Just started watching Pluribus and it’s already kind of lost me on the second episode. I refuse to believe that of the six English speaking survivors Carol is the only one who thinks this is horrifying and we need to find a way to save humanity.
Edit: A lot of people replying to say it’s denial/shock/coping mechanism on the part of the other survivors, and yes, I understand that, my objection is not that no one would respond that way, my objection is it feels extremely unlikely that 5 out of 6 people would respond that way, to the extent that they don’t even really seem to understand why Carol would be upset.
the thing is that actually... none of the ships that the people in question get upset about are all that popular? there are ~39,500 OFMD fics on ao3 at the moment. 61.5% of those fics are tagged as gentlebeard, which seems like a pretty high ratio. (only about 40% of spn fics are dean/castiel, for example.)
even the MOST popular izzy ship (edizzy) is at about 12% (but i think a decent portion of these are 'unrequited' but still tagged). stizzy and steddyhands are both under 10%. (and there's a LOT of tagging overlap between all three of those ships -- like 43% of steddyhands fics are also tagged with stizzy.)
for other ships i've seen people complain about: jack/stede is at 0.5%, jack/stede/ed is at 0.1%. there are exactly 6 ed/jack/anne fics, 3 ed/stede/anne/mary fics and 1 ed/stede/jack/anne/mary fic. there's just not actually that much of any of this!
idk i guess the point is that to listen to some people, you'd think the OFMD fandom is a minefield of constantly having to dodge all these non-canon ships everywhere, but it's just not really true. you can avoid 99% of the izzy-ship content with the most basic of filters on ao3 and the others pop up so infrequently that it's barely worth mentioning.
so the izzy stuff, i think, has to be taken into the context of how the fandom is changed over time, because at this point, now that izzy hands has been rotting in the ground for two slutty slutty years, a lot of the most intensely izzy-focused people have genuinely finally moved on to other stuff, so there is now way less izzy-obsessed content both in fic and in meta discussions than there used to be. but it used to be way more dominant and on top of that there's the issue that the part of the fandom producing that content interpreted the whole show through a lens that struck nearly anyone who didn't use that lens as deeply mean-spirited toward all the other characters, and that they did a lot of yelling at anyone who didn't view canon that way, and on top of that a significant subset of it was actively intentionally mean-spirited toward the main characters. that's a uniquely obnoxious kind of situation.
like there was a point a couple months after s2 dropped where i was using a standard set of ao3 filters that no joke looked like this:
...and i didn't like using those filters, because i'm a jar guy and in theory there's izzy fic i would have really enjoyed; in fact this would have filtered out the one fic i wrote myself during this time period! but even with all these filters on i would still get about one Horror At The Inn fic about ed strangling stede in a fit of regret over the loss of his true love izzy per page of ao3 results.
that is not true anymore. but it's understandable that period left a scar.
however it is true that this makes it kind of absurd to talk about any of the minor ships as any sort of large-scale plague. especially when you consider that a lot of those ships...actually are at least implied canon? like it or not, it is part of ed's canon backstory that he had sex with jack multiple times; positing that jack's making that up out of whole cloth doesn't technically contradict canon but is clearly reading against the text in the same kind of way as deciding izzy's deathbed confession is all lies. canon doesn't directly address anne & mary being involved in the ed/jack situation but if you know anything at all about Actual Historical Anne Bonny's alleged relationship with calico jack rackham the murder polycule is an extremely obvious extrapolation and the showrunner has alluded to it being his own headcanon multiple times. given that it is genuinely weird how little fic wants to engage with those ships, or with tealoranges or lupete, let alone the ones that are actually noncanon.
now there's not anything strictly wrong with ofmd fic being unusually focused on the central pairing. it's a function of some weird things about canon: that the central m/m pairing is for once actually textual; that the show is moreover an actual romance focused on the two of them rather than a pure sitcom or procedural with a prominent romance b-plot; and that ed and stede have a vibe that tends to strike even people who are usually happy to engage with polyamorous shipping as being intensely monogamous. but it does make any claims that people are being assaulted by large amounts of offensively noncanonical ship content around here kind of a joke. (and part of it, i think, comes from people who were around for the earlier bad times re: izzy having developed a sort of trauma response reaction to any sort of non-ed/stede content. the fact that the izzy ships weren't canon was never the problem!)
Another aspect of this, at some point between s1 & s2, I want to say spring of 2023, I did an analysis based on the number of pairings (rather than fics per pairing), and found that including every pairing that had at least one of our 14 named crew members from s1, there were 275 unique pairings. Of those Izzy was in 102 of them. The next closest was Ed who was only in 60, followed by Lucius and Stede with 50 and 46 respectively. So while any given Izzy pairing could not compete with the numbers that Gentlebeard had, there were *a lot* of them.
Getting packed to fly out to my mom’s for Christmas.
(This is my special double suitcase techniques. Firstly I order all the gifts I’m giving online and have them delivered straight to her house, so I don’t have to worry about transporting them. Then when flying out I pack my carry on suitcase inside my checked luggage with all my actual things in and around it. That when when I’m flying back I know all the things I brought will fit in the big suitcase with some extra space to spare and then I have the entire little suitcase to pack any gifts I received in.)
An important thing to learn when cooking for yourself is when you buy something frozen/boxed/instant you are still allowed to alter it to make it better for you. Whenever I make frozen pizza I always add on extra cheese before I cook it because they never use as much as I would like. When I make rice-a-roni (box mix of rice, vermicelli, and seasoning packet) I’ll first brown up some meat — usually hamburger or chicken — with onion and garlic, then add the rice-vermicelli to the pan and also will throw in whatever frozen veggies I have on hand. And keep in mind you can do different things with the same base and potentially get very different results: instant ramen with added sausage, Italian season mix, and olive oil is a very different dish to instant ramen with added chicken, curry powder, and ghee.
The advantage of this is that it still gives you flexibility and control, while giving you a scaffolding to work off of. That scaffolding is great both for people who are trying to learn how to cook and need an easy starting place to experiment from and for people who do know how to cook but don’t always have the time and/or physical/mental energy to cook from scratch.
The advantage of using this as your scaffolding as opposed to a recipe, is you always have the choice of how much effort you want to put into doctoring it up, including no effort at all. Sometimes I’m basically full on making chicken soup and just adding ramen noodles at the end. Sometimes I’m making ramen noodles, but I’ve added some butter and chopped frozen onion and cracked an egg in there. And sometimes I’m just making straight plain ramen. Just whatever works.
I hate when people ask me how long it took me to crochet something I’ve made. Frankly, that’s none of my business. I put the yarn on the hook and worked on it whenever the spirit happened to take me to and then one day it was done. How long that process took is between the yarn and god; I want no part of it.
I'm taking notes, i usually ask that question as a show of interest and to show how impressed i am (the answer doesn't really matter i'm just asking as a way to recognise and admire the work and effort that it took)
It's an habit from my interaction with animations wich is also a very time intensive craft and where the time and effort often go ignored because the result is short.
I'm not asking for information because i'm well aware that it will depend on a lot and i know timing is not on the mind (and that is from being a digital artist, wether a file will take 30 min or 6 hours i do not know and wouldn't know if my file data didn't tell me :V)
So i guess to keep the idea without actually seeming to ask info i will turn it into a yes or no answer of "it must have taken a long time!" Where both answer will be cool no matter what.
So I think realistically it depends on tone? Because we live in a society of mass creation, where hobbies have been given over to doom scrolling or binge watching, a lot of people who aren't crafters do not see the joy in creating something that takes a significant number of hours. To people who have never crocheted/knitted/created, the idea of spending hours to make a sweater is insane, when I can buy one at walmart for $20.
If you're coming at it with a general sense of awe and curiosity, then yes, but if you're leaning towards it with more incredulity, then no.
It's also a bit of a Schrodinger's asshole kind of thing. If you ask the question of "how long did it take to make that," I'm scared the next question is "Could you make me one?" Which then leads to me having to explain exactly how much time and materials everything takes to make - followed by "but I could get a throw blanket at Walmart for $10..."
I will say my reaction also would heavily depend on whether I'm actively crocheting the project you're asking about or not. I crochet a lot during my lunch breaks at work. So A. I'm trying to relax and unwind before I have to start working again, and B. I'm probably watching or listening to something.
Caveat that of course everyone is going to feel differently about this, but as OP personally it’s not about the tone. My experience is most people asking are asking in the spirit that @mimots-nie described, and even though I hate the question, I bear them no ill will for asking. I hate the question because as stated above, I do not have the first inkling of a clue as to what the answer is. Did it take me 20 hours or 200 hours? Who’s to say; certainly not me.
I think the suggested alternative of “it must have taken a long time!” is a good one. It makes it clear from the beginning that you are here to be impressed by the work they’ve put it and is far more open-ended for the other person to respond to. If they do have a specific number for how long they worked on it, then they have the option to share it then, but they could also use the comment as a jumping off point to talk about what they watched/listened to while working on it or what the most difficult part of the project was, how many times they frogged it, how long it sat on their WIP pile, what other piece they made that was *really* time consuming, etc.
guysss help what would the forsaken teach in high school <3 i have ideas for most of them but im not sure about others . like rahvin
Ishamael: Philosophy if the school has it, otherwise English but he still leans into a philosophy-heavy curriculum
Lanfear: Physics
Moghedien: (Lies, damn lies and) Statistics
Graendal: Psychology
Mesaana: English as well, always covers Lord of the Flies and does that thing where she leaves the class alone before teaching it, convinced they will descend into chaos within minutes
Semirhage: Biology
Aginor: also Biology (it’s a big school I guess)
Be’lal: US History, super into the Civil War and Robert E Lee (or whatever the equivalent would be for whatever country this is set in)
Rahvin: World History, super into the Roman Empire (in a red flag sort of way)
Balthamel: apparently he was a history so I guess History too, but also consider lazy and out-of-shape PE teacher who pervs on all the female students
Sammael: also PE, but of the bullying jock variety
Asmodean: Band
Demandred: admittedly this doesn’t totally work with Ishy as a teacher, but Vice Principal. Lews is the Principal
I see Lews as the initial Principal but he was poached by the rival school. Ishy gets the promotion. Demondred is still Vice Principal.
guysss help what would the forsaken teach in high school <3 i have ideas for most of them but im not sure about others . like rahvin
Ishamael: Philosophy if the school has it, otherwise English but he still leans into a philosophy-heavy curriculum
Lanfear: Physics
Moghedien: (Lies, damn lies and) Statistics
Graendal: Psychology
Mesaana: English as well, always covers Lord of the Flies and does that thing where she leaves the class alone before teaching it, convinced they will descend into chaos within minutes
Semirhage: Biology
Aginor: also Biology (it’s a big school I guess)
Be’lal: US History, super into the Civil War and Robert E Lee (or whatever the equivalent would be for whatever country this is set in)
Rahvin: World History, super into the Roman Empire (in a red flag sort of way)
Balthamel: apparently he was a history so I guess History too, but also consider lazy and out-of-shape PE teacher who pervs on all the female students
Sammael: also PE, but of the bullying jock variety
Asmodean: Band
Demandred: admittedly this doesn’t totally work with Ishy as a teacher, but Vice Principal. Lews is the Principal