#these research papers have nothing to do with my class. i'm supposed to be learning java

[friedmagazinebouquet]

Giggling and kicking my feet (spending my class time reading research papers about Diomedes)

[motherofplatypus]

This fic is inspired by @fandomsforpali IG story quite a while back where the question was, IIRC, "How would each character learned about the situation?". I made several fic using that prompt, but this one is the best one I could make after a long hiatus from writing. This may not be much, but this is what I can do.

***

Red Determination: A Miraculous Fic

The whole class gave a round of applause after Mylene gave her speech about her dream job: being an environmental activist. A benevolent job, fitting her nature perfectly.

Today, each and every one of them must give a speech about their dream job, an assignment Ms. Bustier gave them two weeks ago, where they must do research about their job and pretty much try to convince why their job is important. They were supposed to make the speech last week, but an akuma attack delayed it by a week.

Ms. Bustier looked at the attendance list before calling out the next name she chose randomly. "Alya Cesaire."

Some of the class were cheering on her. Nino cheered the loudest and had Ms. Bustier telling him to quiet down. Marinette just placed a hand on her shoulder, barely making a smile that she knows her best friend didn't look.

To everyone else, Alya may looked fine, almost expressionless, but Marinette knows better. Something has been bugging her best friend, almost a whole week, and Alya never spoke about it with her. She always said "I need to learn something".

Alya stood in front of the class, a sheet of paper with her speech in hand, and she looked at her friends, not focused to any of them.

"Good morning everyone." Alya spoke. "Well, as you all know, I'm here to make a speech about my dream job."

None of her classmates noticed it, but her voice trembled when she spoke the first sentence. It was slight, almost unnoticed, but Marinette and Nino caught on that. They shared a concerned look but said nothing otherwise.

"As you all know, I wanted to be a journalist, which is why I created the Ladyblog and post videos about the latest akuma attacks as a, well, let's just say it's training." A few of the giggled, being fully aware of her reckless behavior. "And of course, I can do that almost without much to fear. Ladybug always save the day, so I can be stupidly reckless. Although that's not something I should be proud of."

Marinette twitched slightly. Sure, her Miraculous Ladybug can fix any akuma damage, no matter how bad it is, but still, she'd rather deal with akuma knowing her best friend is being anywhere but near the danger itself.

"So, I did a deep research for this speech about being a reporter for the last two weeks. Too deep, I must say, and I learned a lot about it." She spoke matter-of-factly. "Of all the things that I learned, I particularly learned about the...weight of being a journalist."

That short delay instantly shifted the mood of the class. Now, they're all looking at her. Listening to what she learned in the last two weeks from this assignment.

Alya took a breath and let it out softly. "I learned that being a journalist is more than just trying to get the latest scoop and news . Scandals that piqued people's interest that makes them talk about it in their free time." She said. "I also learned that being a journalist also mean to put my life on the line and being ready to lose it any second, all for the sake of telling the truth to the world."

There's another delay, longer than before. Concern was visibly painted on her classmates' faces, and even Ms. Bustier had to step in.

"Alya, if you don't feel like doing the speech now, you can do it later with me after class. You can go back to your seat." The teacher said, as concerned as everyone else.

"Thanks, Ms. Bustier, but I'll do it now." Alya gave a quick smile. "If I want to be a journalist, I have to be ready to face reality and truth."

She lowered her hand that's holding up her speech, and she spoke as if she had memorized every single letters on the paper. "Since October 7th 2023, israel had been committing genocide on Palestinians' land, committing war crimes after war crimes, and violating every single international law.

"In just a single year, they have murdered over 45.000 Palestinians, where 17.000 of them are children. And 146 of them are journalists, as per the latest news. That is twice the number of journalist killed in World War 2, the most horrific war in human history that lasted for several years, in just a single year."

Someone scoffed, and it came from none other than Chloe. "Are you really trying to turn this whole thing into politic? How ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous."

Chloe didn't even look at Alya when she spoke. She could pretend all she wants, but everyone present there could hear it in her voice, one that's often filled with pride and arrogance, was trembling for once.

Alya read that act all too well, and she continued. "Genocide tied every topic together, even our dream jobs." Alya turned to her friends. "Mylene, you said you wanted to become an environmental activist, correct?"

The environmental activist nodded her head. "Yes."

"Do you know in just a single year, israel have dropped over 80.000 tons of bombs on Gaza? Compare that to the two nukes that were dropped on Japan in World War 2, both weighted 9.300kg in total. Max, how much is the comparison?"

Max, with his calculator on hand, answered with a choked voice, "That'll be 8.6 times more."

"In a single year. Now, Max," Alya continued with Max after Mylene nearly fainted. "You love technology more than anything. How would you react when you know they used drones that plays baby crying to lure the Palestinians out from their shelter to kill them? What would you do when you heard about "Where's Daddy?" AI."

Max was reluctant, afraid of what he would see. And yet, his fingers moved by themselves and search for it. "Oh my god" was the only response he could give.

"Sabrina," Alya turned to the orange haired girl. "You wanted to be a nurse, a healthcare worker. In just a single year, more than 900 healthcare workers were murdered by israel, 260 of them were nurses."

Sabrina's face lost her color, but Alya is not stopping.

"Kim, you want to be an athlete. FIFA is putting a double standard for Russia's invasion on Ukraine and israel's genocide on Palestinians. Ivan, stay at home dad, 70% of the people israel killed are women and children. Nino, a movie director, this is the most documented genocide in history. Alix—"

Abruptly, Alya stopped. She unclenched her fist that nearly teared her speech paper and wiped the single tear on her cheek.

Her heart was beating fast. Flames burning wild within her, crawling its way up her throat. She couldn't exactly tell what she's feeling right now, because she felt everything. Sadness, fury, disgust, shame, all burning inside her.

She took a deep breath once more, keeping her emotions under control. She looked at the crumpled piece of paper in her hand and folded it into her pocket.

"This is not something that happened just recently, it's been going on for decades." Alya spoke again, keeping herself together with everything that she had. "In 2021, israel massacred 137 people, then in 2019, in 2014, in 2012, in 2009, and many others and all the way back to 1948 where they massacred five towns. Seven decades of oppression."

Alya take a look at Marinette, then Adrien and Nino. For the first time, she smiled, genuinely.

"I haven't changed my mind about being a journalist, and I am not discouraged in the slightest even after knowing that the international law will not protect me," she said. "That is why I will create another blog to keep everyone as up to date as possible about the situation in Palestine, and I'm planning to held a protest this weekend to demand for an end to this illegal occupation."

"Alya," Ms. Bustier called with a thin smile on her face, the similar smile she wear when instead of punishing the wrongdoer, she punished both sides. "Don't you think protest is a bit too much?"

"It's not." Alya answered immediately. "We helped Mylene with her protest during the Project Oxygen announcement, and we did it. We were fighting for environment back then, now we're fighting for human rights."

Alya looked at her friends once more with determined look, and they looked back on her with the same look as her.

"I will close my speech with my all time favorite quote: "all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing". We may not have superpower like Ladybug and Chat Noir, but we have the power to make a change. This time, let's us all be heroes." Alya said. "I am Alya Cesaire, thank you for your attention."

She went back to her chair with a deafening cheers.

***

Writer's note: You don't need a miraculous to be a hero. All you need is that first step to fight against injustice.

We're with you. We'll fight together.

Free Palestine.

[siriuslysatorusimping]

Hi hello, so nice to talk to you, Kiko!

This is going to definitely sound weird, but do you have any advice for an ongoing Ao3 writer? Pretty sure I'm not the only one here writing Gojo/OC stories or fluffy one-shots since they're so addicting lol.

But it's strange to be so obsessed with writing with so many ideas and time and energy to write, and then it feels like you're in a bit of a slump when that rush of creativity sort of slows.

You mentioned before that you had most of the story for AL mapped out and written, did it help you to plan ahead more before posting? Or was it more of a, "I didn't worry about it too much because it was fun to write and we're all Gojo simpls" kind of a deal?

Anyhow, would love to know if you'd be alright talking about it. Have a good day~

Hiiiii! It's nice to talk to you, too! ���

Gojo fluff is addictive and I honestly have been rereading Physical Paradox installments today because I need fluff and motivation 😂

Hmmmm, advice for AO3 writers? Honestly, I feel like I'm a bit under qualified for that because I'd been an anon reader for over ten years until July when I finally created an account so I could post Another Level 😂😂

BUT, I do have a few thoughts. I'll try to keep these as simple as my over-explaining ass can 🫠 (Kiko did not keep it simple. I ranted and this post is hella long, I am so sorry.)

If you haven't already, you can read Another Level on AO3 💕

On writing in general: Write for you.

1) I know I've said this before, but it's true. Write as if no one else will ever see what you're writing to begin with. That's how I started with Another Level. I never intended for anyone else to see it when I first started. On the flip side of this though, don't be afraid of bouncing ideas off others.

It's likely vain of me, but I genuinely enjoy reading my own writing. I try very hard to make sure that what I'm posting is something I enjoy reading. But it makes it so much easier to write if you enjoy reading it, because you're just as excited to read it and see what happens as someone who isn't in your head.

2) I think that something really important for when that creativity slows in one area, don't force yourself to keep going if you don't have to. Hobbies are supposed to be fun, not an obligation or a stressor.

Once the joy fades from a hobby, it's no longer a hobby.

Think of it this way: since May of this year, I've written around 300k words for different fanfics. If we look at that from the perspective of a single-spaced, 12pt font perspective, that is 300 pages. I've written the equivalent of a gosh dang Dissertation. But here's the difference between Another Level and a Dissertation: writing and researching for Another Level was fun. It was something I wanted to do.

(We'll ignore the fact that I didn't have to teach classes and grade papers simultaneously as well. I do and don't miss grad school And honestly, I miss teaching. But academia can kiss my ass.)

3) Write what you want to write, not what others expect you to write. This isn't your job. You aren't being paid for a word count or hours put in, you're doing this for you and for fun. When you let other's expectations drive you instead of your own desire, that happiness is fleeting and it's easy to burnout fast.

4) Follow your inspiration fairies, even if only briefly. You don't have to write out an entire universe, and you don't have to keep what you write. But sometimes you have to get rid of the brainworms to make room for other ideas. I've realized that a few of my Goinko 'au' ideas are literally better just as little headcannons or blurbs and nothing more. And that's okay, because now I got them out of my system.

5) If you want to write and finish a series, only post for that series. I'm learning this the hard way right now with Gokduō and Physical Paradox. It is really hard to focus on one or the other because I feel an odd pressure to get the next parts done for both, which is completely the opposite of what it should be.

The pressure drains my creativity, and I've found myself struggling because I'm too worried about what people will think of it instead of what I want it to be. In all honesty, I had a moment today where I almost decided I don't want to finish Gokudō because I'm not sure where to take it, but I realized I just need some time away from trying to force myself.

6) If you're unhappy with it, don't be afraid to scrap it. Use it as a starting point if you want, but don't get too attached to it if you don't like where it's going. Take a step back and ask if/how it's getting you where you want to go with that work, and if it doesn't help you get there, then it can go.

What was my approach with Another Level? (includes JJK Manga spoilers)

I'll elaborate a bit more on how I had things mapped out before I started posting first. Essentially, when the Gojo/Sukuna fight started in the manga, I just knew Gojo was going to die. In my mind, there was no way Akutami would let him live, and I was in a really bad place mentally and wasn't sure how I'd be able to handle it. And then I was like "wait, that's literally why we have fanfic, I can keep him alive as long as I want."

So, I started Another Level with the intention to keep it to myself and use it as my own comfort fic to prepare myself for Gojo's death. Some behind the scenes info: a version of the dream Rinko had in Split Bluff was the very first thing I wrote for Another Level. Except it originally wasn't a dream, it was going to be their reunion. However, they weren't as close, they were solidly friends with benefits who barely knew each other. Then, I wrote a part where Rinko first meets Yuuji at the Goodwill Event and she was Maki's legal guardian and still a teacher at Kyoto Tech, then I went further back and wrote her asking Gojo to get Maki enrolled at Tokyo Tech, and then I went further back and wrote Make a God Bleed.

As you already know because you've read Another Level, none of those stayed the same because then, as I kept writing, Rinko took on a life of her own. She became so much more than just a random OC that I threw together without thinking. And I have to say that I'm so glad she did because I'm not sure I would have been able to deal with 236 without Rinko. Some people have said Rinko helped them, but she's helped me so much as well. I mean it when I say she's cemented herself as my favorite original character that I've ever written because she has so much depth and heart that I accidentally poured into her. Not to mention that she's helped me meet some really amazing people along the way.

I'm in a bit of a rut now because I was on a marathon of writing for about five or six months. I started writing Another Level in May, and while I wrote the first draft for All That I Am Is Yours probably in June or July, I pretty much completely rewrote it once we actually got there. Between May and now, I've written upwards of 300k words of JJK fanfic, not including the installments or drafts I scrapped completely 🙃

Posting schedule with Another Level:

As someone who is severely ADHD, my hyperfocus was strong with Another Level. I was obsessed. And I was even more obsessed when I realized people were enjoying reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

In all honesty, part of what kept me on a strict uploading schedule with Another Level was a desire for the validation and praise in the comments. While I had a lot written, I uploaded so quickly because I wanted to get that lil rush from seeing the comments.

Kiko is about to do a lil bit of oversharing for ya: I'd just left a job where I'd spent the last six months there with my formerly wonderful boss decided to blame me for every little thing that went wrong, and then she couldn't understand why my performance actually started to drop. I hadn't heard a damn word of positive feedback for anything I did in so long that the comments on Another Level helped pull me out of a very depressive state.

But, it quickly became unhealthy because I started to rely on them to the point where it was all I cared about. All I cared about was seeing comments on the newest Another Level installment, and when there wasn't feedback, I got all in my head about what I'd done wrong and wanted to post the next installment as quickly as possible because maybe that one would do better.

Now, this is not me saying that wanting comments is a bad thing. Feedback is very important, and it's hard to know if people are enjoying something when there's not anything to go on. But it does become a problem if it's the only reason you're writing. I've been very fortunate in that I haven't gotten comments or messages demanding updates because I've seen that others do receive those sometimes. I like to think it's because you guys are just awesome and wonderful people.

I've gotten a bit better about being obsessed with comments because I have this nice lil corner of wonderful people and I feel like I've made a few genuine friends here. (Hi Rai, if you're reading this, I hope you're doing well.)

I know that what I just described for my Another Level posting schedule contradicts what I said in the beginning, but I will say that while my posting schedule was heavily driven by that need for praise, my writing schedule was not. I was writing so much because I was enjoying myself. I was having more fun writing than I had in years. I still am, but I do have to keep reminding myself some of the points I made above otherwise I find myself falling into a rut.

THIS WAS PROBABLY WAY MORE THAN YOU BARGAINED FOR AND I AM SO SORRY 🫠

BUT I HOPE IT MADE SENSE AND THAT IT WASN'T JUST COMPLETELY FUCKING USELESS 😭😭🙃

[anaalnathrakhs]

very much in the category of things that weren't my problem once, because i was a little kid, but are now just mine to deal with because it's not reasonable, either morally or practically, to expect other people to fix them for me, but, if i can complain for a second here

it's kind of fucked up that i've demonstrated or communicated struggles with schoolwork my whole life and not once has anybody found a solution beyond just not doing it.

like i'm endlessly grateful that i got that remedial high school thing to railroad me towards the graduation exams, and i did pass those sit-down exams like any other student, but you have to admit that the homework requirements (including graded work that does count on reports for the final grade) were lax. very lax. and so i've just taken a lot of time with assignments, procrastinated until the night before, never wrote shit down and worked on passable memory and "good enough"

and before that everything was just a mess. mail-in school i just wasn't doing shit. there were a lot of problems but also like WHAT am i supposed to do with my textbooks. what do i even do. what is studying like. what is it supposed to be. i don't fucking know. i've never really done my homework. i invented fake presentations homework that i liked to do instead of doing my actual homework, in elementary school. and i was like. not works of any kind. it was just repetition of actions that i liked. i didn't research or learn or read anything about the topic i gave myself. i don't fucking know.

it just, again, strikes me as a little fucked up that the system would allow every adult to shrug and say "clearly the problem is that this kid is way too smart. who's to say????? no prescribed course of action, what does the next person up think?" until we had solved precisely no issues and made me skip a year to harder classes (despite sucking ass at like everything besides good reading/writing levels)

and like SHIT i know it's up to me now to learn how to study and to manage my time and to make time, but holy fuck i don't know how. i don't fucking know. part of the "perks" of picking my cursus over others was that professors monitor your work and it's kind of a "learn to learn" kinda thing, a "learn to study" experience. and it's just fucking not. holy shit. the first week they all told us "well you got good grades in high school so by now you know how to study and how your memory works" NO I FUCKING DON'T NO I DON'T

in like 8th or 9th grade my parents sent me to a day-school kinda thing with my mail-in school stuff, and it was just like sitting in a room with a number of other people working on their own shit while the lady taking care of it sat at her desk and overlooked or chatted with adult students. it sucked for a number of reasons, but above all it did not fucking help. i did like one assignment there? two maybe? i was just staring at this shit. doodling and writing disjointed words. maybe sort of reading a bit the textbooks but i remember really struggling to get through and constantly re-reading everything. i remember my senses and looking at the clock and lots of stuff surrounding the experience but i sure didn't learn anything. and produced very little. i was stuck. it was in a bumfuck village, an hour away by car, i had nothing on me, my dad would just drop me off and i'd sit alone and stare at this shit with nobody to talk to and sometimes the lady running the place would tell me to work on it. i think she did give some more substantial advice on the few assignments that got done, but like, cmon. i spent hours upon hours, days upon days there. i does not work. i can still sit four full hours in an exam room and give back a blank sheet.

so here we are. i still don't know how to study. how to do homework. how to organize my time. i don't even know how i'd begin to organize the fuckton of paper we've been given since september. i sort of write down assignments on my phone but i bought a nice agenda for that and i gave up on using it because it's just too much effort to pull it out to write at the end of the class and to check it at home. i feel like i'm fucking drowning. i read one book i did manage one book (read one-shot) during winter break but that too. so much shit to read. how do you even organize that. how do you organize your time and your space for that. i know it's stupid that i'm sitting on my computer and have been since september instead of doing shit but christ. even in the beginning when i wasn't LATE i did try to just lock myself in front of the school supplies. jack shit. i don't know what to do.

and it feels like such an unsolvable problem, like WHAT are you supposed to do when you don't have the basic number one skill everyone who went through 1st through 4th grade has some degree of. what the fuck do you do. and every time i try and have tried to express it, people suck off my poor wittle self-esteem like oh no but you have good memory, your family has cultural capital, you have so much you can do it! and like. first of all cool dismissal. second of all i do not currently have the skills to exploit those useful things. you have to understand that i may be able to make surface-level reference and socially pass as somewhat intellectual because my parents are rich nerds who namedrop literature at the dinner table, but that's not a knowledge that goes beyond surface level, and if i have to actually use these books/concepts/etc as rhetorical tools or examples in an essay it will not make sense because i do not fucking know what i'm talking about. or, more probably, i will not be even able to construct a reflection to make or not make sense, because i don't know shit about my topic.

like. i have to fix it. problem: how? i thought picking this cursus would help fix it. i thought it would be more explanatory, that there'd be specific methods that would be taught to us, in general that the method would be more explicit. i thought that if my schoolwork was suddenly plentiful and particularly important, as well as covering topics i find interesting, it would both force me to prioritize it and lead my parents to leave me more wiggle room. only it didn't work and also i forgot that i owe all of my time to my parents and i'm literally parasitic anyway and anything i do is a burden on them even if i somehow were succeeding currently. extra fun.

and the best thing is: I SAW EVERYTHING COMING. i knew it would probably go like this ever since we got the summer homework sheet, if not even earlier, and i knew why, but i'm stupid. i still went. i worked on placating my mind the first few weeks to see if i was just being negative and it was actually going to be okay as long as i went into it with an open mind and good will. fuck me it did not happen.

[nochd]

I'm afraid I must demur.

I've learned a bit more than the first damn thing about what a social construct is, and I'm leaning back towards the idea that it's... OK, not nonsense, but -- to put it mildly -- way less of a gotcha than it's cracked up to be.

Perhaps my perspective is limited by the situation at the University of Otago, where I studied and work. Perhaps other institutions are more rigorous.

Essential context: I started out studying geology but switched to cultural anthropology, in which I graduated in 2001. For the last twelve years, I've been going to lectures in all subjects to type notes on behalf of students with disabilities. Well, until the University quietly dropped that as a professional service a year or so ago, but they still pay other students a lot less than they used to pay me to provide notes for their peers, and now I'm one of the people who quality-checks those peer notes.

In anthro I got plenty of exposure to the concept of social construction. And don't get me wrong; if someone hasn't yet had the insight that money is only worth anything because people agree it is, or that "pink = feminine" is an arbitrary convention, or that most of the difficulties caused by disabilities are due to society's failure to accommodate them, then the concept of social construction is a timely and useful addition to their mental toolbox.

But it isn't half of what it's cracked up to be.

A repeated pattern in my anthro classes went

scientific (especially biological or medical) description of some phenomenon in human life, simplified down to the quick but presented as the actual unsimplified position of scientists on the matter; e.g. a spectrum presented as a dichotomy, or a trend presented as a strict rule

demonstration that this simplified version is simpler than the reality

assertion that this is the scientists getting it wrong, not the anthropologist

"it's actually complex" / "it's a social construct"

Throughout my anthro years I anticipated, each time, that this would be the launching-point for a discussion of the more complex reality. It never was; it was the conclusion of the argument. It was a gotcha and nothing more. And when I got assigned some cultural anthro classes as a note-taker and started seeing this behaviour again, having actually taken multiple science and health science papers in the intervening years and knowing the simplifications for what they were, I must declare I was embarrassed to be an anthro graduate.

A specific moment of disillusionment came from a senior professor who, back in my student days, had been a lecturer I particularly looked up to. They described the following two phenomena:

People's eyes don't work properly if they were occluded during a critical period in infancy; the eye needs light input and feedback to know how it's supposed to grow.

One time this professor went out into town with some students and the students stepped over the legs of some homeless people and when the professor asked them about it, they said they hadn't seen the homeless people.

From these two facts the professor concluded that vision is socially constructed.

Welp.

The first fact is well-documented, better in other mammals than in humans because they let researchers cover up baby ferrets' eyes for days at a time for no other reason than research, which they don't let you do to baby humans. Yes, feedback from the environment is critical in visual development. But the lecturer leapt from that, with no justification at all, to the conclusion that "environment" here means "social environment", which it doesn't. It means the physical environment, as in light sources and physical objects for the infant animal to practise focusing on.

As for the second... did you know people tell lies sometimes? Especially about their awareness of other people in misfortune, if they fear that telling the truth might get them labelled callous or classist? Did you know that, when people genuinely don't see something lying in their path, they trip on it instead of stepping over it?

But the disillusionment came from the fact that the professor had put these two utterly disparate things together and called them both "social construction". If "social construction" is so broad a concept as to cover both of these things, then it is too broad a concept to be useful. It's one step short of "God does it." It explains everything and hence nothing.

I don't think this is just a problem with the teaching at one university, though, because I've also read papers which came out of symposia on social constructionism. One expressed disappointment at the power of social constructionism for social change, on the basis that although you can say "This is a social construct, so I can challenge it or change it if I want," social constructionism also implies that the "I" in that sentence is also just a social construct, which leaves you without anything to challenge the social order with.

A second, more optimistically, argued that social constructionism could comprehend anything; except that the writer was personally having trouble applying it to (a) inanimate physical objects and (b) embodied experience.

"Embodied experience" is the social constructionist way of talking about, well, bodies -- the bodies of sentient creatures.

And I couldn't help realizing -- inanimate physical objects, plus the bodies of living things, together comprise the entire physical universe.

A theory that has trouble with the entire physical universe is not, I feel, one that is going to have many practical applications.

(Lest I give the impression that cultural anthropology and related disciplines are uniquely lacking in rigour, let me assure you from long experience that there is another cluster of academic subjects which similarly fails to justify its claims: economics, finance, and business studies. I don't think it's a coincidence that these disciplines just happen to support the neoliberal right in the same way the social-constructionist ones -- cultural anthro and sociology -- support the political left. But they're not the ones I'm talking about today.)

Everyone always thinks that describing things as "social constructs" is nonsense until they learn the first damn thing about what a social construct is and suddenly it's like taking the red pill in the Matrix.

[sweepingtree]

i'm sorry but how on earth does random splashes of colours or pieces of paper and what not equate to antifascism? its very clear to me that you are one of those people who think that only artworks made by rich white m*n are important because they have "meaning", whatever that is supposed to mean in the first place. it's people like you who discourage artworks that are made with love and many hours of the artists' time. for pete's sake i've seen you complaining about hyperrealistic paintings

ok first of all, this is all googleable information, and it's not just me stating a personal opinion so idk why you're being so mad but OK LOOK, the whole idea of modernism is basically the progress of humanity, and the whole idea of the "new", instead of doing things that have always been done. It's a bit more complex than that but I'm not going to go into it. Modernism in art, specifically, is a movement that really blew up around after WWI, and expanded even more post WWII. Many of the artists/writers/designers that are associated with Modern art now were refugees of the war back then, and were critics of the fascist ideologies that the warmongers represented. The 'traditional' ideal of western art - realism, romanticism, etc - THOSE kinds of artworks have been put up on pedestals by ultranationalists as a kind of 'proof' of white superiority. You even see such behaviour online nowadays where some rando will post a picture of a sculpture of some woman or something and go this is western heritage blah blah blah.

Now I'm not saying that all modern artists are progressives and anti-fascist, but the entire movement really did very much stem from just that: a kind of rebellion against what was considered traditional, or a kind of nihilist outlook, kind of like "the world sucks people suck nothing matters i'm just going to do absurd art as a reflection of how absurd this society is". (I have to say at this point that this is specifically about WESTERN art. Modern art movements in other parts of the world evolved somewhat differently)

As for my criticism of hyperrealistic art in the past, I do fully claim it. I don't dislike hyperrealistic works, but I dislike the way people worship it as the 'best' kind of artwork. You see a lot of this on those clickbait-types of social media accounts where they'll caption it as "wow this is what true art is" and all that shit and I just can't stand it because again, it's discounting the kind of work and the kind of intellectual labour (research, experimentation, fieldwork, reading, writing) that goes into other forms of art that some people who are not art-trained are so fond of dissing.

Also, I'm an art educator. The number of times I've heard my students dismiss their own art as lousy or not good enough simply because they cannot achieve realism is exhausting! The whole reason why all kids love art and then they eventually lose interest in it is because of our whole obsession with 'beauty' and realism in art. At a young age, art is fun for them because it's about colours and playing with materials. As they grow older, some of their peers will have parents who send them to classes to draw better (ie. more realistically) and they learn to compare themselves with others. This traditional way of looking at aesthetics is something that I have criticised and will continue to criticise because it is an actively harmful way of thinking.

[amane-by-together]

Blue Hour || Amane Yugi pt. 3/5

(Amane Yugi x Fem! Reader)

genre: romance, drama and a bit of fantasy

summary: amane and [name] stopped communicating after the pen pal project

“When we lost each other.”

The quarter felt like a shooting star, it was fast in a blink of an eye. As the late night calls stopped and so as the letters.

Amane laid down on his bed, staring at the messages that he and [name] exchanged. Something was weird, it's been a week since they chatted after the pen pal project was over.

Though, he doesn't want to assume that he has been ghosted, yet the situation is the same. Not being able to receive messages from the person Amane likes, it's definitely ghosting.

Amane stayed up all night, not because of star gazing, his honey amber eyes had lost their shine and looked like a zombie with eyebags forming under his eyes.

She disappeared like a ghost.

“You disappeared for an instant, like a faint ghost, you disappeared.”

Amane felt his eyes brimming with tears, he didn't get used to it, it's like being alone again. He never met [name], yet why was he crying for her?

‘This is not supposed to happen right? You're not supposed to fall for your pen pal Amane.’ the voice inside his very own head told him.

‘She's just a pen pal, Amane. Nothing special, you shouldn't cry about her.'

'It's all gone'

‘Don't disappear now, I'm searching for you��

‘It felt like the summer was winter without you.’

‘It's all gone, now. It's over.’

“Now I just missed you...” Amane choked back a sob. His heart was clenching making it difficult to breathe. It felt like he was having an anxiety attack, he wanted to make the feeling disappear.

Now that [name] was gone.

He wanted to disappear as well.

Amane hugged his knees hunched over while lying down. His phone was the only source of light inside the room since the moon isn't there when he needed.

Just like he needed [name].

But the thing is,

She nowhere.

She's gone.

Amane doesn't know what to do.

It's all gone.

“Whoah Yugi, you okay bud?” Yamabuki sat next to the young boy who was staring into space, his eyes were sore from crying and his eyebags are turning darker. “You look wasted man.”

“Yeah, I'm okay.” Amane smiled, even though he was hurting and grieving inside. To everyone it looked like it was the brightest smile, but in reality it was fake.

“No you're not, Amane-kun.” Yashiro interrupted, crossing her arms in front of Amane. She placed a hand on his shoulder, looking at him reassuringly. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Truth to be told, Amane does need someone to talk with. He's been bottling up all his tears and suffering because of [name]'s sudden disappearance. His smile faltered, casting down to his desk and nodded gravely. Yashiro grabbed his hand before dragging him out to class.

“I thought you liked [name]?!” Yamabuki yelled out.

Yashiro stopped as the two of them arrived on the rooftop. Amane's shoulders slumped a little bit. “So tell me what's going on?” she asked.

Amane was silent for a while, he felt his eyes watering. Yashiro wrapped an arm around his shoulder, telling him to calm down before he can tell her.

And so he did, starting from the day he learned that [name] was his pen pal, to the epiphany of falling for [name]. Yashiro listened, nodding on every word he says. “Maybe it's a sign that you two should meet?”

“Huh?” Amane rubbed his eyes using his hands. “What do you mean?”

“I've read this somewhere in books!” Yashiro tells Amane with a smile on her face. “I always see this kind of plot, and it is time to apply it to the two of you!”

“The two of you are some sort of soulmates!”

Amane squinted his eyes in disbelief at Yashiro, a typical someone who doesn't believes in soulmates and then they meet in some point for plot purposes. After Yashiro had elaborated the term soulmate, she bids goodbye on Amane because she promised Aoi that they will go on a "date" together.

Amane saw her figure slowly going away from him, but he didn't try to call her back or even yell that he used to like Yashiro. Besides, the young boy already had fallen for [name] and was foolish for trusting his intuition that he wouldn't.

He gave a one last glance at the sky before going back inside to his respective classroom.

“Come on Minamoto-kun, beat Tsukasa-senpai up!” Mitsuba encouraged Kou who was randomly pressing the buttons of his controller whilst his electric blue eyes remain glued on screen. Tsukasa, his opponent, was concentrating really hard to win the video game.

Amane was sitting on his swivel chair, reading [name]'s last letter before the project's end. He was reading it for like...fifteen times already.

“Senpai, you've been staring at that letter for a while...” Kou worriedly pointed out. Tsukasa told him to leave him for a while since he was on a state of singularity.

Amane puts down the letter and sighed heavily. The three of them went over to the older twin to see what was going on. “Not gonna lie that pen pal is creative as hell.” Mitsuba remarked. “Anyways, may I see the letter?”

Amane nodded as he handed the pink haired boy the letter. Mitsuba carefully unfolded the letter and started to read. He grabbed the envelope and started to examine it. Mitsuba notices from the back of the envelope, a slightly peeled off paper. “Hey, Yugi-senpai,” he called. “I think there's a post card stuck on the back of the envelope.”

Kou scrunches his nose. “They probably didn't mean to stick the post card and paint it to camouflage it—”

“Okay who has long nails here?” Amane sighed as he looked at his cutted nails. “I recently cut mine.”

Mitsuba peeled off the postcard from the envelope with ease. He gave the post card faced down to Amane. As Amane receives the card, he flipped it up and saw something that made his stomach drop.

It was the ferris wheel that Amane saw in his dream along with the unfamiliar girl. The question is, what does the ferris wheel have to do with that? “A ferris wheel?” Tsukasa asked.

“This is the ferris wheel I saw in my dream last time—” Amane let out a shaky breath and pointed at the ferris wheel. “There was this girl who appears in my dream two times in different places. One with the carousel and the recent one is this ferris wheel on the post card.”

“Hm? I heard this one from an article that dreaming about a ferris wheel means that you don't want interruptions when you're excited.” Kou explained. “A carousel is a symbol of childish joy, which means that you don't want to forget in the past.”

“Then how about that unfamiliar girl?” Mitsuba asked.

“She could be someone from a past life?”

“If a carousel symbolizes as childhood happiness does that mean that girl was linked to you as a child?”

“I didn't even have a female childhood friend.” Amane crosses his legs. “Besides even if that girl was my childhood friend I wouldn't be able to recognize her.”

“Do you have any information about [name]-san, anyways?” Tsukasa asked.

“She goes to Sanaol Academy, which was far from here.” Amane answered monotonously. “It'll take a subway to go there.”

“How do you know then?” Kou asked.

“I researched her school online, and it was an all girls school.” Amane wetted his lips while brushing his hair back using his fingers. “It's a four hour ride—”

“Four hours?!” Tsukasa, Kou and Mitsuba yelled in disbelief. The three looked at each other and nodded as they knew what they're thinking. Amane raised a perfect brow at them, then looking at the post card on his hand. “That's just—”

“Hold up.” Amane raised his hand to stop them from talking. “The post card that Mitsuba peeled recently, there's something that was written on the back of the envelope.”

There are dots and dashes on the back of the envelope. It is some sort of morse code. Mitsuba thought it was kinda extra since they could've just say the actual letters instead of encoding the message for minutes.

The four of them spent hours to encode the morse, Amane leaned back to his swivel chair as he wiped a sweat from his forehead. “So what does it say?” Tsukasa asked.

Mitsuba and Kou looked over to Amane's shoulder to see the message along with Tsukasa.

“You and me in 5:53 at the ferris wheel...?” Amane says as if it was a question. He turned his head towards the four and gave them a lazy but determined smile. “How would you three like a bonding trip to find [name]?”

“I'm in!” Kou smiled whilst showing both of his canines and pointed at himself. “I'm totally in for some trip!”

“I guess I'll come too.” Mitsuba blew a raspberry and shrugged. “Only because I'm bored as hell.”

“If Amane's going then I'm going too!” Tsukasa wrapped his arms around his older twin causing the latter to elicit an 'oof' from his lips.

“Well that makes us four then. We'll go tomorrow.” Amane tells them.

“Tomorrow?” Mitsuba asked. “What time?”

“Since [name] said to meet at 5:53 pm by the ferris wheel, which wasn't specifically mentioned where and what, I guess we'll ride at dawn.” Amane looked at his laptop and started to peck the keyboard using his fingers. “When we arrive at Sanaol Academy, we'll ask for directions for the ferris wheel from the post card.”

“I have a theory though,” Kou tells him. “It could be a possibility that [name] is the person in your dreams.”

Then it clicked him into epiphany, why didn't he thought of that before? But again, Amane has no idea what [name] looked like anyways. He shouldn't be jumping in to conclusions that fast. Just because the girl who keeps appearing in his dreams doesn't mean it's already [name].

[name].

Amane lets out an exaggerated sigh from his lips and slouched against the swivel chair. He really did miss [name]'s company, even if it's just letters and texts.

Who knows, maybe tomorrow during their trip, they will meet. Amane makes sure of it, he wanted to see [name].

He wanted her to know how much he misses her after they lost each other. He can't go on.

Not without her.

[mkstrigidae]

Okay so I'm making my way through your masterlist and I'm in love?? Like let's start off with Winter's Child- a masterpiece. You make Sansa a loving and relatable character and interweave the powers into cannon in a way that actually makes cannon make more sense (preconceived biases and such). Jon and Sansa's relationship is SO SWEET and they way they bonded was absolutely adorable (and the backstory with the houses and the powers they have make so much sense) 1/3

(2/3) Neon Rain literally the best Cyberpunk AU! I've ever read. Like what you did with the world building?? The stark class differences (haha see what I did there?), the choices in SOUND, and I could FEEL myself there! I love the family dynamics between the Starks and I'm loving the little details you're dropping with the Greyjoy's , Jon's parentage, and all of the medical procedures. Jon is dramatic af and I love it and Sansa is a bamf AS SHE SHOULD. Nothing but love for this

(3/3) A Past Worth Having has a special place in my heart. You build up this setting like a tapestry, just seeing more richness and depth the longer you look. I'm proud of Sansa for holding her composure, just FEELING in the angst that the older Starks feel at her return, and loving the relationships with Robin and the rest of the Starks + Jon Arryn. The detail that you're putting into the investigation/Oberyn is awe inspiring and I can't wait to see what you do next with the trial + Jonsa

Haha thank you so much!!! This is such a sweet ask to get! My response is under a cut, because this might get kind of long! (lots of my own meta below, bc i accidentally had a lot to say, haha)

With ‘Winter’s Child’ I’ve really enjoyed weaving in fantasy elements to the world because I like to look at stories and pick at loose threads until they unravel and asking ‘what if?’. I thought it would be a super interesting concept to take a character like Sansa, who in ASOIAF is exactly what she is supposed to be as a noblewoman of her class and conforms very well in that role, and put her in a position where she was essentially a societal outcast in a lot of ways! In WC, Sansa has a lot of similar coping mechanisms to ASOIAF Sansa, in that she sort of romanticizes society to avoid thinking about how absolutely awful it is. In ASOIAF, Sansa holds tight to the notion of knights and chivalry and courtly love to cope with the fact that she essentially has no control over her future and, as a woman, is basically property. In WC, I have her really struggling to make herself into that perfect lady and using that as a sort of shield to the fact that, without a gift, there isn’t anything she can do to improve her lot in life. Sansa has these ideas about becoming a perfect lady and hoping that being perfect in other areas will ‘make up’ for what society perceives as deficient about her, but is more jaded than ASOIAF Sansa due to her age and her earlier exposure to the ills of society. So you get a Sansa who gets along better with Arya and Jon as a result, in part because she’s had that exposure to what it’s like to be an outcast in society. I think that the best fantasy has a really strong emotional backdrop (a really great example is ‘Fruits Basket’ which starts by hooking you with this wacky, fun premise about people in a family turning into animals when hugged by a member of the opposite sex, and slowly builds into a point where you can see that the family ‘curse’ is a representation of generational and familial abuse- of bonds that should be broken, and of bonds that may kill us even as we cling to them- it’s extremely complex and rich and if you haven’t read or watched it, I can’t recommend it highly enough), and so while I really love writing about the fantasy aspects, and writing scenes where Sansa does really cool things with her ice powers, the core of the story is really about Sansa coming into her own, and learning that she was a person who was worth something even without any sort of gift. Sort of overcoming societal stigma and realizing your worth and forcing others to see it. It’s so much fun to write, but i’m stuck at the moment, because i need to reread the books, and my roommate is borrowing them right now haha!

God, APWH is like, indulging my inner world-building suspense-narrative loving writer persona. It’s literally my all time favorite trope- which is of someone growing up to find out that they’re a long-lost somebody or have family they never knew about- combined with a lot of research on trauma (which i’ve been doing for academic and other reasons for a while) and a lot of slowly growing psychological horror courtesy of Petyr Baelish (trust me, it’s going to get WAY more intense). There are so many pieces of media that I love, but I think that GRRM has so many characters and such a well fleshed out world that it’s very fun to dive into his worlds and create something there. Inherently, I love a slowly unraveling mystery and morally gray characters, and this is allowing me to indulge in both!!! World-building is my favorite, because i tend to be fairly detail oriented, and i’ve been laying bread crumbs in so many places throughout the story to hopefully build up to a decent conclusion! I know sort of how it ends, and I think people are going to absolutely lose their minds if I execute it correctly. We have a few chapters to go until we get to anything in the semblance of a trial- there’s some more emotional aspects that I think need to get addressed first, and so I’m so grateful that people are so supportive of being willing to wait for the Jonsa, because they really start spending a lot of time with each other during the trial and prior to the trial (i’m a big believer in bonding via long car rides and so there’s a lot of that!). I’m just so humbled and awed by the response to it- I never dreamed that people would enjoy the story this much- when I started it, I was writing a light-hearted family piece that wouldn’t be too long, and, uh, it kind of evolved from there. Clearly, I am not good at keeping things concise haha.

I left Neon Rain for last, because your comments on this one really made me smile! Of all of my stories, oddly enough, Neon Rain is actually the most deeply personal for me, and I’m just so flattered at your kind words! I spend a lot of my time thinking about the flaws inherent in our society, and without getting too detailed, Sansa’s experience with a family member struggling in the medical system is not unfamiliar to me. There’s a weight that comes with the realization that a system that is supposed to care for people is based on capitalistic ideals of profit maximization, and as someone who has experience working in the healthcare system- no matter how bad you think it is in the US, I can promise you it’s actually worse.

Neon Rain actually just started out as a series of mental images from listening to music that I had to get down on paper, and evolved from there. I actually really love the ‘soulmates’ and ‘class differences’ and ‘mastermind art thief’ tropes, but am incapable of writing fun stories without thinking about the reality of those tropes (see APWH for another extreme example of this haha), and so as I was writing and trying to capture this mental image, the rest of the world began unfolding around me. Jon is different because of a different upbringing here, and so is Sansa, and to see the formerly idealistic Sansa become so jaded by the time she meets her soulmate is just catnip for me. You have this interesting dynamic between them, because Jon wants nothing more than to have Sansa in his life, and give her everything she wants and needs, but where the old Sansa (who was arguably middle-class and somewhat naive, as financially secure teenagers understandably tend to be) would have swooned over that, the Sansa who meets Jon when the story begins is seeing the world and all the unfair and unequal systems in it. She can’t just live happily ever after with him right away- there’s a sense of guilt there, of sansa not feeling like she deserves nice things, and there’s also Sansa’s deep sense of compassion and kindness that won’t allow her to just live life as the well taken-care-of girlfriend of a wealthy man, because she isn’t able to just put on blinders and pretend that all the injustice in the world around her doesn’t exist, simply because it wouldn’t affect her that way anymore.

I think that the core to writing Sansa, for me, in any universe, is that she is a kind and compassionate person who is capable of feeling sympathy towards even the people who have done horrific things to her and her family- that emotional awareness and empathy is a harsh thing to have in a world like Neon Rain, and in our own world, honestly. I’m so glad that you appreciate Sansa’s BAMF-ness in the story- I think that her chapters demonstrate that she is capable of doing extraordinary things when she’s doing them for people she cares for, to be kind (The scene where Alayne helps Robin down from the eyrie is most indicative of this I think), and so in this world, I just love having Sansa be a complete badass out of necessity. Also, it’s fanfiction, and I really wanted to give Sansa a cool motorcyle, because no one else was gonna do it!!!

Also, my characters like to run away with me, and before I knew it, Rodrik Greyjoy had a huge adorable crush on Sansa in the story that I immensely enjoy writing. The Greyjoys are fun because they’re all absolutely insane, and i’m a total sucker for ‘gruff dangerous character is completely a sucker for the kind sunshine-y character’ trope.

God, this accidentally got really long??? I’m sorry- thank you so much for such a kind ask!!! I love hearing what people think of my stories, and this was so sweet :)

[spectralarchers]

You talked about this with an anon a few days ago I believe and I have to say I'm indeed impressed of how you've grown as a person those last years. I'm also impressed of how many things you do in your life and how many things you are interested in. How do you even do it ? Everytime I want to do something, I end up just spending my time on my computer doing nothing all day, and that goes for my homeworks, internship research and mémoire too. You have any advice ?

Hi my dove!

I have to admit that I do spend a lot of time staring at my computer screen and at my phone’s screen. These last couple of months have been quite intense for me, since I started my internship, because I’ve had my internship, my one class a week, my student job and my volunteer job, all of which kind of merges together when I try to write fic (NaNoWriMo), do edits, work on cosplay and what else have yous...

To be quite honest, I don’t have any usable advice, other than telling you what I do in order to try and get through all the tasks I need to get through in the day - and perhaps, telling you that maybe having 60+ hour weeks for more than four months in a row is a bit much.

I always write down a list of things I’ve done in the day when I am having dinner and/or am about to head to bed. It can be ‘done laundry, folded clothes, showered, put cutlery and plates in dishwasher, read one text, saw a movie and went to the grocery store’ because all of those things in themselves aren’t, well, “proper things” but they are when you put them together.

After I’d done this a while, I realized that I had a list inside my brain all the time, and if I could just tick off 4 things in a day, I’d be satisfied - it could be to wash my clothes, shave my legs (which also meant showering), prepare a text for Uni, and walk home from my internship. 

It’s also a lot of self-control - when I’m at my internship, that’s all I do. I don’t sit around on Facebook, staring at my phone, because I know they’re expecting me to do my job and to do it well - I may be overperforming at 120% of what is expected of me, because I am hoping to impress them enough to be offered a position there when I have finished my thesis, but that’s basically it.

When I’m working on Uni things, I also don’t look at my phone. It helps that I have it on completely silent 24/7 - it’s never on vibrate or on sound. So, I don’t know if someone is calling me unless I a) have my phone in my hand when the call goes through or b) I see they’ve tried to call and left (or not) a message. You’d be surprised at how few calls I’ve missed because of that specific thing. 

It stems from the fact that having my phone vibrate for every single notification all the time gave me a whole lot of anxiety a couple of years ago - WhatsApp, Messenger, Twitter, Tumblr, e-mail, text, Whatsapp, Snapchat, Tumblr, Messenger, e-mail, e-mail, text from the store, e-mail, e-mail,... It was just non stop, so I turned it off. I still check my phone once every three minutes, but if it’s a notification I can ignore for now (someone on Whatsapp asking me how my day is, for example), I wait until lunch or until I have a bathroom break to reply to it.

It’s also how I did it with NaNo - do word sprints. Except here, it’s more like concentration sprints. Write your article, then spend five minutes goofing around on tumblr. 

In the morning, too, I’ve made it a habit to unlock my phone when I go to the bathroom to pee, first thing in the morning, and instead of spending 15 minutes in bed checking my calendar/mail/instagram/whatnot, I spend maybe 5 minutes going through it while I do my thing, and then I get on with my day. I also optimize phone usage while I’m on public transport - scroll away while you’re in the bus, but stop scrolling when you’re at work / in class.

My student job is being behind a counter in a busy shop, so I don’t have time at all to goof around on my phone, which means I get shit done there too, but it’s retail, so you reach a point where there’s nothing left for you to learn, so you just go on auto-mode.

I’m juggling a lot of things at once right now - I’m supposed to start writing on my thesis, but I still haven’t finished my internship and my one class yet (lol, don’t ask), so I’m optimizing all of my time so I can get at least 7 hours of sleep per night, and get enough tasks done in a day to keep me afloat - and, when I can, I sit on the couch, connect my phone to the ChromeCast and watch a bunch of silly Vine compilations or other equally silly videos for half an hour, and then I go to bed.

My only, like, real life advice I can ever give you is: don’t ever think that you’re doing yourself a favor by staying up until 5 am, UNLESS YOUR BODY (AND PSYCHE) CAN HANDLE IT. I know my brain can’t, so I’d rather go to bed at 9 pm, and get up at 5 am to finish something, instead of doing it the other way around. 

Make sure you get enough sleep when you can. Socialize when you can - don’t lock yourself away from others because you’re busy. You’re not too busy to grab a cup of coffee or meet up with someone at Uni after class.

Eat. Like, for real. Even if it’s muesli with milk and a banana for dinner, it’s fuel for your body. You only had garlic bread in the freezer and you were too tired/busy to make proper food? Eat those garlic bread. Or cheetos. Or donuts. Or salad. Or- you get the point. Just get SOMETHING into your body. You can always go to the gym or walk it off when you’re not stressed anymore.

Drink - if you haven’t filled your water bottle three times in a day, you haven’t had enough water today. (Assuming you have a 0,5 l bottle, like me). If you think filling it twice is enough, you’re wrong. If you’ve only had soda during the day, you need to drink at least one large glass of water - trust me.

Remember that it’s okay to cry because you’re stressed - it took me a while to remember this, but your body and mind have limits. Even if you do 60+ hours, remember that it’s okay to break down at one point and be like ‘fuck this’. If you have to skip reading some texts for Uni, then just read the conclusion of the text instead. If you have something to hand in at work, either ask for an extension, or hand in something that’s finished but not perfect instead - sometimes they’ll have other things to correct (commas, spellings, etc.) and when you get to do the second draft, you’ll get to edit some of those other things you didn’t get the time to do first time around.

And last: never, ever, ever, blame yourself for not managing to do as much with your 24 hours as others. Some only need 3 hours of sleep to function, others need 9. Some manage to get up at fuck’o’clock in the morning to go to the gym, workout, go to work, go to some extra-curricular activity, make homegrown chicken pasta noodle salads with their homebaked bread, and then watch a documentary about how clever they are, all in one single day. Others will sit all day on the couch and watch a documentary on Netflix about polar bears while eating cheetos, maybe also procrastinating and making mentals notes about that paper that’s due in a week.

All are valid. 

You can make it count. All that matters is that you don’t give up. 

Also: my background on my phone is this picture: 

And I suggest all of these ones to keep you motivated: 

(All these pictures are from a photopost that crossed my dash months ago on tumblr, if you know the owner/artist, PLEASE let me know so I can credit them!)

I hope this all helped, my little darling <3

[realtalk-princeton]

To Maybach -- Anon 2023 again. Honestly, my other major option is Brown (and Penn, but that's out by now) and I'm concerned that I'd be sacrificing happiness if I choose Pton. "Happy" is a part of the Brown brand, whereas "ahhhhh" seems to be a part of Pton's. I want the name and the opportunities Pton would afford me. I suppose that's not a question, but how would you respond? Do you understand what I mean? Is it so awful to pick Pton 4 name/opportunity (in addition to the other stuff)

Sorry for the delay everyone, I just got caught up in a lot of obligations. Due to multiple popular demands from both pre-frosh and current students, I decided to structure my Brown and Princeton story in the following manner. In the first section, I’ll give my background context prior to starting college and my feelings throughout the years on the subject. In the second section, I’ll specifically address the above question in more detail with my many thoughts on key distinctions between the two schools. I think the combination will serve the purposes of everyone quite nicely. Lastly, if any pre-frosh ever want to talk to me, feel free to reach out and ask for my contact information. Or even better yet lol, I just remembered that PREVIEW started, so I guess it might be easier to just talk in person to me. I actually don’t even have class tomorrow haha. I just think that talking is sometimes easier than writing and also in these responses sometimes I have to speculate. For example, I can pretty safely state that if a pre-frosh is almost certain of being a pre-med, Brown is probably going to be a much less stressful experience, but I have no idea if this applies to you beforehand.

So anyway, even though it was four years ago, I still remember it like it was yesterday. Boy time flies. I was not the most studios or stand-out HS student. I wasn’t the valedictorian or salutatorian of a rather small school far away from major cities. While some Princetonian HS students spent summer doing lab research at universities, I spent mine goofing off with friends and traveling. We used to actually have a bonfire at the end of the school year and burned stacks of our HW up to 4 feet high lol. When it came to applying to college, I did not actually even again acceptance to NYU or BC lol even though my stats were more than up to par. I guess maybe they were concerned that I wouldn’t be a very hard-working student. Luckily, I am very fortunate that despite coming from an extremely educated family (grandfather and mom went to Columbia, Dad went to Berkeley, etc.), my parents never put that much pressure on me. So as you can imagine, I was super excited when I heard that I got into Princeton, Brown, Cornell, and some other schools. For a period of time, I was actually getting ready to go to Brown. My SO at the time had committed to URI and I was psyched by the super expressive culture of Brown. Students prided themselves on being true to themselves and also took full advantage of freedom with responsibility. The location was close enough to NYC and some kids from my HS were already there. I always hated excessive structure and authority growing up and the prospect of 70%’s A’s granted, no +/I’s, and pass/failing anything was totally alluring! On a side note, I always laugh when they say that people don’t abuse pass/fail and use it only like 10-15% of the time. Well, maybe that’s because they’re already handing out A’s like it’s water and all A-’s become A’s haha. But anyway, I was psyched. Who wouldn’t want to live at camp Brown and take it easier than HS, but still be guaranteed a legit degree on your resume? However, after I visited Princeton, connected with a large number of alumni, and actually started putting real thought into my education, my perspectives slowly, but surely started to change. I think what I really underestimated was the power of the Princeton degree and how impressive our alumni network truly is. The people I met and still meet to this day are absolutely brilliant in several respects (e.g. they aren’t just nerds in one subject) and many are focused on maximizing their impact and allocation of influence in this world. The alumni donation rate is nothing short of incredible and the chance to be part of this network was alluring. I remember meeting a guy actually who got waitlisted and was already attending Duke when he got the chance to go to Princeton. He lived every moment to the fullest with his academic pursuits, the social network of brilliant, but diverse persons, and solid career plans. Anyway, it just became more clear to me over time that while Princeton was rigorous, it’s academic qualities could be much more intimate and engaged than Brown and the intellectual horsepower of its students (mostly) created truly incredible and impactful people. Jeez lol I forget sometimes how many alumni we have on the SC, in politics, business, arts, etc. At Brown, all they do is gush over Emma Watson in an almost cult-like way (sarcasm). But anyway, I was getting pushed as you can imagine, but I was still worried as I wasn’t the best HS student and grade deflation had literally only ended the year before. But eventually, the offer was just too good to pass up. Once you become a Princeton student, your life truly does change and people will treat you give you credit solely based on this fact (whether it’s right or wrong is another story). I remember before I even committed, I was hanging out at the Princeton Club in New York and a few days later some of the guys (who literally knew me for like a few days), invited me out and basically paid of lunch at Smith and Wollensky and lauded me on my “accomplishments” lol and how they could always be resources to bolster a Princetonian. Pretty soon after I committed.

As for answering your specific question, I’m already seeing red flags. Whenever you choose a school for the name, that’s setting yourself up for a bad time. Yes, our opportunities are better. Look at the difference in endowments lol. It’s like that for a reason even though they have way more students and more grad schools. It’s also reflected as well in our post-graduation salary averages. Brown is more creative with RISD and it’s curriculum, but that doesn’t always equal more opportunities. Princeton has the most power and resources of any university on a per-student basis and gives us an incredibly powerful brand and network. That said, you should probably explore why you want to go to Princeton other than the name and brand. One of the miserable people I know picked Princeton over another school because it was the “Best” school she got into and that’s just not fun when you didn’t research enough beforehand. By contrast, I know someone who turned down Harvard for a small liberal arts school in the middle of nowhere and she had an amazing time. If you feel like and click with Brown’s social scene, that’s another reason for not going to Princeton. Academically, Princeton is better for people who want rigor and want to truly maximize their learning in a short period of time and be around amazing minds. Our depth is much better than Brown’s and it shows with how strong our students are in critical thinking skills both inside and outside of their majors. However, there is a downside to this. For example, if you want to major in physics at Princeton, you better adapt fast or be damn good at it. You can’t just “love” physics and be relatively bad at it (compared to your peers) to succeed here because we teach you to be the best students possible from professors who literally wrote your book. At Brown, sure you don’t learn as much or go as deep, but you can major in almost anything because you just aren’t held to the same standards. So there’s a tradeoff. If I majored in Brown’s business program, let me just say that I would not NEARLY be perceived by others to be so intelligent (even though I’m not lol). I know the kids in the degree, it’s not like they are dumb, but jeez lol is it a joke a bunch of the time. Relating sociology to business for example on the surface can seem like a good idea that teaches people until you actually see what they’re writing and working on. I would probably have a 4.0 without working as hard too. And I don’t mean this to mean I’m like super smart or anything. It’s just not comparable to Princeton. However, I am super blessed and thankful that I did take Economics here seriously. The kinds of critical thinking skills and the ability to analytically dissect complex multi-faceted problems that I have developed serve me very well and I feel so rewarded. I literally got a position at a hedge fund with no experience at all because the interviewer liked how I wrote a research paper on guns an applied rigorous statistical analysis in many novel ways to answer new questions. This is no different in many ways than using public information using novel techniques to find value where nobody else sees it. But overall, I think that I’m feeling Brown for you unless you are willing to work harder here for greater depth of learning. I just want to say too though that despite me working hard, I still don’t pull-allnighters almost ever and I still have achieved very high grades. You don’t have to be a genius to do well here. Take it from me. I had piss-poor test scores (by Princeton standards) and was not a valedictorian, but if you are strategic and work reasonably hard and are disciplined, the work is more than doable. I don’t want to brag because I think it promotes bad culture, but you ought to know that a student like me can succeed academically and perform at the top of their class without working in the library all the time. So you should really evaluate what kind of learning experience you want and where you will be most likely to be happy and healthy. Some people just want a break after HS and don’t care about going super deep into their learning development. That’s totally fine, but then Brown is probably better (assuming you also like the culture). Some people would really abuse Brown’s system, not really learn, develop unhealthy and bad habits, and be kind of bored. In that case, Princeton is better. It really depends on you, but if all you see here for you is a name, you’re probably shooting yourself in the foot coming here.

Anyway hope that all helps. I can answer specifics if you have them too.

Edit. also I realized how long this all is and noticed that maybe some of you should just call me or I can connect you with people I know who love Brown lol. It’s sometimes harder to write these things and express everything properly compared to like a 30-minute dinner conservasation. Just putting it out there. I’m also exhausted lol from staying up until 4am the past few nights for this huge deal coming up. I did this tonight so that I wouldn’t mess up my sleep schedule any further and avoid taking a nap lol.

[realtalk-princeton]

I have a paper due on dean's date and I'm really scared because I've never written a paper like this before (I have writing sem next semester and I never really did anything like this in high school)?? Is there any advice you can give on how to start the actual writing process (I think I've found some good sources but idk man this is all so scary!!!)?

Response from Sulpicia:

I’ve written somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 papers and formal written assignments of various lengths, and I will say that things get much easier as you get practice. Don’t expect things to be perfect the first time! This is my personal writing process, so feel free to adapt as necessary.

Step 1: Understand the question. How long should it be? Are you supposed to be close reading a passage, bringing together research from different readings/areas in class, or conducting original research? Often, it’s a combination of a few things. For this example, I’m going to assume you’re doing a research paper with a fairly open-ended prompt. Page count matters a lot too; a 5-7 page paper will be much smaller in scope than a 10-12 page paper, which will in turn be smaller than a 15-20 page paper. I’m going to assume you’re doing a 10-12 page paper but most of the same tips apply.

Step 2: Develop a topic. It seems like you’re already mostly there! I find this to be the hardest part of the writing process. I usually like to start by going through class readings that I can draw upon for the paper (for some classes that’s all of it, for others that’s a subset) and rereading them, looking to see if there are any questions that were left unanswered in class. If you have a more structured prompt, then it might be useful to reread the material and see how much you can develop an answer through that. At this stage, I like to make a lot of notes on paper, and if I’m using a lot of sources I might make a web or chart to figure out how the concepts relate. Personally, I find it helpful to center my research papers around one “lead” concept and one “supporting” concept. By that I mean that you can focus on reading one piece of text through multiple theoretical lenses/the broader themes of the class, or you can apply one theoretical lens to multiple pieces of text/the broader themes of the class. The key is to focus on one specific thing. 

For example, in my Fall JP my “lead” concept was a group of poems, where I narrowly focused on the treatment of slavery. In addition to my own close reading, I researched some theoretical sources and then used those sources to help understand this particular area of the text. Even though I was critiquing and quoting these scholarly sources, they were the “supporting” concept because they were helping me (and the reader) understand the main thing I was writing about.

I actually like to brainstorm term paper topics all semester and write them down when inspiration strikes. Good term papers are typically about something that, when you’re reading it, makes you think “That’s weird” or “You’re wrong, [insert scholar/author name]”, or “This contradicts with [other reading]”. Academic paper writing, just like good storytelling, requires conflict; it’s not useful to anyone to write papers that just go along and agree with everything in a source. Going back to primary sources or comparing secondary sources is how you find these conflicts and bring them to light.

The last thing you should do in this step is write a clear, specific question you want to answer. For example, I once wrote a paper where the question was “Based on manifestos from Italian Futurist writers, how was clothing incorporated into the Futurist movement, and how was this similar to and different than other Futurist art forms?”

Step 3: Brainstorm Solutions. Once you have a topic, you probably have some sources already. At this time, it’s helpful to go to the library and look for some research on your topic. Sometimes I go to the library to get ideas for topics, while other times I have specific questions I want answered and look for those answers in an existing text. In addition to our amazing library, you can look on Jstor, which is freely accessible to Princeton students, as well as Google Scholar, which has a lot of links to useful books and articles. This stage of research will help you start developing answers to your questions.

Once again, I like to make paper notes because I think it’s easier to think non-linearly on paper. Write anything down; all ideas are good ideas at this stage! I also like to make scans and print out passages from books so I can annotate them. After you’ve done this for a while, look at what you’ve written and see if there are any common themes. If you had to answer your question in one sentence, what would you say? Try to avoid the “three-pronged” thesis; this kind of roadmapping can be helpful for you and a grader if you’re writing a timed essay for a test, but isn’t really helpful for college-level writing, where you want to give more room for your ideas to breathe. The prompt that I learned in Writing Sem for writing a thesis statement goes like this: “By looking at [lead concept,] we can see that [answer to your question], which is important because [connection to broader concept/theme of class]”. If you can it’s good to not use these exact words, but it’s also okay to have some sort of structure, especially at this stage. Here’s the thesis statement from my Futurism paper, which was not my best thesis statement ever, tbh:

“I argue that Futurist fashion, as exemplified by Volt and Balla’s manifestoes, creates a realizable posthuman experience characterized by the destruction of traditional boundaries of the human condition.“

That was for a paper that was about 10 pages long. If your paper is shorter then you’ll probably need a more specific thesis statement, and if it’s longer you’ll need one that is broader or has more details.

Step 4: Develop a structure. Writer/editor Yung In Chae ‘15 wrote a really great piece about writing (which I’ll link below) in which she said that “ If the sections of your article are completely interchangeable, then you have not figured out the structure.” This is the same with your essay. Think about the first thing you need to prove for someone to buy your thesis statement, then the next thing that builds on that, then the next thing that builds on that. If I’m writing about a text, I often find it helpful to begin at the beginning and progress roughly chronologically, although you should feel free to jump around as sometimes you need to present a later piece of evidence for someone to understand the earlier one. I’ll make a rough outline either on a piece of paper or on a Word document, making bullet points with pieces of evidence and things I want to cover. Some people like to outline so heavily the process of writing is just stringing the outline together with transition words. I don’t do this, but think it’s helpful to include usable sentences in your outline so that way you make easy spots for yourself when writing. Then I print out my outline and keep it next to me.

Step 5: Write a rough draft. I lied. This is the hardest part of a paper. The blank page is like a speed bump; if you’ve done a lot of prewriting/acceleration it’s easier to sail over, but if you’ve done nothing, it feels daunting and impossible. I like to start at the beginning with my writing, but some people prefer to jump into the middle and write the introduction later. I find the introduction helps orient me, but you can see what works best for you. I’m a huge fan of what writer Ann Lamott calls “shitty rough drafts” in her book on writing, “Bird By Bird.” While the aim isn’t for the draft to be garbage, telling yourself that you will revise (and giving yourself time to revise) helps liberate you from the feeling that you have to make perfect prose every time. Just start writing and see what your paper looks like; I have never written a paper where I didn’t find more evidence while writing, or where my structure hasn’t changed in ways I could have predicted by doing anything but writing the paper.

Don’t get too stuck on a perfect first sentence. I find it helpful to open with something we discussed in lecture, or the weird, incongruous thing that led me to write the paper in the first place. Here are some first sentences I’ve written in the past:

1. “At its core, elementary education is a concise synthesis of a society’s core values, biases, and contradictions; the “basic” concepts which make up the first years of learning become the foundation upon which all later thought must necessarily rest, both in and outside of the classroom. “ (JP)

2. “A man wanders through city streets alone, buys his groceries, and returns home unharassed, noting that in his solitude he is more fortunate than even a famous senator” (JP)

3. “In his 1920 “Futurist Manifesto of Women’s Fashion,” Vincenzo Fani (using the pseudonym “Volt”) writes that Futurist thinkers will “transform the elegant lady into a real, three-dimensional complex,”[1] encouraging the use of “one hundred new revolutionary materials”[2] in the making of women’s clothing, including “paper, cardboard, glass, tinfoil. . .gas, growing plants, and living animals.”[3] Readers a century later will find striking comparisons to the daring and subversive ensembles worn by celebrities on contemporary red carpets, such as the singer Lady Gaga’s infamous “meat dress.”” (Term paper I’ve been using as an example)

As you can see, in (1) I started off with a broad generality meant to orient my reader which I, in my intro, narrowed into my specific topic. In (2), I used a narrative opening which I then expanded to get inside my topic. In (3), I introduced my source right away and then compared it to a contemporary source. I’m not saying any of these are the best writing ever, but there’s no “one way” to do an opening, even within one writer’s style.

Your intro can be as many paragraphs as you want and should end with your thesis statement. I like to think of this as the first part of a rollercoaster; you’re bringing your audience up a hill, slowly dragging them along as you introduce all of the major ideas of your paper (as well as any assumptions you may be making) before seamlessly placing your thesis statement at the top of the big hill and letting the argument run its course. The rest of the paper should be like a roller coaster as well; just like a rollercoaster pretty much zips along on its own force, you should aim for paragraphs and evidence to smoothly follow each other, with each sentence contributing to the last. Follow a pattern of evidence and analysis, and try to incorporate little chunks of evidence into your sentences rather than dumping them into sentences. Try to end your paragraphs on analytical points rather than evidence dumps.

Finally, you have to write a conclusion. My sixth-grade English teacher explained that the conclusion is where you “go beyond,” and this is what I think is key to a really successful essay. Yes, it’s awesome that you’ve proven your thesis, but why does it matter? How does it connect to broader course themes, the scholarly conversation, or even just life in general? Don’t be too trite, but try to think about how you, in 4-5 sentences, can summarize your argument and also make the meta-argument about why the world is smarter with your paper in it.

Step 6: Cite, Cite, Cite! Do this while you are writing your rough draft. Make a works cited page and add to it as you go, and also add in your in-text citations as you go to save yourself a world of stress. If your professor doesn’t specify you can use any style. I personally prefer Chicago style but I know APA is standard for sciences/social sciences. There are loads of resources online like EasyBib and Purdue Owl which are helpful for figuring out how to write citations, but the writing center is also helpful and you can always ask a research librarian as well (check your email for the “personal librarian” contact info). I brought both my JPs to my department’s subject librarian to double-check my citations.

Step 7: Revise! This is where your paper really takes shape. I revise like this. First, I print out my paper. Then, I sit down with it with a pen and write notes all over it, marking places where I need more information/evidence, where my argumentation is weak, where I’ve made typos, etc. Then, I open a new document and retype the whole thing from my revised copy. This helps me because I get overwhelmed by lots of text, and it also forces me to make all the revisions. Once I’ve got a clean non-rough draft, I also like to read my papers out loud, since that’s a good way to make sure you don’t have endless run on sentences or awkward prose. When I came to Princeton, I was usually doing 4-5 revisions of my papers, and I did about 5 complete drafts of my JP (with the biggest changes happening between my rough and first drafts). Now I typically only do 1-2 revisions, but that’s because I put the time in early as a self-editor and developed the skills to write better first drafts. I also find it helpful to have a patient friend read a draft, although it’s important to be conscious of their time.

I really can’t emphasize enough how much doing proper revising helps you stand out; most people here do not revise their work substantially, but that’s the space where you’re thinking critically about your work and enriching it. Unfortunately, our best ideas don’t come all at once but in stages, so editing is just as much about allowing your thinking to progress as anything else.

Step 7: Polish. Once your paper is edited, take this time to check for typos, add page numbers (with your name in the header), double-check citations, add a title (it doesn’t need to be art, but should be a real title and not “ENG 101 Term Paper”), and either cut down the paper to length or elaborate on a point to get it to the minimum length.

And you’re done! At this point, it takes me about 1hr/page to write a paper once I’ve done all my research, but I would allocate about 2hrs/page if you’re starting out. My #1 advice would be to not be afraid; the wonderful thing about writing is that your early drafts can be as bad as you want and nobody will ever know because you can revise, so liberate yourself. Also, you’re probably a really good writer already, so don’t be nervous :)

Here’s the link to the article which has much better writing advice than me, and write if you have more specific questions: https://eidolon.pub/ten-things-i-learned-about-writing-by-editing-68f3f93e45ef