#in order to be this unintelligent and obtuse

[yllcm]

anyways so in conclusion, 

men scare me 

[xadoheandterra]

@redvsbluesecretsanta of 2020 for @averagejoey2000

This took longer than I like to have written, but in being perfectly honest writing Grimmons is...not something I’ve had a lot of chance to practice, so it was an exercise in focusing on Red Team. It turned...out interesting. Not really so much as being openly gay/bi. It’s really just a lot of Griff pining with supportive Sarge, but...it IS Grimmons. And uh. It’s more mushy then I usually write. Soft red team and all that. And ah, slice of life is HARD. :/ So slice of canon life? (except not?)

I write angst for a reason. Mushy stuff is...hard. Some angst might’ve crept in, but I tried to keep it light and soft. I hope you enjoy it?

Power and Pine

Griff rolled himself over and stared at the ceiling with a tired sigh. He wondered if Simmons was awake; what time even was it? Half a glance at the alarm clock--and he hated the alarm clock; it went off at ass o'clock in the morning--let him know it was 2am. Griff muffled a groan, well aware that his bunkmate was bound to rip into him if he even so much as woke up the hard-ass. Taylor didn't understand anything except regulations and rules. Hell the fucker made the kiss-ass that was Simmons look like a rebellious teenager! Griff scrubbed his hand over his face and contemplated every utter mistake that had led him to this moment, awake at 2am, in a room with a bunkmate who couldn't care less if Griff lived or died, with Simmons just down the hall but unable to even so much as go and bother the ginger haired young man.

For a moment Griff laid then, thought maybe he could roll over and slip back into slumber and pretend that his bunk was the bunk back at Blood Gulch. For a moment Griff contemplated that chance--and then he quashed it a second later as his eyes slipped closed and he could see the way Sarge sat him down, peppered hair cropped short, face helmet free and pulled down into a grimace. It was the last clear memory of the man that Griff had, set in the mess hall of Blood Gulch, in the aftermath of Agent Texas and Blue Team.

"Son," Sarge said, voice gruff but softer than Griff had heard in recent months. Griff was used to Sarge's more callous nature; the man had gruff, toxic masculinity down to a fucking art form, and while at least eighty-five percent of it was pure bullshit, there'd always been an underlaying slight sadistic glee behind most of the insane stunts Sarge liked to pull. This softer, near kind Sarge had thrown Griff for a loop the first time it happened--after the accident with the puma that had near crushed him--and it no less put Griff off-kilter now. "I want you to listen, and listen well."

"Sir?" Griff had replied, voice pitched slightly with confusion. He was in fatigues instead of armor, safe in Outpost One after the bullshit of the last week. A neutral ceasefire had been called by Church, and agreed to amazingly enough by Sarge, in the aftermath of the dropship and the Freelancer Agents. There would be no shenanigan's or chicanery or anything of the sort in the foreseeable future.

"Command is going to relocate our team," the words were blunt, but they settled into Griff like a lead weight. He knew all about being relocated. First it'd been when the UNSC had deemed him unfit to continue service, and then when his service file had been picked up by Freelancer. He'd been deemed unfit to serve a second time and relegated as worth only a grunt, something to be used as potential canon fodder in training simulations. When he'd been picked for Outpost One on Blood Gulch it seemed like a fucking godsend--until now.

Still, Griff decided to be obviously obtuse because fuck they weren't going to separate them, were they? Despite their ups and many downs, the insane trips and troubles they went through, Sarge had been the best commanding officer Griff had ever had--and a part of that Griff knew came from the fact that the man was a failed out old helljumper. Sarge understood the actual horrors that evolved out of the UNSC as much as Griff did; he knew what being relocated to Freelancer, and then relegated to grunt work, actually meant.

"Are we finally getting an upgrade then?" Griff said, and Sarge gave him this look. The man knew what he was doing, and he wanted none of it. Griff looked away.

"As much as I wish we were getting a damn good retirement package," Sarge said, "that is not the case." His words were blunt, not coated in the typical insanity Griff was used to hearing from the man. "The orders haven't come through yet, but it's looking more like we're going to be split apart."

No, Griff wanted to curse, and he spat something out under his breath, something unfavorable, even as he made his protests clear. Sarge raised a hand.

"I know, son." A pause, then softer, "Dexter." Griff swallowed heavily. "I have a request of you, if you will." For a moment Griff said nothing, and so Sarge barreled on. "I'm going to try and keep you and Simmons together. Lord knows that boy doesn't have a lick of sense if it came and bit him in the ass; he'll need you to keep him out of trouble."

Griff snorted; he'd been doing just that ever since he met the skinny ginger haired menace. Half the shit Griff had gotten up to before coming to Blood Gulch had been trying to keep Simmons' ass out of the line of fire. It was far too pretty to waste the way most troopers in Freelancer went, although Griff could hardly tell Simmons that. He hadn't known the man well enough back then. Now? Well now it was because he knew the guy too well.

"I will, Sarge," Griff said instead. "Do you...have an idea of where they might reassign us to?"

"Not a one," Sarge grumbled. "Now I gotta go and try and talk some sense into that weaselly fuck up at Command. Keep an eye on Simmons while I'm out, y'hear?"

"Aye sir."

Griff muffled a sigh and opened his eyes. Yeah he wasn't getting any more sleep tonight.

"Stocking duty?" Griff drawled as he stepped into the storage room of Rat's Nest, a slight grin curled up under the helmet of his power armor. Visor buried in an open crate to manually count each individual roll of toilet paper, one hand wrapped around the PDA inventory list, Simmons grumbled near unintelligibly. Griff leaned himself against the side of the doorway, hip cocked to the side, as he took in the other. Even with the bulky power armor Simmons' lithe form was a treat to see, especially after a hard day stuck cleaning the mess hall in a base that barely let him feel comfortable.

"Shut up, Griff," Simmons grumbled out, voice tinny behind the helmet.

"You know you can do this in your fatigues, right?" Griff said, and Simmons huffed as he pulled his head out of the box.

"Eighty four," Simmons mumbled absentmindedly and marked something off on the PDA. Then he looked up and Griff could imagine him arching his eyebrow above his remaining organic eye. "I could say the same about you. Why are you in full power armor, Griff? I thought you hated the stuff."

Griff shrugged. He didn't say anything in response; he bet Simmons already knew. It was the same reason Simmons was doing something as simple a inventory management in full power armor, after all. Neither of them felt comfortable in Rats Nest. The the way they had back at Blood Gulch with Sarge at their backs. There they could at least trust that the bullet in the back or the explosion off to the side was not truly malicious in nature. Here all they could do was wait for the other shoe to drop. For a moment neither of them said anything, then Simmons turned his head back toward the box which he tugged closed and slipped back onto the shelf.

"Have you heard from Sarge?" Simmons asked. The bitterness that once coated his voice those first few days at Rats Nest were long gone now; Griff had worked hard to get the ginger to accept that Sarge contacted him and not Simmons because it was easier and not due to any failing on Simmons part. After all Kaikaina was allowed to contact Griff since they were siblings. It was through her that Sarge contacted Griff; Rats Nest at least could care less what Griff's sister had to say aside from laughing about what recent drama she'd written about.

They never noticed that over half of the nonsense Kai sent him was just that, nonsense. Griff doubted his little sister was honestly throwing illegal rave parties and orgies in Blood Gulch, or that she was dragging Sarge into that mess by his own damn pubes, forcing pot brownies onto him to get him to chill. Kai got up to some ridiculous shit, yeah, but she knew how to bullshit even better. Griff had taught her everything he knew, after all, before he'd been drafted by the UNSC.

"Nothing new," Griff said instead. "He's been left to do as he will in Blood Gulch. I think Command finally gave up on relocating him as long as Kai's there after the mess he made of the last dropship."

Griff and Simmons had quietly had a laugh about the dropship that had 'mysteriously' crashed while attempting to transport Sarge to his next assignment. The old fucker had survived thanks to not actually being on the dropship at the time. Kai'd laughed her ass silly in the message, words peppered with loud booming rave music that drove any eavesdroppers away from the video.

"What about Donut?" Simmons asked, even as he pulled out another box.

"Some sort of diplomatic mission, it sounded like?" Griff shrugged. "I don't know how he swung that. UNSC doesn't like to touch us troopers for anything." It wasn't a lie; any trooper in Freelancer was a trooper because they weren't worth the hassle in the regular outfit. They were misfits, drop outs, failures of all kinds. Either they weren't fit for actual live combat, or had some other glaring red flag in their file. In Griff's case he knew it was the raging depression and suicidal tendencies that came from being the sole survivor of his unit.

In Sarge's case it'd been the PTSD of his helljumper days. Too good to really let go, too fucked up to keep on the payroll.

Griff couldn't parse where Donut fell on the spectrum of trooper bullshit. The man was a damn good grenadier; good enough to fuck up a Freelancer Agent. How he hadn't been snapped back up by UNSC before now Griff didn't understand. Maybe it was the fact that Donut was a walking, talking lawsuit waiting to happen. He spat out innuendo like it was going out of style--every other word from that man's mouth as filthy as one could get.

"Huh," Simmons muttered. "I thought he'd be shot by now."

"You know, me too." They lapsed into a period of silence. Griff watched Simmons move; he wondered if he could get the other out of power armor for a little a while. They both needed a damn good few moments of R'n'R between the two of them. A chance to destress from being so on alert here in Rats Nest could only do them both a world of good.

Maybe, also, Griff missed seeing Simmons face. The freckles that coated pale cheeks, or the way the mess of red curls went every which way. Hell even the metal graft that surrounded the artificial eye was a sight Griff hadn't seen in far too long. Some days he could catch a glimpse of Simmons, if he looked in the mirror and stared at the left side of his face--the place where Sarge had grafted pale skin and implanted one lone blue eye to replace the crushed and damaged brown one. Sometimes, alone in the wash room, he'd stare into the mirror with that one eye and imagine it was Simmons who stared back at him, who drank in the scars that melded the skin graft to his face, how it blended into the parts of his skin that were caused by vitiligo that he'd once been embarrassed about.

With a sigh Giff shook his head and straightened from the doorway. He came in for a mop and bucket, not to get distracted by Simmons. The base commander was bound to give him another stern talking to at this rate, for being so slow in such a simple task. He couldn't help it, though. Simmons was the only thing that felt even the slightest bit like home these days.

"Mops and buckets?" Griff said, instead of uttering any of his thoughts.

"Back left corner," Simmons replied, distracted by the task of counting inventory. Griff's comment of thanks went unacknowledged. They both returned to work without anything else said between them.

One moment they were in Rats Nest, uncomfortable and unwelcome. The next life turned into a whirlwind adventure that Griff didn't know how to name, with the crazy insanity that came from Blue Team and the AI that they tried to pass off as a human. The drama was something they could practically drown in, and really Griff could do without all the crotch shots from the other AI that had single handedly put them out on their ass. And of course Blue Team got themselves their own crazy Freelancer in the midst of it all, as if the first one hadn't been bad enough. Some days Griff wanted to bash his head into the wall and never wake up.

"Hey Griff have you seen Lopez around anywhere?" Simmons came up from behind him and it took Griff all of his willpower not to jump. His heart rate skyrocketed either way and he clutched at his chest, bare of the power armor because they were safe here even if here was full of insane would-be retiree's who didn't know the meaning of safety if it bit them in the ass. Yet Griff loved it, somehow, even that mad cow Caboose could be a riot when he really got going.

"Have you been practicing being a ninja?" Griff said as he turned around, and then felt his throat close up from another emotion. Simmons had his hair actually down. It wasn't regulation length anymore; he'd let it grow longer and Griff knew that but he hadn't actually seen Simmons with his hair in anything but tied up and out of the way. Today he apparently chose to let his hair hang loose about his shoulders, held back lightly with a tie that did nothing to stop the racing of Griff's heart.

"Griff?" Simmons asked, and waved a hand across Griff's vision. It snapped Griff back to reality and he wondered how long he stared at Simmons. "You okay?" Simmons looked at him, concerned. His eye was wide and so blue that Griff had to shake himself for a moment to get his heartrate under control and to just breathe.

"Yeah, I'm fine," the words came out more squeaked, but could you blame him? He hadn't seen Simmons this relaxed in what felt like years. Was that a smudge of oil across the man's cheek? Heaven have mercy. "Just...ate something bad, I think."

Simmons frowned and reached a hand up to feel against Griff's forehead, to which Griff fought back the urge to stare.

"Hm, a little warm. You should rest. I'll ask Sarge about soup for tonight," Simmons said.

"I'm fine," Griff grumbled. "I don't need Sarge's damn stew. Really, Simmons." Simmons lips quirked up into a little smirk and Griff had to look away.

"I'll tell him you want seconds, then," Simmons said, like a devil, and turned around and left the room. Griff stared after him, mouth agape for a second. He wasn't ashamed to admit his voice hit a pitch that was embarrassing in retrospect, but really. No one could stomach Sarge's stew, and Simmons knew that. By the time Griff got out into the hall, Simmons was long gone.

Griff was not ashamed to admit he whimpered just the slightest bit. Sarge was going to murder him.

Chaos defined their life for what seemed like years, leading all up to this very moment--this place in time. Griff scrubbed his hand along his face as he stared down at his naked lap, the haze of the past twenty-four hours finally washed away with something like regret and longing that curdled in his gut. He couldn't look at Simmons, because somehow despite the years working together and secretly pining after a face he couldn't name Simmons was still Simmons. He was Richard, or Dick, even though he could've been. Just the same Griff wasn't Dex or Dexter even though Simmons ought to know his name now with how often Kai screamed it at him either in rage or out of sheer whining because Griff refused to pay attention to her.

The only other person who used his name was Sarge, but even then it was for rare occasions when the man grew soft enough to speak it. Typically it was son if he was being affectionate, Griff if he was being authoritative, but oh so rarely was he Dexter. Griff swallowed heavily and forced himself to look over to Simmons, who leaned against overturned boxes and breathed heavily, a still somewhat dazed look across his face like he couldn't believe what just happened. Honestly neither could Griff if he were honest. What kind of hell planet had they landed on to have something like this among the civil war insanity?

"Simmons?" Griff said, and when that didn't garner a response he uttered, "Uh. Hey. Dick?"

Simmons wrinkled his nose a little at the nickname, rolled his eyes, and sat himself up with slow carefulness. He didn't say anything at first, and Griff wondered if he should just offer the out, let the man breathe and not have to worry about his sanity or his sexuality or whatever ran through Simmons mind like a herd of cats. Griff imagined what would happen if he did so--he could see how it would play out. They wouldn't talk about it. It'd become a shameful thing, hidden, secretive--and then Griff would be alone. Like always. Maybe he'd go insane. Maybe he'd jump off that deep pool of his barely clung to sanity and just turn into--into something unnamable as life churned out more crazier and crazier stunts raised to attention by Blue Team and how everyone he cared about was just dragged along for the ride.

"I wonder if Kimball knows how that system functioned," Griff heard Simmons mumble, half to himself, and felt his heart jam up in his throat. "Some sort of pheromone maybe? Like a roofie or--"

Griff choked on his spit, and then said quickly, "Dick!" to which Simmons snapped his head in Griff's direction, face flushed red even as he mumbled analytical scientific nonsense under his breath. The words paused at the name, though, which Griff hoped was a good sign until he realized Simmons had his nose scrunched up.

"Don't call me that," Simmons said shortly.

"Okay Richard--"

Simmons looked away and muttered a short, "Don't--you just--it was just--"

Griff swallowed his fear, reached out, and grabbed Simmons by the hand. "It's not...pheromones. Or whatever." Simmons stilled and Griff found within himself the courage to forage on. "I didn't--it wasn't because of whatever that misty shit was, Richard." Simmons looked at him, stared at him with a stiff spine out of the corner of his eye, cheeks as red as his hair. "You--you get that, right?"

A second, a beat, then softer, "What are you saying?"

Griff clenched his hand around Simmons and said, "I'm saying I like you."

Simmons laughed, a bit tinged hysterical. He uttered a short and sharp, "Of course you like me that's how pheromone--"

"I love you."

Silence. Griff breathed out, slowly, and took the chance to barrel on while Simmons froze and stared at him with a face that said something that Griff didn't want to interpret in case he was wrong. "I've loved you for a while honestly. I just didn't want to screw everything up when we were at Blood Gulch and you'd given me your organs. Or when we were at Rats Nest and uncomfortable with things. Then when we got to Valhalla you seemed to finally relax and I couldn't just--I couldn't break that so--I mean this didn't happen from nowhere I'm not some animal. I love you and--and yeah maybe I would've liked to tell you someway other than--I mean the mist was weird but it didn't--"

Soft, plaintive, Simmons said, "You love me?" like he couldn't believe it. Griff ducked his head. He felt like a fifteen year old school girl even as he nodded, cheeks flushed out of his own embarrassment that he just blurted things out like that. "But--"

"Is that ok?" Griff said, and he was afraid at how vulnerable he sounded.

"I--Sarge--" Simmons spluttered, eyes wide. Griff snorted. He could figure what Simmons meant; the man looked up to Sarge like a father.

"Pretty sure Sarge knows," Griff grumbled. The man did keep telling him to man up, and he wasn't subtle with all of his teen girl magazines that he tossed into Griff's face when they were alone.

"And he hasn't shot you?" Simmons hissed, surprised. Griff jerked back, equally surprised by the terror in Simmons' face. Not for the first time he wondered just where Simmons came from, how he got into the Simulation Troopers, to result in sheer terror over--what? Sexual attraction?

"No?" Griff said, voice cautious. "Why would he?"

Simmons looked around, and then hissed, "Because your gay?" and Griff jerked back.

"Bi, actually," Griff said, words shorter. He wondered if he read Simmons wrong. "And so's Sarge. I mean he's got one helluva crush on Master Chief, and then another on those old vids of some chic called Lady Gaga." Simmons jerked back, surprised. "But then you know that because he doesn't ever really shut up about it. Right?"

Simmons looked caught out, surprised. "He's...not making jokes?" Simmons said, a little more hesitant, a little more like the Simmons Griff knew. "It's not a 'man crush' thing?"

Griff let go of Simmons hand and scrubbed a hand down his face. He said softly, "No, it's not. You--you thought he was joking?"

Silence, and then a moment later Simmons asked, "Uhm. Can you--can you call me Rich?" Griff found himself smiling.

"Sure. And it's Dex," Griff said. "Dexter if your Sarge, or mad at me." He reached out, touched Simmons face, and leaned in to give him a kiss then paused. "This ok?"

Simmons blinked, murmured, "Yeah. It's ok."

They spent a few more hours in the closet together.

Two days post the mess of mist-inducing sex on the planet Chorus Sarge walked up to Simmons and Griff and patted them both on the back. He addressed Griff first with a sharp, "Attaboy. About time," and then turned to Simmons and said. "Let me know if he mistreats you son," and then without a word sauntered off with a pep in his step. Griff blinked after him.

"Damn," Griff mumbled, "Sarge got some." Simmons let out a hysterical half sort of laugh like he couldn't believe what Griff said, but Griff knew Simmons caught it just the same. "Wonder who?"

A few minutes later a cheerfully humming Emily Gray danced her way down the hall, dressed in civvies, and Griff and Simmons exchanged a glance. They promptly decided they did not want to know who. It's not like it mattered anyway.

[diplotomodon]

Doctor Who Spoilers: so about THAT ending...

A lot of people right now are probably saying things like “What the fuck,” “Holy shit,” “hey wait a minute didn’t that like just happen?”, “unintelligible screaming”, or variations thereof. Many of them will be surprised to know that there’s even MORE to unpack here than they might thing.

But to do this we need to take a deep dive into the Doctor Who extended (who)niverse...

(spoilers within, obviously)

“But hang on, is the extended universe canon?”

There is no canon. Doctor Who canon does not exist. Everything is canon, and nothing is canon. Let the Lucasfilm Story Group weep before us.

With that out of the way, let’s talk about two lines of novels: the Virgin New Adventures and the Eighth Doctor Adventures.

The Virgin New Adventures (VNAs for short) were published in the 90s after Doctor Who originally went off the air, continuing the adventures of the Seventh (and current) Doctor Sylvester McCoy. Strange things were happening in McCoy’s final seasons: cryptic lines of dialogue, whisperings of ancient secrets from Gallifrey’s past, and the implication that the Doctor himself was “far more than just another Time Lord” and perhaps present during Gallifrey’s formative years. Of course, the show was cancelled before we learned much about any of this stuff.

This was an intended effort by then-script editor Andrew Cartmel to reintroduce more mystery to the Doctor’s character, which has since been referred to as the “Cartmel Masterplan” by a few fans (even though it wasn’t really much of a fleshed-out “plan” at the time to speak of). And even though the TV show went off the air, these mysteries finally culminated in the VNA novel Lungbarrow by Marc Platt that you’re probably about to hear a lot of people talk about. Among the many revelations of the VNAs:

Gallifrey was originally ruled by the Pythia, a mystic sisterhood of sorcerers and psychics that could see into the future. When Rassilon overthrew them and became the first president of the Time Lords, the last Pythia threw herself off a cliff and cursed the Time Lords with sterility. (The remains of the sisterhood settled on Karn, which you might remember from a few recent episodes...)

Because of the Pythia’s curse, Time Lords aren’t born, per se, but rather bred from genetic engines called looms. So the concept of a Time Lord “family” is a bit scuffed, technically they’re just collections of Cousins instead.

There were three founders of Time Lord society: Rassilon (you know him, big angry space fascist), Omega (stellar engineer and occasional Classic Who villain), and a mysterious, likely benevolent Other. As Rassilon became more and more of a raging asshole, the Other attempted to escape Gallifrey by throwing themselves into a loom, dispersing their essence. Their genetic material would eventually reconstitute itself thousands of years later in the form of a newly loomed Time Lord - the Doctor.

Time Lord history has always been shrouded in mystery, and at times deliberately obfuscated - which also helps when the TV series and the extended universe contradict each other. Might it be possible that the television series is starting to explore these topics?

Oh, and also, there’s one more VNA called Christmas on a Rational Planet, where we learn that time doesn’t actually exist.

hwat the f u c k

Yeah that’s right.

This is also explored in the Eighth Doctor Adventures, an officially-sanctioned-by-BBC-Books line of novels following the one and only Paul McGann as the Eight Doctor, and it’s even brought up in a few of the audiobooks by Big Finish.

To make a long story short, and to make a summary of all of those shorter:

Before the Time Lords rose to power, time as we know it did not exist. Linearity and causality and order were not invented yet. There was no such thing as a past or future tense. All the things were happening at once.

Only when Omega captured and created the Eye of Harmony, an exploding star on the verge of becoming a black hole used as the source of all the Time Lords’ power, did time begin to exist. And the Time Lords - Rassilon in particular - used this “anchoring of the thread” to shape reality to their own whims, introducing the concept of “time” in the first place.

Inventing time may have accidentally busted a hole into the fabric of existence and let out a bunch of giant ravenous space vampires but yknow. Not a big deal

More of a big deal is the War in Heaven, a massive conflict between the Time Lords an an unseen Enemy that ends with...the Doctor destroying Gallifrey and becoming stranded on Earth?? This sounds familiar??

Or at least it’s a Gallifrey, because there are at least nine cloneworlds

WHAT

This last bullet point is just an excuse to mention Faction Paradox, a group of rogue cultists? Anarchists? Kinky freaks? Who knows. They just act as a foil to the Time Lord vision of reality, continually reveling in the impossible in direct defiance of the laws of the universe, probably for the fun of it. Also they wear fun skull masks. Big Faction Paradox community on tumblr. You either know them already, or you’ll always have been a part of them within the week. Keep a lookout for them

The point is that time itself is an artificial construct invented and applied by the Time Lords, and had they decided not to go meddling the universe as we know it would be very, very different, and in fact timeless. Once again, Time Lord history is often hidden and deliberately obtuse. Imagine what would happen if the lesser races of the universe caught on that their entire existence was based upon an ideology forcibly imposed upon them?

“Okay but is there any evidence of a former, nonlinear, anti-causal universe that’s been brought up in the show before?”

THAT

FUCKING

FROG

Picture this: the Solitract from last season was never just a throwaway entity-of-the-week. An incompatible universe opposed to ours, banished to a faraway realm? Now doesn’t that sound suddenly familiar...

If yall want me to drop some more Deep Lore later, I’d be more than happy to oblige. Series 12 just got a helluva lot more interesting.

[krysslabryn-fanfic]

The Ancient Magus Takes A Bride

Just a silly little thing I banged out about a couple weeks ago and then nearly forgot about. It’s only on here for just now, but I’m considering posting it on Ao3/ff.net for April Fool’s, ha ha.

I’ve also got the first chapter of a slightly ridiculous Hallowe’en TAMB fic done, now that it’s wildly out of date (or just so, so early, ha ha), so I’m plonking away at that trying to get it finished for this Hallowe’en. And I’m working on a quiet little evening-at-home-in-a-winter-storm one-shot that I’m hoping to get done before Spring, sheesh. So more TAMB fics are in the pipe! Maybe I can whack out a Valentine’s one; we’ll see! :D

Meanwhile, please enjoy "The Ancient Magus Takes A Bride”.

Once upon a time there lived a terrifying inhuman mage.

He had a terrifying wolf's skull for a head, with terrifying big sharp teeth, and terrifying horns, and wore a terrifying (but surprisingly natty) black suit. His name was Elias Ainsworth; but people also called him the Thorn Mage, or Pilum Murialis (which means Spear Wall), because he tended to burst out in thorns when he was aggrieved; but he preferred people to not call him anything at all and to just leave him alone. He was something of a recluse, which is a polite way of saying a prickly misanthropic jerk.

It wasn't so much that he actually hated people, though; it was more that he just didn't really give a fuck about them, and deeply wanted them to not give a fuck about him in return. However, he had unfortunately come to the attention of the Church some time before, during a particularly unfortunate interaction with a very obtuse Customs agent in France, and now they wouldn't leave him alone. They kept checking up on him. They weren't very subtle about it, either.

Every Sunday morning, Elias (who was decidedly not a morning person and therefore inclined to be extra prickly when roused from his extremely comfortable bed, or otherwise bothered before he'd finished his morning tea—or at any other time, to be honest) would answer the door to find a pair of overly-chipper young idiots darkening his doorstep. “Hello!” They'd say to him. “Have you found Jesus?”

“No,” he'd scowl; “Try under the sofa cushions.” And then he would very firmly close the door in their faces, and they, satisfied that the terrifying recluse was still reclused at home, would wander off for another week.

Frankly, it was a relief when the latest priest sent to bother him did so by merely hiding in the bushes, which was far easier to ignore—except for his persistently annoying cough. Elias eventually had enough of it, bopping him on the head to get his attention, and giving him some cough medicine, which apparently the priest hadn't thought to try taking. “Shut up,” Elias advised him, which apparently endeared him to the priest enough that the priest subsequently considered him (and treated him as) something of a friend. Elias, meanwhile, was just happy that the noise had stopped. He was also happy to keep him in cough syrup if it meant being left alone.

Elias had tried to fit in, he really had, for a very long time, decades, centuries even. Unfortunately though, humans tended to be a bit put off by very large inhuman creatures with very large teeth and glowing eyes who looked like they might eat them (which, to be fair, he might do), no matter how natty their suit was. And so, at this point, unable to fully integrate into human society (at least, so far as the European ones were concerned; but he doubted any others would be any different), but also unable to return to being the simple fae or spirit or ambulatory thorn bush or whatever he had once been (he didn't quite remember anymore—it was a very long time ago), all he wanted was to be left alone to live out the rest of his apparently-immortal life in peace.

The contradiction inherent in that plan had not yet occurred to him. He was not unintelligent; but he could be a bit obtuse at times.

Unfortunately, he was still not being left to his own devices. He avoided humans, and the Church largely left him alone (thanks, apparently, to his so-called friendship with Father Simon, who was perfectly happy to ignore his more minor doings so long as he didn't actually eat anyone else); but there were other mages as well, and they insisted that he had a duty to them, to mage society, and that he should take on an apprentice. To share his knowledge.

“Why?” he'd frown. “I learned almost everything I know from Lindel. Go bother him about apprentices.”

“He's already taken at least two, and he's busy with the dragons,” they'd reply. “It's your turn.”

“You can take my turn; I don't mind.”

“It doesn't work like that.”

And so they kept nagging at him, whenever they crossed his path (or he theirs, which was slightly more often, as he did need to go out for supplies occasionally, as even the most traditional of British grocers do not tend to stock the more esoteric magical ingredients, and the paperwork to put in a special order was usually more hassle than it was worth). This did not seem to be a problem that he could solve with simple cough syrup, alas. Still, he put them off, or ignored them in turn, for as long as he could, while he vaguely contemplated various plans to shut them up.

One happy day, however, he heard about a unique item up for auction at Sotheby's, the magical British auction house, where one might acquire anything from unicorn horns to the odd Aston Martin (which he had heard was a very high calibre of horseless carriage, although he had no personal experience with it, since he didn't fit into most of them very easily, and far preferred to travel by train, when he had to travel at all). The unique item was called a Sleigh Beggy, and was a type of magical battery, more or less. Wonderful! They tended to break down after a decade or two, less if one actually made use of them, and this one was already a decade and a half old. Almost used up! He could tell everyone he was going to use it as his apprentice, watch it for a few years and maybe learn something more about humans, and be done with it.

And then maybe they'd leave him alone for a few more centuries.

All he had to do was to go and get it after ascertaining that it wasn't too objectionable. And to his satisfaction, it wasn't. To be sure, it was rather grotty; but he gathered that giving one's new pet a bath was rather a tradition, anyways. Best to start off on the right foot.

And so he washed it, and belled it, and fed it, and showed it where its bed would be, and even remembered to ask if it already had a name, instead of just giving it a name he liked himself, as humans did with pets that couldn't speak. And much to his delight, and as he'd planned, when finding one without any other social ties, it bonded to him very quickly, even refusing to follow the ariels into Tír na nÓg, despite them promising it a far happier life than it had apparently had heretofore.

Yes, this would work out very well, he thought. It—she—could be his apprentice, and he could teach her a few things about magic, and if she lived long enough to become a full mage, she could stay on with him indefinitely, and he could keep on observing her. And she could answer the damned door.

The End

[monstersdownthepath]

Theme Finale: Poppets!

CR 1/3

Neutral Tiny Construct

Pathfinder Adventurer’s Armory 2, pg. 30~31

Construction Requirements: Craft Construct or Craft Poppet. Make Whole and Mending. Craft (Carpentry), with a Craft DC of 15.

Crafting a Poppet requires pieces of wood, wicker, or straw treated in a simple solution. They also require a carved wooden token, typically no larger than a coin, to be treated in the same solution. These parts are easy to make, costing no more than 10gp.

Cost to Build: Building a Poppet often requires nothing more than objects that can be found around the home, or five steps outside of it. As such, a Poppet costs only 160gp to create.

One could also build Small-sized Poppets out of more material, bringing the Craft DC to 18 and raising its price to 500gp to create.

Welcome to the finale of our Bargain Bin Buddies, and we’re ending on the cheapest construct a player can make: The Poppets! At only 160gp a pop, a player character with access to enough wealth to create anything else on this list could craft dozens of these adorable little minions! Poppets are usually created to perform small, simple tasks, and that’s... Actually, legitimately all they’re good for. Without investing some serious coin into them, Poppets have no offensive capabilities, a vulnerability to fire, low speed, Tiny size, and low HP.

Now, aside from pouring gold into a Poppet to increase its hit dice, Poppets also have several unique upgrades that can be applied to them to make them more useful, almost none of them breaking 500 gold. You can increase their Str or Dex, give them new movement modes (fly, swim, climb), but perhaps the most useful one is the one that triples their carrying capacity, allowing the tiny toys to cart around significantly greater loads for their masters. Their additional movement options also make for interesting, if obtuse, spies. They’d require a scrying spell to be focused on them specifically since there’s no modification that allows their user to see through their eyes... But an inventive player could simply design one. They’re so simple to make that coming up with new upgrades isn’t especially difficult, if the DM allows it.

Poppets are unintelligent, guided by the commands of whoever holds onto their special wooden tokens. Ownership of this token is easily passed on, requiring a simple ritual no longer than a minute to perform, and as such Poppets are easily lent out or sold. They’ll perform anything asked of them, even nonsensical orders, but can also be given slightly more ‘complex’ tasks like waiting for certain times of the day to perform a function, or only performing tasks if certain conditions are met (i.e., “when this flower blooms, pluck it” or “when this vase is full, pour it out.”), making them pretty useful around the home. They never complain, they never do anything you don’t ask them to, and there’s no chance of them disobeying you or going berserk like there is in most golems!

It’s all the benefits of having kids with none of the downsides!

Before I end this article, there’s one more important detail to know about Poppets: To make one, the Craft Poppet feat can be taken as early as level 1. In addition, with the Craft Poppet feat, a character can take Craft Construct without needing Craft Wondrous Item and Magic Arms and Armor, bypassing those annoying restrictions entirely and allowing the user to craft their own friends MUCH earlier than most! Everyone has to start somewhere, and Craft Poppet gives characters a head start on their Construct-crafting journey. By the time they can build creatures like Skinstitch’s and Guardian Scrolls, they may have made an army of these little critters to cater to their every whim. They make for great lab assistants when putting together larger constructs!

You can read more about them here.

Details on Craft Poppet and all the generic Poppet upgrades can be found here.

[antoine-roquentin]

Even casual readers of the news know that the earth is probably going to look very different in 2100, and not in a good way.

A recent Times opinion piece included this quotation from the paleoclimatologist Lee Kump: “The rate at which we’re injecting CO2 into the atmosphere today, according to our best estimates, is 10 times faster than it was during the End-Permian.”

The End-Permian is a pre-dinosaurs era of mass extinction that killed 90 percent of the life in the ocean and 75 percent of it on land. It is also called the Great Dying. Although those who write about environmental change like to add notes of false personalization around this point — “My children will be x years old when catastrophe y happens” — there is really no good way of acclimating the mind to facts of this magnitude.

However, the cause of the disaster that, by all indications, we are already living through should be clearer. It is not the result of the failure of individuals to adopt the moralizing strictures of “green” consciousness, and it is a sign of just how far we have to go that some still believe reusable shopping bags and composting (perfectly fine in their own right) are ways out of this mess.

It is also not the deceit of specific immoral companies that is to blame: We like to pick out Volkswagen’s diesel scandal, but it is only one of many carmakers that “deliberately exploit lax emissions tests.” Nor does the onus fall on the foundering of Social Democratic reforms and international cooperation: Even before the United States backed out of the Paris Accord, we were well on our way to a 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit temperature rise by 2100, “a temperature that at times in the past has meant no ice at either pole.”

The real culprit of the climate crisis is not any particular form of consumption, production or regulation but rather the very way in which we globally produce, which is for profit rather than for sustainability. So long as this order is in place, the crisis will continue and, given its progressive nature, worsen. This is a hard fact to confront. But averting our eyes from a seemingly intractable problem does not make it any less a problem. It should be stated plainly: It’s capitalism that is at fault.

As an increasing number of environmental groups are emphasizing, it’s systemic change or bust. From a political standpoint, something interesting has occurred here: Climate change has made anticapitalist struggle, for the first time in history, a non-class-based issue.

There are many reasons we do not typically talk about climate change in this way. The wealthy are holding fast to theirs. Bought politicians and state violence are on their side. Eco-apartheid is not yet seen as full-on apartheid. Everyday people have plenty to keep up with, and they don’t want to devote their precious time off work to often tedious political meetings. The inertia, it is sad to say, makes enough sense.

Perhaps the most common belief about this problem is that it is caused by widespread ignorance — even outright “stupidity” — and that its solution lies in its opposite, intelligence. This belief is neatly expressed in progressive opposition to Donald Trump and his administration. Trump voters are often criticized for being unintelligent, for voting against their objective interests. Trump himself is regularly portrayed as unintelligent.

The basic idea is that if voters were intelligent, they would vote for an intelligent person who listened to intelligent people and all would be well. It is a staple of the liberal imaginary. Reflected here is the obtuse belief that the populist tide is simply mistaken, that it has gotten something wrong, which has the effect of veiling the real and justified dissatisfaction with the past 40 years of neoliberalism. Also reflected is the common view, which is not confined to one end of the political spectrum, that our biggest problems are essentially technical ones, and that the solution to them lies in the empowerment of intelligent people. The aura around Elon Musk is an extreme example of this kind of thinking.

The problem with the general view that intelligence will save us is that it involves pinning the failures of capitalist society on supposedly dumb people (them), who, so the logic goes, need to be replaced with supposedly smart ones (us). This is a spectacular delusion.

When a company makes a decision that is destructive to the environment, for instance, it is not because there are bad or unintelligent people in charge: Directors typically have a fiduciary responsibility that makes the bottom line their only priority. They serve a function, and if they don’t, others can take their place. If something goes wrong — which is to say, if something endangers profit making — they can serve as convenient scapegoats, but any stupid or dangerous decisions they make result from being personifications of capital.

The claim here is not that unintelligent people do not do unintelligent things, but rather that the overwhelming unintelligence involved in keeping the engines of production roaring when they are making the planet increasingly uninhabitable cannot be pinned on specific people. It is the system as a whole that is at issue, and every time we pick out bumbling morons to lament or fresh-faced geniuses to praise is a missed opportunity to see plainly the necessity of structural change.

Put differently, the hope that we can empower intelligent people to positions where they can design the perfect set of regulations, or that we can rely on scientists to take the carbon out of the atmosphere and engineer sources of renewable energy, serves to cover over the simple fact that the work of saving the planet is political, not technical. We have a much better chance of making it past the 22nd century if environmental regulations are designed by a team of people with no formal education in a democratic socialist society than we do if they are made by a team of the most esteemed scientific luminaries in a capitalist society. The intelligence of the brightest people around is no match for the rampant stupidity of capitalism.

On the defensive for centuries, socialists have become quite adept at responding to objections from people for whom the basic functions of life seem difficult to reproduce without the motive power of capital. There are real issues here, issues that point to the opacity of sociability, as Bini Adamczak’s recent book, “Communism for Kids,” playfully explores. But the burden of justification should not fall on the shoulders of those putting forward an alternative. For anyone who has really thought about the climate crisis, it is capitalism, and not its transcendence, that is in need of justification. And don’t be surprised, or fooled, when its defenders point to the tireless work of intelligent people.

[parrishsrubberplant]

“Wow, deep.”

“This is why I don’t read my poetry to you,” Nursey says. “You don’t get it.”

“I’m trying to get it,” Dex says apologetically. “I can tell you have put a lot of pretty words together in an interesting order--but I have no idea what they mean.”

"That’s the point,” Nursey says.

They’re sitting together on the bus. The sights out the window are gradually becoming more familiar--they’re about an hour from Samwell now. Most of the rest of the team is asleep. Chowder’s mouth hangs open as he snores softly. Nursey has given in to temptation and read some of his latest work out loud.

“To be unintelligible?”

“To be obtuse.”

Dex frowns. “Why, though?”

Nursey gestures expansively. “Don’t you ever feel like that, though? Like there just aren’t words for what you’re feeling?”

“I try to avoid having any feelings ever,” Dex deadpans. “No, I think I get it. So the point is you don’t want to be explicit. You want people to be able to read what they want into it.”

It’s not quite right, but it’s as close as Nursey thinks Dex is likely to get. “I don’t want to be too specific.”

“Right, you don’t want to tell them what to think.”

“Yeah,” Nursey says.

Dex falls silent. “What about sonnets, though? Wordsworth, Shakespeare, all those dudes who were super constricted?”

“Oh, that I could be bound in a nutshell, and count myself king of infinite space,” Nursey quotes. 

He’s astonished when Dex replies, “Were it not for the fact that I have bad dreams. Or something like that. Fair.” He sighs. “I like that, though. I like rules, and order, and--what do you call them. End-rhymes.”

“I don’t not like them,” Nursey says cautiously. “They can be overused. Too much and you sound like Tom Bombadil.”

Dex laughs and closes his eyes. “Thanks for sharing your poem, bro.”

“Thanks for listening, you philistine,” Nursey says.

Dex doesn’t open his eyes. “Fuck you, I just quoted Willy the Shake.”

Nursey makes a little moan of inchoate distress and opens his notebook. He has another addition to the list of Reasons Why Will Poindexter is Going to Make the BestWorst Roommate Ever.

[aurriii]

A List Of Big Words You Should Use To Amp Up Your Vocabulary

Memorize a few of these big words and you’ll already appear smarter to those around you, even if you’ve only been in college for a week. Just remember to use them correctly – oh gosh, we cannot stress this enough.

  Abrogate

adj – repeal or do away with (a law, right, or formal agreement).

  Abstentious

adj – self-restraining; not indulging an appetite especially for food or drink

    Anachronistic

adj – belonging to a period other than that being portrayed.

  Anagnorisis

noun – the point in a play, novel, etc., in which a principal character recognizes or discovers another character’s true identity or the true nature of their own circumstances.

    Aquiver

adj – quivering, trembling

  Assiduous

adj – showing great care and perseverance.

  Axiomatic

Adj – self-evident or unquestionable

      Capricous

adj given to sudden and unaccountable changes of mood or behavior.

    Circumlocution

noun – the use of many words where fewer would do, especially in a deliberate attempt to be vague or evasive.

  Concupiscent

adj – filled with sexual desire; lustful.

  Defervescence

noun – the lessening of a fever

        desideratum

noun – something that is needed or wanted.

  Elucidate

verb – to make (something) clear; explain.

  Enervating

adj – causing one to feel drained of energy or vitality.

  Ennui

noun – a feeling of listlessness and dissatisfaction arising from a lack of occupation or excitement. Boredom.

  Equanimity

noun – mental calmness, composure, and evenness of temper, especially in a difficult situation.

  Excogitate

verb – think out, plan, or devise.

  Fastidious

adj – very attentive to and concerned about accuracy and detail.

  Gasconade

noun – extravagant boasting.

      Infinitesimal

adj – extremely small.

  Nefarious

adj – wicked or criminal.

  Nidificate

verb – to build a nest

  Obfuscate

verb – render obscure, unclear, or unintelligible.

  Obtuse

adjective – annoyingly sensitive or slow to understand

  Parsimonious

adjective – unwilling to spend money or use resources; stingy or frugal.

  Perfidious

adj – deceitful and untrustworthy.

  Perfunctory

adj – carried out with a minimum of effort or reflection.

  Perspicacious

adj – having a ready insight into and understanding of things.

    Quid Pro Quo

noun- a favor or advantage granted or expected in return for something.

  Remunerative

adj – financially rewarding; lucrative.

    Sesquipedalian

adj – characterized by long words; long-winded.

  Solipsism 

noun – the view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist.

  Sycophant

noun – a person who acts obsequiously toward someone important in order to gain advantage.

  Ubiquitous

adj – present, appearing, or found everywhere.

  Umbrage

noun – offense or annoyance.

  Unparagoned

adj – having no equal, matchless, peerless

  Vitriol

noun – cruel and bitter criticism.

  from Textbook Case | Bigwords.com https://ift.tt/2EjiSaX via IFTTT

[ennaraw52]

My answer to: How do I teach a really stupid student?

How do I teach a really stupid student?

Enna Morgan, International English/ ESL Instructor and Education Counsellor for 8 years.

Answered 4h ago

Thanks for the A2A, Michael

Before answering I would like to, (1) define the terms we are using and also to set the preambles of our assumptions on this topic (2) answer from the perspective of why others would have an allergic response to my response.

First, to define the term, ‘stupid:’

Definition of stupid

According to the Merriam Webster dictionary, the lexeme stupid means,

1a : slow of mind : obtuseb : given to unintelligent decisions or acts : acting in an unintelligent or careless mannerc : lacking intelligence or reason : brutish

2 : dulled in feeling or sensation : torpid still stupid from the sedative

3 : marked by or resulting from unreasoned thinking or acting : senseless a stupid decision

4a : lacking interest or point a stupid eventb : vexatious, exasperating the stupid car won’t start

The Oxford Dictionary defines it as:

stu·pid

ˈst(y)o͞opəd/

adjective

1. having or showing a great lack of intelligence or common sense.

synonyms:unintelligent, ignorant, dense, foolish, dull-witted, slow, simpleminded, vacuous, vapid, idiotic, imbecilic, imbecile, obtuse, doltish; Moreinformalthick, dim, dimwitted, slow-witted, dumb, dopey, dozy, moronic, cretinous, pea-brained, halfwitted, soft in the head, brain-dead, boneheaded, thickheaded, wooden-headed, muttonheaded, daft “they’re rather stupid”foolish, silly, unintelligent, idiotic, scatterbrained, nonsensical, senseless, harebrained, unthinking, ill-advised, ill-considered, unwise, injudicious; inane, absurd, ludicrous, ridiculous, laughable, risible, fatuous, asinine, mad, insane, lunatic; informal: crazy, dopey, cracked, half-baked, dimwitted, cockeyed, lamebrained, nutty, batty, cuckoo, loony, loopy

Good, now that we have that established, we can move on!

So using that definition, I would like to get a handle on the question and apply it appropriately.

I am going to assume that you are asking this question because like me, and many other teachers, you have encountered students who exhibit the traits mentioned above in the definitions and you are perplexed as to how to ‘get through’ to them.

Just a short two years ago, I would have concurred with the view that there is no ‘stupid’ person, and that all students can be taught. But the truth to this will depend on many factors, several of them being:

the class size

the interest and motivation of the student

the subject being taught

the interest and motivation of the teacher

the general campus milieu

the politics of the school system

This is not an exhausive list, but a fair amount of consideration. The fact is that if you have truly taught for many years, in various countries, with a diverisity of social, economic, and demographic factors attending, then you will understand that there are indeed some students who will fall squarely under that definition of ‘stupid.’

For example, I would go into a classroom twice weekly for 16 weeks, and you use the same word, explain and demonstrate the meaning of the word, and have the students use it (verbally and physically) in a sentence and also practise speaking it and writing it in their note books. The term is also used many times during the semester, and incorporated in games to help concretise its meaning and usage.

Then at the end of the semester, during review, I select particular students and ask them to explain the meaning of the word (while I have it prominently displayed on a PPT), and having spoken about it for the last 20 minutes. When called upon, a select few of them would stand up and look at me as if I had just asked them to reconcile the territorial dispute between Iran and Iraq.

MEANWHILE, THE DEFINITIONS ARE PROMINENTLY DISPLAYED ON A PPT!!

So what term would you like to give to that?

Now we can embellish it, by using certain words, such as ‘special;’ we can circumambulate it; and we can even pointedly avoid it, but continuing to push through in the face of that those types of results would indeed be an exercise in futility, and would serve only to traumatise the student.

Further, it would entail deluding myself that I have some sort of magical powers that would make the student suddenly acquire interest in the subject. And since delusion has never been my forte, nor have I won accolades for it, I will carry on with teaching those students who display interest and aptitude.

I will get to the point then and proceed to answer how one can teach ‘a really stupid student.’

You can’t!

As a teacher, I see my main purpose as being: to lead students to their own thoughts.

I am therefore there to:

facilitate

catalyse

motivate

inspire

instruct (deliberately last in the list)

I am never there to traumatise

And trying to tamp knowledge into a student’s brain against their will, is neither my purpose nor my job. In order for the lesson to be successful therefore, these two parts must work in tandem – the teacher must have the desire, interest, and accompanying knowledge and skills, and the student must have the desire and aptitude to learn.

Without those two essentials, there is nothing happening, except a general conversion of oxygen to carbon dioxide…..and that is not my job either.

So if you have students with desire, but no aptitude, you will have an arduous road ahead, but nonetheless, it can be a rewarding one, albeit challenging. But if you have students with no desire and no aptitude……I feel for you!

On the other hand, if you have a student with aptitude (almost all students, with a few rare exceptions) and latent or no desire, then your task becomes one of figuring out where their interest lies, and capture them through those access points.

For example, many of my male students have a keen interest in sports, and little interest in learning English. I therefore integrate sports news, games, and exercises into the lesson. Do I engage them? You betcha!

Some of the girls have their interest in little else than eating, sleeping, and boys, so what do I do? I pair them up with boys during the lesson, I use the boys to demonstrate certain aspects of the lessson, and I also engage them all in some ‘domestic’ and ‘reality’ topics.

Do they speak? Volumes!

I currently teach oral English, my job is to get the students to speak, my emphasis then is more on the act of speaking than on the topic of conversation. So I do not really care what they speak about, as long as they speak to the top of their intelligence, and with the vocabulary I provide.

Using this method, and with a daily diet of new vocabulary, the result after 15 weeks of laboratory (I see my classroom as a language lab, and not a lecture-style class), is startling….and commendable!

Commenting on answers from other respondents, and addressing the issue of why readers may have an allergic reaction to my post.

I typically do not read answers before writing my own response, but I did in this case because I knew that there would be the typical response, ‘there is no stupid student’ combined with the effort to shift the blame onto the teacher, and make them feel guilty for even thinking of the word ‘stupid’.

If we are being ascetically honest with ourself and we acknowledge every thought we have, we will find that at some point(s) in our teaching career, we will encounter a student (or students), who will cause us to entertain thoughts and terms such as ‘stupid.’ Now, the key here is that as a teacher we would not act upon those thoughts, we may even decide to not give them voice, validity, or latitude. But, there is no denying that they do come to mind.

To become better teachers and humans, we must first acknowledge those thoughts and then seek to find ways to either work through them, thus finding ways to access the student (which we are being paid to do), or understand the limit of our engagement and influence. But pursuing the line of thought that informs us that ‘there is no stupid student,’ I feel could be a set-up for disaster at both ends, the teacher as well as the student.

On the flip side of this desire to disown this ‘ugly’ labelling, there lies a peculiar phenomenon that I have witnessed more often than I would care to admit.

As parents, it is interesting that if our child does something simple as crash the car (yes, crashing the car is simple, it is simply a material issue), or clumsily drop the pie, we quickly call them dumb, stupid, and a colourful string of assorted, ‘endearing’ terms!

Yet these same parents, as teachers in a classroom, will cherry-pick their words to avoid blurting out these terms, and will become febrile at the mere mention of these terms within the classroom.

Hmmm! Why exactly is that!?

(No caption needed……)

Is it because we are being paid, or is it because we are suddenly under a behavioral (moral) microscope?

So, does our behaviour and chosen language adapt to our environment? It certainly does!

Sigmund Freud purported that we have a tripartite ‘self,’ or psyche; The id, the ego, and the superego. The id, being who we really are, intrinsically; the ego, being the rational person we have become in mediating ourself against the ethics and morals of society; and the superego, being the ideal self – that which we aspire to being, and which we would like society to regard us.

Accordingly then, the responses to this question posited, will vary significantly, as they will come from these three different approaches.

I am curious to further explore this phenomenon though, when did the perception of the same child/ student shift, causing us to view the person as a student and no longer as a (our) child?

And did the student automatically become ‘intelligent’ or less stupid when they walked into a collegiate environment? Or did the teacher/ parent become more cognisant, conscientious, rational, and less critical when he/ she walked into an academic milieu?

Or is the difference in our behaviour stemming from the fact that we are being paid in one environment, and not in the other?

In other words, is the word ‘stupid’ context-bound? And……

Is morality retailed?

……Things that make you go, “Hmmm!”

http://ift.tt/2sf6GNE

  from My answer to: How do I teach a really stupid student?