Blue Ruiner

Okay, so—first off, I think a lot of people around here already know this, but the disclaimer on this post is: I'm an OTW volunteer and the specifics of my role limit the amount/ways that I'm able to publicly participate in discussions of OTW policy and governance. So my wording here is very carefully chosen to tread a very fine line, and hopefully I will manage that! We'll see!! Sparkly smile!!!

FIRST: while I am an OTW member and volunteer, I am saying everything in this post in my capacity as a private fan.

SECOND: racism currently is and long historically has been a problem in fandom. This is, IMO, a "Well, duh" sort of a statement, but again: I'm sort of writing this post along a tightrope, so I am to an extent limited to "Well, duh" statements. So! Yes, racism currently is and long historically has been a problem in fandom.

2(b): Since I am kind of limited to "Well, duh" statements, I am going to punt a tiny bit, here, and say that if you would like to read more about race and racism in fandom, runpunkrun has been including quite a few links to fans currently discussing this issue in recent Weekend Update posts.

THIRD: the Organization for Transformative Works is the organization which manages and runs AO3, Fanlore, and a number of other fan-volunteer-driven fannish endeavors. Their policies are driven by a volunteer-comprised and member-elected Board of Directors, whose election season will shortly begin!

3(b): You are eligible to vote, this year, for the OTW's next Board of Directors if you become a member of the OTW between July 1, 2019 and June 30, 2020. You become eligible to become a member of the OTW by donating $10 or more at any point between July 1st of last year and June 30th of this year.

Yes, that's correct! If you have already donated $10 or more in that timeframe, you may already be a member! (You can find out if your membership is current by contacting the Elections team.)

And yes, that's correct, too: you have two more days to donate $10 if you are not already a member to become one. Here is the link to donate (which also mentions the $10 minimum): Donate to the Organization for Transformative Works.

Please note: there is a required/radio ticky bubble, near the bottom, that says "Do you want to be an OTW member? ($10 minimum donation)" - if you want to become a member, you should select "Yes."

4 AND ALSO CAN I BOLD THIS ENTIRE BULLET POINT BECAUSE THIS IS WHY I'M POSTING RIGHT NOW EVEN THOUGH I AM ALSO IN A HURRY: You have until 11:59 pm UTC on June 29th [link will show you when that is in your timezone] to ask questions that will be put to the current batch of candidates for the OTW Board of Directors!

This is the Elections team's section of the OTW website. All the Elections Things live there.

This is the announcement post for this year's election, including links to candidate bios and an announcement of the candidate Q&A.

This is the form you fill out to ask questions for the candidate Q&A. (Under "Category," select "Candidate Q&A".)

Please note that the deadline to ask questions is before the deadline to join as a member and be eligible to vote this year!

The deadline to ask questions is in about twenty-eight hours!

The deadline to join so that you can vote is in about fifty-two hours!

There are a lot of exclamation points in this post!

I am really really excited to share all this publicly-available but oft-neglected information with my Dreamwidth and Tumblr readers!

Okay. So—I've been working on this post—really, these posts, since it makes the most sense to do it as a series—for quite a while, now, and I'm still... not very satisfied with them, but yesterday I ended up leaving a comment in private that hit a lot of the same bases and two whole people told me it was helpful! Which was very validating. (Thanks, friends.) So I think I'm just going to take a little time today to get the first part as cleaned up and sensical as I can, and then... set it free.

*clears throat*

For some reason, lately, no idea why, I've been thinking a lot about data analysis as a practice; and I've been thinking a lot about how to discuss how we, both as individuals and as a society, can use data to drive decisions in ways that are sensible.

I'm emphasizing that word—"sensible"—really hard for reasons I will go into later; but before I get to that, I want to say: specifically, what I've been thinking about is the following question:

What does good, data-driven decision-making look like, when the data—and any conclusions that are drawn from the data—are by necessity low-confidence?

"Low-confidence" is science for: we have some information, but we know that the information isn't complete, but we don't know what's missing, which means we don't know how much we can trust the information that we do have. So—what the heck do we do now???

That's what I want to talk about. Because—well. Because it's April 29, 2020; and that question up there is just—the state of play, on April 29, 2020; and part of what is feeding the churning vortex of anxiety in which we are all living, on April 29, 2020, is that identifying that question and sitting with that question and grappling with that question effectively is, quite frankly, something that most people, through absolutely no fault of their own, have been extraordinarily ill-equipped to do.

And I think, actually, that I might kind of be able to help!

(Yes, this post is about Covid-19; of course this post is about Covid-19. Did anyone think this post was not about Covid-19?)

On that note... I'm not cutting the whole post, because I'm using cuts internally to hide a lot of explanatory bits but still let people read summary bits, if they want to. (If you land here via a link, you can view this post with cuts intact from today's date page.) BUT: I am going to add this link, which you can click on to go down to an anchor I've embedded at the bottom of the post and not behind a cut, in case you are avoiding Covid content—I think you should be able to use that link (once more with feeling) to teleport you down beyond the bad lady talking about diseases and also math. If it doesn't work for some reason, you can also just do a "find in page" on the phrase, "skip this post anchor should drop you here" (no quotation marks) to get to whatever is below this post on your feed. Godspeed, my friends! ♥

Some initial introductory notes and disclaimers...

( ...re: grammar. )

( ...re: my background, and level of expertise. )

( ...re: my specific concerns and motivations, in making these posts. )

( [one metaphor, slightly strained] )

( ...re: what this series is; and what it is not. )

So. This is where I'm starting:

Data and data analysis are tools.

Lots of people—in fact, I suspect most people—don't really understand what they are, and they don't understand how to use them (for reasons that are unfortunate but also, ftr, totally understandable and in no way reflections on those people's intelligence or worth as human beings).

I have pretty good reasons to expect that I kind of do understand what they are, and that I do (in general) understand how to use them.

And I know, actually, quite a bit about how you can't use them, because that actually sort of is my specialist subject.

Specifically: I understand how I can and can't use data and data analysis to construct a mental picture of a problem that I know I do not understand.

Even more specifically: I have some reason to think that I can explain how a person who is not an expert on Thing X—in this case, Covid-19—can use data and data analysis to build enough of a mental picture of Covid-19 to just... make weathering the outbreak a little bit less deranging.

Essentially—I'm not going to give you a library card catalogue full of carefully organized and analyzed information about Covid-19. I'm not even going to show you how to make one. But I am going to try to show you how to construct a DIY three-file sorter from duct tape and cardboard boxes where you can dump the chewed-on torn-up half-invisible-ink coffee-stained research notes the universe is throwing at you constantly, right now, by the reamful—and I'm going to explain to you why that is, probably, good enough.

That's all! Small goals!

The sense of "sensible"-ity.

So. Again: in this series, what I want to talk to you about is using data to make sensible decisions.

What do I mean by "sensible"?

Oh, I'm so glad you asked!!! Because I think that's really the question that we aren't asking right now; and failing to ask that question underscores a very common, and very understandable, and also very dangerous misunderstanding of what "data" is; and what "making decisions based on data," full stop, means.

I can help with that! I think!!

I think the place where we need to start is actually earlier than what "sensible" means. I think we need to start with what "data" means. Because if we don't understand what data is, we have absolutely no prayer whatsoever of understanding what we can and cannot do with it.

Definition: "data".

What data means is: some stuff happened. Some people wrote it down.

( [expanded.] )

I really, really would like everyone reading this to sit with this idea for a second: data means "some stuff happened and some people wrote it down."

I'm going to keep hammering on this because over and over and over and over again, I am seeing people—very smart people, people I respect and like and know to be competent adult humans who reason well—failing to distinguish between the data about Covid-19, and the stuff that comes after the data: the math, and the science, and the policy-making, and the science reporting, and the ethical decisions that go into all of those things that come after the data. But the data and the science are not the same thing. And we need to understand the ways that the problems and limitations of one are and are not connected to the problems and limitations of the other.

( [examples.] )

So. What data tells you is: some stuff happened and some people wrote it down. But what data doesn't tell you, and why data doesn't tell you that stuff, is also hugely, critically, incontinently important; and this is where people—all people, because scientists are just people and aren't immune to this either—can use data to make bad decisions.

I just said "bad decisions" and now I'm immediately going to say—( I don't love that language. )

( a priori, a posteriori, two priori, two posteriori— )

So, fine. We all talk about good decisions and bad decisions colloquially, yes. But this series is about making decisions, when you fundamentally can't know what is going to happen until after you've made them. So I think it's more helpful, if what we're going to talk about is how to make decisions, to have more specific criteria for distinguishing the decisions we're trying to make from the decisions we're trying to avoid, and I think that those criteria need to be criteria that are in evidence at the time we're trying to make the decision. Not after we've already made it and seen what happened. And a useful framework for me, personally, is to think about whether or not a decision is sensible:

Two propositions.

(which I will be developing further as this series goes along:)

Proposition 1: a sensible decision is a decision which:

by some reasonable, justifiable, and consistent metric, minimizes the likelihood of a bad outcome (or maximizes the likelihood of a better one);

is made with the understanding that the basis for said decision may in fact be flawed; and

admits mental space for the possibility that the ongoing bits of that decision may need to change as the data evolves, to remain consistent with #1 and #2.

Proposition 2 (and—bear with me on this one): you can make sensible decisions based on science even if you don't, actually, understand the science itself.

I'm defining sensible the way that I'm defining it for a whole bunch of reasons, some of which I've discussed but others of which I've just implied, so let me really quickly run down the general version of the list, so we're all on the same page:

( The moving parts of a sensible decision. )

Some ticky boxes.

This is a very long justify-your-existence sort of an introduction, but it's long for a reason. I want everyone to start by understanding what it is I'm trying to do—and what it is that I'm not going to be addressing at all.

So, in that light, I have some goals. I want to tell you what they are, so you can decide whether or not you're interested in reading the rest of the series.

So:

I want to explain how science-y people make decisions based on science, even when we don't, actually, understand the science itself;

I want to give you, the man on the Clapham omnibus ordinary human (or human-impersonating alien, this is a safe space) on the internet, some basic tools for how you can make decisions based on science, without requiring or expecting you to understand the science itself. I want to do all of those things because:

I know a lot of people find science, and science-based decision making, incredibly intimidating.

I know a lot of people are already incredibly anxious, right now, about these very issues.

I want to tell you right now that both of those feelings are okay, and that I will do my absolute level-best to make this series of posts useful to you even if you are currently holding one or both of those feelings inside of you, right now, as you skim it.

So I'm trying to design the layout of this series to be, as much as possible, something that people can read in parts; or put down and come back to; or read only at a headline level; and still get something useful out of the experience.

Finally, I want to align the tools that I give you, and the context in which I'm establishing those tools, to not only be useful in your own individual decision-making, but be tools that you can—and I would gently suggest, probably should—be using when you find yourselves evaluating the decisions your leaders (political, community, religious, professional, whatever) are currently making. Not just because civic engagement or universal duty or blah blah blah—like, honestly, right now? Fuck that. Right now I want to do, like, data processing first aid: I want to stop people from bleeding out because there is too much math happening to them. And I hope that a side effect of that is that you become more able, and find it easier, to critically reflect upon what your leaders are doing, because I think that will make you feel less powerless. I think it will be helpful for you, if you can decide whether or not to wear this mask to the grocery store today; but I also think it will be helpful for you to be able to assess things like:

Should my leaders be using science and scientific data to make this law/decree/decision?

Are my leaders using science and scientific data to make this law/decree/decision?

When they use those things to make these laws/decrees/decisions, are they using that science and scientific data correctly?

Are the laws/decrees/decisions that they are making—based on science or otherwise—sensible decisions?

And how does their decision-making, good or bad, alter or affect what a sensible decision might look like for you?

So. I think that's probably a reasonable (dare I say—sensible) place to stop. I will rejoin you tomorrow with Part 2 of 4: Everyone's Covid Math is Wrong (and Why That Is, Actually, Kind of Okay).

(skip this post anchor should drop you here! thanks, friends!)

HELLO. Yesterday before work I wrote a thing! The Parting Glass (2959 words) by greywash Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Magicians (TV) Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Quentin Coldwater and Julia Wicker, Quentin Coldwater and Eliot Waugh, Quentin Coldwater and Alice Quinn, Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh (background; past), Quentin Coldwater/Alice Quinn (background; past) Characters: Julia Wicker, Eliot Waugh, Alice Quinn, Quentin Coldwater Additional Tags: Grief/Mourning, Rituals, Breakups, Reconciliations, Road Trips, Fix-It, Friendship, The American Southwest, Trailering, Starbucks, YOLO, unless you're on The Magicians and then lbr:, YLALT Series: Part 4 of Post-Magicians 4x13 Fics Summary:

Eliot and Julia share a drink. Alice considers a road trip.

All y'all, I am so tired I can barely type, I have had A Weekend of technical difficulties—which is extra fun because............. ................it is my MHHE posting day today! ANYWAY, I haven't had breakfast and it's 12:35 pm and also I have slept 7 hours in the past 48, BUT EVENTUALLY, WE GOT THIS SUCKER UP: our place in the family of things (208512 words) by greywash, yourtinseltinkerbell Chapters: 11/11 Fandom: The Magicians (TV) Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh, Eliot Waugh and his mother, Margo Hanson and Eliot Waugh, Quentin Coldwater & Margo Hanson & Eliot Waugh, Quentin Coldwater/Margo Hanson/Eliot Waugh (minor; implied) Characters: Eliot Waugh, Eliot Waugh's mother, Quentin Coldwater, Margo Hanson, The Past - Character Additional Tags: Additional Warnings Apply, See Story Notes for Warnings, Artist-Author Collaboration, Illustrated Work, Near-Canon AU, Established Relationship, Long-distance relationships, In-person reunions, grad school, Chicago, Snowed In, winter holidays, References to religion(s), Complicated relationships to religion(s), Not precisely about Judaism but yes in places about Jewishness, Family, Queer Family, Found Family, Family History, Familial trauma, Familial Love, Eliot Waugh's full back catalog of all 4978 volumes of Family Issues, (...also........I mean............ wait for it.........................), Daddy Kink, ::SHRUG EMOJI::, Queer partnership, Queer love, Queer Friendship, Domesticity, Humiliation kink, Size Kink, Eliot Waugh's Canonically Huge Dick, Sexual Frustration, All Quentin wants for Christmas is a little light sexual domination, Sexual Domination, oral fixations, Oral Sex, Anal Sex, Rimming, Semi-Public Sex, Gender Play, Pregnancy kink (referenced), Dirty Talk, Love Letters, Vintage amateur erotica, TL;DR:, Curtainfic only nastier, sex and humor, Inappropriate Erections, Work, Art, Collaboration, Partnership, Nurturing, Nourishment, Gifts, Clocks and Clockwork, Stories and lies, grief and mourning, Estrangement and reconciliation, (Re)making things, Magic, minor mendings, The family that raised you, The family that made you, The family you build with your own two hands Summary:

Not even being a magician can rescue Eliot's Solsti-yule-mas, this year. After graduation, he'd leapt at the chance to apprentice with a world-famous magical architect, even if her office was in the Midwest; but now, with a major deadline looming, he can't take any time off for the holidays; and an approaching blizzard looks like it's about to ground his best friend at LaGuardia, two days before Christmas. The only bright spot? Eliot's boyfriend just beat the storm—and he brought Eliot a very cool present.

Then their holiday plans take a sideways turn when—not even 24 hours into Quentin's visit—Eliot's mother shows up at their front door.

Eliot's perfectly happy to see his mom—seriously, he really is, honestly—but their relationship has always been complicated, and the better part of a decade of radio silence hasn't exactly laid the groundwork for easy cohabitation in a studio apartment during the most stressful time of the year. As the storm hits, suffocating Chicago just when Eliot most needs an escape, it starts to seem like the only thing that can guide him through it may be a 100-year-old clock, made by a long-dead Coldwater, that just might turn out to be a little bit magic.

HEY FRIENDS, have you seen the FAN-FUCKING-TASTIC fic breathedout wrote for themagicianshhe? Because it is A DELIGHT: How to See Lexington, Kentucky on Twenty Dollars A Day (34059 words) by breathedout Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Magicians (TV) Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Penny Adiyodi/Frankie Gallo, past Penny Adiyodi/Julia Wicker Characters: Penny Adiyodi, Frankie Gallo, Julia Wicker, A bunch of annoyed holiday travelers Additional Tags: luck magic, curse magic, Zany hijinx, Prickly Strangers to, Friends With Benefits, Stranded in Middle America, Only one room at the inn, Feelings Porn, Porn Porn, Complementarity, Casual Sex, For Science!, This entire story is an excuse for, Semi-Erotic Bible-Themed Miniature Golf, not really romance, Foot Fetish, Foot Massage, Frottage, Anal Fingering, Coming Untouched, Blowjobs, Mildly Unsafe Sex, Inadvertent property destruction, Passing allusions to the existence of systemic racism homophobia and fatphobia, Mild poking of fun at the cultural hegemony of Christianity, Walks In The Woods, Childhood discussions, Dance Contests, Casual alcohol use and overuse, Mutually amicable breakups are still hard Summary:

It's not just the hangover, or his fiancée leaving him the literal day before the California vacation they'd planned together: Penny Adiyodi is legitimately cursed. Magically; metaphysically; possibly demonically: the whole deal. He has been his entire life, so there's no point in fighting it: least of all when sitting next to a weirdly entitled stranger on a packed cross-country flight, two days before a culturally compulsory holiday he doesn't even celebrate. But when the plane is grounded in Lexington, Kentucky, and Penny's seat-mate, Frankie Gallo, is somehow able to effortlessly secure the two of them the last hotel room in town, Penny starts to think something even stranger than usual is going on. Strange enough to suck it up and endure the dude's presence for a night, anyway—just to see what he's about.

And honestly, the more time Penny spends holed up with Frankie in suburban Lexington, the stranger it gets. But Penny has to admit it also gets more interesting. And better, too, actually. A lot better. So there's that.

Okay believe it or not, smallish burst of short(er) fiction aside, I actually am almost done with "echo, the echo" 9 (...Friday, maybe? over the weekend?); it'd just be REALLY SUPER GREAT if I could try to write flash fiction and actually succeed in the "flash" part of that again, someday.

.......in the meantime:

"Theory and Application" by greywash [AO3] The Magicians (TV), Alice & Quentin, Eliot/Quentin, Explicit, ~12k

Alice attends some parties. Quentin changes careers.

Started for the last fan_flashworks challenge so they get credit for the prompt ("Magic"), but boyyyyyyy was this not how I was initially intending for this to go, so even if I had finished by the deadline, it kind of would've felt like cheating to count it. Warning for disturbing content (fuller explanation in my author's notes on AO3, but—for basically the usual post 4x13 reasons); just like last time, spoilers through 4x13 but then I dropkicked the ending of 4x13 down a well. I keep my warning policy in my AO3 profile and am always willing to answer private DW messages or emails asking for elaboration or clarification on my warnings for a particular story.

Read it at AO3 →

"Measure by Measure" by greywash [AO3] The Magicians (TV), Eliot/Quentin, Explicit, ~5.2k

Eliot and Quentin learn to cook.

Warning for disturbing content, but it's super super soft (full explanation in my author's notes on AO3); spoilers through 4x13 but then I gave 4x13 the middle finger soooooooooo. I keep my warning policy in my AO3 profile and am always willing to answer private DW messages or emails asking for elaboration or clarification on my warnings for a particular story.

Read it at AO3 →