Trying desperately to make precalc and trig more interesting by incorporating The Sillies

can you elaborate on the stealth deradicalization unit you have to teach?

Okay, so, I've been a composition teacher since 2016. Up until last May, I taught at a small college in a rural area that serviced first generation and ex-military students. Many of them were relatively fine, leaving aside structural issues with the military.

A few of them weren't -- getting into Q-anon related bullshit. I didn't want to read that stuff, and I was a bit troubled like this. Given that critical thinking is part of my remit for these classes, I worked on this.

So here's the basics of the critical thinking unit I used:

1) I only rarely directly pushed back on anything. People clam up if directly opposed, especially if you're in a position of authority. Keeping them engaged is key.

2) I tried to frame everything that I use in practical terms, even outside of academia. For example, you should learn research skills to make smart decisions for voting and consumer choices. Critical thinking is useful not just in general, but specifically to counter moral panics.

2a) I might take a stop through talking about cults on the way to Moral Panics. I try to emphasize that it's often very intelligent people who fall for these: it's not about being smart, it's about learning habits of questioning -- I might prime them for this by fitting the afterword to J. Michael Straczynski's comic book Midnight Nation into a prior unit where it fits.

3) moral panics are fun and interesting to learn about, especially when the alternative is learning semicolon placement.

4) I run through the satanic panic of the 1980s, which is old enough that a lot of the people who I teach don't directly remember it and it seems ridiculous. However, we can point to wrongdoings by both conservative and liberal actors, so that also avoids alienating the largely conservative audience. It's also similar enough to Q-anon that it can begin to make them question it.

5) I limit this to one -- maybe two -- days, and then turn to discussing rhetoric soon thereafter. So, while they're beginning to question things, I can introduce them to common techniques used to manipulate people alongside the techniques they need to do their course work. For example, I can teach them how to recognize a motte-and-bailey argument or some of the more common logical and rhetorical fallacies.

This is... mostly it. I've got to go to bed so I can get up early to teach, but if you find yourself stuck with a position of authority, the trick -- as far as I can see it -- is to not engage them on the conspiratorial topic and then offer legitimate rewards for doing legitimate work that depends on skills and mindsets antithetical to the set of beliefs in question.

Evidence: I want to believe in UFOs and high strangeness, but I've been trained to teach research skills and all of that stuff is so poorly done that it offends my sensibilities. I'm still open to hearing about it, but I've been disappointed every time.

ello

i have a question actually if ya dont mind, how do you go about writing? just like in general, do you start before having a WIP intro, how soon do you start talking abt it/writing it, how much do you prep, literally all and any advice would be appreciated tysm <3

Hey, buddy!

I'm gonna preface this with the usual disclaimer of "what works for me might not work for you because human brains are squishy and cool" and all that good stuff. Pick and choose or completely disregard, as with all writing-related stuff, the choice is yours!

This is long, so hold onto your boots and here we go.

The concept stage is normally pretty straightforward for me. I'll be trying to take notes in class, at work, whatever, and my brain'll wander off and go "okay, but--but what about a giant pack-moose?" and bam, off I go (re. Prince for Hire). In this stage I'll normally develop the main character(s) or the situation/setting--whichever the stray thought fairy didn't grant. That'll usually take the form of scribbling out a few characters' names to get a sense of the time period/language-base (Kiris was the first character, but Iiriok Nelovskevouk of Dargoulvga was the first named character, and his name accordingly set my naming practices for the Novgor Plateau). If I had a character first, I'll come up with a setting/situation I think would challenge them. Once I have an idea of a character and situation (and realize, when I say "idea," it really might just be a name) I'll scribble out a page with that person/setting. So, for Prince for Hire, that makes the first scene I ever wrote for it Kiris escaping in a queen's bathtub across a giant lake because the queen just discovered he was a conman. Did I keep that scene? Myeh.

Nominally from there I'll try and rough out a plot. Having spent considerable time reworking Attenuate/Reverberate because I didn't rough in a plot, this is the one step I really would recommend you consider doing. By "rough out", I mean I came up with a few vague plot points. For Prince for Hire, there are only four I'm working with: 1) Kiris enters the competition to rule the Plateau; 2) Kiris teams up with Batar and eliminates the competition; 3) Iiriok is accused of being an imposter, convinces the empress otherwise, and Kiris volunteers to help Iiriok find the imposter; 4) Iiriok wins. Not much of an outline, really. But I've found that if I try and get any more specific than this, I won't end up writing it because I'll have tricked myself into already knowing what's going to happen. That said, I absolutely recommend you choose yourself a favorite plot structure (Save the Cat, Three Act, Five Act, whatever) and keep its major scenes in the back of your head. Vaguely adhering to a structure will make drafts two and three a helluva lot easier.

Once I've got a vague direction for the plot, I'll jump in and start writing. I personally use Word with default settings, as that's what I've been writing in since elementary school. I try and start near the front of the story, not caring much about the opening chapter, because I figure it's free words and the opening chapter will change. TBH not worrying about making the opening chapter at all remotely interesting helps me make everything behind the "opening" interesting. As I start to figure out the characters, maybe doing some more worldbuilding on the side, scenes I actually want to write start rolling in. I'll divert to go write those in what's usually a separate document (like an AU). After about 10k in the original document, I'll have a pretty good idea of whether or not the story is going where I want it to go. In the case of Prince, it wasn't, so I shelved the very first attempt at it and then started adding directly to the "AU" doc with all the changes I wanted to make.

I find I write best in the mornings or the evenings, and that afternoons are slow AF unless there's something else I should be doing, in which case, we're good to go. Depending on how fascinated I am staring at the blinky cursor, I'll handwrite. Handwriting for me also works well because it takes effort for me to read my own handwriting, so there's no chance of self-editing while I'm going for it.

On the topic of self editing, for first drafts what I like to do when I know something is going to need reworking, or need a hint input before, or is missing something, or I just really want to skip to the next scene ('cause again, I prefer the linear thing when possible), I'll stick it in <<>> triangle brackets. It's easy to search. Some people I've heard use a word, like elephant. Others use square brackets. Whatever shape you like best, just the key is that you want it ctrl-f -able. Putting things in brackets makes it so editor me doesn't butt in on creative me's time. It's gotten to the point where I even do it while handwriting, as a note for when I type it up to consider dealing with it (or, again, pass it off to draft two future me. I owe future me several coffees for all my little <<triangle notes>>).

Somewhere in here I'll try and come up with a synopsis type thing. TBH these usually turn out more as query-letter type things for me, but whatever. That's what the WIP intros for Attenuate and Prince for Hire are. These I've found help guide me, and keep in aligned with the general tone of the piece. If you'd like, I'd be happy to try and wrangle up the advice I used for writing those.

If I realize I'm having some trouble wrangling the character (mostly apparent to me by the 15k mark), I'll pause, break out the notebook, and play arm-chair psychologist with them. What I'm looking to find in these sessions is a version of the classic "goal-want-need." I don't like being that structured though, so for me I go with Goal 1&2, Surface Belief 1&2, Actual Belief 1&2, and Need. At the bottom are the pages I did for Madison (Attenuate/Reverberate) and Kiris (Prince), and what that looks like in my OneNote. Their need--and the beliefs they need to overcome to get there--will give me the overarching emotional direction of the plot.

TBH I'm pretty sloppy on my worldbuilding. I usually figure it out as I write the first draft. Did I know that tea was going to be a very important, entirely truthful ritual for the princes' competitions? Nope. Not until I needed to kick the plot into gear and hit Kiris with the inciting incident, then bam, Prince Nazvili was ordering him to tea and he was freaking out because that isn't the way things are done.

Throughout this entire process, I'll also keep a running checklist of things to-do. These are things I'll usually <<note>> somewhere in the actual first draft manuscript, but which apply to the manuscript as a whole rather than that one specific section. Basically, if it's going to require a major change or continuity for longer than three paragraphs, it gets a to-do box.

Sometimes, I'll find that what I have just isn't working. That's what the "stuff I 2022" document is for! It's a hodgepodge of ctrl-x'd things from every project I've worked on this year that just weren't working in the main manuscript. Like a shipyard, I guess. All the words still exist if it turns out I want to add them back in or need to reference something, but they're basically in the recycle bin. The things added here vary in length from a sentence to a 30k segment (although the longer items generally only happen during later drafts).

Finally, the real way I keep the ball rolling? Work on it every day. Sometimes "work" will be that one miraculous 5k day. Sometimes it'll be half a word (actually though. There was one point in Reverberate where I just didn't have the mental energy to really work on it, so I tapped in the "Th" of "this" and that was it). Sometimes "work" will be coming up with characters, or figuring out worldbuilding, or dealing with some of the <<notes>>, or even just adding a comma. If it somehow progresses the WIP, it's work.

Anywho, like I said, that was long AF. I hope it helps, and never hesitate to ask questions :)

The armchair studies for Madison and Kiris. If you can read these, I salute you.

[image IDS: two graph paper pages full of scribbly handwriting. Both begin with Wants… Believes… Believes… sort of in columns. They continue, with white space, answering back and forth questions which grow increasingly personal. End id]

Hello! I have an art question, if you don't mind talking about art stuff! I'm trying to get better at drawing, but having a really hard time with figuring out how to draw people. I feel like I've made progress with things like animals, objects, etc but I just can't get my drawings of people to improve! You draw people (and everything else tbh!!) so beautifully, do you mind if I ask how you learned to draw them? Or if you have any advice? Thank you for posting your art here, you're such a big inspiration and I love seeing your posts when they come across my feed! 💗

I love talking about art stuff!!! ♡ firstly, thank you aww ;×;) !! I'm so flattered, its really so sweet of you to say that!!

(( oh my god once again I've written so much I am so sorry! I put a tldr at the end, I couldn't quite go into much detail about specifics because im not quite sure what specifically you would like to improve, but I did try to cover some bases but please don't be afraid to message me with any more info or questions!!! ))

I'm a bit of the opposite where I can only draw people and struggle making progress with everything else lol, I admire you a little bit!! 🤭

People can be hard to capture, because we naturally (subconsciously?) examine them trying to determine things like emotion and im not quite sure how to put it but... health? For most people, its easy to see if someone is tired or sick at a glance. This comes into play when drawing people because we are wired to immediately analyze everything about them and pick up things that are wrong (think of uncanny valley type stuff!)

I often think about something bob Ross said, I dont have the time to hunt it down but what he said was basically along the lines of; he prefers painting scenery, because when we see a scenic painting its easier to think "this looks like somewhere ive been!" And its more believable. Meanwhile, its hard to capture the exact likeness of someone. If its a little off, we feel it looks "bad". I may have changed or added some points in there, but I think that was the general idea? 🤔 thats not to say scenic paint is easy in any way, its just about how we view it.

My point in this is, the key to drawing people is to create a believable figure. And how to achieve this depends on the style you draw them in ! I can only offer advice for stylized drawings (i struggle to draw hyper realistic people, and I also just don't enjoy it? Lol) but im assuming that since you like my art you're okay with that? ^^

In regards to how I learned to draw, well.. ive been doing it since I can remember ^^; I grew up watching anime which definitely altered my style and interests, and when i was in high-school I transitioned from an "anime adjacent " style, to a generalized "stylized" look, and now I strictly use photo reference which has helped make my style less cartoony but it still shares cartoon elements I feel? For a long time I drew without using references at all which im sure also contributed to how I draw things now. I havent had a chance to take art classes, so I've learned mostly by self study. Practicing drawing from reference, looking up tips and tricks youtube videos, watching other artists work and looking closely at their pieces to try and see how they achieve certain looks. Eventually it all adds up! How i draw people is a reflection of like 20 years of this!!

My biggest regret is not taking art "seriously" and going nearly all of those 20 not properly studying. This is my biggest piece of advice :^( unfortunately, im still learning how to do this myself, I think "studying" is a learned skill and hard to do without instruction. But if you can draw animals and objects I think you probably know a little bit on how to. So then looking a bit deeper into "improving", what about your drawings do you feel are lacking?

Circling back to my earlier paragraphs, how you want to improve depends on what sort of style you are going for and the way you want to portray or capture people. Portraits rely on technical skill i think. I'm not sure i could offer valuable advice here..

Comics, manga, and graphic novels sole intention is to tell a story through drawings. They don't give metaphors (usually!! Sometimes they do but not in the context im trying to explain) and/or tell us how characters are feeling, they show us! This is why the art styles of them often have exaggerated features, and simplified features. The eyes tend to have more detail because we read eyes for emotion, mouths are exaggerated because they are key to reading emotion (most importantly so I think! Watch: 🙂☹ the only difference is the mouth, but we can tell they feel totally different emotions.) Noses in comparison are usually more simplified as they, out of all features of the human face, are the least expressive.

If you want to improve your drawings of people so that they are more expressive and relatable, I would try to analyze how your face changes with emotion and perhaps practice with one of those emotion chart meme templates!

Illustration work is similar, but I feel the face doesn't actually matter as much. If you look at full bodied illustrations of people and zoom in on the face, you'll find that they are sometimes quite simplified! When viewing a full bodied person we generally take in the body's language first. It would take me a long time for me to explain in detail on this post (though I would love to talk about body language in illustration please let me know of you would like me to... also the body language of two figures.. but ill spare you for now ♡) I would recommend gesture drawing and timed studies. I improved drawing so much when I started doing this (I use the site quickposes a lot, set a high timer and draw!!) If drawing the face is hard for you and you can't seem to get anywhere, try focusing on the body for a little bit! Especially how bodies look when bending and twisting.. which might sound random, but I think it helps get a better understanding on how proportions can change with pose.

I wrote so much and I really didn't mean to. Its always hard to answer questions like this without much information like what your goal is and what look you want to achieve. I hope I didnt scare you away with my horrible novel of an answer but if you'd like to give more detail or ask any more questions please I welcome you to!! I love talking about art and I love love love hearing about other peoples art ;^; ♡

Tldr; when trying to improve drawing people it may not be as simple as working on technical skill, its important to keep in mind purpose, emotion, body language, and art style