firstagent

[firstagent]

Manga version of Jeff from EarthBound? He'd be overwhelmed but he'd try his best and hopefully not blow the house up trying to impress the kids with a science experiment or rocket demonstration.

would you trust your icon to babysit your children be honest

[firstagent]

My life would have been easier if Juri wouldn't have said "I thought I would lose you too" in the Sakuyamon debut episode ¯\_(ツ)_/¯💙💛

🌈Happy pride🏳️‍🌈

Got the bench from CSP assets because I was lazy haha OTL

For the record, I know that the "subs" might have been "biased" with the way it was translated

(I'm quoting this from memory as I haven't rewatched Tamers in a while XD) I think she said something like 「いなくなちゃとか思うった…」 which I'm pretty sure it's "I thought you were gone..." but c'mon, the context OBVIOUSLY means she was afraid Ruki would be as dead as Leomon so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[firstagent]

If Biden loses, there is a 0% chance of the narrative blaming it on him not being liberal enough. Everyone will say he was too aggressive in his policies, and the party will pivot accordingly to cater to young progressives even less.

[firstagent]

What It's Like To Get Elected

Has it been another month since my last story update again? Uh… it’s still going.

Anyway, switching to another subject since I promised to talk more politics. As I mentioned before, I’ve been active with my local Democratic party. As far as getting into the room, getting access to important people, and giving them reality checks (and boy, do they need reality checks sometimes), I can’t recommend joining enough. Assuming you’ve got the spoons for it, and your local party don’t turn out to be assholes. That’s another conversation.

I also mentioned I was running for local school board. And guess what? I won!

In a small miracle for this town, we only had three candidates for three positions. Well, a small miracle and some excellent coordination from the local lefties. Because we were essentially unopposed, a lot of the steps of normal campaigning didn’t apply this time. Which is a shame, because I had a design for yard signs all set to go.

I did, however, interview for unions! That looks like a big Zoom call with a bunch of local reps where they ask you questions to make sure you support unions. The teachers union asked me about supporting LGBTQ+ students. Anyway, if you stalk me and find my Ballotpedia page (I only discovered a couple weeks ago that I had a Ballotpedia page) you’ll find two union endorsements. So that’s fun.

So is defending those endorsements and my Dems activity on community Facebook groups when people were under the impression they don’t get involved in local races. Maybe they should ask the county board candidate who swore up and down he didn’t take outside money, while taking $700 from the county Republicans. We have receipts.

Because of that nonsense I was more focused on his race than mine on Election Day. Hearing results when you’re running sometimes works a little differently, as you probably know someone working the polls that will share the results before the internet and news networks find them. So I heard about the local results well before they were published. And yes, I won! And that Republican guy lost. Bonus.

What happens next? For starters, training sessions. The state’s school board association emailed me the next morning with a login for their site. Three meetings in the next month will help get me up to speed: an orientation with the actual board, a gathering for new members in the region, and then an all-day affair about the specific governing model we have. It’s a lot, but it shows how much they prepare you going in, if you’re committed to actually doing the job right.

The biggest reality check came when I went to the next school board meeting, the lame duck session, if you will. For one, when I got there I got handed payroll paperwork. It hadn’t really sunk in that I was getting paid for this. Another is a discussion that frequently mentioned waiting on a vote until the new members could chime in. Or even the kudos from the other board members for crossing the finish line.

Yesterday I took my oath of office. Reading the email I was expecting a small private thing where I do an LBJ-style swearing in in a secretary’s office, maybe a picture. I just had to sign a thing, in the office because it had to be notarized. I was in and out in five minutes.

We’re going from roughly a 6-1 progressive majority to 7-0. That’s great news for our school, even if my first meeting I get to vote on whether elementary school registration fees are tripled, or doubled with the district subsidizing the balance. Thanks state legislature!

If you go in intending to do the job right, it’s a lot of work. That’s why it’s so important to elect people who intend to do the job right. Because so much of this is optional. It’s entirely possible to skip most of the trainings, to take your seat and either do nothing productive with it, or try to push policy whether or not it’s relevant, appropriate, or even legal. That’s how we get bad leadership, and why participation in this process is the only way anything’s going to get better.

(Feel free to use my Ask box for any political questions, including what the hell Democrats actually do at the local level and why I encourage joining them even with all the baggage attached.)

#politics #elections #school boards

[firstagent]

I have nothing to say about OJ Simpson's death, but the only thing that upset me about it was making me realize that for one weekend in 2019 I was on the same payroll as Kato Kaelin.

Like... what is my life?

[firstagent]

He really said:

(From Monopoly But COMMUNIST 2 | House Rules)

[firstagent]

I staff these conventions and in one staff Discord we heard reports of one vendor talking about bringing back yaoi paddles. I swear everyone turned into that Ben Affleck cigarette meme.

There are lots of elements of conventions I miss, but the good ones have evolved past the days of public over-sexualization (and it's been an effort). There will always be private corners for that, and may they stay that way.

I don’t think we should go back to this but 2000s cons were really something else with how much incredibly sexualized advertisement was… everywhere. never forgetting the year ADV blasted official Najica Blitz Tactics underwear out of a tshirt cannon at Anime Expo. it’s no wonder so many people who weren’t into anime thought it was all hentai… going to a large anime con would 700% get your eyes blasted with the most “well it’s technically not porn!!!” illustrations. also people were a lot worse to cosplayers in skimpy outfits back then!!!! it was actively kinda horrible and even if the way a lot of art is forcibly sfw sanitized now is Not Great, the “it’s all borderline nsfw at our technically all ages event!” model was NOT GREAT

[firstagent]

They aren't kidding about Youtube having a wild influence on children. My seven year old just started a Pokemon Nuzlocke run.

[firstagent]

Today's challenge writing Neverworld...

Find or invent the name of a British cooking competition show. But it has to be mid enough that you'd believe my character was a celebrity judge. She's not filling in for Paul Hollywood.

Since I need to start posting these more, previous challenges have included:

What does eagle taste like?

What does a stevedore actually do on the job?

What kind of social groups would a bored New England housewife join?

How does log driving actually work?

Yes, this is still essentially an isekai story.

#neverworld #writing

[firstagent]

Well

[firstagent]

In the spirit of encouraging people to comment on fanfics while also making it easier to do so, I feel obliged to share a browser extension for ao3 that has quite literally revolutionized the comment game for me.

I present to you: the floating ao3 comment box!

From what I've seen, a big problem for many people is that once you reach the comments at the bottom of a fic, your memory of it miraculously disappears. Anything you wanted to say is stuck ten paragraphs ago, and you barely remember what you thought while reading. This fixes that!

I'll give a little explanation on the features and how it works, but if you want to skip all that, here's the link.

The extension is visible as a small blue box in the upper left corner.

(Side note: The green colouring is not from the extension, that's me.)

If you click on it, you open a comment box window at the bottom of your screen but not at the bottom of the fic. I opened my own fic for demonstrative purposes.

The website also gives explanations on how exactly it functions, but I'll summarize regardless.

insert selection -> if you highlight a sentence in the fic it will be added in italics to the comment box

add to comment box -> once you're done writing your comment, you click this button and the entire thing will automatically copied to the ao3 comment box

delete -> self explanatory

on mulitchapter fics, you will be given the option to either add the comment to just the current chapter or the entire fic

The best part? You can simply close the window the same way you opened it and your progress will automatically be saved. So you can open it, comment on a paragraph, and then close it and keep reading without having the box in your face.

Comments are what keep writers going, and as both a writer and a reader, I think it's such an easy way of showing support and enthusiasm.

[firstagent]

Doubt this is as effective as contacting your representatives directly, but it's an official URL so there's no harm in filling it out.

hey! this website looks jank, but it is an official senate survey where they ask about (among other things) 1) an immediate ceasefire 2) banning tiktok. Fill it out! You don't need to log in, so you can fulfill the survey multiple times.

[firstagent]

I'm just going to leave this here, because this woman said what I've been trying to articulate for ages much more effectively and succinctly than I've been able to

[firstagent]

Fundraiser for Spouse's Top Surgery

A little IRL stuff to brighten your day!

My spouse is getting top surgery and as you can imagine, it's a bit pricey with inadequate insurance coverage for that sort of thing. They started a fundraiser to help defray some of the costs. If you have a few bucks to throw at their cause, it would be greatly appreciated.

(As an incentive, if you let me know that you've donated I may be inclined to write a little drabble for you on the subject of your choice!)

#transgender #fundraising

[firstagent]

Gotta say the art for the 25th anniversary of the anime is on point!

#digimon

[firstagent]

Neverworld Update- Tense Issues

Every so often I remember to offer updates on Neverworld!

When I started this project, I didn’t think much about tense. The fic was third-person omniscient-ish, usually focusing on one character. But it was a little loose, so something a little more geared towards getting each character’s perspective was warranted. So third-person limited, right? Seemed like a good idea, especially as it was clear whose perspective we’re in early in each segment. I’m still doing that thing where I start every scene with a character’s full name. I loved that. Even if I stole it from Desperate Housewives of all places.

But now that I’m a few scenes in, I’m finding it’s still not personal enough. Funny thing about Neverworld is it feels like things are happening right away. No matter how light and breezy an individual moment might be (there’s a lot more going on in the new D&D scene!), it still starts with people getting thrown into a foreign world and that’s a big deal. And since these are new characters, you need to get to know them fast. I’m realizing that means each character has to use their own voice to narrate their scene. Plus I’ve always been praised for my dialogue making characters sound like themselves. So I’m taking full advantage of that and broadening it out to the narration as well.

The current idea is a short introductory paragraph in third person omniscient to define who’s narrating and set the scene a little bit, maybe a sly comment here and there:

Derek Camden, Arrival Team Epsilon, tore down the dirt path toward the rhetter nest with Tyrell and Owen alongside him. Would it have been faster with Bonnie, the usual driver, the true master of the UTV? Yes. Would it also have been faster if Derek focused entirely on working the bumpy road and less on chatting up Tyrell? Also yes: Don’t get me wrong: heading out to hunt Norvic’s always a good time, especially with Hannah on Comms. Not that I ever missed an opening day back home, but we never got to say the deer deserved it. Still, everyone upstairs made this one out to be personal, like raiding a rhetter nest wasn’t past them. It didn’t happen often: rhetters were tricky buggers and a Norvic had easier ways to get food. But it wasn’t unheard of, I wasn’t about to pretend this was anything more than a routine deployment, and I sure as hell wasn’t doing it to avenge Little Miss Evelyn.

See, you’re already making some judgements about Derek’s character based on how he’s telling the story.

I… swear he’s cool. Mostly.

This isn’t the first time I’ve wavered between first and third person, but the little intro paragraph fixes a lot of the issues I had with clarity. I look forward to my next crisis when I have to write from the perspective of my Australian girl.

#neverworld

[firstagent]

A bit of trivia we always heard growing up is that Wisconsin has seen a tornado in every month of the year except February. There has never been a tornado in Wisconsin in February.

...until 2024. We got two.

The extent of snow cover in North America is the lowest in recent years - starting far north.