since I've seen it talked about in several places recently:
if you are going to do a whump- or kink- or ANY-tober or other similar challenges please please please don't post them as one fic with 31 chapters unless it actually is one coherent fic. if they're 31 completely separate fics or ficlets then please just make a collection for them or just post them as separate fics. it doesn't matter if they're only 100 words or if you think they're too small or insignificant to post alone, they're not.
and why this?
because if you post all 31 of them in one fic the tagging is absolutely useless. if I look for things to read on ao3 I'm gonna look at the tags, and if the tags include something that's a dealbreaker for me, i won't even click on the fic. I might not even SEE the fic because I've filtered out the nope-tag! so I'm gonna lose out on reading 30 perfectly nice fics because of one fic that my nope-tag applied to.
ao3 is about archiving. it's about clear tagging and being informative. there is nothing informative about it if the tags in the fic apply to random chapters while others have nothing to do with it. it makes so much more sense to have each work as an individual fic with its own individual tags and warnings, so readers can make informed choices.
of course, you do you. I can't police what other people decide to do. but personally, I find it incredibly frustrating to weed through 31 chapters to find the ones I actually want to read. so I don't. I automatically scroll past all works posted like that. and I know some others do, too.
there is absolutely no shame in posting short things on ao3. there is no minimum word count. no one is going to look at you funny if you post a small ficlet on its own, I promise. it's just going to make some readers very happy when they can actually find the things they want to read.
so, please. at least consider the upsides of posting each work as their own fic.
signed, one very frustrated fandom grandma.
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What progress at home has biden enacted? What policies of his show that he is making progress that prove he is actually different than trump?
I like to pretend I have faith in humanity, so I'll answer as if you're asking this in good faith.
Biden's DEA has lifted restrictions on telehealth prescriptions to make appointments and assistance more accessible.
He put a funding package into place to help unhoused people get access to mental and physical healthcare, as well as short-term and long-term housing.
He has attempted and is still attempting to get student debt relief through - this was blocked by Republican judges appointed by Trump, but he's still working on it.
Infrastructure repair - his administration has budgeted funds to actually fix some severely-damaged and frequently-traveled bridges.
Trying to expand access to healthcare to include undocumented immigrants who came to the USA as children (Dreamers) under the Affordable Care Act. Support for Navigator programs and outreach has also been increased.
He has vetoed Republican-led bills that were attempting to overturn environmental protections - one that would have forbidden investment fund managers to consider climate change in their portfolios (I have two degrees in accounting and this is actually huge), and another that would have overturned restrictions on agricultural runoff into our waterways.
He and his administration worked for ages to get rail workers paid sick days.
This is just some of what he's been doing. Meanwhile, Trump and other Republicans want to criminalize the lives of LGBT people like you and me. They want to eliminate no-fault divorce and force births that will kill parents or devastate them financially. They have stated flat out that they want to install a military dictatorship in the USA. They attempted to put that in motion on January 6th, 2021. They failed once. They will do better next time.
One party wants to house the homeless and expand social safety nets, while the other one wants to criminalize homelessness. One of them wants a future in which I might be able to vote to change how much of a war machine my country is, while the other one wants to eliminate my ability to vote entirely. Those are not the same. Those literally are opposites.
At the end of the day, all you and I can do is choose to do the least amount of harm possible. You and I cannot choose to do no harm. This is the USA, we sell war, you and I cannot choose to do no harm. I wish we could, my god do I wish we could, but that is not an option. So we grieve for the harm we couldn't eliminate and work to minimize the harm that is done. Despite all the crap they support, Democrats are the minimum amount of harm right now. Acting like they aren't is exactly what brought us to an election where our options are a future where we are either wading in blood or drowning in it.
Not voting for Biden will not help Palestine. Not voting for Biden will guarantee a Republican president who will make the situation in Palestine WORSE. AND it'll hurt a lot of other places as well, both at home and abroad, because Republicans are about business and the USA is in the business of war! And I would very much like that to change someday! I would very much like to someday be able to choose to do no harm! And I know what I have to do to try for that future, so what are YOU going to do? There is no standing off to the side in this. If you aren't helping pull, you're the dead weight we're pulling. Are you going to dig your feet into the mud and blood and drown us there? Or are you going to get the fuck off your ass, grit your teeth, and help us pull free?
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the rise of AI art isn't surprising to us. for our entire lives, the attitude towards our skills has always been - that's not a real thing. it has been consistently, repeatedly devalued.
people treat art - all forms of it - as if it could exist by accident, by rote. they don't understand how much art is in the world. someone designed your home. someone designed the sign inside of your local grocery store. when you quote a character or line from something in media, that's a line a real person wrote.
"i could do that." sure, but you didn't. there's this joke where a plumber comes over to a house and twists a single knob. charges the guy 10k. the guy, furious, asks how the hell the bill is so high. the plumber says - "turning the knob was a dollar. the knowledge is the rest of the money."
the trouble is that nobody believes artists have knowledge. that we actively study. that we work hard, beyond doing our scales and occasionally writing a poem. the trouble is that unless you are already framed in a museum or have a book on a shelf or some kind of product, you aren't really an artist. hell, because of where i post my work, i'll never be considered a poet.
the thing that makes you an artist is choice. the thing that makes all art is choice. AI art is the fetid belief that art is instead an equation. that it must answer a specific question. Even with machine learning, AI cannot make a choice the way we can - because the choices we make have always been personal, complicated. our skills cannot be confined to "prompt and execution." what we are "solving" isn't just a system of numbers - it is how we process our entire existence. it isn't just "2 and 2 is 4", it's staring hard at the numbers and making the four into an alligator. it's rearranging the letters to say ow and it is the ugly drawing we make in the margin.
at some point, you will be able to write something by feeding my work into a machine. it will be perfectly legible and even might sound like me. but a machine doesn't understand why i do these things. it can be taught preferences, habits, statistical probability. it doesn't know why certain vowels sound good to me. it doesn't know the private rules i keep. it doesn't know how to keep evolving.
"but i want something to exist that doesn't exist yet." great. i'm glad you feel creative. go ahead and pay a fucking artist for it.
this is all saying something we all already knew. the sad fucking truth: we have to die to remind you. only when we're gone do we suddenly finally fucking mean something to you. artists are not replicable. we each genuinely have a skill, talent, and process that makes us unique. and there's actual quiet power in everything we do.
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Guys I Might Have Three Nickels
I've been watching "Agatha Christie's Marple" for the past few days and it's pretty good! Marple adaptations all tend to have a better caliber of actors than a lot of bog-standard mystery shows (looking at you, "Madame Blanc"), and while Joan Hickson's Marple is right up there with David Suchet's Poirot and Jeremy Brett's Holmes as "literally can never be beaten, these are the best anyone's done it," both Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie do a fantastic job as Miss Marple.
Then I got to "The Secret of Chimneys," Season 5 episode 2
and guys
Guys
So there's a murder of a viscount, like there is, and this detective Finch rolls up and immediately spots Miss Marple (in her NIGHTIE! standing at the window like some kind of hussy, honestly Jane) and doffs his cap to her with that little smile that makes you go, "huh."
At this point I've watched a couple dozen Miss Marple episodes where she goes through detectives like wildfire and this guy's supposed to be a "*guru*" so I'm expecting some battle of the egos or something and like, Stephen Dillane is great! But bleh, I might have to skip this one.
Then my dude asks Miss Marple to SHOW HIM THE BODY, with a pleased little smile at her as she goes "uhhhhhhhh but my knitting?" (He even does that thing where you use someone's honorific and wait for them to give you their name, and that's when I was like "ohhh this bitch knows exactly who she is.") What follows is what I can only describe as a meet-cute in the secret passageway where the viscount was shot (and in fact the body is STILL THERE) and where Miss Marple literally asks the police equivalent of "is there a Mrs Finch" and he looks at her like this:
At which point I'm like "ohhh my dude not only knows who she is, he deliberately came here without a sergeant so he could draft her," and sure enough he just starts...handing her pieces of evidence like "hey babe can you decipher this note for me thanks love you" while Miss Marple is like, "this approval and camaraderie coming from a cop... not sure if want."
Next is a series of romantic strolls through the gardens while they discuss murder, during which Finch reveals his undying love I mean his research into Miss Marple and the "dozen case files" of her previous exploits that he's collected like some deranged fanboy. Miss Marple responds to this by BLUSHING LIKE A SCHOOLGIRL and stammering about how pish tosh it's nothing really, and I couldn't find a gif of it but he's staring at her like this:
Yeah I bet u r tempted
He also makes a half-hearted attempt at negging her "amateur sleuth" status, only to then immediately assure her that he makes like, so much money being a big fancy detective and can keep her in all the yarn and garden seed she could ever desire.
There's also a late-night tryst at the compost pile right after Finch has been (mildly) poisoned and Miss Marple is like "men are so weak" as she roots through the garbage for clues.
Not how he wanted their first date to go D:
The next morning there's another murder which: bummer, but also allows the two of them to read love letters together and for Finch to give Miss Marple the following look as she explains how secret assignations among lovers can "quicken the ardor":
Miss Marple then goes onto solve the murders and btw hands over the priceless diamond that's been literally missing for two literal decades that she found in her spare time. The entire scene features Finch looking at her like this:
After the dust settles, Finch and Miss Marple have a lovely moment where he calls himself "another one of your casualties," then super casually mentions that he's probably going to have to go on assignment to use the diamond in a daring international espionage case and I can't decide if he's asking Miss Marple to go with him or simply trying to show her that he is cool and smart and would make an excellent wife, but either way the episode ends with her turning him down and Jane, we need to talk about your priorities.
Anyway I've already written 2K about the subsequent 10-year epistolary romance these two have following this episode because I make poor choices.
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Leo frowns at his phone.
Or more specifically, at the test on his phone.
Around him, he hears the sound of his brothers tapping their own devices, much faster than he is. Looking up just makes Leo feel worse about his own progress - or lack-thereof.
Mikey’s the fastest, speeding through the test like nobody’s business. He’d been the one to make them all do this stupid test in the first place, so it makes sense that he’s having a blast.
Raph’s slower than Mikey is, but he’s still clearly answering the questions at a steady pace. Sometimes he looks unsure, but he powers through anyway.
Donnie often looks frustrated, which relieves Leo somewhat because at least someone is struggling like him. But that “struggle” isn’t nearly as big as his own, considering that Donnie is answering about as fast as Raph is.
Leo turns his gaze back down to his own test. He’s still near the beginning, he thinks.
He’d put the same answer for the past seven questions - the middle of the road answer, neither a “yes” or a “no.” Then, whenever he does come across one that is more one direction than the other, he second guesses himself and restarts the test!
Sure, there are a few he could definitely give a yes or a no to, but…never the “strongly agree” or “strongly disagree” that the test seemed to want from him.
He eyes his twin sitting nearby, the softshell absorbed in the test. Maybe Leo should copy what Donnie put for some of these…
“DONE!” Mikey’s shout makes Leo freeze in place just as he started to lean over.
“What?” Donnie squawks, “No way you’re already finished, you must’ve been cheating!”
“It’s a personality test, Dee!” Mikey stuck his tongue out, “You can’t cheat at those!”
…
Leo settles back into his seat.
Ignoring Donnie’s mutterings about how it was “just because it’s not an academic test” that he didn’t finish first, Raph smiles encouragingly at Mikey.
“Hey, good job! So what’d you get, Mike?”
Mikey looks back down at his test, reading aloud, “Says that I got the “Campaigner”!”
“What’s that mean?” Leo asks, his phone screen going dark.
“Apparently, I’m an “enthusiastic, creative, and sociable free-spirit”.” Mikey reads, smiling at them, “You think it fits?”
“Oh, to a T, bro!” Leo laughs, giving Mikey a thumbs up, making Mikey’s smile grow larger.
Inside, Leo was feeling a lot more mixed about this. He has no idea how Mikey knew himself so well. Maybe Donnie was right and Mikey did cheat, because how could he answer those questions so easily?
Leo’s phone burns in his hand. He keeps it locked.
“Wow, that really is you.” Raph says, his eyes flitting back and forth between his own test and Mikey, “Do you think it fits?”
“I guess? It’s fun to see at least!” Mikey shrugs with a grin.
“Hold on, I think…” Raph makes a noise of satisfaction, “Okay, done!”
“Sigh, now I’m relegated to the straggler group.” Donnie grumbles, his thumbs moving faster as he tries rushing through the questions.
“Ooh, what’d you get Raph?” Mikey asks, practically bouncing in curiosity.
“Says, uh…I got something called the “Consul”?” He squints his eyes to read more, “Uh, “caring, social, and community-minded.””
“Sounds about right to me.” Leo nods. Can’t be more “community-minded” than being a hero.
“Yeah, no one’s more caring than you, Raphie!” Mikey says, moving to lean across Raph’s shell.
“You do put the community in mind, that’s for sure.” Donnie states, not looking up.
Raph chuckles, a bit embarrassed, “Aw, thanks. It’s just some test, but it feels kinda good to hear that.”
Just a test. Right.
Leo unlocks his screen.
The test stares back at him.
Right. Okay. He can do this. He can.
The screen ends up going dark again.
Frustration builds up in Leo. Was he even halfway done with the test? At this rate, soon even Donnie will-
“FINISHED.”
Leo unlocks his phone.
“What’d you get, DonTon?” Leo asks as his thumb taps the top right of the screen.
Donnie puffs up proudly, a self sure grin on his face, “I got the result “Logician” which states that I, obviously, am an “innovative inventor with a thirst for knowledge.” Truly could not have described me better, if I do say so myself.”
“It is pretty accurate.” Raph agrees with a nod, “Even calls you an inventor, so extra accurate.”
“Super accurate.” Mikey jumps in, eyes shining.
“Yes, yes, almost like reading my own character synopsis.” Donnie’s grin had not dwindled since the word “innovative” had left his mouth.
Leo just nods along, eyes on his own screen as he skims the words. “Yeah, kinda creepy how close it got. Could have called you a nerd for extra accuracy, though.”
Donnie turns to him, eyes narrowing, “Have you even finished your test? I can think of a few words that’d describe you fairly well.”
“Test-y, huh?”
Before Donnie can strangle Leo, Raph cuts in.
“Ok, ok, calm it down, guys.” He rolls his eyes before turning to Leo. “But really, you’re not done yet?”
“Leo’s taking this self reflection seriously.” Mikey sports a faux intellectual expression as he gives a jokingly serious nod. “Maybe we all should’ve taken our time.”
“Says the one who sped through the whole thing in a record time.” Donnie mutters.
Leo waves them all off, “Nah, I finished it ages ago.”
He grins when Donnie immediately shoots him a suspicious glare. “Oh, you did, did you? Then what could you have possibly gotten, Nardo?”
“I’m glad you asked!” Leo clears his throat, “Neon Leon just so happens to be an “Entertainer.””
“Ah. That confirms it. This test is meaningless.” Donnie drones.
“Hey-“
“What’s an Entertainer like?” Mikey asks with a tilt of his head, still hanging off of Raph’s shell.
“Glad you asked, Miguel!” Leo exclaims, “It says that “life is never boring” around yours truly~”
He emphasizes this “result” of his by waving his phone with said “result” on screen.
It’s just an image he found of his chosen personality result, but they don’t need to know that.
Raph nods slowly, “Well, I guess that’s true…”
“”Never boring” is one way to put it.” Donnie hums.
“You are pretty fun, Leo!” Mikey says emphatically, because he’s great like that.
“Thank you, thank you, life of the party, right here.” Leo grins, pointing both thumbs at himself.
He’s careful not to go too overboard with it, or else it might tip someone off.
Not that it…really matters. It’s just a test. Like Raph said.
As the topic around him shifts to something else, jumping away from this brief activity as fast as any other among them, Leo finds himself unlocking his phone and pulling up the test again.
Unanswered questions stare at him. He knows what answers Lou Jitsu would pick. He knows what answers Jupiter Jim would pick. Hell, he knows exactly what answers his brothers would pick.
He doesn’t know what answers Leonardo would pick.
Leo stares at the test for a second longer, before he exits the site and throws himself into the conversation happening around him.
It’s just a stupid test, nothing to worry about.
Just a test…
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