Mental Council Meeting

They/Them ~ AroAce

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

[deslizada]

man sometimes friendship really is just "I saw this and knew it would give you psychic damage. please respond with agony" and then they do. and it's great

[queerautism]

"Are AI generated images art" I frankly couldn't give less of a fuck. That's like an alternate universe question to me, one where we don't have to worry about the actual pressing issues, like AI companies literally destroying our economy and building the infrastructure of fascism.

[busket]

important that you never forgive ice agents, ever. even years after all this is over (and I do believe we will make it out on the other side, alive and for the better,) they live in shame and disgrace forever. no excuses, no forgiveness. they ruined their own lives when they decided that human freedom and liberty was an acceptable sacrifice for a paycheck

[brightlotusmoon]

[homunculus-argument]

Using a shredded strip of a book page as a bookmark is like making a horse harness out of horse leather.

[homunculus-argument]

Ghosts are a form of a fossil. Something that's shaped like the living thing that was once there, but which was not able to decay in the normal way, but was, tiny piece by tiny piece, replaced by something unliving, taking the exact shape, reverse impression, of something that was once alive. There is no trace of a human soul left in it, only the photo negative, imprint of the thing that was there before.

[bigfatbreak]

Speak of the Devil

part twenty-eight previous/next

[galileosballs]

Also, please do not listen to how people talk about cover letters on this site. Cover letters are important, and in many industries you can be damn sure they'll be read. And no, they're not 'fanfic about working in your office', or just re-stating the resume contents in a fancier guise. If you treat them like that, then of course they're not doing much for you. That makes you sound like a syncophantic windbag, and it's not doing anything else to help.

I was trained in the dark arts of the cover letter by my mother, who is a hiring manager. And her training has paid off: I've been consistently told my cover letters are excellent. Let me pass on the wisdom.

The job of a cover letter is to give a prospective employer strictly more information than is on the resume. This is where you take the resume contents and put them into context. You look at the job requirements (you are looking at the job requirements before applying, right?) and look at your resume and ask the question (in your head) "why would a person think this candidate would be good for this job?" and your cover letter is the answer to that question. If you don't answer that question, the hiring manager is going to have to do it themselves, and you have way more information to work with than they do.

This is especially important if you're moving from one industry to another, because then the relevant connections aren't obvious. It's also very important if you're overqualified, because then you can use the letter to say "I know it looks like this job would be too entry-level for me, but I'm interested to pursue it for reasons x, y, and z". You can also use this space to explain away something that might otherwise be disqualifying, like job-hopping or a long break in employment. The tone to strike here is always matter-of-fact and constrained to topic - don't go into detail about health stuff or personal tragedy, just tell them what they need to hear: that this period of your resume was affected by [bad thing] but that it's now in the past and you're looking forward to the next chapter. Remember, one of the things they're trying to learn is whether you'd be content in this role, or whether you'd be miserable and leave after 2 months, which would force them to do all the work of hiring again. You're trying to establish that you will fit right in and not cause problems. Knowing what drew you to this job in particular (and don't just say 'money', that's true for everyone) helps with that.

And the other mistake? Everyone writes cover letters that are too long. One page is fine. Two is the absolute maximum, and that's if you have a lot of specific things to say. It's a waste of your time and theirs to pad it out with fluff. Of my two most recent successful cover letters (i.e. jobs for which I was interviewed) one was 390 words and the other was 550. That's the length of this post. How long did it take me to write this post? About 15 minutes to write, 5 to proof and edit. That's how long you should be spending on a cover letter, maximum.

[katenepveu]

For much more information, examples, advice:

cover letters Archives

Your cover letter is where you make a case for why you’d excel at the job, aside from what’s in your resume. A good cover letter can be the

[lazy-and-bitter]

I am never looking up anything about a show again ever

First I just wanted to look up one of the actors of a character I liked, only to find out that two characters I ship do get together but she dies. I finally get to her death episode and want to look up the details of it so I may properly explain it to my friend. Only to learn that another character dies and has a son. Which means his wife does eventually get pregnant

[what-even-is-thiss]

Sometimes when you’re writing you scrape a character out of the depths of your soul and plop them on the page and you’re like huh didn’t know he was even in there

[what-even-is-thiss]

This guy has been in my heart the entire time, turns out.

Well glad he got out, finally. Might’ve clogged an artery or something eventually.

[unfuckyourhabitat]

Emergency cleaning: Unfuck your whole house in the shortest time possible

So, your landlord/parents/home inspector/favorite movie star is dropping by, and your place is a disaster. You don’t have much time to clean it up. You’re in emergency mode. Let’s get started.

Don’t panic. Panic leads to fear, fear leads to procrastination, procrastination leads to the dark side. You can do this, but you have to stay calm.

Unlike maintenance cleaning, we’re not looking to completely unfuck one space at a time. Instead, we want to decrease the overall mess in stages, spread evenly across the whole area that we’re concerned about. If you think your home is at Level 10 filth, we want to bring the whole thing down to a Level 9, and then down from there. One really clean spot in an otherwise messy home is not going to be helpful here.

Get prepared. You’ll want to shut the computer down (or turn the modem off if you need your computer to play music). Trust me. Get your music going. Gather up trash bags, your vacuum and mop, some rags or paper towel, sponges, and other cleaning supplies. Use what you have on hand. Don’t get distracted running to the store and spending an hour browsing cleaning supplies. A multi-purpose cleaning concentrate or a jug of vinegar will be just fine.

Breaks are very important. Depending on your time constraints, work in 20/10s (20 minutes working, 10-minute break) or 45/15s. But take breaks because otherwise you’re marathoning, and marathon cleaning is no one’s friend. Keep hydrated, don’t forget to eat, and check in with yourself frequently to make sure you’re physically doing OK.

Make your bed. This will be your home base if you get overwhelmed or need somewhere clear to take a break.

Start with the garbage. Going from room to room, throw out anything that is obvious trash. Once you fill a bag, take it out. Repeat as many times as necessary.

Move on to dishes. Gather the dishes from all over your house and bring them to the kitchen. If you can, start them soaking in a sink of hot, soapy water or start loading the dishwasher. After the dishes are all in one place, spend one 20/10 getting started getting them under control.

Now it’s time for your flat surfaces. Countertops, tables, dresser tops, etc. Clear them off and wipe them down. Don’t get distracted in too much sorting and organizing. We’re in crisis mode here. There will be time to get in-depth once this is all done. The same applies to cabinets and closets. Unless you have reason to believe people will be opening closed doors, leave these alone for now.

Attack the floordrobe and shoe pile. Get your clothes either put away or in the hamper. Start a load of laundry if you need to, but keep in mind that laundry and dishes have three steps: wash, dry, and put it away, goddammit!

Get random stuff up off the floors. If something is trash-worthy, throw it away now rather than just move it around a bunch of times. Otherwise, put stuff where it belongs.

Take another 20/10 or 45/15 to catch up on more dishes, if needed.

Head into the bathroom. Pour some cleaner in the toilet bowl, fill the sink with hot water and cleaner, and either spray the tub and shower with cleaner, or fill the tub up with some hot water and add cleaner and let it soak. Put everything away that’s out and shouldn’t be, clean the mirror, counters, and toilet seat. Sweep or dry mop the floor. Wipe down the sink and tub/shower, and give the toilet bowl a scrub. Mop the floor.

Sweep and mop the kitchen floor.

Vacuum everything you can, and sweep everything you can’t.

Walk outside of your house (don’t lock yourself out, please). Walk back in and see what catches your eye first. Go and deal with that.

If you’re being inspected or your landlord is coming in for repairs, spend time on whatever area they’ll be focusing on.

Give the whole place one more once-over and pay attention to anything you’ve missed so far.

It’s an old trick, but if your place is a little funky-smelling, put a pan of water on the stove on low heat and add some citrus or cinnamon or vanilla. Don’t leave it unattended or forget about it.

Take a shower, put on something clean, and eat something.

You can do this. It’s overwhelming, yes, but it is not impossible. You just need to do it. You have a list. You have directions. You have a whole bunch of Internet strangers who have been there before and who are cheering you on. You can do this, but you need to get started.

Why are you still here? GO. START. NOW.

[river-b]

the number of times in my past that I desperately wanted/needed someone to sit me down and tell me this stuff. I will never get back the hours and hours lost to headless-chicken mode, but it’s nice to know that in the last year I’ve learned so many coping mechanisms :D

[crag-the-caveman]

Crag like Grug's view on things

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

One thing I love putting in my fantasy and scifi that so many stories I read don't have is superstitions that are just wrong. Astrology type shit. Wizards being assigned an elemental type that's supposed to determine their personality just because that's how it's been done for centuries because ages ago people believed in it and these days people are like "no of course it's a silly superstition haha" but still glance knowingly at your metal type tattoo when you're being headstrong. Societies who believe that the stars determine your destiny because see, this kid was born under the star that indicated intelligence so we pushed her in school and got her special tutors so she could live up to her potential and look, she IS more academically successful than her peers born under other stars! People talking about their religion in the far future and all the side characters are like "that sounds like fucking nonsense" and they're like "no it's TRUE" and the audience is like 'no that's nonsense'. I love inventing shit for characters to just be totally wrong about.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

I also love making them wrong about the past but that's just a fun thing that most far future scifi gets to do.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

This is also a useful tactic for reminding readers not to trust characters' perspective too much. Like, yeah, that person did just give a very smart-sounding detailed analysis on the current situation and predicted to the month how long it will be before war breaks out, but they also believe (incorrectly) that the ghosts of previous captains live on in the hull of the ship and think humans invented dolphins by combining human and whale DNA, so don't be too surprised if they turn out to be wrong. The narrator said it's "the biggest spaceship ever built" but she's six years old and just learned what a sheep is, so. Might have a limited perspective.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

#The fun thing in The Void Behind with this is that you (OP) get to do this with stuff that happened in TTO:U.

Just because Aspen is long dead doesn't mean I can't keep distorting their reputation.

[phantomrose96]

When you meet Edward Elric he gives off the impression that he's the short-tempered hot-headed "violence is the answer to all life's questions" kind of protagonist, and it's in fact incredible character craft that he's actually the character who ends the series with a negative-3 kill count.

[phantomrose96]

people killed: 0

direct orders of "you really really need to kill this guy" ignored: 1

ongoing murders being committed by Ed's own friends/colleagues that Ed got in the way of to specifically stop that murder from happening: 2

[phantomrose96]

God's worst soldier Edward Elric. Showed up as the youngest member of the Amestrian army, took millions of dollars from them, never followed a single order, helped dismantle their fascist regime, left with a lower kill count than he arrived with, then fucked off to go be a house-husband. Character of all time.

[aka-blaa]

You know, when you said "negative-3 kill count," I, who haven't seen the anime, thought, "He resurrected 3 people?????" But I'm seeing here on the wiki that apparently resurrection in this anime is a terrible idea.

[phantomrose96]

Official addition to this post.

[rohirric-hunter]

"We're gonna achieve immortality by turning ourselves into machines" buddy I want you to find yourself a 15 year old laptop and try to run a 10 year old piece of software on it please. Connect to the internet, if you can, and attempt to log into any of your online accounts

[the-yoshir]

Somebody is stuck with proprietary operating systems.

[rohirric-hunter]

The computer that inspired this post has linux mint installed on it. I installed it myself. It won't run a lot of programs, even ones that run natively on linux, because it's old enough that the processor doesn't support Vulcan shaders

[bebewrites]

genAI companies are now buying up rare and antique books so they can scan them and use them to train their AI. then they're destroying the books afterward.

AI Companies Are Buying Antique Books, Ingesting Their Contents to Train Models, and Then Destroying Them at Incredible Scale, Even If Almos

AI companies are quietly obtaining rare books, ingesting their contents, and then destroying them -- even if they're exceedingly rare.

they've had to face settlements against stealing from current authors, so they'll just go for the old books now. they're also doing this so they have the only copies of rare books.

they're taking water, power, natural resources for their data centers. they steal. they're book burning, essentially. i'm just so angry, i'm at a loss right now.

[habbadax]

Took a wrong turn somewhere

[orcboxer]

i took a nap and woke up in all these goddam spinanch

[cardiac-ossification]

[the-punforgiven]

[spacey-daydreams]

[existentialterror]

[what-even-is-thiss]

When I was at the movie theatre they were advertising a romcom where the premise was that unmarried people are only legally allowed to have sex once a year and that one, that one made me put my head in my hands.

[what-even-is-thiss]

It’s called One Night Only, it’s a real movie, and yes it’s very heterosexual looking.

That’s like, idk. A premise for a fanfiction porn intro written by a fifteen year old.

[furbygoblinxiv]

Lol for anyone curious: I watched it early and there ARE gay people in it, which I was absolutely not expecting (casually too, like her roommate is gay and they don't make a big deal out of it or treat it like a joke). They also do actually explain the worldbuilding which I wasn't expecting either (government partnered with big tech and forced everyone to get implanted with biosensors and that's how they enforce it btw). Felt like a romcom that was set in a political satire of the USA

[what-even-is-thiss]

So wait. Can the sensors tell the difference between sex with another person and masturbation? Is masturbation also illegal?

Man this really is a fanfic porno.