An AI Was Created To Make Paperclips. As The Company Profited It Was Granted More Power. With Time It

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.

But from fifteen to seventeen she was in training for a heroine; she read all such works as heroines must read to supply their memories with those quotations which are so serviceable and so soothing in the vicissitudes of their eventful lives.

- Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

I wondered why green is so associated with hope and then I remembered being 8 and seeing a little plant sprout after a few days of waiting and. Yeah. I get it now.

I have the strong mental image of them doing a spy mission into the depths of the agency to try to figure out what the secret is only the discover somebody high up in the agency has hidden their matchmaking plans totally not what I was expecting but okay so now they're sitting in one of those big oval conference rooms and the head of the agencies like you broke into our basement and they're like stop messing with our private life not sure if I should put any punctuation in here if it's just fine good night

You’re a spy. You and your partner always suspected that there was some deeper, hidden reason The Agency assigned the two of you together. Turns out the reason was: they thought you’d make a cute couple. They were RIGHT, and you DO make a cute couple, but still. It’s the principle of the thing

Yes, this seems like a it would be a popular destination if time travel was real.

You’re on the first time travel expedition to the Library of Alexandria. Upon arrival, your team finds a sign at the entrance that says, in over a dozen languages, “all time travelers must register at front desk immediately upon arrival.”

This is actually a pretty hilarious setup

You’re the city’s superhero. Your greatest enemy is the city’s supervillain. However, you’re secretly brothers. This isn’t tragic, though, because your whole destructive rivalry is just a massive prank on your older third brother - the mayor.

I'm 90% white like the government and society considered me white and nobody treats me like a Native American (fortunately) but I'm not a Nazi or anything of the kind. Would you be willing to have someone not Brown joining and listening in? I would be interested in coming to a greater understanding of the unique challenges of writers with different colors of skin then my own

most people that will see this know this already, but here we go.

i joined a writers group that ended up being full of racism and nazi imagery. so I decided to make a writers of color discord server, as a safe community for all non-white writers.

anyone who is a writer and non-white can join, no restrictions.

if this expires and you want to join, just dm me and I’ll share a new link!

I had little trouble reading this. I sometimes hate this language.

Ok, I actually kinda like it.

Once Upon A TIME,

a bunch of scientists realized that the current time system, of 60 seconds to 60 minutes to 24 hours, was a little ridiculous, and decided that like many other measurements, it needed to be given a metric system equivalent.

Unfortunately for them, they decided to keep all the same names for things, and people decided it was too confusing and the whole thing never took off.

Then a while back, I took that information, mixed it with my minecraft hyperfixation, and came up with a new time system. Hear me out, because I think that despite (or maybe due to?) its origin, it's actually a pretty solid system.

So, let's start big and work down, since that's simplest for this.

One day-night cycle. First of all, who decided a day-night cycle would be called a day? That entirely dismisses the other half of the cycle! So, the cycle will now be known as a Clock. This is not an issue, because unlike the old system, which used analog clocks which only showed numbers for half the cycle and had to go around twice per cycle (why???), the new system uses clocks which go around once per cycle (as it should be). Secondly, it's ridiculous to start the Clock in the middle of the night, so 0:00 will be at dawn.

Now, instead of 24 hours in a day, we will have 10 units to a Clock, because the point is the metric system. These units will be called Clicks (and now you're seeing where the minecraft hyperfixation affected things. Suck it up, the names are the best part honestly, wait for the ending). At ten units to what was previously 24, that means each Click is the same length of time as 2.4 hours, or 2 hours and 24 minutes.

That's a long unit, so we need to divide it further. These will be our minute equivalents for the system. These units will be called Tocks, and there will be 100 of them in each Click. This equates 100 Tocks to 144 minutes, or 1 Tock to 1.44 minutes (or 1 minute and 26.4 seconds, for those of you counting).

Clearly, we still need one more small unit for small amounts of counting - equivalent to seconds. Once again since this is metric based, there will be 100 units per Tock. These smallest units are Ticks. A Tick is worth .864 of a second - nearly the same when you're counting in your head, given that the speed at which a person pronounces "One Mississippi" already varies a person's personal perception of a second's length. I recognize that officially, seconds are based on the length of time it takes some certain type of isotope to go through a decay cycle, but let's be honest, that was just a way to standardize something completely arbitrary. They can pick a different isotope for a Tick.

So, the new system is as follows:

100 Ticks -> 1 Tock, 100 Tocks -> 1 Click, 10 Clicks -> 1 Clock

Ticks, Tocks, Clicks, Clocks.

LET'S GO.

I want to try this with time travel

You, an immortal, have spent your entire life being a professor. Today, a new student signed up to your class, who happened to be a familiar face. Turns out, they already took one of your classes; 200 years ago.