Were it so easy

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Screencap painting from "The Waitress is Getting Married" ( 9" x 12", Oil on canvas panel)

Backlash against 2010's hustle culture? Backlash against 2000's "girls can do anything" messaging? I don't know. But why are the AI advertisements all about how you forgot your wife's birthday or your boss's deadline and the AI saves you? Why is the ideal young-20s woman a frail little girl who lives on her boyfriend's income and makes him lattes while she does nothing all day? Even the sports-betting craze feels like it reskinned the "savvy young day-trader who's skilled at reading the market" to "blind and dumb luck might make you a millionaire so you should try."

And it feels like there's something here because like--yeah AI is being advertised as a functionality of convenience, but so have things like food delivery apps. And I swear my best recollection of food delivery app advertisements used to be like, "busy mom comes home from work and finds the kids messed up dinner--oh well, at least there's doordash!" Like the key target is not someone lazy or useless, they're just busy as hell and won't this convenience service we offer help them a bit?

The instagram girlies were running businesses in the 2010's--most of them scammy bullshit I wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole--but the aesthetic of being busy, hustling, operating with drive and passion, was in. The men were founding start-up companies and calling themselves entrepreneurs--again, scammy, 10 foot pole, etc. But the aesthetic of doing something and being capable was in vogue.

The Red String Theory

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Kelly is a complex character and she's never given a bigger spotlight in the lore and it's sad but we do know she's very emotionally complicated. She's the most emotional member of Blue team and the most willing to express those emotions.

In some ways we actually see John relying on Kelly and her feelings in order to gauge a situation and it's another small nuance we don't get to see explored very well.

From Kelly's perspective she's very much seen John and Sam as her two closest friends. Even after Blue team expanded to add more members. The Blue team roster always changed when it came to extra members but the core of the team stayed the same. It was always John, Sam, and Kelly.

Sam was always the more light hearted and joking member of the three. He helped relieve tension by joking and not being so incredibly serious. He was still serious just not on the same level as John and Kelly. He balanced out their little trio, being the most outgoing and friendly of the three. If it wasn't for Sam Blue team would have had a rough time accepting new members to the team.

In a way we see this after Sam's death when Kurt joined Blue team and he had a hard time fitting in. In a way the core of Blue team had changed and had become more closed off to new members. After that the Blue team roster really didn't change like it did in the past. It was always John, Kelly, Fred, and Linda.

We know that John and Kelly didn't really get the chance to mourn and heal from Sam's death. And that the only way they know how to deal with grief is to push themselves with more and more missions. While I do think they sat down and cried about his death neither of them got the chance to heal.

Fred and Sam are fairly similar in terms of personality, although Fred is more serious like John he's still pretty friendly and able to crack jokes that the others wouldn't. I think in a way this rubbed Kelly the wrong way because Sam's body wasn't even cold when Fred became a permanent Blue team member.

Where Kelly was used to Sam joking suddenly it was Fred cracking the jokes and she didn't like it. Hence why we see her threatening him when he jokes. In a way I think John knows this and does his best to intervene but he doesn't really have the people skills to smooth it over.

She doesn't like that Sam is dead and suddenly he's being replaced with a guy who acts very similarly. But she has no real way to work through these emotions and in a way they never get resolved. She does eventually accept Fred as a member of Blue team but deep down still harbors those emotions towards him.