Tag: contortion
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The Optional Chain: Fandral Staghelm and the Question Nobody Had to Ask
In the Cenarion Enclave in Darnassus, there is a quest chain that most players have completed without thinking twice about it. The Arch Druid, imperious, shirtless, radiating barely concealed contempt for your presence, had a research program. Morrowgrain. A mysterious herb. Grow it from Tharlendris seeds in Un’Goro soil, bring him ten, receive a goody…
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The Faculty Governance Gala: Where the Cricket Chorus Performs Their Greatest Hits
In the hallowed, slightly drafty halls of Biblios Heights Stacks Academic Library, “Governance” isn’t just a series of meetings—it’s a performance. And once a year, when the budget cycles align and the institutional mediation is at its peak, we host the Faculty Governance Gala. The gala is the only time the Cricket Chorus leaves the…
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Et tu?
Being harmed by someone who knows exactly what harm feels like is not the same as being harmed by someone cruel, or careless, or ignorant. Injury is produced in those sorts of situations. Harm caused by one who knows how it feels to be harmed in the exact same way is different. It’s a particular…
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The Official Wild Stacks Survival Guide: How to Handle the Silence Behaviors in the Stacks of Your Academic Library
Welcome, fellow academic library explorers! Have you ever noticed that a university library isn’t just a quiet place for study? It’s a dense, thriving ecosystem of institutional logic and relational labor! And like any wild habitat, it has its distinct, and often amusingly predictable, inhabitants. Today, we’re going to help you identify and manage the…
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The Rubber-Meets-the-Road Test
Critical librarianship is everywhere. The reading lists, the conference panels, the bios. Nobody is against it. The profession has learned to wear the critique like a lanyard. Sara Ahmed, writing about institutional diversity work, calls it “doing the document.” The report that stands in for the action, the statement that substitutes for the risk. The…
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Sophisticated Extraction: Wrathion and the Politics of Allegiance
The first time I encountered Wrathion in Mists of Pandaria, I was suspicious of him in the way you are suspicious of someone who is performing transparency. He tells you who he is. He explains his motives. He places himself above the factions with a reasonableness that is almost disarming: I don’t care who wins…
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The Senior Sage: Archmage Antonidas and the Politics of the Slow No
There is a specific kind of institutional violence that does not look like an assault. It does not carry the scorched-earth aggression of a volatile leader or the calculating defection of a careerist. Instead, it manifests as a deep, scholarly sigh. It is the violence of the Slow No, performed by a figure who has…
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Adaptation Fatigue Is Not Failure
On Gen X, Technology, and the Myth of Reluctance Maybe you’ve seen it. Something’s going around where Gen X is described as being unwilling to adapt to new technology. This isn’t even said dramatically. Not even with much hostility. Just… stated like it’s a matter of fact. Casually. Like it’s obvious. Anyway…. GenXGina66 puts it…
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Feel the Hatred of Ten Thousand Years
In Heroes of the Storm, Illidan Stormrage says, “Feel the hatred of ten thousand years!” Let’s pause here for a moment and note that Heroes of the Storm is a crossover brawler game created by Blizzard Entertainment. Illidan, a central character in the Warcraft franchise, fights other Blizzard game characters: Tracer (from the Overwatch series),…
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The Rejection of the Gift: Illidan Stormrage and the Ethics of Becoming Otherwise
My child. You’ve given so muchFor so little. Your true potential,Your redemptionLies before you. Let go of your shattered formAnd embrace the Light’s power. Xe’ra‘s words always trigger that familiar longing in me. The longing to belong, to be embraced, to be made whole, to be seen. The feeling lingers. Sometimes it moves me to…