#post-university crisis

[frances-and-the-moon]

Long Long Long Long Rant

So, if (which is a big if) I manage to find a house, I am thinking of moving back to Iceland. To be honest, I didn't love the country - it's small, it's in the middle of the cold sea, there are few people, many of them are depressed etc. - and when I was living there - since I was alone and I had gone there to study and not to work - I wasn't prepared for how much not speaking the language would hinder my job prospects. Now the thing is that I am back in Southern Italy, and the job situation is absolutely terrible here (not to mention the fact that I don't like my hometown but that's already been said). So in those two years I was in Iceland I did manage to learn some Icelandic, which is all well and good. But after two years there, I started being a bit depressed about the long winters, the ice etc. and I started dreaming about teaching English in other countries like South Korea, Japan, China, Thailand. South Korea and Japan seem to be out of the question - they always want native speakers for visa purposes. In the meantime, I've been sending CVs kind of everywhere - Thailand, Vietnam, China etc. to see if I can manage to find an English teaching job there. Italy is not necessarily out of the equation, but: - I have to move to the northern part - getting a teaching job in Italy is a terrible hassle. Like, it takes the longest, longest time. I've worked so little in Italy and I've always seen myself abroad (that might be my hubris mentality of "ooh I'm better than the Italians who stay in Italy"). But. Even though I like teaching, I also like dog-sitting, translating, bartending, making coffee. I'm not exactly picky when it comes to jobs, but I am picky when it comes to where and how I live. So I was thinking - what about Australia? A friend of mine lives there, she loves it, there are beaches, they seem more relaxed etc. etc. BUT (and this is a big, big BUT) the visa is a pain in the A**. Because say that after one year of sweat, tears and money (visa+flight+accommodation+private health insurance costs) my WHV expires and there I am, back to square one. Iceland wasn't exactly square one for me - the country is so small that you understand it well as soon as you arrive, and getting hospitality jobs is not hard. The wages are good, they have unemployment benefits (which Italy doesn't have), and, sure, I might not get my dream job (for which I don't have the qualifications anyway), but I would at least survive, compared to Italy. (I would just need to be able to keep a job for longer than 6 months, which was my average there). Australia sounds appealing. It doesn't sound perfect, but it sounds appealing, although I know it would be just a way for me to run away from my hometown. Well, every move is like that, but it's different, I think, when you move for a specific job or for a specific country you like. I would have to start all over again in Australia, on the other side of the world, with no connections no nothing, with the certainty that it would only be for one year. So I keep sending CVs. And I keep thinking thinking thinking but I am afraid that if I keep thinking I'll basically spend the rest of my life doing that, considering everything but doing nothing. It's either the tarots that need to speak, my mind, or I might be super super lucky and receive a super good job offer. Idk what to do. I wait for perfection - perfection doesn't come - I get dejected. I thought life was a straight line and at the ripe age of 32 I'm realising that it is absolutely not, that narcissistic families do not like their adult children, that this hometown is horrible, that friends leave, that at some point we all think about money, and most of all, that I have no clear goal in mind and no clear place I want to live in. (Because, let's be honest. If I ever went back to Iceland, even - it would take me a decade to learn to speak that language) Or maybe at myself. That is why I thought about Iceland. It was home in the past - why can't it be home again?

[reasonsforhope]

"More than three-quarters of UK universities have pledged to exclude fossil fuel companies from their investment portfolios, according to campaigners.

The move, which is part of a wider drive to limit investment in fossil fuels, follows years of campaigning by staff and students across the higher education sector.

The student campaign group People & Planet announced on Friday that 115 out of 149 UK universities had publicly committed to divest from fossil fuels – meaning £17.7bn-worth of endowments are now out of reach of the fossil fuel industry.

Laura Clayson, from People & Planet, said it would have been unthinkable a decade ago that so many institutions had formally refused to invest in fossil fuels.

“That we can celebrate this today is down to the generations of students and staff that have fought for justice in solidarity with impacted communities. The days of UK universities profiteering from investments in this neo-colonial industry are over.”

People & Planet set up the Fossil Free universities campaign in 2013. As part of its efforts the group has highlighted the “struggles and voices” of communities on the frontline of the climate crisis in an attempt to bring home the real-world impact of investment decisions made by UK universities.

Clayson said: “The demand for fossil-free came from frontline communities themselves and it is an act of solidarity from global north organisers campaigning on this … We have a responsibility to speak the lived experiences of the communities resisting these inequalities into megaphones at protests and in negotiations within university boardrooms, to highlight their stories of struggle in spaces so often detached from the reality of everyday life on the frontlines.”

One of the projects highlighted by the campaign is the proposed East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) – a mega project that would stretch almost 900 miles from the Lake Albert region of Uganda to the coast in Tanzania, and release vast amounts of planet-heating carbon.

The pipeline is being built in spite of local opposition, and there are reports that protesters and critics have been met with state violence. Hundreds of student organisers have been involved in the struggle.

Ntambazi Imuran Java, the lead coordinator at the Stop EACOP Uganda campaign, said its members appreciated the efforts of UK students to bring an end to universities’ fossil fuel investments.

“[This] supports those who have worked tirelessly to stop deadly extraction projects like EACOP … Regardless of the arrests and violations on the activists, students’ activists and communities, we continue to demand for the Uganda authorities to stop the project and instead invest in renewables.”

People & Planet said four UK institutions – Birmingham City University, Glasgow School of Art, Royal Northern College of Music and the University of Bradford – had recently incorporated fossil fuel exclusions into their ethical investment policies, meaning 115 out of 149 UK universities have publicly committed to divest from fossil fuels.

Later this month, the group will group will unveil its latest university league table that ranks institutions by their ethical and environmental performance. Campaigners say they will then increase pressure on the remaining 34 UK universities yet to go fossil-free."

-via The Guardian, December 2, 2024

[yardsards]

absolutely enamored by rose quartz's body type and character design. especially after the pink diamond reveal. like, girl CHOSE to become a fat woman. and everyone around her (rightfully) thought she was incredibly hot for it. queen shit.

[daisybell-on-a-carousel]

"Jason was the happy robin" this, "jason was the angry robin" that. Let's all be fully honest here Jason was the lonely robin

[kryptonbabe]

Parallels. Legends #6 (1986): Wonder Woman's first appearance in the mainstream universe post-crisis on infinite earths & Absolute Wonder Woman #1 (2024): Diana's formal introduction in the absolute universe

[necrotic-nephilim]

what's fun about shipping Tim with Dick, Jason, or Damian is he has, at some point, hallucinated all of them to comfort himself. even when he doesn't like them or particularly get along with them, he has to imagine/hallucinate them just so he has the power to go on. Tim's concepts of the Robin mantle and what it should be is so fun, because he respects the others through the Robin mantle. Tim worships Dick because he was the first Robin. he wouldn't be Robin if Jason hadn't died in the mantle. and a lot of his frustration with Damian is he feels Damian isn't honoring the mantle correctly. when you ship Tim with the other Robins you can't divorce their identities as Robin from it because Tim will always see them as a Robin first and that's so fun and fucked up. like.

batman (1940) #456

Tim perceiving Dick as *Robin* cheering him on, not Nightwing, which is the version of Dick that Tim actually knows? that's just. wild of him. he will always view Dick as Robin first, his personal hero but also the original of the legacy. his love for Dick is shaped by that.

and then of course, even when he's hallucinating/imagining Jason cheering him on, it's *still* through the lense of being reminded how Jason failed? subconsciously believing that Jason got himself killed because of his actions, and that being a lesson for Tim to learn from? Jason isn't a person to Tim, he's a moral lesson about how to be Robin. any potential idolization he could have of Jason isn't because he loves Jason, it's because of the lessons Jason's death taught him.

and then, even though him hallucinating TIm is from the New-52, which makes characterization all kinds of questionable, i do think it makes sense for TIm to hallucinate/imagine Damian after Damian's death in an attempt to cope with it.

teen titans (2011) #18

to an extend, he sees Damian's death as in part his own fault. and even hating Damian, Tim needs the comfort from this to cope with Damian being gone. he's angry that Damian even was Robin, and has to learn something from Damian's death and how it impacts the Robin mantle, and teenage heroes as a whole. like, Tim can pretend he hates Damian all he wants, even getting taunted by the image of Damian, but there's still an underlying love to their relationship.

i think that's just the fun of shipping Tim with any of them. you will never divorce Tim's views of them from the Robin mantle and how fucking Unwell he is about anyone else who's been Robin before or after him, to the point he has to hallucinate them comforting him when he's at his lowest. it's always going to be a little unhealthy, a little toxic, and driven by Tim's relationship with being Robin as well. i need more Tim being weird about Robin in these ships.

[juniemunie]

"Why am I still doing this?"

"Don't you get it?"

"This is all just a show... and we're playing parts~"

[wanderingmind867]

I was making my reading list for the world's finest comic book (the one with batman and superman team-ups), and I just realized it's last issue really is sad. Issue #323. At the end of the story, Batman and Superman realize they have fundamental differences in their attitudes, and Batman calls off the partnership after years of friendship and trust. Apparently, the DC wiki said that higher ups at the company demanded World's Finest be cancelled, but the plan was to bring it back eventually and reunite the Batman and Superman team. But because of the Crisis on Infinite Earths, the writers never got a chance to do that. And since Frank Miller takes over as lead architect for post-crisis batman, we get a dark, brooding, edgy vigilante who'd never be as close with Superman as the pre-crisis, fun and understanding Batman would be. In a way, World's Finest #323 seems way more significant now. It was the end of the pre-crisis Superman & Batman team. It was the end of an era.

It's a tragedy, and I actually now feel bad for the writers and for the team of superman and batman. Because while pre-crisis batman still had his grim moments (namely, most of the stuff after dick grayson leaves for college is pretty noir-esque), Batman still dressed in Blue and Grey. He still had a conscience, and he had friends. One of the wiki pages had a quote where he admitted Superman was his friend. And I can't see modern batman ever doing that. So we should all mourn the loss of pre-crisis batman. He wasn't great, but he was a hell of a lot better than the post-crisis batman. A whole hell of a lot better.

[kara-zor-els]

Dick Grayson (Nightwing) and Jason Todd (Robin) in Batman (1940) #416

Bonus:

[whateverthought]

House of the Dragon AU where Rhaenyra is raised as a boy, her birth kept secret for a while because she's sickly and Aemma has already lost a few miscarriages and a stillbirth and it doesn't matter too much since Aemon is Heir and Jaehaerys is still alive and Rhaenys is the one with eyes on her, but after Baelon becomes Heir everyone learns Viserys has a kid and when He dies and -another miscarriage,- Viserys becomes King he tells people he has a son, a small lie in all the chaos to smooth things over, to seem like a better prospect. At least till he gets an actual son. And then Aemma dies.

Otto proposes that his daughter, friends with the Prince already, be betrothed to Rhaenyra since betrothing her to Viserys wouldn't put his blood on the throne per se but the Prince? And he gets to override Daemon getting His blood on the throne? Que the Baby Problem(TM)

Que the Baby Problem. How do these lesbians women procure heirs for the throne? Rhaenyra's blood would have to be passed on, since any child born from Alicent wouldn't be a dragonlord but Rhaenyra being pregnant would make their hoax harder to keep up, having kids who look too different will cause rumors and if no one ever saw Alicent pregnant they'd start to wonder. That being said, I quite like them sharing the experience. And Rhaenyra has proven to be reckless and Alicent is easily swayed by her.

So we need a Hightower man and a Valyrian man. In comes Gwayne Hightower, a man in his 30s unmarried and with no children of his own in a medieval times equivalent. A man who essentially raised his nephew for his sister and cared enough about her to reassure her she was a good mother. I'm unsure who would step in for Alicent, Laenor- if he fell in love with Gwayne and had a Queers Help Queers relationship with the girls? But what would he get out of it? He couldn't be a Sworn Shield like Gwayne, Daemon? Too possessive, too power hungry, too obsessed with Viserys and hating Hightowers. Maaaybe Viserys since he does know and would do anything for Rhaenyra, and at least this way his other kids wouldn't threaten his first-born's claim to the throne and subsequently start a Succession Crisis.

Either way, when Rhaenyra is having her first child, she would have their first child so there's no confusion over who gets to be heir (if Alicent had a son first but Rhaenyra's first child was also a son it'd cause emotional problems cause they're both her sons buuut...) and Gwayne is a much easier solution to the problem. And they can hide away in Dragonstone and make excuses about Rhaenyra being overprotective because of her mother. The next would be Alicent's, to show the court that yes, Alicent is the one getting pregnant. And so on and so forth, their children would then be betrothed to each other to unite their blood.

Just Rhaenyra and Alicent, 'King and Queen' and their Sworn Shield Ser Gwayne Hightower and the other one, maybe a dragonseed who's Gwayne's lover? Wacky little medieval lesbians having a rollercoaster ride of a time making a family and running from court, the Velaryons, and Otto and Daemon.

[jellydragons]

“That’s no ordinary mirror.”

So what do you reckon Wild, like… saw?

Individual frames:

[freddyloyd]

sorry but this irritates me so bad. I know Legends of the DC universe was written like 14 years after COIE but can we at least try to keep the characterization consistent especially if you are writing a story thats supposed to be set during a specific time. This is suppose to be set sometime around COIE #5 which had this panel:

Batman has NO trouble comforting Jason. He wasn't an asshole, he didn't not have any friends or anyone to care about. He doesn't need to learn this lesson. The moment in the first screenshot is supposed to be cathartic or something but it just comes across super hollow because it doesn't make sense in the context of the story its set during.

[snailtaco]

A story never told.

(Explanation under cut)

In English, my teacher made us participate in NaNoWriMo where we write for the whole month. Of course the rules were more lax (we only had to get to 11,000 rather than 50,000), but we still had to plan and write an entire story (or beginning of one in my case).

If you couldn’t guess from the image above, I basically made a glorified fanfic oops (note: this will never see the light of day.)

The main story plot line (at least the beginning) is based off of "in this game, no, you're not the only target" by gin (tabanthas) (great fic would recommend!) but with a worst case scenario cuz I'm a sucker for trauma bonding (i hope thats not weird, i just like my favorite characters suffering)

I did have to change names as to not raise suspicion from my teacher and alter some basic features, but ultimately I got to just shuck a whole bunch a head cannons on these poor boys.

Left is the reference to the boys. The right is just the top image without shadows cuz I'm indecisive.

Sorry for making this lil rant so long I never get to talk about this unfinished story and I really wanted to recommend another :)

[the---hermit]

New laptop setup to be more comfy while I write my papers and the bookmark I made for my mum (I am obsessed with how good the yellow uni posca looks it's a warm yellow and it's so pretty)

18|05|2024

Anxiety still fuckes me on the daily, but meds are there for me to make things slightly better. But today I conquered my tasks and I managed to finish the first draft of my English lit paper. I only have to reread it a few times to edit it and fix things, but most of the work is done. I will also send it to a friend to ask her opinion and whether she things my writing was clear enough, so that I know how to plan my next study moves. I haven't picked a topic for my history paper yet, so that must happen at the beginning of next week so that I can start working on it. I am feeling a bit overwhelmed about next week like I have so much to organize, and do, and aaaaaaaah I just want to stay in bed for a month and not do anything ugh. I am also missing a book to help me in my desperate need of escapism because I finished both books I was reading and I don't know what to pick next. As for podcasts I also feel quite empty now that I finished monstrous agonies and the mistholme museum is also over. I started listening to travelling light because I need to have H.R. Owen's voice in my life, but I am not fully into it yet, I am intrigued tho. In conclusion just picture me as a screaming possum and you pretty much get a clear picture of me rn.

[berrywinkle]

You know, I think in-universe there would be shipping wars in the SOLDIER fanclubs where geneseph fans would have flame wars with sephgeal and gengeal fans. I can just imagine the fan club drama when both Genesis and Angeal go missing/declared dead and suddenly Zack shows up all the time around Sephiroth. Poor Zack would be the subject of so many locked forum debates for «stealing» Sephiroth or «usurping» Genesis/Angeal

[necrotic-nephilim]

there is not enough femslash in batcest circles. the girls deserve to be just as weird about each other as the boys are. if BruDick gets to be weird father/son/brothers/lovers/friends/rivals/soulmates then it is only fair that Babs/Cass get to be mother/daughter/sisters/lovers too. Something about that deep intrinsic but undefinable love that is born out of trauma, especially if you consider Cass not knowing what healthy love looks like in the first place. i think it's fun and deserves just as much fandom content.

besides that, you can get even more niche with rarepairs like Helena/Steph. Huntress/Spoiler: Blunt Trauma is already a fantastic comic and even though it's their only real canon interaction it has so much potential. very comparable to TimJay in how Helena tries to get Steph to understand her morals and the corruption you could play with it.

batman: huntress/spoiler: blunt trauma (1998)

that comic also highlights on how both Steph and Helena are outcasts of the Batfamily and don't have the approval of Bruce to be doing what they do in "his city". I think there's so much Potential in Helena taking Steph under her wing because Bruce won't let her in and it becomes a weird codependent toxic sapphic mess. I think the protectiveness Helena feels over Steph from the get-go is so clear and the way she wants to look out for Steph, wants to make sure Steph understands the real world? I love them. Helena should be allowed to steal Steph, actually. I think it'd be fun.

there are a lot of other possibilities too like Babs/Steph or even getting weird with Helena Bertinelli/Helena Wayne and the existential question of "is it selfcest or not." But these two specifically live in my head rent-free, especially Helena/Steph and one day I'll convince everyone else to ship it too.