I've been thinking a lot about the little ways we see Garak's character change over time, just in terms of how comfortable he is talking about himself and his past. Like at the end of The Wire, he's saying "haha what's up with Odo thinking I was in the Obsidian Order, that's weird," and he knows Julian knows that he absolutely was, but they basically both agree to pretend he wasn't and not talk about it. But then by Our Man Bashir a couple years later, he's just directly saying "your spy fantasy is stupid and unrealistic and I know because I actually was a spy." At some point in the middle there he got more okay with acknowledging and discussing that.
Similarly, back in Past Prologue, he was responding to Julian calling him "Mr. Garak" with "it's just Garak," as if that's his entire name and not only a last name. In The Wire, he can only talk about "Elim" as if that was a different person. But by "Things Past" in season 5, he's talking about the name tag that said "Elim Garak, former Cardassian oppressor," and you might be distracted by how funny that is and not really think about how that means he told a whole bunch of people his first name! He was walking around with his full name on a name tag for strangers to read! That's so hugely different from a few years ago! It's just fascinating to me how some of these developments sort of take place offscreen, in between episodes, and Garak just shows up again being a little less cagey about his past and a little more comfortable with who he is the next time we see him.
I’m not sure if this will be helpful to anyone, but you literally do not have to be a good writer to write and post fan fiction. Yes you will naturally get better at writing and finding your voice the more you do it but you do not have to be or become a professional level writer to enjoy writing and sharing fics. It’s common to hear people praise fic writers by saying their work is better than published books, and while I think this comes from a good place, that’s not the norm or expectation. There is also a sentiment that fic writing is “good practice” for becoming a better writer or doing something else later, but if fic is the only creative writing you ever do that is literally okay. Your technical skill does not mean you cannot have fun and build community with your writing, or that other people cannot love and find meaning in your work.
I briefly forgot there were normal humans named Elijah and wondered why this person thought they were getting messages from Actual Prophet and Messiah-Herald Elijah the Tishbite.
ohhh man. apparently when you copy+paste stuff directly from claude into ao3 it includes code. which anyone can find. people have found it in big, popular fics in multiple fandoms 😬. also heated rivalry; some of which the authors fervently denied using AI. link to thread.
link to their complete findings for those without twitter
So I've seen a lot of weirdness in the HR fandom over the last few months, which I have tried to ignore, but one thing that always gets me is people who cannot fathom why someone would gravitate to Skip over Hollanov, and to Scott in particular. I get that everyone has their favs. However, I've also seen some people suggesting that Skip is "not really gay", or that it's aimed at straight men (??). So, as a gay Iraqi, who spent a solid 10 years in the closet out of genuine fear of persecution and homelessness, I thought I'd write a little about why Scott Hunter, specifically Francois Arnaud's interpretation of Scott Hunter, is so deeply meaningful to me and so many other gay men.
I am not going to deny it: Scott in the book is... nice enough, as Steve Rogers cutouts go, but a bit dull. Francois Arnaud's depiction of Scott in Heated Rivalry, however, is the single most accurate description, to me, of how it feels to be a more 'masculine' gay man in the closet. I am not an athlete (am chronically ill, in fact), nor am I an orphan, but even still, Scott Hunter is exactly who I have been.
One thing which I think is difficult to understand, unless you've been a closeted gay man, is just how toxic masculinity and homophobia intersect internally. It's not just about being afraid of your sexuality coming out: it's a fear of anything which could even tangentially seem gay. It's a constant internal struggle: you know you're not a real man (because you're gay, the worst thing you can be) but you also know that you want to be. You're not able to wear high heels and makeup and be friends with the girls, even if you want to (in my case, whilst I did want to and did eventually become friends with the girls, I never wanted to experiment with femininity in my personal appearance, though how much of that is socialised and how much of it I come by naturally, I don't know). Because those things look gay.
Every single thing you ever do - the way you look, talk, dress, the tv shows you watch, the music you listen to, the foods you eat - all get filtered under the "will this make me look gay" fear. You can't be friends with girls, because that's gay. You can't express your feelings to your male friends, because that's gay. Liking girls as people is queer and feminine, and liking them as sexual objects is not something you are capable of (despite what Hollywood will tell you, most gay men are not comfortable pretending to be straight, even the masculine-presenting ones). This doesn't start when you consciously realise you're gay, by the way: it starts years before you even know why you're doing it, when you're in that awkward stage of not quite knowing, but not quite not knowing either.
What this leads to is... crippling loneliness. You don't have friends, other than a few men you spend time with but cannot confide in. You learn to keep your mouth shut and go with the flow - someone is saying nice things about gay people in front of you? Silence. Because if you say something, that's suspicious. Someone is saying awful things about gay people in front of you? Also silence. Because you're afraid to say anything. But you can't admit that you're miserable, because that would mean making changes in your life that you genuinely are not capable of. I couldn't come out, and feel safe, because I would be homeless. So I had to learn to be okay with the misery. That it was normal, and I was happy.
Scott Hunter is, to me, the ultimate manifestation of that process. He's been in the closet so long that not only is he terrified of being perceived as gay, but terrified of being perceived at all. He wants to fade away. He listens to podcasts that neg the shit out of him, because he needs to know if they've spotted the gay thing yet (and also because Scott Hunter appears to be the most OCD and OCPD coded character of all time, but I will save that for another post). He clings to the first person he has a real interest in because he knows how few chances he'll get to do that in his life. He has a big, empty home that he's worked hard for, proof of his Masculine Credentials, but no one to share it with. He has friends, and he could confide in them, but he's so fucking scared, because if the wrong person somehow hears, it's all over.
He does this, incidentally, despite being a very clearly masculine man. He drinks whisky and plays hockey and furnishes his home in mahogany and chrome. He dresses well, but he'd never wear make-up. He also, it must be said, does this and manages to remain kind. Yeah, he's quiet, he thinks hard before he speaks, but he's managed to shed enough of his toxic masculinity to be kind to others, to speak of empathy and giving back, to be funny and self-abnegating and selfless... whilst maintaining all that inwardly-pointed self-hatred.
All of this comes through not just in Jacob Tierney's incredible writing, which transforms Scott from a caricature to a human, but also Francois Arnaud's unbelievable acting. The little hint of gay panic when Kip makes that hot lumberjacks comment, and we see Scott go through an entire odyssey before our eyes - shock, fear, confusion, anxiety, and then tentative, yet reckless hope. A "fuck it, might as well". The reaction to Carter's words in Sochi: trying not to appear too interested, because he doesn't want anyone to guess at what he is, and even his best friend being so accepting won't change anything. The sheer agony in his eyes as Kip leaves him, and he realises that he can't say a word to stop him, because Kip is right (and, you come to realise, he expected this all along). The outright panic attack in the art gallery date, Scott trying so hard to be inconspicuous that he becomes insanely obvious? It's obviously a little spoof of Captain America 2, but it's also... kind of telling that in Cap 2, Steve is hiding from the government, and in HR, Scott is hiding from the mere implication of homosexuality. And then going back to his apartment, dropping the walls, and even in the midst of his panic attack, still apologising to Kip, because he knows he was in the wrong? It's heartbreaking. It's devastating, in fact. And it's so fucking real.
I'm not going to read too much into Francois Arnaud's personal life, because I don't know him personally. However, I do know that he's an openly bisexual man who came out at 35. And I do know that the way he depicts Scott Hunter is the most accurate depiction of what it is to be closeted that I have ever seen.
(It also must be said that this is massively supported by the changes to Kip which occur between the book and the show, for which Jacob Tierney and Robert GK deserve equal credit. Book Kip is kind of a brat, who wants Scott to come out after a two month relationship, ruining his career in the process. Show Kip understands. He knows Scott's behaviour isn't his fault, and when he leaves, it's not a big fight: it's laced with empathy and understanding, because he has been there. They're not breaking up because either of them have done anything wrong. They're breaking up because the world won't let two men be queer, but it especially won't let masculine men be queer.)
And, to touch briefly on the fandom for a moment: this isn't a hypothetical. The fanbase of HR, a show featuring gay men in a relationship, is desperate to cast one as the "woman" in the relationship. Why else would Shane, a man of equal size of Ilya, played by a literal mixed martial artist in Hudson Williams, be so consistently reduced to a "twink" with "bottom eyes"? Why else would Francois Arnaud, the only openly queer actor in the show's main cast, be confronted with a hate campaign so severe that he had to move address? Why else would reports come out constantly of gay men being excluded from HR spaces by (mostly) straight, cis women, who seem to believe gay men are only acceptable when they come in perfect, non-confrontational, feminine packages? This is the fanbase for a show literally about gay men. Imagine, compared to this, how homophobic the rest of the world is?
So many people seem to not understand the purpose of Skip in the story. They think Jacob rammed it in because he desperately wanted to adapt Game Changer (ridiculous: if he wanted to adapt Game Changer, he could have. Reducing it to a single episode in HR basically destroys any chance at a real GC adaptation). The reality is, Scott and Kip are essential to Hollanov's story because they prove that even if Ilya and Shane did everything right, they would still be unable to be themselves. Scott is a beloved athlete, desperately trying at all times to be perfect, with a decade plus long career, dating a man who is masculine and muscular, who has nothing to do with hockey. He is doing everything right: he even has the classic hockey-player courtship period, of meeting and marrying within a few years. And yet, purely because of his sexuality, he is being crushed. Not because he's done anything wrong: he's a good person, as is Kip. He's done nothing to deserve being unable to love Kip in public. And nor has Kip. Both of them work to the bone in service of others, both are wonderful, kind, upstanding, generous people, and they're being destroyed because of homophobia. It highlights just how massive and pervasive homophobia is.
(Skip doesn't detract from Hollanov at all, FYI. The show is 6 episodes long because that's what Jacob Tierney chose, and having read Heated Rivalry, I do not see any scenes which were skipped (and I can see quite a few which were extended or created) in the show. Skip deliberately highlights the position that Ilya and Shane are in. Sure, Jacob could have just written the kiss, about Scott Hunter, a character we barely see. But if you don't understand just how difficult that was for him, just how broken and desperate he became in trying to become that Game Changer, how can you understand just why Ilya and Shane couldn't do that? If ep 3 weren't about Skip, I have no idea what that time would be filled with to tell that same story. But I digress.)
Watching Scott in HR, I see exactly what I could have become. Someone who is kind to others, who does everything to keep others happy, but who is broken and miserable because he cannot express who he is... and barely even knows it. Sure, he'll say he's fucked up, but he also can't understand just how miserable he is when Elena asks, because he's the happiest he's ever been! It just so happens that "the happiest he's ever been" is still not very happy, because he's been dealing with this shit his whole life.
Seeing his actual, genuine happiness in the speech in ep 6? Seeing him honestly encapsulating, in a single speech, the single worst part about being gay in this world: the loneliness? It's the most heartfelt and meaningful thing I've ever watched. Hollanov has a great many strengths, story wise, but whilst Jacob Tierney cut down and edited enough of Skip to make what I feel is a genuinely incredible depiction of what it is to be closeted, Hollanov is still predominately Rachel Reid's story (and I am far from a RR hater, but I do think she doesn't quite get the nuances of how it is to be closeted, which is, to me, the one weakness in Hollanov. I am a massive Hollanov fan, don't get me wrong! Jacob, Rachel, Hudson, and Connor combined to create something which deserves every accolade it receives. But every story has it's weaknesses, and for me, the depiction of the closet, re Hollanov, reads a little bit awkwardly. Hence why Skip is so important to the story: it smooths over a lot of those gaps, in a way that makes it feel like Ilya and Shane's experiences are unique to their own characters, rather than a fundamental misunderstanding of what it is to be a gay man by the author.)
So, to sum up: I have faced a lot of homophobia in my life, and Scott Hunter is probably the best depiction of it I have ever seen in any piece of media. Bar none. A lot of that, it must be said, is down to Francois Arnaud's being an unbelievably good actor, and I will fight anyone who says otherwise. A lot of it, too, is because I do have OCD, and Scott's constant engagement in harmful rituals to satisfy his internal obsessions definitely seems familiar. But mostly? It's because it's a story which you can only tell if you have lived it, which Jacob and Francois clearly have. And I love it so.
#this is. heartbreaking.#and so true on so many counts#not least that the show would be vitally incomplete without this episode#it was so jarring I laughed when ep3 started and kip was leaning gayly on the counter at work#I laughed again when multiple times throughout the episode these two asked for things they wanted out loud with their words#shane & ilya are so ruinously bad at communication that they're highkey making their own suffering worse with it#but scott and kip are not. and still the suffering is so absolute that scott can't even imagine what it's like to breathe easy#this is a show About The Closet and it wouldn't be anywhere near as effective at that if it didn't include scott and kip#scott who has been living exactly the life shane would have lived if he hadn't met ilya#if he wasn't taking this same insane risk again and again and again#he's doing the safe thing & he's a star with a shining career and look: he's miserable#he's atrophying to nothing in the shell of his own life#meanwhile kip is out and happy and free#he works hard and worries about his future and struggles to pay rent and barely makes ends meet - but he's himself. he's free to be himself#he and his friends are so endlessly loving and supportive of each other#they walk in the sunshine and it's such a different world. there's such joy in it as the other three can barely imagine it#and being dragged into the kind of life scott leads is so intolerably suffocating#that even a great and desperate love isn't enough to make kip choose it#this is a romance. he loves scott the way romance protagonists do: utterly and consumingly. this is IT for him this is the love of his life#and still he would rather leave him than go back into the closet with him#the true stakes of being trapped in the closet aren't just the threat of all the harm that could befall if you're outed#it's also the pain of being in there#they need to show that too. they need to show us the sunshine to drive home just how awful it is in the dark
So I just simultaneously did, and possibly didn't lose my job today :)
Very much did in the sense that I literally do not know where my job is at the moment. But, for the time being I haven't been let go because nobody else including the store owner knows where it is either.
So, I don't wanna risk doxxing myself by posting pictures but goddamn am I tempted because this is not a believable event. This is a cartoon problem. For looneytoons.
But yeah, so, I work(ed?) at a kiosk selling boba tea, right? Freestanding kiosk in the mall with full water and electrical hookups and multiple fridges and sinks and a mini kitchen and the works. Fully functional tea shop. Very important to note that it was there last night, The work chat was discussing another issue last night at closing time. I'll get back to this.
It's been showing signs of being on the way out with how business is being handled lately and I've been considering other options, which is probably why I'm not as torn up about this as I should be, but maybe it just hasn't set in yet, but that's not the point. The point is there's been a lot of shit breaking and not being replaced and nobody mentioning anything about it until I walk into work in the morning and have to figure out why shit like the fucking cash register isn't there today. So I'm kinda used to having to ask questions about big things that nobody bothered to update me on. I was out for two weeks recovering from a surgery, so I came to work this morning assuming there'd be some kind of bullshit, yeah?
So, the question I had to ask the chat this morning was:
Not a text I ever thought I'd have to send in sincerity, but there it is. Because what I found instead was a fenced off patch of discolored tiles and a few holes in the floor where my entire place of employment used to be.
And the answer? Nobody knows! It was there last night when the mall closed, and every single trace of the structure and all its contents including drink making supplies and our safe and cashbox was gone when it opened again. And when I say nobody knows, I mean everyone from last night's closers to the actual (former?) owner of the store jad no fucking clue about this until getting that text from me this morning. For once I am actually the first to know. 🎉.
So. I guess I didn't so much lose my job as had it stolen. Not by AI, but good old fashioned hands-on human beings picking it up and carrying it away somehow. All mall security would tell me was that they were instructed not to tell me anything and have us contact our management. Who also don't know anything. And later on I came across some construction workers around the gravesite of the kiosk discussing filling in the holes, asked them about it, and was told that they "weren't at liberty to say".
So, not only is my job gone in the most literal physical sense of the word, but it was taken in some kind of super secret kiosk extraction in the dead of night without any warning or witnesses and nobody is allowed to speak of it. The store owner said she was gonna figure it out 10 hours ago and still no word back.
I don't know what else to say aside from I've been laughing all day and I'm gonna have a hell of a time explaining Schrodinger's Unemployment to the benefits office.
Update that is not an update because I'm basically certain this isn't what actually happened:
My mother in law thinks the FBI took it.
Not any of the other stores around the state. Just the one little kiosk.
Why? Because she loves a conspiracy and is just a little bit extra.
Also because she was around for the massive crackdown on Yakuza-owned businesses in Waikiki (in her homestate) that did actually involve the FBI seizing stores (no confirmation of making kiosks cleanly disappear in the middle of the night though).
Still no word from my job on what's actually going on, but the most likely theory so far is that maybe the kiosk was on lease and got repossessed? The mystery continues
(also shout out to the person who proposed Carmen Sandiego)
According to the owner, based on what she's been able to find out, the kiosk was not removed legally and they're starting a potentially long process of legal action. I hope she gets to sue the shit out of whoever did it but for now at least I know for sure I'm unemployed.
Really hoping for more details in terms of who/why/how, so I'll keep updating if I learn anything.
For now the summary is: An unnamed entity that is most likely mall management (on account of mall security cooperating with them) stole an entire kiosk and all the contents including money and machinery with barely a trace in the middle of the night grinch-style, with zero warning or explanation, and ensured the silence of both security and the construction crew, in an action that was definitely preplanned and illegal, and as far as I know nobody knows its whereabouts.
So now I'm officially out of a job. Because my workplace was literally stolen in the night.
Actually fuck it let's share some photos cause I wouldn't be inclined to believe this myself. It's not like anyone can stalk me at my job now and I'm not gonna have to see any coworkers that might find my tumblr.
Enjoy the unintentionally funniest text I've ever sent in my life
Aaand a close-up:
The last remains of a once Very Much Solid And Immobile Workplace
probably a controversial opinion but I think screenshotting someone else’s fic and posting it elsewhere because it’s “obviously ai” is also harmful to the writing community you’re trying to protect. because
every single time I see these posts, there are always writers who say “this looks like how I write” and “what if my works sound like ai”. it’s discouraging to genuine writers to see a screenshot of a fic that is “obviously ai” and then wonder if their own human-made works “look like ai” too. it’s discouraging to genuine writers to have to live in constant fear and worry if someone will screenshot their human-made fics and put them on blast for being “obviously ai” too.
no matter how “obviously ai” a fic looks, unless the author says they use ai, you can never know for absolute certainty that it’s ai. you assume. based on vibes. and there’s always a chance of you wrongly accusing a genuine, innocent writer and encouraging people to harass them. “real humans don’t write like this” do you know literally every single human being to say for absolute certainty that none of them write like the machine that was trained on millions of human-made works to look and sound like humans? “most people can tell” no, no one can tell unless authors disclose their use of ai. most people guess. based on vibes. every ai telltale is something humans actually write, otherwise ai would never have been able to mimic it in the first place. short sentence stacking? some people prefer it as a stylistic choice. “not x, not y, but z” type of sentence? people have been using this for ages, way before gen ai became a thing. I’ve been using it in my writing for almost a decade, way before gen ai became a thing. em dash? you mean proper grammar? not to mention how often people who are autistic and people whose native language isn’t english are wrongly accused of using ai in their fics because “real humans don’t like write that” — it’s super offensive and harmful.
even if someone says they use ai, the right thing to do is to not read their fics and leave them alone if it bothers you. I don’t like ai fics. I don’t agree with people who let ai write for them. but I will always condemn harassment. no matter what. also not to mention, if you harass someone for being honest about using ai and tagging their fics as such, chances are that they will stop tagging their future ai-generated fics as ai, meaning no one can know for sure if the fics are ai, meaning it’s impossible for anyone to filter them out. if you want to be able to effectively avoid ai fics by filtering them out, you’ll have to make sure people who use ai are comfortable enough to be honest about it.
I also want to say that no one “writes like ai”. it’s the other way around. ai writes like human, because that’s what it was trained to do. saying a human-made fic “reads like ai” is saying a work looks like its copycat.
last but not least, harassment, accusations, speculations and witch hunt harm the writing community as much as ai does. if not more.
um so quick question you do know that the world isn’t divided into People Blindly Accepting Of Gender Roles and Smart Trans Ppl. the world isn’t divided into People In Romantic Relationships and Single Aros. the world isn’t divided into People Who Socialize Easily and Oppressed Autistics. the world isn’t divided into Enlightened Queer People and Stupid Misogynists. like you are aware of this ? i hope you are aware of this
we have dandelions EVERYWHERE, they are basically our State Weed, it is absolutely impossible that my mom has never interacted with a dandelion before, this requires further investigation
So after extensive interrogation I have an update:
my mom is in fact aware that dandelions exist. she temporarily forgot the name and there was some miscommunication.
the truth is actually weirder
she's aware dandelions look like this
she is familiar with this flower. she knows the name of this flower. she declines to believe, however, that these are also dandelions
she does not believe these are the same plant. I tried to explain, and she thought I was either misinformed or lying. so I asked her what exactly did she think the yellow ones were called?
she answered, with complete confidence: Daffodils.
pixelskylines
dededos
jbbartram-illu
stormborns
janainaart
gummygunk
discoholicmusic
