#which is still only my opinion as usual

[buwheal]

Hello, Spamton!

How's life? Also, do you have any opinions on the Addisons? (Pink, blue, orange, and yellow)

If so, what do you think of them?

[itspileofgoodthings]

.

[termagax]

re: "good girl" i think they say it once randomly as a joke and its just one of those things that gets him wayyy more than they expected it would. so now its their secret weapon and they use it very sparingly and every single time he gets super embarrassed about it but it works ill tell you what.

[batsplat]

This isn't the usual kind of ask you answer, but I've been working my way through the videopass archive sequentially and have been thinking about the historic/vintage livery that the teams are going to be using in Silverstone after the summer break quite a bit. Personally I'm very fond of the West Honda Pons' black and white livery especially with how they had the names of the riders on one side and the team name on the other, and obviously the gauloises and camel yamahas are iconic. But you've obviously watched a lot of the older seasons, so are there any liveries you'd like to see/which ones would you personally pick for the teams?

I too have been having thoughts about this! I do have some of my faves in a wee folder, and initially my picks were a bit limited in terms of range of years and teams. BUT let's do this properly. all eleven teams. my hot take for each and every one of them

CAVEAT NUMBER ONE look I don't know how 'design' or 'colour theory' or even 'taste' work. most of my reasoning doesn't extend beyond 'I thought this looks nice'

CAVEAT NUMBER TWO I also don't... quite know how this works in terms of who's allowed to use which livery? like not just the sponsor stuff, but would teams be able to use liveries from... idk, a different satellite outfit that was in the sport before they were? this ask mentions the pons liveries.... could honda teams actually use those? what if you don't have a lot of history? is anyone allowed to use mv agusta liveries? would teams go for special liveries, or just the regular ones? how strict are the rules for what you can use?

so. y'know. I'm really just guessing here what's even possible, which meant that for... uh. some of these teams. I did have to reach a bit to come up with a viable livery. let's just make clear this is all vibes and go from here

HONDA

they should have no problem with coming up with plenty of options. let's start with the west honda pons, which the ask references:

excellent pick, anon. if they can use this one, I'd very much support it! we're missing black bikes on the grid currently... this one's simple, it's classy, it's got a little bit of identity with the name written on the side. the dark red highlights work nicely. it's also a livery that, unlike some of the ones to follow, should still work well on the current bikes without losing its identity too much - though maybe you'd have to put some thought into how you'd place the actual name. should still be plenty of space though! and it'd be easily recognisable to fans who are familiar with the old livery, which I reckon is also an important metric

while we're on pons, shout out to the ducados honda pons livery:

nice shade of blue! nice design of the leathers! pleasing shape of the numbers! just has a lot of character and charm to it

anyhow, let's get to the factory honda team. the VERY first pick that popped into my head was the special livery for aragon 2011:

so I get that sense that plenty of people hate this livery and think it looks 'childish' and I'm sorry, but if you think that, congratulations on having bad taste. it's cute! honda barely ever has fun! look at how orange it is! look at the stars! there's a star on the leathers too! I'm fond of the way the front of the bike looks too, how the numbers are placed kinda messily on the star. this one's just, y'know, a bit more creative, something that's just different from how we usually expect liveries to look. screw classy and stylish, give me something with a bit of charm

moving back in time a little further, here's the valencia 2003 livery (valentino's last race with honda):

isn't she gorgeous?? I'd put that bike in my bedroom. lovely from every angle. if you look it up, you can find more photos to show it off properly - just see the sun on the top of the bike. really nice mix of the traditional repsol orange with the yellow, it all just works together. bright like the sun

and one more special livery from the early noughties (if not from the factory team), here's mugello 2001:

hardly a controversial choice, people love this one for a reason. it's pretty!! blue flowers!! this one should work reasonably well on the modern bikes too and obviously most fans should be able to recognise it. again, I don't know what the stance is on special liveries - but hey, it'd be fun to give a certain someone in your factory team a livery from this era

and going back further still, here's eddie lawson 1989:

yes, it's rothmann's honda, yes, I've decided not to care. this is my personal top pick for honda. it should be recognisable even on the current bikes, it pays tribute to honda's long history by not just sticking to something from this century, and it looks cool. clean cut colours that are nicely separated out - I really like the yellow highlights on either side of the bike, plus the way the separation of the blue and white is handled on both the bike and the leathers. it's all quite clearly demarcated, but with nice details to give it character - those stripes on the front of the bike and on the the leathers. the touches of gold. the rider's name on the side of the screen. the number on the back of the bike. cool bit of history, too, like they stole that man away from yamaha and it certainly worked out for them. it's fun!

and one more jump to the past to hailwood's late sixties honda:

this one is proper honda #heritage and I'd totally get if they go with that. my main issue is... I'm not quite sure how it'd work on today's bike, shape-wise? like, the charm here is really the simplicity, the way the orange-gold spreads over the silver. does that work if you have all the bits sticking out everywhere? maybe somebody with a better understanding of design than me can figure it out, and I do like this one. the numbers look nice. idk. it's neat

LCR

well. I guess you'd want to go with one of the cecchinello liveries here? my problem with lcr is that they seem to generally be pretty big on their retro liveries anyway - the first one I thought of... basically looks like the 2021 lcr livery anyway? boring! done that! then there's a few years that are like... silvery, but, and I know this is an unfair way to go about this, I kind of feel I've already gone silvery with a few of my other picks and they're all nicer. so, here's my pick from 2000:

it's a bit busy, but that's kinda the fun of some of these older liveries. big chunk of red, some blue, the nice bright yellow number, even all the logos are kinda fun... I like the weird shape of the white line that separates the red and the black. I don't know, it just works for me as a complete package in a way some of the other lcr liveries don't

YAMAHA

yes, gauloises yamaha. my beloved. everyone's a fan for a reason

can't not mention it!! I do think valentino's version specifically works the best because of the extra bit of flare the yellow highlights provide here. but also the GO!!!!!! thing works on every version. it's fun! sometimes it's okay to go overboard with exclamation mark numbers! this one kinda hits the sweet spot as being proper classy but also joyous, enthusiastic. just overall very much a vibe

on camel yamaha, I do like the livery, but personally I do just associate it more strongly with camel honda? which was literally the same livery. that might not have been the factory team, but those were still serious frontrunners during the early noughties... and, well, it just doesn't feel specifically yamaha to me idk

okay, I'm going to restrain myself here on the valentino livery front. yes, I too liked laguna and valencia 2005. I have only 30 images to play with here and I'm not going to blow half of them on valentino special liveries, so I'm going to stick to my two faves. assen 2007 and catalunya 2008:

they're just! fun! when it comes to liveries in general, my basic criteria are a) can I easily figure out who's riding them, and b) do they make me smile. elegance is boring, give me something more quirky and memorable and FUN. assen is just. a lot. lots of colours, such a bright and cheerful livery that still works as a complete package. the bike's fun, the livery's fun, fabio would look fantastic in this one. and catalunya (in honour of the italian national team) is just a cool idea! the football helmet! the mock shirts! the pink sleeves! there's a real creativity and charm to this one - and at the same time, the base design of the bike is actually really lovely and stylish. also I associated both of these liveries with extremely fun valentino races that I'd definitely recommend (literally two of the top six vale/casey duels), which... well you can't say that about the two 2005 liveries I mentioned above is what I'd say

now, I know I just said forget laguna 2005, but of course laguna 2005 was in itself a reference to a past yamaha livery. so cut out 2005 and just pay direct homage to the iconic late seventies design, feat kenny roberts:

another one everyone loves for a reason! it's a nice shade of yellow, it works well with the white and black... the black dashed line thingies are of course iconic and they just make the whole thing quite dynamic and snazzy

and one more. marlboro liveries do unfortunately slap, plenty of them are fan favourites... look at this red one, feat. eddie lawson 1984:

it's very. blocky. you've got the red bits the white bits the yellow bits. they have nice shapes. nice lines. the yellow bits where one's a circle type thingy and the other one's whatever you call that shape and then you've got the numbers on them. please don't read these descriptions. there's plenty of the marlboro liveries over the course of yamaha's time, but this one's my favourite. and it's the one I'd choose! I know it's super iconic but we already did a tribute to the 70s one back at laguna 2005. do this one instead! it's very yamaha but also a little more creative than the most obvious picks

DUCATI

well. if we're talking marlboro, then yes, of course the old marlboro ducati livery is very memorable:

this is a bike that looks good. there's not much more to say about it (or, well, there probably is, but again it should be obvious I don't know how design works). it's a nice shade of red, I really like how the front looks... my issue with this one is that low key it is the marlboro logo that makes it particularly distinctive. kinda feels against the spirit of the whole thing, damn those tobacco companies and their lovely bike designs

here's mugello 2006, which in itself is a retro livery. I'll allow this one and I do think it's just?? very nice??

really pleasing dull colours, three shades that work together well, got something old fashioned to it. my main problem with this one is... I don't feel like it'd look as good on the current bikes? I don't know, this one works because of the kind of... soft curves of the front of the bike. I do also think quirky and a bit in your face just suit the current bikes better than trying to keep things too classy?

my general problem is that ducati history in motogp is like... we're working with a limited sample size. and when I go through the options I do find them a bit. meh. the thing is, right, the red bikes are nice, I do like the marlboro design, but it's also still essentially a red bike. and if you translate these designs to the current bike shape, it's not going to look THAT different to the bike they're riding any other week. the mugello 2006 probably does better on that account, but I don't know. I think I am kind of committed to making them all actually switch around colours here

so I was wondering if maybe you could delve into the superbikes archive? you could go for the 2001 livery, feat. bayliss (also a motogp race winner):

I think the silver pairs quite nicely with the black leathers... also I like it whenever the bit on the front where they put the number on has a slightly quirky shape. I'm not going to pretend like this is my all time favourite livery, but I do like it well enough! it'd translate well to the current bikes, would give us a proper switch-up, works quite nicely imo

and one more from superbikes, this from 2012:

this one isn't happening for a bunch of reasons, not least because I doubt the effenbert team is one that's remembered particularly fondly by ducati. still, it passes the 'does it look distinctive' test to me, making a 'what if you threw a pint of beer over a motorcycle' livery is at the very least something different

PRAMAC

there's a few different ways you could go here, but I'd just keep it simple and go for one of the years where the pramac logo is big on one side of the bike. here's harada in 2002:

not a bad logo! you've got the arrows and everything! you've also got another more subtle silver arrow in the middle of all the white, makes the whole thing feel quite dynamic. simple colours, very pramac. bold and brash

(you could go for the 2018 mugello livery too but I philosophically reject having a 'retro' livery from 2018)

GRESINI

another satellite team that's been around for a while, and my suspicion is they'll go for one of fausto gresini's liveries. none of those... really appeal to me... so I wanted to suggest one from their telefonica movistar days back in the mid noughties. that's right: I'm talking sete's livery:

in practise, this livery does deeply annoy me in 2004 to 2005 because - despite not being in the same factories - you've somehow managed to get both title rivals in pretty damn similar liveries. like, can I tell them apart? sure. but especially with the poorer video quality, is it really necessary to make it this tricky? well! no! but also sete had this livery before his title rival switched to yamaha, so he came first. I like this one a lot! I like the way the yellow is integrated, the chequered bits around the telefonica movistar logo, good helmet too. slightly unusual patterns for the win - there's quite a lot going on with the lines on this design but it all kinda comes together. I actually think you could make this one look really good on the modern bikes, and it has a real spark and flare to it. also I would find it narratively pleasing if marc rides with sete's livery

but if gresini wants to go another way, shout out to their 2010 livery (several of the early 2010s look quite similar):

I'm not the biggest fan in the world of white liveries, but the style of this one pleases me idk. there's a slightly unusual shape on the side of this one, which I've already said I approve of. it's a nice shade of red to pair with the white. not my first pick, but I'd settle for this one

VR46

right, this is one where I really have questions. ... are they allowed to use just any of valentino's old liveries? what are the rules here? I think to maybe keep things straightforward here, I'll avoid his actual honda and yamaha liveries (those kids are not getting the gp11/12 let's be real) and stick to the lower class ones. now... those are aprilia liveries, and if aprilia wants to use some of those then please have at it. otherwise: vr46, lads, this is the way you want to go. here's 1999 (though 1998 also looks lovely):

one where the leathers and helmet really feels like a part of the design, like that's the bit that really completes the look. the dark grey base tone works as something you can layer all the fun stuff on. the font of the numbers! the warm reds and yellows! the stickers! this one's just FUN, it has a real adolescent verve and joy to it

and of course there's the mugello 1999 special livery:

she's so pretty!! recognisable! I don't even know what to say about this one apart from. look. it's fun. just something youthful and joyous and energetic to the whole thing... keeps things pretty straightforward on the colour front, the dark orange-brown highlights really brings it all together. or something

APRILIA

so. here's another question. are we just stuck with premier class liveries here? because if so, it's pretty slim pickings... but look, thirty images, we're not getting into everything they've been up to in the lower classes

luckily, aprilia do have quite a nice 2002 entry in the premier class:

dark colours are fun sometimes!! I like the shape of the ms logo! it's a bit chaotic, but in a fun way! it feels very aprilia, somehow. this would be my pick I think, I could easily transpose this to the current bikes in my mind's eye. aprilia kinda feels like it's supposed to be a bit chaotic, all those bits sticking off. love the red sleeves of the leathers

you could also go for the 2004 livery:

I'm not personally? super into the white and gold as a combination? definitely prefer the darker base colour of 2002. but it's quite distinctive - the red sleeves actually pop out more in this one. it's neat!

TRACKHOUSE

uh. um. uh. are they... allowed to run petronas colours? I mean it's basically still the same team? maybe they can borrow some aprilia ones? if not, then well they're the rahh rahh america team. I would ask ducati very nicely if maybe they could use this indianapolis 2009 livery in honour of the late nicky hayden:

I know you probably can't do that, but well! if you could, that'd be my pick for them! I like stars, america has stars on their flags, this is very rahh rahh america. the helmet and liveries are also fun and have stars on them. that's all I've got, sorry

KTM

okay, we've got an even bigger problem than aprilia here. these guys have NOT been in motogp long enough. my idea here was... so obviously ktm just do not have a suitable back catalogue of liveries, but aren't they like basically red bull? and red bull did like. a one off partnership with suzuki for laguna 2005, and suzuki isn't even in the sport any more so it's not like there's a CLASH there. I don't know how this works! whatever. I think it's nice!

it's not the most exciting thing I've ever seen in my life, but the red bull logo works well on the black. looks classy! and if suzuki gets mad then well red bull can just chuck money at them idk

the other option is... doesn't ktm own mv agusta now? go for one of those! they look quite similar for much of a decade, so I could have included another hailwood photo here - but I'm just going to use the early seventies mv agusta instead:

it's very simple, very basic. I'm not... sure this works on bikes these days. anyway I chose this one over its predecessor because I do like the stripes on the leathers, very adidas coded. if you can figure out how to make this whole design look good for the more complex bikes of today, then this would be a good pick imo. I like quirky shapes to put my numbers on... but sometimes circles are also good

TECH3

so. for a while, these are running the gauloises yamaha liveries, which we've already covered. maybe they could take the fortuna yamaha liveries instead that they used, especially if the factory yamaha squad doesn't want the kinda similar ones they ran at certain points. basically they're the red yamahas in the noughties. I'd go for 2004 tech3, which... y'know, the fortuna font is just quite nice, they're stylish liveries, they're just bikes you look at and go 'wow that sure is a nice bike'. and yes, we do need to at this point also mention the estoril 2004 spiderman livery

all I'm saying, if pedro acosta does not show up to silverstone on the spiderman bike. a part of me will be disappointed

otherwise, I thought the dunlops in 2007 were quite nice?

yes, yes, it's another yellow and black yamaha livery. but hey, it's a bit different from the one they referenced at laguna 2005, keeps things fresh. wouldn't mind this one

IN CONCLUSION

might add to these at some point, but those are kinda the first picks that come to mind! a lot of these are annoyingly recent, because most teams on the grid aren't that old. not quite sure what the rules of the game are here! which does mean that, as much as I enjoy the recent designs, I kinda hope honda and yamaha don't go for liveries from this century and dig a bit deeper in the archives

basically, what I'm looking for from the teams is a retro livery that a) is clearly recognisable to anyone familiar with said past livery, b) works with the actual shape of the current bike, c) looks different enough from their current livery, I want colour swaps, and d) looks cool. also, they should coordinate. istg if half of the grid shows up in white liveries... hopefully at least some of the teams will go for the fun ones!

[nomoremrnicefag]

it is always so wild to me when cis people try to get me to shit talk non binary identities with them just because I present to them as a binary trans guy bc I will always defend them and whatever those fuckers have deemed as the "weird identity" this time. nothing about me gives off the vibe that a) i would ever feel the need to grift for cis approval and b)that I would ever give cis people the opportunity to talk badly about non binary people with a transgender pat on the back from me, just because they didn't follow the exact same path as I did. its stupid as hell and I sympathize with any non binary person that has the misfortune of crossing their path

[theres-whump-in-that-nebula]

When you’re naturally arrogant and self-righteous but no one knows because you’re too afraid of disapproval to express your opinions

[jewishcissiekj]

wanted to write smth about Asajj's eye color and realized how predictable my opinion about any aspect of her character is (TCW mostly sucks, Dermot Power's design is always the blueprint, CW 2003 is peak and won't be topped, legends comics have their issues but they do it well and i love it, i don't want to go near the bounty hunter era, and at least one canon comic did something i can never stop thinking about)

[sapchat]

Ya know as I watched the movie I kept shooting off who I thought the bad guy was, starting with Chris. Then as Lydia and Jackson walked around the woods and they mentioned chemicals I joking thought “harris”

And when that reveal happened….

[darkartistyt]

we need more pet related yt shorts

if i ever get a cat you best believe i will make so much shorts content of them. ill just record videos of me petting my cat like 5 times a day and flood some randos recommended with cute cat content

screw shitty challenge videos and tiktok reuploads imma show you all my cat

[frodolives]

So uhmm I finally finished watching game of thrones!! I know I'm four years late but whatever I like to take my time with stuff... anyway Tyrion Lannister you will always be famous

[risemcisol]

alina is one of my favourite protagonists ever because she's a "feminine character" who undergoes a shonen hero's journey.

[giverofempathy]

the whole concept of new years resolutions is actually so not for this time of the year i think we should all stop doing that

[playingonedchess]

[redacted] most stupid city why even bother

[nomairuins]

sorry im having like a cat5 hungry moment. CREPES THAT WHAT IT WAS FUCKK. I LOVE CREPES

[weaselle]

it was too much i had to make my own post

line cook here. ACCURATE

if you don't get the hate, here's what you don't understand.

it takes up to 2 hours to close down the kitchen.

The last 60-90 minutes before closing time you do almost no cooking because the restaurant doesn't have many people in it and you've already cooked most of their diners.

So if someone walks in during, like, the last hour, the cook is in the middle of an industrial deep clean of the kitchen.

(these numbers can vary quite a bit from place to place but i have worked several restaurants with these actual times and the concept remains the same)

Say the place closes at 10. If you wait til the restaurant is already closed to start all your cleaning duties, you'll be there until at least midnight.

More than that your boss knows that on an average night you can start your clean up as soon as the last rush ends and get out of there around 10:45, even 10:15 on a slow night if you get lucky. That means there are plenty of restaurants where if you do take until midnight the manager is going to come up to you at some point that week and ask you what went wrong that night, and you'd better have an answer.

So this example restaurant closes at 10 pm. The dinner rush ends around 8:30, and shortly after that the cook is going to start getting every single dish possible over to the dishwasher because the dishwasher always gets hit hard and late, and the machine runs for 2 full minutes and only holds so many dishes, so the way that works out is if you wait an extra 30 minutes to give the dishwasher all your stuff it can mean adding like 60 minutes to the end of his shift. And you're gonna KEEP finding shit to send to the dishpit right up until you leave probably.

all these little square and rectangle containers in this cold table have to be pulled out and changed over into new containers, replaced by new full ones, or in some cases filled from larger containers in the back, which can result in even more empty containers to send to the dishwasher.

while it's all pulled apart to do this, you have to clean up all the spilled food and sauce and juices and stuff from the joints and ledges and shelves and drip trays

Once you get your line changed over in this way, and fully stocked, anytime someone orders something that makes use of a bunch of that stuff, you have to restock and re-clean it some. It might already be covered in plastic. Some of it might already be stuck in the back to make room to take apart your cutting board counter to clean. To cook a dish isn't TOO much of a problem at this point, but you're really hoping for zero orders because you still have so much other cleaning to do.

Meanwhile the salad bar and appetizer section and server station and everybody are all doing the same thing. Even the bartenders are stocking olives and lemons and sending back whisks and stir spoons and shakers and empty 4quart storage containers that used to hold the back-up lemons and olives and things. Every section is dumping their must-be-cleaneds to the dishpit as fast as possible because early and fast is the only thing they can do to to help that dishpit not absolutely drown into overtime.

The poor dishwasher is always the last to clock out, soaking wet and exhausted.

Around this time you probably scrub the flat top, which has turned black from cooked on grease and is still about 500 degrees. Line cooks are divided in opinion on water-based or oil based cleaning methods for this, but they all involve scrubbing with (usually) a brick of pumice stone using every ounce of your strength while you try not to burn yourself

you scrub it from fully blackened to gleaming silver and now if somebody orders something that needs the flat top to cook, you can either fuck up your cleaning job or fake it in a couple frying pans and pass that tiny fuck you down to your dishwasher (who usually understands, especially if you help them take the garbage out or clean your own floor drain later)

If there's deep fried stuff on the menu then the fryers have to be cleaned out, which includes straining the oil out into enormous and super-heavy pots full of oil so hot that if you spill on yourself then it's probably a hospital visit and if you slip and fall face first into it it'll be the last thing you ever do.

Then you gotta scrub out the fryer. Like you gotta take the (hot) screen out and reach your arm down into the weird rounded pipes and curved areas (so hot, burn you if you brush against them hot) and scrub off whatever is down there

Depending on your kitchen you might have to do up to four of these. Then you'll have to pour the (dangerously hot) oil back in

oh, and if you didn't dry the pipes and get ALL the water out of the trap and tank?

water reacts with hot oil in a sort of mentos and coke way that can send a tidal wave of oil past the open flame of the pilot light ...HUGE dangerous mess and/or burn down the kitchen if the oil lights up.

Unless! If the oil has been used too hard and needs to be changed, it's time to carry those open topped super heavy pots full of will-kill-you-hot oil and dump them in the barrel outside by the dumpsters so you can put room temp fresh oil in the fryers. whew!

The clean up is not just some light wiping down that can be easily interrupted, is what i'm saying.

You might have to do some kind of walk-in duty (moving around 50lb cases of lettuce and 50lb bags of onions to get to the stacks of five gallon buckets full of salad dressings and sauces to move so you can reach the giant metal pots and bus tubs full of prep and get it all organized and make sure it's all labeled and i have to stop now i'm having flashbacks)

THE POINT IS

by 15 or however many minutes to close, the line cook is doing an intense deep clean and probably has the whole stove taken apart to detail.

For some industrial stoves this means lifting off large cast iron plates that weigh like 20 lbs each and are still quite hot. Whatever metal burners are on there, you gotta take off and clean, you can see here the lines that indicate the large thick cast iron rectangles that sit on top of the burners to allow heavy pots to rest on. Those five (each has one front burner hole and one back burner hole, see?) have to be lifted off and cleaned with soap and a wire brush usually, and then the underneath area also has to be cleaned because a lot of shit falls through the burner holes on a busy night.

if you didn't do it when you did the flat top you have to do the grease trap (which can be like a full five minutes and is always disgusting).. You gotta clean out all the little gas jets in each burner with a wire or something so the burners all flame evenly, and sometimes you have to remove some of the natural gas piping that connects the burners to access where you have to clean.

you gotta clean out the bottom of the oven and the wire racks, and, oh gods, you gotta take down the filter vents from the hood fans above the stove.

See all the lined parts along the top of the wall?

those are hood vents, and as they pull air up they also pull a lot of grease and they have to be taken down and cleaned, then you gotta climb up there and scrub where they go before you put them back...

And then there's the mopping and floor drains and...

Anyway, that's what the line cook is doing when you walk in fifteen minutes before closing and order something that needs to be cooked on that stove. They are doing an entire industrial cleaning of a professional kitchen.

In some restaurants maybe one or two of these jobs will be every other night or even only twice a week, but in many, possibly most kitchens, ALL of these things happen EVERY night. You don't want to leave any food mess that might attract insects or rodents for one thing, so a really good kitchen is as close to brand new as you can get it every night.

IF YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO ORDER SOMETHING ANYWAY, HERE IS WHAT TO DO

open with an apology and ask the server to go ask what the cook would prefer you to order.

Any good server will already know what the cook is hoping for and what will make their line cook go into the walk in and scream. If it's significantly less than an hour to close and they say some variant of "oh anything is fine" they are either telling the lie their boss wants them to say, or they actually do not know what their line cook wants, and you can either use human connection and a conspiratorial just-between-us tone to get them to drop the customer-is-always-right act, or get them to actually go ask the cook.

It might be as specific as "the lasagna is easiest on the kitchen" or it might be a simple guideline like "nothing that requires the flat top" or "any of the sautés are easy" but a good line cook will probably have a system for if they have to make a couple of the most popular items after they start their close, so the answer is likely to include something most people like and you should be good to order that.

but for the love of all that's holy, please only do so at great need. Leave that last 30-60 minutes to the truly desperate and the crew's duties.

[icarus-suraki]

I don't like wading into Ao3 debates, but I want to give my professional opinion on Ao3 with regard to archives vs. libraries.

I am a professional librarian (MSLS) and I have worked in both archives and public libraries and a lot of the confusion and concern I see surrounding Ao3 is a fundamental misunderstanding of How Archives Work.

An archive is a collection related to a subject. That subject is often a person but sometimes a field or concept or project. And the purpose of an archive is to keep everything. And I mean everything. I was going to say "short of biohazards" but since I know there's a sealed R. Crumb Devil Gal chocolate bar in the UNC Chapel Hill archives, we really do mean everything.

When a collection of materials--which are usually unique and original and can be photos, manuscripts, letters, recordings (audio and/or visual), notes and notebooks, objects, published books, whatever--on and/or from the subject arrive at the archive, they are examined, preserved for longevity, accessioned and cataloged (added to the archive's records), and added to the archive. You measure collections in linear feet. As in, once it's all preserved and boxed and secure, you note how many feet of shelf space it takes up. And some of y'all on Ao3 have a lot of linear feet to your name (and I'm proud of you).

This is an archive: it is designed to preserve the original materials related to a subject. That is its purpose. Archives are how we have the original scroll manuscript of On the Road, for example, or the Lomax recordings of American folksongs, or Tijuana Bibles, or James Joyce's loveletters to Nora.

Now you, a member of the public, can access some archives. Some are easier to access than others. The one I worked in was open to the public; good luck getting into the British Archives without a good reason.

So now apply this to Ao3--which is an archive both in name and in purpose. It is intended to preserve fan-created content long term. And this means everything, whether you personally like the materials or not. It is a repository for as much as possible.

And the "whether you personally like the materials or not" is important, hence why I mentioned Jim's loveletters and Tijuana Bibles in particular. (RIP Jim, you would have loved pegging.)

If it's made by fans and it exists, we should keep it to document the history and progression of fandom. That is the point. We have lost enough materials related to the subject of fans of media and we don't need to lose any more.

The fact of the matter is that Ao3 is only one facet of the OTW, which preserves other fan-related materials (convention booklets and zines, for example). Somehow Ao3, an archive on the subject of fanfiction, has been divorced from the rest of the project, mostly by way of "purity culture" and panic over "dangerous" fiction.

The fact that you can go through an archive and find interesting information is the other side of archives. No, they shouldn't be like the banker's box of old letters stuffed in my closet. Yes, they should be organized and as accessible as is appropriate for the state of the materials.

It's really, really cool to find stuff in an archive, I'm not even going to lie. I have done it before and I will do it again. And yet there are other items in an archive that I might not want or need or be interested in at all--but they're still there. That's the cataloging and accessioning: to keep up with what's there, to stay "on topic" with collecting, and to be able to find things in that archive. Bless the tag wranglers who are doing the cataloging at Ao3.

The pearl clutching seems to come from 1. the creation of "dangerous" fanworks and 2. public access to those "dangerous" fanworks. These are issues of "purity culture" and opinions on censorship and should not involve Ao3.

Ao3, under the umbrella of the OTW, is a documentation and preservation project first and foremost.