Just whatever I find interesting, and occasionally art and my writing. Consists primarily of Batfam, SPN, Doctor Who, Good Omens, Buffy, and other random things. Also a cries-a-lot-about-Gabriel blog, so...you've been warned. - Occasionally NSFW, so tread with caution (NSFW posts will be tagged as such). - This blog is most definitely queer-positive. - While you're here, visit my art tag and read my writing! I'm the creative sort, after all!
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cannot stop thinking about how Sora is purely himself for the first time in 12 years. he had so many people in his heart and now it's just himself. it's already shown in his appearance - his hair change is clearly modeled after his baby self, before Ven came into the picture. it's just Sora now. and he is entirely alone.
That’s actually a wise move that many people do practice. Don’t have enough job experience, but need it to get the job? Put yourself down as having had experience in a position in a company that is no longer in business, especially if it closed years ago. They literally have no way of verifying this (do not do this for chains wherein only the store closed, but not the chain). It’s a good way to fluff up your resume, just make sure you put down a position wherein you used skills you already have.
For instance, you can say you were a Personal Assistant – typing, data entry, responding to emails, taking phone calls.
Or you were an entry level cashier/customer service worker. Retraining is simple at that point.
Need brief training on that, so that you can say you literally were trained?
All for free, just sign up with Alison. Takes 2 seconds to login with your google account, and then you can take some open courseware. Open University is another good place to go for good business acumen courses.
Typing
Microsoft Excel
Basics of Customer Service
Microsoft Word
Human Resources Basics
Business Writing
Basic Business Internet
Acting like a Manager
Project Management
Quality Assurance
Basic Hospitality
Risk Management
Effective Business Communication
Google Apps for Business
Food Safety
Seriously, Alison is amazing. Most courses are only around an hour or so long, and you can say you have some knowledge or some experience in these things… because you do.
Also great for those jobs where you should have been trained to do something, but the training was so specific to the company that it’s useless outside of it!
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I love lying to my landlord. “We’re currently looking at a comparable unit in the area at $[a hundred dollars less than our current rent]/month, so if your offer has any flexibility to come down on the rent, that would help us reach a decision about whether or not to renew our lease here” and the comparable unit exists only in my own beautiful mind
Actually, no! And since several people have replied asked for my script for negotiating lower rent, I’m gonna share that below, as well as the philosophy behind it. Full disclosure that I’m not a leasing office person or a realtor or god forbid, a landlord—I’m just someone who has been a renter for 10+ years across different states, and I know for a fact that I have saved myself thousands of dollars by successfully negotiating a lower monthly rent on almost every lease I’ve ever signed. (Also, I’ve only ever rented in the U.S., so this advice may not be as applicable elsewhere.)
Step 0: Know Thy Enemy
The key thing to understand about all residential landlords, whether they’re corporate conglomerates or Just Some Asshole, is that their asset—the property—is a Cinderella carriage that magically turns back into an expensive ass pumpkin of a liability any time it’s sitting empty. The property taxes, insurance, mortgage, HOA fees, and maintenance costs all still come due every month/quarter/year whether they have a tenant to cover it all and then some, or not.
Because of this, at the end of the day, their ultimate goal is to fill every unit at all times with someone who will reliably pay the rent on time and in full. And because everything else is secondary to that goal—and because with the exception of Just Some Asshole landlords, the person responding to your emails and writing up your lease paperwork is several degrees of separation removed from the shareholders who profit off your rent money—they’re almost always willing to negotiate with you. As long as it gets the liability converted into an asset faster or keeps the carriage from turning back into a pumpkin for longer, then in the long run, it’s actually in their best interest to give you a better price.
Step 1: Identify Your Leverage
If you understand how supply and demand works, you can figure out how much leverage you have pretty easily. High supply and low demand = you have more leverage, and vice versa. Do they have an “AVAILABLE NOW - MOVE IN TODAY” sandwich board on the sidewalk or a web banner that says “First month free”? Does their website and/or Apartments.com show a bunch of currently open listings? Do you already live there and know at least two families on your floor have moved out in the last several months with no one new moving in to replace them? These are all indications that they have more than one unit currently sitting empty, meaning higher supply and lower demand. No sandwich board and a website that just says “call for availability”? They might just suck at marketing, but more likely, supply is lower and demand is higher.
You have the least leverage if you’re a prospective tenant looking to move in somewhere that has a waitlist. They have no reason to offer you a discount if six other people are already in line to pay full price for apartments that aren’t even vacant yet (but you can still ask!). You also have no leverage to negotiate if you’ve already signed a lease and you’re in the middle of the lease period; you legally agreed to pay $X/month for Y months, so you’re stuck with that until the lease is up.
At the other end of the spectrum, you have the most leverage if you’re a current tenant who has always paid your rent on time and you’re being offered a renewal on your existing lease with higher rent than you're currently paying, especially if they already have some units that have been empty for a while. If you move out, not only is your unit going to sit vacant for at least part of a month, they’re also probably going to have to put in some work to “turn” the unit (repainting, professional cleaning, etc) to get it in move-in condition for the next tenant.
All of this means that if you move out, even if they can fleece you out of your security deposit and find a new tenant the very next month, it’s still gonna cost them at least a few thousand dollars to turn that pumpkin back into a carriage again. They’re probably willing to come down by $100-$200/month or so on the renewal offer rent if you ask, because they know it’ll actually save them money in the long run. Similar situation if you’re a prospective new tenant—if they can’t get you or anyone else to sign a lease and move in this month, that’s $[whatever the monthly rent is] down the drain, and they’ll never get it back. It’s a perishable item about to spoil.
Step 2: Get Their Opening Offer
This is the first number they’ll quote you for the rent—the sticker price that you’ve always just accepted as set in stone. The truth is, they’ve built some buffer into that number. There’s almost always some room for them to come down, and depending on your leverage, they will if you ask nicely. But for reasons that baffle me, most people don’t!
Step 3: Wait, Research, & Counter
Don’t reply to their initial offer right away—unless there’s a waitlist (in which case, you have little haggling power anyway), wait a few days. It makes them sweat a bit, and it shows you aren’t desperate. The person who is rushing to reply is not the one who has more leverage in the negotiation, and making them wait reminds them of that. In the meantime, use Apartments.com or Zillow to get an idea of what similar units in the same area are currently going for. Then you come up with your counteroffer.
As a general rule, anything more than about 20-25% below their opening offer (or below market rates) will probably just piss them off or make them take you less seriously. But when we’re talking about your monthly rent over the course of a year or two, even a 10% discount adds up to a lot of money!
When I negotiated our original lease for my current place, I also asked for and got a two year lease term instead of the standard one year. But whatever automated calendar event system they use to remind their leasing office staff when it’s time to send out renewal offers didn’t get the memo about that, so they mistakenly sent me a renewal offer the following year, meaning I got to see how much they would have jacked up the rent if they could’ve. For that second year of the lease alone, my negotiating saved us $3,000!
Step 4: BDE (Big Dick Emailing)
Here’s the tricky part. You need to write an email—always negotiate over email if you can, it’s too easy for a salesperson to bowl you over on the phone and anything they say that isn’t in writing means nothing—which simultaneously makes it sound like you would sign a lease with them in a heartbeat and like you are actively flirting with five other apartment complexes right now who all want you so bad it makes them look stupid, because you are just so sexy and fun and your credit score is eight inches flaccid. You need to make them believe you are both highly motivated and ready to sign on the dotted line and willing to just walk away from the table at any second, but if they could just come down a little bit on that number, you’d delete those other hoes’ numbers forever! Here’s the rough script I use every time:
“ Thank you for [your email/the tour/sending over the offer letter/etc]. I have had a chance to review and consider it. I think [name of apartment complex] would be the perfect fit for me, but I am also exploring and touring other options in the area, including a comparable unit nearby at $[a little below your counteroffer number]/month.
If we could come down to $[your counteroffer number]/month on the rent, I would be prepared to sign the lease today. Let me know your thoughts. Thanks! "
Step 6: You Win Either Way
Sometimes they really do just accept your counteroffer without question and send you over a revised lease to sign. (When this happens, I make a note for next time that my counteroffer was probably too high and I should’ve asked for more!) More often, they get approval from The Powers That Be and come back with a number that’s higher than your counteroffer but lower than their initial offer. Assuming I can afford it, I always accept this offer; you’ve achieved your goal of saving yourself money from sticker price, and they’re likely to lose patience if they have to keep going around and around with you. And sometimes (though only very rarely), they may come back and say the price is firm—in which case, guess what? You still didn’t lose anything by asking!
THIS!!! Exactly this. I didn’t mention it above because I just couldn’t fit it neatly anywhere, but once while negotiating a lease renewal, I got as far as receiving their counteroffer, which was basically “price firm :(”, but then life happened, so I forgot to respond and accept. The email sat in my inbox for a week. And then, completely unprompted, they magically replied again saying, “actually, nvm, how’s $[number that is lower than our opening offer] sound?”
To them, it looked like I was staring them down cold as ice like
I was literally just busy with other stuff! and they were sweating!!! BULLETS!!!
Post TLB Susan goes to church for the first time in five years but walks through the chapel doors straight into Rivendell and accidentally bluffs her way into the Council of Elrond by saying “Yes!” when the elf who finds her asks if London is in Gondor. Everyone is arguing over the fate of the world and Susan is standing in the back of the room wearing nylons and heels and lipstick and trying really hard not to be noticed while she mentally processes the collective 10ish years of repressed memories she’s been sitting on since her entire family died and there was nobody left to force her to talk about Narnia. “WHY COULDN’T THIS HAVE HAPPENED TO LUCY. OR EDMUND. EDMUND HAD PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH BEING CORRUPTED BY EVIL MAGIC,” she screams internally as she evesdrops on a conversation about dark lords and the end of the world. “WHY COULDN’T THIS HAVE HAPPENED TO LITERALLY ANYONE ELSE IN MY FAMILY. I AM GOING TO STRANGLE THAT STUPID LION WITH MY BARE HANDS.”
Teenage Boromir just wakes up one morning and finds out that Mordor has been cleansed seemingly overnight by four kids who claim they defeated Sauron with the help of the Maiar and then a talking lion made them royalty. Faramir snuck out at some point during breakfast to go verify it himself and since Denethor is distracted by being simultaneously baffled and incandescent with rage, Boromir has to go find the sorry fool and drag him back to Minas Tirith before he stumbles into Mordor gets himself killed by orcs.
The Pevensies find Boromir mortally wounded in a boat and heal him with Lucy’s cordial. After establishing that he’s from another world Boromir is like “I have no idea how I got here” and all the Pevensies respond with “I’ll drink to that, bro.”
Faramir is telling his brother about the weird prophetic dream he had when a woman in a very short dress asks them where to find the nearest lecture hall, and then claims she doesn’t know where she is and has no idea how she managed to stumble into the inner keep of the White Tower without being stopped by guards. After stumbling through a conversation where she asks if they have a king, a prime minister, or something called a tisroc, they introduce her to the steward and she claims to be some queen of a country no one has ever heard of. (“Queen in Narnia, not Queen of Narnia.”) Within the week she’s somehow won over both Boromir and Faramir, and summarily inserted herself into the local political landscape. Nobody has any idea how this happened. Faramir is already trying to get Boromir to marry her so she can run Gondor when he’s the steward.
Susan meeting an elf: “what the FUCK is that!” Susan meeting a Hobbit: “What the HELL are those!” Susan meeting a dwarf: “oh thank God, something normal.”
I contend that the “oh good, something Normal” reaction is funnier if it’s not about a dwarf but like. an Ent or an eagle or something.
Susan is just waiting at Tom Bombadil and Goldberry’s house when the hobbits get there. We keep cutting away or getting interrupted before finding out how exactly she got there from London.
According to Know Your Meme, on August 18th, 2005, Erwin Beekveld brought forth this work into the world. HAPPY TEN YEAR ANNIVERSARY, THEY’RE TAKING THE HOBBITS TO ISENGARD.
every august 18th my notifications break and i go, fuck, tumblr has failed me once again, but it hasn’t. it hasn’t failed me. it’s just the taking the hobbits to isengard-iversary. happy 12 years
So, my people know that I've been yapping for so long about restructuring the Grisha evolutionary traits a little bit more in Science than Leigh's "So this magic system is Science, but I'm gonna retcon this by making Alina's abilities retractable, as if it isn't a part of her just as much as her vital organs."
But I've never gone into detail about any of it. And I need help fleshing it out so I thought that if you strap in, even just a little and let me cook, maybe we can work this out.
The Making: Not a deity or a primordial being capable of giving and taking a Grisha's power, but instead, a cataclysmic event that caused genesis. The Big Bang, for example.
Small Science: The evolutionary ability to manipulate and control Matter that is known and observed by man. Ordinary Matter. Baryonic Matter. The Matter that Grisha in Pre-Industrial Ravka have studied and understood. Standard Physics.
Merzost: Creation from nothing. The evolutionary ability to manipulate and control Matter that has not yet been observed and understood by man. Non-Baryonic Matter. Dark Matter. Advanced/Theoretical Physics.
The Makings of the Universe: Dark Energy (68%), Dark Matter (27%), and Ordinary Matter (5%).
So this means that:
Heartrenders: Bio-electric and muscular manipulation. They use electromagnetic pulses. That sinoatrial node type shit.
Inferni: Adjustment of localized kinetic energy to create friction and ignite ambient atmospheric gases.
Squallers: High pressure, low pressure wind currents.
Tidemakers: Fluid dynamics and hydrodynamic polarization.
Durasts & Alkemi: Material science and molecular bonding.
MY FAVORITE AND WHAT I'VE THOUGHT ABOUT THE MOST because he has to have the makings of a god, sue me
Shadow Summoning:
Surface level/Base level: Shadows
Advanced Physics:
- manipulate gravitational wells
- induce localized spatial distortion or
- create localized vacuums where space itself expands or contracts rapidly
- black holes, worm holes, rifts
- pulling gravitational forces to forge planetary structures
Sun Summoning is cool too:
Surface level/base: Sun summoning/light
Advanced Physics:
- Electromagnetic Radiation
- Nuclear Fusion
- Photonic Force Field Manipulation
aka she can torch everyone and everything
in relation to me wanting to play around with the idea that ilya isn't a madman but a scientist from the future who got thrown into the past, so his journals are full of terminologies that are basically psychobabble to the illiterate...
I'm trying to figure out how an advanced Ravkan society with Grisha would be able to pull off time traveling. I have this concept in my head that Ilya's world was going through a big rip, which, trying to survive it, he is thrown through a wormhole, and the dark matter in it affected his system so when he reaches another point in time and is stuck there and procreates, the traces or dark matter is the reasoning for his wife popping out the world's first shadow summoner.
This also goes a ways towards explaining why Summoners in particular have an affinity for learning the Cut.
HowEVER, by that logic...Durasts and Alkemi should be able to accomplish something very similar, since they're also working on a molecular level to change one thing into another. Tissue regeneration is one thing, but rapidly splitting an atom? That's something within the realm of possibility for a Durast.
Also, a Sun Summoner should be capable of fission as well as fusion. For reasons.
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When it comes to climates in fantasy settings, it's good to bear in mind that "normal" and "freaky" are a matter of where one grew up. There are things that only live in one climate, and not in another. It might feel tempting to make the people from the Scary Fucky Nightmare Climate not flinch at anything at all, but it's far more fun and realistic to make them frightened or at least unsettled by things they've never seen before. Doesn't matter if it's harmless to humans, What The Fuck Is That Thing And Why Is It Indoors.
Cold climates, for example, are dominated by warm-blooded creatures like mammals and birds. Your big nordic valkyrie warrior woman whose first baby chew toy was a bear skull, and who once kicked a lynx in the face for trying to get her little brother, would not be chill about the concept of a lizard as big as a squirrel, or a spider bigger than her thumb. These two examples are the biggest upper limit hypothetical examples of absurdly large reptiles and invertebrates that they could possibly imagine.
I think I should start bragging about my adopted son’s achievements when people around me start bragging about their kids. Ooooh your child can count to 10 in mandarin? Well, my child found 110 landmines! And he’s only 6 years old!
I <3 HeroRats, I've been following them for years and they're still one of my favorite things
(I also <3 rats, and used to have pet rats, so admittedly I am super biased, but they're such sweet babies! Forget the anti-rat propaganda!)
Dr. Cindy Fast, APOPO's Head of Training and Innovation, explains how the adorable 'HeroRATS' are saving lives across the globe.
You can adopt a baby yourself here ;)
There are also HeroRats saving lives by sniffing out tuberculosis, illegal wildlife trafficking products, and survivors of natural disasters during search and rescue operations! (source)
I'm legitimately crying right now because it was just announced that Hayden Panettiere passed away (and the cause is currently unknown).
I did not expect to be met with news like this regarding her, at least not this soon. It feels like it was only yesterday she had come out as bisexual and released a memoir.
And my Kingdom Hearts moots may remember that I've often spoken about how I hoped she would some day return to Kingdom Hearts as the voice of Kairi, but now it's official that it will never happen.
RIP Hayden Panettiere. Our ant princess...
...our Princess of Heart...
...our cheerleader...
...our ice princess that wanted to stay in school...
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a rough timeline of events (from memory, there may be inaccuracies, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong)
Cambridge professor of sociology Jason Arday is accused of plagiarism by another academic
the accuser is a "race realist" who believes that in a true meritocracy all university professors would be white. this is somehow not acknowledged much during the entire ordeal
this leads to several days of media coverage demanding an investigation, or that Arday is expelled from his post immediately
somehow this accusation that has no effect on the lives of 99.99% of the population becomes FRONT PAGE NEWS in all the newspapers for multiple days, above anything else happening in the UK or the world at large
following intense media scrutiny, Arday resigns his post as a Cambridge professor
today, august 14th, days after resigning, Arday is found dead at his home in Battersea
the British tabloid press remains, and will always be, fucking evil
Went to google more news about professor Jason Arday, and I swear to God the first two pages of research are rancid propaganda sites smearing the man's reputation, up to and including popular Brazilian news magazine Veja.
This article by professor Kehinde Andrews clarifies more about the story of racist harassment Arday has been suffering since he fucking got a teaching job at Cambridge in the first place, in 2023, as the FIRST Black professor in that fucking stupid institution, who sure is taking it's sweet time defending their worker, despite already fucking checking his work for plagiarism and saying he didn't do it:
Arday's resignation has reignited questions about race and who is truly accepted at the highest levels of British academia
Several of the academics who harassed this man into suicide do not seem to have suffered at all in their academic careers. Actually, Dave Harris, who lost his Emeritus title for his racist behavior back in 2024 (something the news only call "criticizing Critical Race Theory", instead of "sent racist emails to fellow black academics"), was defended by Plymouth University, where he used to work, and fucking got the title back earlier this year.
1. He wasn’t the first Black Professor at Cambridge, but he WAS the youngest X
2. He was ALSO autistic, and nonverbal for the first 11 years of his life X
The rest of the story unfolds pretty much as described. And he was a fucking Sociologist studying racial equity in schools and academia. They publicly bullied a black autistic man to suicide for being imperfect whilst asserting a place for blackness in academia.
It was flagged as "Eksplicit", shadowbanned, and every reblog turned invisible. The flagging is also unappealable (unless that is an error, thanks tumblr)
Happy Trans Day of Invisibility from your tumblr mods!
Only found out because I tried to reblog with an update from your local trans unicorn siblings!
I cannot even LINK to my old comic without every new post getting deleted.
And yet, we will CONTINUE to exist, and grow, and find each other. We will be visible up to and beyond our own deaths. Because we stand for love. We love ourselves and each other and that just makes us stronger.