Month: May 2023

On my standards

On By Luther M. SilerIn Teaching1 Comment

I had a conversation with a school parent today that, on the surface, was a really nice conversation: I let her kid finish up a test at home last night, and made sure she knew about it, and (for the record, I believe this) she watched him do it and he ended up doing a really good job. He made a seriously boneheaded mistake in class that led to him missing every single question, and I hate situations like that; you effectively made one mistake, you just made it twelve times and it’s not fair that that leads to a zero, a score that doesn’t reflect your understanding of the material.

Anyway, I figured that rather than waste time in class today taking it again he could just redo it at home. His mom works at the school and I let her know what was up, and she came to talk to me before school started to let me know how he’d done.

During the conversation she told me that she and her son both thought that I was the best math teacher he’d ever had. Which is nice to hear, right? It’s hard to imagine a better compliment as a teacher. But then she explained why.

“He says that he asks you questions, and you answer them, and then he figures out what he’s supposed to do.”

Which, like … is it unfair or ungrateful of me to hear that and wonder what the hell the rest of his teachers are doing? Because that really sounds like a fairly basic description of my actual job duties to me. Does he have teachers who won’t answer questions? Because that’s bad. Like, real bad. If we were having a conversation about me going above and beyond somehow to help the kid out that would be one thing, but I really feel like “you answer the questions he asks” is not exactly champion territory, y’know?

In which there are 13 days of school left and I am exhausted

On By Luther M. SilerIn TeachingLeave a comment

1:1 devices are the biggest mistake the education industry has made during my career. I’m not elaborating, I’m too tired and I’m still kinda pissed off.

In which this is not okay

On By Luther M. SilerIn video games1 Comment

You see that? You see that skeptical-ass look on my homegirl Aloy’s face? That’s where I’m at right now. You may be aware of my YouTube channel, where I spend much time playing the video games for your entertainment and edification. Are you following me yet? You should be following me. Go follow me right now. You don’t use YouTube? You’re not interested in video game videos? That’s okay. Do it anyway.

I just finished up a series on the recent expansion for Horizon Forbidden West, known as The Burning Shores. You don’t really need a ton of background information here, but I’ll give you what you need:

  1. Aloy, who is the redhead up there, is probably my favorite video game character of all time, not just because she’s a supreme badass (she is) but because of how well-realized a character she is. She’s an asshole. She has absolutely earned the right to be the precise kind of asshole she is. She has absolutely no time for anyone’s bullshit and I love that about her. I have almost ordered this statue a million times and if you have extra money burning a hole in your pocket you should get it for me. After you follow me on YouTube.
  2. Aloy has, in the two LARGE games she has starred in, not had a whisper of a romantic life until this expansion.
  3. In this expansion, at the very end, you get the chance to have her kiss a girl if you want to. You can choose not to, either because you’re a giant bigot (unacceptable) or you don’t think Aloy would even pretend to have time for a relationship (still annoying, but justifiable within the story).
  4. You should have Aloy kiss the girl.

The game has taken the usual-and-sadly-expected amount of review bombing and soulless abusive bullshit from shithead chuds who are mad because the fictional video game lady won’t fuck them, and I hate those people a whole lot but that’s not what this post is about.

Let’s back up a bit. Early on in the expansion you come across Otosu and Lan, two side characters. The details don’t matter; Lan needs rescuing so you go rescue him. The thing is, Otosu and Lan are super queer-coded, especially Lan, who comes across as a bit of an obnoxious queen. But the game never admits it. Otosu is super worried about Lan when he sends you to go rescue him but he never says anything that explicitly acknowledges them as a couple even though their every interaction makes it really clear that that’s what they are. I was fully expecting a “bury your gays” situation here, which, to the devs’ credit, didn’t happen, but the fact that they never even dropped a “my partner” into the dialogue was annoying. It’s almost worse in 2023 to have a clearly gay couple and never acknowledge it than to have no queer representation at all.(*)

So anyway. It’s the end of the game. Aloy and her love interest have more or less done the impossible together and defeated the bad guy and all that. Seyka, the love interest, asks Aloy to meet her where they first met. (“Meet me here” as a way to distinguish one mission from another gets kind of annoying in this game; never more than here.) They meet. Seyka confesses feelings. They kiss. Because Aloy deserves some God damn happiness, damn your eyes, so you’d better have made them kiss and the kiss had better end up canonical.

And do you know what the fuck happens next?

Aloy leaves. “I hope I’ll see you again,” and she bounces, because– and this is almost justifiable given the character– Aloy has Shit to Do, and that third game is coming, and the stakes are higher in the third game than they’ve ever been before.

So she’s gotta leave now???

GAME.

I was not pleased with this decision. And the worst thing is, again, I can justify it with the character. And she is going to have to leave, as the Burning Shores expansion takes place in a different location than the other two games and she’s got to go back home. But … now? Right fucking now? This minute? You don’t have time to let the game end with the two of them sitting on the beach and watching the sun set together and maybe tomorrow morning she goes back home?

Like, writing all this out now, especially given the number of words I had to burn to get here, part of me feels like I’m overreacting, and in general if you’re pissed about the story in a video game enough to complain about it on the Internet you probably are overreacting to some degree or another, but this really ended the game on a sour note to me. I was pissed. I still am; it’s the next day and I’m writing about it. Why the hell would you go to the trouble to set up a romance, doomed or otherwise, between these two characters and then literally give them one kiss and Aloy has to leave immediately? Because that’s bullshit. This is a fictional story. Y’all coulda faded to black or given her a day or shown them having a picnic together or some fucking thing. And somehow you’ve managed to make a game with two different gay couples in it and an onscreen gay kiss and still managed to come off weirdly homophobic, and that there is a fucking achievement.

Or a trophy, I guess. It’s a PS5 game after all.

(*) At least to me, the straight cis guy. Maybe my opinion should be disregarded here; I dunno. Let me know if you disagree with this.

Music post!

On By Luther M. SilerIn Music2 Comments

I’ve done several things today, but other than hanging a picture on the wall that I’ve been meaning to get up for a long time I don’t know that any of the things I’ve done are going to be anything anyone else living in this house is going to notice. At any rate, not much to say today, so I’m passing on a great cover of Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car that someone recommended to me on Mastodon. It’s great, you’ll love it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=QgxNC1APYkQ

In which … oops?

On By Luther M. SilerIn Politics, Teaching1 Comment

I have, no doubt, no bullshit, completely forgotten to post two days in a row. In my defense, I’ve been so Goddamned sick for the last two days that I lost six pounds. And not through healthy eating and sensible exercise, either. No, the other way.

It has, uh, not been an especially pleasant couple of days, so I hope you’ll find a way to forgive me.

In other news, today’s meeting of my speech and debate club quickly degenerated into hanging out and bullshitting with the small handful of students who showed up, and … man, these kids are built different. I don’t really want to get into the details because it reeks of oversharing but it’s absolutely amazing how much kids’ attitudes have changed in regards to certain things in just the last several years.

Meanwhile, my Governor signed a “don’t say gay” bill, and a friend of mine texted me suggesting that I might have to take my Pride flag down, and … well.

Monthly Reads: April 2023

On By Luther M. SilerIn Photography, ReadingLeave a comment

Book of the Month is going to be Daniel M. Ford’s The Warden, and also The Witch and the Tsar, by Olesya Salnikova Gilmore, and, oh, Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White, and did you know there was a new Fonda Lee book this month? It’s called Untethered Sky, and it’s the Book of the Month, and I haven’t finished The Daughters of Izdihar yet so usually that means it’s not eligible but it’s that fucking good so I’m naming it Book of the Month because my blog, my rules.

In case you can’t tell, April more than made up for the sins of the first quarter of 2023.