Feral Millennial

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.

But one little girl was like “oh, it’s a musical about ME you say” and the character list was all the other girls in the class cast as her body parts, and a story about how her body works.

“Kaylee is nice so she will be the heart. Lily is my kidneys. Sapphire is the lungs.”

I'm sorry. We're working on a basket purse.

No one was actually eating underwear; no matter how upsetting the mocking was, it did not change the truth. Similarly, responding "What?" to someone quickly whispering "Idiotsayswhat" does not make you an idiot, or any of the other wordplay pranks.

J.K. Rowling can say "Engaging at all with Harry Potter fandom means you support my political ideology!" all she wants, but that does not make it true. Especially when you consider how many people blissfully go through their lives ignorant of social media. The Drarry shippers and 8th Year gen ficcers and the grandmother in your knitting group making a Hufflepuff scarf are not inherently supporting Rowling's crap just by doing those things.

Directly giving her money potentially allows her to donate more to her favored political causes, sure. That's also true of any other author, editor, artist, actor getting residuals, movie producer, musician...Hell, it's true of tipping your barista and buying carrots at the farmers market.

I'm not going to give Rowling any more money. I'm also not going to terrify myself by assuming the fellow shopper at the grocery store tossing the HP Keebler cookies in their cart wants me dead, or feed my scrupulosity by looking up the authors of every single book I check out from the library.

Checked that person's blog and they have a post calling Israel "an extremely antisemitic nation" and another using the term "zionist pig" so they are clearly a fucking bigot who does not give an actual shit about real Jewish people. I'm blocking them.

I think my response does say worthwhile things, though, so I'm going ahead and putting it here:

As a Jewish person who grew up reading fantasy and sci-fi, the sheer amount of antisemitism embedded in media that goyische people gloss over is obscene.

It's like fish in water. It's so prevalent that most of them don't even notice it's there (much like colorism is). If I assume all of them are aware of it it and accept it, I will become a paranoid wreck, I really will.

If someone points it out to them, breaks down the tropes/symbols for them, and they still brush it off, that's a different kettle of fish. Then I know they're not safe for me to be around. But if they're just clueless?

Want to enjoy a children's film? Chitty Chitty Bang Bang's child catcher is several antisemitic tropes rolled into one. There's a whole mess around Mother Gothel's character design going from Lady Tremaine-esque to a caricature. The one Jewish-coded character in the How to Train Your Dragon television series betrays the heroes.

Some vintage romance novels? Oh no, the protagonists are in trouble with a Jewish money lender written like a mobster.

DC comics hired an open antisemite, and only fired her because she ran her mouth about another antisemite, not because of the times she celebrated violence against Jews or her sexual harassment of a Jewish journalist.

Oh, we have positive representation like Ms. Frizzle? Sorry kids she gets goy-washed in the reboot.

This ensemble cast has a Jewish character who doesn't turn evil? Oh they're going to celebrate Christmas or the in-universe equivalent with all the other characters.

Then there's Dragon Age's...everything.

Should I assume everyone who enjoys Disney, HtTYD, Dragon Age, Danny Phantom, DC comics, etc, wants me dead?

Should I?

If I assume the goyische audience clocks all of the antisemitism without one of us holding their hand, and that they accept and support the inescapable deluge of antisemitism in media, I will go insane.

I'm already stressed by the antisemitic violence in my country, in the world, and how people keep excusing it. I'm already closeted about my ethnicity at work.

I'm three for three on my workplaces being vandalized with nazi symbols. A different workplace didn't get vandalized but the intersection outside it was constantly plastered with antisemitic stickers. I've been within yards of a guy pulling down the collar of shirt to show off his swastika tattoo to his buddy while I was walking home. I'm not even going to get into the shit I experienced in school.

I need to stay alert to legitimate threats to my physical safety.

Not exhaust myself panicking over someone buying some stupid Harry Potter Keebler Elf Cookies.

~

What would have been my reply tags: #you did NOT read the room on this post #I KNOW Rowling's work is full of antisemitic crap and she leans into nazi territory #I have written about that exact issue before

#this post is about engaging realistically with the wider world and remembering that strangers on the bus #and casual acquaintances in my life don't already know the things that I do or realize they are ignorant

#it's about not promoting scrupulosity disorders

If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine

Static was WILDLY popular in Brazil (a country where the population is over 50% black) and we had re-runs for YEARS on open television. Everyone who was a kid in the 2000s knew and loved him. As a result, every single Brazilian Con has a LOT of static cosplayers!

So, a couple of years ago, Comic Con Experience (the biggest con in Brazil, which is actually also the biggest con in the world!) invited one of Static’s creator Denys Cowan as one of the guests of honor.

Now. Thousands of people attend his panel. And cosplayers went NUTS because they could show their Static cosplay to the creator himself! What none of us expected was Debts Cowan’s reaction:

He cried on stage.

He had never seen Static cosplayers - especially not so many of them! And he had no idea the show was popular here! No one ever told him his character was so beloved! Years and years of reruns and he had no idea! He obviously created the character with his experiences and his community (Black North Americans) in mind. Still, he accidentally touched a whole other community of black people who could see themselves on the screen as a superhero!

Anyway he is a lovely person and one of the best, most memorable guests we had. And I think this is a nice reminder that your art might touch people you can’t even imagine would when creating it.