anghraine: a woman with short black hair (gwen thackeray from guild wars 2) casts a spell with pink/purple light (gwen)
My warlock managed to survive to level 6, so naturally, I’ve been looking at the powers she’ll have if she manages to get to … 14
When you have to make a death saving throw at the start of your turn, you can instead spring back to your feet with a burst of radiant energy. You regain hit points equal to half your hit point maximum, and then you stand up if you so choose. Each creature of your choice that is within 30 feet of you takes radiant damage equal to 2d8 + your Charisma modifier, and is blinded until the end of the current turn.
hell yeah

Tagged: #also i get to add my cha mod to any radiant or fire damage i do at all #so that would actually be +10 to whatever the roll is #this character is designed for theme and not effectiveness (her aasimar and celestial abilities overlap at multiple points) #but still #:D #and i have counterspell and dispel magic now so i feel a bit better about things

[ETA 4/26/2024: somewhat (though not always) hilariously, this character built entirely around her backstory and theme, sometimes to mechanical detriment, was more or less regarded as incredibly powerful by the group. This was fairer later on because Protector Aasimar used to get a trait that's minor at first but scales incredibly well at higher levels—i.e. your bonus damage is based on level rather than your spellcasting modifier, so any attack that hits at level 14 would add +14 damage. As a warlock with Eldritch Blast+Agonizing Blast, by level 11 she'd have to miss three separate rolls to not get the damage bonus. The real difficulty was avoiding melee combat aka death, hence my relief at getting her all the way to 6 in this post!]
anghraine: a painting of a man c. 1800 with a book and a pen; the words love, pride, and delicacy in the upper corner (darcy (love)
Academia+mental health rambles:

anghraine: a painting of a manor backed by high woody hills, with scattered trees in the foreground (pemberley)
I have a cold that’s currently in the “not serious, but miserable” sniffles ’n sneezes phase, and also had to teach a Zoom class at nine in the morning.

But it was actually nice! The lecture was on ancient Greek rhetoric, and my students went off on a very earnest tangent about Percy Jackson and the failings of the films, and at the end, were like “feel better, professor! You did a great job!”

Nice students are the best.

Tagged: #(especially when i'm sick lol)

[personal profile] heckofabecca said:

awww <3 feel better!!
anghraine: an x-wing starship from star wars going through hyperspace (hyperspace)
On the one hand, I didn’t check my email. On the other hand, I did upload my students’ readings and post instructions for this week, and I’m contemplating cleaning something.

??
anghraine: vader's entrance in anh; text: i think i speak for everyone when i say mwahahahahahaha (anakin [muahahahaha])
Shout-out to all the profs who encouraged and supported me when I was in my late teens/early twenties even though I was insufferably obnoxious.

Tagged: #some of them really didn't—but some were great #at a point where i really needed encouragement

[ETA 4/23/2024: obviously I can still be obnoxious, lol, but the concentrated rage of a repressed undiagnosed autistic & bipolar 20-year-old closeted baby lesbian raised Mormon was a very distinct experience that got less intense as I altered my social world. It will always affect me, but a lot of my writing from that period is just kind of consumed in my towering frustration with almost every aspect of my life in a way that became less true over time. I do really appreciate the professors who saw past the abrasiveness of my writing to some deeper potential.]
anghraine: vader extending his lightsaber; text: and now for the airing of grievances! (anakin [grievances])
Brain weasel whining:

Yesterday, my psychiatrist called me at 5:30 PM and was like “oh, by the way, you should go back to therapy, your dosages are already high and that’s all that I’m really equipped to handle” and it’s like … I shouldn’t be always comparing her with the previous psychiatrist who left my uni, but I stopped going to therapy specifically bc she was so much more helpful than my therapist. The therapist was of the “everyone’s brains are different uwu” type and ugh.

#she [ETA 4/19/2024: the previous therapist, not my psychiatrist] was at the same time /also/ of the 'everyone has anxiety in their own way' type #maybe i'd get a different one this time and i /have/ had good therapists in the past but :\
anghraine: a close shot of catra from she-ra, a girl with cat ears, heterochromia, and long hair (catra)
unnamedelement responded to this post:

My school is shitting all over ADA accommodations right now. It’s infuriating. Best of luck and I’m sorry you are dealing with this.

I replied:

Thanks!

[personal profile] heckofabecca said:

good luck <3 best thing about zoom is the chat!!! maybe it can be a helpful accessibility tool <3
anghraine: an enraged korra propels herself in the avatar state (korra (avatar state))
My uni’s Zoom teaching advice is like “create eye contact with your students :)” and shit, and meanwhile the autism brain is just RED ALERT RED ALERT

They were explicit this semester that not having any synchronous meetings isn’t an option, and of course, not teaching isn’t an option, so … the special hell awaits :)))

Tagged: #accommodations are ... band-aids basically #necessary! when you need them you want them on hand! but there's a wealth of situations they don't cover! #aghhh
anghraine: an old-fashioned pen lying on a letter written on yellowing paper (letter)
[personal profile] elperian responded to this post:

I had so much anxiety about emails I once took 6 months to respond, but in my defense they never emailed me in between asking for a f/u so could it really have been that urgent?

I replied:

My conversations with myself sound a lot like that, lol.
anghraine: a half-elf woman with wavy hair; her face is cast into sharply contrasting shadows (larissa (ominous))
I figured out a way to send emails to my class without seeing my inbox, which … obviously I should check my inbox, but it’s a big relief to be able to send updates on Bad Days without the terror of my inbox. I LIVE.

Meanwhile, at the appointment:

Psychiatrist: Is there anything that makes you less anxious about checking your email?

Me: Not doing it.

Tagged: #/sigh #honestly kind of sorry for my students but here we are
anghraine: vader extending his lightsaber; text: and now for the airing of grievances! (Default)
Had my follow-up appointment with the psychiatrist, admitted that things are not great, and while not much got resolved beyond “trying to be physically healthier, have been dealing with hypomania, depression, and anxiety,” she wants to see me in two weeks again.

While I’m still ambivalent about her, it’s nice to be taken seriously, at least.

Tagged: #i also tried to explain that the anxiety is deeply tied up in autistic stuff but not sure i was clear about that
anghraine: a focused shot of adora from she-ra, a blonde girl with large eyes and a concerned expression (adora [save the cat])
1) This chapter is a monster (~12,000 words at this point with a long way left to go), mostly because I have so much to say about one specific play (one of three that inspired the whole dissertation concept to begin with), but it's only one of many texts under discussion overall. I'm tired, but also too obsessed opinionated interested in my topic and in doing right by my guy a very relevant playwright to cut it short. On one level it's fun and another aghhhhhhhhhhh

2) One of the fun/exhausting aspects of studying early modern literature (mostly plays for me) is that there's typically 400 years of accumulated scholarship to discuss in the course of positioning my argument and, well, actually making my argument. I actually enjoy the 50s-80s early modernist scholars quite a bit because they're less infected by Victorian traditions than the earlier ones, but less entrenched in fixing on One Theoretical Lens To Rule Them All and saccharine semi-corporate bullshitting that infects a lot of modern academia. So if they think someone's argument is bad, they'll just say so. Like, I kind of love this debate over the incestuous subtext (barely subtext) of The Duchess of Malfi where Louis Giannetti snaps out in a footnote, "Finally, he [F. L. Lucas] concedes that incest might be a possibility—'a suggestion, and an inessential one' (p. 34). How Professor Lucas can dismiss incest as 'inessential' staggers the mind" (307n14). Tell us what you really feel, Professor Giannetti!

(F. L. Lucas himself was a truly remarkable figure in Webster studies and also 1930s British anti-appeasement and anti-fascism. His Webster takes are a little wonky but it kind of feels less significant in the grand scheme of things. He didn't have the focus of later Webster scholars but given that his extremely varying interests included raging at the British press and government, helping refugees, putting fascist hate mail from Ezra Pound on display, and ultimately running an intelligence cell to fight Nazis, it's hard to care that much. He also wrote a sci-fi novella about overpopulation and, apparently, global warming in 1937.)

3) Anyway, I was going over The Duchess of Malfi and some of Ferdinand's many creepy, purity-obsessed speeches/threats to his sister, and stumbled over this one:

Your darkest actions: nay, your privat'st thoughts
Will come to light

me, wearily: Okay, Horde Prime.
anghraine: a picture of multnomah falls in oregon: a tall waterfall with a wooden bridge connecting either side (multnomah)
I reblogged a gif of dancing crabs overlaid with "TRUMP IS GONE," as one does.

Tagged: #THANK GOD #i just watched the whole inauguration and spent it being like 'nothing go wrong nothing go wrong' #and 45 is out :D
anghraine: vader stopping a blaster with his hand; text: just another skywalker family holiday (anakin [skywalker family holiday])
I got some lab tests back and they’re … like, not ideal by any means, but mostly normal, and the not-normal things are doing better than last time!

(I was esp relieved that my glucose remains solidly in the middle range of normal. My bio father and maternal grandfather are/were diabetic and I take antipsychotics, so the doctors prefer to keep an eye on it, but I haven’t had labs in a year and a half.)

Tagged: #normal iron normal thyroid normal glucose #i need more vitamin d but that's okay #PHEW
anghraine: brightened leia from esb with a shadow (leia [shadowed])
I reblogged this post and added:

oh, and also, health insurance

unnamedelement responded:

This is so real

I replied:


glad it's relatable, lol

wildarthings said:

I left my phd program after a year (it wasn't working) and I still feel flashes of guilt and shame that I wasn't willing to stick it out. Academia is so guilt inducing and I'm just waiting for the year when it no longer has its shame tendrils in my life.

I replied:

It really is! I hope you feel better.

wildarthings responded:

Thank you!!! I really hope you get what you want out of your path thru academia, whatever you decide to do with it. :) :) :)

[personal profile] primeideal said:

relatable hahahhaha sorry. i survived though!!

colorwheels14
said:

My advice to you is if you go the academic job route, choose the one that actuallly fits your interests. I wanted to teach, and so I'm at a teaching university, vs. a research university. I may want to do something else in the future that may or may not be related to that anymore, but there are lots of paths that don't involve TT research university jobs.
anghraine: anakin in rots looking down; text: lost (anakin [lost])
tbh … sometimes pride, guilt, and sunk costs are all that keep me in academia

Tagged: #i respect a lot of academics but there is SO MUCH that i'm disaffected with and have 0 interest in doing #and even stuff i genuinely need to do seems kind of intolerable yet unimportant #i know some of it is brain stuff but some of it is Not

[ETA 4/13/2024: The "brain stuff" was my extreme depression in 2021. I was not exactly wrong about academia, but the impact of COVID-19 + poorly controlled bipolar mood swings + grad school + difficulties of my field made for a particularly grim experience of that year. So that's what the depression tag is about, even when the post is not specifically about depression.]
anghraine: a half-elf woman with wavy hair; her face is cast into sharply contrasting shadows (larissa (ominous))
I reblogged a post from theclassicsreader that simply reads:

grad school (derogatory)

Tagged: #no lies detected! #i'm so Done with grad school that i can't express it

lol @ me

Apr. 11th, 2024 10:34 pm
anghraine: vader extending his lightsaber; text: and now for the airing of grievances! (Default)
I was kind of mentally scolding myself for how little I read these days, how I just don't have the discipline or interest the way I once did, etc etc.

I also only wrote a little on my dissertation today because I spent almost the whole day reading five different scholarly articles that were each generally around 30 pages. And they were interesting, but by the end I didn't want to read or write anything else (okay, except one extremely pertinent article my university doesn't give me access to :|).

Dear self: maybe, just a possibility, but maybe you don't have the discipline or interest in reading outside of academia the way you used to because you're in academia. And in literature specifically, which necessarily involves a metric ton of reading things.
anghraine: vader extending his lightsaber; text: and now for the airing of grievances! (Default)
In inane personal updates: I just applied for my first credit card, even though I’m in my 30s.

…and did it purely to smooth dealings with the IRS.

Meh.

Tagged: #i... just want my tax return

[ETA 4/9/2024: lmao, I actually got rejected because of my pile of unpaid student loans. I think the only credit card I ever got approved for was for Maurice's.]
anghraine: vader extending his lightsaber; text: and now for the airing of grievances! (Default)
I meant to start the stuff I have to do today (AGHHH HAVE TO CHECK MY EMAIL AGAIN) at noon, while getting a scene together on my story in the morning … but by the time I looked up from the story, it was 1:30. Oops?

Tagged: #my best friend is like 'why are you even doing this when you clearly want to be a writer' #me: well once upon a time i figured i'd need a day job. though that's laughable at this point #but it's not like i'm just going to quit my fully funded phd in my fourth year bc the job market is bad #i just #kind of hate everything rn #except the One True Love of fiction writing #bleh

Profile

anghraine: vader extending his lightsaber; text: and now for the airing of grievances! (Default)
Anghraine

April 2025

S M T W T F S
  1234 5
6789101112
1314 151617 18 19
20 21 2223242526
27282930   

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Apr. 23rd, 2025 09:12 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios