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[moeitsu]

Explaining the James Logan Howlett (Wolverine) Lore for the new fans :)

I made this as a little cheat sheet for all the new Logan/Wolverine fans, in case you’ve never seen the movies or read the comics. Hopefully it’ll help with your fanfics and understanding his character better <3

Logan is my favorite of the Marvel superhero’s, and he and I go way back….so far back that my Dad dressed up as Wolverine and I as Rogue for Halloween in 2006. So he holds a very special place in my heart.

Lore - Part 2  Wolverine Comics

If you’ve seen X-men Origins: Wolverine, I hate to break it to you, but that backstory is not canon to the X-men universe. The later movies really screwed up the timeline. So the information here is strictly from the comics.

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Pre-Adamantium Binding:

His real name is James Howlett, ‘Logan’ is later used as an alias to distance himself from his past.

He was born sometime around 1880, in Alberta Canada.

He is the illegitimate son of Elizabeth Howlett and Thomas Logan. He grew up on the Howlett estate and believed John Howlett was his real father.

His mutant powers first appeared when he was a child. He has accelerated healing, heightened senses, and retractable bone claws.

The trigger was caused by Thomas Logan killing James Howlett. The overwhelming fear and anger made his power manifest, blinded with rage he kills Thomas.

As his biological father dies, he reveals to Logan that he is his true father. The event is deeply traumatizing, and Logan runs away from his family estate. His mother commits suicide shortly after.

Logan has a half brother known as Sabertooth (Victor Creed) who has similar powers to the Wolverine but is more ‘animalistic’

The details vary across the comics but the brothers are always seen as rivals. And often pitted against eachother.

Logan served in WWI, WWII, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.

He also served in a Canadian military force known as ‘Department H’ that specialized in superhuman affairs. (This was after the experiment, I’ll go into more detail later)

Sometime before the Weapon X program: On Earth-616, Logan had a wife (Itsu) and son in Japan where he was training at the time. They were killed by the Winter Soldier (Bucky Barnes)

Weapon X Program - Adamantium Binding:

The Weapon X program was run by multiple people working in secret for the Canadian government. Originally beginning in 1845, their goal was to experiment on mutants and create their own super-soldiers.

Logan was deceived and manipulated into undergoing the Weapon X experiment. He did not consent to being a test subject.

For some reason the X-Men Origins movie makes it out to be that Logan willingly chose to undergo this process, only to later reveal that he was tricked into doing so.

Before being captured, he was still struggling with his identity, he was close to 100 years old at the time. His life was filled with violence and loss. Making him physically and mentally vulnerable.

He was a prime target for exploitation.

Part of the experiment was to completely erase his memories and replace them with false ones. This allowed them complete control over him.

This also made it difficult for him to recall how he ended up in the program to begin with.

I repeat: they completely wiped his memory. His whole identity was gone.

100 years of memories were gone.

The bonding process turned his entire skeleton and bone claws into indestructible metal.

Due to his regenerative nature, Logan was not given anesthetic or put under for the procedure. It was excruciatingly painful.

Logan worked as a mercenary for private military contractors. He took on these assignments without fully understanding their implications because of his fragmented memory.

Sometime later he became a member of X-Force, a private military unit (affiliated with the CIA) that dealt with incredibly violent operations.

The purpose of the project was to create an unstoppable killing machine. With their end goal being to erase his humanity all together. However Logan’s mental fortitude allowed him to resist the conditioning and make his escape before it was too late.

After escaping, Logan developed a mistrust with authority. And just people in general. He felt deeply betrayed by the Weapon X program. And he struggles with the fear of being used as a weapon.

The escape and aftermath of Weapon X:

After everything Logan went through, the intense trauma and confusion significantly impacted his actions and mindset.

He was left with extreme psychological damage, and behaved more as an animal than a man for the first few years of his freedom. Living in the wilderness of Canada.

Quite literally a feral man. He lost touch of his humanity. Embracing his animalistic abilities, turning him into an apex predator.

Logan has the ability to enter something called “Beserker Rage” which he becomes entirely driven by animalistic instinct. Turning him into an unstoppable force and exerting himself for very long periods of time.

Think of when you see him running on all fours…

Over time, Logan began to regain bits and pieces of his humanity. He was later discovered by Heather and James MacDonald Hudson who took him in and helped him recover physically and mentally.

(Logan actually fell in love with Heather, and James became his best friend. They were the closest thing he had to a family)

After he recovered, he was recruited by the Canadian governments ‘Department H’. They were responsible for a lot of his training and became a key member in Canada’s superhero team: Alpha Flight.

This is where he took on the code name “Wolverine”

His time with Alpha Flight was short lived. And soon he was approached by Charles Xavier, who was looking for mutants to join his X-Men. He recognized Logan’s potential and offered him a place on the team as well as the promise to help him regain his memory.

Logan accepted, and his time with the X-Men marked a critical and significant moment in his life. Under Xavier’s guidance he was able to rebuild his identity and gradually piece together his past. All while fighting for the rights of mutants.

Being part of the X-Men gave him a sense of purpose and direction. Although his main goal had always been to uncover what he had lost, which was himself. He still struggles with trust and relationships, but eventually forms strong bonds with the other X-men.

His past with Weapon X still haunts him. And he has vivid and terrible nightmares about what he had done and what was done to him.

I won’t go into detail about his time with the X-men because that varies a lot across the comics. Just know that he had a love-hate relationship with them, but he ultimately loved them in the end.

Some sad facts about Logan that actually haunt me:

Logan has outlived everyone he ever loved. Family, friends, even his own children. He is so so so lonely.

Immense amount of survivors guilt. He feels unworthy of the life he continues to live.

He suffers from chronic nightmares. Often waking up in a violent and panicked state.

Deep-seated fear of abandonment that goes all the way back to his early childhood. He isolates himself to protect himself from more pain.

Tons of self-loathing. He believes himself to be nothing more than a killer. He thinks he is unworthy of love and happiness.

In the “Old Man Logan” storyline, he is tricked into killing the entire X-Men team. This event haunts him for the rest of his life.

Logan had a long, unrequited love for Jean Gray. He has watched her die multiple times, and each time a piece of him dies with her. On one occasion, he even had to kill her himself.

When he succumbs to “beserker rage” he loses control of himself. And the aftermath horrifies him. He is even afraid of himself at times and one of the reasons why he distances himself from others.

Some happy/soft facts to make up for everything you just read:

Logan is incredibly fatherly at times, often taking younger mutants under his protection and guidance. He becomes a mentor to them and looks out for their well-being.

In one of the comics he takes a young girl (Jubilee) to the mall and followers her around carrying her bags. He loves doting on her and I find it so adorable.

He also teaches another mutant named Kitty how to dance.

In one mission he is tasked with taking care of an infant, Hope. And he is incredibly gentle and tender with her. Cradling her in his arms and being fiercely protective.

He has a deep love and connection with animals. Especially ones that have been mistreated or misunderstood.

Caring for an injured wolf, he nurses it back to health and releases it back into nature.

He also adopts a stray, abused dog at one point.

In one of the timelines, he funded and ran the ‘Jean Gray School for Higher Learning’ He was the headmaster, and was dedicated to protecting and teaching young mutants.

In one scene he literally makes pancakes for all the students. I love him so much.

His relationship with Nightcrawler (Kurt Wagner) is very brotherly. They share alot of respect and understanding for each other, and Nightcrawler often serves as Logan’s moral compass.

His happiest memories are when he was training in Japan. And he has a deep appreciation and admiration for the culture. Taking on the samurai code of honor, and respecting its discipline and humility.

His entire relationship with Laura Kinney (X-23). Essentially his daughter. Taking on a father-figure role for her.

In one of the comics he organizes a birthday party for her, knowing she never had one. He goes all out and it shows just how much he loves her.

Logan has a great sense of humor. Often dry and sardonic, he’s known for his quick wit and playful banter. Which adds a layer of warmth to his otherwise tough persona.

He is very fond of life’s simple pleasures. Which reflects his inner desire for peace and normalcy. He values the little things that make life enjoyable.

His numerous acts of kindness towards strangers. Logan is compassionate at heart.

He doesn’t comfort others with his words, but rather his presence. Logan has a very unique understanding of grief and tries to give others relief in knowing they aren’t alone.

WOW okay I wrote way too much. Tbh I actually cut a ton out of this but if anybody wants a part 2 I’d be happy to share more. Shoutout to my brother for helping me source all this with his comics lol.

If you read all this, you’re a real one. And I’m so glad we’re all witnessing the Logan Howlett Renaissance

[scary-grace]

still life, with hope - a shigaraki x f!reader fic

You're an art student with a crippling fear of birds and an assignment to create art from life, so when you're assigned to study swans, you're pretty much dead in the water. And there's something strange about the swans you find on a secluded lake, something all too human. As your artwork grows increasingly surreal and your suspicions about the swans continue to build, you can't help but ask yourself the question: Are you losing your mind, or have you walked into the middle of a fairytale gone wrong? Whatever it is, you'd better figure it out fast. Seven lives depend on the answer. (cross-posted to Ao3)

This is for @shigarakislaughter, who requested this prompt from my winter prompt list: hear the fallen and lonely cry out / can you fix me up, can you show me hope. I apologize for how long this took, and the fact that it'll be in multiple chapters, but I really hope you like it! Swan Lake AU, modern setting/no quirks, art student!reader. dividers by @cafekitsune.

Chapter 1

You look down at the piece of paper you’ve drawn from the hat with more than a little dismay. “SWAN?”

“Swan,” your Capstone 1 professor says, smiling warmly. “Is there a problem?”

“No,” you say at first. He raises an eyebrow. “Can’t I pick something else?”

“I didn’t get to pick something else,” one of your classmates says from behind you. His piece of paper reads SLUG. “I’ll trade you.”

You don’t want SLUG either. This is the first year of your MFA program, and in order to advance to the second year, you have to create an exhibition that speaks to both your versatility with multiple mediums and your own signature style. This year’s Capstone 1 exhibition is going to be held in the building that’s going to house the campus’s collection of fine art, and if you or any other student does well enough in it, your pieces will earn a permanent place in the gallery. You and your classmates have been drooling over the prize ever since it was announced.

But it wouldn’t be a grad program without a twist of nonsense involved, and in order to set everyone on an equal playing field, the professor in charge of supervising your work for the exhibition set down rules. You’ll each create an exhibition centered around a subject from the natural world. You must spend at least two of each week’s five workshop periods creating art from life – i.e., observing whatever your subject is in its natural habitat. And the subjects will be assigned by drawing from a hat.

Your classmate who drew SLUG got a short straw for sure, but there are plenty of classmates whose subjects looked pretty bad until the second you unfolded yours. Somebody got WASP, which will be a nightmare to observe from life; your roommate got ANEMONE, which means she’ll be spending a lot of time in tidepools for the foreseeable future. The person who got DANDELION has hay fever, and the person who got SQUIRREL is nearsighted. The only people who are happy are the people who wound up with things like TREE and STONE and FIRE. And you were ready to suck it up and create the best exhibition the school’s ever seen for any subject you got, right up until SWAN.

“There will be no trading,” the professor says. He turns to you. “What seems to be the problem?”

“I don’t like birds,” you say. The guy who got SLUG snorts. “I mean it! When I went on vacation to America, a bunch of Canada geese tried to drown me because I wouldn’t give them my sandwich –”

The classroom erupts in laughter. “It’s fortunate, then, that your assignment is SWAN,” your professor says. “And you are more than welcome to observe them from a safe distance.”

There’s no safe distance from a giant bird that wants to kill you. You wander back to your seat, miserable, while the only classmate who hasn’t drawn yet stands up and pulls SPARROW. So there were two birds in there – a big one, and a small one, and you had to draw the big one. Just your luck.

And your luck gets worse, because your professor assigns the rest of the class period to research your subject and where it might be observed, and you learn a certain fact about SWAN that leaves you absolutely dead in the water. You wait until the rest of the class is filing out, then make your way up to your professor. “Sir?”

“Yes?”

“I’m supposed to draw swans from life,” you say, and he nods. “Swans migrate.”

“Indeed they do.”

“They’ve migrated,” you say again. “It’s already getting cold out. They’ve all flown away. And I looked at the zoos around here – none of them have swans –”

“I admire your diligence! You certainly used your research period well,” your professor says. He’s happy. That doesn’t help you. “You’re correct. Swans are migratory, and it’s autumn. The vast majority of the wild swans are gone for the winter, and the local zoo is poorly stocked with swans. But that doesn’t mean there are no swans to be found.”

You were hoping he’d agree that you needed a different subject. You’re desperate enough that you’d even take SLUG. “Do you know where I can find some swans?”

“I’m glad you asked. There happens to be a small population of non-migratory swans at a lake not too far from here,” the professor says. “Most people aren’t aware of the lake, as it sits on the old estate. You know the one?”

You can only think of one. “With the signs on the fence about shooting trespassers?”

“The owner is rather protective,” your professor says. He smiles at you. “He’s allowed the preserve to grow wild, and his predecessor did the same, until it resembles a nature park more than anything else. The signs are to discourage hunters or hikers. You, on the other hand, will be behaving as a naturalist. You are there to observe and document – and given your apparent fear of swans, there’s no risk that you’ll interact with them.”

“No,” you admit. “Still, um – will you let him know that I’ll be there? So he doesn’t shoot me?”

“I already informed him that one of my students would be paying visits to the lake,” the professor says. You can’t decide if that makes you feel better or worse – better about not being shot, worse about getting out of this without spending the next six months on SWAN. “He’s quite enthusiastic about the idea of the birds being documented. And he was kind enough to provide a map.”

You’re doomed. “Thanks.”

When you exit the classroom, you find SLUG guy waiting, face pinched above his surgical mask. “He’s not going to let you out of it,” you say. “He wouldn’t let me out of mine.”

“SLUG is objectively worse than SWAN,” your classmate argues. “Both Western and Eastern traditions feature swans as a symbol of grace and beauty. There’s not a single classical painting that features a slug.”

“We have to draw from life,” you remind him. “Slugs don’t migrate. Swans do.”

Your classmate’s thin eyebrows lift. Does he pluck them? “It seems you’re fucked.”

“Yep,” you say, and sigh. The map folded up in your pocket looks like it was written in the eighteenth century. Even if you can read it, there’s no guarantee it’ll be accurate. “It sure does.”

You’re only mandated to spend two of each week’s workshop periods observing from life, but you figure you might as well bite the bullet. Most of your classmates are doing the same, according to the cohort group chat. Kaoruko, who drew SPARROW, found herself a cute little coffee shop to sit in, with a tree and a bird feeder right outside the window. Your roommate Shoko is headed for the beach in search of tidepools, bundled up for the weather with a determined look on her face. SLUG guy, whose name is apparently Kai, is complaining that he can’t find any, and the group chat is collectively dunking on him.

They were going to find someone to laugh at. You’re glad it’s not you. Still, you feel a little guilty, enough to message him privately. Go up to the arboretum and walk around on the trails. They’re all over the place.

He doesn’t respond. Fine. You tuck your phone into your backpack, hop on your bike, and start the half hour’s ride out to the old estate in search of swans.

You go over your research in your head as you ride along the network of trails through town. Swans are the biggest species of waterfowl in the world, even bigger than geese, which is just your luck. They come in multiple varieties – trumpeter, mute, black-necked, black, tundra, and whooper. Most of Japan is temperate enough that the swans migrate here for the winter, but it’s just your luck – Hokkaido is just far enough to the north and just cold enough to mean that the supposedly non-migratory swans at this lake are the only swans around.

What else did you learn about swans? Classically, they’re symbols of grace and beauty, just like Kai said; colloquially, they’re known for being assholes. They’ll attack people, just like geese will, and unlike geese, they’ve succeeded in murdering an uncomfortable number of people. Sure, those people were usually a little too close to the nest, and you’re not planning to get anywhere near that close, but the possibility is there that your Capstone 1 project could actually kill you. The only fact you learned about swans that wasn’t completely off-putting is the fact that they raise their cygnets together, and they apparently mate for life.

That’s not much for you to go on. By the time you drag your bike through the hole in the fence marked on the map of the old estate, you’re already frustrated with the whole thing, and your mood doesn’t improve as you hike along the world’s faintest trail up into the woods. According to the map, all the trails lead to the lake eventually, but the scenic route doesn’t do much for you except make you wish that you’d gotten TREE or ROCK or FIRE. You’d even have taken MOSS. Or FUNGUS. All of those things are abundant in the woods, and none of them are able to drown you.

The hike up to the lake is supposed to be a mile long, but the trail is so winding that it feels like longer, and you’re beginning to wonder if the professor sent you out here to get lost in the woods when you spot light coming through the trees. You pick up the pace, around the last few curves and over a downed tree covered in moss and mushrooms, and find yourself on the rocky shore of a lake.

It’s not a small lake. You were thinking it would be small, but it’s not. It’s big and crystal clear, so clear that you can see exactly where the lakebed drops away into nothingness, and although the sun’s out and the temperature’s above freezing, you know you’d freeze to death if you fell in the water long before you drowned. When you look across the lake, to the other side, you can see places where the slope to the shore is steep, and low bluffs that would lead to a nasty drop into the icy water. All the trails lead to the lake – sure. Some of them lead right into it. You set down your backpack, dig out an old, crusty highlighter, and mark the trail you took today in bright green.

You don’t see any swans just yet. There’s mist rising off the water and the sun’s still high in the sky, and as you get settled on the shore, you find yourself wishing you could just draw the lake instead. There’s so much to look at here, so many aspects of the landscape you could explore. You could sketch the pebbles on the shore, the broad, flat rocks you’ll probably sit on the next time you come out here. You could get here early, find a good spot, and rip off Monet by painting the water at every hour of the day. If you wanted to get here early, you could paint the sunrise. The mist looks pretty now, but first thing in the morning –

It’s not mist. Sure, there’s mist, but there are shapes drifting through it, and the shapes are creating the shadows that entranced you, leaving faint ripples that travel the length of the lake to brush along your side of the shore. You see long necks, folded wings, narrow beaks. Swans.

Your professor was right. There are swans here – seven of them, all paddling smoothly through the lake, in no hurry to get anywhere, least of all south. You fumble your sketchbook open in a hurry and grab for the first medium you can find. You brought half a dozen in your backpack, unsure of what you’d need, but any of the five others would be better than the chalk pastels you come up with. But you’ll work with what you’ve got. You can’t let this get away.

It’s not the swans that are the focus of your first attempt at observation. It’s the sun and the mist and the water, all bright and bold, washing your page in color. The swans are almost an afterthought – just seven grey-and-white shadows, weaving between the columns of light. Maybe this is how you can get through this project. The landscape is what attracts you, and the swans are part of it. You don’t have to ever deal directly with the swans themselves. They haven’t even noticed you, and as far as you’re concerned, it can stay that way.

When you’ve finished with the rough piece in chalk pastel, your hands and your jeans are smeared with color. You spray fixative over the sketchbook page and set it aside to dry, then take out your phone. You can take a few pictures, maybe get one of the swans in them, and call it good for today.

You discover quickly that you can’t get just one swan in the picture. They travel in a group, and the longer you look at them, the more you observe slight differences in size and plumage. There’s one swan that’s smaller than the other six while still being full-grown. Is that one a female? You’re not going to check. One of them is preening, and two others are helping, while another one pokes along the shoreline. Another one bobs against a stand of rushes, its head tucked beneath its wing.

So they do come up on shore sometimes. You’ll need to keep an eye out, and make sure you know where they are at all times. You do a quick bird count, coming up with six, although you could have sworn you counted seven earlier. There were seven. Where’s the –

You see movement out of the corner of your eye and almost drop your phone in the lake in your haste to get back from the water’s edge. So much for keeping an eye out – the seventh swan was practically on top of you before you realized it was there, and now it’s staring you down with murder in its red eyes. You didn’t think swans had red eyes. This is probably a demon swan, and it’s going to drag you into the lake and kill you. You back away a little further.

The red-eyed swan doesn’t follow you. It just watches. And watches. And keeps watching, until you’ve packed up your things and crept back into the forest. You got one usable sketch, and you’ve also got a demon swan. You need to stop thinking that anything about this project is going to be easy. No matter how good you feel about it, something’s always going to go wrong.

“Can you believe this?” Shoko rolls up her pantleg and pulls down her sock, showing you the mark from the jellyfish tentacle that wrapped around her leg. “I thought it was safe, but apparently they can still sting even if they’re dead.”

“And it was in the tidepool with you?”

“No, it was on the beach while I was walking back. A wave came up and swept it right into me.” Shoko sits down at the studio station next to yours. “Just my luck.”

“Just your luck,” you echo. “Did you get any pieces you’re happy with out of it, at least?”

“I got a few,” Shoko says. She hoists out her sketchbook, followed by a pile of polaroids, then aims a sly look your way. “What about you? How was SWAN?”

“It’s SWANS, actually. Seven of them,” you say, and Shoko nods, looking impressed. You wish she wouldn’t. You barely have anything to show for the week’s check-in. “They’re even scarier than I thought. I –”

“Did you know that some human beings are allergic to slug mucus?” Kai drops his bags at the studio station on Shoko’s other side and slumps down in the chair. “Neither did I. Until yesterday.”

“Oh my God,” you say. Shoko is laughing. “You weren’t supposed to touch them!”

Kai’s broken out in hives, and he’s glaring at you. “You told me where to find them.”

“Where to find them. Not to touch them!”

Shoko wheezes. “What, did you pick it up and give it a kiss? We’re not supposed to interact with the nature unless the nature starts it.”     

“Shut up,” Kai says. His face is turning red. “What happened to your leg? I hope you didn’t choose to urinate on it –”           

“That’s an urban legend. And you’re a moron,” Shoko says. She leans out around Kai to look at you. “Tell me about the swans.”

“Ooh, there was more than one SWAN?” A classmate drops into the seat on your left, carrying a big cardboard box. You can see a row of canvases sticking out of it, and you grit your teeth. “How did you make it out alive?”

“Hi, Keigo,” you say. Keigo ignores you and walks away, only to come back with another cardboard box full of canvases. You try again. “Did you get inspired?”

“You know it,” Keigo says. He sits down with a satisfied sigh and starts paging through his canvases. “I’ve been painting all week. I moved my easel next to my bed so I can paint when I wake up in the middle of the night. How have you guys been doing?”

He looks from you to Kai to Shoko, mild concern crossing his face. Kai glares at him. Shoko raises an eyebrow. “Really, birdbrain?”

“There’s only one birdbrain here,” Keigo says, and he winks at you.

Before you can protest, the professor strides into the room. “Welcome, students! I hope you’re all prepared to share the results of your first week’s efforts.”

You thought it was going to be a basic show and tell, but the professor’s not letting anybody off easy. Everybody gets quizzed about how much time they spent observing their subject, as well as why they chose the mediums they used, and it doesn’t take long for you to realize that you and Shoko and Kai are about to be in trouble. You have the misfortune of following Keigo, who gets glowing reviews on the thirteen canvases he’s done so far of FIRE. Just your luck. When you stand up, you’re braced for the worst.

“I spent about six hours total observing the swans,” you say. That’s about average for the class, and you had to hike to get to yours. “And I have three pieces –”

“Only three?”

“Yeah. There were, um, complications.” You pick up your first piece – the chalk pastel sketch of the swans from the first day. “This is kind of my first impression of it. Them. And then this one –”

Your second piece is a watercolor. You were planning to do something more detailed from the pictures you took, but something was wrong with the photos. They were blurry, almost psychedelic, and you decided to just go with it when it was time to paint. “So these were done from a photo, not from life,” the professor says. You cringe. “Why not?”

“I don’t think the swans liked me very much,” you say. “There was this one – it snuck up on me –”

Your classmates are snickering. Your face heats up. “Tell us about the last piece,” your professor says. “This one has more detail than the others – but it’s missing something. Why is that?”

The third piece is an ink-on-paper sketch of all seven swans, drifting across the water in a line. You thought you’d soft-focused all the swans, but when you look at the piece, you realize that you didn’t. The swan in the middle – the red-eyed one who jumped you the first day – is a shadow, or a blur. “I don’t really know,” you say. Your classmates titter, Keigo the loudest. “It kind of just happened.”

“Mm.” The professor studies the last sketch. “Your technique is clear, but there’s no life to it. You need to observe in more detail.”

“Get closer to them?” you ask. Your professor shakes his head. “I don’t know –”

“Think about it. You have seven potential subjects to work with,” the professor says, “and unlike some of your classmates, you have subjects with complex social structures and behavior patterns. Get to know their personalities a little more. I want to see that in your next set of preliminary works.”

You collect your three pieces and sit back down, while Kai, his four pieces, and his hives make their way up to the front of the room. Your critique wasn’t actually that bad. The professor complimented your technique, and that’s the foundation for everything else, so you’re not starting from nothing. He just wants a little more observation. A little more detail. A little more time out at the lake with the swans.

It’s not the worst thing. As you listen to the professor trying to figure out just how Kai managed to give himself hives while taking photos of a slug, you remind yourself that it could have gone a lot worse.

Your alarm goes off, startling you out of a dream that’s still clear as you get ready to leave. You were at the shores of the lake, and the light was fading, a cold wind skipping across the water. The swans weren’t there, and you were worried. Not because of your project, although you’ve had dreams like that, too. You were worried because it was cold, and it was getting dark, and you couldn’t see a place for them to shelter. You could hear howling in the woods behind you, but you weren’t scared for you. And then something moved in your peripheral vision, something drew up alongside you – and your alarm went off before you could see what it was.

It’s just before dawn as you move through the small apartment you and Shoko share. Shoko’s asleep at the kitchen table, her miniature easel propped up in front of her with a line of acrylic tubes open and waiting beside her palette. You take the time to close them before you head out the door, and take a look at her canvas as you do. Shoko’s the best acrylic painter you’ve ever seen, and she’s painted an anemone with incredible detail. Shoko’s going to get a good critique this week. You’re sure of it.

In fact, everybody’s critique’s improved, except yours. Your professor still doesn’t think you’re trying hard enough to get to know the swans, and today, you’re taking matters into your own hands. By the time you get to the lake, it’ll be just past dawn, and you won’t leave until you’ve captured something about each of the seven swans on paper. Or until sundown. Whichever’s first. No matter how unworried you were for your own safety in the dream, you don’t want to be caught in the woods after dark.

The ride through town is quiet, and so is the hike through the woods. You’re familiar with this path by now, and you’re getting better at hiking. The air is crisp and cold, and you can see your breath. It’ll be a cold morning until the sun crests the mountains. When you break through the tree line onto the shore, you find the lake completely still and quiet. Only faint shreds of mist. No swans in sight.

Maybe they’re sleeping in. You’d be sleeping in if you had the choice. You lay out your blanket on the flat rocks on the eastern shore of the lake, sit down, and take out your sketchbook to look through what you’ve done already. It might not be coming through in your artwork, but you have gotten to know the swans fairly well. At first you couldn’t tell them apart, except to pick out the one that’s smaller than the rest, but now you know them all by sight and behavior – and sound. The first rays of sunlight brush the lake, and like clockwork, the swans drift out of wherever they spend the night. As they travel across the lake, you look them over. You need one piece for each swan by the end of the day. Which of them should you start with?

You’ve been observing them long enough to have nicknamed them, and to have assigned them genders for no reason other than vibes. The one in the lead this morning is the one you call Silly, because most of the time he’s doing what you can only call clowning around. You know that’s projecting, that you shouldn’t impose human behavior on a bird, but that’s what it looks like he’s doing. Silly might be a good place to start, but then again, Silly’s not great at holding still. Gorgeous might be a better bet.

Swans are pretty. You had to admit that at some point, and while the swan you call Gorgeous is roughly as pretty as the other swans, Gorgeous is the only one who acts like she knows it. Gorgeous isn’t particularly scared of you, but she’s also not aggressive. More than a few times she’s come right up to wherever you’re sitting and frozen in place in the middle of your eyeline. The first time it happened, you thought you were getting into a staring contest. Then it occurred to you that Gorgeous might be posing for you.

It’s a crazy thought. It’s projecting, again, but you will admit that Gorgeous has an uncanny ability to find good light. This morning, Gorgeous is up to her usual tricks, waddling out onto a rocky outcropping in the middle of the lake and freezing in place, her wings folded neatly. In direct sunlight, there’s an undertone to her white feathers – brown, or maybe bronze. That’s going to be hard to capture without metallics, but you’ll give it a shot.

Gorgeous is a whooper swan, you think. Or a trumpeter swan. She has the same strident, sonorous call as the swans in the videos you watched on YouTube as research, and she’s talkative with the others. As you try to capture the metallic sheen of the sunlight on Gorgeous’s feathers, you keep an eye on who’s talking back. Gorgeous reliably gets responses from Silly, who responds to everybody, and from Sooty, whose call sounds like what would happen if a trombone smoked a pack a day for twenty years. It would be nice to get a feather study of Sooty, who earned his nickname thanks to the char-like markings on his plumage, but Sooty doesn’t venture out into full sun very often.

Spinner is almost always in the sun, though. If there’s even a patch of sunlight, Spinner’s in it, even if it means that he’s paddling in place and rotating slowly in a circle. If there’s no sun, like there has been one or two of the days you’ve come to the lake, Spinner huddles up with whichever of the other swans is holding still, feathers puffed out. You’re hoping you can draw Spinner while he’s out of the water. He’s more graceful on land than the others.

You take your time sketching Gorgeous – you’ve got all day – and when Gorgeous gets bored with sunning and sidles off the outcropping into the water, you set down your pencils and pull your watercolors out of your backpack instead. You have a new medium. Now you need a new swan, and as you’re looking around, weighing your options, Needles darts through your peripheral vision and nominates herself. You might as well try to capture her in watercolors. You’re not going to get her to sit still for a serious sketch.

Needles is the smallest, the fastest, the most agile, and the most energetic. She’s also the only swan who’s actually attacked you, when you reached for a feather that had fallen to the rocks and she clamped her beak down on your finger. You almost called her Toothy, but you remembered from your research that swans don’t have teeth, and the sharp points of her beak felt more like needles anyway. You lay out your watercolors, pick up your brush, and wait for her to swim back into view.

But it’s hard to paint Needles just by herself. She’s usually interacting with the others, so you resign yourself to painting Silly, Needles, and Sneaky all at the same time. It’s probably the only time you’re going to get a good look at Sneaky, anyway. Other than Spooky, he’s the swan you lose track of most often.

There was really no name you could give to the red-eyed swan other than Spooky, and although Spooky’s never come close to you again, you haven’t forgotten the look of almost hatred in his eyes. You’re more scared of him than you are of Needles, who actually bit you, or of Sooty, who gets aggressive if he decides you’ve been looking at him for too long. You decide to save drawing him for last. You can half-ass your sketch and use the fading light as an excuse to get back home.

You don’t feel inspired by the swans, necessarily; it’s more that you’re completely absorbed. There’s something captivating about them, and at the same time, something odd. You’ve watched videos of swans on YouTube, and from what you can tell, they travel in mated pairs, with cygnets. You don’t see any cygnets, and none of the swans interact with each other in a way that would make you think they were mates. They act like – friends, maybe. Or like family. Whatever it is, it’s not easy to look away from.

You manage it, though, at least long enough to get something down on paper, and you start to lose track of time. It’s only when you notice how the shadows are lying that you check your phone and find that it’s well into the afternoon. You’ve done a piece for every swan except Spooky, and your stomach is growling. You decide to fortify yourself before you try to deal with Spooky again and go digging in your backpack for snacks.

The first thing you encounter is a package of trail mix, but before you can even open it, a swan’s beak clamps down onto the other end. Sneaky’s lived up to his name; he’s come all the way onto the rocks with you without you noticing, and now he’s doing his level best to yank the trail mix away from you. You’re more affronted than scared. “Hey, give it back –”

It occurs to you vaguely how stupid this must look – you in a tug of war with a swan, which has unfolded its wings and is flapping them to try to gain traction. You know you’re not supposed to feed wildlife, and you don’t think trail mix is good for swans, and you’re worried about them eating plastic by accident. At the same time, Sneaky’s putting in a lot of effort trying to get the package away from you, and he’s attracting a lot of attention. You don’t want to get swarmed by the others. You hesitate for a second, adjust your grip the wrong way, and the package tears open, scattering trail mix across the rocks.

You’re expecting Sneaky to lunge for it and start jamming peanuts and Cheerios into his beak, trying to eat them all before the rest of the swans notice. Instead Sneaky steps back and honks – or hoots – or something. You haven’t heard any of the swans make that sound before, but all across the lake, you see heads pop up and swift shapes moving through the water. They’re all headed your way.

Before you can move, they’re already out of the water – Gorgeous, Spinner, Needles, Sooty, Silly. Silly gets there last and lunges at the trail mix, only for Spinner to hiss at him, at which point Silly turns and hisses at Sooty, who hasn’t moved. You’ve never seen wild birds do anything like this. It looks like they’re waiting for something. You do a bird count out of habit and realize that Spooky’s missing. Sneaky repeats the honk-hoot-thing from before, and this time the others pick it up, so loudly that you clamp your hands over your ears. While you can muffle the noise, you can’t keep out the certainty: They are waiting. They’re waiting for him.

For one insane moment, you think you hear human voices amidst the cacophony, calling for the one friend who’s always dragging their feet. The impatient jostling reminds you of kids at a birthday party, waiting for the birthday kid to take a bite of cake so the rest of them can eat. Spinner half-unfolds a wing in an odd gesture, and your mind summons the image of one person beckoning to another. You’ve been out here too long. You must be losing it. They’re just birds.

Spooky’s arrival should dispel any notion that there’s something human about the swans, but there’s no way to describe Spooky’s demeanor as he waddles up onto the shoreline as anything other than pissed. He keeps rustling his wings and he’s holding his neck at a funny angle, and he hisses at the other swans even though they’re already making room for him in the huddle around the trail mix. Maybe Spooky’s in charge, and the others have to let him eat before they can. That would make sense –

But that’s not what happens. Once Spooky’s in the huddle, all seven swans bow their heads and start eating together.

A chill goes down your spine. You could write off the voices your brain conjured or the gesture your eyes sketched, but this isn’t your imagination. Sneaky stole your trail mix, then called the other swans over to share, and they didn’t touch the food until all of them were there. Swans aren’t supposed to behave like this. Wild animals don’t behave like this. Even domesticated ones – you’re a dog person, and you’ve never had a dog that would wait for another dog to get there before it started eating.

This is – you don’t know what it is, but you know something’s off. And you’ve done enough observing for today. You need to go home and look at actual humans and stop losing your mind. You start packing up your things to leave, hoping to get out before the swans remember you’re there. But with seven swans, your single-serving package of trail mix goes fast. You’re just zipping up your backpack when they raise their heads and turn to you.

“Um, hi,” you say, like an idiot. You should just get up and run. “How’s it going?”

You’ve never tried to get within more than thirty feet of any of the swans before today, working out of a healthy combination of fear and respect, but the swans swarm you with absolutely no shame. You don’t have a prayer of warding them off. Before you can do anything more than haul your backpack and sketchbook out of range, Silly and Needles are right up in your personal space, Silly pulling at the sleeve of your jacket while Needles pokes you with her beak. Gorgeous is bothering you, too – she’s pulling on the hood of your jacket, picking up some of your hair in the bargain.

If you’d even come close to them, they’d have drowned you. “Can I help you?” you ask, exasperated. “I didn’t – hey, get out of there!”

Sneaky’s trying to pull down the zipper on your backpack, probably looking for more snacks. In your quest to not get in trouble for feeding the wildlife, you neglect your sketchbook for a split second, and Sooty snatches it. You let it go out of shock, which probably saves it from tearing, only for Sooty to drop it right away when Spinner bites him and hisses. Sooty hisses in response, flares his wings, and you seize the opportunity provided by their disagreement to rescue your sketchbook. There’s a beak-mark on the cover, but it seems okay.

The sketchbook’s okay, but you aren’t. A shadow falls over you, and when you look up in search of the source, you find Spooky standing directly in front of you, a strange, coughing hiss issuing from his beak.

“Hi,” you say again, even more awkwardly than before. It’s hard to be anything but awkward when you’ve got chills running down your spine. He doesn’t respond, although you don’t know why you thought he would. He’s a swan. You’re not even sure he’s a he. “Sorry to bother you. I’m just going to grab my things and –”

Spooky stretches his neck towards you and pecks your sketchbook, hard. Then he waddles back a few steps and goes back to staring at you. If you activate the part of your imagination that pictured Spinner waving Spooky over, it’s not hard to imagine that Spooky’s giving you a meaningful look. Over what? You move the sketchbook, and Spooky tracks it. His head turns from the sketchbook to you, then back to the sketchbook, and back to you again.

He wants you to draw him. The thought’s absurd, but you don’t know how else to interpret Spooky’s behavior. You’ve been coming here to draw and paint for weeks now, and today you’ve spent time trying to sketch every other swan but him – so now it’s his turn. He’s hissing at you again, rustling his wings in a way you can’t help but read as threatening. He quiets down as soon as you open your sketchbook. “Are you ready for your close-up?” you ask nonsensically, grasping for a drawing implement blindly and coming up with a ballpoint pen. Spooky doesn’t answer. Because he’s a swan. “Okay. Just, um – act natural.”

The other swans have been indifferent to your observations, or if they’ve noticed, like Gorgeous always does, they’ve cooperated for at least a little while. Spooky’s the first one who’s visibly uncomfortable while you draw him. He keeps pacing back and forth and rustling his wings and changing the position of his neck, and when he does hold still, it’s when he’s staring at you straight on, which isn’t a particularly flattering angle on a swan. You can make anything work, but it would be great if he picked something, or at least stuck to the same few behaviors so you can draw one of them. This is a mess.

Someone honks in your ear and you almost have a heart attack. It’s Sooty, who’s been looking over your shoulder at your drawings, which is so what the fuck enough to overpower your fear of swans and push you into frustration. “Hey, no peeking,” you snap. “Go away.”

Sooty backs off, but he’s rustling his wings in a weird way, bobbing his head strangely. If he was a person – which he isn’t – it would almost look like he was laughing. The way Spooky reacts makes you think it’s laughter, too – Spooky starts hissing and flares his wings out, which looks sort of majestic, you guess. You start sketching that, outlining it in quick motions of your stupid ballpoint pen, as Spooky chases Sooty off. It’s a decent sketch. But it’s also not what you want from Spooky. You turn the page and wait to see if he’ll come back.

Spooky wanders back into your field of vision looking sort of downtrodden, and this time, he settles down on the rock a few feet away from you. “That’s perfect,” you say, the same as you’d say to a person whose portrait you were drawing. He glances towards you, then looks away. “No, I mean it. Hold still.”

He doesn’t move, so you swap out your ballpoint pen for charcoal at high speed and get to work. At this range, you can see details you couldn’t capture on the other swans. The texture of his feathers, not just the color. The way the weak late-autumn light reflects dully off his beak, and the smoothness with which it fades into the feathers on his head and neck. When he’s not hissing at you, when he’s calm, you can appreciate how striking Spooky’s red eyes are, and an idea for a much larger piece pops into your head. You can take the sketches you’re doing now and paint from them, a full canvas in shades of black and white and tan and grey – except for the crimson you’d use to paint Spooky’s eyes.

If you do that, you’ll give people nightmares. Spooky’s already been in some of yours. But it’ll be striking. Hard to look away from. And if it’s in people’s nightmares, it means that they’ll have taken some part of it with them, and while you’ve always wanted your art to stick with people in the positive sense, you’ll take haunting them in a pinch. Between you and Spooky, you can get it done.

Spooky slowly unfolds one wing, and you turn the page in a hurry. One wing folded, one partially extended, the elegant curve of his neck and the angle of his head – talk about striking. Gorgeous might be consistently easier to draw, but when Spooky cooperates, he’s compelling on a different level. But still awkward about it. You can tell, and you find yourself talking again. “This looks amazing. I’ll show you when I’m done if you want. Or if you – wow –”

Spooky’s unfolded his wing all the way, and although your research gave you the dimensions of a swan’s wingspan, seeing five feet of flight feathers stretched out in the sun is really something else. You sketch fast, wishing you could linger on the details but worried that you’ll miss something when he lowers his wing again. Spooky keeps it extended as you sketch from the base of his wing to the tip – and then you see what Spooky’s really been trying to show you. The last few feathers at his wingtip aren’t smooth and full like the others; they’re skeletal. Someone’s clipped his wing.

You think of how Sneaky always keeps his wings folded, how Sooty will try to take off from the water only to fall back down after gaining barely a few feet in height. You’ve been wondering on and off why the swans don’t migrate, and now you understand. “You can’t fly,” you say, and Spooky lowers his wing at last.

Only part of the way, though – he turns his head and starts yanking at his remaining flight feathers. “Don’t,” you protest, reaching out – but Needles snaps at your fingers, warning you to pull your hand back, and the other swans close in around you. Unless you feel like punching a swan, you’re not getting out of here until they let you. “I’m not going to hurt him. I just want to help.”

Help with what? You can’t regrow Spooky’s flight feathers, or any of the others’. Maybe you can find out what swans eat and bring them some food, because now that you know they’re stuck here, you can’t imagine them doing anything but spending the winter on the edge of starvation. But they’re birds. They must want to fly. And you can’t fix that. “If I could help, I would,” you say uselessly. “But I don’t know how.”

The swans part from in front of you, suddenly, revealing Spooky. His wings are folded again, and there’s something clenched in his beak. He comes right up close to you and drops whatever it is on your sketchbook, and when he lifts his head, the two of you are face to face. You don’t understand what you’re looking at. A bird, obviously. You’re looking at a bird, but you’re paralyzed all at once by the thought that it’s not just a bird you’re looking at. You’re looking at something else, too.

Before you can think any harder about it, Spooky turns away and heads for the water at high speed. The other swans follow him, Sneaky taking one last shot at your backpack before he plunges into the lake, and vanish around a curve in the shoreline. They’re so fast in the water. It’s hard to believe they can’t fly. Hard to believe that anyone would take that away from them.

Your eyes start to burn, and you look away from the water in a hurry, down at your sketchbook. A jolt of adrenaline runs through you. The swans don’t leave feathers lying around. Needles bit you for even reaching for a dropped feather before. But lying across your page of sketches is one of Spooky’s flight feathers, freshly pulled from his wing.

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[riflesniper]

spent enough time cooking up this guy behind the scenes and now i feel like i can toss him out here now. this big boy is aegis :3 a sapient mech that ran from his makers to a resistance militia, who plopped a gay little pilot (green) into his hands. more details below the cut

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his storyline takes place a few centuries in the future, where a small-scale war has kicked up between a newly socialist canada and a dystopian oligarchical US. aegis comes from a particularly powerful corporation called valkyrie machines, who definitely pioneered sapient AI tech some hundred years prior and definitely didn't just steal the tech from somewhere else before stealthily bribing the actual inventors into a silence or death deal

on the other side of the border is the canadian shield alliance, though most people just call it the alliance or the shield. they've played a lot of roles since their inception that was also some hundred years prior, notably aid programs, disaster assistance, fighting for land back/secure human rights/immigrant protections, scaring corporations into NOT being shitty, better economic policies, etc.

unfortunately the US did NOT like any of that. when canada's economic system is officially changed from mixed to socialist, the oligarchs of the states kick off a race to try and see who can annex it the fastest. fortunately, the shield doesn't give them an inch.

aegis is one of valkyrie's newer warden models; nimble, fleet-footed mechs with sapient AI cores to enhance battle prowess. valkyrie is Very strict about what their mechs and pilots do and don't know, and are not above both executing pilots who try to rebel and wiping AIs whose thoughts stray too far. aegis and his last pilot were able to keep sneaky about their plans to escape, but said pilot was disposed of before it could be carried out, aegis made a break for it on his own, racing from the montana base he was stationed at to the albertan border.

despite broadcasting a plea for the shield to find him, he didn't get out unharmed; valkyrie's air fighters were eventually able to catch up to him before he scaled the wall. they plucked at him for a couple hundred kliks until the shield managed to find him near a small town. a skirmish broke out to claim him, ending with one shield mech being non-fatally damaged and all of the valkyrie fighters being shot down.

aegis, battered from the run, was hoisted to a shield base near calgary for major repairs before being shipped to the edmonton for external repairs and retrofitting. it's here that he's assigned a new pilot; green reinhart, a skilled, kind man with a underlying justice-driven rage to match the heart on his sleeve. a man who would not be killed so easily, not with the transhuman tech that's available. it's here that aegis would actually get his name, and so much more that he never would have had back in the states.

the world was opening up to him now. his pilot wasn't the only one talking to him like he was a person anymore. green gets him a proxy frame to explore with. the two of them spend hours together, on and off the field; perhaps this is the best thing that's could've happened for either of them.

(first image is when they've already been partners for a long while; green's organic body does eventually get killed in a battle, and his transhuman body is activated. im still kinda fleshing out the details, unsure if i'll get much deeper into the socio-political-economic shitshow behind the worldbuilding, since i originally made this guy to just have a gay mech/pilot thing w/ green, but its kinda feeding off the current shitshow of the US wanting to annex canada in this day and age. i gotta focus more of that energy on makin characters WAUGH

if anyones got suggestions for like. videos or audiobooks that Could help add onto the worldbuilding though, im all ears. just keep in mind that i struggle with text only stuff, so audiovisual is heavily preferred)

[sunskate]

I feel absolutely terrible for Green/Parsons. They just missed out on the Olympics last time (and a lot of people at that Nationals thought they deserved to be 3rd over an underprepared Hawayek/Baker), have battled through serious injury to get themselves back into contention, Michael is not that young and already had to wait a long time in the queue behind H/D, Bock, Shibs etc to get major international assignments, and now they’re facing the prospect of missing out again.

At least come back the year before to help earn the spots!

almost all the teams have the possibility of not making the Olympics, though i bet they're not framing it that way. so much could happen. hopefully everyone stays healthy and competes their best, even the Shibs

Green/Parsons were already in the position to fight like hell for a spot on the team, but they were 9th at Worlds, that's pretty great. for all we know, they'll come out with signature programs and make themselves a lock for a spot. we don't even know yet that their task got any harder by the Shibs returning. the only thing i don't want is to feel like feds or judges are tipping things unfairly in a way that doesn't support what's on the ice. otherwise, let the teams skate it out

VM's comeback is definitely a gold standard for how to do it. they did help earn Canada 3 spots for PYC. but Weapo and G/P were 5th and 8th at 2016 Worlds, so they won the 3 spots for 2017 Worlds where VM competed. there must have been some unhappiness about them coming back. there's no way for a team to make a comeback without disrupting the current field in some way. but the more those teams own and attack their own season the better for them

[pissterdaniel]

Thank you so so much for the ask @fern-foxx, I would love nothing more than to info dump <3.

PREPARE FOR 6130 WORDS THAT WILL MAKE YOU REGRET EVER ASKING ME TO DO THIS!

First things first, I have spent the last 4 hours formatting a response to your ask, only for tumblr to turn around and shit itself, and not let me post it. So I am restarting and trying it in the form of a proper post.

I think I had too many photos and links. So have put all my links in a linktree for your and tumblr's convenience (otherwise this post couldn't happen). Will just do a number coding system.

I have only gotten into figure skating recently. It started when some friends got me to watch Yuri on Ice and it's all been downhill since then.

The competition series I've been watching is the Grand Prix. This is on from October to December and is an elite level competition.

There are 2 programs that each skater competes, and I will go more in-depth later. But basically, there is the short program which is first - this is 2:40 +/- 10sec and the free program which is 4:00 +/- 10sec.

There are 6 qualifying events across the world, and skaters will be assigned either 1 or 2 competitions depending on how well they did at World's in March as well as some other criteria.

The competitions and when/where they were held this year:

Skate America - Oct 18-20 (Allen, TX)

Skate Canada - Oct 25-27 (Halifax, NS)

Grand Prix de France - Nov 1-3 (Angers)

NHK Trophy - Nov 8 -10 (Tokyo)

Finlandia Trophy - Nov 15-17 (Helsinki)

Cup of China - Nov 22-24 (Chonqing)

These are held in the same country every year (in 2022 Finlandia replaced the Rostelecom Cup in Russia for obvious reasons). The Junior Grand Prix has 7 qualifying competitions held between August and October and the locations of these change every year.

And then there’s the final:

Grand Prix Final - Dec 5th-8th (Grenoble, France)

The final is held in a different location each year and hosts both the seniors and juniors.

There are 12 skaters in each competition, and they'll get points based of how they place. At the end of the 6 competitions, the top 6 with the most points will go to the final.

The points:

1st - 15pts   2nd - 13pts   3rd - 11pts and so on... until 7th which is 4pts and 8th - 3pts.

There are various tie brakers in place, the first 2 are highest placement and if that ties -> highest total score (the list really keeps on going there are so many in the event all the tie brakers are tied).

Okay, now you understand how the Grand Prix works, we can go a little more in depth.

The Assignments

I said that these are based off of their placements in World's of the last season. The top 12 are guaranteed 2 assignments, the top 6 of these are called "seeded skaters." These are carefully assigned so that #1, #2, and #3 don't face each other at an assignment, and #4, #5, and #6 don't face each other. You can imagine that it would be unfair to have all the top skaters at 1 competition.

I made this helpful table to show who the top 6 at World's were in the men’s category:

The first number was their total score, second their short program, 3rd their free program, and then it has their 2 assignments. Shoma Uno placed 4th but retired that season so it bumped everyone up and the free spot went to Deniss Vasilijev. I won't share my women's table cause it is a total mess with several dropping out last minute.

The top 24 on the ISU (International Skating Union) world standings and season's best list also get 1 spot. Once all of those spots are filled, there is this sketchy ‘Host Pick’ rule. The host country of a competition gets to pick 3 of its own skaters to be at its competition. This could be giving someone with 1 slot an extra assignment or giving it to a local skater to draw in crowds. But the thing is, host picks don't have to meet the minimum score requirement?!?!? More on that later...

Other things that will put you in the pool for assignment consideration - are if you medal at the junior grand prix and are moving into the senior division. Or if you are a previous seeded skater who didn't participate in the last season due to heath/injury. After that, they look at the top 75 season's best list who meet that minimum score requirement.

The minimum score requirement is different for every division and changes every year. It is calculated by taking ⅗ of top score at the previous World's. In my table you can see that Ilia Malinin won with a total score of 333.76, so the minimum score for men in the 2024 Grand Prix is 200.26. (This year it was 133.77 for women). This minimum score also must have been achieved at an official ISU event (world championships, grand prix series, challenger series).

It is also worth noting that there is a limit of 3 skaters representing the same country at an assignment. Though there can be more than 3 if they make it to the final. See this year's final being 5 Japanese Women + Amber Glenn from the USA.

Now I want to tell you about the program requirements (for single, senior skating).

The Short Program

duration: 2:40 +/- 10 seconds

jump elements: 3

spin sequences: 3

1 step sequence

Both men and women must perform a double or triple axel, and a jump combination with 2 jumps. In addition to this, men must perform any triple or quadruple solo jump, and women any triple. The solo jump has to be different from the ones in combination. Because of their body shape, men can generally make more rotations in jumps than women, barely any senior women do quads after their body changes.

Both men and women must do 1 spin with a flying entry (any position), 1 combination spin with at least 2 different types of spins (camel, sit or layback). For the 3rd spin - spin in one position, men do either a camel or sit spin with 1 change of foot, and women can do any position but no change of foot. The position has to be different from their flying spin. As for rotations, for it to count you need a minimum of 8 rotations if you are not changing your spinning foot, and 6 if you are doing a change of foot.

The step sequence is a showcase of difficult steps and turns across a large surface of the ice, usually lasts at least 30 seconds.

Spins and step sequences get a level between 1 and 4 based off how complex and well executed they are. With 4 being the best and the standard for high level competitors.

The Free Skate

duration: 4:00 +/- 10 seconds

jump elements: 7

spin sequences: 3

1 step sequence

1 choreograph sequence

Both men and women must do 1 axel at any point. There is a maximum of 3 jump combinations allowed, with 4 other solo jumps. Most of them will do a jump sequence, which is when the second or third jump in a combination is an axel. Only 1 combination is allowed to have 3 jumps, the rest can only have 2.

Only 2 triples or quads can be repeated twice, of that, you can only repeat 1 quad (but can repeat 2 triples). This is to stop people from just doing their most high scoring jump over and over, this rule is colloquially known as the Zayaking rule. Elaine Zayak did 4 triple toe loops at World's in 1982 and it was changed after then.

As for spins, for both men and women it's 1 spin combo, 1 spin with flying entry, 1 spin with only one position. Change of foot and flying entry are optional extras for all spins, there are no restrictions like with the short program. 6 rotations must be achieved in the fly spin and spin in one position, and 10 rotations in the combination.

Step sequence same as above.

The choreograph sequence needs at least 2 artistic skating movements such as the spiral, spread eagle, or my personal favourite -  The INA BAUER.

The Ina Bauer

Amber Glenn (USA) Cup of China free skate 2024, my gif

You can see the blades are parallel, the leading foot faces where you're going, and the knee is bent. The other leg is straight out behind you, slightly staggered. Most of your weight is on the front foot, and it requires really good turnout in your hips. It is named after Ina Bauer (b.1941 d.2014) a German skater who invented it. Did you know that this Friday the 13th is the 10 year anniversary of her death? Catch me at the rink doing as many Ina Bauers possible. Anyways, there are 3 different types of Ina Bauer, the easiest being inside Ina Bauer meaning you are on the inside edge of your blade and go in a circle like this:

^ This is my very beginner level Ina Bauer, I don't quite have the strength/balance/flexibility to move up the Ina Bauer food chain yet, but I have only been skating for a few months and will master it one day.

There's also an Ina Bauer on a straight line. Then there’s the hardest which is on the outside edge, this is a very good example:

Cha Jun-hwan (KOR) 2023 ISU World Team Trophy free skate (1)

See his Ina Bauer goes along the outside of an invisible circle, and mine faces inside? And a straight Ina Bauer is just a straight Ina Bauer, like the one Amber Glenn is doing in that first gif. You don't have to do it in a layback position, you can just have a straight back for it to count. It's not about back flexibility but rather hip flexibility. RAAAAGH INA BAUERS, I live for them.

One of my favourite moments from this year's Grand Prix is when Kevin Aymoz of France does an Ina Bauer into a triple axel in his free program!!!! How cool is that?!?!

Kevin Aymoz (FRA) Grand Prix Final 2024 free skate, my gif

Skaters get more points on jumps if they include a difficult entry/exit, so this boosted his grade of execution (more on that later!) It's also a good example of an Ina Bauer with the straight back. Kevin Aymoz is one of my favourite skaters, he's a bit of a gay icon.

Now I will tell you about...

JUMPS

There are 6 types of jumps you'll see in professional skating. Most of them will be triples, except for the women's axels where doubles are more common. Men will do some quad jumps but very few will do the harder ones like the flip, lutz, and axel. Then there's Ilia Malinin of the USA who can do all the quads and make it look effortless. There’s also the occasional double as the second/third jump in combination or as a solo jump if something has gone really wrong. (Solo doubles aren't even allowed in a senior short program)

All jumps look the same in the air, and land on the same foot backwards with an outside edge. What makes them different is the way you take off. There are toe jumps that use the toe picks, and edge jumps which use your edges.

Diagram (2)

You can see that the figure skating blade is not flat but rather curved in a sort of arch shape. If you are leaning inwards, you'll be on your inside edge and outwards on your outside edge. The toe pick be spiky so you can stab it into the ice to launch you far and into the air. Consequently, if you lean too far forward on your skates you can trip over your toe pick and fling forward (I have done this many a time). You are also supposed to land on the bottom part of your toe pick and then place your foot down. But if you land too far forward on your toe pick you also fly forward (I couldn't walk after I fell like this on Saturday lmao).

Most skaters will jump and spin anticlockwise, so the following information applies to them. But for the few that go clockwise, reverse the lefts and rights.

The 6 jumps, separated by type are -

Toe jumps:

Toe Loop (T): Right outside take off. Entered from turn. Left leg extends back, toe pick strikes ice.

Flip (F): Left inside take off. Entered from turn. Right leg extends back, toe pick strikes ice.

Lutz (Lz): Left outside take off. Entered from a long straight 1 foot glide. Right leg extends back, toe pick strikes ice.

Edge jumps:

Salchow (S): Left inside take off. Entered from turn. Legs sweep to form / \ shape.

Loop (Lo): Right outside take off. Left leg crosses over right, X shape.

Axel (A): Left outside take off. Only jump that takes off forward. Entered from back outside edge, left leg steps forward, right legs swings through to launch you.

For counterclockwise jumpers, all jumps land on a back right outside edge. Which means for jump combinations (where your landing edge has to be your take off edge) there are only 2 jumps that can be used as the second/third in combination. These being the toe loop and loop because they take off from that right outside edge.

This is unless a Euler jump is performed. This is a single jump used in combination to connect 2 jumps as it will take you from the right outside edge to the left. Interestingly, from the 2026-27 season onwards, Eulers will no longer be allowed in the short program, only the free. They will also no longer count as a listed jump nor add any base value to jumps (currently worth 0.5).

I've mentioned jump sequences in the free program requirements, but to expand on them. They are when your take off edge is different from your landing edge. I.e a small step is done so long as it doesn't disrupt the flow. Though since the 2018-19 season, only axel jumps are allowed as the second/third in a sequence. Also prior to 2022-23 sequences would only get 80% of the total base value for the jumps, but now it's full value.

It was also only in the 2018-19 season when the number of jump elements in a men's free skate went down from 8 to 7 (women's was already 7), and from 2026-27 onwards both disciplines will be going down to 6. That same season in 2018-19 the men's free skate went down from 4½ minutes to 4.

I should have mentioned this before, but figure skating seasons are from the 1st of July to the 30th of June so they span 2 years (not really, but that’s why I am using '2018-19' etc). The season starts with the Junior Grand Prix qualifiers in August - October, then the senior Grand Prix qualifiers in October - November with the final in December. December to January is when most countries hold their nationals. January is also the European championship. February has the 4 Continents (which is everyone BUT Europe), and March is the World Championships. When the Olympics are on in Februarys the 4 Continents are moved to January.

There's also The Challenger Series which is a step below Grand Prix. These competitions are required to take place between August 1st and December 15th. There are several competitions worldwide, but they don’t have a final. Sometimes Grand Prix skaters will compete in them to boost their rankings as they count towards the season's best list and can be where you get your ISU minimum score requirement that we talked about earlier.

Redirecting this back to jumps, here is a table of base values. You can see them ordered from lowest to highest to give you a sense of what’s easier vs harder.

Speaking of base values, I think it's about time I introduced you to...

The ISU Judging System

Now this can be EXTREMELY confusing at first, but in time it will make sense, and I hope I explain it well enough.

Both the short and free scores are broken into 2 sections. You have your Technical Score (TES) and your Program Component Score (PCS).

Technical Score - every element you perform has a base value (BV) that is added to your score. This is the easy part. Now where it gets complicated is with the Grade of Execution (GOE). Each judge (there's usually 7 - 9 in big comps) assigns a number between -5 and 5 based off how well it is executed.

Now bear with me here...

The highest and lowest GOEs from the judges are discarded, and the rest are averaged. The GOE average is then multiplied by 10% of the BV. This is your final GOE for a skill, this number is then added to the original BV to give a final FINAL score for a skill.

EXAMPLE:

The quad lutz had a base value of 11.5.

The 1 and 3 are discarded. (Highest and lowest)

(2+2+3+2+2+2+2) /7 = 2.14 - the average GOE

11.5 x 0.1 = 1.15 - 10% of the BV

2.14 x 1.15 = 2.46 - total GOE

11.5 + 2.46 = 13.96 - final skill score

Personally, I love how much maths is involved!! It's fun to just calculate these things even if the score sheets give you the final skill score anyways. It is really exciting once you understand how all of this works!! (yes, I am autistic if you haven't guessed already)

I would also like to note, that the current +/- 5 GOE system used to be +/- 3 but was changed in the 2018-19 season to make improper technique and falls have a bigger impact on scores.

Now the program component score (PCS). There are 3 categories: Composition, Presentation, and Skating Skills. A brief definition of all of them: Composition is the connection of your skills, use of the ice, and understanding of how the music relates to your program.

The standout example of this that I have to show you is from Kaori Sakamoto's free skate, I just LOVE how her jump take offs are on beat to the music!

Kaori Sakamoto (JPN) Grand Prix Final 2024 free skate

She actually got the highest PCS score out of the women in the Grand Prix Final!! It's easy to see why.

Presentation is engagement and expression with your music, and I guess general prettiness? Skating Skills is "a good range of steps, turns, and movements with blade and body control" tbh, I don't have a good understanding of what these look like, I guess it’s just vibe based. This is like an artistry score. It is just as important to have graceful skating that tells a story, as it is to have good technical abilities. The judging system and jump base values are always changing to try and balance this, and there a few systems in place to make this possible too.

Before 2022-23 there were actually 5 PCS categories, the 2 they got rid of were transitions – “intricate footwork, positions and movements that link all elements”, and interpretation (of the music) which I don’t fully understand, how many categories do you need in order to judge if a skater understands the music lol. This also meant that the factors increased in 2022-23 as they axed 2 categories.

So, for each of the 3 PCS categories, the judges assign a number between 0.25 and 10, and it goes up in increments of 0.25. Just like with the GOE, the highest and lowest numbers are discarded, and the rest are averaged. These averages are then added together and multiplied by a factor.

This factor is different for every discipline, because it is supposed to be as equal to the TES as possible. The women's factor is lower than the men's because they generally have a lower TES. And the short program is lower than the free skate because there are less technical elements.

The factors are as follows:

Mens Short Program: 1.67

Mens Free Program: 3.33

Women's Short Program: 1.33

Women's Free Program: 2.67

(the factors for pairs are the same as women's)

Let's look at Kaori Sakamoto's GPF free skate as an example, specifically her composition score:

The 8 and 9.5 are discarded, and the average is rounded to 2 decimal places equaling 8.93. This process repeats for the other 2 categories. These numbers are then added together (8.93 + 8.82 + 8.86 = 26.61) and multiplied by the factor. In this case, the women's FP is 2.67, so 26.61 x 2.67 = 71.05.

The maximum PCS possible:

Men’s short program: 50.00

Men’s free skate: 100.00

Women’s short program: 40.00

Women’s free skate: 80.00

Hopefully now you have a better understanding of how the judging system works! There is a little more to it, I will go into more into detail now. If you look at the detailed results from a competition you may see various symbols/letters next to skills. I will tell you what they mean and what they do to a score:

q - Jumps landed a quarter rotation short, doesn't affect base value, but will give you a negative GOE. The 'q' was introduced during the 2020-21 season.

< - Jumps landed between ¼-½ rotations short. Results in only getting 80% of the BV.

<< - Jumps landed more than ½ short a rotation. The jump will get downgraded. A 3Lz with a << will only get the BV of a 2LZ.

e - Edge call on a flip or Lutz. Remember how the flip takes off from an inside edge and the lutz an outside edge? Well, if you do it from the wrong edge, you will get an edge call and only 80% of the BV.

! - Edge warning. This means there was an unclear edge take off on a flip or lutz. There is no reduced BV, but the GOE will be less than 0.

V - For a spin that does not meet requirements, like a lack of rotations or variation in position. 75% of BV.

F - A fall. -5 GOE. There is also a -1 deduction for your first and second fall, a -2 for third and fourth, and -3 for 5th fall onwards.

+REP - Used if you do more than the allowed 3 combinations or 2 combinations + 1 sequence in the free program. The first jump will get 70% BV and everything after that doesn't count. It is also used for repeated single jumps; they'll also get 70% of BV.

+COMBO - You will see this in the middle of a combination. It happens when the skater steps out after landing a jump and still takes off for the next jump. Remember the point of a jump combo is to take off from the same edge you land on. This results in the following jump having no value.

* - Invalid element, skater receives 0 points. This is for any element that breaks a rule. Like a single or double solo jump in the SP, an extra jump element done (only 3 in SP and 7 in FS allowed), repeating a certain triple/quad jump in the FS more than twice, if there is no axel done, the last jumping pass will be invalid too. Also used alongside +REP to invalidate extra jumps in combinations. Before 2016-17, an invalid jump in a combination would invalidate the entire combination. And from 2026-27 onwards, the same type of jump can't be included in the FS regardless of rotations (currently more than 3 of the same jump can be included if you do 3 triples and a double for example).

x - This is the only good symbol! It is placed after the last jump element in the SP or the last 3 jump element in the FS (provided they are in the second half of the program). It adds an extra 10% to the BV of your jumps. As the program goes on skaters will get more tired so are rewarded for doing difficult stuff at the end. Consequently, this system was heavily abused until a rule change in the 2018-19 season. It used to be that all jumps in the second half would get the extra 10%. You can then imagine people would just stack their programs to have all the jumps in the second half. This was then changed to better balance program composition.

There are also other deductions besides falls. It's -1 for every second up to 5 that your program goes overtime. -1 for costume parts falling on the ice, -1 for costumes that don't meet requirements, -1 if you take more than 30 seconds to get into your starting position after your name is called, -2 for illegal moves (back flips were recently legalised, if you want to watch programs with back flips, I recommend Adam Siao Him Fa of France).

If you do want to watch figure skating, I will quickly explain what the thing in the top left corner is. It's relatively straight forward

The squares at the top represent the 12 elements that make up the free skate (short program will have 7 squares). The green means they successfully performed an element, the red means they performed it, but it got a negative GOE. Now you also know what it takes to get a negative GOE thanks to the information above ;)! If there is a dark grey, it means it’s under review still (?). This bar will fill up as they go through the program.

It will tell you the most recent element performed, as well as the BV for it, and their GOE. This is the GOE after that multiplying the average by 10% BV nonsense. Under this you'll see the skaters TES go up throughout the program, and underneath it is the leader's TES.

AND THAT CONCLUDES THE ISU JUDGING SYSTEM, THAT WAS A LOT BUT HOPEFULLY YOU GET IT NOW!

I will also share with you a helpful table I made in preparation for watching the Gran Prix Final. It has the finalists with their assignments, how they placed with qualifying points, and their total score earned in both assignments. As well as their personal bests and age. Interestingly, the men and women have the EXACT same average age of 21⅔. Which is super interesting cause usually the women tend to be younger than the men. Though this year the minimum age for the senior division was upped to 17. Last year it was 16 and before that it was 15 for quite a while. This was to protect minors more because of how intense it got with doping etc. I think it's a great change because I don't want to see tiny children when watching seniors, its also unfair cause the younger women can go hard out and learn quads before their body changes which is dangerous.

Adam Sia Him Fa qualified in 4th but had to drop out because of injury, Mikhail Shaidorov was 7th so he got moved up to replace Adam.

I really love looking up the skater's profiles on the ISU website, because some of them have the most insane listed hobbies. Check out Camden Pulkinen. Emo ass king.

Now I want to tell you about some of my favourite skaters!

Kevin Aymoz - France

Kevin Aymoz (FRA) Grand Prix Final 2024 gala exhibition, my gif

I have talked about him before. I love how dramatic his programs are, they have a lot of flair and camp energy. He was at Skate America and Finlandia Trophy and made it to the final! Unfortunately, he fell a few times and came last. He did get bronze at the 2019 GPF though! Did you know in 2021 he was in a French documentary called Faut qu'on Parle (we need to talk). It's about 6 elite athletes who come out for the first time and share their experiences of being queer. One of his listed hobbies is "catching pokémon" okay icon.

Amber Glenn - USA

Amber Glenn (USA) Grand Prix de France 2024 gala exhibition, gif credit below

LOOK AND HOW GORGEOUS AND HOT SHE IS. First off, SHE WON THE GPF CAUSE SHE'S SO AMAZING. Her assignments were Grand Prix de France, and Cup of China. Amber is a mental health advocate who is also queer and has ADHD, I love her so much. At the end of competitions, they will sometimes hold a gala exhibition. This is a showcase that some of the competition skaters partake in. It's a chance for them to do whatever program they want without the pressure of being judged - it's truly just for fun! Amber’s gala this year was to HOTOGO! Would definitely recommend checking it out. Here are some gif sets of it here on tumblr (3 4 5). Her hobbies are Magic the Gathering, anime, and cosplay. (It's funny cause when a skater lists anime as a hobby, you just knowwww they've seen Yuri on Ice. In this case, Amber worked with the creative team on the movie before it was cancelled). She was also the second American woman to land a triple axel at World's, the first ofc being Tonya Harding. Amber is a little bit of a legend, at age 25 she's kind of come out of nowhere and is starting to skate really well consistently. It was so cute when she found out she won the GPF. There's a camera where they can see the other skaters in the back, and the Japanese women did her FS finishing pose. It was such a sweet moment of amazing sportsmanship between these women. I will put a link to the clip posted on reddit here (6).

Matteo Rizzo – Italy

Matteo Rizzo (ITA) NHK Trophy 2024, my gif

Assigned - NHK, and Cup of China. He's just a silly guy. For starters, his SP music is a song called "Two Men in Love" an extremely gay love song. But then his FS music is.... "Fix You" by Coldplay? It's the contrast that I find so funny. His hobbies are Formula 1 and "airplanes" I too love planes. All of these things combined made him stand out to me as a bit of an icon. He also kind of looks like Christophe Giacometti from YOI, he's got the eyelashes for it. The gif is from the kiss and cry after his skate when he did this super funny gesture that absolutely sent me. What can I say, the man loves cars.

Jason Brown - USA

Jason Brown (USA) NHK Trophy 2024 short program, my gif

Skate Canada and NHK. Did you know that he came out as gay on Dan's birthday in 2021? My friends and I joked that Brown was fitting name cause he was dressed like a shit for his SP in that gif. I call him JJ if he slayed, cause his energy and mannerisms + the way he addresses the audience reminds me JJ from YOI but if he were gay. Also has a super camp gala exhibition, and won the junior GPF in 2011.

I love the galas that have a gimmick. Like Mikhail Shaidorov who did a Kung Fu Panda one in a giant panda suit. He somehow managed to land a triple toe loop in that costume too! Mikhail is a really good jumper. This season he made history by becoming the first skater to land a quad as the second jump in combination with his 3A + 4T!!!

Mikhail Shaidorov (KAZ) Grand Prix Final 2024 exhibition gala (7)

He also has assistants come out in his gala and for the Grand Prix de France, Amber was one of them!

Amber and Mikhail Grand Prix de France 2024 exhibition gala (8)

Where you can watch the ISU stuff will depend on your country. I can watch it all for free on the ISU Skating youtube channel since I am in New Zealand and no other broadcaster covers it. The youtube videos are geo blocked in countries that have networks with a monopoly over the rights.

If you are also a fan of Yuri on Ice, I have some cosplay content recommendations too (if not, just skip this). I have fallen IN LOVE with these 2 particular cosplayers (Vehn and Svatti - yt channel: Weeb Chapel) who had a YOI skit series, here is the playlist on youtube (9). Svatti who plays Yuri also does a hilarious Chris which you can see in their Kiss Marry Kill in Character (10).

Cosplayer Svatti as Christophe Giacometti in "Yuri!!! on Ice KISS MARRY K-WORD!" youtube link in linktree, my gif

Svatti's Chris is also in the background as a voice in the Viktor and Yuri Google Questions Interview (11). Now I don't usually consume Otayuri content cause I find their age gap weird, but they have a gorgeous Otayuri CMV (cosplay music video) that I keep on watching (12). I have also started just watching all their other cosplay content. YOI is the only anime I've seen, but I really just love Svatti and Vehn (former username Mishkali) so much I'll watch anything with them. They are so attractive, and my gender envy is off the charts with everything they do, and Vehn’s Victor drives me fucking crazy in the best ways possible THE ACCENTTT. If you know of them or watch it and want to chat HIT ME UP!

My favourite CMV however is this one (13) by Rintamasuunta. The production BLOWS MY MIND DUDE. Even if you haven't seen YOI you should still watch it. The sets, costumes, choreography, ah too good. One of them is even an actual skater and you get to see them do parts of the routines in costume! I keep rewatching it time and time again.

One last Yuri on Ice thing - Joel Minas on youtube has recreated some of the programs in full. It is just so impressive to see them bought to life. Here is his playlist (14)

And there we have it folks!! There's a lot more that I could have included, I have so many more thoughts. I'm sure y'all are familiar with the feeling of being in the trenches of a hyper-fixation. You ask for an info dump; you get an info landfill that took a couple days and many MANY hours to assemble (WORTH IT!). I may or may not have taken it a bit too literally when you asked to hear what I've learnt so far WELL HERE IS EVERYTHING. Are you regretting your life choices yet? If you or anyone else has any questions or wants to discuss figure skating, CONTACT ME PLEASE I LOVE TO YAP (evidently)!!! Also, if you have managed to read all of this you are insane, and I love you.

I still spend most of my days thinking about skating. I am at the rink 2-3 times a week and have started lessons. I hope to get really good at it someday. Researching competitive figure skating is so so so fun! I just love learning about the all the rules/the technical side. I have so many pages of notes. Finally, I will link some resources I found helpful if you want to do some further reading.

They’ll be in the linktree (sorry it had to be like this, tumblr just couldn’t take it) https://linktr.ee/pissterdaniel

Resources

15 Brilliant youtube video that breaks down the 6 jumps with examples to help you identify them

16 The soyouwanttowatchfs website has a lot of guides for people getting into figure skating

17 ISU Technical Panel Handbook 2024-25

18 ISU Technical Rule Book 2024 (160 pages of goodness)

19 Table of base values (a couple of seasons old as still has 5 PCS categories listed, but should (?) still be valid, it has +/- 5 GOE so is after 2018 but before 2022. I feel like one of those people who works out the date a globe is from, which honestly, I’d be into because I love geography (it’s the darn autism again isn’t it)).

20 Extremely detailed table of base values 2024

21 Short program outline

22 Free skate outline

23 The ISU website in general, good for detailed scores and skater profiles

Lmk if there are any issues with the links OR IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS, I'VE SAID IT BEFORE AND I’LL SAY IT AGAIN PLEASE CONTACT ME

Okay that is it, I just want to get this out there now, getting this from my word document to a successful tumblr post has taken 7 hours dear lord.

Hope this is a sufficient info dump @fern-foxx, it’s 6130 words. Thank you for your ask xxx

[wingsofthesun]

Astra Shepard Bio

Astra Shepard circa 2185 (Or Mass Effect 2); looks about the same a year later, but grew her hair out during house arrest because she was feeling very petty against the Alliance for everything

Class: Infiltrator Pre-Service History: Colonist Psychological Profile: War Hero Morality: Paragade (most major decisions are paragon, but will happily take a renegade dialogue option or interrupt depending on the context)

The Shepard featured in my series To Stars (series of oneshots or short stories that take place during ME2 and ME3) and After the Fire (series of likely longer stories set after the Destroy Ending of ME3, though slightly canon divergent in that the geth and EDI live). The two series are connected to each other, but can be read independently.

If I post anything specifically about her, it will be under the tag Astra Shepard here on this blog.

Biography under the cut:

Astra was born to Hannah and John Shepard in Canada on Earth, and the entire family moved to Mindoir when colonization opened to civilians when Astra was three. (The First Contact War actually made it cheaper to move because the people in charge erroneously thought it would make people scared to move. They were wrong.)

Astra had an average colonist childhood. John was a part owner of a small fruit orchard, growing both familiar Earth fruits and unique Mindoirian fruit safe for human consumption. Astra helped him once she was old enough, but she much preferred working with Hannah, who ran a small tech repair shop in the capital. Most of her knowledge of tech comes from those days working with her mom.

That all changed when Mindoir was attacked when she was 16. Batarian slavers, furious at the Alliance expanding, attacked the capital city of the colony. Astra was working with Hannah that day, and as soon as the sirens went off, Hannah rushed her daughter into the cellar of the building, where they had strong fields blocking any scanning or other outside tech use, as it was where they tested volitle devices. Hannah was killed keeping the slavers from finding her daughter, while John was killed while working in the fields.

Astra was found by then Commander David Anderson, who did everything he could to comfort the distraught teenager, basically becoming her guardian in all but name until they could bring her back to Earth. Even after that, he still checked in on her as much as possible, though he never interfered in her career.

Astra spent the next two years under the care of her great grandparents in Canada before joining the Alliance at age 18. Her great grandparents kept in touch with her, standing proudly in the audience when she received the Star of Terra and graduated as an N7, unfortunately peacefully dying shortly after the latter from old age. She took a leave of absence to process her grief and take care of their affairs.

In boot camp, Astra was immediately noted for her skills, both as an Infiltrator and in leadership, and she was fast tracked to command. She had a distinguished record even before the Skyllian Blitz, where she took charge and led the defense on the ground until reinforcements arrived. She received the Star of Terra for her work, but made it abundantly clear during the ceremony that she believed everyone that fought with her on the ground should receive one as well, not just her.

After that, Astra was invited into the N7 program, and she accepted. She was one of only four of her class to graduate as a full N7. A couple years later, after she was made a Lieutenant Commander, Anderson asked that she be assigned as his XO on the SSV Tokyo, as no one could accuse either of them of favoritism now. When Anderson was given command of the new SSV Normandy, he asked her to be his XO once again, and the rest is history.

Major Choices:

Mass Effect 1

Saved everyone on Feros, spared Shiala, killed the ExoGeni corporate shill that tried to kill everyone because they said to

Very reluctantly spared Balak to save the hostages

Spared the rachni queen

Wrex survived Virmire

Ashley survived Virmire

Completed the Garrus/Wrex/Tali personal missions (let Garrus kill Saleon, and gaveTali the geth data)

Saved the Council and chose Anderson as Councilor

Romanced no one

Mass Effect 2

Recruited all 12 squadmates and gained everyone's loyalty

Stood in Garrus' shot and let him decide to spare Sidonis

Tali was not exiled, and her father's crimes were not exposed

Saved Maelon's data

Sent David Archer to Grissom, and the literal only reason Gavin didn't die is because she wasn't going to force David to watch

Destroyed the geth heretics

Saved the entire crew

Chose Garrus as the fireteam leader both times, Tali as the tech expert, Mordin to escort the crew back, and Jack as the biotic specialist

Destroyed the Collector Base

Did NOT do Arrival, and had turned herself in before it happened as a gesture of goodwill

Romanced Garrus

Mass Effect 3

Cured the genophage and Eve/Bakara survived

Saved Grissom Academy and sent Jack and the students to work as support

Spared the rachni queen once again

Ashley rejoined the crew

Samara and Falere both survived the monastery

Made peace between the quarians and geth

Miranda survived Horizon

Chose to destroy the Reapers with highest EMS

Romanced Garrus

[pintadorartist]

Fight the Trump-Musk Constitutional Crisis

We are in a constitutional crisis. Since day one, the Trump (and unelected billionaire Elon Musk) administration have defied constitutional law to engage in aggressive executive overreach. They have co-opted Congress’s “power of the purse,” dismantled segments of the federal government without legal authority, and have begun to defy the court orders in response to this blatant disregard for the law and the constitutionally mandated separation of powers.

The lawlessness has been vast:

Through a litany of executive orders and with the help of Musk, Trump has unilaterally blocked congressionally appropriated funds from being distributed, a power that is exclusively assigned to Congress

A federal judge ruled that the Trump administration violated the “plain text” of his previous court order requiring the release of federally appropriated payments to federal programs. A senior official fired several FEMA workers who refused to continue blocking funding for various programs

In multiple social media posts and podcasts, JD Vance has stated that the executive branch can ignore judicial rulings, even those made by the Supreme Court.

Legal scholars agree that presidential defiance of laws and judicial rulings is a constitutional crisis, and it is clear that the Trump administration believes the law does not apply to them. Normally, the Department of Justice could be enlisted to enforce these laws, Attorney General Pam Bondi, known Trump loyalist, will not do so. It will now be up to the courts and Congress to reclaim their co-equal roles in our government and stop the Trump administration’s reckless decimation of our government and the rule of law.

Here are your tools:

When calling your Senator, if they are a Democrat, remind them that despite being in the minority, they still have leverage:

REMEMBER: If you decide to email your rep/senator, it will be ignored unless it's been sent 20 times; reps/senators perceive 20 emails and faxes as attention-worthy.

[skatejoy]

After a drought of information, both the Sui/Han comeback and GP assignments drop on the same day! So much to think about.

Lots of Grand Prix thoughts. I know everything is strategic with these. I can see that strategy with Bock, who got the easiest set of assignments. Less so with Gilles/Poirier with their Finlandia pick, which is a tough field with both the comeback teams jockeying for position.

And CPom and LaLa going head to head in both assignments. Each of them are likely to get silver at their home event. The strategy here for both may be to avoid all the travel to focus on training time. Both now seem like long shots for the GPF. I hope I’m wrong!

Starting with GP France - I’m not surprised to see FB/C there (lots of home cooking coming) but that’s a lot of pressure to be ready for the first GP and no ability to withdraw without sending eyebrows way up. Seeing F\G and G/F go head to head early on will be interesting. So happy to see R/A get two assignments despite the disaster at Worlds.

Cup of China - should be an easy win for Bock. Silver and bronze will be interesting with S/D and L/B fighting it out. Another key match up (and following behind in case others make errors) is B/S and Z/K. Good to see Lim/Quan got an assignment here.

Skate Canada (why do you have to be in Saskatoon??) A coronation for G/P and likely much home cooking for LaLa. I would expect to see CPom in bronze but it’s a very strong field. T/V and Mzazeks for sure and R/A if they are back in form. Hoping for Hensen/Lickers in that TBD.

NHK - Two key face offs. F/G versus G/F again. And the US face off for the third Olympic spot (?) between G/P and the Shibs. This is where I think the Shibs have the best chance of medalling. I’m also excited to see Fabbri/Ayer and Yoshida/Morita debut.

Skate America - A super easy win for Bock unless disaster strikes again this year (can you imagine CPom winning SkAm??!). A strong field with LaLa and L/B in the race for medals. I’m looking forward to seeing Bekker/Hernandez and Tali/Lafonara debut. And that US TBD sitting there reminding us of all the drama last year.

Finally the least predictable (IMO) one - Finlandia. On paper G/P should win, but given the surprise falls last year and politics at play - who knows. FB/C certainly could challenge if their skill or politics are working by then. S/D, T/V and the Shibs will also be in the fight and past home cooking indicates T/V will be taking the bronze. This is also a Shibs versus Z/K ( which I’d guess the Shibs will win) and and Igor versus Marina showdown. The drama will be high. Looking forward to Orihara/Pirinen’s debut. This is also the Brown’s only assignment and it’s a tough one.

On the politics front it looks like USFS is setting Bock up for Olympic gold and giving the Shibs every opportunity to get an Olympic spot. France seems to have thrown all their support behind FB/C, leaving L/B out in the cold as we all feared. Skate Canada sending only 4 teams out?

It’s going to be a very interesting season. My guess would be Bock, G&P, FB/C, F/G and G/F at GPF, but we could have a season like last where the mighty literally fell. Ice is slippery. Those who don’t make the final get the advantage of more training time before the Olympics and good showings at GPF certainly didn’t help L/B or LaLa at Worlds last year.

I can’t wait! We all know one of the key factors is good material, so I can’t wait to see the new programs.

[art-of-manliness]

5BX: The Cold War Military Workout for Getting Fit in 11 Minutes a Day

In last month’s AoM podcast episode with Dr. Martin Gibala about high-intensity interval training, he mentioned a high-intensity workout program that was developed by the Royal Canadian Air Force during the late 1950s, took only eleven minutes to perform, and became hugely popular with the civilian population. Duly intrigued, we decided to dig up the program to see what it involved. The 5BX plan (Five Basic Exercises) was born out of a particular need: a third of the RCAF’s pilots were deemed unfit to fly and needed a workout program that 1) could be done without any specialized equipment, as the pilots were often stationed at remote bases without access to standard gyms, and 2) could fit into airmen’s busy schedules. While high-intensity training hadn’t yet won mainstream acceptance, the pioneering research of Dr. Bill Orban had showed that by increasing the intensity of exercise, people could get the same fitness-improving benefits in much less time. Orban used this insight to develop 5BX, which involved doing five exercises — four of which targeted flexibility and strength and one that worked aerobic capacity — in just eleven minutes. The Canadian military encouraged not only its pilots to perform it, but their children as well. Orban also developed a plan for women called XBX, which involved doing ten exercises in 12 minutes. In the 1960s, the programs were published together as the Royal Canadian Air Force Exercise Plans and distributed outside the military. The booklet became popular with civilians not only in Canada but around the world; it was translated into thirteen languages, sold 23 million copies, and is credited with helping to launch our modern fitness culture.  If you’d like to try it out, we’ve reformatted and republished the 5BX plan below. It features six “charts,” each of which includes the program’s five main exercises: * Stretching * Sit-up * Back extension * Push-up * Running in place, interspersed with various jumps (can be substituted for an actual run or walk) Each chart offers progressively more difficult variations of the five exercises, and you work your way from one level of performance on a particular chart to the next, and then from one chart to the next. Charts 5 and 6 get into some elite-level athletics — good luck with those toe-touching jack jumps, friends. For a visual demonstration of some of the exercises, watch this 1959 Royal Canadian Air Force training video. --- The Five Basic Exercises (5BX) Plan presented in this booklet is designed to show you how to develop and hold a high level of physical fitness, regardless of where you may be located. The scheme is not dependent on elaborate facilities or equipment. The exercises require only eleven minutes a day and can be done in your bedroom or beside your bed in your barracks. The diversity of work assignments, combined with lack of adequate gymnasium facilities at many of your stations makes it difficult to schedule formal physical training periods for all our personnel. The 5BX Plan puts physical fitness training within reach of every member of the RCAF. It is your duty and responsibility as a member of the RCAF to maintain a high level of physical fitness and be ready for any emergency which may require the extended use of your physical resources. Positive physical well-being is also closely allied with mental and emotional fitness, all of which are essential in the discharge of normal daily tasks. Warming Up The 5BX Plan was designed so that no additional warmup is necessary in order to receive its maximum benefits. The older one is, the more necessary proper warming up becomes to avoid “strained” muscles. The 5BX Plan has a built-in method of warmup. This is achieved in two ways: * by the arrangement of the exercises; and * by the manner in which these exercises are performed. For example, the first exercise is a stretching and loosening exercise which limbers up the large muscles of the body. In addition, this exercise should be started very… http://dlvr.it/T4JMgd

[cindylouwho-2]

RECENT ECOMMERCE NEWS (INCLUDING ETSY), Early April 2024

Welcome to my coverage of all the important Etsy and other ecommerce news that microbusinesses need to know! It's been a few weeks since my last update, so there is a fair amount to report.

Want to get the news more often and in a more timely fashion? Please sign up to support my Patreon site, where among other features, I will soon be starting periodical live chats on important topics. (I promise there will be one the day Etsy announces a fee increase)

TOP NEWS & ARTICLES 

Etsy has made changes to how processing times and estimated delivery dates work; I covered everything you need to know in this post. 

Etsy seems to be sending more Messages to the spam folder, so you may miss a real message. After reading that thread, I checked, and there was one from another seller needing help from just 5 hours ago. Etsy did say engineers are looking into it. 

UPS has won the USPS air cargo contract, currently held by FedEx. It kicks in at the end of September. “As of May 31, 2023, FedEx counted the USPS as the largest customer of its Express unit.” 

ETSY NEWS 

Etsy is rolling out a new seller pricing tool, and it is just as useless as the old version. I posted some early thoughts (with screenshots). 

Some shop owners are struggling to cancel Etsy coupons, while others are not having the same problem. Support says the company is aware of the issue. 

If you still can't access most of the Etsy forum after the changes on Tuesday March 26, post in this Technical Issues thread so that your account can be fixed.

Periodically, some shops suddenly stop getting deposits. If your shop has recently had a security warning, you may want to check to see if your bank account is still verified with Etsy. 

Looks like Etsy has an issue with misrepresenting how many items are left for each listing on the app; I wrote about it here.

Canadians getting harassed by Etsy to sign up for TurboTax should know that the company has told a seller that it doesn’t import Etsy data into your tax return for you; that is only available for Americans. [If you can’t import your info from your various platforms, my suggestion is use a free online program to file instead; I’ve used Wealthsimple for several years with no issues filing small business taxes; the T-2125 is part of the program.]

Etsy’s activist investor seems to think that the marketplace can “…add more buyers and increase the amount of money they spend on the platform”. But “monetization opportunities” were also mentioned. 

Etsy is yet again called out for allowing AI-generated porn on the site. “Several of the available listings also appear to violate existing trademarks — TheStreet identified listings that sell NSFW (not safe for work) AI-generated, suggestive images that appear to mimic Rapunzel from Disney's "Tangled," Princess Jasmine from Disney's "Aladdin" and She-Hulk from Marvel's "She-Hulk."

Etsy has been talking a lot about "image quality" lately, but doesn't really define the term anywhere. While I agree with those that say it is more than image size - Etsy would not have humans curating images to train its AI if "quality" could simply be measured by pixels - note that Google Shopping Ads describe image quality as size. “The resolution of your product images determines its quality. Google considers images with more than 1024 pixels as high-resolution images.” 

Apparently Etsy CEO Josh Silverman likes to make “unorthodox, downright risky career decisions” that often involve a ton of responsibility. [Link to podcast in article; I haven’t listened to it]

ECOMMERCE NEWS (minus social media)

General

Patreon’s live chats are now accessible on the web (instead of just the app). A creator can assign moderators, and have chats for different categories of members. 

Canadians: beware that new tax rules requiring digital platform operators to report their users’ income to the Canada Revenue Agency are expected for 2025. These laws would make Canada similar to the United States and the United Kingdom, among others. 

Amazon

Amazon is struggling to verify the VAT status of many UK sellers, and the fact the company holds all funds until the process is complete means many sellers are without income. 

eBay

eBay is offering 3 free “express payouts” to select US sellers by email only, available until June 30th. Money is paid to seller debit cards and can take a half hour or more to receive. (The usual cost is 1.5%.)

If you use eBay For Charity, you may want to check to see if the charity is getting paid, as some apparently are not. 

If you advertise on eBay, or just list inconsistently, you may be interested in the marketing trends calendar for 2024. It shows you when certain types of searches peak. 

Michaels Makerplace

The landing page for Makerplace sellers doesn’t provide a lot of hard details; some of the actual policies appear once you begin to sign up. Here’s how they define handmade: 

Thanks to Bluesky user Brushfeather for the info.

Shopify

Shopify is putting more effort into large businesses these days, despite its core offerings targeting small and medium-sized businesses for years. [soft paywall; Business Insider] The company “...has made a concerted effort over the last 18 months to introduce more software solutions to win over larger merchants. It has enhanced Shopify Plus, a higher-tier subscription with more features, and launched Hydrogen, a more custom framework geared toward retailers with more complex needs...Shopify introduced Commerce Components, an offering that allows merchants to integrate parts of Shopify's software into their existing tech stack. Mattel was its first retail partner for that product, and Everlane has since adopted Shop Pay as a stand-alone component.”

CEO Tobi Lutke recently received almost $200 million CAD in Shopify stock options, “one of the largest compensation packages in Canadian history.” As company founder, he now has around $8 billion worth of Shopify stock.

CIRRO Fulfillment now integrates with Shopify. 

Squarespace

Squarespace is rolling out Squarespace Payments to sellers in the United States, and they expect to add more countries later this year. Fees are in line with other payment processors. 

All Other Marketplaces

Mercari is following Depop and is ending seller transaction fees while adding a buyer fee. There is now a seller earnings withdrawal fee of $2, however, plus the pricing only applies to items listed after the announcement on March 27th, and sellers now have to accept returns for any reason, within 72 hours of receipt.  I suppose this fee might work for buyers if many are also sellers on Mercari or elsewhere, and are buying stock. If you see a good deal you know you can flip with a good margin, you might not mind paying a buyers fee on top of the listing price. The only other way I can see being willing to pay a buyers fee is if you are so enamoured with the platform and its culture that it is worth paying more for. Or maybe I am just out of touch… The Mercari CEO basically calls out Etsy for raising seller fees too much [soft paywall; Modern Retail]: “I’m not going to mention them by name, but you have marketplaces that have a lot of makers, a lot of people that create things, and the fees around selling on those platforms have just been going up a lot very aggressively”. [my emphasis] Mercari wants fees to remain competitive while attracting better inventory. Another article on Mercari’s announcement mentions Etsy by name when discussing seller fees. 

Mercari might want to consult lawyers the next time the site makes changes, though, as many sellers were furious that their existing balances were now subject to withdrawal fees without any warning, leading some to file complaints with the FTC. That led the company to announce that “On March 27, 2024, Mercari announced that it would begin charging a $2 fee(s) (“ACH Charge”) for all ACH direct deposit requests. Effective immediately through April 3, 2024 at 11:59 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time (“Waiver Period”), Mercari will waive the ACH Charge for ACH direct deposit requests made prior to the end of the Waiver Period for all eligible account holders.” Those who already incurred withdrawal charges will get refunds.

And because apparently you can never have enough Mercari news, they’ve introduced a listing importer for eBay and Depop. It uses AI. 

AliExpress will now do livestream shopping events in the UK. 

Payment Processing

PayPal users in the US will soon have only 30 days after delivery to file a significantly not described claim in most cases. Items not delivered by 180 days will still have the full 180 days. 

Shipping 

UPS is planning on closing about 200 facilities in the United States, and hopes to save money by instead using more automated hubs. Having fewer employees and consolidating locations is expected to save the company around $3 billion by the end of 2028. 

FedEx is continuing to combine its Express and Ground pickups and deliveries, both to save money and to make pickups easier on customers. 

[nightinghouls]

❝ I'VE GOT MY FEARS, I'VE GOT THEM DRESSED UP ❞

brigette lundy-paine. nonbinary. they / them. ⸻ i saw juno pasternak around colony house, you know? the twenty—eight year old that was driving from toronto, canada when they saw the tree on the road. juno has been here for six months and I think they were a bike mechanic before they got stuck in the town. with the way things are now, they are now struggling to maintain a sense of normalcy and seek a way out without losing themselves or dying. lets hope you at least survive the night.

GENERAL   information.  ⸻

full   name     juno elliott pasternak

nickname(s)    june,  junebug,  jay

age     twenty — eight

gender   identity     nonbinary

orientation    bisexual,  strong preference for women

place   of   birth     guelph,  ontario,  canada

date   of   birth     november  1  1995

former   occupation     bike mechanic

3   positive traits     creative,  altruistic,  strong—willed

3   negative traits      reclusive,  moody,  gullible

moral alignment    neutral good

faceclaim    brigette lundy—paine

TOWN   information.  ⸻

current   residency    colony house

current   occupation     bike + small electronics mechanic,  handyman

INSP   characters and media.  ⸻

frances halladay from frances ha / enid coleslaw from ghost world / james leer from wonder boys / eve from god help the girl / my solo exchange diary 1 + 2 by nagata kabi / lelaina pierce from reality bites

BIOGRAPHY   your   character's   background.  ⸻

juno’s parents separated when they were just a baby, and juno ended up with their dad. though born in guelph, fairly soon after their parents broke up them and their dad moved back to toronto, where their paternal grandparents lived. juno spent their childhood between their dad’s house and their grandparents’ house, with the occasional holiday spent at their mom’s, until eventually those dried up too.

they were a strong but frustrating student throughout public and high school, which is to say that they read a ton and could write an excellent essay, but struggled chronically with deadlines, skipped and were late to a lot of class, and nearly failed math almost every year. that juno graduated as an ‘ontario scholar’ is a testament to understanding teachers willing to take months-late work and give make up assignments.

right out of high school they entered college for illustration, sure they wanted art to be their career. college was a disaster; without the constant external prodding of well-meaning teachers, left to their own devices and living away from home, deadlines became completely overwhelming and they dropped out within their first semester. they couldn’t handle the pressure, the self-direction, and most of all, taking care of themselves. they’d always thought of themselves as self-sufficient but once they actually had to do everything for themselves as well as attend classes, they simply couldn’t keep up.

they spent two weeks in hospital after they dropped out due to mental health issues, a stay that refocused their attention: stay healthy enough to stay out of the hospital.

once they were back home and had settled back in, they got a job at the bike shop a few blocks away, starting as a junior mechanic to fill the days and get them out of the house. it was around this time that they started seriously considering and exploring their gender identity. perhaps it was that they were the only ‘female’ mechanic, and that this contrast was brought up to them in a way that it hadn’t been ever before, or maybe it was having a kind of independence without the stressors of school, but whatever the cause the result was the same; many deep, internal questions about their sense of self.

after a year and a bit of working at the bike store, juno decided they’d give university a try. maybe it was college that had been the problem. all the programs in college were so specific, university was more general, you could explore and figure yourself out. so they enrolled in an english literature program.

university went slightly better than college had, but once again as soon as the external stress of school was on them they stopped being able to take care of themself. it was just too much. and so, after six months, they dropped out again. back to the bike shop.

one year turned into two, and then three, and then they’d spent four years living in their bedroom at their dad’s house, even after their little brother had moved out, working the same job. juno liked their job, but still — there had to be more out there. so they started saving up, bought a junker car ( a 1990s volkswagen rabbit ) and decided they would road trip across the united states. they’d never been to the states before, but it seemed like a place full of wide-open possibilities. so, they set off.

they drove through new york and into pennsylvania, and then they saw the tree. the story from there is fairly well-known to everyone. the circling, the attempts to get out. at first they had just pulled over, sure they’d gotten too high before setting out for the day’s drive, resolved to sleep it off. and then there was someone banging on the window and telling them to get out before sunset, to get inside.

they were luckier than most; when they came, they came with most of their stuff. clothing, cds, books, nice but not so useful. their toolkit, now that had value here. they’d attempted to get away from their job, but it seemed that was the best thing they had to offer. bikes are more like clocks than like cars, so juno wasn’t any good at engine repair, but small electronics, the bikes that had made it into the town, and any general handyman-type jobs, those they could handle.

TRIVIA   extra   character   information. 

because their parents were teenagers when they were born, they are named after their parents' favourite music ( juno for juno, their mom's favourite band, and elliott for elliott smith, their dad's favourite artist )

juno was diagnosed with adhd in college, and was medicated for it until they entered the town.

similarly, they had been undergoing low-dose hrt, which they ran out of after a time in the town.

some of the books in juno's car at the time they entered the town are: the wind up bird chronicle, franny and zooey, tell me i'm worthless, paul takes the form of a mortal girl, high fidelity, and please don't kill the freshmen.

[iamkelvinlee]

🎬 I was invited by National University of Singapore to talk about my mid-career learning journey on Channel News Asia/ CNA (an Asean broadcast news network) in April 2023.

During the height of Covid in 2020, I thought it was the opportune moment in life (especially if biz and leisure travel would be very limited) to return to the University environment to attempt a Masters program!

After evaluating a range of MBAs and MSCs programs in Singapore, I applied and was accepted into the / NUS-ISS Master of Technology in Digital Leadership 2-year part-time program (https://lnkd.in/gQtGGE-R).

🧗The journey was tough but one I don't regret.

The program stretched me out of my comfort zone 'in marketing' - and has given me a deeper understand of the technology side of enterprise digital business models, architecture, platforms and ecosystems, and picked up needed skills such as leading through digital complexity and building digital teams.

Most importantly, it has helped me to catalyze new relationships with my course mates from various sectors, the lecturers, the guest-speakers and Capstone Project business sponsors at Bolloré Logistics, one of the global top 10 international transport and logistics operators.

🥃 After 24+ months (including thousands of hours of reading, assignments and presentations) multi-tasking and not sleeping much in between a significant job change, and one more new-born, 2 trips halfway around the world to visit family in Canada, plus the world opening up, I've finally come out alive on the other side.

Thanks to my previous and current bosses and team members, and not forgetting my wife especially for supporting me through the journey.

Check out the NUS blog feature (May 2023): https://lnkd.in/dZ_qKCFC

[leam1983]

That's fair, actually. I tend to think that gender only really matters officially, in the sense that systems of governance haven't yet figured out all the loopholes needed to fully integrate agender or generally non-cis people in every facet of their nomenclature.

Your favourite store has a rewards program? Chances are you can enroll as someone who'd rather not disclose their gender. Your privatized insurance provider needs to update your file? Chances are they've got an "Other" or "Would rather not say" option that's available, now. The only place I've found, as someone who works in the automotive market and who's had to help the occasional customer wrangle things together with their insurer, that actually restricts your ability to non-identify, is actually the State or Provincial body, or the Federal one.

In a sense, I kind of want to toss that one single instance a bone. The US can't even handle common cisgender cases without occasional intitutional SNAFUs, neither can Canada's own system - or anywhere else's, I'd assume - seeing as everything is systemized on people having one of two genders and has been as such for generations.

As I also have to wrangle small-scale corporate networks, I also know that changing one tiny detail can oftentimes affect everything else. I'm sure most of everyone across the institutional spectrum wholly wants to offer agender people the chance to identify properly, but I can also imagine what that involves...

Government: "Hey, contract-workers, can you update our Social Security registration UI to include a couple other options for titles?"

Contract-workers: "Um, sure, but did you vet this with your IT department? Did you vet that with every other instance that feeds into the SSN database? Are they ready to handle that extra bit of data per each and every file that applies?"

And that's where the concept shits the bed - for now.

I've got agender colleagues. They're agender for all the facets of their lives, but until the day practically everything that governs their official existence is reliably adapted, they're typically still a man or a woman in the eyes of the one institutional instance that's so big, so huge, that it can only change one service portal at a time - and sometimes with years of revisions.

A lot of people on Tumblr like to imagine that the biggest hurdles towards societal progress are older people, White moneyed men, politicians or people of a particular ideology. Personally, my money's on all the dessicated beige towers still running Windows 98 in offices that really should've moved to new software suites or modern server deployment methods decades ago.

I'm a little cheeky at this point, but if you're still being identified by your assigned gender, give your local keyboard jockey a hug, while you're at it. They feel the pain as much as you do.

not sure if this reads too bitter or at all but the older I get the harder it is to define myself in a language/culture that had (and have) a big role in destroying the ones I come from

[iraimmigration77]

Understanding the National Occupation Classification (NOC) for Your Canada Immigration Journey

When planning to move to Canada, understanding how your job fits into the Canadian labor market is essential. That’s where the National Occupation Classification system, commonly known as NOC, comes into play. Whether you're applying for permanent residency, a work permit, or exploring employment opportunities in Canada, knowing your correct NOC code is a crucial step.

At IRA Immigration, we help aspiring immigrants decode the complexities of the National Occupation Classification system, making the Canada immigration process smoother and more efficient. This blog aims to explain how the NOC code works, how to find NOC for your profession, and how to ensure your job aligns with the requirements of Canadian jobs NOC standards.

What is the National Occupation Classification?

The National Occupation Classification is Canada’s official system for organizing and categorizing jobs. It assigns a unique NOC code to every job type based on the nature of the work, skill level, and industry. Developed by the Government of Canada, this classification helps determine your eligibility for various immigration pathways, including Express Entry, Provincial Nominee Programs (PNPs), and work permits.

The latest version, NOC 2021, replaces the previous four-digit code format with a new five-digit structure, aligning better with evolving job markets and economic sectors in Canada.

Why is the NOC code Important for Canada immigration?

Your NOC code directly affects your immigration eligibility. Immigration programs in Canada use the National Occupation Classification to assess whether your work experience matches the requirements for permanent residency.

If you’re applying through Express Entry, your job must fall under TEER (Training, Education, Experience, and Responsibilities) categories 0, 1, 2, or 3 to be eligible. If your experience falls outside the defined job classification Canada requires, your application may be refused.This is why it's crucial to find NOC that accurately reflects your current or past job roles. Misrepresenting your job duties can lead to rejections or even bans.

How to Find NOC That Matches Your Job?

To begin, visit the official NOC search tool on the Government of Canada’s website. Enter your job title, key duties, or industry to see a list of potential matches. Each listing will contain:

The five-digit NOC code

Job title

Key responsibilities

Employment requirements

Job classification based on TEER

The challenge lies in choosing the correct code that most closely matches your real-world job duties—not just your job title. For instance, a “Business Analyst” in IT and in finance may fall under different NOC codes depending on the core duties involved.

This is where a professional consultant like IRA Immigration, widely regarded as the best immigration consultant in Delhi, becomes essential. We help applicants accurately interpret and validate their professional history with the appropriate Canadian jobs NOC.

Real-World Example: Selecting the Right NOC code

Suppose you’re a software engineer with several years of experience in India. A quick NOC search might show multiple potential matches like:

21231 – Software engineers and designers

21230 – Computer systems developers and programmers

Although these titles seem similar, the responsibilities under each are different. Misidentifying your NOC code could lead to a mismatch between your reference letters and your claimed job title, risking your Canada immigration application.

Common Mistakes When Choosing a NOC code

Selecting the correct NOC code isn’t just about job titles—it’s about matching job duties. Common mistakes include:

Picking a code based solely on job title

Ignoring the specific employment requirements listed under the National Occupation Classification

Selecting a NOC code that doesn’t align with your experience or reference letters

Professional guidance from experienced visa consultants in Nehru Place, like those at IRA Immigration, can make all the difference by minimizing errors and increasing your chances of success.

Benefits of Matching the Correct National Occupation Classification

Choosing the right NOC code offers numerous advantages:

Increases your chances of qualifying under immigration programs

Ensures your job experience is valued appropriately in CRS (Comprehensive Ranking System) calculations

Helps you avoid misrepresentation issues during the verification stage

Aligns your profile with job classification Canada requires for skilled migration

With thousands of successful applications, our team at IRA Immigration Janakpuri and Nehru Place has mastered the art of aligning applicant profiles with the right NOC codes.

How IRA Immigration Helps You Navigate the National Occupation Classification

At IRA Immigration, we do more than just fill out forms. We provide end-to-end immigration support that includes:

Detailed NOC search and job matching analysis

Expert review of your employment history and job duties

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