#especially when the scam ones look so much like the real ones and idek how ppl know someone is qualified to verify a fundraiser

[iampikachuhearmeroar]

y’know the one thing I hated while I was doing my arts degree, and still hate after having graduated from it, is the condescending statement/belief from people that “oh why didn’t you just do a more useful degree like maths or science???? and not your useless bullshit mickey mouse arts degree, which was never intended to give anyone jobs outside of teaching, anyway!” or some other horrendous bullshit, such as: “why didn’t you just stay with communication & media studies and complete the marketing & PR major???? you would’ve had a job after all of the unpaid internships you do throughout the course!” or whatever. (media and communications is abbreviated to m&cs further down in this post, just an fyi).

but, meredith. do you know that even people with science & maths degrees struggle to find meaningful work that’s related to their degrees? do you know that some of those people will turn to teaching anyway just because they feel like there’s nothing else that they can do??? do you know that some people (mainly me and probably quite a few others) just can’t handle maths past like idk year 6 level??? I would’ve been completely and utterly fucked if I even tried to set foot in first year uni science or maths subjects. even though some of the content did interest me.... (also there’s the fact that my handwriting wasn’t good enough for diagrams etc etc in maths & science- but that’s a whole other topic not for this post).

like I had to totally skip out of psychology/sociology and even the PR major, bc they required you to do statistics subjects.... where no matter what level of study I would’ve/could’ve done for those subjects, i would’ve still failed them spectacularly because my mind really struggles with processing and working with numbers. but that’s besides the point.

hey earl, do you know some people simply do not suit particular fields of “real world” or “practical” study areas like business subjects? trust me. I tried that one sem of marketing 101 and intro to management/ business communications in first year. and you know what I found? that my mind just could not take the complete and utter dryness of the content of marketing theory and, again, numbers. and that’s despite the earnest encouragement of my tutor, who thought I had a knack for marketing. i literally almost fucking died in that business communications subject... even though the lecturer seemed to like me as well. but as i thought further ahead into my degree in comms & media, i dreaded it. I absolutely fucking dreaded it. the PR stuff sounded as equally dry & boring (besides the point that every project was group work lmao) and so did upper level marketing subs in advertising/marketing strategy/various fields of marketing etc etc. i couldn’t stomach that lmao. and besides the point, the analysing of media just bored the fuck out of me too, for some reason. I just didn’t like the subject. hell, even my advanced diploma in marketing from business college was a fucking hard slog for me.

but when i sat in my english, philosophy, (kind sorta) history and -further down the track- creative writing subjects.... I fucking loved them. I was writing like I’d always wanted to. okay yes I did get pretty dismal marks in most of my philosophy and english exams or assignments. but I don’t fucking care. I was there doing what my mind was built for. if id tried another business subject, like intro to economics or even gone back to redo that “intro to management”/“business communications” (or whatever it was called) as an elective/as electives, i probably would’ve dropped out of either of them in the first 2 weeks. whenever i read those subject descriptions, they literally put me to sleep.

also, for the media and comms point. do you know that there’s loads of media & comms students that don’t get jobs because there’s just such a HUGE intake of students in those courses??? do you know that that the most popualr field in that degree stream (at least when I started that degree at my local home uni in 2015) was journalism & professional writing??? where literally EVERYONE was aiming to be a journalist????

I was one of the very, very few people when I began in media and comms, to outwardly say that she was there to do marketing or maybe the marketing & PR double major.... and everyone looked at me as if I was insane. “why don’t you want to be a journalist? I think journalism is so cool and that I’m more likely to get a job in that than you are in marketing or PR. you actually engage with real people in journalism and do meaningful stuff with the community!” was one of the utterly dumb responses I sometimes got from people in that course, when I told them the above. but you know what kelsey, or, trent? neither one or any of us are “more likely” to get jobs in media & comms... when you’re both competing against people with “proper” straight journalism degrees who might have more media experience than you- if you didn’t do an internship or do some uni newsroom/magazine or whatever.... or maybe more streamlined (if that’s the right word) media &comms degrees.... as well as generally competing against each other, in the same field, for the fucking same exact jobs. while im competing against commerce students doing marketing and PR and people doing the PR & marketing major in m&cs.

also in relation to the above, doing multiple unpaid or even severely underpaid internships in journalism, or even marketing, probably won’t fucking secure your chance of getting a bloody job, adam. just shut the fuck up. those internships may have helped you. but they most likely won’t help most people, theresa. because there’s only a tiny freakin chance that the place that they worked for will actually give them a guranteed job at the end of their internship’s timeframe or at the end of their whole degree. it’s a fucking scam lmao.

and plus, (not to be as rude as you were to me).... but why the FUCK would you want to go into journalism.... when it’s been debased so fucking much by media outlets like buzzfeed; writing nothing but clickbait bullshit listicles.... and is polluted by internet virality.... so much so, that more than half of the people my course had the career goal of being a viral youtuber or an instagram influencer???? like i’m sorry. this is a dumb asf course, no matter the field you’ve chosen to study.... and there’s no way that a single one of you will be a successful viral youtuber or an instagram influencer???? what on fucking earth led you to believe that????

like no offence. but there’ll only be a lucky, lucky, lucky few who get to be the next jennamarbles, ray william johnson, pewdiepie, lily singh, tanya hennessy, jeffree star, james charles, etc etc.... or hell, even friendlyjordies (if you want some satire & politics). and for instagrammers.... idek know them. someone list some instagrammers lmao. but my point still stands.

being an influencer or youtuber- both with huge followings- is a fucking pipe dream- as much as me being a hugely successful author is. it only goes to the insanely lucky, lucky few who have the right connections and the right digital savviness/finesse to grow to be uber successful.... or who started super early, before it was even considered a job title (like jenna mourey/marbles and ray william johnson listed above, and several others not listed who have big fan followings on here) and eventually grew to be the first original titans of the youtuber job title.

or again, they already have some type of other successful media career (like tanya hennessy is an aussie radio announcer. jeffree star had a short lived myspace music career in the late 000s mostly, and made cameos in emo music videos and LA ink at the time also, for example) so that they can successfully fund their youtube channels and/or instagrams as side projects or whatever, as part of their media portfolio.... and they also know how to engage and grow follower bases etc. because they already have an existing one. so it’s twice as easy for them.

tbh i actually entered the m&cs course bc of my use of this hellsite and all the weird trends it had and stuff.... but I eventually got over that as I realised that I just did NOT fit into that field of study. I realised I was too shy... and I also just hated the fact that I had to learn how to use twitter and wordpress and probably eventually snapchat & instagram 😂

i had also gotten sick of follower counts and “growing a following”- considering that by 2015, I’d hit over 3,000 followers on here, I think.... and I realised just what energy and time it took to build this blog.... and my followers.... that I just didn’t have the energy to expend on other platforms for the same thing lmao. like it seemed like more wasted time. I was tired. in addition to that, i also realised that i didn’t want to waste my whole fucking career on the internet worrying over a business’s/company’s multiple corporate social media channel follower counts and image etc.... when i’d done enough of that for myself on this hellsite lmao. doing that stuff with other students in the m&cs course seemed fake asf, especially when it came to giving feedback comments etc lol.

but do you know that one place where you don’t have to give a flying fuck about followers, post views/comments, and blog views? philosophy and english. lmao 😅. no one gives a fuck what you say. unless, of course, you have the evidence and the force of argument to back your pov up. that’s what I was about and am still about. I loved reading and analysing the many books I had to read (contrary to the complaint posts that I made on here lmao)- whereas learning about media and who owned what and how media is manufactured- just made my brain freeze. and although I didn’t do my readings in philosophy (lmao)- i enjoyed a good bulk of the content I had and the issues it involved. doing media & journalism subjects in the m&cs degree, on the other hand, terrified me, bc it meant I had to get in front of a camera and speak- which also scared me bc i look & sound terrible on camera lmao 😂. but I didn’t have to do that almost throughout the entirety of my arts degree (im obvs not counting class presentations in this lol). but do you get my point???

and also the teaching comment. don’t get me wrong, i know a good bunch of people go into teaching after their arts degrees... including many of my friends; and a load of the people I was in my arts degree with. but that is mainly because with other degrees like journalism or media & comms or whatever other fields that they overload into uni arts departments- have taken our job titles away, in a sense....

so, then you’re practically forced to either go into teaching, or go into something outside of your expertise; like idek human resources management/a MBA via a masters.... or, again into something like librarianship via postgrad study- so, that for the love of fucking god- you have a job title to whack next to your name-!!!-instead of just “arts graduate” or “english major” or “philosopher” that all mean fuck all. and that’s because those labels sound vague, unhelpful, undefined and useless; as that’s opposed to something like “teacher” or “librarian” or even “information specialist”. all those titles/labels sound defined, and have actual useful concrete skills: like coding, database creation and maitenance & information retrieval (amongst other things), for a librarian/an information specialist, for example. these skills are then translated into something that you can physically demonstrate to people.... unlike with philosophy and english where people perceive that it’s just “all in your head” and “doesn’t produce anything worthwhile” bc of your very obvious skills that everyone has of communication and writing. like idk. anyway.

anyway here’s my rant for november.

[therealmnemo]

11 Questions

Ok, so I think I got everyone who tagged me in this. I’m sorry I’m going to add more questions because I’m drawing a blank, but I’ll answer the questions I was tagged in under the cut >.> 

From @sixlilypetals

1.     What is your favorite fan fic by another author and why? Oh no.. why. I have so many favorites!!! Ok. I’m going to pick one out specifically because it affected me so much that every time I hear the song that the title comes from, I will literally tear up in public. It’s You’ll Remember Me (When The West Wind Moves) by @foxnonny. It’s a FenHawke where Danarius was able to recapture Fenris, but starts with Garrett and co. rescuing him after his memories had been erased. After some time back at Kirkwall, Garrett is able to show Fenris his memory of their captivity (both he and Fenris had been captured, but Garrett had been freed once they reached shore), and Fenris realizes he needs time away to realize who he is again, because he is not this Fenris. And what KILLS me, is that Fenris’ last words to Garrett before giving himself back is “Be Well, Garrett Hawke.” And it’s said again later and everytime I think about it I want to cry. And then the last chapter when he starts writing to Garrett and picking up random memories.. I just.. GAH. It’s so beautiful. And this is why I cry like a baby at Fields of Gold. 

2.     What is your favorite fan fic you’ve done and why? Ugh. Well, I’m in that slump where I’ve been unable to write in a while so nothing looks good.. but I think I’m going to say You Could Be Happy. It’s the collection of my fic for Fenris Week last year, and contains two of my more well-received pieces. Surprises, which laid the foundation of the FenHanders I really wanted to delve into, and then Flight, a Pern AU one-shot that I put a lot of thought into and would like to pull out into a long fic one day. This question might change if I ever get my WIPs finished. 

3.     How did you discover Dragon Age? Steam Sale? I’m pretty sure Origins was really cheap during a Steam sale and a few of my friends had it on their game lists and I was like.. uh.. this seems like my kind of thing. Then I spent a couple hundred hours on it... 

4.     If you were going to do a get rich quick scam in Thedas, what modern thing would you peddle? condoms. idek 

5.     What is your dream hobby? i’d love to get going on voice work, and also beekeeping. 

6.     If you could create one law that could never be changed, what would it be? Oh god, something dealing with minimum wage and having to stay in line with cost of living and productivity levels and/or requiring the government to provide homes to the homeless. 

7.     When you’ve had a rough day, what makes you happy? IRL, cuddling with friends and watching a movie, if that is not possible (like 90% of the time) getting online to read fic and talk with friends <3

8.     What other universe do you think would be fun to cross over with Dragon Age? oh god.. too many? but the one I’m most interested in is doing a Pern crossover because.. uh.. dragons!!! (and of COURSE Hawke and Bull would be dragonriders)

9.     If you could own a pet dragon, would you and why? who in their right mind would answer no to that? YES.. because DRAGONS. 

10.  In what ways do you see yourself as a leader? As a follower? Uh.. hmm. I guess when it comes to things that I’m knowledgeable about or interested in, I’ll tend to take the lead in a group setting.. especially in cases where I can foster communication. Things that are task oriented that are easy to follow up on. I tend to fall back as a follower if it’s something that isn’t in my wheelhouse, or something I have no business being at the forefront of. 

11.  If you could go back in time and tell yourself one thing about the future, what would it be? fuck more people. i know how that might sound in general, but like, i wish young me would have had a different view on this. if i did, some things would have been very different. 

From @jawsandbones

Click this link and tell us what your super power is. Are you a hero or a villain? Your powers are super hearing, seeing through illusions, and manipulating shadows. um, a flipping hero. mostly for that last one.. because I would totally put on the most badass shadow puppet theatre.

What hobby would you get into if time and money weren’t an issue? BEEKEEPING. :D (I would say location too, but I’m sure that wouldn’t be an issue because money wouldn’t be)

What fictional place would you most like to go? Toss up between Thedas and Pern. 

Are you usually early or late? Uh, late. Usually depends on if I’ve taken my meds that day. It’s the focus part that usually screws me up on timing. 

What do you wish you knew more about? I’m going to cop out of this question because I’m literally a sponge for useless information. I will rabbit trail on wikipedia for hours. Things I will never need to know, or wanted to know to begin with, but now I have that tidbit stored away. I just want to know all that I can. Did you know that Mike Nesmith of the Monkeess’ mother was the inventor of Liquid Paper? 

How do you relax after a hard day? Check # 7 above!

Something you’ve been meaning to try but haven’t gotten around to yet?hmm, i don’t really have anything for this one. i have games i’ve not played yet and shows i haven’t watched yet. 

What one thing do you really want but can’t afford? a month long vaca to see my BFF in Scotland. 

What are you most likely to become famous for? not really anything, but along with my dream hobbies, well known VA or rockstar beekeeper would be amazing right?

What are you absolutely determined to do? Right now? Just be a fully functioning adult. 

What question do you want the answer to? Why haven’t we bred dragons yet? I mean, come on. 

From @littlexabyss

1.  What’s your favourite kind of dragon? I’m talkin’ any fandom here - Potterverse to HTTYD to…. well.  Dragon Age, I guess.  PERN DRAGONS \o/

2.  Across any/all of the games, what’s one decision you regret making plotwise?  Did you not recruit someone?  Break up with an LI?  Make a decision which broke your approval rating with someone?  C’mon, spill.  The first time I played DA2 I skipped Fenris’ cutscene and didn’t use him the whole game... I even thought he was a rogue... >.>

3.  Who’s the best-looking monster or creature in Thedas? (Mine’s the Envy demon at Therinfal Redoubt, wowee, that’s a stunner.)  Witherfang. 11/10

4.  What’s the most awkward ret-con of the Dragon Age series, in your opinion? Leliana if she was killed. Don’t get me wrong, I actually really love the reason that you get post DAI, because it just adds another level to lyrium and the Titans.. but like... awks. 

5.  List your current three favourite pieces of fan art and/or fics? WHY. ok, i did a fenhawke above, so i’m going to do three more ships eyyyy.  Walk Softly and Carry a Big Axe, Windfall, Inquisitor Hawke series

6.  Of the Dragon Age characters, who do you think would survive best should they be plonked into the Mass Effect universe? I’m going to flake on this because I really haven’t played ME yet. 

7.  Do you think Isabela’s ever had scurvy? Nah

8.  You know that bit in Inquisition, where Haven’s fallen and shit is getting a bit real and everyone starts singing that song half way up the mountain as your Inquisitor is freezing their buns off?  On a scale of 1: I totally joined in at home, it wasn’t awkward at all to 10: I had to leave the room and hide with my hands over my ears it was so awwwwkward, how’d you feel about it? Yeah, that was a 20. 

9.  Do you think you’ll be back for DA4?  Of course, DA owns my ass. 

10.  If you were a Circle mage, which (if any) fraternity would you belong to?  (As a brief recap: Aequitarians - “Shut up and play nice”; Isolationists - “Society is overrated”; Libertarians - “FUCK ALL THIS”; Loyalists - “Yes, Knight Commander, No, Knight Commander, how high, Knight Commander?”; Lucrosians: “MONEYMONEYMONEY”). Libertarian :D

11.  Think of your favourite character from the series (or just who springs to mind first): what is the song that they would rapturously describe as “their jam”? Shit. You know it’s Anders and Fenris and I have several playlists.. but as a single song? For Fenris, "Disarm” by the Smashing Pumpkins and for Anders, gawd, uhm, it changes constantly but give me some “Unsteady” by X Ambassadors for some young Anders feels.