The Causal Chain And Why Your Story Needs It

Sherlock Holmes and Watson are walking around London when a cat jumps on Watson and pees on him

"Oh bloody hell" says an upset Watson, "my shirt is ruined"

"Well, you got to take it up with the owner", says Sherlock calmly.

"I've no clue who the owner is!" shouts Watson, still angry.

"Well, my dear Watson", says Sherlock, "You are pissed on and pissed off at the same time, it's Schrödinger's cat"

Talking to a customer about classic children’s lit and how many of them firmly believe that fresh air and sunshine will cure any number of unspecified Victorian illnesses. I mentioned The Secret Garden and how much I like that the protagonists are basically just feral gremlin children who are very unpleasant to be around until they somehow manage to socialize each other.

Then I said, out loud, “on a scale of Sarah Crewe to Mary Lennox, how well did you handle being raised by a nanny in Edwardian India,” and realized that tumblr really has ruined my speech patterns for all time.

I am already doing some world building based on this. It helped me think about and develop my other alien species to give humanity a defining trope. And once I picked space orcs/goblins I kept finding more and more reasons it fit. Like we are sitting on this planet in 200+ recognize tribes many many more unrecognized tribes always somebody's fighting somewhere and we're either looking for an opportunity to join in or trying to ignore it. Also the Dark Forest theory seriously only warring goblin tribes would be sitting around talking about what to do if they heard a sound that sounded like it came from another life form with the main options being wait quietly in the silence and then shooting it or call out excitedly and send it space emojis in the form of weird puzzle messages.

It turns out compared to the rest of the species in the galaxy, humans are short, explosive obsessed, breeds rapidly, and are vaguely disturbing to look at. Yes, human are in fact space goblins.

In a country were an unbeatable truth serum with a verified 0% false positive rate is routinely used on all political candidates, the revelation that one candidate is completely clean of any misdeeds is considered terrifying by everyone (voters included) instead of reassuring.

We don't need 'cures' as there is nothing to cure. There is nothing wrong with us, only wrong with how we are treated by society and many ableist physicians in general... We may need accomodation, proper societal integration and support, and most of all; We need respect! This is only acheived through proper education.

It is traumatizing how we are collectively abused by ableists without compassion nor any sign of interest in learning about autism and neurodivergency in general. This world is traumatizing! It's sad so many on the spectrum have co-morbid PTSD... primarily because they often tend to become the center of all attack and abuse by neurotypical ableists for so many years, or even for their entire life-time.

The ignorance and collective desinterest in autism in the health sector is often really ableist and harmful as well.

Making autism diagnosis even more unaccesible is so concerning, and again it's one of the many steps mankind takes back towards middle ages...

Autism is not over-diagnosed. Autism is under-educated.

Any one want to suggest how we perspective writers can minimize this debate while still utilizing this trope? It's good character developing drama (in Little Woman [haven't wanted to watch GOT]) but I wouldn't want the drama to divide the fandom and continue after the book (or other media)

In the endless discussion of female gender presentation in fiction pop culture, I've noticed a slight trend.

When a fictional tomboy and girly girl are portrayed as foils to each other – especially if they're sisters – the majority of fans will claim that the girly girl is "privileged" while the tomboy is the underdog. But a decent number of other fans will backlash against this idea and claim that the tomboy is the real "privileged" one.

I've definitely seen this in discussions of Little Women's Jo and Amy, and if I'm not mistaken, it's common in discussions of Arya and Sansa in A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones too.

This is the gist of the debate:

Fans of the tomboy see the girly girl receive the social rewards that are won by performing femininity and ladylike manners, while the tomboy is socially punished and shamed for not being ladylike. They empathize with the tomboy's jealousy of the girly girl, and they resent the girly girl for it, viewing her as the one who has all the luck and gets all the love and respect.

The counterargument is that the tomboy actually receives more love and respect than the girly girl does. If not from society in general, then from family members and friends, especially male ones. They adore the tomboy and find her boyishness and wildness endearing, whereas they judge and ridicule the girly girl for her "silly," "vain" feminine tastes, even if they love her too. They don't give her as much attention or understanding as they give the tomboy, which must be very hard for her, and which the tomboy fails to appreciate.

It's an interesting debate, because there's always truth on both sides.

In a pre-20th century setting, and maybe today too, there is no "privileged" gender presentation for girls. Tomboyishness might be seen as endearing in a child or a teenager, but even among the people who love the tomboy the most, there's an understanding that can only be temporary; as a woman, she'll need to be "tamed" and learn to perform femininity. Meanwhile, girly girls are mocked as "silly," "vain," "prissy," etc., but it's also understood that they're behaving exactly the way they're supposed to behave. Young men in period settings might have more friendships with tomboys, but it's the girly girls whom they usually favor romantically. Both forms of gender presentation are punished in some way or other. Misogyny makes it a no-win situation.

The claim that girly girl characters get less attention from their families than their tomboy sisters is probably subjective, though. I'll let individual readers decide whether or not they think Ned Stark neglects Sansa, the March parents favor Jo over Amy, etc.

We also tend to see the claim from fans of the girly girl character that the author is biased in the tomboy's favor. But that's another issue for another post.

So excited!!!! First launch I seen live.

We are going to the Moon!

At 1:47 a.m. EST on Nov. 16, 2022, our Orion spacecraft launched aboard the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket from historic Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a path to the Moon, officially beginning the Artemis I mission.

This mission is the first integrated test of NASA’s deep space exploration systems: the Orion spacecraft, the SLS rocket, and Kennedy ground systems. This is the very first time this rocket and spacecraft have flown together, and it’s the first of many Artemis missions to the Moon. Artemis I is uncrewed, but it lays the groundwork for increasingly complex missions that will land humans on the lunar surface, including the first woman and the first person of color to do so.

With Artemis, we will build a long-term human presence on the Moon and prepare humanity for future exploration plans to Mars and beyond.

See more photos of Artemis I on our Flickr.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

True. But if you listen long enough and expand your definition of related you will find a thread of coherency weaving through out

From abbydawn3. Kings in past claimed to possess divine powers to justify their insane riches and authority to their masses. Billionaires repeat the same tactic and after they die , their successors use elaborate deepfake AI and holograms( which btw are so advanced by this point that people cannot basically detect them from naked eye) to assert power and dominance. The fear of unknown power they hold makes masses give in to their authority.

The year is 2050. Warren Buffet, at 120 years old, is still running his company. Bezos has a full head of hair. No billionaire has died since 2032. It came about slowly, but people are starting to realize something isn’t right.

Thanks this looks helpful.

show, don't tell:

anticipation - bouncing legs - darting eyes - breathing deeply - useless / mindless tasks - eyes on the clock - checking and re-checking

frustration - grumbling - heavy footsteps - hot flush - narrowed eyes - pointing fingers - pacing / stomping

sadness - eyes filling up with tears - blinking quickly - hiccuped breaths - face turned away - red / burning cheeks - short sentences with gulps

happiness - smiling / cheeks hurting - animated - chest hurts from laughing - rapid movements - eye contact - quick speaking

boredom - complaining - sighing - grumbling - pacing - leg bouncing - picking at nails

fear - quick heartbeat - shaking / clammy hands - pinching self - tuck away - closing eyes - clenched hands

disappointment - no eye contact - hard swallow - clenched hands - tears, occasionally - mhm-hmm

tiredness - spacing out - eyes closing - nodding head absently - long sighs - no eye contact - grim smile

confidence - prolonged eye contact - appreciates instead of apologizing - active listening - shoulders back - micro reactions