#'in an academic setting???'

[hballegro]

i was so wrapped up in the euphoria of making a new friend that for a moment i forgot that my professor used the term 'hungry bottom' to describe someone in our book today

[trans-axolotl]

one of the reasons it's really hard for a lot of intersex people when intersex topics are on the news cycle is because the public's reaction reveals how little anyone knows or cares about intersex people, including people who call themselves our allies. almost every time intersex topics are trending, the discourse surrounding them is filled with misinformation. people who only learned today what the word intersex means jump into conversations and act like an authority. endosex/dyadic/perisex people get tripped up over things that are basically intersex 101, with tons of endosex people incorrectly arguing about the definition of intersex, who "counts," DSD terminology, and so much more. i've seen multiple endosex people say today that they've been "warning intersex people" and that we should have known that transphobia would catch up with us eventually, which is an absolutely absurd thing to say given the fact that consistently over the past ten years, it has often been intersex people sounding the alarm on sex-testing policies and also the fact that many, many intersex people are also trans, and already are facing the impacts of transphobia. there is an absolute failure from the general public to take intersex identity seriously; people seem not even able to fathom that intersex people have a community, history, and our own political resources. instead, endosex people somehow seem to think they're helping by bringing up half-remembered information from their high school biology class which usually isn't even relevant at all.

and this frustrates me so fucking much. not because i want to deny the impacts of transphobic oppression--i'm a trans intersex person, trust me when i say i am intimately aware of transphobia. this frustrates me because there is no way we can achieve collective liberation if our "allies" fail to even engage with basic intersex topics and are seemingly unaware of the many forms of intersex oppression that we are already facing every fucking day. if you are not aware of compulsory dyadism, if you are not aware of interphobia, if you are not aware of the many different ways that intersex people are directly and often violently targeted--how the fuck do you think we're going to dismantle all of these systems of oppression?

if you were truly an intersex ally, you would already KNOW that this is not new, and would not be surprised--interphobia in sports has been going on for decades. you would know that we do have a community, an identity, a history--you would have already read/listened/watched to intersex resources that give you the background information you need for allyship. you would know that although there is a really distinct lack of resources and political education, that intersex people ARE developing a political understanding of ourselves and our oppression--Cripping Intersex by Celeste Orr and their framework of compulsory dyadism is one example of how we're theorizing our oppression. It's absolutely fucking wild to me how few people I've seen actually use words like "interphobia" "intersexism" "compulsory dyadism" or "intersex oppression"--endosex people are seemingly incapable of recognizing that there is already an entrenched system of oppression towards intersex people that violently reshapes our bodies, restricts our autonomy, and attempts to eradicate intersex through a variety of medical and legal means.

you cannot treat intersex people like an afterthought. not just because we're meaningful parts of your community and deserving of solidarity, but also because intersex oppression impacts everyone!!! especially trans community--trans people will not be free until intersex people are free, so much of transphobia is shaped by compulsory dyadism, the mythical sex binary, all these ideas of enforced "biological sex" that are just as fake as the gender binary.

it makes me absolutely fucking livid every time this shit happens because it becomes so abundantly clear to me how little the average endosex person knows about intersex issues and also how little the average endosex person cares about changing that. i don't know what to say to get you to care, to get you to change that, but we fucking need it to happen and i, personally, am tired of constantly being grateful when i meet an endosex person who knows the bare minimum. i think we have a right to expect better and to demand that if you're going to call yourself our ally, you actually fucking listen to us when we tell you what that means.

okay for endosex people to reblog.

[chronurgy]

Gortash designs and builds mechanisms so I imagine he has to be able to sketch fairly decently in order to sketch his projects and designs. And I'm imagining a pile of charcoal sketches of Durge, done over their entire acquaintance, starting out with sketches of them in battle and then slowly becoming more detailed and intimate and as they do, the titles changing from things like "The Bhaalspawn" and "Bhaal's Chosen at Their Bloody Work" to "The Chosen in Contemplation" and finally just Durge's name

[bacchuschucklefuck]

okay unironically I love so much that porter is like this world SUCKS its BAD here and it HURTS you why do you care abt it!!! and literally every single bad kid is like ngl we just hate ur ass it does not matter what ur philosophy is

[tomurakii]

THE STRESS TOKEN SYMBOL IS A RED CRYSTAL??? LIKE THE ONES FROM CASSANDRA??

[natjennie]

what's weird about the fantasy high drama is that like. it seems to me like people forget d&d is primarily a) a game you play with your friends and also b) luck based.

I mean it's fine to say that "nothing felt like a challenge" and "they just dominated everything and there weren't any stakes" but like. it's not as if they weren't up against huge threats. they lost the mall fight. the last stand was an onslaught of enemies. they fought a dozen dragons from an airship. the fights were hard. they're just really good. they've had very good dice luck in general this season and are all very high level and highly specialized. fig is gonna beat deception and performance checks. adaine's gonna figure out the arcana. riz is gonna succeed investigations. like. for some reason their strategical competence and wisely picked abilities are. a downside? a disappointment?

the thing about d&d that you need to remember is it's first and foremost a game. it's mostly random and it takes you down weird paths and you're playing to have fun with your friends. the dice are literally telling the story that it's their time, it's their year. they've struggled enough. they've trained enough. they're good at what they do. and in my post about the academic/domestic/personal stressors being the focus, d&d doesn't have any other system to work them out than rolling different skills. that's what d&d is. brennan set specific challenge levels for different tasks and the players strategized to prioritize which abilities they were strongest in. the challenges were there. and the players rose to them. they were both smart in their delegation of responsibilities and lucky with their dice rolls. of which, both are foundations of d&d.

don't mistake them being good players and getting lucky with there being no hardship. just because they smashed through the wall, that doesn't mean the wall wasn't strong. they were just stronger.

[otaku553]

Me at 3 am the night before 8 am registration for next term’s classes begins

[wasabi-gumdrop]

thinking about modern au Kabru

ivy league college student, probably studying law and political science on a full scholarship. first time living away from Milsiril so he has to promise her, yes mom i’ll call you at least four times a week, no mom i don’t need your amex black card, yes mom the normal credit card is fine i need to learn how to budget like a Normal Person (it has a limit of $20k — that’s not normal Kabru).

Milsiril insists for a long time that she’ll just get him a house off campus so he can have his own space (aka a place she can drop by anytime and possibly live a few months out of the year just to be close to him) but Kabru puts his foot down and tells her the best way he’s gonna make friends is by living with other students (bye mom).

his floor in the coed dorms is the party floor and he always makes sure to invite everybody (his nightmare is accidentally leaving anyone out and having them think that he doesn’t like them). somehow it’s always a good time, everyone leaves with more friends than they came with, it never gets totally out of control, and plenty of girls who are interested in him (and a lot of guys too tbh) bring tons of baked treats so there’s always free food. Kabru is the RA’s favourite person to have in the building (even though Kabru himself is messy but most of the people he’s friends with are nice and clean up after themselves).

he has a porsche (Milsiril gift for his 16th bday) but he’s adamant about not driving it unless he absolutely has to (because he doesn’t wanna look like a douche). BUT he never says no when his friends ask for rides (so he ends up driving all the time anyway). he actually contemplates selling the porsche and going for a more practical car but Mickbell is like ‘dude you are not taking this away from me.’ Kabru sighs and decides to keep it because his friends (Mickbell) like being chauffeured around in a fancy convertible (Rin, Holm, and Dia don’t care, they’re just glad they don’t have to walk to the grocery store).

he’s probably on a casual texting basis with most of his professors and you know he’s going to all their office hours, grabbing beer with them just to keep chatting about life outside of school. and that’s how he winds up in some super secret faculty group chat where he’s now privy to all the college administration gossip.

Kabru is elected for student council during his freshman year and he’s probably the favourite to be sc president one day.

he doesn’t really date (gets too in his head about how he doesn’t wanna ruin any friendships) but he does hang out one on one with a lot of girls and treats them all really well. he probably goes so far out of his way to be platonic that he flies a little too close to the ‘Just Like One of the Girlies’ sun, he kinda forgets that most people interpret it as flirting coming from him. which leads to a few awkward conversations. people feeling led on, a few angry jealous boyfriends, scathing dms about him being a girl stealing homewrecker.

it’s such a nightmare for him and he needs it to end right now. so he begs Rin to ‘date’ him for a week or two and then publicly dump him just so the entire student body gets the message that he is Just A Friend.

Rin stares at him for a few seconds. then she laughs. she laughs and laughs. she laughs for a crazy long time. and then eventually she goes, ‘wow you’re an asshole, Kabru. no i won’t be your fake girlfriend. you’re gonna suffer and i’m going to enjoy it.’

and that’s when Kabru has a moment of enlightenment. ok yeah. asking for that is probably really selfish and mean. maybe he needs to think about girls’ feelings more and that’s maybe more important than his deep seated need to be liked, and when has Rin ever been wrong about anything.

he apologizes. and so begins one of the more serious talks he’s ever had with Rin about being okay with not being liked.

he thinks he can really turn over a new leaf. the whole ‘not worrying about what other people think’ thing goes pretty well — up until Kabru meets the aloof professor for his Monsters and Myths class who keeps forgetting and mispronouncing his name.

Kabru has never needed someone to like him So Bad, he needs Prof. Touden to like him as a matter of life and death, and he’s willing to look stupid for it (fails a midterm on purpose to justify begging for one on one tutoring)

[lavampira]

I'll admit that I'm in deep that I don't know how else to be and I don't want to slow down

[ramenwithbroccoli]

not to be controversial on main, but i really do feel like way more people would enjoy maths if someone properly explained it to them & they didn't have a hanging threat of failing an exam above their heads

[huellitaa]

studying bcuz i might be a loser but at least i'm really pretty and well educated

[mangobug]

Alenoah is so goddamn appealing to me for the same reason i like aleheather: they're both enemies/rivals with a tension. However, what makes alenoah so much more interesting to me is the fact that Noah just would not visibly care about, or outwardly acknowledge, Alejandro's advancements. When Alejandro flirts with the other contestants, he easily throws them off or (in Heather's case) pisses them off, turning them into putty in his two hands. When he attempts to throw Noah off, though, it doesn't (visibly) have an effect on him, and it bothers Alejandro because Alejandro always has the upper-hand, around both women and men. It makes Alejandro feel almost humiliated when Noah brushes him off or shoots back sarcastic comments in response to his flirting. Noah barely even bats an eye. But Alejandro can't bring himself to stop when he finds Noah as a person so interesting. Alejandro loves debating with Noah and adores his snark and intelligence, and this adoration drives him. He makes it a goal of his to somehow really fluster Noah or throw him off his game like he does with the other contestants, which has proven to be quite a difficult task. But Alejandro isn't a quitter.

In reality, Noah enjoys the playful and teasing banter just as much as Alejandro, even if he seems uninterested, because it's entertaining to be debating with someone of similar intelligence. Alejandro's flirting, though, does actually throw him off, just not in the same way it does to other people. Noah is entirely (and rightfully) convinced that Alejandro's flirting with him is just a part of his slimy, slippery, eel-y personality, and a sad attempt to rid of Noah in order to further himself in the competition. And Noah is nothing if not stubborn, so even if he feels his stomach twisting into a knot every time Alejandro compliments his brown eyes or his hooked nose or his impressive intelligence or his interesting personality or even the peaceful, curled position he sleeps in—Noah will always just nod his head and respond with a doubtful "sure" or a sarcastic "thanks, honey."

And if Alejandro were to hear about how Noah views his persistent advances, then he wouldn't deny it, because in the beginning that was about half of the truth. He did want to use this new challenge to knock a few opponents out, and if reaching his goal would not only prove to Alejandro that the cold-presenting bookworm had a heart that could be tamed but would also get him out of the way and push Alejandro one step closer to his imminent victory, then, well, that's a win-win for Alejandro. That isn't all the reason though because, against all of Alejandro's big ego, he does actually quite like Noah. This "like" didn't mean the same in the beginning as it did in the end. Because it didn't start with Alejandro wondering if Noah had had anything to eat that day or if Noah had any pets or what Noah's favorite book was, or even if Alejandro could borrow that book Noah was reading once he was done.

Against all of Alejandro's wishes and expectations, he finds that between the two of them, he is the one who has been getting flustered. And it is downright embarrassing, because Noah doesn't even do anything. Well, except for all of the things he usually does. He makes his sarcastic comments and argues with Alejandro just as he did before, but now the details are so much clearer. It's like every feature of Noah's has been enhanced, including his features that previously Alejandro would have considered flaws. His forehead was rather larger than average, but Alejandro has decided that it fit his face and personality and that it was only natural for a head to be big enough to store all the fascinating knowledge and wit that Noah had proven to have. And that pimple just below his right cheekbone, well, that is just time's beauty mark, a proof of growth and maturity that was one feature of many on his face that showed that he was very alive. He found an adorableness in the way Noah uncurled from his sleep and rubbed his eyes first thing after a long night of rest, and he felt a burning discomfort in the unmistakable image of Noah curling into Owen's nap for a makeshift pillow later that day. Alejandro felt electricity course throw his veins and his hands become shakey and clammy at every short lock between ivy and coffee irises. He felt his heart beat a thousand miles a minute each time he stood next to the other, and he would feel it speed up ten times fast at every sarcastic comment the other would make.

Alejandro found himself staring.

Alejandro finds himself studying his face, gauging his face for reactions whenever he makes a joke, and he finds himself way too excited when Noah cracks a smile at it. One time, Alejandro had made Noah laugh. Belly laugh. Gasping for breath laugh. A laugh so full of joy that Alejandro found himself smiling. Not from the contagiousness of Noah's laugh nor from the humor of the comment he had made about Duncan, which, truth be told, he couldn't recite on the spot even if he needed to because his memory had been wiped and replaced with this. Rather, he was satisfied that of all people, he could make Noah laugh like this (and Owen.. he supposes.) That night held for him some distasteful news, because how could Alejandro be the one melted into somebody else's palms?

Noah had noticed the sudden change in Alejandro's behavior, but it'd be a lie if he said he knew why it happened. And if anyone were to tell him why, he would deny it, because not only was it obviously not true, but he also didn't want it to be. The idea of someone as slimy, slippery, and eel-y as Alejandro even daring to approach him was for one, unfortunate, for two, terrible, and for three, impossible. But he couldn't help but ponder why this change had happened. Just why was Alejandro so... fidgety? He was running his hand through his hair what felt like every five minutes (Noah heard him curse under his breath once in spanish, likely at the realization of the inevitable accumulation of grease by the end of the day due to the excessive hand-to-root action), he kept unbuttoning and buttoning the top button of his shirt (Noah heard him mutter once, "is it too scandalous undone?"), and he wouldn't stop playing with his fingers, cracking and popping them, pulling and intertwining them—not that Noah was always watching his hands or anything, because he wasn't, but it was just such a drastic change to Alejandro's usually confident demeanor that you must be a fool to not notice it.

Alejandro did not notice—how could he be such a fool? Developing a crush on an opponent with a million dollars on the line? Pathetic.

The night following Noah's laughing fit, Alejandro found himself staring at Noah's sleeping form. Alejandro had noticed the way he usually sleeps, which would be creepy if Noah didn't have such a noticeable way of sleeping. He curled up to sleep, upright or on his side, and it was pretty cute. His eyes observed the way Noah was curled up against Owen's side, face resting into the other's fat. Ah, right. Owen. Alejandro felt a scowl creep up on his face when his eyes shifted to the blond's face—only to immediately divert his eyes, because Owen was already looking at him. He heard Owen laugh, which made his embarrassment double—embarrassment? I don't get embarrassed.

"Don't worry, Al." Gross. Al. "Noah doesn't know, so your secret is safe with me."

Alejandro blinked. He looked back at Owen, although reluctantly. "...Secret?"

Owen laughed again, and Alejandro was getting worried that he would wake Noah as he watched the smallest of them bounce against Owen. "You know, Al. Your cute little crush on Noah! He's smart and all, but he kind of sucks with love. You can take as much time as you want before you tell him. But between you and me, I think he likes you, too."

Alejandro's mind blanked. Crush? "Uh. My what."

Owen's face turned confused as well. "Oh... Do you not? Oops. Forget I said that about Noah."

Alejandro wished he could think of a decent response, but, what?

"Uh... No, I wouldn't say you're wrong. I just... didn't know myself."

"You—" Owen laughed again, this time making Noah groan in his sleep.

"Ugh... Owen. Stop, 'm trying to sleep." He said, not even opening his eyes.

"Sorry, buddy." Owen giggled, "Al's just pretty funny."

Alejandro glared at Owen, and the other shrugged.

"Sure." Noah groaned, adjusting his position before quickly falling back to sleep.

"Wow! How could you not know, Al? You're always looking at him and talking to him, 'n stuff. It's like Tyler and I aren't even there! And you're so nervous around him. I didn't know someone as cool and confident as you could get nervous around anyone. It makes me proud to know my little buddy could do that."

Alejandro nodded. "Hmm. You're right... Maybe that is the case."

It was a silent agreement between the two that it was their business and no one else's, an agreement that Alejandro wasn't too confident that Owen wouldn't break, but it was enough. Alejandro couldn't decide what was more shocking, an agreement between him and Owen, or the fact that he actually liked Noah in a more than just curious way. Looking back on what Owen said though, he thinks an Owen and Alejandro alliance is much more surprising.

[mortispoxi]

Pratchett trying to shoehorn in a romantic partner for Drumknott at the end of Unseen Academicals is honest very funny in retrospect because the lad shows up two more times before the series concludes and is still romantically unattached which implies that despite Vetinari and Margolotta’s best efforts to play matchmaker something must’ve gone so wildly wrong that it made the two of them not want to engage with each other any further.

So because of this oversight, my headcanon is that when Drumknott and Miss Healstether had their little rendezvous they argued over who had the better filing method which ended in Vetinari and Margolotta having to physically separate and restrain them to keep them from killing each other. It’s the first and only time Vetinari ever had to reprimand Drumknott in his entire career all because he bit Margolotta’s librarian during the altercation. However, deep down he was more than a bit amused watching two mild mannered individuals throw hands over a ring binder so it was more of a halfhearted, “don’t do it again,” kind of scolding.

[venti-death-watch]

with all his phds and all you can pretty much make dr ratio whatever you want and i know everyone does physics/math/medicine in some form and all, but that man is so fucking history humanities coded it’s like… embarrassing to see

[downn-in-flames]

i am generally Very Bad™ at responding to comments on ao3, and it is not at all because i don’t appreciate or cherish or adore them, it is quite simply because, as was pointed out to me earlier today, i Do Not Know how to handle people being nice to me. it breaks my brain just a little bit. 

1 nice comment = 5 minutes of mentally stunned author. 

[tayloralisonswift]

i think i just got a job. like an actual librarian job