Escape the Real World

Grace describes it as best he can, but all he can really manage to get across to Rocky is that he was surrounded by small floating lights.

Later on, Grace is talking about the stars and how important they've been to human cultures for millennia. “What do the stars look like, question?” Rocky wants to know.

Oh, y'know, they're a bunch of small floating lights.

There's a disco ball on the Hail Mary. Grace says it's there because it “makes me happy”. “How does it make Grace happy, question?” Rocky wants to know.

Oh, it creates the illusion that he's surrounded by small floating lights.

Rocky begins to do some research.

Glitter: a substance invented by humans to make things look like they're covered in small lights.

Human jewellery: mostly involves gemstones or polished metals, designed to reflect small lights.

Christmas lights. Candles. Lanterns. Fireworks. Glowsticks. Glow in the dark paint. Rocky is beginning to notice a pattern here, statement.

It takes Grace a fucking while after getting to Erid to notice that a lot of the gifts he's receiving from grateful Eridians are either a) sparkly, b) incredibly shiny, or c) fitted with lights.

While the last one is obviously a concession for his human light sense, he's confused about the former two. Are Eridian materials usually this shiny? Is there some quality about sparkly or highly polished surfaces that makes them sound better? Or is there something about Eridian geology/metallurgy that makes their materials like this?

He asks Rocky about it.

“Simple. I tell people humans like lots of small lights. Humans are easy to make happy.”

Grace kind of wants to protest that humans are much more complicated than that.

But honestly… it fucking works. Like yeah the polished gemstones, shiny metals and glittery rocks are beautiful. Yes those Christmas lights you put up around the house did markedly improve my mental health, Rocky. Thank you, I hate it.

My boss, putting on white grease paint and a red wig: Oh, of course! Let’s do it quickly so that you’ll want to keep working with us since you’re going to be making business decisions!

Me: I would sell you to satan for one corn chip and I’m allergic to corn but before you do this maybe you should call someone who is actually on our contact list for our customer and see if they’ve ever heard of this stranger.

My boss, looking through a selection of shoes that honk when you walk: Oh, but she said that it was very important that none of the employees know what was happening because they’re making staffing changes.

Me: As your lawyer I recommend that you just call a single one of our contacts and see if they’ve ever heard of her name.

My boss, shoving all of our technicians into a VW beetle: You’re not my lawyer.

Boss: On the bright side, it’s only the last five

“Hello I am [name] from [security firm] we’ve been hired to verify the security of the facility I need to see your computers.”

“Erm…I’ll have to verify that with my managers.”

“Congratulations, you have just passed the security verification.” [Scribbles on clipboard] “But in all seriousness I do need to verify your security so I need to see your computers.”

junicorn

day 29

of critters in clover

“And of your infliction,” cried Elizabeth, with energy; “You have reduced him to his present state of poverty—comparative poverty. You have withheld the advantages which you must know to have been designed for him. You have deprived the best years of his life of that independence which was no less his due than his desert. You have done all this! and yet you can treat the mention of his misfortunes with contempt and ridicule.”

Why did Austen choose to make the issue between Wickham and Darcy an inheritance? I think for the same reason that character and morals are emphasized so much in her novels. A woman is putting her life in the hands of her husband, she needs to know that he will properly take care of her. She needs to know that he won't circumvent the legal documents designed to protect her. And especially in this match, where Mr. Darcy holds so much more influence and wealth than Elizabeth's father, his reputation, character, and past dealings are everything.

“Lizzy,” said her father, “I have given him my consent. He is the kind of man, indeed, to whom I should never dare refuse anything, which he condescended to ask." (Mr. Bennet is endlessly sarcastic, but he's pretty sincere in this scene so I believe him here)

When there's a heroine of a well-known story whom everyone loves and considers a role model, but she's completely different from you and you know you'll never be like her, it makes sense to want to tear her down a little bit. Especially if she has flaws that her fans tend to ignore, or if there are supporting characters or other stories' heroines whom you like just as well if not better, but whom the fandoms either ignore or bash for not being like her. So it makes sense to want to write either (a) original fiction with a heroine who's more like you, with a character similar the popular heroine portrayed as more flawed, or (b) a perspective flip of the popular story that makes a different character the protagonist and frames the original heroine in a less positive light.

But sometimes, the popular heroine's flaws are already acknowledged in the original text, maybe even to excess; just because the fandom forgets them doesn't mean we should judge her more harshly than the already judgmental original author did. And maybe more importantly, sometimes in her original story, that heroine was a misfit or an underdog; maybe she was written to deconstruct an earlier concept of who "deserves" to be a heroine.

In one of the fantasy stories I write just for fun (which I might try to publish someday), I originally had a supporting character who was modeled after Jo March in Little Women. I didn't portray her very positively, because I wanted to highlight Jo's flaws that pop culture tends to overlook and to point out that other girls like her sisters are just as worthy to be heroines. But then I had second thoughts. Pop culture may sometimes overlook Jo's flaws, but Jo's creator and real-life counterpart Louisa May Alcott certainly didn't! Alcott is sometimes very self-deprecating in her portrayal of Jo! Maybe too much so. And among the Little Women fans whose favorite March sister is Amy and who passionately defend her online (a cause I support), I see them take bad faith interpretations of Jo’s character that aren’t the way I read her at all, and basically shame her for being a tomboy. I finally decided that Jo has been deconstructed enough.

So I made some changes to that character in my story and decided to model her after Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice instead. Goodness knows, the Austen fandom has always idealized Elizabeth too much, and sometimes been nasty about other Austen heroines (e.g. Fanny Price) because they're not feisty or witty like she is. And since Elizabeth is much more ladylike then she's often remembered as being, deconstructing her a little wouldn't feel like tomboy-shaming. But now I’m having second thoughts about this choice too. In certain parts of the Austen fandom, it seems to be popular nowadays to accuse Elizabeth of being "mean" – to Darcy, to her sisters, to Charlotte, or to anyone she ever has a negative opinion about – which most of the time just isn't true. I've also been concerned about what I’ve read of Elizabeth’s portrayal in The Other Bennet Sister, and how it frames her as something of a privileged foil to her underdog sister Mary. Because I realized that the original Elizabeth is an underdog in her own right: not compared to Mary, but compared to Jane. Unlike her older sister, who is more traditional heroine material, she’s not a model of beauty, gentleness, sweetness, or good manners: she’s outspoken, sassy, and cynical, rich people talk behind her back about her unfashionable manners, she has actual flaws and character development, and even her own love interest finds her looks only “tolerable” at first. Part of Austen’s whole point in creating her might have been to make a heroine out of a girl who wouldn’t normally be one.

For a similar reason, I have misgivings about people who want to deconstruct Emma because of how “unlikable” Emma is: for example, Andrew Davies’ planned sequel with Jane Fairfax as the heroine, which he wants to do because, in his opinion, “Jane Fairfax is the real heroine of Emma.” Some Austen fans argue that this is missing the whole point, because Jane Fairfax is the girl who traditionally would be the heroine. What makes the novel unique is that a character like Emma would typically be the "mean girl," foil to the heroine, à la Caroline Bingley or Mary Crawford, but instead she is the heroine, and is made likable despite her flaws and allowed to grow and change.

but I can guarantee one thing: someone looking for stories in the “x reader” tag is the last person who wants to read about your oc