#academic pettiness

[jonquilandlace]

I likewise desire to achieve a level of pettiness so great that it changes the scope of my critical field, thank you Mister George Steevens

[boarwinds]

Pre-professor au

Pre-professor au

I’m too lazy to type out the au so here’s the edited version from my rambling to a friend

[subzeroparade]

lore question: do you think laurence had good intentions when he brought the old blood to yharnam, or do you think it was entirely out of self interest?

I think, like with any compelling/relatable character, it's a mix of both. 

(Caveat: the way I describe Laurence’s character here is mostly based on how I write him, since it requires the most engagement with lore while being thoughtful enough to build and shape a believable person with a compelling arc). 

I think there’s a significant degree of sincerity and good intentions that drive him to bring the old blood to Yharnam. Based on the info we get in-game, the scourge does not manifest immediately, and the effects of the old blood are real and miraculous. (He also benefits personally from the effects of the blood in my headcanon, so in a sense he sees himself as proof, and denial of that is unjust and frustrating). He seems to believe it’s worth abandoning a career/life at Byrgenwerth and drawing the ire of his mentor to bring this into the world. But surely there’s bit of ego there too, a bit of “if you won’t do it, then I will.” Part of the way I interpret Laurence is through personal experience - I left academia right when my career should have kicked off. So when write him, I write from that point of view of realising now that I’ve left, I need to do something to prove myself - to prove this wasn’t a waste. I think the old blood is the ideal vehicle for personal ambition, too. It’s for the good of the people, but also his own reputation, his own need to be important, to have done something worthwhile, to prove Byrgenwerth wrong.  Most of us who were at one time deeply entrenched in academia (professionally) can have a hard time seeing past it, and use it to measure our worth. When you leave, unless you have another kind of identity to latch on to, it’s easy to become unmoored. 

But I’d argue the way he went about it - via the Church and the acquisition of political power, and the kind of Foucauldian control of the definition of healing and normalcy vs insight and/or madness, for example - all these are obviously coloured by a kind of pragmatic cruelty. I don’t think any of Laurence’s bad or heartless decisions (the ashen plague if you attribute it to the Church, or the horrors of the Orphanage) are couched in wanton cruelty - wanton cruelty is usually not very smart. They are strategic sacrifices he thinks are justified in the pursuit of his goals. I imagine when everything is going well it's easy to point to the blood’s benefits and say they outweigh the cost. But upon the emergence of the scourge I think he would find greater need to justify himself, rationalise his actions, even the worst ones, by the notion that if we can just fix the blood, get ascension to work properly, this will have been worth it. Rather than back off, he doubles down. To do otherwise would be to admit failure. To admit that the whole enterprise, and everything that props it up, is worth nothing.

Someone left a comment on my work once describing Laurence as “cruel in a way you'd not expect” which I really like. I think he’s much more interesting without this dichotomy of blatantly tyrannical vs entirely good-intentioned. It’s a question of circumstance, of which buttons can be pushed and which sacrifices can be made, and how to weigh the value of whole city, or a single person, against the goal of ascension/a cure for the scourge. 

It’s also why I love thinking about the period where he starts to lose his grip on the situation, and begin to change; and why I write the Moon Deal going down as it did - another thing, perhaps the most critical one, that he thought he’d have control over - and instead that spirals out of his grasp, too, and he loses the thing he never really wanted to sacrifice in the first place. The shock of it, for a character so in control of the narrative, is irresistible.  anyway tldr I forgive him like the French forgive Napoleon. Ty for the ask! Here's a little recent holyvicar doodle.

[ghost-bard]

Youre kidding me. Porter is a multiclass teacher and he wont let one of his students multiclass your fucking kidding me he called gorgug a c+ student while hes taking freshman-junior artificer classes i hate his guts so much my fucking goodness maybe gorgug wouldnt be a c+ student if he wasnt taking on a 400% workload you bitch i hate himmmmmm

[toastandjamie]

Ishamael in the first three books: I want to capture all the Ta’veren or I will see them dead. It is of great importance to remove them.

All the other Forsaken: Ta’veren who? I’m destroying Lews Therrin myself! No one eise can!

Ishamael: …..

[butchysterics]

people are so quick to laugh at other people for taking extremely loaded and upsetting representation in media ~too seriously~, but also conflate the words of some of the most powerless marginalized people with censorship by the FUCKING US GOVERNMENT. it’s so disingenuous it’s so silencing it’s so fucking shitty

it also very much feels like the cultural moment we’re in right now, where bringing up issues rooted in deep irl power structures is automatically written off as oversensitive and reactionary. it’s just media, until it’s an example from real life—then it’s just not that serious, or it’s childish to draw those connections, or it’s censorship to bring it up in the first place. allusions to irl violence are chump change but irl violence is always an isolated incident. and no one cares that this attitude magically seems to exclusively benefit the extremely conservative worldview that holds power

like lmfao no i don’t think it’s your right or anyone’s right to cover your eyes to obviously shitty offensive media writing laden with cultural baggage…. so that you can ~just enjoy it~! does this say nothing about you when you jump to silence the critiques of folks who noticed the harmful shit that went over your head? hot take… media is actually made and consumed by human beings who live in a society

[chaiaurchaandni]

[isfjmel-phleg]

🌋

[the-gayest-sky-kid]

in a funnier world wanderer is rtawahist and the author of several papers attempting to disprove the credibility of astrology because he still has a petty grudge against mona

[clownattack]

I aced my thesis defence with merits and I WILL TELL EVERYONE ABOUT IT (once i had my little rest) tm

[violetvulpini]

Little Invader Zim X TMNT 2003 doodles. Or as I like to call it, pot meeting a lot of kettles.

[Below some extra art, brainstorming chats, and transcripts because my handwriting is awful]

[image 1- "So you had a 'real' spaceship, like all these 'real' artifacts, but you can't show me because an alien happened to steal it between the reported sighting and my arrival (wast of my time.)" "They are real, and free! Your government drone failed to defeat the alien glory! My only regret is the alien didn't take me with." "(fury of 1000 suns) Never contact us again."]

[image 2- "Has anyone deployed a drone that I wasn't made aware of?" "No, sir." "Then either these people are delusional, or the FBI is pulling something again." "Probably the former." "Very likely."]

[image 4- "And this disguise... works?" "right? Right?? RIGHT?!?"]

[image 7- "Babysitting isn't in my job description, sir." ("HEY") "Didn't you volunteer to deal with Operative Ritter?"]

[gideonisms]

Can't believe how much some people care what other people are reading or watching like if someone wants to read only fic their whole life that simply doesn't affect me. Go for it! It's not the way I'd prefer to live my life but that is the thing, we all prefer to live our lives in different ways

[ofmdsalt]

Heyyy! Nice to see someone who's not afraid of the gentle beardie's bullying actually make critical takes about ofmd! (I am afraid of their doxxing and harassing behaviour. That's why this is anonymous 🙃) Just curious, since you seem to not just be critical of the show but the fandom in general, how do you view the use of how folks in the fandom use academic buzzwords to moralize their specific interpretation of a character, and then justifying it as the only "correct" or "canon" read of a character and then weaponizing their own personal read against others in the fandom?

hey anon! i completely understand your fears. some people get too attached to a piece of media and make it their whole identity and if that media is criticized, then they may feel attacked themselves. i just think it's important for people to realize that taking a step back is a good thing. logging off is a good thing. doing something other than Fandom is good and healthy and gives people perspectives.

to your point about the use of academic buzzwords within this fandom. a lot of these words just have lost a lot of meaning to me because they're used to justify argument of why i'm right and you're wrong. but it's all done in a way that's mean to imply 'all interpretations are valid! but these interpretations are less valid than mine and are therefore wrong.'

it's another form of fighting within fandoms when analyzing media is meant to be incredibly nuanced. my problems with a certain subset of this fandom understanding 'canon' and weaponinzing canon in way to discredit other people (the canyon, lbr).

there's a reason why Death of the Author exists and everyone keeps misunderstanding it. Death of the Author, as theorized by Roland Barthes if we really want to keep going with this academic angle (because apparently you need 10 citations to have a Valid opinion in this fandom) is the understanding that once a piece of art is out in the world it is no longer defined by what the author/artists intended for it to mean but by the reader. everyone can have their interpretation of a text. to then go about arguing that "not all interpretations are equal actually" is basically the nice way of saying "your opinion is wrong and mine is right."

if you can't handle the fact that some people don't see Izzy as a fucking 'father figure' that's a you problem

if you can't handle the fact that some people see season 2 as subpar, that's a you problem.

if you can't understand why people don't like the fact that this show does commit historical revisionism, that's a you problem!

look at me with my big words and use of theoretical texts to win an internet argument! aren't i just smart and special.

that's how this all comes off to me. and i know i'm participating in it, but it comes off as condescending when people say they're worried about the media literacy of fans these days and clutching their pearls when someone posts an idea that they don't agree with and have to make dozens and dozens of posts with thousands of words refuting something

[madxscientist]

"higher education" is so fucking snobby dude... my distaste for academia and the educational system as a whole is just further amplified

[mademoiselle-red]

Taking a break from my tc fandom dissertation read-through to catch up on some academia tea 🫖 🍵 because an absolutely devastating review of a new book in the field of Chinese history has dropped and I need to digest it in all its scathing glory

[arctic-hands]

The galling thing about being forced to drop out by the school itself was that even with all the school I missed being out sick, I was a damn good test taker, and in the No Child Left Behind Years that meant I was funding the school, but for some reason that was lesser priority than the attendance record