#and also far more academic than I’m used to reading these days lol

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

Anyone else unexpectedly floored by the quote in the legal complaint about how they can never anticipate what issue will catch fire and what will fizzle out but that “[Blake] does have some of the [Taylor] fan base so [the publicists] will be taking it extremely seriously” 🥴

They knew nobody fights online battles like swifties so they had to, um, plan accordingly

[hangesfavles]

Nerd Hange headcanons

4.1k words. AFAB NB loser! hange x bimbo (ish)! fem reader. <3

Summary: Hange is more of a socially inept lesbian redditor gamer nerd rather than a normal ‘i’m smart’ dweeb :). These are general hcs of how you met loser/streamer Hange, things they like and relationship dynamics including you secretly eating them out on stream. <3

A/N: this is my first ever attempt at nsfw so i’m sorry if it’s bad or nondescript! also i know both of my fics so far have been for afab reader, but going forward i plan to write for a genny nootch reader just because i find it to be inclusive to wider groups of hange lovers <3 lol and last time i posted i said i never wrote fanfiction before but that was a tiny fib because i wrote shitty dumpster fire fanfics in middle school, but i’ve /srsly never tried my hand at nsfw before, but i guess there's a first for everything. pls critique me if u have any thoughts but be nice i’m sensitive. also shoutout to @abbyslev for helping me brainstorm <3 if ur reading my fanfics u probably already do, but pleaaaase follow her if u dont she’s lovely!!!! :3

Warnings: Nsfw content under my 2nd divider, sort of exhibitionism and masturbation. Not all of this is nsfw, but I’d still like for MINORS TO DNI. However, I know that you guys like to ignore those warnings, so I bolded the nsfw sections. At the very least, please don’t read the bolded hcs. Thank you & enjoy reading!

❥Loser! Hange who is in the same math course as you. When you walk in on the first day, you’re drawn to them, but not for the reasons you’d initially think. You were almost positive that they would be a decent person to cheat off of. I mean, they seem to look like they know what they’re doing, right?

❥Loser! Hange that can hear their pulse in their ears when they see a pretty girl take the spot beside them. They feel their heart rattling around in their chest as they sneak glances at you whenever they get the chance.

❥Loser! Hange quickly figures out the reason why you decided to sit next to them, rather than the other isolated chairs inside the lecture hall. But don’t worry, of course they’ll let you cheat off of them. Unfortunately, their performance starts to dip a little when they realize what you’re doing. They’re frequently under your gaze, and they can’t help it that you make them nervous :c 

❥Loser! Hange that is unaware that your eyes aren’t only looking down at their answers. One class when you were copying off of them, you started noticing the way their fingers hold their pencil. How slender their digits are, that their nails are surprisingly short, neat and cleaner than expected. You also started to notice how their veins protrude slightly and move up their arm... You feel yourself biting your lip as you observe their side profile. Their cheeks look soft and pink, similarly to their kissable lips. Your eyes continue to trail over their face: their thin, ovular glasses are slightly pushed down on their hooked nose, and their long eyelashes flutter as they continue to take notes beside you.

❥Loser! Hange can’t not listen to you getting called out by the professor when they notice you copying off of your seatmates’ assignments and notes. It was rather embarrassing, but you’re just happy the professor didn’t catch you cheating on an exam and risking academic misconduct.

❥Loser! Hange nudges your arm lightly after that incident, their voice low so you both don’t get caught by the professor. "Hey, um... I've noticed you've been using my notes and uh... answers. Do you need any help with the material? I mean, like, we could study together or something! If you want." They ask you with an excitement in their eyes and voice.

❥Loser! Hange can’t even feel proud of the fact they managed to talk to you because they barely even got that sentence out, and they couldn’t look you in the eye for more than 2 seconds. But it seems like all that is forgotten when you actually agree to meet up with them. They feel a rush of giddiness, but they try not to make a fool of themself in front of you. “Right! Yeah, so here’s my number... We can plan something, er- sometime.” They write their number down, sliding you the ripped end of their notebook page.

❥Loser! Hange who feels their heart in their throat as they lead you into their bedroom. The study session started off a bit rocky and awkwardly, but the tension in the air decreased as time continued on. As much as you would like to actually learn this material to earn good grades, you find yourself wanting to earn their attention much, much more. I mean, you obviously wore your lowest cut shirt and a pleated skirt for a reason. You look up at them, calling out for them. “Hey, Hange?” You ask, smiling as their head shoots up from their notes. “Can you explain this question to me?” You ask quietly, turning around your notebook to face them. You lean closer to them, purposely displaying your breasts for them to (hopefully) ogle.

❥Loser! Hange who starts to feel like they’re being tested by a higher power. They have to physically stop themself from glancing down and making a fool of themself. They try their best to focus on explaining the math problem to you as you watch their every movement like a hawk. You notice their eyes fall on your chest for a split second, and you pounce on your opportunity to tease them further. You reach up to their face, flicking their nose up so they’re forced to look at you. “My eyes are up here, silly.” “I- Uh- Sorry, just-” Hange trips over their words as they try to formulate a cohesive sentence on the spot. “Don’t worry about it, I’m just teasin’. It’s not so bad to be stared at if it's you.” You say with a playful wink.

❥Loser! Hange folds immediately. “O-Oh... Me? Really?” They ask, their eyes widening and pupils dilating. You can’t help but chuckle at their disbelief and nod your head in confirmation. “Yes, you. Is there anybody else in the room with us?” You joke. They stumble over their words as they think of a response. “W-Well, no, there isn’t, but- y’know- I didn’t think you-” They stutter, pushing the notebook aside and gesturing their hands between the two of you. They feel their cheeks growing warmer from embarrassment as they struggle to coherently voice their jumbled thoughts. “You know, you should at least take me to dinner before looking at me like that.” 

❥Loser! Hange doesn’t need to be told twice. They grab your hand with a cheesy smile, practically dragging you to their car while suggesting all sorts of restaurants that you might agree to. “Is there a certain restaurant you had in mind? We can try something totally different, like a little hole-in-the-wall joint. Ooh, but picture this: hibachi. The whole watching people cook in front of me thing usually makes me feel awkward but the food is always soooo good. Oh, or maybe we could go to a steakhouse! No matter what you choose, I’ll be fine with whatever! What do you think?" GOD they are just so excited and you find it utterly adorable. They remained true to their word and took you to whichever place you decided and paid for both of your meals. (They would have done this even if you didn’t joke about it bless their heart.) But then that first date turned into 2 dates, which quickly became 3, 4, 5, then suddenly you both forgot because anything the two of you do together is a date in your minds.

❥Loser! Hange definitely asks you out after only the second date. But in their defense, you’ve been hanging out after class as well as coming over to their house for “study sessions” that alway turned into watching tv or movies, ordering ubereats, going to the movies, walking around their neighborhood, anything but studying. You even took them to a party once. (You guys left after a half hour because Hange got overwhelmed, but you were still happy they tried something for you.) So by the time you guys went on your second “official date” they definitely felt confident that you would say yes.

❥Loser! Hange who loves talking to you about whatever game they’re playing. If it’s a story game, they’d love to explain anything you missed or don’t understand. They also would voice their predictions about how the game will end or where the story will go. If they see something predictable, they’ll definitely tell you what they think will happen, trying to impress you so when/if it does they’ll look “cool” to you. In reality though, you just find them to be geeky in the most endearing way. “Look, there’s a bunch of ammo in this room. If there’s a boss behind this door, you have to give me a kiss.” They say to you with a sly grin on their face. If it’s a PVP game, they will explain everything about what skills and powers each character has and who their favorite to play is. They’ll talk about what they like and dislike about the different mechanics, their favorite characters, parts they find tricky, etc. And of course, you sit there with a dopey smile while you listen to their rambling without interrupting, even if you don’t understand a word of what they’re saying because they’re just too cute when they’re passionately rambling. 

❥Loser! Hange who loves inviting you over, even if you two are doing absolutely nothing. They adore when you watch them play all sorts of video games. If they’re playing a console game, Hange lays next to you with your head against their shoulder, your arm splaying across their stomach while your hand rests around their waist. You tend to get pretty invested if the game is story based, insisting that they can’t play it without you around to watch the next part of the story unfold. If they’re playing a PC game, you’re sitting in their lap with a skirt that does absolutely nothing to cover your body once you’re seated on top of them. You prefer to face away from them, occasionally squirming in their lap so they can feel your ass pressed against their thighs and stomach. However, you do occasionally enjoy facing them, your arms wrapped around their shoulders as your legs hang off of their gaming chair at either side of their body.

❥Loser! Hange who also loves when you’re sitting in their lap, even if they struggle to focus on the game in front of them when your warm body is pressed against their own. It doesn’t help that they can smell the perfume coming from your neck, tempting them to lean in and kiss you there.

❥Loser! Hange that can’t resist the urge to rest their hands on your thighs during a cutscene, between rounds, during any sort of loading screen or when they’re respawning. They’ll use your thighs to push your ass back and closer to their body. 

❥Loser! Hange kisses your neck from behind, causing you to tilt your head and expose more of your neck for them to kiss. You let out a chuckle at how you effortlessly turned them on just by sitting on their lap and looking pretty.

❥Let’s just say... Loser! Hange finds the opportunity to quit or pause the game as soon as they can. When they eventually return to whatever game they were playing, they find it much easier to focus after you’re both satisfied. ♡

❥Loser! Hange who is also a small streamer! They probably get a few hundred people to watch them game each stream. They may not have a huge community, but their fans are consistent, funny, and always welcoming to new viewers! It’s a comforting little community. Because of this, Hange responds to their chat quite a bit and they’ve made quite a few friends with their mods and regular viewers.

❥Loser! Hange had to explain to you what streaming was. They decided that they would show you what it's like by doing a short stream while you silently watch them game and listen to them talk with their viewers.

❥Loser! Hange never technically introduced you to their fans. Not because they didn’t want to, they just knew that the internet wasn’t always kind, even if their fans are 99% supportive. They wouldn’t mention it much, but they are a little insecure about themself. They know that they treat you like an absolute princess, and they know that you adore them, that’s not the problem. The problem is that they don’t know if they’ll ever feel deserving of you. 

❥Loser! Hange only mentions this to you at late hours of the night when they feel vulnerable and slightly sleepy. You spend countless late nights at sleepovers holding them in your arms and reassuring them just how attractive you find them and that no one has treated you better. They start to feel reassured more once you mention to them that you don’t feel deserving of the endless love they give or of the many ways they spoil you.

anyway back to streamer hcs

❥Loser! Hange didn’t expect you to surprise them one day in their room with their favorite takeout in the middle of a stream. You didn’t know that they were streaming and you wanted to sneak up on them and scare them >:). You slip into their room as quietly as possible, slowly tiptoeing to their form slouched over their desk. Because of the slight delay of their videocam to their viewers, Hange doesn’t get the chance to read all of the different messages of the chatters who spotted your presence and are questioning about it. You silently place the bag of food on the floor, wrapping your arms around their shoulders and kissing their cheek roughly. 

❥Loser! Hange practically jumps out of their chair, yelping from the shock. They realize that it’s you pretty quickly, because no one else would hold or kiss them like that. They pause their game, swiveling around to face you with a wide smile. “Hi, baby!! What are you doin’ here?”

❥Loser! Hange immediately forgets the world around them, forgetting they’re literally live as they try to grab at your hips while they talk to you. “Mmmm,” You hum and giggle. “I just wanted to surprise you. It’s been a few days, I missed you.” You mumble before stepping back so that their hands disconnect from your waist. “Let me get some plates and napkins real quick.” You tell them before you leave the room again.

❥Loser! Hange remembers that they’re streaming, facing their viewers again to read what they missed from chat. “Chat, what do you mean ‘how did you bag a baddie?’” They say, reading some of the messages out loud. “‘How come Hange can get a girlfriend and I can’t? Life isn’t fair-’ WHAT IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?” They cut themself off, their jaw dropping a little from the comments they read. The chat starts to go crazy after seeing you. Most of the messages are asking who you are, if Hange is dating you, or simply encouraging Hange to stream with you sometime officially. But of course, it’s much easier to take note of bad comments people say rather than nice ones.

❥Loser! Hange pouts when you return with plates in hand, ignoring their chat again in the blink of an eye. "I'm charming, right? and cute?” They look up at you with puppy eyes as you stand in front of them. “I'm desirable." They say those words like a statement, but it sounds like they’re trying to convince themself rather than state a fact. You hear the insecurities dripping from their tone. You promptly climb into their lap, placing a tender kiss to their cheek while your hand cups the opposite one. You progressively start kissing all over their face, and they close their eyes, giggling and getting lost in the moment. When you eventually begin moving down their neck, their eyes snap open as they remember the audience. "AAAAHHHH, I'M LIVE, I'M LIVE!" They warn you frantically, suddenly remembering again why they were a bit insecure in the first place. This causes you to jump a bit from their yelling. They swivel their chair around to face the monitor, looking at it from over your shoulder. "S-Sorry chat, ending stream a bit early today..." They say quickly, turning off their game and switching tabs to end their video. You chuckle, turning to face their camera. "Oops." you say only a few seconds before they end their stream. 

❥Loser! Hange decides that they might as well officially introduce you after that incident, since they know they’ll be getting teased for it for the next few streams.

❥Loser! Hange never thought that they would be in this situation with anyone, no less you. This exact scenario had been nothing but a fantasy in the corners of their mind. A fantasy that would fog up their mind in the late hours of the night, prompting them to slip their fingers under their boxers and lightly circle their clit with their fingertips, eventually slipping them inside of their warm body. Their back would arch up off of the bed, trying their best to picture that their own fingers were instead yours.

❥Loser! Hange that noticed a sort of glint in your eyes when they asked if it was okay to stream while the two of you were still hanging out. They hadn’t been active in the past handful of days because they’ve been spending all their time with you. They just can’t deny you, especially when you both want to spend all your time with the other.

❥Loser! Hange who has to resist the urge to drool as you carefully and quietly crawl under their desk, looking up at them through your long, mascara coated eyelashes as your knees hit the slightly dusty floor... 

❥You aren’t sure what came over you, but when you were watching them put their headphones on and start welcoming people into their stream, you missed the attention being on you. So decided to tease and torture them and force them to give you attention still. 

❥Loser! Hange is forced to pretend you aren’t under their desk and spreading their thighs and pulling down their boxers while giving them that signature sultry smile with your matching lustful look in your eye. You bite your lip as you part their legs, moving in closer to their folds. They can feel your hot breath on their legs as you kiss, lick, and bite the plush skin of their inner thighs. For a few moments, you feel their hand rest on top of your head and stroke your hair approvingly as you start to rile them up. They can feel their face heating up a little, but if anyone in chat mentions it they just explain that their AC isn’t working properly. Even from just your breath and kisses teasing their thighs, they can feel themself getting wet, the stickiness spreading around their groin.

❥Loser! Hange melts under your touches, but they quickly become needy and desperate for more. Their resolve is always weak when it comes to you, and your teasing will be the death of them. They’re trying so hard not to whine and plead because they have to act normal and play their game. Even when your tongue finally reaches out to meet their pussy, you keep teasing them. You give them as little as you possibly can, spreading their folds with the tip of your tongue, only occasionally flicking up to their clit. You also kiss their puffy pussy lips and their clit, showing how much you love them while simultaneously subjecting them to such sweet torture. When they feel your tongue finally giving them what they wanted, their legs start to twitch slightly from the stimulation. They try their best to regulate their breathing so nothing seems out of the ordinary.

❥Loser! Hange doesn’t know how to act when your mouth starts to move faster and faster between their legs. They’ve stopped looking at their chat entirely, just trying to focus on playing the game somewhat coherently and occasionally talking about it or making a random comment without stuttering or sighing from pleasure.

❥Loser! Hange’s pussy is dripping onto their chair from all of your teasing. The combination of your tongue and their pussy makes an audible squelch as you suck, kiss, and lick up their slit and their hips move slightly, trying to keep up with the rhythm of your tongue. At this point, they’re starting to feel the knot in their stomach tighten, and they’re struggling to hold back their sounds. “Chat, I’ve gotta use the bathroom real quick-” They say, closing their webcam and muting their mic as fast as their fingers let them.

❥Loser! Hange’s hand finds its way back to your head, grabbing a fistful of your hair and pushing you as close to them as biology allows. Their head falls back as they let out a shaky moan. “Ahhh.. F-Fuckk... Please, please more.” They whine, encouraging you to eat them out without fear. You can both feel how their pussy throbs with desire for attention. They’ve been impatiently craving this, so they plan to take full advantage of the fact you’re right where they want you. You pick up the pace, sloppily making out with their pussy and sucking their labia between your lips. They toss one of their legs up onto your shoulder, allowing you more access to them as the knot in their core is almost ready to release. You look up into their eyes, slurping up their juices. The way you look up at them with devotion makes them feel even better due to how much desire is in your expression, adding another layer of eroticism for them from your enjoyment.

❥Loser! Hange feels the tension in their lower stomach releasing. They sigh and moan out into the air lightly as they feel white hot pleasure take their entire mind and body. They arch themself off the chair, trying to meet your mouth even more than already possible. Their body grinds against your tongue as they shiver from the intensity of their orgasm.

❥Immediately after their orgasm subsides, loser! Hange pulls your head up by your hair, kissing you deeply and not caring that they can taste their sticky cum on your plump lips. Their free hand slides down to the back of your thigh, guiding your body to sit on their lap. Their hands are protective and possessive while you make out. They are such a softie, always wanting to cuddle, hug, and kiss after sex. They love you so much and need to let it show, it’s like a warm blanket of warmth and affection covers their heart. They see the world with rose colored glasses for an hour or two after you make them cum, honestly. 

❥Loser! Hange holds you for a little while, their face nuzzled against your neck as they whisper sweet nothings to you. They’ll pepper your neck, collarbones, and face with kisses while telling you how good you made them feel. “I- love- you- so- much- sweet- heart- thank- you-” They’d say between pecks to your skin, causing you to giggle from the slight tickle of their lips moving around your upper body. They only stop their barrage of kisses when you start to push at their shoulders playfully, begging them to stop. “I love youuuu!” They say in a drawn out tone, giving your body a tight squeeze. “But duty calls, so we'll have to continue this later. Don't worry, I'll be thinking about you the whole time!"

❥Loser! Hange loves aftercare, giving and receiving, basically. They’re happy as long as you’re physically close to them <//3.

❥Loser! Hange also used to have inappropriate thoughts about you before you two were officially dating. They knew it was a bit weird to do so without you having any knowledge of it, but they couldn’t help themself. The two of you had exchanged Instagrams after your very first study session and since then, they can’t help but fuck their fingers to your posts. They try to refrain from doing so each time; they attempt to scroll past your stories as if the sight of your face hadn’t already turned them on. Each time it always ends the same, inevitably retyping your name in the search bar to revisit the photo. At this point it had to be some sort of conditioning, the way their body would react to you like clockwork. But they still feel so embarrassed to be so obsessed with you simply because you gave them an ounce of attention.

❥Loser! Hange used to imagine you in all sorts of different positions for them. You name it, they’ve probably thought about it once or maybe even twice. Sometimes they would imagine you sitting on their face, other times they could imagine you under them as they would fuck their strap into you. When Hange feels extra desperate, they like to picture the ways you would take them, perhaps you would trap them against the bed, fingering their throbbing pussy while making out with them to ensure that they weren’t too loud. A favorite daydream of theirs surrounds the different types of faces you would make as they eat you out. They yearn to see how your eyes might look down at them, pleading for them to make you cum, or how they may be shut entirely, your lips parted to sigh out with pleasure from how good they’re making you feel. They’d wonder what kind of sounds you would make. Were you loud? Quiet? Shy? Breathy? Are you the type that moans, or are you the type that whimpers? These questions had plagued their mind until they finally had you for the first time after 4-5 dates. <3

i miss hange rip hange you would’ve loved being the most nerdy loser dork the geek world ever saw.

[retiredteabag]

sorry for informality but i was stalking reading your pinned post and you’re in grad school at twenty!??!!!

unless i’m tripping or misunderstanding something, academic weapon tips please because holy shit that’s insane! what’s ur field of study if you want to talk about it/don’t mind me asking? any application tips/things you wished you knew before getting there/habits you wished you’d formed sooner? independent research has always been difficult for me because of how much i depend on structure (adhd imposter syndrome anxiety lets go) so if you’re working on a thesis/something similar, how has the process been in your experience?

i’m in undergrad atm and heavily debating going further, so i’d love to hear from someone my age who’s actually doing it! also unrelated, but i’m a certified notion/goodnotes girlie if you vibe with those as study resources!

🎸 tagging with an emoji in case i pop back around, yk?

I'm sorry to say, but my tips might come off as sort of typical... but I hope they're at least a little helpful!

I am currently in a masters program within the analytics field. Research/independent studies vary widely depending on the area of specialization, however, my program has an intensive practicum that is similar in nature. I have not started it yet, but what I can say for sure when it comes to research: make sure you are picking a topic that you could speak about for hours/answer argumentative questions about.

For applications, I would say to narrow your options down as much as possible and look into each program before applying. Know the curriculum and standard outline and what stands out to you as you decide.

^ on this same note, you will likely need at least one interview in the application process. Speak slowly and enunciate. Taking a moment to think of the proper words will always be better than speaking quickly without much thought. Most people say to use "down-speak" in these interviews, but in my experience, matching the examiners tone and energy makes the whole thing much more comfortable.

For study tips, I have a large notebook that I keep on my desk where I write down every assignment and the date that it is due. This is just for organization purposes, I find a physical copy helpful for a few reasons but also because crossing them off feels rewarding :]

Time managment is incredibly important. Everyone says this because it is true. Prep everything, organizing your day into chunks. Since you also like structure, this probably wont be an issue. I would also get comfortable with being self-aware of your priorities. There will come a time when you will need to choose between academics/work and other areas of your life.

Keep your spaces clean. Dedicate a day or so to just organizing/doing a deep clean. It will help you stay focused and minimize external anxiety. It’s also much easier to keep a place clean if you have put in such an effort.

Participate in class. I cannot make this clear enough. I promise it is not embarrassing to ask questions or "try". You will learn far easier if you put effort into the classroom/lecture setting.

It is a pretty typical "tip" is to just ask questions. Even if you feel like you might understand, just ask to make sure. And in this same vein, go to office hours if you need to.

Prioritize sleep lol, that and mental rest. You can't always be studying. For me, it is a real challenge to work and be full time in school so it's important to carve out those sections of "you time".

Try not to be on your phone tooooooooo much, I know it’s hard but I make an effort to not be on my phone while eating. Don’t use entertainment as a distraction, I find that it just delays anxiety :(

Lastly, apply for scholarships and know that you absolutely can appeal for more money.

I hope this was useful. Do know that it REALLY depends on your area of study and 5-year-plan. I would recommend not going to grad school unless you're absolutely sure it is worth it.

Good luck!

[campgender]

hey! I'm currently writing a paper discussing experiences of disabled and neurodivergent students at my uni (spoiler alert: it's not great lmao), and while I have a couple references so far (mostly Lund and Pearlstein) about the larger Disabled Student ExperienceTM I'm struggling to find academic papers talking about this, particularly since my field of study is psychology rather than disability theory/disability justice. are there any texts regarding this that you would reccommend? doing my best to lean on crip theory for this essay and you were the first person i thought of! no worries if you don't have the energy to answer this rn ofc, i hope you're having a good day ✨

omg what a fabulous & vital project! i’d love to hear more about your work both out of interest & to potentially refine my recommendations because this is such a complex, multifaceted area of experience + research + activism — i tried to draw from a variety of perspectives so you can dig deeper into what seems most relevant!

my number one recommendation is the book Academic Ableism by Jay Dolmage, i still need to read most of it rip but it’s absolutely considered foundational in this topic. the rest i’m gonna put under a cut because it got super long lol, i’ll also reblog to my disability sideblog @crippleprophet in case anyone else has suggestions!

best of luck with your work, i hope some of this is helpful! feel free to reach out for more recommendations, input, or encouragement❣️💖

on the built environment – eg, the physical campus & how it impacts students

if you’re in the US, this summary of colleges’ responsibilities under the ADA has been helpful for me (link).

Building Access by Aimi Hamraie

Accessibility for Historic Buildings: A Field Guide, 2nd Edition (link to pdf)

written by David Provost and revised by Joseph Hoefferle, Jr. as part of the University of Vermont Graduate Program in Historic Preservation

back in 2020 i used the first edition of this document in a project arguing my undergraduate university should make its historic buildings more accessible

lays out policies & options in tables with photo examples from their campus

Aimi Hamraie & Kelly Fritsch’s Crip Technoscience Manifesto (2019)

Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience, 5(1), pp1-34.

this piece is honestly just incredibly life-giving for me in general so i highly recommend giving it a full read when you have time. specific parts that i thought might resonate with the experiences of students at your uni:

“user-initiated design” (Hendren & Lynch, cited p9)

“access as friction” (p10):

Emerging out of historical fights for disability rights, the terms accessibility and access are usually taken to mean disabled inclusion and assimilation into normative able-bodied relations and built environments. […] However, the etymology of the word access reveals two frictional meanings: access as “an opportunity enabling contact,” as well as “a kind of attack” (2016, p. 23). Taking access as a kind of attack reveals access-making as a site of political friction and contestation. While historically central to the fights for disability access, crip technoscience is nevertheless committed to pushing beyond liberal and assimilation-based approaches to accessibility, which emphasize inclusion in mainstream society, to pursue access as friction, particularly paying attention to access-making as disabled peoples’ acts of non-compliance and protest.

noncompliant users and assistive technology as friction (p11):

Lifchez and Winslow offer the concept of “non-compliant users,” illustrating this with an image of a powerchair user wheeling against traffic on a street without curb cuts (1979, p. 153). This technology-enabled movement against the flow of traffic marks anti-assimilationist crip mobility: not an attempt to integrate (as in the liberal approach to disability rights), but rather to use technology as a friction against an inaccessible environment.

collaborative mapping of (in)accessibility, something i know happens more informally among disabled students on many campuses (p15):

Unlike mainstream disability technoscience “crowdsourcing” projects, which invoke a charity model of disability wherein non-disabled people collect data but do not engage in disability culture or politics, emerging projects such as Mapping Access are making participatory access-making the basis of a kind of technoscientific “access intimacy” (Mingus, 2017) through practices such as “critical crowdsourcing” of accessibility data (Hamraie, 2018). […] Collaborative mapping visualizes the evidence of inaccessibility while creating opportunities for collective response. Crip cartographic technoscience thus enables more critical design, and interrogation of the everyday built environment.

access to education

the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities includes the right to inclusive education (Article 24). scholarship in this area is about primary & secondary education, not postsecondary / university education, but a lot of the concepts can be applied

in addition to inclusive education, “universal design for learning” (UDL) might be a helpful keyword but it definitely trends toward the liberal as a whole

“Hidden contradictions and conditionality: conceptualisations of inclusive education in international human rights law” (2013) by Bronagh Byrne (link)

references the importance of identifying barriers as a step in the process of accessible education, which depending on your work may be a nice succinct justification of its necessity (p234):

Inclusion ‘necessitates the removal of the material, ideological, political and economic barriers that legitimate and reproduce in equality and discrimination in the lives of disabled people’ (Barton and Armstrong 2001, 214). According to this view, an identification of barriers within the school’s environment, teaching and learning strategies, and attitudes that prevent the full participation of children with disabilities, will also be required.

argues for a focus on inability of schools to meet students’ needs rather than students’ inability to conform to an ableist environment (for example, p242):

International human rights law has conditionalised the right to inclusive education for children with disabilities by making inclusion contingent upon the extent of individual rather than institutional or structural deficits.

psychological/emotional impact on disabled students

“psycho-emotional disablism” may be a useful search term for you, with the disclaimer that a substantial portion of scholars in feminist disability studies are TERFs / express “gender critical” beliefs / etc. so like i’m listing one paper i came across that looked relevant + two from my grad program’s recommended reading, but i haven’t read these & suggest vetting authors before citing them:

“The psycho-emotionally disabling impact of academic landscapes of exclusion: experiences of a disabled postgraduate in perpetual lockdown” (2023) by Joanne Hunt (link)

Reeve, D (2004). Psycho-emotional dimensions of disability and the social model. In C Barnes & G Mercer (eds), Implementing the social model of disability: theory and research. The Disability Press, Leeds, pp. 83-100. http://donnareeve.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/ReeveChapter2004b.pdf

Reeve, D. (2014) 'Psycho-emotional disablism and internalised oppression', in J. Swain, S. French, C. Barnes and C. Thomas (eds) Disabling Barriers - Enabling Environments, 3rd Edition, London: Sage, pp. 92-98. http://donnareeve.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/ReeveChapter2014a.pdf

[horsesarecreatures]

Hi! I’m a big fan of the great pictures u post/reblog and your clear passion for animals :) As an incoming law student I haven’t seen many other law students who have such full lives / take part in so many non-academic or career related activites outside of school. I would love to emulate a somewhat similar lifestyle once I begin law school, would you be willing to share about how you manage your time to maintain such a balance? Have a great day! ❤️

Aww thank you! There are a variety of factors, some related to my personality and others are just how my fate turned out.

Personality wise, I'm extremely introverted and prefer being alone most of the time. I'm not in a relationship, so I have more time to myself. I also only go out with friends like once a month during the school semesters, if that. Finally, I don't have a TV or many other technology distractions, which forces me to turn to my hobbies more when I'm bored.

Then I was very fortunate because I got accepted to my law school with a full scholarship (I had a 3.9 something undergrad GPA and 165 LSAT score). Less lucky is that my dad passed away a few years back. It was a horrible time for me, but I do acknowledge that I was luckier than some people in the same situation because I inherited a house, and used the extra money from selling my brother's during the COVID real estate boom to get an apartment really close to my campus (his house was more valuable than mine so I got some of the difference in value to make things more fair). These two things have taken a ton of financial pressure off me. I still have to work, but not insane amounts to pay off debt.

For whatever reason, I also just learn really well with standard teaching methods, and I'm a good test taker. I don't bring a laptop to class, and writing notes by hand has been shown in studies to improve memory retention. So to be honest I don't spend too much time studying and still manage to do good.

I know I post a lot about reselling, but that's not my main job. My main jobs are tutoring and babysitting. For tutoring, I make $60-$80 per session, so it's not minimum wage and I don't have to do it for hours everyday. Then for babysitting, I work for doctors/nurses/other people that need late late night shifts. These shifts pay more, and the kids are mostly sleeping when I'm there, so I'm able to do my readings and case briefings at work most week.

My current internship writing policy suggestions for a nonprofit is remote and has a flexible schedule, so I usually do that work late at night as well.

My sleep schedule is trash and tbh I don't sleep enough. But I get things done! Lol.

Also, I can't emphasize this enough, try not to commute to school from far away! Try to live nearby. So many of my classmates commute from NYC and I feel terrible for them. Many have told me that they initially planned to do homework on the train/subway, but the reality is they usually can't because of distractions or lack of a seat.

[1ore]

Hi, I've been following you since Ye Olde Esk Days and you've always been a huge inspiration for me as a fellow gender-questioning neurodivergent lesbian both in art and science.

I've been wanting to reach out because I'm considering enrolling in Enviroinmental Sciences (or something in that ballpark) in 1 or 2 years and wanted to ask how your experience studying it has been to you as a person with an artistic bakground? I am afraid my ADHD might get in the way of maths, and that I might not be "smart" enough to pursue a degree in STEM, despite the fact I've always been interested in scientific subjects and in the conservation efforts around the area (and the river) I grew up in. so, yeah, I don't really know what else to say xmx I hope this message wasn't too much, and thank you for taking the time to read it. Your art and its message has always meant a lot to me! (also, happy Pride month!)

ONE OF US! ONE OF US!

So, funny enough, math anxiety is part of what what led me to Environmental Science in the first place. My degree is a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Science, not a Bachelor of Science, because IIIIIII didn’t want to take more semesters of calculus and organic chemistry than I had to 🤪 I struggled with math in highschool, and by the time I went back to school, it had been more than 5 years since I last took a math class. I was also more interested in the interdisciplinary parts of Environmental Science, so a BA let me put more credit hours towards classes in policy, law, social science, humanities, etc.

As far as I know, having a BA hasn’t held me back. I’ve been accepted into internships and other programs doing “real science” just fine. Maybe this won’t always be true, but I’ve figured out that I like teaching and engaging people in science more than I like being in academia, so that works out fine for me.

As for my experience with ADHD and math/science courses, I have euuuauuuehhh a lot of thoughts. This gets dense, sorry.

First, my ADHD came with a side of anxiety, which manifested as a compulsion to do well academically regardless of how much my mental health suffered. Doing busy work felt like hell on earth for reasons that were then mysterious to me, but disappointing my teachers felt Worse. So I became really good at, like, academic minmaxing, not so much learning or taking care of myself. It’s hard to articulate. I want to say I was muddling through these classes as a professional test-taker and not a student, and also not applying myself fully. But at the same time, I felt like I was well beyond my breaking point? This made more sense to me later when I got the diagnosis LOL. my capacity for doing the things I’m supposed to do, the way I’m supposed to do them, is lower than other peoples’. So either I do what I’m not supposed to do, or I do it “the wrong way.” <- meaningless.

I say all that because coursework is a poor metric of how “good” you are at science or math, or whether you'll enjoy doing them outside of the classroom. We know this LOL but I want to reiterate it. I learned how to get really good grades without learning how to reason my way through why xyz methodology is justified, or how to ask questions and be curious about what’s happening around me. It’s corny but it’s true. on one hand I still struggle with these, because I’m still working under the assumption that whatever’s going on in my head is the “wrong” way to do it. But ADHD does a lot of heavy lifting for us with lateral thinking and being able to make connections that other people can’t always see. If you want to do Science ™ (as in academic research,) this is an awesome tool to have in your toolkit.

There’s also a whole world of environmental work outside of academia that demands its own skillset, which coursework may or may not teach. Like, if you want to do hands-on restoration work or interpretive work or field technician stuff, this is less “can you spit out the balanced equation for photosynthesis on command” and more “can you operate a woodchipper” or “are you comfortable with public speaking and customer service.“ This is another part of what attracted me to envirosci--how wide-ranging the job market is. The backdrop of science is the same, but your day-to-day responsibilities can look wildly different.

Also, if it’s any encouragement, being an arts person has been a huge plus in my experience. My most recent employer told me outright that the artsy scicomm stuff in my resume is what made them think “oh, we need her.” Art and science are wives LOL a lot of the skills you hone as an artist are invaluable in science, especially if you’re doing any kind of communication work. (<- has seen some poorly-written papers and incomprehensible figures in her time)

Going along with that, back when I was yea high and wanted to do art professionally, I remember people telling me that you only go to art school for the professional connections. A lot of STEM careers are locked behind having a specialized degree, but I think this advice is still applicable here. Being a “good student” hasn’t helped me as much as abandoning my anxiety and sending cold emails, showing up at peoples’ guest lectures and office hours, participating fully and sincerely, etc. The stuff I did outside the classroom was more meaningful to me, in the end. (That said, I was lucky to have several classes that were more skills/training-oriented for things like GIS, field botany, conducting environmental assessments for NEPA, etc. You can swing projects for classes like these as opportunities to build skills or create portfolio pieces.)

OK. I thiiiink that’s everything I have for you? I hope that answers your question. If not, I can give it another shot. I'll also leave you with this answer from beloved mutual Heedra re: what Environmental Science as a major is like. I can't believe it's 6 years old because it's part of what put Environmental Science on my radar in the first place LOL

[thenotsosecretdiaryofbiyu]

2024年7月13日— Longshan Temple

Today I did something that I’ve been dying to do for a LONG time: go to a Taiwanese temple! The most exciting thing is that I got to make some offerings, make a prayer, and ask a question to one of the deities there! (Well, technically I’m gonna say I offered the prayer to the Heavens in general because I’m pretty sure it goes against my religion to pray to another deity OOPS– don’t tell my pastor plz). My offering was simple, just a pack of some cakes I bought from the temple and the snacks I brought with me in my bag today (some chocolate gummy candy and some chocolate chip os hehe), and I prayed at the spot designated for the deity of romance! Thankfully, I didn’t feel too pathetic though because at least there were a bunch of other desperate singles in the little area too, all praying with their hands pressed together alongside me. After the prayer, I asked a question (which I will NOT tell y’all because a girl has to have her secrets) and I threw the divination moonstones to get a celestial response– it said yes!! So hopefully, things are looking up for me in the romance department! God, and all my friends, know I could use some luck there lol. The cool thing is that I got to take my offerings with me, which is something I did not expect in the slightest! I guess it makes sense though, because it would likely just go to waste otherwise if they weren’t taken back by the offeror.

Off topic, but I realized this morning that some of the things I bought yesterday at the night market were fakes (one little Kuromi journal I bought literally said, “Where do you want to go todag?” LOL)! I don’t mind though, I think it’s funny and I’m sure my bestie won’t care and will love it even more now hehe. I’ve also noticed that there is an absolutely INSANE amount of corporate collabs going on in the capitalistic sphere over here! Yay!!!! I came across a Sanrio themed Seven Eleven today while I was walking around and just its existence blew my mind, and then before I took the MRT home, I grabbed myself some cupcakes from the Pokemon + Mister Donut collab going on right now! The States of course have their own collabs but it’s much, much rarer than it appears to be over here. There’s even a Hello Kitty + Watsons collab for Hello Kitty’s 50th anniversary! I got the required points to do so, and then I bought one of the mystery bags! ( 一開始我以爲可以自己選擇想要買的手提包，可是原來是隨機的！無法選擇險要的，是由天命決定。不幸的是送給我的手提包不是我想要的。雖然還是看起來好可愛，但是我可能還要再買一個來嘗試得到想要的設計。）I got the Hello Kitty design, but I really wanted the Cinnamoroll one, so oh well.

The weather here is intense, but I’ve noticed that I don’t actually mind it! The hot weather just feels normal to me because of Florida’s unforgiving heat, and I’m actually happy that it rains here more than Florida! So far, it’s definitely rained here every day since I’ve arrived, and even as I’m typing this, it’s thundering. I had lunch alone today, and it was tons of fun! I went walking around, looking at all the tasty stores and cool little shops and I decided on a Bao place run by a sweet old lady!

Academic Reflection

To be honest, I’m not actually sure how many/which readings we were supposed to do today LOL, but I started reading the one titled “Hot and Noisy” and it’s had some relevance to the activities I’ve done the past few days so I think it’s a good place to start. What really stuck out to me from that writing was how contested the position of the 夜市 is, and how much that both surprised me and made immediate sense. Because I come from a culture where night markets are practically unheard of, I just assumed they were a normal, unthreatened aspect of the culture in Taiwan because I knew nothing about them. The reading showed me how jeopardized their position in Taiwanese society is, and how because they are becoming increasingly regulated, they are at risk. From first hand experience, the lack of government regulation is apparent because as I type this, I’m sitting next to the counterfeit Sanrio journals I bought and using some 來自夜市山寨產品的筆 to annotate the readings lol.

One of the lines from the song mentioned in the article also stuck out to me, the “buy as much as you can so Taiwan will have a miracle.” Although I know it is specifically talking about the night markets, it certainly pertains to the shopping environment in Taiwan as a whole too. The little receipts, which all give you a chance to win a lotto, prove that. It’s clever and makes sense, because it encourages the gambler in you to buy more, which stimulates the economy. It’s certainly worked on me, because even as I spend a little more than I’m supposed to on cute cupcakes, the little number on the receipt I got made the purchase feel just a touch better.

#I’macaptialistforthecutepokemoncupcakes #idbuythecounterfeitsAGAIN

[greensagephase]

Hi!!! First, how are youu??! I hope you are doing find. Second, I LOVE NON VIOLENT COMMUNICATION SO FREAKING MUCH!! I mean honestly, majestic piece of work. I would frame it or printed out to have it in a really cute book in my shelf. You are amazing.

Also, I find it adorable when you apologise for the word count, because it is like: non sense, I want moorre, gimme all the words your brain creates into this beautiful poetry. Really, it is amazing.

Lastly, I hope I am not overstepping, but, do you have any advice on how to start writing? Because I've had this idea for months, and I feel like it is really good. But I sometimes can't find the way to translate the things I picture in my brain to paper, you know? So, I just wanted to ask you, because your story really made me want to write mine.

Anyway, love yaaa. You don't have to answer if you don't want to ❤️. Apologies for my English, it isn't my first language

Hiii, V!!! I’m doing great today, thank you!! I hope you’re having a fantastic day/night!! (Also, sorry for taking a moment to reply to your ask but I wanted to sit down and make sure what I'm saying makes sense regarding the writing!)

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! 🥹 You’re so sweet, truly!!! I’m screaming about the framing or printing out the story into a book 😭 (lowkey, I might do that once the fic is done as it’s my best writing so far and I’m proud of it, so thank you for the idea)!! You’re too kind!!!🥺

And aww, thank you!! The word count always makes me feel guilty! I feel like in a way, I’m forcing readers to read long chapters, even though I know I’m not forcing anyone physically. I have a few readers who always reassure me it’s okay, so I’m slowly learning to accept that some of my chapters are and might continue to be longer than the average length of fanfic chapters lol!

As to the last bit, you’re not overstepping at all!! I’m so happy you’re writing your own fic, and I’m so, so touched that NC made you want to write it!!!! Seriously, this alone made my day!! Thank you!!

On how to start writing (I apologize for how long my response is but hopefully I can be somewhat helpful), I have some advice and I’m also sharing my own process for writing a NC chapter specifically since the process is more concrete than it is for my other short and standalone pieces.

One, I recommend simply starting!! I was reluctant to write my first ATSV work because I hadn’t written fanfic in many years and all I had been writing was either academic or for my original novels (not published but I hope one day they are). From experience, I also know posting fanfic online is or can be a commitment. I never want to be a writer that leaves a fic halfway done because as a fanfic reader, I’ve experienced that pain too many times 😭, so I knew if I posted anything that was longer than one part, I was going to stick with it no matter the ups and downs of my life. Ultimately, I decided to push past everything, even though I had nothing beyond the first chapter of this initial idea. I had an itch and needed to scratch it, so I gave in and literally wrote it on a car ride in my notes app lol not caring if I even posted it. That work is not published, it never was (it’s still on my notes app and it’ll probably stay there forever lol), but it helped me immensely with finding my voice and getting comfortable writing fanfic again. A few days after writing that, I was working on the first NC chapter! So, just start writing and don’t think about it. Brain dump everything on a page that you have so far without worrying about how well it’s written yet!

Two, I recommend doing a writing exercise. It doesn’t have to be about your fanfic, just write about something and get your writing juices going. Sometimes we overthink and it’s the one thing holding us back! You can easily find some short writing prompts on here, so if you’re interested in that, just search some up! This helps warm you up and once again, get more comfortable with writing.

My process:

Consider using outlines. I use these especially with NC because it’s a multiple parts work and has a clear story line. These are the best thing ever! I've also seen other people use mind maps, but I prefer outlines because they're more organized in my opinion.

I start the outline with the “bones” or foundation of the work. These are the main points/events of the writing piece. This is anything from a big event like an action moment with a villain to a character chilling alone on a rooftop, but they can also be pieces of dialogue that are essential to the chapter. I usually have some snippets already planned out in my head, so I go ahead and include those in this part. So I start by doing this, writing each point in chronological order, at least the way it starts out. Sometimes it changes with new main points being added or some omitted during the process and later on in editing. That’s okay! But either way, writing the events in chronological order helps keep everything organized and allows me to physically see the layout/flow of the chapter so far, and make changes to it.

I then go back and add the “meat.” This is all the details surrounding the main point that I have in mind already. This part becomes bigger once I've laid out the first layer of details.

Here’s an example from one of my old outlines, please excuse the handwriting and how messy it may seem. Usually I’m planning and writing all my thoughts in a rush because my brain is thinking faster than my hand is moving lol (I’m like “write that down, write that down!”)

The main point is that Miguel wakes up. Everything else is the meat of that scene and you can see I even have that one snippet of dialogue that I had stuck in my brain.

When I get to the writing on my laptop, I follow my outline and by the end of a writing session, I have a scene that I’m happy with. I do go back and edit, and usually this is when I do my best ✨magic.✨ I think the reason for that is that the idea/scene is not stuck in my head anymore and I can focus entirely on the other details that truly capture the mood of the scene perfectly to how I see it play out in my head, down to how the characters are sitting and looking at each other to the weather outside. This is why I highly suggest that you just write what you have so far and allow your brain to do its magic, it'll help you capture your story from brain to paper!

I hope this helps a bit! And of course, don’t stress too much on it! Writing should be fun and not stressful! Be kind to your writing and have fun creating!

Once you post your fanfic, pls tag me! 😊 I'm trying to read more fanfic these days, so I'd love to read yours! And if you have other questions that I can help you with, send them my way! I’m not an expert but sometimes just talking with someone helps a lot! Also, no need to apologize about your English!! It’s great!!! 🥰 I hope you have a great weekend, V!! 💞💞

[darlingpoppet]

What inspired you to start Where The Dead Forget? Also can you tell us some more about your PZA Dreamers AU? (e.g. what your favourite thing to write has been so far, things you look forward to or struggle with, or anything else you like). Thanks!

As for WTDF, honestly it pretty much all started with this tweet where I expressed interest in the concept of Patroclus Hadesgame losing his memories. I had seen such fanarts already so I was curious if there were fics out there too (there are of course! I have since found some, lol!) But a friend in the comments was encouraging to the notion of me writing one myself and I pretty much immediately began spiraling from there (I tweeted this the same day I posted Once More and also about a week before I posted Upon A Lazy Bed, so at the time my brain was on fire and I was constantly brimming with ideas!) The entire story from beginning to end pretty much came to me immediately and I’ve been expanding on it ever since! A lot of my inspiration has been fueled by the experience of consuming every depiction of Achilles & Patroclus I could get my hands on, as well as countless academic writings with various analyses on the characters. Also just the entire meta tradition of storytelling with folklore characters in general, where there’s no one “definitive version”, and thinking about how that might work in-universe where things like memories, bias, human fallibility, etc make objective truth difficult or impossible to obtain. Films such as Rashomon and Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind that explore similar concepts to WTDF also inspired me!

As for the PZA Dreamers AU!! I can’t remember if I’ve ever properly explained the concept in a public post but for anyone curious: the whole thing was born out of me seeing a parallel/synergy between the themes of the film The Dreamers and certain interpretations of the Iliad (the Homeric version itself ofc but also particularly Shakespeare’s Troilus & Cressida.) The characters in these stories exist in this symbolic & narrative liminal space where they’re shutting themselves off from the outside world so they can Live Laugh Love—and in all the stories, reality catches up with them eventually, usually in tragic ways. I’m making it a modern AU (a vaguely 2010s period piece?) because as a millennial I also see parallels to my generation (& Gen Z) where as a whole our own lives also seem to be stuck in a figurative liminal space academically, economically, socially (especially in the era of covid where we were all shut-up in our houses finding there was more to life than The Grind, simultaneously reveling in simple pleasures & also going insane from the ambiguity of it all until we were all forced back out again) And at the same time our generations have this fascination with liminal spaces as an Internet meme (including vaporwave which also coincidentally appropriates classical Greco-Roman imagery in its aesthetics.) I’m reading serious non-fiction books like Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher and Retromania by Simon Reynolds in service of what at the end of the day is just a horny fanfic LMFAO.

Because getting back on track to what you actually asked me: I’m not gonna lie, my favorite parts of writing this story so far have been the sex scenes, haha. Like the whole vibe of the story is supposed to be just this completely unfettered dreamy indulgence, and even things like sex have a liminal quality to me (where time seems to stand still and people are joined together transitioning through several physical states) hopefully I’ll be able to pull the whole thing off the way I’m envisioning it! The fact that it’s a modern AU is probably what makes this both easier and harder to write—things like dialogue can have a more modern sensibility but it’s probably the more flowery prose that’s giving WTDF its own dreamy, liminal quality so it’s tricky figuring out how to balance it. I’m also having a hard time deciding whether I want to dump this entire high-concept, novella-length story as a one-shot (or at least split up into 2-3 parts that are published all at once) or if I should stick to a more traditional (for fanfic) serialized publication schedule ahahaha. I guess if anyone reading this has any preferences or insight feel free to let me know your thoughts!

Oh and as for the PZA of it all: writing Closest To My Heart was probably what reminded me of the existence of The Dreamers in the first place (I had seen it years and years ago) because I realized that film has a similar dynamic of an “outsider” falling into an erotic triangle with a pair who are essentially soulmates, and ends up biting off a little more than he can chew in keeping up with the two of them… I decided I wasn’t quite done exploring that dynamic and I wanted to write about it more! Though don’t worry, I don’t think this story is gonna be quite as dark as Closest (uh oh wait this might be a lie actually), and also Patrochilles are MUCH nicer to Zag in this story ;)

(Also I didn’t even mention Hadesgame itself where the entire underworld is a liminal space Zagreus passes through to reach the surface/self-actualization and how he is constantly dying/resurrecting… Zagreus is a very liminal character! But this is already an ETA so I shall leave my thoughts there for now, lol.)

Hopefully all that answers your questions, anon! Thanks so much for the ask <3

[minarithm]

i used to volunteer as a writing tutor and briefly worked in a library before i went to college, so i was immediately intrigued when i came across your minayeon fic!!

and ohhhh my god it had me up at 4am giggling and kicking my feet 😭 im so in love with the way you write, but im also in love with the dynamics between the members you’ve created. i particularly enjoy your rendition of the j-line and their relationships with each other! as much as i love the romantic pairings (sahyo and chaeyu are SOOO CUTEEE i love that you included them) the platonic relationships are just as important to pull everything together, and i think you’ve really excelled at creating those dynamics that feel both realistic and fresh at the same time.

the way you express the dichotomy between nayeon and mina’s perspectives on everything is so well-written and amazing. i really enjoy getting to read and think more about philosophy and theory through their lenses!

side note: i’m so grateful you’ve written momo as someone with academic intelligence and depth, bc imo there are far too many people (even unknowingly via fics) pushing the narrative that momo is dumb and it kinda really hurts me every time i think about that bc its simply not true even if she can be a bit absent-minded at times (but who isnt?)

really looking forward to the final chapter and any other works you might put out!! 🙆🏻‍♀️

this message is so so so sweet omg thank you so much you made my entire day ❤️

I’m glad you’re enjoying the fic so far, especially as someone who’s also been a writing tutor! At first I wasn’t sure how niche writing tutoring is, but it was such a big part of my college experience (and some of the most academically gifted—and argumentative—people I knew in college were my fellow tutors) that I just felt like this college AU had to center around it lol

And I’ve said this before on one platform or another but I really appreciate hearing that people have liked the friendship dynamics in particular—this is the first fic I’ve written with such strong emphasis on platonic pairings/trios and I wasn’t sure how it would translate! J-line here actually reflect my own roommate/best friend situation in college so it’s super close to my heart and really takes me back 🥲 (can I say that if I only graduated 3 months ago lol)

I’m so fascinated by philosophy and its intersection with language/literature (although I’m in no way well versed in either), so I’ve been using minayeon to bounce some fun ideas off of each other—thank you for letting me know that my inner ramblings-turned-dialogue actually came out ok 😭

And RETWEET on the Momo stuff, I think she’s such a compelling character to extrapolate into writing, and sometimes we get lost in her natural sense of humor and confuse some of the more goofy parts of her personality with her being “dumb,” but she’s a lot more than whatever caricature we assign to her (along with all our other RPF characters) so we might as well recognize her more holistically as an individual

I guess what I’m trying to say in this long reply is that this fic really resonates with a lot of my own college experiences, and it’s been such a pleasure to write, and I’m so grateful that you’ve enjoyed it, so thank you again for this wonderful ask! 🫶🫶

[lighttailoring]

SYRIL DAY! SYRIL DAY <3 MY TERRIBLE HORRIBLE BOY

I really wasn’t sure what to post but eventually I have settled on a list of things that I think are cool. I don’t think anyone reading this won’t have been subjected to at least a little bit of this already so for this I’m sorry. But this is my moment to shine!

NO JOKE CHARACTERS

This is the #1 thing I notice and appreciate about Syril’s arc, honestly. I’ve seen far, far too many shows set up characters like this in other media. Mean, Pathetic Losers whose only role in the plot is to be repeatedly humiliated over the course of it – and of course, it’s always all their fault. Why don’t they realise that nobody likes them, that everything they do is terrible, that they should just go away and leave the normal people alone? When he first showed up on screen I was genuinely watching through my fingers. Just kill him off already, I thought. Please. Just kill him off, so I don’t have to watch him be used as a punching bag while you point and go “Ha, funny right? It’s funny to watch freaks like this guy suffer, isn’t it? Aren’t you glad you’re not like him – wait, you’re not like him, are you?”

But then they… didn’t do either of those things? Syril doesn’t win, sure. He can’t win, at least on the path he’s currently going down, because this is Andor. I will leave the entire post that I could write about how Andor’s narrative *will * fuck you for Timm &/ Nurchi Appreciation Day – that’s coming, right? But tl;dr: God is real on this show and his name is Tony Gilroy and he hates fascism lol.

But he also isn’t treated like a joke. There are no joke characters on this show. His stroppy little attempts to be taken seriously are laughable but they’re also given depth, just like everybody else’s shitty decisions. Real motivations, real consequences.

And then after they didn’t kill him off in Reckoning, Andor heard everyone making their cute little Mommy Issues jokes and went “OK!” and sent him home to his actual mother and we all had to sit there and watch -

THE OPPRESSIVE REGIME AS THE ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP WRIT LARGE

“It’s easier to hide behind forty atrocities than a single incident,” says Nemik, and in the same episode we see Eedy Karn – a woman whose first interaction with her only son, who she’s not seen in years, is to slap him across the face – repeatedly needle Syril. The kitchenette is small, cramped, lit only by grubby artificial lighting. It feels like an interrogation room. It basically is an interrogation room. Eedy berates Syril for every single thing he does or says – a brown suit triggers a particularly insidious wave of insults disguised as concern, but we know as well as he does that he could have worn any colour and gotten the same reaction. In the same show we also watch Mon Mothma struggle against a constant onslaught of bullshit from her dreadful husband, and we see the same tactics being used, albeit in slightly different ways. It just never lets up, for either of them – if they try to ready themselves to fight back against even one barb, they’ll find themselves with ten more lodged in their backs that they haven’t been able to dodge, so they just… endure it.

Fuck it - this isn’t an academic essay. What I’m trying to say is fuck I love Andor for holding up a picture of an abusive relationship and a picture of an oppressive regime and waiting for us to figure out that they’re the same picture. Undermine your target at every turn – convince them that they can’t win. Then when you actively harm them, they won’t even bother to fight back.

A SHADOW, A TENANT, A STRANGER

So yeah there’s that. But Syril’s arc in specific really focuses on what it’s like to live in a panopticon – to know you’re constantly being monitored. “I have ways of knowing,” Syril says to Eedy. But he doesn’t seem to have ways of preventing her from snooping on him. And really, what good does knowing that you’re being watched do, if you can’t stop it?

How do you grow, when you’re constantly being monitored, and when – as it’s been demonstrated – there is no possible way to please the person who’s monitoring you? How do you develop a personality? How do you do anything?

We see so many times just how stunted Syril is – from his absolute inability to think in shades of grey, his need for order because he doesn’t have any idea what he wants (“I want what you want,” he says – does he mean I think I know what you want, or does he mean Whatever you want is what I want?), the way he looks like a little child in his sad pyjamas sitting at that plastic table, his bizarre little friendship with Mosk that’s more like two kids on the playground than two fully grown men. He doesn’t have his own desires because he hasn’t been allowed to have them. He wants the rigidity and facelessness of the Empire because then he doesn’t have to deal with the fact that he doesn’t have a face of his own. He’s so nothingy. I love him so much you guys.

TAILORING

BUT the one thing we do see Syril actively doing is… tailoring. Well, we don’t see him do it, but Kyle Soller has confirmed in interviews that Syril is doing it himself, which I think most of us suspected. In a show that keeps bringing up salvage and ��fix it yourself’ and how we’re pushed towards the pre-packaged and mass-produced precisely because it keeps us reliant on the supplier, it’s… it itches, to see this guy taking in his shapeless Pre-Mor uniform to flatter him (hi Kyle Soller slutty waist fans), to see him raising the collar of the brown suit that his mother hates so much (and someone pointed out that the collar is a slightly darker brown than the rest of the suit, and that he’s then clearly used that same material to add to the cuffs, so that it looks intentional). Where’s that post about how the reason influencers and celebrities look so great in clothing that you look dreadful in is because they’ve had all of their clothing tailored to fit, where you’re expected to just make do in stuff that’s designed to fit someone who doesn’t even exist.

The fact that you’d THINK he’d be so wedded to the idea of Following The Rules that he’d insist on not making any alterations to his uniforms at all???? (First person to say “It’s Because He’s Vain And Selfish” is getting a little kissy on the forehead because I know that will annoy you more than anything <3)

THE SUN…

You’re still reading this, so you’re getting my favourite, most brain-itching thing YAY

The opening scene of The Axe Forgets is the moment that cemented Syril in my head as My Blorbo Forever. Two seconds. I timed it! Two seconds of sunlight. And he’s been waiting for it, sat on his bed like a dog waiting for its master to come home – and there it is, the sun on his face – and then it’s gone. He’s left all alone in the darkness again.

(and THAT’S on a sunny day... and what happens when another block is built, or someone puts up a billboard, or runs an expressway through that little sliver of sky? Fuck you, is what).

It’s implied that Syril and his mother are pretty solidly lower-middle-class. They’ve Worked Hard All Their Lives, and have probably been ‘calling in favours’ their whole lives, also. I’m half convinced that Syril was sending money home from Pre-Mor to help pay the rent (otherwise why the immediate need for Syril to get another job? Wouldn’t Eedy love to relish in her son’s unemployment, and have him at home 24/7 to boot?) And this is what all that hard work gets them – two seconds of sunlight a day.

It’s like… OK the reason they made a TV show instead of writing an essay is because I can write all of this out, but when you see that shot, you feel it. The fucking SUN. Even the sunlight is out of reach. Coruscant is Hell I stg

BUT WAIT I HAVE MORE THINGS TO SAY. Luthen says “I burn my life to make a sunrise I know I’ll never see” and there is of course a supremely ironic comparison to be made there with Syril’s own hubris handing Ferrix to the Empire and leading him back to that childhood room where he literally will never see the sunrise – but. The sunrise.

The problem with sunrises is that you sort of can’t stop them from happening. I think it falls into the wider (and perhaps faulty!) concept in Andor that the success of the rebellion is inevitable – that “one single thing will break the siege”.

Why did they give Syril these scenes with the sun? Nothing in this show is accidental. I’ve been turning it over and over in my brain ever since the show aired. Why is this character, who’s so browbeaten and curled in on himself and willing to debase himself in service of an Empire that hates him because he doesn’t know anything other than being hated – why does he get the sun, the sun that will always rise no matter what

Drives me crazy. Anyway

Character Appreciation Friday - Syril Karn

Name: Syril Karn Played by: Kyle Soller Appearances: Kassa, That Would Be Me, Reckoning, Aldhani, The Axe Forgets, Announcement, Narkina 5, Nobody's Listening!, Daughter of Ferrix, Rix Road

Happy Friday, fam! We're really getting to the meat of it for Appreciation Friday from here on out, starting with our number one sad cereal boy, Syril Karn.

Love him or hate him, there's so much to appreciate about this little weasel of a character. So let me know what you think in a reblog, comment, or ask! (and remember, do not be an asshole if you don't like him. learn to say it in a respectful way or don't say it at all)

Next week: Kleya Marki

[lambentplume]

alright i’m literally going to save this for when i go see my therapist again so um. no one needs to read or respond at all i just can’t sit up or grip a pencil rn so i’m laying in bed writing this. lol. please god i hope readmore works i am so sorry

it’s getting really dire out here. so i work part time at a cafe which is dying due to managerial neglect/chronic overstaffing/being under resourced and that pays me $12/hr plus tips. i’m still recovering from the time our espresso machine (which is. a major source of appeal for a fucking espresso based cafe) broke… the job that USUALLY ensures i have enough to live is now not enough. i also have two internships that total 25 hours per week and they’re both in separate but not unrelated fields that i’m Thinking about going into. both of which are relatively easier on my body and i like the work so far.

the issue is that i’ve been in my head for SO LONG about what kind of job i should be working. i was going to have a full spiral earlier today but thank god the shift ended lol. bc my coworker is a polisci/ethnic studies major, we were talking about positionality and the ways that academia, eapecially the western idea of “social sciences” (which is . what i study) exploita the communities it studies when not done with careful critical or community-based methodology. and as someone who wants to potentially join investigators studying the social ramifications of labor done in the specific context that i grew up in, from a worker’s and also generational and also academic jargon perspective (side note: i genuinely think there is a case for connecting the modern exploitative tourist hospitality industry to underserved communities’ ability to seek help and thrive like STRUCTURALLY in terms of the way these schedules are fucking built) i’m kind of… working my way up the ladder. learning research methodologies by doing that ground-level work and pushing paper for the PIs who actually do the Cool Work. AND ALSO STILL WORKING ON MY BACHELORS WHILE BEING A RENT PAYER … i also finally admitted to this coworker that i dropped out of the US east coast PWI i went to in order to come home bc i couldn’t handle it socially and i feel like. being a poc who has living relatives who worked on plantations and who is CONSTANTLY reminded that i have far more privilege than i could ever grasp etc is making me feel a little insane. like my dad Doesn’t talk to me about it because he does Not feel like articulating it and i’m Never going to understand which is true. like i will Never Understand. i should be a bit happier that the internships are paying me more just to sit and do brainwork instead of busting ass and people pleasing all day but i’m so afraid. of . being . incompetent. that i just work because i’m happy to work i need to feel useful i need everything to add up so bad. i need more than one full day off from responsibilities but i can’t afford it. i’m going to fall behind and not be good at anything and forget big theses if i can’t even pay rent. like what IS the point!! other more eloquent and better-equipped and driven people who know what they want should have it! i will just shrink my presence until i shrivel away!!!!!!!! god.

and then i feel the need to legitimize my hobbies and interests like bro 😭😭😭 who fucking cares if i miss the OT 5th anny people are drawing pieces bc they feel like it!!!

this is WHY i can’t chase clout this is why i didn’t go to risd this is why i dropped out of brown. so why am i still attached to the idea that i need to be institutionally validated (THERE IS MONEY IN INSTITUTIONAL VALIDATION. END UNDERPAYMENT I WANT TO KERMIT!!!!)

[catdemontraphouse]

Note: referenced a post by @thedarkestcrow several times which I think is a really interesting one. Can’t seem to paste in the link🤨🙄 it was an ask answer about Sebastian’s contract

Hey also if anyone can tell me how to do “read more”on mobile… please tell me 😂🤦‍♀️

Just some character uh, idk analysis/hypothesis??

The more I think about it, the more I reckon Sebastian’s problem is that he has an unfortunate mother hen syndrome which he either isn’t fully aware of OR, more likely, is aware of but actively tries to deny. This is of course going off the assumption there is no governing body for demons like there is for reapers since we’ve never seen anything like that? And that Sebastian’s contract is something he made up for himself with no actual consequences outside his own judgement.

Sebastian goes above and beyond to critique and perfect the conduct of other people who are under his authority. His contract (which I won’t even get into atm lol) only states the following stipulations as far as I recall:

Yet he goes out of his way to not just keep OCiel alive but to rear him as he sees fit. He tries to feed him balanced meals and regulate his sugar intake, he demands the child brush his teeth well, instructs him diligently in various academic subjects etc.

Some of this you could argue is for the sake of the mission, i.e. making OCiel as versatile and cultured as possible in order to maintain social connections necessary for revenge. But I kind of have to wonder, is it even necessary? Like is that degree of adhering to societal expectations really required to reach the end goal? I mean maybe I’m wrong here but I feel like there’s other cheaper, quicker ways they could investigate who’s behind the cult than making alliances with other nobility and whatnot. 🤷‍♀️ Sebastian seems to spend more time teaching OCiel dancing or Latin than bloodily interrogating suspicious people who might be connected to the cult.

Same could be said for how Sebastian treats the servants. He praises them when they manage to or at least make good efforts at upholding high standards of etiquette and efficiency in their roles as housekeepers, even though he knows that isn’t really what they’re useful for. They were hired to be bodyguards in essence. I get that they want housekeepers around to make it look “normal” so people won’t question the Phantomhive household but I just find Sebastian’s dedication to molding them into proper servants a little more intense than is probably necessary? Could be he is just tired of doing everything alone but also this guy built a wholeass mansion in a night alone with magic. He could magically clean the whole house alone if he really wanted to, probably? Or maybe he’s running low on MP from not eating lol. Idk I’m just saying he seems to almost enjoy being a teacher even if his students piss him off.

He tells Will he’s “tired of messily sampling every dish available to him” and how that’s his reason for basically starving himself. I guess it would be like… idk a farmer raising a single giant pumpkin and waiting to eat that instead of growing lots of crops and eating regularly? An obsession with cultivation at the expense of well-being.

At one point the reaper says this about Sebastian compared to other demons:

This suggest you don’t *need* to make a contract to eat a soul, which would mean Sebastian’s suffering is self-inflicted. Because he’s obsessed with rearing and tending to things.

He says he enjoys “playing butler” and what that behavior translates to in Sebastian’s day-to-day life is essentially being a care giver. He enjoys raising and caring for things weaker than himself.

We see a similar behavior when it comes to cats. The main difference here I think is that cats dont seem to be considered demon food as far as we can tell. He doesn’t ever try to write off or hide his love of cats. Keep that in mind for later.

He also mentions that there are pets in his world but he basically indicates that he finds them ugly and unappealing. So having affection for other beings doesn’t seem to be an unusual thing for his species per say? It’s just what they find cute is very different from Sebastian.

There is no discussion of the demonic world other than this, Sebastian never returns there or mentions having friends or something akin to family there etc. He never spends time with other demons in the manga canon even though this panel kind of implies they have some sort of world or society? He seems oddly divorced from his own kind, doesn’t he? Or is that just me that thinks so idk

I think ultimately Sebastian finds what is, for his own kind, considered probably ugly and stupid livestock somehow endearing and cannot really cope with that. He is probably considered weird or creepy by members of his own species, and while he’s aptly aware of that he can’t help but be amused by humans and want to impress them. He doesn’t just fulfill the contract he goes out of his way to do it in a fashion that makes humans go “oh wow.” It’s not for the sake of impressing other demons!! They’re not watching. He doesn’t associate with other demons, ever. Only reapers, who I might add were once human dunno if that matters tho. He wants humans to *like him* he goes out of his way to charm humans that will do nothing for him except satiate his own ego and attention span.

But he eats them to survive. And also as a demon, he isn’t supposed to grow attached to humans. So he’s battling with this cognitive dissonance constantly, I theorize. Like he kills and eats people but at the same time, he likes raising them like pets? He loves teaching them things and is proud when he cultivates a human that really stands out among other humans. I have reason to believe he is an outcast in his own society and part of him is pained by that? Idk it’s all speculation but I’m fuckin autistic and stuff so I have to write essays about it.

I can’t find the damn video but there was this one VA live reading of a hypothetical scene where OCiel is dead after Sebastian ate him and he’s still going thru the motions of celebrating the kids birthday like… WTF? This man ate his pet and realized it was a mistake major wtf moment

Sebastian is like one of those Karens that breeds exotic cats and gets competitive at CFA shows…my human is a prime specimen give me an award

[rothko]

Hello! I've been following you for a while and have been wanting to ask you: who exactly is this Federico Garcia Lorca, you seem to like him a lot and I was wondering if you might want to explain why you love him so much. Also why don't you like Salvador Dali (cause I think that has something to do with Lorca? lol) Anyway no pressure if you don't want to answer. I like your blog a lot, have a nice day! :)

first and foremost, thank you very much :-) <3 

ive written an absurd amount here, so uh tldr lorca is a spanish writer whose work i enjoy very much, i dont like dalí because of his support of facist systems and because he was an asshole plain and simple, and they are related in that they shared a weird intense homoerotic bond from roughly 1924-1929

and a more in depth explanation below should you care to read! warning it is quite literally 1.5k words. sorry

okay. let us begin

a very basic bio: federico garcía lorca was a spanish creative best known for his plays and poetry, though he was also a talented musician, draftsman, and theatrical director. he was born in 1898 and is considered part of the generación del 27, a loosely defined collection of spanish creatives and intellectuals interested in modernism emerging in the 1920s and 1930s. he was assassinated at by francoist forces at the start of the spanish civil war in 1936 due to his support of and connections to the republican government, leftist politics, and his somewhat public homosexuality. 

i have serious, academic answers for why i like him but also silly ones so i’ll start with the silly ones. he was a weird fucking guy. most modernists are weird guys but he’s weird in a unique and dare i say somewhat charming way. he played a game with his friends where he’d pretend to be dead and everyone would pretend to have a funeral for him. when he was a kid he play Catholic Mass and make his family cry during his sermons. he had a jesus complex and wrote a play about his jesus complex. weird guy i love studying his weird brain. also he was that fun type of 20th century homophobic homosexual that was like “guys relax im a cool homosexual i dont like drag” thats extremely easy and fun to ridicule (see: ode to walt whitman). this is especially bold of him since he has the world’s worst taste in men.

on a more serious note i do genuinely enjoy his poetry (and plays, but i’m not well-versed enough in theater to give an informed review), and i think its a particularly poignant and unique version of modernism. and it is both easy and fun to make fun of his loser ass homophobia, but i think generally his work portrays a far more nuanced and compelling depiction of struggling with internalized homophobia that what you see in “ode to walt whitman.” as i am interested in both modernism and queer art, he’s one of those touchstone creatives that forms the basis of this line of inquiry in my personal research interests. also, i think his drawings are severely underrated as examples of spanish modern art and in terms of the material culture of modernism and warrant more in depth scholarship than what currently exists, which is generally just as a coda to his written work.

this is something of a meta-reason, but something i’ve also become interested in as i learn more about lorca is the way in which he has become martyrized in historical and contemporary discussions. i mean like people really create Narratives out of this guy’s life. even as early as 1939 we have people like william carlos williams championing him as the martyr of the spanish civil war to galvanize support in the usa among the literary community (if anyone is interested in reading williams’s essay hit me up i have a pdf). ian gibson’s (lorca’s biographer and the guy who uncovered the details surrounding lorca’s assassination) biography is very much constructed as a narrative of an smoothed over and idealized character. i started thinking more seriously about this after watching the film bones of contention, where lorca is shown as patron saint of lgbt people oppressed under francos rule and of all those who killed during franco's rule. the director of the fundación lorca, who is his niece (great-niece?) expressed in this documentary that the family did not want his bones to be found and reburied, because there is such a strong symbolic connection to him amongst those still fighting for government recognition of the true devastation of facist rule. if they find his bones and rebury them with family, there is the concern that the government will use this as propaganda to suggest that they have dealt with all the repercussions of facism and will not diligently follow up with how fascist power is still a systematic issue. i don’t know if this makes sense, as i haven’t articulated this yet and i still don’t really know what to make of it. there’s just something about the loss of humanity here, that his family could not and cannot properly grieve him because in this horrific death he has become a symbol of resistance. and even as people use his image to delve into queer art and history and as facist resistance, there are also people working in the opposite direction, claiming him as like, a neutral historical presence that like, whether he would have wanted that or not, just isn’t true or even ethical when talking about him today. 

and as we talk about narratives i feel this is a good time to shift to dalí who is like The Narrative Guy. as mentioned previously, lorca and dalí were doing some type of gay shit for a little while there (what kind of gay shit is still up for debate). they met in madrid at the residencia de estudiantes, then became very close around 1925, when lorca first visited the dalí summer home in cadaqués. lorca visited again in 1927. they kept a regular correspondence, of which we have relatively few letters, esp those penned by lorca to dalí, and had a particularly fruitful artistic exchange in the years they were friends. lorca drew more (and exhibited his drawings in barcelona), and dalí wrote more. they shared symbols and had this sort of theoretical artistic dialogue through the analysis of saint sebastian. lorca’s head and references to lorca can be found in many of dalí’s paintings of the period, and lorca wrote his "ode to salvador dalí" (which unfortunately kind of slaps) some scholars even go as far as calling this dalí’s lorca period and lorca’s dalinian period.

in 1928 (i think?) luis buñuel (spanish filmmaker who was friends with both of them) begins to turn against lorca, supposedly because he found lorca’s work too traditional/conservative but also probably in large part also due to the fact that he was gay and that he was being gay with dalí. buñuel goes up to dalí, goes “hey i hate lorca don’t you hate lorca haha,” dalí pens this really critical and kind of rude letter to lorca saying his freshly published gypsy ballads was too traditional/conservative and he needed to be more modern etc etc it’s all very high school. dalí pulls away from lorca, goes to paris and collaborates with buñuel on un chien andalou and l’age d’or, lorca goes to new york, and they don’t see each other again until 1935 or 1936 i don’t remember the date. i guess now is as good a time as ever to say at this point in time dalí had ostensibly communist politics and affiliations, but going into late 30s/early 40s as he becomes more successful financially, he cozies up to the fascist franco regime and catholic church and other such institutions so he can live comfortably in spain. he espouses a lot of racist shit that (in my opinion) he only said to further his own career. later on in his life he does a lot of sketchy stuff relating to prints to earn a quick buck. so you know. i dont like him LOL

anyway to bring this back to lorca and narratives, dalí is understandably a key component in understanding the development of lorca’s work but a lot of what he’s said following lorca’s death just cannot be taken at face value. he claims lorca was entirely apolitical in his 1942 autobiography (obviously to make dalí’s own horrendous politics easier to swallow), and in a later interview he presented their relationship in a way that makes lorca look like a pining fool and kind of predatory. this has very clearly influenced lorca scholarship, though i think more and more people are looking at dalí’s comments more critically. in trying to manipulate his own self-image, dalí has had an insane influence over lorca’s narrative, which. grinds my gears.

i hate to end on dalí but i have no more to say lol. but at least i am spreading the word that dalí fucking sucks. gonna cite/link some shit here in the interest of transparency:

biographical details for both mostly pulled from my recollections of ian gibson’s biographies of the two (frederico garcía lorca: a life and the shameful life of salvador dalí) i will also say my understanding of dalí’s personal motives comes pretty much exclusively from gibson’s biography and its thesis, that dalí’s entire life revolved around masking and coping with his own personal sense of shame. very biased point of view but i don’t care enough about dalí to bother reading more about him. even just writing this post bummed me way the fuck out. too much dalí. i will also say i encourage everyone to NOT read gibson’s dalí biography, there’s a really transphobic section that violates the privacy of someone in dalí’s life. she’s a public figure and i’m sure it would not be hard to find speculation elsewhere, but you know. it’s just gross and all i can do is my best to prevent more people from speculating about this woman’s genitals

read a good article a while ago that sums up dalí’s racism but i can’t find it so here are some other articles providing more details, some of which i am only learning about now lol:

el pais: https://english.elpais.com/culture/2022-09-06/the-day-dali-invented-a-racist-religion.html

vice: https://www.vice.com/en/article/8qwp9v/its-really-surreal-how-salvador-dal-was-a-fascist-who-hit-women

if you are ever looking for a painfully mediocre period drama, i suggest little ashes in which robert pattinson plays dalí, making some of the most confusing acting choices of his entire career.

if you’re gonna read a lorca biography i suggest leslie stainton’s lorca: a dream of life. i haven’t read it all the way through, but it’s written more for a general audience than gibson’s hyper detailed version, and stainton isn’t afraid to point out tomfoolery on the part of lorca.

a selection of lorca poems:

fable and round of the three friends: https://hellopoetry.com/poem/623292/fable-and-round-of-the-three-friends/

ballad of the spanish civil guard: https://www.poesi.as/index214uk.htm

the guitar: https://poets.org/poem/guitar

if you made it this far i'm sorry

[ominous-faechild]

CRICKET BACKSTORY AT THE END! (except there' so much so I wrote a tl;dr and put the rest under a whole separate post lol)

STEM WIZARDS = AUTISTIC HYPERFIXATION SQUAD is canon now. The idea of magic being "algorithmic chaos-wrangling" is genius—of course it’d attract the "I memorized 500 digits of pi for fun" crowd. And the "English in a trenchcoat" comparison? PERFECT. No notes.

ty <3

Hilariously, I have a half-written lore post in my drafts that's literally a in-universe dissertation from one of these very wizards lol

Here's... just a bit of it LMAO

But the "magic muscle memory" angle?? BRILLIANT. So it’s less "reading braille" and more "speedrunning a Dark Souls boss blindfolded"—terrifying, but doable if you’ve got the years (and pain tolerance).

Definitely! But I actually want to add/clarify: magic would be used for far more than just combat! In fact, outside of competitions, war, and crime, it would primarily be used not too differently from electricity and technology in the modern day.

Think of it a little like how alchemy can be is used in Fullmetal Alchemist!

(And please tell me someone’s tried to tattoo runes on their arms as a "backup wand.")

Guess we're going to have to loop back to this in a different post lol

(The answer is yes. I said in a separate reblog, which got many more questions: "before i properly address this, i just want to say... I have SEVERAL characters who tattoo their own arms, including Genesis, the very villain of the blazing trinity itself >:)")

CRICKET’S STRUGGLES HIT DIFFERENT. Bro really went "I’ll just artistic talent my way through magic calculus" and then got spanked by the academic grind. The allegory is crisp—nothing like institutional trauma to kill a childhood fascination! (Also dying at "only a tiny bit of legitimate interest"—what was the main reason? Peer pressure? Family drama? A bet? I’m nosy.)

Bro really went "I’ll just artistic talent my way through magic calculus"

So, yes and no!

In reality, Hugo has an absolutely rough backstory. Long story (kinda) short: everything changed when the fire nation attacked. Twice.

... okay, I jest. But only slightly.

TLDR; dude lost his father to a terrorist attack when he was young, joined a cult the Church of Veritheya after they provided relief efforts, turned to a lil bit of crime when the plague hit and his mother fell ill, got excommunicated, and got caught in a second terrorist attack. His sponsorship into the college was basically a combination "that's rough, buddy" from the government and a recognition of his artistic skills.

Cricket (Hugo) essentially used the academy as a lifeline that helped himself and his mother financially after a series of disasters tore their lives to shreds. Without the scholarships, they'd be screwed.

(Luckily, or unluckily, depending on how you see it LMAO, he ultimately ended up on the Siren's Call, which paid extremely well and definitely didn't help him meet the love of his life.)

(more here)

An additional thing about (@ominous-faechild original; do not steal /lhj) runic magic within my writing!

Styluses are essentially the world's early version of wands. They're made to draw runes, but require surfaces to draw on. They always encase—or utilize as the writing utensil—a conduit (an object containing pure magic, ready for use by anyone). After the invention of wands, styluses are often used as "baby's first wand", so to speak.

In other words: styluses become the giant pencil you give a toddler budding wizard for them to begin to learn runic.

For perhaps predictable reasons, artists are often recruited as wizards. Dyscalculia and dyslexia (although not named in-universe) are known to be a particular struggle for budding wizards, however.

Hugo “Cricket” Tinoco from Waves of Misfortune is an example of both. He was sponsored by the Minoguan government to join a runic academy thanks to being a skilled artist, but was eventually forced to drop out due to struggles “recreating” the runes.

(He's got dyscalculia.)

Wands aren't too dissimilar from the tool in Marvel's Doctor Strange that allows them to write in midair. They often resemble the stereotypical image of a wand, and serve as what's essentially a magic pencil that can write in midair.

However, twist: oftentimes, wizards will etch their most-commonly-used spells spells into the sides of their wands. With that, they can then later filter magic through those runes and quickly, easily, and frequently re-use their preferred spells.

Similarly, many more advanced wizards carry around staves—which are essentially larger wands—with larger conduit cores and many, many, many more runic sigils littered across their casing.

While this may seem to (and does, in fact) simplify the art of spellcrafting, there is a risk to relying on previously-etched runes: the caster has to remember where they've put each, or learn to distinguish between them by feel.

Considering the fact that they're often etched as small as possible both to fit more and to keep a possible enemy from seeing what spells you have at the ready... it is very dangerous, indeed, to rely on pre-etched spells. The practice is highly advised against except for master practitioners with several years of experience... and practice.

"Getting a new wand" is also highly frowned upon in this case, because if the caster fails to put their runes in the exact same spots...

Well.

Some "problems" can emerge.

(unlike last time, i've got this pretty solidified in my mind. i just wanted to share because, again, i thought y'all'd find this cool)

[black-academia]

hello, again!!! 🖤

~another tiny update: (this tiny update got out of hand lol) anyway...... i am, and have been, working on getting everyone who expressed interest access to my references (in organized and annotated form), and other helpful resources on this topic of research!

mostly, i just wanted to say thank you again for the support and interest! i was just so blown away by everyone’s likes, messages, comments, and well-wishes... every paper i’ve turned in to my advisor has had a dumb, shameless pun in the title, and i’ve literally interned at the U.S. library of congress... but 0.000003% of tumblr’s attention focused on my paper is what gets me flustered 😭

(p.s. there's a little more info below the cut!)

so, i have decided to present the information from my research in a more accessible format... as a black first-gen immigrant community college-graduate with disabilities, who is finally about to graduate after like a decade of health stuff getting in the way of school, i’m really passionate about making sure everyone feels included in spaces like the one i’ve been trying to create using this blog... so, i mean, i could just share a long list of references… but slogging through dense academic sources can be really discouraging for some, and i’d love for as many people to get something out of this project as possible.

i envision (in approximate order of posting):

a fairly dry post of references with short annotations pointing to the useful sections + links that lead to the sources, with ideally nothing behind a paywall;

a second post covering my full paper and the main and supporting arguments, evidence, and of course, a controversies' section lol;

and i promise it won’t begin with “oookay tumblr,,, let me learn you a heckin’ thing!!!” :3

+ smaller occasional posts where i dive into a tangent i find interesting, or ~you~ find interesting and want additional information on... (have you been wondering something about my paper... or anything else? you can just ask me!)

also, in other good news, i’d like to share that I’ve been awarded a great slot in the conference i mentioned and will be presenting The Paper in, like, 10 days (!!!)

however, i am literally the embodiment of several mental illnesses and compulsive perfectionism in a trench coat pretending to be a perfectly functional, neurotypical human being, in her last semester of college... so please bear with me on timelines for the big posts.

tbh you can just ignore the photos up there... that’s just me messing around with formatting and completely abusing my newfound power of image background removal... EXCEPT!!! those are cool model livers for divination!!!: (1) Babylonian clay liver (2050-1750 BCE); (2) a liver model from Mari with the omen of siege (2000 BCE); (3) Liver of Piacenza (~100 BCE).

lastly (!) i would also love, if you’ve read this far, if you could let me know what has been your fave content from this space... i LOVE all the moodboards and the dark academia aesthetic posts, especially with minority representation (and will be making more myself when i have more time)… but i’m trying to make this space more interactive and bump up the academia in “dark academia”, rather than have it mainly be a space where i episodically resurface to reblog moodboards to thousands of people every few weeks.

but yeah! thank youuu again, especially if you read this far, and my inbox is always open!!!

- Sai 🖤