#that might get some people back

[beardedmrbean]

California’s largest daily newspaper, the Los Angeles Times, announced on Tuesday that it is laying off at least 115 people -roughly a quarter of its staff- as it continues to hemorrhage money.

The layoffs were announced in a newsroom-wide email from L.A. Times president and Chief Operating Officer Chris Argentieri, according to reporter Matt Pearce.

“This total, while devastating, is nonetheless far lower than the total number of Guild layoffs initially expected last week,” Pearce posted on X, formerly Twitter.

Last Friday, members of the Los Angeles Times Guild, the union representing newspaper staffers, staged a one-day walkout to protest the anticipated job cuts.

“Slashing a quarter of the newsroom is devastating by any measure – to our members and their families, to our morale, to the quality of our journalism, to the bond with our audience, and to the communities that depend on our work,” the Guild said in a statement. “We believe our decision to go on strike saved scores of newsroom jobs today.”

Tuesday’s layoffs come after the paper slashed 74 positions in July, the union said.

In an article published in the L.A. Times on Tuesday, the newspaper’s owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, said the cuts were needed to account for losses totaling $30 million to $40 million a year due to declining subscriptions and advertising revenue.

“Today’s decision is painful for all, but it is imperative that we act urgently and take steps to build a sustainable and thriving paper for the next generation. We are committed to doing so,” Soon-Shiong said.

Among the senior editors laid off were the paper’s Washington bureau chief and deputy Washington bureau chief, its business editor and music editor.

L.A. Times video game industry reporter Sarah Parvini was also let go.

“It’s been an honor to work at the paper for nearly a decade, launching a video game beat, helping to win Pulitzers, covering diverse communities. To my colleagues, [the L.A. Times Guild], readers: Thank you,” Parvini tweeted.

Soon-Shiong and his family purchased the L.A. Times and the San Diego Union-Tribune from Tribune Publishing for $500 million in 2018.

Layoffs and buyouts have hit a wide swath of the news industry over the past year. The Washington Post, NPR, CNN and Vox Media are among the many companies hit.

An estimated 2,681 news industry jobs were lost through the end of November, according to the employment firm of Challenger, Gray and Christmas. That was more than the full years of 2022 and 2021.

[mayhemchicken-artblog]

in the hour or so it took me to draw this op turned reblogs off

EDIT: reblogs are STAYING OFF. op was right and correct and i have never regretted making a post as much as this one. if you want to reblog my art you can reblog something else from my blog. or commission me, lord knows i deserve financial compensation for the nightmare this post has put me through

[snowangeldotmp3]

btw i feel like this shouldn't have to be said but the reason that agatha hates rio is because agatha didn't get to say goodbye to nicky. rio couldn't offer her any more time. and, in rio's mind, nicky going peacefully in his sleep (and even telling him to turn around and kiss agatha goodbye!!) is the one grace rio feels she can give agatha. nicky doesn't suffer. he doesn't fight. he just...goes. he goes on a walk with his mother and kisses his mama goodbye. but agatha doesn't get to say goodbye!!! she doesn't get those final moments with him!! she wakes up and he's already gone.

[wardingshout]

Zelda goes mushroom girl

[voiice-of-the-soul]

It irritates me alot when people say that making medic more compassionate is ''missing the point of his character'' when he is literally shown to be in the comics.... did you miss the part where he showed concern for both sniper and miss pauling's well being in comic 5 and 6.

His actions are a combination of genuine attachment + clinical interest and these things do not cancel out one another. He is always pushing boundaries and going against the grain and i think this is what led to him losing his license in the first place. He felt stifled by the rules imposed on him.

He is shown to be extremely passionate so it makes sense that he would use his endless fascination with medicine as a way to show his affection. He loves his friends so he will find a way to make them borderline indestructible. Malpractice is his love language.

[cozylittleartblog]

worst way to start my new year, thanks. i have a lot of things to say about these companies but i'm tired and just keeping it focused to the pin side of things for this one. do not ever buy pins from these companies, literally ALL of them are stolen from small artists like me. if you want to buy enamel pins, check out etsy, and artist's personal websites and shops! (though even Etsy has some bootleg pins that ship straight from china, so tread carefully…)

Every pin I've designed is, thus far, EXCLUSIVE to my etsy. if you find it anywhere else, it's been ripped off! and once these stupid bootlegs pop up, it's basically a never ending game of whack-a-mole trying to get them all taken down...

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Welcome to the Dungeons of Fear and Hunger.

[deoidesign]

Return date for my webcomic, Time and Time Again!

It's been set for a while but sometimes they change the date without warning, so I'll keep you updated if anything changes!

I'm extremely proud of the work I've been doing on it, I can't wait to share everything!

See you then!

[tapakah0]

[foldingfittedsheets]

I start my new-old job on Wednesday selling beds. I’m antsy. It’s gonna be a new routine to get into and it’s gonna be an official pause on game jobs for a year unless I wanna burn this bridge to the ground.

I need to get some button ups today, pick plums because I promised my nana, ideally groceries would happen but like. Who knows. And I need to bust out story illustrations.

I’m already so tired.

[mazken]

brush test slash rendering practice with ayem

[cryptidclownz]

HEY!!! i finally got out of my art block and ended up switching to a drawing tablet instead of my phone! i have one pretty big thing being worked on currently, but here's some lamb to hold you over for a few days ^^

[vaguely-concerned]

the idea this game posits that just as much as or even more so than lucanis is having a demon problem, spite is currently having a lucanis problem. is everything to me. spite voice bitch you live like this???

[the---hermit]

oral exam tips

I have at least one other post on exam tips, but they were mainly focused on giving tips on history exams. To me oral exams in academia have been the norm since high school, but I know that in other countries that might no be the case, so I decided to write down a list of advices coming from someone who is quite used to this kind of tests.

If you aren't used to having oral exams, you might need to change your study method, or at least add a few steps. I recently made a post entirely dedicated to my study method, which might be useful for this, but what I suggest is to add a step in which you review things out loud. What I would do is to just sit down with your notes or your materials and pretend to give a lecture on everything. Even better if you have a friend or family member to listen to you, because by having an active listener you will be forced to not skip stuff and have clear explainations, and they might ask you questions or clarifications. Those are always good because that might happen during the exam as well, but also it will help you memorizing those things. I recommend reviewing out loud multiple times. This way you will get more comfortable with the exposition of the topics you will be tested on, and you'll have a chance to find your own "voice".

by finding your own voice I mean finding a good compromise between using your own words to explain things, while still using the correct specific vocabulary of whatever topic you'll be tested on. This is fundamental. You are not there to recite a poem by heart, you are there to show you have understood the topic, that you sat with it and made it yours. You have to show you know how to clearly explain things but also reflect on it, making links with other things, and so on. At the same time there's some academic and specific vocabulary you want to include, because you are not in fact discussing the topic with a friend. So practicing out loud before the exam is good to find a good compromise between these two things.

I kind of mentioned it already, but it is absolutely fundamental to show that you understood the topic and not just memorized it. Whatever you do do not learn things by heart. It's better to be slightly insicure about a specific date, than to repeat your book word by word. And if you practice enough, and are comfortable enough with the informations in general believe me you can work around those things you can't remember perfectly well as you are being tested. Moreover your mark on the exam will be much higher than if you just learn things by heart.

on the very delicate topic of not remembering something specific you have been asked. Don't panic, you can still kind of save it. Whatever happens do not stay silent. There are several things you can do depending on whatever the question is, and I will later tell you a very specific example of something that happened to me. As I said do not panic, surely you will remember about some context on the topic so start by talking about that. As you are giving the context you might start to remember additionals informations, or you might build up enough informations to be able to logically guess whatever you are not remembering correctly. If you are half sure about something go for it, even if it's the wrong info if you contextualise it well enough you'll show you knew about that and it might just be read as a slip of you confusing two things. Now there might be situations in which the question is so direct that you can't do much, it happened to me once during my Greek history exam. I was asked the specific date of an event, and I could not for the love of the gods remember it. You know what I did? I told the professor, I cann't rememebr the exact date, but giving certain informations (that I then explained) I can tell you it was more or less in this half of this century. What I did was admit a fault, but while doing that I showed her that I knew what we were talking about it, I had enough informations on the matter to logically place it on the chronological line and contextualize it, and showed her that I can in fact work with the informations I studied. And at the end of my exam the professor complimented me on those exact things, saying she appreciated seeing me use my brain instead of midlessly memorizing informations I didn't understand.

So whatever happens do not stay silent. Anything is better than that.

Another potentially bad thing that might happen, and believe me it happened to me multiple times, is panicking so bad that you cannot get the words out, or confuse things. You know what happened everytime I found myself in that situation? The professor clearly saw me panicking, and told me to calm down, wait a couple of minutes, get my ideas in order and try again. And I got good grrades despite that in the end. You are under a lot of pressure, because you are giving an exam, and you have to be quick and ready instead of being able to reflect like with a written exam. Professors know that, and they keep it in mind, and they can tell when you are mixing things up because you are nervous, and not because you don't know things. I once had a professor look at me in the eye after i mixed up numbers on two dates twice in a row, and told me I know you know them take two deep breaths and try again. And I did. I have so many personal stories from my previous degree in which professors saw I was nervous and told me that it was okay I just needed to take a minute and breathe, and honestly that was exactly it. It was okay and I really needed to breathe, and then the exam when well.

The best tip I can give on answering questions is to balance the actual answer of the question with additional informations. You want to give context and add more infos to whatever has been asked to you, but you should also try not to lose focus on what was being asked. My personal way of doing this is to structure the answer in three parts: 1. general context that works as an introduction to the actual direct answer 2. the actual answer 3. further additions like more context, comparaisons and links with other topics or informations you had to study. This way you show off you know things, you make sure to show the professor you are not just rambling because you don't know the answer, and finally show you are comfortable enough with the informations to reflect on them and link them to other things. Ideally the professor will stop you while you are speaking, that in my experience is the best possible sign, because they are satisfied with your exposition and want to move onto other things.

So always build up on the answer to the question you have been asked. Never stop at just the information that serves as an aswer. You studied, it's your time to shine and make yourself proud.

Contextualizing your informations is absolutely fundamental no matter what, again because it shows you have a clear idea about what you are talking about. This can mean making a small introduction on the time and place, if you are an historian like me, or maybe give an introduction on the person you are talking about (whether they are an historical figure or a scholar you are talking about). Adding the little informations you weren't asked about is great. You are briefly mentioning an even and know the date? Add it in. Everything is a good addition.

Again I have definitely already mentioned in previous points but showing you are capable of reflect on the topics you are talking about is always a bonus. Make sure that when you are giving personal options or personal reflections you are stating this is your thought, but that is usually appreciated. After a good exposition of a topic you might even get the professor asking you your opinion on certain things. It happened to me multiple times, often I was asked to give an opinion of books I had to study for the exam, and that always prooved as an oportunity to add more informations and as I said show that I could make reflections of my own.

Last thing, that again kind of came out from other points, is that you want to show you are comfortable enough with the topic to be able to jump from one point to the other while reflecting on things or making comparaisons.

I am pretty sure I have forgotten something, but once again if you have specific questions I am happy to help, my inbox is always open. I know people who aren't used to oral exams are very scared of them, but as long as you try to approach it like a normal conversation on the topics you had to study, and you have practiced, things will be fine. To be quite honest with you after years of experience I'd say I very much prefer oral exams to written ones, because you can in a way shape the conversation and bring it to the topics you liked the most, know best. I hope this post was somewhat helpful to someone out there, and good luck if you are about to take an exam!

[fisheito]

rereading the nuca pink doujin and seeing yakumo tear himself apart re: his snake form vs his human form all this agony and self-doubt and silent suffering and fear of rejection like "if i looked less human would u hate me" , "if u saw me in my true form wouldn't that be horrible. terrifying. disgusting" , "if i admitted i want to swallow you whole would you think worse of me"

and i imagine him asking something like this to the crowd of clan members , who are , undeniably,, a group of Kinky Fuckers

they all smile with the serenity and carefully masked excitement of a horny olivine. masterful beautiful reassuring expressions (errr..... masked to different degrees depending on the clan member)