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let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
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@tiritirimatangi
crazy how i find myself thinking i've got a handle on it all finally and then i see the ways that other people tangle their lives together so easily and live so easily together with their friends and i feel like that girl at the top of the stairs painting by norman rockwell
i'll always be here
for anyone too young to know this: watching The Truman Show is a vastly different experience now, compared to how it was before youtube and social media influencers became normal
before it was like, "what a horrifying thing to do to a human being! to take away their autonomy and privacy, all for the sake of profits! to create fake scenarios for them to react to, just to retain viewership! to ruin their happiness just so some corporate entity could harvest money from their very humanity! how could anyone do something so evil?"
and now it's like, "ah, yeah. this is still deeply fucked up, but it's pretty much what every influencer has been doing to their kids for a decade now. probably bad that we've normalized this experience"
agshjfsj you know what? sure. I can do this from an in-universe perspective too
for anyone too young to know this: watching The Truman Show is a vastly different experience now, compared to when it was on air.
firstly, you'd better hope it stays up on amazon prime, because it aired 24/7 for multiple decades, so the size of it is astronomical. there's a reason the other streaming services dropped it - the server costs alone are ridiculous. but even on prime there are ad breaks in it that it never used to have, because back then all the advertising was product placement, but modern advertisers want mid-roll ads, and they really break up some of the most emotional moments imo.
(and don't get me started on the music licensing btw - all of the changes are bad, but the song swap in episode 9775 killed me dead. awful)
not to mention that the vhs, laserdisc, dvd, and blu-ray releases have been out of print for years. and if you want to try torrenting it, to get it in even barely decent quality you're gonna need at least 300TB of free space, and that's not including the deleted scenes and director's commentary tracks, which are a whole other thing.
secondly, everyone has this parasocial thing where they feel like they grew up with Truman, because their mom kept it on in the house when they were a kid or w/e, and we need to just. get over it. I mean, he's just a guy. you're not special for liking him; everyone likes him.
like, some of you guys are worse about this than you were with Steve from Blue's Clues, and that's saying something. you've gotta move on.
and people need to be nicer to the actors who played his friends and family, too. like I know the ones who were adults at the start have a lot to answer for, but the kids were pushed into this by the industry just like he was! and they don't deserve to be cancelled on twitter just because their dad got them into acting as a 3yo or w/e. like. come on.
thirdly, because of the way the show ended, we need to actually address the fact that we don't know what happened to him? like, Truman wasn't some actor who quit, he was lied to about his whole life, and now nobody knows where he is! and after the SAG-AFTRA strike when the crew and extras were fighting to get paid for the work they did on that show, did fucking anybody think about Truman? if anyone's owed residuals, it's that guy.
I just feel like nobody's taking it seriously that he's not a celebrity? he's a kid who got shoved into a machine, and after what happened to him, it'd be completely fine if he never showed his face in public again.
(though personally, I want him to just so he can sue the shit out of everyone involved in his upbringing. but that's just me.)
anyway on a fandom level, if you want to help, the Truman Archival Project is looking for some eps that were lost due to corruption, and some scenes that got cut later. there's a list on the wiki, but there are a lot of gaps and old tape formats that need converting, so if you can help, go do that!
and Truman, if you're out there - I hope you're living a good life. whatever comfort and entertainment you bring to people really means nothing compared to the value of you getting to live a normal life. I hope you're having a good time, wherever you are.
when it comes down to it, what was done to you was awful. nobody deserves to have their most private moments shown to millions of people without their consent.
it's probably bad that we've normalized this experience.
OP I’m digging the little jab you made with how in-universe you wax poetic about respecting Truman’s dignity as a human being but then in the same breath turning around and insisting the public must keep as much of his life available to voyeuristic eyes for as long as possible, instead of maintaining his privacy as best as one can by letting his moments be left irretrievable. Just the sheer dissonance and hypocrisy 10/10.
I’ve got a lot of Thoughts(tm) about The Odyssey at the moment, but damnit Blum I’m an archer, not a film critic, so here’s something in my lane!
Meanwhile, via Bluesky...
I love this text post so I drew it
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.
the eva stratt in my mind is a conglomeration of movie stratt and book stratt because god fucking bless sandra huller put her entire pussy into that performance, but while weir is bad at character writing (women especially) he IS disconcertingly good at coming up with plots that generate interesting character concepts through circumstances... which due to story cuts the movie sadly missed out on.
it's really interesting looking back at both iterations of the story and how stratt and grace's rapport hinges on unrequitedness. there's obviously the karaoke scene in the movie acting as grace's bid for human connection vs stratt's necessary refusal in order to do her job. the book rarely if ever interrogates stratt's interpersonal relationships in the project and how her sense of duty and utilitarianism extends to them (well, aside from grace. more on that in a sec). She's a History major and an administrator and She Loves Humanity, but it's a characteristic that when analyzed deeper rings pretty hollow (possibly because the author thinks social analysis/critique in science fiction is stupid and thus doesn't exactly have much to say about People like someone in the humanities would. SAD!) so that's an addition to her character from the movie that i'm deeply pleased about. what i don't like as much is that the bid for connection starts from grace.
because book stratt and grace? the one sidedness of their rapport is the driving emotional conflict of the entire pre-launch plotline—and of grace's character development throughout the whole book.
like most scientists on the team, grace was brought onto the project by force, but he's the only one who fulfilled his purpose, was allowed to return to his own life, and then came back of his own volition, out of a sense of personal duty and responsibility. which is the reason stratt takes him back on! and why she begins to rely on him more and more, as an administrator, as a mediator, as a scientist, as an advisor. she has all the more reason to do that when she discovers he's coma resistant, but she was already doing all that baby!
grace spends the rest of their relationship half-assing that sense of responsibility. one thing i adore about book phm is how merciless it is with grace's "modesty" "insecurity" and "social anxiety". children are easy to dote on. they're not stupid, obviously, but on an interpersonal level they're not your equal, they have no way to actually demand accountability from you and call your ass out. he doesn't actually think he's a failure, he's not blind he should know damn well he's not like the other scientists. "science lapdog", "ooo i'm just a little guy cmonnnn i'm just a middle school teacher", he downplays his own importance because if he genuinely grappled with the level of responsibility she holds him to towards the people in the project he'd run like a fucking dog.
he is a good man AND he is a coward. stratt's relationship with him verges on the tension between those coexisting truths. he is both someone she wants to respect but can't, someone she can rely on but has to act behind his back least he realizes. she WANTS them to be equals, she WANTS him to understand. on the day the hail mary is scheduled for launch she paces HIS prison cell like SHE'S the caged animal, trying to get through to the glimpse of the man she saw that day, the one who barged into an FBI guarded facility, looked atlas in the eye and told her scoot over, i'm carrying this with you. she cares about him. she wouldn't feel so betrayed if she didn't. please understand why i'm doing this to you. please understand why i need you to be that fundamentally good man. i am tied to the tracks right next to you. and as far as she is concerned, ryland grace dies on earth saying "no".
Tags from OP, because they are also gold:
#eva stratt is in possibly the loneliest position of power anyone has ever filled#she has the weight of the entire world on her back and ryland grace storms into her lab and demands he shares part of that load and when no#one else will do IT HAS TO BE HIM he fucking bails out on her#of course she is anything but an idealist so she knew perfectly well this was a possibility and prepared for it in advance#but the personal betrayal remains. how she didn't rip his throat out is beyond me i would've wrung his neck like a goose
Yes to OP. I love your read of Eva Stratt and I agree that neither the book nor the film explains her perfectly. The film shows much more emotion and in a sense Eva Stratt is more likable. I loved the talk on the deck and the karaoke scene. But the book shows more of her workings and the choices she needs to make. There, she is like a frog in a slowly boiling pot, every decision making it harder for her to turn around (not that she was ever going to deny the call to action).
Book or film, her story is a tragedy. Not in a sad way, but in the sense that it was always going to end this way for her. Readers always knew she would do anything to succeed. Watchers always knew that she wasn't afraid to send astronauts to their death. It's an old song, it's a sad song, it's a tragedy.
Yes to 'Grace came back willingly to help, which is why Stratt trusts him'. Lokken and I imagine quite a few other people came there because they were either forced or because they felt like they 'had to' help the project (this also include Stratt herself in my opinion). In the book she has him join her on her strange quests to help her understand the science (see the meeting with Lokken or Redell). But the most telling moment is the conversation when Stratt decides to go for the coma-resistant astronauts; she already knows what she needs to do, but she wants Grace's input. And straight up: such an important decision just shouldn't be shouldered by one human. That is just unfair to said human. And who does she go to?
Yes to 'He would run like a fucking dog if he stood still and thought about responsibility'. Grace has these mental gymnastics On Lock! It is amazing how much impostor syndrome and avoidant behaviour one narrator can contain. When they blow up Antarctica in the book, Grace has this peculiar moment: Stratt Leclerc and him are standing on the Vatt staring at the ice. Grace stares at Stratt and Leclerc and thinks that these two have 'the greatest authoroty and power invested in them in the whole world'… Grace does not understand that Stratt would not have done that had he told her it wasn't worth it. There are three powerfull people standing on that deck and Grace doesn't even know it.
Yes to 'she wants them to be equals and she wants him to understand'. People have verbally fought Stratt all through the book. Lokken, Leclerc, Redell, the whole piracy debacle, every world leader and politician and most of all Grace himself. YET, there is only one person she ever listens to. Three guesses who. She wants to be on equal footing with him, but I also think she knows he cannot meet her there. Grace is willing to help in his own way, but he cannot shoulder the responsibility that Stratt is carrying. Stratt cannot go and meet him halfway, her position as director does not allow that. In the end she is BEGGING him to agree and understand.
Yes, by the end of the project Grace is doing much more than just teaching the astronauts. Yes, the others see him as a second in command. Yes, he has been present for every major meeting. But I don't believe for ONE second that Stratt has given him more than he could carry. And do I think that is because Grace is perfect and could do anything? OH HELL NO. Grace freaks out when faced with too much responsibility. Which tells me that Eva Stratt knew EXACTLY what she could give to him. Which means that she knew he could not help her shoulder the heavier things. She knows he would have refused and I wonder if that ever made her feel lonely.
And when he refuses the Big Call, as he had refused for all that time, I know for sure that I would have cried. Had I been Eva Stratt, I would have cried; for him but also myself. Because it would have meant that his refusal sealed her fate as well. It was always going to end this way.
prompt: Ozai has Azula watch Zuko (his progress or rather lack thereof) from way earlier on, possibly even before Aang gets away from the iceberg in the first place
There it is, written at the bottom of his banishment notice, wobbling in and out of his vision and he’s not sure if that’s his eyes—
(father wouldn’t have meant to blind him, so the way his eyes flinch away from bright lights and reading, even from the scrolls Uncle brought for him for some reason--this is a serious mission, why did he bring play scrolls, if they don’t take this seriously it’s going to take forever to get home--the way his eyes flinch away doesn't mean anything, because being blind isn’t going to help him catch the Avatar so he’ll just not go blind—)
It’s either his eyes, or. Or the rage. It has to be the rage.
So Zuko reads the line again, and lets the fire brim up and overflow, until sparks chase the shout from his lips.
“Banishment to be overseen by Crown Princess Azula?”
#her brother is coming home#it may be time for some other changes as well#how does the pheasant-monkey taste father?#oh of course I haven’t had any#you know I haven’t liked that since I was a little girl#are you feeling well father?#why don’t you have a little lie down father#oh is your crown uncomfortable?#let me just remove that for you#hush now#sleep#goodnight father#say hello to grandfather for me (tags from @muffinlance)
Endurance runners
Part 2 of this
Coyotes trying their damndest to get domesticated
some people think writers are so eloquent and good with words, but the reality is that we can sit there with our fingers on the keyboard going, “what’s the word for non-sunlight lighting? Like, fake lighting?” and for ten minutes, all our brain will supply is “unofficial”, and we know that’s not the right word, but it’s the only word we can come up with…until finally it’s like our face got smashed into a brick wall and we remember the word we want is “artificial”.
I couldn't remember the word "doorknob" ten minutes ago.
ok but the onelook thesaurus will save your life, i literally could not live without this website
REBLOG TO SAVE A WRITER'S LIFE
LIFE SAVED
REBLOGGING TO SAVE ANOTHER WRITERS LIFE
I use this every time I sit down to write. It's the best tool in the world and I would be lost without it!
It can be easy to confuse the two, but you don't actually "wish you were more disabled", you wish your disability was taken seriously and was properly accommodated and that you had access to the support and resources you need - and that desire is so valid. You deserve more. But the sad truth is that no level of disability actually guarantees a sufficient level of support. So you have to work to separate your very understandable desire for more support from the incorrect assumption that other disabled people are consistently receiving what you aren't. All of us are getting fucked over in this society, and no group of disabled people actually has it easy.
I don't need the chatgpt random algorithm to write emails for me because I already have a custom and 100% flawless algorithm called "writing the exact same three emails with the names changed"
#1: "hi [landlord], hope you're doing well! [apartment thing] is [broken/a problem]. we need it [fixed/replaced/handled] by [date]. let us know when you'll send someone over so we can be here to let them in. thanks so much, [op]"
#2: "hi [professor], hope you're doing well! unfortunately, I'm [sick/stuck at work/dead] and won't be able to submit [assignment] by [due date]. could I please have an extension? if not, is there anything else I could do to make up this credit? thanks so much, [op]"
#3: "hi [customer service person], hope you're doing well! unfortunately, [product] [didn't arrive/is broken/wrong color/gave me a rash/poisoned my crops] and I'd like to receive a [refund/replacement]. here is the documentation of the order and photos of [broken thing/wrong thing/my rash/dead crops]. thanks so much, [op]"
"but op I work in an office I have to write way more emails than you" well that's your fault for working in an office i got nothing to do with that
Writing an email is so easy and I will tell you how it's done. This is the advice is for everyone with an email job, but you can apply it to normal human interaction.
The FIRST SENTENCE is the thing you want the recipient to do. Do not make them guess.
I want to let you know about ... (This email is to inform someone of something not to ask them to do anything)
Could you please do ... (This is a request. You want them to do something).
I'm looking into x and wondering if you can help me (this is also a request but for information instead of an action).
People do not want to read an email and even if they do read it, most people are skimming and not interested. Tell them what you want first, then provide context or other information (when you need a thing is often key). If the email is informational, you can even add "you don't need to do anything, this is just to keep you informed!" People will appreciate not having to figure out what you want from them.
If you can't articulate what you want the recipient to do with the message, you are not ready to email them. I read too many emails where I have no idea what the person wants from me.
Put the most important thing first and everyone will be impressed! AI cannot do this for you because it can't tell what's important! Only you know that, which is why you must write your own emails.
to everyone who wants help with emails: go through the notes of this post. there are ideas I've never thought of and plenty of scripts for all kinds of situations/jobs
one of the hardest things to learn as a depressed former Gifted Kid™ is that half-assed is better than nothing. take the 50%, 40%, even 20% job. scrubbing your face is better than not taking a shower at all. picking up your clothes is better than never cleaning. nibbling on some bread is better than starving.
DO THINGS HALFWAY. NOW YOU’RE 100% BETTER OFF THAN YOU WERE BEFORE.
One of my college professors used to say “anything worth doing is worth doing poorly.” I didn’t understand that for years because I didn’t do anything poorly, I couldn’t do anything poorly, I had to Do Everything Perfectly.
But brushing your teeth for 30 seconds is better than not brushing them at all when that 2 minutes seems exhausting. Doing ten minutes of yoga is better than 10 minutes of sitting when 30 minutes of cardio sounds impossible. Changing my clothes is good when a whole shower is impossible. Standing on the porch for a few minutes is worth it after being in the house for three straight days because I don’t have the energy to go anywhere.
Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly… because doing it poorly is better than not doing it.
someone please hit me over the head with this post every day for like the next week thanks. a mention, a reblog with text, a message, something.
You must understand that perfectionism isn’t striving for excellence, it’s a crippling fear of being flawed and therefore worth abandonment or punishment. It’s a kind of psychological avoidance. You’re avoiding fear and failure , not embracing the thing you want to do bc if it was about the thing you want to do you’d be fine with partial victory.
adulthood notes:
The Rodeo Rule: you only have to do it for the first time once.
The Rohan Rule: if you are at a social function full of new people and you want to be liked, find someone doing important work like setup or food prep and offer to help.
The Tutorial Mode Rule: to navigate an unfamiliar situation where you fear you will mess up an interaction, preface the interaction by mentioning that you've never done this before, and let them know if you have a specific concern or question.
The Rocket Science Rule: most new things you want to try seem very complicated but are simple when taken step by step.
The [X] Will Remember That Rule: if you need to make small talk with the same person on a regular basis, try to save one fact or current event in their life from a given conversation and bring it up next time you talk.
The Cool Binder Rule: by wearing clothes and accessories that are to your taste instead of trying to blend in, people will be more likely to compliment you and show interest in you as a person.
I think some of the loneliness of autism is that you feel like you hurt people just by Interacting Wrong, but you don’t know how to Interact Right, and the more effort you put into it, the more exhausted you are and the more artificial it comes across (with the end result of people still being upset with you). and it’s not anyone’s fault for not liking Being Interacted With Wrong, and it’s not your fault for doing it so wrong, but it is very, very lonely.
When I was a kid, we moved into a house that had a huge lilac tree out front. It was mostly rotten, and it needed to be taken down before it fell. It took a while, but eventually, it was gone.
Mostly. A couple years later, little lilac babies popped out of the ground in its place. My mom was determined to get rid of them, because she'd planted a beautiful flower garden there, and the lilac trees would overshadow and kill the whole garden. I insisted on saving at least a few saplings. She said fine, but I had to dig them out and put them in pots myself.
So, I did. I spent days digging little lilac bushes out of the ground and putting them into pots. Some couldn't be saved, but some could. When all was said and done, I had five brand-new lilac saplings. Seven or eight years old, and it was my absolute pride and joy.
Three died due to sun scorching, severe drought that no amount of watering could save, and perhaps just being moved from their place in the ground. But two survived, and I was awfully proud of them! I'd go out and talk to them every single day. I watered them by hand and made sure they were fertilized properly. I learned all about their favored environments, and I was determined to make sure they lived.
One of my mom's friends saw what I was doing with the lilacs. She asked if she could have one to put in her backyard, and I agreed on the condition that she take very, very good care of it.
It's now fucking enormous. I'm talking ten feet tall and bursting with beautiful purple flowers every spring. My mom still gets updates each year as they start to bloom, which she forwards to me. And all I can think is, "That's my friend! Thriving some twenty years on, there it is."
The other tree nearly died, too. It lived in a pot for far, far too long. I wanted to plant it somewhere in my parents' yard, but my mom was reluctant. Eventually, we agreed to put it in the far back garden. It grew okay for many years, despite the shade, but in all these years, it's never bloomed.
Last year, the massive tree casting massive shadows over the lilac and the garden cracked in half and fell. It tumbled into the garden, crushing part of the nearby shed and destroying a few plants beneath it.
It missed my lilac by inches.
The clean-up is long done. The rest of the tree has been cut down, and my lilac has full sunlight for the first time in fifteen years. It won't bloom this year, I know. But it's got new shoots up. It's taller than ever. I spent half an hour a few weeks ago praising it for surviving all this time, dreaming about its future and telling it how I believe it'll become the tall beauty it's always been meant to be.
I think next year, I'll see flowers.
Hello, everyone who scheduled this post to remind themselves to check in - which seems to be, uhh, quite a lot?? First of all, thank you for the interest and all the lovely notes on this post. It means a lot.
The lilac is doing very well! It's got almost a dozen new little branches and it's covered in more leaves than ever before. It looks so, so healthy - and that's where it's prioritizing its resources. No flowers this year, because the lilac has chosen essential growth and fundamental health over ornamentation and reproduction.
It's a good choice, I think. It looks so good. So many little leaves, so much new growth. Bits I thought were going to be dead are beautifully green. I decided not to take pictures of it; something about it felt wrong to do.
The other lilacs in the yard have bloomed, though, and I did get pictures of those. Plus the little potted one on my deck, which has teeny little flower buds on it.
I hope that you'll all be here next year to check for flowers with me again. Because you really never know.
And who knows? Maybe you'll have flowers to show me, too. I certainly hope so.
