#am i too liberal arts educated

[threetrenchcoatsinatrenchcoat]

i don't like the term meta to refer to critical analysis of media around here, i feel like analyzing a piece of media as a piece of media is just like regular old 1st layer analysis? to me meta-analysis should be like analyzing analyses or something, and analyzing media at like watsonian 0th layer should be the exception

[orcelito]

I do find it so funny that I will graduate college days away from my birthday. Like my birthday is literally in between the end of the semester ("graduation") and commencement

It really will be like a joint graduation & birthday party for me lmao

[luvvyouforever]

headcanons : med student!abby anderson x liberal arts student!reader ᥫ᭡

content: wlw relationship. modern college au. ramblings of fluff, maybe a touch of angst but nothing heavy. enjoy <3

a/n: my authority for writing this you ask? i'm an english major who gets asked regularly what i am going to do with my degree! also this is my first time writing about abby i just had to get this idea out of my head and on to the screen.

-abby decided at a young age to follow in her father's footsteps and become a doctor as well. she committed herself to studying science and math as a kid and occasionally disregarded her other studies like music, art, and english. she did enough to keep a 4.0 GPA but her heart was in science tournaments, young medical professional groups, and ap bio.

-she got into one of the best schools in the states for medicine and was a stellar student in organic chemistry, anatomy, and neurology. she knew she was going to do great on her MCAT, but unfortunately, she wasn't doing so great in some of her gen ed classes and it was impacting her gpa.

-that was how she found herself in a tutoring center in one of the older buildings on campus that was shockingly different from the science buildings she spent all of her time in. she had an appointment with you, but was so nervous to go and admit that she was having trouble in something as simple as art history or literature or communication.

-when she sat down to have her appointment with you, you immediately calmed her nerves and assured her that there was nothing wrong with needing some help in classes she wasn't comfortable in. you helped her ace her quiz and then she just kept coming in to see you. over and over. until she eventually passed the class with an A and no longer needed your assistance.

-and then, as luck would have it, abby got her own job as a tutor for science courses and who happened to walk in but you! the tutor who helped her pass her own difficult course.

-it was history from there.

-despite abby's commitment to her education, she was always able to carve time out of her schedule to be with you. she loves studying with you and filling up a room in the library with your stuff to prepare for exams together. she takes a whiteboard and writes all of her notes on it while you're rereading historical texts or revising your final paper about a painting abby doesn't really quite understand.

-she never makes you feel less than for not studying something "more difficult" as people have before. she loves hearing about your passions for history or writing stories or creating art. she'll come with you to art galleries and try to input her own thoughts from time to time about what she thinks certain pieces mean.

-she understands that graduate school applications are just as important to you as medical school applications are for her. you'll do practice interviews with each other and try on outfits for each other.

-abby will not stand for someone making fun of you for your choice of studies. you two once went to a family gathering on abby's side and when some of her family members began interrogating you on how you're going to get a job and even imply that you'll be living off of abby for your whole life, she gets all up in their face and comforts you later! you will not be sending birthday wishes to those family members anymore and she can guarantee that.

-if you guys get accepted in to schools that are long-distance from each other, you'll absolutely make it work. abby is so methodical that she'll never forget to text you and plans out times that either of you can visit.

-if you ever dedicate a piece that you've created in school to her, she'll positively swoon. like if you wrote a poem about her, she would print it out and pin it up on the fridge. if you painted her, she would hang it up on the wall. and she's the best model for those things too

-i imagine that dinners with your colleagues or friends are very random. abby has but a few friends in her residency and they're each as professional as her. you, however, come with a group of lively people who are discussing philosophical ideas or debating about a piece of art history and how its influenced modern culture. it would be an interesting combination to say the least.

-abby would just be so interested in anything you have to do and would never be critical of your choices. she sees the passion you have for things that lie far outside her field and appreciates it. your future apartment that you build years after meeting when you are each established in your dream careers is a mesh of medical textbooks and flashcards and models but also messy journals and thrifted antiques and poems written on sticky notes for her to find.

[centrally-unplanned]

Since I was talking about the "cellphones & boredom" topic earlier, here is the kind of "actually making a case" that some people are doing. The plural of anecdote isn't data or anything, but as someone who works in this field the academics quoted are reflecting a pretty consensus opinion across universities in my experience. Students legitimately cannot do longer-form tasks that they could do in the past, even up to students from high-ranking schools. I lean towards this being a true phenomenon, though the scale is TBD.

Is it because schools are "teaching to the test", as the above article outlines? I don't personally think that is the biggest driver, but I see the causal pattern here. I am generally skeptic of "generalizing education" - people learn in school, it is real, but they don't learn that much, and most of the traits people think school is "teaching" come from a grab bag of sources. But schools definitely teach you how to succeed in school! Being a Student is a skill, people are generally motivated by grades and the like, and so you learn "what works", and schools have absolutely been shifting their expectations. I would push back against the "lowering" them understanding, at least naively; a lot of students in those "great books" classes would sparknotes those fuckers and bluff through it, and so modern assignments can be better targeted. But schools are also responding to students, and parents, and there is a lot of pressure to "meet students where they are at" and pass everyone in the class; I can imagine this dynamic playing a role as well.

Of course it could also be the cell phones, I think they play a role too. But I would posit another causal mechanism - why read the long books? I mean I like long books, but even I these days will skip text sometimes that I can tell is filler and stuff. The internet has taught me not to fear long books, but to be efficient in my consumption, I know what I want so to speak. And that does make me read less of them.

And let's be real, 90%+ of the students, after their Great Books intro college seminar, never read books like that again. These classes did inspire some people, but never made a nation of readers out of most who attended. And that failure is positioned alongside a general trend of the "liberal arts" educational value declining to be replaced by college-as-career-advancement. A transition that is occurring because, overwhelmingly, the latter side was correct about the priorities they should have. Reflected back in culture, of course, like now one's peers also don't value reading long books, right? They talk about podcasts instead or w/e. But still, I think that is what makes putting this genie back in the bottle hard - students are probably correct to understand "reading long, dense books" as something with a minimal payoff for them.

If there are society-wide consequences of that, you can make the case - though since so few were ever readers post-college, I am skeptical. Or at least they are going to be more complex than this narrative puts out. But I am open minded on this one still, definitely a development to follow.

[befuddledcinnamonroll]

Intercultural Bias in the Fan Experience of QL

I've been thinking about writing this post for a while, and I think it's an appropriate time for it after reading @hallowpen's post today - which if you haven't read yet, please do so.

I'm saying this as someone who's been on a lifelong journey of learning, and is also extremely aware I still have so much that I don't know. I am from the U.S. and that comes with a truckload of bias and privilege. But this is something I have learned that I think is worth sharing.

There is a danger, for those of us who are progressive, yet grew up in countries that have been historically exploitative and oppressive to other cultures.

Because colonizer bias is insidious. And it can be very tempting to say, I'm aware, I've done the anti-racism training, I've read the books, I have my own oppressions I have to fight every day, I'm aware of my privilege, I'm an ally, etc, etc, etc. But this is just like racism - if you are not being actively anti-colonialist in your interactions with other cultures, you are likely perpetuating bias and oppression.

I grew up in a very liberal part of the U.S. and had a very progressive education starting from grade school. I got education on systemic racism in junior high, my high school had one of the first gay/straight alliances in our state. I studied science in college, but since it was a liberal arts degree, I also took classes on sociology of race, the religions of Asia, Chinese history, etc.

But despite all this I still grew up in a country with a fuckton of bias about our role in how we interact with countries around the world. And as we all do with bias that we grow up with, I internalized some of that.

It wasn't until I took some graduate coursework on Intercultural Training & Communication that I really was able to recontextualize my perspective and become aware of my unconscious bias, thank to an amazing instructor.

Other countries do not need us to come in, tell them what is wrong, and tell them how to fix it. Whatever problems there are, there are people in that culture who know, who are actively working on it, and they know better than anyone outside what needs to be done.

Honestly, it doesn't even need to extend to other countries - just look at all the nonprofits and charities in the U.S. that talk about helping the poor, but in the end just perpetuate the cycle of oppression by coming in to neighborhoods and doing zero work to center the perspectives of the people most affected.

You can absolutely support and spread awareness and send money and share expertise when asked, and do the things that the people of that culture ask you to do.

But if you come in, and try to say "this is what you all are doing wrong, and this is what you should be doing" - you are perpetuating a colonialist mindset.

And yes, this extends to media as well.

This is why I struggle with some of the takes I have read, especially those that attempt to rank the "queerness authenticity" of shows, from an entirely Western perspective, with no engagement with the idea that one's queer identity is impacted by one's culture (among other things), and that it can look and be expressed in a million different ways.

There are criticisms of queer directors, blaming them for a myriad of perceived sins, with zero understanding of what queerness might mean to them both individually and as a Thai person, and what they might also be trying to navigate socially, culturally, and politically.

There are people making broad sweeping statements about the direction that they think QL is headed in - some of which enter the realm of catastrophizing - entirely based on their own subjective opinion of what is most important for a different country and culture to care most about in a particular moment in time.

You know why I'm not worried about the direction of QL? Because I know there are millions of Thai people who care about it too. I know the Thai queer community and their allies are speaking up, and pushing for change and progress. I know that they are extremely cognizant of when representation fails, and I know they are the reason representation has already improved so much (sorry interfans, it's not about us).

And yeah, sometimes the pendulum swings the other way - those of us in the U.S. should be very aware of this. But the fight doesn't stop.

There are Thai people who are working to promote mental health and therapy, to encourage people to have strong boundaries with family who have hurt them, to provide more representation for groups who still aren't seen. And someone from a different country complaining about all the ways they think their culture is failing isn't helping a thing.

Like @hallowpen says, this is not about saying you can't critique. Most of the people I follow do a great job at making it consistently clear that their perspective is subjective, and they relate it to their own life and experience. That's great, and a place for people from different cultures to connect!

But those of us who are interfans have a responsibility as members of a global community. There are people from Thailand who read your posts. From Japan, from Korea, from China. Are you speaking up to support them? Or are you talking over them? Are you expressing understanding for what they are navigating from historical context and current political conditions? Or are you just lecturing them on how you think their world should be?

[arya7stark]

We all appreciate how much Moonlight Chicken is grounded in reality, so I wanted to add another bit that I haven’t seen yet: the school Heart wants to go to is very real, and it makes perfect sense for him to go there. In fact, it’s probably the best option in the world.

He’s looking at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology) in Rochester, New York (this is nowhere near NYC, for anyone unfamiliar with New York geography--it’s right on Lake Ontario and not too far from Niagara Falls). NTID is one of only two four-year college programs specifically for Deaf students in the US, the other being Gallaudet University, which is a liberal arts school and doesn’t offer an Engineering major. I am by no means an expert, but a fair bit of googling says that internationally there aren’t many options for Deaf students wanting to pursue higher education at an institution that specifically welcomes and is prepared to support them. At a lot of universities, they would be piecing together accommodations that many professors might be unfamiliar with, and that they might have to fight to get the school to provide. NTID is fully integrated and makes up a not insignificant portion of RIT’s student body: about 1 in 20 students are deaf or hard of hearing. There is history there, resources, experience, and a built-in community of support.

Anyway, not only is NTID unique in that regard, RIT also has a well-respected Engineering program. For a Deaf kid who wants to study engineering, it’s a fantastic choice.

We don’t know how good Heart’s English skills are, but he seems to have been a good student. And lucky for him, Thai Sign Language and American Sign Language are closely related, so that linguistic transition might even be easier than the written one.

I’m willing to bet Heart has known all about NTID for a while, but couldn’t bring it up with his parents. Him wanting to study in the US has nothing to do with Li Ming, that’s just a happy coincidence. That and the fact that Li Ming is forcing his parents to finally listen to him.

So as adorable as it is that these two lovebirds are going off on a grand international adventure together, I’m really glad that it’s grounded in reality, and that they both separately want to be there, for their own reasons. This story is not a fantasy, but reality can be even more beautiful.

[justforbooks]

Bill Viola

Video artist who melded the material and the spiritual and applied modern technology to Renaissance subjects

In 1957, on a family holiday, Bill Viola fell in a lake. He was six years old. Sixty years later, Viola, who has died aged 73, recalled the event. “I didn’t hold on to my float when I went into the water, and I went right to the bottom,” he said. “I experienced weightlessness and a profound visual sense that I never forgot. It was like a dream and blue and light, and I thought I was in heaven as it was the most beautiful thing I had seen.” And then … “my uncle pulled me out.”

It seemed an unpromising start to an artistic career. However, in 1977 Viola began a series of five works called The Reflecting Pool. Four years out of university, this was his first multipart artwork, its constituent films occupying their maker for three years. In the title piece, a shirtless man – Viola – emerges from a wood, walks toward a pond, makes as if to jump into it and freezes in mid-air. The pool registers his entry nonetheless, its surface rippling as though disturbed; the flying man fades slowly away; and, after seven long minutes, Viola emerges, dripping, from the water and walks back into the woods. The Reflecting Pool drew on the near-drowning of his six-year-old self. It was also classic Viola, its most notable features – slowness, water, a numinous spirituality – recurring in his work of the next half century.

It was the subaqueous blue glow of the screen of a Sony Portapak video camera, donated to his high school in Flushing, New York, that first attracted Viola to the medium. He was raised in the neighbouring lower-middle-class suburb of Queens. It was not, recalled Viola, a cultured household, but his mother, Wynne (nee Lee) “had some ability and sort of taught me how to draw, so when I was three years old I could do pretty good motorboats”. A year before his near death by drowning, a kindergarten finger-painting of a tornado won public praise from his teacher. It was then, Viola said, that he decided to be an artist.

His father, a Pan Am flight attendant turned service manager, had other ideas. Fearing that an art school education would leave his son unemployable, Viola senior insisted that he study for a liberal arts degree at Syracuse, a respected university in upstate New York. “And in saying that,” Viola would admit, “he saved me.”

As luck would have it, Syracuse, in 1970, was among the first universities to promote experimentation in new media. A fellow student had set up a studio where projects could be made using a video camera. Signing up for it, Viola was instantly converted: “Something in my brain said I’d be doing this all my life,” he remembered. He spent the following summer wiring up the university’s new cable TV system, taking a job as a janitor in its technology centre so that he could spend his nights mastering the newfangled colour video system. In 1972, he made his first artwork, Tape I, a study of his own reflection in a mirror. This, too, would be trademark Viola, bewitched by video’s ability simultaneously to see and be seen, but also by his own image. The I in the work’s title was not a Roman numeral but a personal pronoun.

Tape I and works like it were enough to catch the eye of Maria Gloria Bicocchi, whose pioneering Florence studio, ART/TAPES/22, made videos for Arte Povera artists. When Viola took a job there in 1974, he found himself working alongside such giants as Mario Merz and Jannis Kounellis. By 1977, his own reputation in the small but growing world of video art led to his being invited to show his work at La Trobe University in Melbourne, his acceptance encouraged by the offer of free Pan Am flights from his father.

The invitation had come from La Trobe’s director of culture, Kira Perov. The following year, Perov moved to New York to be with Viola, and they married in 1978. They would stay in the house in Long Beach, California, that they moved into three years later, for the rest of their married lives. In 1980-81, the couple spent 18 months in Japan, Viola simultaneously working as the first artist-in-residence at Sony Corporation’s Atsugi laboratories and studying Zen Buddhism.

This melding of the sacred and technologically profane would mark Viola’s work of the next four decades. Viola listed “eastern and western spiritual traditions including Zen Buddhism, Islamic Sufism and Christian mysticism” as influences on his art, although it was the last of these that was the most apparent. At university, he said, he had “hated” the old masters, and proximity to the greatest of them in Florence had not changed that view. It was only with the death of his mother in 1991 that he began to feel the weight of western art history, and to acknowledge it in his own work.

Having struggled with a creative block since the late 1980s, he found that the grief of his mother’s death freed him. Summoned to her side by his father, Viola filmed first the dying woman and then her body lying in an open coffin. This footage would be used in a 54-minute work called The Passing, and then again the following year in the Nantes Triptych, its three screens concurrently showing a woman giving birth, Viola’s dying mother and, in between them, a man submerged in a tank of water.

The first of Viola and Perov’s two sons had been born in 1988. Nantes Triptych was, or appeared to be, a meditation on birth, death and rebirth through baptism. If the subject was traditional, so too was Viola’s use of the triptych form. His references to the old masters would soon become more direct still. In 1995, Viola was chosen to represent the US at the Venice Biennale. One part of the work, Buried Secrets, that he showed in the American pavilion drew openly on a painting by Jacopo da Pontormo of the visitation of the Virgin Mary to her elderly cousin, Elizabeth.

Not surprisingly in these secular times, Viola’s subject matter was not universally popular. The art world was particularly divided. When his videos were shown among the permanent collection of the National Gallery in London in an exhibition called The Passions in 2003, one outraged critic dubbed Viola “a master of overblown, big-budget, crowd-pleasing, tear-jerking hocus-pocus and religiosity”.

The pairing at the Royal Academy in 2019 of his work with drawings by Michelangelo from the Royal Collection drew the barbed comment from the Guardian critic that “Viola’s art is so much of its own time that it is already dated, dead in the water”.

Predictably, he was more popular with the public at large, a survey at a Viola retrospective at the Grand Palais in Paris showing that visitors had spent an average of two-and-a-half hours at the exhibition. Churchmen, too, were won over by Viola’s work, particularly those of the Church of England. In 1996, the artist was invited to make a video piece, The Messenger, for Durham Cathedral. In 2014, the first part of a two-part commission called Martyrs and Mary was installed at St Paul’s, the second joining it two years later. The project, thanks to ecclesiastical wrangling, had been a decade in the making. “The church works kind of slow,” remarked Viola, mildly. “But then I also work kind of slow.”

That mildness, and the religiosity of his subjects, may have led critics to underestimate the rigour of his work. Like Viola’s art or not, he was a master of it. His appreciation of the promise – and the threat – of technology was profound. Viola chafed against the primitiveness of early video, seeing each development in the medium as an opportunity to be grasped. The close-up portraits of The Passions series, for example, made use of flatscreen technology almost as it was invented.

By contrast, the binary nature of the modern world bothered him. “The age of computers is a very dangerous one because they work on ‘yes or no’, ‘1 or 0’,” Viola mourned. “There’s no maybe, perhaps or both. And I think this is affecting our consciousness.” The dissemination of video as an art form had not been like the spread of oil painting by the Van Eyck brothers 500 years before, he said, video having appeared everywhere and at once. True to these beliefs, Viola saw no contradiction in treating Renaissance subjects, and a Renaissance belief system, with the latest inventions from Sony. “The two are actually very close,” he said. “I see the digital age as the joining of the material and the spiritual into a yet-to-be-determined whole.”

In 2012, Viola was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease. His work after this was increasingly made with the help of Perov, a fact that lent a new poignancy to the themes of memory and loss that often ran through it.

Viola is survived by his wife and their sons, Blake and Andrei, and by his siblings, Andrea and Robert .

🔔 Bill (William John) Viola, video artist, born 25 January 1951; died 12 July 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[erzatz3117]

Ok, I really need to try my hand at this

YOU: With a bright green flash, the antediluvian servers of Automattic memorised your newest piece of miscellaneous Total Decay illustration.

TRIVIA [Trivial: Success]: "Dahn Sinkewicz and Total Decay" is the book you've been writing, with inconsistent success, for the past 7 months.

TORTURED ARTIST [Easy: Success]: Do you think he could just *forget* about his upcoming nearly-finished magical-realist, new-sincerity, Columbo-meets-Boris-goddamn-Yeltsin detective masterpiece?

DECONSTRUCTION [Medium: Success]: Will it become less derivative if you add more compound adjectives? Also, I don't think "magical-realist" should be hyphenated.

BLACK MIRROR OF PRE-APOCALYPTIC POST-TRUTH: Time is dripping from the ceiling, it's drops making monotone clicking sounds. No living soul has observed your art yet. Or, at least, did not feel anything at all in the process.

1. "What am I doing wrong? I checked all the boxes!"

2. [Delete your Tumblr account immediately.]

YOU: [Delete your Tumblr account immediately.]

BLACK MIRROR OF PRE-APOCALYPTIC POST-TRUTH: You will not leave this place. You have one too many *mutuals*.

1. "What am I doing wrong? I checked all the boxes!"

YOU: What am I doing wrong? I checked all the boxes!

BOX-FITTING [Easy: Success] You even posted it at the correct *time window*!

TRIVIA [Medium: Failure] Don't fret, towarisch, this lack of activity is easily explained by... Sorry, I'll sit this one out.

DECONSTRUCTION [Hard: Success]: Maybe we could look at it from an artistic perspective?

TORTURED ARTIST: What are you implying? It's awesome! Atleast, it is certainly better than some *creations* you see on here occasionally...

EMPATHY [Trivial: Success] SHUT UP, FOR REAL. Do I need to refer you to the sign?

+5 XP gained from thought "Never Be Mean"

NERD-JOCK TRANSUBSTANTIATION [Legendary: Success]: You're obviously just not cut for this liberal arts nonsense, bratan! You have gym practice this Wednesday, remember? Your only goal is *the grind*, so show them you don't care about online recognition!

1. [Attempt to throw a tantrum.]

1. [Attempt to throw a tantrum.]

NODE COORDINATION [Impossible: Failure]: The neural pathway previously used for rapid mental mobilisation has dissipated under pressure from punitive education practices and liberal consumption of inhibitory neurotransmitters. I am sorry.

NERD-JOCK TRANSUBSTANTIATION [Hard: Success] Is that yarn-head trying to say that you can't *get angry* anymore?

HOMEOSTASIS: I'm clicking all the right buttons, yet nothing is happening. So yes, our capability for strong emotions has largely atrophied.

NERD-JOCK TRANSUBSTANTIATION [Impossible: Failure]: Wow, that... sucks, bratan. We will have to work around this in the future, I guess...

BLACK MIRROR OF PRE-APOCALYPTIC POST-TRUTH: The obsidian obelisk shudders, emitting a familiar glow: a new notification from Tumblr.

BLACK MIRROR OF PRE-APOCALYPTIC POST-TRUTH: Let's see: your mutual liked your post...

TORTURED ARTIST [Easy: Success] Where did I put my corkscrew?

DECONSTRUCTION [Medium: Success] I wouldn't be so optimistic.

BLACK MIRROR OF PRE-APOCALYPTIC POST-TRUTH: It's a... *funny-haha* post you reblogged an hour ago.

EMPATHY [Hard: Failure]: It seems as if we are the only unpopular person here.

TRIVIA [Trivial: Success]: That is a mathematical impossibility.

1. [Try again to come up with a reasonable explanation for why the notes under your art never exceed single digits.]

2. "You know, this just makes me more convinced that social networks are an instrument of isolation, not connection." [Send the art to that one guy on Discord who seems to like it.]

2. "You know, this just makes me more convinced that social networks are an instrument of isolation, not connection." [Send the art to that one guy on Discord who seems to like it.]

DIGITAL SPECTRE OF A FRIEND OF A FRIEND: It takes the man you only know from a vestigial meme server a couple seconds to look at the image you've sent to him. He finally answers...

DIGITAL SPECTRE OF A FRIEND OF A FRIEND: "Hey, that is pretty nice! I am always blown away by the depth of your worldbuilding!"

MORALE HEALED +1

EMPATHY [Medium: Success]: Okay, at least this guy likes us.

DECONSTRUCTION [Easy: Success] This veritably shows that our art is not *bad*, so something else must be going on here.

NERD-JOCK TRANSUBSTANTIATION [Medium: Success]: Hey, this bro is *real*!

NOISE SUPPRESSION [Easy: Success]: Everything inside you feels lighter, *validated*, somehow.

1. [Excitedly jump out of your bed.]

2. [Output a highly memetic sound of deep satisfaction.]

1. [Excitedly jump out of your bed.]

EXPLOSIVE POWER [Formidable: Failure]: Your brain sends out a clear signal, but your sore muscles don't move a millimeter.

HOMEOSTASIS: Sorry, boss, not happening. We should've had more that one meal today if we wanted to perform entrance-level acrobatic tricks like that.

2. [Output a highly memetic sound of deep satisfaction.]

2. [Output a highly memetic sound of deep satisfaction.]

NOMINALIZATION [Trivial: Success]: I know a couple good ones, *bestie*. Would look really *-core* on your *moodboard*, or whatever.

YOU: "Yipee!", you say, "Wahoo!", you whimper.

UNDIAGNOSED MENTAL ILLNESS (AKA "THE TUTORIAL"): This feedback cycle has officially concluded. You must create more art to feel satisfaction again.

HOMEOSTASIS [Trivial: Success]: Can we go to sleep now? Tomorrow is gonna be hell by all margins...

BLACK MIRROR OF PRE-APOCALYPTIC POST-TRUTH: Hey, you can't go! You'll miss so much stuff you won't care about!

1. "You're right, my beloved obelisk!" [Keep scrolling for 4 more hours, completely ruining your following week.]

2. "Sorry, *siliconstie*, but I really need to go." [Finally go to sleep.]

2. "Sorry, *siliconstie*, but I really need to go." [Finally go to sleep.]

Thought gained: The Ovine Enumerator

[helloceci]

So like side rant: it’s my birthday (I want a bunch of Lasko fans lol) and like it’s 4:00 AM and now I’m thinking

Actual rant:

I’m like looking at the timeline and everything and just following order but like I have done Jack shit recently… but might I digress I keep going back to the idea of what if Gavin didn’t get freelancer… cause (I saw from another post) if Freelancer was initially supposed to be with Damien… would Gavin end up with Lasko? I mean I see it then what would happen with Dear? Like no way they would end up with Huxley?? Cause like how though? I mean I feel like Lasko and Dear would be friends and then they’d find out Lasko is with someone else and would like Dear be single at that rate?

ALSO INVERSION I FEEL LIKE DAMIEN AND HUXLEY WOULDNT CHANGE! But Gavin and Freelancer?! I feel like they would but my mind is making up that Lasko would help him and freelancer made the speech… but like idk

Ngl I want Ivan back like he was interesting like I was in a similar situation and like ever since I watched his first couple audios and then slowly I was like “Oh god… Oh god!… OH GOD!”

I don’t know about you… but like I want to know more about Dear ngl… like like who would dare say that just because they are a water elemental they have to be strong?! Like nah man I feel you but like no don’t believe them. I’m wondering why move to Dahlia is it like JUST for business or is there a deeper reason? Or are they a latent or empowered human or human born? What is their family like do they have siblings? Like I have too many questions!!!

Also I want to just ask for personal opinions on if IF The redacted universe wasn’t magic and like all college based: what would the boys majors be?? I am in college I study Kinesiology with a minor in Nutrition For me it would be:

Huxley: Architecture and Design (I don’t know if there’s a major in construction) that or something plat science and he got scouted for a D1 team

Damien: Something that involves Social Justice since like he stands up for a lot of people

Gavin: PSYCHOLOGY!! Demons and Daemons know how to feel peoples emotions! I like see Gavin having notes only on specific things. He’s also the type that’ll hardly go to the lectures

Lasko: He’d be an undeclared but he’s do something in Education… he’d also be a TA

David: Idk I am getting stumped but something in Culinary or like some criminology major

Asher: Criminology with probably a minor in some form of Art

Milo: Another Criminology lol but like he won’t do what his dad does

Sam: Probably a form of health sciences. Either something in like lab pharmacy or like rehabilitation. Probably started his career early

Vincent: I am ngl I’m stumped on Vincent… he’d probably use to be undeclared in like a Liberal arts but he’d then switch to Culinary

Caelum: NO BABES YOU ARENT READY! He’d definitely do a psychology and because he has to do something fun do some art

Elliot: He’d be Psychology based with a minor in Visual Computer Art or something along the lines of that

I know Ollie and Guy has a degree. Guy having a degree in creative writing but I don’t remember what Ollie’s degree was… I’m pretty sure Aaron and Ivan have some degree

Anywas sorry for the long ass rant that I have a 4 in the morning have a good day yall

[the-greatest-fool]

are you supposed to have “intro” posts?

i am some guy who i guess you can call gf (or uh jeff? lol) based on my randomly chosen username. i was a philosophy and law nerd who ended up studying mathy things in uni instead and now my life is in ruins.

follow for reblogged memes (i dont know how to use tumblr. are you allowed to reblog people’s stuff or is that a faux pas. can someone teach me how to use tumblr? also this parenthetical went way too long) and my struggles to keep myself going, tagged #my life

i guess you’re supposed to name things you like. in no particular order, i like(or liked at some pt):

things to think about: education, academic integrity, misinformation, economic policy, global security, international trade and development, race, gender, liberalism!

movies: lots of oscar noms, knives out 1 + 2, a24 films, various asian american film projects i support because they are my brethren

tv: house md (i liked it before it was cool and that makes me cool yadayada), community, bojack horseman. saw spto recently too.

anime: not a frequent viewer but have deep nostalgia for detective conan/magic kaito, liked haikyuu when i binged it during the panini

books: to be honest i mostly read books based on new yorker reviews. but i love essay collections, memoirs, and trendy novels lol.

academic interests: economics, law, statistics, probability theory, philosophy, political theory

memes: spiciest

art: pretentious

other: used to play genshin. this post is too long now. good night.

[karinyosa]

from @villageauntie on instagram: “was asked to share ideas of what people who are unable to attend physical gatherings can do to support. these are some of the things i came up with. please feel free to add more in the comments.

yes, i am purposefully leaving out certain words and flags so this post can stay in the feed. but you know who and what this post is for”

id under the cut.

image 1 ID: white title text against a dark gray background that says "nine things you can do" with the subtitle "i was asked to compile a list of suggested activities for those who are unable to attend protests or who are not active on social media. these are from my own experience and those taken from history. i invite you to explore additional ways to support and share them in the comments".

image 2 ID: title says "pray tahajjud". subtitle says "wake in the last third of the night and pray. pray without ceasing. pray like you mean it. prayer is not the least we can do, it is the best we can do. know that your prayers reach. so reach inside and use your limbs and your tongue to supplicate to the one from whom all mercy descends. pray. pray. pray".

image 3 ID: title says "provide childcare". subtitle says "many who are active in the struggle are also parenting young children. offer to watch the babies so that both physical and digital organizing can take place. you can offer to watch children in your home, at the community center, a house of worship, or even outside. just offer it and make it free".

image 4 ID: title says "get educated". subtitle says "read books on palestine, on sudan, on the struggles of oppressed people worldwide. study anti-colonial thought. watch documentaries. study about makandal. read june jordan, kwame ture, amilcar cabral, james baldwin, toni morrison, marc lamont hill, and others. read more, scroll less (unless you are scrolling to get informed). read, digest, reflect".

image 5 ID: title says "educate others". subtitle says "organize a study circle. talk to your friends. interrupt falsehood with fact. have meaningful conversations with coworkers. ask questions, listen more. use what you have read to empower your family. read to their children. answer their questions. use your voice to help others to know and never forget".

image 6 ID: title says "prepare meals". subtitle says "make food. buy food from a local restaurant that is trustworthy. buy fruit. take it to your neighbors, to the masjid, to those who are or will be actively protesting. feed the people because nourishment is important and food is a way to show love and support".

image 7 ID: title says "organize fundraisers". subtitle says "if you have something you can make/sell, use it for a fundraiser. food, quilts, artwork, services, whatever. sell it and donate it to reputable charities providing support. something is better than nothing. no amount raised is too small". as an addition from me, i've also seen people do free art for people willing to commit to calling their reps every day. and for places to donate, i've seen lots of people talking about humanitarian organizations, but two more that i'd like to suggest are the palestinian social fund (palestiniansocialfund.com, their about says "The path to liberation requires material support that is directed toward self-sustainability. The Palestinian Social Fund raises unconditional funding for cooperative farms in Palestine through grassroots efforts. These farms are started by youth who are returning to the land to reclaim food sovereignty and control their own destiny.") and palestine action (palestineaction.org), who participate in direct action activism against weapons trading with israel, mainly focusing on the company elbit.

image 8 ID: title says "engage in arts activism". subtitle says "write poems. paint, sew, sing, dance, create. the artists are desperately needed. make work that amplifies the moment and educates. pour your heart into your craft with the intention to help. art can do what other activism cannot. say it with your craft".

image 9 ID: title says "participate in digital organizing". subtitle says "use your devices as organizing tools. set up a weekly zoom. invite speakers to engage and educate. engage in digital campaigns and letter writing. harness the power of technology for the greater good".

image 10 ID: title says "write letters/essays". subtitle says "write to your elected officials. flood their interns with letters and calls. write essays and post them to your substack/medium/local paper. people are looking to be informed. add your voice through the written word. people will read".

[salty-professor]

I’ve got something to say…

Today I saw another small, liberal arts college, this time in New York, closed its doors. It made me sad. I am the product of a small, liberal arts college. I was a poor kid whose bootstraps were made of loans and grants and help from professors. One of them bought me books when I was too broke to afford them. I can never repay her. There is no amount of money that could repay her kindness. She was the first person who told me I could be a visionary. She should know. She is one.

Is it the fault of the school for being poorly run? Maybe. It could be. Some schools are run by assholes who failed up so spectacularly that they get to the top, and can’t do anything but fuck it up for everyone.

Could it also be that it is cool to shit on education now?

Hmmmm.

Maybe the elite fucks who have liberal arts educations keep shitting on liberal arts education so that the “little people” will not earn degrees and challenge them for their jobs. A sure fire way to keep people down is to convince them that they want to be down.

Education is a right. Can we get that fucking hashtag going? #educationisaright

[girl4music]

I didn’t think there could ever be hate in my heart until I saw Trump’s ad campaign against trans people. It was like how is it even possible for the “liberal media” to fabricate something like that? The man is legitimately the worst kind of person you could ever encounter. No news program biased towards a political party could make that up so those excuses would never work with me. Divide and conquer in general will not work with me because I know what to look for. I know all the tricks of that age-old war tactic and I’m too I’m educated on the subject. I think what they look for is people that aren’t to be able to use all this propaganda and have it work.

I don’t care about the political party wars. Trump is legitimately a horrible human being and that’s enough of a reason to go against him. And the fact that I’m not an American doesn’t make a difference to me either.

I’m sure a lot of people think that way. The “It’s not happening here so why should I care about it?”

Nope. That doesn’t work with me either. There’s no way to deter me from doing whatever is in my limited power to make sure this horrible man doesn’t achieve his goal.

It’s not the way I’ve been brought up. And by that - I mean Xena and Dragon Ball Z and other forms of art/entertainment that have been very formative and inspirational in my life for me to have the values I have.

I’ve been brought up to be in service to the greater good and fight like fuck for everything I care about.

So don’t try it. It won’t work. I’m the wrong target.

I think the fact I’m not an American has helped with that because I’m not forced to choose a side. It’s on my own volition. I saw that there was a necessity for me to step in and make my voice known and I’ve chosen to.

To some that makes me a mad woman because involving myself in what’s “not my business” is a foolish thing to do to them. And okay, yeah. I get that. But it presents no immediate danger to my life or anyone else I love and I know that it won’t so I don’t think it’s mad.

They ask me “Why?”, I answer with “Why not?”

Because as far as I see it, … if it has more of a chance to help someone else that needs it than it has any chance of hurting me, I’d say that the “madness” is worth it.

So I’m a “mad woman”. I’ve been called worse. I’ll live.

See what I mean? There’s nothing you can say.

Nothing. You can’t stop me, so just stop trying.

I’ve made up my mind and it’s not going to change. That man with the horrific mindset that he has cannot be allowed to have any power over an entire country.

His thought process scares me. He has the mindset of a dictator. Somebody who wants to rule through tyranny.

It’s enough for me to act. It’s enough for me to try.

What comes out of that man’s mouth is how he thinks, what he believes and what he intends. No matter how clever the media is these days, they cannot fabricate something like that. It’s not possible. And that’s all that matters to me. Nothing else is involved in why I do this. I don’t care about political ideology or wars. I don’t care about the fact I’m not an American. I don’t care about anything other than that vile man needs to be stopped.

So I will keep using my voice. I will keep putting my efforts everywhere they’re needed. I won’t stop. And if that makes me a “mad woman” so be it. It’s my choice.

What I’ve been taught growing up is what has lived in me all my life. It continues to influence everything I do or say. I would be an entirely different person otherwise.

I’d be a person that today, as I am, I’d be disgusted by. Interactions in my life have made a huge difference to it. So how could I ever think or believe I wouldn’t ever be able to do the same for someone else? It’s not in me. And I can tell you if enough people believe the same, then there’s absolutely a chance to change the game.

Solid belief. Solid intention. Solid conviction.

There’s not a single force in the world that can break it. And when enough people are unified in that philosophy, then victory is always possible no matter what the odds.

“Causes are only lost when people give up.” - Xena.

That man is targeting people that are my family by solidarity and choice if not by blood or relation and I won’t let him harm them. That’s my solemn promise.

You attack the LGBTQIA+ community, then you attack me personally. That’s the way I look at it. End of rant.

[centrally-unplanned]

Though in the effort of balance, I too hate the "STEM uber alles" educational drumbeat not because STEMcels lack the effette wisdom of the liberal arts (obvious bullshit, most liberal arts majors also lack said wisdom and STEM people read books too, education doesn't work that way). I hate it because its just bad advice - low performing STEM majors do worse on the job market than average liberal arts majors, and most "STEM" programs actively weed out students via early feeder courses because many students aren't going to cut it and are better off in different majors. With a few very tiny exceptions college is a great choice regardless of major, if you graduate the large, large majority will do fine. (Not graduating is a serious issue in the US, dramatically so - but I promise you pushing more students into STEM is not going to reduce your fail rates).

To add two caveats, I am down for marginal changes, wanna boost engineers by 5% yeah probably a win, whatever. I don't think that is what most people are saying though - to be specific, the reason you would want 5% more engineers is because they tend to have more spillover effects that aren't captured in their salaries, they don't personally benefit and business majors do pretty much just as well as them, but society might. But that is a bit of an opposite claim than the default one imo.

The second one is that there are big picture "structural" issues that can change these dynamics. Lets take my favorite punching bag of US medicine - in the US education system the "weeding" courses for being a doctor have no connection to the practice of doctoring. The traditional one is organic chemistry, an intensely difficult course involving primarily memorization but also extensive logic applications that burns out huge percentages of the class, and also is a skillset unused by 95%+ of doctors. It virtually never comes up in anything but the most trivial ways, it is only an arbitrary IQ test. The reality of course is that being the median doctor is not that hard (tail end doctoring and certain specialties can get different) the way say programming is. Many more people could be doctors. We just don't let them be doctors in order to ensure doctors can artificially boost their wages via cartelization. So if you changed the laws/practices then suddenly oh yeah we should be pushing more people in the other M of STEM, but until the reforms it makes no sense to do that.

[otomelavenderhaze]

Mcl and how aesthetical only poc representation is harmful

Before you all lit your torches and bring out your pitchforks, just read what I have to say and THEN you can come after me alright?

But before, let's talk about how mcl poc representation is mostly aesthetical, color blind, and lackluster and that's a missed opportunity for writing good stories, if you gonna do representation, please, try a bit harder? Pretty please?

I want start by saying that while representation is important, if you treat your poc character as if they just fell from a coconut tree and do not exist outside of their character archetypes, you are doing a disservice to your characters, your narrative and the people in the real world, players, who could recognize themselves in these minorities, BUT DON'T. And Why is that?

Color blindness. You treat your poc characters as white characters, you just like how they look like, you don't really care if they represent experiences or other cultures.

That's why when, let's say, a white female art student decides to falsely accuse her poc teacher and ruin his life, and you backtrack because you didn't like how you wrote him as the victim despite him being the victim of the situation, you just throw a half-ass everybody can forgive anything excuse and "she will have to live with what she has done, no repercussions beyond that" type of thing.

Throwing the name of the MeToo movement willy-nilly doesn't change the fact that you wrote it from a color-blind perspective ~

Self-awareness didn't went far enough ~

"But, talking about racism isn't romantic! It's not fun! Our game needs to be apolitical! None of that woke shit here!"

Brother in christ, what are you talking about?

The moment you cooked up poc characters, you stopped being apolitical, the moment you put lgbt characters on your game, you're being political, I will go even further: the moment you write self-sufficient female characters, you're BEING POLITICAL.

And yes, representation is not immediately = talk about racism. But you wrote the white student, you wrote her obsession, you wrote the consequences that it brought, you just missed the part when your characters are not ALL WHITE. You missed how MeToo has changed, that feminism is not just believing in the victims of sexual harassment no matter what. Feminism is about equality, it's about seeing how a minority is treated in the world and striving for EQUALITY. Feminism is not girlboss shit. I am sorry. Actually not sorry. Go read about feminism too.

I understand that not everybody feels capable of writing a history about a poc male teacher being harassed by a white female student, but I will tell you, if you have been living in a liberal hole, haven't at all pay attention to Black Lives Matter or you live your life with color blindness, then yeah, you will not be capable of writing it anyway. Write something else. Or, even better, take a day, maybe a week, and listen to the struggles of the minorities you're trying to represent, listen to podcasts, and activists, and tune yourself into the voices of the real people that you're trying to represent.

It's not that hard when we live in the age of YouTube essays, man.

Now, why I am bringing this back?

Because MCL new era (or whatever is the name of the new game) will have poc characters as well, and, oh, boy, oh, boy, I am not the only one worried about how the writing is gonna go.

All I ask of them is go watch some videos, learn how to be more inclusive and educate yourselves, IF you want a diverse cast in your game.

Your characters didn't fall from a coconut tree and they exist in the context of society, history, cultural norms and constructs, in the context of which they "live" and from what came before them, if you don't represent that, they will FEEL like a white character because white people already is the default reality, they don't really need context or background because there's no such thing as "white culture". That's why you can get away without addressing them a "culture".

And there's no such thing as being too woke or too political, we all as human beings live in a heavily political online environment, even when we choose to "not be political" we're choosing to be political: that's just neo-liberalism for you. Ignoring that fact doesn't change the perception of others, doesn't erase that you choose, for better and for worst, to be political anyway.

If your character isn't white, own it.

Don't pretend they have no cultural background just to make them more palatable to "a bigger audience", no, the moment you trop that they're korean, arabic or indian, there's gonna be people that will have prejudice, making them non-cultural in top of that doesn't change how they look like or the origins of their names.

Don't commit to a diverse cast and then erase all that diversity. Strive to create relatable characters, with relatable stories and relatable backgrounds, so your game doesn't just LOOK rich of diversity, but also FEELS full of diversity.

[porphurios]

Hercules at the crossroads between Vice and Virtue “When they drew nigh to Heracles, the first pursued the even tenor of her way: but the other, all eager to outdo her, ran to meet him, crying: ‘Heracles, I see that you are in doubt which path to take towards life. Make me your friend; follow me, and I will lead you along the pleasantest and easiest road. You shall taste all the sweets of life; and hardship you shall never know. First, of wars and worries you shall not think, but shall ever be considering what choice food or drink you can find, what sight or sound will delight you, what touch or perfume; what tender love can give you most joy, what bed the softest slumbers; and how to come by all these pleasures with least trouble. And should there arise misgiving that lack of means may stint your enjoyments, never fear that I may lead you into winning them by toil and anguish of body and soul. Nay; you shall have the fruits of others' toil, and refrain from nothing that can bring you gain. For to my companions I give authority to pluck advantage where they will’ ... “Meantime the other had drawn near, and she said: ‘I, too, am come to you, Heracles: I know your parents and I have taken note of your character during the time of your education. Therefore I hope that, if you take the road that leads to me, you will turn out a right good doer of high and noble deeds, and I shall be yet more highly honoured and more illustrious for the blessings I bestow. But I will not deceive you by a pleasant prelude: I will rather tell you truly the things that are, as the gods have ordained them. For of all things good and fair, the gods give nothing to man without toil and effort. If you want the favour of the gods, you must worship the gods: if you desire the love of friends, you must do good to your friends: if you covet honour from a city, you must aid that city: if you are fain to win the admiration of all Hellas for virtue, you must strive to do good to Hellas: if you want land to yield you fruits in abundance, you must cultivate that land: if you are resolved to get wealth from flocks, you must care for those flocks: if you essay to grow great through war and want power to liberate your friends and subdue your foes, you must learn the arts of war from those who know them and must practise their right use: and if you want your body to be strong, you must accustom your body to be the servant of your mind, and train it with toil and sweat." Xenophon, Memorabilia 2.1 Painting attributed to Pelagio Palagi (Bologna ?1775/7-1860 Turin)