Since Covid started, it became unfortunately apparent to me that this is a much crueler country than I knew. That we will sacrifice the vulnerable, we will abandon those in need, we will accept lies over truth for almost nothing in return. For the right to be cruel. It’s really why I’ve been saying this would happen. There has been an embrace of hatred in this country, paired with ignorance. I see nothing but darkness in our future.

But that’s why kindness is now more radical than ever. Why it matters even more now, when nothing matters.

I’ve truly never heard a more ridiculous phrase in my entire life than “I’m not going to live my life in fear.”

Yes you are. Are you kidding? Fear is part of the human condition. It’s literally a biological imperative.

https://twitter.com/SusanDavidsonM2/status/1826790625011970127

People are afraid of nearly everything. Of death and grief and change and spiders and loneliness and what will happen to their children and the dark. And these people are especially, ESPECIALLY afraid of what others think of them. Which is why they’re repeating a phrase.

No, it’s not. It is important to point out that the tenor of conversation from Republicans has changed over the last 15 years. We’re not just disagreeing about taxes and small business. They want to know what my genitals look like and when my last period was. It’s fucking weird.

https://twitter.com/VivekGRamaswamy/status/1817722684089713119

Part of the reason the Democrats’ messaging has been garbage for the last decade is that establishment Dems kept insisting that these are people we could reach across the aisle to, that it’s all just minor differences of opinion. It’s demonstrably untrue and has been a while.

Let’s recap: y’all decided to keep Covid around forever. That means masks cannot be “a thing of the past” because high risk people …listen carefully…are still vulnerable to dying or becoming permanently ill from covid.

Right? Tell me you follow so far. Masks are an accessibility aide for high risk people. Like canes and hearing aids. They let us exist (somewhat) safely in a place that isn’t designed safely.

So advocating for banning or hiding masks is advocating for banning or hiding *the people who need them.*

I am seeing a lot of liberals very upset about this position (and they should be!) who need to understand that this is also *their* position on disabled people re: Covid if they aren’t masking. Not saying it aloud doesn’t make it not true. And some of you *are* saying it aloud.

https://twitter.com/KBAndersen/status/1816193372706500805

You can equivocate all you like, but when a disabled or high risk person says “I can’t go out where people aren’t masking because Covid is a danger to my life” and you say “just stay home then” or “stop living in fear” or what are you actually saying?

Last night had a long talk with a friend about whether angry posts about Covid do any good. What I eventually said was this: activism is like art. Different things hit at different times for different people. Is anger great at persuading people? Probably not. BUT- Changing people’s minds isn’t the only point of talking about Covid. Every day, someone realizes they have long Covid. They have their first doctor’s appointment where they’re told they’re crazy or anxious. They have their first relative suggest they’re exaggerating.

So hey, what’s exactly to stop Biden from waking up today and saying “as an official act, all student loan debt is now forgiven.” Or “as an official act, I declare Donald trump exiled from the US.” Or “as an official act, I’m adding 7 judges to SCOTUS.” I mean there would be court cases, but likely not for 4 or 5 years, so what’s exactly the problem?

I don’t understand why medical experts continually say things like this. The impact is less if you’re talking about acute deaths and ICU overcrowding. But numbers of people disabled, heart attacks, clots, rare cancers, and *prevalence* the impact is GROWING.

https://twitter.com/mvankerkhove/status/1805199501902098695

Our baseline is going steadily *up.* in terms of infections, our lowest low point is now in spitting distance of the high point of 2020, and that’s with significant data reduction (meaning, there’s actually way more.)

I mean, I don’t know about statistics, but my husband and I are both about 40, I eat 1/3rd of what he does normally, I’ve gained 20 lbs in the last 2 years due to chronic illness/perimenopause, he decided to drop 10 lbs and did it in 3 weeks by restricting his calories to 2000.

https://twitter.com/Strangeland_Elf/status/1798464867713613837

Women’s metabolisms slow down DRAMATICALLY as they age, not to mention the body changes that come with childbirth/menopause. There’s nothing wrong with that at all, except our culture value of thinness.

“Stop telling relatable stories about your life, tell sequels instead” is absolutely the worst possible conclusion anyone could come to.

https://twitter.com/roxana_hadadi/status/1796892869166264682

I’ll tell you the problem (I think) with Pixar, and no one is going to like it: the animation used to be groundbreaking or very unique to each film, with a heavy focus on specific settings - and it isn’t anymore.

People LOVE to throw charges of paranoid risk assessment at anyone remotely Covid conscious. It’s a very laughable argument. Humans are *terrible* at risk assessment, but Covid is one of the areas where cautious people are hands-down right, according to the numbers. I know an awful lot of people who were given school presentations about anti-smoking and lung cancer. We banned smoking in most indoor spaces as a result of the risk. We sued tobacco companies! The risk of developing lung cancer from smoking? 10-20%. 1-2 out of 10.

Welcome to the weird era I’ve been warning about since the pandemic started with scripts, where everything is either bizarrely set in 2019 for no reason, or the year is never mentioned.

https://twitter.com/saundersjoe/status/1793373107966894585

Ok, lemme elaborate on this since it’s gone viral. First, the source of my claim is that I read somewhere between 25-40 scripts a month - most by newer writers, some at studios. I read *a lot* of scripts, that’s my data. And I’ve been noticing this since 2021.

If you browse the Reddit long Covid forums, you find hundreds, if not thousands, of posts like this. I really wonder what people’s explanation is for all these vibrant, ambitious people suddenly magically stopping all work and collapsing if Long Covid isn’t real. You think that, coincidental to a pandemic (that’s “just a cold”,) ALL of these people developed the same kind of unnamed mental illness that makes you quit your job, lay on the couch all day, spend thousands on doctor visits, and go totally broke?

Re: That Article but also just relationships, something I’ve learned over 14 years of marriage is that there are lines and walls. Lines can be negotiated and compromised around. You hate their mom. They don’t like ironing. These are lines. Walls are things that no matter how convenient it would be be or how logical you are, cannot be changed or negotiated. If your partner is bi, for instance, you can’t convince them to be straight. If your mom was killed by bees, you will probably never share their love of bees.

“My husband might die if he gets Covid again. But I want to go to restaurants.”

My god do y’all hear yourselves.

https://twitter.com/MalakaGharib/status/1767223862586990601

Here’s the thing about a chronic illness or a medical vulnerability: it changes your life, and it’s not fun. And it’s not the vulnerable person’s job to compensate their partner for that change, because it’s not a choice they’re making, it’s a necessity of their condition.

Friendly Neighborhood Script Reader here: let me talk a little about unfilmables before I walk into the sea about them. An unfilmable in a script is a piece of prose that gives the reader information but not the viewing audience. They tend to crop up in character intros, but can be in other places, too. An example is something like “JOE, 60s, Loves his 5 grandkids.”

I ask this when I see tweets like this. Whose side in this situation do you want to be on? And whose side does your behavior align with?

https://twitter.com/PhillyPhile215/status/1710040446620348679

I’m not gonna argue the unimpeachable science that getting Covid is very bad and wearing masks is preventative. But I *know* there are smart, kind people out there who are choosing not to protect others because they have social permission to do so. And I know they can shift back.

Guys you have no idea about the scripts I read. It’s my job. Heartbreaking dramas. Wildly funny comedies. Groundbreaking sci fi. Diverse voices. Amazing love stories. Biopics of fascinating people I’ve never heard of.
Almost none of them get made.
It’s not the writers. Almost all truly great movies require a studio to take a risk on a new voice, a new idea, or a new twist audiences haven’t seen a million times. The way studios work now, those are all the OPPOSITE of what they want. They want a McDonalds hamburger, every day, every meal.

Covid is going up pretty significantly everywhere right now, so I say this as a caution, not for sympathy: my life is nearly unrecognizable since I got Covid in 2022. I have what’s considered very mild long Covid. What does that mean?… Well for me, debilitating fatigue. I cannot walk for more than 15 minutes on a flat surface. If I try to walk twenty, I can end up in bed for a week. No exercise. No yoga. No long grocery trips. No amusement parks. No fun days wandering the beach. No sports or physical games.

Here’s another gentle thought from your friendly neighborhood script reader: sex scenes! I love ‘em, but they’re an art! A lot of writers stumble when they try to write intimate prose. This is an area to research! Romance novels and fanfic are THE PLACE to study up on this. Sometimes these descriptions are very bad and you will recoil reading them! So take the time to learn what terminology you actually find arousing on the page, and what reads as clinical or off-putting. Just because you’ve had IRL sex doesn’t make you a sex-writing expert!

Here’s your friendly neighborhood script reader thought of the day: if you are writing about real places and real issues - like say, NASA - it will help you to assume that one of your readers has never heard of NASA, and one is a literal astronaut. Here’s why I think this: You need the astronaut to keep you honest on research. Of course movies can and do fudge details, and most experts are FINE with that - but if you’re getting the very very googleable basics wrong, your astronaut reader will go through the roof. And should!