#but now in practice i get it... there's something different in practical and theoretical teaching and i never thought i would get any of

[astonmartingf]

When r u updating!

uhm to be honest, i have no idea when 😬

thank you for asking though !!!! because i am still writing in my drafts, maybe next week after my exams, i'm still trying to manage my schedule and now that i'm a month in, i already know the ropes, plus rn i'm assigned at the more busy parts of the laboratory and every shift makes me want to sleep immediately and prepare for the next shift but in a few weeks we will be rotating and finally moving to the less busy areas so i might have more time to write and actually post my drafts n e ways!!!! here are my drafts which you might see that i've written it over a month ago but that's what internship does to me so 💪

[softestqueeen]

care for a dance?

pairing: spencer reid x reader

summary: spencer learns how to dance to teach you.

warnings: just pure fluff

wordcount: 764 words

a/n: this is just short and sweet! I’ve got the idea from @i-live-in-spite and just had to write it. I’m not 100% happy with it, but I had to get it out.

Spencer Reid knew how to do lots of things, theoretically. He could exactly tell you how to throw a ball perfectly for it to land in the net, at which angle you should throw it and from what position. He could tell you how to get checkmate in less than three moves across the checkered chess board, in this case he could even show you.

What he could also tell you, was how to dance a simple waltz. He couldn’t however demonstrate that, but he thinks he might want to learn how to.

“Spence, do you know how to dance?” his eyebrows shot up at the question.

“Uhm, I think you might have to be a bit more specific than that. There are thousands of dances in almost every culture, which all have different meanings. Are we talking about Salsa, flamenco, a waltz?” Spencer gave back. It was adorable to hear him ramble like that.

“Yeah, I meant more like a waltz or something simple. I really want to learn that for Rossi’s wedding and thought maybe you knew how to,” you explained further.

“I- Yes, I think I could do a waltz. It’s actually a remarkably simple dance that consists of the same few steps every time you do it. The music has a special beat and is written in a ¾ bar, as opposed to the usually used 4/4 bar. It is also most commonly danced to the song “the blue danube” by Strauss.”

“Well, if you’re that confident with it, how about you show me this weekend. We could practice it,” your smile was gentle as you slightly tilted your head. You didn’t want to miss any signs of discomfort in Spencer’s face.

“Oh, uhm, yeah that would be great! Saturday at 6 at mine? We could also get takeout,” he offered.

“Sounds good, I’ll see ya around, Spence!”

That was on Wednesday and now that Saturday is inching closer and closer he actually has to learn how to waltz. In theory it was easy, but the reality definitely looked different.

He was very glad that he has practiced before you came over. The amount of how often he tripped over his feet would have definitely gotten a laugh or two out of you, though.

Spencer was holding his hands out before him, his left arm stuck out curling around your imaginary palm, while his other hand was resting in the air at the approximate height of your waist. He tried to recall everything he knew about the basics, as well as the four YouTube tutorials he just watched.

Moving his foot forwards, he set it down before following with his other foot. He must have looked incredibly ridiculous while doing this alone, but for you, he’d do anything. Slowly, he continued the dance, his tongue peeking out between his lips in concentration.

The profilers’ eyes were practically glued to his feet. Once he tried it without looking, he immediately tripped over his feet and almost knocked over the lamp that was standing in his living room. He continued to practice though, his movements slowly getting more fluent. Deciding that he knew enough of the basics to teach you, he ended his training session.

A few hours later you knocked on his door. You were wearing relaxed clothing and carried a bag with your favourite takeout. Spencer gave you a smile before opening the door wider to let you in.

After removing your shoes, the two of you sat down in his kitchen to eat. Afterwards, you stood up, extended your hand, and asked, “Care for a dance?”

“Always,” he answered.

“But we can’t dance yet, I don’t know how to. Show me, please?”

And so, the two of you spent the next one and a half hours practicing. Spencer was the most patient person ever when repeating the steps over and over again. He guided you when you did your first attempts and was never mad at you for stepping on his feet.

“I think I got it now,” you said before getting in position again.

“You sure?” Spencer asked.

Only giving a hum in response, you put on the music again and start dancing. One foot forward, slightly tilted, then following with the other one. Repeat, repeat and repeat and you’ve got it.

You did it. You squealed in excitement before taking your hands out of his. Instead, excited, and not really thinking, you take Spencer’s face in your hands, lean forward, and press your lips to his.

Now, Spencer was definitely happy to have learned how to dance.

a/n: i hope you liked this, if so please leave some notes, likes, reblogs and comments! feedback is very appreciated!

please also consider supporting my ao3: @ softestqueen

requests open!

taglist:@silvermagnolias@milywatermelon@BigBananaa @i-live-in-spite

[catscraftsandcommentary]

I am having more thoughts about the Accidental Warlord AU, and instead of apologizing, I'm just going to drag you all with me.

Sorry not sorry, and all that. Today's thoughts are called

"People learn to lie to witchers."

Now, witchers have their fancy extra powerful senses, so they can - theoretically - tell when someone is lying to them. But as Renfri's stepmother learned, they CAN be misled. Especially in cases of "~I~ knew what I meant, it's not my fault that you interpreted my words differently. (Even though I specifically phrased it so that you WOULD easily interpret it the way I wanted, and not the way that's accurate.)"

So, here are the ways I think people could lie to witchers without getting caught (immediately):

EUPHEMISMS (especially with multiple meanings)- like when Renfri's stepmother said "I sent the soldiers on" meaning "...to their deaths" but Coën assumed "...to their homelands."

TAKING THINGS OUT OF CONTEXT - My alma mater's main library has a centaur skeleton on permant display. It's mounted in situ - ie, the bones are still in the dirt, and it is very obviously a human shaped skull and torso on a horse's body. *But* the point of the display is to show that counterfeit "evidence" can be VERY convincing, so you have to question things.

NOT GIVING ALL THE FACTS - "Trump got shot!" In the ear. He's still alive, was barely injured, and unfortunately is still running for president.

STATISTICS - you've all seen polls that are like "95% of people support horrible thing!" But then you learn that the poll runners SPECIFICALLY chose to poll supporters of that Horrible Thing, so *obviously* you got that result. Or "the average human has less than 2 arms!" Well, the vast majority of people have 2 arms, but due to injuries, birth defects, etc some people have 0 or 1 arm(s), so in a group of 1,000 people, there might be 1,995 arms, or an average of 1.995 arms per person...

DEADPAN SARCASM - I'm not sure if this would set off witchers' lie detector ability or not - possibly it would depend on whether the person *intended* to mislead the witcher and they simply didn't catch onto it, or whether a person's heart rate/scent/etc still changes anytime someone says anything remotely untrue.

EXTRAORDINARY BODY CONTROL - I once read a novel where there was a machine which measured brainwaves and somehow interpreted them to measure when someone was suppressing information (ie lying). And in a trial, an experienced criminal had trained himself to beat the detector with psychology but his less experienced partner had not.

DELUSIONS/MENTAL ILLNESS - if someone seems totally sane, but they truly believe that something impossible happened, well, they could testify that it happened. And be believed. But the answer might be "it was a hallucination" or "they were on drugs" or something similar.

-

Now, these will all fall apart under more thorough questioning/investigation - which is good! It means the truth is still there! But in order to do that questioning or investigation, the witcher has to realize that it is NECESSARY. And sometimes the first answer they get is believable, so they might not look closer.

To teach young witchers to recognize situations like this and to practice figuring out the truth, Jaskier comes up with a game that he includes with the trainees' diplomacy lessons. He calls it "For Clarity" and it involves one person making a statement which is technically accurate - but misleading - and a second person (or group) asking questions or making guesses until they figure out what the deception/full truth is.

Lambert hears about it and immediately dubs it "Find The Bullshit." Of course that name catches on.

Jaskier is TERRIFYINGLY good at this game - both sides of it - and all the witchers are reminded once again that they are INCREDIBLY lucky that he's on their side.

[thisisnotthenerd]

follow up to my previous thoughts about the Aguefort Adventuring Academy:

i got more right than i expected, though there's definitely a lot that's being filled in around what we knew from freshman year.

Faculty Updates:

Introduced/Mentioned during the Episode:

Interim Principal: Emergency Backup Principal Arcturus Grix

This is definitely a construct of Aguefort's that's been reprogrammed to focus on an exact impression of "adventuring order".

Interim Vice Principal: Jace Stardiamond, the sorcery professor

Artificer Professor: Henry Something? The original name on payroll was Grunding Tomblast. (mentioned only, since Porter wouldn't recommend Gorgug)

Barbarian Professor: Porter Cliffbreaker. Suspicious and rude.

Bard Professor: Lucilla Lullaby (changed from music professor). Fey/Eladrin

Bardic Dance Teacher: Terpsichore Skullcleaver. Tiniest half-orc you've ever seen, always says what you need to hear even if it isn't what you'd expect.

Cleric/Religious Studies: Yolanda Badgood. Air genasi who broke up with a deity to pursue faith.

Fighter Professor: Corsica Jones (mentioned only, though we met her in the Seven)

Wizard Professor: Tiberia Runestaff. Originated in the Mountains of Chaos, very traditional old wizard now teaching the wizards of the Aguefort Adventuring Academy. Adaine desperately wants to impress her, and she gets called out for predictions.

We've gotten more information about the other professors though we already knew their names. Eugenia Shadow is the supposed rogue professor that must be found in order to get an A for the year.

Class Content:

For the Barbarians, Porter is an asshole that focuses on the destructive parts of rage rather than the protective elements.

We had a reference to Fighter classes and learning different fighting styles with Ms. Jones, though we didn't see it in this episode.

Cleric classes center around individual connection with a deity, as well as some discussion of spreading faith and proselytizing. Kristen is a very talented cleric who doesn't do homework and is struggling on her faith journey.

Rogue classes are more independent study; finding the professor is the win condition. If the class is based on self-motivated investigative work and research, I can understand why all of the rogues we've seen at Aguefort (Riz Gukgak, Penny Luckstone, Kipperlilly Copperkettle) are the way they are.

Bard Classes can come in a couple of different types: obviously there's the traditional class that Fig attended for the first time, as well as smaller concentrations like Fabian's dance class. The dance course seems to be a smaller track, with fewer students but a more intensive schedule. Granted, we're getting Fabian's multiclassed view of it, so it's not entirely accurate to the experience of a typical bardic dance student.

Wizard classes revolve around studying and practicing spells, as expected, but aren't taught with school endowed material components as I would have expected. Aguefort cares about a robust Wizard's education, but doesn't have classroom material components? He's making it a class of only privileged students. We can't have a poor wizard around here, can we.

Sidenote to that: we know now that Hudol places a focus on theoretical magic while Aguefort focuses on practical workings--actually practicing the skills needed to bind, conjure, enchant, etc.

Sidenote to the sidenote: I started looking into higher level wizard spells with high cost items as material components:

5th level:

create spelljamming helm (5000 gp crystal rod, consumed)

dawn (100 gp sunburst pendant)

legend lore (250 gp of incense, 200 gp of ivory strips)

infernal calling (999 gp ruby)

planar binding (minimum 1000 gp jewel, consumed)

scrying (1000 gp focus, such as a crystal ball, silver mirror, or font of holy water)

summon draconic spirit (500 gp object with engraved dragon iconography)

teleportation circle (inks infused with gems worth 50 gp)

6th level:

circle of death (500 gp black pearl)

contingency (1500 gp gem encrusted statuette)

create homunculus (1000 gp jeweled dagger)

create undead (150 gp black onyx stone per corpse)

drawmij's instant summons (1000 gp sapphire)

magic jar (500 gp gem/crystal/reliquary)

7th level:

create magen (500 gp quicksilver and human sized doll)

draconic transformation (500 gp dragon statuette)

forcecage (1500 gp ruby dust)

mordenkainen's sword (250 gp platinum sword)

plane shift (250 gp rod attuned to plane of choice)

sequester (5000 gp of diamond, emerald, ruby & sapphire dust)

simulacrum (1500 gp ruby dust)

symbol (1000 gp of mercury, phosphorus, diamond dust and opal)

8th level:

clone (1000 gp diamond, 2000 gp coffin/urn, cubic inch of flesh)

mighty fortress (500 gp diamond)

9th level:

astral projection (1000 gp jacinth + 100 gp carved bar of silver, per person affected)

gate (5000 gp diamond)

imprisonment (500 gp component per hit die of the target, changes depending on spell type: mithral orb for burial, precious metal chain for chaining, miniature jade prison for hedged prison, gemstone of corundum or diamond for minimus containment)

invulnerability (500 gp adamantine)

shapechange (1500 gp jade circlet)

so the request for 10 barrels of diamonds tracks; they need enough material components to be able to repeat the spells and practice them and that doesn't run cheap.

personal theory: when aguefort went to war with fallinel he pulled on the school's supplies of material components in order to cast on that scale, and he couldn't maintain it, so even stuff that wouldn't be consumed by the casting probably got dumped somewhere in fallinel or given away as reparations.

I'm also going to guess that in the lower grades, the students wouldn't be paying for everything, but rather paying something like a lab fee that took care of material components on a smaller scale.

Multiclassing:

There's a few things that have that this episode clarified:

If a student wants to multiclass on their transcript, they must fill out a request to their current class' professor in order to request a change to their courseload. The student may be prevented from attending their secondary or tertiary courses if their current professor believes that they cannot keep up with the increase in rigor, or if the student is underperforming in their current class. As shown with Porter, a teacher can technically refuse for other reasons (thinking the student isn't suited to the new class, or determining a lack of class compatibility). This recommendation is easier for some classes than others; it is simple to combine most martial classes, especially those that have compatible traits such as fighters and barbarians. However, it is difficult to combine classes that are prohibitive of each other; the example we have is Gorgug, since his barbarian rage prevents him from casting and holding concentration spells from his artificer levels in battle.

If they get approval, they must take the MCAT, or Multiclass Achievement Test, in order to prove competency in their secondary class. This functions as a way of proving that the student can enter the class at their current level and keep up with their peers.

Upon passing the MCAT, the student's courseload changes; rather than taking 4 semesters of one class, they will take 3 semesters of each class, presumably with some leveling to fit their particular split in multiclass. This results in a 150% courseload as opposed to single-classed students, with a high level of rigor, especially heading into the upperclassmen years

Quest Theory:

We got tacit confirmation from Brennan that the Bad Kids, and even the Seven are unusual for saving the world, when most Aguefort students are doing local dungeon crawls and going to school. This fits with my overleveling theory, especially if they're going to be going back to a major progression cycle as they did during freshman year. I highly doubt it, given the content and themes of this season, but I think the overall structure fits.

This also fits with my theory about D-F class quests; students may only need to complete one or more of these to pass the yearly quest. Technically, retrieving the Crown of the Nightmare King could have been considered a fetch quest, but there ended up being more to it than that. The Bad Kids haven't done traditional dungeon crawls, at least not from what we've seen. There are qualified adventuring parties in Spyre, but the Aguefort Adventuring Academy produces the 'premier parties of teen heroes' that go around addressing world-class threats.

The examples that we have of Solisian adventurers come from the Bad Kids' parents, and the Seven's parents. Sandra Lynn works with the Solisian rangers; the Applebees' (ew) work as paladins, guarding against threats from the Mountains of Chaos, presumably in tandem with the rangers. Karl Cleaver stayed with his party for decades--they went on a dungeon crawl in the 888th and 889th layers of the Abyss during the events of the Seven. There are adult adventurers, but it's made clear that they are dealing with everyday threats, while the teen heroes are out in the world causing problems and solving them.

To add to my previous theory: the Seven were given two weeks to investigate the disappearance of Tectonya Karkovnya and go on their GED quest. The Bad Kids got an extra week of spring break. This allowed them to get their world-saving done, but may have led to the accusations of special treatment.

Theories on the Season:

I'd wager that Kipperlilly and the Ratgrinders are trying to make Aguefort more egalitarian by getting rid of the Bad Kids' quest progress i.e. the reason they're overleveled and getting special treatment. The Rogue Professor seekign Kipperlilly out as opposed to her actually doing the work? Sounds like funny business to me.

Next episode is probably going to be the rest of the day of classes and the start of extracurriculars, based on the mentions of the bloodrush team and student government candidacy.

Riz looks like he's going to be in the driver's seat for seeking out the Bad Kids' academic and greater interests, though Fig is leaning in on the investigation of the Ratgrinders, and they're all full force on the presidential campaign. I think Gorgug's work as an artificer is going to come into play with the main plot if they're facing down the reprogrammed Arcturus Grix.

[starsfic]

Had

Had a

Had A Thougt

Someone, (Probs Red Son) asks how long have Tang and Pigsy have been dating, to which Mk says "They aren't dating just very good super Best Friends™" and Tang and/or Pigsy who was sitting nearby says "Mk, we have literally been married since before you were born"

13!

Red Son liked timelines and planning. Long Xiaojiao could confirm that with his thousand page teaching manual (“It is not a thousand pages.”

“It looked like a thousand pages.”

“I’m pretty sure you mistook five hundred pages for a thousand because you’ve never read.”)

In any case, Red Son wanted a timeline for his courtship of Qi Xiaotian. It would be mostly theoretical, considering how both might wanted different speeds. More important, however, was that they had both admitted interest, wanted to get married, and wanted to have at least two children. Red just liked to be on top of things.

The issue was that you couldn’t just…map something like that out. You could only compare other couples against other couples and see if you could figure something out. (At least in his opinion.) Red had asked his parents, and the fact that they had gotten married after their third meeting baffled him. Now he sat next to his hopeful groom-to-be. The pig was cooking and the scholar was reading a book. Both were distracted. So that left Qi Xiaotian.

“So, how long have the pig and scholar been dating?”

“What?” Xiaotian looked up, eyes wide and confused. Red raised a brow back. What was the weird look for? Everyone could tell that they were at least dating.

“I was doing…a study,” Long Xiaojiao had called his attempted timeline “controlling.” He didn’t want to freak Xiaotian out. “And I was curious about the amount of time between beginning to date and marriage.”

“Oh!” Xiaotian chuckled. "They aren't dating.”

“...uh, what?”

“Yeah, they’re just very good super Best Friends™.” Xiaotian turned to his drawing. Tang looked up from his book as Pigsy poked his head out. “They’ve been like that for years!”

Tang blinked. “Xiaotian, we have literally been married since before you were born.”

Xiaotian blinked. Red blinked. He could practically see the gears turning.

“WHAT?!” Crayons went flying as Xiaotian slammed his hands down. “But…but…I’ve never seen your guys’ wedding pictures! You guys never celebrate your anniversary!”

“Because there wasn’t a wedding!” Pigsy snorted, pulling out a necklace. On it, a pretty gold ring gleamed. “Tang got impatient and decided to submit a marriage certificate and proposed to me when the confirmation of it came in the mail!”

“And we’ve never agreed on the anniversary date.” Tang sighed.

“Because you were too impatient to wait until summer! Zumu was pissed you ruined the engagement party!”

“How was I supposed to know there was gonna be a party?! We were together for a decade at that point!”

As the argument brewed, Red sighed.

Maybe Xiaojiao had a point about the timeline.

[cadet-aviator]

‘Mess and Household Training’ (1)

It took a while to really get used to this ‘new’ life, but not all that long: after I had offically completed the 24-week Disciplinary Supervision – the delayed punishments for my demerits during Camp – nothing much changed.

Almost all my non-school hours were now taken up with duties and drills as an Army Cadet. Inspections almost every day, rules for almost every aspect of my boy’s life, after I few weeks it became second nature. Even my Dad got used to me calling him Sir and giving me specific orders to sit down (although he did forget, sometimes, and I would just stand there, at the breakfast table, until he remembered...). It was a trying time for him and me, but this little extra routine actually drew us closer, I think.

I reported to barracks twice during the week and most of Saturday for new types of training, and most of these were actually really nice. I acquired some new skills.

What did surprise me was that almost all of that training was ‘Mess and Household’, nothing particularly ‘military’, no weaponry, no strategy, no combat training, almost none of that.

‘M&H’ meant lessons in doing laundry, ironing, shoe care, making beds, cleaning, everything you’d need for running a household, and then also cooking and ‘serving’ – the last part was something I had been introduced to during Elite Camp. 

I say it was pretty nice, overall, because even though the standards were at 100%, as always, the instructors were usually much older officers, and they enjoyed teaching me and the other cadets, a group of about six.

Also nice was that on Saturdays I was allowed to remain in School Cadet uniform, which was practical for me; it appeared later that in many of the places where M&H cadets were put to work, wearing whites was customary anyway, to indicate that they were ‘serving cadets’. I was to learn that different branches of the military, even different regiments, had different traditions and different uniforms for their serving cadets.

So I did a lot: the first weeks were taken up with hours of lessons in very very meticulous ironing.

In case you've never done that, it's a science in itself (or so I learned). We took the shirts from the dryer a little before they were really dry, because when they were still a bit damp you could make a much sharper crease. You started with the collars, then the sleeves, then the upper shoulder part. You had to learn where a crease or a fold had to be, and so on.

I had experienced this before (when shining my shoes): I’d enter into a zen-like level of focus. I’d see only the fabric, the steam, the iron, and I’d hear only the voice of the instructor. I say zen, because the attention to detail was religious; to my instructor any performance below 100% was simply impossible. So when I say ‘hours and hours’, I’m not exaggerating.

We got lessons in different kinds of fabrics, weaves, patterns, we learned just how textile responds to pressure and to folding, how it needs to be cleaned, how to remove stains, and so on. I was always a bit more ‘theoretical’ in school, a bit of an intellectual, you might say, so working with my hands was a nice change. 

As I said before, I never questioned any of it. All of this was done in silence, with just the instructor talking. Talking to the other cadets was allowed only during our 10-minute breaks, and then we would usually just talk about the work - it was clear to us that we weren't there to make friends.

I did begin to develop a vague idea as to why we were trained for household duties. Some of the clothes we had to work on were from high-ranking officers; I had heard about conscripts who were assigned not to military tasks, but to real officer’s households, as valets or butlers. I had not heard that this could apply to cadets as well (but I was to find that out). I didn’t mind the rumours.

I just wanted to serve, and serve perfectly, and be quiet and at ease.

After the shirts: shoes. And after that: tablewear. Carrying a tray. And so on.

(All images are AI-generated)

[nateconnolly]

Syllabi are so inconsistent these days. One class has a final essay that is 25 pages long according to the Class Description, but the very same essay is 50 pages long according to the Course Structure. I've had a professor assign something at the beginning of the semester, which I worked on for weeks, only to have that professor decide to remove the assignment -- meaning none of the work I did would count toward my grade. I've even had a professor decide to assign a five-page essay on the second-to-last day of classes.

I think part of it might be Canvas? Before, you had to pass out paper syllabi to every student in the course. But now that the syllabus is digital, you can edit it whenever you want. It's like the difference between a contract and a handshake agreement.

The other thing is that professors are much more likely to work at two or more institutions at the same time. So, maybe they're copy-pasting syllabi when they teach the same course at different colleges? And then, they try to edit the syllabus in order to comply with the expectations of a specific department, but that also means there's effectively two syllabi for very similar courses, and they lose track of which students are supposed to do which assignments?

It's probably a combination of the new distribution model and the fact that professors are overworked and underpaid. But, man, I hate it. Even if I asked for confirmation of an expectation in email, that doesn't really protect me. Because every single class I'm taking has at least 20% participation. And I doubt I'll get a good participation grade if I also go crying to the dean about how a professor is treating the class. Sure, there's theoretically academic officers here to help me, but I've found that in practice they're more like suggestion boxes.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

JR: I want to start with kindness. So much of your writing is centered around it, including how many of us struggle with it. Why is kindness important to you?

GS: One of the first images I received of Jesus was this idea of somebody who was so aware of where he was and so selfless that he could intuit what was needed in a given situation to make it better. When I was younger, it hit me that that would be a superpower if I could do that.

Then I got drafted into doing my daughter's sixth grade graduation speech. And I thought, Well, what do I really know as an old fart? It was not much, actually. Except when I scanned back over my life, I had a couple of regrets. They almost all had to do with not being kind enough, which for me often meant being preoccupied with something else or being anxious or being too insecure to step up and do what somewhere in my body I knew was right.

I shared that with the sixth graders, and a few years later gave a version of that to the Syracuse group. At that point, I wouldn't have said that I was that interested in kindness. But you make a speech like that and it gets attention. Suddenly you're The Kindness Person.

For me, it's the practice of trying to believe that the person on the other side is just as real as you are. You happen to be seeing things through these eyes. But theoretically, you could flip around and see them through the other person's eyes, and it would be the same universe.

That has a lot of moral implications, but it also has aesthetic implications. Meaning that story is like a snow globe that you can walk around and go, “Oh, if I imagined these events from this point of view, it would look like this. If I change the perspective, it looks like that.” In the end, the holographic view of the story would be infused with total compassion because you'd know every angle and they would all seem completely reasonable.

JR: Speaking of the snow globe: So many of your characters are trying to be and do good. And it’s really complicated. What feels like doing good in one moment can change in the next based on something as simple as the character walks into a different room. Or we move into another character’s equally convincing POV that opposes or contradicts the one we were just immersed in. Is good something concrete and definable? Is there an Ultimate Truth to life?

GS: When you say, “Here's the situation,” and the reader goes, “Oh, yeah, I get it.” And then you switch, whether it's in that perspective or in another one, there's that moment of disorientation where the reader goes, “Okay, I thought there was just one truth. Now there's at least two. Might there be even more?” This is something I really love about Chekhov: you keep waiting for him to weigh in, to put his finger on the scales, but he doesn't. He's really good at making eight or four or whatever different equally weighted scales.

The ultimate moral work of fiction is to show us how quickly and facilely we judge. Then, if it's a good one, the story teaches you that you can keep several ideas going at once. You can even have several simultaneous moral judgments going at once. To me, that's the highest form of it....

GS:

Kindness doesn't mean niceness. Ultimately, I think it means realism. I always use the example of somebody goes into a coffee shop, and the barista has been crying. Okay, what's the kind thing to do? Well, we don't actually know, because I didn't give you enough information. Even when you're standing there, you don't have enough information. Then it becomes a referendum on how might one decide? And that has something to do with what's going on in your mind before you walk into a coffee shop. If you're thinking I'm such a great, generous teacher of kindness, and then that person is the crying, you’re going to leap in whether you should or not.

I think there's a natural beneficence that rises in us, but the problem is, we don't always know the truth of that situation. A lot of what we think is the truth is our mind supplying some bullshit and we react to that rather than the actual situation. So to be kind might be exactly equal to being so quiet minded that you see clearly, and then your natural goodness will just rise up. But that's all theory.

JR: So beautifully put. One of the biggest complications is that one crying barista might want her tears acknowledged, and the other one might want them ignored.

GS: That’s exactly right. I was walking through O'Hare a couple months ago, and I saw a young woman coming the other way just weeping. I thought, I could either be the obnoxious old guy interfering in a private moment. Or she might be on the very edge where somebody's got to say something to her. I couldn't tell.

That’s where I think it’s good to look at your preset. Why do I want to rush over to her and reassure her? We each have a sort of ambient preset – for me, it’s a mild saviour complex – that might interfere with what the actual moment is telling us. In other words, I was in a particular place when I saw her. And maybe that was a good impulse. Or maybe it wasn't. It’s literally that beautiful phrase, my heart went out to her. So that's an ongoing truth--and that's just somebody walking by in an airport. But what to DO about it? That’s the question. So this leads us to the question of awareness, and of how fully the dataset that is “this moment” is coming through to us.

https://janeratcliffe.substack.com/.../the-kindness...

[thanks Rebecca Solnit]

[lansplaining]

While we’re putting these characters in theoretical situation jars and gently shaking them:

What if another cultivator who wasn’t that hot on the clans and their power jockeying say one who wanders with a husband and a donkey and eventually their own kid meets Meng Shi either while she’s pregnant or while JGY is very small, and convinces her to try the Baoshan Sanren route for her son instead or waiting for the impossible aka waiting for Jin Guangshan to not be The Absolute Worst ™?

If/when Meng Yao decides to come down off the mountain like his now sect brother XXC - raised under different creeds/expectations - we now have an actual connection between him and Mr. Protagonist himself WWX via Cangse Sanren/Baoshan Sanren, can skip the Unclean Realm awfulness RIP Nie Huaisang you have no one to help you get out of saber practice now, etc etc.

Real danger is the young Lan sect leader considering running off and being a wandering cultivator after meeting Meng Yao when he flees Cloud Recesses after the Wens rock up, tho 😉

sorry i got distracted watching my faves walk around in their jar together. meng yao tried to gently teach xiao xingchen to be better at telling stories and it didn't work at all :')

i think if meng shi had the personality to do something like that, her and JGY's lives would have gone very differently, frankly. for whatever sad and (from the outside) kinda crazy reason, her belief in jin guangshan was sincere. it has to have been. she's smart, she's literate, and most importantly she is a professional sex worker, she knows how this usually goes. if she'd let herself get pregnant to manipulate jin guangshan like anxin suggests, then she would have played that scenario totally differently than in canon. meng shi is as incapable of letting go of her belief in jin guangshan and her son's birthright as jin guangyao himself ultimately is, and i don't think even he really knows why.

but yeah, let's say that meng shi and meng yao have to run away from yunping for some reason, or meng shi knows that she is dying and has some reason to be afraid that meng yao won't be able to make it to lanling-- maybe he's much younger than in canon, as you say.

i just.......... can't help but feel like yao sanren would be waiting until he could go down the mountain to find his father.

but okay, he's like an actual baby and he never gets to know meng shi and never knows who his father is or what she wants from him-- he's raised completely in baoshan sanren's principles. bloodlines are bullshit, stay on the mountain or otherwise do good in the world.

...i'm really struggling, because I don't know who meng yao is if he doesn't want the things he wants. it's very writing 101 but if a character is their desires then... he's just a different person. he's a maybe slightly more grounded xiao xingchen, someone who wants to help people but this time has been raised in the belief that it's possible. all signs show that if JGY had been properly trained he'd be very talented, so he's probably a formidable cultivator. he doesn't have to be afraid. who is he then?

and of course, we can't forget the other aspect of being a disciple of baoshan sanren.

maybe the tragedy that befalls him is that he does learn who his father is. he learns that, no matter how respected and mystical his master, his mother is still seen as filthy-- but his father is a golden god in a tower. that's where good flows from in this world. he's a xiao xingchen who starts to understand why his mother thought she had to run away from the world. he's one who begins to learn to compromise, and then compromise more, and then compromise again, and most damningly of all to want to be part of the world-- not just by leaving the mountain, but by climbing the tower, to be accepted there, for his blood, which isn't supposed to matter.

[donttalkaboutmemes]

Lilo & Stitch (2002) Sentence Meme

Under the cut you will find 150+ sentences from Lilo & Stitch to use for your enjoyment!    

1.      “You stand before this council accused of illegal genetic experimentation.”

2.      “My experiments are only theoretical, completely within legal boundaries.”

3.      “We believe you actually created something.”

4.      “What is that monstrosity?”

5.      “What you see before you is the first of a new species.”

6.      “He is bulletproof, fireproof, and can think faster than a supercomputer. He can see in the dark and move objects three thousand times his size. His only instinct is to destroy everything he touches.”

7.      “So it is a monster.”

8.      “It is an affront to nature! It must be destroyed!”

9.      “Calm yourself. Perhaps it can be reasoned with.”

10.   “Give us some sign you can understand any of this. Show us that there is something inside of you that is good.”

11.   “I want to destroy!”

12.   “I didn’t teach him that.”

13.   “Place that idiot scientist under arrest!”

14.   “I prefer to be called evil genius!”

15.   “It is a flawed project of a deranged mind. It has no place among us.”

16.   “The council has banished you to exile on a desert asteroid.”

17.   “May I remind the captain that he is on duty.”

18.   “I want an expert on this planet in here now!”

19.   “He won’t survive in water. His molecular density is too great.”

20.   “Earth is a protected wildlife preserve.”

21.   “Am I to assume you are the expert?”

22.   “Can we not simply destroy the island?”

23.   “Every time an asteroid strikes their planet they have to being life all over. It’s fascinating, isn’t it?”

24.   “I’m sure this comes as no surprise to you.”

25.   “I designed this creature for to be unstoppable.”

26.   “To reward you, we are willing to trade your freedom for his capture.”

27.   “It’s sandwich day. Every Thursday I take Pudge the fish a peanut butter sandwich, and today we were out of peanut butter! So I asked my sister what to give him, and she said a tuna sandwich!”

28.   “I want to dance! I practiced! I just want to dance.”

29.   “I called your sister. She said to wait for her here on the porch.”

30.   “You better not have rabies.”

31.   “Are you going to play dolls?”

32.   “This is Scrump. I made her, but her head is too big. So I pretend a bug laid eggs in her ears and she’s upset because she only has a few more days to live.”

33.   “Leave me alone to die.”

34.   “C’mon! That social workers going to be here any minute!”

35.   “You are so finished when I get in there!”

36.   “I’m going to stuff you in the blender, push puree, then bake you into a pie and feed it to the social worker!”

37.   “Do you often leave your sister home alone?”

38.   “You don’t look like a social worker.”

39.   “I’m a special classification.”

40.   “Did you ever kill anyone.”

41.   “We’re getting off the subject. Today let’s talk about you. Are you happy?”

42.   “Okay! That’s enough sugar for you!”

43.   “Let me illuminate the precarious situation in which you have found yourself.”

44.   “I am the one they call when things go wrong and things have indeed gone wrong.”

45.   “My friends need to be punished.”

46.   “Call me next time you’re left here alone.”

47.   “In case you’re wonder, this did not go well. You have three days to change my mind.”

48.   “Why didn’t you wait at the school? You were supposed to wait there!”

49.   “Do you not understand? Do you want to be taken away? Answer me!”

50.   “Ugh! You’re such a pain!”

51.   “Why don’t you sell me and buy a rabbit instead?”

52.   “Hey, I brought you some pizza. In case you were hungry.”

53.   “We’re a broken family, aren’t we?”

54.   “I like you better as a sister than a mom.”

55.   “You like me better as a sister than a rabbit, right?”

56.   “People treat me different.”

57.   “If you promise not to fight anymore, I promise not to yell at you. Except on special occasions.”

58.   “You rotten sister! Your butt is crushing me!”

59.   “Why do you act so weird?”

60.   “I need someone to be my friend, someone who won’t run away. Maybe send me an angel, the nicest angel you have.”

61.   “We’re looking for something that can defend itself, something that won’t die. Something sturdy, you know?”

62.   “Do we have a lobster door? No, we have a dog door! We are getting a dog!”

63.   “It was dead this morning!?”

64.   “Wouldn’t you like a different dog?”

65.   “Yes. He’s good. I can tell.”

66.   “You’ll have to think of a name for him.”

67.   “Stop! I have just determined this situation to be far too hazardous!”

68.   “Using a little girl for a shield. This is low, even for you.”

69.   “Look at you! You look like a monster. We have to blend in!”

70.   “I’m sorry I bit you and pulled your hair and punched you in the face.”

71.   “Apology not accepted. Now, get out of my way before I run you over.”

72.   “That is the ugliest thing I have ever saw.”

73.   “Ew! Get it away from me! I’m gonna get a disease!”

74.   “His destructive programming is taking effect. He will be irresistibly drawn to large cities where he will back up sewers, reverse street signs, and steal everyone’s left shoe.”

75.   “It’s nice to live on an island with no large cities.”

76.   “When you’re ready to give up, just let us know, heh?”

77.   “This is you. This is your badness level. It’s unusually high for someone your size. We have to fix that.”

78.   “You didn’t even eat your sweet potato. I thought you liked them.”

79.   “She likes your butt and fancy hair. I know. I read her diary.”

80.   “Yeah, well who wants to work at this stupid fakey luau anyway?”

81.   “Did you lose your job because of me?”

82.   “The manager’s a vampire and he wanted me to join his legion of the undead.”

83.   “This is a great home. You’ll like it a lot.”

84.   “Be careful of the little angel.”

85.   “It’s not an angel. I don’t even think it’s a dog. We just have to take him back.”

86.   “He’s just cranky because it’s his bedtime.”

87.   “He’s creepy. I won’t sleep while he’s loose in the house.”

88.   “You’re loose in the house all the time and I sleep just fine.”

89.   “Look at him! He’s obviously mutated from something else. We have to take him back.”

90.   “What about ohana?”

91.   “Dad said ohana means family.”

92.   “I hate it when you use ohana against me.”

93.   “Don’t worry. You can sleep right next to me.”

94.   “Be careful of that! You don’t touch this! Don’t ever touch it!”

95.   “You know, you wreck everything you touch. Why not try and make something for a change?”

96.   “No more caffeine for you.”

97.   “You’re just jealous cause I’m pretty!”

98.   “What must it be like to have nothing, not even memories to visit in the middle of the night?”

99.   “Want to listen to The King? You look like an Elvis fan.”

100. “Heard you lost your job.”

101. “Thus far you have been adrift in the sheltered harbor of my patience, but I cannot ignore you being jobless.”

102.  “Elvis Presley was a model citizen. I’ve compiled a list of his traits for you to practice. Number one is dancing.”

103.  “Elvis played guitar. Here. Hold it like this, and put your fingers here. See? Now you try.”

104. “This is the face of romance. She looks like she could use some lovin’.”

105.  “I’m sure Elvis had his bad days, too.”

106.  “You have no idea how badly I need this job.”

107.  “I might not be a doctor, but I know that there’s no better cure for a sour face than a couple of boards and some choice waves.”

108.  “I know you’re trying, but you need to think about what’s best for her. Even if it removes you from the picture.”

109.  “I really believed they had a chance. Then you came along.”

110.  “Don’t worry. You’re nice and someone will give you a job.”

111.  “I hear you cry at night. Do you dream about them?”

112.  “Our family’s little now and we don’t have many toys but if you want, you could be part of it.”

113.  “Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind.”

114.  “If you want to leave, you can. I’ll remember you, though. I remember everyone that leaves.”

115.  “Consider yourself fired and prison bound. Your incompetence is nothing short of unspeakable.”

116.  “The mission is in jeopardy. This could be your chance to redeem yourself. How soon will you be prepared to leave?”

117.  “Don’t run. Don’t make me shoot you. You were expensive.”

118.  “You’re built to destroy. You can never belong.”

119.  “Sometimes you try your hardest, but things don’t work out the way you want them to. Sometimes things have to change and maybe sometimes they’re for the better.”

120.  “I think I found you a job.”

121.  “This is really important. I need you to stay here for a few minutes. I’m going to be right back. Lock the door and don’t answer it for anyone, okay?”

122.   “You can just date me and we’ll call it even.”

123.   “Hiding behind your little friend won’t work anymore.”

124.    “Didn’t I tell you? We got fired this morning. New rules.”

125.    “I like fluffy!”

126.    “Leave my mother out of this!”

127.    “You could do with a makeover. I tried to give you my good looks, but let’s face it, something went wrong.”

128.    “Where’s the girl? What have you done to the girl?”

129.    “Aliens are attacking my house.”

130.    “There’s no need to alert the authorities. Everything’s under control.”

131.    “Oh good, my dog found the chainsaw.”

132.    “You shouldn’t play with guns.”

133.     “No! You’re not taking her! I’m the only one who understands her! You take that away, she won’t stand a chance!”

134.     “You’re making this harder than it needs to be.”

135.     “You don’t know what you’re doing! She needs me!”

136.     “Is this what she needs? It seems clear to me that you need her a lot more than she needs you.”

137.      “You ruined everything! You’re one of them?”

138.      “Surprise! And here I thought you’d be difficult to catch!”

139.       “Look at the bright side. You won’t have to yell at anyone anymore.”

140.       “Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten.”

141.        “After all you put me through, you expect me to help you just like that? Just like that!?”

142.      “Oh, good! I was hoping to add theft, endangerment, and insanity to my list of things I did today.”

143.       “Don’t worry, it’s all part of the plan. We are professionals.”

144.       “We stay close. Hope for a miracle. That’s all we can do.”

145.       “You’re vile! You’re foul! You’re flawed!”

146.       “So, you’re from outer space? I heard the surfing’s choice.”

147.       “This is my family. I found it all on my own. It’s little and broken, but still good. Yeah. Still good.”

148.       “You know as well as I that our laws are absolute. I cannot change what the council’s decided.”

149.         “Aliens are all about rules.”

150.        “Take note of this. This creature has been sentenced to life in exile, a sentence that shall be henceforth served out here on earth.”

151.       “I was afraid you were going to say that. This won’t be easy to explain back at headquarters.”

152.      “Don’t let those two get on my ship.”

[rozinaaa]

The Odin Project Is Probably The Most Effective Coding Course That I've Taken So Far

It's a bit too soon to say, since I'm almost halfway through the foundations course, but I like how I've been encouraged to set up an actual development environment that can be used in the real world, as well as doing everything the long hard way instead of getting a false sense of achievement by mindlessly copying and pasting bits of code into a browser window or watching videos of someone waffling on forever about what a bit of code does, when they could simply just say a little bit, since I've realised that it's the main reason why I got put off from coding in the first place, especially when I was in high school and figuring out what I wanted to do at college.

Well, I've just completed my first actual project (which was to create a few web pages based on some recipes), where I just focused on creating the structure of the pages and the directory with just HTML, and although I already knew how to create basic webpages in HTML before I even started the course, it was nice to get a refresher as well as being informed about best practices, and also getting used to using Git and the command line a lot more, since I know that software developers tend to use commands a lot in the real world.

Another good thing about using Git and GitHub as part of this course is that everytime I edit code and push it to GitHub, it shows up on my profile, so that I can show potential employers how often I code, as well as showing them the types of projects that I've been working on, since showing them how I use my skills in the real world is a lot more practical than just showing them a bit of paper that says that I can do a certain thing without really having any evidence to back it up.

I'm fairly comfortable with using the command line on a basic level, since I now know my way around it after switching to using Linux full time earlier this year, and it already feels a lot more efficient than pointing and clicking at icons, because I can keep my hands on the keyboard (although it does mess with your wrists after about an hour, so it's good to do some little exercises every now and then, especially when you're pushing code), and everything feels faster, since I feel like I can gain a stronger insight into how to actually use a computer instead of taking things at face value.

Once I've trawled through the basics, I should have a stronger understanding on what each thing does, since I'll most likely develop muscle memory after actually doing the same thing multiple times, but what I'm most looking forward to is learning how to use Javascript both for the front end and the back end (along with learning about the rest of the back end because that's currently unknown territory to me), since I realise that it can be an extremely powerful thing to know how to build things from the front to the back, and also because having these skills (paired with the knowledge and experience) will hopefully open up more longer term job opportunities for me.

Anyway, for the other courses that I've done previously (mainly via freeCodeCamp, Codecademy, and a few others), they were good at teaching me the very basics of writing in different programming languages, but not so much in applying my knowledge to real world, so naturally, everything that I've learned from there feels very theoretical, and if I did end up going to a job interview where they asked me about it, I'd most likely struggle, since having a piece of paper saying that you know something isn't the same as having experience in that thing and using it all the time.

The worst courses that I ever did were a few video courses that I did at the start of my internship last year, where the employer said that it would allow me to understand what technologies the developers used, although I'd never actually code on the job, and that everything I learned from those courses basically went in one ear and out the other, since it was just watching someone write the code out, with them either being very vague about some of the features, or just waffling on about things that weren't even relevant to what was being said, so in my experience, video courses aren't effective for me at all, since I'll end up binge watching them at about twice the speed and not end up taking anything in.

The likes of freeCodeCamp and Codecademy (I still can't believe that I paid about £100 for Codecademy for a year, simply because it was on for half price when I was still at University, but then again, Codecademy always has a sale on) are somewhat effective, especially if it's your very first time about learning the very basics and getting used to writing code itself, but beyond that, you're basically stuck in a tutorial hell, where over time, the tutorials start to become very cheesy and babyish, as well as gathering up a ridiculous amount of worthless certificates that don't really show that much evidence of the things you've learned in action.

I know that The Odin Project doesn't offer a certification at the end, but I'd rather have the context of coding in the real world, knowing how to create an effective developer setup that will be used in the real world (I've also realised that Linux is very effective, and I'm now used to it), learning the why behind coding and setting up a developer environment in a certain way, a GitHub profile that shows the amount of work that I've done (at what frequency and consistency), which I can easily show to employers, and overall, just gaining actual experiece in doing everything from front to back, so that the next time I work with a team of software developers, I don't feel out of place or be extremely confused about any jargon.

One thing I've realised is that I learn by doing, and I need all the context I can get surrounding the topic, as well as understanding why things are done in a certain way.

Overall, doing The Odin Project is not only a productive form of escapism from endlessly applying to jobs and sulking about being unemployed, but I can also explain to employers about this gap (after the decision of choosing not to turn the curation front into a business, since I realised that it's something I didn't want), where I can tell them that I've been improving my web development skills, as well as having a strong portfolio of evidence instead of some bits of paper which don't necessarily reflect on my actual skill level and experience with certain technologies.

Additionally, having a goal set in mind (which is to eventually become a full stack developer), will allow me to figure out what type of jobs I should actually apply for, and so that my job search can at least be a little bit more focused instead of applying to everything that I come across.

[jcmarchi]

Everything, everywhere all at once

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/everything-everywhere-all-at-once/

Everything, everywhere all at once

The way Morgane König sees it, questioning how we came to be in the universe is one of the most fundamental parts of being human.

When she was 12 years old, König decided the place to find answers was in physics. A family friend was a physicist, and she attributed her interest in the field to him. But it wasn’t until a trip back to her mother’s home country of Côte d’Ivoire that König learned her penchant for the subject had started much younger. No one in Côte d’Ivoire was surprised she was pursuing physics — they told her she’d been peering upward at the stars since she was a small child, wondering how they all had come together. ­

That wonder never left her. “Everyone looks at the stars. Everyone looks at the moon. Everybody wonders about the universe,” says König. “I’m trying to understand it with math.”

König’s observations have led her to MIT, where in 2021 she continued studying theoretical cosmology as a postdoc with physicist and cosmologist Alan Guth and physicist and historian of science David Kaiser. Now, she is a member of MIT’s 2023-24 Martin Luther King (MLK) Visiting Professors and Scholars Program cohort, alongside 11 others. This year, members of the MLK Scholars are researching and teaching diverse subjects including documentary filmmaking, behavioral economics, and writing children’s books.

Once she was set on physics, König finished her undergraduate studies in 2012, double-majoring in mathematics and physics at Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris.

Still compelled by questions about the universe, König narrowed in on cosmology, and graduated with her master’s degree from Pierre and Marie Curie in 2014. The way König describes it, cosmology is like archaeology, just up in space. While astronomers study galaxy formations and mutations — all of the stuff in the universe — cosmologists study everything about the universe, all at once.

“It’s a different scale, a different system,” says König. “Of course, you need to understand stars, galaxies, and how they work, but cosmologists study the universe and its origin and contents as a whole.”

From practice to theory

Throughout her studies, König said, she was often the only woman in the room. She wanted to pursue the theories behind cosmology but wasn’t encouraged to try. “You have to understand that being a woman in this field is super, incredibly difficult,” says König. “I told everyone I wanted to do theory, and they didn’t believe in me. So many people told me not to do it.”

When König had the opportunity to pursue a PhD in observational cosmology in Marseille and Paris, she almost accepted. But she was more drawn to theory. When she was offered a spot with a little more freedom to study cosmology at the University of California at Davis, she took it. Alongside Professor Nemanja Kaloper, König dove into inflation theory, looking all the way back to the universe’s beginning.

It is well-known that the universe is always expanding. Think about inflation as the precursor to that expansion — a quick and dramatic beginning, where the universe grew exponentially fast.

“Inflation is the moment in history that happened right after the beginning of the universe,” says König. “We’re not talking about 1 second, not even a millisecond. We are talking 10 to the negative 32nd seconds.” In other words, it took 0.000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,01 seconds for the universe to go from something minuscule to, well, everything. And today, the universe is only getting bigger.

Only a sliver of the universe’s composition is understandable using current technology — less than 5 percent of the universe is composed of matter we can see. Everything else is dark matter and dark energy.

For decades, cosmologists have been trying to excavate the universe’s mysterious past using photons, the tiny, particle form of light. Since light travels at a fixed speed, light emitted further back in the universe’s history, from objects that are now farther away from us due to the expansion of the universe, takes longer to reach Earth. “If you look at the sun — don’t do it! — but if you did, you’d actually be seeing it eight minutes in the past,” says König. As they carve their way through the universe, photons give cosmologists historical information, acting as messengers across time. But photons can only account for the luminous 4.9 percent of the universe. Everything else is dark.

Since dark matter doesn’t emit or reflect photons like luminous matter, researchers can’t see it. König likens dark matter to an invisible person wearing a tuxedo. She knows something is there because the tuxedo is dancing, swinging its arms and legs around. But she can’t see or study the person inside the suit using the technology at hand. Dark matter has stirred up countless theories, and König is interested in the methods behind those theories. She is asking: How do you study something dark when light particles are necessary for gathering historical information?

According to König and her MIT collaborators — Guth, the forerunner of inflation theory, and Kaiser, the Germeshausen Professor of the History of Science — the answer might lie in gravitational waves. König is using her time at MIT to see if she can sidestep light particles entirely by using the ripples in spacetime called gravitational waves. These waves are caused by the collision of massive, dense stellar objects such as neutron stars. Gravitational waves also transmit information across the universe, in essence giving us a new sense, like hearing is to seeing. With data from instruments such as the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) and NANOGrav, “not only can we look at it, now we can hear the cosmos, too,” she says.

Black in physics

Last year, König worked on two all-Black research teams with physicists Marcell Howard and Tatsuya Daniel. “We did great work together,” König says, but she points out how their small group was one of the largest all-Black theoretical physics research teams — ever. She emphasizes how they cultivated creativity and mentorship while doing highly technical science, producing two published papers (Elastic Scattering of Cosmological Gravitational Wave Backgrounds and An SZ-Like Effect on Cosmological Gravitational Wave Backgrounds).

Out of the 69,238 people who have earned doctorates in physics and astronomy since 1981, only 122 of them were Black women, according to the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics. When König finished her PhD in 2021, she became the first Black student at UC Davis to receive a PhD in physics and the ninth Black woman to ever complete a doctorate in theoretical physics in the United States.

This past October, in a presentation at MIT, König ended with an animated slide depicting a young Black girl sitting in a dark meadow, surrounded by warm lights and rustling grass. The girl was looking up at the stars, her eyes full of wonder. “I had to make this with AI,” says König. “I couldn’t find an image online of a young Black girl looking up at the stars. So, I made one.”

In 2017, König went to Côte d’Ivoire, spending time teaching school children about physics and cosmology. “The room was full,” she says. Adults and students alike came to listen to her. Everyone wanted to learn, and everyone echoed the same questions about the universe as König did when she was younger. But, she says, “the difference between them and me is that I was given a chance to study this. I had access to people explaining how incredible and exciting physics is.”

König sees a stark disconnect between physics in Africa and physics everywhere else. She wants universities around the world to make connections with African universities, building efforts to encourage students of all backgrounds to pursue the field of physics.

König explains that ushering in more Black and African physicists means starting at the beginning and encouraging more undergraduates and young students to enter the field. “There is an enormous amount of talent and brilliance there,” König says. She sees an opportunity to connect with students across Africa, building the bridges needed to help everyone pursue the questions that keep them looking up at the stars.

While König loves her research, she knows theoretical cosmology has far to come to as a discipline. “There is so much room to grow in the field. It’s not all figured out.”

[hogoflight]

for example:

barbarian: rouser of armies, generally killing people, temper -> Rages when fighting, TOA specific - killing Commodus 2 times in the way he did. as a multi-class thing, Apollo getting pissed mid battle, flying into a rage and suddenly fighting with his sword / bare hands. Learning to control and wield his rage to suit him and his allies in a useful destructive way!

bard: God of Music. And dance. And many more. Yeah you know this one.

cleric: bridge between divinity (Zeus & the fates, etc) and mortals, performs miracles and heals people, spreads his name & faith in the gods in the many places he goes, identity as a good, caring, involved father of his children -> patient and loving towards people he helps with added godly miracles.

druid: associated with hunting & Artemis, possibly was a hunting god in Archaic period(?), associated with a lot of animals which he also turns into (dolphins in the Homeric hymn come to mind). In order to build cities, you need to have good knowledge of living and working with your physical environment and surrounding as well as generally be good at surviving and thriving in the wild.

fighter: he fights?? Good with a sword, bow & arrow, fisticuffs - could be translated into a decent range of weapon proficiencies. Maybe he’s a fighter with a LOT of hobbies?? You could also throw him being a teacher in here - maybe he teaches fighting to kids??

monk: good at wrestling? Beat Ares at wrestling in the Olympics, Wrestled Phorbas and killed him. Similar to the barbarian anger thing, but less finding a useful outlet for anger and more controlling it and calming yourself. TOA specific - Commodus again.

paladin: upholds faith in the gods, delivers vengeance for them (when hubris’d) & (forcefully) protects devotees of the gods (I guess most examples are of his own eg. killing Neoptolemus when protecting his priests, etc.), and punishes hubris (could be more specific to the gods)

ranger: good with a bow & arrow. Associated with wolves & ravens. Hunter. Associated with Artemis.

rogue: the Odyssey mentions him (and Artemis) being the reason for sudden death because of their arrows - they’re silent, deadly, and unpredictable. Also something something intense light creates shadows. Could lead to an Apollo & Artemis tag team!

sorcerer: Divine prince of Olympus & favourite son of Zeus has GOT to have inherited power from his parentage. Very much the ‘extremely powerful son with the gift of prophecy whom the land itself tried to prevent from being born but was anyway’. Also a lot of exploration on his own heritage & inheritance - you could explore Trojan Apollo practicing his magic as a way of maintaining Trojan culture and his own heritage that is now almost gone. You could also mess with the many different theoretical origins irl Apollo has and make WHAT he inherited his power from a mystery.

warlock: ok this one is hard. perhaps myths where Apollo inherits / takes domains in a dodgy way. Particularly i think in terms of his associations with beings that aren’t quite gods / divine / worshipped per se, but are gods / divine / worshipped in a culture that an Apollo-worshipping culture then invaded / build relations with, then becoming their warlock out of repentance / power shifts depending on what the religion of said area would actually look like (maybe he’s introduced as a warlock of that divinity who then becomes more powerful and more worshipped by the people, then overthrows said divinity / breaks their pact) out of technicalities would be sick. For instance, Apollo being cursed to be a warlock of Python / Gaia to slowly inherit Python’s power, guided by his/her undying corpse is a pretty cool concept. Alternatively, being a warlock of Daphne out of remorse for what he did and her making sure he now protects people wherever he can & is a force for good, wearing laurels as a symbol of his pact!

wizard: god of knowledge etc etc. I see no reason why his desire for knowledge stops at learning how to manually shape the world around him! He can have whatever stone the Hyacinth one is as part of his staff.

Bonus!

artificer: he made the kithara and also something something cures eye injuries - he made tools to do so?? Again lots of pushing and pulling with this one, maybe crafting medicines could arguably count. Um he built Artemis’ first temple out of bones and goat heads (I think? Goat something) in that one account of a myth. I could see him having a phase of getting into making things himself.

blood hunter: blood sacrifice. The purification rites of Orestes & himself (after slaying Python), the Lycanthropy, the Odysseus dedicating his slaughter of the suitors to him, etc. He deals with a lot of moderation WHICH WOULD TRANSLATE TO SACRIFICING ENOUGH BLOOD TO REAP THE BENEFITS OF PERFORMING MAGIC WHILST NOT SERIOUSLY INJURING YOURSELF, NOT IMPLYING THAT HAVING ‘A LOT OF’ BLOOD (WHATEVER THAT COULD EVER POSSIBLY MEAN) IS BEING EXCESS FGFHNDHDNFN

Putting TOA Apollo into a dnd au whilst taking into consideration Actual Apollo is so funny bc like. Baby he can be ANY class if you try hard enough and aren’t afraid

[drawnecromancy]

"you know, when Dusk vanished ?"

Mark did not look up from his book, but Val knew he was listening.

"I almost went with her."

This prompted Mark to lower his novel and send the other a questioning glance. Sitting on the floor, Val was fidgeting with Dawn's fingers, pulling on the uncomfortable length, maybe trying to rip them out of his hand. He didn't even notice he was doing this.

"It's stupid, but that's also why I could tell you she was gone that morning," he added to stall for time. "We spoke of... What Dawn was, I guess. Claire was right about the alien thing."

"And her abilities work the same as ours ?"

Val chuckled. Of course it was the magic Mark was interested in. Nothing else.

"Dusk seems to think we rationalize magic differently than she and Dawn do, but it works essentially the same. She also thinks your spellmaking is brilliant, if that's anything."

He looked up, maybe trying to study Mark's reaction, maybe just to look at him. Either way, Mark shrugged.

"Had to be if I wanted to do you any damage."

Val chuckled.

"You could have used a hammer."

The other rolled his eyes - it wasn't worth pointing out the many flaws in this theoretical plan because he was pretty certain Val was joking, despite his voice not having the same affect he usually had. Briefly, he wondered if that was a physical thing from Dawn's body.

"Why compliment centuries old things I'm out of practice on, anyway ?"

"She thinks if you had more time, but I'm willing to bet that's on a several thousand years scale, you could have killed her. On your own."

"We didn't have that much time."

Val nodded and, curiously, curled up into a ball.

"No, but if you want to be sure, you could have that much time now."

Mark stayed silent long enough to process what Val was actually trying to say. He frowned, closed his book. Slipped a hand between the strange, misty strands of Val's hair to lightly put it on his shoulder.

"Do you want me to do that ?"

"It's not. It's not a question of what I want," his voice was barely a whisper yet it felt like he was about to scream. "I don't want to force you to become some immortal being to act as a failsafe, that would be fucking evil."

"Hm."

His hand ran to the back of Val's neck, slowly stroking it, like one might for a beloved pet they're attempting to soothe. Val seemed to lean into the touch ever so slightly.

"What if, though, I was aware that it's something that worries you deeply, and what if I've seen how you handle losing people you love, and what if I thought it could be an okay idea ?"

Val did not respond. For a long time. For long enough that it was clear that if he said anything else on that particular topic, it would be to apologize for even bringing it up. Mark sighed, leaned over to bonk his head against the back of Val's slightly.

"What was that bit about Dusk leaving ?"

"Oh. I forgot I'd brought it up."

"I figured."

He uncurled a little bit, just enough to lean on the couch, for Mark's face to be right next to his. He held one of his hands at eye level, still kind of annoyed at their stupidly long shape.

"I said she left to report to whoever the fuck told her to find a way to get rid of Dawn, that morning."

Mark hummed to encourage him to keep going.

"She... Also told me that this person could teach me how Dawn's powers worked. If went with her and left all of you at the same moment she did."

"Just like that ? In the middle of the night ?"

"Yeah."

"Why ?"

Val shrugged.

"Fuck if I know. Maybe she was in a hurry or something."

Silence, for a minute. Until Mark couldn't not ask.

"Why did you stay, then ?"

It wasn't meant as a threat, or as a reproach, or anything negative, but Val winced anyway.

"I didn't have the time to think about it," he lied.

Mark's raised eyebrow and unconvinced stare were enough for him to put his hand over Mark's face in an attempt to escape scrutiny, lightly pushing him. Almost playfully, but with enough genuine anxiety that Mark knew not to laugh. Instead, he just took his hand in both of his. It felt weirdly like glass.

"I just didn't want to leave," he admitted. "Because there was Melyane and Ava and you and it... It would have felt wrong. To leave without a word. Even if Dusk said it would be safer."

"She said what."

"That it would be safer if I wasn't here. Because I could..."

He trailed off, shrugging, but they both knew the end to that sentence. Mark's arms wrapped around Val's shoulders.

"That won't happen."

"But what if it does ?"

"Eh. I'll be around."

[snapeluvr]

How about some headcanons for dating severus after the war, he’s alive and well, opening up to dating now

Dating Severus Headcanons 

A/N: Thanks so much for your request, lovely anon! I’ve never written headcanons before, so I hope I don’t let you down ;3

Admittedly, Severus had not had many romantic engagements throughout his life. Of course, the whole world knew now of his love for Lily Evans, but even that had been exaggerated in the flurry of the end of the war. In the years after the end of the first war, when he had some more leeway when it came to how he spent his time, he had been…coerced into some relationships at the behest of Narcissa Malfoy, but none of them ever lasted long given the grief and general air of despair that surrounded Severus, so she eventually gave up. 

Given his previous romantic history, he certainly never planned on dating or committing to a relationship with anyone, ever, so he had no real idea of what to do or how to act when he did eventually find you. 

Because of this, you had to be the first one to approach Severus with the idea of going out on a date, and you definitely had to be the one to ask to be his partner, because he was never going to subject someone else to dealing with him, no matter how much he liked them (remember, he’s spent the majority of his life with very few true friendships, so he doesn’t really know how to initiate them). 

After getting past this initial barrier, you’re able to explore the ways he shows affection. He’s still got somewhat of an acerbic personality (that doesn’t go away just because a war is over), but he’s cautious to talk to you a little gentler and in a more neutral tone. He isn’t particularly prone to outbursts of laughter, but he will definitely smile at you when you do something silly. 

Some of his love languages are definitely quality time and acts of service. The former shines through with how much time you both spend together. Since the end of the war, he’s abandoned Spinner’s End and found a small house in the country, where he has ample privacy for his affairs, and you are a constant presence there once you begin dating. It starts off with you coming over to help cook dinner together, staying up late reading books in his living room together, and turns into you staying the night more and more often as your relationship progresses. These were the times you got to know him best, you see, because you got to see him in his home, where his guard is most relaxed. As much as you would ever know each other, he’s spent so many years hiding his true self from the public eye, that whenever you were out in public, his old habits meant to protect him reared their heads and prevented him from being like the Sev you knew at home. Getting to spend time with him doing menial things strengthened your bond and helped Severus become more comfortable with you. 

Acts of service show themselves in different ways. Usually, it comes with him teaching you things that he is very passionate about, such as potions. He hated being a teacher, but if you had expressed a genuine and intellectual interest in potions, that he was willing to help you learn about them, practically and theoretically. He invites you into his private lab, a HUGE indicator that he trusts you given that he has it stocked to the brim with rare, expensive, and dangerous potions ingredients. He is hypervigilant at all times, ensuring that you don’t make a single mistake with a potion that could hurt you in any way. If you were a potion geek like him, you both worked together on advancing each other’s research and special projects, combining both of your extensive knowledge about them. Other acts of service include his help in making sure that you are taking care of yourself. If you have a job that is particularly stressful, he will make sure to have a warm bath ready with tea (or whatever your favourite beverage is). If you do independent work, and you get too caught up in it, he will check on you and make sure you’re taking care of yourself, and might bring you some food while he’s at it. Having someone to care about grounds him, as well as helps him express his feelings a little easier. 

He is very attentive. He finally has someone who cares about him as much as he does them, so he makes sure to hang on to your every word, and he has a great memory for things you mention in passing. You can count on this memory kicking in for any gifts he might get you for holidays or special occasions, and he’d definitely go to any length to get you something he knows you’d love. 

In terms of physical affection, Severus is definitely not the type to engage in PDA of most forms, with the exception of hand/arm holding as you both walked. He’s an incredibly private person, and with his newfound fame after the war, he hated having any photos of him taken in public. He really values your relationship and to see it be exploited in the media makes him feel upset — not because he’s seen with you, but because you are seen with him. Even though he’s been reassured countless times that you love him and such, he can’t help but worry that your reputation is being sullied by being seen with a former Death Eater. This might lead to many a conversation with him in which he elaborated on his insecurity and fears, but he promises to work through his fear.

In private, you can count on him being kind of touch starved and almost needy when it comes to physical affection. I’m talking a lot of touching when you’re doing everyday tasks together — lingering fingers, touches on your lower back and he passes you to grab something, hand holding as you read books together. At the beginning, you had to be the one to initiate any physical contact and make sure he was still comfortable with it, but as your relationship grew, he started engaging in it more. 

Severus would rather die than say this out loud, but he loves hugs. He loves hugging you a lot, especially in bed together, where he can big spoon you to his heart's content (I think it helps him feel like he’s keeping you safe). If he’s had a hard day and he gets to be the little spoon, he’s going to feel so secure and comforted, and he will let you know his gratitude. He likes sneaking up on you from behind and embracing you, dropping kisses on the top of your head to let you know just how much he loves you and your presence in his life.

Verbal affection is easier to come by with Severus, surprisingly. At first, getting him to say what he feels is like pulling teeth, but after establishing that communication had to be important for you both, he begins to vocalise what he feels, especially in regard to you. He will definitely compliment you a lot on your work ethic, your knowledge, and your brain because he really admires your intelligence. If you’re having a particularly hard day with anything, he’s definitely going to do his best to make you feel better by reassuring your abilities and believing in you, verbally, to help bolster your confidence. 

Despite this, you are going to say “I love you” first. As much as he loves you and knows it, he’s still too insecure and afraid to impose himself and the weight of his emotions on you. But as soon as you say it, he will return it. He’s going to be shocked no matter how you tell him, his brain grappling with the idea that someone loves him unconditionally, but he’s sure about his feelings for you and just needed some confidence to actually say it. 

Overall, Severus is a passionate partner. It can be challenging to break through his barriers at the beginning, but once you do, you know he would do anything for you and your happiness. He’s super dedicated to you, and loves spending time with you. He’s still a little sour and quiet at times, but you know a side of him the rest of the world doesn’t that just makes you love him even more. 

A/N: I hope you liked it!! Let me know what you think, and if you’d like a part 2 or something to this!! I had a lot of fun and I hope yall like how I tried to portray Severus as a partner <3

[pruning-the-minds-garden]

How to do Hypnokink: The Basics of Inductions

In earlier posts I covered the theoretical and ethical foundations of hypnokink, so now lets get to the practical side of how to do hypnosis. First, I’ll give you some grounding in what hypnosis is, and then provide you with a basic framework for how inductions essentially function (though there are always going to be exceptions). This guide will not include induction scripts, however, because I don’t think those actually help you very much in developing your skills as a hypnotist - besides, there are plenty of those on the internet already if you want to go looking. What I mean to do with this is to give you the tools to create inductions that suit you and that lead to you creating and cultivating your own unique style and method as a hypnotist. My feeling is that, long term, is much more helpful to you – give a man a fish versus teach a man to fish, and all that.

Anyway, let’s get started.

What Hypnosis Is

Before I define hypnosis, I have to note that this definition is provisional and personal. Other people will define it differently, because we still don’t really understand what hypnosis is or how it works exactly. We know it does work, when used properly, but there is no clear idea of what precisely constitutes “properly” except that we know it when we see it. So, understand that this definition is only one among many, and they are all valid to the extent that they work. Here’s mine –

Hypnosis consists of three things:

Attention. You catch, and hold, the attention of your subject.

Motion. You move the mind of your subject from one state to another, and get them to accept you as someone who leads them from one mental “place” to another until they do it effortlessly.

Action. Having limbered up their mind and made it receptive to your words and desires, you do something with that state. That something might be suggestions that affect them purely in trance, or it might be post-hypnotic suggestions, or both, or something else entirely.

Those are the theoretical pillars of hypnosis, but they do not correlate to what actually happens in a hypnosis session. While sessions are highly variable, and some will omit some of the below steps or change the order, the following are the basic steps of a hypnosis session:

Induction. This is the step we are talking about today, where you take your subject from “awake” to “hypnotized” or from a state of fully conscious awareness to a state of less aware, heightened suggestibility.

Deepener (optional). If whatever trance work you are doing requires your subject to be particularly deeply hypnotized (note: trance “depth” is a rather controversial topic that we’ll get into later), then this is the step where you use specialized techniques – or simply a repeated induction – to deepen their trance state to the requisite depth.

Trance Work. This is where you “do” whatever it is that you (with their consent!) want to do while in trance, such as give them an orgasm command, or heighten their dollification, bimbofication, heighten the sensations in their body, give them triggers that will take effect later, or anything else that you have negotiated and agreed with them to do before-hand. There might also be some in-trance playtime here.

Count Up. Once you have finished what you need to do and they have spent as long as they like in trance, it’s time to lead them up and back to wakefulness. For some this will be as simple as snapping your fingers and saying “wake up!” and for others it will be a more involved process – talk with them beforehand to figure out what they need, and make sure that your count up is neither too abrupt for them, nor too slow.

Playtime (optional). If you set triggers that are due to take effect after they wake up and there is a plan to play with them after they wake, now’s the time to do it.

Aftercare. Like any kink scene – and that’s the kind of hypnosis we’re talking about here – aftercare is an essential part of the process. Once you are done playing, make sure that you give your partner whatever physical, mental and emotional support or reassurance that they need.

Today all we are focusing on is the Induction, the first step of that process.

Essentials of the Induction

An induction largely needs to do two things – capture (and then hold) the attention of a subject, then acclimate them to following where the hypnotist leads without question. Both parts can be accomplished in myriad different ways, but those are ultimately the goals that the hypnotist is setting out to achieve. Here are some pointers for each –

The Hook

Ever wonder why pendulums, crystals, spirals, bouncing breasts, and other such objects are tropes of hypnokink? Well, they are captivating, that’s why! They tend to draw a person’s gaze, and for hypnokinksters especially they are a marker that commands attention. Doing that – commanding and holding a subject’s attention – is the essential first step in an induction. The above methods do it directly, and so they are useful when you are performing an overt hypnokink scene. Other methods – like telling an enthralling story, or playing with a toy in a person’s eye line while maintaining conversation with them – are more appropriate for covert hypnokink scenes. Choose a hook that is appropriate to whatever scene you are doing, and appropriate for your subject. If you aren’t sure what they like, what works best for them… ask! You should already have established consent and boundaries to your scene, and made sure that they are comfortable with being hypnotized by you, so they ought to be comfortable sharing that information. If they don’t know or aren’t sure, then try a few different methods and see what sticks. Once one does, keep using it and move on to the next step.

It’s also important to know that, for many hypnotists, making and holding eye contact, or raising their finger, or some other very innocuous thing is enough to command the attention of their subject. It doesn’t have to be profound to be sufficient. All it has to do is be good enough to get the job done, and a beautiful pair of eyes (or whatever) can certainly be that.

The Line and the Sinker

One of the great misconceptions of hypnosis is that it requires of is focused on relaxation. It often is, but it doesn’t have to be. That misconception exists because the most common induction type – called Progressive Muscle Relaxation – uses relaxation to build rapport and compliance. However, the repeated suggestions to relax muscles – relax your feet, relax your calves, relax your thighs, etc etc – are just a means to an end, a way to demonstrate to the subject that following the lead of the hypnotist is rewarding and pleasurable. Relaxation is not the point; learning to unthinkingly follow the lead of the hypnotist is. That is the case with all induction types – they all teach a subject to follow the hypnotist’s lead in one way or another.

That is the next step, then, after you capture a subject’s attention: you get them to follow your lead. Take them somewhere enjoyable for them, somewhere pleasurable, somewhere that is aligned with the way their mind works and with their capabilities and strengths as a subject. That will set you, and them, up for success. If you aren’t sure what that is, then ask. Get to know them before you hypnotize them, get to know the way their mind works. If they are neurodivergent, for example, then seek to understand their precise neurodivergent experience in order to best workwithit to make their trance experience a good one. For instance, most subjects with ADHD will have a profoundly bad experience with a Progressive Muscle Relaxation induction, because it requires them to maintain focus on one thing for a long time. However, they will often have a much better time with conversational, confusion, instance or overload inductions, because those either work fast enough that their shifting focus is irrelevant or work with their shifting focus as an intrinsic part of the trance experience.

The first step is, for the subject, often the slowest and most difficult. That is, once you have their attention, then following your first suggestion is the hardest, but once they have done it once doing it again gets easier and easier. So, be patient with them the first time. Let them come to it at their own pace, and when they are ready to take that first step, they will. Once they have, then taking the second, third, and twentieth steps will all follow in relatively short order. When they are proverbial putty in your hands, you can move on to further steps and stages of trance.

Included in my Index of Writings on Safety & Consent. Read more on the topic, by me and by others, at the link!