Trashcankharla

I am a raccoon biologist and one of the few people in the state allowed to take in captive bred raccoons that had been possessed illegally. The raccoon in the photos is Moonshine, but she is currently at the animal sanctuary where I work as I had been quarantining multiple new intakes from an abuse case. I still have two males (Rum Tum Tugger and Electra) left in my home enclosure as we are getting them neutered and then hopefully sending them to an AZA accredited zoo.

DOCTOR WHO (2005—)

And it pissed me off so badly that I spent the ENTIRE WORK DAY today compiling evidence from every project my team has ever done for her, pulling past emails she’d sent us, putting together an entire case proving that she had been the problem all along. That she got projects mixed up, that she’d made requests that were nonsensical, literally everything you could possibly imagine. Screenshots of emails, reports we’d submitted, EVERYTHING.

This woman in particular has been terrorizing my team for years, her name is almost a slur in my office, I had simply had ENOUGH of her.

I put all of this evidence together and sent it to all of my bosses at 4:30pm. Then I took a long break to eat a sweet treat and drink some tea.

After my break, my bosses all called in an emergency meeting with me and they said they read my report and fucking loved it. And I sat on a teams call with my boss’ boss as she wrote my nemesis the scathing email I had always fantasized about sending, using the evidence I’d compiled, and hit send.

Literal first note is "that's good sound design"

They condense the first 3 chapters or so into the opening 5 minutes of the movie which is honestly a smart pacing move. A lot of the changes made from book to movie are clever adaptations from medium to medium, and I appreciate the dedication to the spirit of the work, not just the letter

"bugger"? From RYLAND???? This man doesn't swear!!!!! I know for Americans that doesn't register as a swear but I live in the UK so my beloved and I looked at each other with overdramatic pearl-clutching gestures while trying not to laugh

Stratt has to be convinced to leave Grace three Astrophage in the book, and he comes back to her after returning to his classroom and having to face the kids who ARE the future he would be fighting for. In the film, he's much quicker on that change, but what kind of got me was that when he runs after her to protest being cut out, Stratt smirks very briefly before turning around with a straight face and reveals that she already set aside three to leave with him. I understand this shift, it shows her as fond of Grace but also recognises her as manipulative and meticulous in her planning.

Carl is the real G, but also if I was the retail worker I'd probably think these guys were a little nuts. I'd mainly just be glad they were buying like. Craft supplies and not shit you can make a bomb with

The screenplay does a FANTASTIC job of adapting the cleverness and humour of the book into a film, not only in the dialogue but in the small actions and the blocking. Makes sense they got the same screenwriter as The Martian, and I think this is an even better adaptation. He also did the original 2015-18 Daredevil which explains the absolutely killer tension

Big ups to Ryan Gosling for fully committing to the Clumsy Science Dork bit, the earnest and genuine nature of Grace is so critical to what lets him be lovable and funny and REAL

It makes sense to abbreviate a lot of the basic logistics from the book; there are similar changes made to the ones from the Martian and I do understand it, but I would have liked to see just a little more of the scientific specifics, I find those fun. Also I liked Dmitri, I missed his excited Russian desire to explode things

They let Grace cry! He cries SO MUCH and it's never played for laughs it is SO REAL, I just really love that it isn't taken away just because Male Protagonist Adventure Epic and that's so important to me

Calling the ship Mary is fun! He never names the ship in the book!

The xenonite 3D printer mechanics were such a clever execution of the tunnel mechanism, I love that and the texturisation is so INTERESTING and makes it feel so much more alien without being ridiculous greebling

Rocky has Daredevil vision send tweet

He sets up the centrifuge spin and the next flashback opens with the same spin??? Genius

The soundtrack is SOOOOO well done, genuinely beautiful

ROOMMATES SEQUENCE!!!! FANTASTIC!!! Appreciated the little nod to it being a change from the book with the "wasn't expecting company" line, it's incredibly funny and a good call. Gotta wonder if the surfer bit was a Ken nod, or if it was serendipitous, but it was great regardless. The complete inversion of Rocky's cultural thing about food from taboo to "eridians eat beautiful!" did throw me a little, but it was worth it for Grace's distressed/disgusted face over his noodles lmfao

"Rocky hate Mark." Listen I'm very much on the aroace Ryland Grace train, but the immediate ride or die solidarity of "fuck your ex's new man" is SO good. Real bestie energy

Love that Stratt isn't overdubbed with some recording studio singer, she's a good singer and it still feels like karaoke! The connection feels important but not forced, and it isn't actually romantic, it's two people who are weirdly cut off from everyone else and thrown together.

This movie actually does a lot to humanise Stratt, especially considering she's MUCH more cutthroat in the book (like The Martian, they cut some of the bleaker stuff for time and impact) and while that can work in a novel it doesn't come across as well on screen without feeling antagonistic. It was a fine line to walk and I think they pulled it off

"Grace go home." got me ngl. Rocky is SO decisive there, he won't let anything persuade him otherwise including Grace. (And then Grace does, it's just that the definition of home changes 🥹)

Also the fact that we see Rocky "cry" when he learns Grace can't go home? The leaking green liquid around his joints? GODS that hits so hard

Grace in the Petrova line is a truly beautiful shot and I approve its inclusion for that reason alone but there was a part of me going "HIS ENTIRE EVA SUIT IS GONNA BE CONTAMINATED WHAT ARE YOU DOING SHOULDN'T HE BE GETTING EVISCERATED AND/OR BURNED BY THE IR LIGHT/ASTROPHAGE RIGHT NOW"

Ortiz had better get a fucking Oscar nomination for the voice acting here AND they better get an effects nomination for the puppeteering. Rocky being physical AND having a voice actor (a clever way of incorporating the translation aspect) was spectacular, and the way they were careful to have Rocky's actual musical speech come in first and THEN the translation comes in. It's really accurate to how simultaneous translation works and reminds us subtly that this IS a translation, even over comms!!!!

Speaking of sound design: The Adrian incident? Grace passes out, we hear ONLY Rocky sounds and no translation software because the character who would need it is unconscious, and then they leave atmosphere all sound cuts and it's just spinning with Grace smashed against the screen and Rocky desperately trying to break through the xenonite in COMPLETE SILENCE? That's one of THE best uses of silence I've seen in a movie, ever. Istg no one in the theatre BREATHED until the sound came back, and it's like a full 10 seconds!! That's a LONG TIME in a movie!

The entire Adrian crisis was SO well done, I've read the book I knew how it would end and I was still stressed as hell

They keep the truncated linguistic patterning the two develop over the course of the book, which is so good and also those kinds of truncated sentences are exactly what my autistic ass sounds like when brain too tired to make the words go (autistic engineer rock eridian and his autistic aroace human buddy)

Small detail but really good representations of microscopic life! Looked right out of Journey to the Microcosmos

Having Rocky out for so long (it's only two days in the book, he's awake and brainstorming for the entire nitrogen resistance breeding plan) both really sells the commitment and the intensity of the reunion, and means we don't get the initial taumoeba escape, meaning that they're instead able to get the full weight of that discovery and skip all of Grace having to deal with a ship full of poop and rotten Astrophage corpses but does deprive us of some cool science. However, for a film it is definitely the better pacing decision

Okay so Grace doesn't get to go into Rocky's ship in the book, and I adored this scene. You don't need an intercom when you can play strings and have the chords reverberate through the entire thing! The entire string part of the ship is a harp, the musical hallway is a timpani or a hand pan, the way Rocky speaks is a little hand-pipe or panflute sound that harmonises with the ship itself, it's a beautiful beautiful scene. Visual and auditory perfection

The fact there were so many shots of the ships spinning in sync and then as the tunnel separates they finally start spinning out of sync, the dance is truly over 😭😭😭

The takedown scene is somehow both more and less brutal than the book. It's physically more brutal because he actually manages to run, but they cut some of Stratt's more painful lines ("I kind of like you, even if I don't respect you very much", which I maintain is her lying to herself as much as him, still hurts SO bad)

Because they didn't include the initial Taumoeba escape the panic when he realises the xenonite issue is SO much worse. Ow. We don't get the really sad bit with Grace checking on where Rocky's ship is every day, but we do still get him finding Rocky on the scope and it's beautiful

The name of the beetle probes is a blink-and-you-miss-it moment on the slideshow when they first get to the carrier, but even if you missed that, the fact there are four of them and they're named for the Beatles is still funny

The whole return. Fuck. "I'm here!" "You're here!" MATCHED SET DO NOT SEPARATE!!!!!

PB containers for the Taumoeba. Lmao

I know why they didn't include the Taumoeba shakes and the meburger, but it's still hilarious to me. Watney: "I am out of ketchup this is the worst thing that has happened yet" / Grace: "clone borger time :D"

Eridian colours!! So many eridian kiddo colours!!! And shapes and sizes!!!! I love that there's so much variety it makes me so happy

Shadow Dragon Week - The Viper/ Ashur

Forgive me (2/2)

Part 1 here

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OKAY SO. You know how we talk about how one way fast fashion has made itself “necessary” is that the clothing looks like shit and feels horrible after just a few washes?

Let. Me. Tell. You. Something.

Laundry stripping is a process where you load your laundry into a tub or bin (I’ve been using my bathtub) with warm water, half a cup of borax, half a cup of washing soda, and half a cup of laundry soap (not detergent, SOAP, there’s a chemical difference). Leave it there for at least eight hours. I’ve been going for 12-24.

What you will come back to is a tub full of nearly-opaque black-gray-brown water that absolutely REEKS. This is normal. You are looking at (and smelling) hard water buildup, body sweat and oils that were embedded in the fabric, dead skin, and just regular grime.

Wring out your clothes. Throw them in the washer. (I like to do a spin-only cycle before going any further, because I have one of those washers that determines by weight how much water any given load needs.) Wash as usual.

You will notice I didn’t suggest any further pretreatment, and that’s because 1) you don’t want to layer too many chemicals on top of each other but also 2) you may not even need it.

When your clothes come out, check each one as it goes into the dryer, and if anything else s still stained, set it aside to run again with a regular pretreatment. One of the sweaters I did this with apparently did need a second treatment…to deal with what appears to have possibly been a hot chocolate stain that was previously invisible due to “well, it’s old” dinginess. I was planning to throw this sweater out. It looks almost new now. I need to wash it one more time for the probably-a-hot-chocolate stain, and then it needs to have the hem weighted to block it and bring it back to evenness, but dude. I wear my clothes to rags and I thought this thing was unfixable. “I need to reshape it” is nothing.

Remove clothes from dryer when done. Fucking MARVEL at the colors and how good the fabric feels. Give them a smell. Get righteously and royally angry that you can rejuvenate this stuff so easily, with a process that does take awhile but is 90% hands-off, but we’ve been trained to believe it’s all got to be binned once a year because discoloration and gross fabric is “normal wear and tear” and can’t be fixed.

It’s utterly unreal! I just pulled a seven-year-old work undershirt out of the dryer and this thing looks NEW!! It FEELS almost new!!! One of the shirts I hung up from the last load is older than some of the people on this site and it went from “I keep this to wear on laundry day, for sentimental reasons” to “I could actually wear this out of the house, it looks old but respectable”! The pajama bottoms I’m wearing were from Goodwill and they have BRIGHT YELLOW in them! I thought it was goldenrod!!

I do not know how often you’re supposed to do this (doing it every time can strip the dye out of your clothes, not to mention it’s way too much work to do every time), but once or twice per season seems respectable. I don’t wear white, so I can’t test the “it will make whites look almost-new as well” claim, but I’ve seen a lot of people on the cleaning subreddit attest that it works.

Just remember: WASHING soda. Not baking soda. I tried baking soda and a little bit happened, but not a lot.

And sometimes I load the washer, including the detergent, and then open the lid. The laundry automatically stops itself, and I just let it sit overnight. This is great for stains (I have a 5 year old) and for clothes longevity.

It's also fragrance free (so great for many allergies), CHEAP, and Eco-friendly.