You know, the thing that surprises me most about the ‘revelation’ that rich people pay off colleges to get their kids in is that it surprises anybody.
Like I thought we all knew that this was going on? Are people seriously shocked by this?
I think it’s the nature of the scheme (photoshopping kids’ faces onto stock photos of athletes) and the fact that some of the kids apparently weren’t aware that made this one unique.
Maybe you’re right about that. I guess…well, my father is a college professor, and rants about this sort of thing all the time, so perhaps I didn’t realize that the truly brazen stunts wealthy people will pull to get their kids accepted weren’t widely known.
Also I’m surprised that it’s illegal! Like, we all knew that those ‘so and so’ libraries were buying the families some nice perks, but I honestly thought that it was just part of the whole process
Yeah! Like I just assumed that everyone knew that a college having a sports field or a library or a science lab or whatever named after a family meant “This family bribed us with a real fat check to get their uninterested child admitted”
And also that people who completely didn’t deserve admission got in because they were good at sports. Like, everyone knows that. I’m just shocked that people are actually getting in trouble for it
Right?
That’s literally the only thing that surprises me about this whole thing.
And I just had someone come into my inbox and try to shame me for saying people don’t deserve a college education just for being good at sports. Like. I was a TA/tutor for the first two years that my college had a football team. Do you know the people who were the rudest about needing help, or the whiniest about having bad grades, despite me having a pretty generous grading policy? The football players.
If they canget the grades and scores to get in on their own, and then maintain them, cool. Awesome. Our nationally ranked soccer teams did. But if they get in purely because they’re good at a sport, and expect to coast through school on that? Fuck ‘em, and I hope they fail out
YEP.
I worked in the computer lab in college, and one of my jobs was helping students who needed it…we had little signs that we put on the door saying “Hi! ____ is in the lab today, they have passed (list of classes I’d taken and passed). If you need help with any of these, please ask!”
And a lot of students did ask for help and I always liked helping them. Usually it was just normal study help or going over a particular concept or breaking down problems in a way that made it easier for the student to solve. You know, normal tutoring stuff.
Now, the volleyball, basketball, and tennis teams. A bunch of kids had sports scholarships. Most of them were perfectly nice and normal students who worked hard both in sports and in class.
But then there were the few who would come stomping in and expect me to do all their work and assignments and papers for them, because they were there on a Sports Scholarship and therefore thought that they did not have to actually do anything else. A couple had the absolute gall to complain to my boss that I ‘wouldn’t help them’. I almost got written up, until I explained that their version of ‘help’ meant ‘write their entire midterm lit paper for them’.
The athletes who took their classes seriously? I hope they did well, and I did everything I could to help them when they needed it. But the entitled assholes that thought throwing a ball real good meant that they were too special to learn algebra like the rest of us?
Fuck ‘em.
To contribute to the discussion of student athletes, there were a lot of them that were rude and didn’t want to do the work. However, there were also a fair few who had no idea how to even start an essay. I worked as a writing tutor and I had some students that came from very poor areas and the only way they were even able to get into college was through sports. Thing is, they could barely read at a 6th grade level because their school system was so broken that no one cared to help them and just kept passing them along. I did everything I could to help them just be able to catch up to their peers. That being said, yeah there’s a bunch of stuck up athletes that honestly probably don’t want to go to college, but know that it’s the next step for sports.
We had a few kids like that too, and they were honestly eager to learn! I liked helping them. I compiled a list of web tutorials for stuff like starting essays and how to format papers in APA style and how to do proper citations at one point that I emailed to kids who were desperately trying to get their skills up to college level but who had never really had any help.
I think the issue with this current situation is that the schools themselves weren’t bribed. Like y’all said before, Rich parents can buy nice, fancy buildings for the school and their kid would get in. But apparently… these parents didn’t do that. These kids were such bad students that these parents had to fake data. I was reading (and people are talking about) how the kids cheated on entrance exams and records were falsified. A big joke is that kid’s faces were photoshopped onto athletic bodies. All of this money also went to a single “company”; a guy who had the access and resources to pull this stunt. At least with some “legal” cases, mommy and daddy bought a nice computer lab and you could actually see that the kid had shitty/average grades, but in this instance, the schools were also scammed.
I think that’s the other reason; I feel like if the schools got the money, they wouldn’t care, but some random dude got it, so they’re upset. On top of that, the schools know when a kid is there because of money, but not even the schools knew. This also makes the schools look bad because they didn’t know either. Because let’s be real, students represent a university. shitty students= shitty university. It’s putting all of these school’s legitimacy on the line and that’s what’s making it such a big deal
I like haunted houses in theory BUT I have no idea how to react when the actors speak to you. They ask me a question and I just… answer it…
The scariest part of a haunted house is the unscripted social interaction.
Scary nurse in a creepy voice: “Do you have an appointment to see the doctor?”
Me: “Uh. Do you accept walk-ins?”
Scary farmer: “I like to kill people!”
My friend, brightly: “I like to die!”
Zombie : “AARRRGH”
Me : “Do you get dental insurance?”
Zombie : “TEETH!!”
This happened to me.
Scary prison dude: HELLO
Me: Nice to meet you!
Him: (pause) No it’s noooooot
My worst horror house experience was when I couldn’t find the (rather obvious) exit and the guy chasing me with a chainsaw stopped, sighed and pointed me to the exit, saying “please scream as loud as you can when you run out there” and just left. I disappointed the horror house chainsaw dude and I will never get over that
Guy: They are all my friends.. (motioning to hanging corpses; then grabs a noose) Will you be my friend? Me: Sure totally, you made me a friendship necklace? Oh my god your so sweet? Guy: … Yes.. Please, let me.. I cant I cant just go (laughing).
– Got to walk a second time through–
Same guy: My friends -wailing- Me: I came back I just really wanted to be friends so bad Guy: (laughing more) Please, Im not allowed to laugh.
I went to a Haunted House and literally befriended every actor there.
Specifically, I remember;
There were zombies walking around in the waiting room. I said “Hi!” and he gave me a high five. Every time he passed from then on, I got a high five.
Near the end, there were these twin little girls. “Come play with us.” They said. “Okay!” I said. “Forever.” They said. “Oh, sorry, can’t do that. I’m busy.”
I could hear them giggling.
Guy playing Freddie Kruger: Remember, you are all my children!
Me: thanks dad
A small chorus of teenagers: thanks dad
I went to a haunted corn maze once. Someone ran at me with a chainsaw. I just stared at him. He hung his head and walked away. I left.
The Real Horror Is The People We Dissapointed Along The Way
IM CRYING
One time in a haunted house I shouted “oh my god” and the guy playing the Victorian-esque mad doctor replied “you can just call me doctor” or something like that and a) it was the smoothest fucking thing but b) holy shit I cracked up so hard I wish I could have told him later that that experience will sit with me for life
I have never been in a haunted house and I’m sad now.
Honestly in terms of sets? Very little of the Prequels were CGI. Lucas actively attempted to cultivate the idea that he used CGI for everything because he wanted to be perceived as cutting edge. Mustufar? That’s an actual miniature set. The poured jello over the top of neon lights to make the lava. Naboo? Also used miniatures; they used salt instead of water to make the water falls look right at that scale.
Okay, are we all just gonna ignore that set designers had to painstakingly cut, paint, and arrange 500,000 q-tips?!?
The models for the clone facilities on Kamino are some of my faves from the PT, seen here being worked on by Adam Savage!
Once there was a man who hated the world, and sought to withdraw from it. And being gifted in sculpture, he carved a woman from a block of marble. And on the morning after his work was complete, the gods, being merciful, awoke her…
…and the sculptor, being pleased with his handiwork, kept her close and loved her well all of her days.
…and the sculptor, being pleased with his handiwork, sought to keep her close and love her well. But as she was his creation, she could not love him; for we do not love those who have ever held us in their power. And thus, in time, she departed from his side.
…and the sculptor, being pleased with his handiwork, sought to keep her close and love her well. But as she was his creation, he could not love her, for we do not love that which is only an extension of ourselves. And thus, in time, she departed from his side.
…and the sculptor, though pleased with his handiwork, found that he could not love her, for we do not love that which we have once compelled. But nevertheless she loved him dearly, and remained ever by his side and served him well, and perhaps there was some grace in that.
…and the sculptor, being pleased with his handiwork, sought to keep her close and love her well. But there are flaws in the earth and sky, and flaws in the gods’ wisdom and in mortal hearts, and as all the world knows, there are ever flaws in stone.
…and the sculptor, being pleased with his handiwork, offered her a chisel, for he greatly desired to know what she would make.
So one day a dwarf is talking to a human and finally realizes that when humans say woman, they generally mean “person who is theoretically capable of childbirth” because for whatever reason, humans assign social expectations based genital differences. (What a fucked up culture, the dwarf thinks.) But hey, better communication! So the next time the dwarf introduces theirself, they say, oh, by the way, I am what you call a “woman.”
And the trade negotiations just stop. They just stop cold. The tall people insist on speaking to the man, they insist on talking to the lady dwarf about all sorts of irrelevant bullshit, like recipes and childrearing and perfume
so the dwarf goes back home, enraged
and is like “BTW guess what happened, we’re all just going to be men forever now as far as the tall ones are concerned”
and everyone is justly horrified at this barbarism but they all agree to do whatever it takes to squeeze those tall bastards for all the resources they are worth
and the dwarves get surlier, and the trade agreements less generous
and the tall people are all “what a miserable and greedy race”
but really they’re just still nursing a grudge about how goddamn backwards and sexist the tall people are
because their best negotiator, one of their sacred cave people, got snubbed the instant she said she was capable of childbirth – and a mortal insult like that can never be forgiven
Just as an additional thought, we hear that women dwarves generally stay within the mountain and are a protected, guarded subset of the dwarves. There’s not many of them, so there’s an implication that women dwarves are too precious to be allowed out.
But what if this too is a mistranslation? What if the dwarves were talking to the Men and when asked “where are all your women?” they hit a wall. They whisper amongst themselves, and eventually come back with a question, “What’s a woman?” The Men are incredulous.
“Why, the members of your race that bear children, of course!“
More dwarven whispering.
They reach the conclusion that Men mean dwarves who are currently pregnant. Well! Of course those dwarves are currently safe within the mountain, well cared for and generally loathe to travel until the child is born. The Men take this to mean that all dwarven women are discouraged from traveling, and that their primary purpose is childbearing. Dwarves find this a satisfactory outcome, especially with the way Men treat their women, and so even when the misunderstanding becomes clear to them they never correct it.
I have never converted to fan-canon so hard before.
I saw and reblogged this one a while back, but it’s always worth repeating, and this time I’m adding a bit of background info comparing common fantasy sword features to the Real Thing (with pictures, of course.)
Leaf-bladed swords are a very popular fantasy style and were real, though unlike modern hand-and-a-half longsword versions, the real things were mostly if not always shortswords.
Here are Celtic bronze swords…
…Ancient Greek Xiphoi…
… and a Roman “Mainz-pattern” gladius…
Saw or downright jagged edges, either full-length or as small sections (often where they serve no discernible purpose) are a frequent part of fantasy blades, especially at the more, er, imaginatively unrestrained end of the market.
Real swords also had saw edges, such as these two 19th century shortswords, but not to make them cool or interesting. They’re weapons if necessary…
…but since they were carried by Pioneer Corps who needed them for cutting branches and other construction-type tasks, their principal use was as brush cutters and saws.
This dussack (cutlass) in the Wallace Collection is also a fighting weapon, like the one beside it…
…but may also have had the secondary function of being a saw.
A couple of internet captions say it’s for “cutting ropes” which makes sense – heavy ropes and hawsers on board a ship were so soaked with tar that they were often more like lengths of wood, and a Hollywood-style slice from the Hero’s rapier (!!) wouldn’t be anything like enough to sever them. However swords like this are extremely rare, which suggests they didn’t work as well as intended for any purpose.
I photographed these in Basel, Switzerland, about 20 years ago. Look at the one on the bottom (I prefer the basket-hilt schiavona in the middle).
A lot of “flamberge” (wavy-edge) swords actually started out with conventional blades which then had the edges ground to shape – the dussack, that Basel broadsword and this Zweihander were all made that way.
The giveaway is the centreline: if it’s straight, the entire blade probably started out straight.
Increased use of water power for bellows, hammers and of course
grinders made shaping blades easier than when it had to be done by hand. This flamberge Zweihander, however, was forged that way.
Again, the clue is the centre-line.
Incidentally those Parierhaken (parrying hooks – a secondary crossguard) are among the only
real-life examples of another common fantasy feature – hooks and
spikes sticking out from the blade.
Here are some rapiers and a couple of daggers showing the same difference between forged to shape and ground to shape. The top and bottom rapiers in the first picture started as straights, and only the middle rapier came from the forge with a flamberge blade.
There’s no doubt about this one either.
The reason – though that was a part of it – wasn’t just to look cool and show off what the owner could afford (any and all extra or unusual work added to the price) but may actually have had a function: a parry would have been juddery and unsettling for someone not used to it, and any advantage is worth having.
However, like the saw-edged dussack, flamberge blades are unusual – which suggests the advantage wasn’t that much of an advantage after all.
Here’s a Circassian kindjal, forged wiggly…
…and an Italian parrying dagger forged straight then ground wiggly…
There were also parrying daggers with another fantasy-blade feature, deep notches and serrations which in fantasy versions often resemble fangs or thorns.
These more practical historical versions are usually called “sword-breakers” but I prefer “sword-catcher”, since a steel blade isn’t that easy to break. Taking the opponent’s blade out of play for just long enough to nail him works fine.
NB – the curvature on the top one in this next image is AFAIK because of the book-page it was copied from, not the blade itself.
The missing tooth on that second dagger, and the crack halfway down this next one’s blade, shows what happens when design features cause weak spots.
So there you go: a quick overview of fantasy sword features in real life.
Here’s a real-life weapon that looks like it belongs in a fantasy story or film – and this doesn’t even have an odd-shaped blade…
Just a very flexible one…
If you want more odd blades, Moghul India is a good place to start…
i could not ask for a better addition to my meme post than blade education thank you so much
