#so idk i have this completely stupid thought that they didn't like my application and i just hav an interview so they can grill & questionme

[tsarinatorment]

TSATS was just. Bad. But there are parts I'm carefully picking out that I did like, for instance that Will is working on developing his photokinesis! Thought it was stupid until Apollo gushed over it, now he's not only taking pride in it but actively starting to test his limits. And... he can make (what are implied to be) Curses of Delos magically start to grow when he sings? That's such a dumb and useless power that Apollo would be completely thrilled over. I love that.

Hello, anon! "TSATS was just. Bad." is a very accurate summary. You didn't need to add the extra sentences and I was worried when the preview showed me that "But-"

But then I read the rest of the ask and [throws aside a large rock] actually I'm not mad at you, because I am actually doing a similar thing. There are some very small details that can be lifted out from this otherwise rubbish tip and repurposed for better use, and Will's photokinesis powerup is certainly one of those!

The "Care Bear" thing is a bit cringey - initially I appreciated the description, because I have fond memories of watching a Care Bears VHS in my childhood and could visualise what Mark was trying to describe there (unlike some younger friends who I had to find old gifs for to show them), but then I did some digging and realised that Care Bears has now been swallowed up by the behemoth that is Disney+ and therefore that this was actually some badly shoved-in marketing, which, urgh. Don't do that. However, I do like that Will has now, effectively, weaponised it (or is in the process of trying to).

You're right that it's a great continuation on from what started in TON - where Will has gone from embarrassment over it, to being proud of it, to actively working on it to see what he can actually do with it, which could well have been inspired by Apollo in TON himself, when he strips Nero's divinity and shatters his fasces. That concept is absolutely fantastic (although we could have done with a better, less cheesy, application; the implication of it being his heart's light is neat but it shooting out of his chest with no real direction like he's got a random inbuilt laser beam there is certainly not where I'd have taken that, personally...) and best of all - it's conceivably tied in to TON already so it's a detail that makes sense even without TSATS and can therefore be utilised without actually having to acknowledge TSATS as canon (win-win!)

On the flip side, the Curse of Delos thing is a little much, imo. I love powerful!Will but he's still got to stay within the constraints of being a demigod, for me (yes, I do believe that if he chose it, Will could ascend to godhood and would deserve it; I also believe he would never choose that). Curse of Delos is explicitly stated to only grow on Delos and around Cabin Seven - Apollo's two most sacred places. There's no way Will, a mere demigod, could literally consecrate ground in his father's name like that. At a stretch, we could say that this scene is actually Apollo hearing Will's hymn (given that it's stated to be one of his healing hymns) and... idk, growing him some flowers as some sort of message? But then that begs the question of where the fuck is Apollo in this story and why is all he's doing, growing flowers when Will sings? It also just doesn't fit Will's general theme, because while in theory yes, music could make flowers grow (especially if sung by a child of Apollo or Demeter), Will is also not a musician. He's very explicit about that back in BOO, so he, of all Apollo kids, being the one to summon flowers when he sings? Doesn't actually track. Give that power to Austin when he's playing the sax or something.

Yes, there are some very small details in TSATS that are worth not discarding (although almost all of them still need reworking, so really I should say concepts that are worth not discarding), but there's not many of them...

[catboybiologist]

Okay. So a bit more thoughts here. Hopefully this is as articulate as I want it to be, but honestly I'm just rambling.

A question that's been burning in my brain ever since I started HRT is this: "why did I wait so long to start transitioning?" This isn't a rhetorical thing, it's a question I'm genuinely trying to answer for myself. I'm born, raised, and lived my entire life in literally some of the gayest, most accepting areas of the country, and shit, even the world. I knew I was probably trans sometime when I was about 11 to 13 or so. And yet I didn't start HRT until I was 25. Even now, I'm still tepidly dipping my toes into my transition. I'm still presenting as a man day to day in lab and on campus, presenting femme only in social contexts and just letting HRT do its thing until about the 1 year mark.

What am I afraid of? What was I afraid of before starting HRT?

Cuz even in the most accepting of environments... There's still the faggots. The gay software engineer is gay first. The trans professor is trans first. And so on.

Good or bad, that changes how people perceive you. I've seen so many well intentioned milquetoast, center-left democrat voters go into weird, awkward, hushed tone conversations about how "of course I'm okay with X person, they're Y! And we all love Y! And I have to say that out loud and uncomfortably dance around every other aspect of them as a person, while making jabs at how they shouldn't be living quite the kind of life that they are!"

And of course, all that does is leave room for the louder queerphobes to jam themselves into the conversation.

I don't think I truly realized how much that percolated into my brain over the years. The idea that any aspect of my personality, including pursuing science, made a kind of "image" that was incompatible with being one of "those people". So I repressed. Deeply. Because I didn't want to be one of the "others".

The societal solution, of course, is visibility. Loud, proud, faggoty visibility. And hey, if I can add to a bit of that by still loving my science career by day, and being my exhibitionist tgirl ass at night, then maybe I can be that tiny bit more sure of myself. I'm a very, VERY small part in any kind of societal change, of course, god knows my faggy early career scraping-by grad student ass isn't making any splashes... But idk. Maybe just living my life is enough. Maybe that's the reality of being a special little zoomer snowflake. If I'm one special snowflake in the blizzard, maybe we can coat the ground with an inch or two of acceptance.

That was a stupid analogy. Shush, you didn't see that.

I think that the "Pete Buttigieg is just a faggot" essay by @vaspider , which Matt Bernstein reads towards the end of this video, pretty much encapsulates what I'm trying to be. It's an amazing piece of writing that I keep coming back to, because I find it very applicable to thoughts that race through my head. I've commented a couple of times on I shouldn't have to get my PhD to validate myself. I already have my MS, and again, to the world I'm still a faggot.

I think I'm mostly over the respectability aspect. This online persona has slowly become my own internal backlash to that, and while I'm not completely doxxable, it's why I've slowly become more blaisé about it. Either people are going to accept me for all of me, including my science, my queerness, and my weird ass online presence... Or, I'm just a faggot. In all aspects.

I'm still keeping to my planned timeline of coming out, mostly just for practicality and comfort at this point. Initially, I felt that waiting a year before socially transitioning would reduce the "awkward stage" of being extremely visibly trans in the super early HRT phases. I've stopped caring about that as much, but I def think the time I have planned is easier. I def wanna have a retrospective on this once I've been visibly trans in academia for a while, though.

Rant over. This is what you get for following an adhder that likes to type unfocused, poorly thought out rambles after their meds have worn off for the day.

Good podcast here.

I think my only problem with it is that it's 100% gonna be preaching to the choir in this crowd. Even so, this is still a mentality that I struggle with lot internally- not judging others, but struggling with the extent I should be "acceptable". I'm gonna collect my thoughts in that for a moment and write a bit more I think.

[judewillemgf]

how do i shut off my brain

[frogsandfries]

I'm having a hard time

My job responsibilities have become steadily more boring. My partner seems to think my use of the word "bore" and its iterations is..... lazy? Somehow inaccurate? I'm not really sure how else to describe: My job is so disinteresting and anti-engaging that I often find myself zoning out and then completely lost.

I'm not sure which came first, the soul-obliterating boredom or the depression, but they're definitely feeding into each other, like shuffling a deck of cards. The more bored I am, the more depressed I feel.

I want a more creative job. I'm pretty sure that's what I want. Not necessarily do I want to like, have to lead a creative team to work on my graphic novel or something like that. But maybe more like, freelance illustration? Orrr...... it might be cool to be a character designer. I think I'm fairly good at character design.

Unfortunately, all the creative jobs I can find need like, bachelor's, ten years of experience, extensive portfolio. And then there's this one, here in the city, but they're always looking for help and that just feels like a...... let's say an orange flag--closer between red and yellow than just straight a red flag. They would want me to like, commit via the application to potentially long days and I'd be doing basically everything, it sounds like without any kind of assistance. Nah. Especially for basically minimum wage?

I just feel stuck. I've tried manufacturing. Not for me. In person retail, not really for me. Call center, customer service. Not for me. Cashiering is fine, but it never pays. Like, ever. Working in a candy store was fantastic but it seems they didn't like me. Really, too bad. There were several listings for library jobs, but.......I want to have decent transportation. I want to know I'll get to work and not be a reeking sweaty mess in the summer.

At the rate that I'm able to work, it's going to be years before the graphic novel has the kind of velocity for any kind of recognition. Reasonably, even if it has that, that does not even remotely guarantee that I'll have any kind of funding for it.

If in some magical world, I could actually work on the graphic novel full-time, obviously I could work so much faster. I wish I could take a few weeks off from my job. I really need it.

I feel like, honestly.......I feel like......a bit of a loser that it's such a big deal for me to not be bored at work, that if I'm chronically, frustratedly bored at work, I feel like the only solution is to find a new job. I also really resent this mentality that it's normal to be bored at work because literally none of the people who say this are even remotely as bad at being bored as I am (not saying that I'm special or anything). Also, if I wanted to spend a third of my day so bored that my brain has shut down in the worst way, idk I'd get a job watching paint dry.

I'm just sick of it. There's just no place for me in the work world and I literally feel so stuck, I have no idea what to do. Just about the only highlight to my work day is seeing how many frames I can ink. I did ink an entire issue in about five months and I think apart from my little re-railing hiatus, I might hit about that for this third issue.

There's...... no reason for me to be depressed. I know how stupid that is to say. But my life is going well, apart from how just.......dopamine-deficient my days are......I wonder if.....I shouldn't just call my doctor, let her know the situation with the behavioral health specialists and ask for as small a dose of anti-depressant as possible, just something to help me limp up the waiting list...... Obviously no pill will fix the job situation, but maybe it could help me with a slight reward rewiring? I have no idea.....

I just kinda really can't stand this job anymore and I really can't stand the waves of depression on top of each other. I thought after my cold, I was done being depressed. I thought, hey I've got back my desire to keep working on the graphic novel--I can just start with lineworking this third issue. I did like, twenty lineworks and a cover linework in a week! But....... the job is just killing me..... absolutely killing me.