#grad school here i come

[taintedcigs]

GUESS WHO JUST PASSED HER TEST WITH THE HIGHEST MARKKKKKKKKKKKK.

[shrimpkidnow]

Settled on my research question for the GRFP application yeah budddyyyyyyy

[bixels]

The idea that uni protesters are "elitist ivy-league rich kids larping as revolutionaries" on Twitter and Reddit and even here is so fucking funny to me if you actually know anything about the student bodies at these unis. Take it from someone who's going to one of the biggest private unis in the US, 80% of the peers I know are either from the suburbs or an apartment somewhere in America, children of immigrants, or here on a student visa. I've heard about one-percenter students, but I've never met one in person. Like, don't get me wrong, the institution as a whole is still very privileged and white. I've talked with friends and classmates about feeling weird or dissonant being here and coming from such a different background. But in my art program, I see BIPOC, disabled, queer, lower-income students and faculty trying to deconstruct and tear that down and make space every day. So to take a cursory glance at a crowd of student protesters in coalitions that are led by BIPOC & 1st/2nd-gen immigrant students and HQ'd in ethnic housings and student organizations and say, "ah. children of the elite." Get real.

[aris-has-a-paracosm]

Finality’s Fault Chapter 6 just dropped! In which Tango makes a crucial decision against Cub and Etho’s better judgment, while Jimmy finds some pieces of the past.

This chapter went through three rewrites to get it to where it is now, but I am so very proud of it, and would love feedback (comments/rbs) if y’all like it too! :)

[mangofresca]

halcyon | 18+

Romano feels like he’s dancing in his sleep, that shifting, swaying motion like waves across the beach and toes dragging through sand, like water and rhythm pulling his chest high, his shoulders low, stretching out his hips, his knees, his ankles. The soft cotton of his pillowcase scratches and tickles at his cheekbone when he turns his head into it, wisping itself against his clavicle, and he sighs against it, lets it swallow his breath the same way it swallows the heat of his body, an echo of warmed contentment and easy dreaming.

The mattress beneath him dips, and he almost pushes away the palm that slides across his stomach, his sternum, but it’s warm, too, and Romano always liked being warm, and he liked being warm beneath this hand even more. He leans into it, instead, keeps his eyes closed, and he makes a small noise that’s half deliberate and half desultory—because he does mean to acknowledge Spain, but he doesn’t mean to acknowledge him like a cat waking from a nap in lazy, dozy sunbeams, purring.

But that’s fine. That’s fine. He knows Romano sometimes sounds like that when he’s waking, and even not, just sometimes when he’s beneath the pads of Spain’s fingers, and Romano feels fine when the mattress dips again and Spain hovers over him, knees sweetly nudging his apart.

Romano keeps his eyes closed when lips skim his jaw, keeps himself ensconced in the soft sunlight that shines itself across his eyelids. It’s good like this, he thinks. It’s nice. He can hear himself breathe with an awareness he never really has when he’s around Spain, always too preoccupied with other things, irrelevant things—what he’s doing, what he’s not, what he could be doing to Spain, instead. He likes being conscious of it, of his body and his reactions, and he sighs again when that palm moves to his side, his rib cage and lower, fingers skimming over his thigh as they drag heated sheets down, away.

There’s a laugh twinkling in his ear, something bright and charmed, and his skin pricks with cognizance when he feels the breath of it, lips curving into a smile against his cheek. “Awake yet?”

Spain speaks his vowels in a whisper, his consonants always catching on the tip of his tongue, and Romano’s shoulder shifts back in a shiver, presses into the bed when soft breeze meets skin, humid and carrying the smell of midmorning sunrise.

He makes a noise again, some groaned mhm that rumbles itself up his chest and out his throat, that gets lost somewhere around his lips when the heat of Spain’s laughter leaves his cheek and instead drifts across his nipple—and the gasp that leaves him is a surprised one.

He feels stupid like this, naïve, foolish, as if he isn’t war- and weather-worn, born and raised in the echoing, thundered footsteps of the Roman Empire, older than the New World and older still, as if his own sand dunes aren’t his brothers, the rolling fields his sisters. But this is his life now: homes across his country and Spain’s, furnished with soft beds and yellow kitchens and flowing curtains that always let the light in, because neither of them ever really do well when away from the sun, too used to its bite to go without for longer than a day, two. He wakes, now, to sheets that settle across the curves of his body, to someone in his bed, wiggling his legs until they settle around tanned hips, to sea-chapped lips that hum the song of his name until he is something melodious, made of more than sinew and sand, of memory.

Spain whispers his name, a question carried softly through balmy air and that sounds so fucking in love Romano almost opens his eyes, almost gives into the needling whine of it—

But Spain always did his best work when given a task, and Romano knows Spain has no qualms about being set to work on Romano, no end to the things he would let Spain do to him, and though his mouth goes dry as Spain nips at his throat and presses a finger against him, he can only find the energy to laugh, just dry air, enough to breathe Spain in, too.

When Spain dips down and kisses him, Romano kicks the sheets up and over Spain’s back. They are still warm, and so is he.

[mueritos]

quick lil post about coming back to art full-time while also being a full time MSW student….it can be possible 0.0

anyway ty to everyone who has supported me over the years i wouldnt be able to go back to art without you all

[thrashersasuke]

graduated college today!!!!! 😁😁😁😁

[disengaged]

i wanna live on my own again …. i’m so ready to put my books on a shelf and my clothes in a closet

[millenniumringg]

I’m alive …. Fics and drawings might take a pause for a bit though :-( but it is for good reason I am becoming a learned man

[quatregats]

Sorry, we provincialized your blorbo. Yeah, we put him in a postcolonial framework and it turned out that he wasn't actually the result of a uniquely rationalistic tradition but actually of a deeply historically-situated framework whose prioritization of the narrative silences other possible epistomologies and ways of knowing. Yeah, it turns out that he can't emerge as a perfectly realized liberal individual without the creation of a reciprocal Other who is excluded from liberal personhood. Yeah, it's going to be like that no matter what, sorry. Do you want some theory or something?

[ruelpsen]

If I had to choose between cutting off my hand and redoing grad school apps, I'd seriously consider the hand. Be gentle with yourself, it's a fucking slog. What kind of program are you looking into?

Thank you for the reminder to be gentle. This shit has been stressful, and having for various reasons only about a month and a half to actually do focused work on applying has SUCKED. Not looking forward to potentially having to do this again in the future (it's complicated but I'll explain why in a sec), but I am SO looking forward to two weeks from now when these applications are in and it's out of my hands, as much as the waiting game itself sucks in its own way.

As for programs, I don't want to get too specific. I was a double major in undergrad, and I'm not exaggerating when I say I've literally never met anyone else with those two specific majors. (Ftr one is a STEM field and the other in the humanities.) I want to keep studying both in some capacity in the future, but to make a long story short I'm stuck in a position where I have to hold off on applying to the program in the humanities for now.

As annoyed as I am about the 'long story' part of that, I'm totally fine with prioritizing the program in STEM for now. Hell, in some ways that's a good thing given the limited amount of time I have to work on applications. But at the same time, I've greatly limited the number of schools I'm applying to so I can focus on creating well-tailored applications for their specific programs and faculty, and that means each potential rejection would leave me with a far smaller share of options. It's a bit of a risk, but damn it I'm trying my best to show how strong of a student I've been and that I would work well with their specific people. Hopefully things work out in the end.

I hope your own efforts have paid off too, wherever life has taken you.

[good-night-space-kid]

Now that I’m no longer panicking about finals the immense sadness at leaving university behind has set in 😭 I’m going to miss my friends and this city and the beautiful state of North Dakota so much

[abby-the-druid]

Okay, for real, real question.

How the fuck are you actually supposed to write a dissertation? Like... there is no guidance? Is that my advisor or is that me?

I feel like someone said "Hey, write me a 150 page document about something you did over the course of the last 5 years."

And I said, "Okay, but like, how do you want that to look?" and no one answered.

And so I said, "but like, you think x y z should go in it, right?" and no one answered.

and so I said, "but like... how should I go about that?" and no one fucking answered.

So now, like as of a day ago, I was asked to have a completed dissertation to turn into my advisor NEXT WEEK.

So I've been doing the spongebob, right? Like staring down at paper, writing furiously, reading furiously, I have had a headache every day for at least 2 straight weeks; I have bags under the bags on my eyes - my fiancé literally told me I have 3 consecutive bags under each eye where they just keep getting worse; I am not sleeping well unless I take my large dose medicine; I am not tired, I am only tired, I am not hungry, my body does not feel normal, I am not bathing regularly, I am behind on chores and

I

STILL

DON'T

KNOW

WHAT THE FUCK I'M SUPPOSED TO DO TO WRITE THIS.

What the fuck am I supposed to be doing? Like I'm going to give this a try but I cannot express how much I DO NOT KNOW what I'm doing.

And you say, but surely, Abby, in the last 5 years at this institution you've published right? Surely your advisor has kept up and made sure you're making good progress, right? Obviously, they have prepared you in some capacity, right?

I would say to you, unfortunately, no. No, I have not published a single first author pub in the last 5 years. My advisor has not kept up to the point over the summer we had not a single meeting -I need weekly meetings otherwise I fall into the void and am taken by the aether- and after waiting 3 months for him to give me feedback on my first paper - the first one I've written in any professional capacity - I am told to deliver a full thesis.

Somebody just fucking take me out brother. I am beyond lost at this point and feel like a failure.

Thanks for listening.

If you do have advice, it would be greatly appreciated because I'm losing my fucking mind.

[rosesradio]

[welcome-to-green-hills]

mystery I’ve just heard about news of your career! And it is definitely a big deal cuz it’s hardworking to go all the way towards where you are now! Definitely a big leap for ya!!!! I wish you the best for it!!! 🎉🎁🫂

Y’All are so damn sweet! Thank you❤️✨

I’m very excited! My mentor and chair liked my thesis idea, as well as the headmaster for the school. I’m in a very good spot at the moment! Now I’m counting down the days until August for classes to begin!

[astriiformes]

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