Love and Fury can coexist

Love, grief, and magic in the mundane

They're preying on insecurities to do it. Yes, you can write an essay - but can you write a good essay, they ask you. Do you not want to improve your output? Do you not want people to think of you as competent and very clever? Why go through the mortifying process of failing and failing and failing until you succeed if you can just skip the "learning" part of doing, and simply generate a ready-made product?

I'm preaching to the choir here obviously but it's a concerning thing to witness nonetheless. My kid is 6 next week and I've been teaching her that failing at things is morally neutral and in fact necessary even before the advent of AI, but it's becoming ever more important that we teach the kids that criticism and failure and discomfort aren't necessarily bad things, but just a part of the growth process.

(via bsky)

You try to pull the blanket off of yourself, and you realize that, it too, is made of chocolate. You try to shake it off, and step out of bed. Your carpet feels strangely spongy. You look down, only to realize it’s actually cake. Lovingly baked, and smelling of sweet fruit. You grab a piece, and cautiously take a bite. It is one of the most delicious cakes you have ever eaten.

You get up, confused, and exit your room to see if the rest of your house is like this. The door handle melts in your hand as you hold onto it, and covers it with dark chocolate carefully painted gold. The rest of the carpet on the floor is still cake, the guardrails on the stairs leading down are tempered chocolate, the tiles on the floor are the same, the windows are sugar glass, everything is edible.

You run outside, knocking over the lovingly crafted chocolate front door in a panic.

You realize, in horror, that your house was not an exception. The bushes, the grass, the asphalt on the road, the trees, birds, the world itself, is chocolate.

Twice in my youth (once in high school and once in college) I was in situations where I was asking someone out and I could tell they were calculating in their heads the risks of rejecting me, and both times I said, out loud, "you can say no, I wouldn't have asked if I wasn't prepared for either answer." And then they said no. This wasn't some spark of special wisdom I had - I knew to do it because feminist conversations among my age group brought it up regularly. This isn't happening nearly enough anymore.

More recently, I was really glad when we got to "rejection sensitive dysphoria" in my IOP program and it was one of those symptoms where the therapists really emphasized how it affects others. Because it does.

"Oh I don't normally use AI, I just wanted it to plan my trip"

You lived on this planet for decades, you know what you like, there are hundreds of websites where you can type into any search engine " things to do in [area]" and have at least a hundred different options.

"Oh I only use it so I can figure out what to make during the week with what I have"

The most popular website as you type in "recipes" into google have sections where you click dinner- quick and easy and those usually rely on staples + 1 or 2 items. I found 30 recipes on chicken alone.

"I had a writing idea, so I typed a few sentences into Chat GPT and I was able to write 20 pages with it."

Hello Tumblr-folks!

I'm posting this on behalf of my amazingly wonderful friend Shantá who is currently in Scotland working on her Master's Degree. And that means writing a dissertation. Which in her case means doing research.

I know how the web of shares works on Tumblr and I am hoping that we can share this far and wide so that it will come across the dashs of those who fit her demographic.

So if you ARE a Black educator (you don't have to be American) who teaches or has taught English in Asia, PLEASE click the link and fill out the questionnaire. Research Study

If you DON'T fit that demographic PLEASE share this post so that it can make it to the right eyes.

I have been talking up how helpful all of our followers and mutuals on Tumblr are with this kind of thing, so let's show off how great we are!

Without further ado, here is a little intro from my badass bestie:

Hi! My name is Shantá and I am a postgraduate student at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. I am from the States, but relocated to the UK to pursue my master's degree in Global Business Communication. After successfully passing all my courses in the first term, I am now spending the summer working on my dissertation, which centers the lived experiences of Black educators teaching English in Asia. My focus is primarily for those with experience in TESOL/TEFL spaces, but I am open to participants in the JET Program or other programs where you were/are teaching English in an Asian country.

You may be wondering, what this has to do with my specific program. Since English is often considered the "global language of business," I am investigating who gets to be the face of this global language.

If you or someone you know has this specific background and experience and would like to contribute to this research study, please complete the attached/enclosed questionnaire. Please note that the questionnaire will be available online until 23:59 BST on 28 July 2026

Although the questionnaire outlines pertinent information on the privacy policy as well as the data collection and use, I understand you may have some additional questions about the research study. If so, please feel free to send me an email at d.mcdonaldbey.25 (at) abdn.ac.uk

Thank you!

Research Study

Go forth and share!

An innocent man is home with his family instead of spending his kids' whole childhoods in jail for "resisting arrest" when none of the cops could agree on why he was being arrested in the first place. (But it definitely had nothing to do with him being a Black man in a nice car, honest! 🙄)

And it still took like two hours of delibration after we'd heard all the evidence because one lady was so gung ho about believing everything the cops said, even when not a single goddamn one could agree with their own testimony, let alone their colleagues'.

Pointing out all the inconsistencies and admitted misconduct and letting people slowly come to their own conclusions as the trial played out was fucking hard, I won't lie. I can be patient, but it doesn't come naturally to me.

But. Yelling about how this was obviously a bs case would have shut everyone down and made them stop listening. Asking questions and letting people discuss how the cops tried to make xyz sound suspicious but it was totally normal, or about how if things played out the way the cops said then logically events should have proceeded in a totally different direction, and positing different theories that actually lined up with the evidence presented?

That got people thinking, and everyone realized that for a variety of reasons we all had reasonable doubts that the defendent had committed any of the crimes of which he was accused.