#you know what though

[vvitchering]

My only nonspoilery thought about the new venom movie is that I have never really minded that the Venom movies are Bad Movies until now. I really wish this one had been a good movie.

[red-might-be-dead]

i love seeing posts that are like “OMG?? CRUMBSS 😍😍😍😍” and it’s like a 0.5 second clip of one guy saying half of the other guys name by accident

[vague-bisexual-crimes]

IN AN OTHERWISE MEDIOCRE EXISTENCE, WE CHOOSE TO FEEL PASSION!!!!!!!!!!:$;&@/@9,7?8;8:&/!:!;!;!;!!!/&39(9(9/92&

[probablygayattorneys]

So, I have this fun little thing called ‘catastrophic insomnia’ which means even if I do all the things you’re supposed to do, I put my phone away seven hours before bed, I do yoga, I do nothing in my bedroom except sleep… I will still not sleep well, if at all. It’s not my fault, it’s just the way my body was made, which means I get access to the good stuff in order to sleep, and a fun thing about some controlled substances, at least the ones I take, is that there is a real clear moment where the it goes from “it’s kicking in” to “I have no memory of this the next morning.”

Yesterday was one of those days while I was DMing a friend. See if you can catch where the heel turn was.

[zoennes]

[ivan-fyodorovich-k]

I abandoned academia about 7 years ago. I have an MA in history and was teaching adjunct classes for peanuts with no benefits or anything of the like and no guarantee of a job when the semester was done. One summer after the 2nd summer session ended I put in for a job in construction specifically dirt moving (building roads) due to needing the money and haven't looked back ever since. Im currently a heavy equipment operator and foreman. I make more money annually than a tenure track professor makes at the college I was at; the benefits are great with a 401k and health insurance; I still get 3 months off out of the year due to weather (in northern North America you can't do effective dirt work in the winter) and an added bonus of when I'm off the clock at 5:30 pm or during the weekends I'm off. There's no students or students parents to deal with after hours, no tests to grade, no papers to work on, no lectures to write, no faculty meetings or "mixers" etc... Maybe take some of the time between semesters to try something different, you never know you may find it works out to be something you enjoy more. If not I'm sure academia will still be there to go back to.

A lot of people tend to bring up the embarrassingly low pay of college professors as if this were a rhetorical slam dunk but generally people trying to be academics are well aware that it doesn't pay well and despite this poor payment there is still an amazing surplus of people who want to do academic work for the number of postings available (the low wages are therefore no mystery); I make more doing ____ isn't inherently compelling. I would make as much as a low-level draftsman as I can expect to make starting out at most colleges with a tenure track position.

I think if I wanted to chase money I would try to find something that would involve less time outdoors in the summer. I also don't think I would fit in well with the people who do that for a living, having done some blue collar work in the past I don't really want to live the Frasier-in-Cheers life of being reminded I'm a faggot for having a PhD and enjoying reading

In fact I went to academia in part to escape that. If I were the kind of person who was happy punching the clock for a decent wage I would still be doing that, but it bores me to death

It occurs to me however that the spirit in which this is written is less " do construction" than it is "there are other good things to do and what you might like may surprise you," which is a point well taken, but I do not think I have the luxury of too much experimentation at this point as I am in my mid-30s with much student loan debt and many dependents

I think my next thing kind of has to be my thing

famous last words

[beta-adjacent]

Note to self: just because it’s the smallest space in the room does not mean you should try to make a nest in it

[yunyin]

1. But can I add, if you pick a color, do you often pair it with another, and if so, which?

1. what is your favorite color to work with?

I answered the regular question with pink, and my favorite combo with pink is probably yellow. I think they look really nice together!

I feel like most of the time I don't tend to do art exploring color palettes though, cuz I'm usually drawing established characters who already have built in color schemes. (At least, the stuff I'm posting here is mostly that.)

I think in practice the color combo I use most are reds and purples, because purple tends to be in the shadows I use and I love red.

[tayloralison]

That little scoot: when the gynecologist says “just a little further down” I AM SO SORRY🫣

HJFHDJSKHFJKS

[separatist-apologist]

Not me begging @ultadverb to help me craft an appropriately normal message so I can slide into someone's DMs

[butchfalin]

the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again

[fox-bright]

I am never going to be able to leave Reddit.

[eosofspades]

i didn't have "i'm broken" teenage asexual angst i had "i'm literally being the only reasonable one about this concept and the rest of you are behaving like fucking freaks" perception issues

[jabberwick]

Human Bill Cipher

(Based on Alex Hirsch's "canon" design)

And just to be clear, writing dissertations at me justifying why he should instead be a conventionally attractive twink will involuntarily cause me to draw him with even fewer teeth.

[tossawary]

This is petty fandom salt, BUT... I've been chewing on this phenomenon that I've been calling "Fandom's Darling". It is related to things like "Author's Darling" and "Mary Sue / Gary Stu" and "Protagonist Halo" and all that jazz, where one character gains a peculiar narrative weight in a story.

"Author's Darling" is when a writer has a favorite character, and the world and all other characters sort of get... warped to put the Darling in the spotlight. It's most noticeable in TV shows with multiple writers, when a character you personally like suddenly has their previous characterization destroyed to make another character look good somehow. Every other character might become weirdly incompetent. The Darling's feelings are treated as The Most Important Feelings in any given situation. The logic of the fictional world seems broken past suspension of disbelief in order to validate this one character's beliefs or skillset or some other fantasy. And so on.

"Fandom's Darling" is what I've been calling the pattern where a fandom essentially crowns a New Protagonist for their fanfiction stories (it's often a side character rather than the original protagonist, but it can also happen to protagonists). This character becomes the self-insert for all sorts of indulgent fantasies, gaining special powers or backstories, and/or becoming the focus of extreme whump, and/or hooking up with all the various hotties, starring in all sorts of tropey AUs, and so on. They're not always an obvious Mary Sue version of themselves, but the character's original personality and interpersonal relationships tend to get warped or dropped completely, and other characters tend to become a little flat around them. I call it "Fandom's Darling" because it's not just one self-indulgent fantasy fic (you do you! Have fun!) with characterization choices that I don't vibe with (I have neither the time nor the desire nor the authority to police anything, I am just venting), but rather a prolific mini-fandom of sorts revolving around this empty doll / fanon version of the chosen vessel character, so it becomes a little unavoidable.

I am salty about this (mildly frustrated) (imagine a soft sigh of disappointment before I just go do something else) because you are FUCKED if you actually liked the canonical version of this character and their interpersonal relationships. It's almost worse than liking an obscure character that no one cares about. There's about a thousand fics starring your fave, but maybe only about a dozen of them are actually rooted in any kind of recognisable canon.

[egophiliac]

buckle up lads we're going BACK INTO THE BOOK