Silmarils, space orcs and odds & ends

[youhaveaguineapigwhere]

[youhaveaguineapigwhere]

Everytime this gets a note when its nowhere near christmas I question my sanity just a little bit more

[youhaveaguineapigwhere]

No, it is July, stop that, stop giving this notes, you guys have lost reblogging privileges

[pangur-and-grim]

I feel so insane about ai. I've had face-to-face conversations with people who use it for therapy, who use it to calculate the safety of pill interactions, who use it for all their emails and grant applications and legal documents and academic papers and finance sheets and for every single question they have about the world, and if you tell them about the ecological costs they just laugh and say "I guess I've used a lot of water." and I've been in multiple gatherings of 10+ people where I'm THE ONLY PERSON who doesn't use chatgpt. it's turning me into a ranting raving pariah, because how don't you people see??? why don't you understand??????? this bullshit didn't exist five years ago, you absolutely do not need it, and it is destroying everything

[spirkkock]

my friend just had an art show and they were communicating with the gallerist over email. They could clearly tell that the gallerist was using AI to respond to their emails, but just rolled their eyes and moved on.

and then on the day of the show, my friend asks, "where is the camera I requested?"

gallerist: "you didn't request a camera"

my friend: "I did, and you confirmed that you would have one here."

gallerist: "that isn't true."

and then she proceeded to pull up the email thread, and my friend could see that every single email they had sent had been summarized by AI, and that the gallerist had then had AI write a response to them based on the AI summary, and that the AI had detected that they needed a camera, and confirmed on behalf of the gallerist that they would bring a camera, but because the gallerist had offloaded the work of actually reading and responding, she simply hadn't actually made any note of it herself, therefore didn't bring it, nor did she even know one was needed.

so my friend had done all of this communication about their needs and expectations to be able to make the show possible, and the person whose job it was to read that information and get it done had simply.... not read the information and not done it. because AI.

[femmesandhoney]

[cowboybeebs-deactivated20211104]

Female solidarity

[biologicallyangry-deactivated20]

The Collective Has Spoken

[femclasscirce]

That was an ancient Greek chorus sis

[future-crab]

Imagine being Anais Mitchell and writing a song about the rhetoric of fascism so incisive and prescient that 10 years later an actual fascist would use that exact rhetoric down to the highly-specific phrasing in his presidential campaign. But also it took 10 years for the project you wrote that song for to move from living room shows to concept album to theater workshop to off-Broadway to Broadway, and its Broadway debut ended up coinciding with said fascist's successful bid for the presidency, and now it looks like your song that you wrote in 2005 is a super unsubtle reference to that one particular and highly-topical politician.

Frankly if I were her I would have started killing.

[cheeseanonioncrisps]

“It's not fair.” The little ghost kicks impotently at the chalk lines around her feet. “I ain't done nothing.”

I nod, setting down my chalk and spellbook. “It does sound like there might have been a bit of a misunderstanding.”

“She took against me, that's what happened,” the dead girl says with a scowl. She looks about fourteen, round faced and spotty, with whisps of brown hair peaking out from under her mob-cap. Her face and her crossed arms have a tell-tale bluish tinge to them. A cholera death.

“I been here for don't know how long and never gave any trouble. Nobody ever complained about me 'till her.”

…well, that's not strictly true.

Number 12, Barclay Street has been attracting rumours of haunting since the mid nineteenth century.

Sounds of faint singing and crying in the corridors at night. Cold spots. Doors that open and close by themselves. Animals acting strangely. Harmless, mid to low-level stuff, typical for a bored teenage poltergeist.

Still, pointing that out isn't likely to achieve much, and certainly the most recent complaints of blood running down the walls, screams in the dark and paralysing night terrors seem distinctly out of character.

The ghost toes the chalk again, more tentatively this time. It stays resolutely unbroken.

She could get out if she wanted to. I'm not one of those assholes who brings out their full arsenal of wards and sigils for a first meeting with a level 2 spectre. The summoning circle will keep her in one place for as long as I need her to talk, but it wouldn't hold for a moment if she really fought against it.

I take it as a good sign that she's still here. Pouting or not, she's clearly willing to work with me.

“None of the others could do this,” she says. “None of 'em even saw me.” She looks up. “Are you here to exise me?”

“Exorcise,” I say instinctively, and curse myself when she flinches. “Sorry, no, no! I don't exorcise people from their homes without good reason, not if they're happy where they are.”

“I was happy. Till she started calling in all them ghost hunters.”

Mrs Delaney had been quite persistent in her attempts to 'fix' her haunted house. Most of the people she found were charlatans, of course, but I'd still arranged an appointment as fast as I could once word reached me. It wouldn't have been long before she happened upon somebody with Talent, and unfortunately not everybody in this field knows how to behave like a professional.

“I think we might be able to help each other,” I say, careful to keep my voice calm and level.

“Don't see how. Not unless you can exorcise Her.”

“Not quite what I had in mind.” I pull out my phone and scroll through my photos. “You say that you're not the cause of the most recent incidents of paranormal activity?”

A pause. The ghost gnaws on her lip. I wait, patiently, keeping my body language open and nonthreatening. “I… I knocked her coffee cup over,” she admits at last. “She was being mean and talking on her telephone, saying I done all these things when I never did! So I decided to show her what I could do if I wanted.”

“Hmm.” The ghost eyes me nervously, as if expecting me to pull out a book, bell and candle and banish her on the spot.

“I only tipped it,” she adds. “I didn't break it or nothing!”

“You shouldn't have touched it at all,” I say sternly. “But… I can appreciate that you were frustrated, so let's say no more about it.”

The ghost looks relieved.

“My point is,” I continue, “if you weren't the one making blood rain from the ceiling or tormenting people in their sleep, then what was? There's no other ghosts on the property.” I find the picture I was looking for. “You can get anywhere around the house, right? Including behind the furniture and in the backs of cupboards?”

“Yes'm.”

I hold the phone up so that she can see the picture on the screen. “I'm going to let you go free in a moment, and I need you to see if you can find anything that looks like this.”

The ghost wrinkles her forehead. “What's that when it's at home?”

“Black mould,” I say, reaching out a foot to break the binding circle. “And I'm pretty sure it's the cause of this haunting.”

[creepygnocchi]

if Mumford & Sons existed in Aramán I think 17-year-old Azune would have listened to Little Lion Man on repeat every night in his tent and cried. And I think Teor would eventually go up to him and say "you are not little lion man" and it would just make Azune cry harder because now he thinks he accidentally offended Teor. And Teor would panic and say "no no I meant you are not metaphorical little lion man, I didn't think you thought you were an actual lion man." Which, of course, would just make Azune even more upset because he feels guilty that he thought Teor would not understand the metaphor. And eventually he'd just be lying on the ground ugly sobbing while Teor is patting his back and saying "I wish to kill Mumford and all of his Sons"

[creepygnocchi]

not that anyone asked for further analysis but I think Kattigan would introduce Azune to Bruce Springsteen but instantly regret it because Azune would just listen to Nebraska on loop. he tells Teor "If I have to listen to Atlantic City one more time we'll find out whether everything that dies someday comes back." And Teor says "is still better than listening to the eh eh oh Bastille song every day, no?"

Thjazi keeps trying to get him into Green Day but Azune will only listen to Wake Me Up When September Ends and Boulevard of Broken Dreams

[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.

[buam]

Cover letters are the first thing I look at. Poorly written cover letters are an instant rejection - how can I trust someone to communicate well or take the job seriously if they can’t write a couple paragraphs about their background and why they want the job? Strong cover letters, on the other hand, can earn someone with a so-so resume an interview.

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

Off topic for this blog but an important skill I think we teach people so little about!

Cover letters are your elevator pitch. Why you, over anyone else with the same qualifications? What things can you advertise yourself with that can’t go on a resume? It’s literally self-advertising. Tell an employer a persuasive narrative about yourself that will make them want to interview you.

For a quick example: this blog led to me getting my first fact-checking gig, which has become my Real JobTM.

My resume shows the blog, that first client (which I still work for, eight years in!), and subsequent professional advancement. It’s not a bad resume these days.

Every cover letter I send tells the story of how I tried to do education on the internet and got so frustrated by incorrect/contradictory/unsourced information that I taught myself how to fact-check to find some dang correct facts. That I’ve dug so deep looking for accurate answers that my work has been published in peer-reviewed journals, cited in law articles and other academic literature, and influenced the trajectory of legislation. And that I still love it! A decade later, it is a joy every single day to dig my teeth into the newest topic and make sure everything is right. This, I say, is what I will do for them.

That’s the story my resume could never convey.

You don’t want to make things up or exaggerate, but everyone has some sort of narrative to build around their history. Even if it’s not conventionally “impressive” it will still give potential employers a sense of who you are, where you’re coming from, and if you’d be a good fit.

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

#ugh... i can't self-advertise to save my life... tags from @rubytactician

I have a trick for this! It's called ask someone else.

No, really. Someone in your friends / family / favorite colleagues from that last job is going to be your biggest supporter, so make use of that!

Ask them how they'd pitch you to someone else. Insert theoretical scenario of them somehow socially encountering someone hiring for the perfect job for you - what would they say to make that person interested? What about your work history do they think would be compelling? What skills do they think you should promote?

It is really hard to figure out how to market yourself. Especially these days when there's a more performative aspect to job applications than just having the right skills. Make use of the people who love you want to see you do well.

I think this sort of thing used to be easier when written letters of recommendation were more common, honestly, because those were literally someone else advertising you to someone else.

Another thing you can do - which will feel so awkward but is worth it - is to ask friends, colleagues from previous jobs (maybe not your current one), or past/current clients to give you a blurb! If you have a professional website, those are a great thing to use to flesh them out to prove you are a real person with real skills. If not, you can keep them to look at when you need inspiration or can't remember to save your life what you're good at and why someone should hire you.

My best suggestion if you're like uh, no, I cannot write something cogent is... don't. Barf everything vaguely relevant onto a sheet of paper. Do a free-writing exercise with no constraints. Write down all the silly, ridiculous, egotistic shit you'd like to tell an employer about why they should hire you. Get it all out on paper without censoring yourself so you can get any of it on paper - and this this important, do not send it. Read it back, and draw from it to make your actual cover letter. If you're struggling, show it to someone else and ask them what they think is important/interesting/marketable.

Drafting things like cover letters and even your resume with the support of your community will seriously make them so much better. You get eyes on for spellchecking and grammar, but also to help make sure it flows and that you're not using jargon or technical language a hiring manager might not understand. It can be hard to ask and I totally get that. It's something where I think it's worthwhile to sit with the discomfort. Applying for jobs successfully really isn't a skill that's taught these days! So we succeed best when we support each other.

I practice what I preach here. This is hard for me too - I am successful because I lean on community. I don't remember the last time I wrote a cover letter without having someone else preview it, even though I have a solid template I've worked from for years. I literally just asked @kaijutegu to help me cobble together a bio for a client that wanted to include me on their website (aaaaaaaa). I read and give feedback on cover letters for my friends as well, because it's got to be a two way street.

I won't say that writing cover letters isn't hard, because it is, but it is a skill that can be learned. And you don't have to do it alone.

[izloveshorses]

'theatre is dying' okay but everyone is flocking to see a beautiful hit musical now that it's been released in the cinema, something more affordable and accessible to most people, and ticket sales in the west end in particular have spiked

'cinema is dying' okay but everyone is flocking to their local cinema to see a beautiful hit musical, and so many have shown up this weekend that licensers decided to extend its theatrical release for another week, a massive rarity in the current climate

maybe the answer to saving art is... seeing art?? and making art accessible??

[brimm-art]

cut a path.

[quiddie]

🥵

[homunculus-argument]

There's this one specific interaction on reddit that I wouldn't call "infamous" but I also know that everyone who knows it knows it by the punchline, so in order to not ruin it for the ones who haven't, I'm just going to talk all of you through it as I'm saying this.

The beauty of it is that you could place that exact same dialogue into any time and place in human history and it would make just as much sense, you could have it as a conversation between sailors in a 1600s ship, a group of bronze-age warriors cleaning their weapons, stone age hunters walking home from a hunt, or a bunch of 21st century redditors on the internet, and it would hit just as splendidly.

There was this conversation about if you could have sex with any specific person from any time through human history, which one would you choose? Famous legendary lovers were brought up, queens, emperors and such were popular, might as well fuck Rasputin just to see what the hype was all about, the kind of answers one would expect.

Then some guy said he would choose his own late wife. He went on to talk about how brutal it is, that you might find the love of your life, but there's no promise that this life couldn't be suddenly cut short. That his body aches for hers and how there isn't much he wouldn't do for one more opportunity to make love to her one last time.

Now, I'd like you to imagine a pause in the conversation. A solemn, contemplative moment of silence, with several of the people present nodding in agreement that this is indeed the finest answer - it wasn't a competition, but there's no doing better than that.

And then someone breaks this solemn silence and says:

"I also choose this guy's dead wife."

[enby-denby]

For the sake of letting the full story be known: you have to imagine that after another moment of horrified silence, Dead Wife giy bursts out laughing and says, with a bittersweet smile "yeah, that was her sense of humor..."

[homunculus-argument]

Oh fuck that's right I neglected the most important part of this.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

I'm so sick of defending shit I don't even like. I hate porn. I think gender and sexuality are boring. I've never taken an illegal drug and have no interest in doing so. But people won't back the fuck off and let people live their lives so here we still are, still on the front lines with this shit. "You guys make everything about" I'D REALLY LOVE NOT TO, MATE, BUT WE'RE NOT THE ONES CREATING PROBLEMS HERE. Stop trying to control people's lives and we'll all get a chance to shut up about it, but unfortunately the Moral Police are out here endangering lives and livelihoods so here we still are. Forever.

[ramquest-deactivated20260414]

God I fucking feel you. Too real.

[paulgadzikowski]

"Why do you have to make everything about" WE'RE NOT. YOU ARE. WE'RE RESPONDING TO YOU.

[sindar-princeling]

(it's still July 29th somewhere)

[socialmaya]

[dalenthas]

I love that this joke works in English even though it's not written in English.

[peachpulpeuse]

IF YOU SEE ANY PAINTING BY "EMILE CORSI" ON HERE, DO NOT REBLOG IT THINKING IT'S REAL AND FROM THE 1800s. IT IS AI-GENERATED AND EMILE CORSI IS NOT A HISTORICAL FIGURE

examples:

[tattedpetticoats]

And if you love the vibes and wish you could find something similar painted by a real person, let me introduce you to John William Waterhouse, on whose work the AI was definitely trained:

[laziestgirlintown]

Corsi is not real

John William Waterhouse official site

John William Waterhouse wikipedia

[stephexmachina]

when i was a kid i was so mad all the time bc i thought someday i'd have to be somebody's wife i didn't know it was optional. is everybody reminding the young girls in their lives that it's optional.

[stephexmachina]

AND SO IS BEING SOMEBODY'S MOTHER‼️

[stephexmachina]

it is about being a woman. hope that helps!

[vibrantstarfire]

reading comprehension questions for the notes:

is wanting to be a wife and mother a requirement for being a woman?

why might OP be annoyed with replies assuming that this post is about being aroace or transmasc if a woman doesn’t want to be a wife or mother?

are there reasons unrelated to sexuality and romantic interest that might make a woman not want to be a wife or mother?

are there reasons unrelated to gender identity and expression that might make a woman not want to be a wife and mother?

core concept: what is gender essentialism?

is it gender essentialism to imply that all women inherently want to be wives and mothers? could this be what OP is critiquing?

look at the notes OP responds to. is it gender essentialism to imply that being a wife and mother is so affixed to womanhood that to not want to be those things means you’re incapable of sexual/romantic feelings, or not a woman?

what trait are you perpetuating when you assume that women who do not want to be wives and mothers must be aroace or trans? is it gender essentialism?

[duckbunny]

you are fifteen thousand generations removed from stone tools

[duckbunny]

to be clear you are fifteen thousand generations removed from the invention of stone tools. not from the end of stone tools. modern humans are still using stone tools.

[pseudomasochist]

Flawless tags, @baddywronglegs

[fractoluminescence]

I thought you meant we were descendents -of- stone tools

[duckbunny]

your father was a handaxe and your mother smelt of microliths

[fieldexplores]

Never Learned - Gator Days

[twenty-fourth-order-simulacra]

...the alt text?

[virtualgirladvance]

i love alt text that itself is a part of the art