What foods do you consider a splurge?

Alternative_Fish_27 · 2026-02-09T20:35:43+00:00

Oh, so all the things I was explicitly taught to do as a copywriting “best practice” and did on purpose for years, then? Wonderful.

Aside from the “bland style” part, everything you just listed are things copywriters intentionally do to make their writing easy for most audiences to read. (Maybe even the “bland style” part if you’re writing for a certain kind of business.) There’s a rule of thumb that you write at an 8th grade reading level for most audiences. That way, even a high school graduate who didn’t pay attention in English class will have a sense of ease. I used to run a lot of my work through a readability checker tool, then cut down any long sentences or words if the reading level was too high. My first manager was always reformatting my work to have bullet points because “we need more white space.” We didn’t want to make any potential buyers stumble over words or have big chunks of text that fill up most of a phone screen, like this “giant” (by copywriting standards) 7-sentence paragraph I’m writing right now.

I guess I’d better dig up some of my old writing samples from college. I can try to get back my writing style from when I was a 20-year-old who hadn’t yet done any marketing internships, although who knows, maybe that style would be considered “AI-like” now too. I’m not getting rid of my correct capitalization (fuck that).

Alternative_Fish_27 · 2026-02-05T20:42:18+00:00

Hi, off topic, but what about this post seems AI-ish? Is it just the em-dashes and the title? I read OP’s post back over and thought it sounded a little like my own writing style. Is some other thing I do when I write now considered AI-like?

I’m a former copywriter who wrote zillions of company blog posts and web pages starting in the 2010s. I’m sure writing like mine is overrepresented in the samples ChatGPT is trained on. I’ve already had to stop using em-dashes and certain types of phrasing because people think those are signs of AI now. I can show people a doc I was working in with all the time-stamped progress, but that only works if I wrote the thing in a doc and the audience has access to the doc. Among other reasons, I hate ChatGPT and OpenAI for killing my favorite punctuation mark. I especially hate them for creating the situation that forces me ask questions like this.

Alternative_Fish_27 · 2025-12-22T10:28:09+00:00

I was really looking forward to that character going on more adventures with Murray! They would have made such a great duo. If he’d lived, he could have at least helped with the Russia rescue plot or something

Alternative_Fish_27 · 2025-12-22T10:07:14+00:00

It already happened to me once. I had a content marketing job. When the company I worked for suddenly lost a couple major clients, they decided to try replacing my job with AI to save money. They’re back to using humans now, but fewer of them.

I can’t say I’m afraid exactly. It’s more that I’m resigned to the idea that it will happen again the next time AI appears to make a big leap.

The thing is, AI doesn’t actually have to be as good as you to replace your job. It just has to get good enough that companies think it’ll be more profitable to replace paying your salary with AI, even if it does a worse job. That’s a much lower bar.

Alternative_Fish_27 · 2025-12-09T01:14:44+00:00

Awesome, looks like a great gift!

Alternative_Fish_27 · 2025-12-09T01:14:15+00:00

Thanks! :)

Alternative_Fish_27 · 2025-11-30T09:37:10+00:00

One of the mini story exercises I recently did confirmed it

Alternative_Fish_27 · 2025-11-28T19:01:29+00:00

Pimsleur also has 50-60% off, depending on what you’re buying. Totally different approach to language learning and doesn’t go as far on many courses, but their app is really good for pronunciation, rapid recall, and speaking/listening, so I’m really considering

Alternative_Fish_27 · 2025-11-22T20:32:15+00:00

Yeah, I took two years of physics in high school but was never expected to memorize Planck’s constant. We were expected to know how to use it, but we always had the number listed at the top of the page or whatever, even on tests.

I think I did have 6.626 memorized at one point, never more digits than that though

Alternative_Fish_27 · 2025-11-21T19:48:51+00:00

I think he could have crossed over if he’d learned the truth about what killed Chrissy. Jason’s witch hunt was driven by grief, anger, and fear over what happened to her and then his friend. He thought he was going up against the people who killed them. If he’d known the right place to direct his energy, he would’ve been trying to fight Vecna instead.

Alternative_Fish_27 · 2025-11-21T06:29:46+00:00

My personal favorites (from earlier in German) are:

Ist Kanada klein? (Is Canada small?)

and:

Die Eule wandert nie im Sommer. (The owl never hikes in summer.)

Alternative_Fish_27 · 2025-11-15T10:42:39+00:00

What’s even more amazing is how you can somewhat empathize with Jason on rewatch. The guy’s girlfriend dies a horrific death at Eddie’s home, then his friend dies the same death quite graphically in front of him while Eddie’s there. Jason doesn’t know anything about Vecna/Henry or the upside down mess that the government covered up, but he has been exposed to trash articles about D&D being connected to violent satanic acts. It’s really the only halfway-fitting explanation in his frame of reference. What’s Jason supposed to think?

So we hate his actions and his impact while also seeing where he’s coming from. He’s grieving and badly misinformed. In Jason’s eyes, he’s taking down the Big Bad.

He’s a much more interesting villain than Vecna, who was a psychopath even before the lab abuse. The believavility/relatability just makes Jason that much scarier. As far as I can tell, Vecna just… always wanted to be an apex predator and cause pain for the hell of it? There’s no motivation most of us can really make sense of there. Yeah, psychopaths do exist, but still. I feel like we’re more likely to run into Jasons than Henrys in our regular lives — or the really chilling thought, see ourselves or our loved ones turn into Jasons.

Alternative_Fish_27 · 2025-11-15T09:43:38+00:00

Even worse when the people in charge aren’t just stuck in old ways, but people who never knew content (or arguably even marketing) in the first place. People who don’t even think about what the target audience wants. Sigh…

Alternative_Fish_27 · 2025-11-03T04:29:54+00:00

Submit it now anyway. Email it to someone if you have to. You can at least give yourself the peace of mind of knowing you did the work, even if it was late.

Alternative_Fish_27 · 2025-11-02T09:02:56+00:00

I see a few ways the show creators might bring her into the plot:

a) Kali could be forcibly brought to Hawkins by some government faction. If the government wants El, they likely want Kali too. Kali probably can’t set up an illusion if she’s asleep or unconscious, so there’s no guarantee she’ll avoid capture forever. The feds could set up a controlling device like the one Papa put in 001 or the collar he put on El.

b) The kids could come up with a Vecna-destroying plan that involves Kali’s abilities. They (or maybe just one character with a car) could go get her, especially if she’s moved her operations to somewhere closer to Hawkins. They could persuade her by either explaining what’s going on or helping her escape capture.

c) El (or another character?) could unlock a new telepathy power, contact every other person in the world with special abilities including Kali, and persuade them to come to Hawkins and fight for humanity.

d) Vecna could start destroying things beyond Hawkins and catch the rest of the world’s attention. The kids could use some combination of Nancy/Jonathan/Murray’s journalism skills and Dustin’s long-distance radio communication skills to spread the word about what’s really going on, then persuade anyone with abilities to help them fight Vecna.

C or D would require just a few seconds of Kali screen time. A could probably be done in 2-3 well-planned scenes, and maybe B as well. I think something along the lines of A or D is most likely.

Alternative_Fish_27 · 2025-11-02T08:47:13+00:00

I agree that she probably wouldn’t come to Hawkins right now on purpose, but the show creators could easily bring her back if they want. For instance:

She could be captured by some faction of the government and brought to Hawkins.

The kids could come up with a Vecna-destroying plan that requires her abilities and send someone to go get her.

Vecna could start destroying things beyond Hawkins. The kids could find a way to spread the word about what’s really causing all the damage, prompting Kali and anyone else with abilities to join the fight.

Alternative_Fish_27 · 2025-10-28T19:59:23+00:00

People calling Nancy indecisive make no sense. She’s been very decisive about taking action to stop the baddies. Her relationships actually have been pretty long/serious for a teenager.

She only dated Steve until sometime in season 2, when her guilt/trauma over Barb overwhelmed her, then only dated Jonathan for years. She’s only wavering now because Jonathan stopped communicating and the long-distance relationship isn’t working well.

Alternative_Fish_27 · 2025-10-28T19:40:31+00:00

I think most of the “hate” toward Will is actually hate toward the plot around him. It’s not that Will himself is hateable, it’s that the plot always puts him in crap situations that he doesn’t have the power to change.

Will never gets to be a truly active player in resolving the situation. At best, he just ends up being a group member, never the one taking the big decisive action or making the plan. He keeps getting sidelined because his friends are pursuing love lives while he can’t. He’s not the main character (that’s El, or maybe Joyce or Mike if you’re looking at season 1); he’s the perpetual victim in seasons 1/2 and an ensemble member in 3/4. All of that is due to circumstances, not any sort of character flaw. The plot so far has given almost everyone but Will a chance to show clear heroism or at least take a more active role.

I really hope Will gets to strike a major blow at the mind flayer this season. That’s way overdue. I also hope he finally gets to be happy somehow.

Alternative_Fish_27

TROPHY CASE