I feel inspired to re-tell one of my favorite stories.
Several years ago, I read an excellent novel-length fanfic in what was then my main fandom. I was so blown away that for a couple of weeks I seriously felt that there was no reason for me to continue writing in that fandom because nothing would be better than that fic.
I got over it and kept writing, mainly because in the words of Amos Starkadder, “The word burns in me mouth.”
Eventually I met the author of that amazing fic. She told me that she had been in Sentinel fandom for a while, but had quit writing for it because there were so many good writers in that fandom that she didn’t see much point.
Write your fic! Draw your pics! Your idols are as insecure as you are!
This is getting reblogged all of a sudden so I’m bumping it.
If I ever meet @mottlemoth I think I’ll faint. Her fics are the best in the whole fandom (in my opinion)
Remember, the fans are excited about two cakes! Only you can tell your story
Reminder that building a fanbase for your wip is really hard and that a lack of notes does not translate to a lack of talent. The internet is a large place and it’s extremely hard to capture an audience. Look at J.K. Rowling and the stack of her rejection letters. Even Stephen King almost gave up. His wife dug his manuscript for Carrie out of the trash. Allow yourself to be terrible. Write those bad ideas. Finish that oneshot you think sucks. Give yourself the opportunity to create cool stuff because if you don’t you’ll never improve.
This the hardest nigga I ever seen this is true big dick energy
God got him
Wow
Found this short documentary from 2014 about him and his forest:
Soil erosion is still a problem but the authorities do not appear to be listening to Jadav’s suggestions on combating the issue, according to the programme. He would like to plant coconut trees because they grow extremely straight and help prevent erosion if planted densely enough. The fruit could also be sold for economic gain.
The man turned that barren land into a whole fucking forest by hand for them. Yet they show no interest in investing in its upkeep nor the desire for financial gain via the coconut industry. I just…🙄
Don’t be. You’re hearing media do what it does: harp on one person’s lack of enthusiasm and make it seem that that one opinion is held by thousands.
This race went precisely as I thought it would. Precisely.
And it was absolutely a massive success.
So let me tell you why, so that you feel better and can easily put down the annoying crowing that republicans are going to do, because they managed to cling to a few things.
If the votes fall as I believe they will, the democrats will have retaken the house by some 30 seats. This is impressive and somewhat unique in our country’s history. The GOP, upon taking the house originally, jerrimandered these districts in impressively screwball ways. Wherever that rigging has been overturned, the districts have gone blue. Which is, of course, why they did it. Democrats have the house now, 30ish flips in republican rugged districts. 15 of those being female candidates.
That is absolutely impressive.
A few key candidates to whom many people were paying close attention did not perform as people desired. Abrams, O’Rourke, Gillum. Well…I’m not surprised. Abrams faces absolute state wide fraud. Her opponent being the person also in charge of voter registration, withholding some 50k votes of which 70% were black. Voter intimidation. This is blatant corruption. And yet still…her race was very close. So too with Beto. Ted Cruz was a presidential candidate! When he took Texas, he did so with a wide margin. Last night in Texas he was fighting tooth and nail. Gillum’s goobenatorial race for Florida was a figurative dead heat. 99% of the vote in—49% Gillum, 49.7% DeSantis. These are CLASSICALLY and FULLY republican regions in which Trump took the presidency by huge margins. That these races, with all those challenges, were as close as they were PROVES that something unprecedented happened.
3-400% voter turnout increases for a midterm election. Mostly with the youth.
But let’s talk about what it means to have the house.
Now I know you’re probably concerned about the federal judgeships that are about to pop up for consideration, and it’s true that the Senate was needed to stop approvals of those candidates, but…
Control of the house means that Democrats now take hold of some critical committees. These committees are the very ones that will be overseeing corruption allegations. Ways and Means, energy and Commerce, Financial Services, Intelligence, appropriations, foreign affairs, armed services, judiciary, transportation and infrastructure, and…government reform.
How do you feel now?
The worst political fallout of a GOP controlled government, the worst sound bites that weren’t Trump’s, the worst slaps across the face? All came from footage of those very same committees. Those committees now belong to Democrats.
Massive policy shifts also occurred in many classically conservative states—legalizing marijuana votes, Florida giving the vote back to former criminals who’ve served their time thus giving the vote back to a HUGE portion of the African-American Community that has been held in check by a racist and classicist policing method, then there were upsets in many small ways too.
I promise you…this is all excellent and it will have truly important and forceful impact. In 2020, if we can keep that same enthusiasm and rage, the entire government will shift. But that can only happen if we keep moving forward, if the candidates who won keep their noses to the grindstone and push back hard, if you and I and everyone on the ground continues to talk about this and force out bigots and greed.
Do not be discouraged. I promise you…this was an amazing election. Don’t focus on a few bright stars and think that all is lost because they fell. There is a great deal happening here, and one thing I know from being at sea—when a wave is building, there is first a terrifying shift, as the water level begins to rise. The ship will first dip, surrounded by walls of water, and then of a sudden, the swell. The ship raises and passengers suddenly realize that they are much higher than before, with an incredible view. Then the wave crests and takes the ship with it.
We didn’t see a wave crest tonight. So what? That means it’s a much larger wave than we realized. It will crest in the future. But only if that fluid pressure is maintained.
This is good. It is. So long as everyone keeps working. This is good.
Calm down. Have a glass of champagne. A cup of tea. When they Trumpet all their noise…say nothing. Nothing needs to be said. You’re higher than you were with an excellent view of the ending. So relax. Don’t fret.
So one of our new vocabulary words is “malus”, meaning “bad”, and I asked my students if they could think of any English derivatives, telling them that just about any English word that begins with M-A-L is going to mean something “bad”.
I’m expecting stuff like: malice, malcontent, malnourished, or even malware or Maleficent.
Instead I get this one girl in the back of the room say “male” with the most dead-eyed expression.
This has the same energy as two years ago when another student said she remembered “vir” meant “man” because “it looks like virus, and men are a virus”.
One of my Latin students, whenever I’d ask if they wanted a couple extra minutes to review before a test, would always say, “No, we die like men.” And so finally I asked her why it was always ‘like men’. She said, “We die like men, unprepared and useless.”
