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)

When you are writing, or thinking about stories/backstories, do you use certain songs or artists? Perhaps they are helpful to get 'in the right headspace', or set a mood?

When I'm writing, or just thinking about a character's story or conflicts, I sometimes listen to certain songs that I've found, for one reason or another, match up with an element of the character's story, or one of his/her relationships. I'm curious if anyone else does this, and if so, what they're listening to.

This question is closely related to the geography of Panem, but unfortunately, we don't get as many clues to base speculation on, especially if you define canon narrowly. We know from the first chapter of The Hunger Games that there are about eight thousand people in District Twelve. Katniss tells us that the Capitol is a city, and speaks about Eleven being a large district, speaking in front of crowds, etc., but doesn't provide any other numbers. In chapter 15 of Mockingjay, Beetee says he's been 'playing with numbers' and believes death toll of the rebellion may put Panem in danger of killing themselves off. While that's not as helpful as an actual number, I think it implies that the total population of Panem is near to a threshold of a human version of minimum viable population, or at least, a minimum viable population for maintaining Panem's current level of technology (since there's a significant difference in the number of humans required to maintain a basic, subsistence farming-based society and what we think of as a 'modern' society).

( click for speculation )

I love thinking about the mechanics of the Hunger Games universe. Even before I was making up stories in my head about my favorite characters, I was intrigued by the puzzle of how this post-apocalyptic society functions. I've devoured all the metas I can find, and my reading preferences tend strongly toward the elaborate world-builders of the fandom.

Until recently, my favorite Panem map was Vanja1995’s (scroll down for some excellent reasoning for his district location choices). My few quibbles with his choices were that I located the Capitol in Denver, flipped the locations of Nine and Ten, flipped the locations of Two and Five, had Four a little closer to Louisiana, and figured the size of One and Three to be much smaller.

fernwithy's excellent essay and map have changed my mind on a number of points. I strongly recommend reading her essay, as she's noticed a number of points in the books that I think almost conclusively pinpoint the Capitol and Thirteen which, in turn, provide some strong hints about where several of the other districts are located.



Fernwithy's Map
( The Capitol )

( Districts Twelve and Thirteen )

( Districts Seven, Eight, Nine and Ten )

I also concur with her theory that, like Twelve, the urban districts are probably small, fenced in cities, and surrounded by a wilderness that the citizens are not allowed to enter. If the population of Panem is as low as Beetee suggests at the end of Mockingjay, it makes sense to concentrate the population where possible, in order to conserve resources such as power and gas. From the Capitol's perspective, it also makes the urban districts, which probably have a higher population and access to greater technology/potential weapons, easier for Peacekeepers to 'secure'. I think this 'security' is implemented not just to keep the workers from running off and trying to make it in the wilderness, but keep the urban districts from developing the natural resources around them. The more the Capitol controls access to crucial goods like power and food, the greater leverage the Capitol has to quell any attempts at rebellion, and ensure the urban districts cannot develop into economic rivals to the Capitol.

That said, there are a few areas where I have some different theories:


Penfold's version of Fernwithy's Map

District Three: I've got a massive amount of headcanon about this district. Although I agree that some of the districts are colonies created by the Capitol sending segments of its population (including refugees from around the world who sought more habitable land after the cataclysms and resulting wars, as fernwithy writes), I think several of the districts started as independent organizations of survivors (including some refugees) who were later absorbed by the Capitol, either through what was intended to be a mutual protection pact that devolved into a colonial-type relationship, or were forcibly annexed. I like this idea because I think it gives the districts a longer period of time in which to develop their distinctive cultures and genetic 'looks'.¹ I also think it's likely that survivors of the cataclysims and wars would concentrate in a few locations, rather than just one or two, because of how difficult it probably was to travel after what appears to have been a severe technological crash, and how relatively dispersed the population of the US is. Generally, I think the cities are better locations for survivor city-states, so, in my headcanon, Three, Six, and Thirteen were independent political entities before or concurrent with the founding of Panem.²

Regarding location, I don't think we get any real hints in canon, apart from the numbering of the districts, as to where they may be located, and the numbering may signify the order in which the districts were added to Panem, rather than their relative distance to the Capitol. Some areas are eliminated just because the canon hints seem to put another district there, but that still leaves a lot of empty space.

In this space, I chose Phoenix. It's the sixth largest US city by population; most of the top ten are either under water or beyond Twelve. Three doesn't have to be a very big city, but I think it helps if both the research and manufacture of almost all technology occurs there. Larger cities are also more likely to have some redundant systems that would help keep or get them running. I also like Phoenix because aerospace and technology are its major industries; if Silicon Valley is underwater, Phoenix might be your next best choice for that type of expertise. It's also got plenty of sunshine and nearby large, empty areas to put solar and wind farms (at least until the Capitol rips them out). And Phoenix is still close to Salt Lake City (at least as compared with Six, Seven, Eight, etc).

District Four: Don't have any real disagreement here just a couple of slight quibbles. First, I extended the district boundary back to encompass more land (and pushed Ten back to maintain a no-mans-land), in part to provide more room for canning/other processing or preservation and shipping facilities, and in part to make the district more comfortable. As Four seems to be on more positive terms with the Capitol than the non-career district, I think the Capitol might give them more space to expand and live comfortably, perhaps even to do some local farming. I also wanted to expand the living area in Four a little closer to Louisiana; all of the characters we meet from Four have Irish-sounding names, and New Orleans is the closest area that once had a large Irish population that I know of.³

District Five: I like fernwithy's placement of Five at Yellowstone, given the natural resources available, however, given the Capitol's choice to concentrate power generation in a single district, I think they'd be better off if Five is structured like the other natural resource districts, with a capital and multiple smaller settlements. I spread the boundaries out to encompass large parts of Wyoming and the Dakotas, in order to capture existing hydro facilities on the Missouri River, existing wind farms in each of these states, the shale oil in North Dakota, and plenty of open land where more wind and solar facilities could be built.

District Six: As fernwithy notes, we don't get any textual clues. I like Omaha, for practical and sentimental reasons. Omaha is pretty much in the middle of this vision of Panem, and would be a good location for bringing in goods from Four, Eight, Nine and Ten. Omaha was also the center of the First Continental Railroad, and in the Nineteenth Century, every major railroad served Omaha because of the Omaha Stockyards. It's still Union Pacific's headquarters. If the US has a railroad city, I think Omaha is it.

Of course, this is all just guesswork, but I love trying to work it out. Major thanks to fernwithy, who upended my thinking about the location of the Capitol and Thirtieth, consequently rearranging my speculation about most of the other districts. If you haven't read her Hunger Games fan fiction, I highly recommend it.

¹ Though, of course, no one knows how long Panem existed before the Dark Days, so if you postulate a very long period of time, you could reach the same result that way.
² But not Eight, because it is so bugnuts cold in Minneapolis (colder than Toronto!), and because of its relatively low population density.
³ Or the Capitol settled a bunch of Irish refugees there and the names have nothing to do with Four's location.

Over the past couple of months, my interest in Classic Who has been revived in big way. You would think having a history with a show would make it easy to get back in the fandom, but the last time I was this captivated, John Major was prime minister. Commercial internet was in its infancy (I did not have access), and watching episodes involved finding a source that could get past the PAL-VHS divide (and, oh yah, the Atlantic) or being lucky enough to live in a region with good public television.¹ Access to guidebooks or other tie-in materials was limited, especially if you didn't live near an active fan community. I familiarized myself with older episodes by reading the Terrence Dicks novelizations I bought from the bins underneath tables at the Star Trek conventions.²

In the meantime, Doctor Who has grown exponentially. In many ways, this is wonderful. For example, you can imagine the macro face I made when I stumbled onto Big Finish (I CAN HAZ TARDIS?!?). I am never going to be short of squee. But it is also a little overwhelming. There is so much to enjoy, I am not sure where to begin but I am quite sure that I am doing it all wrong.

It is also making me weirdly defensive. I have the urge to make an icon that says "I'm not here because David Tennant is pretty. I'm here because Sylvester McCoy gives me an inimitable feeling of childhood wonder and security for the plot."

For the love of all things holy, would someone just show me where the towels are kept?

This post has been brought to you by penfold_x's inability to find an active Classic Who fic-finder community.

¹ Defined as "plays episodes from a range of Doctor Who eras weekly," as opposed to "plays three episodes of Tom Baker over and over, until permanently preempted by The Joy of Painting."

² Imma gonna to stop reminiscing here because this post is rapidly degenerating into "When I was your age we only had one con a year! And we had to walk there, in three feet of snow. Uphill! Both ways!" *waves old lady cane*

My thoughts about Yellow Fever, and thoughts about other people's thoughts about Yellow Fever, including Eric Kripke's statement about this episode, which includes a non-specific spoiler for a future episode.
( warning: not all rainbows and kittens, unfortunately )

Spoilers for Supernatural 4x01 under the cut:
( Welcome back, Show! *pinches cheeks* )

I managed to get through Shore Leave without being spoiled for the last four episodes of Doctor Who, and planned to watch them as they came on SciFi, but mrwubbles sent me teasing text messages that made it impossible for me to stay away. So I used BBCBitorrent to mainline the last of the lot this afternoon. And, oh yes, I have reaction.

In short order, I expect I will begin to process the relationship aspect of these eps, which is 99% of why I'm in fandom. But right now, I am stuck on the meta of the Doctor's politics.

( Major Spoilers for All Unaired Episodes of Doctor Who )

The Supernatural PTB have admitted they goofed in writing Sam's absence as only two years. Most of the fanfics I've read have extended the time to four years. Based on my knowledge of and experience with the law school admissions process, I'd say the most probable answer is three years.

( The American Law School Admissions System, for Non-Lawyers or Non-Americans )
( So How Smart Is Sam? )