Every 21st century piece of writing advice: Make us CARE about the character from page 1! Make us empathize with them! Make them interesting and different but still relatable and likable!
Every piece of classic literature: Hi. It’s me. The bland everyman whose only purpose is to tell you this story. I have no actual personality. Here’s the story of the time I encountered the worst people I ever met in my life. But first, ten pages of description about the place in which I met them.
Modern writing advice: Yes your protagonist should have flaws but ultimately we should root for them and like them from the beginning :)
Charles Dickens: Here is the worst ugliest rudest meanest nastiest bitch you’ve ever met in your life.
Modern writing advice: Make sure your POV character goes through a significant arc! Make sure they are changed by the narrative! Make sure they learn a lesson!
Narrators of every book of the 19th century: the lesson I learned is these people fucking suck, sayonara you freaks
Modern writing advice: It’s all about the character overcoming obstacles and learning! They learn their lesson so they can fix their mistakes and make good choices in the future! It’s a character arc! It’s called growth! Readers love it!
Everyone from ancient times through the 19th century: would you like to watch a Guy fuck up twenty times in a row
dating and relationships are the ultimate “you cringe you lose” compilation
sounds like a joke post but unironically one of the first hurdles to forming healthy happy relationships is to learn to suppress the impulse to go “eww lame” about stuff that partners or potential partners are into.
the chances of meeting someone who isn’t into at least a few things you think are really really lame is very slim, and instead of chasing after the dream of meeting somebody who only, exclusively, likes stuff you also like, it’s better to just like. learn to be more chill about people liking stuff you don’t, and hope that they’ll return the favor and be chill about you liking stuff they don’t.
Friendly reminder that LGBTQ+, Queer, and LGBT+ are the preferred terms for the community (x).
Friendly reminder that Queer is approved by 72.9% of the people, and the groups who don’t prefer it’s use as an umbrella term are straight people, exclusionists, transmeds, truscums, sex-negative people, and sex work critical people (x).
Friendly reminder that aros and aces are excluded only 9.2% /
8.1%
of the time respectively while being included
78.9%
/ 81.2% of the time (x)
Friendly reminder that exclusionists are in the minority and aro/ace people are included in the LGBTQ+ community by the people within the community.
Also, i checked out the survey the second claim sources a while back: this is not OP choosing the words truscum, exclusionist, etc. These are labels that the survey gave people the option to self-identify as. It’s self-proclaimed exclusionists who dont like the word queer, not random accusations
yeah that’s super important.
This one gets reblogged on main. The reclassification of ‘queer’ as an inexcusable slur is a recent development which stems in part from exclusionist rhetoric. We reclaimed it decades ago. Learn our history. You are not immune to TERF propaganda, but you can absolutely choose to educate yourself to spite it.
Hey y’all film crew member here. For those of you asking, they’re running like that to stay out of the shot. For us crew we TRY OUR HARDEST TO NOT GET FILMED. IT’S IMPORTANT. It’s like playing the floor is lava but with a side of “you’re fired” if you lose too many times. We’ll do anythING to not be seen. Duck around corners, dive under tables, jump in the bushes, assume fetal position on the floor, climb trees, get in the robot, hide in the trojan horse, become a vampire, you fuckin name it. My fav game while watching a movie is “guess where the crew is hiding in this shot” it’s great fun you should try it. The only problem in this particular shot is there is nowhere to hide except behind the camera which IS MOVING REALLY FAST. Why they didn’t just leave the room I have no idea. it could be any number of reasons. Time, lack of proper equipment, need to supervise/direct, etc. The real question is how the hell did Gaga not fucking lose it seeing a herd of film nerds scamper desperately in circles behind the camera
“push yourself to get up before the rest of the world - start with 7am, then 6am, then 5:30am. go to the nearest hill with a big coat and a scarf and watch the sun rise. 2. push yourself to fall asleep earlier - start with 11pm, then 10pm, then 9pm. wake up in the morning feeling re-energized and comfortable. 3. erase processed food from your diet. start with no lollies, chips, biscuits, then erase pasta, rice, cereal, then bread. use the rule that if a child couldn’t identify what was in it, you don’t eat it. 4. get into the habit of cooking yourself a beautiful breakfast. fry tomatoes and mushrooms in real butter and garlic, fry an egg, slice up a fresh avocado and squirt way too much lemon on it. sit and eat it and do nothing else. 5. stretch. start by reaching for the sky as hard as you can, then trying to touch your toes. roll your head. stretch your fingers. stretch everything. 6. buy a 1L water bottle. start with pushing yourself to drink the whole thing in a day, then try drinking it twice. 7. buy a beautiful diary and a beautiful black pen. write down everything you do, including dinner dates, appointments, assignments, coffees, what you need to do that day. no detail is too small. 8. strip your bed of your sheets and empty your underwear draw into the washing machine. put a massive scoop of scented fabric softener in there and wash. make your bed in full. 9. organise your room. fold all your clothes (and bag what you don’t want), clean your mirror, your laptop, vacuum the floor. light a beautiful candle. 10. have a luxurious shower with your favourite music playing. wash your hair, scrub your body, brush your teeth. lather your whole body in moisturiser, get familiar with the part between your toes, your inner thighs, the back of your neck. 11. push yourself to go for a walk. take your headphones, go to the beach and walk. smile at strangers walking the other way and be surprised how many smile back. bring your dog and observe the dog’s behaviour. realise you can learn from your dog. 12. message old friends with personal jokes. reminisce. suggest a catch up soon, even if you don’t follow through. push yourself to follow through. 14. think long and hard about what interests you. crime? sex? boarding school? long-forgotten romance etiquette? find a book about it and read it. there is a book about literally everything. 15. become the person you would ideally fall in love with. let cars merge into your lane when driving. pay double for parking tickets and leave a second one in the machine. stick your tongue out at babies. compliment people on their cute clothes. challenge yourself to not ridicule anyone for a whole day. then two. then a week. walk with a straight posture. look people in the eye. ask people about their story. talk to acquaintances so they become friends. 16. lie in the sunshine. daydream about the life you would lead if failure wasn’t a thing. open your eyes. take small steps to make it happen for you.”
surely this is a good idea that doesn’t have the capacity to end real fuckin badly
Bridges aren’t supposed to have weight restrictions on them. That is, they don’t come with weight restrictions on them when they’re new. So a bridge with a weight restriction on it is a sign that something has gone wrong and the bridge does not meet current standards.
The maximum weight that a vehicle is allowed to carry on the Interstate System per federal law is 80,000 pounds gross vehicle weight (with a max of 20,000 pounds per axle). That’s 40 tons. That limit applies to every inch of pavement, not just the bridges. Since this is a known cap, a new Interstate bridge will be designed to accommodate an 80,000 lb GVW load on it. You could say the bridge’s weight limit is 80,000 lb/40 tons but that doesn’t really have much meaning, because a load higher than that would be illegal to transport on public roads anyway, and the road leading up to the bridge has the same weight restriction. (In practice, the bridge doubtlessly will be designed to have a little bit of let to it just in case some idiot tries to squeak by a few hundred extra pounds.)
Now, note that that law applies to the Interstate System only, because the federal government only has a governing interest in the Interstate System (and other roads that together make up something called the National Highway System) because they partially fund it. Most long-distance roads are owned and funded by the states. The states could theoretically set lower standard weight limits and/or design bridges with lower weight limits…but in practice they don’t.
One, because all of that 80,000 lb GVW traffic on the Interstate system has to go somewhere when it exits the system.
Two, because a group called the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO, who are best known for picking the road numbers) maintains a catalog of standard components for making bridges that meet Interstate System requirements. Engineers are expensive on a per-hour basis, so if you can direct your engineer to use standard components and make a standard bridge, that’s a lot cheaper than having them design a bridge from scratch to go over the creek in Nowheresville. As a result, most new bridges meet Interstate standards and have an 80,000 lb GVW rating even if they aren’t on the Interstate system. (This is also why all new bridges kind of look the same, but we’re not worried about how boring the bridges are for the sake of this post.)
So a bridge only has an explicit weight limit if it has been damaged in some way (through failure to properly maintain it usually) or because it predates the application of Interstate System standards and the standard AASHTO bridges.
Older bridges often have other problems in addition to the weight limits: many older designs are what we call “fracture critical”, which means that if one component of the bridge fails the whole thing collapses. Modern bridge designs have redundancy designed into them so that if one beam fails the other beams will carry the load until the damaged beam can be replaced. Older bridges also often don’t meet other standards, like height (16 ft clearance) and width (12 ft per lane plus 14 ft for shoulders) requirements.
Biden isn’t advocating eliminating weight limits and letting it be a laissez-faire free-for-all where trucks can just go wherever they want. He’s advocating for replacing bridges that carry weight limits with new ones that don’t have them.
wow i got absolutely schooled thank you for all this this is really informative. i have learned so much
This is a great explanation of what the fuck Biden was talking about in his tweet. because I will freely admit that I also went “…….wtf?????” when I read it. So thank you.
Imagine using this as a ghost costume for Halloween
I got one of these for the missus a few years back. It is soft and comfortable, and if you were to cut holes in it for a ghost costume she would kill you. And I would slather your corpse in delicious honey barbeque sauce. Disrespect the burrito, become the burrito.
I had a dream and I won’t bore you with the specifics, but I distinctly remember a nilered style video where the guy was “brewing a cup of coffee until it turns transparent”
mostly because I woke up craving transparent coffee
I have several mutuals like that and I’m still no closer to getting my transparent coffee
Good for this person. This is exactly what you do. Screw the job.
I had a job that made me work an all nighter, 30 hours straight, over Thanksgiving. I resigned that Monday and it was one of the most satisfying decisions I’ve ever made.
Please pay attention to all the manipulation tactics this boss uses, because they’re pulling out every trick in the book.
“I’m not your boss, I’m your friend”
“Other people will be hurt by this and it’s your fault and I’m going to tell them all that”
Mocking language
Jobs are important too
“Be a team player”
“We’re your family too”
Talking as if this is a thing you must do
“We all make sacrifices”
Undermining your authority
“You caused all of this, really”
Accusing you of being “unprofessional”
“Look at the money you cost us”
“Just laugh it off and come back to work”
This is like a 101 course in how employers use guilt trips to coerce you into putting up with their bullshit. This is precisely why you should never trust those employers who insist that they’re “like a family.” They are not. It’s just a ruse so that your boss can neg you into putting your job ahead of your actual life.