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the reviews are in... glad everyone's enjoying song of the worm

PROBLEM

The world is ending. You know it, your neighbor knows it, the dealer knows it, the jailer knows it, the king and all his men know it. All one has to do is look around to see it— the future is curdling into something pale and incorporeal. The infernal machine that is this stupid world is going to blow, sooner rather than later. So what are you doing? Why are you still here? Why is anyone still here?

SOLUTION

See, I think that still works.

You are the guardsman assigned to protect the eight-year-old Prince. You are currently in the middle of the forest because he absolutely had his heart set on "going hunting", and the royal second-grader should definitely not be traipsing around the woods on his own. You let him go a little on ahead and he comes running back talking about how there's a dead girl in the clearing and there's no-one else around and he wants to take her home because she's really pretty, Hans, and she's all alone!

You let him drag you to said clearing and okay, that is one angelic-looking dead child alright, and on the one hand the quality of her clothes and the craftsmanship on the coffin (who builds a see-through coffin?) speak to potential Consequences if you simply carry her off, but also for the amount of vines that have grown on the coffin she looks extraordinarily un-decayed, so you should probably get the court alchemist's opinion on that, and there's no way he's going to come all the way out here in his embroidered velvet curly-shoes. And also this kid is technically assigned by God as your natural superior, or something.

So fine. You hoist the coffin onto your shoulder (it's not like the Prince can do it. He's eight.) and head back toward the castle, Prince chattering blithely all the way. And then you turn your ankle on a rock and suddenly there's a thump and a cough and a lot of shouting from inside the coffin and you have now become a key player in a tense political incident with the next kingdom over.

the care & attention to detail in these drawings...& the little snippets of Senshi's thoughts on the adventure...this is such a cool and endearing little piece of characterization for Senshi. also

• They put Skibidi Toilet on the projector to explain what “skibidi” means.

• Baby Gronk was mentioned.

• We discussed the Rizzler.

• “Cunty” was nominated.

• “Enshittification” was suggested for EVERY category.

• “Blue Check” (like from Twitter) was briefly defined as “Someone who will not Shut The Fuck Up”

• The person writing notes briefly defined babygirl as “referencing [The Speaker]”. He is now being called babygirl in the linguist groupchats.

FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO DON'T KNOW

adventure!!!

So most stories take place when Events are Happening, and this means that no matter what kind of job the characters have, they’re probably not too focused on them. Fanfics, on the other hand, often show the down time. Which means that the writer has to figure out what the hell these characters do in their jobs. Unless the characters have a job the author understands or knows well, the author is often at a loss for what to have the character doing.

So they sit them at a desk and give them paperwork. What is the paperwork for? Rarely specified. It is Paper Work for the characters Important Adult Job they have and they need to read or sign it or something. And there’s always a line about how Character Hates Paperwork. Doesn’t matter if Character is a Mafia Boss or a General or a Diplomat, here they are in an office trying to get out of Doing Paperwork.

There’s also a sense of, like, humor and mundanity that comes with it. Like the examples above, it always particularly stands out to me when a dangerous individual is griping about some paper they need to sign or something. The less you can picture Character doing paperwork, all the better to force it upon them. If Character is saddled with Paperwork, they’re usually now concerned about the physical damages their motley crew causes, because damage = More Paperwork.

... but also there is a shocking amount of paperwork involved with most jobs. Does your job deal with money? There are ledgers and piles of invoices to handle. Does you job deal with building things? There is paperwork for acquiring, storage, and tracking of materials, and then more paperwork for the storage, sale, and distribution of finished products. Do you build experimental shit? All of that materials nonsense is still there PLUS now you have math and extremely detailed models to do to make sure your thing works. Over and over. Along with a whole lot of data for every test run, and then a lot of math and comparing numbers.

Is your job talking to people? Welcome to the world of correspondence, which, yes, a lot is verbal, but just as much is written, not to mention all bullshit to set up to maintain those networks and keep updated on any various projects or special interest groups that may be relevant, plus any/all reports required to keep your superiors (if you have any) updated on progress. Business communication counts as paperwork (where are my office workers out there who have spent three hours on an email so you dont get fucking roasted later, or so your project gets approved?).

Do you have a military command? Omg welcome to paperwork central (as confirmed by a friend of mine who is an O4), because everything needs to be tracked, and all things run on bureaucracy.

Lawyers? Holy FUCK the paperwork. Court documents don't write themselves, and there is a LOT of specific language, AND it needs to have references cited (there was a pretty spectacular couple of court case fubars recently about a couple lawyers trying to us chatgpt for it and fucking themselves and their client over HARD).

Are there folks who are "important" enough that they can push off any and all paperwork onto minions? Some, but they tend to be few and far between, and even very powerful people often like to personally ensure that said paperwork is being done right, which at least requires a review. Get enough projects going and employees, and even a basic glance over of each team's work just to make sure that the end product isnt a steaming pile of shit can turn into a LOT of reading. And potential editing, too.

So. Like. Yes. The mindless paperwork that a lot of fic authors use to fill in the narrative gaps in fic is amusing and sometimes ridiculous, especially if the character.in question doesn't have a 'job' per se, they just go DO STUFF. And yeah, there are definitely characters ans stories that excess paperwork doesn't make sense for.

Sexual harassment is the one we mostly see in TV because it has the most obvious opportunities for humor, but I also have to do insider training, data security and making strong passwords, combatting waste and fraud, HIPAA* compliance bc my job is Healthcare related, and more every single year. Not to mention trainings on how to use new software etc like how my company switches time card programs every time our introductory rate ends and there's a half hour video on where to go to click "clock on" and how to submit expenses and shit. At my job, we sometimes have to watch the same videos but for new clients, too. It's also just paperwork, they need to submit a form saying that everyone with access to their data knows not to post it on tiktok.

Even a mob boss has to watch a video to learn the new payroll software at his front businesses.

there's a famous photo of the flight deck on fire you might've seen if you're a boat nerd or a wwii nerd or a wwii boat nerd

anyway, after this fucking terrifying, cataclysmic event, the following days in my grandfather's diary are like 90% him complaining about how much paperwork he had to do as the Bunker Hill slowly limped back to port