#classes for adults

[pangur-and-grim]

okay sorry, one other thing annoyed me about that writing class. one of the students is this super clean-cut doctor who works at an HIV clinic, and he asked the prof "do you ever get distracted while reading books, because you find yourself analyzing the craft of them instead of sinking into the story?"

and she said "no," and turned away. and the whole class laughed awkwardly, bc it was a pretty abrupt and dismissive answer. so then she turned back to him and said "you wouldn't ask a musician if they get distracted listening to songs. they just enjoy the music."

but I dunno, I'm a newbie writer with only one (scheduled-to-be-published) book under my belt, but I get distracted sometimes when I'm reading. if I find I'm not sinking into a block of text, I'll squint at it and be like "okay, they're using too much passive voice, that's why my brain isn't grabbing on to it." so I'm sorry Mr. HIV doctor, I thought your question was reasonable!

[a-scary-lack-of-common-sense]

Does anyone remember that ONE Captain Underpants book where George and Harold messed with fucking time travel and met their future selves who were married with kids and had successful careers as comic book creators or was that a fever dream?

I like to imagine that in the canon universe the new Dog Man movie was initially drafted and submitted by George and Harold as a concept, thinking it wouldn’t be accepted but wanting to give it a shot anyways.

⬇️ This was the wildest thing ever to my 11 year old brain btw. So wild that I didn’t even register that Harold is canonically gay.

[timethehobo]

Just a young, talented Watcher meeting a friendly little wisp.

[foldingfittedsheets]

When I was getting my associates degree I took a course on human sexuality. It was really fascinating and wonderful. One of our assignments was to write about the first time we ever masturbated which was very uncomfortable and silly at the same time.

Mine was extremely boring because there’s nothing exciting about a five year old realizing that climbing the fire pole feels really good.

I told a coworker at the time about the assignment and she laughed and told me about her daughter. They had these really old dining room chairs with carved legs. The chairs had smooth wood bulbs going up them that the kid loved to rub on.

Her mom didn’t want to dissuade her or make her ashamed but she also needed to establish that masturbation should always be private. So she talked to her daughter and explained that she could do that but must do it in her room alone.

The result of which was that everyone was aware the girl was going to masturbate when she dragged the chair into her room to be alone with it.

My friends was my favorite though, because his discovery was in stages. He liked it when his penis would get hard as a kid because it meant he could grab it and pretend to be flying a helicopter. His aha moment was when this happened once in the shower and the grabbing plus soap made him realize something else might be going on.

That was funny on its own, but nothing could match when in the most betrayed tone he said, “It was so much more fun then, before stuff came out at the end.”

[messymoonmad]

Persephone should give baby hades uppies

(That’s not what you asked but hehe)

[autrizzms]

when dandadan said the children are our future and we as adults should protect them with our lives if it comes down to it, and when dandadan compared the exploitation of the gig economy to assault in that it denies one of their personhood and autonomy, and when dandadan said we owe it to the most marginalized to see and remember them when society fails them, and when dandadan said violence begets violence and therefore it is brave and just to choose kindness even when it’s hard, and when dandadan said the pressure and expectations we place on children are unfair and have lasting impacts on them, and when dandadan said the world is a rotten place and it’s for that exact reason that you have to choose to help others and try to make it better, and when dandadan said it is possible to forgive those who have hurt you because people are complicated and deeply flawed, and only through doing so can you move forward, and when da—

[jovialoddity]

Comic based on something one of my professors actually said in my freshman year of college

[science-lings]

I feel like ppl focus on Bruce training the robins to kick ass from a young age when that’s definitely not all that was. He had to teach them field medicine and how to pick locks and sneak around silently and how to notice things, sure he taught them how to hit things with sticks of multiple sizes, but he also taught them how to grapple around and land from a fall.

They probably had intimidation lessons and interrogation lessons and sessions where they just meditated for hours straight. They’re taught how to calm down civilians and to train their voices to sound different in costume and so many things that would make them the most terrifying children to live with.

Bruce is actively training them to be good at bothering him because they like trying out their new espionage skills at Galas and trying to sneak around him while he’s asleep to prank him.

When we think of training to be Robin it’s easy to think of sparring and gymnastics equipment when it’s fun to remember the other parts of it. Some days Bruce would probably just give the kids a Hunt a Killer box and a time limit.

[kedreeva]

I don't know if they'll be good or not, BUT, Michigan State University is offering a free "course" online over Zoom, "Adulting 101," where they present about various adult-life topics; finances, banking, relationships, cover letter and resume writing, traveling, cooking, jam making (??), voting, that kind of stuff. Might be worth sitting in on and seeing what they have to say.

Here's a link if you're interested in checking it out, the next class session is on Feb 12th.

[disastertwins9000]

“i said are you boys ready for school?”

[bigfatbreak]

Birds of a Feather previous / next

[deerspherestudios]

oh my god i just played through the entirety of day 3 instead of doing my coding hw and scrolled through so much of your blog and let me say. bad ending literally made my heart Hurt. like i kid you not actual fucking pangs of my chest how amazing of a writer do you have to be to cause actual pangs in my chest oh my Goodnesss

not only that but the actual LIFTS my heart took at the goofing around scene???? jail for mychael???? jail for a thousand years???? you are such an incredible writer and i admire you so much oh my god

(also i'm not sure if you'll remember but i sent an ask like a million years ago when i first played the game saying that i'm in college for cs rn and seeing you in college creating this inspired me so much and gave me a ton of hope and i actually have started a game project since then :3 tysm for giving me so much inspiration in my own endeavors your work is so incredible hehehe)

Aaa I've been keeping this in my inbox for soso long bc I wanted to keep it safe since it felt personal to me but now a year and a half out of college, I figure it's time to post it <3!!

Thank you soso much for the kind words, I hope you got that coding hw done and college is going/went well for you too!

[point-two-two]

fuckin hell yoojin 😭

[someblueyearning]

I love Vincent x Thomas with my heart and soul because with all that forbidden love legit all they want is vanilla marital sex. They are not angsty, no hate, just romantic love.

They are the older couple in the house next door. You look out the window to the beautiful garden they have grown having been in the neighborhood for decades. You ask them how they met, and they gush talking how they found each other at a time they both felt lost and it felt like a second chance. They are both retired. They are active participants in the community. They go to church every Sunday. Their sons and daughters visit every other week, the yard filled with noise of their grandchildren playing. They are that soft quiet love that make people wish they grow old together for.

But he is the Pope and he is the Dean.

[randomness-is-my-order]

can’t stop thinking about how sieun starts the season with this monologue: “what i have to do... i have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff. i mean if they’re running and don’t look where they’re going, i have to come out from somewhere and catch them” and it beautifully summarises what sieun ends up doing during the entire season. we get an impression at the start that sieun’s wading through the living world in a numb stupor but the moment the cracks show up, the moment someone is about to go over the line, sieun steps up and stops the violence before it can cross the point of no return. last season, we saw sieun exact his revenge but this season, sieun is avoidant of conflict and deadset on forgiving people if it can prevent further escalation (note that this isn’t even a new trait, sieun forgives beomseok, yeongbin and yeongi when they initially wrong him in season one).

he doesn’t actively fight hyoman because his objective was not to defeat the guy but to stop him from irreversibly damaging juntae. he advises baku about the unbreakable cycle of violence and how they HAD to end it. he refuses to back out of their search for baku because come hell or highwater, he wasn’t going to let a friend of his fall off that cliff edge and we know baku was hovering a little too close for comfort after joining the union. it was sieun who approached and mended things with hyoman and seongje despite both of them having wronged him and his friends because again, sieun isn’t trying to seek revenge at all. not even in their fight with baekjin. his goal was sketched out to us, plain and clear: sieun is trying to catch all these students wrapped up in the casual and cruel violence of the union and give them as safe a landing as possible.

(even the purposeful shot of sieun stopping gotak and walking into the final fight himself shows this; gotak’s knees would probably not have survived the intense fight).

i think what’s really important about sieun’s arc this season is that it is not just his guilt over suho that haunts him but he also blames himself for beomseok going over the cliff edge and him not being able to help him. he forgives himself twice this season. first is obvious: juntae’s words rid him of his guilt over suho and it’s the decisive moment that we know he will now not consider himself at fault for suho being comatose. the second instance of sieun forgiving himself, imo, is during his imaginary talk with beomseok while he himself in a coma. the boxing ring earlier held memories of both suho and beomseok and now only beomseok remains there, holding him down. but now, sieun is finally able to unburden himself of beomseok’s presence and his guilt over him. i think it’s very telling that his dream version of beomseok asks him whether his new friends are more important to sieun than him because that is exactly what beomseok himself would have dwelled over, given his insecurities. it just reiterates how well sieun understood beomseok but at the end of day, sieun realises that he needs to reconcile his past with his present and overcome the guilt so he can act on the philosophies he wants to follow. sieun forgives himself once more and accepts that beomseok is now out of his life and he has other friends he needs to worry about, friends he holds dear.

sieun’s been through this once. he knows what the consequences of repetitive grudges and violence are. the “happy” ending we got for season two wasn’t a fluke but a culmination of every small and big effort sieun took to safeguard this very ending. he really did catch so many from falling off the cliff.

[stormy-nights-are-best]

DAY 27

OK PRETEND I WAS ABLE TO KEEP UP WITH THE CHALLENGE SINCE DAY 18

Just a dad comforting his daughter