Yeah

[dredsina]

Ive said this before but swear the biggest skill to learn as an adult is how to resist high-pressure sales tactics. You do NOT have to answer questions with anything other than "Sorry I'm not interested." No matter how nice they are or no matter how many follow up questions they ask or even how agitated they get when you stand your ground. Just keep saying I'm not interested. Don't answer their questions. Don't give them an opening to try to push back on your reasons. Be a fucking brick wall of I'm not interested.

[sweaterkittensahoy]

When we bought our car, I told Sean to let me handle it. I walked in and said "We have X for a down payment and cannot pay more than Y in monthly payments." My Y number had some leeway, but I didn't mention that.

First thing the sales guy did after I laid down the rules was turn to Sean and go, "What's your number?" And Sean said. "Oh, no, you negotiate with Gayle."

So, strike one for the sales guy. Could not divide and conquer us by implying THE MAN would not surprised at what I laid down.

Sales guy then had to confer with his manager and left us at his desk for several minutes. I have a vague recollection (this was 16 years ago) of Sean and I amusing ourselves doing bits about the other people there to look at cars. I am sure we did not give off the stressed or nervous energy they were hoping for.

Guy comes back. His first offer is fifty dollars a month more than I told him we could pay. I looked at him and said "I gave you our upper limit."

"Well, but what's another 50 bucks a month?"

"Something I can't afford."

He didn't know what to do with my open and unashamed admittal that I had a budget because my money was finite.

He went back to talk to the manager again.

It took two more rounds of "I told you what I can afford" before he finally came back 20 bucks under what I'd stated as my max.

The trick to resisting high-stress sales tactics is doing the math at home, knowing exactly what you can afford, and then walking into the room and stating that number minus 15%. Then refusing to budge from that number. Never, ever, meet then where they want. Always meet them where you want. Because at the end of the day, you can walk away and go somewhere else and say "I told the people at Z what my terms were, and they refused to work with me. Here are my terms. Meet them, and you make a sale today."

[teachablr-moment]

I have been a salesperson. I tried very hard to make a living selling life insurance. I read all the books and failed many, many more times than I succeeded. In the end, I went into education, where the sales pitch is much more agreeable (do your homework and I'll give you a better grade).

Lemme tell you that sales people are like the fae folk in the old tales.

They are beholden to the magic number 3. Refuse a sales pitch three times and they are trained to give up. They are trained in many ways to "redirect a refusal", but three refusals means it's time for them to give up.

They cannot enter your home without your permission. But once given in any form, permission is tough to claw back.

They truly fear a failed deal. Sale folk feed on the magic of forging contracts. If they cannot meet their quota, they will starve.

Their deals are never symmetrical. Somehow, it's always weighted in their favor, usually in inscrutable ways.

[the-haiku-bot]

Lemme tell you that

sales people are like the fae

folk in the old tales.

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

[redstonedust]

i like when a piece of media says that an all-powerful character "sees humans as insects" because that really could mean a lot of things. maybe they view us as insignifigant and will squish us under their boot. maybe theyre actually studying and cataloguing us for their thesis paper. maybe theyre campaigning for human protection because we're an important part of their ecosystem. maybe they see a human and go "ew ew ewwwwww someone get the cup and get that FREAK out of my house." .

[writing-prompt-s]

"So if you win the duel, you get to take her on a date." They both nodded. "And if she wins the duel, she gets to take you on a date." They both nodded. "So why don't you both just... Skip that and go on a date?" They both glared.

[dogpuppy]

Fat spectre..

[dogpuppy]

Everyone is lusting over the Fat spectre..

[jetjaguar2000]

A sequel to the last commission I got from @spicy-apple-pie! I imagine Cass pushed Steph into frame to get her reaction to that comment. Luckily, Steph couldn't give less of a crap lol.

Thanks, Spicy!

[theweight]

they should do emmys for gifs

[worldheritagepostorganization]

World Heritage Post

[cloudabserk]

i’ve talked about it before but their temperature differential would be perfect for cuddling

[cloudabserk]

actually it would be safe and comfortable for them both because of the power of friendship…

[manic-draws]

Had to post this gem

[goldenaltar]

concept: no astrophage au where eridians and humans still make first contact but like, properly. a whole diplomatic mission meeting in the middle of space to save travel time. stratt is humanity's greatest representation. the eridian equivalent is equally as scary and secretly soft. it's all very star trek.

but rocky and grace put the whole diplomacy thing in jeopardy by being too best buddy with it. like they're both really low level members of the mission. some engineer necessary for ship maintenance, and an obligatory molecular biologist they brought along in case they found more alien cells out in space. and these two guys like, somehow keep ending up hanging out essentially "at the back of the classroom." consistently left out of the actually important negotiations, and well, they're bored!

grace steals some laptops and starts jury-rigging his own personal translator for rocky, despite the fact that the official translation software is way quicker to learn and much more nuanced. rocky starts learning english, simplifies his eridian, and immediately starts mocking grace for needing the software. they start blabbing to each other about all the weird quirks of their respective cultures and advanced science their planets can do. the whole time they are ribbing each other about culture stuff. grace eats in front of rocky. rocky forces grace to sleep in a corridor somewhere so he can keep watch.

then stratt and the eridian leader find out and it's like

stratt: you. you've been meeting in private with a member of the eridian deligation?

grace: ... yyyes.

stratt: and you shared with them classified scientific documents?

grace: i... maybe gave him. a laptop. he's so smart! what was i supposed to do?

stratt: HIM? you've assigned male pronouns to a genderless species?

grace: he said he likes to match!

stratt: do you even know the name of this eridian?!

grace: i call him rocky :)

stratt: 😰

then on rocky's side of things it's like

eridian leader: sorry did you say you called the human after one of its digestive noises?

rocky: yeah :)

eridian leader: and. you've been telling it about how to make xenonite. one of our most vital trading resources.

rocky: yes yes, grace is very ignorant about basic chemistry 🙄

eridian leader: right. and you watch it sleep. despite the fact that all the human beings we have spoken to have described this as a cultural violation?

rocky: well he didn't like it at first but he came around!!

anyway both sides of the delegation are sweating profusely (metaphorically speaking) until they see rocky and grace in action and are like ohh! they're both freaks. we are not to blame for this. these two are just really bad at navigating cultural norms.

cut to grace curled up with rocky while he sleeps like a baby.

[pocketcat-hater]

Eridian Neutral Committee

(My shitty take on JustCakeThanks's amazing template)

[magic-the-girlbossing]

Nigel Farage 'unaware Parliamentary investigation would restart' after by-election - report

As it turns out, Nigel Farage might have wasted most of his summer by spending it fighting with a man wearing a bin on his bonce.

endlessly amused that Farage seems to think he's a Magic: The Gathering card

[magic-the-girlbossing]

blunder of the century: Farage plays Ephemerate into non-targeted removal

[htkavampire]

shlumped over a rock

[theathetingus]

If any Tadc merch releases where jax is actually fem-presenting i would cut out and sell my middle lung for all of it.

Shes my babagee, i love her so so much

[psychedelicmoonpie]

My favourite Adrian headcanon is that they're a biologist/zoologist who has seen so much shit, they're completely unphased by any and every alien habit of Grace's.

I mean full-on khaki-shorts-wearing, traversing-wilderness-with-nothin'-but-a-machete Adrian who yoinks snakes outta trees and pets swamp puppies and will unflinchingly dig around in elephant faeces for signs of a rare parasitic tapeworm if needed.

Oh, humans eat socially? No problem, Adrian has observed many many animals eat. Did you know that an obscure species of small underground dirt creature from the north side of Erid also eats socially? Adrian can give you a not-so-short presentation on them.

Oh, the human has no external carapace and so its internal sounds are absurdly loud, wet and off-putting? No problem, Adrian was just conducting an expedition last month researching the incredible eridian animal, the Wet Loud Worm from the south-east region of Wet Loud Wormland. They're desensitised, it's fine.

Oh, Grace leaks often from many orifices and it can be a bit of a learning curve to get used to? No problem for Adrian, see Wet Loud Worm paragraph again!

Meanwhile, Rocky is bewildered as to how he's managed to third-wheel both of his relationships, because both Adrian and Grace are nerds who nerd out about things, and Adrian is shaking in their carapace with enthusiasm to learn more about human culture and biology, not to mention everything about earth animals. And yeah, sure, Grace might be a molecular biologist, but he'll be damned if he'll pass up an opportunity to learn about alien fauna from a fellow scientist, and yes, Adrian, he'd love to hear about the small underground dirt creature from the north side of Erid, and he's so excited to learn more about the Wet Loud Worm, do go on.

[banana-can-do-art]

Since their society worships Change and this makes it so that transness is super acceptable and even encouraged in their society, I’ve wondered if they raise all of their kids gender neutrally referring to them as they/them until they’re older. Since like when Isabeau talks about his past self as a clearly trans character, he uses they/them, and I was a bit surprised by this since I assumed he’d either just say he since regardless of what he went by at the time since many if not most trans people still see their experience as being their gender the entire time regardless of how others perceived them or how they did not know it yet themselves. However, some people may still choose to refer to their past selves in the way they were referred to at the time if the specific trans person so chooses to do so, so when Isa changed pronouns to refer to his past self I was bit surprised that if he was going to do that, he didn’t use she. He could always be referring to the entirety of himself gender neutrally to include both the way he was then and the way he is now. But with how much they all worship Change, wouldn’t he maybe want to use the pronoun switch if he was going to do one to emphasize more dramatic change? But then I thought about it more and how Bonnie uses they/them. And in our society in the real world it’s not super common for someone as young as them to have figured out their gender identity enough within the bounds and restrictions our society places on them to be going by they/them. But transphobia doesn’t seem to exist in their world, so it isn’t a problem for Bonnie. And I think Bonnie would be consciously choosing to continue using they/them at this point since while they’re still very young, they’re old enough to know and conceptualize their gender identity especially in a world where that’s encouraged. (Edit: Bonnie’s a bit older than I thought they were, I assumed they were like eight, so it is more common in our world for people like twelve or so to be figuring out their gender identities, but still it’s made a lot easier for Bonnie by the acceptance of the society they’re in and my point still stands) But it also makes me wonder if maybe they were just going by that for their whole life and they’re expected to change it as they grow older and understand their identities more. I wonder if that’s like another celebration of change for them, changing pronouns. But I wonder if not changing them would be frowned on at all then considering that Mira’s queerness isn’t accepted in the same way as everyone else’s is since her aroaceness means staying the same while most other sexualities and identities involve changing yourself in some way, by entering a relationship, or changing pronouns or your body or whatever else. So I wonder then if a nonbinary identity is similar at all, like oh you never changed it, you should do that. Which is kind of funny to me like sort of obligatory trans. And how their society is basically like we love and encourage LGBTQ+ stuff we love it because change, except not the aros and aces eeeeewwww. ISAT society is just the worst of queer infighting aro ace exclusion discourse lmao. And then if my theory is right maybe that extends to enbies too, who knows. This would likely mean that Isa is still trans if this is the case obviously that’s an important part of their character, but in universe maybe he was just in an AFAB body except it wouldn’t really be assigned anything in their universe, but it would appear the way we would gender it that way in our universe, and he later transitioned to make it more masculine and began using he/him pronouns. The way that queerness is treated in various world buildings, especially ones where it was so clearly thought about and factored in like in ISAT is so interesting to me. Anyway, just something interesting I picked up on in the world building.

[cheeseanonioncrisps]

At some point on the journey back to Erid, Rocky gets around to asking Grace exactly why he was so mesmerised by seeing the astrophage in the Petrova line.

Grace describes it as best he can, but all he can really manage to get across to Rocky is that he was surrounded by small floating lights.

Later on, Grace is talking about the stars and how important they've been to human cultures for millennia. “What do the stars look like, question?” Rocky wants to know.

Oh, y'know, they're a bunch of small floating lights.

There's a disco ball on the Hail Mary. Grace says it's there because it “makes me happy”. “How does it make Grace happy, question?” Rocky wants to know.

Oh, it creates the illusion that he's surrounded by small floating lights.

Rocky begins to do some research.

Glitter: a substance invented by humans to make things look like they're covered in small lights.

Human jewellery: mostly involves gemstones or polished metals, designed to reflect small lights.

Christmas lights. Candles. Lanterns. Fireworks. Glowsticks. Glow in the dark paint. Rocky is beginning to notice a pattern here, statement.

It takes Grace a fucking while after getting to Erid to notice that a lot of the gifts he's receiving from grateful Eridians are either a) sparkly, b) incredibly shiny, or c) fitted with lights.

While the last one is obviously a concession for his human light sense, he's confused about the former two. Are Eridian materials usually this shiny? Is there some quality about sparkly or highly polished surfaces that makes them sound better? Or is there something about Eridian geology/metallurgy that makes their materials like this?

He asks Rocky about it.

“Simple. I tell people humans like lots of small lights. Humans are easy to make happy.”

Grace kind of wants to protest that humans are much more complicated than that.

But honestly… it fucking works. Like yeah the polished gemstones, shiny metals and glittery rocks are beautiful. Yes those Christmas lights you put up around the house did markedly improve my mental health, Rocky. Thank you, I hate it.

Grace spends a lot of time trying not to think about whether his species' urge to explore the cosmos (that saved their planet and nearly killed him several times) is tied to the same instinct that made his students like glitter gel pens.

[thememedaddy]