A Scorpion in the Sky

Just a silly Munday Ask List for those in a Munday Mood. Mixture of FFXIV-adjacent and non-FFXIV asks.

How closely do you resemble your OC in real life? Whether physically or temperamentally?

Tell me a funny work story (without doxxing yourself!)

Where would you most like to see new Player Housing in FFXIV?

Tell me something someone else helped you learn recently – or that helped you gain a better understanding of something.  Bonus points if it increased your empathy for something you hadn’t previously considered.

Which cutscene in The Unending Journey do you find yourself going back to watch again and again?

Tell me about someone you admire in the FFXIV Tumblr community and why they are awesome!

What’s the most satisfyingly petty thing you’ve ever done at work? (again do not doxificate yourself)

Which food in FFXIV would you most like to try in real life?

Assuming that time, money, ability and resources were no object, what would be your dream creative FFXIV project?  Something for your OC?  A fandom event?  Designing a glamour for the game?

What’s the most impactful piece of feedback you’ve ever received?  What did you change (or keep doing) as a result?

How many of your in-game friends are also your friends irl? (or partners, polycule members, relatives or colleagues as the case may be).

What is your most uncontroversial and unproblematic FFXIV headcanon?

Tell me about a FFXIV fandom project or creative work outside of Tumblr that you’d like to highlight – whether yours or somebody else’s.  It could be a AoW story, a comic, a blog on a different site, a carrd, a cosplay or something else entirely.

Which FFXIV minion would you most like to have as a pet irl?

What topic or theme would you most like to see explored in an OC Ask List if you could request one (which you sort of can, but no guarantees as to when a certain person will get around to actually doing it…)

In the episode 72 hours, we find out Rose may have contracted AIDs during an emergency gallbladder surgery.

Rose: Why me, Blanche? I'm tired of pretending I feel okay so you won't say, 'Take it easy', and I'm tired of you saying 'Take it easy' because you're afraid I'm going to fall apart. Dammit, why is this happening to me? I mean, this isn't supposed to happen to people like me. You must've gone to bed with hundreds of men. All I had was one innocent operation. Blanche: Hey, wait a minute! Are you saying this should be me and not you? Rose: No! No, I'm just saying that I am a good person. Hell, I'm a goody-two-shoes! Blanche: AIDS is not a bad person's disease, Rose, it is not God punishin' people for their sins!

In Isn't it romantic? we find out Dorothy's childhood best friend is a lesbian who recently lost her partner. She confesses she has feelings for Rose. Rose turns her down but makes it clear that she still wants to be friends even though she doesn't return those feelings.

Sophia: Jean is a nice person. She happens to like girls instead of guys. Some people like cats instead of dogs.

Jean: Rose, about last night. I should never have said anything. Rose: You only said what you were feeling. Jean: It's just that this last year has been so difficult for me. Pat was the person I planned to spend the rest of my life with. And when she died, I just felt so terribly alone. Empty. I thought I could never care for anyone again. Until I met you. I just got very confused. I hope I didn't make you uncomfortable. Rose: Well, I have to admit that I don't understand these kinds of feelings. But if I did understand, if I were, you know, like you, I'd be very flattered and proud that you thought of me that way.

Ebbtide's Revenge gives us Phil's funeral, and Sophia addressing him wearing women's clothes.

Rose: So what if he was different? It's okay that you loved him. Sophia: I did love him. He was my son, my little boy. But every time I saw him I wondered what I did, what I said, when was the day I did whatever I did to make him the way he was. Angela Petrillo: What he was Sophia, was a good man.

Sister of the Bride, where Blanche's brother Clayton brings his boyfriend to town, because they're planning on getting married.

Blanche: Oh, look, I can accept the fact that he's gay, but why does he have to slip a ring on this guy's finger so the whole world will know? Sophia: Why did you marry George? Blanche: We loved each other. We wanted to make a lifetime commitment. Wanted everybody to know. Sophia: That's what Doug and Clayton want, too. Everyone wants someone to grow old with. And shouldn't everyone have that chance?

But when they made that change, they didn't just throw it all out. Instead they still kept a decent amount of the bones of that antagonist's writing and simply ... nudged it (especially the performance) in a slightly different direction. The result adds a fun layers of humor and nuance to him and every relationship affected by him. To me, it's always added to his appeal as a character.

His final, canon portrayal still is an antagonist who pursues power and glory, deals out the death penalty too zealously, and gets in the way of the desires and goals of Elizabeth, Will, and Jack. (And obviously has a very fundamentally different world view than the protagonist and her supporting leads as a part of that.) The difference is that he is not motivated by avarice but something more like chivalry. He doesn't pursue what he does out of a malicious desire for conquest, but a earnest desire for Order, a belief that he serves a greater good for society, and genuine soft spot for Elizabeth. And he just also happens to like feeling like he's the Best Guy for the job while he's at it.

And I don't know, watching that interplay in him just makes him a funnier character over time in CotBP and DMC in particular. Like he's straight up full of himself in CotBP. Sorry if that feels mean to say, but overlooking that is kind of a disservice to the character, in my opinion--especially because his greatest downfalls ultimately hinge on acts of hubris more than anything else. He obviously LOVES his job, and most specifically love the position he's earned. He seems to enjoy the chances it gives him to show how Great he is in front of his men. Like I just know in my bones he was absolutely relishing the chance to throw back that "almost escaped" line at Jack, reciting it in his head--and he does that stuff all the time.

Ironically, I think that makes him a very interesting mirror to hold up to Jack and Will, especially with Jack's fixation he also has about his captaincy and its notoriety and Will's desire for recognition for his own work.

It also makes Norrington's proposal to Elizabeth more comically ridiculous the more I watch it over the years, especially when paired with her later scene with Estrella on how it was The Worst Thing about her day. Because even if he's performed to be sweet and bumbling, really the moment is written to be so deeply about him in his mind.

The way our girl is visibly and audibly suffering, and he doesn't notice until she says out loud "I can't breathe" and then still somehow thinks that it's about him. He even says she "looks lovely" but doesn't SEE how she doesn't FEEL lovely? The way that his reasons for proposing to her (while looking at the horizon instead of her, mind you), "I have a To-Do List for my life, and the next item requires a Fine Woman--how convenient that you match that description!"

I don't believe that he's being willfully uncaring by a longshot, but holy shit, my guy... Instead The way he goes about it, makes it come across like he's proposing to his career with Elizabeth as the ring, instead of the other way around. We're really not going to focus on her at all in any possible way? Not a word about why she, as Elizabeth Swann the individual, is the one he hopes to marry? Just "This serves my goals! I'm so nervous!" Even if she were not in a corset at the time, it would still be awkward and kind of insulting to listen to, especially because she already is Not Interested. The fact that he doesn't not notice she's literally in physical distress is just the painful cherry on top.

But! All of that is true AND it is also true that he was initially willing to jump in the water after her, that he cared enough about her romantic feelings to not force her into an unhappy marriage, that he thinks he's making the world a better place with all that he does. The combination of those things are what have made him Him.

Almost all of my lessons still apply so read them 👍🏾

READ FANTASY BY BLACK WRITERS

Just because race and racism isn't real inside your narrative doesn't mean it isn't real in the eyes of your viewers, that still exist in the real world

So yes you still have to be aware of stereotypes when writing, yes even when the characters are coded

If you describe your characters well enough we'll know they're Black even if you don't say "Black", same way you never have to say someone is "White" and no one is ever confused

Especially if you give them culturally specific names or clothes (respectfully!)

Fantasy racism allegories are a bullshit idea unless you're willing to commit to what racism really IS, otherwise let it go and write something else

If fantasy magic applies to your white characters and their customization (hair, clothes, hygiene) then it applies to your Black ones as well

Please give Black characters something other than straight or wavy hair I'm tired of visible wigs on Black people in these fantasy shows

If you can find infinite ways to describe white people in flowery ways, you can too with Black people (that don't have to be chocolate related)

And so the two surgeons filmed a handover after heart surgery and sent it to the Ferrari pitcrew who were told to critique and improve handover process

And from this:

we got this:

The error rate during patien handovers dropped from 30% to 10% with the F1 informed protocol.

I love this!

And it that it wasn't a one and done.

The doctors went to the race tracks to watch the car changes and the pit crews went to the hospitals and watched a live transfer and offered suggestions and they kept working with them to improve.

After there was a successful improvement of the most vital metrics of a handover of a patient from surgery to ICU, the pit crews also worked with other hospitals for other procedures and it's now a whole thing of trying to apply the specialized, streamlined and speedy teamwork and nonverbal coordination of pit crews to other high-risk fields.