Adventures in Fandom

Geeking out in various ways over other people's cool things since 2000. FYI: I am an adult. This is an adult site. I assume, therefore, that if you're interacting with me you're ALSO an adult. Act like a jackass, and I will respond as I would to any other adult behaving like a jackass.

[hyperlexichypatia]

IDK I think if cis men are being told that being fat will lower their testosterone and make them Insufficiently Masculine, and cis women are being told that being fat will raise their testosterone and make them Excessively Masculine, and fat trans people are being denied the right to medically transition if they're fat, and thin trans people are warned against HRT because it will make them fat (and this is said about both testosterone and estrogen HRT), and androgynous-presenting people are told that only thin people count as androgynous...

Then maybe...

Maybe...

Maybe the weight loss industry is just using Gender to enforce fatphobia.

[larathia]

Goes both ways; they also use fatphobia to enforce gender.

Can't even begin to count how many times I got told hormone birth control would make me gain weight.

Oh, right. And having a hysterectomy (gods forbid a female not want to reproduce) would also make me gain weight.

[gwydionmisha]

Remembering Sam Neill, who railed against 'constipated' anti-LGBTQ+ leaders

The Irish-born actor, who rose to fame in the Jurassic Park movies, also used his voice to advocate for marriage equality.

[whyenn-reader]

you are not immune to inventing an arbitrary set of rules that only you have to adhere to

[larathia]

You are also not immune to doing this and coming to believe that adhering to these rules is 'fair/right/polite', while anyone not adhering to them is 'unfair/wrong/rude', despite only you actually knowing these rules.

[a-kind-of-merry-war]

friends, if I can give you one piece of advice for those of you who are new to work, or are about to enter the workforce, especially if you have any sort of office job:

Do not work on your days off.

"But--"

DO NOT WORK ON YOUR DAYS OFF.

[theprofessional-amateur]

Do not work on your breaks

Do not “answer a few emails” on your vacation

Do not work off the clock

Doing this doesn’t reward you with more money or whatever. It rewards you with more work.

[larathia]

Learn early on that you are not, in fact, paid for your work. You are paid for your time. Your time is valuable. Your time cannot be reclaimed once lost.

Your time is what your employers really, really want from you. And - and this is the really important bit - they don't want to pay for it if they don't have to.

They will wheedle and cajole and sometimes even try to order you to do things for them 'off the clock'. They'll talk about 'mandatory overtime'. They'll try to get you to clock out but still work, or do work before you clock in. They'll try to get you to do 'working lunches' or forego breaks you're supposed to get. They'll tell you it shows 'team spirit' or 'enthusiasm'. No, it fucking does not. It shows a willingness to be bullied and a willingness to (and this is the big thing) work for free.

do not let them do this. Even more importantly, do not ever, ever, let yourself get into the habit of doing this.

Learn time management. Learn delegation. If your hours are nine to five, then yeah. Work all that time, minus lunch/breaks. Hit the ground running at exactly 9am - and at 5pm? OUT THE DAMN DOOR. If you didn't get it all done, well, you didn't get it all done. Period. There's tomorrow.

Deadline, you say? Well, either you get better at time management, or your bosses need to redistribute the workload better. DO NOT stay late. DO NOT work from home. Your bosses will want to make this your fault. Make you stay late. DO NOT. Your job is to do the work from 9 to 5. That's it. If they assigned you work that legit takes ten hours to do and they expect it done in eight...that's on them. You do not give them two free hours of your time. You won't get it back, you won't be paid for it, and you won't be rewarded for it except by being asked to do that again and again. It's a terrible, horrible habit to get into. It wrecks your health, destroys relationships, and makes you into a boring, stressed-out drone with no life except your job because that's all you're doing.

And if they threaten to fire you for this behavior, or they do fire you...take the unemployment check and find a job that respects labor. Don't try to avoid it. Think of it as them paying you to find another job where you'll be treated better. Rest assured, they'll find someone to do your job and two other people's jobs and get paid for maybe one of them, because there are masochists and fools in the world. But it doesn't have to be you, and it shouldn't be.

[depsidase]

[what-even-is-thiss]

I still like the term parental unit that we used to use as a joke in middle school and high school. Did everyone else do that or was it just a my social circles thing?

Anyways telling the kids to go collect their parental units at the end of an event is a) funny b) gender neutral and c) just refers to the person currently doing your parenting

Also if you’re on joking terms with your parents “greetings, child” “greetings, parental unit” is a top tier greeting. Makes you sound like robot aliens.

[larathia]

I use 'spousal unit' when referring to said spouse. Mainly to keep things gender neutral, because it's Nobody's Business whether I married a guy or a girl and I prefer the space be kept assumption free for the benefit of all.

...You wouldn't believe how many people think I hate said spouse because of this, though. Like no, bitch. I refer to spousal unit as 'spousal unit' because people tend to make Assumptions if you actually specify gender. And none of your Assumptions - especially with that attitude - are likely to be correct.

[larathia]

From a Doylist perspective, "why aren't there more women in the series" is a totally valid critique, and one I agree with.

From a Watsonian perspective, however, I submit for consideration that the story is told from Carl's pov. And from the pov of a random woman in the dungeon, who has not previously met him, and is therefore going by hearsay and recap episodes:

Just how many women do you know, who in a genuine life-and-death situation, are going to approach a guy well known for lobbing around dangerous explosives, who runs around a highly dangerous area barefoot in his boxers, and who seems (according to the media) to actively revel in destruction and murder? The fact that he doesn't have any PK skulls over his head almost makes him more suspicious, don't you think?

I mean. Based on the media portrayals and his general appearance, Carl is pretty much #1 on the "shit the average female dungeon-runner does Not Need To Deal With" list. Mentally put the image of Carl in that classic "would you rather run into a lone man in the woods, or a lone bear" question. Dunno about you, but without reliable intel? I'd be taking the bear. Hands down.

Carl doesn't really think about it, because he's got a shit ton of other, more directly important things to think about. But he really is one scary motherfucker until you get to know him. And even then, he's still pretty unnerving.

[toskarin]

the average person with bad taste can be into some extremely banal garbage but when you get close enough to someone with otherwise good taste that they start a recommendation by going off on a preamble about how they don't necessarily recommend it you know you're seconds away from hearing about some real torturously wretched dogshit

[toskarin]

friend from work will have you watch a two hour movie where you can feel every second as it passes by, but enemployed movie mutual will put you on the kind of shit that feels like crawling on cobblestone until emaciated

[toskarin]

people are reading this as the latter friend recommending dry, pretentious cinema. that's not the case. not that kind of situation. you're getting no enrichment out of this. I need you to understand they're making you watch Gooby because "it's kinda good"

[weepingchoir]

[teaboot]

Not to insert myself here but as someone who owns Ghost Rider 1 and 2 on DVD I do actually need everyone to watch it right now because in the second one a kid asks Nick Cage as Ghost Rider how he pees and Nick Cage says “it’s like a flamethrower” and then they hard cut to a CGI skeleton in full black moto leather pissing a jet of fire and then it does a shoulder check at the camera and nods like “hell yeah brother”

[teaboot]

Fully derailing this post because I found a gif

[cryingbreaskfastfriends]

@teaboot so do we need to watch the movie still or does the gif have us pretty well covered?

[larathia]

It's a Nicholas Cage movie. So it really boils down to how you feel about Cage's deadpan delivery talking about things like pissing flamethrower, while everyone around him is chewing the scenery.

(Is it just me, or does Cage only have two modes - Everything No Matter How Weird Is Totally Normal And Even Kinda Boring, and on the flipside Someone Spiked My Coffee With E And Now I'm Feeling Everything All At Once All The Time? - Well. Regardless, this movie is one of the Everything Is Totally Normal ones, and there's a lot of weird going on.)

[larathia]

Oklahomans will bitch about The Wind all year round. It's a constant, but it's not exactly "interferes with opening/closing doors or carrying things" strong that often.

That said, I choose to live such that every room in my house has at least one fan, many have two or three and at least one will be on all the time. So my own tastes in this matter are, perhaps, abnormal.

Aiolos, the keeper of the winds, is my chosen god for a reason.

The bit where the locals bitch constantly about The Wind, and I'm grinning and going outside to feel it press against my clothes and ruffle my hair is just a fringe bonus that I happen to particularly enjoy.

[stitchposts]

Hey if you're coming to Washington DC for the Fourth of July: don't

We're having our turn in the heat wave and reports from the National Mall are brutal already this week. That screenshot is today's forecast (courtesy of the Capital Weather Gang) and tomorrow and Saturday are confidently going to be worse than this is.

The national Mall has no shade on the grass and you will be exposed to the sun constantly while also experiencing extremely high humidity. You will not be allowed a bag over a certain size to enter the mall and it has to be clear. You cannot have an insulated water bottle, it has to be clear. Reports are that there are two entrances to the area so you'll have to wait in line to even get in. I cannot find a number on how many cooling stations there are, except that it's "few" to "none" depending on what accounts I read online. Vendors are allegedly charging more than the posted prices and seem to be unprepared for actual crowds - these are the official vendors not the scam food trucks that park all around the edges of the mall. And that's the extent of the planning done because it was not a priority to make sure attendees don't pass out.

My local friends and I have reached a consensus that tourists are going to get extremely sick and none of us know what the EMT response or planning is on the mall this year. People are going to die.

Please stay out of this. It's not worth your health. Get your relatives and family to stop. I can give you recs for so many DC museums and things to do if you want to make the most of your trip. Any other local can too.

[larathia]

Trump promises a "really long speech" in the heat, huh?

...Either that old loony is going to have giant fans blowing industrial grade air-conditioning on him while he's outdoors, or he's going to be the first president to collapse on camera with heat stroke.

I mean. He is old. Not terribly sane. And definitely not in the best of health. "Old Man Shouts At Sun: Sun Bakes Him" is absolutely worth it.

[thedurvin]

Apparently Tumblr deleted my post about how the Virginia state flag is the only one with a visible boob? Which I was trying to find so I could reblog it with the addition that a Texas school district banned it because of the boob?

Virginia flag banned in Texas district over exposed breast

A Texas district pulled a lesson on Virginia from some classes over a topless Roman goddess on the state flag. Yep, really.

Well here, I’m gonna post it anyway. Hopefully no sex perverts will turn into cartoon wolves and make alarm bell and steam whistle noises

[larathia]

State Flag Violates Tumblr's TOS - And It's NOT About Slavery! is absolutely a clickbait headline that would get me.

[the-bedheaded-league]

There are so many theories about Columbo’s wife not being real (she’s a complete fabrication, she’s secretly his boyfriend, he’s actually talking about a very opinionated cat, etc) and I love all of them but tbh he really gives off major “out of touch but super supportive straight man with a trans wife” vibes.

His wife was one of his guy friends for a while and when she finally came out to him he was like “Oh, wouldja look at that! This is VERY convenient. See, I’ve never been into guys myself. Nothing against fellas who like that, just not my cup of tea. So I’ve been trying to figure out for ages why I want to ask you out on a date. Confusin the heck out of me. Again, nothing against it, just never something I’ve been into before. I was having a whole identity crisis over it, Yknow. But I guess that clears all that up! Whaddaya say to dinner?”

[larathia]

Or maybe he meets a Fine Woman (you know, in his own age bracket), and he's just so comfortable around her and can tell her Anything so they consider marriage, only she's got Something To Tell Him first, "just to be sure". And she's very nervous about it and clearly steeling herself for things to maybe explode in a permanently bad way, but he's all baffled and like "what's all this about, just say it".

And she tells him her deadname and they were friends back Before. Clearly expecting the worst.

Only Columbo just snaps his fingers and grins and is all "I knew you reminded me of someone". And...that's it. Like, that's the entirety of his reaction. Oh, now he knows why she feels so Familiar and why he can tell her anything, and now that's sorted. Moving on!

The marriage still gets delayed a bit, but mostly because she's got to spend a while processing her own reaction; part a stunned, "That's IT??" with some poking to make sure that yeah, really, that is "it", he's not calling off anything, he's not in shock, etc - and partly a back-of-brain desire to go make Columbo sleep on the couch for a while for the weeks she spent angsting about turned out to be such an anticlimactic response.

[allsonargent]

I didn’t go missing, David. The FBI knew where I was the entire time.

[larathia]

I've never watched this show, but the gifset kinda makes me want to create some kind of timeline chart to figure out how many countries this woman has been in, and what her age range for these events likely was at the time. Like, is she a very nicely preserved 50 year old, or is it more likely she's escaped multiple royal families as a 12 year old, or maybe both?

[camcamthesquatchman]

I've been starting a rewatch of Leverage since I got the dvd set as a gift. I got to the second episode, The Homecoming Job, and I forgot about a quote that the mark, the ceo of a private military contractor, has as at one point (paraphrased):

"Getting a candidate into office is only about $15 grand and the incumbancy rate is 90%, meaning you get 18-20 years out of them. In this day and age, a US Congressman is one of the best investments a corporation can make."

I'd like to be able to say the writers were baing a bit on the nose with having the bad guy say that, but I could absolutely see some AI tech bro saying that word for word.

(anyway, go watch Leverage. It's very cathartic seeing a heist show for taking down CEOs and other rich assholes. And the whole show is free on youtube)

[larathia]

That quote caused me to never vote for an incumbent. Don't care how they're doing. Congress should be something you do ONCE. That's the only way to reduce the corruption brought in by "trying to win re-election". They can still be bought at the outset, sure, but the corporations should still have to do that every. fucking. time. No owed favors. Make corporate bribery easier to catch!

[gnar-slabdash]

Consider this an apology for the previous sadpost:

AU where BEFORE it’s too late, Nate turns to crime specifically to fund Sam’s treatment. Pulls together a crew of people he knows are good because he’s chased them all before. Does a heist, gets the money, Sam gets better.

But now Nate’s discovered he likes crime and can use it to help people. So he keeps doing it, but he has to engage in wacky hijinks to keep his family (and Sterling) from finding out.

[shmreduplication]

Breaking Bad

[tanoraqui]

#on the one hand: breaking bad but everyone he recruits is too competent to get dragged into that level of danger #and nate's still a righteous crusader so he still keeps to that moral compass #so it's fine they're all fine this is just leverage but nate's got more chill #on the other hand: nate who chose to become a criminal BEFORE internalizing that you could be both a criminal and a good person #is a nate who leaves his morals at the door every time he steps into his role as mastermind #nate has always been a Good Man the same way batman doesn't kill people #it's not some innate thing it's a CHOICE #he is following his internal rulebook to the letter #and the thing is. nate is a Good Man but he is not a good man. he follows the rulebook because he's decided to intellectually #not bc he like. feels bad about it when he does something mean #it's because that's what it means to be a Good Man: you follow the rules. you do what's right. you bring about justice. #but in this au nate has deliberately decided to put the rulebook away #so he has DECIDED that he is no longer going to be a Good Man #and oh buddy. at that point all bets are off. #he would pick his morals back up and put them on again every time he went back home to his family and his regular job #and then whenever there was a new client for a con he would slip his morals off like a heavy coat and hang them up by the door #and then he'd roll up his sleeves and unleash hell #and that strict division would be unsustainable over time & would slowly drive him absolutely insane #(also. a Good Man would not cheat on his wife. but sophie is right there; and nate is not a Good Man right now.) #(sophie wouldn't go for a true committed relationship with him...but sophie wouldn't be showing her heart so truly to this version of nate) #this au edges dangerously close to the one where nate ford really is just a mob boss running the meanest crew this side of the atlantic (@aethersea)

[larathia]

Eh. I mean. On the one hand, it's sad that Sam dies.

BUT. If Nate turns to crime to save him, that makes the story about 'what justifies doing crime' and where that line is. And yeah, Breaking Bad and a lot of procedural plots do that question to death.

And it's really not what Leverage is about - which is the circumstances that make choices like that happen, aka "corporate overlords are corrupt shitheads who force choices like that on millions of people while feeling no pain at all".

Which is why when the story begins, Sam is already dead and Nate's motive is purely for vengeance. There's no one left to save. There's no moral high ground, just rage.

Because fuck the fucking corporate overlords. Fuck them so hard that even lifelong criminals wind up going "you know, I thought I was bad, but you fuckers are so much worse that I'm dedicating my entire life to fucking you over. Because two kinds of people laugh at the law; those that break it and those that make it. Guess what, fuckers, those two factions are now at war".

That is the story of Leverage.

[glasspalacesstoneshop]

[sweaterkittensahoy]

Good. One of the things I love about the USA is that we have birthright citizenship. People come here for better chances and better lives. That's the whole fucking point.

[vaspider]

It's really fucking telling, the people you see freaking out about this.

I've seen people online saying we should be pregnancy testing "at the southern border," of course, just in case someone is trying to smuggle a foetus in.

I can't even put into words the fucking rage.

[notmybabies]

Not to mention the fact that for many of us, our families that have been in the USA for 10 generations weren’t actually considered US citizens until a few generations ago. The 14th Amendment established African American freedmen and Black people born in the U.S. as citizens in 1868—several years after emancipation—and it took a couple more years for the Naturalization Act of 1870 to actually create legislation to begin a formal citizenship process. Last month was the 102nd anniversary of the Indian Citizenship Act that granted birthright citizenship to all indigenous Americans born within U.S. borders without stripping them of their tribal rights and lands. For decades Asian people born in the U.S had ever-changing legislation in regard to their citizenship, based on which nation their families immigrated from, until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. Latino people have been living in the U.S. as citizens technically since the U.S. acquired the land from Mexico with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1850, but it didn’t protect them from horrible discriminatory practices and prejudices based on their original nationality unfortunately—and it hasn’t stopped being deemed a political issue for ignorant people since.

Let there be no peace or stability for white supremacist assholes. Remind them they are stuck in the same idiotic thought processes that trapped their ancestors generations ago too.

[larathia]

Given that people born in this territory to people who were here a hundred generations ago are kept in little boxes and not talked about most of the time and definitely treated as 'not really citizens', I feel that someone born to parents who snuck over the border ten minutes ago is honestly, historically speaking, more of a US citizen than someone born to parents who were here 'ten generations ago'.

And people who can't grok that are proving that 'family roots' don't make a citizen, but holy goddamn maybe 'can pass a high school level history course' should be.

[sonofshermy]

Haunted Books

[ominous-signs]

Official ominous book

[naamahdarling]

Goth librarian allowing haunted books to torment schoolchildren from time to time as enrichment.

[larathia]

What's getting me is that apparently this library has run into haunted books often enough that they've got a dedicated stamp for "weed this and hopefully the ghost goes with it".