Grace explaining sheepishly to Eridian linguists that the reason he uses different pronouns for Rocky than for the rest of the population is that he reflexively defaulted to assigning Rocky the same grammatical and social gender that he himself uses, in a way that has historical precedent but in modern English is considered somewhat chauvinistic and backward, and he's not proud of it but also the habit is pretty deeply ingrained now and unless Rocky objects it's probably easier to just keep on as he has been...
and immediately being informed lol. lmao. do not even worry about it. you have no idea what kind of buck wild grammatical constructs Rocky has invented for you. everyone else addresses you as foreigner/scholar. they're somehow managing to refer to you as their sibling, ward, and semidivine culture hero at the same time every time they talk about you.
Grace and Rocky, giving a tour of the Hail Mary to fascinated Eridian scientists and diplomats.
Pointing at things and explaining what they are and how the ship works, lots of awed and appreciative noises are made.
Until one of the visiting Eridians points out a specific item. “And that?”
It’s a strange, circular thing, a xenonite disk mounted upright on some sort of pivot so it can spin freely, but around the edges it has… spokes? Pegs? Sticking out of it, that hit against a stiff flap that would slow down the spinning.
It is also separated into sections decorated with crude etchings of a human and an Eridian.
“Ah,” Grace says.
“That,” Rocky says.
“That’s. Um.” Grace seems somewhat embarrassed. “That’s the sacrifice wheel.”
The Eridian visitors clearly do not know what to make of that. “We think we misunderstood Savior Grace’s word,” they say, apparently hoping this is a vocabulary mix-up. “Explain (question, polite)?”
“Didn’t misunderstand,” says Rocky, sounding very sheepish. “That is sacrifice wheel.”
“So. While we were on our way to Erid, we might have gotten… anxious about each other’s well-being,” Grace says, which everyone is already very aware is a wild understatement. “And, well, you heard what happened at Tau Ceti, and after. There were a lot of unexpected dangers for the whole trip that required a lot of, at least, attempted self-sacrifice to solve. We ended up almost dying for each other several times. And we had an argument about what we’d do if another crisis like that came up. And we couldn't agree.”
“Grace argued that Grace already was unlikely to survive long-term on Erid, so he should be the one to do any potential deadly but necessary maneuvers to make sure I was able to bring taumoeba back,” Rocky says.
“Which made sense.”
“Did not make sense! Grace already sacrificed so much for me and for Erid, wouldn’t be fair to make you do it again—“ Rocky cuts himself off with a huff. They have obviously had this conversation before. “So sacrifice wheel was compromise.”
“Yeah,” Grace says. He spins it to demonstrate; it whirls around in a blur and a rattle of the flap hitting the pegs, then eventually slows down, and stops—pointing at the segment depicting a very bad but very clear image of an Eridian. “Rocky made the wheel, I spin the wheel, and whoever it lands on, that’s who gets to sacrifice themself to save the other and the other person does not get to argue. This way, we wouldn’t waste time debating who does the self-sacrifice and who survives, it’s just a plain fifty-fifty chance. Or, eighteen-eighteen chance in base six. But the point is it could be either of us and we would have to accept the outcome.”
Rocky started fidgeting while Grace was explaining. When Grace finishes, proud of the equitable solution they came up with to allow them to die for each other fairly, Rocky says, “Now that we are back and we don’t need sacrifice wheel anymore… I have confession to make. About the wheel.”
“What about the wheel?”
Rocky doesn’t answer. Grace frowns, first confused, then suspicious, and spins the wheel again.
It lands on Rocky again.
He spins the wheel again, and again, and again, and it lands on Rocky every single time.
“Rocky!”
“I weighted the wheel,” Rocky admits.
“Rocky the whole point was that it was equal, that was why we even made it—“
“Never was necessary so doesn’t matter anymore!”
“But you WOULD have!”
“And you never noticed because you were hungry and cranky and distracted and so would have done bad job on heroic self-sacrifice anyway!”
“I would not! I would have done fine!”
(The Eridian scientists and diplomats are still here watching this btw. Slowly dawning on them that 1) these two are extremely not normal about each other 2) if Erid ever does another space mission they NEED to send a therapist aboard because this is what happens when they don’t)
I think Rocky named Grace ‘Dumbass’ or ‘Idiot’ or something and then just never changed it. Then when they get to Erid he’s so used to calling his alien friend ‘Shithead Moron’ that when he introduces him to a large crowd they’re all like ‘woah man what the fuck’ and ‘that’s not nice!’ and ‘you can’t say that bro that’s too mean’ and Rocky has to awkwardly explain to Grace why they’re upset. Grace, who is now very familiar with Rocky’s standard vocabulary, laughs until he is crying on the floor and can’t breath, which makes all the other Eridians panic while Rocky stands there yelling at Grace that it’s not that funny asshole.
I just think that Rocky is the most feral possessive bitch to ever exist when it comes to Grace. Sorry, if you don’t fix my space horse I’m NOT giving you any of the bacteria we almost died to get- oh hello mate Adrian, yes yes, Rocky DOES think this is perfectly rational, why do you ask? No, Rocky ran out of his Eridian Lexapro like four years ago this is now a hostage negotiation-
If you're writing anything involving cons, scams, heists, or morally questionable characters who are very good at lying, here are some free resources I've been using for research. Saving you the "why is this in my search history" anxiety.
1. The FBI's Famous Cases & Criminals archive (fbi.gov/history/famous-cases) has detailed breakdowns of real fraud cases, Ponzi schemes, and confidence operations. The language they use is clinical and precise, which is perfect for getting the procedural details right.
2. The FTC Consumer Sentinel Network publishes annual reports on the most common fraud tactics in the US. Great for understanding how modern scams actually work and what makes people fall for them.
3. The Smithsonian's American Art Museum has a free digital collection of forgery case studies. If your character forges documents or art, this is gold.
4. Court Listener (courtlistener.com) is a free legal database where you can read actual court transcripts from fraud trials. Want to know how a real con artist talks under oath? This is where you find out.
5. The Internet Archive's collection of old newspaper crime sections. Search for "confidence man" or "swindle" in papers from the 1920s through 1960s and you'll find incredible real stories that would feel too dramatic for fiction.
Bonus: The Psychology of Fraud section on the Association for Psychological Science website has accessible articles about why people trust, how deception works cognitively, and what makes someone a convincing liar. Essential reading if you want your con artist characters to feel psychologically real.
Reblog to save for later. Your WIP will thank you.
it’s a rare but incredible thing when rolin and the writers make a big change from the books that not only is good/stands on its own but also actually improves upon the source material in a way that I immensely prefer, but this episode delivered that for me with Nickis death. Cause holy shit.
First of all Lestat being present for it, 10/10. Absolutely fuckinf he should. Second of all Nicki sawing off his own hands fucking so unexpected but SO INSANELY POWERFUL and so impressive in the sense that the original intent and weight is retained while giving Nicki more of a sense of tragic agency in his own fate. God it was good.
And the fucking kicker was Armand’s involvement, holy shit, the way it’s so fucked and cruel but also so legitimately understandable from Armand’s perspective, the horribleness but also the realness of the claim that he was only doing what lestat asked and he was just trying to help. PUSHING NICKI INTO THE FIRE AND STAKING HIM SO THAT HE STAYS THERE. Wow, just ten out of ten. No notes.
“The LEGO Movie was my favorite movie of 2014, but it strikes me that the main character was male, because I feel like in our current culture, he HAD to be. The whole point of Emmett is that he’s the most boring average person in the world. It’s impossible to imagine a female character playing that role, because according to our pop culture, if she’s female she’s already SOMEthing, because she’s not male. The baseline is male. The average person is male. You can see this all over but it’s weirdly prevalent in children’s entertainment. Why are almost all of the muppets dudes, except for Miss Piggy, who’s a parody of femininity? Why do all of the Despicable Me minions, genderless blobs, have boy names? I love the story (which I read on Wikipedia) that when the director of The Brave Little Toaster cast a woman to play the toaster, one of the guys on the crew was so mad he stormed out of the room. Because he thought the toaster was a man. A TOASTER. The character is a toaster. I try to think about that when writing new characters— is there anything inherently gendered about what this character is doing? Or is it a toaster?”
— Bojack Horseman creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg commenting on how weird gendered defaults in entertainment are, and why we should think twice about them. Excerpted from this longer original post.
(via 360degreesasthecrowflies)
crazy that in the books lestat and louis are slave owners and armand is a former child slave who seduces them both and ruins their lives. and they just never talk about this
you break up with me to go hang out with MY dad/husband who abandoned me and i thought was dead for hundreds of years, refuse to let me come with you bc i’m crazy, make me babysit your ex boyfriend who YOU made crazy, then you run off to america and fall in love with a slave owner and live on his plantation and kill the slaves and drink their blood. and you make him a tormented daughter child vampire despite that being the ONE THING everyone told you not to do, and also a twisted reflection of me because i’m technically also a child vampire. like. i would have done way worse than kill your daughter steal your husband and throw you off a building.
One of the things that fascinates me (breaks my heart) in the “Rocky fix” scene: Grace looks heavier and heavier as Rocky won’t accept his death, refusing to be comforted or calm. He stammers. His voice roughens with held-back tears. It’s like Rocky’s horror and grief brings his back up to the surface. And he spent so long shoving it down, down, down so he could work—telling himself it was necessary, he chose this, he doesn’t get to resent or regret it. But Rocky won’t give him even a tiny thumbs up. And it gets to Grace. Grace hangs his head, braces himself on his knees, struggles to answer Rocky. He can’t even say the word “brave” out loud, he’s so overwhelmed. He turns and walks away to hide his face.
And then — the unbelievable offer of a reprieve. Release. Relief. His slumped shoulders straighten with an indrawn breath before he turns, and we see his face. He lets Rocky see everything, and doesn’t wipe the tears away. And that’s the part that really gets me—he doesn’t look overjoyed at first. He’s trembling. He’s profoundly relieved but he also looks almost devastated. I wonder if those were the final moments of truly feeling the grief of what had been asked of him. He could feel it, now that there was an end to it, a way out. It wasn’t too enormous anymore.
It’s only when he finally finds words to ask for a hug that lightness begins to come in, and resting against Rocky, he finally smiles.
Caught the project hail mary fever and now i can't get out of the trenches, your honor they mean so much to me.
This is one comic i'm working on, there are going to be more parts. (Ps: nothing weird happens is mostly just grace trying to disgust rocky). I just love Grace and Rocky's relationship, they are so different but care so much for each other.
(I'm not sure if i should keep rocky in the ball or in a skin tight suit, like the tight suit would make more sense as to not squish grace, but the ball is so funny)
‘am i Having A Brain Problem or Being a Shithead’: a short procrastination checklist
aka why tf am i procrastinating on The Thing (more like a flowchart, actually)
lots of people who have executive function difficulties worry about whether they’re procrastinating on a task out of laziness/simply wanting to be a jerk or mental struggles. this checklist might help you figure out which it is at any given time! (hint: it’s almost never laziness or being a jerk.) (obligatory disclaimer: this is just what works for me! something different might work better for you.)
1) do I honestly intend to start the task despite my lack of success?
yes: it’s a Brain Problem. next question
no: it’s shitty to say one thing & do another. better be honest with myself & anyone expecting me to do the task.
2) am I fed, watered, well-rested, medicated properly, etc?
yes: next question
no: guess what? this is the real next task
3) does the idea of starting the task make me feel scared or anxious?
yes: Anxiety Brain. identify what’s scaring me first.
no: next question
4) do I know how to start the task?
yes: next question
no: ADHD Brain. time to make an order of operations list.
5) do I have everything I need to start the task?
yes: next question
no: ADHD Brain lying to me about the steps again, dangit. first task is ‘gather the materials’.
6) why am i having a hard time switching from my current task to this new task?
i’m having fun doing what i’m doing: it’s okay to have fun doing a thing! if task is time-sensitive, go to next question.
i have to finish doing what i’m doing: might be ADHD brain. can I actually finish the current task or will I get trapped in a cycle? does this task really need to be finished?
the next task will be boring/boring-er than the current task: ADHD brain. re-think the next task. what would make it exciting? what am I looking forward to?
I might not have enough time to complete the task: ADHD brain wants to finish everything it starts. (if task is time-sensitive, go to next question)
i just want to make the person who asked me to do it angry: sounds like anxiety brain trying to punish itself, because I know I’ll be miserable if someone is angry at me. why do i think I deserve punishment?
no, I seriously want to piss them off: okay, i’m being a shithead
7) have I already procrastinated so badly that I now cannot finish the task in time?
yes: ADHD brain is probably caught in a guilt-perfection cycle. since I can’t have the task done on time, i don’t even want to start.
reality check: having part of a thing done is almost always better than none of a thing done. if I can get an extension, having part of it done will help me keep from stalling out until the extension deadline. i’ll feel better if I at least try to finish it.
no, there’s still a chance to finish on time: ADHD brain thinks that I have all the time in the world, but the truth is I don’t.
reality check: if i’m having fun doing what I’m doing, I can keep doing it, but I should probably set a timer & ask someone to check on me to make sure I start doing the task later today.
8) I’ve completed the checklist and still don’t know what’s wrong!
probably wasn’t honest enough with myself. take one more look.
if I’m still mystified, ask a friend to help me talk it out.
hope this helps some of you! YOU’RE DOING GREAT SWEETIE DON’T GIVE UP ON YOU
#i do. have trouble figuring out the first step.#like idk if i’m really intending to get it done or lying to myself (via @lightspren )
you’re not the only person who’s expressed trouble with the first step, so I’m gonna elaborate just a little on the concept of intent.
‘Intending to act’ can be rephrased as ‘expecting yourself to do the thing’.
It’s the difference between your teacher giving you homework (your teacher expects you to do the homework) and you deciding to do the homework (you expect yourself to do the homework).
I don’t think you can lie to yourself about whether or not you intend to do something. even as a person who often doesn’t have a real concept of how much I can actually get done*, I can always tell when I don’t really expect myself to do a thing vs when I do expect myself to do it but I’m struggling to start.
below is a list of things that might help you tell if you really intend to do a thing. if even ONE of these is true, I believe you honestly intend to do the task you’re struggling to start.
do you want to do it? or alternatively: do you want the benefits from doing it enough to do it?
even if you don’t want to do it, do you expect yourself to do it?
can you imagine yourself starting the thing? (even if you don’t have a plan for how to get there.)
do you have even a nebulous plan for doing the thing? (my ‘plans’ often start out: ‘1. go to wherever I have to be to do the thing 2. do the thing 3. ???? 4. profit’, which isn’t much of a plan but at least there’s a sense of starting and ending.)
are you trying to force yourself to do the thing by not allowing yourself to start any other things first (and thus continuously scrolling through twitter/tumblr, or staring at your ceiling, or whatever)?
are you trying to make yourself do the thing by offering yourself rewards for doing the thing?
again:
if even ONE of these is true, I believe you honestly intend to do the task you’re struggling to start.
and this isn’t an exhaustive list of ways to tell you’re planning to do it! you know yourself best, and you can develop ways to tell the difference between your good intent and your wishful thinking.
procrastination is a hell of a monster, especially if you don’t have normal executive function. be nice to yourself! you are a decent person and want to do good things.
*the real problem ADHD people seem to have (or at least, the problem I, an adhd person, often have) is intending to do too much. my to-do list for any given day usually overestimates both how much time I have & how much energy I have. as a result, I can honestly intend to clean my room, do the dishes, and do my budget in one day, but I’ll probably only end up doing 2 out 3 things b/c I’ll run out of time or energy before I get to the last one.
this isn’t a problem of lying to oneself about your intentions: this is a problem of lacking time-awareness & self-awareness, and it demands better scheduling. this list can’t really help with that, unfortunately. :(
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