#plus this job has given me an in to working at the post office and has proven to me that i don't mind delivering mail so..

[cuntwrap--supreme]

"It's so disgusting that you have to work on memorial day!" says the woman who ordered 6 packages from Amazon that have to be delivered by today.

[hlficlibrary]

✤ Co-Workers Fics ✤

A series of posts with the top five fics of each category by kudos plus five more hidden gems from that category! Remember to leave kudos and a comment on the fics you enjoyed to show your appreciation! You can find our other recs here.

- Top 5 H/L Fics -

1️⃣ You Drive Me Round The Bend by TheCellarDoor / @donotdialnine {M, 77k}

In which Louis is a spoilt rich kid who’s always on the phone while he drives and Harry is a struggling musician making his way down the mountain. It’s just a matter of time before they crash and burn.

2️⃣ Have Love, Will Travel by @kingsofeverything {E, 97k}

Rather than spend the summer working at their desks, Louis and Harry are given the opportunity to crisscross the country together in a tiny camper, filming their adventures for a YouTube series.

It soon becomes obvious to their viewers that there’s something more than friendship between them. Eventually, they figure it out.

3️⃣ Looking Through You by @allwaswell16 {E, 41k}

Just as Louis and Liam were starting out in the music industry, writing and producing for up and coming artists, a fateful meeting with new pop singer Harry Styles changes everything. Four years later, just as Harry is set to embark on his next world tour, a drunken confession causes a rift between once inseparable friends. As Harry tries to make sense of his feelings for Louis, he begins writing his next album to express them as it may be the only way to break through the walls that Louis has built between them.

4️⃣ After Hours by thilia {E, 99k}

Liam is bored with his job at the law firm. Nothing exciting ever happens. That changes drastically when he agrees to mentor the boss’s sixteen year old son, who turns heads wherever he goes. Especially Liam’s colleague Louis seems unable to resist the boy’s charms. Liam never thought he’d get to see this much of both of them, or that mentoring would turn into an R-rated event or that it would suddenly make his own love life a whole lot more interesting…

5️⃣ Take Me Higher Than I've Ever Been by crimsontheory / @ireallysawanangel {E, 51k}

Harry is pretty simple. He goes to work everyday, comes home, then watches Netflix with his cat. And if he happens to have a tiny little crush on his coworker, then that’s just his own business.

[Or the one where Harry and Louis work together and Louis starts to notice Harry back. Featuring a wedding, a sassy cat, and first times.]

HIDDEN GEMS:

💎 you are my destiny (you are the reason that i still believe) by @alwaysxlarrie {M, 98k}

Being a new employee at a company means that you have to learn to brush off the shitty bosses, shitty coworkers, and not getting the credit you actually deserve for things. At least, that's been Harry Styles' experience. Coworkers who steal his ideas in pursuit of getting praise and a raise, and a boss who's indifferent at best and condescending at worst. Harry has learned to expect this reality for the foreseeable future. He's accepted it.

What he hadn't expected was for Louis Tomlinson to waltz into their company, and his life, and change around everything he thought he knew about fate. A Cinderella AU.

💎 You Ain’t Gotta Feel Fear Just Mingle by LadyLondonderry / @londonfoginacup {T, 32k}

Harry has been at his dream job for less than three months, and he knows two things for sure; first, his project manager doesn't know what he's doing, and second, someone in the office is apparently pure evil, and no one will tell Harry who it is.

Oh, and the guy who works in conservation at the other end of the building is the most beautiful man Harry's ever seen, even when wielding a hot iron as a weapon.

💎 what's left of my halo's black by LiveLaughLoveLarry / @loveislarryislove {E, 22k}

As Harry sucks lovebites into Louis’ neck, Louis hopes that one day those marks will cover the way he can still feel Alex’s handprints burned into his flesh.

As Harry’s nails drag scratches along Louis’ back, Louis hopes that one day the scabs on his heart will heal and drop away just like the scabs on his skin.

As Harry fucks him down into the mattress, the bed shaking with every thrust, Louis hopes that one day his mouth will forget the shape of Alex’s name, won’t trace it over and over as the heat builds inside him, won’t want to scream it when he comes. Maybe one day he’ll open his eyes, as he slowly floats down from his post-orgasm haze, and won’t expect to see Alex’s face smiling back at him.

But today is not that day.

A year after a devastating breakup, Louis is still trying to put himself back together - but getting over a breakup is hard when you work as a wedding planner. Thankfully, his coworker Harry is the most supportive friend Louis could ask for. But Harry has some secrets of his own, and they send Louis' world spinning off its axis all over again.

💎 You Tilted My Hand by @taggiecb {G, 12k}

Harry Styles arrives in Avonlea, Prince Edward Island for his first day of a coveted and prestigious summer internship at the Avonlea Chronicle. He's quick to realise that he's out of place in the little band of journalists as he's an art major and they didn't choose Harry to be part of the team!

Thankfully his new boss, Niall, wants to give him a chance. Unfortunately that will mean trying to keep up not only with the stress of the job, but PEI's golden boy Louis Tomlinson, who has a perpetual smile on his lips, and mischief in his eyes.

💎 Blame It On Christmas by Kikiberoski16 / @larrysballetslippers {E, 7k}

Life was good until a new coworker showed up. It’s a little insane but not even a little bit funny how much Harry instantly despised the new guy. He’s always late, but always shows up with the most charming smile so nobody can get mad. His desk is a mess and he doesn’t seem to have ever learned the words ‘thanks’ or ‘sorry.’ And as if a bad employee isn’t bad enough, this particular bad employee is none other than the CEO's nephew, Louis fucking Tomlinson.

Or, Harry is the six-time winner of the yearly Christmas sweater competition, but it all changes when a new coworker shakes up his whole world.

[staringdownabarrel]

One of the things that really annoys me about the Star Trek community on Reddit is that so many people there are adamant about treating Starfleet as if it's the Federation's military and nothing else. What really annoys me about it is that it leads to a lot of conversations about why this or that character isn't being subjected to an up-or-out policy the same way military personnel might in the real world.

This is the kind of view that's absurd on the face of it. Starfleet is the Federation's military, but it's also more than that. A lot of the work it does is stuff that would be done by other government departments or by private entities in the real world. This includes stuff like science and exploration (what they're explicitly focused on), disaster relief, transporting colonists to new colonies, providing transport to ambassadors, and so on. Even in cases where some of this is being done by organisations outside of Starfleet, the shows portray Starfleet being involved in some capacity.

There also isn't a clear delineation between ships and personnel who are mostly working on the military side of things and those that are mostly doing the science, exploration, and civil service work. The same hero ship whose mission in one episode is to deal with some military confrontation or another can often be dealing with a non-military issue in the next.

Yes, there are some ships and some officers that are implied to mostly be focused on that (e.g., Captain Jellico on the Cairo, or basically anything Admiral Nechayev is up to), but it can't be taken as a given that this has been their entire career. It's often just the assignment they have right now. It's been shown that someone can go from a generalist ship to being on a specialist mission. Barclay, for example, was on the Enterprise-D and -E for years, but his next assignment was on the Pathfinder project looking for Voyager.

Coming from that perspective, having an up-or-out policy doesn't make a lot of sense. A lot of people do go get a job and just stay in that position for decades. This isn't really as common with Millennials or Gen Z, but it was common enough with Baby Boomers and Gen Xers, who largely wrote and produced the older Trek shows. Plus, a lot of the people in Starfleet are people doing very specialised jobs that there wouldn't be too many other people capable of doing, so they can't just go, "Oh, you're like 40 and still a lieutenant? You're being drummed out."

Another thing here is that some of these ships are on very long-term assignments. The Excelsior had been on a three-year cataloguing mission prior to the destruction of Praxis for example, and the Enterprise had been on a five-year mission in deep space around the time of the Klingon war in Discovery. This is something that'd only get more pronounced as time went on. One of the big reasons why ships in the TNG era were designed to have families onboard is because a lot of these ships, the Galaxy-class particularly, are designed for ten or twenty year deep space assignments.

In cases like that, it doesn't really make sense to have an up-or-out policy. These ships are hundreds of light years away from Federation space for years at a time, so once someone is promoted to a point where they should be a department head or a first officer on a different ship, they'd have no other ship to go to. Even for someone who really wanted to go up the chain of command on those ships, it'd make more sense to have them as a lieutenant for five or ten years and then bump them up to lieutenant commander when they're actually able to be transferred to a different ship.

I think it also ignores the actual practical reason why up-or-out policies exist in real world militaries. In real life, there's only a limited number of postings available, even in very large militaries. It's not like in other industries where you can just bide your time for an opening at another company; if you're in the military and want to continue working in that field, there's only one employer. If someone stays in one position for too long, they're clogging up space that would otherwise be taken by someone who actually wants that position and eventually the one above it.

This is less of a concern in Starfleet. A fleet of around 40 ships is considered to be a huge deal in The Best of Both Worlds, set in 2366-7, but a decade later, Starfleet's fielding these huge fleets with hundreds of ships in them during the Dominion War. Between the huge size of those fleets compared to the size of the fleet five or ten years earlier and due to the wartime losses, they struggle to find enough warm bodies to actually crew them.

Even outside of that, the Federation is constantly expanding during the early centuries of its existence. In 2161, the Federation was founded with four members, and by First Contact in 2373, it had 150 members. That's 146 members in about 110 years. On average, once one new member joins, it'll be less than two years before another does. This is before considering the huge amounts of colonisation of planets that the Federation apparently does.

Just due to that, there'd always be a need for more and more Starfleet ships just to protect that amount of space. While in real life, the up-or-out policy is there to benefit the career oriented, Starfleet doesn't need it as much. For people who are dead set on going up the chain, there's always going to be another ship available pretty soon.

So overall, I don't think Starfleet is hurt by not having an up-or-out policy. I think if anything, it has the opposite problem. It's not really attracting enough people to crew all the ships it actually needs to do its job.

All of this is one of the reasons why I feel like a lot of Reddit Star Trek fans are fans of the franchise in the same way World War II wonks are history buffs. Yeah, the World War II wonk can tell you all the major battles, can describe to you in great detail every weapon used in the war, and can give opinions on how the T-34 compared to the Panzer or whatever, but they struggle when it comes to describing the political situation and how it's affected world politics ever since. Similarly, a lot of Reddit Trekkies can give you a broad overview of the canon and can describe to you in great detail what any given class of ship is shown to be capable of, but they often struggle in dealing with the actual thematics of the show.

[itchyeye]

@apocalypticsinn replied to your post “ok. i'm giving the first episode a shot.”:

Oh noooOOOO welcome to hell :,) Alice remains like this the entire series btw and it just. It doesn’t get better. The newest episode I wanted to strangle her- I’m VERY interested in hearing your full thoughts on even just this first episode-!

​whgau first thing's first i am touched to hear you're interested in my thoughts

ok so overall it was very bad. @socvinc is correct that the sound mixing is fantastic, especially contrasted against s1 of tma which was shoestring budget dogshit. but then again this new show was funded by a seemingly boundless supply of patreon dollars so it fucking better sound expensive!!

alice is absolutely insufferable. you could stick a classroom full of twelve year old bronies (and i mean the og 2010s bronies not the gen z post ironic queer reclamation kind) in front of a hundred typewriters for all of time and they would eventually produce every single thing that has ever come out of alice's mouth. sure, it seems like gwen and most other people are annoyed with her, so at least she isn't being treated as funny and charming in-universe!! but absolutely fucking impossible to listen to. will not be putting myself through more of that.

also, the general animosity and malaise is unearned. sure, we have all been at jobs where everyone is burnt out and nobody cares anymore. but there's a sort of creeping realization that comes with that. even if things are bad right off the bat, they still get worse as you familiarize yourself with your new surroundings.

to have your exposition be alice telling sam that nothing matters and there is no point to his job and everything is stupid and he shouldn't even be here just makes me hate her. it doesn't matter that she's doing it to give gwen a moment to shine and prove her diligence and dedication. it immediately makes alice a deeply unlikeable character. she is relentlessly negative and cynical and lazy and we have been given ZERO justification for why she would be so abbrasive to someone just starting a new career!! plus she's fucking annoying so the cards are REALLY stacked against her.

and the relentless gloomy bleakness of the Archives was so. so. so. earned. all of s1 had this slow slow sloooooow build up of tension and horror and false leads and red herrings and SUDDENLY WORMS. SASHA'S DEAD. TIDAL WAVE OF WORLD-ENDING WORMS. THREE DREAD POWERS AT ONCE. AND EVERYONE HAS PTSD AFTERWARDS AND STILL HAS TO COME IN TO WORK. JON'S GONE OFF THE FUCKING DEEP END. THEN S2. NO ONE CAN LEAVE. WE'RE ALL TRAPPED HERE LIKE RATS IN A SINKING SHIP.

the gloom and malaise and desperation is real and tangible and you are there with the characters as it builds. it's rewarding and dynamic. opening episode 1 with "everyone hates it here bc it's very spooky and bureucratic" is just a pale and unsuccessful immitation of the slowburn that MADE the archives what they were.

also the very first little mini statement was so lame??? no build up. no atmosphere. no character development. not even a short story, just a tumblr uquiz option. "i saw my husband but he was Shaped Wrong and also dead" jesus christ...

i might listen to episode 2 just because i have time to kill but being dropped into the middle of an office party gave me traumatic tma s5e1 flashbacks and i can't live through that again. one of my tmp anons who mentioned it was very office-banter based was SOOOO right. the majority of the episode felt like those incorrect-quotes accounts that clog up tumblr search results. just people i don't know and voices i don't recognize having weird try-hard conversations.

oh that's another glaring difference: the dialogue and voice acting in tma feels incredibly natural. the way conversations are written and the way they are performed feels believable, like listening to recordings of people who do not know they're being recorded. the conversations in tmp feel like watching f.r.i.e.n.d.s in that every line feels really rigidly scripted. no one talks over one another. no sounds overlap. there are no natural sounding pauses or stutters. just bad sitcom dialogue. BUT as i said to anon.... that's what the people want.

overall feels like an ogfic "inspired by" tma that i would have no interest in reading. a pale immitation of lightning in a bottle.

can't say i blame them. we all have bills to pay. but i can say i resent them.

[chenfordsbby]

"The Pilot"

Welome to the very first drop of "Get in the Shop" !

Welcome to the start of “Get in The Shop!” The Rookie Re-Watch Blog! I am not sure how I plan on going about doing this blog, but there is no time like the present to start.  I have to warn that this is one of those figure out as I go type of ordeals; I have never done this before and I did brief research about the “dos and donts” of blogging, especially one of a tv show recap so I truly am just going to go with the flow.  I think I am going to post a new blog drop every Sunday and if I have any extra time during the week, maybe a Tuesday?!

If I try one thing and it doesn’t work, I will move and and try the next best thing with the end goal of having the best blogging/re-watch system that I can create for myself.  I am not an expert in any way.  This blog is solely a fan based one that I am choosing to do for my own mental health to get me, myself and I through whoever long this summer (plus) hiatus may last and if I happen to find friends along the way that will read my thoughts and interact with me then I couldn’t ask for anything better!

I think I will take notes as I watch the episode and then immediately following it, I will expand on those notes or should I watch the episode in its entirety in full and then type up everything I want to say about said episodes…

I want to preface the beginning of my re-watch by saying that I had no idea that this show even existed prior to me finding it on Tik Tok.  I saw a #Chenford scene from Season 5 Episode ! That was blowing up on TikTok and I immediately started watching it so I can obsessed over a new OTP without realizing Tim & Lucy weren’t even a though until Season 5.  So I did start it because of them but stayed because of how much I love this show.  

I am going to try my best to do this re-watch as if I don’t know anything that is to come in later episodes/seasons but I make no definitely promises!!

Let’s get into it!!!

Season 1 Episode 1: 

Title: “The Pilot” Original Air Date: October 15th, 2018

Synopsis: After a life altering incident, a small town guy (Nathan Fillion) peruses his dream of being a police officer.

First Impression of John Nolan: Eager

First Impression of Jackson West: Naive

First impression on Angela Lopez: Badass

First Impression on Talia Bishop: Out of Place

First Impression on Lucy Chen: Hotshot 

First Impression on Tim Bradford: Hot! #IYKYK

First Impression on Wade Grey: Seasoned

First Impression on Zoe Anderson: Authoritative

The episode begins with a bank robbery.  Which is fitting given there needs to be something to correlate this show with the premise of it: “A Silly Little Cop Show”.  John Nolan was definitely at the right place at the right time. Without knowing he goes on to become a cop after the bank robbery- you can tell that John has a passion for helping people.  You have to want to help people in some capacity in wanting to become a police officer right? 

The very first showing of The Rookie theme song.  It is a not even 10 second snippet of a full length song but man does it work.  It works so good that I am glad they never got rid of it.  There were shows that I watched in the past who had a whole opening credit scene/song which eventually faded out for it to just be a title card of the show (One Tree Hill I’m looking at you) so for The Rookie to have just ended its 5th season and to still have the little opening credit is cool!

After the cold open, the timeline jumps to “Nine Months Later”.  The first day on the real job.  No more training wheels, no more tests (so Lucy Chen thinks), no more papers and skills labs.  The beginning of the rest of their lives.

The introduction of Lucy Chen. She isn’t even clocked in for her first day of work and she already makes an arrest.  Way too cool for us or way too over eager to make a lasting first impression to everyone at the station?  Only time will tell.  But do you know what did make a great first impression? Her car!  Let’s hope this isn’t the last we see of that thing!  

I know we are focusing on the present but it doesn’t mean I can’t wish that we saw any kind of flashbacks of the time that not only John but Lucy and Jackson were in the academy. How did they get there? How did they excel or did they fail? What happened in the academy that John, Lucy and Jackson all became friends?!  It would’ve been cool to see!

Enter the infamous roll call room and the immediate jokes of John Nolans’ age. I really have no background regarding anything police related but I am assuming that someone of John’s age normally isn’t a rookie cop.  More so of the age of Lucy and Jackson.  So I don’t think this will be the last we hear of any ageist jokes of John Nolan and being a Rookie.  You can tell it is all in good fun and John takes it in stride. We all love our enemies to lovers storylines, but will there be an enemies to friendship between John and Wade Grey? This first episode shows no, but only time will tell.  We all have to be forever grateful to Watch Commander Wade Grey for playing the “Training Officer Match Game” and matching up rookie Lucy Chen with Training Officer Tim Bradford. (Thank you writers!)

The very first day gets off to a start.  The T.O’s teaching all of their boots the basics of the shop.  The ins and outs of the shop, what to do every morning, before going out on patrol to start your shift.  The basics and less than exciting aspect of being a cop.

Tim and Lucy. Or what we only knew then: Officer Bradford and Boot.” Lucy had no idea what to expect, not form her first day on the job and certainly not from her T.O. I think she immediately wanted to try to create some sort of bond/friendship with Tim but quickly realized that went out the window when he did his very first, what we all have come to learn and love, “Tim Test”.  “I’ve been shot! Where are you boot? I’m bleeding to death and you have to call for help. Where are you?” We will get back to that later on..

Side Note: I am trying very hard to pretend I have never seen any other episode besides this first one.  It is hard to compare Tim and Lucy then with what we know about their relationship now and just how their friendship progressed. I want to recap the episodes as if I was watching it for the ver first time.  It is hard but I ma going to do it!!!

Food Trucks! I never eat at food trucks much but do they officers of Mid-Wilshire make me want too!  The scene at the food truck was a nice way to show the two separate trios separately but together.  You have the experienced, veteran officers: Tim, Talia and Angela and then you have the brand new rookie officers: John, Lucy and Jackson. It’s smart TV. Yes this show is about John Nolan but it’s also about so, so much more.

You quickly start to see how much John cares about wanting to be a cop but in hindsight really has no idea just how to be one.  He thinks he does, mainly because of his age, but he doesn’t, not really.  All he knows is the 9 months he was in the academy. That’s it and it is evident the amount of training that he does need. He hopes he’s doing all the right things in order to succeed but in reality he is not: Using the baton to try to break the car window repeatedly even though it didn’t work the first few times; not putting on his gloves when going to help the husband of the domestic violence call- Blood Bourne Pathogens anyone?  Throughout this whole episode you quickly see how eager John is to be “a cop” but not HOW to be a cop. One thing is for sure is that John knows his way with words. The potential is there- it just needs to be taught.

The comedic relief of this show is introduced and it is much appreciated.  “I just got a disturbing video.  I’ve never seen anything so horrific..so prepare yourselves” said one Grey Wade and turns out it was the body cam footage of John trying to hop the fence.  There needs to be some light hearted fun in a profession where it can be serious most of the time!

I am immediately intrigued by this already established friendship between Lucy Chen, Jackson West and John Nolan. We already saw them interact in their work life so now we see them interacting in their personal lives.  It is a nice storytelling aspect of this episode.  The premise of the show is about the lives of newbie police officers but what happens after they clock out for their shift? And now we get to see it! The karaoke bar cuts right into the morning after where they make us want to believe John called the badge bunny and they spent the night together but SURPRISE! John wakes up to Lucy Chen!

(Please don’t hate me for what I am about to say)

The first time I watched this- I have to say I wasn’t turned off entirely by the brief relationship of John and Lucy. (Considering at this time, the romantic side of Tim and Lucy wasn’t even a thought, to anyone and that John really had better chemistry with literally anyone else). I am not opposed to have seen this relationship continue for a bit longer, if this was the only romantic option for either Lucy or John, I think I would have been okay with this relationship, I think it had potential.  John wants their relationship to become public and Lucy doesn’t. Lucy has every right to feel those feelings. Lucy knew from the start that no matter what she did in her career she would always have to fight for her place in the force where John would never be questioned twice for it and rightfully so: sexism. Talia seeing that little moment between Lucy and John at the end of the episode after the shoot out was on purpose.  It just confirmed to Lucy that she was correct in her feelings and reasonings as to why she wanted her and Johns relationship to remain a secret. 

It’s only the second day on the job and we already start to see Lucy’s frustration with Tim.  She quickly sees that Tim’s training methods are not conventional.  I don’t think we know that they are called Tim Tests yet, but outside of the liquor store, we witness Tim Test #2 and as Lucy is cuffing Ghost Head we meet an Isabel.  The Tim we saw is gone. The second he lays eyes on Isabel he becomes a shell of a person. The tears well up in his eyes and his voice cracks. He is no longer Officer Bradford, he is just Tim Bradford; a man that is desperate for his wife who he hasn’t seen in over a year. That does something to a person and Tim hides it well. Does Isabel recognize him at first? It’s hard to say but what is clear is that Tim is helpless when it comes to her.  I mean wouldn’t anyone who hasn’t seen their WIFE in over a year be, no matter what their profession is. He does exactly what she asked him to do: give her money even though its the last thing he wanted to do.  The quick glance back to Lucy? What does that mean?

You can’t have a cop show without actual action scenes right?!  And this one literally started with a bang!

I never expected Tim to get shot at in the very first episode but it was smart storytelling.  Tim’s first “Tim Test” paid off well because there was zero hesitation when Lucy called in Tim being shot. She knew what to say and how to say it and she did it with fierce conviction. It’s only been two days but Tim knew what he was doing when that first test was executed.

We didn’t see much of Jackson or Angela this episode in the field until the very end. And what a way to end this episode for Jackson, which left us all scratching our heads at the cliffhanger question: Why did Jackson freeze up in the middle of the field?  We can’t get all of the answers in the first episode and the confrontation between him and Angela in the locker room was a nice segue to what’s to come for them.  Not only for them but for the rest of the ensemble! It was a stellar first episode of the start of an amazing series!

At the end of every recap I am going to do an honorable mention that I did not discuss at all in my above rant as well an episode “peak” the high point of the episode, what made the episode great among other things and a “pit” the low point of the episode, something we could’ve done without and just a few random thoughts I need to get off my chest!!

Honorable Mention: The long sleeve uniforms!

Episode Peak: The introduction of “Boot”

Episode Pit: John Nolan’s Hair

Episode Rating: 10/10 (It was the Pilot Episode I would be a troll if I rated it any less!)

Random Thoughts:

I have never heard of Melissa O'Neil until I watched this show and it's safe to say my life is changed for the better now that I know that precious of a human exists. She was made a lasting imprint on my life in the best way possible. I will be a forever fan of hers.

Eric Winter ages life fineeeeeee wineeeeeee

I would love for these posts to be an open dialogue! I want to connect with other fans and hear your thoughts and opinions! What do you agree with? What do you disagree with?!  Is there anything I should change for my future blogs? I want this to be not only a fun hiatus but a fun thing for all of us to do together!

Until next time on “Get in The Shop”!

[chaotic-archaeologist]

Hey Reid, really random question, but what do you discuss in office hours generally?

For context, I'm a new undergrad student (on a joint English, drama, and creative studies course, I know this isnt your department but it's not too relevant) and we've been sent forms to fill in about what we want to discuss with our personal tutor in our first meeting with them. I have no idea what you're supposed to talk about in these sessions and as the semester's only just started we're not yet doing assessments, coursework or big projects at all. Plus, as a joint honours student I don't know whether I can talk about my other subject well with her or not as she's only from one subject's department.

The only thing I was thinking I could talk about would be the fact that it's become clear already that my passion in the subjects is completely different to everyone else's on my course (there's only about a dozen of us in the classes for one of my departments) and I guess that leaves me a little directionless so maybe something about careers to do with that but I feel like it's such early doors to start discussing careers.

Anyway yeah, as someone who has already been there and who I believe is now doing it too (if wrong, sorry!) do you have any general recommendations of what students can talk about in office hours with their personal tutors or other teachers? Thank you!

Psst, I'm going to tell you a secret: the vast majority of students do not actually come to office hours. Even though they should! It literally cannot hurt! And coming to office hours is a great opportunity to build rapport with your instructor/TA and get academic help! But out of the approximately 300 student's I've had, I've met with maybe 10 of them.

I say this not to be cynical, but to drive home the point that you are winning by just showing up. You don't have to come with a list of perfectly prepared questions—you're a student, and you are, by definition, learning! Do the readings and assignments, and engage with your instructor.

Now, I'm not sure how your program works, and you say tutor rather than TA, so the etiquette might be a little different. A tutor is there to help you academically, while a TA is there to answer some questions, but by and large you are expected to be in charge of your own learning experience.

As a TA, I'm generally happy to meet with students by appointment, but I also really appreciate it when students are able to understand that I am 1) a human being with a finite amount of time and energy, and 2) my job is to support you but not hold your hand. Your section may not be the only one your TA is responsible for, and they also have their own studies to attend to.

Here are some things that are appropriate to ask from your TA:

To look over a paper draft and offer feedback (provided this is something they have offered to do as part of their job)

Request feedback on an assignment after your grade to know what you could do better next time

Schedule a meeting to discuss topics you are struggling with

And some things that are not appropriate to ask your TA:

Questions where the answers can be found on the syllabus (due dates, percentage of grades for certain assignments, the readings for a given week)

When will I get my grade? (See my above point about being only human. If assignments have been turned in, assume your TA is working on getting them back to you, and that they cannot do so immediately. Give it at least two weeks before checking in)

Asking for a particular grade on an assignment

As for your first meeting with your tutor/instructor/TA, I'll reiterate: just show up! Introduce yourself, say hi, and don't feel too much pressure to hit the ground running.

Here are some posts I've made that you might find relevant:

Tips to make your professors love you

Student conduct

Citation how-to

Thank your professors

Take a deep breath. I sense that you might be someone who puts a lot of pressure on themselves to be perfect. Nobody else is expecting that from you. You're learning, and it's okay to be unsure and make mistakes! Trust in yourself to do your best in the moment; that's all you can do.

-Reid

[leslie057]

9a + 9b please 🙏

hello! thank you for the lovely combo

prompt game posted here

9a + 9b = call me lover + but one is pouting

word count: 3.7k

It isn’t right that she’s sad today, even less right that she’s playing up the sad, and that in doing this she hopes to work guilt into every part of him, like water into clay, like honey into comb.

Given their extra-special circumstances, she knows she shouldn’t be anything more than mildly annoyed with him about his inability to pronounce girlfriend. And that has to be the issue, pronunciation, because why else would he shy away from such an innocent word? There’s no reasonable excuse. It’s an easy statement to make: look, my girlfriend’s here. He can do it, with the same ease that he labels everything else of his, he can do it. It’s my camera, my spatula, my turn to drive, my shirt not yours and you can’t have it…all his, until she’s involved. No, they don’t own each other. But sometimes you have to lay claim to things in life.

You just have to.

He paints houses. Every day in West Somerville he does, from nine to dinnertime. Watertown and Brookline, too. But mainly Somerville, especially Winter Hill. Interior, exterior, deck, door, and drywall. Expensive houses, cheap houses, new and old houses, houses with picket fences. It’s just what Emerson is looking for, a teenage boy who really knows his way around a…picket fence?

But the gap year thing is okay, and he’s still here with her as she navigates everything, even if he didn’t want to apply for college until it was way too late. He can apply for next year.

He moved away, far away just for her, no college waiting for him at the end of the journey, willing and able to be the slow tagalong Somerville boy to her busy Boston girl. And they get to live together. Harmony of opposites applies, as it always has. His loyalty means the world, and for what it’s worth, he is the best rated decorator Lovell Painting’s ever had. Very committed to the job.

But now Mr. Lovell doesn’t know she’s his harmonious opposite, doesn’t know she’s the girl he’s bringing home the bread to (not a lot of bread, but so much more than you’d expect someone to get for slinging paint) (then again, there’s probably no slinging involved, because Jonathan clearly believes there is an art to the task) (he has a weird way of leaning into unbeaten paths, finding purpose in hushed, forgettable places) (it’s lovable, is what it is, when she manages to push away the feeling that he’s missing out by not being in school).

No, Mr. Lovell doesn’t know who she is, because her boyfriend didn’t say. Couldn’t bring himself to say. Couldn’t bring himself to say the G word.

She’d asked Lauren from the student paper to take her to him after class. She missed him, plus she thought he shouldn’t be all alone on his way back home. He does plenty of lonely driving throughout the week. And since Lauren does everything for everyone, she actually said yes. Fifteen minutes later, Nancy was at a place she’d never been before. Here they were at the end of October, and she hadn’t been. She had no idea where her five star trades-boy turned in his paintbrush at the end of the day.

She’d wandered in, into the little white office that likely used to be a shed, all open windows and whirring box fans and latex fumes. On a stool, he filled out his timesheet. She gave him a hug around the neck from behind, avoiding the sensitive surface of his sunburned arms.

Made him jump, then made him relax.

“Sorry, I knew that would scare you. I’m not trespassing, am I?”

“No, you—no, not trespassing at all. What time is it?”

She tilted her head sideways and consulted her watch. “5:11,” she said. Tilted her head more, more, more, trying to kiss his jaw and its underside.

Hung over his shoulders like that, she took her first deep breath of the day. Tendrils of dried paint stretched across his shirt collar and sleeves, the kind of spiderweb splatters that don’t come out in the wash. She watched him jot down a couple light-handed notes in all capital letters. His name was everywhere on the page and highlighted in some instances, an indication of overtime work. She had felt weird then for being judgy—felt bad—thinking maybe there was a chance he was where he needed to be. Not school, right here. Humble, dependable, and first-rate.

Then Mr. Lovell came in.

And ruined everything.

“Jonathan, you heading out soon?”

“Oh, right now, actually. Turns out we can’t pick up anything until tomorrow morning. Like, anything at all, they said.”

“Yikes. Oh well, then.”

“Apparently our order got delayed because of the tight space rollers.”

“Hm. Tight space rollers, they never have them in, do they?”

“No, sir, never. They never ever have anything below a 6 inch.”

She stayed still, reading the room. Gauging the boss. Lovell didn’t seem to mind her or her public display of affection. He was a youngish man, son to the original Mr. Lovell of Lovell Painting, tall and nonchalant with the look of a relatable salesman.

“Hey. Jake Lovell,” he finally said to her. “Don’t think I’ve met you before, how’s it going?”

“Hey, good, thanks.” In the subsequent silence she waited. Waited for what was sure to come. Oh yeah, sorry, this is my girlfriend, Nancy. This is Nancy, we just moved in together. This is the girl I told you about, Nancy Wheeler. We’ve been dating for almost two years. She’s the best. Nancy is the best. Hey, guess what, my girlfriend Nancy once repainted her little sister’s dollhouse from top to bottom, think we should hire her next?

He kept his mouth shut.

“I’m Nancy,” she sighed.

“Oh, okay, you’re Nancy.”

Had he heard the name before? If he had, that must have been all he heard. His eyes were brimming with confusion.

“That’s me,” she said and untangled herself from her betrayer, the one she’d been draped over like some sleepy starfish.

Starfish didn’t want to cling anymore.

“She’s Nancy,” he’d mumbled while clearing off the desk.

The eldest in the room clocked the tension between them. “Well, you know it was nice to meet you, Nancy, but I’ve gotta get going. Be careful around the mess, you look very professional in those clothes.”

She slid her hands down the sides of her thighs, black slacks swishing above high heels.

“You look very…casual, Mr. Lovell. Guess we’ll see you later.”

And that was it.

And that was then. This is now: now, she is pouting. The most pathetic pouting session she's had to date. This is textbook manipulation pouting and then some, this is wallowing in the events of the afternoon like they involved theft, fraud, and murder.

Is she putting on a performance here? Yes, duh, of course she is. But is she down about what he said (and didn’t say) earlier? Also yes. That part is real. He did make her sad.

Yes.

Lucky for her, she’s got tricks in her bag.

Exactly four tricks, to be precise, for this type of situation. One, a shower—a shower taken earlier than usual. To get away and to get out of restrictive clothing (restrictive clothing doesn’t mix well with sadness). No more black slacks, no more newsgirl blouse. No jewelry either, it’s totally unnecessary. Unless…keep your necklace on, if you want, since that can be played with. Really you just have to remember that comfort is what works. Wet hair is what works. An XL shirt works, and peach soap works, and so does a frown, and so does a thick pair of socks, for whatever reason.

Two is a book. Not a short book, pick a long book. Flip to the beginning to read. Beginnings are hard to get through, and he knows it. He will empathize. Three, lack of light. The less light in the room, the better. Not only have you chosen to start a long book after 5pm without having even eaten dinner, you’ve chosen to do so without sufficient reading light. That’s true misery.

Four, the most important trick, is a bad record. Just awful. It needs to be scratched, it needs to skip. Needs to skip a lot. Your record should make other records worry about where they’ll be in ten years. Jonathan Byers doesn’t want this for you; if you are his favorite person, and listening to music is the best thing anyone can do, your tolerance of a broken record will rile him. You deserve better. He will want to compensate for all the hurt caused by your subpar listening experience.

“Nancy?” he says from the doorway.

“Mhm.”

“Good shower?”

“Sure. Good shower.”

“You beat me to it.”

It’s an understatement. Without a word, she had headed for the shower. Very first thing she did when they got to the apartment. She went to turn the water on, still wearing her shoes, and waited for it to get hot, and never once looked back.

She curls in on herself on the bed, avoiding his gaze. “Since when did you decide you have first dibs on everything?” she murmurs to her book. To Middlemarch.

“Uh, no, it's not that, I just meant that I’m…pretty paint-y, at the moment. You know?”

The response is delivered innocently, harmlessly, lightly, and she almost considers backing down, ditching the majority of her plan or maybe all of it. Almost considers, before deciding against. (She has to soldier on; his adorable use of a made-up word doesn’t fix a thing, now does it?)

“Right.”

“There’s so much primer on my hands, it’s the worst feeling in the world. It’s so bad. It’s like…it’s like if someone brushed plaster right onto my palm and then let it harden. Overnight.”

“Mhm.”

A break in the tense conversation comes and gives those background noise record screeches their moment to shine. Leaning on the doorframe, he winces.

“So,” she shifts her body until the blanket slips, “did you need something, or…”

Their eyes meet. His are sleepy–his are suddenly charged with doubt, two dark wells of worry.

“No, nothing, I don’t…it…it seems like you might be the one that needs something?”

She huffs. It seems like she needs something? For that she won’t go easy on him. A fake cry might cross her mind, if she were a psychopath, but fortunately for both of them she’s not. Sincere regret is already cocooning her, compacting itself with each passing minute, a dense shroud of claustrophobic ickiness. Not always as fun as you’d plan for: guilt tripping someone who’s hopelessly devoted. Really, how hard is it to have a mature conversation about the way you feel neglected in this one marginal area of the relationship, even though you’re well taken care of in all the others. Very hard, it turns out. Very very hard.

And besides, this is how the Jonathan and Nancy network operates. She uses her upset to make weird power moves. He lies about his upset altogether. The system is what it is.

“If you care so much, figure it out yourself.” It’s a feeble whisper, accessorized with the twitch of her bottom lip and an arbitrary sniffle. She flips over to the eighth page of Middlemarch. Pulls her blanket back up over her waist. The leftover scent of her body wash is strong, so strong, even in her own nose. It’s like peach sorbet and paint thinner had a baby in their bedroom.

“Nancy…”

His voice has that deconstructed softness in it, gentle yet desperate, which is highly familiar. He uses it constantly. That’s the trick in his bag, but she’s not quite sure he knows it’s a trick. Because of it, the whole stay-mad-at-him project isn’t gonna be smooth sailing. She swallows hard, necklace pendant between her fingers.

“Hey, what happened?” He steps closer to the bed and uncrosses his arms. “This isn’t…it isn’t about Lauren, right?”

Oh, wow. Okay. Clueless.

“Because you really do ask her for a lot of favors, and I know she’s always happy to do them, but just…maybe don’t make her drive out there again. Not when I’m literally clocking out.”

“Oh…” She closes her book and fixes her eyes on the window. That one actually does make her want to cry.

“No, don’t,” he pleads, “don’t do the sad oh thing. You’re gonna make me sad. You’re gonna break me.”

The sigh that escapes her is fully authentic in its lethargy. Her fingertips play over the pillow under her head and its silky case. “Sorry, it’s just that now you think I take advantage of Lauren and you don’t like to see me at work, so.”

“No, I love to see you, I had no idea you would come after class just for that. It was really nice.”

“Yeah, so nice—”

“Until you ignored me in the car, yes!”

Hugging her own waist, she draws up her knees. God, that record…it should be physically impossible for ABBA to ever sound bad but this is pushing it. How truly depressing.

She imagines that the invisible thread connecting his heart to hers is starting to fray at this point; those grating sounds in his ears, the mix of chemicals on his skin, the intentionally seductive nature of her pity party, the annoying flicker of the lamp in the corner (only thing the previous tenants left behind when they moved, the sole forgotten object). All of it must be torturing him.

He picks up her book off the mattress, leaves it in the windowsill to—sunbathe? Who knows, honestly.

"Look,” he says, “I think we might need to take a second before we get into this. Do you want me to leave you alone for a minute? Would that help, or no?”

Apprehensively he reaches down, down to touch her shoulder, sort of…petting her, a few times. What you’d do if you found a wild jaguar in your backyard, but it was a really sweet looking jaguar.

When she doesn’t bite, he bravely makes eye contact with her. “You just have to tell me what you want, that’s all I need.”

(Such a good boyfriend when he’s trying. Holy shit.)

Fearful that the affection wave will show on her face, she flips over, switching sides. “Want you to lay down,” she mumbles.

Well that wasn’t part of the plan.

She listens for his reaction. A deep breath in, a deep breath out. “I’m filthy, you do realize that.”

“We’ve gone to bed wearing monster blood…”

He shrugs his jacket off.

(So, the summer had been a violent ride. Summer of ‘86, filed away in her brain with the rest of her nightmare inventory forever. All’s said and done now. Maybe they’re finally safe. God, please.)

It takes them a sec to get settled, but he hems her in, wraps her up, holds her close without any further begging. It’s crazy satisfying. Plaster-rough hand curls around her ribs under her shirt, and his nose brushes her neck. Antsy, she shuffles her feet together, scrunched socks keeping her warm.

“You genuinely—”

“Smell so good?” she predicts.

“Yeah.”

“New soap.”

“Ten out of ten.”

“Well, you know, it’s not formaldehyde, but what is?”

“Give me some slack,” he murmurs, “not my fault all my passions involve chemicals.”

Painting houses is his passion now? Alright, good to know. It’s that, developing photos, and being so much of a dummy he forgets to introduce his girlfriend to his boss when they first meet.

Again: exactly the kind of boy Emerson is looking for.

A minute later he’s kissing her neck.

Yeah, not sure how that happened.

After taking his first few tastes, he quickly stops himself. “Wait, can I do this?” he wonders aloud.

“I’ll let you decide. Do you think you should be doing that?”

“I don’t know. On the one hand,” he places a soft kiss at the base of her throat, “I still haven’t figured out what’s going on with you.”

Her eyelids flutter. “And on the other?”

Mouth barely open, he drags the tip of his tongue across her collarbone in one slow slide. “On the other I think—”

She fails to repress a squeaky whimper, which makes him falter.

“…that doing this could maybe, just maybe, help me get information out of you.”

She’s lost her breath so fast. “Decisions, decisions,” she manages to get out.

Second option wins him over. Next he’s tangling up his hand in her wet hair, kissing her neck like there really is peach sorbet to be found in her pores. He hums while getting acclimated to the malleability of her damp skin, impossibly supple malleability, and lingers with his mouth at her pulse point before giving in and sucking on it, not hard enough to make a bruise, but enough to make blood rush to her head.

She grabs the back of his neck in an attempt to stay anchored and from there he surrenders, from there he lets her force the path that his lips map out on her. Chapped but sticky with spit, they part and purse on her jaw, softly massaging the bone.

“Please can we get you a new album soon,” he whispers, “this is painful.”

“Hm?”

“The record’s a disaster, throw it away.”

“Don’t tell me to throw my things away,” she slurs weakly.

Her thigh catches his hip, and she bucks a little, rocks a little. Nothing crazy, just dirty. She can’t help herself.

“Tell me what upset my girlfriend and I won’t say anything ever again for the rest of my life.”

-

There it is. Jesus, it’s what she wanted. See, there’s no pronunciation issue after all. Girlfriend. His girlfriend.

She goes perfectly still. He may not realize she’s all shook up inside, but he notices the outward change, that’s for sure.

Time to get into it.

She takes a moment to prepare herself. “Are you ready to listen?”

“I’ve been ready, Nance.”

“Okay. It wasn’t about Lauren,” she spills, “Lauren and I are fine. We didn’t have a fight, we’ve never had a fight, and after she dropped me off today she told me she likes the drive to Middlesex because the roads are so smooth and driving calms her down and she gets sick of being in Boston, and I promise I’m not lying when I tell you this, but she offered to take me again tomorrow, I swear to you she did.”

“Okay, I believe you—”

“Though now I’m thinking I don’t even want to take her up on the offer, because me being there was clearly an unwanted change that didn’t exactly mean anything to anyone, and if you seriously don’t know what made me switch up today I need you to ask yourself how you think my conversation with your manager made me feel earlier.”

“You’re upset because of…something Mr. Lovell said?”

He’s so lost.

“No, because of what you said.”

“And what did I say?”

“It’s what you didn’t say. Jonathan, you didn’t tell him who I was. You didn’t introduce me at all.”

“I’m—sorry, you…you introduced yourself, why would I need to—”

“He doesn’t know you’re dating me.”

“But he does? It’s kind of obvious, isn’t it? Without words?”

“No! Not without words. For all he knows I’m some random girl you met on the street, next thing you know he’ll be setting you up on dates with his niece and scheduling you to work Valentine’s Day. You’re supposed to be upfront about us and you never, ever are. Why aren’t you?”

His turn to pout now. He rests his head on her shoulder. “I don’t know? Sometimes it feels like…”

The gears in his brain go on and on, and his blush deepens. “Like fishing for attention.”

“Well that’s why I’m sad, you’re why I’m sad. You don’t want attention, so you don’t call me your girlfriend. Maybe once a month, if that. You don’t call me your girlfriend a lot and I love when you call me your girlfriend. There’s nothing unclear about a word like that."

“I…can do better, I didn’t know it was a big deal to you. That I say it more.”

“Duh, I don’t wanna feel invisible. I want you to talk about me.”

Her heart pounds with the energy of the moment, with surfacing reminders of how different they are. The silence expands around them, his breathing shallow. This is really the first time it’s dawning on him, the depth of her need for validation? Maybe she forgot that acknowledgment of their relationship outside their private bubble is not something he would go for without being asked. Maybe she forgot.

"So it’s not the word,” he says, “it’s telling people?”

“I like privacy, I do, but what’s between us needs to be something others can see. Something they don’t have to guess on.”

Yeah, keeping their peers guessing in high school was good. Low-key meant less harassment, fewer problems. Having said that, high school is gone forever.

He nods. “I get it. I'll get it, eventually. I’ll try.”

“Okay. Good. Thank you.”

Though the conflict isn’t totally resolved, it kind of feels resolved for tonight. At least that’s what her hormones want her to go with, shifting back and forth, this way and that, residing on the rockiest of tectonic plates that have been calibrated to him for longer than he knows. As strange as her first two months of college have been, as many messes as they’re making in their relationship, she has infinite confidence in the Jonathan and Nancy network. All things considered, this is the right time to be messy, they’ll have plenty of room to clean up the love when they’ve grown up. Fighting isn’t fun but…it feels amazing to know he’s in this with her, wading out to her in the swell of their mature immaturity, sticking up for young love even after their conflict resolution turns chaotic.

He loves her, and whenever she’s blue, he begs her to let him fix it. Neither of them rest easy until the blue gets painted over.

“Hey, girlfriend?”

She breathes out a laugh. “What?”

“Since we’re sharing…”

She tilts her head back, pushes her nose against his gently. “Careful, don’t say something you shouldn’t.”

“I really like it when you use your revenge soap against me. Very evil, but I like it.”

[kanerallels]

A little late, but finally, here are my thoughts about MSATD 4x06!

Absolutely LOVE the way it started. Because of course these two would wind up being chased around an abandoned factory by a guy Eliza DRUGGED THIS IS THE THIRD TIME SHE'S POISONED SOMEONE AND I LOVE HER FOR IT

"I used to box for County Harwick" "does that mean something?" "IT MEANS QUITE A LOT" absolutely PERISHING it reminds me of that post about the person who pretended not to know what Harvard was

(also from a writing perspective I loooooooooooove the vibes of just throwing us into the middle/end of a case, showing us that they've been working on quite a few cases together! Plus it's just a fun way of writing things)

I'm very proud of Eliza for working with a large staff well and being able to handle things on her own!

UGH FITZROY'S JERK DAD SHOWED UP I HATE THAT GUY

Okay this was probably my favorite case of the season. The suspense, the way it handled Fitzroy's struggle over being given that promotion, and the culmination was *chef's kiss*

I read this post about how Eliza's allegiance is to the truth, while Nash's isn't to money, but to the memory and legacy of his brother and this episode DEFINITELY hammered that point home! The scene where he was struggling with whether or not to kill that guy? SO well done, Felix Scott has got mad skills

(also while I am not a Patrick x Eliza shipper.... from an objective point of view they had some GOOD moments in this episode)

(I mean come on. "you're the only one who's ever believed in me"? Him putting down the gun for her and only shooting O'Driscoll when he tried to kill Eliza? Those are some pretty immaculate vibes. I'm still ride or die for Williza, but I can see where the Patrick x Eliza shippers are coming from)

(okay and the moment in Patrick's cell where he said that he wanted her to believe he was a good person and she said that would never happen (affectionate), but then he said "Perhaps not. But I'll keep trying anyways"? Giving SERIOUS Rose In Bloom vibes. If you know, you know)

ANYWAYS BACK TO THE PLOT I also really really really LOVED the last scene between Fitzroy and his father. He stood up to him!! And told him that he didn't care if he was disappointed in him!! And the fact that he might not have a lot of ambition wasn't painted as a bad thing!! I LOVED IT A LOT OKAY

Oh also I didn't really like Phelps taking William's place at first, but the idea's grown on me a lot in this past episode. I liked the part where he basically told Fitzroy that he shouldn't be doing this job to get a pat on the back-- while I get where my boy Fitzroy was coming from, and Phelps is definitely a lot harsher than I approve of, it reminded me of a scene in The Rookie. And therefore gets a pass. I also liked the way it showed that Fitzroy and Phelps are at their best when they're working together!

Oh and! I liked the moment where Eliza and Mr. Potts were talking and she finally elected to be honest with him, and that's what won him over. EXCELLENT scene, I really liked it

(also I loved how Fitztroy, when he was Stressed, rubbed his hand over his face like William does. These are the things I obsessively notice. I have issues)

And then I REALLY liked the ending. The whole "Eliza goes to work for Nash" plotline has never been my absolute favorite. It just doesn't feel super true to who she is-- instead of being the only female detective in the city, she's a female detective working under Nash. And while I did enjoy their partnership more than I expected, I'm so glad to see her back in her own office, where she belongs. And she finally changed the name at the top of the sign!!

(and OBVIOUSLY I loved the William flashback at the end)

So overall, this was a really fun season!! Even though I was sad to not have William for the last two episodes, they were still really fun. Eliza and Patrick have great chemistry together on screen, and they're a really fun duo to watch!

Also, even those I missed Moses a LOT, I enjoyed some of the new characters-- namely, Clarence-- and the focus on some of the old ones, like Fitzroy and Phelps!!

And I DEFINITELY can't wait for the next season

[goldinavonlea]

still articulating my unreasonably long post on why ‘I forgive you’ was the most deliciously gut-wrenching response Aziraphale could have given in that moment but in the mean time, when God was speaking to Job both Crowley and Aziraphale were absolutely astonished. Aziraphale comments that he doesn’t suppose Job is getting any answers out of the conversation (and his tone there i will come back to in another post but that’s a separate thing), and Crowley says ‘No, but just to be able to ask the question…’

The Metatron, who is—as a brief aside from critical analysis into blatant personal opinion—creepy as all fuck, remembers Crowley from before the Fall, and comments on his always having had a fierce tendency towards independence and asking ‘damn fool questions’.

It’s funny because I’d always been operating under the assumption that God, being ineffable etc etc, never actually interacted directly with the angels—that most of them had never seen or spoken to her at all, which is obviously supported now in-show by Crowley and Aziraphale’s response to the Job conversation, and indeed the general existence of the Metatron at all. But I’d never thought about it in the context of how Crowley fell—I’d sort of vaguely assumed it was one of his yelling at the sky deals, and that it had been God directly who cut Crowley off from the Host. But. That comment from the Metatron, plus the scene from before the beginning making it very clear that Crowley fully intended to take his questions and comments as high as he could out of a genuine desire to be helpful and the total faith that he wasn’t doing anything wrong he could get in trouble for… Crowley’s Shouting At God are very much framed as an outpouring of frustration, made in the context of him knowing there’s absolutely no way he’s going to get a response or be listened to, that it’s futile. Pre-Fall Crowley had no reason to believe that and clearly didn’t—he just thought he’d stroll into the boss’ office, point out the flaws in only running a universe for 6000 years and how that would fuck with his stars, likely be given a head pat for his good thinking, and then get back to work. But clearly it didn’t happen that way, because why that response to Job if Crowley himself had ever been granted the opportunity to pose his doubts to the face of his creator?

At the moment the clear conclusion to me is that the one he ended up actually asking questions of was the Metatron. don’t have enough yet to say whether I reckon he would have had the power to have someone banished from Heaven himself and directly, as in going behind God’s back (and wouldn’t know how to feel about it if they went down that kind of path of ‘Oh no of course God’s good and perfect this mean villainous old man has just been fucking with her plans’, largely because I was thinking how interesting it would be to get more of God as a character, her motivations, and to see whether in-universe the conclusion is that God’s a benevolent parent who needs to let her kids make their own choices even if they get hurt along the way, or that she’s a narcissist baddie who enjoys playing with the lives of her creations like a cat with a mouse; and I’ve decided that the most interesting and in-line with the story’s messages answer would be that God made messy complicated flawed people in her own image, and that like everyone else she tries her best and fucks up a lot along the way), BUT at this moment I’m feeling reasonably convinced that the Metatron was directly involved in Crowley’s fall, which doesn’t necessarily have significant plot implications but Definitely has the room to add some zest emotionally

[thea-dacity]

I had to make a separate tumblr for this because my roommates follow me on all my social media, and I cannot make this post there because my roommate will see it, and I cant fudge the details enough that she wont know it's about her. But I need somewhere to vent because if i dont i will explode, even if my usual support group wont be there to help.

4 years ago, my girlfriend and I decided that we were going to live together with another couple in a rental home and split the rent 4 ways. Rent in our area is stupidly high, and I was struggling to make rent, so this seemed like a good deal for all of us.

Lots of details here are not important because if I nailed it to the church door like I want to it would take weeks.

For the first year, we were doing really well. All four of us had jobs, even if the pay wasnt stellar. But between the four of us, paying all our expenses was easy and I was even starting to save.

Then. Roommate A lost her job. Its alright. People lose jobs. It happens.

Then. COVID. Which was not alright, and I think that while it's not the root of all our problems it was definitely a contributing factor.

I want to talk about A for a minute. A suffered a lot of emotional abuse from her mother growing up. She goes to therapy for it, she's taking medications, we're to believe that shes working through her problems at some kind of pace. I'm being pretty understanding that recovery ain't a straight line. Plus, we've met her mother and her mom is absolutely a bitch.

She's very jealous that the rest of us have parents that arent narcissists and abusers, but it's not like we dont all have our own host's of problems (whole house is a concoction of adhd, autism, anxiety, depression, and eating disorders).

Every year, A will throw some kind of tantrum. The first time, it was because I said something about how I felt shoved in a corner. Me, my girlfriend, and Roommate B (A's partner) all shared an office together.

A's former remote job required her to have privacy, so it was agreed that she would get an office to herself. But B's job also required privacy, she they got the nook that we were using as our craft room, and we just agreed to be conscious of her privacy during work hours.

This didnt last very long. I couldnt use my computer to play music very loud and my girlfriend couldn't use the space to sew. And I felt, as I said, shoved in a corner.

So I asked in our house chat if we could reconfigure the working scenario because I felt like I wasnt... given proper space to work.

Didnt even mention A, but A went on a tirade about it- wrote up a whole screed about how she was the bad guy and then locked herself in the office (remember, at this time she was not working from there) and didnt talk to us for three days.

We worked out a solution where B works from the closet of their bedroom in a makeshift cubicle, the nook goes to me and Girlfriend, and A gets the office to herself... for some reason. Eventually this turned into their game room.

But it kind of set the tone that at least once a year this 40 year old throws a hissy fit about something and then doesnt apologize.

Again. I'm trying to be understanding of her situation, but there are days where I have to walk on eggshells.

Well... it's that time again.

Rough update of the events preceeding:

I quit my toxic job awhile back and started a new career as a photographer, which requires a lot of equipment. This job does not make a lot of money and theres a few months where I have to find extra work just to make ends meet.

Girlfriend lost her job and has been deeply depressed, and money issues mean that we are privately going through a rough patch during the slow season. My emotion s are... kind of haywire right now and I'm trying to make it work, but it's hard.

B got a promotion, enough that they can afford a starter home, possibly. They're trying, anyways.

A only leaves the house for doctor's appointments and house showings. She hurt her back some years ago and she hasnt been able to find a job.

After failing to find either a house to buy or an apartment to rent, girlfriend and I decided to stay in the current place. A and B are trying (and failing) to find a house of their own because the market is... very tight right now.

A cant contribute to the move monetarily and has anxiety about not being ready to move when the time co.es (even if it takes a whole month to close on a house.) She started packing in February. Its May, now, and no sign of any move to come, but the amount of boxes in our house would make you think they're moving out tomorrow.

So my stuff is crammed in the craft room (because she asked me to move my stuff out of the garage so she could use the garage as an exercise room, which never happened) a d there's boxes everywhere, making it difficult to get to my stuff to organize it. And she wont put her stuff in the garage because 'theres mice in there' even if her solution to my stuff is to put it in the garage. Its frustrating to live in a place where you cant use the furniture because its covered in boxes.

But let me back up a little because today's tantrum has details.

Last October, I accidentally backed into Bs car. Damage was a crack in the bumper, which I didn't think was a big deal, I offered to pay for it, but B went through insurance instead, which meant I almost lost my insurance. But they didnt pay for any of it, and it was a minor inconvenience- and in any case it was between the two of us, no hard feelings.

B asked if, in the future, I could park on the street, because their car is newer than mine and not as sturdy as my older car, to prevent any future mishaps. I decided this was fair.

Now I think we're up to speed.

My car had a coolant leak this past week and the car overheated. I took it to a mechanic to take care of, but it took a few days and they got me a rental so I could still do my job. And today was the last day of me having it.

B was at the office today, so their parking spot in the driveway was empty. My task today was to return the photo equipment to our main office and since the bags are heavy I decided to park in the driveway just so I could get my stuff in.

I realized as it was sitting there that the grill of the car kind of made a funny face, so I snapped a pic of it and shared it on tumblr before driving off.

So because A follows me on tumblr, she saw the pic and had something to say about it:

"Please dont park next to me. You backed into (B's) car and we just got it fixed."

There's like 3 feet clearance between our cars. I was only there for half an hour. In fact, I was away from the house when she put that in the house chat and didnt respond right away. Girlfriend actually came to my defense first.

"there's no call for that. 1) his implies that (tgea) makes a habit of driving recklessly, which is untrue and 2) the rental is in the driveway to make sure IT doesn't get damaged 3) why is (thea) not allowed to uise the #!%^$% driveway"

And B offered to park behind her car, which was not the point, since my car wasnt parked there anymore. The problem is that B always wants to negotiate and see both sides of a problem, but sometimes one side is simply being unreasonable.

And it really is just fucking ridiculous- I pay rent here, I should be able to park in my drive way for 30 minutes without scrutiny.

Girlfriend told her off in person as well, that she was being fucking ridiculous. I dont know what all she said, but A hasnt talked to me since getting back from the mechanic.

Since moving in here, I never really got the sense that this I was welcome. Like... yeah I live here, but this is A's house, not mine. I'm a tool to be used so she doesnt have to pay rent or cook dinner. Like... I've got my own mental issues, you know? I have self worth problems that this is feeding and I feel like I'm a pest that does inconvenient things like make messes and thats why I'm only allowed in our bedroom, our office nook, and the garage. Like that's why she keeps putting my stuff in the garage- I'm like one of the mice.

These tantrums dont happen on their own, usually. What typically happens is shes in a bad mood because she was eavesdropping on a conversation where i said something she didnt like and is looking for a reason to be mad.

And the only thing that I can think of is that this morning I had a conversation with B about how we had a lot of duplicate items in the cupboard and I was trying to plan meals around the things we have excess of, one of which was an ingredient that only she uses, typically. And that food is expensive and we should try to budget a bit more carefully. Which doesnt seem like the kind of thing that someone might get vindictive about, but guilt does weird shit to your brain.

Unless, of course, she was somehow listening in on the conversation I had with Girlfriend about how I need to put my foot down about food expenses and say that I shouldn't be paying for their convenience foods (premade salads, frozen burritos, bolthouse drinks) or her bougie food choices (pepperidge farm bread, Annie's mac n cheese, brown eggs only, cant buy store brand anything) because when I'm working I rarely eat any of the food that comes in the house.

The walls here are thin, sometimes I hear them arguing. But we keep our voices down, and if the comments I made in my own room, which is one of the FEW places I have to myself, made her mad- then she should have said something about that instead of forbidding me from parking three feet away from her precious Kia that she never drives, in my OWN FUCKING DRIVEWAY of my OWN FUCKING HOUSE.

I'm trying not to go crazy here, but shes making it very hard, and I feel like vermin. Vermin that pays half the rent and makes all her food.

Anyway, I feel a little better having talked about it, but after that I dont know what to do because if I bring it up that she was being unreasonable, then she'll find something else to treat me like shit over and we get back to the eggshell cycle.

I want to block her on tumblr so I can even talk about it where my friends are, but if I do that and she figures out that I blocked her it's going to make this house absolute hell.

I'm literally screaming inside.

[hundredsspoons]

Personal vent post//

I'm just so frustrated rn because it's a constant battle with my body to stay awake and do literally anything productive. Like today, I woke up at 8am ish, went back to sleep around 9am, woke up again at around 11am, went back to sleep around 3pm, woke up at 5pm and now I'm desperately trying to hang on until at least 10 before going to sleep for the night. So I slept about 12 hours.

I'm autistic and have food sensory problems, so I have problems getting nutrition. I'm anemic because of it, and that's presumably why I'm always so tired. Problem is that no nutritionist has given me advice for someone with a disgust for most foods, and the nearest program for ARFID (avoidant restrictive food intake disorder) is like 100 miles away. Every time I try to talk to a doctor about it, it just leads nowhere. I tried iron supplements and iron infusions, but I had a minor allergic reaction to the infusion and freaked out like an idiot baby. So I haven't tried again.

My mental health reached a new low a few months back when I was particularly stressed about finishing my masters program. Was genuinely suicidal in a way I haven't been in a long time. Had to go home early and am doing the rest of my thesis from home. Had to take another extension. No job. Missed the application deadlines for phd programs for next year. Living like a parasite off my mother at 28.

Got a therapist, but every session feels like I'm trying to convince him that I'm not just lazy, that there's something wrong and it isn't something I can fix so easily. He keeps pushing exercise, and I know that he's probably right about it, I do know that, but I just came off a medication that was making me pass out in public places, plus I still pass out if I exercise and haven't eaten enough, and it makes me nervous about exercise. He like doesn't believe that I pass out. Or like he tells me to brush it off. Like he recommended going to a gym, and I said I don't want to pass out at a gym, and he said gyms are safe places to pass out?? And that an ambulance will be called?? Like those are expensive. And it's embarrassing to pass out at a gym. Part of me thinks I need some tough love. I know I get mopey. I know I'm stuck feeling miserable about myself and that nothing will get better if I don't change. So I'm not sure if he's just saying stuff I don't WANT to hear, you know? But like, the first meeting with him he asked if I could see a future off of prozac. And like?? I was just contemplating killing myself, is now the time to be focused on that?? Am I insane??

I'm racking up quite the count of illnesses that, of course, have no tests to prove their existence. I go through blood tests etc. and in the end the doctor just diagnoses me with the illness you have if you don't have the other illnesses. POTS, IBS, ARFID, a hormonal response to birth control, autism, depression, anxiety. No one takes any of these things seriously, because even the doctors don't take it seriously when they diagnose them. They just want you out of their office. I know my therapist thinks I'm a hypochondriac inventing problems when there are none. Well, I am a hypochondriac. I won't deny it. I have serious medical anxiety. But is it so wrong to want an answer, a real definitive answer, to why you're like this? My therapist keeps telling me ways to create energy like exercise and cold showers. But I guess the problem is that I wish it weren't so hard. I wish my brain and my body worked right. I wish I could stay awake and not feel like death walking for a full day. I'm so mad about it, I don't feel like working productively towards a solution. Everyone thinks I'm a deadbeat and a failure, and I just. don't. know. if they're right or not?? Am I just lazy? Sleeping 12 hours isn't Normal. I spend like maybe an hour or two a day doing things I like. It's not like I'm having a grand ol' time?? It's not fun. But maybe I'm just so lazy that sleep is my favorite thing to do? I do love to sleep. Am I just supposed to live like this forever? Am I supposed to just accept that, if I want to accomplish anything, I'm going to have to feel like complete trash doing it?? This stinks. It stinks!!!

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

The post I just reblogged made me want to talk more about this so.

I had an incredibly low general opinion of the Sonic movie prior to movie 2 coming out. You can find some of my old posts about it if you want more specifics, but the short version is that so little of that first movie actually feels like it’s about or related to the Sonic series in any way. The green hill scene at the start is great! Sonic’s motions are full of personality and the environment feels alive. And oh shit echidnas are here? That’s a different take on Sonic canon but it’s cool and has implications for this continuity specifically like that’s something to be excited for! And then it all just stops completely. Generic live action setting with a milquetoast police officer human for parents in the audience to relate to while their kids think about Sonic, a Sonic that’s basically himself in name only to begin with. Only thing he really shares with his game self is a tendency towards cracking jokes but even then said jokes have just been turned into pop culture references. Same deal for Eggman who, yeah, is just Jim Carrey being Jim Carrey, we all know this. First movie couldn’t even do the decency of trying to make him look like Eggman either so there’s that. The whole thing was just so lifeless, so afraid of actually being a movie about Sonic the Hedgehog, you know?

Needless to say I was extremely worried for movie 2 as well. Worried that it’d have the same exact problems but now with a Tails and Knuckles that don’t feel like themselves either. But you know what, credit where it’s due, they really did try a lot harder to make it feel like the games. Still don’t love its depiction of Sonic or his character arc here about learning to be a son? And yeah the human inclusions are still barely worth a shit at all. But they gave Eggman a redesign to make him somewhat feel more like his real self even if he’s still just Jim Carrey, Tails is here and they manage to do a decent job with him (plus he’s played by his actual game voice actress!) and they gave Knuckles an actually really great arc capitalising on traits he genuinely does have in the games that these movies are adapting! They expand on their own version of the echidna lore and shit too, bring in the Master Emerald even if it works mechanically different from the games. It’s not perfect but you can tell they’re actually trying to put their own spin on the story now instead of just doing by-the-books safe lame Hollywood shit. And then Super Sonic vs a Death Egg Robot too? Plus the Shadow tease? Like they’re a lot more confident that the Sonic aspects of the Sonic movie can pull people in now, and it’s great to see.

The problem, obviously, is that they’re still just not confident enough. The runtime is still dragged down with movie original human characters, and it’s arguably even worse for that than movie 1 given the wedding scene that, yeah, people can’t stand for a reason! Nobody cares to see this irrelevant side character that’s original to these movie have a “badass” moment where she just does kid-friendly action movie stuff because she’s mad at her fiance or whatever! Why am I watching this in a movie called Sonic the Hedgehog? Or the Uptown Funk dance sequence which like, do I even need to say anything? And the humour’s still just a bunch of lame pop culture references. None of it’s informed by the fact that it’s adapting Sonic the Hedgehog.

And the thing is like, yeah, they’ve kind of already dug their grave. We’re 2 movies in with a Knuckles spinoff show and a third movie on the way. At this point, they can’t ditch the setting. They can’t really ditch the human characters. They’re gonna remain these live action and CG hybrids where the setting is just regular normal United States of America. Maybe the jokes’ll get better! Maybe Sonic’ll start acting more like Sonic! Maybe they’ll make actual soundtracks that fit the series! Maybe we’ll have more game characters come in and be accurate to themselves and we’ll actually start having movies that feel like they’re trying to be Sonic the Hedgehog! But as it stands, the movies kinda just exist in a context so far removed from what I love about the series that it is hard to care.

And yeah I’ll fully admit. Lots of this is in fact informed by my reaction to the Mario movie stuff! Crazy! Thing is the Mario movie’s not even out yet and maybe it will suck and at the very least the voice cast is pretty cringe, primarily fucking Pratt, but you know what, those things aside? That movie’s so unafraid to just be Mario, you know? Everyone looks like they always have, the music sounds like it’s always sounded, the environments are pretty 1:1 with what the Super Mario series looks like to people. Like for all intents and purposes we’re getting exactly what Mario’s always been but just in theatres now. And if anything it’s probably a harder job to do that with Mario since as a series it’s really never been close to as story focused as Sonic games usually are! But they tried their damndest and we’re gonna get a movie where every single second is going to feel like Super Mario on a fundamental level. And I’m upset that Sonic wasn’t able to get that. Animated or not.

[jcmarchi]

Could These Video Game Families Beat WWE’s Bloodline?

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/could-these-video-game-families-beat-wwes-bloodline/

Could These Video Game Families Beat WWE’s Bloodline?

Wrestlemania 40 is nearly upon us, and if you’ve been following WWE for the past three years, the show, like nearly every story during this time, revolves around one family: the Bloodline. The massive family tree of Samoan wrestlers dates back decades and includes members such as current undisputed champion Roman Reigns, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Yokozuna, Rikishi, and so many others. In a business filled with famous families, the Bloodline is likely the biggest family dynasty in pro wrestling history. 

That got me thinking of similar family trees across all of video game fiction and if any of them could stand toe-to-toe against the Bloodline. I’ve gathered up a few worthy clans, and while we’ll never see them square off against Roman’s fam for dominance, we can at least hypothesize who would earn the right to be acknowledged. 

The Kong Family – Donkey Kong

Donkey Kong chucked his first barrels at players in 1981, cementing himself as an icon and staple of the medium. Since then, Nintendo’s famous ape has multiplied into an expansive family tree of children, grandchildren, nephews, and romantic partners with their own clans, all bound by the name Kong. If you totaled every Kong to appear in games, comics, promotional materials, and the Donkey Kong Country animated series, there’s enough to fill several barrels. And if you ever have trouble remembering some members, the infamous DK Rap serves as a helpful role call. If this confrontation devolves into a rap battle, though, Roman’s cousins, the Usos, have the Kongs soundly beaten. 

The Belmonts – Castlevania

Much like the Bloodline, the members of Castlevania’s Belmont family have made their name being very good at doing the same job: killing Dracula. This legendary lineage of vampire hunters (though they’re equally adept at slaying all manner of supernatural threats) has been slinging whips and tossing holy water better than anyone for centuries. The cruel irony is that their primary foe, Dracula, has a closer connection to them than the latter Belmonts may realize. We don’t often see Belmonts working together due to generational gaps, so whichever member faces Roman may be in a Cody Rhodes-like scenario of representing his family alone, placing them at a severe disadvantage. 

Nurse Joys/Officer Jennys – Pokémon

One of the Pokémon anime’s longest-running gags was how each town has its own Nurse Joy and Officer Jenny. They’re not the same person but rather a visually identical member of two obscenely large clans of medical practitioners and law enforcement officers. It’s unbelievable that one family would consist of dozens of clone-like siblings, cousins, first cousins, etc., let alone two. Imagine if the Bloodline was just multiple copies of Roman Reigns and only his wiseman Paul Heyman (ironically playing the role of Brock) could tell the subtle differences such as eyelash length and teeth whiteness. One-on-one, Nurse Joy is far too pleasant for a fight, but Officer Jenny is always willing for a scrap. Plus, her omnipresent Arcanine could counter an inevitable Solo Sikoa run-in. 

Desmond Miles’ Lineage – Assassin’s Creed

This is an interesting one, as these are more descendants than direct family members. But given that centuries separate Desmond’s most famous ancestors, Altaïr and Ezio, one would assume countless relatives exist in between for his bloodline to survive to the present day. Thanks to the advanced science-magic of the Animus, stabbing Templars in the neck has become a hereditary trait rather than a learned trade. The Bloodline would likely only have to deal with Desmond, but he channels the varied skills (read: stabbing/climbing things really well) of his ancestors thanks to the science-magic of the Animus. 

The Feys – Ace Attorney

From the outside, the Ace Attorney series seems to be just about winning court cases and yelling OBJECTION, but the franchise is steeped in the supernatural. Phoenix Wright’s mentor was Mia Fey, a renowned defense attorney and a spirit medium from a long line of them. After Mia’s death, her bubbly younger sister Maya becomes Phoenix’s long-time sidekick, and players encounter more Fey relatives throughout the series. There are nine known members (all women since only females can learn the family’s spirit channeling technique), but it’s assumed to be much larger given its structure of having a “main” family and several branch families of “lesser” siblings and their kin. The Feys could channel the spirits of Roman’s departed brethren to play some effective mind games. After Cody Rhodes’ claims that Roman and Rock’s grandfathers would be ashamed of their villainous antics, the Feys could easily confirm this. However, the Feys have not been immune to inner turmoil and have been willing to resort to murder to climb the hierarchy, a schism the Bloodline could capitalize on. 

Aquato Family – Psychonauts

Raz’s family may not be wrestlers, but they’re the next best thing: circus performers. Known by their stage name as the “Flying Aquatos,” Raz’s immediate (and very large) family excelled at water acrobatics until an aquatic-related family curse derailed their act. The Bloodline could easily take advantage of this by having the match take place on a literal Island of Relevancy, triggering Raz and his family’s long-standing trauma. On the flip side, Raz getting into Roman’s head and exploring what makes him tick would make for a fascinating platforming stage. There would likely be a lot of Royal Rumble 2015-related baggage collectibles to find. 

The Coopers – Sly Cooper

Sly Cooper was destined to be a master thief from the moment he was born. That’s because he’s the latest of generations of benevolent thieves. Somehow dating back to the Ice Age, Coopers have been pulling off heists since dinosaurs roamed the Earth, possibly making them the oldest family on this list. For all we know, Coopers invented the very concept of stealing and, much like the Bloodline, could devise some sneaky ways of pulling out a win. Plus, they could all be present during the match thanks to the fourth game’s introduction of time travel. Win or lose, one thing is certain: there’s no way in Hell the Coopers aren’t walking out with Roman’s belt, by hook, or by expertly executed crook.

What video game family do you think could take on The Bloodline? Let us know in the comments!

[fahrni]

Saturday Morning Coffee

Good morning from Charlottesville, Virginia! ☕️

Well, I’ve managed to put some time into Stream for Mac this week. I’d really messed it up trying to force the codebase into something I wanted, so I started over. Yeah, that sucks, but I think in the end it will have been the right choice.

Taylor — my movie going buddy and youngest daughter — and I saw Dune Part Two last night and we both really enjoyed it. I won’t give away any spoilers here but I wonder if it gave us some insight not given in the book. The problem is I can’t remember the book that well because it’s been 20-plus years since I read it. I enjoyed the ending but it most certainly leaves the door open for Dune: Messiah and Children of Dune. I hope they happen.

I’ve finished today’s post and I’m getting ready to publish. I’ve also come downstairs to my computer so I can work on Stream for Mac today. I’m not exactly sure what I’ll work on yet but I have Import and Export of OPML working as well as Refresh. In my little app that covers a huge swath of functionality because Stream is so darned simple. I’ll spend a whole lot of time on the UI to make it look as good as I’m capable of doing. I still have two important bits of UI to get in; Settings and Adding Feeds. Those will be brand new bits and I’ll get some exposure to more AppKit APIs while I’m at it, which is a big goal for me.

Something I’ve been considering is a triple-pane UI, which is the opposite of what Stream was written to be. I’m still thinking about that move while I work through the basics. The more I think about it the more I both like and hate the idea. In the meantime I have plenty of polish work to do on the app itself. Keyboard shortcuts and right mouse clicks will play an important role in the Mac version.

Anywho, I hope you enjoy the links.

Diana Dasrath • NBC News

Richard Lewis, revered comic and ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ star, dies at 76

RIP 🪦

The White House

Today, the White House Office of the National Cyber Director (ONCD) released a report calling on the technical community to proactively reduce the attack surface in cyberspace. ONCD makes the case that technology manufacturers can prevent entire classes of vulnerabilities from entering the digital ecosystem by adopting memory safe programming languages

I instantly think of Rust when I read memory safe programming languages, but Swift falls into that category as well.

The biggest problem, if you want to call it that, is our entire infrastructure lives on top of systems built in C and C++ years, and years, and years ago.

Who will be the first to rewrite a major OS in Rust or Swift? Microsoft has done some work in Windows to rewrite a tiny portion in Rust but what about an entire OS?

Heck, even some very modern efforts, like Google’s Fuscia, are in C++.

Will we see an effort to replace OS Kernels with Rust? Or perhaps the API layers on top of OSes because they provide a bigger attack surface? No matter, I’d be interested in watching something so daunting.

Roberto Baldwin • Ars Technica

The Electrify America flagship station is what charging should have been all along. It’s also what companies like the seven-automaker joint venture now called IONNA are promising. We should expect to see more of this sort of facility as EVs increase in market share; many new owners don’t want to compromise when it comes to keeping their vehicles on the road.

This gives me hope for a good electric vehicle future.

You know what would be even better? Better mass transportation systems powered by electricity.

Whizy Kim • Vox

Older Americans are working longer. Some want to; others have to.

Well, this will most certainly be me. I did a horrible job planning for retirement so the best I can hope for is to slow down a bit and do part time work (if I can!)

I figure I’ll be forced out of the tech space by an aging brain and the inability to keep up with the youngins coming into the workforce.

Maybe a part time gig at a place like Starbucks will work for me? Someday I suppose we’ll find out.

Joe Taraborrelli • Sony Interactive

We envision reducing our headcount by about 900 people, or about 8% of our current workforce

Ugh. More layoffs. This time it’s hitting the video games sector.

I hope everyone who lost their job was taken care of.

We had a layoff at WillowTree a couple weeks back that took out a whole bunch of VPs and Partners and another realignment of the company. It’s been a really weird year since the acquisition.

Neil Long • mobilegamer.biz

Inside Apple Arcade: axed games, declining payouts, disillusioned studios – and an uncertain future

I wonder if this will affect my friends at The Iconfactory? They have a really fun game called Frenzic: Overtime in Apple Arcade.

I hope not. ❤️

Nick Barclay • The Verge

Apple has halted its long-rumored “Project Titan” work on developing an electric car, according to Bloomberg. The company reportedly announced the news internally on Tuesday and said many people in the 2,000-person team behind the car will shift to generative AI efforts instead.

This always felt like a weird project to me. Why a car? Maybe the answer is: because. That’s a valid reason in my book.

Say, has anyone integrated CarPlay to the extent Apple demo’d at WWDC? You know, the one where the entire dashboard is a giant CarPlay screen?

Sameer Ajmani

In this article, I’ll talk about how we aligned Go with Google Cloud while preserving the core values that make Go great for everyone.

I’ve always seen Go as C for the internet. I’m not sure how many folks realize what an impact C had. 20 years ago almost everything was written in C, C++, or Objective-C. If you wanted speed and portability it was your only choice.

I spent 20+ years writing C/C++ code and I still love the language.

I wonder if Go has that kind of following? The web seems to be largely built on Java, Python, Ruby, and JavaScript, of course I could be 100% wrong about that. 😃

Samantha Cole • 404 Media

Tumblr and Wordpress are preparing to sell user data to Midjourney and OpenAI, according to a source with internal knowledge about the deals and internal documentation referring to the deals.

This doesn’t sound like something Matt Mullenweg would be into.

But, he’s been on sabbatical lately and made enemies with the Trans community. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Stacey Leasca • Food & Wine

Wendy’s Is Introducing Uber-Style ‘Surge Pricing’

How in the world do they think this is going to actually work?

It’s lunch time, the lobby of a Wendy’s is full. The menu updates, doubling prices.

The lobby empties out. 😁

Martin Fowler

Improvements in communications technology have led an increasing number of teams that work in a Remote-First style, a trend that was boosted by the forced isolation of Covid-19 pandemic. But a team that operates remotely still benefits from face-to-face gatherings, and should do them every few months.

I’m down with this idea. We tried having on sites for our remote group but it became cost prohibitive. We managed to have two before they were canceled as an activity.

As an aside, I’ve had COVID once. I got it at our first offsite. 😷

Hartley Charlton • MacRumors

Microsoft Begged Apple to Adopt Bing as Safari’s Default Search Engine

Apparently they didn’t beg hard enough. They must not have tried begging with a bag of cash much, much, larger than what Google paid.

Show me the money!💰

Stephen M. Curry • InfoWorld

The Java Ring is an extremely secure Java-powered electronic token with a continuously running, unalterable realtime clock and rugged packaging, suitable for many applications. The jewel of the Java Ring is the Java iButton – a one-million transistor, single-chip trusted microcomputer with a powerful Java virtual machine (JVM) housed in a rugged and secure stainless-steel case.

This is a pretty cool piece of hardware and I want one. I could see having a ring like this for unlocking doors and controlling various simple devices in some fashion.

If it doubled as a signet so I could press it into wax that would be even cooler. 😃

[blahandwhatever]

Sleepiness still hasn’t let go of me. Feeling more and more healthy and clear-minded when awake, but my body won’t let me get out of bed before about 10 hours of sleep without much force. Today I did have to force myself because I finally had a project from my original, now-secondary, job due in the afternoon. It’s been slow the past couple of months, which would have been devastating a year ago, but now it’s more like a bonus if I get any work here on top of my bigger job.

Yesterday I tried to get my work done early, but, like seemingly every time I do this, it simply expanded to fill the time I had and took up more hours than necessary. Last-minute it is.

In the meantime, I try to do what else I can. I assembled my (tentative) finalist cabinet for next to my TV, a process estimated at 30 minutes that really took closer to two hours. It’s a nice piece of furniture, but I’m still not convinced it’s ideal for the space, but I’m not sure there’s anything out there right now that I would be convinced about. I’ll probably stain it a warmer color and change the knobs to help it fit in more seamlessly. Or maybe I’ll go crazy and order & assemble yet another piece. If only furniture returns were easier (the heaviness is enough of a burden - no way I’m disassembling and repacking everything on top of that) and I could experiment to my heart’s content.

I finally went and returned my cat’s unopened pool table to the neighborhood Amazon Hub, which was just as confusing and pressured a trip as my first one a couple of years ago - Google Maps still hasn’t gotten its shit together with that route, plus I had to stop by FedEx Office to print a shipping label because my printer has stopped printing right. With enough speeding through my various reroutings, I managed to get there at the very last minute.

Meanwhile, I’m upgrading my various cloud storages - all bursting at the seams - to paid versions I can afford now, probably for the best given my failures to back things up manually. Finally got all my pictures (aside from some older ones I can’t seem to locate - but they’re all from the era that’s already on my photo blog) on my new hard drive. Today I got an email from OneDrive with my ‘memories from this day’, consisting solely of views from my Naperville bedroom window on a cloudy, snow-covered day in 2016, and a picture downloaded from the web in 2014 of a bench in a foggy, flower-filled forest. It’s kind of a nice feature. I wish I could have something like that for this blog. I tend to reread my posts for each month from a year ago, maybe two as well, in one go, but it’s too much work to go through all the years, and there’s no real way to sort by a specific date.

The war in Ukraine began a year ago. I listen to Kirill Richter’s “In Memoriam” and think of this February and last. Months full of sadness.

Last night I dreamt that I went to the arboretum, in February, because I just needed to be in a place like that regardless of how it looked, and found unexpected lushness.

Today I got a message from the vet that my cat’s ashes are ready. I’ll pick them up next week.

There’s a lot more to be said, but this is enough for one post.

[thecuriouskit]

Christmas Bankruptcy

So this is a difficult thing to post.  I'm completely broke, to the point that I've been speaking to my bank about debt relief.  I have food so I'm not going to starve, but I cannot travel or buy anything new.  I have debts both with Paypal and the garage that is currently holding my car because I couldn't pay to have the suspension fixed (the car was illegal to drive without the repair) - the latter one was down to unfortunate timing, but it is what it is currently. What happened as that I've been doing remote contract work for a company in London for over a year now, and things seemed to be going okay although communication wasn't the best and I wasn't sure what I was doing.  Nevertheless, I went to their office in October to show them what I was doing and also because I know from experience that the act of 'going to the office' is a good work motivator.  However, without warning, none of my invoices were approved that month and I was left high and dry.  I chased them up at the start of November, and basically got told that they have moneyflow problems and couldn't justify paying me, even though I had showed the CFO directly what I was doing and even found and demonstrated two bugs in their system while I was at their premises.  I was given £500 as a "goodwill gesture", but they still currently owe me £1,600.  I continued to do some work for them through November, but stopped in the middle of the month when I realised that their moneyflow problems weren't going to go away and I could not justify working for them if there was no guarantee of payment. The thing is, if they were up front about the moneyflow problems earlier, I would have made other arrangements, but instead i only found out when expected money didn't arrive on payday.  They have said that their moneyflow problems will be resolved in the new year, which is a little late for me, and honestly, the writing's on the wall and I think the company is about to go under.  I have not been paid anything since, other than a small Universal Credit payment of around £78 (reduced to that because of the £500 payment) and about £120 doing some one-off cleaning jobs for my cousin while I was in Cornwall for a few days for a funeral (he owns a professional cleaning company that wash windows, clean gutters and roofs and even help clean up hazardous waste, one such job I helped out with, cleaning a 'void space' in a hospital after a sewage line ruptured)... unfortunately that £120 only covered the train fare, although it was nice to do a little bit of honest manual labour. In the meantime I have started a new contract for up to £1,000 a month, and I have sent my first invoice for £500, but there's no saying when I'll be paid for that.  Maybe I'm too proud to beg, but I can't go to my parents for help, and I feel unsure about the whole "GoFundMe" thing since it's not like my house has burnt down or flooded, and I'm not sure how easily I can answer the question "what are you doing with the money?".  Plus, working for start-ups always carries a risk.  The problem is that anything sent via PayPal will get swallowed up by the £120 debt I have with them (used to pay the train fare to the funeral, while the £120 for the cleaning jobs got eaten by monthly direct debits, so I couldn't pay the debt right there and then).  I am attempting to write a new CV to find employment that is a little more stable, but I'm struggling because I'm not quite sure what I can do and my skills are outdated (C++ programming, for example, belongs in the 90s, and I am very out of practice). I'm spending Christmas alone, mostly thanks to me being estranged from my parents and otherwise due to problems of my own creation, but hopefully I can survive and enter 2023 swinging.