#project insights

[projectmanagertemplate]

Utilizing lessons learned effectively transforms past experiences into a blueprint for future success. It fosters a learning culture, reduces inefficiencies, and ensures that every project contributes to long-term growth. Remember, the key lies in capturing insights consistently, turning them into actionable strategies, and sharing knowledge across the organization.

[thesophistiicate]

maybe an unpopular opinion but despite my passion for self development, i honestly dislike most typical 'self development' books and really believe you get a lot more self-expansion out of reading creative non-fiction, essays, philosophy, and literature. engagement with these types of works will expand your intellect and teach you how to grapple with big ideas for yourself, rather than following the rules set out by some girl boss or hustle bro in their glorified marketing pamphlet 'book'.

[pidgefudge]

high schoolers with part time jobs are scary to me. how do you have time for that. when do you do all your homework

[ssruis]

Good eye!

[hello-idk-what]

I love how Tony Stark talks about the team needing to take legal repercussions for their actions in civil war. Where was this ideology when he got away scot free for all his crimes. Like hypocritical much.

Tony stark: we need to be put in check.

Also Tony Stark: *receives no consequences for trying to kill a man for actions crimes committed under mind control*

Tony Stark: *gets away with breaking the accords he helped criminalise his teammates over*

Tony Stark: *gets away scot free from bringing an untrained teenager to a fight against the best assassin in the world, a master archer, a super soldier, a extremely powerful magical woman, a guy with a flying suit containing bombs, and a guy who can change into a giant or a tiny man you can’t see in the chaos of a fight*

Tony Stark: *gets no consequences for creating an ai bot that that destroyed a country and nearly the entire planet (yes this was of his own volition it was stated that the idea of ultron was around far before he met Wanda)*

Tony Stark: *Has no investigation into his company which was selling weapons to the enemy for years which he should have known as making sure the weapons are being sold to the right people is his job as the CEO of a weapons manufacturing company*

Tony Stark: *makes a program comparable to project insight (Edith) and gives it to a teenager*

Sorry I just needed to rant. I am a Tony Stark anti and I will not apologise for it. I will expect your aggressive comments when I wake up tomorrow.

[cantpickyourgenre]

okay potentially a take a lot of you might not like. But I don't think Eddie is like troubled at all about his sexuality. I think on some level he knows his feelings for and about Buck aren't your average guybuddybestfriendcoworker and I think he doesn't/hasn't thought beyond that. I think he's a feelings procrastinator. I think every time he remembers "oh shit lol, this is not how friends behave" he's got like 800 other things to worry about. So, he procrastinates on figuring it out. "I miss him, I need him, I am so glad he saved my son" melted into "I can't talk to him and now my son is struggling and now I'm struggling", "He's got my blood in his mouth, and I'm reaching for him as I'm dying" melted into "I am Straight Up Not Having a Good Time", "I'm trying to pull him up to me and he's not moving and I don't know how to move either but I am and now I can't look at him" melted into "he's going through something because he DIED", "he's been a huge nuissance the past couple of days but I still love him and want to fix it and also now he's subletting my place" melted into "Maddie is missing and I'm leaving and it's not nothing but there's no TIME", "I need you to be in this with me, I want to grieve together even if it's messy and hard" melted into "BOBBY IS DEAD, I can't say what it means, I can't think about what it means" Anyway, they're living together now, so good luck with that emotional procrastination, Eddie.

[loveridden1999]

if mark s. is so important for cold harbour (which is literally the gemma project) does that mean they're actually filtering the consciousness of people they know? like gemma is definitely dead in outer world but they're cloning and "refining" her data. microdata refinement could possibly deal with cloning of their loved dead one's memory or a dead person's in general and that is why those numbers are scary because it invokes a feeling of anxiety/grief. remember how mark has a record time in data processing maybe he was able to do that because his subconscious knew his wife so well. notice how the 5 boxes below are similar to kind of boxes they fill after filtering the numbers

[thepersonalquotes]

Sometimes a step back or away from an idea, task or project brings even more perspective, insight and clarity.

Rasheed Ogunlaru

[cupoteahatter]

No One:

Me: Anyone ever think about how because Tyler was tricking her, he accidentally ended up as the one person who was seeing Wednesday for who she is and not who everyone wanted her to be? Specifically not who he wanted her to be, because he didn’t even have another image of her to fall back upon? Weems saw her as trouble/her Mother, Gates underestimated her, Sheriff Galpin only saw her Father, Xavier as his childhood hero, Enid blatantly assigned her a social mask but Tyler looked her full in the face and took her as she was? From their first meeting to their last, seeing Wednesday as she is, as she comes, all her dark edges and bright ideas and meeting her as an Equal Opponent, never underestimating her, never covering her up…. Just her. Only her. (And that in turn blinds her to who he is, until she pulls his mask off by accident).

Me: Anyone else ever think about that?

[friendlyneighborhoodfirbolg]

I love Tumblr because I know I can say nice things about tlou s2 and Bella Ramsey on here and I won’t get cyber bullied

[diss-track]

Not once have I seen anyone mention/bring up that Arthur Fleck is one of the few fictional men we have had that is not racist, misogynistic, sexist, feels his emotions, and is kind and respectful to women in his fantasies and in his reality

[loveselenade]

Crisis of the family in n25 (Part 1)

The case of the Daughter’s talent erasing the Father.

Right from the very prologue, Nīgo's story presents us with the idea that Kanade’s family life has been obliterated— with that of her father’s hospitalization and her mother’s demise. The literal, physical absence of her parents serves to map her (more abstract) experience of child abuse through neglect into something visually concrete, as well as highlighting the precarity of her position as a child within the private (heterosexual) couple-based family.

Categories in crisis.

The segments in the main story detailing Kanade’s backstory center her relationship with her father, apparently long after her mother has passed away. Mr. Yoisaki’s status as a widowed freelancer complicates his position in relation to hegemonic masculinity[1]: while he still is the ultimate authority of his household and carries the responsibility of financially maintaining it as the head of the family, he goes from the very image of success— being a heterosexual, married man who’s the sole provider for his family to a certain degree of financial security (if we’re to judge by his equipment)— to a single father struggling to both secure work and successfully complete his client’s requests. As a freelance composer, his ability as a Father is predicated on his talent, and his struggle for this talent to cover his family’s needs threatens his masculinity.

Even after becoming a widow, Mr. Yoisaki rarely participates in domestic life due to work commitments— “the couple-based heterosexual household (is) built upon a gendered division of tasks, not least via the naturalization of particularly intensive mothering[2]”. The gap in reproductive labor (in the form of caretaking and housework) left by his wife’s demise then falls onto his middle-schooler daughter to fulfill. Kanade’s efforts underline her quality as a child: her attempts at cooking involve using pre-made ingredients and food from the convenience store, evidencing her status as a beginner cook. Her efforts to ensure her father’s well-being through cooking and cleaning, monitoring his needs are met and tending to his dejected moods often are politely declined and/or ignored. Even though she’s taking on the (invisible) labor a wife would undertake, she has no real way to influence her father or affect their family life. Furthermore, in the absence of her mother, there is no one left to ensure Kanade’s own needs are met, and she will often spend long periods of time ignored by her father and trying to come up with ways to earn his attention and love.

The place of a Daughter.

The ideal of the family promises the “grasping at a chance of guaranteed belonging, trust, recognition, and fulfillment[3].” This promise keeps Kanade and her Father motivated to continue their beleaguered maintenance of their household. For Mr. Yoisaki, to secure his place in the world as a parenting man that provides for his family and wisely guides and nurtures Kanade; his role as a Father is meant to secure him love, care and fulfillment. For Kanade as a Daughter, to have her material needs provided for and her future potential properly guided and eventually realized. Familial love is supposed to instill in her a sense of security in her place in the world and her agency in it.

What we see in the time the main story takes place is quite literally the opposite: her parents’ literal absence means that she will often neglect herself through denying herself food and rest for as long as possible, not to mention the fact she's a hikikomori whose only source of companionship are her online friends. She is single-mindedly dedicating all her energy and resources to redeem her existence through “creating music that can save anyone.” This attitude didn't originate from her Father's hospitalization, however. During the flashback segments, Kanade is weighted down by the sense she's burdensome: after all, she is the reason her father has to work himself so hard (nearly to the point of karōshi). So, she attempts to ease the burden she represents through being a dutiful daughter dedicated to caring for him and to her studies; she feels responsible for his happiness as the sole other member of their household. Post-hospitalization, she's haunted by the fact she is the reason he can no longer enjoy music (untrue), that she has killed his passion and reason d'etre, robbed him of his place in the world. Rather than fulfilling her role as his Daughter to ensure his happiness and fulfillment, she has failed and made him miserable.

Kanade’s status as a virtually parentless hikikomori highlights two things: 1. The precarity of children's position within the private household, and 2. The untenability of the Family Ideal. With regard to the former, one only needs to remember that there aren’t viable structural alternatives to child care, in Japan or globally. When Japanese children cannot be cared for/live with their parents, they’re more likely to end up institutionalized in state child care institutions[4] than to be fostered or adopted (98% of adoptions in Japan involve adult men)[5]. This is because “parental rights trump those of the child’s even when there is evidence to suggest the child is being abused or neglected by their parents(...);”[6]  “parents prefer ‘to have their child placed in an institution than they are for the child to be fostered or adopted…as it allows them [children] to maintain a link with birth parents’.” This facilitates the parent to disengage from “the stresses of child-rearing without giving up their child or their legal rights over their child.[7]” So even in the case of Mr. Yosiaki being unable to care for Kanade due his hospitalization, it’s considered preferable for him to retain custody of her; Kanade’s living situation as a child that lives completely alone with no one to care for her represents the reality of many neglected, virtually parentless children.

(On this topic, the only thing that prevents Kanade from being homeless or institutionalized is the narrative convenience of having someone covering her expenses so that she can remain in her family residence. I might be the only one who cares about this, but I do wonder if it’ll come up more in detail eventually. Also, for more information on a contemporary issue with regards the structural lack of support for neglected and abused children, check this article on Toyoko children. Abusive or neglectful families, bullying and harassment, impossibly high academic expectations, are all considered to be the shared causes behind the phenomena of Toyoko children and hikikomori).

Having it all.

“The hegemonic cultural ideal of the man as husband, father, and provider (...) has traditionally been embodied in the image of the daikokubashira— literally the central pillar of a house, but applied metonymically to the male breadwinner “supporting” the household. (...) (This) ideology (...) defines and determines hegemonic masculinity primarily through work.(...) This notion (can impart) a sense of strength, empowerment and achievement to (...) masculine self-esteem.(...) The “fundamental” qualifications for shakaijin masculinity—becoming a daikokubashira, (are) supporting and looking after a family.”[8]

Even though Mr. Yoisaki’s position as a freelance composer, an artisan with no regular, full-time work hours, complicates his engagement to hegemonic masculinity, that his sense of self and achievement is predicated on his ability to complete his work is undeniable:

Mr. Yoisaki’s diary: “30th. I won the competition. But it seems that I’m not entirely happy about it. It was Kanade’s phrase that was highly evaluated. It’s her song. I cannot say it’s mine.”

His growing discontent over his (in)ability to secure and complete work is not solely predicated on practical concerns about securing their livelihood, but on the growing disruption of his sense of self and his certainty in his masculinity; his confidence on his talent becomes eroded:

Mr. Yoisaki’s diary: “They all laugh that the music I make belongs to the past. Even though it was so refined in that commercial, they say. What am I missing?”

This insecurity is what sparks his jealousy over his daughter’s talent. While he does not express his feelings directly to her, they drive his need to reaffirm and express his ego through his music— and his long hours at work. Despite being a freelancer that, in theory, can define his own working hours since he’s not bound by any company, he still pulls in the typical salaryman work schedule in order to validate his own sense of masculine identity, nearly driving himself to an early grave. However, upon being confronted with the enormity of Kanade’s talent through her gift to him, he becomes convinced he has no place in the present, and like his daughter, loses his sense of place in the world:

Mr. Yoisaki’s diary:  “8th. Kanade gave me a song as a gift. Now I finally know. What is missing in my song. Why they laugh that my music is old-fashioned. What I create is merely an imitation of music I heard in the past. But Kanade’s music is different. It touches the hearts of the people who live in the present.”

However, despite his engagement with his own masculinity being very in line with trying to fulfill the image of the daikokubashira, he’s far from the image of the typical domineering father[9]. He shows himself gentle and supportive of Kanade whenever they speak, in spite of his insecurities. His diary confirms his commitment to looking after her despite the sacrifices to his ego this signifies:

Mr. Yoisaki’s diary: “But I still must keep on creating. To make a living. And for the sake of Kanade. I must create music that makes money. Yet is that… the music I want that makes someone happy?”

Even if his words try to establish his daughter, his family, as his reason to continue living, this falls in line with Ueno’s statement “that even today, some men mistake money and success at work for love for their family”[10] (and given Kanade’s grandma ends up supporting all of her expenses after his collapse, it further cements the ego component to his financial struggles). This inability to successfully negotiate his embodiment of the daikokubashira ideal and a redefinition of his masculinity to be more centered around being a Nurturing Father is what drives him into a nervous crisis where his poor health ultimately catches up to him. Narratively, his stasis is portrayed through his partially-amnesiac, convalescing state in which he can only remain himself through limited, sparse recollection of Kanade (and I have to wonder if the resolution —or lack thereof— to his identity crisis will play a role in the climax of Kanade’s own conflicted identity).

"In Everything for Everyone, Abdelhadi explains how (...) “you were supposed to still do all the things everyone was going while also raising the kid or kids, and everyone kind of questioned your work if it wasn’t 100-percent true. If you couldn’t do it all or have it all—which no one could.”[11] This passage captures the heart of the conflict in the Yosiaki household— that is that the couple-based family unit is “overburdened with work and worry about financial security and children’s unfolding lives[12]”, and such an overwhelming amount of labor and needs easily overtook both Father and Daughter’s capacities.

[1] “(Ryōta) is depicted as successful, ambitious and accomplished: an architect at a Tokyo firm, he leads a large team and works long hours. (...) The film establishes the Nonomiya family as a model of conventional gender roles and relations, within which the father rarely participates in domestic life due to work commitments while the mother takes the majority of responsibility for childcare and housework (...). Ryōta is also portrayed as an embodiment of the hegemonic model of masculinity in Japan, the salaryman: the heterosexual, married, white-collar office worker.” Christie Barber, 2018, ‘Beyond the absent father stereotype: Representations of parenting men and their families in contemporary Japanese film’. in Fabienne Darling-Wold (ed), Routledge Handbook of Japanese Media, pp 230.

[2] Sarah Brouillete (2023), Domestic Heteropessimism, as accessed in 06/01/2025 https://post45.org/2023/07/domestic-heteropessimism/

[3] Brouillete (2023)

[4] Alyssa Pearl Fusek (2018a), Life in Limbo: How Japan is Failing its Institutionalized Children. Unseen Japan, 2018. As accessed on 06/01/2025.

[5] Alyssa Peark Fusek(2018b), Why do Adult Adoptions Abound in Japan’s Business World? Unseen Japan, 2018. As accessed on 06/01/2025.

[6] Fusek (2018a).

[7] Idem

[8] Dasgupta, Romit, 2005, ‘Salarymen doing straight: Heterosexual men and the dynamics of gender conformity’, in M. McLelland and R. Dasgupta (eds), Genders, transgenders and sexualities in Japan, pp168,170-171

[9] “Ryōta’s conversations with Keita recurrently consist of instructions or admonishments about such things as table manners or learning piano—- an expression of Ryōta’s general judgement that Keita is unable to meet his expectations and therefore deficient. In these depictions, Ryōta conforms to a model of masculinity that Michele Adams and Scott Coltrane (2005) argue demands that a man not only be in a position of authority and responsibility, but also autonomous and uninvolved with his family.” Barber (2018)

[10] Quoted in: Gordon Matthews, 2003, ‘Can ‘a real man’ live for his family?: ikigai and masculinity in today’s Japan’ in James E. Roberson and Nobue Suzuki (eds), Men and masculities in Contemporary Japan: Dislocating the salaryman doxa, pp 110.

[11] Quoted in Brouillete (2023)

[12] Brouillete (2023).

[dykedvonte]

there’s something i really adore about curly being revealed to being this beautiful blond man after we see him post crash like what happens to him is so awful and dehumanizing like he really loses everything but especially as a viewer/player watching this game i love the commentary it’s silently making and this uncomfortable feeling in my chest that i have to wrestle with. love it when stuff makes me feel

I think it’s so poignant that Jimmy never hallucinates or sees Curly as his pre-crash self. He only speaks to Curly about and in terms of his own thoughts and projections and rarely lets him have his own inner personal thoughts. Even before the crash it is like this. He is the perfect captain to him and to an extent the rest of the crew even if he is more actualized around the others.

So much of how Curly is dehumanized by Jimmy and the rest is representative of how the Pony Express and capitalism strips workers of their identity, into objects of service. Once he can’t do anything who or what he was is no longer important, worthless, a burden. He is both the dandy dish in HFIM, the idea of going up being before the crash, while the ball is after the crash, his forced decent downwards.

There is an argument he is dehumanized to less than an even object with how his ID card lacks a name and face in Jimmy’s hallucination. Even Anya gets her name, and identify. He is just an empty spot, a role to fill to a lot of them, which is think is why so many fans have a hard time pin pointing who Curly was before the crash and what he stood for.

So much of what we saw of Curly was a man on duty, a man serving under his job and starting to find conflict with that. We don’t really get to see Curly acting for himself and it think it tells about the way he has been molded along with the way he was trying to reshape himself outside of P.E before it was too late.

I always finding intriguing how people almost prefer to draw post crash Curly, to draw his suffering and continue, to an extent, him being the scapegoat, faceless and facing repercussions other characters and entities should. Being a figure to vent frustration to because he can’t fight back, we don’t know what he would say or how he would feel or what he would’ve done. We don’t really know that when he had skin either…

[tyttetardis]

Macbeth Donmar Supporter's Zoom Conversation

On the 9th of May 2023 Donmar Warehouse held a Zoom "meeting" for supporters where Michael Longhurst talked about their two newly announced productions - Clyde's and Macbeth. This was a week before tickets went on general sale and before they announced that Cush Jumbo would be playing Lady Macbeth.

At the time it was all, of course, quite exciting since everything they revealed during the talk was brand new info! Most of which wouldn't be known at large until the play was being perfomed (or later). I think only about 80 people participated, most of which I think either worked for the Donmar or were members at much higher levels.

Today it's no longer new information as such, but I thought it might still be interesting to make a post about what was said during this talk :)

Michael first spoke about Clyde's (which I didn't actually listen much too) and then introduced Macbeth as their Christmas show (using the word Christmas "incredibly tenuously") saying the cast was yet to be revealed, but called it a beautiful ensamble piece, and that they were in the process of casting with the cast to be revealed "shortly".

He then went on to say that the casting that was revealed the week before made a bit of a spark - David Tennant coming to the Donmar to play Macbeth :) He mentioned it being directed by Max Webster since Michael was so impressed with how he did Henry V the year before. He said they had a joyful process of going to their favourite actors trying to match slots and titles to the actors that they love - and that they were thrilled that Mr. Tennant was stepping up to the Scottish play - "we felt it was time!"

"He [David] has obviousley given amazing Shakespearean performances - Hamlet, Richard II at the RSC - I, yeah, I think his verse speaking is frankly unparalleled, it's a thing of beauty. He's quicksilver, but he can push himself into the most extraordinary characterisations."

He went on to say that David and Max were deep into discussions about what this production should be. He said there's always Macbeths, but he thought what they would do so spectacularly would be to allow it to be a deeply psychological take on the play (facilitated/inspired by the Donmar's space).

He said they had a very exciting Lady Macbeth who would be announced in a week. He said she was a Donmar alumni who had a great Shakespearean set of works under her belt. He was thrilled to reunite her with David, saying that they had just done a TV series together. "So you can go do some subtle googling, but please don't share it" :P "It's amazing, they are gonna be a fierce combination!"

Someone then asked about whether the show would be streamed to which Michael said they were having conversations about it since there was a LOT of interest and they knew demand for this show with David would be incredibly high. So they would be doing everything they could to get the show streamed, it was their absolute ambition. Not least since it would be amazing to be able to share it with students. So they were in those conversations "as we speak". He later talks about it again - saying that streaming is a way of mass sharing, even if it can't recreate the experience of closeness at the Donmar. That they would try to secure screenings of it since they were aware it would be very popular "It's almost a curse of having such an intimate theatre - that when you program a star like that, it becomes huge".

Choosing to stage Macbeth was down to Michael and Max having a conversation about a short list of Shakespeare plays Max was keen to have a go at and them talking about various leading actors (later he expands on this as Max having had conversations with potential leading actors on which titles they were inspired with/ to perform - sorta like an Actors dating spree, 6 months ago) to decide which one would be the best one for this moment - "David's availibity created this window between two massive screen projects and it felt like the one to grab". Macbeth hadn't been staged at the "Donmar" since 1976 - with the legendary Dench and McKellen version. Michael said he thinks that the Donmar stage is the perfect space for Macbeth since "it allows the director and the lead actor to utterly hold a room of people in a way that'd be thrilling and terrifying, that you can't necessarily do in other spaces". He then said that he didn't think Max was interested in the witches and the supernatural as real entities but rather looking at psychological, trauma related reasons to explore those devices within the play. He also said Max was very passionate about making it very Scottish and that he had already been meeting with Scottish folk musicians to create his ensemble team. Also that he was very interested in Lady M being from outside the Scottish hiearchy - that she's be unafraid to challenge that Scottish status quo.

For Michael it's about "the synergy of an actor who should be playing that character - and that is Mr. David Tennant because he is one of our greatest verse speakers, let alone the greatest Scottish verse speaker".

He said that the production would definitely be a contemporary set. A modern dress Macbeth.

He then said that the reason he wanted to back Max as a director is that he thinks he offers a brand of total theatre that is really exceptional. There was a question about the music used in Henry V, and Michael said he just knew about the Scottish folk music and that music would be a part of the show, and that music is always a big part of Max's shows.

Someone then asked if they consult with scools on what plays they are studying in order to choose what they put on. Michael says they were obviously very aware of Macbeth being part of the curriculum and that being one of the reasons they thought this was "the text. And obviousley with David and his DW background, he brings a huge appeal and accesibility for young people who might find Shakespeare challenging - and you know, being brought into that story by someone they know and love so well is...you know we saw the effect happen on Henry V, 40% of people coming to the Donmar were coming for the first time when we had Henry V on - and it's thrilling to expand that connection, and we know David will do the same".

[stabbysticks]

Throwback Thursday

Stashbustin' Slips

These are very cozy slippers and helped me stashbust at least 2 bits of yarn I wasn't sure what to do with.

Unfortunately, (at least for my partner and me) we wore through the soles very fast. I would consider eventually investing in leather soles to improve the longevity, and hope to get around to mending them in the meantime, but my partner and I ultimately decided to purchase hard-soled slippers in the mean time.

Project Pages: Abe / Mine / Val / Dee | Pattern Page: Better Dorm Boots Slippers by Kris Basta

[josephseedismyfather]

The Seeds Tarot Cards

The Seed brothers. All 3 brothers are done! What do we think?! Can't wait to get more. 😏 @redreart, I wish I had the words to describe how much I love these. You, my friend, are insanely talented and I couldn't ask for more beautiful pieces from you! THANK YOU SO MUCH! 🥰😘

If y'all are considering getting art from her, please do it! You will love it!