#i've always been the smart one

[bookwyrminspiration]

I've been "the smart friend" for so long that I never considered I could be more but recently I've been facing the fact that I think I might also be the "full of energy silly friend". not like a jokester but just endearingly earnest, energetic, and child-like in my joy that just has and exudes fun

[winteriron-trash]

rdj the (whitewashed) electric boogaloo

This is a reminder to everyone who's excited about RDJ's casting as Doctor Doom that this casting is whitewashing. Victor Von Doom is a Romani character and has been a Romani character since his introduction in the 1960s. (Fantastic Four Annual #2 [1964]) Not only that, but his Roma identity and the persecution he and his family faced due to it is integral to his character, it is what forms his identity. (Books of Doom by Ed Brubaker) Even if on the off chance this casting is meant to not be Victor but instead be some variant of Tony or whomever else becoming Doctor Doom, it is damaging to the character to rob him of that important cultural background. Doctor Doom does not exist without that history. Fans have been pushing hard to cast Doom as a Romani actor for years, especially since the MCU has whitewashed other Romani characters. (Wanda, Pietro, etc) This casting is not a celebration moment, it's fucking heartbreaking that the MCU repeatedly ignores the important and nuanced cultural backstories of characters.

I know I can't change anybody's mind on whether or not you want to be excited about RDJ's return to the MCU. But I do think at the very least you should be mad that the MCU is baiting us all and destroying nuanced and interesting characters for the sake of self-referential easter eggs and nostalgia bait. Because that's what it is. Feel how you'd like to feel about RDJ's return, but personally, this is soul-sucking. I had such a deep love for the MCU as a teenager, it was obviously something incredibly formative to me, especially Tony Stark. This isn't recreating what I fell in love with the MCU for. This is turning a well-planned and artistic storyline of adaptations into cheap cash grabs and fan service. Because, I think we're past the point of being able to call the MCU an adaptation of anything. They can use existing characters' names and powers, but to say they're being properly adapted is laughable.

This is not an adaptation of Doctor Doom. This is RDJ the Electric Boogaloo because Marvel's fear of losing the interest of dedicated MCU fans overrides their willingness to tell stories that are genuine to the characters. I don't know what there is to be excited about that. The MCU has lost its authenticity and aside from a few projects, feels heartless. Every movie is a copy of a copy. This announcement isn't something celebratory, it feels like a death knell of a cinematic universe that's so desperate to cling to relevancy it's resorting to nostalgia for a character/actor who hasn't even been dead for a decade. We're not getting anything new, we're just rinsing and repeating the same song and dance.

I get it. I love Tony Stark, his death destroyed me and I to this day, rue the ending he got in Endgame. It misunderstood his arc and it robbed him of a satisfying conclusion. But the solution to that isn't dragging the corpse out of the grave five years later to whitewash an existing character with rich and interesting nuance, just to forcibly tie his existence in the MCU to Tony. Whether he is a variant or not. Why would you want someone else's fave's legacy to be destroyed simply so your fave's legacy can go on? Hell, if we were really all so hellbent on the return of RDJ and/or Tony to the MCU, we have the multiverse for a reason. There were other ways to do it that didn't whitewash and ruin someone else. This just. Isn't something to be happy about.

[novantinuum]

self care is unfollowing people who spread negativity on ur dash!! like Damn! yeah i theoretically Agree with your crit but i really Don't wanna see it either bc i want to Celebrate content instead of hyperfixating on the stuff i didn't like about it! yeet!!!

[zipquips]

i am going to combust from the amount of times my parental figures assume i cannot do anything right

[ordinarytalk]

I FINALLY QUALIFY FOR PUBLIC SERVICE LOAN FORGIVENESS

My initial student loan was $54,935.92.

I paid over $30,887.83*

My loan is currently at $51,756.93.

I thought I had made all 120 qualifying payments last year. I had to submit and resubmit the PSLF application multiple times, because it kept getting sent back because of problems with how my employers signed the form. It turned out some of the payments didn't qualify, so I had to stick with helljob for at least another year.

I definitely had made 120 qualifying payments this year, so I sent the application in December 2023.

Just got notified now that I have made all qualifying payments. I've made three extra payments, even.

"After we receive the approval, it may take up to 90 business days to process this information."

Three more months of helljob, because I still don't trust this is going to go through and I don't want to quit until I know my loans are gone. I do not have anything lined up after helljob, and I'm terrified of losing my helljob health insurance because I got medical complications. But I hate helljob. I hate helljob so much and my first emotion waking every workday is despair.

At least the loan payments have been paused until the reimbursement is processed. Theoretically I should get reimbursed for the extra payments, too.

* This was only my qualifying payments. The total amount I paid was higher. The website isn't showing me the non-qualifying payments and I have to submit a formal request to get my full payment history. I submitted the request, but it will take a few days to be sent to me.

[astrxealis]

btw to filipino moots im gna be an arenean B) or iskolar ng bayan who knows!

[talentforlying]

@thicketville: meta: did john ever want to go to college? what would he have studied if he did? if not, did he ever want any sort of higher education, like a vocational degree or apprenticeship? — META TOPICS.

i think college was always a very distant concept for him growing up: more 'something that happens to posh people in the big cities' than a potential career path. john's father was a dock worker before losing his arm and most of their relatives did labor-intensive jobs in and around either the coal mines or the docks, so for anyone who actually thought john had a future — which was very few people, if anyone — it was sort of expected that he'd wind up in the same realm of work. they could never hope to afford college, so cheryl wouldn't have brought it up to him as a possibility, because john was a dreamer of a kid and would've gotten himself in trouble with their father if he insisted on pursuing it.

honestly, john's childhood was lived one day at a time, and nobody really thought he was going to survive past the teenage years (least of all john), so he really never considered a future for himself at all, other than "one day i'll get out of here". and even that felt like a pipe dream before he discovered magic. these days, i don't think he spends time considering what might have been anymore, because the past is the past and it eats him alive already without him helping it along, but in a perfect, perfect world, i think he would've loved college, and maybe gone into creative writing.

[dontmeanyoudontmissit]

So anyways my plan for the next two months is to kickass at work while I get another job and then leave their asses.

[running-in-the-dark]

a super fun thing that my brain is really good at is hearing a random fact and remembering it forever. but only if it's bad :)

[fragmentedblade]

Not to be a jingfu on main, but it's so cute that Jing Yuan thought of Fu Xuan with those jelly beans

[allyouzombies]

screaming myself hoarse til I pass out we were together during a very tumultuous time in our lives I will always have your back and be curious about you about your career your whereabouts!!!

[justsomeoneunordinary]

can't believe that until a year ago i used to hate genderbending that's so embarrassing lol glad i grew out of that and have learned to appreciate it properly

[depressedstressedlemonzest]

KICK HIS ASS BELLE!!!!!

KICK HIS ASS RUMPLE.

AND FUCKING RUDE MENTIONING THE LIMP.

Though I can see Hook using it as a nod to rumple being a coward because it was self inflicted (or so I've heard) but also hook has a handicap (ha) also so they're on even ground.

HELL YEAH CANE OF DOOM!!!

Belle looks exasperated at him using violence to beat hook's ass.

I wonder how many ass kickings she watched him do back in the castle.

I love her.

And I take it back about the cgi, it's still bad.

"Well you're not the first beast I've faced." No but rumple is your favorite.

And he's not the last.

Hook doesn't want to be labeled a coward or he'd have killed himself to be with milah by now. He's goading rumple on so much to make sure he kills him so he still won't have to resort to that.

(Not that suicide is being a coward, I think hook would think so.)

Belle is trying so so hard to make sure rumple stays good. Well, as good as he can be.

If this man slapped me I would say thank you. God all three of these people are so fucking gorgeous.

Let's be honest I didn't give a fuck about anything but the belle end of this episode. But yay! Archie is alive! And everyone now knows! And now they gotta figure out what to do with that headstone.

😭😭😭😭😭

SHE'S COMING BACK RUMPLE.

Fucking regina.

Wait when did belle get an outfit change between this bomb ass getup and the blue dress hook finds her in in the cell? Does regina just have a girl's day with her?

[non-un-topo]

This school year just wants to break me so badly and it's only October

[tbcanary]

category 100000 roy harper moment

[noxtivagus]

music boxes r cool