Penfold_X's Fandom Journal

I can tell I'm falling deep into a fandom when I feel the need to build precise timelines for a universe in my mind. For Daredevil, my priority is definitely figuring out how long Matt and Foggy have known each other, and what they were doing pre-series. The awesome ladies at @redringsideseats were kind enough to answer my newbie questions regarding Matt and Foggy's meeting in the comics. For the Netflix series, it wasn't immediately apparently to me from watching the flashback episodes what year it was and whether they were meeting in college or law school, and fic authors seem to have disparate opinions. I found some really impressive MCU timelines (really impressive), but they all gave different dates for Matt's accident (and thereby his age), Matt and Foggy's first meeting, and even when the events of seasons 1 and 2 take place.

All else having failed, I finally did the logical thing and rewatched Nelson v. Murdock with my glasses on, remote in hand:

Bless Foggy's labido

Fall 2010! Foggy also has a "2009" sports championship sticker on his computer, so the date isn't random, at least in the mind of the set dresser. 2010 makes a lot of sense, if the job at Landman & Zack is Matt and Foggy's first after completing law school (as implied). This is also interesting in that the Battle of New York takes place near the end of their second year of law school (best excuse to miss finals ever?). Of course, now I'm dying to know how having the sky ripped open and tons of giant alien craft flying around affected Matt's senses, and just what our avocados were doing while midtown was getting torn down. Columbia is uptown, but certainly close enough to see and hear it all, and be rightly terrified.

My confusion about whether Matt and Foggy were supposed to have met in undergrad or law school stems mostly from Foggy's Punjabi lark. As a rule, American law schools have a set curriculum for the first year, so students get a solid foundation in the basics. Looking closely at the screen cap above, I think production actually researched Columbia Law School's first year curriculum. Foggy's registration page includes standards you'll find in every first year curriculum--civil procedure, constitutional law, contracts, and torts--as well as "legal methods," a course required in Columbia's first year but which can go by a variety of other names, depending on the school.

Studying a language in addition to the first year curriculum, though, would be extremely unusual. Even students who are simultaneously pursuing a juris doctor and a masters in something else would not typically choose to start a new language while in law school, particularly during first year, which is notoriously difficult and competitive. But not only does Foggy take Punjabi, but as noted later in Nelson v. Murdock, Matt takes Spanish. It's theoretically possible for them to have enrolled in those courses, but an odd choice. There are perhaps some law students who studied a language as an undergraduate and chose to peruse a masters in that language in order to reach a demonstrable degree of fluency (with the intent of specializing in certain types of international business transactions, for example), but that doesn't seem to be what's implied with our heroes.

This is a minor quibble, though, particularly compared with Matt and Foggy's first job, the "internship" at Landman and Zack. I have to throw a flag on that play.

That's not how this works. That's not how any of this works.

Columbia Law School is consistently ranked in the top five of American legal programs; it's one of the most fiercely competitive graduate programs of any kind, comparable to being accepted to a top medical or MBA program. What law school you attend determines your career. The most selective legal employers (big name firms, appellate and Supreme Court justices, the Department of Justice) won't even interview you if you weren't admitted to a school in the top tier of the US News and World Reports rankings system. Even among the first tier, the higher ranked your school, the better your prospects. Graduates of Columbia and the other top five law schools are the apex predators of the legal job market. And given Foggy and Matt graduated cum laude and summa cum laude as well, it's difficult to imagine any world where they didn't have a bevy of attractive offers to choose among.

Typically, graduates who want to start their careers at a big firm seek "first year associate" positions--the entry level job for baby lawyers. It's true these jobs are not glamorous; an office the size of broom closet with no windows isn't out of the question. There's lots of repetitive tasks, such as document review. Lots of writing memos on obscure and tedious issues. Grinding, late nights are the norm as associates try to find 1800-2300 billable hours to fill that first year (count on working 60-hour weeks, at a minimum). At some point, a partner or senior associate will scream at/and or humiliate you (Jeri Hogarth? Not an exaggeration).

However, first year associate positions pay pretty well. At a big firm in NYC, $150k plus benefits, minimum. That doesn't go as far as it does in Kansas, but no one's stealing bagels from the break room. In fact, the firm wants you to spend as much time in the office as possible, so they're probably sending assistants out to fetch your lunch, do your dry cleaning, and in many cases, paying for your dinner as well.

Most big law firm have some interns but these positions are almost always for students rather than graduates, and law students on an internship are usually called "summer associates." Even if the Battle of New York wreaked such havoc that a number of big NYC firms have gone under and there's a glut of experienced attorneys on the job market, it's difficult to believe that Matt and Foggy, with their top qualifications, could not have found full time attorney positions somewhere in or near the City (it strains credulity so much, I mentally cringe every time one of the characters mentions the 'internship').

Though it's pretty clear the internship is canon, I choose to overwrite it with a bit of headcanon in which Matt and Foggy are first or second year associates at Landman, sharing a storage closet because of a shortage of real estate after the Battle. Ongoing financial difficulties in the NYC legal market (damned chitauri!) are causing the firm to make cuts to the staff, and now all of the associates are in a cut-throat competition. Matt and Foggy's choice to leave and start their own firm, even after they find out that they've been chosen to stay, is as much of a risk--and an indication of their character--as it is in canon, and my poor fusspot brain gets a break. (Need a legal nitpicker, Marvel? Hit me up)

With the Defenders generating a ton of buzz, I decided to try the Marvel series on Netflix. Started with Daredevil which I have unexpectedly fallen in love with. Now I want all the avocados-at-law, hetero-life-partners, Matt/Happiness fics the Internet can provide. *grabbyhands*

I didn't forget your prompts from the Excessively Detailed Headcanons meme, it just arrived at a particularly busy time for me. I have been thinking about the questions (some of which needed quite a bit of consideration, since the particular issue had never come up in the stories I've told myself). But I have at least addressed the Lumina prompts. Hoping to get to Beetee and Wiress, too (... er, I've really done this backwards, oops).

Unfortunately I'm going to be abroad when Star Trek turns 50 on September 8, but I still want to celebrate the program that introduced me to the universe, that first prompted me to dream of exploring it. The Wall Street Journal had a wonderful article this week on the lasting impressions the franchise has made on American culture.

What characters in your fandoms do you most identify with? Do these characters wind up being your favorites, or are you more drawn to characters that are your opposite? Or perhaps there's no relationship at all?

This one in particular gives me massive Lyme/Claudius feels:



I know that I've been messed up
You never let me give up
All the nights and the fights
And the blood and the breakups
You're always there to call up
I'm a pain, I'm a child, I'm afraid
But yeah, you understand
Yeah like no one can
I know that we don't look like much
But no one fucks it up like us

16 and you never even judged me
Matter of fact I always thought you were too cool for me
Sitting there in the caravan
All the nights we've been drunk on the floor
And yeah you understand
Yeah like no one can
We both know what they say about us
But they don't stand a chance because

When I'm with you
When I'm with you
I'm standing with an army
I'm standing with an army
When I'm with you
When I'm with you
I'm standing with an army
Standing with an army

Dark times, you can always find the bright side
I'm amazed by the things that you would sacrifice
Just to be there for me
How you cringe when you sing out of tune
And yeah it's everything
So don't change a thing
We both know what they say about us
But they don't stand a chance because

When I'm with you
When I'm with you
I'm standing with an army
I'm standing with an army
When I'm with you
When I'm with you
I'm standing with an army
Standing with an army

actual cross-stitch available on etsy

As you know from reading lorataprose's fic, Artemisia makes sassy and/or crude cross-stitches (e.g., "'This is ridiculous,' Artemisia says, still frowning and setting down her needlework, a half-finished cross-stitch with the words 'fuck the haters' picked out in cheery blue thread"). kawuli poked around the internet and found the above, which is actually for Breaking Bad fans, but I like to imagine is sitting on Eibhlin's dresser, a new year's gift from Misha.

Been enjoying The Walking Dead prequel, Fear the Walking Dead, apparently more than most people, who seem to be frustrated by the naivety of most of the characters. I think people deeply underestimate how much of a badass they would actually be in the apocalypse; I know that I'd have to almost be eaten by a zombie in order to be convinced that what I was seeing was not the result of a mental breakdown or someone sneaking acid into my cornflakes.

Conveniently, I caught the pilot for TWD on one of my local stations last week. I think those who are harsh on the FTWD civilians have forgotten how innocent and tentative our gang was at the start. Rick could have been killed by the little girl walker he meets in the first few minutes. Even after seeing the half-walker in the park, and the walkers outside of his house, he really doesn't believe Morgan for much of that episode, and when Rick finally disposes of the half-walker, it's with a tenderness that fans probably can't relate to at this point.

But of course, once you pop, you can't stop. Now I'm deep in season two, and my re-watch is causing me to question another piece of fandom conventional wisdom--that Rick has morphed into Shane. Even ~~Chris Hardwick~~ has said as much. Of course, Rick is much, much harder than he used to be. Season five Rick wouldn't entertain Hershel's walker theory or spend nearly as much time attempting to negotiate to stay on the land (he might even take it from Hershel, as he may do with Alexandria).

But there's more than a hardness or a commitment to survival driving Shane's words and deeds; there's an entirely self-serving desire to replace Rick in the eyes of his wife and son. By the end of the abbreviated first season, Shane has seriously considered murdering Rick ("Wildfire"), out of a seaming combination of sexual jealousy and anger at being displaced as the group's leader. Even some of the good things he does, like protecting the women from Carol's husband ("Tell it to the Frogs") appear to be motivated by his anger at his situation and his inability to control others.

By the second season, Shane is a near-psychopath. He not only keeps trying to get back with Lori, and actively undermines his brother's leadership, he goes so far as to threaten Dale when Dale tries to frustrate his plans ("Secrets"), and of course, murders Otis in order to save himself ("Save the Last One"). I can't think of any circumstance in which Rick has made a similarly completely selfish choice. And for all Shane's talk about making the hard calls, it's Rick who has to kill Sophia's walker ("Pretty Much Dead Already"). Rick may be more trusting than Shane, but he's still capable of of doing what needs to be done when the group really needs it.

I expect season six Rick to be an incredibly hardened, pragmatic man, who privileges his group's lives over others'. But even his ruthlessness is in service of a greater good. At the beginning of last season, Rick was worried that the current rulers of Alexandria would lose the city because of their naivety, but he didn't react by planning to murder all of them to take what he wanted. A group of Shanes might take a safer route. Rick and the group haven't gone full-Terminus. Jaqui, Dale and Andrea would probably be proud of that.