Ruby Granger #22 I can’t relate to Sun Tzu, and neither should you.

3calico3 said:

I think the longest she's stayed in Exeter continuously was about 3 weeks, but I don't think she was aiming for that - it was probably because her parents weren't available to pick her up or something like that.

She set herself a goal at the beginning of this academic year to 'not go home as often' and to 'appreciate living in Exeter', but then completely retconned that in favour of actually going home more often than previous years. Then she got defensive when even her fans started pointing out that she wasn't sticking to her original goals.

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I remember that last year, after lockdown when she was about to move back to Exeter, she made a university bucket list of things she wanted to do in Exeter that included stuff like play tennis, go hiking, do more extracurricular activities at uni, etc, and she seemed quite excited about it.
Is it possible she kinda underestimated the amount of work she'd have to do for her last year and the impact Covid still has on our life, and she's disappointed that she can't do these things she set out to do? Idk, she seemed so excited to be at Exeter and enjoy uni at the beginning of the year and now it's like she doesn't enjoy it anymore.
I think she started the academic year with expectations about her life in Exeter, possibly about her dissertation too, that did not materialize. Maybe her dissertation isn't working out like she hoped, she's having trouble deciding on a research question, or her advisor (if she already has one) isn't giving her the positive feedback and enthusiastic praise she craves. Maybe she doesn't have time to do those things like play tennis and join clubs at uni, or Blakeney can't or won't come along.
We all know Ruby is a perfectionist, things have to be the way she wants them to be or otherwise she doesn't bother, maybe she's overwhelmed because all of her expectations and grand plans for her last year in Exeter didn't come to fruition and she won't accept anything different.

irunforfun said:

Slightly OT but I know it comes up and has done just now about autism. We don’t know and won’t know. But one can’t be “a little bit autistic” or “autistic to some degree” just like you can’t be “a little bit OCD” or “a little bit pregnant”. You either are/have X or you aren’t/don’t. So much of Ruby’s online persona has been carefully created and developed over the years and now she is stuck being a little girl/Hermione whilst her peers have all grown up. Her being “gifted” academically has not lasted as she has moved away from the very small independent all girls not academic school to university where there are many more people, including men!, and where she is no longer top of the class. Her identity of studying and reading is falling apart as she doesn’t seem to enjoy either. And she is approaching the end of the road with this academic/school stuff and has, so it seems, nothing else in her life. No real friends, no independence. No interests or passions. No job prospects. No life experience. It is sad in some ways but it’s also of her own making. And I think she is far from the kind, sweet and innocent person she likes to portray online.

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What is she like irl then?

I follow a couple of youtubers that do video essays about fashion history and aesthetics (Kaz Rowe, Rowan Ellis and Karolina Zebrowska) and the constrast with Ruby's videos is stark. You can tell that their videos are very well written and researched. I don't think anyone follows Ruby because of her Victorian content, because there's definitely much better content out there.

Rowan Ellis has two videos analysing the Dark Academia and Cottagecore aesthetics that I watched after watching Ruby's and I even felt bad for Ruby because of how shallow her videos were compared to those.

Ilaariaa said:

I remember that last year, after lockdown when she was about to move back to Exeter, she made a university bucket list of things she wanted to do in Exeter that included stuff like play tennis, go hiking, do more extracurricular activities at uni, etc, and she seemed quite excited about it.
Is it possible she kinda underestimated the amount of work she'd have to do for her last year and the impact Covid still has on our life, and she's disappointed that she can't do these things she set out to do? Idk, she seemed so excited to be at Exeter and enjoy uni at the beginning of the year and now it's like she doesn't enjoy it anymore.
I think she started the academic year with expectations about her life in Exeter, possibly about her dissertation too, that did not materialize. Maybe her dissertation isn't working out like she hoped, she's having trouble deciding on a research question, or her advisor (if she already has one) isn't giving her the positive feedback and enthusiastic praise she craves. Maybe she doesn't have time to do those things like play tennis and join clubs at uni, or Blakeney can't or won't come along.
We all know Ruby is a perfectionist, things have to be the way she wants them to be or otherwise she doesn't bother, maybe she's overwhelmed because all of her expectations and grand plans for her last year in Exeter didn't come to fruition and she won't accept anything different.

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I think another factor is that it's easy to make grand plans when she's living comfortably back home, but then when push comes to shove and she's back in the reality of Exeter, she probably can't get up the motivation to do anything she planned because she isn't at home. And she probably thinks "why should I make the effort to do anything to try to be happy here when I can go home and automatically be happy without effort?"

I got a goodreads notification that Ruby's notes and highlights in 'Atonement' have been uploaded. Interestingly she's only highlighted two passages, from the start of the book, which suggests to me that she skimmed the first few pages and then classed it as 'read'. The two passages she's highlighted are revealing:



Idk is this reflective of Ruby's own pent up frustrations? God knows. Maybe she just liked the idea of a canopy bed.

She then highlighted this:



This is basically Ruby.

It's SO TYPICAL that she would identify with the controlling, petulant child Briony. I wonder if she stopped reading it once she realised that Briony isn't supposed to be seen as a heroine and that she has to grow up and leave that ordered, innocent world behind and ATONE (clue is in the title, Ruby) for what she's done.

When is Roobs back at exeter? she really seems to be enjoying her carefree life at home

God, she’s been really boring and lacking in content lately. I’ve been considering unsubscribing. I think she herself is bored of YouTube. You can see it in the lack of effort in her videos. Do you guys think maybe this is the year she quits?

acciodawn said:

God, she’s been really boring and lacking in content lately. I’ve been considering unsubscribing. I think she herself is bored of YouTube. You can see it in the lack of effort in her videos. Do you guys think maybe this is the year she quits?

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Hard to say. If she decides to quit, she's going to have to be more proactive about finding a paying job or getting more real world experience with another internship, which is likely going to be far more of a struggle for her than recycling weeks of old footage into a 10 minute video and sitting on her bum selling poorly made stationary to her doting naïve young minions. Though I'm sure mummy and daddy are completely fine with letting her live in the mansion rent free as long as she likes as she continues to play a 12 year old schoolgirl.

Otherwise I can see her content quickly getting even more repetitive and dull like Holly's has as she does her Master's. I think now she's dealing with an identity crisis as far as what she's going to do after uni, applying for Master's, and completing her dissertation which is why her content has so little effort these days. I hope for the sake of her health that she takes more of a break in her last months at Exeter.

Why does this feel like it should be a meme:

inaworld said:

Why does this feel like it should be a meme:

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I laughed so hard at this... in German "Mist" means "crap" which somehow makes this even funnier to me xD

teflonpanda said:

I laughed so hard at this... in German "Mist" means "crap" which somehow makes this even funnier to me xD

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I mean that describes whatever's on the windows xD

has her uni gone all back online again? I don't get why she isn't back yet, I don't go back till next week but that's because we didn't have a reading week in the middle of autumn term

MGB01 said:

has her uni gone all back online again? I don't get why she isn't back yet, I don't go back till next week but that's because we didn't have a reading week in the middle of autumn term

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A very good question. But I'll bet the academic staff at Exeter are all breathing a collective sigh of relief, having just spent their entire holiday wading their way through Rooby's deathless prose (aka her "Christmas card").

Phoebe Weatherfield said:

A very good question. But I'll bet the academic staff at Exeter are all breathing a collective sigh of relief, having just spent their entire holiday wading their way through Rooby's deathless prose (aka her "Christmas card").

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That doesn't mean she's not firing off ten emails a day though

inaworld said:

I mean that describes whatever's on the windows xD

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Wildly OT yet window- and semi-Roobee-related this morning, I had a LIVE FLY between my windowpanes! I don’t know where he came from and how he stayed alive, because it’s legit been snowing all weekend, but there he was. Sadly, his eventual corpse will probably languish where it lands until the next time I wash my windows.

xoxoxo13 said:

That doesn't mean she's not firing off ten emails a day though

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Go on, please - what do you think these emails contain?

I'm at Ex and we started today! It's not online but I presume she'll just be catching up online if she stays at home which is odd

Has anyone else seen she’s reading a Lemony Snickett book? I don’t think I’ve read one of those since I was about 10

Phoebe Weatherfield said:

Go on, please - what do you think these emails contain?

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"Hello Professor Farfington, it's Ruby!

I just wanted to relay a most brief communique to tell you how much I loved the short story about My Little Pony you wrote when you were 13!

Finding your teenage LiveJournal account took a lot of research, which I'm sure you'll agree is very important for any student and future author/academic/archaeologist/eyesight expert.

But your words really moved me - your prose conjured up images in my mind. Images that turned to thoughts and thoughts that turned to moving murials. Your story contained characters who spoke the most conversational dialogue and a story that began at one place and then ended in another, or possibly the same place. My life simply wasn't the same after reading it and it GENUINELY made me change who I am.

Also I ALWAYS watch My Little Pony with my NordVPN subscription (sign up with offer code RUBYNEEDSCA$H) because my impeccable taste is the same as yours! And My Little Pony contains my two favourite things: Animals (which I definitely never eat) and things which shouldn't talk but keep doing it anyway!

I had some follow-up questions pertaining to the module:

1. What is your favourite weather? Mine is mist, because the word mist made me realise how much I mist my childhood.

2. If you were a candlestick, what kind of candlestick would you be?

3. If you were writing a dissertation on Victorian letter-writing, what would it be like? (Please answer in 10,000 words or more with citations.)

Yours most respectually,

Ruby Granger (Anti-Bullying Enthusiast and Vegan)"

zoeanned said:

Has anyone else seen she’s reading a Lemony Snickett book? I don’t think I’ve read one of those since I was about 10

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Ah. A series of unfortunate events. I didn’t realise they were still published.

One of my English lecturers had a research specialism in Children’s Literature, but I’m not sure it is the type of book a final year undergraduate would read for pleasure.