mcr is easy to draw actually
I want to write a book called “your character dies in the woods” that details all the pitfalls and dangers of being out on the road & in the wild for people without outdoors/wilderness experience bc I cannot keep reading narratives brush over life threatening conditions like nothing is happening.
I just read a book by one of my favorite authors whose plots are essentially airtight, but the MC was walking on a country road on a cold winter night and she was knocked down and fell into a drainage ditch covered in ice, broke through and got covered in icy mud and water.
Then she had a “miserable” 3 more miles to walk to the inn.
Babes she would not MAKE it to that inn.
Are there any other particularly egregious examples?
This book already exists, sort of! Or at least, it’s a biology textbook but I bought it for writing purposes:
It starts with a chapter about freezing to death, and it is without a doubt the scariest thing I’ve read in years (and I read a lot of horror fiction).
This book can be downloaded for free on Researchgate, posted there by the author himself:
The Biology of Human Survival: Life and Death in Extreme Environments
ALTFor anyone who hasn't seen them before, Hidden Search Operators are handy tricks you can use when you're either searching or filtering AO3.
summary: string is a generic way of explaining that you can search AO3 for a specific word that appears in a summary. You can do this from the search bar in the header, from the Any Field box at the top of the Advanced Search form, or from the Search Within Results box at the bottom of the filter menu.
Examples:
- summary: Bruce
- summary: "Bruce Banner"
- summary: Bruce OR summary: Banner OR summary: Hulk
You need to put quotation marks around your search term if it is more than one word. The quotes make sure that the site searches for those two words together.
The other two operators listed work best in the Search Within Results box.
expected_number_of_chapters: 1 will return results where every fic has only 1 chapter currently posted.
You can use expected_number_of_chapters: -1 if you want results where every fic has more than 1 chapter currently posted.
otp:true will return results where there is only 1 relationship tag on the fic. If you want results where there are 2+ relationship tags (and no fics with only 1 relationship tag) then you can use otp:false
thank you @bugswarm for pointing out my syntax error! to filter for works that have more than one chapter, you should use either
expected_number_of_chapters: >1
or
-expected_number_of_chapters: 1
ALTthis literally never stops being funny like dog they made starship troopers with the Baby's First Satire cranked up to 11 and these people are still fucking dumbfounded that the creators don't share their politics
the bar is on the floor
the bar is so low it's a drinking establishment in Hell, and some dense-ass motherfuckers out there still go reaching for the goddamn shovels.
nasa: we're going to shoot three rockets directly at the sun during the total eclipse. for study and research purposes.
me: oh cool
nasa: we have named the rockets apep. this stands for atmospheric perturbations [in the] eclipse path.
me: oh cool
nasa: apep is also the ancient egyptian deity of chaos and darkness, who ceaselessly seeks to extinguish the sun. we launch these rockets directly at the sun in the name of apep.
me: oh... cool?
Now, researchers have put a nail in the coffin of porn addiction. Josh Grubbs, Samuel Perry and Joshua Wilt are some of the leading researchers on America’s struggles with porn, having published numerous studies examining the impact of porn use, belief in porn addiction, and the effect of porn on marriages. And Rory Reid is a UCLA researcher who was a leading proponent gathering information about the concept of hypersexual disorder for the DSM-5. These four researchers, all of whom have history of neutrality, if not outright support of the concepts of porn addiction, have conducted a meta-analysis of research on pornography and concluded that porn use does not predict problems with porn, but that religiosity does
If the concept of pornography addiction were true, then porn-related problems would go up, regardless of morality, as porn use goes up. But the researchers didn’t find that. In fact, they cite numerous studies showing that even feeling like you struggle to control your porn use doesn’t actually predict more porn use. What that means is that the people who report great anguish over controlling their porn use aren’t actually using more porn; they just feel worse about it.
Having moral conflict over your porn use (PPMI) does turn out to be bad for you. But that's not because of the porn. Instead, higher levels of moral conflict over porn use predict higher levels of stress, anxiety, depression, and diminished sexual well-being, as well as religious and spiritual struggles. In one study by Perry and Whitehead, pornography use predicted depression over a period of six years, but only in men who disapproved of porn use. Continuing to use porn when you believe that it is bad is harmful. Believing that you are addicted to porn and telling yourself that you're unable to control your porn use hurts your well-being. It's not the porn, but the unresolved, unexamined moral conflict.
This is a really good writeup.
The people who believe in "porn addiction" do always seem to be either hyper religious or part of that weird atheistic purity culture, you know the one, the one that weirdly crosses over into keto diets, eugenics or anti vaccination fears, like they're channeling Dr. Kellogg's various phobias.
I have a Bechdel Test-esque media theory brewing, but i have no idea how to begin to express it so stay tuned for that
Okay, with the disclaimer that I've been very stoned while making these notes, and I'm the furthest thing from an academic, I present to you:
The Jaqobis Occurrence
When two or more men, with any intended or unintended narrative degree of established machismo, toxic masculinity or otherwise perceived reluctance to communicate emotionally or vulnerably with others, but most specifically with other men, have an emotional and/or vulnerable conversation about their emotions, traumas, and other vulnerabilities that bring them to a place of mutual understanding and more intimate connections with other men. When they can cry in front of another man without fear of reprisal, and instead receive love, support, and compassion.
The basis of this theory shines in D'avin and Johnny Jaqobis, from the Syfy channel original Killjoys, as excellent examples of two adult men for whom the common narrative would carry them as men who would seek to avoid intimacy, vulnerability, and emotions in general, but instead, they are often seen having deep conversations about their relationship to each other, as well as others.
I don't have more notes on this just yet. But folks are welcome to run with it if they have more thoughts about it.