#and all while getting severely underpaid and under appreciated and then shit on by everyone

[cicadaknight]

The fastest way to make me bristle is by a non-USA person saying something like “I just learned that America is in it’s 7th stage of genocide from an optional course in my Canadian high school. And our education system is sooooo much better than America’s, don’t know if you learned about that. So let me explain it to you!”

Like… hon. Could you be any more condescending and out of touch with day to day American life? Your overwhelming vision of the USA might be a bunch of entitled, white, ignorant fucks, but that doesn’t make it so. BIPOC have known this shit. Queer people have known this shit. Working class people have known this shit. Disabled people have known this shit!

America is heavily manipulated by propaganda and political theater. Yes, our public systems like education and transit are severely controlled and underfunded. (Most importantly, they’re inequitably underfunded and controlled by region. Either because of regional poverty or regional political dominance.) Yes that has consequences. But it doesn’t mean everyone (or even a majority) is universally uneducated, salivating for individualism, and unaware of our predicament. And I’m not even gonna go into the impact of the internet on our ability to access knowledge and community (for better or for worse).

I saw a post on here awhile ago that said most foreign hot takes about the US boil down to an ignorance about how classism, racism, and corporate greed impact the very core of our existence. Y’all need to stop falling for American propaganda too.

[hedgefairy]

Okay, I know, I know, it's already old news, everybody and their uncle in the costuming community has already talked it over, but anyhoo, I made notes when I crawled my way through effing Bridgerton and I will be damned if I don't vomit them onto this site. I have 32 pages of this shit, I'm not gonna throw that away.

I'm also typing this on my phone because I'm stuck on a trainride that's just doubled in length because this is the 2021 Northern German snow storm. What, there's snowflakes on the rails? We cannot possibly keep up our schedule, say goodbye to 90% of the connections.

Okay, on to Bridgerton, Episode 1

We're in Britain (oh, London, okay), allegedly 1813. I see people who are clearly meant to be asympatico, but is this size incusivity I spot there? Daring! Gasp! Me li...

Oh wait, no. The character is promptly shamed for her figure (which is mostly caused by the horrible cut of her dress. Every size can look great in Regency garb, but never mind, we need to make the "fat one" look bad!).

Also, no shifts under the stays. Why. There was obviously enough budget, don't tell me you couldn't afford a few strappy tops - it's not like the rest is historically accurate, so it would have sufficed to send some poor underpaid intern to H&M and get some. Nvm, that wouldn't be sexay.

Wait, is the garishly dressed (always a sign of a character of bad character in a costume drama) woman Delphine from Selfridge? Does she always have to play bitches? That's not nice, and just because she has a recognisable face, which by modern (read: americanised) standards is not favourable enough. Ugh. But I like the actress, so I'll let it slide (for now).

Lol, buttocks.

Not sure about the girls' dresses. Also, the Queen is a WOC, cool!

Oh no, one of the Featherington sisters faints! But that's okay because the Featheringtons are just comic relief and foil anyway.

I get weird incest vibes from the Bridgertons.

So the court is clearly 18th century and the show is set in the 1810s. I've by now seen several explanations for this decision, I still think it robs the Queen of reproductions of her actual historical gowns which were heavily inspired by the 18th century but so. Magnificently. Weird. It would have been so neat, and more of a "hey, I'm kinda out of touch with things" vibe, but hey, I'm not the one getting paid for making those taffeta gowns here (her hair is glorious, tho).

I'm very into the intro.

That Regency gossip girl is a real b, not unlike the Dowager Countess of Downton (unpopular opinion, I think she's pretty overrated, yes, I like Maggie Smith).

Again, no shifts.

Where do I know the "pragmatic" Bridgerton sister from? Ah, it's The Paradise. And Jonathan Strange. (Wait, she's my age. And she's supposed to be a teenager. Man, do I love a good Dawson casting. I like the actress, though, she has a face ™!).

Aaaah. We get it. She's the spirited one. She also doesn't care about dresses because she's not like other girls™. I really like her voice (but she still doesn't sound like a teenager).

The heck is up with Lady F's dress and that of her friend? Oh, yeah. Antagonist fashion.

Of course the Featheringtons are Horrid Hags™ aside from Penny who's nice, but the pudgy one (at least we don't get a case of "she's not conventionally attractive so she's bad").

Oooh, the cousin! Supposed to suck, but ofc she's a stunner, and only Penny (who's the nice one, remember!) is delighted to have her around. She's also a POC, which is nice but apparently that means she does not follow fashion, hair-wise. I would have loved to see some Regency hair on her, it would have been so pretty *cries in Greek updo*

Ugh, we're still in Ep. 1, typing this on my phone was a bad idea.

Lady Danbury and the Duke guy are delightful with each other (more POC! So neat!).

The girl the oldest Bridgerbro screws is apparently a singer, which isn't up to status for his doucheship, and she doesn't wear a shift.

The music at the ball sounds like something from the Top 40s, but I'm woefully ignorant of contemporary music charts so I can't tell what it is. I like it when they do that in historical-ish works, making well-known pop or rock stuff work for the ambience (ugh, that dance scene to Golden Years in Knight's Tale. My heart. In a good way.)

I dig the Ducktail hair of Penny's crush. Oh, wait, that's a Bridgerbro. I don't quite get why the hair trends of the time don't apply to the POC characters or extras, but seeing how most white characters also show a shameful disregard for the weirdnes and gloriosity (that's not a word) that is early 1800s hair (the 1830s take the cake, tho) despite those hairdos being basically designed for white people hair, I don't think I care much (well, I do, but about all of them). Overall the hair is horrid and not very 1810s. Let's just leave it at that.

Like a good old romance novel (I've since been told that Bridgerton is supposed to be a pastiche of such novels, but I really couldn't tell from the series, not at all, and I'm not inclined to read the books) we have

a pretty, kind, superpure daughter of the main family

the mean matriarch (could have been an aunt, too, but here she's the mum) of the rivalling or antagonist family

a spirited daughter of the main family (in most romance novels this would be our heroine but so far she refreshingly lacks a love interest and pretty daughter seems to get the most screen time)

a Horrid Suitor™

a Hot Suitor™ who doesn't want attention

a really good and doting good parent

Lol, misheard Greece for Grease with Ducktail Bridgerbro, whose name is Colin, apparently. This is funny because of his Danny Zuko memorial hair.

Overall a bit too much bling for my taste, and too few pearls. It looks like an episode of My Super Sweet Sixteen with a Regency theme.

Of course the romance is going to be the Pretty One aka. Daphne and the Duke and he's even bros with her eldest bro. Wait, are they exes? I can haz bi? No? Aww, shucks. Maybe in another episode (spoiler: no).

Okay, WHAT is it with Lady F's dresses and hair. Like, she reminds me of Mars Attacks. Which, as you might remember, was not set in the Regency period.

Lord B (Bridgerbro the Eldest) sucks, he's screwing Opera Girl without any intention of marrying her but he's bitchy about his sister being ogled by his Eton (or wherever) bestie?

Oh, I'm in Hamburg now. And my train back home got canceled, so back to Berlin it is because there's not a single option to get to Hanover tonight, at least that's what the lady from the train station is saying, "oh well, you'll have to go back and try again tomorrow", so that's awesome...

Honestly, if it weren't so late and I didn't have things to do at home I'd find this terribly exciting.

Back to Bridgerton!

Where were we? Ah.

I can't even read my own annotation. Something about George III. I think I was upset about how they totally ignored that it's called Regency because George IV acted as the regent king, and he doesn't even feature in the series, I guess because they wanted to play up the Queen? Not a fan, because thanks to Horrible Histories I'm quite fond of that guy.

Again, no shifts.

Oh, look, it's Horrid Suitor™, destined for leftovers.

The Featherington cousin gets all the attention but no fleshed-out character.

Penny Featherington's dog is named Lord Byron, which ❤️

I like the Duke! He's there, drinking in his club (even though they're a patriarchal remnant of the past I have a weird appreciation for stuffy Gentlemen's Clubs, I blame Bertie Wooster and the Drones), calling Lord B out for his general fuckery.

Oh no, Ducktail Colin is more into the Cousin than Penny, who obviously pines for him!

Thank you, Lord B, for enabling Horrid Suitor™. Nobody asked you to be such a fucktwit.

The Queen is, of course, a bit of a bitch, but patronage from cool Lady *scrolls up for name* Danbury ensues for Protagonist Girl™ Daphne.

"I wish they had found a better trend language", what the heck did I even mean by that? That's what you get for just scribbling down notes while watching and simultaneously sewing. 18th century pants, in case you wanted to know.

Cousin is angry, probably because Lady F behaves like Cinderella's evil stepmother, because Cousin is prettier than her daughters and gets, like, all the suitors because Lord B bitched away everyone who wanted to get into Daphne's dowry ifyouknowwhatImeanwinkwinknudgenudge, right across the street into Cousins parlour.

The Bridgertons are annoyingly perfect. Ugh.

Oh look, it's "banter" between Daphne and Dukey! It's so Pride & Prejudice! It's almost a tiny bit Shakespeare! I put banter in parentheses because wow, nope, I'm not getting any chemistry here.

Uh, Lady B calls out Lord B (aka. her son aka. Bridgerbro the Eldest) for his screwery with Opera Girl and his outpimpery of his sister to Horrid Suitor™, buuuurrrrrnnn. He promptly calls of his affair with Opera Girl.

No shifts!

Penny gets to dance with Ducktail Colin at the thing! Good for her, but it's a country dance with jumping and fun, because she's a) the pudgy character and b) a Featherington, so it can't be something romantic and pretty (I personally like country dances, but they aren't protagonist dances).

Oooh, Cousin had her period, oh no, oh snap, oh she didn't, because she's PREGNANT! Shit, that's problematic, and not because she's an unmarried woman in the 1810s, but because she gets close to no lines at all so far, and suddenly she's pregnant and telling Lady F that she sucks for being privileged, violence ensues, this is ugly. Man, I get what some critics mean by "the POC actors*actresses get all the problems" and that not exactly being great.

Horrid Suitor™ makes property claims about Daphne, eeewwwww, thanks to Lord B's general suckiness, ewww, r@pe attempt ensues, was that really necessary? It doesn't really fit in with the rest of the series and generally nope, yay, broken nose! (which was indeed totally necessary). Nice one, and probably the only scene so far (spoiler: overall) in which I actually like Daphne. Dukey thinks a mean left hook is attractive, and, generally speaking, he's not wrong.

Daphne and Dukey come up with a pseudo-shakespearean plot to pretend to be totally into each other so she can attract suitors by being not available and he gets not to have fangirls by being not available, and as someone who has read a few too many historical-ish bodice rippers I know exactly where this is going. I mean, come on.

I can't see enough of the following choreography to complain about it. Man, I miss historical dance classes.

And that concludes Ep. 1! Finally! Thank you for getting this far, sorry for all of it (especially typos, it's the bane of unwanted autocorrect), I guess?

Update on the train situation: I've been told by the ticket control person that I shouldn't get my hopes up until noon tomorrow.

To be continued,

because I didn't take these 32 pages of notes for nothing.

[topicprinter]

Hi Reddit!I'm here seeking advice regarding the possibility of quitting what I thought was going to be my dream job to pursue something bigger. And now, things are coming to a head but I'm not quite sure what to do.A little background on myself - and will try my best to keep this short and sweet. I work in the esports industry (competitive / professional gaming) - I got my career started roughly four years ago as a journalist and was lucky enough to contribute for some of the biggest gaming publications available (and still do as a freelancer). 16 months ago, I was recruited halfway across the country to join an esports company on a full-time basis, what I thought was my dream come true, and somewhat is, but still feels far from it.While the current role I'm in has allowed me to work on some amazing projects - ones I could've only dreamed of as a kid who loved gaming - as well as collaborate with big companies and key players in the industry from time to time, I still don't feel like I'm living out my passion of gaming as effectively as I want to. The team of roughly ten people that I work with - albeit some of them are incredibly talented - are for the most part unmotivated, have shit attitudes, don't show up to the office, purposely produce half-baked work out of laziness and are uninspired. Since I've started, there's been a major disconnect from the core team (myself and three others that produce most of our work) and the upper management (CEO and primary investor). Moreover, there is no vision for the future of this company, and while we have operated and made somewhat of a name for ourselves in one sector of esports, we are gearing up to shift into an entirely new and foreign district of gaming (news) with no clear outline of how the two companies - yes, that's right, they want to create a separate company with the same staff - will function or split. This obviously comes with a few key complications, but primarily in my eyes, we are starting completely fresh with zero direction - losing our current social followings and brand repute in the process.. additionally, I am the only individual on the team that has experience working in news, which creates internal tension for vision, content direction and otherwise between myself and the other co-lead. Our output in my time with the company has been laughable, in my opinion. The content we have producing is garbage, and attempting to improve it through our lazy designer or sensitive and unapproachable co-lead has made addressing the larger problem almost impossible. I have tried in many cases bringing up the hard conversations but it typically results in blowout arguments and truly childish behaviors, splitting the team and the focus without making any progress.. I feel stuck. There is also no clear chain of command either, which leads to our small team thinking everyone is a manager or that one person or the other is just 'telling them what to do' when in reality we are moving backwards.Currently, we are mapping out the launch of the company with roles, responsibilities, content strategies, distribution and all that jazz.. For what we are trying to accomplish, we are all underpaid, severely understaffed and there's no clear leader. In short, while I can get behind this at time, and am giving my overall best to get behind the project (as I have with every other venture at this company) I have little faith in its potential for success, especially considering my affiliation to other leading publications and learning from some of the best managing directors in the space. I try to elicit my advice on the matter, but feel that my voice/opinion is lost, not trusted or just disregarded. To round this out, I will be taking on an insurmountable increase in workload, transitioning from the current PR/communications lead into an editor in chief - but then again, I don't know what the future will even have in store as I'll essentially be an employee to both companies at the same time. Confused yet? Yeah. Me too. My point being is that I will not only be losing money from missed freelance opportunities as a writer, I'll create a conflict of interest between myself and these outside publications that are far ahead and keeping my finger on the pulse of the industry. My affiliation with a few specifically offers a powerful position to be in whereas I am somewhat limited in the brand power of the current full-time company I am with. I am talking an international company with strong ties to the biggest brands and individuals in the space versus a blimp on the radar.It's been a bumpy road the last 16 months.. while a majority of it has been extremely rough on me, I've still gotten to experience and do some incredible things. Although, those moments of success are really few and far between, and it feels increasingly difficult to go in everyday and be excited about work and our projects when I physically see people pissing off, or just blatantly not showing up knowing what could be done to improve the situation here. Almost five years ago now I set my sights on getting into this industry and making my mark, and while I feel in some ways I have the ability to accomplish that here, I'm not sure if I'm being honest with myself, and the constant back-and-forth is taking its toll on me mentally.I'm in a tough position really, either I could ride it out and fully commit, although knowing that each instance of doing so has yielded almost no fruits of labor. OR, I could venture out to another company and take a massive leap in one direction or another. I have a 3-month non-compete, but depending on the next prospective company, there could be some work arounds - although, with the possibility of this news switch on the horizon, that could complicate things as I'd ideally like to remain in media. Overall though, I would hate to betray my team as we are all good friends and they had invested in me in the first place.I have heavily considered launching a blog of my own, which, under my direction solely, I believe could work. I know deep down inside that I have what it takes to make whatever I put my mind to work, as cliche as that sounds. My work up until this point has been a testament to that and I would hate to lose this spark as a byproduct of being in a toxic workplace. I am an individual that is fixated on growth and constantly reaching the next step in my career, but again, I feel as of the last 16 months that growth has been somewhat stagnant, and not even at the expense of a high-paying job or super fulfilling life as I often find myself depressed and unmotivated to come in, often daydreaming about the possibility of going elsewhere or starting my own business.I apologize for the long-winded post, but I feel as if I'm at a crossroad in my life, and while I can sit around and wait (clearly as its impossible to get fired from this place) I am itching to get back on track to where I was prior to starting.I'm not sure what I'm looking for here in terms of comments and replies, but any advice that could be solicited would be greatly appreciated. If anyone has been in a similar scenario of feeling stagnant and taking a leap into something in an effort to grow themselves, I would love to hear your story.THANK YOU.