I Think A Lot Of What Pro-AI People Are Really Wanting Is Stuff That Already Exists But They Don't Know

Radium Girl

So, what’s The Scene for you, the one that just has to make it into the movie? For me, it’s hands-down the mute “Buddy?”

Need to have my heart shattered a second time by seeing Haymitch’s reaction to Ampert’s death on screen.

Because he knew almost as soon as he met Ampert that the kid had no chance. Ampert’s reaping was an execution order, even more than anyone else’s. From a purely practical perspective, Haymitch should have been closed-off toward him, should have resigned himself to Ampert’s inevitable death at the hands of the unstoppable Capitol and just looked out for himself. After all, Snow offered Haymitch a deal if only Haymitch would lay low and let the Capitol do as it pleased.

Instead, Haymitch promised to fight for Ampert, to protect him, to keep his death from being whatever torture Snow had in mind for him. He promised to do whatever could be done. Why? Not because it was easy (it obviously wouldn’t be) and not because it was even possible (how could it have been), but because it was right. Because Ampert was a kid caught up in other people’s problems and he didn’t deserve any of it. Anyone who could have stepped in was obligated to, even if it didn’t do any good. There was no saving him, but there was no justifiable option but to try anyway.

Haymitch was all-in with this impossible task. He understood the doomed necessity of protecting the kid marked for death, not because he could succeed but because he couldn’t not try. That’s why he fought for him even as he realized the mutts were only there for Ampert, that this was the brutal execution Snow had planned to make an example out of an innocent kid. That’s why he tried to save someone who couldn’t be saved. That’s why he tried to call out to bones that couldn’t hear.

“The Devil works hard, but AO3 authors work harder,” I mutter to myself like a mantra as encouragement while I trudge my way through my 10 year old WIP, which is not published on AO3.

Tired of stories where the author worldbuilds a whole religion only to chicken out at the last moment by making the main character a skeptic. You mean to tell me that there’s all this richness in lore and culture, but you’ve trapped me with the one person in this society who doesn’t care about it? So bland. I could meet an agnostic easily enough by walking down the street, but your story is my one chance to hear the perspective of someone who follows whatever religion you’ve contrived. You made this whole world; convince me that your character really is from there.

Anyway, it’s not about the character being redeemable or irredeemable, it’s about whether the character takes the opportunities for redemption or passes them by.

You, a fanfiction author: “I don’t know if this fic is any good. Maybe I just won’t post it. Probably nobody would like it.”

Your top commenter, eyes enormous: “You hide the fic? You hide the fic in WIPs? Oh! Oh! Jail for author! Jail for author for one thousand years!”

NPR.org

What Happens When A Country Bans Spanking?

Researchers look at countries that have prohibited corporal punishment for kids and their rate of youth violence.

Now a new study looking at 400,000 youths from 88 countries around the world suggests such bans are making a difference in reducing youth violence. It marks the first systematic assessment of whether an association exists between a ban on corporal punishment and the frequency in which adolescents get into fights. 

Field Fire

There’s a time and a place for overthinking fiction, and if the time and place is here and now:

Do you find it endearing if the love interest is stupid or are you just afraid of other people’s free will?