just a basil plant

Alternatively: this character is some kind of rock star celebrity in their field and has a bunch of honorary degrees from several different institutions, and also this story takes place before most universities adopted a separate postnominal for honorary doctorates specifically to avoid this sort of confusion.

I mean, a PHD. is just a piece of paper that attests that experts in a field have confirmed you as a fellow expert. Is it so inconceivable that the person applying for a phd. already has practical knowledge of the field in question and thus doesn't have to commit as much time toward its aquisition?

Yes, because that’s not really what a PhD is. A PhD isn’t a certification that you’re an expert, per se; a PhD means you have been through a graduate program and learned how to do original research in an academic setting. It means you have gained a lot of expertise in a certain topic, but much more importantly, it shows that you understand the academic process of how to design, conduct, and publish research in that topic. It confirms you as a fellow academic who knows what you’re doing. The important point is that these skills are highly transferrable—you generally do not need to learn to do research again, unless the field is very different from your degree (e.g., literature and biology have very different research expectations). Once you have a PhD, you just go out there and… do research now. If you already have practical knowledge of the field in question you don’t go through the whole learning-and-certification process again, you just go do research.

This is also why the 'honorary degree' reading does not make me inclined to respect the character at all. I don't give a shit whether the character is the second coming of Jesus Christ or equivalent in their field, bruiting honorary PhDs around as equivalent to the kind you have to earn when you've already earned a regular PhD is the action of a grifter or a highly inflated ego. Because that's the kind of thing you do when you want to use the title for clout specifically and exclusively with people who have no idea what a PhD is.

I told someone today that they are important. It broke my heart when they told me "no one has ever told me I am important before." If no one has told you, you are important. You specifically, are important. Your existence matters. Your life matters. You are important.

@queer-joy-detector @this-is-trans-joy

Queer joy detected!

This is trans joy!!!

the menstrual cup and menstrual scepter

I'm a BIG fan of low ranking characters suddenly thrust into a position of authority they're unprepared for. a young princess, too far down the line of succession to merit any training, forced onto the throne when her whole family dies in one attack. a lowly technician on a team who finds themself the defacto leader when a mission goes wrong and every single person above them is captured or killed. a group of strangers comes together for survival, and the only person with any assertiveness gets assigned a leadership role, even though they have no special skills. do these characters rise to the challenge and lead their respective groups to victory? do they crash and burn under the pressure so hard no one ever trusts them again? do they massively restructure their whole society because any system that puts them in charge can't be doing things right?