Zara

As I said in that post, while I'm not into large power imbalances with no possibility of equality, I am really interested in how you can have an equal relationship across some kind of divide. One thing I like about Robby and Jack is how they are so totally equals even though he's Chief. Those two are literal partners in crime. (Hell, Jack doesn't even ask Robby to commit crimes with him, he just assumes he'll do it!) Jack orders Robby around more than anyone other than Gloria, but while Robby hates it from her, he's fine when it's Jack. He doesn't even seem to react when it's Jack, other than to do what Jack says. From, "Get some air, brother," to, "Gown up. Robby, it's you and me," to everything about Leah, Jack often tells Robby what to do in a way that's roundabout, either encouraging or simultaneously couched with emotional support, which I find fascinating.

And Robby generally does what Jack says or defers to his judgment ("I don't like the curve of a Shiley"). It's clear that Robby admires Jack, thinks he's a good doctor, likes to watch him work, and so he has no problem doing what he says. (Possibly with a soupçon of Robby yearning for Jack to take control. Ahem.) Robby does demand his role be respected in other dynamics - he's extremely sharp when reminding Collins of their respective roles, he even calls out the hospital CEO in front of everyone when he's treated improperly - so the fact that he defers to Jack so much is delicious.

The Ballad of Ron Swanstone, Part 6

Also functions as a mass Artfight attack!!

Ron Swanstone, Kelly, and Clover by me

Prism by @sharkfiinn

Cheeto and Obscurum by @problematiccheeto

Ringpop by @t4ngy-t4ng0

Etch by @t3ch-wizard

Unakite by Biohazard8208 (if they have a tumblr I can’t find it)

Variolite by @ghost-crows

Hemo, Sandslash, and Tangerine by SoulOfHyacinthus (again, can’t find a tumblr) @enbyinteractive they found me!

Uncrustable by @tbean555

Sunny by @freezinglemur

Mint by @mykey2success

Polaris by @killserj

Dandelion by @nacho-business1

Big Steppa and Huh by @adsurgitvagus

Roach by @meeks-beas

Dent by @idiotjae

Elvis by @lewadny

Hardtack by @pineappical

Cantaloupe by @leafnyx

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🎶is she german or autistic? by @mumblesplash (x)

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.

Timesheets

Expense reports

Requisition requests

Budget justifications

Payroll

Performance evaluations

Incident reports

After action reviews / post-mortem analyses

Incident Action Plans

Contracts

Contract proposals / grant applications

even when the royalty look like they're just fucking off to have fun, they're doing Socially Mandated Fuck-Off and Have Fun Time

Invoices.

Intake sheets (information about new clients. The one for my firm is 13 pages and requires an hour long meeting. Then you have to do something with the info gathered)

Data entry for invoices and intake sheets.

Billing. (More involved than timesheets because you’re justifying to clients why you’re getting paid so much).

Form letters.

Taxes. Including 1099s for any contracted work.

Bank statements/accounting spreadsheets. Gotta track how expenses are trending.

Insurance documents.

General messages. Lots of office still use a paper system for missed calls and “important” stuff because it just works better than emails and chats for some people.

Cause there’s the invoice, and the follow up invoice and the we are about to have a problem follow-up invoice.

There’s the incident report and then the I swear I yelled at that worker about this don’t be mad at me if they do it again second warning documentation

The requisition form and the it has been six months now get me the fucking thing or you’re gonna hear from Cindy escalations form.

when it's framed as a "so just get married for legality reasons" and im like. you mean like how gay people married/marry people of the opposite gender for legality reasons? and that's considered to be a symptom of a problem, not the solution? you want people to "just" get married against their will because it's the only solution this system has available?

if people cannot or will not get married for whatever reason -- not just for being aromantic, but, say, due to inefficient disability support measures within marriage, because of having had bad experiences with marriage in the past, because of being polyamorous, because some element of marriage is ineffective, unwanted, limited, discriminatory, or hell, because you can't find somebody to marry or nobody wants to marry you, or maybe because you just plain don't want to without there being a distinct Reason -- then it's a problem that this is the only framework in place for people to be afforded certain legal and social protections.

i am glad for others that more people can get married, but it's a flawed institution with gaping holes that isn't for everyone and builds social structures that leave so many people behind and unsupported. this is abundantly obvious in the way that we saw why people pushed for the need for equal marriage in the first place.

that's what's said when making a point that it's a social construct. and also what's meant (partially) when pushing against the idea that "love" as concept isn't at the core of queer (amongst others hinted at in this post) activism, because it's about building better structures. if the only people we care about are those we "love" within a family unit, or those who successfully manage to pretend that unit without actually really wanting it, and if not being in that unit for whatever reason means that care isn't going to be/is no longer afforded, then are we really doing any better than heteronormativity?

The age of eligibility for an ABLE account, allowing USAmerican disabled people to save up money without losing their government assistance for having “too much,” is going to go up to cover disabilities diagnosed by age 46 (currently it’s age 26), meaning a much larger number of people will be able to access them. As the article notes, many Americans don’t know these accounts exist, let alone whether they or someone they care for could qualify for one, so please share this information around.

Realizing that a species is imperiled has broad connotations, given that it tells us something about the plight of nature itself. It reminds us of the need to implement conservation measures and to protect the region of which the species is a part. But aside form the broader picture, species have intrinsic worth and are deserving of preservation. Surely an oddity such as C. vicinella cannot simply be allowed to vanish.

We should speak up on behalf of this little moth, not only because by so doing we would bolster conservation efforts now underway in Florida, [highlighting begins] but because we would be calling attention to the existence of a species that is so infinitely worth knowing. [end highlighting]

But is quaintness all that can be said on behalf of this moth? Does this insect not have hidden value beyond its overt appeal? Does not its silk and glue add, potentially, to its worth? Could these products not be unique in ways that could ultimately prove applicable?

The school system I grew up in put an absolutely ungodly amount of pressure on kids to Show Up Every Day No Matter What. Many schools are like this, but looking back, my town’s was borderline fucking dystopian. They asked me why I didn’t just “postpone” a surgery at one point— when I was fifteen— to give you an idea of how monumentally obtuse these people were.

So, in elementary school, I started having chicken pox symptoms, right? They were mild because I was vaccinated (yay!) but my mom recognized them quickly and took me to the doctor, because my mom is a reasonable human being with standards. The doctor said “yup, you’ve got those pox, it may seem mild but please for the love of god DO NOT take her to school, she is very contagious even though she may FEEL okay.”

So I had to stay home from school until I got clearance from my doctor to go back. I was an angry little gremlin the whole time, because I wanted to go to the school library and read books about the human skull, but my mother said, “no, you cannot leave this house, and do not scratch the bumps please.” So I sat at home and tried not to scratch the bumps, like a good little gremlin.

A few days into my Chicken Pox Related House Arrest, we got a letter from the school. I was far from the only person with chicken pox, as it so happened. Like… a tenth of my second grade class had Confirmed Pox. We all fell ill within DAYS of each other.

So how did this happen, you ask? Well, a kid had chicken pox, and he came to school anyway. “Ah, well perhaps they didn’t know,” you may very well say. “Maybe his parents didn’t notice!” No. No, they noticed. In fact they KNEW it was CHICKEN POX. They sent him to school anyway.

The kid’s parents…….. were, in fact, teachers at the school. And they KNOWINGLY made him go to school sick, because they didn’t want to risk hurting his precious “perfect attendance” record. They figured that since he wasn’t, like, Literally Dying, it was better for him not to miss school. Never mind the fact that they were actively endangering hundreds of little kids.

Fast forward to my freshman year of college. A kid came to class with mumps because he ‘couldn’t afford to miss’. Guess what happened? Mumps outbreak! Diseases are, as it turns out, good at being diseases! Vaccinations are phenomenal, but they can only do so much, and some people rely on herd immunity to not be killed by preventable illness.

This entire attitude needs to die. It’s dangerous. Food service workers are forced to show up sick, little kids are forced to show up sick, college students show up sick because they’re afraid of flunking out.

Like. Imagine one of the scientists studying Astrophage gives Grace a paper detailing their recent findings and Grace being locked in on something else, he just looks up, skims the paper, then pulls out a red pen from somewhere and marks it, “B+, you forgot to account for…” then after a 5 minute lecture on how to improve, he goes back to typing or smth. The scientist just standing there baffled thinking ‘B+? What are we in? A classroom?”, and kind of bum hurt that they only got a B+ (bc ofc they want an A) so they go back to researching with a new ferocity cuz dammit they’re going to get that A. Cue the science team being fueled by Dr.Grace’s grades, them just rubbing it into each others faces if they get A’s or A+’s. Headcanon 2 is that he just keeps gold star stickers in his pockets so for example: All of them are in a meeting, Dr. smth pipes up with a good suggestion and he goes, “Great job! You get a gold star.” And just puts it on their phone case or badge and moves on, everyone is flabbergasted and a bit jealous except for the scientist who is just vibrating with happiness and a bit of fear because the co-dictator of the world just gave them a gold star.

Extra: Grace also hits Stratt with the 1 2 punch of “A+! Here’s a gold star.” On one of her presentations after staying up for 36+ hours and slaps a gold star on her forehead before conking out on the desk. Carl is in the corner desperately trying not to laugh bc Grace just did this in front of the entire Petrova task force while Stratt is just staring at him in confused amusement. Extra-extra: The mess hall on Stratt’s Vat has a ‘Fridge-board” which is a magnetic board acting as a fridge for all of their papers with A’s on it. Grace just being mortified when he learns that he’s been grading and giving gold stars to the top minds of the world and Stratt having to assure him that is boosts morale and that it’s fine.

(Once he gets sent off to space, everyone in the task force keeps their stars to remember him, because he never said goodbye.)