#inbox: yale

[hcneymooners]

౨ৎ stargirl interlude: chapter iii.

wnba!paige x pop star!azzi. men & minors dni.

⋆ 🪩 masterlist.

cw: implied familial issues, fluff, first kiss, medium burn?, suggestive content, paige is never beating the down bad allegations, implied mental health issues.

notes: hello, hello. this is one of my favorite chapters. the songs used are "tinsletown in the rain" by the blue nile and "78fahrenheit (unreleased)" by ethel cain. i hope you enjoy yourselves. love you. can't wait to see you in my inbox.

III: INTERTWINED.

» please don’t break up with me, but i accidentally watched two episodes ahead of you

azzi smiled as her phone vibrated with an immediate response. since their dinner, there had been coffee. then another. and then another. another, another, another—until the cups blurred together, indistinguishable from habit. paige was so easy to slip into her life. a stone in the creek, changing the flow of water without trying.

azzi wished she could have kept her in new york forever, tucked her inside a pocket, but paige had to go back to dallas, a reality that nearly tore her apart. distance became a thing to work around.

they read the same books (paige used her ipad, which azzi found vaguely offensive—she was on a quiet, private campaign to convert her to a kindle). they made each other playlists, exchanged photos of their separate days. street signs, sky colors, the shine of oil on the concrete beneath their identically booted feet. this reminded me of you. 

azzi had even mailed paige a dark denim jacket she spotted in a boutique window in the east village. paige washed it immediately, wore it out the next day, prompting the internet to go feral trying to find the designer.

they had inside jokes now. a growing, shifting list of them. one of azzi’s favorites: “please don’t break up with me,” a melodramatic phrase they’d stolen from a book and used whenever one of them committed an unforgivable offense, like finishing a show too soon or forgetting to send a good morning text. 

the light ping of another message brought azzi back to the moment. 

» i’m never speaking to you again » wait which show?

watching things together was their ritual. the old-fashioned way: facetiming at the same time, counting down, pressing play in sync. there were easier ways to do it, probably, but azzi liked the effort of this. the reaching. it made her feel like she was participating in her own life, actively choosing it.

» chef’s table

azzi held her breath as she sent it.

» i can’t believe you, az!! » p, i fell asleep i swear it wasn’t on purpose. rehearsal was brutal and i went straight after the studio » the show is really calming and i was so sleepy from the warm shower » idc you KNEW

then, 

» mind you, YOU crashed out over ME watching FITEEN MINUTES of anthony bourdain 

azzi pressed her lips together, failing to contain the joyous twist of her mouth. the grin eventually broke free and spread through her cheeks. she tucked her hair behind her ear.

» that was different » bro, how????? » whatever! look, p, i can rewatch! i don’t mind, you know i don’t » … » i’ll consider it

with a soft huff of laughter, azzi rolled out of bed and opened her blinds. her joy seemed infectious, coaxing the sun through the open pane of her window. she stood in the middle of her bedroom for approximately three minutes, her feet bare against the wooden floor and one arm up and stroking the hill of her shoulder. 

she felt both unreasonably young and, in some absurd way, already old in the faint light of the morning. she looked down at herself, taking in the wrinkled pink-striped boxers and the vintage yale sweatshirt that seemed to have settled around her with a tired resignation. she remembered when she'd wanted to go there, when her mother had taken her on a visit, the two of them wandering new haven, pretending it could be a future. the thought hurt, brief but sharp. she couldn’t remember the last time she and katie had been…right, together.

her phone buzzed—a quick, familiar pattern. katie.

azzi twisted her hair into a messy knot at the back of her neck, securing it with an elastic, and lowered herself into a half-hearted yoga pose. three more buzzes. then, the phone would ring.

azzi sat cross-legged beside her bed, feet pressing into the floor like she was willing herself to grow roots. she picked up the phone.

“hey, mom.”

“hey, honey. were you in the shower?”

“azzi’s face scrunched as she lied, a gesture so automatic it felt like a tic. “um, no, just doing some stretches. i started wearing earplugs to block out the morning traffic. sorry. what’s up?”

“you shouldn’t do that, baby,” katie said, that casual tone that still landed like a reminder. “look, i’m outside your apartment. brought breakfast.”

azzi almost groaned but swallowed it, layering her voice with fake enthusiasm. “yum,” she said, but it came out flat before lifting just enough at the end to sound like a decent person.

⟡

her mother had gotten a haircut.

katie’s blonde hair had been cut into a sharp bob, and azzi noticed it immediately. it suited her, the kind of sharp, neat cut that was popular on magazine covers in the coffee shop she liked to frequent. azzi felt a small pang of something—resentment, maybe, or just recognition that katie was doing things for herself again, things azzi couldn’t quite figure out how to do.

still—she was glad her mother was finding things to do outside of managing her. thanks, max, she thought.

she opened the door still in her pajamas, and katie was standing there, two large boxes of breakfast from the diner a few blocks away, the coffee holder hanging from her hand like a prop. katie didn’t say anything, just gave her the kind of look that azzi couldn’t place but that made her chest feel tight. azzi leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her mother’s plump cheek, the skin softened by her morning creams and serums. 

azzi wandered into the kitchen, pressing her finger against the surface of her rose gold ipad, searching for the song paige had sent her a few days ago. she’d been meaning to listen to it, had actually enjoyed it when she did.

she found it—‘mythological beauty’ by big thief. paige had sent it to her with the message:

» idk why spotify recommended this to me, seems more up your alley » discover weekly my ass, half of these songs suck

azzi had hidden a smile behind her hand while standing in line to pick up that night’s pizza order. she’d texted back teasingly, saying,

» this may be a sign to let go of drake  » i ain’t holding on to him 

azzi hadn’t replied until later, sending back a grainy video shot on her old iphone se, its shaky camera making her look soft-focus. she was sitting on her bed, a sage-colored silk scarf holding back her curls, listening to the song. the video ended with an awkward thumbs-up and a muffled giggle. “i love it,” she said, like it was a confession.

now, azzi snapped a photo of the song on the tablet and sent it to paige.

» miss you

“azzi?”

azzi turned around, startled by the sound of her mother’s voice.

“yeah, sorry. what were you saying?”

katie, looking shy, busied herself unpacking the breakfast boxes, rearranging food on pale green plates with hand-painted garlands of pink roses.

“i was saying that, well, i miss you.”

azzi didn’t know what to say to that. “oh,” she said, and immediately regretted it, as if the word had been a reflex she hadn’t meant to expose. 

katie’s posture deflated, and azzi rushed over, sidling up to where her mother had begun cutting up the eggs into neat squares. she grabbed a plate and began assembling breakfast, the rhythm of the task comforting, familiar. she pulled away to grab glasses from the cabinets.

“you know, i was thinking about our yale visit when i was obsessed with going.”

katie looked up, eyes softening. “i remember.”

azzi half-smiled. “i wouldn’t stop playing that song, and you were so close to kicking me out of the car. i can’t remember the song, though.”

katie’s lips curved into a fond smile. “'need you now' by lady a. you played it on repeat because you were convinced you could sing it better than they could.”

azzi laughed then. she sat on a stool at the counter, the ache of the morning light catching her in its awkward glow as she ate, chewing slowly, mindlessly.

“why the hell was i so obsessed with yale anyway?”

“honestly? i think you saw it as your last shot at normal. you could dream about college, like the other girls, instead of being in the studio all the time, surrounded by everyone except your family. you were twelve when you got discovered, fourteen when you had your first album out. and now you're twenty-three, still trying to figure out what the hell you're doing.”

azzi didn’t say anything, but the words settled in her chest like something unexpected. there was a relief in it, in hearing it out loud, in realizing that, maybe, they weren’t as different as they sometimes seemed.

“i guess i fed into it because i felt guilty,” katie added softly, almost to herself.

once again, azzi was unsure of how to respond, but she felt it—the weight of that invisible truth that had always sat between them. she felt herself relax, the air clearing just enough for her to breathe a little easier.

“maybe i should release a country album,” azzi said, and katie barked out a laugh, sharp and familiar.

if azzi didn’t know better, she might’ve thought the sound was her own.

⟡

but azzi’s largest issue remained: she was unable to be content for long periods.

happiness came, stayed long enough to fool her, then drained away in increments. moreso now, as she slogged through the laying of the bones of her new album. she found herself withdrawing.

since that morning with her mother, it had gotten easier to admit to minor irritations, the small inconveniences of daily life. but there were still things she kept to herself. like how badly she wanted paige back in new york.

their movie nights had transitioned from ‘facetime + film’ to just ‘facetime.’ azzi hadn’t asked for it outright. she had just postponed pressing play, filling the space instead with long, looping stories, tangents about nothing, stalling without meaning to. eventually, paige caught on. and being paige—being someone who never let anything slide—she finally said,

“if you wanna talk to me, just say that.”

azzi looked up from her desk. she’d started handwriting songs again, her moleskine journal thick and inflamed, its strap barely holding it together, blood red cover scuffed and soft at the edges.

it took a second to process what paige had said, her voice still rough from sleep. only an hour between them, but it always felt like more. when the meaning finally settled, azzi flushed hot, ducking out of frame.

paige smiled, amused, rolling onto her stomach so her face pressed into the cotton of her pillow. she looked soft like this. angelic. her blonde hair waved around her shoulders, those blue eyes dark in the low light, the lilac strap of her nike sports bra just visible. azzi focused on that instead of responding.

“you don’t sleep in that, do you?” she asked instead. “it’s bad for circulation.”

paige grinned, pearly teeth gleaming. “oh yeah?”

“yes,” azzi said, exasperated. “it can, like—affect development. it’s not good for you.”

paige hummed like she was considering this. then shifted just enough for azzi to catch the dip of her cleavage. “yeah, i think we're past that point, baby.”

azzi turned a deeper red, arms crossing over her stomach. she tried to sink further into the gaping mouth of her navy blue hoodie. paige could see the whisper of a dress beneath the hem.

“shut up,” she muttered. “i wasn’t—i wasn’t trying to comment on your tits. i was just saying.”

“oh, my bad. sorry, princess.”

“i’m hanging up,” azzi deadpanned, face blank.

paige held back a laugh. “aight, chill. you just so easy to fluster.”

azzi scoffed. “i’m easy to fluster? be serious. when my calvin klein campaign dropped, you quite nearly went into cardiac arrest.”

paige’s face immediately went pink.

“aight, now.”

“no, not ‘aight now.’” azzi leaned forward, eyes narrowing. “you left me on read for two days. if i hadn’t dmed kk on twitter—of all places—i wouldn’t have even known you spent the entire time curled up in a little red ball.”

paige shrugged, still a little pink, biting down on her lip. she was thinking. then deciding. letting her lip slip free, her expression turning lazy, sharp. azzi felt something hot unfurl low in her stomach. 

“okay, yeah, i had a minor crashout,” paige admitted, dragging a hand through her hair. her cross pendant dipped into the hollow of her throat. “a lil’ itty-bitty breakdown. but can you blame me?” she looked into the camera then, voice low. “az, you looked so fucking good. the baby pink ones were my favorite.”

azzi stilled, fingers twitching.

paige grinned. “you get to bring a pair home?”

azzi hung up.

the callback was immediate. she let it ring, took her time answering. finally, just before it stopped, she picked up.

“did you just hang up on me?”

“no,” azzi said, voice smooth, wide-eyed like she meant it.

paige let out a slow, dry laugh, her nose flaring. “aight. keep playin’.”

azzi rolled her eyes. “will you fly out if i do?”

paige’s face softened.

azzi sighed, already standing. she drifted away from her desk and set the phone down on her floor, balancing it against the nearest stack of books. she slipped away, and when she came back into the frame, she’d changed.

the hoodie was gone. instead, the soft curve of her shoulder, the clean line of her collarbone, the faintest trace of tan lines against her skin. the dress was simple—cream-colored, thin-strapped, almost weightless. the silk shifted when she moved, clung to her like a second skin.

paige didn’t say anything at first. just stared.

azzi adjusted the strap where it had slipped. “are you okay?”

paige’s voice was slower now, almost slurred. azzi’s body began to tingle with the recognition of desire. “you just look real… delicate.”

azzi’s brows furrowed, but the flush was already creeping up her throat, settling at the tips of her ears.

paige watched her, half-lidded, half-smiling. “like, if i touched you, you’d bruise.”

“do you want to bruise me?” azzi asked, tucking her legs beneath her neatly. 

paige didn’t have an answer, and the silence made azzi press her tongue to the back of her teeth. she made a face, pressing her lips together, but she laughed a little, shaking her head. 

paige was still watching.

azzi fidgeted, like she might change the subject, then reached for something off-screen. a small, instinctive movement. when she lifted the moleskine journal into the frame, she didn’t say anything. just held it there and tilted her head. 

paige raised a brow. “you gon’ show me?”

azzi exhaled. then nodded, shifting the camera down.

the pages were a mess, ink heavy in some places, light and faded in others. words crossed out, rewritten, and pressed deep into the paper. paige recognized azzi’s handwriting—messy when she was in a rush, looping and neat when she was careful. there were little angel wings in the margins. a few water stains. coffee, too. 

azzi flipped to a page near the middle. “this one’s kinda about you,” she murmured.

paige felt something warm unfurl in her chest, slow and blooming. she cleared her throat. “yeah?”

she could see some of the lyrics, but the words were twisted and reversed. azzi reached forward, picking up her phone, switching the camera so she could see them more clearly. paige knew she should’ve been reading, but her eyes caught on the strong bones of azzi’s hands instead, the slight tension in her knuckles, the chipped ballerina-slipper pink clinging to the edges of her fingernails.

do i love you? yes, i love you will we always be happy go lucky do i love you? yes, i love you but it’s easy come and it’s easy go all this talking talking is only bravado

“it’s a dance song. kind of 80s. i wrote it forever ago, but now i—” azzi hesitated, just for a second. “i feel it again.”

paige blinked as the camera flipped back, azzi’s face coming into view.

“it’s me singing about you,” she said. “but also asking myself if i’m gonna fuck it up. if it’s gonna last before i—” she made a little motion with her hand, something between a wave and a slow collapse—“bring myself down.”

she paused, tilting her head. “but the beat pulses. it kinda—” she hopped her fingers across her thigh, gave a small, absentminded shimmy of her shoulders—“jumps around, so you can’t tell if i’m happy or sad. i remain an enigma, and you really hope i’ve got it under control.”

her voice was light, teasing, but something about it snagged in paige’s chest, caught in the tender spaces between bone.

azzi tapped the page with her pen. “mm. it’s not done.”

paige smiled, slowly. “sing it to me.”

azzi’s lips parted like she might object. but then something in her expression shifted, went softer. she turned the page over, tapping her nails against the paper.

her throat trembled, a melody climbing inside it. then, she sang.

her raw voice was husky but light, full of something old and unnameable, something that had always been aching. it knew nothing of peace, and it invaded paige in the same way. the sound of it as it peaked—high and breathless, curling at the edges—went through paige like a pulse, like a shock of warm water against her ribs.

it was orgasmic. it felt like a million birds bursting into flight underneath her skin.

⟡

the venue smelled heavily of varnish and sweat, the air thick with the ghosts of girls azzi had been before, versions of herself she was trying to slip back into, feel out like old sweaters. some still fit. some itched against her skin, wrong in ways she couldn’t quite name. 

she had been moving for hours, letting muscle memory guide her through old material, testing where her voice still lived in them, where it wavered, where it no longer belonged. it was a relief for her body to find the old melodies still inhabitable, to still understand where best to collapse and rebuild. 

barefoot, azzi traced slow circles across the stage, rolling her shoulders, stretching her arms above her head. the room was empty except for a single spotlight pooling around her, turning the sweat at her collarbone to gold.

she had yet to notice that paige was there.

paige had slipped in through the side door, keeping to the shadows, her heart pounding hard enough that she could feel it in her fingertips. the flight had been an impulse, the need to see azzi—unshakable. now she sat in the darkened auditorium, watching azzi move like she was underwater, like she was feeling her way through something only she could hear.

the usual spectacle was stripped away—no sequins, no stage makeup, no cameras angled to catch her best side. just azzi, raw and untethered, her voice curling into the dark like smoke. paige could feel it under her skin, the way it lifted, shimmered, the way it sent something sharp down her spine. even the music was muted and warbling; azzi relied on her own words to paint the picture of what she envisioned.

she lost herself in the song, body twisting, spine arching, a prayer in motion. and when she reached the last line— is it something i did? and did i do it to you?—she reached blindly into the air, fingers grazing nothing before coming back to wring loosely around her throat. but something in her must have felt it, some part of her must have known.

then she rolled, first onto her stomach, then onto her back, arms flung wide. her head tipped back until it hung off the edge of the stage. she opened her eyes, her mouth—

and saw paige.

she was upside down in the seats below, watching her, blonde and breathless.

for a moment, neither of them moved. azzi’s chest rose and fell, her breath still uneven. paige’s hands had curled into fists in her lap. her pulse slammed against her ribs. she felt eerily close to claiming something; it was the same feeling that rocked her when she was on the court. 

and then, like she was being pulled by something outside of herself, she stood. climbed onto the stage, moving toward azzi’s sprawled-out form, laid out like an offering. azzi blinked slow, gaze molten and unfocused, but she wasn’t stopping her.

paige didn’t think. she moved.

her fingers found the warm column of azzi’s throat, thumb pressing just below her jaw. she felt her swallow, felt the rapid, unsteady beat of her pulse.

then she bent down and kissed the damp, brown skin just below azzi’s ear.

azzi made a sound, soft, almost imperceptible. paige might have imagined it, but she didn’t pull away. so paige kept going, trailing her mouth along the sharp edge of azzi’s jaw, moving slow, reverent. when she reached the corner of her mouth, she hesitated, just for a second—

azzi turned her head the tiniest fraction. not much. but enough.

paige exhaled shakily, then kissed her, lips parting, tasting sweat and something animalistic, something electric. azzi sighed into it, a quiet, complacent thread of air, and the sound sent a shiver through paige, sharp and unbearable. she wasn’t sure if she was shaking or if it was just the world moving underneath her.

somewhere in the distance, a door slammed. the spell snapped. paige pulled back, breathless. azzi stayed where she was. 

lips parted; eyes hazy. a beat. then another.

azzi’s lips curled, just slightly. “i didn’t even know you were coming,” she murmured.

paige laughed, suddenly and breathlessly. she pressed their foreheads together, her head heavy with the force of her blood flow.

“yeah,” she whispered. “you knew. you asked me to.”

⟡

karnold: i feel as president-elect of bueckers-fudd nation, it's my duty to let you know that paige might in fact be locking in ⤷ drewbuckets: she’s going to murder you in cold blood ⤷ uconnsports: who elected you?? ⤷ username: the question we all need to be asking ⤷ username: mind you why is uconn’s update page here if paige is now in dallas??? ⤷ dallaswingsofficial: we’re all invested ⤷ username: omg wait are they gfs??? ⤷ karnold: mind the business that pays you ⤷ karnold: but no #wives 

© hcneymooners.

[maeberzatto]

hey! did you know that duolingo is turning into an ai-driven company? here's what that means: per the USA Today article posted yesterday on this: "Duolingo is going to be "AI-first", the educational technology company announced, adding that it is replacing contract workers with artificial intelligence."

now yes. duolingo has used ai in the past. in 2024, the Duolingo Guides page reported that their AI uses user data to improve models. however, this did not literally replace human beings in the process.

according to their CEO, they believe this is going to be an example of how "generative AI can directly benefit our learners". despite the fact this doesn't benefit the human contractors you're replacing in place of robots.

here's why supporting AI is problematic: not only does it take away from human beings, but it also is bad for the environment. studies have shown that particularly during the training of complex models, the infrastructure needed to do this training results in high energy consumption.

this also leads to increased greenhouse gas emissions and puts a strain on water resources that are used for cooling data censors. as well, studies show that the manufacturing and disposal of AI hardware contribute to electronic waste and resource depletion.

so, below the cut, there's a list below of language learning apps that do what duolingo does but aren't driven by robots! (and no, you do not have to stop using duolingo. these other apps are simply ones that provide the same services while taking care of both the environment and - as far as i know - human employees.)

Mango Languages (4.8 stars on the Apple App Store) - this app has had really great reviews from people, citing that you can get free access by using your library card (so it supports libraries!) and teaches actual pronunciation whereas duo has been reported for not being accurate with its teachings.

Babbel (4.7 stars on the Apple App Store) - people have rated this app as being easy to use and convenient! they also report that they are backed by researchers at Yale University and Michigan State University, with MSU reporting that after 10 hours, researchers found that 96% of users saw better test scores and 73% became better speakers!

Lingvist (4.6 stars on the Apple App Store) - reviews cite this as a practical app, with one person saying it focuses on repetition and frequently spoken words instead of nouns and verbs you'd rarely use.

any other suggestions in my inbox will be included in this list. stop supporting "AI-first" companies, support human beings.

[my-autism-adhd-blog]

for eye contact, is it weird to need to look at people's faces to focus, but as soon as they make eye contact with you, you have to look away?

Hi there,

A lot of autistic people find eye contact uncomfortable. According to one study by Yale University:

The investigators found that during eye contact, participants with ASD had significantly reduced activity in a brain region called the dorsal parietal cortex compared to those without ASD.

The full article will be below if you want to read it in its entirety.

I hope this helps answer your question. Thank you for the inbox. I hope you have a wonderful day/night. ♥️

[jadeshifting]

okay it took me awhile to type this all out because midterm week was HELL but its over so now its yap time!

i already said i was from a family of ivy league academics and the sole heir of a gloomy fae lord, so i wanna talk about my family for a bit.

my mom passed when i was young, and my stepfather raised me as a single parent studying astrophysics in seattle. when i was 10, we moved to cambridge ma (and moved in with my maternal aunt, uncle, and cousins- more on them later) because my dad got a position at harvard as a professor of astrophysics, astronomy, and physics. while there he met my now-stepmom, a professor of theology and philosophy.

my maternal aunt is a professor of social work at northwestern and my uncle is a professor of botany at harvard (can you tell i have a favorite school?)*. my two little cousins, levi june (12) and lawrence jay (11) are almost polar opposites- levi is a sports-obsessed energetic class clown, and lawrence is a quiet and anxious thing who helps his dad in the garden and took home a stray kitten when he found her in a puddle. i love my family ❤️

speaking of family, my birth dad! i’m using dnd’s lore for the fae, and my dad is kannoth- the vampire lord of cendriane. i scripted that he dad a duke-esque position in the unseelie court because hello i would like to be a marchioness, thank you very much. he doesn’t know i exist just yet. but he will.

also, my birth mom was the child of a squib from a very old wizarding family, and unlike her older sister she had some magical talent herself. she spent her first 4 years at ilvermorny, and the final 3 at hogwarts when she moved to the uk with her father after her parents divorced. she moved back to the us for college, had an affair with a certain fae lord in the summers, and met my stepdad during her phd program at uwashington.

there’s more to say but i am Tired and im sure your inbox is full enough so, ciao!

(@hshshifter)

* = it’s actually yale, but the commute from northern mass to southern connecticut is not one muggle people would like to take everyday.

i was going through paragraph by paragraph like 🧐 to make sure i was all the way locked in to which family member was who

so many professors !! it’s literally sooo genetic that ur gonna be the smartest person of all time basically. & those are all such good study areas too astrophysics, theology, philosophy and botany would be sm fun to hear about at the dinner table constantly. and it’s so funny your dad is at the unseelie court your whole life NOT parenting and then eventually he finds out abt you and you’re like 🧍‍♀️ it’s me the marchioness

this is literally SOOOO cool !! i can tell you put a lot of thought into it and it’s so fuckinf awesome omg complicated family trees for the win i love having a big family that just does a bunch of random stuff LOL ( the footnote made me giggle )

[hotcacaonoice]

The atla comics were so well done and I love them with my whole entire heart BUT I just want to talk about imbalance… and why did they leave us hanging ?!??!???

(I’m going to honest, I am not following new comic release updates and I read this in 2021 and then again like a month ago.. so I may be forgetting stuff. but you win some you lose some)

like okay you send Yaling and What’s-Their-Moms-Name to prison BUT WHERE THE HELL DOES RU GO??? she’s my little baby and even though her entire family is sent to prison for crimes against humanity she deserves the world 🥺🥺

Like Homegirl stood up to her tyrannical mother (which didn’t work and then her mom started earthbending her into the ground … what ever 🙄) but the point is she TRIED and she deserved so much more but the people creating this thing are just leaving us with no idea what happens to her next????????? I’m sorry that’s my child

Is she put into the adoption system???? Does she join the kyoshi warriors (tbh, that’s how it is in my own headcannons)??? WHAT HAPPENS TO RU ?!!

I also have no one to talk to about this (all of my friends are uninterested in atla, or the comics) and my old roommate’s boyfriend who was interested in the series refused to read an online version of the comic that I pirated 😢 so PLEASE I BEG YOU to flood my inbox with theories I NEED someone to discuss this with and I SO could go on and on for ages about Ru and what I think happens to her next

[dontirrigateme]

band of brothers/hbowar character you think you'd get along with best and least! go!! >:]

First of all, thank you for the ask, and also...sorry to everyone that may have asked me something ever. I tend to forget that my inbox even exists sometimes...

Anyhoo, I've only seen the Pacific and MotA once, and have never watched Generation Kill, so this is all gonna be Band of Brothers.

(Also, I apologize in advance, this turned into a freaking essay, apparently I have nothing but time tonight)

So I'm gonna say that the person I'd get along the best with would probably be Nixon. We have the same sleeping disorder/issues, and I don't know how many times my sister shot me a look the first time she watched the series whenever he had a sarcastic comeback or something. And even though he's some rich Yale guy, he seems like the kind of person that enjoys slumming it, and would be like "this just means our shenanigans have funding and that we have bail money." I'd also like to think I'd get along with Smokey and Skip, but I mean.......who wouldn't.

The obvious answer for the one I'd get along with the least is either Sobel, Dike, or Cobb lol. But to choose just one, I'd go with Dike simply because (as far as he was portrayed in the show) he was inept, phoned it in at the worst possible times, and wound up getting people killed. As incompetent as Sobel was with strategy/tactics, at least he didn't half-ass anything. He also had expectations for the company, which Dike didn't seem to have. And poor Cobb - I always just wind up feeling bad for him, even when he gets mouthy. The guy has the most combat experience of the company and has been through the ringer (fighting in North Africa and then nearly dying on a troop ship that got torpedoed), and is having a tough time coping (or...not coping). He may complain and give people shit, but at least he acts. He was ready to jump in Normandy even though he didn't get to, and he went along to look for Bull even when he said he wasn't. Meanwhile, Dike is disappearing, shrugging off important decisions, and has the attitude of a cashier that thinks corporate values their input ("I need someone to watch the register, I have to call the CEO.")

Thank you for attending my lecture, be sure to sign up for my talk on how the series affects my daily life and an in-depth analysis of every single character's motivations, personality, and social dynamics. College credits available through make believe only.

[mallodrama]

I don’t support AI but to suggest it is killing the planet is a bit silly. You can say that about any human activity. It’s the governments inability to prioritise clean energy that’s killing the planet. If energy is clean then it doesn’t matter how much gets used.

it literally is killing the planet and environmental specialists are all saying so. a generative AI system uses up to 33x more energy than regular software AND it’s running through the worlds most scarce and precious resource (clean water) like nothing we have seen in recorded history.

i logged out for not even 2 hours. the amount of time all of you weirdos wasted defending AI to me in the comments of that post and in my inbox could have been better spent conducting a quick google search.

anyways here’s a few accessible and trustworthy sources regarding ai and it’s catastrophic environmental impacts to get you started. i’ve taken the liberty to link you to some Forbes, Harvard, and Yale studies all telling you the same thing. hopefully you can find your way from there to the nearest actual search engine without getting lost

https://planetdetroit.org/2024/10/ai-energy-carbon-emissions/

[gojonanami]

i'll get into harvard yale oxford hogwarts med school or smth, if that means that i could inject your emo choso fic into my veins and keep it there forever. (this is my way of asking (BEGGING) for more emo choso content)

I def am down to do more emo choso content! I just don’t have any specific ideas — so if you have any ideas, please pop in my inbox 💕✨

[alittlebitofwonk]

A short list of ways to instantly improve your writing, from someone with a degree in writing. (Also this list is partly a reminder for me lol).

Also, some of these are beginner tips and some are more advanced, take them as you want!

Number one tip I can give you, every time— PROPER SPACING AND PARAGRAPH BREAKS. Purdue Owl is my go-to resource for formatting details, but the basics are this: break a paragraph at any new event, at scenery changes, or, and this is the most important, when a new character begins speaking in dialogue. Also, when dialogue is three words or longer, it should come at the end or beginning of a paragraph. Don’t sandwich it. Keeping your paragraphs broken and not creating text walls will immediately help retain readership.

Show, don’t tell. I’m guilty of this too, tbh. But here’s an example— instead of saying “the apple was crunchy” say “as they bit into the apple, it crunched beneath their teeth.” Pair a description with an action! Instead of “it was cold out” say “he shivered as the wind hit, tucking his hands deep in his pockets.” Also helps boost word count.

It’s okay to end your sentences. I’m guilty of this one a TON— instead of starting a new sentence, I’ll do a comma or semicolon or em-dash, and it’ll just… keep… going. It’s okay to break those sentences up completely with a period. I promise.

Don’t over describe. Some description is great, and helps your reader build a better image of what you’ve written. But too much is boring, and doesn’t give the reader the space they need to put the picture together in a way that is meaningful to THEM. Your reader is just as important as you are. Have some faith in them!

Take inspiration. As fanfic authors we do this with media all the time, but take inspiration from more than just your fandom— find it in other fandoms, find it in your own struggles, find it in the world around you. It’s there for the taking.

Practice! Practice writing when you can, and practice reading, too. You can only get better, I promise. I’ve come a long way with practicing my own writing and learning from others.

If you read deeper than the surface, you’ll write deeper than the surface. Be mindful of the content you consume, and what goes into it. Think about the Hunger Games, for example. Yes, it’s a book about dystopian America, but it’s also a heavy criticism of consumerism, the entertainment industry, and the lack of value we assign to our children.

And the antithesis, too— sometimes a blue curtain is just a blue curtain. Not every detail you put down needs to have some deeper meaning. Sometimes a character just has white hair because it’s cool— not because they’re stressed or a chosen one or something.

Finally— all the rules can and should be broken. Yes, even the paragraph breaks. Break the conventions as you please, so long as you’re mindful and intentional about it. If you aren’t breaking up dialogue breaks, why aren’t you? Is it because you forgot, or are you trying to make the dialogue frantic, trying to convey how difficult the conversation is to keep track of?

Anyway, that’s all I have right now, but my inbox is always open for more tips! Also, here’s some links to reference texts I particularly like that aren’t super dense. I’m particular fond of these two because you can jump between sections to find what you want rather than having to read the whole text. (Don’t read On Writing Well. It will come up as a recommendation with these two. It sucks. The author spends far too much of his time talking about the fact that he went to Yale.)

[wordycheeseblob]

wordyyy

yale: favourite winged creature?

midnight: favourite arctic creature?

electric: least favourite water creature overall?

maya: least favourite winged creature over all?

Ohoho Monsieur Atelieur how very nice to see you in my inbox mon amie

Ok so you really got me scratching my brain this time. Let's see...

MIDNIGHT: ah... arctic animals, my babies. My unforgiving fighting-to-survive-another-day in the unforgiving environment that is the frozen wastelands of the arctic babies. The narwhals, belugas snowy owls... except maybe polar bears (they scare me) Have you seen the arctic hare? Welp now I want an adorable arctic bun emma. This is a VERY tough tie between adorable harp seals and precious arctic foxes but I'll have to give the victory (albeit begrudgingly) to the fox based on my personal judgement on who, in the case of petting, I'm less scared of in terms of the arbitrary chance of my hand being perforated

MAYA: I don't know who BUT I know it's bug related for sure... Oh the little winged critters, harbingers of inconvenience and destructors of summertime fun. All that will jump you for your blood and/or looks scary as shit.

ELECTRIC: look, the ocean is scary. There are a lot of nightmare inducing creatures I'm better off never knowing. But the answer is fairly simple for someone who mostly lives at the seaside.

It's Jellyfish. In terms of inconvenience, you're more likely to run into a jellyfish than whatever lovecraftian Eldrich horror that awaits in the abysmal depths beneath the ocean surface. And listen, I've been at the sea today and despite there being shallow, crystal clear and overall mostly safe, even when they aren't there... the Paranoia is.

YALE Fave winged creature? Maybe it's unoriginal but I've thought about it long and hard and I'd say swallow. I know a great deal of animals probably enter this area (even fish if you're creative :D) and while I do love horned beetles, owls and sparrows and whatnot, swallows have always been there for me. In mythology, stories, my hometown, even the old russian cartoons I grew up with. NOW you're probably wondering... African or European swallow?? Jk. I think there's something regal about them. Maybe it's their little butler costumes ? Tee hee. and one of my favourite poems features swallows "volverán las oscuras golondrinas" by Béquer. They make me somewhat nostalgic, somewhat sad.

They always return home.

[yourunderwaterskies]

technically you can, if you don't care about degrees.

Free Harvard courses. Free Courses from Stanford. Free Courses from MIT. Free courses from Yale. Free courses from Princeton.

Free courses on Coursera.

Free Courses on EDx Free Courses on Alison

For paid, there's The Great Courses+/Wonderium. 20$ a month for unlimited courses.

When searching, the phrases you're looking for are Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), or you can do a general search of say, "free online college courses." Oh, and so you don't get surprised like I did, have an avoid: Hillsdale College is a conservative Christian site and not a valid MOOC place. Sign up with them and you will get things like THIS IS WHY THE LEFT IS TURNING YOUR KIDS TRANS AND GAY in your inbox.

At the risk of sounding anti-intellectual, I think that college should be free and also not a requirement for employment outside of highly specialized career fields

[newstech24]

William F Buckley and the revolution that wasn’t

Keep knowledgeable with free updates Merely signal as much as the Life & Arts myFT Digest — delivered on to your inbox. He will need to have a shout as essentially the most profitable journalist ever. Via his efforts on the web page and on the display, William F Buckley aroused a rightwing motion in America that has by no means actually subsided. A line runs from God and Man at Yale, the tract…

[therealslimshakespeare]

Hi Marina! I know I’m late and you literally have 105 asks in your inbox right now but I loved College so much and just need to rave about it because again I loved it so much. I’m so excited about being in Lu’s head and seeing her POV being written and this first part of it was so wonderful. The entire interview with the admissions officer at Yale did such an amazing job at making her internal monologue so accessible to us readers and at making it very clear that everything she’s gone through has had such a huge impact on the way she sees the world and navigates these everyday interactions. I just feel like getting to see that conversation between her and Mr. Daniels was so incredible because it is such a normal thing to be doing but her trauma lurks over the entire interaction and we got to see how that plays a role in everything for her. I also really loved her being worried about passing her drivers test and having that bit of excitement for it but then thinking about the smear campaign at the same time because again it shows the way that her trauma influences everything in her life and it is all this horrible trauma being depicted within these mundane settings. Also the change that we see in her from earlier segments to now was just heartbreaking to me 😞 But I loved it so much

DARLINGGGG thank you for such a kind and thorough love note?! Truly makes me so happy that you enjoyed it and I cannot wait for us all to be able to dig into more with the lengthier sequel in the works. 💋 When the convo with Mr Daniels came to mind, and the idea that everywhere she goes there’s this sickening curiosity even in very ordinary and non malicious people, it made me so sick and I had to write it out. I’m very glad it was effective 😓 the trauma in the mundane settings…exactly that!

[cityonlinementor]

Soon, but not yet...

Mentor Message 1.24.25

💥New!

Reminder: Canvas login is your SDCCD email/password. Do not use old URLs, use: https://sdccd.instructure.com/ it will ask you for your SDCCD email/password/MFA unless you are already logged in to your SDCCD email. For more information:

Faculty Single Sign On  

Student Single Sign On

Student Information for Logging into SDCCD Online Classes

📩Contact Students using both their non-SDCCD student emails & their SDCCD student emails. You can paste copies of any pre-semester communications to your students in Canvas as an announcement or page in a module. The Canvas Inbox uses everyone’s sdccd email by default. You can forward, but it’s not 100%.

Locating student non-SDCCD email

Sending emails to SDCCD Student email

Student help with SDCCD Email

Faculty help with SDCCD Email

Faculty Parking Permits: Sign up for the new virtual permits before February 8th in your MyPortal Account. You will still need a physical one from the Police Office in the V-building, ground level if you need to park at other community colleges with parking reciprocity.

Students/Visitor Temporary Parking Permits:  Use the ParkMobile App to digitally purchase hourly parking instead of having to locate a machine. Campus Codes & QR Code

City Professional Development Faculty Resources Guide: Wish I had this when I started! Many thanks to our PD Committee for creating this!

🤹🏽‍♀️Start of Semester Online Reminders

Publish your Canvas Course(s) by the 1st day of classes, ESPECIALLY if you are planning to redirect students to a 3rd party app instead like MyMath lab, Google Site, etc. Put your contact info/preferred method of communication/response time. Create a Homepage? Tutorial (#6 Pre-Semester Checklist)

Avoid Sorrow: Create course materials in your Development Shell(s) & download updated exports of all your classes & copies of your gradebook every time you make any changes. Campus Solutions can delete actual courses without warning if it has a typo, change in instructor name, etc. How to get a Development Shell

Get your Canvas Course in Shape: Use the Canvas Pre-Semester Checklist (note: Cross listing is #2 & must be done before you start your course)

Need a Basic Course Template for City College? You can use this link in Canvas or put my name “Aileen Gum” in the Canvas Commons Search Bar or use Liesl Boswell’s  template for us in Canvas Commons

Update Zoom links in your course:  Faculty have free Pro accounts. Use the same login/password for your SDCCD MS365 email login. Check for Zoom updates frequently. Update before Zoom meetings begin to maintain functionality.

Update LRC Links: Faculty have told me it works better to go back to the original source and copy the new link into your course. Guide to Library Linking

Add AI guidelines in your Academic Integrity Statement in your Syllabi. Sample statements and other resources from Yale’s Poorvu Ctr for Teaching and Learning.

Adjust the navigation menu: Hide SDCCD Zoom if you are NOT using the LTI & any other items you don’t regularly have student use.

Adjust the start/end to the course: This allows students to join early or have access later than the published deadlines, especially if you want to accept late work or have incompletes. If you open your class early, for equity, hide any actual coursework until the 1st day of classes. Students should all have the same start/end for completing coursework.

Consider sending your students a “Welcome Letter,” video, or link to a “Liquid Syllabus” for your classes so they know what to expect & how to get ready, especially that the login for Canvas is now their SDCCD email login/password. Not sure how? Feel free to save a copy of this Welcome Letter template to rename/make your changes.

Tutorial: How to Make a Liquid Syllabus Using Google Sites by Prof. Robert Kelley, Miracosta College (25 min)

Using Pronto: If you published at the last minute, you may need to manually “synch” instead of waiting for Campus Solutions.

🆘Need Canvas or IT Help?

Email me (agum@sdccd.edu) or Pronto me in the English Centerduring the semester. I respond within 24-48 hours or sooner. If I can’t help you, I can direct you to the person/people who can.

24/7 Canvas Chat or Phone for Canvas Help  Left side in Canvas

Or call Faculty Canvas 24/7 Helpline:1 (844) 612-7422, Student Canvas 24/7 Helpline:1 (844) 612-7421

 Contact IT Helpdesk for Non-Canvas Help with IT (myportal, sdccd email, rosters, etc.). Campus Solutions Helpdesk: (619) 388-6800, ithelpdesk@sdccd.edu

Help Tickets: https://bit.ly/CampusSolutionsHelpDesk

Video Tutorials

SDCCD Online Pathways: Student & Faculty Tutorials

Refer to the Tumblr Blog for archive of past mentor message tips:it is also linked in my email signature.

📚Resources:

Need a laptop or Wi-Fi hotspot? San Diego residents can borrow them from select local San Diego library! See SD4All under SD Library Services.

Need an offline version of Office 365? Log into & fill out the request form at the Service Helpdesk to request. (log into your account to go to form). This does not guarantee you’ll receive access. Please follow up with your Dean/Chair/Supervisor.

Read the NYTimes for Free: Renew your faculty/student NY Times Subscription

Wi-Fi at City: Guest access is almost identical to faculty/student access. It might require you to relog in after 4 hours. Everyone’s device may have different quirks. See Wi-Fi Site to Learn More. You may need to “forget network” to reset your device’s Wi-Fi connection. If you need more assistance, please fill out a ticket with the IT Helpdesk.

Student Printing: The new Pay-for Print system, PaperCut has been installed. Guide on Printing, Copying & Scanning.

🏫Professional Development (PD):

SDCCD Online Workshop Recordings/Resources

SDCCD Online Workshops

@One Webinar Archives

@One Courses are still FREE!

📶Tech Tidbits:

New in Zoom: Most recent version has Annotate pencil automatically “on” – lower right green pencil icon above the audio icon

The “Save Chat” is now 3 dots on top of Chat box; at bottom of chat box, click on “View in Folder” if you aren’t sure where to locate it on your computer.

Have a great start to the Semester!

[arpov-blog-blog]

Hmmmm JD Vance seems comfortable in his own skin. Is the tough guy MAGA world comfortable with this iteration of JD the true chameleon? ...A second image of JD Vance allegedly dressed as a woman in a blonde wig has been posted to X, formerly known as Twitter.

The post reads simply: “a second photo has hit my inbox.”

It appears to show a man in drag wearing the same wig and costume as in an earlier image said to have been snapped by a Yale classmate in 2012.

The second photo shows the subject looking down at the camera with hands behind their neck. It was posted on the same account as the first picture.

Travis Whitfill, the source of the alleged photo, said it was taken by a classmate at Yale and sent to him. He, in turn, sent it to Matt Bernstein, the A Bit Fruity podcast host, who posted it online.

“It’s from a group chat of Vance’s fellow classmates and is from a friend of a friend. I believe it was grabbed from Facebook and was taken at a Halloween party,” Whitfill told the Daily Beast.

The new photo quickly got more than 500,000 views with one user posting: “So this is what it’s like for August to have two Christmases in it.”

“Say what you want about JD but nobody can deny that he’s fabulous!” wrote another.

It is the latest drama to involve the GOP vice presidential nominee, who was the subject of widespread comments online speculating that he wore mascara.

The first image started trending on Sunday under the hashtag of #sofaLoren, a reference to Italian movie legend Sofia Loren."

[jwaldbewohner]

J.D. Vance At Yale Law School-A Fascinating Insight

How Yale Propelled J.D. Vance’s Career

The G.O.P. vice-presidential nominee is remembered as a warm and personable student. But some are perplexed by what they see as his shift in ideology.

Listen to this article · 9:51 min Learn more

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By Stephanie Saul

July 17, 2024Updated 9:30 a.m. ET

Sign up for the On Politics newsletter.  Your guide to the 2024 elections. Get it sent to your inbox.

When J.D. Vance applied to law school, he viewed it as a pathway out of his chaotic upbringing in working-class Middletown, Ohio.

Then he won a spot at his dream school. Yale Law not only accepted him for the fall of 2010, but also offered a nearly full ride.

Over the next three years, Yale dramatically influenced the trajectory of his life, leading to important connections, a job in venture capital and marriage to a classmate.

Even his memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” was partly the outgrowth of a paper he wrote in a Yale class. And he leveraged the story, which chronicles his childhood and the alienation of the working class, into a best seller, a movie deal and a political career — winning election to the U.S. Senate in 2022, at age 38.

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Despite Yale’s transformative role in his life, Mr. Vance’s relationship with the school could be summed up as conflicted.

Graduating from Yale was “the coolest thing” he had ever done, “at least on paper,” he wrote in his memoir. But he also portrayed himself as an outsider who flubbed law firm interviews and was baffled when asked whether he preferred chardonnay or sauvignon blanc — he had never heard of either. And his classmates remember his sarcasm and cynicism when discussing what he thought of as the school’s liberal bubble.

Recently, he has adopted a more oppositional tone, taking on tax breaks for top universities. “Elite universities have become expensive day care centers for coddled children,” he wrote on social media.

A close look at Mr. Vance’s record at Yale, though, shows that he adapted rapidly, taking advantage of the school’s heady social and academic opportunities. He cooked for charity fund-raisers, organized reading groups, doted on his German shepherd, Casper, and led The Yale Law Journal’s flag football team. He spent a summer working on Capitol Hill.

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Many students and professors remember Mr. Vance as warm, personable and even charismatic. But several also said they were perplexed by what they saw as Mr. Vance’s profound ideological shift. They understood that he was conservative politically, but they viewed him as a Republican in the mold of John McCain or Mitt Romney.

Now, they say that he has abandoned his Never Trumper principles, taking hard lines against immigration and L.G.B.T.Q. rights, positions they believe he would not have previously embraced.

Sofia Nelson, a former classmate who is transgender and was once a close friend of both Mr. Vance and his wife, recalled that Mr. Vance delivered home-baked treats when they underwent top surgery. But years of friendship ended in 2021 over his support for an Arkansas bill opposing transgender care for minors.

“It hurt my feelings when he started saying hateful things about trans people,” they said.

Another classmate, Josh McLaurin, no longer talks to him, either.

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As apartment mates during their first year at Yale, Mr. McLaurin felt an affinity to Mr. Vance because they had both graduated from state schools. But their friendship began to fray, Mr. McLaurin said, after he chafed at what he viewed as Mr. Vance’s cynical and sarcastic jokes aimed at Yale elites.

Even so, the two stayed in touch after graduating in 2013. As the Republican presidential primaries were underway in February 2016, Mr. Vance discussed his dislike for Mr. Trump in a Facebook message. “I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he’s America’s Hitler,” Mr. Vance wrote.

Mr. McLaurin, disturbed by Mr. Vance’s shift to support Mr. Trump, disclosed that message in 2022, during Mr. Vance’s campaign for U.S. Senate.

“He realized that the only way that he could realize and give effect to his own anger in politics was to identify with the MAGA movement,” said Mr. McLaurin, who is a Democratic state senator in Georgia.

In his memoir, Mr. Vance describes arriving at Yale, feeling like an “awe-struck tourist.”

“Yale Law, with its prestige and privilege, was a culture shock unlike anything I had ever experienced,” he wrote.

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But he developed a cadre of confidantes in a class of about 15 students assigned to remain together through the first semester. In his book, Mr. Vance describes his closest friends in that group as “misfit toys.”

In addition to Sofia Nelson, now a public defender in Detroit, the group included his future wife, Usha Chilukuri, the daughter of Indian immigrants, and Jamil Jivani, a Canadian from a mixed-race family. (Mr. Jivani, now a Conservative member of Canada’s Parliament, remains a close friend to Mr. Vance, but would not comment for this article.)

2024 Election: Live Updates

Updated 

July 17, 2024, 5:45 a.m. ET4 hours ago4 hours ago

Here’s what to watch on Day 3 of the Republican Convention.

In Milwaukee, the G.O.P. transforms from dysfunctional to unified.

The Ohio steel town that shaped J.D. Vance’s life and politics.

Some who observed Mr. Vance in the group recall how he at first struggled with assignments. And his book describes comments he got that first year: “Not good at all,” one professor wrote. And on another paper: “This is a vomit of sentences masquerading as a paragraph. Fix.”

Amy Chua, a professor who taught his first-year contracts class, recalled in an interview that he scored near the top of 100 students on the exam, and that he admitted he had studied extra hard for the test.

It appeared, even to Ms. Chua, she said, that he lacked the intense interest in law exhibited by some students.

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Mr. Vance worked in a highly regarded law clinic for veterans and drove to Washington to negotiate on behalf of a client, but he was not among the most engaged students. By 2011, he had mostly lost interest in practicing law, he would later write.

George L. Priest, a Yale Law professor who has long identified as a Republican, recalled that Mr. Vance was good enough to be hired as his research assistant but not a standout. “He didn’t distinguish himself in any particular way in my view,” Mr. Priest said.

Mr. Vance won a spot on the staff of The Yale Law Journal — a prestigious position that is often a steppingstone to a coveted appellate court clerkship — but not as one of its top editors. He instead worked with a group of editors whose primary job was to check citations.

An avid Ohio State football fan, he was better known for organizing the publication’s flag football team, which played against other law review teams. In a posting to the Wall, a Yale chat group, he tried to recruit other staff members to the team, dangling a trip to Boston to play The Harvard Law Review. Then, he resorted to self-deprecation.

“My name is JD Hamel,” he wrote on the Wall in September 2012, using the surname acquired from his stepfather, one of several paternal figures in his unstable childhood. “Many of you don’t know me. Those who do understand that I’m a little chubby and a lot slow. If I can play flag football, so can you.”

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And in a paragraph that foreshadowed his political ambitions, he wrote: “Football is the most popular sport in America. Twenty years from now, when you’re at the county fair convincing Billy Bob and Gunther to support your fledgling campaign, you damn well better know the difference between offense and defense.”

In 2013, Mr. Vance, again posting as JD Hamel, complained on the Wall that he had filed his taxes in February but hadn’t received a refund by April.

“If I don’t get my refund by the time I graduate and go on vacation, I’ll be left to conclude that the Obama administration targets political enemies through tax laws,” he said, in a remark that appears to have been tongue-in-cheek.

One major influence at Yale, he has said, was a 2011 talk by Peter Thiel, the venture capitalist known for co-founding PayPal and supporting hard-right political candidates.

Mr. Thiel spoke about elite professionals trapped in hypercompetitive but unrewarding jobs while innovation had stalled.

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Mr. Vance would later write that the talk led him to forgo a law career; he would practice for less than two years.

“Peter’s talk remains the most significant moment of my time at Yale Law School,” Mr. Vance wrote. “He articulated a feeling that had until then remained unformed: that I was obsessed with achievement in se — not as an end to something meaningful, but to win a social competition.”

Inspired, Mr. Vance decided to track down the billionaire, according to Dan Driscoll, one of a small group of fellow veterans at Yale Law.

“I remember sitting at the kitchen table,” Mr. Driscoll said. “We Googled ‘Peter Thiel @’ for about two hours.” They finally located a Stanford University email address, and Mr. Vance sent him a note, according to Mr. Driscoll.

“Peter wrote back and said, ‘Stop by my house next time you’re out here,’” said Mr. Driscoll, a businessman who ran for Congress from North Carolina in 2022 as a Republican.

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Mr. Thiel would become a major supporter of both Mr. Vance’s venture capital firm and his Senate campaign.

Professor Chua was another pivotal connection.

Mr. Vance’s contracts class with her coincided with the release of her book about tough-love parenting, “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.”

Toward the end of the semester, Mr. Vance, who had read the book, sent her an email, attaching a 20-page piece about growing up with a drug-addicted mother.

“You have a book in you,” she emailed back.

He continued to develop a 60-page manuscript in another class taught by Ms. Chua, international business transactions. Mr. Vance used his family’s story to discuss the ills befalling working-class white people, and infused personal stories with political theory.

“‘This grand theory is not working,’” Ms. Chua said she told him. “‘Turn this into your own memoir.’”

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“I think he took another whole year,” she added. “He kept working on it. He did independent studies with me.”

Then she introduced him to her literary agent, Tina Bennett.

He was off.

Sharon LaFraniere contributed reporting.

Stephanie Saul reports on colleges and universities, with a recent focus on the dramatic changes in college admissions and the debate around diversity, equity and inclusion in higher education. More about Stephanie Saul

See more on: 2024 Elections, J.D. Vance, Donald TrumpREAD 51 COMMENTS

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