Back On The Job Search

Nov. 4th, 2025 03:18 pm
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The temporary gig was... Unfortunately not sustainable. Walked in for the first day of training to incredibly predatory business practices, mind-boggling unprofessionalism, rampant nepotism and favoritism, and some clear outright lying/obfuscating of information/emotional manipulation going on. It was the most WTF I've ever had on the job. Of the eight hours of training I was scheduled for, exactly 2 hours ended up with me actually learning or doing anything relevant to the position (and one of those hours was.... sketchy, because it was reciting a sales pitch out loud for an hour straight). 

I was stuck in a room with fifteen other people and held as a captive audience while the instructor took us through her life story of being a childhood actor, adventuring teenager, Normal Highschooler, rich Californian actor (with all the details of her amazing luxury condos and bullshit), single mother, Florida-hating transplant, budding pest control technician, to now-saleswoman, among other inane bullshit. I kept sitting there waiting for it to get better, and it was all downhill. She kept bragging about how everyone loves her and about how emotionally intelligent she is, and never before in my life have I wanted to slam my face into a desk harder. She started the whole thing off by threatening to fire people if they fell asleep or went onto their phones. At first I was like, "What do you mean 'if they fall asleep'?" but by hour five I was fucking dozing too, sitting in that same spot in front of a black computer listening to her ramble on and avoid questions actually related to the details of the company. 

So, yeah. No dice.

On the bright side, I finished two weeks' worth of Calculus homework over the weekend. Keep running into the issue where I'm not sure how close the "write in how you found your answers" want me to get to the automatically generated "here's how you're supposed to do it" section. For one I tried hard to imitate its solution pattern from previous questions and got REALLY close, but still fucked it up. Right answer from the paper-solving, but wrote out the process wrong; forgot to fix the fucking denominator to make it look right for the quotient rule process. Facedesk. A part of me is also scared if trying to copy the solution patterns' syntax from the textbook and other questions is like, roundabout plagiarism???? It's different problems, but the same solution processes, so I don't really know how that works... But there's also the issue of I don't really know how to do some of these problems except how the textbook and homework program is showing me! Ughhhh. I love math, but this is stressful and sucks. I'm just extra paranoid because of that one Professor who used ChatGPT and hallucinated sources from it accused me of plagiarism way back when, because I used the school-supplied template for a homework assignment. =_= Like, fuck off, man. That's what I was supposed to do!!!

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Submitted by a generous Anonymous! Thank you, Anonymous!

“You're not from Mars. You're from too much pressure on my brain.” “FORGIVE ME–US–YOURSELF. …NOT “MARTIAN.” NOT LITERAL. SYMBOL/SYNECDOCHE– “OUTLINE OF BEST FIT.” MARTIAN CONCEPT-CONSTELLATION—ALIEN–DIFFERENT–FAR AWAY.”
And I… see isn't the right word… there are no words for it…New nonsense senses describing–experience of–somewhere so distant the universe will burn out before light from Earth can reach it…a place beyond places”
Blurb: a year after FBI agent John Jones moved to the Stochastic Terrorism Unit in Middleton, he is caught in a suicide bombing. Afterwards, he starts seeing colored smoke coming from people and knowing close details about people around him. He also begins perceiving messages from an unknown being he calls the Martian. Together, they must learn to work together in order to protect Middleton from acts of violence and the encroachment of the mysterious White Martian.

Why is it worth your time?: This ongoing series is a refreshing new take on the DC superhero Martian Manhunter. The Martian is truly eldritch in nature, and the story visuals do bend your brain a bit in a delightful way. Despite the triggering content (and there is a LOT of it–see content warnings), the story so far has an altogether positive outlook on humanity.

Plural/1+ Tags: realitymashing, type: setting-specific, visions, voices,

Spoilers for days! )

Accessibility Notes: Currently available where comic books are sold. May be available online (though currently that may only be on bootleg sites.)

Misc. Notes: definitely for adults and possibly older teens but definitely not younger teens
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Are you fiction, or nonfiction?


Blurb: A ten-year-old who is petrified of threat and danger finds himself turned into a book illustration and sucked into an animated world of fiction, where he must overcome his fears with the help of Adventure, Fantasy, and Horror.

Why is it worth your time?: This movie bombed and was considered a stinker, but we watched it recently and found it entertaining enough. The animation is pretty and the mix of animation and live-action to delineate the "real" world from the fictional one was neat!

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, otherworld, fictioneers, friendship

Content Warnings: This is a movie for children. It has some minor children's movie adventure scares.

Access Notes: Available on VHS, DVD, and streaming (currently on Amazon and Apple TV). The DVD version is what I found, and it had subtitles in English and Spanish, plus dubbing in French. Someone has also put it on archive.org.

Misc Notes: Macauley Culkin got nominated for a Razzie for his performance, but honestly we didn't think it was bad!

New Zines & New Job

Oct. 29th, 2025 10:43 pm
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Life's continuing to be hard, but we managed to secure a temporary gig that pays enough to live. We won't be there for more than a month or two, because the job is fundamentally antithetical to our ADHD, but it should be enough to cover the costs of wrapping up our Bachelor and paying rent. From there, I don't know where we'll go, but stuck in a recession and with the job market as garbage as it is, I can't afford to turn it down. I'm just glad to have something steady that won't make my chronic illnesses worse (hopefully).

Other than that, we've published Dragon On The Court (a free fiction minizine, this one comedy), the HowlCon 2025 Kinsona Zine (another free zine, contains all the kinsonas submitted from participants in our"Let's Build a Kinsona" event), and My Fur Is Not Your Coat (another $2 minizine, this one autobiographical and for people who ask "you endogenic or traumagenic?") 

More on the latter... )
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(full title: Weird Heroes Vol. 5: Doc Phoenix: the Oz Encounter. The much-later 2005 hardback reprint just called it the Oz Encounter, which was sensible.)

"We all have dreams and nightmares, Mr. Wentworth, and as we dream our thoughts are as starkly real to us as anything we face while awake. Your daughter is lost in what resembles an extremely deep dream, and for reasons we don't understand yet she refuses to leave her fantasy behind. Perhaps the dream is a pleasant one, something too tempting to cavate, or perhaps it's a nightmare, one which is keeping your daughter its prisoner. We don't know, but we can find out, through my special methods."


Blurb: Doc Phoenix, a superpsychologist dream-diver, enters the mind of a comatose girl and finds a strange land based on famous Oz stories. What is keeping her in her coma? And who is trying to sabotage him and his team?

Why is it worth your time?: This is a self-declared pulp novel, and it embraces that genre. Deep art it is not, but it is entertaining and well-planned out! Doc Phoenix has to adapt to the dreamworlds of the people he enters without losing himself, and the figures within the dreamworlds are shown to be surprisingly independent. (Doc Phoenix remarks on how the Tin Man in particular seems surprisingly adult, considering he resides in the mind of a ten-year-old girl, and the Tin Man even tells Doc at one point that he needs to tell the girl something that they both know but she does not, because "I think she has a right to know." Doc respects that request and does so.) The conclusions were satisfying, and the idea of a hero who works to rescue people's minds from the inside out is a pretty great premise! If you just want a fun, humble adventure, this is worth a shot.

Plural Tags: abuse low-focus, bodyhopping, identityblending, otherworld, dreamfolk, fictioneers (specifically Ozians, including the Shaggy Man and the Tin Man), realitymashing, friendship, enmity, teamwork

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Only available as a used book; it got reprinted in 2005 to my surprise (in hardcover, even!), but it has never been digitized, as far as I know. Perhaps I should do so!

Misc Notes: Don't be fooled by the title; this book stands perfectly well on its own, and it was the only Doc Phoenix book. (They were clearly hoping for a series, very obviously leaving one loose thread to deal with later, but it never happened.) "Weird Heroes" was a brand imprint, and Doc Phoenix first appeared in a short story, "Doc Phoenix," in Weird Heroes vol. 2 (an anthology). I haven't read that appearance (yet) but had no trouble reading Oz Encounter on its own.
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Submitted by [personal profile] quailfence! Thank you, [personal profile] quailfence!

"No one can choose who they are in this world."

Blurb: You control Kris, the only human in a town full of monsters. One day, you and the local bully, Susie, are sent to get something from a supply closet, and end up falling into a mysterious other dimension called the Dark World. There they meet the Prince of Darkness, Ralsei, who tells them that the three of them are the "Delta Warriors" of an ancient prophecy and are destined to save the world. As they explore and fight through the dark world, however, they soon begin to question the prophecy and whether following it is the right decision. It also becomes increasingly apparent that Kris is their own person separate from you - and that they do not like what you're doing

Why is it worth your time?: The game explores questions about free will and destiny in a very interesting way, with the tension between Kris and the player being a big highlight of that theme. Also, engaging gameplay, fun and funny characters, lovely pixel art, and a banging soundtrack

Plural/1+ Tags: abuse:low-focus (unless you play the alternate/secret route, which is abuse:high-focus), 1+: otherworld, relationships:enmity, relationships:teamwork, type:possession

Content Warnings: non-lethal violence, minor blood, threatened apocalypse, past character death and resulting grief, you (the player) are controlling someone against their will, bullying, death threats, abuse is mostly implied/referenced but there is a brief scene of verbal/emotional child abuse, brief scene of a parent being drunk, trauma due to parental divorce, self-esteem issues, Christianity-esque religion

The alternate/secret route involves the player forcing two characters into a manipulative, abusive relationship and murder

Accessibility Notes: Available on Switch 1/2, PlayStation 4/5, and PC via Steam. The first two chapters are available as a free demo, the rest is paid. The demo is also available on Itch.io. A Japanese translation is available. All text is on screen but there is no dub; one miniboss fight in ch 4 involves audio and visual cues with the visual cues going away after a while, but the visual cues will stay if you die and retry more than once or tell one of your party members that you can't hear something in the scene prior to the miniboss. Let's Plays exist but I haven't seen any

Misc. Notes (if any): This game is a not-quite-sequel to Undertale, and Toby Fox recommends that you play that game first; however you will still be able to enjoy/understand Deltarune if you haven't played Undertale. Currently, only 4 of a planned 7 chapters are out - chapter 5 will release in 2026, and beyond that the release schedule is unknown
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