gather round, folks, that i may pass down the tale of Fuck-It Jonn, because that dude is just the GREATEST FUCKING CONMAN in the WORLD, and he WASN’T EVEN TRYING. he absolutely fucking STUMBLED ON ACCIDENT into THE SCAM THAT WOULD DEFINE HIS ENTIRE LIFE. the lie that transformed his ENTIRE EXISTENCE out of SHEER RANDOM BULLSHIT.
and his sole motivation was to EAT FINGER FOOD.
consider:
in the Wayback Days™ before i was born, the people who would later become my parents had this friend named… yeah, let’s say jonn. i’d rather not say his real name. bitches not snitches, and all that.
so. france in the late 80s. jonn and my parents had just finished school and all found jobs in computer engineering. (not that they STUDIED computer engineering, mind you. no, they were all studying how to become fish farmers or some shit. but those were simpler times, when knowing how to turn the fucking screen on got you a comfortable salary at the ripe old age of 24 years old.)
except that jonn, who was a chill hippie kind of dude, was bored to death by his desk job. so bored that he decided to just up and quit. “fuck it”, was basically jonn’s motto. fuck it, he’d find something better! fuck it, and things would work out! EXCEPT (as you may have guessed) THEY DIDN’T. for months and months he didn’t find another job. and so he ended up depressed, struggling, and eating dinner at my future-parents’ tiny apartment, three times a week, so he wouldn’t literally starve.
time went by. jonn was still unemployed. so before his resources hit rock bottom, jonn did the only logical, reasonable thing. what’s that, you ask? begged for his old job back? went back to school? crawled home to his parents? ha ha! obviously you do not share jonn’s ADVENTUROUS AND ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT. and also you lack his BIZARRE LOGIC AND PLAIN WEIRD APPROACH TO LIFE.
what jonn did was: say “fuck it” (again) and leave for thailand.
because you see, thailand was cheap by french standards. so cheap that even a penniless dude on unemployment could live there for weeks on end, spending much less than he would have in france, as long as he didn’t mind roughing it. and jonn didn’t mind! “fuck it”, he’d said. and by god, he would stand by his words!
so jonn gamely scrounged up the money for the plane ticket and then… yeah. basically bummed it out in thailand. for two months. seeing the sights. sleeping on the street. making new friends.
and one of these news friends turned out to be very adept at FORGING PAPERS.
huh, jonn said to himself (probably high at the time) this sounds not at all shifty and more like a ONCE IN A LIFETIME OPPORTUNITY; what could POSSIBLY GO WRONG. my new thai best friend is even offering me a FAMILY DISCOUNT. for fake papers. fuck it! let’s have some!
as far as i can tell, jonn… didn’t even need fake papers?? like, he was literally just trying not to pass up on an opportunity here. so he smoked some more weed (i can only assume) and got A BRILLIANT IDEA. fake ID card? LAME. fake driver’s licence? HACKNEYED. fake medical degree? PEDESTRIAN. no! jonn got himself a fake press card.
but why??
well, OBVIOUSLY, just so he could get into cultural events for free – conferences, art premieres, etc – and eat all the finger food. that was his grand plan. stroll into press-only events, wave his poorly-made card around, and gorge himself on canapés. no more going hungry! ever! jonn would live off tiny slices of toasted foie gras and flutes of cheap champagne for the rest of his life!
so now jonn, Very Obviously Fake Journalist™, is back in france and he’s DOING THE THING. and guess what? this was before google. before facebook. before linkedin. impersonating a journalist was very easy. if people asked where you worked you just said you were freelance, then steered the conversation to current politics and stealthily devoured the entire buffet while everybody was busy debating.
and so. this is what jonn is doing. his monumentally stupid plan is actually working. this is how he eats. with thai-made fake papers and sheer fucking confidence. and of course people start noticing him eventually! jonn is always fucking there! at all and any events in paris! because, again, THIS IS HOW HE EATS! but it’s always the same people running around in these circles, anyway. so nobody’s surprised to see the same dudes popping up over and over again. jonn blends in! and jonn is very good at making friends. and changing the subject. and eating canapés.
and then ONE DAY
one of jonn’s newfangled journalist friends (a REAL journalist, mind you, who has NO IDEA that jonn isn’t What He Seems) basically goes: “dude i’m so swamped rn. everyone wants everything all at once. fuck. shit. are you swamped too?”
“oh, for sure,” jonn says through a mouthful of his twenty-ninth serving of canapés that night. “not a second to myself”
“god. fuck. tell me about it. shit. i’m just so damn swamped.” Real Journalist shakes his head. “if i could only find someone to cover for me on this one article.”
now, i know i said before that jonn was smoking weed. but i must confess now i said it for humorous effect. i have no idea if jonn’s ever been within five hundred yards of a blunt his whole life. but what you must understand is that jonn is Chill™ on like. a soul-deep level. his whole mind is one long exhale of smoke followed by the words “fuck it”. this is a man who left his job for no reason, lived in thailand on a tourist’s visa for two months, got fake papers there for the lol of it all, and is now living off press-only events in paris. jonn was BORN HIGH.
SO. when RJ asks him: “dude. jonn. you said you were working freelance. i know you’re busy but don’t you think you could maybe cover for me? just this once?”
jonn NATURALLY answers: “fuck it. sure”
then goes to an unemployment center and applies for one of their free one-week classes. on journalism. jonn spends ALL OF ONE WEEK learning How To Write An Article Like A Real Journalist With A Real Press Card. then writes the article. basically bullshitting his way through that thing. half-assing the life out of it. faking his heart out. because why not? FUCK IT.
i have NO IDEA if he actually did a good job or not. but it was in fact good enough for RJ who really must have been truly swamped, and was so truly grateful that he told all of their mutual journalists friends. who were ALL SWAMPED. i’m given to understand it’s the natural state of the journalist in the wild.
and so jonn is now REGULARLY COVERING FOR ALL SORTS OF JOURNALISTS.
not making much money i assume. but still, not bad for a dude who studied journalism for five whole days.
and well, it’s kinda fun! better than moping around at home waiting for the next free canapé press-only premiere. so jonn keeps at it. and eventually it occurs to him that hey! he spent two months in thailand. why not make an article out of that? so he writes himself a lil paper, retelling his Bumtastic Adventures in the Land of Thai People, Cheap Living and Forged Papers (That Last One Having Nothing to Do With Him Personally of Course). and he’s kinda proud of it. so much that he gives it to his journalist friends. can they maybe pass it around? see if anybody would be interested in publishing it? for a modest fee and some more canapés?
and yeah. someone was in fact interested in publishing it. and that someone was:
THE
NATIONAL
GEOGRAPHIC
(french edition.)
so jonn got a REAL press card. got a FULL-TIME JOB at the national geographic. and spent the REST OF HIS WORK LIFE traveling abroad for six months, then going back to paris the rest of the year to write about his wacky journeys. he’s retired now, having published several books full of his articles and photographs. he’s bought a b&b in the french countryside with all his money. and continues to say “fuck it” to any problem that comes his way like the absolute fucking legend he is.
as far as i know, none of his journalist buddies nor his boss ever found out about any of this.
As a professional magazine editor, I believe every word of this story and suspect he was a delight to work with. (The finger food was the entire reason for my five years of film and art reviewing…)
Honestly if you’re female and you’re called for jury duty and during the elimination process you’re asked if you’ve ever had any adverse experience with a man (harrassment or rape or any other male violence) just fuckin lie and say no. Then vote that fucker guilty
Women survivors are barred from serving on a jury but rapists are not even questioned. There can be no doubt that this is a major reason rapists walk free. Men have never played fair. It is time for women to start beating them at their own game. Our lives depend on it.
As someone who wants to be a prosecutor one day… I agree.
OK NO. NO NO NO NO NO. I am a defense attorney. I am a woman. I am also a sexual assault survivor. THAT BEING SAID I HAVE BEEN THINKING ABOUT THIS POST ALL WEEK AND IT’S SOOOOO FUCKING WRONG ON SO MANY LEVELS.
It’s wrong not for any bullshit rape apologist shit, btw, it’s wrong BECAUSE THIS SHIT WILL LITERALLY FUCK YOU OVER AND FUCK OVER ANY RAPE VICTIMS TOO. Here’s why:
(bear in mind this advice is gonna be MD specific since that’s where I practice)
1) FIRST THINGS FIRST. Don’t fucking lie. Don’t you dare fucking lie when you’re being questioned at jury duty. Why? OK well first: you’re swearing to tell the truth under penalty of perjury. What that means is yes, you will face criminal charges. Criminal charges which, btw, will keep you off of any juries in the future.
Here’s the thing, people (the law enforcement authorities and the defense counsel) WILL be able to find this out especially if you have ever filed a formal police report and/or spoken publicly about it. Yes, even on facebook. This ALSO means that if the fact that you lied about this is found out mid-trial it’s grounds for a mistrial with prejudice, if not a straight dismissal. Which means that hey, look, EVERYTHING HAS TO START ALL OVER AGAIN, THIS TIME WITH NEW JURORS.
2) The second thing is this: in many states, you don’t just get dismissed after answering affirmatively. The voir dire process in MD works like this:
A) prosecutors and the defense come up with a list of questions to ask potential jurors. These are typically a combination of blanket questions you would ask at any trial (ex: have you ever been convicted of a crime in this jurisdiction) and specific questions tailored to the hearing in particular (like the question above). Both attorneys get the chance to view each other’s questions and object to any particular questions that the other team may have.
B) So we’re at jury selection. Both attorneys argue preliminary whether or not questions get to be asked or not, submit the questions to the judge, and decide how to do the striking. (all at once submitted on paper, or alternating).
B1) “striking” means asking to get rid of a juror. A strike can be peremptory, i.e., you can strike for whatever reason you want and don’t have to justify it, automatically. Or you can have a strike FOR CAUSE. There are a limit to how many peremptory strikes/challenges you can have, depending on the jurisdiction, and the type of crime. And you may or may not have to justify those strikes and turn them into “for cause.”
B2) generally if, during a question, a juror answers in the affirmative, the judge will ask you to go up to the bench to privately discuss it with the judge, and both attorneys. In this case they will ask if you or somebody you know was a victim. They will also ask if the incident occurred in the same jurisdiction and possibly involved the same arresting officers. They will THEN ask you if you feel so strongly that it will affect your ability to be IMPARTIAL–that is, will you still be able to only consider the facts presented to you in the court, and be able to judge something as proven beyond a reasonable doubt or not, or will you be biased?
B3) If you say “I am so biased” then yeah, the judge will excuse you right away. But if you say “No I think I can do it. I can be impartial.” you’ll be asked to return to your seat.
C) The questions are now done. The attorneys then go through their strikes. Like I said, they have a limited number of the peremptory ones. And there are other limits too. You can’t strike jurors on the basis of a “protected class” (i.e.: race, gender, religion etc.) and anything that SHOWS that an attorney is doing so a can be objected to by the other attorney. There doesn’t have to be a “pattern” but that helps (i.e. striking three women in a row). Every time a juror gets called and somebody requests a strike, the other attorney can either object or not. So it’s up to each attorney to protect the jurors they want (and btw other than the questions, in MD, the info you get as an attorney is the juror’s name, age, job, and where they live, and their spouse’s job). If there’s a disagreement then the judge will hear arguments either way. If it’s a protected class argument, the attorney who has been striking has to come up with a different reason to justify and that’s got to be something UNRELATED to the protected class (ex: if you struck two Black guys in a row you can’t say “oh well I didn’t want THESE Black guys I wanted the other ones” because that’s still BASED ON RACE).
————
3) SO HERE’S WHY IT’S SO FUCKED UP TO EVEN SUGGEST THIS SHIT AS A WAY TO “SOLVE THE PROBLEM”
A) as I said above, you don’t want to fucking lie.
B) also BEING A CONVICTED FELON, BTW, AND OTHER TYPES OF CONVICTIONS, DISQUALIFIES YOU FROM BEING ON THE JURY. So…convicted rapists? yeah, they can’t actually serve. THIS IS LITERALLY A QUESTION ON THE JURY DUTY FORM AND IS A QUESTION ASKED AT EVERY STAGE OF SELECTION.
C) ALSO, in a couple of the posts I’ve seen they’ve mentioned this question was only asked for women. I’m not sure really if I, as an attorney, would have phrased a question in a gendered way like this SINCE IT’S BASICALLY BEGGING FOR A CHALLENGE AS A PROTECTED CLASS OBJECTION. So fine, if it’s asked gender neutral? That’s OK, but as I said, you won’t get dismissed instantaneously (at least not in MD) as it’s not one of those automatic questions the court asks (i.e.: are you a citizen etc.). And so (again, in Md, Idk about other states) If you say “yes I can be impartial” then fine. Sit your ass down and wait for an attorney to strike you.
D) so if you DO have an attorney striking you, I would ABSOLUTELY object to any attorney who systematically struck ALL THE WOMEN from a jury panel. Because fuck that that’s a protected class that fucking SO DEMONSTRATIVE of a violation of the law. IT’S GENDER BASED. Whoever the prosecutor was who allowed a defense attorney to get away with that shit just wasn’t doing their fucking job.
E) And in terms of this post? about nobody caring? Fuck that if I was a prosecutor I would absolutely ask if any person (”PERSON” DAMN IT NOT JUST MEN BECAUSE THE WIVES/SISTERS/MOTHERS etc. OF MEN WHO ARE ACCUSED OF RAPE ARE ALSO FUCKING BIASED) had ever been accused of rape or sexual assault or knew somebody who did etc. That’s just good lawyering. It’s sloppy not to do so.
F) And as a defense attorney, NGL, I would want to know the answer too, in order to make sure to challenge those strikes.
——-
I get it. I fucking get it. And some of these things will depend on how fucked up your judge is and how good the other side is. But this shit about “OH HEY JUST LIE” FUCK ME NO. DO NOT FUCKING DO THIS.
I’m so fucking furious that people are spreading this like it’s a good damn idea and something that will work. Honestly this is so fucking stupid and dangerous to me that I’m suspicious–is this for real? Or is this somebody trying to false information troll people?
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NOT DO THIS. Answer your questions truthfully and let the lawyers do their damn job. Yes, it sucks, but at the end of the day, people in this country are INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY. And your job, as a juror, is to ASSESS ONLY THE FACTS AND ARGUMENTS PRESENTED TO YOU, AND TO SEE IF THE STATE WAS ABLE TO PROVE THAT THIS PARTICULAR SUSPECT DID IT. AND THEY DID IT BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT.
THe fact is, not all rape cases go to trial. And the ones that do, DISPROPORTIONATELY charge men of color (in particular, Black and Latino men). You cannot believe in equality, fight against racism, protect the constitution AND ALSo try to do this shit. It’s fucked up and completely inconsistent and yet another way to fuck with the justice system. doing this will probably allow more alleged rapists to go free than it will allow for equality in jury selection.
TL;DR: this shit is really fucking bad advice and not the way to actually go about doing things. stop giving people legal advice IF YOU AREN’T A LAWYER. ESPECIALLY IF THAT LEGAL ADVICE that will actually put them in jail, people.
The tenth anniversary of the OTW and all the AO3 discussion going around this week inspired me to go look at astolat’s original post about creating an An Archive Of Our Own, and found my comment on it:
“I think this is needed and long past needed.
There are of course huge fanfic archives out there like ff.net, but the bigger and more public the site, the more restrictive it is, the more stuff around the edges gets cut off. I don’t WANT the public face of fanfic to be only the most easily palatable stuff, with the smut and the kink and the controversial subjects marginalized and hidden under the table.
And I particularly don’t want to see us all sitting around feeling frustrated while this fabulous community is commodified out from underneath us.
I’m not fit to be a project manager, but I’m great with details and general organizational work. If someone takes this and runs with it, I’d love to help.“
Eleven years and rather a lot of volunteer-hours later, I stand by every single word.
And then I found my original post on the idea that became the OTW/AO3, which says in part:
“However, as I was reading the comments over there, I noticed a frustrating, but not surprising number of comments along the lines of “well, it’s a good idea, but it’s way too ambitious”
I’m not talking about the really useful and practical comments bringing up pitfalls and difficulties to be aware of from the get go with something this massive and complex, I’m talking about all the comments that go something like this:
Taken separately, these comments don’t seem like much, but every time a new one showed up I couldn’t help but be reminded of
this post by commodorified, and her oh so brilliant and beautiful rant therein:
“WOMEN NEED TO LEARN TO ASK FOR EVERY DAMN THING THEY WANT.
And here are some notes:
Yes, you. Yes, everything. Yes, even that.
All of it. Because it’s true. We’re mostly raised to live on table scraps, to wait and see what’s going when everyone else has been served and then choose from what’s left. And that’s crap, and it’ll get you crap.
Forget the limited menu of things that you automatically assume is all that’s available given your (gender, looks, social class, education, financial position, reputation, family, damage level, etc etc etc), and start reading the whole menu instead.
Then figure out what you want. Then check what you’ve got and figure out how to get it. And then go after it baldheaded till either you make it happen or you decide that its real cost is more than it’s worth to you.”
And THAT is what Astolat’s post is about. It’s about saying “THIS is what we want, let’s make it happen.” It’s about aiming for the ideal, not for some artificially imposed, more “realistic” option.
And I think that’s fabulous. And I think we CAN do this, we CAN make this amazing, complicated idea happen. But in order to do so we’re going to have to be careful about those little voices inside our heads saying “well, it’s a nice idea, but” and “there’s no point in trying for that impossible thing, let’s aim for this ‘more realistic’ goal instead.”
Because, damn it, why shouldn’t we ask for every damn thing we want. And why shouldn’t we go out there and get it?”
I am so pleased to have been proved correct.
(And also, in the category of “women need to ask for every damn thing they want”? I took those words to heart, which is one of many reasons Marna/commodorified and I have been married for going on eight years.)
ETA: I know some of the links are broken, they copied over from my original post and I didn’t have the energy to either delete them or track them down elsewhere.
Asking for it and doing it!!!
So inspiring. And yes – at the time this seemed such a pipedream, but look at it now!
Yup. I remember saying I’d support it regardless, but it would only really be useful to me as a poster if it allowed every kind of content. Heh.
God this brings it back. People saying we couldn’t do it, that we would never be able to do it, etc. And then there was the sort of six months later moment where people were like, but where is it? (!) Dudes, we had to found a nonprofit company first! so we could be legal and raise money and pay taxes and have a bank account and enter contracts – and moreover, the archive was written from scratch: from a single blinking cursor on the screen, custom-designed from the ground up. I remember that I had the job of tracking wireframes in the early days as the real designers figured out how the flow of pages in the archive were going to go. Amazing.
Anyway, I want to say that the group that came together around the OTW /AO3 in those first years had a track record like WHOA: so many of those people had been archivists, web-admins, fannish fest-runners, newsletter compilers, community moderators, listmoms (kiddies, you won’t know what this is) or had other fannish roles that gave them enormous experience in working collaboratively in fandom and keeping something great going year after year. And OTW continues to attract great people–and so also, while I’m blathering, let me say that volunteering for the OTW also provides great, real world experience that you can put on your resume, because AO3 is one of the top sites in the world and TWC has been publishing on time for ten years and Fanlore is cited in books and journalism all the time and Open Doors has relationships with many meatspace university libraries and archives etc. so if you think you have something to bring to the table, please do think about volunteering somewhere. It’s work, believe me, but it’s also pretty g-d awesome.
I tell you what, if it weren’t for Ao3, 2013 would’ve been the last year I ever wrote anything for anyone other than myself. I was so disgusted and demoralized.
The first chapter of “This, You Protect” wasn’t a desperation move, exactly. It was the first time I’d had fun writing anything in months.
Putting it up, and those first few encouraging comments: that was the first time I’d had fun publishing in years.
And man, the people I have met through that place. I am eternally grateful.
So definitely 100% all of this, but I also have a question. And maybe it’s one of those stupid ones, but it’s something I’m honestly curious about. It has to do with this bit:
"I want to say that the group that came together around the OTW /AO3 in those first years had a track record like WHOA: so many of those people had been archivists, web-admins, fannish fest-runners, newsletter compilers, community moderators, listmoms (kiddies, you won’t know what this is) or had other fannish roles that gave them enormous experience in working collaboratively in fandom and keeping something great going year after year.“
My question is: how do you get there NOW?
And I don’t mean that like “how do you become astolat or esporanza”-
because let’s face it, we only get one of them since they are, in fact, themselves, and I’d much rather people try to be themselves than somebody else- but I mean it as in how do you rack up that record now? Because so many of those roles have vanished or gotten diluted in fandom, like, I genuinely don’t know how you’d position yourself into this, and I kinda want to know if only so that I can see the next wave of such fans coming.
I was going to be like, I don’t know! except then I was like, wait, yes, I do know! IMO, the answer is a Mr. Rogers-type secret, which is that the way to do this is to help. Be a helper! Help other fans, boost other fans voices/art somehow. Run a fest or a challenge, do a recs page, reblog stuff, wave your arms in the air, encourage people to make things, offer to beta, make art, do podfics, offer to collaborate – and I’m sure the future will (for better and for worse) provide us new opportunities to help or think about helping each other. But one that comes to mind: help a fan navigate a new platform! Confused about Tumblr/Twitter/Youtube/Pillowfort – can someone help? Will you hold their hand, tell them they’re wanted, get them to come with us to the new land? (I HAVE EXPLAINED TUMBLR TO SO MANY PEOPLE). I remember when I got into fandom, I was posting my stories to a mailing list and I didn’t have a website (because who did?) and MerryLynne came to me and said, like, I like your stories, can I help you host them? I was SO GRATEFUL. Resonant made me a cheat sheet for html which is how I learned. The initial archives had what were called Archive Elves, people who behind the scenes had to format and upload every story by hand. So, to me, true fandom is always encouraging of others, it’s COME WRITE FOR MY SHOW, make the thing, try the thing, do the thing, I will help you do the thing!
There was a great deal of discussion about this, in academia and even in parts of the mainstream media immediately following 9/11. It was sort of a guilty secret kind of discussion because nobody wanted to appear unsympathetic to the victims of terrorism, but it was there. Then it got shut down by the whole Pearl Harbor cultivated patriotism effect that was getting everyone to accept the Iraq and Afghan wars (which are still going on), where you aren’t allowed to say anything negative about the United States or its past or how that past contributes to its current problems, and by the destruction of decent corporate journalism that occurred in 2002-2003.
It sounds dumb to say that people know these things but won’t talk about them, but the people with enough education and experience to know are part of professional frameworks, and those frameworks and career paths are heavily ideologically and financially gated, and so people with knowledge don’t speak up or talk about things like this because people who do that don’t stick around or advance. And the people who know but are outside of “respectable” career positions, civilian or government, aren’t relevant and nobody listens to them because there’s nothing to gain and everything to lose by doing so. That’s how it has worked in the United States since World War II. That’s why no one learns, and why government has turned into a patriotism purity feedback loop of destruction.
I don’t get how some people in the MCU Fandom claim that Steve must have a crap ton of money
I think the logic is “military back pay + 70 years interes + licensing his image for film/television/merch, as arranged by Howard Stark and Margaret Carter, way back when they founded S.H.I.E.L.D.”?
But I don’t get it because I’m pretty sure that Cap was officially declared dead? I don’t think that dead people still get backpay? Unless they decided to give him backpay when he turned out to be alive, although I don’t see the US government being that generous.
People writing Steve having a lot of money, I presume, are working on the assumption that he was declared MIA, and then treated like a returned MIA/POW when he was found alive. Returned POWs – regardless of whether they were declared dead while missing – are entitled to all their back pay, including extra hazardous duty pay and living allowances.
It’s possible Cap wouldn’t even have been declared dead; the military is very hesitant to declare MIAs – which is pretty much any active duty soldier whose body was never recovered – dead without proof, unless there’s pressure from the family, and Cap doesn’t have any family left. So whether he was declared dead or still officially MIA is a probably a balancing act between political forces who wanted closure for mythmaking purposes, and Howard Stark who’s still searching for him.
(This is mildly iffy, given that the US military doesn’t have procedures in place for “MIA, later found in suspended animation in the Arctic ice”, but given that it’s Captain America, I don’t think they would fight too hard over treating him as a returned POW. And Bucky had *better* count as a POW, so he’d get his accumulated back pay too, although it would be somewhat less, since he was a noncom rather than a captain.)
I went through historical military pay tables, and using this list of POW/MIA entitlements calculated that he would have something around $2,000,000 in back pay waiting for him (probably more – I assumed he hadn’t been promoted beyond Captain, which is fairly unlikely since MIAs are eligible for promotion and it’s Captain America, and whenever I was unsure how to calculate something, I went for the lesser value. Also it’s entirely likely the Commandos were getting some kind of extra special duty pay, which I didn’t factor in beyond standard hazardous duty/hostile fire pay.)
I didn’t look up Bucky’s in any detail, but as a Sergeant he’d be making about half what a Captain made, so he probably has at least $1,000,000. (He would likely have been MIA as well, since no body was recovered, unless his surviving family pushed for him to be declared dead – the US Military is *really passionate* about recovering all the bodies, and leaving people MIA until they find them.)
That’s assuming they were given just base pay, without interest. I am not sure how the interest is handled for returned POWs who were declared dead, but a POW-not-declared-dead has his pay either go to his dependents/power-of-attorney, or put in an interest-bearing account handled by the Secretary of the Treasury. Steve has no dependents, so it would likely either have been handled by the Secretary of the Treasury or Howard Stark would have managed to get it put in a privately-managed trust (because let’s face it, Howard Stark can do anything he wants.)
Interest could be tricky, but since it was relatively simple to calculate and it’s probably what he would have done if he was alive, I assumed it was all invested in $1,000 US savings bonds (and then not reinvested after maturity.) Which, again, is pretty much a minimum – any actively-managed investment account would probably have made substantially more than that, and Howard Stark would facepalm forever at the idea of investing solely in US Savings Bonds – if it was all put in, say, Stark Industries stock it could be arbitrarily higher.
But assuming U.S. Savings Bonds interest rates, his $2,000,000 *minimum* back pay would have increased to about $7,500,000 by 2011. (Bucky’s, again, would probably be something like half that – say $4,000,000.) I wouldn’t be surprised if a less conservative and more accurate accounting put him well into eight digits.
So he’s not going to be competing with Tony Stark in the big bucks competition, but he can easily do stuff like buy people new SUVs or take a couple years off to travel the world searching for Bucky just on his MIA back pay, without having to look at other income sources.
This is accurate, yes. And even if Steve WAS declared dead, well, once he was present and accounted for, they’d have to change his status from KIA to MIA, at which point the whole back pay thing would come into play again.
A commenter on one of my works pointed out that with automatic promotions and such, Steve is at minimum a full Colonel and probably more like a Major General. This would mean that he would have been owed several millions of dollars in back pay, and is drawing a current salary of minimum $17,182.50 per month (including allowances).
Based on that, it’s very likely that Bucky would have been promoted by now to Command Sergeant Major. This would also leave him owed several millions of dollars in back pay, as well as a current active duty salary of – if I am calculating this properly – $9,359 per month (including allowances).
So yes, based on real-world How The Military Works facts and the canon provided in the movies, Steve and Bucky both are never going to have to worry about money again.
There is also canonical support for this, actually!
In the early eighties, in the comics, Steve receives a letter from the US government. He thinks it’s just some random official form so he ignores it; Bernie has to bother him into opening it, at which point he discovers they’ve sent him a seven-figure check for back pay and hazard pay.
We really have harmed a whole generation of trans and gnc children by failing to communicate how serious a decision binding actually is, how there’s no ACTUALLY safe way to bind, how it permeneantly damages the body, how it can make top surgery more difficult in the future. I don’t think we should be keeping trans kids from binding (we let kids do all sorts of things they’re really not old enough to understand the potential consequences of) but we owe them the ability to make informed decisions at LEAST
So this is definitely an important conversation to have, but can you point me at some reading about “permanent damage”? I might just be lucky, but I had zero lasting effects from binding. I’d like to at least read up on it so I can have this conversation and be more specific than “be careful.”
Of course! I can’t easily source right now but I am more than happy to provide further info when I am not at work and on mobile. Unfortunately, like a lot of trans healthcare, a lot of what we know about binding is anecdotal and word of mouth. BUT permeneant damage can include:
-Musculoskeletal damage. Binders are indiscriminate compression tools; they can’t flatten the chest without applying pressure every other anatomical structure underneath including the spine, ribs, lungs and heart. Many people who bind experience chronic back pain, shoulder pain, sharp stabbing chest pains, permeneantly decreased lung capacity, literal spine deformation, etc etc.
-A continuation of the above but the ribs are actually jointed bones. Their ability to flex is absolutely vital to their ability to withstand trauma and protect your vital organs. Imagine the damage that would be done to your elbow if your bent your arm to full flexion and then tightly bound it closed like that, for six, eight, twelve hours per day, every day, for weeks or months or years. And you don’t NEED a functioning arm to live!
-Tissue atrophy. Forcing chest tissue to lay in an unnatural way can and will change the way that tissue looks, even to risk of atrophy. Some people who bind and only moderately dislike the way their chest looks find that they HATE the way it looks after binding for a period of time. Tissue atrophy can also make top surgery more difficult in the future, and increase the risk of complications like nerve damage.
-Worsened dysphoria. Once someone starts binding and becomes accustomed to seeing themselves with a flat chest, it can be much more difficult to see yourself without one, and dysphoria that much more intolerable. You can imagine the psychological feedback loop of binding more in response.
The typical safety measures passed around about binding are harm REDUCTION measures and should not be advertised as making binding “safe.” Binding is not safe. It is a very serious health decision with long term consequences and should be treated as such. That doesn’t mean it’s the wrong decision, but it should not be considered the DEFAULT decision for chest dysphoria which is frankly how it’s currently treated.
I went to the Philadelphia Trans Health Conference and went to a workshop held by a chiropractor who works with trans men (as well as being a trans man himself), so I’m going to pass on his advice to people who bind:
Stretch your chest, shoulders, and back everyday (at least)
This is a passive stretch where you place a foam roller at the bottom of your spine (to support your hips and lower back), and lifts your shoulders off of the ground, with your arms on the ground to balance you.
This stretch is meant to be held for a few minutes, open up your chest, and aid your everyday posture.
You probably don’t own a foam roller, he advised to wrap a towel or blanket very tightly and tied as a substitute. I use a layer of bed foam rolled up with two belts to keep it rolled. Whatever you use, it ought to have a bit of give and it needs to lift your shoulders off the ground.
—————————————————————————
This is an active stretch. Stand in front of a doorway with your feet together (if the door way was not there, your toes would be touching the wall, not crossing through it). When you lift your arms up and put them against the wall, your feet, hips, and arms should all be in line with each other (your arms should not be behind you with your feet and hips in the doorway).
Make a “W” shape with your arms against the wall so that your elbows are the closest part of your arm to the ground, and take one small step forward.
You should feel a pull in your lower shoulders, but it should be comfortable to hold. Donot over stretch, you shouldn’t be leaning your weight into your arms to balance, your weight should be balanced by your legs. Do not judge yourself and think you are doing yourself a favor by thinking that you ought to have a bigger step. Sure, you could overstretch today, but you need to be able to do this tomorrow too! Hold this for 10-15 seconds. (Yet again. Do. Not. Overstretch.)
Bring your feet back together, and do it the other foot. There will probably be one foot that is easier than the other, stretch that step more often than the less difficult step.
Bring your feet together and bring your elbows up so that your upper arms are parallel to the ground and your elbow forms a 90° angle with your forearms. Take your small step forward and hold for 10-15 seconds and switch feet.
Now reach your arms up as high as you can. It doesn’t have to be much higher than the last stretch, if that is as high as you can go, then that’s it. If you can’t reach higher than the last stretch, put your arms down at your sides and then lift your arms up from your sides and put them against the wall (sorry he didn’t include a picture of this one in the slides, message me if this is unclear.)
Your goal is to be able to reach your arms up like in the picture so that you form a Y shape. Step forward and hold for 10-15 seconds, then switch feet.
His advice was to do this stretch as often as you use the bathroom at home (shoot for 3-5 times a day).
—————————————————————————
The next two stretchs don’t have pictures! If you can do these stretches with ease and want a more intense version, try using dumbbells and incorporating it into your workouts.
If you’ve ever done snow angels? Put your heels, butt, shoulders, and arms up against a wall (as much of your body as you possibly can should be touching the wall) and lift your arms up as high as you can go like you are making a snow angel.
Alternatively, lay down on the ground instead of up against a wall if you need to work your way up to lifting your arms above your head.
—————————————————————————
Again, with your body up against the wall, but this time with your arms in front of you, bring your arms up like Frankenstein’s monster, so that they are as high as your shoulders. Hold this for a few seconds.
—————————————————————————
After trying these stretchs, it’ll probably be clear where your range of motion is most limited. For me, the most useful stretches are the W and 90° angle doorway stretch and foam roller stretch, bc I have the most trouble with my lower shoulders and chest. Try to maintain your range of motion where you have it, and use these stretches to improve your range of motion where you are limited.
There’s also TransTape, which runs different risks, primarily with skin irritation and possibly damage. There’s no 100% guaranteed safe way to bind, but it may be worth trying both methods.
In theory, I’d think alternating methods, assuming one doesn’t run into major issues right away with either, might even be helpful to reduce longterm risks, but I wouldn’t know if using a binder after binding with tape might be bad for irritated skin (due to sweat or heat or whatever??) so if anyone has any experience with that it would be appreciated? If not, though, I’ve wondered if alternating could give the ribs a rest while taping and the skin a rest while using a binder so neither is under as much constant strain? Do be careful as that’s purely theoretical, of course.
AHHHH!!! Thank you so much! I’m so happy that you enjoyed reading these two dorks falling in love ❤ You just made my whole week!
As for, my advice for taking the SATs, hoohh boy, you’re in for a doozy. I’ve put together a condensed guide to the SATs under the cut!
General Strategy
Don’t leave any questions blank! There are no penalties for guessing, and if you guess, you have at least a 1/5 chance of being right. Blank questions mean you’re unnecessarily leaving points on the table.
Time is your enemy. The overall test is long, but each section has a limited amount of time. You can understand the concepts well, but if you don’t manage your time properly, you can lose a lot of points if you run out of time at the end of a section.
Read through the questions and multiple choice options carefully. It’s temping to skim through the questions because of the short time, but that’s one of the easiest ways for the SATs to trip you up. They hide subtle tricks in the questions that can significantly change the answer needed.
Do the easy questions first, leave the hard questions for last. You can waste a lot of time on the difficult questions, but in the end, they’re worth the same amount as the easy ones. So your time is best spent on the easy/medium problems.
Mark down your best at-a-glance guess and move on. Return to the hard questions after you’ve finished with the easy ones and have time left over. Ideally, you’ll have enough time to double-check all of your answers, but if you’re unable to check everything, you should prioritize the questions you weren’t sure about in your first pass.
Choose the BEST answer, not necessarily a right one. This is a bit of a confusing tip, but one of the ways that the SATs trips students up is it gives you multiple answers that answer the question adequately. You need to determine which is the most correct, or if it helps to think of it the other way, the least wrong. The SATs typically considers ‘best’ answers the ones that are the most concise and/or specific.
Process of elimination is your friend. On questions you’re not sure of, eliminate the ones you know aren’t right, and then guess from the options left. You’re increasing your probability of guessing successfully when you do this. A fifty-fifty guess is much better than a one in five guess.
The first time you take the SATs should NOT be on test day. I know SAT prep is a pain in the ass, but there are so many specific quirks and traps involved in this test that the most effective way to prepare is to take at least one full practice test beforehand.
If you’re able to take practice tests multiple times, experiment with different techniques and strategies and figure out the ones that work best for you.
It’s also important to identify the kinds of questions that you have the easiest and hardest times with. This way you can jump right to the questions you know you can finish quickly, and then return to the ones that will require more time.
Reading
Types of questions:
Determine what the passage states, directly or indirectly
Identify words and phrases the author uses to convey meaning
Make comparisons between two different passages
Write down notes as you read through the passages to ensure you’re actively reading.
The first questions for a passage are always the easiest ones, and they will increase in difficulty towards the later questions. However, the question difficulty resets with each new passage. If you’re having trouble with the last questions of a passage, quickly guess and move on to the next passage.
The Reading section will include passages from US history and literature that you may already be familiar with. It’s very easy to fall into the trap of answering questions based on your prior knowledge rather than based on the actual content of the passage. Make sure that you are answering questions based on what is explicitly stated or implied in the passage.
There are multiple strategies for the reading section. You can try out each approach in practice tests to find the best strategies that work for you. A couple of strategies are listed below:
SQ3R: This approach helps you read through passages more actively by ensuring that you keep the questions in mind as you read through.
(Scan) Skim the passage
(Questions) Read the questions
(Read) Read the passage in full
(Recite) Summarize each paragraph in your own words
(Review) Summarize the entire passage in your own words
Rephrase and Predict: This approach helps prevent you from getting lost in the multiple choice answers.
Read through the entire passage
Read through a question and rephrase it in your own words
Before looking at the answer choices, try to answer the question in your own words
Choose the option that is most consistent with the answer you came up with
Writing and Language
This section relies heavily on the test taker’s existing grasp of English grammar and the logical flow of ideas in a passage.
Types of questions:
Improve how ideas are communicated in the passage
Correct the grammar of a sentence
A lot of the questions require you to understand the full context of the sentence. When answering them, read the sentences immediately proceeding and following them.
When answering questions, trust your instincts and select the answer choice that makes the most sense to you.
Focus on ensuring that all relevant information is included in the passage. Eliminate sentences that blur the overall meaning of the passage or cause it to become repetitive.
Remember, the best answers are the most concise and specific.
Commas are your enemy! A common trap is to have questions include comma splices where there should be semi-colons. Reviewing the grammar rules for commas beforehand will go a long way.
In the grammar questions, some things to look out for include: parallel sentence structures, misplaced/dangling modifiers, verb tenses, pronoun numbers, and subject-verb agreement. Review these grammar rules beforehand.
Math
Types of questions:
Algebra (linear and quadratic equations)
Ratios and percentages (probability, unit conversion, statistics, etc.)
Geometry (area and volume, radians, circles, parallel and perpendicular lines, etc.)
Trigonometry (SOHCAHTOA, 30/60/90 and 45/45/90 triangles)
The math questions are rooted in mathematical concepts that you should have learned in high school. If you do not already have a solid grasp of the concepts mentioned above, the best thing you can do is review the underlying math topics first.
Maintain a steady pace. Careless mistakes are your enemy in this section. Rushing your calculations can lead to errors that lose you valuable points on questions you should’ve otherwise gotten correct.
Do your work on paper. You might think you can do everything in your head or on your calculator, but it’s much easier to get lost if you don’t write things down. You don’t need to write down every single step, but write enough for you to keep track of things. This will also help when you’re double-checking your answers because you’ll be able to clearly see your earlier thought process.
Read the questions carefully. This is a must in every section, but it’s very easy to forget in the Math section. The SAT test writers are well aware of this and use it to their advantage to trick students. They will include additional information or words that change the answer that’s needed in the second half. This may cause you to read the first half of a question, think you know what it’s going to ask, then answer incorrectly.
In addition, read through the answer choices before startingcalculations. Oftentimes, the format of the answers indicate that a lot less steps are needed to find the right answer. You may end up wasting valuable time by calculating unnecessary steps when a simpler answer was needed.
The difficulty of questions are roughly ordered easiest to hardest in the multiple choice section, and then easiest to hardest in the grid-in. The first few grid-in questions will always be easier than the last few multiple choice questions. It’s a good idea to quickly guess on the last few multiple choice, so you can move on to the first grid-in questions.
Question difficulty in the Math section stems from complexity of the problem itself rather than the underlying concepts. Every problem can be broken down into smaller, more manageable pieces.
When tackling complicated questions:
Identify the information that’s provided to you
Identify the information that you need to figure out
Write down the relevant equations needed
Determine the steps needed to take to get to the correct answer
Make your calculations based on your predetermined steps
Check the final answer against the choices available
Essay
Yes, it’s optional. Yes, you should still take it. This section is a signifier to colleges, and they do take note of which students completed this section and which didn’t. A lot of the time, even a relatively low score on the Essay section is better than not having taken it at all.
Keep track of time. This is the easiest section to run out of time in, and you will need to organize the fifty minutes available to you effectively. Below is a rough breakdown of one approach to dividing up your time:
Seven minutes to read the passage and annotate
Three minutes to outline
Thirty-six minutes to write the essay
Four minutes to proofread
You are analyzing how the author of a passage is making an argument. You should not simply be restating what that argument is, but rather you should be identifying and evaluating the effectiveness of the evidence and techniques the author is using to persuade their audience.
The structure of your essay should roughly include an introduction, two body paragraphs, and a conclusion.
Use quotations from the text to provide evidence to strengthen your argument.
You should only be using a sentence or two summarizing the main idea of the passage.
Ask yourself these questions:
How is the author using evidence to support their argument?
How is the author analyzing and drawing conclusions based on the presented evidence?
How is the author appealing to the reader’s emotions? What emotions are they trying to evoke? How will this affect the reader’s perception of the ideas being presented?
Is the author making use of humor and/or irony? If so, how does this affect the reader’s perception of the ideas being presented?
You will be evaluated based on:
How well your essay shows that you understood the text
How well you analyzed the text and explained how the author constructed their argument
How well crafted the essay itself is (includes overall structure, stated thesis, logical progression of ideas, sentence structure, and word choice)
The CollegeBoard website has printable practice tests here.
Many libraries also have SAT prep books available for students to check out. Just be sure to check that they’re for the new SAT and not the pre-2016 version of the test.
If you have the time and financial resources for it, taking a summer SAT prep class or finding an SAT tutor can really help you by having someone there to talk you through problems you’re having trouble with and help you identify the subject areas you need to improve the most in.
And that is my long-winded yet somehow still abbreviated guide to the SATs. I gave a rough overview of everything, and you can definitely go much more in-depth about tips and approaches to the specific question types.
jinlinli 