I see posts go by periodically about how modern audiences are impatient or unwilling to trust the creator. And I agree that that’s true. What the posts almost never mention, though, is that this didn’t happen in a vacuum. Audiences have had their patience and trust beaten out of them by the popular media of the past few decades.
J J Abrams is famous for making stories that raise questions he never figures out how to answer. He’s also the guy with some weird story about a present he never opened and how that’s better than presents you open–failing to see that there’s a difference between choosing not to open a present and being forbidden from opening one.
You’ve got lengthy media franchises where installments undo character development or satisfying resolutions from previous installments. Worse, there are media franchises with “trilogies” that are weird slap fights between the makers of each installment.
You’ve got wildly popular TV shows that end so poorly and unsatisfyingly that no one speaks of them again.
On top of that, a lot of the media actively punishes people for engaging thoughtfully with it. Creators panic and change their stories if the audience properly reacts to foreshadowing. Emotional parts of storytelling are trampled by jokes. Shocking the audience has become the go to, rather than providing a solid story.
Of course audiences have gotten cynical and untrusting! Of course they’re unwilling to form their own expectations of what’s coming! Of course they make the worst assumptions based on what’s in front of them! The media they’ve been consuming has trained them well.
After a year and a half and WAY more words than I thought it would be, Dancing with the Stars AU is…done?
IT’S FINALE WEEK, BABES
“You do have a tendency to dance without a shirt on. Now I’m thinking it was intentional.”
“You’re one to talk! The tight leggings?” Kara says. Her hands moving down to Lena’s thighs – clad in said leggings, currently - and squeeze with intent. “They haunt my dreams.”
“Then I suppose we’re about to have a very distracted week,” Lena says, the last few words murmured against Kara’s lips as she’s swept into another kiss. This one is playful, Kara tracing patterns over her thighs and nipping at her lower lip, and Lena is fully prepared to lose the rest of the afternoon to it when Kara pauses and pulls away, her gaze caught over Lena’s shoulder.
“Hey, Winn!” Kara says, her grin relaxing a little but still friendly as it switches towards the door behind Lena’s back. “What’s up?”
Lena turns quickly to see Winn standing in the doorway, pointing at them with his mouth agape.
“You’re kissing! In private!” he says, his voice high and accusatory.
Lena can’t help it. Whether it’s social conditioning or the good old-fashioned shame that Lillian embedded in her bones, she jumps. She slides off the table, moving away from Kara like she’s been caught doing something she shouldn’t before her brain catches up and remembers that they’ve been supposedly dating for weeks now.
She should be kissing Kara. Winn’s shock is actually less reasonable than his catching them making out mid-rehearsal.
“Damn it,” Winn grumbles, pulling out his phone and furiously typing something. “I owe Mike 60 bucks.”
-
If you’re going to dive in for the first time I truly hope that you enjoy the full story, and if you’ve been along for the ride thank you for keeping me going through this very long writing process.
But you are responsible for your own safe spaces. You can block tags, block words, block people.
“But i thought fandom was supposed to be a safe space” —yeah you have to curate it.
Unfortunately one persons’s safe space may be another persons’ trigger. That’s ok. Simply block them, block the tag, block the word etc. They can do the same for you.
Maybe I’m just out of touch, but I’ve been around since the days of “don’t like, don’t read” and that’s a good philosophy. If it squicks you, scroll past. If it causes you anxiety or upset, block! Plenty of people are responsive if you ask them to tag an upsetting trigger. And if they’re dicks about it, block em.
Since different people have different needs, one person’s safe space will be another’s Trauma Central.
I don’t know who said it first, but “I need to be able to express my anger without shame” and “I need to be away from yelling and loud noises” are both valid needs people can have for a safe space that really aren’t compatible with each other.
So are “I need to process my trauma” and “I need to not meet any trauma.”
Or “I want a safe space to tell/read the stories that speak to me” and “those stories are distressing to me.”
Insisting that your needs are the only needs anyone should have is not a safe space, it’s its own act of violence.
You don’t get to make others homeless to make the universe your personal safe space.
“Insisting that your needs are the only needs anyone should have is not a safe space, it’s its own act of violence.”
Like now that I am awake I need to reiterate how huge this is. It was presumed harvested to extinction by the Romans. It was a favorite flavoring and according to historians one of the best contraceptives ever known. True or not it would be fantastic to study that but it being extinct made that impossible.
This is such a huge deal! I hope they get it figured how to grow it.
I’m having feelings about Katara v Pakku again, and the fact that at this point in the series, Katara has never been in a fight that wasn’t to the death. Every fight she’s ever been in has had world-ending stakes. She’s not shooting to kill Pakku because she’s weaker and less trained than him - though she is - she’s shooting to kill because she doesn’t know any other way to fight. Friendly sparring, or fighting as a spectator sport, has not been a part of this girl’s life. Pakku’s fighting Katara to put troublesome teenagers in their place; Katara’s fighting Pakku because they’ll all die if Pakku doesn’t pull his head out of his ass and train the Avatar.
Pakku is genuinely surprised to see his own reflection in that disc of ice Katara shoots right past his face. If he hadn’t dodged, it would have sliced his head right open. He starts putting actual effort in after that.
A spotless giraffe was recently born at Bright’s Zoo in Limestone, TN and was just announced in the media this morning. They’re starting a public naming contest for her, of course.
ALT
I’d love to know what type of mutation causes this lack of of pattern, but I don’t know if we have genetics on that for giraffes the way we do other species. As far as is known, she’s the first spotless giraffe ever documented!
laudna cringes. looks like she wants to disappear into her pillow. the little flame on their bedside is steady; the shadow it throws flickers madly, buffeted, disturbed.
ALT
