Ando

So from then on whenever one of us called something problematic, he would make us talk it out until we could name the “bad” thing we were hinting at. In this particular class, 7/10 it was some type of oppression, and the remainder was like, “I’m uncomfortable because this is very new/confusing/pushing boundaries that made me feel safe.”

Once we stopped calling things “problematic” and stopping at that, class got way more interesting and... we all had to say, like, “that’s racist” or “that’s misogynistic” or “ew capitalism gross” out loud, which a lot of us had never done in a classroom before. Or we had to be like, “Uhhh... I’m not sure what’s so bad?” and confront our own beliefs and that was maybe even more useful.

And a surprising number of people are answering "only after we fix them.”

i like it too :)

The perfectionism of artists has them researching stuff in a way that only scientists can compare. Some artists become experts in biology or anatomy. Other special interests have them going down rabbit holes to make them better at their art.

Disney animators said "we are perfecting the code for this snow if it kills us" and researched and invented code until it acted like real snow in Frozen and snow scientists were like hey. Did we just fucking solve the Dyatlov Pass mystery. And the animators answered no. We made snow. YOU applied the knowledge and did the experiments to solve what could have happened at Dyatlov Pass.

A deep, intense, reverent love for the world — or at least some aspect of it.

A love for the way snow falls and birds call and water flows and trees grow and the sun shines and words rhyme and the universe spins and people live.

The love of an artist for their subject is just the same as a researcher's for theirs.

They say to be loved is to be known.

My orthodontist tells me I can make an appointment with the surgeon. I call the surgeon. They tell me I need a new referral. I call the orthodontist. They do a referral. I call the surgeon. Referral didn't come through. They tell me about their special unique system we have to use. I call the ortho again and walk them through the referral. I call the surgeon. They say the referral was missing some details so they have to do it again. I call the ortho.

The insurance company calls me about repair shops. I give them the name of the repair shop which I already gave them yesterday. They say they're not in their system but I can use them, but I have to call the repair shop to ask them to contact the insurance company. I call the repair shop and they say the insurance company is supposed to email them.

Ken Sample and his cougar character, origin of the fursona.

yeah

And I learned to like that and see the appeal in that, sure. There are lots of stories that were made for an audience of little boys that I ended up liking. But I always wanted something that told me boys like me, who didn't want to be violent or competitive, who liked nurturing things and making friends, who avoided fights whenever allowed, were valid.

So I was really happy when Steven Universe came around and was exactly that - the kind of show a sensitive little boy like I used to be would have killed to see. And very shortly after that I was crushed when the growing criticism of the show repeated the refrain that it was bad mainly because Steven was a pacifist who cried and didn't want to be violent and liked nurturing things and making friends instead of killing people. I wasn't surprised, no, it made perfect sense people would hate it for being that, but I was crushed all the same.

Our society only accepts a very narrow definition of masculinity, and kindness isn't allowed to play a very big role in it. That's one of the reasons I quit it.