Not a terf or transphobe friendly blog. Either learn to respect trans people or die by my blade (icon from @bugsinmyhoney) You can call me Hazard. Genderfluid.
some people read an awful lot, but don't read very well. deep reading is itself a skill. being able to untangle the threads of theme, subtext, characterization, narrative style, and more are all things that it takes time and intentional engagement to learn.
if you've ever watched a movie with your film buff friend and chatted about it afterwards, that friend might have pulled hours more of conversation out of the same 90 minutes of screentime, and wondered how the fuck they did that - it's not raw intelligence, it's a skill that's been honed. And I learned a lot about film from talking to friends who knew about film, and reading critique by film scholars
literature works exactly the same. so if you want to get more out of your reading, there are things you can do to train that.
Find a book or short story you think you've got a pretty good grasp on, preferably from a widely read & respected author like Ursula K Le Guin or Ray Bradbury (if you're new at this don't swing for the Toni Morrison or the Samuel Beckett yet unless you feel very comfortable with the complexity of the text - the point is to develop a complicated new skill on good foundations). Then go to JSTOR, create a free account, and look up criticism on the story you've chosen. Find something that looks readable to you and at least somewhat interesting. Read that article, and look at what that writer got out of the same story you've read that you didn't get. Do you see the critic's points? Did they teach you something about the text? Go reread that story and see if the criticism has changed how you read it. Are you seeing more? Are you thinking about the implications of a line that you hadn't noticed before? Does the story feel richer now?
there are other more involved ways of finding criticism. Learning to use academic databases, going to your local library to do interlibrary loans, finding critical voices you appreciate; these are all useful subskills. Literacy isn't just being able to read words, it's being able to read words in context and think about what they tell you about the text, the author, or the time and culture in which the text was produced. Literacy is the skill of being able to look at the world with open eyes and think clearly about how its parts are connected. It'll change your life
this keeps getting shared around and ive seen some different tags responding differently so i just want to make some important clarifications and distillations
you don't have to read more deeply if you don't want to (but i'd recommend it, i genuinely think it makes you a better person)
if you want to learn to read more deeply, the resources are out there. try to find critical literature (that is, academic writing that analyzes the text) on works your familiar with so you can get a sense for how to do that analysis too
learning to deep read literature can help you deep read many areas of your life
writers tend to put a lot of work into their stories. if you learn to read that work you'll (probably) appreciate the stories you love even more. And if not, then you'll have developed your taste. This too is worth doing
Sometimes I think about my old manager at work who, in order to prove that the organisation was safe for trans people, told me about a fellow trans employee—a woman who was passing! who wasn’t out to me or to anyone else!—and about how chill everyone in management had been about her needing to take time off TO GET VAGINOPLASTY. He was not her manager! He was not her friend! He did not work in HR! There was no way he could have come into this PRIVATE MEDICAL INFORMATION without being told by another manager who had gossiped. And even if there had been, why the fuck was it any of my business!
Likewise, a friend of mine was just told by a school principal about how a prospective school was safe for trans kids… because a trans girl whose parents don’t affirm her at home is able to be affirmed at school. This information about this child’s gender and home environment was relayed along with her FUCKING GRADE LEVEL. This incredibly vulnerable kid was wheeled out as a selling point by the school with way more than enough information to figure out who she was.
In order to make the argument that a place is safe for trans people, cis people are wayyyy too happy to give out private information about trans people. With allies like these, who needs enemies!!!
If you are the recipient of this kind of "and here is another trans person" information leak (ESPECIALLY when it outs a trans woman!!) it's imperative that you come down on it like the divine fist of God. We should shame these little weasels like trans lives depend on it (because they might). Might I suggest:
"I'm not sure I'm comfortable about having been told so much."
"I'm sorry, but that all sounded very private."
"And has she given approval for her medical history to be used as an example?"
"How do you know it's safe to tell me this?" (if the answer is 'because you are trans' then that is its own Massive Problem)
"Does (school) always share private information about trans students with prospective parents?"
"So, will you share my personal information like this?"
There is a way to impart this kind of information without negating someone's privacy. Simply omit all personal details about the person and all explicit medical details.
Instead of their name, use, "an employee" or ''a student."
Instead of, "A vaginoplasty" or "breast removal," use, "gender-affirming surgery."
Instead of obviously-identifying pronouns, use they and them, which is much more obfuscating, even if you're referring to a nonbinary person.
If you're referring to someone pre-transition, and they're not out, either use:
"a friend of mine, before they transitioned" and don't use their name or gender, or
Either use their current name if gender isn't important, or their dead name if it is, and act as if they've always gone by that name. Do not out them as trans, and do not introduce them to people as the person from that story.
There are some Trans-spec people who are okay with being outed like this. I am one such person. I'm capable, for the most part, of defending myself, I don't give a fuck what others think, passing is not something I'm going for, and I have never been able to perform any gender appropriately. If that person has given you a blanket pass, sure, use them, but even then? Play it on the safe side. It could be their safety and life you're playing with.
If someone outs someone against their will to you, stop them.
"I don't know if you're aware of this, but giving out someone's private personal information isn't really ethical business practice and you could get sued for that. I wouldn't make a habit of it."
"Hey, you might not know this, but among the queer community it's considered bad form to out people without their explicit consent in that moment. They have the right to assess whether they feel safe with that person knowing."
If you think they'll respond better to bluntness, go for it.
"Dude, this is a Human Resources nightmare. You can't just give out confidential employee information like that!"
"No. Just. No. You could have endangered the life of this person by telling the wrong person that. Could you live with that? If you'd told me that and I turned out to be a violent transphobe, like, actually violent, and she got hurt or killed? Because of what you just did? Because you just endangered her life and she is LUCKY I'm NOT a violent person, nor a transphobe!"
Quite frankly yall need to be projecting more on the doms. Make the DOM have guilty sexual fantasies !!! Maybe the DOM is shamefully staring at the ceiling after waking up from a dream!!! Yall are cowards. Do none of you have any appreciation for the noble dom identity crisis. Do none of you have any respect for guilty sadists with control issues and who desperately want autonomy for once in their damn lives and who just want to Keep someone, for once, who want to be allowed to Want and Take . Do NONE of yall have any respect for sadists realizing with horror how badly they want to hurt the person they would do anything to protect and take care of and make smile? Cowards, all of you.
we gotta stop treating other peoples headcanons and interpretations as some sort of malicious attack on the character itself. I know you love the character and you feel that certain interpretations go against the core of their being, but that doesn’t actually mean it shouldn’t exist. you’re tiptoeing a very conservative line when you take away other people’s safe sandbox to play in when you engage in the fandom and negatively asserting your own interpretation. you don’t need to announce your vehement disagreement every time you don’t like something to the whole fandom, the truth is you need to learn to be uncomfortable and not make it everyone else’s problem. block and filter, curate your own space.
"Overconsumption is bad because we have limited resources on earth and the production of your comforts is done by practically enslaved global southerners" - yes real. Fucking real and true.
"Overconsumption is bad because you will get fat and lazy and stupid and fat and your brain will rot and youll be a feeble whiny disabled" - okay you are a eugenecist. Can you fucking hear yourself
same thing for ai usage. Are you complaining about companies investing in ai over people, or are you just an inch of self preservation away from openly calling its users the R slur? Be fucking honest i see how you talk.
Okay, so I've gone back and forth on how to write this for a hot minute just because I have a lot of thoughts about what things mean in Gachiakuta, so like spoilers for everything. I don't know how accurate everything is going to be, but I've connected some dots here and there, and this is kinda the conclusion I've drawn from them. So first big question I wanna address:
Who is the Watchman?
Now, some of you probably think this is Canis Surebrec, and for a while I was like seventy percent sure as well, but after chapter 172, I think that theory is kinda put to rest. Instead, I think The Watchman might actually be a God, or more likely, some kind of Elder Being that came to observe humanity or was called to Earth by humanity. I think it's very possible that humans had already polluted the earth to an unmanageable level, perhaps even launching some debris into space and drawing the attention of The Watchman to Earth. I think it's very likely this being came to Earth, and this creature had a passive ability to channel energy into objects and make them come to life, and it was drawn to objects on Earth and felt their pain at being discarded and empathised with them. I truly think that's their primary ability: Empathy, as it's a theme that has come up over and over again during the story.
I think we can assume this for a few reasons; firstly, in Kuro's memories we can see a news report that shows the beginning of trash beasts on Earth, but there is no mention of givers. Secondly, the watchmen themselves seem to be built to combat the trash beasts (I'll get into that later).
It's then possible that a group was set up to communicate with this being, and that is how we get our four Apostles. I think these four people were probably leaders in their fields, and from the abilities we have so far, the people involved were likely a military leader (Ophelia Amne), A Translator (Macaca Icol) who used art as a universal language, A Researcher (Our Unnamed Apostle), and finally a specialist in the occult — like a priest or a researcher but my gut is saying something religious — this of course would be Canis.
I think these groups were able to communicate that, "Hey, maybe we should stop this; humans will clean up. Just give us a way to do it," and the being that is once again a creature of Empathy agreed and used its ability to make The Apostles' abilities, so let's get into those. We'll start with the abilities we all know best:
The Watchman Series
I think Canis planned to use himself as an experiment to test The Watchman Abilities to fight The Trash Beasts and send them to their graves, becoming The Undertaker we're all familiar with. I think the first ability he came up with was Mishra, a coat that could both take the form of a beast by channelling their digested anima. Mishra, to me, seems to be able to mimic a bunch of different creatures' abilities from what we've seen and almost feels alive in the way most of the other Watchmen aren't. I think this is caused by the fact that you have to consume another creature to get its ability, and all that digested anima has made to fight over and over again, becoming violent and alive in its own right. I think that's why it sits with Zodyl now, as Typhon is the God of Monsters and the reason why he is able to make Trash Beast, as anytime he channels his anima it is all his negative feelings mixed with the negative feelings of all the creatures the coat has consumed, and that's what makes it so dangerous.
I think Canis realised at some point that Mishra wasn't perfect, and that's when 3R was born. An ability close to The Watchman's: the ability to imbue objects with anima, but Canis, like The Watchman, was empathetic, and that fascinated The Watchman, who probably didn't really know about the consequences of giving these abilities to a human, so over time they made more depending on what Canis needed as the abilities were so tied to his empathetic nature.
Gountess' necklace was possibly used to try to talk to trash beasts by connecting their thoughts or to communicate to the others what was going on no matter the distance. Amo's boots were probably used to calm civilians in danger or to calm beasts like a sedative, allowing the negative anima to dissipate in areas after a clean-up. Enjin's watch helped him out in close calls, as again Canis was likely doing this all by himself, and finally the book, which I think he asked for after he was betrayed by one of the other apostles, which I'll go into in a second; I just want to address the other abilities first.
Ophelia Amne is very interesting to me as she is not only the first member of The Hellguard but also a Giver, which the Hellguard do not have. Now we obviously know very little about her right now other than the fact that she had a chain that seemed to never end even when cut, and that chain can handle Anima. I think she started as Canis's partner and worked to subdue Trash Beasts, allowing for the others to study them, but she soon realised another problem. With The Watchman on Earth, people were becoming Givers, and as Enjin said, not all good people love their stuff. I think for every giver that was born, more and more anarchy fell on the Earth, causing Ophelia to turn against the humans and use her ability on them, as again I think she was some kinda military figure.
Macaca Icol's ability seems to be her pen, but in the recent chapter, Kyouka seemed to imply it was her mural as well. I think both these things are about protecting areas and making the cities now that the "Trash Apocalypse" has started, which is why the pen can still create these protection spells and why the Ground even has safe zones.
As for our final Apostle, the researcher, I think it would be more accurate to see this character as the Researchers. I think this group, and yes, I did say group, asked for an ability that allowed them to collect and share knowledge from all over the world until the problem was addressed. Linking their bodies and minds together and also linking themselves with the crows. I think we have three, possibly four, members of this team: Kuro, Corvus and the woman we saw at the doll festival. I think it's likely that either this woman or someone else in this group betrayed The Apostles and caused this rift in the world.
The Betrayal
Why do I think this? A couple of reasons: the main one being that they worshipped The Watchman, and they likely weren't the only ones. If people were gaining abilities, it's likely they didn't want The Watchman to leave, and so they came up with a plan. Going back to our Hellguard member, I think the fact that her name is Ophelia is a clue that her story ends tragically; the humans didn't want to give up their gifts; they didn't want to let The Watchmen leave, so they stole her ability to chain The Watchman to Earth, as it allowed everyone to keep their new abilities.
I think it's very likely that this group was at least rounded up (or mostly anyway) and exiled from Earth by Macaca, and that is how the Sphere was created. This is why they seem to have a partial history of Gods and disdain for trash and criminals. They want to prove to The Watchman that they are good and worthy, so they try to be clean and worship it, and they will be its Apostles this time and hopefully regain their gifts. Essentially, like all of human history, they basically rewrote what they did to make themselves seem heroic. I also think that’s why Kyouka figured out here which is why she’s looking at the chains like that.
As for Canis, it says in his will, "Your Father has to go break this chain", which to me feels so intentional after we learnt about Ophelia's ability. I think, given the fact that The Watchman is, for all intents and purposes, a God, the chain doesn't completely erase their ability, which is why there are still Givers and Trash Beasts, but it definitely weakened the thing. Canis likely tried to free it, and I think he succeeded but at a great cost.
Before The Watchman left, he asked for The Book in a desperate attempt to erase all the enemies' research on gods, removing all the memories from The Researchers, as he likely didn't know which one betrayed them. Then he wrote that only members of his lineage would have the knowledge of The Watchmen. A mistake, of course, as this transfer of knowledge mixed with the sheer amount of anima-heavy objects Canis possessed caused him to transform into another God, and he was, of course, chained. He is now the God who watches over the world and Rudo with his innate Empathy might be able to free him (I also think his empathy is why his abilities work like that he is always feeling empathy for those who lose their humanity) and restore the world (removing the trash beasts but also removing the ability to be a giver.)
So what about Tamsy? Well, I think the fact he chose the name Caines is pretty telling, as it likely hints at him being a follower of the new God Canis. I think he is a descendant of the group that trapped him, but because his forefathers were on Earth when Canis erased almost everything about the Gods, he doesn't quite know where Canis is and likely assumes his God is gone. Canis, likely, used the book to manipulate perception as well as memory and that's why no one can see/find him unless you are near/own a piece of The Watchman series (Norde was near four pieces of the set, which is why I think she saw it for seconds before she fell out of range and the spell kicked in and her mind was wiped clean.)
It's likely the group took pieces of the knowledge that Canis's descendants will inherit the knowledge of the Watchman, and over time the group has worked out that it requires a huge amount of anima to trigger the transformation. Tamsy wants his God back, and he likely assumes negative emotions are stronger than positive ones (A Trash beast compared to average Jinki kinda thought process). The Canis Watchman Series, separating the set bit by bit, but in that book, which is why he wants to break Rudo emotionally. If he's loyal to the Sphere, he likely wants to break Rudo, make him a God and force him to bring the Sphere back to Earth so they can be powerful again and worship him.
As for what happened to the rest of the researchers, I think both Corvus and Kuro (Our Crow bros) still vaguely remember that they have to figure out what's going on and were likely loyal to Cainis. Our third eye, I'm not sure of; while I think the woman definitely is a possibility, I also think the Raiders might have them as a member or captured in Zodyl's crow room, as he has information most others don't (either that or he gets info from eating them). I also think this group is no longer physically connected to each other because of Canis's spell or possibly by the mark on Corvus's neck, which could be a tattoo from Macaca to protect his memory and research from the betrayer.
So anyway, that's my crackpot case. I'm probably wrong about 90% of it, but idk, I think some of this is at least on the right track. I obviously don't have the answers to everything, but when we think of the history, I think this is close to what went down. Let me know what you all think!
Modern AU janka where they both do martial arts + often spar
Janka sparring at the gym late at night.Jabber wins a majority of the rounds, but on the last one, Zanka gains the upper hand and pins Jabber to the floor, sitting on his lower back and wrenching his arms behind him so Jabber can’t wiggle out.
“I’m so hard right now,” Jabber tells him(because he’s a freak), face pressed into the mats as he wiggles his hips, trying to bait Zanka into doing something.
“Then get off.” Zanka doesn’t move. “I’m not stoppin’ you.”
He makes Jabber hump the ground, not moving an inch even as Jabber squirms and moans underneath him, keeping Jabber’s arms restrained all the while. Jabber can barely get any friction because he can’t move, but the filthy things Zanka calls him—pervert, easy, a slut—help him get his rocks off just fine.
Jabber cums in his joggers after two minutes. Zanka stands up, says he’s disgusting, and drags him to the showers.
Jabber, on the other hand, couldn’t give two shits about the form in which his caffeine comes. He’ll drink it all. He doesn’t even need it the way most people do, but he likes the jittery feeling that comes from slamming too much on an empty stomach
He would delight in creating and consuming the most fucked up drink combinations just to watch the way Zanka recoils in disgust
I submit that Jabber is the kind of perpetually understimulated ADHD who calms down when he takes stimulants, up until a threshold where they start to actually work as intended
the thing that other gender members don't understand is that members of my gender are constantly being judged and scrutinised by society and the world around us, so we often end up having to become very self-conscious as a survival mechanism; unlike other gender members who i presume probably float gently through life on a cloud of passive acceptance or something
The thing that trans people of the other gender don't understand is that trans people of my gender are pressured and bullied into conforming to our assigned gender which is mentally and often physically dangerous. We receive tacit approval for conforming to our assigned gender and are punished for conforming to our proper gender. Since I never experienced pressure in the opposite direction, clearly trans people of the other gender didn't either. Everyone in the world must have experienced this pressure in the same direction as me, so trans people of the opposite gender were receiving tacit approval and support for transitioning, and are not oppressed like trans people of my gender.
Also, please do not listen to how people talk about cover letters on this site. Cover letters are important, and in many industries you can be damn sure they'll be read. And no, they're not 'fanfic about working in your office', or just re-stating the resume contents in a fancier guise. If you treat them like that, then of course they're not doing much for you. That makes you sound like a syncophantic windbag, and it's not doing anything else to help.
I was trained in the dark arts of the cover letter by my mother, who is a hiring manager. And her training has paid off: I've been consistently told my cover letters are excellent. Let me pass on the wisdom.
The job of a cover letter is to give a prospective employer strictly more information than is on the resume. This is where you take the resume contents and put them into context. You look at the job requirements (you are looking at the job requirements before applying, right?) and look at your resume and ask the question (in your head) "why would a person think this candidate would be good for this job?" and your cover letter is the answer to that question. If you don't answer that question, the hiring manager is going to have to do it themselves, and you have way more information to work with than they do.
This is especially important if you're moving from one industry to another, because then the relevant connections aren't obvious. It's also very important if you're overqualified, because then you can use the letter to say "I know it looks like this job would be too entry-level for me, but I'm interested to pursue it for reasons x, y, and z". You can also use this space to explain away something that might otherwise be disqualifying, like job-hopping or a long break in employment. The tone to strike here is always matter-of-fact and constrained to topic - don't go into detail about health stuff or personal tragedy, just tell them what they need to hear: that this period of your resume was affected by [bad thing] but that it's now in the past and you're looking forward to the next chapter. Remember, one of the things they're trying to learn is whether you'd be content in this role, or whether you'd be miserable and leave after 2 months, which would force them to do all the work of hiring again. You're trying to establish that you will fit right in and not cause problems. Knowing what drew you to this job in particular (and don't just say 'money', that's true for everyone) helps with that.
And the other mistake? Everyone writes cover letters that are too long. One page is fine. Two is the absolute maximum, and that's if you have a lot of specific things to say. It's a waste of your time and theirs to pad it out with fluff. Of my two most recent successful cover letters (i.e. jobs for which I was interviewed) one was 390 words and the other was 550. That's the length of this post. How long did it take me to write this post? About 15 minutes to write, 5 to proof and edit. That's how long you should be spending on a cover letter, maximum.
Yes, a lot of hiring managers now will get an LLM to 'read' cover letters and flag the interesting ones. This is especially true in Big Corporate contexts. You still benefit from writing a non-generic cover letter. This is for two reasons. First, more unique wording and content - that is, the kind of content that comes from actually answering the question - will show up in the LLM summary of your letter too. And second, employers who use LLMs do so as a primary screen, and then actually read the letters that pass it. So, if you're good, someone is still going to actually read that letter. I know it feels gross, but you just have to put the LLM out of your mind and write as if your primary audience is still a person. Because it still is!
Okay here's my obligatory post about Tumblr users and their ignorance of rap, as a (white) fan of rap:
Saying "Not all rap music is about violence, here are alternatives" is not helpful, because the violent music ALSO has meaning.
When Biggie Smalls postures about his gang connections and packing heat, he isn't doing it because wow violence is so edgy, it's a powerful statement. Youth in urban areas where gang activity is heavy are often treated as lesser than by default, especially compared to black people the same age from a wealthy background. There's a reason that the "wholesome and respectable" black-lead entertainment of that era was stuff like the Cosby Show, with doctor-lawyer parents, or Family Matters, with a cop dad. There's a reason why the big joke of Fresh Prince is someone with a more unstable upbringing moving in with one of these model black sitcom families.
Standing up and saying yeah, I came from the mean streets, I was molded by this violence and yes, I did what I had to do to survive in a world that refuses to acknowledge my existence as meaningful or worthy of protection. I protected myself, I made my own way, and fuck anybody who tries to stand in the way of that.
Refusing to demonize that environment and wearing it like armor in a way that protects from the authority that wants you to see them as sub humans incapable of only violence and hatred, and saying HEY. I'm here, I lived this, and there is love and there is pain and there is ART in this.
That is powerful. That is the essence of gangster rap.
It isn't about hurting people for fun, it's about holding a mirror up to a society that does the hurting and then calls you a monster for what it's made you. Its about validating the experiences of the disenfranchised and biting back at authority. It's about turning a pain that the world say you deserve being one of those people from those places into POETRY. Into ART.
And thats why it matters.
And thats why you need to shut the yell up and stop dismissing it as violence without substance when you all sat on your ass listening to songs about Hatsune Miku eating people in middle school.
I would like to emphasize that I agree with all of these tags by the way. My post wasn't aiming to pin all of Europe's grotesque racism on the new elections.
A few weeks ago I was at a board game night with some of my old classmates from various mainland European countries. They started talking about how horrible Trump's treatment of immigrants is and how they're so glad to be in Europe where nothing like that is happening right now. I asked them what they thought about the fact that their own governments were complicit in turning the Mediterranean into a mass grave of asylum seekers, and some of them legitimately didn't even know and were surprised to hear that their own governments had enacted policies that caused the deaths of thousands of asylum seekers.
Even here in Iceland, almost nobody has been talking about the fact that some of the far right populist parties have legitimately been talking about wanting to establish detainment camps to keep asylum seekers in.
This post is a few months old now, and the bit about Iceland is now outdated, because Alþingi (the Icelandic parliament) passed the bill approving the detention center for asylum seekers. It will be legal to handcuff and detain children there.
Never let anyone from Europe feed you the lie that racism and fascism are unique to North America in the 21st century.
