izzy, mimi / place of birth: nyc, usa / birthday: september 10th / sexuality: panromantic pansexual /gender identity: demi-girl ( she or them ) / zodiac: virgo / mbti: intj / occupation: graduate student of linguistics, part time worker at cover to cover / languages: japanese, english, latin, spanish, french, german, arabic, persian / moral alignment: lawful good / love language: acts of service

BIOGRAPHY

izumi is born as the middle child in a family of overachievers. her father's a finance analyst at a skyscraper somewhere, and her mother's a surgeon. they are impossible to impress, and it takes a while for izumi to realize she does not have to strive to do that, she does not have to for that unachievable goal. at the end of the day, it's clear it will only make her unhappy. albeit their parents are working for most hours of the day ( and night ) the tanaka siblings grow up in a somewhat peaceful and pleasant household. as it is common between siblings, there are screaming matches and spats every once in a while, and it's usually izumi who tries to find the balance in between them. they grow up, and izumi finds her passion in languages. it's her favorite thing about new york, the fact that there are so many people from so many countries. she first realizes her talent with it when speaking with one of their neighbors. she picks up spanish from an old lady who finds her very well-behaved, and cooks for her every once in a while. during high school, she takes as many electives as she can, and joins other language courses. it's clear that she will apply for a linguistics major, and does her best to keep her gpa high. applies to many colleges throughout the country, and is over the moon when she gets into nyu. however, unlike her other siblings, she does not get a full ride, and while her parents are ready to help — she wants to pay them back eventually. university life is different, though it's also a space where she grows and becomes her own person. moving to a flat with a roommate, she learns how to stand on her own two feet. gets close to her professors, and they encourage her to pursue an academic career. after graduating, she gets into grad school. it's difficult to juggle while also working, but izumi wouldn't change it for the world. when it comes to her personality, she is pedantic. usually gets stuck in the details, which helps a lot in her studies, but not so much in real life. super careful, and calculative, the type of person who wants to know exactly the itinerary of a day before going out to meet someone to hang out. she has been trying to cut loose, but it's sometimes a challenge. she loves expressing herself through fashion and clothes, and can be found wearing color-coded outfits depending on the day. cheerful, but can get stuck in her head when something does not go according to plan.

IDEAS

- siblings! (will be putting up wcs, but feel free to hit me up hehe) - childhood friends / enemies / etc - high school friends / enemies / etc - ppl who also went / is going to nyu! might have had some classes together, or maybe they still study there? - other ppl who also pursue an academic career, and they do study sessions (and cry) tgt - she works at cover to cover part time, so any regulars there would be interesting - they go to the same café, and strike up a conversation one day

[joycrispy]

So I've mentioned before that I've had a lot of arts n' crafts small creative projects on the go (and a few not-so-small ones, but that's another post), and I just kinda felt like talking about 3 of them.

SO I WILL.

1. Bookbinding

This is more of an ongoing learning process than any one particular book I'm binding --but the process is going very well. Pictured here is the latest attempt, and my most ambitious attempt in that it was mostly me going, 'huh, I wonder if that would work' and dicking around until I got some sort of result.

(Example: I dyed that cover black. Did not know if it would work. It...kinda does? Further testing required.)

The final book is far from perfect, but I'm actually very happy with it. It's like a prototype of the kind of book I've been wanting to make all along, the whole reason I picked up bookbinding. Old fashioned tomes are the goal here.

More on that in a bit.

2. DnD Character Journals

At the moment I am in three different ongoing campaigns (including one I'd been playing in for two years before Covid happened, now picked back up again, and another which is a sequel to a previously completed campaign. Exciting stuff. The third is a character I usually reserve for one-shots, but she got a whole campaign this time. Good for her!), and I have completed journals for two out of my three characters.

(If you don't know what a character journal is: it's basically just a Character Sheet, but way more extra and ~Aesthetic. Sort of a functional gaming scrapbook. I also design mine to make the game as accessible as possible to my very ADHD brain. I highly recommend it, as a practice).

Pictured here is the main stat page for my monk, Wormwood, who just reached level 5.

Speaking of DnD...

3. Campaign Journal

So anyone who has played with me knows that I take EXTREMELY DETAILED NOTES, but this time around I'm taking the notes, immediately converting them into readable prose recountings (as opposed to fast n' easy notetaker's shorthand, which only makes sense to me), and then sharing them as an editable Google document with the group. They can add anything I missed, or flesh out details I skimmed over, add their character's POV of a scene, or whatever they like!

(This also has the neat side-effect of generating material for the DM's World Anvil, which is nice. He's free to pick and choose what he wants, or ask me to write an article for him, etc.)

This makes it very easy for the group to refresh their memories between sessions, but also, when the campaign is finished...there will be a very thorough record of it.

Last year I had the thought that, with the way I take my notes, I could easily print out a campaign journal and bind it as a physical book, and then have that as a memento/give it as a gift to the other players.

That's an exceptional amount of work to do AFTER the fact, but doing it one session at a time, as they happen...that's very doable.

I mean. People bind novel-length fanfiction for their own personal collections. There's no reason I shouldn't bind a novel-length campaign, lol.

And I can personalize each book to each player, as well! No, yeah, this is EXACTLY the kind of thing I love to contribute to a game. The group's excited, I'm excited, lots to look forward to, here.

I have other projects, including two large ones that are each going to take the better part of 2024, which slows all these little ones down...but I'm consistently whittling down the daily to-do list into something more manageable.

And work is nice right now because my main job atm is something I'm really, really good at...

(charity fundraising: my location is 1st in the district and 7th in the country for donations, and almost a third of those donations were made through me. I'm very, very good at this part of my job)

(I tend to be good at things I care about --ADHD, like I say-- and our partner charity benefits local queer and disabled kids who need shelter and support, so, YES, I CARE ABOUT THAT)

...so it makes the days pass quickly and peacefully. I get to come home in a good mood to all my little arts n' crafts. It's been very fun.

I'm glad I have time to be on tumblr again, though.

[suzy-queued]

Artist Interview

Happy Boxing Day! I was tagged by @you-are-so-much-better-than-that in this artist interview.

1. Do you post on AO3? If so, how many works do you have on AO3? If not, where do you post?

I do post on AO3 as Suzy_Queue. I have two art galleries there, one for general art and one for Kinktober 2022.

2. What is your total art count?

If you count art done for other people's stories, headers for my own stories, and Gallacrafts pieces, it's around 150.

3. What are your top 5 pieces by likes/kudos?

I use this cool website to get my full Tumblr stats. According to them:

4. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes! Although I'm not the fastest at it.

5. What is your current fandom, and what was the first fandom you drew for?

Currently, it's Gallavich all the way. The first fandom I remember drawing for was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, making my own comics. (they were 7th-grade-girl bad).

6. Have you ever received hate on any art?

Nope, people are very supportive, even on pieces that I know aren't that great.

7. What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t drawn for yet but want to?

I can't really think of any.

8. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

The one that has lived in my brain for the longest part of my life is Han/Leia.

9. Do you draw outside of fandom?

Yeah! I was an art major in college. I've been a professional artist for 20 years and have created art for book covers, movie posters, album covers, logos. I go to figure drawing sessions at a local art school and am in a nature journaling group. I've displayed my horror art at conventions around the country.

10. What’s the an art piece you’ve drawn that came out completely differently than you expected?

This was the first piece I ever drew on a tablet with a pressure-sensitive pen. It was an experiment to learn the tools. I had no idea how it would look, and it turned out all right.

11. Do you draw smut?

Yep! There's some smut in this gallery.

12. Have you ever had any of your art stolen or copied?

Not that I know of.

13. Have you ever collaborated on a piece?

I've created art for stories working with the author, but I've never co-drawn a piece of art. Unless you count playing Exquisite Corpse with my children.

14. What’s an idea you have that you have yet to draw?

Oh, I have a lot. The one I think about most is a picture of Ian and Mickey in a lineup at jail, looking disheveled, hung over, and completely in love.

15. What are your drawing strengths?

I like my compositions a lot, the flow of items throughout the picture. I feel like I'm good at drawing what I see in a realistic way, whether it's a photo or real life.

16. What are your drawing weaknesses?

Drawing from memory/imagination. I have to have reference photos of what I'm doing or I go off the rails. I need to develop more trust in my own style and lean into weird proportions and my own skewed vision.

17. What’s your favorite art piece you’ve drawn?

I'm quite partial to this book cover art I did. It's spray paint, pastel, and acrylic. It's about 4 feet tall.

18. What is one thing you’d like to tell people about your art that they might not know?

Just because I've been doing it for a while doesn't mean I'm not still learning every day.

19. What inspires or motivates you to create for fandom?

I have a lot of emotional energy churning below the surface. Creating art and fics helps get it out. It's a much more positive outlet than letting it brew.

20. And finally, can you describe your process a little? Do you have a favorite place to draw? Do you play something in the background? Do you do research or just go for it? Give us a little insight.

I have a basement office where I write and draw. I bought a new table this year which I absolutely love. I do most of my creative work between 9-11 pm after the rest of my family has gone to bed. I do love music and play it a lot while I draw.

I research a ton. I spend a lot of time making photo compositions for every piece I draw, which are collages of body parts and other images.

Thank you so much for the tag for this interview!

[the-fangirl-diaries]

92 Thoughts I Had While Watching: A Royal Affair (2012)

Guess I’m learning Danish now. 

I have a bad feeling about this ending. 

Been engaged since she was a child, eh? 

Oh, some of it’s in English. 

Hiding behind a tree? How old are you, 12? 

A little socially awkward, but he’s trying, I guess. 

Isn’t he your cousin? 

The town’s a bit of a fixer upper. 

Aww, doggo! Doggos make everything better. 

Oh, no. Politicians. 

Okay, apparently she’s the Queen Dowager. 

Books under Danish censorship? Guess I’d better throw mine out. 

Girl! You’ve barely known him for a day! 

And she plays piano, too? I say she’s a keeper. 

What? You don’t like it?! 

“Move your fat little thighs?” ~ An actual quote. 

“Oh, so you humiliate me and now you wanna--?” ~ Caroline, probably. 

And next thing you know, he’s with someone else. Figures. 

And she’s pregnant. 

“A true queen delivers with silence and dignity.” ~ An actual quote. 

“ARE YOU PUSHING THIS BABY OUT? I DON’T THINK SO!” ~ Caroline, definitely. 

Wait, as soon as she gives birth, you leave for a year? Nice. *eye roll* 

Apparently believing in equal rights is wrong. 

You don't need a doctor, eh? Good sir. Your mood swings say otherwise. 

How to earn my trust and friendship: quote books.

Yes, make sure the dog is taken care of. 

The dress she's wearing looks like Elizabeth Swann's. 

“You want them to cheer or you'll jump in the canal? Okay, who's stopping ya?” ~ Johann, maybe. 

The king published a poem about the size of someone's derriere? M’kay. 

Look, in his defence, I'd be crazy signing papers all day, too. 

Hi. The only word I understood.

Taking a detour, are we, your majesty? 

She's not your mother! If she were, she would slap you.

Fencing? This just got interesting. 

Forget Grey’s Anatomy. There’s a hot doctor right here. 

Yes, my mood definitely needs improving. *wink wink* 

And you share a love of books and travelling the world? Soulmates! 

That awkward moment when you take your patient riding in the country air and you see a dead man on a wooden horse. 

I think if an expert in the field suggests something, like, say, a cure for a deadly disease, you'd do well to hear him out. 

So the cure worked and you need to administer it in hospitals but you're all worried about money? 

Sitting on a bench together unchaperoned while talking about life. Very romantic. 

‘Two bros, one in a bathtub, and one sitting down, cause they're not gay.’

You don't want your town smelling like waste? Seems like a good law. 

Making doggo an honorary member of the council? Again, good idea. 

Boy, I wish they still had balls and galas nowadays. 

The. Flirting!! The. Eye. Contact. 

They were worried about the age difference. Where is it? I don’t see one. 

She wants you to come to her chambers? For what – oh. OH!!! 

Wow, that was…. okay. I need some water, stat! 

They want Smallpox inoculation? Carriages to drive people who've had too much to drink? A home for orphaned children? Better treatment for peasants? Honestly, these are perfectly reasonable laws, so why are the council rejecting them?

 Of course they want to conspire against the doctor because he has good ideas and because he's German? I didn’t think that sort of thing started for a few more centuries. 

 Yes! Good for you for standing up for yourself and your friend. 

Um, you're just gonna smell the sheets? Not what I would do, but sure, whatever. 

A new TLC show: I'm Pregnant With the King's Physician's Baby. 

Hide the evidence by sleeping with him. Good plan, other than he doesn't like sleeping with her because of….er…issues. 

Hey, Alexa: Play Tango de Roxanne. 

Oh, so there is a problem with money. I thought it was an excuse. 

Of course the Dowager thinks something's up. And of course the maid who smelled the sheets is going to tell on them. 

Baby's coming!!! 

“We’re a family now.” ~ Caroline, actually. 

*Hits stop* Aww, what a great movie! Time to --

Oh, no. There’s more. *sighs and sits down again.* 

No one’s gonna take the child. This isn’t The Light Between Oceans. 

Yes, Your Majesty, you should stay in the castle until the fire dies down. 

A little boy who escaped a Dutch Trade ship? I forgot it was this time. 

The people are suggesting he’s poisoning the king? What do they know? 

Poor woman hasn’t slept in days, but 

Awww, he’s going to take care of her. 

ALRIGHT, I SEE THE MADS APPEAL NOW! 

YOU TOOK A BLOOD SAMPLE OF HIS - UH, YOUR DAUGHTER? 

YES! Protective Mama Bear mode activated!! 

Family dinner, yay. 

So we’re all hugs now? Great. 

Lady, you’re taking this way out of hand. 

Now everyone wants Johann dead? *groans*

The king may be immature, but he won’t betray his friend. 

Don’t listen to them, no one’s planning on murdering you! 

Hold on, Isn’t that Johann’s friend who’s telling him? 

Yes, come bang on the door and scare the baby, why don’t ya? 

Caroline crying makes me wanna give her a hug. 

She’ll never see her son again? 

So torturing a man for days will get you the answers? 

The king wants to pardon you. 

PLEASE LET THIS ENDING BE HAPPY! 

Or not. *cue ugly crying*

EXCUSE ME! DID YOU JUST CALL THE BOY THE ‘N’ WORD?! 

Have I ever told you how much I wanna slap you? 

What do you mean you’ll see her again soon? 

GREAT, SHE’S DYING, TOO! *More crying* 

The son inherited his father’s temper? Oh, goodie. 

Then again, he was old enough to remember what happened, so I guess I can’t blame him for being angry and hurt. 

The laws were reinstated? Good. 

Well, that certainly was a roller coaster! Probably should have stuck with the happy ending, but I was feeling bold today. Bad decision, me thinks.

[ontheroadrp]

GOOD TO SEE YOU AGAIN, VICTORIA KELLY (ryan destiny fc)  

life on the road can be tough, but we’re glad you and yours made it to taos!

[RYAN DESTINY, CISFEMALE, SHE/HER] ever heard about [VICTORIA KELLY]? Out here on the road, they have a reputation of being [PRAGMATIC, ORGANIZED] but also [STUBBORN, ANXIOUS], no wonder they’re called [THE RUBBER EINSTEIN]. According to local legend, they’re [TWENTY-TWO] and when they pull up to camp not a soul can mistake the sound of [THAT GIRL - STEVIE WONDER] following them. Some say they carry [HER HIGH SCHOOL YEARBOOK, HER READING GLASSES, HER COLLECTION OF LEGOS] and have been traveling with [THE UNDESIRABLES]. [herman, 23, he/him, est]

biography

Victoria Kelly grew up in SoCal desert military town, with her dad being a marine veteran and her mom working as a kindergarten teacher. It became clear rather early on that little Vickie was more interested in STEM than barbie dolls. She wasn’t very talkative, but when she did speak…it was usually to ask a question about why things were the way they were. This combination of inquisition and application landed her in every honors program available from a very young age. Nobody said it out loud…but everyone in her hometown seemed to be rooting for her. Grown adults with dead end jobs, her peers, her parents. Everyone seemed to believe that if anybody deserved to make it out of the desert, it was Victoria. 

She definitely acted like it. Victoria’s posh attitude and matter of fact way of speaking became her signature. As such…she had few true friends growing up. Admirers…academic rivals…plenty of those. But she usually ended up eating her lunch with her favorite teachers. 

University marked a sizeable roadblock in Victoria’s life. She was a first generation college student, with high hopes of being the first person from the high desert to really make something of themselves. But those first two years presented so many challenges. Professors who spoke to her like she was only in school to find a husband. Roommates who didn’t respect her boundaries or study schedules. But most importantly…the structure of university was so different from what she’d come to love about academia. As someone who loved learning, and wanted to be knowledgable about as much as possible…there was no major that truly encompassed all of her interests. That didn’t bore her. She didn’t want to be one of those people who went to school and did nothing with her degree…but she didn’t want to dedicate herself to a specific branch and eventually burn out. The possibility of wasting her time or dissappointing her family plagued her just as much as the environment did. Her fear of the future made her studies jumble on the page. She began to lose the focus and interest in learning that had carried her through life. 

When Victoria’s grades began to drop, she started to gauge her options. Going back home with her tail between her legs was absolutely not an option. There wasn’t much of a home for her to return to anyway. Her parents divorced the year she left for college. Pushing their “golden child” to greatness seemed to be the only thing holding them together. They lived on opposite sides of the country now. At the end of her sophomore year, after exams…she didn’t think. She just got in her car and started driving, holding back tears in her eyes. I guess she hasn’t really stopped. Somewhere along the way she exchanged the tears for connections. She exchanged the guilt for adventure. Victoria grew up a stickler for rules and expectations…but being on the road has taught her the value of keeping things open and free. 

stats

Please distribute up to fifty points among the following stats! Click here for more detailed instructions on stats.

Athletics: -3

Burglary: -1

Contacts: 2

Crafts (Sewing, mending, basket making, weaving, etc. etc.): 0

Deceive: 0

Drive (like, actual driving ability): 1

Empathy: 1

Fight: -3

Investigate: 3

Lore (Kinda like knowledge): 3

Navigation: 3

Notice: 2

Physique: 1

Provoke: 0

Rapport: 1

Resourcefulness: 2

Stealth: -1

Will: 2

extras

I don’t really have anything SUPER snazzy because i don’t wanna hold up the app process. But here are some fun headcanons about Vic’s suitcase!

Even on the road, Victoria has kept to her necessity of being organized. She doesn’t travel with much, but her suitcase being stocked neatly is something that brings her joy every morning and every night. 

She carries a week’s worth of outfits, most of which include her favorite pair of hand-me-down jeans (she was so excited to snatch them from her mom when she could finally fit them). Everything else in her wardrobe is constantly swapped out at any thrift store she happens to pass on the road. She loves men’s button-ups and any other clothes that make her tiny frame take up a bit more space. But overall she would describe her fashion sense as preppy feminist. One of the only classes in school that she remembers really being impressed by was her first Women and Gender Studies class, she loves the idea of defying gender expectations…that definitely shows up in the types of clothes she wears. 

Her high school yearbook is stashed away, right next to her journal and whichever book she is currently reading. She loves being reflective and memories from her senior year of school really scratch that itch for her! It was the year she realized she likely owuldn’t see many of her classmates again…and the only year she actually made an effort to make friends. The socialization she encountered that year (dances, powderpuff games, movie nights) serve as the roadmap Victoria uses today to navigate meeting new people in the wild. Regardless of IQ level…she knows human connection is invaluable (even if she’d prefer otherwise). She learned that from those crazy desert babies. 

The heaviest and most spacetaking feature of her suitcase is her growing collection of legos. The only toy that sparked joy for her in her childhood. She loved building grand things out of insignificant things. Countless science projects throughout her school experience relied on legos. She usually keeps a few in her pocket to fiddle with on long drives or social interactions she’d rather not be a part of. 

[thegreatstoryteller]

The Great Shift: 4th of July

The Great Shift a lot of countries differently. However, nothing could dampen the experience of Americans celebrating their Independence Day! Whether they are born and raised in the USA or a first generation trying their hand at the land of the free, the American spirit persist even in the strangest of scenarios.

Mario (Long Island, New York)

I can’t fucking believe it! All my life I’d dreamed of stepping up to the plate and playing ball! My old man said I was too much of a fat ass to do much more than work for the family when I got older. Something about having more cannolis than brains! But look who is laughing now! I guess I should start over. My names Mario Anatolli. Born in Long Island just off the coast of New York for you out of towners, 19 years ago. My family has been here for a long time, and sorta got into organized crime real early. Most guys in my family end up working for some shithead or dead, but not me. I had bigger dreams. Traveling places, meeting people, and most of all baseball! I memorized player stats, trivia, and dreamed of playing in Yankee Stadium one day. Then out of no where the Great Shift happened.

I ended up swapping bodies with this guy out in Miami during Spring Training! He was on the Miami Dolphins or I guess I am now. Turns out a bunch of nobodies who don’t know how to play baseball kind of ruin a team. Except me! I was the most knowledgeable guy on the team with one hell of a body! I’m about 5 inches taller with abs now! Not to mention handsome as hell! I’ve got guys and girls lining up for my autograph and my number! I’ll be doing a homecoming to Yankee Stadium soon, hopefully have time to catch up with the folks! I hear dad’s now in some accountants body being bullied by mom who is this handsome bouncer now. Times sure are changing! Hope they’re proud of the man their boy became!

Do-yun (Los Angeles, California)

I have to admit. I wasn’t used to swimming before the Great Shift and now I can’t get enough of it. As a first generation Korean immigrant to the states, I have to say it was hard settling down into such a new environment. Not a lot of places to go where people looked like me, bits of open discrimination because of my basic behavior, and even outward hostility at times. But I made the best of what I could. I even founded a Korean American community center that helped teach people English! That’s where I met my wife and we were lucky to have two beautiful boys. My wife works as a nurse at the nearby hospital and my youngest just graduated high school about to attend Stanford! While my oldest was studying art abroad in Paris!

Then the great shift happened. Going from a father in his 40s to a 22 year old fitness influencer was another huge adjustment to say the least. Only this time all the changes were a lot easier this time around. People wanted my attention a lot more for pictures and asked if I could be in their Tik Toks. I’ve always been good at adapting so now I’m embracing my new social media life! My sons have shifted to guys closer to my own age and so has my wife! To our surprise we ended up in Los Angeles, where we are now living in what  a lot of people are calling an Influencer House. I’m still picking up on the lingo for this younger generation. We’ve got a more interesting family dynamic for sure, but our family will learn to live with these changes and come out stronger together! Not to mention my wife is a lot more... active in her new male fitness vlogger form. I love this country. 

Dakota - Cedar Rapids, Iowa

It’s so wild being this tall! I’ve always been a bit small, growing up in the less developed and more rural areas around Iowa. My family like to move around a lot as my dad worked some odd jobs here and there between some seasonal labor stuff, but he always managed to put food on the table. We come from a mixed background! My dad is Caucasian and Black, while my mom is part Native American and Mexican! My brothers and sisters all kinda look different with me as the youngest, being the smallest. I guess that’s what inspired me to work the way I did. Tried to make my way through college studying agriculture and managed to buy a small farm that I used to grow up near. I was really starting to make some good progress when the Great Shift happened.

I found myself in such a huge body! I’m 6′9 now! Apparently this Austrian bodybuilder is pretty big online, no pun intended! My new name was Ike and I couldn’t help but admire my massive frame as soon as I realized I wasn’t dreaming. Everything from my long strong arms to my powerful sturdy legs were just so enticing! Even my huge size 17 feet were just the absolute best! Anyway I digress. Turns out modeling, acting, and sponsorships are a good way to fund a farm and pay off your student debts! So I’ve been running multiple small gigs trying to capitalize off my good looks to save up for a good cause!

Luke - Ann Arbor, Michigan

I was an older soul, pulled out of retirement during The Great Shift. Former Army Medic, who thought his best days were behind me when the world began to spin and I found myself in this handsome young man. To go from an ailing man in your 70s to a fit male model of a man in his 30s is such a rush. Many thing don’t work like you expect them to at my age and now everything about my body felt... sensitive. Not to mention becoming a whole nother race is an experience in itself.

Unfortunately I didn’t have time to confront my personal surprise or shock. I realized I had been taken to a hospital in the midst of a world wide body swap. Countless people were coming in for days with injuries and illnesses that I hadn’t been trained on in years. But I did what I could. There was a severe lack of medical professionals in the area and I was people’s best bet at survival! I managed to reset dislocated shoulders, put broken arms in casts, and learned to do invasive surgery in a few days!

My most important job though was telling people about their new medical history and keeping them informed. A surprising amount of men in men’s body knew very little about healthcare outside of their immediate body. Teaching people about their new allergies, physical limitations, and even some who now could get pregnant or required abortions, all of it was a learning experience for me as much as them sometimes. I’m happy to be in good health right now and I’m lucky to be able to share what I know with the people who need it. I hope everyone has a safe Independence Day today! Cherish the body you’re in and use it well!

[miekasa]

speaking of college boys, what do the college au aot babies study??

Okay, okay, I think I’ve talked about this in an ask before but I can’t find it 😭😭 but it’s okay, I love college aus, so I’ll talk about it again! Plus, now I’ve got more thoughts for more characters, so here we go

Levi — neuroscience and psychology of human behavior

He started out on track to do a bachelor of arts in psychology, but when they touched on the anatomy and biological parts of it during his first year lecture, he switched to a bachelor of science.

The focus is still psychology, but through a more clinical lens. Essentially, he gets the best of both worlds this way. He’s intuitive and analytical, so clinical and mental diagnosis is easy to dissect for him. He’s also canonically good at math, so the calculus and stats parts aren’t too bad, either.

This major also leaves him with a few options post-grad, which is a nice bonus for him. He’s likely going to medical school, but that’s not the only route open to him: law school, therapy, lab work, medicine and pharmacy, even teaching are all viable options without going to grad school.

Do not talk to him about Freud unless you wanna get punted off a building.

Be careful with him, because with a single glance he’s already got scarily accurate predictions about your parental and emotional attachment styles, your behavior in social settings, and the onset (or seemingly lack thereof) of your frontal lobe development.

He thinks he’s so smart making comments like, “I see those synaptic connections aren’t working so well for you today,” like mf come here let me lobotomize you and see how well your synaptic connects are working after that🙄

Eren — general health sciences

He’s interested in science and the discovery aspects of it, but picking a specific field of focus right now feels too final. He likes it this way, because his schedule and requirements are less restrictive, and he has more room to find out what really interests him.

He does best when he’s doing something he loves, so picking a major with a bunch of reqs that he couldn’t care less about would have sucked big time for him. It also would have affected his grades. There are still some classes he has to take that he’s not fond of (see: chemistry), but that’s to be expected. Science in general is cool to him and he hopes to make his own discovery some day, even if it’s microscopic.

He also plays a lot of sports, keeping his schedule flexible is important. The sports end up helping him excel academically, which is a nice bonus. Honestly, Eren uses his time at university to learn more about himself than anything, so having control and freedom to do what he likes the majority of the time was important to him. 

He uses his elective credits to take philosophy or history courses of his interest, or maybe even a course that you’re in just to spend time with you. He also uses you as a live model for his homework bye, congrats on being patient number one to him.

Armin — astronomy and physics

He’s still interested in marine biology, but unless he attended a school near a coast, or with a specialized integrated program for that, it’s unlikely he’d major in it during undergrad.

Space and ocean exploration aren’t all that different. Both are vast, largely unexplored domains that reel-in Armin’s interest for discovery. So, while studying astronomy, he still gets to study evolution and make his own predictions about what could be out there because there’s so much to know.

Physics comes with the territory of learning about planetary science, and he’s mathematically inclined, so it works out for him. Learning about the different physical properties of other planets and space masses is honestly pretty sick to him. Because math isn’t a struggle, he actually considered aeronautical engineering, but he didn’t want to be a part of the college to military pipeline; that is, he didn’t want any potential design of his to be weaponized. 

He still gets to study animal biology through his elective courses, and might even find a few focused on marine animals to satiate him. Plant and cell biology are also of interest to him, and are just further applications of his primary study anyway, so he’s got plenty of room to work with.

This boy is interning at NASA and still, with his whole chest out is like, “I don’t need to discover a new planet, you’re my whole world.” Armin, go check on the Mars rover or something please.

Mikasa — anthropology + minor in japanese language studies

Anthropology is virtually interdisciplinary in nature, and Mikasa is a pretty well rounded student, so she’s able to excel in a program like this. She gets to study history, science, cultural studies, and even a bit of art all at once.

She’s still debating between going to law school vs med school, so anthro this is a good in-betweener. She gets a taste of science through her anatomy and kin courses; and lots of practice with reading and dissecting texts through the historical and cultural lectures. So, when the time comes to decide, she’ll have some experience with both.

Don’t know whether it’s confirmed that she’s (part) Japanese or not, but either way I headcanon that she speaks/spoke some second language at home. She wanted to delve more into it, and courses were offered at the university so why not?

Cultural studies courses end up being her favorite. She likes learning about the history of people and their cultures, and it encourages her to learn more about her own family history and culture. It also propels her to apply for a study abroad opportunity, so she spends at least one semester doing an exchange program and absolutely loves it.

She would also encourage you to apply and go, too. You guys might not be in the same program, but if there’s an applicable program in the same country she’s going to, then she’d definitely want you to apply. Spending the semester away with you would be a dream come true.

Hange — bioengineering + minor in political philosophy and law

It’s almost self-sabotage to be in an engineering program and have a minor; the coursework for engineering alone is backbreaking, and bioengineering has the added weight of human intricacies, but of course Hange makes it possible. 

They’re nothing short of a genius, so of course they have time to work a completely unrelated minor into their schedule. It doesn’t surprise anyone that they go on to complete an MD-PhD after undergrad. Insane. 

Bioengineering is essentially the synthesis of chemical engineering and health sciences; Hange spends their time exploring biological sciences and applies the engineering aspects of their coursework to their understanding of (and interest in creating) medicine. Truly a one of a kind mind. 

They also have an interest in philosophy and justice, so when they found out they only needed a measly nine or ten courses to minor in, they went for it, of course. In honesty, they don’t find the studies all that opposing: both law making and medicine making both have some kind of philosophy or method to them in their eyes. 

Hange has... little to no free time pls. They don’t mind it, because they love their coursework, but this means you are essentially ducking into their labs or scrambling to find them in-between their classes during your time in undergrad. They appreciate every second spent with you tho, and will gladly rope you into long discussions about their work. 

Jean — biochemistry + minor in art sustainability

He was undeclared his first year, and took a little bit of everything: art, science, history, anthropology, english. Basically, anything that fit into his schedule. It was hard for him to pick one thing—he liked the science and lab applications of STEM courses, but not the math; and the obvious painting and creativity of art, but hated the pretentious air about art history.

What he wants to do is make a difference, which is how he ends up knowing that he wants to go to med school after, so he picks a science-heavy major, but uses his elective spaces to take art courses. When he mixes the two, he ends up on sustainability—and the complexities about it that are applicable to both science and art are what really reels him in.

Interdisciplinary studies end up being his forte. He can approach sustainability from a science perspective which impacts his art style and materials; and tuning into his creative side allows him to think about science not just from a purely clinical perspective, but from a human one, too—patients are people after all.

He believes that everything is connected somehow, even things as seemingly opposite as art and biochemistry. And he works towards finding the unique intersection where everything overlaps. His studies are pretty cool, and he’s very passionate about them, so ask him about it 😌

The art he makes is pretty sick, too, and often commentary about science; he’s proving they’re not so opposite. You also heavily influence his studies in both areas: caring about you so much inspires him to take the healthcare focus seriously, and your very nature is inspiration to his art. 

Sasha — nursing

She’s friendly and good at working with people, so nursing was an easy choice for her. She accredits most of her motivation to being around her younger family members, and learns that she finds a simple kind of joy in helping to take care of others.

She struggles a bit her first year when it’s mostly all grades and standardized testing, but when she starts getting clinical experience and working in the hospital on campus, things round out for her.

Patient care is her strongest point. A lot of people often forget that knowing everything isn’t everything; if you don’t know how to calm or even just talk to your patient, you’re not that great of a healthcare professional.

Pretty certain that she wants to work with kids in the future, but she’s open to public health and even being a travel nurse if she finds opportunity there!

Of course, she’s pretty doting when it comes to you and all her friends. She might want to go into pediatrics, but the basics of nursing and health care extend to everyone, so you’re guaranteed to be well taken care of with Sasha around. You might even have to switch roles and take care of her sometimes, because her coursework can get pretty out of hand.

Connie — computer engineering with a focus on game design

He might not look it, but Connie has a brain under that shaved head of his. Computer engineering is cool to him because he basically learns about how simple things he uses every day (ie: phone, computer, microwave) works.

Systems and coding are actually the easy part for him, especially when they get into the application of it and aren’t just stuck looking at examples. That’s how he gets into game design.

The part about math and electricity and magnetic fields… well let’s just say he needed to make friends with someone who likes math and hardware his first year to get through it. But the struggle was worth it, because by his junior year he’s found a professor willing to mentor/supervise him as he works on his game and other projects, so life is good.

His school work is definitely hard, which is why the lives by the mantra of “work hard, party harder.” It’s only fair. 

He makes you a little avatar so you can test out his games for him <33 best boyfriend things <33 He’d also… build a game about your relationship. Every level is a different date you guys went on, and he definitely includes something cheesy, like “There are unlimited lives because I love you forever babe <3”

Porco — kinesiology + maybe mechanical engineering

He’s pretty into athletics and working out, but didn’t wanna go down the sports psychology route; he wanted something that left him with a few more options, so he ended up in kinesiology.

He was surprisingly pretty good at biology in high school, so something stem-oriented works out in his favor, and it turns out he’s pretty damn good at anatomy, too. He’ll probably end up in physical therapy after graduation.

He’s also got a knack for cars, which is where the engineering comes in, but he doesn’t care so much for the math part of it (he doesn’t care for it at all actually, fuck that); he just wants the hands on experience of building/fixing things and working with his hands. So, if he can get a minor in it and not struggle through 4 years of math, then he’d do that. If not, he’d take a few workshop-like classes.

Because he wants to go into physical therapy, you are essentially his practice patient. Your back hurts? Not a problem, he’s basically a professional masseuse. Muscle aches? He’s got a remedy and understanding of why it’s happening. Don’t let him catch you hunting over your desk grinding away at your homework, because he will poke your neck and correct your posture (he’ll also massage your shoulders, but after the scolding).

Pieck — classics + minor in philosophy

Ancient studies interest her, but more than that, the language of ancient Greek and Roman culture fascinates her, so classics is the way to go.

Because her focus within Classics ends up being Greek and Latin language studies, she is essentially learning both languages at the same time. She gets farther with Latin that she does with Greek. For whatever reason, the former comes almost naturally to her, so her written and translated work is more complex in Latin.

However, she finds cultural studies relation to Greece more interesting than that of Rome, so it’s a give and take with both; better at languages for Roman studies, better at culture and history for Greek studies.

Her minor is a natural evolution from her primary coursework. Ancient Romans and Greeks set the foundation for a lot of modern day philosophy, so it comes up in her major classes, but she wanted to delve further into the philosophy, and not just look at it historically, so she takes more courses to fulfill the minor.

Can be found laying on a blanket in the quad on a hot day, with her books spread out all around her, highlighter in hand as she works through her reading. You’re always invited to sit with her, and more often than not, it ends up with Pieck’s head in your lap, a book in her hands, and your own schoolwork in yours as you both read in each other’s company.

Bertholdt — computer science and coding

He’s level headed, good at planning, and above all, patient, so he’s cut out for this. He doesn’t consider himself to be particularly creative, which is why he doesn’t pick a speciality with lots of design; but he’s good at streamlining and ideas to life.

The patience really comes in when his code doesn’t run. It’s frustrating to scroll for two hours just to find out that the issue is a missing semi-colon in line 273 that he overlooked, but Berty will sit there until he finds it.

He’s also good at fixing issues. That’s not limited to issues in the code itself; it can mean finding shorter ways to produce the same function or loop, or integrating new aspects into existing code.

Also, he’d just be so cute, coding away on his computer. Just imagine: Berty working on his homework in the library, he’s got his signature crewneck + collared shirt look going for him, his blue-light glasses, a cup of coffee nearly as tall as him sitting at the corner of his desk. Adorable.

He’d make little codes/programs for you, too, even if it’s silly. A simple code that helps you decide what to eat for dinner or where to go on a date, one that shuffles different reminders for you, hell he’ll even forgo the torture of design engineering just to build you a little robot that says “I love you” to you.

Reiner — english + minor in justice & political philosophy

Everyone expects Reiner, star quarterback of the university’s rugby team, to be a business student or communications student; but no, he’s an English major, and he loves it.

Just imagine a guy as huge as Reiner absolutely manhandling someone on the field, just to show up in his lectures with a tiny paperback of The Great Gatsby tucked between his fingers with his reading glasses on. It’s so precious.

He’s always running a bit late to class—either coming from the gym, or practice, or oversleeping from exhaustion—but he’s so sweet to his professors and genuinely interested in the literature that they don’t give him a hard time about it. They can tell that balancing school and sports is difficult, and they just appreciate that he takes his studies seriously.

Yeah he’s in a book club and he dog-ears his books. What about it. They’re doing poetry this month and Reiner actually likes Edgar Allen Poe. Who said jocks can’t be sentimental.

He also reads a lot outside of his classes, and has a soft spot for coming of age stories. He usually empathizes with the main character somehow. His ideal weekend plans after a week of grueling games and essays is taking a long, relaxing shower at your place, while you both share a bottle of wine, and maybe even get you to read a chapter or two of his current book out loud to him.

Annie — clinical psychology/neuroscience

Almost scarily analytical and methodic, so this major was calling her name. Localizing brain legions is… insanely intuitive to her it’s incredible. She’ll be an insanely impressive doctor someday, even if she doesn’t end up working with patients directly. 

She doesn’t care too much for the more philosophical/reading heavy parts of psychology. Even experiments and research closer to the social end of the spectrum aren’t all that interesting to her; but the brain science behind it it.

Nobody should be good at cellular biology. Nobody should be able to ace cell bio and neuro and calc and work towards their thesis proposal in the same semester, but Annie proves it’s possible.

Ends up working in one of her professor’s labs by her junior year. She was offered three TA positions working with first year students, but she swiftly turned them down. Teaching isn’t her thing.

She doesn’t bring up her studies to you unprompted, but if you ask her about them she’ll explain it to you. Her notes are color coded and it’s super neat, and very cute; coloring them is somewhat relaxing for her. She usually saves the coloring part for when you guys study together; there’s extra comfort in doing it with you around.

[sourcd]

heyyy rolling in ( fashionably ) late to intro KANG JINSOL , i’m joy!! ( s/h )  & jinsol’s basically the former socialite around town that people either completely love or absolutely hate , there’s really no in between. while i don’t have her complete bio ready yet , i’ll include some key points to who she is & how she ended up in pelican town! p.s. disc is available upon request! 

full stats. biography. plots. pinterest. 

❃ ↷ ˊ-          pelican town is all abuzz about KANG JINSOL, our resident 25-year old EVENT PLANNER. you know, the one who looks like MOON GAYOUNG? i don’t see it, but maybe that’s just because they remind me of UNSENT POSTCARDS, THE TWILIGHT BETWEEN DAWN AND SUNRISE & HABITUAL SMILES every time i see them at STARDEW COFFEE SHOP. word around town is that they’re increasingly SELF - ASSURED and CHARISMATIC, but can get rather STUBBORN. hope to see them around the valley soon!

STATS

name : kang jinsol

date of birth : march 20th , 97

age : twenty five

gender : cis female 

pronouns : she/her

orientation : biromantic + bisexual

birthplace : berlin , germany

occupation : event planner + specializing in weddings

languages : korean , english , german

BACKGROUND cw includes infidelity and divorce 

❀  jinsol was born seven minutes before her twin brother, making her the first born of the kang family & the oldest sibling ( also making her the type of person to count down to the exact minute when debating differences in age. )

❀  she starts her life like it’s a competition, always trying to get perfect scores and earn the biggest rewards -- even when nobody else is trying quite as hard. her habits are brushed off as a cute quirk, but her mother notices how similar jinsol is to herself. after all, her mother feels way too young and way too driven to have to dedicate her whole life to taking care of twins. so soon enough her mother spends less time at home and more time at work, and eventually, in the arms of various lovers. 

❀  all is seemingly well until their eleventh birthday, when ( in jinsol’s mind ) the inevitable split happens and their mother prepares her children to move on without a second thought. the family spends two months in france, and then decides to try london, where stepdad #1 comes into the picture. the very start of a trend jinsol doesn’t care for. stepdad #1 is fine -- jinsol supposes. hard working, like her mother, but oh - so boring. perhaps ill - fated from the moment they moved in together, because the relationship only lasts a total of six months before they’re packing again.

❀  they bounce from country to country for a couple years, where they exchange unremarkable stepdad for another unfortunately unremarkable stepdad until the twins hit sixteen. for the first time in a while, the family officially becomes four again. this time the addition is a very wealthy business man ( her mother brags that he owns some department store or another ) and they settle down in seoul. it’s the year of firsts -- the first time jinsol puts down her cello and picks up a glass of champagne. the first time she tries dating and absolutely hates it. the first time she feels like she’s found purpose. 

❀  she spends her time mingling with socialites and finding her bearings in yet another foreign country. she learns to listen a little more carefully and smile a tad bit more, until she finds herself at the pinnacle of teenage success. she’s the one people go to for the gossip and the advice, until eventually they’re looking for tips on how to make their party better than the others. & jinsol absolutely revels in it. event planning is her calling -- and so, into university she goes all the while nurturing her budding career. 

❀  so how does she end up in pelican town? frankly, moving to a small town isn’t anything she expects nor is being in such a tiny town something that she’s used to. when she first arrives she calls it a “vacation.” as in, she has “business matters” to wrap up before she goes back to seoul, back to her home. the justification only starts to raise questions when one month turns into six and she’s still stuck in the town she claims not to care for. ( rumor has it , her business matters are more akin to family matters. idle gossip backed up by the claim that her mother was a pelican town native before leaving the town behind. ) 

PERSONALITY

—  you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. jinsol is saccharine words spilled from cherry lips & bubbly laughter at the smallest jokes. being nice is usually thought of as a courtesy, but she’s well versed in using it as a tactic. she has a certain charisma and people skills that make her relatively easy to talk to. you can find her making small talk about a business’s beginnings, or inviting people to group dates, and finding things to compliment. 

—  it’s not hard to open up to her when she makes it a habit to find the right things to say. though whether or not you should open up to her is a completely different beast. she’s nosy -- and bad with gossip. 

—  she also finds an immense joy in putting on weddings. god knows she doesn’t believe in love, or anything remotely close to it, but she loves to cash in on that sweet wedding money. her job in general is a high point for her & you can catch her volunteering for every and any event that she thinks she can add her own personal + professional touch to. 

—  not to mention ,,,,, she’s on the blunter side when it comes to delivering bad news or offering up conflicting opinions. not only a perfectionist, but a competitive one, she prioritizes her own thoughts and feelings above all else. ( sometimes she can be a little harsh. )

—  generally kinda annoying, though i’ll elaborate more during plots LOL 

CONNECTIONS

—  a confidant , alternatively somebody she can almost always be found gossiping with. somebody she can disclose all the juicy intel she gets & feels confident enough in to even discuss her own. seeing as they’d never tell ... right?

—  that one friend that’s in a near constant state of ??? when they talk to jinsol. they’re never quite sure the last time that she slept and are basically begging her to eat something besides greasy snacks and coffee. 

—  a coworker ! of sorts . . . maybe they own some type of business or have access to resources that jinsol would love to include in her events. 

—  a one sided love, perhaps? or somebody who finds it way too much fun to use cheesy pick up lines on her & watch her cringe. 

—  exes, ex flings, soured romances, whatever really. the girl has commitment issues ---- and they run deep ,,, rip. maybe their “relationship” wasn’t that serious or maybe it was, the bottom line is that it probably didn’t take too long for jinsol to jump ship entirely. ( & now she’s stuck awkwardly smiling at them whenever she’s in the line at jojamart. ) 

—  family connections ,, a sibling? a cousin? 

—  way more that i have yet to think of ,,, lol 

[angelasscribbles]

Polyamory, Cuckolding and More

I know that Riley entering a relationship with both men may seem unrealistic or be seen as a bit of wish fulfillment on the author’s part (I mean, yes, please). However, I would like to point out that polyamory exists and there are a good number of people happily living in poly relationships today. If we add to that the apparent complacently with the “Cordonian Arrangement” in canon, I don’t think it’s a far stretch. Roughly five percent of the American population are in poly, or consensual non monogamous, relationships. (And we all know that a lot of European countries are a lot more liberal about such things). These couples report a high level of relationship satisfaction. Here are some stats for you.

Interestingly, my research tells me that the most common arrangement seems to be between one woman and two men, just like what we have here with Liam, Riley and Drake. What they have is a V type relationship, with Riley being the point of V also known as the hinge. This would make Drake and Liam metamours, meaning they are both in a romantic/sexual relationship with the hinge, but not each other. This doesn’t mean they don’t have a relationship with each other, they do and in fact, I believe their already close emotional bond makes this work in the beginning and that being metamours has strengthened the original relationship. Here and here are some poly terms for anyone interested in learning more.

Now, let’s talk a little about the psychology behind these characters as I have written them. What makes it work. Compersion has been described as the opposite of jealousy. It is the happiness one feels when their partner is happy.

Feeling sexual arousal at the thought of your significant other with a different partner, or enjoying watching such, is a specific kink called cuckolding or cuck kink. Not all poly relationships have this element, but I’m including a link to information about it because it’s present in this story. In my mind, and my story, this is a very real thing for Drake as he watches Riley with Liam in public, unable to touch her until they are alone. Liam’s (pretty much canon) exhibitionism plays into that as well.

Also see hot wifing

Finally, polyamory isn’t all about who’s having sex with who, it’s about the relationship. All three of these characters love each other (Drake and Liam’s love for each other isn’t sexual, but it’s still love) and that love is what motivates them to work through the issues and come out on the other side, happy.

Regardless of if you would ever practice polyamory yourself, I hope you enjoy the story as I continue to diverge from canon (at least where the relationships are concerned) and delve into this lifestyle a little (or a lot).

[juantheashura]

Just Some Info! (Also, sorry for being late!)

So, just to begin with, I wanted to say that I'm still working on Chapter 5. It's a surprisingly complex beast, since I'm tracking a few more stats at once than I'm used to, and the chapter is also riddled with some hints of the future, variations on how those hints come to be, extra characterization for a bit of the cast, and the whole "skeleton" of a battle moving around it. It's a refreshing challenge, and I definitely enjoy it, but it's also a fair bit out of what I am used to (though in a different direction from Chapter 4, obviously). The chapter will also come with some extra additions based on the feedback I got for Chapter 4, like a bigger Seeker scene at the bar, an extra place to go to for those of you rebel heroes that don't like being in the League (:p), and a few expanded scenes near the end of the chapter.

I'd like to say the chapter will be done soon (like, middle of May at the latest), but I'm not 100% sure yet. I've been taking it a bit slow these past few days since I've come down with the seriously dreaded man-flu, but even if I didn't write anything in the main story, I tried to chip away at the Codex that will be included in the update. To serve as a bit of a 'teaser', I'll leave two of the new 'Civilian Profiles' I wrote, both of them about characters that I hope you guys want to learn more about. I also did some extra background lore, regarding Giga City's history, Japan's, and some outlook into modern Crete (that I assure you will have nothing to do with the story eventually, no siree), so if you guys would like to see those as well, just let me know. I'm trying to make up the wait for y'all however I can, so hell, I'll even whip out some character quotes if that's what you'd like. Just let me know what you'd like to see and I'll do it.

Anyhow, just click to read more below so you can see the profiles. For reference, these are all written by Nova, so if you feel they're not entirely objective, that's on purpose.

Mars, Presidential Bodyguard. Powers: Enhanced senses of sight and hearing, Thermoreception, Hyper-Awareness. Real Name: Matthew Williams. Age: 24. Profession: Personal Bodyguard.

Matthew is a perplexing existence. He's a powered person who works for someone that, at least on the outside, seems to detest powered people. He stands silently like a statue behind a man that seems poised to spout vitriol wherever he goes.

Some wonder why that's the case. While it's obvious why Stratton cannot get rid of him now - Matthew's powers make him the perfect bodyguard, able to react to any attack while it's still miles away - it's not obvious why Matthew does not take his leave of the man. It's mostly rumors, nothing concrete, but nevertheless reported that he's made friends with some members of the League of Heroes. He could very possibly find a home among them, if he so wanted, and it's a question why he has not chosen to do so.

Some have made their conclusions on the matter. On one aisle, we have those who think Matthew's service to Stratton is proof that he agrees with the sentiments shared by the President. 'He who serves a bigot is no less a bigot', they argue. The highly politicizing situation across the country doesn't lend itself to disprove this position, either. Stratton's actions, not only regarding those who are powered, but also regarding other minorities, has not endeared him to them. Matthew may not be a symbol of their movement, but those on this side of this argument see him as a supporting pillar, at the very least. On the other side, we have those who consider him an exemplar. No matter the attempts to squash it, rumors abound that the relationship between charge and bodyguard is… tense, to say the least. It may be behind closed doors, but there's a fair chance that Mr. Williams is subject to the same idiocy Stratton directs at the rest of his kind. The fact that he does his duty in spite of it is something worth respect, they claim. Matthew knows where his skills are most needed, and he puts them to use no matter what.

The truth of the matter is…

Not known, actually. Mars, as he is known to the media at large, doesn't entertain the line of questioning. Really, he seems almost dedicated to not talking about his personal life, and his lack of direct spotlight means nothing has been found. The only thing he's shared is that he comes from a working-class family.

As for the rest of his secrets, well… They're his to keep, it seems.

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

Marcus Gloria. Powers: None. Age: 34. Profession: Officer of the US Military (2008-2015), Vice President (2016-2020), Acting President (2020-)

"With Gloria to Glory."

Much can be said about the man standing in the podium next to Stratton. That he is a man of proven courage and skill is first. That he's earned the trust of many with his charming words and rousing speeches is another.

That he's landed in a position he never should have is the latest of them.

Born in 1986, whatever was expected of Marcus by his parents could not come close to what he became. Enlisting as a soldier at the young age of 18, Gloria graduated from West Point with honors, and first cut his teeth battling Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. There, he obtained several recognitions for valor and going above and beyond. The papers took to calling him 'The Compleat Soldier' because of it, once they found out yet another hero was fighting for America off its shores.

Yet that's the beginning of Gloria's story, not its ending. Coming back to the mainland in late 2015, Gloria sought to run for the House of Representatives in his home state, hoping to "do what's best for his people", he claimed. His popularity before throwing himself to the streets proved a bit too big a boon, however. Gloria was a hero of the nation, and it so happened that his campaign ended up eclipsing even that of candidates to far bigger offices. It became so big that some surveys around the country found that if he so wanted, he could have gone not for the House, but for the Senate, and perhaps even become a contender for the White House, had his age not made him a most non-traditional candidate. But Stratton cared little for tradition. He sought an assurance, a checkmating piece that would turn his eventual victory into something not possible, but assured.

And Gloria could do nothing but comply. He joined hands with the man, and went on to do a smashing campaign. Some claim that Gloria handed Stratton the White House. Others claim that all of Stratton's acts as President can be blamed on the young soldier, for he is the reason Stratton is President at all.

Others… see him differently. While Stratton may be proof of the worst the system has to offer, Gloria stands opposite as the best there can be. His personal acts are faultless, at least. Traveling to Europe, he's met with heads of state of the whole region, reassuring the world of the unity between the Old and New Worlds. He's pushed a couple of initiatives to rework several "flawed, but well-meaning" systems put in place by administrations before his.

But now, that which so many used as an argument against him has come to pass. Marcus Gloria stands as the Acting President of the United States, and he has taken his seat at the most unstable of times. With Washington having been attacked, the threat of a King that once made his glory savaging an Empire, and having to rebuild the trust in the US that Stratton has spent the past 4 years ruining, the same thought rattles around in the brains of the whole world.

What, exactly, is Marcus Gloria made of?

[1ddiscourseoftheday]

Thurs 4 Feb ‘21

Confirmation is here at last of Harry’s role in the film adaptation of My Policeman, brought to us by queer fave Greg Berlanti (and his husband). Harry will costar with Emma Corrin, who you may remember from the at the time inexplicable seeming Harry/Emma cross promo last August-- given the pains they took then to emphasize that the relationship was platonic, one assumes this film will go for a different promo tactic than the current one! They share a stylist though, so they’ll no doubt be beautifully coordinated. Harry will play Tom, which some people object to on the grounds that Harry is the wrong person to play the role of a closeted man which is certainly… one opinion. Aaaaand there’s plenty more of that discourse (and about him playing a policeman) to come over the coming months so I’ll just leave it there for now! Anyway and as for that current project, we got more DWD set pics today, featuring Harry in various costume outfits! There’s ones where his character looks bloodied, and ones where his character looks clean but absolutely terrifying, grown up frat boy from hell looks to give you CHILLS, plus some of Harry as Harry in a bright orange hoodie designed by his friend Kunichi Nomura.There was also {moustache spoilers} some weird facial hair on display. Okay then!

Project Defenseless has been launched to push Defenseless up in the streaming charts and push for radio play! The fan single project offers resources and organized pushes to get people streaming and promoting on all the platforms and reaching out to radio, and has fans making lots of very cool edits besides! “I see what you’re doing with defenseless! You are all incredible!” said Louis. That song is such a fitting choice for this kind of project! Its journey has been all about the fan response from back when Louis played it for us for the very first time in 2019 (it was the one everyone was screaming about from soundcheck clips for the few hours between that and hearing the songs for real even) and afterwards he told us about how although he’d always liked the song it clicked for him in a new way after getting the fan reaction, saying “something happened to it when I performed it live, and ever since then it really kind of got me,” and “the fans make everything sound amazing, they made it sound so good,” and “the fans for whatever reason really took to this song, so now it has a special place in me heart definitely”. Plus of course there was the long saga of fan stress when it seemed like it might not be on the album and rejoicing when Louis finally definitively confirmed that it would be, after what seemed like might have been a reversal on his part due to the outcry about it. And now she’s climbing all kinds of charts like a the star she is! The song shot up on itunes (#3 worldwide, #1 in 16 countries) just for starters and the project has only just got going. Louis commented on the stats-- “An album track off an album that’s a year old. You lot blow my fucking mind! Thank you so much!”

Louis also commented on a Jack Saunders (BBC indie music DJ) tweet and followed guitarist Johnny Took of the DMAs on twitter which is weird only in that he didn’t already.

There’s news about Zayn’s Zach Sang interview, and it’s not the most surprising news but it is very sad; Zach says “hi beautiful humans, this convo was scheduled for last week but we got a rain check from his team. this conversation can still happen, it ain’t over yet! we’ll keep ya in the loop. I listened to this album 7 times! we’re determined” Well... damn. However Zayn DID pop up with some spon-content but like… the WEIRDEST ad content?? It’s for Coors Light and, well I’ll let Zayn tell you about it! “They’re gonna see if they can put a commercial inside your dreams... which is kind of messed up.” HAHAHAHA I have nothing to add! What Zayn said!!! “So we’re gonna give that a go and uh see if it works,” he says, sounding appropriately skeptical, followed by “wish me luck”. Does this kind of sponcon count as malicious compliance? Technically he DID say the stuff he was supposed to- and he’s doing an instagram live for them Sat, supposedly. I can’t wait to see how that goes! Wish him luck! The latest installment of the NIL comic book video series is also out today, but just one this time instead of a pair. This week’s song is Connexion and the new comic shows us that the figure pursuing our hero is, drumroll-- himself! The call is coming from inside the house!

Unlike interview shy Zayn, however, Gigi is out there ready to overshare, as long as it’s to Vogue. She has plenty to say about giving birth to zaby Khai (newly revealed nickname: Khaiba) at home at the Pennsylvania farm. The article says that they decided to have the birth at home due to COVID placing restrictions on hospital births that would have prevented Bella and Zayn and Yolanda all being present, and after she and Zayn watched the documentary The Business of Being Born. “They placed a blow-up bath in their bedroom and sent their three cats and border collie away when the midwife expressed concern that the sphynx and Maine coon felines might puncture the tub with their claws,” the interviewer learns while horseback riding with Gigi. The article also says Zayn “caught the baby” but it isn’t a direct quote from Gigi and I’m thinking a bit of an exaggeration perhaps. Gigi had the baby at the Hadid family farm but she and Zayn have since relocated to live at his farm, which is nearby, where they say they will be raising the child, with Z’s mom Trisha coming to stay to help out for the first month, that Khai sleeps with them, and that Zayn said his experience of the whole thing reminded him of the birth in a lion documentary they’d watched. Neither mentioned it but it has been spotted that Gigi and Zayn each now have tattoos of the name, Khai, in Arabic.

Meanwhile, Niall surfaced only in golf guy mode- a Modest Golf announcement and a podcast appearance to promote the new Modest initiative to get young people into playing golf. He says they want to “get rid of that thing that’s been holding golf back for a long time, that it’s a boring sport…” and I know he means he’s trying to combat that idea but when I tell you I LAUGHED!

[arctic-whisper]

Reviewing Old Horse Games part 7: Lucinda Green's Equestrian Challenge

Right away I'll say this feels unfair. Apparently it was released in 2006, but it feels later than that. I’m going into depth on this one. This is the one that I would recommend the most to people looking for a good horse eventing game, though it might be a bit repetitive. Something I noticed right away is that with a mouse, cursor movement and selection feels a bit sluggish. Not in a laggy way, just in a heavy way.

I feel I should mention that Lucinda Green shows up in this game as the player’s mentor and her lines get very annoying very quickly. These vocals can, thankfully, be turned off.

Character customization feels just right for what it is. And I think that this and Equestriad are the only ones that allowed you to play as a male character (not counting 3 Day Eventing, which was indistinct). Nationality only affects the flag on the scoreboard and is just the nation the character represents. Appearance changes the character's ethnicity, and each one has a light, medium, and dark option for both skin and hair. It's not especially customizable, but it doesn't have to be.

The horse customization is where it's at. Although there are only four options for mane and tail colors, the options for coat colors make up for it if you consider paint markings or dapples can be added. The breed options (Thoroughbred, Thoroughbred/Warmblood, and Irish Sport), gender (mare, stallion, gelding) and height (15, 16, or 17hh) all play into the horse's stats. That's right, this game comes with stats! I'll come back to those.

There isn't really a story. As far as horse care, there's this screen where you take care of your active horse, but that's it.

The events are the main part of the game! An interesting thing I noticed is that there's a little bit of forgiveness in the scoreboard. Unlike Rosemond hill, one mistake won't cost you first place. There's room for error and I like that. Dressage is the most interesting in terms of design process because it's a rhythm game. Each arrow has a note different note, there's a little beat in the background, and once the patterns aren't too hard to learn, so you can watch the horse do its thing sometimes. Also, depending on your score, the rider will fistpump or facepalm or cry, so you can see guess your score and decide to replay before it's locked in.

Cross Country gets loooong at in the later stages, almost ten minutes. The Jump look feature is really nice, it moves the camera to face the next jump, the way the rider is supposed to do that in real life. On the easiest setting, there actually isn't a need to press spacebar to jump and in the end, I switched back because it there was something about the timing that's just... weird? The horse doesn't jump right on space like one might expect, I can't describe it.

Show Jumping and Cross Country are where the stats come in. Speed and Stamina are self-explanatory, but Speed is used in both events, while Stamina is only in Cross Country.  There is a noticeable difference between a horse with 5 Speed and a horse with 100. Jumping is, I believe, how quickly the horse clears the jump and Agility is the horse’s turn radius. Trust is... complicated. Unlike the previous horse games, you can’t really cheese the courses by coming at the jumps at an angle, at least at the start. You have to line up over the yellow arrow or the horse will refuse. At higher trust levels, the horse will accept going over jumps if you’re not facing it head on. Trust also increases the amount of times the gallop speed burst can be used in Cross Country.

This game comes with a replay camera too! One of the options sometimes flashes to a 1st person angle, which is my favorite and I wish there was an option to keep it like that. Also, the show jumping music is quite good.

Multiple horse stalls are unlocked as the game progresses, as well as different tack and qualities of outfits, but to me, the game sort of feels done once the last 4 star event is cleared and a horse is at 100 with all stats. As for horse names, there are none. But I did make the horses from the other games, plus two of my own.

[arcticdementor]

Imagine that the US was competing in a space race with some third world country, say Zambia, for whatever reason. Americans of course would have orders of magnitude more money to throw at the problem, and the most respected aerospace engineers in the world, with degrees from the best universities and publications in the top journals. Zambia would have none of this. What should our reaction be if, after a decade, Zambia had made more progress?

Obviously, it would call into question the entire field of aerospace engineering. What good were all those Google Scholar pages filled with thousands of citations, all the knowledge gained from our labs and universities, if Western science gets outcompeted by the third world?

For all that has been said about Afghanistan, no one has noticed that this is precisely what just happened to political science. The American-led coalition had countless experts with backgrounds pertaining to every part of the mission on their side: people who had done their dissertations on topics like state building, terrorism, military-civilian relations, and gender in the military. General David Petraeus, who helped sell Obama on the troop surge that made everything in Afghanistan worse, earned a PhD from Princeton and was supposedly an expert in “counterinsurgency theory.” Ashraf Ghani, the just deposed president of the country, has a PhD in anthropology from Columbia and is the co-author of a book literally called Fixing Failed States. This was his territory. It’s as if Wernher von Braun had been given all the resources in the world to run a space program and had been beaten to the moon by an African witch doctor.

…

Phil Tetlock’s work on experts is one of those things that gets a lot of attention, but still manages to be underrated. In his 2005 Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?, he found that the forecasting abilities of subject-matter experts were no better than educated laymen when it came to predicting geopolitical events and economic outcomes. As Bryan Caplan points out, we shouldn’t exaggerate the results here and provide too much fodder for populists; the questions asked were chosen for their difficulty, and the experts were being compared to laymen who nonetheless had met some threshold of education and competence.

At the same time, we shouldn’t put too little emphasis on the results either. They show that “expertise” as we understand it is largely fake. Should you listen to epidemiologists or economists when it comes to COVID-19? Conventional wisdom says “trust the experts.” The lesson of Tetlock (and the Afghanistan War), is that while you certainly shouldn’t be getting all your information from your uncle’s Facebook Wall, there is no reason to start with a strong prior that people with medical degrees know more than any intelligent person who honestly looks at the available data.

…

I think one of the most interesting articles of the COVID era was a piece called “Beware of Facts Man” by Annie Lowrey, published in The Atlantic.

…

The reaction to this piece was something along the lines of “ha ha, look at this liberal who hates facts.” But there’s a serious argument under the snark, and it’s that you should trust credentials over Facts Man and his amateurish takes. In recent days, a 2019 paper on “Epistemic Trespassing” has been making the rounds on Twitter. The theory that specialization is important is not on its face absurd, and probably strikes most people as natural. In the hard sciences and other places where social desirability bias and partisanship have less of a role to play, it’s probably a safe assumption. In fact, academia is in many ways premised on the idea, as we have experts in “labor economics,” “state capacity,” “epidemiology,” etc. instead of just having a world where we select the smartest people and tell them to work on the most important questions.

But what Tetlock did was test this hypothesis directly in the social sciences, and he found that subject-matter experts and Facts Man basically tied.

…

Interestingly, one of the best defenses of “Facts Man” during the COVID era was written by Annie Lowrey’s husband, Ezra Klein. His April 2021 piece in The New York Times showed how economist Alex Tabarrok had consistently disagreed with the medical establishment throughout the pandemic, and was always right. You have the “Credentials vs. Facts Man” debate within one elite media couple. If this was a movie they would’ve switched the genders, but since this is real life, stereotypes are confirmed and the husband and wife take the positions you would expect.

…

In the end, I don’t think my dissertation contributed much to human knowledge, making it no different than the vast majority of dissertations that have been written throughout history. The main reason is that most of the time public opinion doesn’t really matter in foreign policy. People generally aren’t paying attention, and the vast majority of decisions are made out of public sight. How many Americans know or care that North Macedonia and Montenegro joined NATO in the last few years? Most of the time, elites do what they want, influenced by their own ideological commitments and powerful lobby groups. In times of crisis, when people do pay attention, they can be manipulated pretty easily by the media or other partisan sources.

If public opinion doesn’t matter in foreign policy, why is there so much study of public opinion and foreign policy? There’s a saying in academia that “instead of measuring what we value, we value what we can measure.” It’s easy to do public opinion polls and survey experiments, as you can derive a hypothesis, get an answer, and make it look sciency in charts and graphs. To show that your results have relevance to the real world, you cite some papers that supposedly find that public opinion matters, maybe including one based on a regression showing that under very specific conditions foreign policy determined the results of an election, and maybe it’s well done and maybe not, but again, as long as you put the words together and the citations in the right format nobody has time to check any of this. The people conducting peer review on your work will be those who have already decided to study the topic, so you couldn’t find a more biased referee if you tried.

Thus, to be an IR scholar, the two main options are you can either use statistical methods that don’t work, or actually find answers to questions, but those questions are so narrow that they have no real world impact or relevance. A smaller portion of academics in the field just produce postmodern-generator style garbage, hence “feminist theories of IR.” You can also build game theoretic models that, like the statistical work in the field, are based on a thousand assumptions that are probably false and no one will ever check. The older tradition of Kennan and Mearsheimer is better and more accessible than what has come lately, but the field is moving away from that and, like a lot of things, towards scientism and identity politics.

…

At some point, I decided that if I wanted to study and understand important questions, and do so in a way that was accessible to others, I’d have a better chance outside of the academy. Sometimes people thinking about an academic career reach out to me, and ask for advice. For people who want to go into the social sciences, I always tell them not to do it. If you have something to say, take it to Substack, or CSPI, or whatever. If it’s actually important and interesting enough to get anyone’s attention, you’ll be able to find funding.

If you think your topic of interest is too esoteric to find an audience, know that my friend Razib Khan, who writes about the Mongol empire, Y-chromosomes and haplotypes and such, makes a living doing this. If you want to be an experimental physicist, this advice probably doesn’t apply, and you need lab mates, major funding sources, etc. If you just want to collect and analyze data in a way that can be done without institutional support, run away from the university system.

The main problem with academia is not just the political bias, although that’s another reason to do something else with your life. It’s the entire concept of specialization, which holds that you need some secret tools or methods to understand what we call “political science” or “sociology,” and that these fields have boundaries between them that should be respected in the first place. Quantitative methods are helpful and can be applied widely, but in learning stats there are steep diminishing returns.

…

Outside of political science, are there other fields that have their own equivalents of “African witch doctor beats von Braun to the moon” or “the Taliban beats the State Department and the Pentagon” facts to explain? Yes, and here are just a few examples.

Consider criminology. More people are studying how to keep us safe from other humans than at any other point in history. But here’s the US murder rate between 1960 and 2018, not including the large uptick since then.

So basically, after a rough couple of decades, we’re back to where we were in 1960. But we’re actually much worse, because improvements in medical technology are keeping a lot of people that would’ve died 60 years ago alive. One paper from 2002 says that the murder rate would be 5 times higher if not for medical developments since 1960. I don’t know how much to trust this, but it’s surely true that we’ve made some medical progress since that time, and doctors have been getting a lot of experience from all the shooting victims they have treated over the decades. Moreover, we’re much richer than we were in 1960, and I’m sure spending on public safety has increased. With all that, we are now about tied with where we were almost three-quarters of a century ago, a massive failure.

What about psychology? As of 2016, there were 106,000 licensed psychologists in the US. I wish I could find data to compare to previous eras, but I don’t think anyone will argue against the idea that we have more mental health professionals and research psychologists than ever before. Are we getting mentally healthier? Here’s suicides in the US from 1981 to 2016

…

What about education? I’ll just defer to Freddie deBoer’s recent post on the topic, and Scott Alexander on how absurd the whole thing is.

Maybe there have been larger cultural and economic forces that it would be unfair to blame criminology, psychology, and education for. Despite no evidence we’re getting better at fighting crime, curing mental problems, or educating children, maybe other things have happened that have outweighed our gains in knowledge. Perhaps the experts are holding up the world on their shoulders, and if we hadn’t produced so many specialists over the years, thrown so much money at them, and gotten them to produce so many peer reviews papers, we’d see Middle Ages-levels of violence all across the country and no longer even be able to teach children to read. Like an Ayn Rand novel, if you just replaced the business tycoons with those whose work has withstood peer review.

Or you can just assume that expertise in these fields is fake. Even if there are some people doing good work, either they are outnumbered by those adding nothing or even subtracting from what we know, or our newly gained understanding is not being translated into better policies. Considering the extent to which government relies on experts, if the experts with power are doing things that are not defensible given the consensus in their fields, the larger community should make this known and shun those who are getting the policy questions so wrong. As in the case of the Afghanistan War, this has not happened, and those who fail in the policy world are still well regarded in their larger intellectual community.

…

Those opposed to cancel culture have taken up the mantle of “intellectual diversity” as a heuristic, but there’s nothing valuable about the concept itself. When I look at the people I’ve come to trust, they are diverse on some measures, but extremely homogenous on others. IQ and sensitivity to cost-benefit considerations seem to me to be unambiguous goods in figuring out what is true or what should be done in a policy area. You don’t add much to your understanding of the world by finding those with low IQs who can’t do cost-benefit analysis and adding them to the conversation.

One of the clearest examples of bias in academia and how intellectual diversity can make the conversation better is the work of Lee Jussim on stereotypes. Basically, a bunch of liberal academics went around saying “Conservatives believe in differences between groups, isn’t that terrible!” Lee Jussim, as someone who is relatively moderate, came along and said “Hey, let’s check to see whether they’re true!” This story is now used to make the case for intellectual diversity in the social sciences.

Yet it seems to me that isn’t the real lesson here. Imagine if, instead of Jussim coming forward and asking whether stereotypes are accurate, Osama bin Laden had decided to become a psychologist. He’d say “The problem with your research on stereotypes is that you do not praise Allah the all merciful at the beginning of all your papers.” If you added more feminist voices, they’d say something like “This research is problematic because it’s all done by men.” Neither of these perspectives contributes all that much. You’ve made the conversation more diverse, but dumber. The problem with psychology was a very specific one, in that liberals are particularly bad at recognizing obvious facts about race and sex. So yes, in that case the field could use more conservatives, not “more intellectual diversity,” which could just as easily make the field worse as make it better. And just because political psychology could use more conservative representation when discussing stereotypes doesn’t mean those on the right always add to the discussion rather than subtract from it. As many religious Republicans oppose the idea of evolution, we don’t need the “conservative” position to come and help add a new perspective to biology.

The upshot is intellectual diversity is a red herring, usually a thinly-veiled plea for more conservatives. Nobody is arguing for more Islamists, Nazis, or flat earthers in academia, and for good reason. People should just be honest about the ways in which liberals are wrong and leave it at that.

…

The failure in Afghanistan was mind-boggling. Perhaps never in the history of warfare had there been such a resource disparity between two sides, and the US-backed government couldn’t even last through the end of the American withdrawal. One can choose to understand this failure through a broad or narrow lens. Does it only tell us something about one particular war or is it a larger indictment of American foreign policy?

The main argument of this essay is we’re not thinking big enough. The American loss should be seen as a complete discrediting of the academic understanding of “expertise,” with its reliance on narrowly focused peer reviewed publications and subject matter knowledge as the way to understand the world. Although I don’t develop the argument here, I think I could make the case that expertise isn’t just fake, it actually makes you worse off because it gives you a higher level of certainty in your own wishful thinking. The Taliban probably did better by focusing their intellectual energies on interpreting the Holy Quran and taking a pragmatic approach to how they fought the war rather than proceeding with a prepackaged theory of how to engage in nation building, which for the West conveniently involved importing its own institutions.

A discussion of the practical implications of all this, or how we move from a world of specialization to one with better elites, is also for another day. For now, I’ll just emphasize that for those thinking of choosing an academic career to make universities or the peer review system function better, my advice is don’t. The conversation is much more interesting, meaningful, and oriented towards finding truth here on the outside.

[lovewillthaw-j]

Frozen II/RBTI discussion (2/2)

Part 2 will discuss the differences, especially about the way the separation was dealt with.

I acknowledge that the subject of Elsa and Anna’s separation at the end of F2 is terribly divisive to our fandom and for those who know me, I walk the middle line and have dear friends on both sides of the divide and I respect everyone’s opinions. I wanna say up front that I LOVE F2 to bits, I came into this fandom after F2, I’m not an F2 hater, I also love F1 too, I love Elsa and Anna.  

The differences

There are fundamental personality differences which should be stated up front - Vanellope: Extrovert; Ralph: Introvert. Elsa: Introvert; Anna: Extrovert. It’s interesting that in RBTI, the extrovert leaves but in F2, the introvert leaves. Thanks @super-mam-te-moc for pointing this out.

Obviously, these are two different movies. At its core, RBTI is a movie about friendship, and learning to accept that friendships can change and that it’s not a bad thing for friends to pursue different dreams. Frozen 2 is about Elsa’s destiny and source of her powers, the sins of her ancestors and righting a wrong. I’m going to court controversy here by saying that the separation in F2 is “by the way” and unexpected. 

The handling of separation in RBTI

In RBTI, separation is hinted early on and the audience is gradually “prepared” for it. First and foremost, as I mentioned at the beginning, Vanellope is an extrovert and it is not unexpected that she would enjoy a place like Slaughter Race. She makes an early mention of this: “that feeling, that not-knowing-what's-coming-next feeling. That's the stuff. That feels like life to me.”

Vanellope hints at the separation when she says: “It’s true [that Ralph and her cannot exist without each other] In fact, it's so true that we will be fine if we're apart for a minute.” Also, in the song In This Place Called Slaughter Race, it is plainly obvious that V dreams of being in Slaughter Race and “her heart is in flight there” and also that “home is so slow”. The audience is also told by Shank that “There is no law saying best friends have to have the same dreams. You know?” and “All friendships change... but the good ones...they get stronger because of it”.

Vanellope is also shown to have moments of meaningful bonding with Shank and the crew. Her conversation with Shank during the “betrayal” scene is deep and she is shown to be taking advice from Shank. Also, there’s the scene where V plays basketball with the crew.

The actual moment of separation is well paced in RBTI. Just before they finally part, Ralph and Vanellope sit on a bench and have one last heart-to-heart chat. This is a direct parallel to the beginning of RBTI, where they are also sitting on a bench talking. The final hug between R and V has Vanellope (the one leaving) tearing up, showing that it’s hurting her too, to leave. And she tells Ralph that she loves him.

And after the separation, we see evidence that they’re all right and that the separation did not cause any detriment. Ralph has joined a book club and started a new thing where they all go hang out in someone’s game every Friday night. And, we see R and V talking via Buzzzface (convenient plot device again) and updating each other on their lives and talking about what they’re going to do when they meet again (eg V requests R to bring burgers for her)

The handling of separation in F2

Again, I know I’m courting controversy here. In my opinion, F2′s separation just doesn’t feel “earned”. 

Firstly let me start with what we know from F1: Elsa is an introvert (please hear me out, I’m NOT saying introverts never want to leave), in Elsa’s situation it seems to me weird for her to be the one to leave. If I had to choose between the 2 sisters, I would say Anna is more likely to leave (NOT that I want her to!!) Secondly, she’s the queen and as others have pointed out, in 1800s European monarchs don’t just leave the throne. 

Thirdly, they are sisters and not just friends. Sisters have a closer bond than friends. (hear me out, I’m not saying siblings must stay together forever, I’m stating this as a difference between F2 and RBTI, please please please read on) Fourthly, the time period is different, Elsa and Anna are not 21st century modern women. Royal siblings do not separate unless one marries into another country’s royal family. 

Fifthly, they are NO ordinary sisters. They have gone through great tragedies - 13 years of isolation, one concealing her guilt and hiding away, out of love; the other completely bewildered why she is left alone, the parents’ death, the coronation tragedy, and Anna DIED for Elsa out of love - she willingly sacrificed herself to be hurt/killed by Hans, AND, Elsa accidentally killed Anna (but fate brought her back) - their stories are so intertwined with love for each other!

Continuing on to what we see in F2: there is little hint at the separation throughout the movie. Where did it come from? To me, after Anna broke the dam and Elsa revived, they should have all gone home...and recuperate (Anna spent a night wet and cold in a cave, Elsa died and came back, and fell into water back first, ouch) and figure out what to do with the Northuldra, the revelation of Runeard’s deed, check that all the Arendellians are okay etc...

In my opinion, Elsa is not shown to be having enough interaction with the Northuldra/Honeymaren to justify her staying there. (EM shippers, I respect your ship and I’m not anti to your ship) and what does she do in the forest??? As I have said in other posts - she’s been brought up in civilization her whole life; the Northuldra know the forest and the spirits better than her; what is there for her to do there??? that she can’t do from Arendelle? Why can’t Anna be the ambassador to Northuldra?

At the actual moment of separation in F2, everything is a blur. This is how I remembered my first watching: Elsa says something cryptic about “an oath to do what’s best for Arendelle” and “luckily I know just what that is”---they hug---Anna is Queen???!!!! What???---Elsa’s not there??---Elsa’s in the forest---Elsa’s galloping on Nokk towards Ahtohallan---BOOM the movie has ended. We do not see the sisters discussing about the separation. We do not see a teary hug and exchange of “I love you’s”. Yes there is a hug, but it takes place so fast (5 seconds, I counted).

After the separation, the scenes again are so rushed, we do not see much of what Elsa does in Ahtohallan/forest and in my opinion, the letter that Anna sends to Elsa is barely enough to explain how they are keeping in touch. I acknowledge that many have said that Nokk can travel at a supernaturally fast speed so Elsa can be back in Arendelle quickly. But, as others have also said, that also means Elsa could do whatever she has to do in the forest while staying as Queen of Arendelle, since Nokk can transport her there stat.

I think I might accept the separation a little better if it had been better dealt with like the way it was presented in RBTI, ie, preparing the audience for it, having a viable reason for the separation, having Elsa really integrating into the Northuldra/more screentime with HM (if Disney would support EM), having the sisters discuss and agree on the separation, devoting more screen time to the emotions regarding the separation to show the importance and gravity of their sisterly bond that they have, that is now undergoing a huge change, tears at the point of separation etc... Of course, the whole point of RBTI is separation, whereas the whole point of F2 is Elsa’s destiny and undoing what the ancestors did...why have separation at all in F2? Don’t we have enough to chew on already? 

I want to conclude by reiterating that I’m not an F2 hater, I really really really love F2 (look at my blog!) and I’m NOT saying RBTI is a better movie than F2. (ironically, I actually don’t like RBTI very much despite the amount of detail I’ve gone into in these 2 posts, but I do love Ralph 1 a LOT) I am also respectful towards all and towards the directors Jenn and Chris. 

If you disliked what you read in this post, I’m sorry, and I hope we can agree to disagree, as Vanellope told Ralph.

[cellsshapedlikestars]

"Breathe" for Jonsa?

ok FINE, yes, this could have been written for the last prompt I did which was basically “shove Jonsa into other media” but whatever. I’m doing it again for this prompt. I have no shame.

So, in honor of the Bachelorette finale last night (possibly the greatest season of the Bachelorette of all time), I give you, Jonsa Bachelor AU.

xx

When Robb signs her up for The Bachelor, she nearly goes into an Arya-level rage blackout.

When she learns why he signed her up for The Bachelor, she actually does. She manages to throw a (poorly aimed) bagel at his head at Sunday breakfast, to Arya and Rickon's delight and her mother's horror, before she realizes what she's doing.

“If you love Jon Snow so much, why don't you apply to go on?” she screeches, she doesn't care that her voice is almost at a decibel only dogs can hear.

“I would, but The Bachelor is real regressive and they definitely don't allow men on and I don't know if Jon Snow even swings that way,” Robb says, hiding behind Jeyne (who gives him a glare and steps out of the way) and he has to add on, “and also I'm dating Jeyne, the love of my life.”

“Jon Snow might swing that way,” Arya says through a mouthful of bagel that Sansa thinks is actually the one she flung at Robb and why is Arya eating off the floor when they have a dozen more perfectly clean, non-floor bagels? “Do you remember those photos of him with that model guy? Satin what's-his-face?”

“None of this is helpful!” Sansa stomps her foot (no one can bring out her angry, petulant inner child quite like her siblings). “I am not going on that stupid show just because some football player Robb has a boner for is the Bachelor.”

“Stupid show?” Now it's Jeyne's turn to be offended, mouth open in a look of betrayal (and yes, fine, she and Jeyne are Bachelor buddies and she goes over Jeyne's apartment every Tuesday and they drink wine and watch the show and they even have a league going with some of their friends and coworkers but this is different).

In the end, it's Arya who convinces her to do it.

Her application had been approved (which is how she found out that Robb had signed her up in the first place) and she gets through the rounds of interviews, the whole time trying to remember Arya's points.

You broke up with Harry six months ago and haven't even tried to date again. It'll be like a vacation, you might get to travel to another country if you make it far enough. You can unwind from social media for a while. You might even be able to promote your Etsy store or something.

There's not a lot of time between the application approval and being whisked to a hotel and kept under lock and key, but there's enough for her to start a Google search on Jon Snow. Sure, she knows who he is, but she doesn't know him know him, you know? She knows he's on the Direwolves and she knows he's one of their star players, considering how much Robb (and everyone else in Winterfell) talks about him like he's some sort of god, here to bring the Direwolves back to their former glory.

But to be completely honest, Sansa has very little interest in football herself, never cared much for a bunch of dudes running around a field trying to kick a ball into a net. And they can't even use their hands? Seems dumb to her, their hands are right there.

She gets about thirty seconds into Googling Jon Snow before she starts to feel guilty, because once she's past his basic wiki page and his season stats, she starts to get to some stuff that she feels like she shouldn't be looking at, even if it's technically public knowledge. His season-ending injury, his very public downward spiral and drunken fight in a bar a few months after. His breakup with his ex, some punk singer named Ygritte who looks like she would stab you in the throat rather than talk to you and Sansa wonders how Jon is going to go from Miss Trash-a-Hotel-Room to the kind of women who end up on The Bachelor.

Women like Sansa.

Oh no, she's one of them now.

She closes the Google tab and tries not to think about Jon Snow at all.

.........

She has watched girl after girl get out of the limos and with each passing one, her anxiety only gets worse. There was a girl dressed like a wolf, a girl in a wedding gown, one that rode a unicycle, and even one that wore his jersey (and only his jersey and Sansa wonders if they're going to have to black box her, the jersey did not cover much).

And then the producer who is crouched on the floor of their limo is shooing her out the door and she swallows against her very dry throat and manages not to stumble on her exit. She smooths her dress down and doesn't know what to do with her hands as she walks up the drive to the huge mansion lit with a multitude of spotlights and the pavement is wet, did they hose it down? It definitely hadn't been raining earlier. Why is the walk so long? Why are there so many cameras? Why did she agree to do this?

To be completely honest, she's so caught up in not looking like an idiot that she hadn't even noticed the actual reason she's here until she's standing in front of him. She's seen pictures of Jon Snow before but she thinks they don't quite do him justice (or maybe it's that she's never seen one of him in a tux with his hair pulled back and his beard trimmed so short).

Ok, here's where she says something. She and her producer, Sam, had gone over her introduction line again and again. What was it? Something about being Northern, something about reminding him of home or some nonsense? They practiced this line, she's got it.

She opens her mouth but nothing comes out and she realizes in horror that her mind is absolutely blank. She is so aware of the cameras, the lights, this stranger she's standing in front of, the millions of people who will be watching this and judging her and laughing at what an idiot she is and-

“Hey,” his voice breaks her out of her thoughts and it's low and calm and he reaches out and grabs her shaking hands. “Breathe.”

She nods and lets out the breath she had been holding and he does an exaggerated deep inhale and exhale and she mirrors him and they do it a few more times until her head has cleared a bit and her hands are no longer threatening to vibrate off her body.

“Hi,” she says and tries to smile and she hates the way her voice wavers.

“Hi,” he says back and the corner of his mouth tilts up and he's still holding her hands and she thinks she should pull them away but she honestly doesn't mind.

“I'm nervous,” she breathes, like that isn't the most obvious thing on the planet.

“Yeah,” he huffs out a small laugh. “Me too.”

She has to remind herself that he's a famous football player and the Bachelor and he's probably not nervous at all and just trying to make her feel better, but he sounds so sincere.

His thumbs are rubbing the back of her hands and she doesn't think he even realizes he's doing it and neither of them are saying anything and she knows she should be saying her line but for the life of her she can't remember it and instead they're both just standing here in silence holding hands.

Then there's some producer gesturing wildly from behind one of the cameras and she realizes at the same time Jon does that this has gone on too long and so she says “guess I should go in?”

“Seems to be the popular thing to do,” he nods and she lets out what has to be the most embarrassing giggle she's ever produced. Why is she like this?

He finally lets go of her hands and she nods and steps back and she's a few steps away when he calls out “hey,” and she turns and he says “remember to breathe.”

Breathe. She can do that.

It isn't until she's inside and sitting on one of the uncomfortable couches with a glass of champagne in her hand that she realizes she never even told him her name.

So not only did she make an absolute fool out of herself, but he also has no idea what her name is and now she's definitely going to be one of those girls who gets sent home night one

It doesn't matter, she tries to tell herself, and she wonders why she feels so awful. Who cares if she gets sent home night one? Maybe they'll barely even show her and she can get out of this with little to no notice from the general population. And then she can go home and tell Robb and Arya well, I gave it a shot, didn't I? and she can go back to living her life and she never has to think about Jon Snow or his earnest grey eyes or his pretty mouth or his steady hands or his deep voice ever again.

She's going home tonight and she's totally fine with it.

Totally.