#i'm sure it's a normal standard level university in other places

[winterinhimring]

Post-NWH Raimiverse Headcanons

(These may or may not be relevant to a fic I am writing, but that's some time in the future. For now, I have all sorts of thoughts on how the Raimiverse will change after the cured villains make their return and so I must inflict those thoughts on all of you.)

Oscorp now has the best lab safety regulations of any corporation in the business. Period. They're light-years ahead of the current standards. Depending on who you ask, this was either Norman's last act as CEO before he stepped back for Unspecified Health Reasons, or Harry's first. Both of these theories suggest some interesting things.

Within the company, theories about What Is Wrong With The Osborns run rampant. Norman just sets off people's danger instincts now, because people his age aren't supposed to move like Olympic-level gymnasts - Peter can get away with being inhumanly flexible because he's a teenager and adults tend to expect teenagers to be capable of some slightly inhuman feats anyway; Norman less so. He can also see a little too well in the dark, and he periodically pops up in places he shouldn't really have been able to get to. It doesn't help that he's usually in those places to terrorise people whose lab safety standards are slipping. "Dad, stop scaring the interns" / "I just want to make sure nobody falls into an experiment and becomes a villain" is an exchange that Norman and Harry have had multiple times.

The theories range from "Norman is a vampire" through "Norman was in a lab accident and wound up able to teleport, but can't control it, so Harry stepped up so nobody would see his dad accidentally disappearing from board meetings" to "The Green Goblin was the result of an accident testing the performance enhancers and Norman hunted him down but had to take the enhancers himself to beat him and it broke his health".

(There are also, of course, theories that are uncomfortably close to the truth. Generally, what happens is that an older employee quietly takes the person who has put the pieces together aside and says, 'yes, you think you've figured it out, but think very carefully about whether you want to *say* it in front of the legal team *and* the possibly-not-quite-human former CEO'. The theorist invariably decides that discretion is the better part of valour.)

Harry does not unsettle people in himself. Harry is shockingly normal and while he can be a bit of a brat on occasion, he's usually very nice. However, people are a little scared of him anyway, because he treats his weird freaky cryptid dad like a perfectly normal person.

When Otto Octavius comes back from his little jaunt into another universe and lands in a destroyed warehouse after nearly wrecking half of New York, Oscorp's second defining feature, after the lab safety, becomes their terrifyingly effective legal team. A lot of precedents about the humane treatment of enhanced individuals are set, and ultimately they get Otto off with a pretty light sentence owing to the whole 'four AIs were controlling his brain' thing. Also, Rosie Octavius survives in this world (because she just does, okay? I'm appealing to the butterfly effect because...just imagine her bonding with May and MJ. It's a wonderful thought).

Once Otto has served his time, he becomes Peter's Science Enabler Uncle. They get along like a house on fire and are an absolute pair of holy terrors. Multiple things have been set on fire in the Octavius (and also the Osborn) house because of them. (So, so many things.)

Rosie, May, MJ, and Harry form the 'not a scientist but afflicted with a scientist dad/husband/nephew/best friend' club and stay over at each others' houses when one of their residences is temporarily uninhabitable because Otto and Peter were doing late night science, or Otto and *Norman* were poking the arc reactor that Otto brought back from the other universe and made a fire. Or because someone had the bright idea of cannibalising a small appliance for a robotics project and now the toaster is no longer functional.

Rosie and MJ are especially good friends and get into long, involved literary discussions which Peter and Otto are utterly baffled by. Even Harry, who's pretty well-read, can't keep up with them once they really get going. Peter and Otto are very proud.

At some point, a Conversation is had about Curt Connors. ('WHAT DO YOU MEAN PETER'S PROFESSOR IS GOING TO TURN HIMSELF INTO A LIZARD?' MJ shouts. 'I didn't say he was *going* to, I said we should keep an eye on him.' 'That...is really not very reassuring.')

And everyone lives happily ever after, to the end of their days.

[mediapen]

Hiii

I'm so sorry for bothering you, but I'm knew to f1 and ended up stumbling your post about politics and f1 https://www.tumblr.com/mediapen/749730771207684096/when-you-guys-try-2-do-politics-it-makes-me-go?source=share and I kinda want to talk about it a little. Disclaimer: like I said I'm knew and also English is not my first language. There is no intention of hate to any driver. maybe I'm not smart enough to discuss this but...

I also keep getting some posts about this driver is far right this driver is morally bad... and aren't all of them in some way?like all of them would sacrifice all morals to win? Also f1 is a sport full of big oil money... that is already far right in itself, no?

Maybe x driver that people consider bad just don't have a good pr like the driver they consider good. Take l h for example, I think he is a incredible guy, bigger than f1, but he is also going to a team with 2 sponsors that are pro isr@el, he will sacrifice his moral in exchange to win his 8th title.

I think there's nuances to f1 and politics and how much they can talk about and stuff.

Like I said before, I don't think I'm smart enough about the subject and if this is just stupid just ignore it, but I don't think looking in a sport that is full of corruption and money laundry is the right place for politically and morally good/correct people. If it's to hold them accountable it should be everyone not just the guys they don't particularly like.

hello sorry your ask is from a while ago but i just saw it and it's a worthwhile topic for the Online People to discuss. so.

that post specifically was about people intellectually posturing inserting irrelevant geopolitical concepts they didn’t understand rather than simply being directly critical of a more straightforward action that they did understand and it annoyed me ❤️ but anyway tldr your position is basically mine. you might be new but you’ve pretty quickly found a core issue here: there’s an… interesting capacity for ignorance and forgiveness when it comes to some drivers and not others, and that's basically driven by people moralising their likes and dislikes. double standards in online fan spaces are sadly pretty pervasive, so there’s not much rational discussion to be had and the block button is your friend.

i don't know what posts you've seen because i have not been seeing them and generally heavily curate my dash, so if this is all irrelevant, ignore it lol. i've tried to discuss the points you raised, though!

the drivers' politics broadly suck. they suck! whether we know for sure about their political leanings or affiliations, it's pretty safe to assume that as a collective they will have broadly conservative leanings - likely economically (monaco residences alone should tell you a lot!), but also often socially. that's the kind of people we're working with here, and we're not even getting into the bodies actually running the sport.

it’s fine and good to want people you look up to or whatever to do better on these issues, but looking to motorsport for your idols and expecting them to be a paragon of virtue and morality is fucking laughable. expecting a bunch of guys who are largely from places of immense personal and social privilege, who have been funnelled from whatever education they actually completed straight into their sport with little exposure to the real world or real issues, to be both aware of and able to intelligently discuss issues that we as 'normal' people with university educations etc. believe are important, is at best naive. tbh i don’t care much for performative virtue signalling from people who don’t understand an issue beyond being told by a PR team to say x issue bad ❤️ and take all the plaudits from twitter user fuckhead3000 for doing fuck all else. more than anything it just speaks to this online culture of trying to make everything into a 'this guy's problematic!' contest where everything is black and white and good and bad and surface level, and nobody ever engages with issues of substance.

i know you’re only using lewis as an example, but in terms of team sponsors, drivers aren’t that influential with the exception of those they bring with them. anyone expecting a driver to effectively boycott or refuse to move to/drive for a team because of their sponsors massively overestimates their power and security as individuals at a level where their continued competitive presence is never guaranteed. if we’re being critical of sponsors, though: lewis currently drives for a team with sponsors heavily involved in oil and extractive industries, on the bds list, connected to possible war crimes in sudan, illegal pollution, poor labour relations, ai companies, etc.. this stuff's SO pervasive.

lewis has made mistakes. lewis has said things that have been poorly phrased and ignorant. but lewis, almost uniquely, has consistently demonstrated self-reflection and real growth. i think he (rightly) gets a lot of grace for that - but also people don't know about or remember the 'bad' stuff. lewis has been able to use his platform and galvanise solidarity actions from some other drivers to raise social justice issues and agitate for both broad and specific change. in response, f1 itself has clamped down on his ability to use coverage of the sport to amplify his voice to that audience. he is doing what he can within an openly hostile and deeply racist environment. if he refused to drive because of sponsor relationships with his team(s), he’d lose any platform that the sport itself gives him. he'd lose his position as the only black man in f1. it'd cull his influence, which only exists because of his continued presence and success. i'm absolutely not saying you’re doing this, but holding lewis alone to higher ethical standards than any other driver is plainly racist. 

never mind sacrificing morals to win - given its history, ownership, corruption, controversies, environmental impact, etc., f1 itself arguably requires you to sacrifice your morals to even participate. everyone can decide where they fall on that: whether the tacit acceptance of the state of things implied by someone's participation is worth it for the good they can do as a result of the platform - or not. personally, i think trying to do any kind of remedial work on the sport itself would be a massive undertaking - and barring some kind of international regulatory mandate, it would have to be driven from within. in f1, i’d rather see movement towards change through participation rather than outright boycotts/non-participation, because they simply wouldn't be effective unless massively scaled.

nuance and context are important. i think in these discussions, what people need to remember is that two years ago these guys were made to race under threat of missile strikes, and only some of them felt able to speak out about the potentially serious physical harm being done to them by porpoising cars. as a mere starting point, i want to see a driver's union with teeth (and also unionised engineers, crews, etc.), because right now these guys can't (/won't) even organise effectively to ensure their own safety - never mind anything else. hope this was useful!!

[shihalyfie]

At the end of Adventure 02, Oikawa, despite being an adult, was able to meet his Digimon partner, Pipimon. So why during the events of Kizuna, they simply believe in Menoa's theory, even though they've already seen that it doesn't make sense from what happened to Oikawa and Pipimon? Even now in The Begining, they still belive in her theory. Did the 02 kids (and all other choosen children) forget what they saw in the end of Adventure 02?

I don't remember anything at all about this being mentioned in regards to The Beginning, so I can't answer anything regarding that. We don't have evidence Rui's issue has anything to do with the problem, in any case.

Well, it's true that my analysis treats Oikawa like a contradiction because I start with the premise you shouldn't be taking Menoa's theory at face value anyway, but one thing I should point out is that even in real life, people who did take Menoa's theory at face value when watching the movie did not consider Oikawa to be a contradiction. (And believe me, I actually read a page dedicated to dunking on the movie and finding contradictions as much as possible, and it was a terrible experience and I do not recommend it at all, but my point is that even someone who was out to rip apart the movie as much as possible was willing to concede this one.) Even Menoa's theory does not have anything to do with physical or legal age. I cannot stress this enough: even if you believe in Menoa's theory as much as possible, physical age has never, ever been a factor.

By her testimony, she became an adult at 14 years old, which is not an adult by any normal standard; she believes she became an "adult" because she went to university to become Mature and Accomplished. Meanwhile, Oikawa is often described in analysis as "a Chosen Child who never grew up" because he clung to an image from his past and refused to move on. He never wanted to be an adult in the first place, he even thought becoming an adult made him "tainted" and unable to go to the Digital World. So even if Menoa's view of life were correct, someone who's stubbornly clinging onto this kind of thing and refusing to accept the idea of entering general adult society would not truly have become an adult. Not even by her standards.

Even that aside, though, Kizuna only takes place over a few days. I think if you've just been informed that your partner is about to disappear and you only have a few days to process it, I don't think you're going to have the mental space to go back through and think about every single thing in your life that may or may not contradict it, much less an event that took place a whole eight years prior. I imagine the 02 kids are probably more likely to have Oikawa's death burned into their memories, but while I'm sure the older Adventure kids certainly did care, their level of attachment and involvement in the cases in 02's finale was still in the realm of "helping their juniors" and getting third-party information, and I'm sure they've seen and been involved with many other things in those last eight years. They were certainly there to see Oikawa meet Pipimon, and it was certainly an important event that probably left an impression, but they were kind of all the way in the back there, and would they easily be able to remember it instantly when they're dealing with a bunch of Chosen Children being kidnapped and their own partners potentially disappearing at any moment? I'm sure after the events of Kizuna, they'll probably have a lot of time to think back on what caused this and what they can do about it, and I don't really expect them to come up with the right answer in only a few days, or even a few weeks or months. It's a tough question.

[mlobsters]

supernatural s15e16 drag me away (from you) (w. meghan fitzmartin)

like a fic title, that one. first impression with the song if i didn't care by the ink spots and the motel hallway and the "have you been here before?" "a long time ago" "welcome back" was the shining

DEAN Yeah, I know. I'm not saying what happened isn't sad. You know, I mean, the guy slit his throat with a whiskey bottle, but... He's an old friend, you know? Old, old. Like haven't seen him in 25 years. We've missed funerals for much closer friends... Hunters.

ok. yet another rando we know nothing about them having history with. me trying to remember how old they were 25 years ago 🥴 16 and 12? ok. easier to base it on my age and add 1 and subtract 3 :p

SAM Well, this is different. I-I mean, it's not like we have much else to do. Chuck is off world. Jack's in the bunker, waiting for Billie's orders. And... And Cas just... bailed, I guess. He didn't say anything to you about why he left? DEAN Not really. SAM And you guys didn't get into a fight or something? DEAN It's just Cas being Cas.

wouldn't be this show without hiding something or lying to your brother about something important! but at least it can't go on very long, there just aren't many episodes left

now the flashback is in 93? what happened to 25 years ago? lol oh the confusion! so, 14 and 10?

wiki

In the flashbacks, Dean is wearing his amulet. Dean is about to turn 14 and Sam is 9. It is two years since the events of 3.08 A Very Supernatural Christmas when Sam first learned about monsters and hunting. The writer, Meghan Fitzmartin, said the intention was for Dean and Sam to be 15 and 10 respectively, with the events set after those in the flashbacks shown in 11.08 Just My Imagination set in 1991 and before those in 9.07 Bad Boys set in 1995.

paxton singleton as young dean / the haunting of hill house - as young steven

YOUNG DEAN Dad should've let me go with him. I mean, you don't need me. I was babysitting you when I was your age. YOUNG SAM I'm pretty sure that's illegal.

i've done some looking into that actually (because of this very show) and it seems like there aren't actually set rules about age and what not. i think pretty much everywhere though would consider the amount of time john regularly canonically left them as child neglect

What Is the Minimum Age That a Child Can Be Left Unsupervised? Currently, there is no universal standard or federal law that applies to all U.S. states, but some have a minimum age requirement for children who will be left alone. For example, Illinois’ minimum age is 14, while Maryland designates 8 years-old as the minimum age. Although many states may not have a specific age at this time, there are numerous laws that consider inadequate supervision of children as neglect. Other states, such as Utah, are taking a different approach to child supervision. In 2018, Utah passed a free-range parenting law that essentially revised the state's definition of ‘neglect’ so that children can roam unsupervised, without the risk of their parents being charged. The US Child Welfare Information Gateway states that “many States offer nonbinding guidelines for parents that can assist them in determining when it’s appropriate for them to leave their child home alone.” Ultimately, it’s the responsibility of the parents to appropriately assess the maturity level of their children before making a decision.

(source)

YOUNG DEAN I thought your imaginary friend told you it was bad to steal. Why would you want... Wait. You think you're gonna go to college? YOUNG SAM Yeah. Why not? YOUNG DEAN "Why not?" Why? YOUNG SAM 'Cause that's what normal people do. YOUNG DEAN Right. Because we are normal. Whatever. We barely go to school. So if you think places like that'll even think about letting a dumbass like you in... Come on. This, Sammy? This is our life.

don't make me cry with the mediocre (sorry, kiddos) acting from the kids! and then they pull out the mushy music to top it off

lol. subtle, show

YOUNG DEAN Yeah. Again, no. This ain't the friggin' Goonies. None of you has been on a hunt before. Just... stay. I got this.

oof this is awkward. trying to get some dean speech patterns but it's coming off really forced. i think it's a big ask of any child actor to be their younger counterparts, especially when we know them so well

actually distressing and spooky, i'm impressed

DEAN Because I'd never seen anything like that before. So after I killed it... or thought that I killed it... I phoned in the... the bodies, let the authorities take care of it, and shoved it down the old memory hole. I had nightmares about that for the longest time. I'm sorry. I should've told you. SAM No, man, it's okay. I mean, you were just a kid. You know, we were both just kids. And, hell, we used to keep a lot of secrets from each other.

the trauma just never ends. however, i laughed and laughed "we used to keep a lot of secrets from each other" this show is ridiculous

not loving this jacket they've got her in

BILLIE I told him the truth. Jack killed your mother, and all he wants is your forgiveness. And I surmise that the only way he can get that is ending God and freeing you from the... What did you call it? Hamster wheel. Was I wrong?

interesting definition of truth. an assumption that the only way dean can forgive him is by killing god/obtaining real free will?

CAITLIN So... this is your life now? SAM Pretty much. CAITLIN I'm sorry. Don't you ever want to be... I don't know... normal? SAM Well, we help people, you know? Save them. I'm just sorry we couldn't... save Travis.

fucking normal, what a loaded word that's become on this show. like freak levels

BILLIE He doesn't know. I don't care why you've been hiding this from your brother. But I don't like loose ends, Dean. I don't like disorder. So clean this up. I need to know that you've got your house in order.

relatable, billie

maybe splitting up to hunt for the witch who couches in hallucinations isn't the best idea, guys. dean finding a dead baby sam in the cannery hallucination, great

big sam safe and sound

CAITLIN I think so. What do they say about getting older? You tell the truth more because you know that lies... they don't make anything better. Take care, Dean.

so heavy handed 😂

botw zelda memory-esque music segue into mushy music

and now it's the music that reminded me of the zelda music lol. motherFUCKER if only i could actually search my own fucking blog for words in posts i wrote. rrrgh. ahh but i put zelda in the file name of the mp4 so i could find it that way on my hd. thank you, past-nic!

okay, it was in 13x06 when cas comes back from the empty and sees jack

and it transitions into the mushy music after the zelda-esque music! and dean says some awful things!

SAM I can't believe you! You know that? I mean, how can you keep me in the dark about something so huge?! DEAN 'Cause I know you couldn't handle it! You didn't trust Billie's plan, and then, when we found out about Amara, you... you... you started second-guessing. You raise these... these "ethical questions."

when dean said he knew sam couldn't handle it?? i gasped and yelled WHAT at the screen. also: i, too, am questioning billie's plan

SAM I shouldn't? Jack's gonna kill himself, and I should just shut up about it? DEAN Yes! SAM No! DEAN This is how we end Chuck, okay?! This is the only way we'll ever be free! So I'm sorry, Sam! You don't get a choice! We don't get a choice! SAM Oh, "we."

like. agAIN, we're like the only way the fix this problem is someone has to kill themselves for the greater good. we have been down this road so many times. and sometimes, back in olden times, they'd be wrestling with alternatives for a season. but these days, sometimes it's a few episodes of looking for another solution, sometimes it's just accepting it straight away, etc. and it drives me up the fucking wall! but at least cas is out there looking for nebulous alternative options.

i can't remember a time in recent history when sam got this mad at dean. understandably so. we've only got 4 episodes to wrap this fucker up. i'm having weird feelings

[bitletsanddrabbles]

🎢 Which of your fics would you call your wildest ride?

Looking over everything I've written, I'm not sure anything really counts as a 'wild' ride - at least for me. For the reader, maybe, but not for me. The closest are probably either Orpheus's Love Song or the unpublished Thomas-as-heir fic.

Orpheus's Love Song gets nominated because it's completely different from anything else I've ever written and because it involved a lot of things I had no experience with (and still don't, if I'm honest). I mean, the E rating was pretty standard for University, and I'd already done a few things with the pairing (which I took up entirely as a challenge. I don't really ship it) but I've never been intentionally high and when I have gotten hyped up enough to count as high it's been on sugar or caffeine. Hardly the level of wtf-even-is-this-stuff that Erik came up with in that fic.

(And honestly, I did zero research on drugs first, no more than Lerox took reality into account when creating Erik in the first place. As such it might mimic something real, but that's basically by accident as it's completely fictitious.)

The Thomas-as-heir fic gets nominated because while it's not what most people would term 'wild', I have been working on it off and on since 2017, which makes it my longest worked on piece ever. Seriously, most of my other big works have been basically abandoned for years, but I keep picking that one back up. I am, by this point, rather dedicated to it. As the longest running fic, it's the one that's changed the most from it's conception. Genera wise it could be classed as 'mystery', which is not normal for me. Researching it has lead me to talk to a lot of people I probably wouldn't have asked questions of otherwise, I've had group brainstorming sessions that are unlike anything I've ever experienced, and the (ironically non-Downton watching American friend) who is (slowly because life) helping me work through it has been hands down the best editor I've ever worked with. I'm honestly pretty intimidated by the prospect of finishing part one and moving on to part two, and not just because I have nearly zero ideas for the plot! (Er. Thomas studies things? And goes to London. Oh, and he meets people! Yeah, he'd totally do that. Um...)

So yeah. We'll call that an answer.

[hua-fei-hua]

“teacher, when will we ever use calculus in our daily lives??”

well i, personally, use them to analyze my fanfiction trends,, ,

[spockandawe]

HEY THERE, you have me interested in The Untamed but I'm a little lost as to where to start, there's both a 50 episode normal version and a 20 episode special edition, which should I watch/start with? Also WHAT does your svsss tag stand for? I'm seeing "The Untamed" and "Chén Qíng Lìng" and "Mo Dao Zu Shi" and "Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation" thrown around as synonyms or related pieces of media, but nothing with svsss!

Sure thing!!

Okay, to start with, I’d definitely go with the 50-episode version. It’s a Lot, and there is some padding added to the story compared to the original book, but twenty episodes seems really, really short to do justice to the central plot 

(a quick skim of google tells me that the special edition leans harder into the original novel’s gayness, which the show has to be coy about, because china. i think there are expanded scenes featuring the two leads, which is awesome, because their acting is AMAZING, but that just means the plot scenes are even more compressed. I saw at least one person recommend that you not do the special edition unless you’ve consumed the story in at least one other more standard format already)

Also! Iirc, the show is available on youtube and netflix, among other platforms, though those two are wonderfully accessible. However, comma, I do hear from people fluent in chinese that the subtitles sometimes are inaccurate in unnecessary/unfortunate ways. From what I hear, viki has the best complete set of subtitles (I think there may be fansub projects in progress, but I am not at all in touch with those. I still haven’t watched the show myself).

And the general summary of my current webnovel fixation! There’s this webnovel author who goes by mxtx, who currently has three complete books out, which have all been translated into english. Then after I finished those, I started branching out into other authors and webnovels, though I’m not too deep into that end of the pool yet. I’ll break each book into a separate paragraph for clarity. 

Oh, and. Each of these books is explicitly gay, and set in ancient fantasy china, in a wuxia/xianxia setting, which I’m not too familiar with myself, but I believe it functions a lot like how authors will use ‘ancient fantasy europe’ as a playground where they don’t necessarily need to match up to established countries/cities/etc, but they expect readers to recognize certain conventions, like I’d be able to recognize a western author writing a basic feudal setting, or recognize witches and wizards, without them explaining the whole thing from the bottom up. Since I’m not familiar, it raised the difficulty level a little for me to get into the genre, but the webnovel translators tend to use footnotes and I picked up a lot as I went on.

(if you are interested in any of these, novelupdates.com is a good central resource collecting links to various fan translation projects)

So! Mxtx. Her earliest book is The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System (SVSSS), which is also the shortest and most linear of her books. The general premise is that a guy who’s been hate-reading this (straight) stallion harem webnovel with a dark protagonist. He goes to bed, and wakes up in the novel, as the protagonist’s dickbag teacher, who is doomed to eventually die horribly. He wants to not die, and is also a decent human being, so the book follows the “original” novel derailing from its intended path, and accidentally getting super duper gay. This one is about to come out in donghua form, but I think that may be its first non-book adaption.

Her second book, which was adapted into The Untamed/Chen Qing Ling (CQL), is also known as The Grandmaster Of Demonic Cultivation/Mo Dao Zu Shi (MDZS), which really manages to be the hardest of her books to summarize. Wei Wuxian, the grandmaster of demonic cultivation, dies. Thirteen years later, he wakes up in someone else’s body. Most of the world would like him to stay dead, tbh, but he’s a good egg, and he and his old friend(????) go forth and solve a necromantic mystery together, and also there is romance-romance and ten million family feelings. This one gets nonlinear, with several extended flashback sequences, and the story STARTS at about the midway point of the plot. This has been adapted into an audio drama at least once, a manhua, a donghua, and now a live action show, so it goes by a million different names in its various formats.

Her third book, and the LONGEST, is Heaven Official’s Blessing/Tian Guan Ci Fu (TGCF), and oh my god, it’s so long, and I love it so, so much. This gets into high fantasy much  more than the other two, including the idea that as people develop their cultivation and powers, they may eventually achieve immortality and ascend to the heavens. The story follows Xie Lian who achieved immortality and ascended to heaven! And then fell. And then ascended! And fell again. Eight hundred years later, he ascends for the third time. He meets Hua Cheng, the ridiculously powerful ghost king, who most of the other immortals are terrified of. But Hua Cheng seems to like Xie Lian! And Xie Lian thinks Hua Cheng is a sweet boy! (hua cheng is a sweet boy, but only for xie lian). This also has extended flashback sequences, but is a more linear story than MDZS, I think. Also it made me cry, which, wow, rude. I love it so incredibly much. This also exists as a manhua, but I think it’s still being published? I haven’t read it yet.

NOW. Mxtx is working on a fourth book, but it’s not out in chinese yet, never mind english. But I needed More. I was getting some SVSSS vibes from this one other book, which, *wobbly hand motions*, but I am enjoying the hell out of this book purely for its own sake.

Meatbun is an author with other books that I haven’t read yet, but I am currently in the middle of The Husky And His White Cat Shizun/Er Ha He Ta De Bai Mo Shi Zun (Erha/2ha), which is at this moment being adapted to a live action tv show called Immortality. There are MANY warnings that go with this book, though the google docs translation files do a good job of placing warnings at the front of every document and in front of relevant chapters. The general premise! Mo Ran basically conquered the entire world, put down all resistance by force, and was a super powerful but Kinda Dumb emperor. As part of this, he took his old teacher, who he despised with a burning passion, prisoner, and abused him a Lot. The story starts as rebels try to mount an assault on his palace, and Mo Ran’s cousin gets impatient with how slowly things are moving and runs ahead of the group. He finds that (suicide warning:) Mo Ran has... taken poison, and is in the middle of dying. This doesn’t stick. He wakes up as a teenager, apparently having traveled back in time, and starts living through events again, with the knowledge of his past life. It took me a while to warm up to this story, but ohhhh my goodness, it’s so TASTY. The translation for this one is ongoing, and I am in AGONY waiting for further updates.

So those are the ones I’m currently into and mostly blogging about! I also read Dreamer In The Spring Boudoir, mostly because feynite wrote an SVSSS fic set in the universe of that novel, which was good in some ways, left me cold in others (and the original novel is straight, with a society with rigid gender roles, so making it super gay in the fic made the setting much more interesting to me). Meatbun has other writing, which I haven’t sampled yet, but I am definitely interested in doing that sometime soon. 

Sorry, I know this is a LOT, so if you have any other questions feel free to ask me!! I got into these mostly via being interested in the untamed, so I read them as 1) mdzs, 2) svsss, 3) tgcf, 4) erha, which was an order that worked well for me. But if someone was looking for a general order to read them in, independent of that, I might suggest 1) svsss, 2) mdzs, 3) tgcf, 4) erha. They’re all really good, and scratch different emotional itches, and each of them has at least a few characters who sucker-punch me RIGHT in the goddamn heart. They’ve been a HUGE help for me dealing with the restlessness and/or apathy of quarantine, so I’ve been evangelizing them to pretty much anyone who will listen to me, hahaha

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Hey! I'm going to start my programming job (entry level software engineer) in the summer and I'm honestly nervous. From your post I think you're also a computer science related career? and I was wondering how is a programming job as oppose to school?

Hey anon! Yep, I took computer science in college and I’m currently in a software engineering job. I’m not sure how school is where you’re from; my university (I’m from the Philippines) focused on a lot more theory/math than practical programming skills back in college, so for me there was a big difference when it came to a programming job.

I freelance and delve in web development for a company product so I’m not familiar with other programming options (there’s game dev, embedded systems, etc) so I can only share my experiences on that.

If you ever freelanced and made websites for people, it’s pretty much the same but with better benefits and, hopefully, better people and better workflow. If you can work on a small project on your own, just imagine doing the same but on a bigger scale and with a team.

I find that the biggest variable would be the type of company you’re in. If you’re starting out as a junior developer and you’re in a good company, your team should be able to mentor you. It can be intimidating at first, but remember: these guys know they hired you as a junior developer. They know your skill level so don’t get caught up with expectations. Just learn everything you can from them. If there’s an onboarding process, great! Otherwise, they will probably give you small tasks/bug tickets first so you get familiar with everything, then you’ll eventually work on bigger stuff.

Unlike in college where you would have the specifications down to a T, the specs you’re working on in a company can change very easily so you have to be a bit more flexible. Again, if you’re in a good company, they should have an established workflow that will help you be more organized and get around these changes better (we use kanban but some use scrum, depends on what agile buzzword your team likes). If there’s one valuable thing you’ll learn working with people, it’s how to be more productive and organized.

There is no “perfect“ program. Programming is just a tool to build the right product for the users, and sometimes those user needs change, which means your code needs to change, and that’s okay. Sometimes there will be bugs or new features, and sometimes those new features mean making changes to old ones. You’re always doing something new.

You’ll most likely work with a team, which means half the time you’re reading someone else’s code. Again, if you’re in a good company, there should be company coding standards to follow so not everything looks like shit. If you’re in an older company, be prepared to touch legacy code. Don’t be intimidated if it takes a while to understand everything - I don’t even understand 10% of our codebase (it’s just so massive). You really just need to understand what you need for the moment. Learning the codebase takes a lot of time. It’s normal.

If your company has a code review system in place, you’re in luck. Your code will get a lot of comments for improvement, and you won’t be able to comment on other code for a while since you’re working on improving your own code sense. And that’s okay. It will feel like criticism - and it is - but eventually those comments will lessen and you will come out a better programmer. If you’re interested in improving how you code, I suggest reading Clean Code by Robert Martin.

And because you’re working with a team, it really helps if you: take an interest in the product you’re building, and work on communication. I cannot stress this enough: programmers are not that great at communicating. You need to be able to communicate tech stuff with fellow developers, but you also need to abstract the tech details and talk product with your PM or client. The latter usually isn’t a major concern at an entry level job, but it really helps if you ever find yourself negotiating your specs (like if the deadline for the engineering work is unreasonable, you have to be able to explain it in a way a non-tech person can understand). This goes the other way as well; sometimes other people will have trouble communicating with you, so keep that in mind.

Still, even if you’re working with other people, you will mostly spend time coding alone. So work on those self management skills!

My biggest advice would be to always keep learning! So many things change in the technology landscape, so learning is really part of the job. Those theoretical things you learned in college may or may not help you depending on the nature of your work, though personally I think that solid theoretical foundation really helps with the learning part of the job.

There are probably other stuff, but this is getting too long. Software engineering is really about making a great product that will benefit people, and even though it requires technical know-how, it’s still about working with people, for people (and capitalism, unfortunately).

If you’re in a company that doesn’t have that good of a work environment (I’ve been there) just learn all the don’ts and you’ll have a better idea of what kind of work environment you’re looking for in your next job. There’s a good book on this for software devs called Peopleware by Timothy Lister and Tom DeMarco.

At the end of the day, it’s still coding, and coding is the easy part. If you’re already good at it, you’re golden. Otherwise, it’s okay; learning how to code well is part of the job. Learning, being part of a team, managing product specs to better fit the needs of clients/users, and reacting to change is really what you should take away from your first programming job. You can easily learn how to code in C on your own, but those other skills are invaluable, and surprisingly not a lot of devs are good with soft skills. My last book recommendation on this aspect is Clean Coder by Robert Martin.

(My book recommendations aren’t mandatory obviously, but I found them helpful if you really want to pursue software engineering as a career and want to work on your soft skills).

I really hope this was helpful in any way anon! This ended up longer than I expected. If you have any questions, I’m happy to answer them!