#with zero work experience- he should NOT be working in the placement he fucking is without the training I've got.

[tea-drops]

life is fucking agony why the hell am I still in this god forsaken house.

#-william (he/him) #-sam (she/he) #i am trying SO hard to get a full time job to escape this place. #that and PIP for my diagnosed disabilities. #but fuck me its so difficult to do anything #especially as we're become more of a recluse #and yeah i know like- some of us need to try and stop that #but its so hard when all jobs require a fucking lick of experience beforehand #my friend's fucking LUCKY her grandparent got her a job at the bakery she works at #with zero work experience- he should NOT be working in the placement he fucking is without the training I've got. #Maybe its different in canada though. maybe they just let anyone do crap over there #fuck if i know crap though. #anyway im fucking suffering. breakfast in half an hourish will be my only saving grace. #something we both like. Theo too (<- the fucker that chose our meal) #I know that I (sam) would of not even hadd this garbage. egg on toast my beloved <3333 #and that Will. Idk his trash taste in food. he's telling me to write grilled cheese though #(<- never fucking eaten that shit) #apparently we have actually #huh #neway tags are getting long will get cut off.

[jypbae7]

Me me meeee <3 I'll request a full analysis about NCT's Johnny! 😚😚 Include errrrthing baby hahaha 18+ stuff, him as a romantic partner aka bf <3 whatever you want! I'm so excited to read this akndfkgkfn 😎😎😎❤️❤️

Johnny Suh - Natal chart

Finally finished it!! Johnny was actually the most requested member I received in my inbox! Sorry that it’s nearly the length of a novel lmao but I sectioned it to make it easier to read and navigate 💕

(Not claiming to be an expert this is just for fun please don’t take anything too seriously!) Hope this is helpful and that you enjoy it 🥰❤️

Personality: Aquarius Sun, Gemini Moon, Aqua Mercury, Virgo rising, Leo Mars

While Aqua is a fixed sign it is definitely the most adaptable of the 3 fixed signs due to the Air element of Aquarius plus the ever spontaneous Gemini moon. Most things that make the rest of us feel anxious tend not to seem that scary to fearless Gemini or cool as a cucumber Aquarius.

Natural social butterflies who love their tribe deeply and fiercely once they find them. Busy bodies who are easily bored if left unstimulated too long which will turn into crankiness if not rectified quickly. Thankfully Aqua & Gem have a zest for life that makes them quite easy to please. They are open minded and will gladly stay up till 3am talking about aliens and conspiracy theories, just like they are thrilled to go on last minute random trips just because why not (Gemini impulsivity at it’s finest lmao)

Gemini is a mutable sign unlike fixed Aquarius. This is a pretty big difference and something that goes under the radar with Aquas due to that cool as a cucumber attitude. Because they are adaptable and typically very easy going they don’t often show their stubborn aggressive sides and honestly prefer not to have to unless they are feeling extremely disrespected or pushed beyond their boundary which is a BIG let me say that again, BIG no no with Aquarius (almost as big as it is for for the water signs)

Adding to these deep inner thoughts and vast inner world that Aquarians have, his Virgo rising adds more depth and self awareness. As perfectionists and highly intellectual minds they are a lot more self critical than they let on, just like they are a lot more caring and soft than they let on. They deeply care about others and the world in general seeing the big picture in a very earthy and traditional way - good people should strive to put good out and try their very best at whatever they do. They deeply dislike mean, malicious, manipulative, or spiteful behavior or people and generally keep guarded around people they don’t know well until they feel certain of the person’s true intention. There’s nothing Virgo is more cautious of than to be swindled or hurt by someone they take it reallyy hard and they know it.

Now we alllll know his swag and confidence is legendary and we can all thank the Leo Mars placement for that and the beautiful lush shiny hair and big toothy smile (Looking at Mark, Jaemin and Xiaojun like 👁👄👁) But beyond the aesthetics and dripping confidence and charisma, Leo is another creative sign that tends to be a lot more intellectual and intuitive than people give them credit for.

When the other members call Johnny one of the scariest members you can bet it’s his aggressive fiery fixed Leo Mars which is loud and even violent when provoked enough not to mention the fixed Aquarius tornado energy...Oooof that is a lot of Fixed sign rage right there honey so let’s tread lightly with Johnny boy and appeal to his open minded and friendly nature with a gentle tone and non-pointed words during discussions and all shall be good even if there’s some disagreeing!

Honestly if the argument starts getting bad you can always distract the Gemini moon by just bringing up other interesting topics! Geminis minds move FAST and while they can process a lot of information quickly and precisely they tend to get distracted easily (but here’s the good side of that😉)

Aquarius have a deep love of family and the desire to create their own (Geminis often share this trait) they can feel a bit like outsiders or “other” from people and thus crave to build a tribe of their own - this can be friends that are lifelong deep relationship carried on no different than family or starting their own family with a partner and kids

Relationships:

Non-Romantic Relationships & overall communication style: Aquarius Sun, Gemini Moon, Aqua Mercury, Leo Mars, Virgo Rising

Built off laughter, time spent together whether its at home hanging out casually or going out for meals and fun new things to try together

Wants to bounce lots of ideas off of his closest friends and secretly loves doing creative stuff together the most - this is pretty evident if you watch JCC he’s happiest when he’s doing stuff with his bros whether it’s sporty, musical, or crafts

Does not like to be vulnerable even with those he’s close to, tends to stick to neutral and more light hearted topics of interest and conversation because he prefers to spread a good mood instead of a heavy one

If he really trusts you or has worked through it enough already to want to talk about something serious you’d better listen cause the boy drops gems of wisdom and has a really soft mushy heart

Immediately adopts his close friends as family and no matter the time apart or distance will always treat them the same

Likes friends he can learn from and take on new adventures with they satisfy the intellectual Virgo rising and Aqua & leo sign thrill needs - Gemini is all about BOTH of these

Deeply appreciates loyalty, acts of service, and quality time with his friends and family - makes his heart soooo happy BUT

He would rather fucking DIE than let you or anyone see him cry so he cries like 4 times a year at 3am in the bathroom while everyone’s asleep (HIGHKEY feel like Ten & Jaehyun are exactly like this too)

Romantic relationships and preferences: Capricorn Venus, Leo Mars, Capricorn Juno, Capricorn Eros

Mr. Johnny Suh has THREE Capricorn placements tied to love and intimacy so that’s saying something lmao

Going against Aquarius’ open mindedness and anti-traditional persona Capricorn prefers all things traditional and stable.

Very much does acts of service for his partner as a sign of affection also lots of touching and quality time.

A veryyyyyy spontaneous boyfriend/partner thanks to that Gemini moon - he either wants to stay at home in pjs and order food and have movie marathons or whisk you away on zero notice to a trip lol

Earth sign men are drawn to women who embody very flowery feminine energy and aesthetics. They prefer a “natural beauty” who can spice it up sometimes rather than a super flashy 24/7 partner. (He’s said in the past that his ideal type is Yoona which says it all lol)

Will be highly drawn and intrigued by someone with a high work ethic and high intellect. BIG bonus points if you can keep up with his sarcasm and jokes.

Earth signs are pretty physical and handsy so expect to have little personal space around him, make no mistake they enjoy this very much. He will definitely be grabbing you and picking you up often! He’ll be smirking down at you devilishly watching you get flustered backed into a corner trapped by the sheer size of his muscular body. A Capricorn male’s ego really enjoys this dynamic, trust me lol.

Also another quirky male Capricorn trait that actually applies to Aqua & Gem as well… They like to initiate all the touchy feely stuff - What I mean by that is they can get easily spooked by clinginess too early on. These three signs want romance and definitely want to feel that you’re into them but they also are innately independent and enjoy relationships where their partner can also go off into the world and thrive in their own way and meet back together in the middle. So long as you can find a happy balance, when you are together you won’t have to initiate anyways honestly because he’ll be the one pulling you.

Okay let's talk about Juno & Eros - Juno in Capricorn is about serious, loyal, long term commitment though they tend to marry later in life once they’ve already achieved the things they want to for themselves which I can see being the case for Johnny as well especially with his current career.

18+ Preferences:

Eros in Cap where to begin - high libido, stimulated by visuals and touch. Wear interesting colors, patterns, textures to catch his eyes & his hands - lacy lingerie is a plus the texture will really excite him and the feminine look will please his earthy traditional cap side. If you really wanna have him drooling throw in some spicy contrasts like a leather choker with the lace set and you’ll also set off his Aqua, Gem, and Leo placements as well ;)

Tends to bounce back and forth between fucking you like you’re a cheap groupie whore and taking his time staring you in the eyes and kissing you passionately as he’s stomach deep - no inbetween but really who’s complaining??

DOM KINK - NOT UP FOR DEBATE he has THREE Capricorn placements for fucksake meaning 3 cardinal signs which are literally called “the INITIATORS” plus all his other fixed personality placements

More of the classy rich ceo vibes kind of dom (suits, expensive cologne and jewelry, leather, black and red binds) - takes you to bougie hotels when he really wants to ramp it up and not have to care who hears. You can expect not to sleep those nights but he’ll damn sure pamper you afterwards with cuddles, food, and a spa date.

Now...with all his Air sign placements...I have to say it...he’s a kinky ass dude. Few things are off the table, but he’s also super content with “normal” stuff too. It’s more about the person and experience for him than doing the wildest things possible. So if it feels natural and right then he’s down.

Don’t be surprised if he wants to tie you up like a pretzel or role play because he’s definitelyyy going to ask. Well actually he’d probably just buy whatever outfit or binds he wanted to use and casually be like “look what I got for us baby” as if it’s matching charm bracelets or something. The good news is he’ll dress up and get into it with you and he’s super receptive to your boundaries, fantasies and making it enjoyable as possible for you too.

If you flip the script on him and suddenly break the norm either by taking the initiate/lead first or trying something new he will absolutely combust 🤯 and be in the palm of your hand staring in absolute awe and fascination till he can’t take it anymore and reclaims his spot as the one in control

Nudes, videos, and phone sex when apart are a definite and they really keep the passion burning for him which is honestly VERY important and don’t worry he’s NOT shy and you will be grateful for the beautiful collection of photos and videos 🤤

Boredom for Aquas, Gems, and Caps can quickly lead into self-sabotaging behaviors and/or wandering eyes not because they don’t value loyalty but that they really need and benefit from mental stimulation and feeling wanted so when that’s gone they can pull away

Honestly pretty much any type of lingerie or outfit will turn him on because the most arousing part for him is knowing that you spent time doing such a naughty thing for his sake

Breeding kink - 3 earth placements and has said himself in interviews he would’ve started having kids at 25 if he wasn’t an idol soooooo that’s a definite. He imagines you pregnant with his baby and it makes him super soft and warm which quickly turns to super turned on. He loves the primal marking aspect of claiming you in such a way and also watching you unravel to the point of begging him to do it. Even if it’s just “play” he loves it and will probably think about it a lot more than you know. If you ever do it for real he will be utterly and completely obsessed with you forever and be practically more excited about all the stages of your pregnancy than you are

#nct #nct 127 #johnny suh #nct Johnny #nct 127 imagines #nct 127 scenarios #nct astrology #nct 127 fluff #nct 127 smut #Johnny suh fluff #Johnny suh smut

[randomestfandoms-ocs]

Drop the Evie essay you wrote

okay so first of all it wasn’t really an essay the way some of my ramblings are, more like just me writing down all of my thoughts in a vaguely coherent manner bc my brain was running too fast to really organize it 

and second of all, just to be on the safe side, these are the potential trigger warnings that I would give for the essay — I don’t know if they all actually come up or not, but better safe than sorry, so proceed with caution!

Potential TWs: being outed, parental neglect, character death (canon), suicide attempts (semi-canon), eating disorders, lots of mental health issues, and lots of general trauma and feelings of never being good enough, and canon typical references to drinking/drugs/partying/etc

so just like a fun fact, Evie’s vitamin water of choice is zero sugar strawberry lemonade and yes i spent too long reading reviews on different flavours all because gossip girl did an entire product placement episode

anyways now onto real thoughts let’s go lesbians let’s go

so okay evie has a... very negative experience with Lily’s various boyfriends and husbands.  When Evie was younger she was always hopeful that this time would be different, that they’d be a family, that her mom would actually stick around, and every single time she’s been let down and left heartbroken.  When her mom starts dating Bart, Evie is very against it but she just can’t be bothered to even try to talk to Lily — Lily will date him, maybe get married, play house, abandon her children, then get divorced, and the cycle will repeat, and Lily will never give a shit about how her children feel about it.  Bart is just the latest rich man for Lily to set her sights on.  Given the overall shittiness of most of Lily’s exes, Evie had figured she would be a lot more vocally against Lily dating again, but Bart... 

Bart himself may terrify Evie, but Evie’s unwavering faith that Chuck will always protect her outweighs that fear, and Evie has long since given up on her mom caring about her opinions so she just takes comfort in the fact that Chuck will be there and tries to just ignore the rest — and the fact that Bart is pretty much always away does help with that.  That being said, she was very distraught when Bart spends season 1 christmas with them, but then Bart’s “present” for her was flying Chuck home for a few days because Lily mentioned that Eric was teasing Evie about being excited about having Chuck as a brother, and he's trying to semi-win over the kids (aka bribe them into accepting him as Lily’s fiancé)

Evie speaks several languages!  She started learning French and Spanish at a very young age, and then picked more up from Lily’s various husbands.  She’s not fluent in all of them but she can hold conversations in eight languages — and four of them were from Lily’s boyfriends (and italian was half pieced together from French and Spanish), and she just keeps learning more because she tries to keep herself too busy to think at any given moment

Rufus is her favourite step-dad by far, but Chuck is her favourite step-sibling (and second favourite sibling, after Eric).  That being said, Bart was surprisingly decent to her because even he quickly figured out that Evie has the innate ability to get Chuck to do basically anything, and he wanted her on his side, only he underestimated how much Evie hates him for treating Chuck like shit — as she says in 2x07, “if you want us to be a family, you should learn how to be a dad”

Evie has a bit of a thing for stealing coats lmao — it’s not unusual to find her stealing Chuck, Eric, Theo, or even Nate’s jackets when she gets cold or starts feeling particularly self conscious.  At the housewarming party she actually gets to bothered by all the media watching her constantly that Chuck goes and gets her one of his blazers to replace the cropped one she was wearing, and she immediately feels a bit more at east

Evie is a jock like it’s understated but she’s on multiple sports teams at school and plays outside of school too — she’s also in dance classes several times a week, along with private vocal lessons, and being part of every theatre production at Constance Billard (musicals and plays), and is on the yearbook committee.  Basically, Evie needs a fucking nap, and with a lot of pushing from Chuck and Eric and Theo (to balance out Blair “do absolutely everything in the name of Yale” Waldorf) she does eventually ease up on her extra-curriculars

She holds far too much power in the Constance-St Jude hierarchy.  She’s a freshman, but it’s well known that Evie is completely untouchable.  Some people (cough Jenny) might try to cross Blair, but no one is stupid enough to go after Evie — she’s not just Blair’s protégée, she’s also under Chuck’s protection.  And when Jenny does try to cross her in season 3 (physical and emotional bullshit, public humiliation, telling the entire school she’d tried to kill herself and had been at Ostroff not “in florida”), well... she learns that even being family won’t stop her entire life from being destroyed

Speaking of Jenny... that’s a very messy relationship — I want to like Jenny, I really do, but I just... don’t so far.  They’re a very sweet relationship early on, neither of them had dated before and they were just really smitten with each other and things were good.  There were definitely some issues because of the Jenny-Blair war, but they’d been okay — or so Evie had thought, until Jenny dumped her by means of introducing everyone to her new boyfriend, Asher.  Then of course there’s the party and Jenny outing her, and then just not talking to her for months until she needs something from them (an in to the White Party).  Eric manages to convince Evie to play nice, but he does so under the impression that Jenny had apologized to Evie — he didn’t know she’d only apologized to him.  Eventually Jenny does apologize and Evie tries to forgive her, and she keeps giving Jenny more and more second chances (especially once they become step sisters), but Jenny really just keeps hurting Evie to get on top because with Blair gone, Evie immediately becomes the new queen, and Jenny cares more about being queen than being nice.  Little does she realize that part of why Evie became queen with no challenge is because she’s nice.

and regarding Evie’s other relationships... so serena was a really good big sister when Eric & Evie were kids — Blair was the responsible sister and Serena was the fun sister, but it was a good balance and it worked.  But when the twins were around eleven and Serena was around 13, she became besties with Georgina Sparks, and everything went to shit.  Serena started getting into partying and drinking and drugs and became just as flighty and unreliable as Lily, which takes a significant toll on the twins’ mental health — side note, one of their therapists at the Ostroff Centre believes that their significant codependency stems from the abandonment issues they have as a result of Lily and Serena just up and leaving them whenever anything “better” comes along.

And unfortunately for the twins, this was around the same time (grade 6) that Theo got sent to boarding school, so really they lost both their sister and their best friend at the same time, and Theo leaving also messed up the overall group dynamics and they half lost Nate too — he was still in their lives but he went from being the dad to Blair’s mom to being more of a big brother, and there was this sort of hole that didn’t get filled until a couple of years later.

And of course, a lot of it then fell to Blair to try to fill that hole and the holes left by Serena and Lily and went from being sort of “mom friend big sister” to “literally the closest thing we have to a mom”, which is also just a lot of pressure for a thirteen year old girl and part of why Blair and Chuck got a lot closer after he ended up becoming their dad was because she finally had someone that she could talk to too.

Also like full disclosure, Chuck never really intended to become their dad.  He started off as a reluctant big brother because he was Nate’s best friend and Nate was the dad friend when they were younger, and Evie just kind of decided that she loved him and like no one can argue with Evie so all of a sudden he was part of the family.  He doesn’t really become dad until the van der Woodsens move into the hotel because suddenly Eric and Evie are just always there, and he doesn’t even realize it until months later, after Serena is gone and he realizes that he’s been skipping parties to like play mario kart and shit with the twins and Blair is just like “lmao yeah buddy you’re the last one to get this memo”

and then there’s this list that I made of the NJBC’s roles in raising the twins and theo back when they were younger

Blair: holds their hands to cross the street, teaches them not to talk to people who wear sneakers or to strangers, teaches them how to dress themselves like respectable people, makes them finish their homework before watching tv, hates all of their nannies and only trusts dorota to take care of them Nate: teaches them to tie their laces and their ties, plays video games and sports with them, helps them with homework and doesn't get impatient when they struggle, lets them use his notebooks to draw in when they're bored Chuck: will destroy anyone who hurts them, teaches them street smarts and how to tell when someone is lying, is the one who lets them do dumb and reckless things because he'd rather they do them when he's there to get in trouble, still refuses to believe that they know what sex is Serena: reminded them that it's okay to have fun and draw outside the lines, stood up for them when lily was being a shit mom and always tried to protect them from the worst of her neglect, came up with games to play when they were sad to take their minds off whatever is upsetting them

And Theo!!!!!!  Theo has been their best friend for their entire lives!  They’ve known him since they were babies and the three of them have always been inseparable!  Like highkey they were just a more functional NJBC lmao, and we love them for it!  Theo getting sent to boarding school was really hard on all three of them but they stayed in constant contact and whenever Theo is back in the city, it’s almost impossible to see them not together.  Theo does know that they were in the Centre, so once he’s back full time, he’s spending as much time visiting them as he can!  Even when Eric and Theo are dating (and later when Evie and Theo are dating), the group dynamics really never change!  It’s still always the three of them, and sometimes Jenny in s1, they’re still each other’s family, and they’re still just a bit too interdependent to be entirely healthy (it’s the trauma and neglectful parents)

on a slightly related note, neither of the twins drink anything other than champagne and sometimes wine, and neither of them touch drugs at all, and it’s entirely because of Serena.  They’ve both seen how much she’s changed since she got into that scene, and especially since ‘liking partying’ turned into ‘alcohol addiction’, and they’re both too afraid of ending up like that to even take the risk.  It’s something that definitely sets them apart from pretty much any of their peers, but they’ve gotten very good at just laughing it off with a “hey, I just don’t want to end up on Gossip Girl tomorrow” which people generally accept

(that being said, Evie did smoke for a while pre-canon bc cigarettes curb hunger, but she hasn’t smoked at all since ending up in the Centre, and once she’s out too many people have an eye on her for her to even try, and she does want to stop)

(TW ATTEMPTED SUICIDE, fairly detailed discussion) so okay the breaking point for the twins... lily had just gone awol again and Blair was away visiting her dad and evie was at the archibalds’ house hanging out with theo, who was home for a weekend, and eric didn’t want to call anyone because lily’s disappearance had left him in a spiral of feeling annoying and like people didn’t really want him in their lives and there wasn’t a specific trigger but instead of the spiral slowing down or evie/chuck/blair being able to pull him out of it, it just kept getting worse until he was slitting his wrist in the bathroom — only Evie had just gotten home and when he didn’t reply to her calling his name, she got freaked out and started looking for him and when she saw him, she just... couldn’t deal.  She called 911 for eric but then she was just in the bathroom and covered in his blood and she didn’t know what to do and she needed to calm down so she grabbed a bottle of valium that she thinks was Lily’s but instead of just taking one pill she ended up taking all of them and downing them with a bottle of vodka serena had hidden — once she realized what she’d done she called Chuck and basically just said “I think I fucked up” and Chuck freaks out (understandably) and rushes to their suite and gets there basically just in time to see both of them being loaded into an ambulance; he claims he’s their brother and rides with them to the hospital where he calls blair, and arranges for his jet to pick her up asap, and then tries (unsuccessfully) to get in touch with lily

#lizziesxltzmxn #ask #answered #evie van der woodsen #about evie #freshman generation

[slothcritic]

Dragon Ball Z Abridged - Episode 5 Review

Weird yet creative cutaways with strong overarching momentum.

Vegeta: Kills Bugs Dead opens with Goku finally reaching the end of Snake Way and the end of his journey to reach King Kai. The "nice job, jackass" as Goku literally craters into the planet sets the tone for this character in a big way. We're also treated to the incredible hijinks of Vegeta and Nappa.

[Title Sequence]

The pit-stop at Arlia at least receives a well-fitted and rather hilarious incarnation in this series. Even though the episode alternates its focus between King Kai and Arlia, I'm going to talk at length about Arlia first, and then move onto the King Kai segments.

I'm already going into this scene with some personal bias, as the "stronger guy playing along with the weaker guy because it'd be funny" trope is one of my favorites. And here we have exactly this. Vegeta and Nappa allow themselves to be captured and thrown in jail by the Arlians, where they meet an assortment of varied bug characters.

"Don't drop the soap" seems a little outdated for the modern style of TFS, as I feel they've leaned away from really older, cruder, less PC subject matters like calling someone retarded or insinuating prison rape, etc, but it fits Nappa's character completely as someone who is childish, crass, annoying for the sake of being annoying, and kind of a jerk. TFS has at least acknowledged the idea of possibly re-dubbing Season 1 with better equipment and perhaps a more refined script, and I dearly hope they keep this line unedited simply for the sake of nailing Nappa’s character identity.

After very nearly becoming a prison bitch, Vegeta decides he's had enough and promptly kabooms his way out of prison, landing smack-dab in the middle of a coliseum with the king of Arlia and his queen.

Nappa's blunt manner of introducing himself with simply "Hi." will never age.

It’s noteworthy that scene is also the first moment we get a good look at Vegeta as a character. Nappa was firmly established as the goofball from the start, but Vegeta's portrayal has more depth to it than could be conveyed in one-liners. Most of which is just sass, smug pride, and anger, but still.

It's also made clear very quickly that despite their bantering idiocy and gruff talk that they're not just for show, as Nappa no-diff's the thirteen elite Arlian guards with a massive shock wave that we later see level a city.

The king and queen are then more or less blackmailed into fucking. Nappa's eager fascination during this whole scene, the descriptions, visual edits and sound design are... Well, there's no other way to put it, it's fucked up. And it is hilarious! These are some very creative takes and decisions that were made entirely for internal experience of the show itself rather than as a parody of something else. Nappa even takes a photograph of it and sends it to Vegeta, since he's abstained from watching.

The comedic jabs don't stop there either, as Nappa tries to adopt the Arlian Rancor, but just like the kid who can't sit still, Nappa ends up breaking everything he plays with. Just as Vegeta is about to kill the king, rocks begin flying around the coliseum.

"What are you doing?"

Vegeta smirks. "I'm about to rock you, like a hurricane." And then boom, he hurls a rock into the king and kills him. Let's put a pin in that brick joke for later.

The long flashback scene doesn't play any music, which feels like a weird editing misstep after a series of home runs. They leave the planet as heroes, and Nappa sets Vegeta up for another predictable bit of mood whiplash, where Vegeta obliterates the entire planet. This is a huge escalation in power scale compared to everything else we have seen thus far. But then, this is Dragon Ball Z. We've already reached “destroying planets” at only the fifth episode, and everyone knows that it only goes well past 11 on the dial from here on out.

Granted, there is controversy in the official version about whether or not this would’ve been possible for Saiyan Saga Vegeta, considering Arlia is not canon, but I will not be considering that simply because DBZA contains no filler. Everything shown in the flagship series (not counting movies, DBZA Kai, or other shorts) is presented as being canon to DBZA. Also, Vegeta and Nappa are shown standing outside of their pods... in the vacuum of space. Series veterans will understand the massive can of worms this opens. I'm looking at you, Battle of Gods.

Once everyone, including the people that they JUST SAVED from a tyrannical king, have been reduced to space dust, Nappa closes off this scene nicely.

Now that we've discussed Arlia, let's focus on King Kai's role in the episode.

He explains to Goku that the planet has high gravity due to it's small size. Gregory from off-screen pipes up that this doesn't make any sense. I suppose "higher planet density" wasn't considered when writing the script - or perhaps it was, and they just decided that the easy answer wasn't the funniest one. Maybe “there’s an incredibly powerful pirate trapped in the core of the planet, which is why the gravity is so strong" was deemed better for a parody.

Honestly, I agree. Bojack works as an in-the-know reference, and is also fleshed out enough within the show that a newcomer would understand what's being discussed.

At the time of this review, the Bojack Abridged movie has not yet been released, but this is easily one of the longest brick jokes in all of DBZA, since Episode 5 was released in 2008 and it is my expectation that Bojack Abridged will be released within the year, leaving in its wake an 11 year old callback.

When King Kai asks Goku why he had been sought out, Goku explains that the Saiyans are coming to Earth and he requires training. Excellent fade-in and musical choice for Goku's uncharacteristically serious speech to King Kai.

Of course, it gets cut off at the peak swell with King Kai's indifferent "sure", leaving Goku gobsmacked.

In this series, King Kai's indifference and easy acceptance of Goku is attributed to the mind-numbing loneliness of only having a monkey and a grasshopper (cricket, sorry) to talk to for the last 500 years. Goku agrees, as he couldn't imagine anything more boring.

Major flash-forward to Namek. Just this scene being here at all is a major instance of a sequence break. But it is the introduction of another exceptionally interesting character in the series.

In terms of placement, this works as a long-term cutaway gag and reminiscent humor but not much else. We're still about half a season away from even considering Namek within the story, and the Saiyans haven't even arrived on Earth yet. The decision to slide this segment into the middle of this episode leaves some serious questions in my mind. But at face value, it's not that bad.

We're treated to a solid ten seconds of just staring at a massive fat green alien while birds chirp in the background. We hear a fish go "plonk!" in the water, and Lord Guru calls for someone named Nail, who looks a lot like Piccolo, to approach him.

"I saw a fish. That was all, you can go back outside now." 

Definitely reinforces the point of boring. And while Nail is lamenting how boring his job is, Lord Guru tells him that he saw a bird and then promptly instructs him to "kick its ass."

But we’re not Nail, are we? We’re the viewer, and for some reason in the human mind, segments of extremely boring content usually pique our interest even more, because we have it drilled into our psyche that something is going to happen to break the tension sooner or later. That notion, the idea of slowly leaning closer to the monitor during the ten long seconds of a single still image, both conveys the boring tone of Namek, but also leaves the reader waiting in anticipation long enough for these dull scenes to just fade from their perspective and only latch onto the climatic moment. In this case, Guru commanding his apparent servant/bodyguard to assault a fish.

Not to overstate the obvious, but if it’s not the viewer’s own sense of tension and curiosity, it’s the pure absurdism and characterization of Guru that carries this scene. Disregarding source material, the design of Guru is meant to make him look old, wise and compassionate. Making him a lazy, annoying, verbally violent fatass is a near-infinite cash cow of writing material. It’s very difficult for me to judge this scene unbiased, knowing what comes next, but I imagine this would be a tryhard non-sequitur at worst, or promising potential for the future at best, with regards to this scene on its own, within the context of this episode and nothing more.

This episode also saw the genesis of perhaps not the first, but one of the most popular jokes in all of DBZA: Piccolo just jobbing the shit out of Gohan. DODGE! The scenes chosen and the delivery are outstanding compliments to this cheesy, simplistic joke. At this point I feel it's important to address that my editorial reflections or descriptions of these skits are relative to the context of these episodes. Even with the best of what this episode has to offer, we're still in peak 2008 internet humor era. The use of the word "outstanding" here will not carry a similar significance should I use it to describe a later episode.

Also the most random cutaway in all of DBZA, full-stop, is the brief look into the Hall of Justice, as Superman, Batman and Aquaman debate how they will stop the approaching Saiyans. This is humorous only in its absurdity, but less-endearingly than Guru was. Even if this scene makes zero sense, and relies upon an almost lower form of comedy than slapstick, Aquaman's voice is still just Krillin's voice. At least Superman and Batman sound different than the main cast. I'm really tempted to dislike this more, but the lackadaisical attitude and context of the whole scene definitely draws your eye more than a lot of the sensible but base-line plot progression of the story. I don't know if it belongs. To me, this scene just screams out that TFS is flinging spaghetti wildly at the wall, any and everything that might be funny, and while some of it sticks for one reason or another, (Jadoshin as Solid Snake, Antics on Arlia, even Guru's abrupt cameo) some of it flops. If anything, this show builds upon the corpses of its failures, and learns what works and what doesn't work surprisingly quickly.

Conclusion

Bizarre, but I liked it. Nothing in this episode that's bad is memorable. I might criticize the Namek cutaway for being out of place, but after letting this review sit for a few days, I just remember Goku saying "Man, nothing could be more boring than that!" and the immediate cut to Namek, and Nail pleading for the love of his sanity for something to happen. I might criticize the Justice League cutaway for being wildly out of the place, but I just remember "WHAAAAAALES!"

The meat of the episode was also decent, as it establishes Goku training under King Kai, and Piccolo's continued training of Gohan, the origin of DODGE! and the realization that Gohan can transform into an Ozaru. And you can nod your head and say that these may be necessary to the story all day, but they're also presented with... let's call it a clumsy grace. It's not bad, but it's miles away from official dub quality. This is in essence what the benchmark or gold standard was for early abridging back in 2008. The quality that TFS will continue to evolve the series into simply defies all logic or explanation, and in comparison makes these episodes look downright crude. 

But let's face it, if Episode 1 began with a person lying on the ground and shot in both kneecaps, Episode 5 shows that same person at least hobbling down the street to the hospital. 

It might not look pretty on the whole, and some of the dialogue might be clunky, but it seems like a lot of the flaws in this episode are simply caused by being products of their time.

Whether we're looking at Namek or The Hall of Justice, even the most outlandish oddities of this episode have still made me laugh. That's really the end of it.

Score: 75

Passing Thoughts

"I hope something exciting happens around here soon. I don't care what it is." - Ominous!

"You're surrounded by my thirteen elite *KABOOM* ...dead guards."

"SUMMON THE RANCOR!"

#slothcritic #DBZ #Dragon Ball Z Abridged #TFS #teamfourstar

[conceptofzero]

diopucci week - gravity

The sky is so black out here. While the others monitor the flight and talk to Houston, Pucci simply looks out at the stars around them. There are millions of them, billions of them, shining bright without the atmosphere to drown their light. These little memorials to long-dead suns go on shining, bright and beautiful, unconcerned with the knowledge that the places that gave birth to them are dead. 

They call to him. They always have. 

In zero-g, he navigates his way through the space station. It’s strange - he came aboard three months ago, but he knew every inch before he ever stepped through the airlock. There’s an identical model on earth that they train with, though that one is submersed underwater. It’s different up here. Water could emulate the feeling of being weightless, but there was always resistance and pressure around him, closing in on the suit. 

There’s no pressure here. He floats easily through the corridors, slipping through them like a fish through a river. There’s a little work to be done - checking calculations now and then, assisting with experiments, but Pucci is mostly here as a novelty. He has the requirements but he knows his placement on this mission has less to do with his doctorate in mathematics, and more to do with his religious vows. Any holy man, even a somewhat lapsed Catholic, was better than sending a dozen atheists and agnostics to Mars. 

That’s fine. Pucci needs to be here. It doesn’t matter why he was chosen. All that matters is that when the time came, he was the only one who had the requirements they needed. They had to send him. 

Mars looms ahead of them. It looks different when seen by his eyes. Since he was sixteen, Pucci’s found his eyes drawn to the sky above, to the distant dot of red seen by eye now and then, but mostly through telescopes. Mars never looked the way it should have, though he’s known better than to ever say that out loud. If they knew why he thought that, they wouldn’t have let him set foot in Cape Canaveral. But Pucci has passed every psychiatric evaluation and he has always been very, very good at being what people want to see. 

The red seems more vivid. His eyes trace over pits and craters left by meteor impacts. He can nearly taste copper in his mouth. Soon. So soon. One more day, and he’ll stand on the surface. 

The anticipation is almost too much. 

-

When he sleeps, he dreams. Sometimes, the dreams are just tatters of the day, his mind digesting his memories and regurgitating the remains. 

Sometimes, they’re of Mars, and Dio. 

“How close are you?” Dio asks as they stroll together. They’re walking along the shores of the Mare Erythraeum. Pucci’s seen it many times from Earth through telescopes, but it’s an entirely different sight to behold in person. The rocks here are dark and dusky, as if all cast beneath a shadow.

“We’ll enter orbit in a few hours time.” Pucci answers and turns to see if he can spot the space station. But he can’t, not yet. “If all goes well, they’ll take the shuttle down tomorrow. There’s been some debate about who will be in the landing party. Houston is rethinking their decision to have me as part of the initial party.”

“I won’t have that.” Dio answers immediately and Pucci nods. So they’re in agreement. “Do you know who your replacement will be?”

“Carr. He’s ex-military.” Pucci stops to look over the ‘sea’. He settles both hands behind his back, holding one in the other. “They feel it might be wise to have someone on hand to evaluate the situation, in case first contact goes poorly.” 

Pucci is so close. So close to Dio. Twenty-two years of communicating through dreams. Twenty-two years of preparing himself for this. And it may all be snuffed out by government’s paranoia at the last second.  

Patience, he reminds himself. Patience. Everything else has worked out. Dio told him that gravity draws people together. He said that they met for a reason. Everything has been in service of that, and look how far it’s gotten him? He’s breached the earth’s atmosphere and is one of less than a dozen people who will be able to say they’ve seen Mars with their bare eyes. Patience... 

Dio reaches for Pucci. His hand passes through Pucci, but for a second, he swears he can feel a moment of pressure - the slightest touch - before Dio’s fingers faded through Pucci’s ghostly form. That’s more than it’s ever been before. They’re so close-

“When you wake in the morning, Carr will not trouble anyone.” Dio’s eyes are gold and they glow slightly as they stand on a Martian shore. “You must come.”

“I will.” Pucci promises, and he drops his hands, bringing them up to touch Dio’s face. For a tantalizing second, he feels the texture of Dio’s skin, so smooth, so cold. Then his hands give way and dissolve. All of Pucci shatters and Dio watches as he’s swept away on the winds.

-

Carr is dead when Pucci wakes. Heart attack in his sleep. It’s a peaceful way to go. Pucci says a few words before they seal the body up so it doesn’t decompose and poison their air. The mood is shaken and silent, the calls to Houston have the slightest edge of panic. 

Pucci is returned to the landing party without discussion. He has always been good at looking somber, so he does, even as he feels every part of his body ready to overflow with joy. 

They dress in bulky spacesuits, careful to ensure that they are fully sealed. The atmosphere on Mars is poison. And with one death, no one is willing to risk another. Pucci prays for them all. 

The shuttle to the planet surface seems like an eternity. It’s an agony. It’s an ecstasy. Dio is waiting. Twenty-two years of work, just for this moment. The engines rumble and he counts his primes over and over again, a prayer more sincere than any he has delivered in years. Let him be there. Let him be waiting. Let that sliver of doubt be forever banished from his mind. 

Weightlessness gives way to gravity. It’s a different pull than on earth, lighter by half. But after months without it, the sudden force on his body feels like he’s wading through water. He’ll grow accustomed to it again, in time. 

It takes another eternity to check sensors, to radio back, to check and double check and triple-check before finally, finally, they make their way out the airlock, one at a time. The first footsteps are reserved for the others. Pucci is among the last, and he is all but in physical agony as he waits for the airlock to cycle. 

The door opens to red and rock. It’s just like his dreams. As he steps carefully down the ramp, he realizes that he has been here before. He knows this place.

This is the first place he met Dio. This is the place they return to, again and again. Perserverance Valley. He knows those hills like the back of his hand, the familiar dip between... 

And as the others go through their orders, Pucci abandons his and strides forward. His radio crackles with questions and he ignores them all, striding forward, heading to the place in his dreams. There, the ridge at the top, the place he’s sat a thousand times with Dio... 

The others remain near the ship. Only Parsons follows Pucci, trying to order him back. Pucci climbs the hill easily, and the weight he felt before it all but gone. With every step, he feels the weight shed from him. Just beyond the ridge, just beyond it, he knows, he knows-

He reaches the ridge. For a moment, he sees nothing, and he feels that sliver of doubt ache and magnify. 

And then, a thin sound reaches his ears, muffled by the helmet protecting Pucci from the atmosphere. “As punctual as always, Enrico.” 

“What the fuck-” The radio crackles. Parsons is right behind him, staring as Dio rises from the rocks and the sands, the soil clinging together, forming a humanoid body. Details come next - a broad chest, powerful legs, thick arms, and the most beautiful face. 

Familiar and new. The red gives way to pale flesh, to golden hair and golden eyes. Dio is naked, as always, and he stands in front of Pucci as always. 

Parsons is panicking. The others are as well. Pucci ignores them, even as they begin to scream. The shifting sands behind him are irrelevant. Dio is here. 

And this time, Pucci is here as well, flesh and blood instead of the delicate floss of his projected mind. 

He lifts his hands and cups Dio’s face. The gloves he wears are thick, and he can’t help but smile as he nearly dwarfs Dio’s head with them. But he can touch Dio. He can feel Dio, a substantial pressure that does not fade or dissipate as Pucci’s projected self dissolves. They are here. They are together at last. 

Dio rests his hands on Pucci’s hip and rests his forehead against the glass of Pucci’s helmet. For the first time in twenty-two years, all doubts are silenced, and there is nothing but peace in Pucci’s heart and in his mind. 

The screams have quieted. Houston calls again and again. Pucci holds Dio close and forgets about everything except him, except Dio. 

#diopucciweek #jjba #dio #enrico pucci #day 7

[autistic-science-cryptid]

Introduction

I am an autistic person, as I’m sure you know. And, as the title suggests, while I am not literally a cryptid, I might as well be a cryptid, at least according to autism researchers, for a number of reasons. You see, for starters,I was diagnosed with autism in the late 80s as a baby, and I mean a literal baby, just over a year old, because my mom (who later realized she was autistic and self-diagnosed as a result of watching me grow) talked to the doctors and was like “Oh by the way, I noticed that other babies look at me but my kid does not. Hmmm. I wonder why that is”. That’s the first cryptid point right there - researchers are still looking for ways to diagnose autistic kids at age 2 (so they can push that hellish ABA therapy on them - boooo) even though like two seconds of observation would enable them to see who is autistic much earlier. Which is probably a good thing if that kid has the type of parents who would push them into ABA. Good thing my parents didn’t buy into that crap, no matter how much later experience with abusive assholes convinced me they did or it was only a matter of time before they did.

Secondly, since I didn’t know how to please IQ testers when I was really little and had not been pushed through official ABA by my parents, the “experts” claimed I was (and this is their word, not mine) “retarded”. Which, as we know, is a slur, but was a medical term in use back then, before they said “intellectually disabled”. Fine thing to put on a baby. And here’s the thing: No intellectually disabled person can write the way I’m doing right now. So one more cryptid point - apparently the real me didn’t exist to them then, either.

Thirdly, when I was really little, a dog (whose owner foolishly claimed he “loves kids”) got its mouth around my throat, and my autistic nervous response of freezing up in the face of that type of danger is the only reason I’m not six feet under right now, as pretty much any neurotypical kid would have been when confronted with a situation like that. So one more cryptid point for me. Especially since I always have and still love dogs, and if anything, that incident had me firmly convinced that dogs are not mindless killing machines, because if they were, I’d be dead. Whereas a response I had to a teacher ducking me underwater and giving me fake praise was more normal - it made me afraid of the water, and only a teacher from the YMCA cured me of that fear, whereas the special ed middle school I went to, which had a pool, only punished me for that fear. I’ll get back to special ed later. 

Yay “errorless learning! (/sarcasm)

I also used to stack a little table on top of a chair when I was a kid to reach stuff because for some reason, my dad always put Cheerios on top of a really high wardrobe (Gee, thanks) And I never fell because I was careful climbing that precarious structure. One more cryptid point for me - kids normally aren’t able to do that.

I am also a person who was in private Special Ed schools from the time I was like ten months old throughout high school, and my middle and high school in particular was emotionally abusive to me. While they never officially claimed to use ABA, they did - if it walks like ABA, talks like ABA, and quacks like ABA, it is ABA no matter what you call it. And really, it’s quite weaselly presenting your core discipline method as like a fun extra for your students to earn (which I found out on their website years later). It’s especially weaselly given that this method was the exact method used to punish me for not swimming a length of the school’s pool due to the fear of the water (and especially the deep end) that I mentioned earlier, a fear that wasn’t even as difficult to solve as many other hydrophobia cases, so of course a Y teacher was able to fix it. Throughout that time, but particularly during middle school years, I tried multiple different little schemes (not adult-level schemes, kid-sized ones) to try to be a more successful kid (so yes, I do sympathize with Pa Ingalls, even as I recognize that it is far more problematic for him to do that than for kid me to because he had several people to look out for and I had zero). That’s another cryptid point - usually you see that kind of behavior pattern from grown men, not tween girls.

As an extra bonus, the special ed high school I went to let me into their college program the first year, one where you take college courses for credit, and I got an A in that course. Nevertheless, my school had set me up to fail that - they had a lady teacher sit next to me, one who was entitled as fuck. This teacher whined about her job to us, and also bragged at one point about how Tom Cruise called her and was polite to her. I mean, hello? Tom Cruise is a Scientologist, and assuming that teacher wasn’t lying, the only reason Tom Cruise would call some random teacher is to recruit her into Scientology. But of course, that teacher was so full of herself that she could not see that. This teacher also, when confronted, said “I have other kids to worry about”. Nevermind that I was the only student from that special ed program that she was sitting next to. She also allowed me to work on a project alone instead of in a group because of course I was going to take that option when they offered it (even though I am perfectly capable of working on group projects). But them allowing me that option was a setup. 

That, combined with talking to myself and maybe poor grooming was what they used as an excuse to kick me out of that program. Though they never told me about poor grooming as a reason, and it was usually my parents they hid things from, so I’m not sure poor grooming was what they were primarily concerned with. Anyhoo, it seems as though talking to myself was enough to get me kicked out of that program in spite of getting an A, with the teachers literally laughing like bullies at my parents as they told my parents the news, and furthermore, they recommended me for VESID, which was really just recommending that I live in a sheltered workshop (which I would have shot myself in the foot in - I am a fast worker at certain tasks, and had my parents agreed to the sheltered workshop placement, I would have given the people my best performance, and ended up getting paid less than minimum wage, and worse, they would never let me go because they would be using me to pick up the slack for other workers and would find all sorts of excuses not to let me move on). 

So the A alone may as well be a cryptid point. As is my using NYC public transportation all by myself - those fuckheads claimed I couldn’t travel independently, even though I had been using the subway all by my lonesome to get to the work experience programs I did the last year (in former years, I had gone to work experience stints on the bus). So, pathetic as it may seem, my ability to use the subway/bus all by my lonesome is another cryptid point.

I also get a few more cryptid points for currently studying animal behavior and cognition in grad school and working on a Master’s thesis (which I won’t talk about so, again, as not to dox myself). Let me explain.

First of all, in spite of being kicked out of that program, the high school let me graduate, and the way they described me was literally how intellectually disabled people are described. And, while intellectually disabled people are themselves severely underestimated, they certainly are not going to be in graduate school working on a Master’s thesis in animal behavior and cognition, because the scientific papers alone would be cognitively inaccessible to them - even the lay version of scientific papers might not be cognitively accessible to an intellectually disabled person. So, according to that logic, I should not even be where I am right now.

Furthermore, some of the top people at that school are ableist as fuck, and totally champion clicker training, both for animals (which is iffy in and of itself, especially as a general behavior training for highly social and compliant species like dogs) and for, you guessed it, autistic people. They totally support ABA “therapy” as well (and yes, they support electrically shocking kids as punishment and claim it is less cruel than either medicating or restraining kids who self-injure, which is bullshit and completely dances around the fact that kids at the Judge Rotenberg Center get shocked for minor things) and they totally gloss over some pretty alarming signs. They, of course, claim I am totally high-functioning with no issues whatsoever, so to them, the side of me that has meltdowns and occasionally self-injures is also a cryptid, since apparently autistic people who can get a Master’s degree can’t have meltdowns. Even though I do get those from time to time. So one more cryptid point for meltdowns.

This is a random list of talents and abilities I have (just those, if you don’t feel like reading a list of talents, you can always skip that part)

I can do a perfect kitty meow (seriously, you would think there is a cat in there if you were in the room when I did it). And I can also stim (god, I wish autocorrect would use that as an actual word) by rhythmically tossing a ball back and forth without looking, and I can also produce songs simply by clicking my tongue. Yes, that’s a thing, although I’ve never seen anyone else do it. Believe me or not if you wish, but I’m not about to dox myself by putting up a video, especially since I don’t want to be blacklisted as a result of smear campaigns by ableist researchers. Three cryptid points right there. Four if you count me teaching myself some sort of impromptu gymnastics move at one point (well below Olympic level - it wouldn’t even qualify for a low-level gymnastics competition)- I have no idea what the hell that move looks like or what to call it. I only know how it feels, so don’t ask. 

Five cryptid points if you count the fact that on occasion the neuronal electricity from my hand jumps out and “pushes” a computer button before I even touch it - it’s not really a reliably controllable act, but it is a weird quirk I have, and that I share with my mom. The only reason that isn’t a problem is because it only seems to “push” a few types of buttons and coincides only with my hand approaching the button, never before that, which is how I know it’s nerve electricity and not a glitch. If you think that’s woo, don’t follow me - I never claimed to be able to teach anyone how to do that or to identify whether someone has that ability (unless they tell me and don't falsely claim to be able to control it only to show no such ability), and it’s not like I can sell that quirk for money, either. And I can’t control it anywhere near reliably enough to prove it scientifically, either, which is probably a big reason why abilities like that (along with telepathy, which I have only ever heard of in real life, mostly not from me but from others I know, as being a random, uncontrollable occurrence or else, as in one case, so laughably pathetic that pretty much any scientific test for telepathy will never detect said ability) were never officially found, so don’t hold your breath waiting for that kind of thing.

One more talent I have is this: after seeing Orlando Bloom as Legolas (I’m aroace, so I don’t have a crush on him and don’t get any ideas) do a catlike leap onto a rock, I tried that same move and got it right on the first try, even though I had read he found it difficult to do. But then again, he’s a foot taller than me, and he has an acquired disability from foolishly walking, sober, onto a thin piece of metal that could not support his weight, and falling three stories, so maybe it’s a cryptid point, maybe not, because being a foot shorter than the guy you see doing a catlike balance move would make it pretty easy to out-cat him any day. Especially since I would never make the kind of mistake he did, because from what I can gather, Orlando Bloom is a pretty cocksure guy (kind of like Legolas, really, personality wise - too bad they made him play what seemed to be an entirely different character than the one in the book who is probably more like Orlando Bloom than the Legolas Orlando Bloom played), and I am not cocksure. Obviously not literally, because I am cis female, and not metaphorically, either.

#emotional abuse #abuse #child abuse #dangerous animals #dangerous dogs #aba #actuallyautistic #special ed #special education #judge rotenberg center #jrc #tongue-in-cheek #but the story is true #not fictionalized

[nastywomenblr-blog]

ized/ism/ist

Sexualized/Sexism/Sexist

There have been recent reports of a secret Facebook group wherein approximately 30,000 of our esteemed military men, in this case various branches of the Marine Corps, exchanged pictures of fellow military women in various states of undress-reportedly without their knowledge or consent.  The real kicker being the violent, sexual comments that follow the pictures.  Or perhaps the real kicker is that not even two years ago women were finally given clearance to enlist in combat roles, and yet no matter how many seats at the table women are begrudgingly given, at the end of the day, we will never experience the same respect and will be sexualized first and always.  (Read the work these amazing people do, and if you have $5 to spare, donate to their worthy cause: http://www.protectourdefenders.com/)

We will be sexualized at the grocery store in sweat pants with no makeup, at work in a business suit, or at a pool; the location and attire do not matter.  The niceness of a male stranger relies heavily on how fuckable you are to him.  Are there decent male strangers out there?  I certainly hope so.  But even still, they will be nicer to you the more attractive they find you.  Just as studies have shown both men and women are paid differently for the same job depending on their placement on an arbitrary beauty scale.  Except women deal with this in every aspect of life, everyday, forever.  Is this salesman nice because he's a decent human or because he thinks I'm fuckable?  Probably the latter.  I'd love to say it's a 50/50 shot but that would be a lie.  And we all know it.

I work in a professional setting and recently overhead a man in our lobby wait for our receptionist to step out to say loudly to no one in particular, "damn she's got a fucking badonkadonk."  He was 37 years old.  Here is a professional woman in her twenties, doing legal research and preparing legal documents, in an asexual situation and he literally cannot help himself from saying this aloud.  Men should be outraged and disgraced by this all too common display of pathetic, animal ignorant behavior.   And if you aren't, I can assure, we're fucking sick of it.  I've been dealing with this shit since age 12.  (And the perpetrator was always considerably older than I was in every situation.  Hashtag fucking disgusting.)  Never has it been a compliment. Never has it been sexy.  Never has it made me want to fuck any of them. Coincidentally, it has fucking terrified me.  It has infuriated me.  And it has made me actually punch a few of them.  Yet, motherfuckers persist with this shit.  

Sadly, I see why.  Rarely does anything negative happen when they act this way.  The police never pursue it.  Women rarely report it or act on it.  It becomes normalized as we become desensitized.  I literally cannot count the number of men who have sexually touched me without my consent in a creepy fucking situation.  And no, dip-shits, it's not because I was drinking.  It's because there have been SO.  FUCKING. MANY. TIMES. I literally cannot keep track.  Can a man say the same?  This is an actual question.  Is it common for men to be sexually assaulted on a street in broad daylight on a Tuesday afternoon?  Asking for a friend.  All of them.  Because all of my close friends have experience assault or rape.  And the more heinous the crime the less likely it was reported to authorities.

Being sexualized on a public street or on public transport happened often in my college years, where I assure you I dressed like a sleep-deprived homeless woman frequently (so you can't blame me for dressing like a slut and "asking for it").  My modus operandi (my MO-insert eye-roll if you were confused) is to tell my admirer to fuck off.  That usually resulted in being followed and angrily screamed at for being a stuck up bitch and a whore who thinks she's better than everyone.  Another time I was cornered on a bus I tried to take the calmer approach and "Let him down easy".  I got off the bus two stops early and was promptly followed by the man.  I had accepted the fact I had a 50/50 chance of being raped in the church wherein I planned to seek sanctuary.

It's always interesting to hear the various ways in which sexism have been mansplained away. Each time I reported the above incidents, I was told it was my fault both times even though I chose two completely different methods of escaping a sexual predator.  The same police department gave me two polar opposite "words of advice".  My "fuck you" approach was simply too aggressive.  What was my problem, he was only paying me a compliment.  I shouldn't piss him off.  My calmer approach was simply too nice.  What was my problem, I was leading him on, what did I expect?  I expected my Wednesday afternoon to not include possible rape.  My mistake.  Clearly.

*Here I actually had a long paragraph of the various assaults and interactions with witnesses or police and realized it won't matter and it's not unique.*  Shit, honestly, I've been lucky.  I haven't been raped as of this writing.  But I'm fully aware I'm never in the clear of the possibility.  Every female has their laundry list of fucked up shit and the response is all the same.  Mansplained away by persons in power and persons with privilege.    The terrifying thing is the times I've called a guy out on their shit, they've had two reactions 1) zero fucks given 2) total shock.   

I was 16, in a gas station lot with my best friend late one night.  She was leaning over talking to another female friend in a car.  Some guy, easily 20 years older than us, said something disgusting.  And I lost my shit.  As I tend to do.  I don't even know what I said.  As I tend to do.  I vaguely recall telling him he was fucking disgusting, we were half his age (which was generous) and no one fucking asked for his perverted thoughts.  He looked stunned.  Genuinely stunned.  He stuttered out a "shit, baby girls I'm sorry I didn't mean -"  And I lost my shit again.  I vaguely recall telling him no one wants to be called baby girl and dubbing him "sick fuck" for the remainder of the evening.  Again, genuine shock.  He mumbled an apology and walked away confused.  I truly believe that man had never been told not to be a piece of shit.  I think he really just lived by "boys will be boys" into and beyond adulthood with no awareness it's a shit personality trait to have.  Unfortunately, this is probably true of a lot of scumbags.  Girls are always taught to be polite, and not rock the boat, especially in situations like dark, late night gas station altercations.  I say fuck that.  And every man in my life has despised it for my "safety".  Now is my turn to give zero fucks.  It's not your life or your body at risk.  But the moral of this story is that very rarely are these assholes told it's not ok to act like this....until it's too late.   

Women get sexualized whilst pregnant.  Women get sexualized whilst pregnant and walking their toddler. Women get sexualized all day.  Anywhere.  Forever.  We are always a target.  We are always side-eyeing the guy standing nearby.  We are forever reminded how easily we can be overpowered.  We are always in fear of parking lots.  Dark streets.  Grocery stores.  Bars.  Work.  Fucking name it, and there's been at least five times in that one location we've been fearful.  

Does that bother you? It fucking should.  Because you've likely looked the other way when you witnessed something you knew wasn't ok.  Because you've likely laughed along at some disgusting sexist remark further perpetuating how adorbs it is to sexualize a woman in asexual situations.  Because you've likely thought you were classy and illustrated your distaste for sexism by staying silent rather than laughing.  But at the end of the day, silence is consent.  Something we don't have the privilege of giving a lot of the time.  So be an ally, and fucking do something.  Stop watching it happen.  

#fuckingdisgusting #longpost #womensday #marines #sexualassault #sexism #sexist #sexualized #stepup #be an ally #feminism #feminasty

[thefantasysuite]

Do you want a girl or a woman?

Remember how Nick tried to convince everyone on bachelor in paradise that he’s actually a good guy trying to find love and not just out and about whoring around? Remember how he threw it all away last night? This guy doesn’t get it. This is your 4th time on the show because what you are doing previously isn’t working. Yes, Corrine is really hot and is DTF when she isn’t sleeping, but can’t you get that anytime you want? You're 36 bro. You aren’t in a frat anymore. You need to decide if you want a wife or a fuck buddy. This might be the best looking most down to earth cast I’ve seen on this show. There is a big difference between ending the show feeling like your in paradise, and ending up back on bachelor in paradise.

We start this episode cleaning up after last episode. Nick tells everyone that he and Liz got after it at Jade and Tanner’s wedding with this little shit eating grin on his face:

No big reactions from any of the ladies when this news is revealed. The cocktail party is spent mostly with each talking to him about how they feel about it, except of course Corrine. This news about Liz has made her think she needs to step her game up. She decides to channel her inner Ali Larter and go all Varsity Blues on Nick with some whip cream body art:

Corrine being the classy lady that she is wasn’t as quite provocative with the placement, but she still got Nick to lick her boob. They are interrupted by Jasmine which sends Corrine back to her room in tears and eventually falling asleep. She already has a rose so no need to show up to the ceremony, right?

Rose ceremony has 3 girls end up saying their goodbyes:

Can someone explain to me how Josephine is still there and Hailey isn’t? Just to give you a visual recap. Nick sent this girl home:

(Sorry for blurriness)

...over a girl that looks like the rejected sister from Hocus Pocus:

Maybe Corrine’s whip cream incapacitated him in some manner.

The next day we have the group date. They get to dance with the backstreet boys. Are they still a thing? Do they make new music? I’m not trying to find out because I don’t want that in my browser history. No Google, I’m not interested in backstreet boys tour dates. The girls are going to be on stage later that night so they start practicing with a little choreographed routine planned dancing. It is here we find out that Corrine can’t dance. I think she can dance, but it’s probably more Jersey Turnpike and less routine based. This of course sends her running into the bathroom crying. Not sure if she took a nap afterwards. Girls get up on stage and the BS Boys select Danielle L as the winner. Her and Nick dance, they serenade them, Corrine is not happy. She has a little chat with Nick at the after party and then decides to take a nap. After awaking from her slumber she informs everyone that she has a nanny. Do you think Chris Harrison will let Corrine take her nanny with her to bachelor in paradise next year? Could be a good love interest for Jorge the bartender (and not because the nanny is probably Hispanic, it just worked out that way). Anyway, I’m pretty sure that most rich families that still have an adult child living at home with them have a Spanish speaking housekeeper:

One on one this week goes to Vanessa. Full disclosure, I’m a big fan of Vanessa. What is not to like? Gorgeous, smart, hot as hell. That’s why I think she’ll be the bachelorette. Nick won’t pick her because he’s a moron and everyone else watching this show will fall in love with her when she is inevitably dumped for the most insane reason ever. Back to the date. Vanessa and Nick get to experience zero gravity in some sort of fancy airplane. It could have been Nick, but I think it was the zero g’s that Vanessa ended up throwing up. They had bags on standby, but I’ll admit I was a little disappointed that we didn’t get to see any space chunks floating by. For some reason a little puke didn’t stop them from making out shortly after. Once back on the ground the two space cadets had a nice little dinner. During conversation Nick starts tearing up because of how awesome Vanessa is. If girl is just talking and you get emotional out of nowhere, prob should give her the final rose right now because you know he’s going to screw it up between now and then. I mean we didn’t even get to the end of the episode where he already tried throwing it away (more on that in a bit). As I’ve said multiple times, this cast is one of the best but right now it’s; Happiness = Vanessa > everyone else. The only problem is that Nick is the one trying to solve the equation.

Last group date involves track and field and former Olympians, of which the most noteworthy is Carl Lewis. While Carl will forever be celebrated for his accomplishments at the Olympics, Charlie Steiner and I will always remember him for this:

The girls are asked to do silly challenges to show their love for Nick. Jaime the lesbian somehow isn’t good at any of them. One girl noted that Astrid needed an extra bra, or 3. Speaking of Astrid she won the challenge and was rewarded a dip in the hot tub with Nick. Later that evening Nick made out with as many girls as he could. He decided to do so on a picture of himself from the track and field date with Alexis. I guess making out on yourself is better than making out with yourself, right A-Rod:

Dominique commits the tragic mistake of confronting the bachelor about things not being fair for her. She is met with a quick kick to the curb. Rachel ends up getting group date rose.

Chris Harrison announces that Nick wants to have a pool party instead of the traditional cocktail ceremony. We cut to Astrid who is lotioning and oiling her big naturals:

This pool party turns into a 2 person party when Corrine invites Nick into the bouncy house that appeared out of thin air in front of the house. She pretty much dry humps him while others looks on in horror. Most girl are appalled with what happened, Vanessa is appalled at Nick. She understands that the 24 year old that lives at home with a nanny might be a little frisky. The 36 year old trying to find love shouldn’t be so quick to entertain her. 

The episode ends mid conversation, but Vanessa isn’t happy. It’s obvious that she is the type of girl he needs. I hope she doesn’t win because she deserves better. Nick is a tool and will cheat on whoever wins this thing. Vanessa for ette.

See ya next week

- Nick

#The Bachelor #nick #varsity blues #hocus pocus #back street boys #Arrested Development #francis scott off key #alex rodriguez #sandlot

[samanthasroberts]

I Teach At A For-Profit College: 5 Ridiculous Realities

For-profit colleges, aka colleges that operate for a profit, aka the only schools that buy pop-up ads, are a $30 billion industry, with millions of students nationwide. But much like that guy in high school with the bitchin’ mullet and radical IROC, just because they’re popular doesn’t mean they have the best reputation. We wanted to know how accurate that rep really is, so we sat down with “Stephen,” a former professor at one such college in Ohio. He told us …

5

There Is Zero Teaching Experience Required To Be A “Professor”

andresrimaging/iStock/Getty Images

Most teachers come equipped with a boxful of degrees, permits, certifications, and other fancy framed papers to confirm they’re trained educators and not, say, urine-soaked knife-wielding hobos. Not so with Steve’s school: “At my campus, I’d say that nine out of every ten professors don’t have an educational background.”

AndreyPopov/iStock/Getty Images “Hey Dave, drop what you’re doing. We need someone for Marketing 401.”

He was sure to point out that sometimes this led to great teachers, like the former hotel manager who became a professor of Hospitality Management: “He was honest about complaints, nipping lice infestations in the bud, and tons of other terrible things normal HM classes barely cover.” But that’s not a universal truth.

“Like, they may be an accountant during the day, but they moonlight teaching that at schools like mine … those teachers could be really good … But most had no idea how to teach. I sat in on a class going through economics, and … the ‘professor’s’ laptop gave the blue screen of death. He was a nice guy in his late 20s, and he immediately panicked.” Since the students were paying dearly for that professor’s time, they kept right on asking questions, like “What’s the difference between macro and micro economics?” Steve recalled, “He had a deer in the headlights look and he froze for 15 seconds. Finally, he said ‘Macro is big economies and Micro is individual economies. Like Bill Gates’ economy.’”

kasto80/iStock/Getty Images “Hold on, Wikipedia’s gone down.”

Those of you who know a little bit about economics might recognize that as complete fucking gibberish. Eventually, Steve and another teacher listening in had to call him out on his bullshit and give the class some proper answers, but, “When we gave the right definitions and answers to everything, he defended his answers as being correct. He was fired the next day.”

Jonathan Ross/Hemera/Getty Images Those who teach, can’t.

Once he’d started telling shitty teacher stories, Steve couldn’t stop. He told us about an accounting teacher in his 70s who told students “any math you couldn’t do by hand wasn’t worth teaching.” Another particularly enterprising educator gave out a two-week assignment to “have his students do his and his family’s taxes, giving bonus points to the ones who had found the way to have them owe the least.” Steve added, “He lasted three semesters.”

4

They Target Poor Minority Students And Con Them Into Taking Loans

Jacob Ammentorp Lund/iStock/Getty Images

For-profit colleges promise students who didn’t do well in high school a chance at a real college degree for far less than fancy university prices. And since everyone gets in, your past doesn’t matter. ITT Tech will take any breathing human being who applies. It’s like the Little League of higher education, minus the Capri Sun at the end of every session.

These colleges sell themselves as a “way out” of poverty and desperation to people who are poor and directionless. Ninety-six percent of ALL for-profit students take out loans, compared to 57 percent of those at normal public college. And while the average college student only has an 8 percent chance of defaulting on their loan in the first few years, for-profit students have a 25 percent chance.

It should come as no surprise that investigations have shown that many for-profits do in fact target low-income people who can’t pay. These people are often minorities. One investigation turned up the training manual for recruiters at the for-profit college Vatterott, including a list of ideal types of people to recruit:

Leadership Conference on Human Rights – Has To Use Library’s Internet To Fill Out Application – Thought They Saw A Ghost One Time – Can’t Find Phoenix On A Map

Steve noticed the same thing at his school: “Most of my students made minimum wage, and over half were black. Every one of my students had a loan, and it’s all they ever talked about. Some felt strong-armed into them, but some wanted them. They lived off of them. They wanted the loans as another source of income because they couldn’t make ends meet with their regular jobs. They took a few classes to keep up appearances, but I would always know why they were really there. Every college has these students, but at my college, I had several in every class I taught. I never knew what happened to them after the semester and they were 20 or 40 grand in debt. Many struggled to make ends meet, and the college offered an easy way to get loans. What did you think was going to happen?”

AndreyPopov/iStock/Getty Images “Thanks for the mortgage payment.”

For-profit universities vastly prefer loans — and the long-term, interest-bearing income they generate — to straight cash payments. So much so that they often don’t take cash: “One student in particular told me that she had $20,000 from an inheritance in cash, but ran into roadblocks everywhere. My college wouldn’t accept cash, so she tried a check. They told her they couldn’t, since they had too many issues with bounced checks. She then tried paying online in full, but she was told she shouldn’t because ‘What if you decide to drop a class? Would you still want to pay for it?’ She then tried monthly payments, but she was informed she was too late to sign up. She could only take a loan.”

Digital Vision./DigitalVision/Getty It’s usually a red flag when a business won’t let you purchase their one product.

Schools like the University of Phoenix depend on student loans to survive. In fact, the latter actively instructs their “Phoenixes” to borrow the max amount. And how could that possibly backfire? For-profit universities are one of the major causes of the current student loan debt crisis. So if you’re a New Yorker who had your daily commute fucked up by Occupy Wall Street, you can blame like half of that on the Participation Trophy of colleges.

3

They Cost More To Attend Than Conventional Universities

moodboard/moodboard/Getty Images

For-profit colleges advertise themselves as much more affordable than traditional universities. According to the ads, a for-profit college is the Costco of higher education: great quality without any unnecessary frills, for the budget-conscious consumer.

“‘Scholarship?’ It’s just a discount.”

Why, you save so much money on these programs that it’d be almost insane to get your degree anywhere else.

“Our scam is cheaper than their scam!”

Surprise! That’s all crap. These schools are filled with more hidden fees than a bank run by ninjas. Here’s Steve: “A close family member was deciding on a cheap starter college. She was looking at my college and Cincinnati State. Honestly, I just started at my school and I didn’t know what the full cost was. I asked and got a quote for $9,000 a semester … When I gave her the written quote, she looked right back up and said, ‘I could get a degree from Cincinnati State for that much.’ I was floored.”

Two years at a community college costs, on average, $8,300. Four years at a state college? $52,000. But at a for-profit, that Associate’s Degree is now $35,000. The Bachelors? $63,000. It’s like deciding to eat out at Olive Garden instead of that fancy French restaurant, only to discover that the bread sticks are the price of a used Toyota.

bhofack2/iStock/Getty Images “Considering they are unlimited, you can’t afford not to.”

Steve explained: “All normal colleges show how much a semester is, or give a price by class. At ours, they made it look cheap by giving price for each credit hour. [Note: They still do.] So many of my students were suckered in this way. They saw the $550 cost per hour … and they assumed that meant $550 per credit.”

Oops! Silly desperate students seeking to better their lives. You assumed “for-profit college” meant something besides “a shell game in which you gamble your paycheck for decades to come.”

Michael Blann/DigitalVision/Getty As least Vegas gives you drink and food comps when you do it.

2

A Degree All But Guarantees You WON’T Get A Job

rilueda/iStock/Getty Images

All for-profit colleges essentially promise you your dream job, falling just short of issuing IOUs for personal oral sex bots upon graduation. The word of the day, kids, is “bullshit.” It was revealed last year that the $75,000 three-year criminal justice degree offered by Westwood College comes with a 3.8 percent job placement rate. And most of those “jobs” are as some sort of security guard, aka the job literally any breathing human can get.

A school like the recently shut down Heald College, or DeVry, can famously claim 90-percent-plus job placement rates, which sounds super impressive … if you don’t know that the FTC is currently suing them for classifying a business major getting hired as a waiter to be an “in-field” placement. Or counting a job at Taco Bell as successful placement. Steve gave a shit about his students and did his best to prepare them for careers as accountants, “but most didn’t become accountants. We had to go off of curriculum, and while many of us got through that as fast as we could with our students to tell them what they really needed to know, we often didn’t have time.”

Rawpixel Ltd/iStock/Getty Images “Welcome to Money Management 101. Lesson 1: You shouldn’t have taken this class.”

Steve explained how his college practically went out of its way to make their courses useless: “Normal colleges give you a mix of course work, field work, and other assignments, slowly making it more and more real world. Once you get the basics, you learn the programs, you see what employers want, and you expand your knowledge. For-profits are like standardized tests. You get the basics, but almost none of it can be applied once in the real world.”

Pinkypills/iStock/Getty Images “And that about covers the basics of being a barista.”

The evidence shows that graduates from for-profits make less and are less happy about their prospects than those from larger colleges. This jives with Steve’s experiences: “I’ve met several graduates, and nearly all didn’t get the jobs they wanted. A few thought they were going to be teachers in a few years, and I found them working as subs. One student who said he wanted to run a hotel I met by chance at a hotel in Columbus, where he was only a part-time assistant manager at a Microtel [and] taking classes for ANOTHER degree at the University of Phoenix at night.”

BananaStock/BananaStock/Getty Images “Unfortunately, two fake degrees cannot combine like Megazord into one real degree.”

So uh … clearly, that guy doesn’t learn lessons easily.

The conventional logic is that any degree is better than no degree. But that may not be true with for-profit colleges. A Harvard study found that such students are 22 percent less likely to get a callback from a job than an otherwise-identical resume that named a public university. And it’s even worse with an online degree. Even if these students do find work, high school dropouts tend to earn more than for-profit degreers in the same field.

1

For-Profit Colleges Are In Big Trouble

Albert Herring/Wiki Commons

Over the last year or so, the hammer has started coming down on for-profit schools. Steve explained: “Obama had been threatening for years to do something about for-profit colleges, but no one believed he would go through with it. In early 2015, it was apparent he was trying to do something, and we got emails everyday. Most were telling us not to worry, but we also had emails that said ‘We’re as strong as ever!’ I worked there for three years, and the only emails they had sent me was pay stub receipts, password expiration reminders, and the odd departmental email … these emails really showed how worried they were.”

Devonyu/iStock/Getty Images They were a step away from emails asking their employees, “Are you a cop? If we ask, you have to tell us if you are.”

This finally prompted Steve to make a career change of his own. He found another job and gave his resignation to his department head, who “begged me to stay. He didn’t try to flatter me or say how much they needed me or anything you would expect to hear. It was, ‘I know you’re worried about this Obama law (I wasn’t), and we’re worried too, but it will all be OK.’ Everyone was acting like the apocalypse was coming.”

And what terrifying new law change had everybody soiling their chinos? To quote CNN:

“The new set of rules, called the gainful employment regulations, require colleges to track their graduates’ debt and employment to prove that their programs don’t fall short of federal guidelines. Institutions now have to provide information on program costs, how much students earn after they graduate and how much debt they could accumulate.”

Alex Wong/Getty Images News/Getty Images “We’re moving forward on a new controversial anti-lying law.”

The new law also set limits on how much the schools could charge for loan payments (no more than 20 percent of a student’s income). Despite how reasonable those restrictions sound, it was essentially the apocalypse for educational conmen. Roughly 1,400 programs serving 840,000 students were estimated to fall below those minimal standards. The University of Phoenix lost half its students. DeVry is currently being sued by the FTC for false advertising.

Steve was not bummed out at all by this. He still feels some guilt for being involved in the whole thing to start with: “One student I had told me that he knew he was being had. I started to say he wasn’t, but he told me to shut up. He told me he went $25,000 into debt for a degree no one took seriously. He had a family, and I got the sense he was doing this for them … He told me to go fuck myself and proceeded to tell a few other professors too. We never saw him again after that. I’m hoping, really hoping, that the new laws will make degrees for people like him from for-profits actually worth it.”

Kondor83/iStock/Getty Images “Congrats on getting hired! Here’s your desk.”

We hope so too, for the students’ sake, but we can’t imagine a future in which a prospective employer looks at your resume and says, “Whoa, University of Phoenix, huh? Don’t you think you might be overqualified?” Well, not with a straight face, anyway.

If you were misled by a for-profit college, please protect other students by letting the authorities know. If you decided to attend a school because of a misleading ad or deceptive recruiting, contact the Federal Trade Commission.

If you took out a private loan (not including federal student loans) to finance your education, you can also complain to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

If you are a veteran or service member who was deceived by a college, and you used the GI Bill or other VA programs to fund your education, please report it to the Department of Veterans Affairs’ new complaint system. The folks at Veterans Education Success would also like to hear from you, and can connect you with pro-bono attorneys, state and federal law enforcement agencies, and generally advocate on your behalf to the VA.

Evan V. Symon is an interviewer, writer, and interview-finder guy for the personal experience team at Cracked. Have an awesome experience/job you would like to share? Hit us up at [email protected] today!

Deep inside us all — behind our political leanings, our moral codes, and our private biases — there is a cause so colossally stupid that we surprise ourselves with how much we care. Whether it’s toilet paper position, fedoras on men, or Oxford commas, we each harbor a preference so powerful we can’t help but proselytize to the world. In this episode of the Cracked podcast, guest host Soren Bowie is joined by Cody Johnston, Michael Swaim, and comedian Annie Lederman to discuss the most trivial things we will argue about until the day we die. Get your tickets here!

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Source: http://allofbeer.com/i-teach-at-a-for-profit-college-5-ridiculous-realities/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/02/17/i-teach-at-a-for-profit-college-5-ridiculous-realities/

[adambstingus]

I Teach At A For-Profit College: 5 Ridiculous Realities

For-profit colleges, aka colleges that operate for a profit, aka the only schools that buy pop-up ads, are a $30 billion industry, with millions of students nationwide. But much like that guy in high school with the bitchin’ mullet and radical IROC, just because they’re popular doesn’t mean they have the best reputation. We wanted to know how accurate that rep really is, so we sat down with “Stephen,” a former professor at one such college in Ohio. He told us …

5

There Is Zero Teaching Experience Required To Be A “Professor”

andresrimaging/iStock/Getty Images

Most teachers come equipped with a boxful of degrees, permits, certifications, and other fancy framed papers to confirm they’re trained educators and not, say, urine-soaked knife-wielding hobos. Not so with Steve’s school: “At my campus, I’d say that nine out of every ten professors don’t have an educational background.”

AndreyPopov/iStock/Getty Images “Hey Dave, drop what you’re doing. We need someone for Marketing 401.”

He was sure to point out that sometimes this led to great teachers, like the former hotel manager who became a professor of Hospitality Management: “He was honest about complaints, nipping lice infestations in the bud, and tons of other terrible things normal HM classes barely cover.” But that’s not a universal truth.

“Like, they may be an accountant during the day, but they moonlight teaching that at schools like mine … those teachers could be really good … But most had no idea how to teach. I sat in on a class going through economics, and … the ‘professor’s’ laptop gave the blue screen of death. He was a nice guy in his late 20s, and he immediately panicked.” Since the students were paying dearly for that professor’s time, they kept right on asking questions, like “What’s the difference between macro and micro economics?” Steve recalled, “He had a deer in the headlights look and he froze for 15 seconds. Finally, he said ‘Macro is big economies and Micro is individual economies. Like Bill Gates’ economy.‘”

kasto80/iStock/Getty Images “Hold on, Wikipedia’s gone down.”

Those of you who know a little bit about economics might recognize that as complete fucking gibberish. Eventually, Steve and another teacher listening in had to call him out on his bullshit and give the class some proper answers, but, “When we gave the right definitions and answers to everything, he defended his answers as being correct. He was fired the next day.”

Jonathan Ross/Hemera/Getty Images Those who teach, can’t.

Once he’d started telling shitty teacher stories, Steve couldn’t stop. He told us about an accounting teacher in his 70s who told students “any math you couldn’t do by hand wasn’t worth teaching.” Another particularly enterprising educator gave out a two-week assignment to “have his students do his and his family’s taxes, giving bonus points to the ones who had found the way to have them owe the least.” Steve added, “He lasted three semesters.”

4

They Target Poor Minority Students And Con Them Into Taking Loans

Jacob Ammentorp Lund/iStock/Getty Images

For-profit colleges promise students who didn’t do well in high school a chance at a real college degree for far less than fancy university prices. And since everyone gets in, your past doesn’t matter. ITT Tech will take any breathing human being who applies. It’s like the Little League of higher education, minus the Capri Sun at the end of every session.

These colleges sell themselves as a “way out” of poverty and desperation to people who are poor and directionless. Ninety-six percent of ALL for-profit students take out loans, compared to 57 percent of those at normal public college. And while the average college student only has an 8 percent chance of defaulting on their loan in the first few years, for-profit students have a 25 percent chance.

It should come as no surprise that investigations have shown that many for-profits do in fact target low-income people who can’t pay. These people are often minorities. One investigation turned up the training manual for recruiters at the for-profit college Vatterott, including a list of ideal types of people to recruit:

Leadership Conference on Human Rights – Has To Use Library’s Internet To Fill Out Application – Thought They Saw A Ghost One Time – Can’t Find Phoenix On A Map

Steve noticed the same thing at his school: “Most of my students made minimum wage, and over half were black. Every one of my students had a loan, and it’s all they ever talked about. Some felt strong-armed into them, but some wanted them. They lived off of them. They wanted the loans as another source of income because they couldn’t make ends meet with their regular jobs. They took a few classes to keep up appearances, but I would always know why they were really there. Every college has these students, but at my college, I had several in every class I taught. I never knew what happened to them after the semester and they were 20 or 40 grand in debt. Many struggled to make ends meet, and the college offered an easy way to get loans. What did you think was going to happen?”

AndreyPopov/iStock/Getty Images “Thanks for the mortgage payment.”

For-profit universities vastly prefer loans — and the long-term, interest-bearing income they generate — to straight cash payments. So much so that they often don’t take cash: “One student in particular told me that she had $20,000 from an inheritance in cash, but ran into roadblocks everywhere. My college wouldn’t accept cash, so she tried a check. They told her they couldn’t, since they had too many issues with bounced checks. She then tried paying online in full, but she was told she shouldn’t because ‘What if you decide to drop a class? Would you still want to pay for it?’ She then tried monthly payments, but she was informed she was too late to sign up. She could only take a loan.”

Digital Vision./DigitalVision/Getty It’s usually a red flag when a business won’t let you purchase their one product.

Schools like the University of Phoenix depend on student loans to survive. In fact, the latter actively instructs their “Phoenixes” to borrow the max amount. And how could that possibly backfire? For-profit universities are one of the major causes of the current student loan debt crisis. So if you’re a New Yorker who had your daily commute fucked up by Occupy Wall Street, you can blame like half of that on the Participation Trophy of colleges.

3

They Cost More To Attend Than Conventional Universities

moodboard/moodboard/Getty Images

For-profit colleges advertise themselves as much more affordable than traditional universities. According to the ads, a for-profit college is the Costco of higher education: great quality without any unnecessary frills, for the budget-conscious consumer.

“‘Scholarship?’ It’s just a discount.”

Why, you save so much money on these programs that it’d be almost insane to get your degree anywhere else.

“Our scam is cheaper than their scam!”

Surprise! That’s all crap. These schools are filled with more hidden fees than a bank run by ninjas. Here’s Steve: “A close family member was deciding on a cheap starter college. She was looking at my college and Cincinnati State. Honestly, I just started at my school and I didn’t know what the full cost was. I asked and got a quote for $9,000 a semester … When I gave her the written quote, she looked right back up and said, ‘I could get a degree from Cincinnati State for that much.’ I was floored.”

Two years at a community college costs, on average, $8,300. Four years at a state college? $52,000. But at a for-profit, that Associate’s Degree is now $35,000. The Bachelors? $63,000. It’s like deciding to eat out at Olive Garden instead of that fancy French restaurant, only to discover that the bread sticks are the price of a used Toyota.

bhofack2/iStock/Getty Images “Considering they are unlimited, you can’t afford not to.”

Steve explained: “All normal colleges show how much a semester is, or give a price by class. At ours, they made it look cheap by giving price for each credit hour. [Note: They still do.] So many of my students were suckered in this way. They saw the $550 cost per hour … and they assumed that meant $550 per credit.”

Oops! Silly desperate students seeking to better their lives. You assumed “for-profit college” meant something besides “a shell game in which you gamble your paycheck for decades to come.”

Michael Blann/DigitalVision/Getty As least Vegas gives you drink and food comps when you do it.

2

A Degree All But Guarantees You WON’T Get A Job

rilueda/iStock/Getty Images

All for-profit colleges essentially promise you your dream job, falling just short of issuing IOUs for personal oral sex bots upon graduation. The word of the day, kids, is “bullshit.” It was revealed last year that the $75,000 three-year criminal justice degree offered by Westwood College comes with a 3.8 percent job placement rate. And most of those “jobs” are as some sort of security guard, aka the job literally any breathing human can get.

A school like the recently shut down Heald College, or DeVry, can famously claim 90-percent-plus job placement rates, which sounds super impressive … if you don’t know that the FTC is currently suing them for classifying a business major getting hired as a waiter to be an “in-field” placement. Or counting a job at Taco Bell as successful placement. Steve gave a shit about his students and did his best to prepare them for careers as accountants, “but most didn’t become accountants. We had to go off of curriculum, and while many of us got through that as fast as we could with our students to tell them what they really needed to know, we often didn’t have time.”

Rawpixel Ltd/iStock/Getty Images “Welcome to Money Management 101. Lesson 1: You shouldn’t have taken this class.”

Steve explained how his college practically went out of its way to make their courses useless: “Normal colleges give you a mix of course work, field work, and other assignments, slowly making it more and more real world. Once you get the basics, you learn the programs, you see what employers want, and you expand your knowledge. For-profits are like standardized tests. You get the basics, but almost none of it can be applied once in the real world.”

Pinkypills/iStock/Getty Images “And that about covers the basics of being a barista.”

The evidence shows that graduates from for-profits make less and are less happy about their prospects than those from larger colleges. This jives with Steve’s experiences: “I’ve met several graduates, and nearly all didn’t get the jobs they wanted. A few thought they were going to be teachers in a few years, and I found them working as subs. One student who said he wanted to run a hotel I met by chance at a hotel in Columbus, where he was only a part-time assistant manager at a Microtel [and] taking classes for ANOTHER degree at the University of Phoenix at night.”

BananaStock/BananaStock/Getty Images “Unfortunately, two fake degrees cannot combine like Megazord into one real degree.”

So uh … clearly, that guy doesn’t learn lessons easily.

The conventional logic is that any degree is better than no degree. But that may not be true with for-profit colleges. A Harvard study found that such students are 22 percent less likely to get a callback from a job than an otherwise-identical resume that named a public university. And it’s even worse with an online degree. Even if these students do find work, high school dropouts tend to earn more than for-profit degreers in the same field.

1

For-Profit Colleges Are In Big Trouble

Albert Herring/Wiki Commons

Over the last year or so, the hammer has started coming down on for-profit schools. Steve explained: “Obama had been threatening for years to do something about for-profit colleges, but no one believed he would go through with it. In early 2015, it was apparent he was trying to do something, and we got emails everyday. Most were telling us not to worry, but we also had emails that said ‘We’re as strong as ever!’ I worked there for three years, and the only emails they had sent me was pay stub receipts, password expiration reminders, and the odd departmental email … these emails really showed how worried they were.”

Devonyu/iStock/Getty Images They were a step away from emails asking their employees, “Are you a cop? If we ask, you have to tell us if you are.”

This finally prompted Steve to make a career change of his own. He found another job and gave his resignation to his department head, who “begged me to stay. He didn’t try to flatter me or say how much they needed me or anything you would expect to hear. It was, ‘I know you’re worried about this Obama law (I wasn’t), and we’re worried too, but it will all be OK.’ Everyone was acting like the apocalypse was coming.”

And what terrifying new law change had everybody soiling their chinos? To quote CNN:

“The new set of rules, called the gainful employment regulations, require colleges to track their graduates’ debt and employment to prove that their programs don’t fall short of federal guidelines. Institutions now have to provide information on program costs, how much students earn after they graduate and how much debt they could accumulate.”

Alex Wong/Getty Images News/Getty Images “We’re moving forward on a new controversial anti-lying law.”

The new law also set limits on how much the schools could charge for loan payments (no more than 20 percent of a student’s income). Despite how reasonable those restrictions sound, it was essentially the apocalypse for educational conmen. Roughly 1,400 programs serving 840,000 students were estimated to fall below those minimal standards. The University of Phoenix lost half its students. DeVry is currently being sued by the FTC for false advertising.

Steve was not bummed out at all by this. He still feels some guilt for being involved in the whole thing to start with: “One student I had told me that he knew he was being had. I started to say he wasn’t, but he told me to shut up. He told me he went $25,000 into debt for a degree no one took seriously. He had a family, and I got the sense he was doing this for them … He told me to go fuck myself and proceeded to tell a few other professors too. We never saw him again after that. I’m hoping, really hoping, that the new laws will make degrees for people like him from for-profits actually worth it.”

Kondor83/iStock/Getty Images “Congrats on getting hired! Here’s your desk.”

We hope so too, for the students’ sake, but we can’t imagine a future in which a prospective employer looks at your resume and says, “Whoa, University of Phoenix, huh? Don’t you think you might be overqualified?” Well, not with a straight face, anyway.

If you were misled by a for-profit college, please protect other students by letting the authorities know. If you decided to attend a school because of a misleading ad or deceptive recruiting, contact the Federal Trade Commission.

If you took out a private loan (not including federal student loans) to finance your education, you can also complain to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

If you are a veteran or service member who was deceived by a college, and you used the GI Bill or other VA programs to fund your education, please report it to the Department of Veterans Affairs’ new complaint system. The folks at Veterans Education Success would also like to hear from you, and can connect you with pro-bono attorneys, state and federal law enforcement agencies, and generally advocate on your behalf to the VA.

Evan V. Symon is an interviewer, writer, and interview-finder guy for the personal experience team at Cracked. Have an awesome experience/job you would like to share? Hit us up at [email protected] today!

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[skylain]

Second Dream Journal (Long Post)

So the nightmares returned again last night.  Unsurprising, as thoughts were haunting me in waking moments before bed.

The first one began as a Facebook conversation between me and Kairi...mirroring one I had in real life a few weeks ago.  Usually when I break up with someone, I just cut all ties, for obvious reasons, I can’t go on associating with them, it’s too painful.  A week after we broke up, I broke down and messaged her all day one day telling her how much I missed her, all these things inside my heart, how I was feeling.  I probably shouldn’t have done that, but I was fucked up, cutting, and needed affection.  She read them, but didn’t respond.  When she eventually did, it was as if it came from a complete stranger, not the girl I had known for 4 years now, like she just didn’t care anymore.  And it fucked me up.

My dream was not unlike this.  I was messaging her, to no response.  Yet I knew she was reading them.  Eventually, I heard back from her.  Once again, it was not what I was expecting, and it fucked me up, worse than the one in real life (or so it felt in the dream).  She sent me a very large and detailed message of each and every one of my faults, everything I did wrong, everything she disliked about me, all of my mistakes and sins, with graphs and drawings to support.  The latter part sounds silly looking back, but at the time in the dream, it was damaging.  Each fault and failure was literally just an element of my personality, who I am.  She was basically declaring that she didn’t like a thing about me, that I’m a problem through and through.  This perhaps hearkens back to a conversation we had a few months ago when she revealed she may be wanting to break up, where she told me all of the problems she had with me now, and they were all cores of me and my personality, some things that could definitely stand to change, other things not so much.  And here it was, presented in full detail in this dream.

Shift time and location.  New setup.  I’m at the fair.  I inherently know it’s the Erie County Fair, yet it looks nothing like it, it’s far more grandiose and involved and complex.  Me and Kairi went there together over the summer in reality, and it was a wonderful day.  I love that place.  In my dream, I was once again alone, wandering the crowds and attractions.  A storm was coming, encroaching, slowly darkening the edges of the fair, yet nobody seemed to mind.  I checked my phone...Facebook notifications I didn’t care about were on screen.  Once again, I messaged Kairi.  She said to meet her somewhere.  I don’t recall the exact terms, but it was something along the lines of “the big sphere”, and she seemed confident that I knew what she meant.  I thought I did too.  I wandered all over the place, sometimes in slow motion, trying to find my way.  I passed through various haunted houses, which often times were little more than a dimly lit hallway with actors popping out of the walls in very obvious locations.  (Me and Kairi worked at a haunted house back in October)  I wandered through animal exhibits, past rides, including one that for some reason, I felt I’d had a connection to and been on before, yet know now in waking life that I’ve never heard of.  It was a kid’s roller coaster, “The Seneca Falls Roller Coaster”, and it was a simple kid’s coaster than went behind a waterfall feature that was there.

I pressed on, desperately trying to find the place that Kairi told me to meet her, but to no avail.  I messaged her, asking for clarification of where and what she meant by the place she’d said to meet.  But I heard nothing back.  Feeling very forgotten and disconnected and disjointed, and utterly defeated, I continued to wander.  Why would she tell me something, then fail to help me?  What kind of game is she playing?  Eventually I found myself at the center of the park/fairgrounds, in a place reminiscent of Disney World.  Streets of America, the New York Street from Disney World’s Hollywood Studios.  A place me and Kairi have also been in real life, when I was in Disney for the Maker All Stars Video Creator’s Conference, we were able to visit Hollywood Studios after hours and experience it without anybody but us and the 50 other creators there.  Which was utterly incredible.  I saw this place as I remembered it then, empty, no people, no sound.  Behind me, I turned around and saw The Washington Monument.  Saying I was lost would be an understatement, I had no idea where I was, and had just given up totally.

But then, I saw a familiar figure walking over towards me from the side of the Monument.  Of course, it was Kairi.  Once she got closer, I saw her as she was from when she came here for the Summer of 2016, and then stayed since, with her short boyish pixie cut hair, and it was brown.  Unlike now, where it’s a tad longer, and blue.  We embraced, I was so happy to see her, overjoyed to finally be with her again...she said she wanted to start this all again, to go back to how it all should be and should have been, that we’re perfect for each other...suddenly she had her red hair then, the first color she dyed it, for when she cosplayed Kairi with me this last summer for Fan World.  It didn’t matter, she was beautiful to me no matter what.  But then, in an instant, she vanished, and I was left all alone again.  The last thing I remember was her saying that the wait was over, that it was time again.

Shift time and place once more.  I was in a car on Grand Island, driving with a former(?) friend, Dennis.  (I say former because I haven’t talked to him in weeks, and he knows very well everything that’s been going on, he’s a part of the friend group...and has made zero effort to reach out or extend any kindness to me, unlike so many other wonderful people have).  I don’t know why we were on Grand Island in my dream, but that place and person I was with did relate to a real life event from last summer.  Dennis had his graduation party at Beaver Island State Park this last summer.  And that’s exactly where we were passing in the dream.  I mentioned it, and we chuckled about it, since it was a party he didn’t want to have, and it was a complete waste of time and money, and it was a running joke about how terrible the placement was...paying to get onto the island, paying to get into the park, and how dumb it was.  He had a laugh about it, but then he said “Ah well, we’ll be back though man.  Probably hit it sometime with the crew.  Wasn’t all bad”.  But then at that point, I went silent.  I said, “Crew?  Dennis you know very well that I’m clearly no longer apart of it.  Anakin hasn’t talked to me and seems to hate me, Austin has made zero effort, yet I know exactly what he’s doing...nor have you or Jordan.  Yet you all know what I’m dealing with.  So clearly I’m not a part of the ‘squad’ anymore.”  Of course, this is a direct reflection my feelings on what’s going on in my waking life in regards to that situation.  Dennis didn’t have much of an answer for me.  He mumbled something, I couldn’t tell what.  But I was able to make out something along the line of, “You had at her first.  Then Aric took advantage and went second.  Now it’s Austin’s turn.”  Again, direct reflection of real life events.  Fucked me up bad.  End scene.

The rest of my dreams were scattered images of little relation...the terrible Msyterio level from Spiderman 2 for PC, seeing Ghost play live again for the third time, and trains and train tracks, a frequent occurrence in my dreams, it seems.

Most of the imagery and happenings in these dreams are pretty damn direct and obvious, and leave little to the imagination in terms of trying to understand or interpret.  But...it’s still worth keeping this and writing them down.

Thoughts and feedback always appreciated.  Thank you.

#dream #dreams #dream journal #dream journey #bad dreams #nightmare #nightmares #sleep #sleeping #waking life #inception #weird #bizarre #direct #significant other #girlfriend #scary #creepy #kairi #alone #lonely #grand island #train #train tracks #ghost #imagery #disturbing #scared #spiritual #depression