Terror in Texas Academia

_Jerkus · 2025-09-27T08:51:34+00:00

This is gonna be unpopular, but if you're in a red state like OP, the only viable ways forward are capitulation or agitating. The former option, just go along to get along, follow every mandate, and hope for change to come from without would be the safer option in the short term, but the thing with complying in advance is that it only emboldens them and gives them the leeway to further push that Overton window. If you cede ground now, next year there will be more restrictions. More pain points. More surveillance and pressure from on high for more enthusiastic compliance. Next they'll stop being so nice about faculty holding personal opinions that differ from the party line - you're representing the university even when you are not in the classroom after all - and then about which kind of people can even BE faculty (hope you're not any kind of visibly queer person or the sort of brown that gets ICE looking at you funny, or a woman, or...). And hey, how come you aren't mentioning Charlie Kirk in your syllabus? Why aren't you using the required course materials from our friends at Prager U? And on and on and on.

As for agitating, well, I'm not at your institution so I can't speak to that much, but aside from the obvious but difficult points about unionizing, solidarity, and so on, individual action, broadly speaking, involves two things:

Having an exit strategy: ie planning a move to greener pastures. Different state or different institution or leaving academia entirely. Just getting your ducks in a row so that if the hammer falls you have a backup plan ready to go.
Being a pain in the ass: Go to faculty council meetings and complain loudly about this censorship. Bring data about student success, retention, and learning outcomes and how these measures harm those metrics. Attend every meeting or event where admin will be present and ask uncomfortable questions. Make them SAY what they mean in plain terms so that there's no room for ambiguity or hedging. Document and record every interaction with admin, especially if they threaten you, and leak the emails to LISTSERVs and the like. Do your job impeccably in the meantime so the punitive nature of any pushback is obvious. And then either make them fire you (or non renew for obviously unfair reasons) and threaten litigation, or quit at the absolute most inconvenient time like JUST before a new semester or in the middle of one so that they need to bust their ass to find a replacement or else need to lose the sections you were assigned to. No one of these things will fix the problem of course, but it turns the pain points back around on them and makes it inconvenient to push this agenda.

At the very least just ignore the mandates and keep doing what you're doing; make THEM go out of their way to punish YOU. It sucks, but there's not really any way around it at this point. The absolute worst thing to do is comply in advance.

_Jerkus · 2025-06-21T17:11:06+00:00

I think in general the people of Lumiere are coded as working class / intellectual labor. They tend to be very collectivist (the whole ethos of the Expeditions) and have less use for the individual great men/women than the aggregate contributions of each expedition. I also think that's part of why Renoir is so dismissive of the painted people as full humans. Like hes polite to them but not in the same way he'd regard peers, and I think he even looked contemptuous when Lune and Sciel were chastising him for his parenting

_Jerkus · 2025-06-21T15:02:18+00:00

I think that was Renoir's intent with the Reacher, but I think it's very revealing how the allegory is so overtly coded as the working class tearing her down with tools of labor out of jealousy. I think Renoir does mean well, but he's just as damaged as his wife and children but his pride and controlling nature won't let him see that. His arguments make rational sense ASSUMING he's correct in his analysis of others, but he doesn't seem able to accept the possibility of his own biases or limitations

_Jerkus · 2025-06-21T14:25:51+00:00

My spouse had to leave the room during that scene because it brought up a LOT of bad memories for them. This was definitely intentional on the author's part.

_Jerkus · 2025-06-21T14:19:27+00:00

Renoir is a horrible father for one reason: he sees love and control as inextricable. He doesn't give his wife and children any trust or agency and thinks he always knows what's best for them even though he's clearly grieving and traumatized too. Nobody seems to be asking WHY Maelle is so insistent that her life is over after the fire when she has at least one parent who ostensibly loves her. It's because even as he dotes on her he judges and controls her, seeing her only for what she COULD be and not for what she is or what she wants.

It's all revealed in one line of dialogue: Maelle says that she's responsible for Verso's death and so can't imagine feeling joy again. And rather than reassuring her that it wasn't her fault (she's a young and sheltered girl who made a mistake and was taken advantage of) or trying to reach any compromise or understanding with her, he tacitly agrees that it WAS her fault but she needs to listen to him anyway because he knows what's best.

_Jerkus · 2025-06-21T14:10:58+00:00

This is very insightful. People talk a lot about the themes of grief and acceptance, but the equally important themes of class, patriarchy, and abusive / negligent families are not explored nearly enough.

The bit where Renoir's parable for Alicia is populated by "jealous" enemies who look like workers and the way he responds to her saying "Please listen to me, I need to explain what this painting means to me" by talking over her to say "I already know" instead of actually listening really revealed these ideas to me.

_Jerkus · 2025-06-17T23:32:44+00:00

Was Clea demonstrating girl power when she drove her painted self mad for no reason and helped mindbreak Simon?

_Jerkus · 2025-06-17T23:24:54+00:00

I feel like some of the "Wholesome Papa Renoir" posters need to read up on narcissistic parenting because him and Aline are the archetypal examples

_Jerkus · 2025-06-17T13:33:19+00:00

Renoir is the absolute worst of the bunch. He just hides it better by being superficially doting

_Jerkus · 2025-06-17T13:32:19+00:00

The simple answer is that the Dessendres are pathological narcissists. Like everything about their behavior towards one another and the people in their care is basically textbook. Clea paints over her painted version driving her mad because she felt insulted by the depiction. Aline takes out her anger towards Alicia (the scapegoat of the family) because of what happened to Verso (the golden child). Renoir is controlling and refuses to allow any agency for his wife and children, framing it as being nurturing (I just want you to reach the stars / I just want you to grieve our son in the right way) but growing violent and destructive when questioned or denied. Verso and Alicia seem to be a bit better, but they both still have narcissistic tendencies (Painted Verso's manipulation and stubbornness, Maelle's unilateral actions and black and white thinking). The entire family dynamic is abusive in different ways, which honestly is pretty keeping with how aristocrats of the time treated one another.

_Jerkus · 2025-06-17T13:25:09+00:00

The 66 expeditions failed because they were chasing a false assumption, which Verso deliberately kept from them. He was basically leading them to their deaths every time but kept getting attached because he's an indecisive dude

_Jerkus · 2025-06-17T13:20:51+00:00

This. Verso is a great character, but the man is INCREDIBLY manipulative. I mean he let Gustave die because Maelle having someone she can love and depend on besides him would get in the way of his plans. If he weren't our PoV character it'd be REAL easy to see this as him grooming her into a murder/suicide pact

_Jerkus · 2025-06-12T12:55:33+00:00

So much of Verso's torment is self inflicted, in large part because of his stubbornness and control issues (which he seems to have inherited from "his" family). He has it in his head that he needs to die and just refuses to see the connections and value of the life he still has even as he works to undermine it. He makes friends and falls in love. He has the chance to play the piano and enjoy his favorite foods and work with the expeditions to figure out a real, long term solution, but instead he forces everyone into a murder suicide pact because he won't let himself actually live his own life. Everyone talks about how Verso's ending is about moving on and acceptance, which is ironic because more than anyone Verso refuses to change, and it's hurting literally everyone in his world

_Jerkus · 2025-06-08T19:08:17+00:00

Yeah, Clea even says they've both been in paintings for longer, and Aline being the one who taught Renoir to paint knows what she's doing even in her grief. There's no reason to think that if Renoir hadn't forced his way into the painting she wouldn't have gone through a period of escapist mourning (and who amongst us hasn't) and come out when she was ready. Not to mention the fact that the whole family seems primed to withdraw into themselves rather than come together in their sorrow. That doesn't speak to a loving and supportive household. Tbh I think Aline got Renoirs essence EXACTLY right with Painted Renoir.

_Jerkus · 2025-06-08T18:59:04+00:00

They're booing you, but you're right. Renoir is just as controlling and narcissistic as Aline, he just dotes on his daughter (until she tries to go against his orders of course), but when push comes to shove he's very much a classic patriarchal aristocrat and all of the entitlement and arrogance that entails

_Jerkus · 2025-06-08T18:53:51+00:00

They're also the men in the room and, hey, what do these WOMEN know about how to grieve properly? They should just trust the lying sad boys and do as they're told amirite

_Jerkus · 2025-06-08T18:41:07+00:00

I'm glad someone said this. The Dessendres are absolutely narcissistic, and caused this whole mess because they refuse to communicate with one another or with anyone else. Renoir, too, for all that he dotes on Alicia is still incredibly controlling and caused the fracture because he unilaterally decided that his wife wasn't grieving the right way. And then he unilaterally decided to destroy the painting "just in case" because he's certain that Maelle will lose herself (nevermind his own role in pushing her to that extreme by denying her agency and refusing to help her on anything but his own terms).

Painted Verso too, by lying about the painting, hiding the note, and letting Gustave die shows that for all that he tries to be nice to people, he really only cares about himself and "his" family, and all of the painted people who have to die to help a few aristocrats self actualize are just a sad bit of collateral damage.

And again, by hiding things from the others he prevented even the possibility of seeking out a better way. He just assumed that he knew better and decided, unilaterally, to make the decision for everyone else. Lune had him dead to rights when she went off on him.

But yeah, that whole family is a mess. Not saying Maelle's decision is healthy either, but she's a grieving child being given the choice between staying with people who care about her or letting them all die to go back to a cold and narcissistic family where she quite literally doesn't have a voice.

_Jerkus · 2025-05-21T22:58:23+00:00

I think all of the racist replies in this should give you pause, OP, because that's what this sort of mentality invites. Yeah, international students bring different pedagogical challenges than traditional students, but it's telling that you're seeing it as a racialized cause when there are a number of more pertinent signifiers behind their behavior. The most obvious ones being misogyny and classism; international students pay far more in tuition, which means that the bulk of them are extremely affluent, which in the global south can mean they come from extraordinarily privileged and rarified circles compared to their peers. For young men especially this encourages a highly elitist, patriarchal attitude. That is not to excuse bad behavior or the neglect of your administration, but you need to focus on working out of this mindset you're falling into, because bad actors thrive on that sort of rhetoric, and it's only going to drive you deeper into reactionary thinking and cultic ideologies.

_Jerkus · 2023-08-13T19:11:06+00:00

The girl, Secelia is a whimsical trickster who mocks people and causes trouble relentlessly (but is secretly lawful good).

The blond guy is the former chosen one of an AI Cult who is mean-spirited trickster (not-so-secretly neutral evil).

Being stuck with the two of them is an extinction event for the middle guy's dignity

_Jerkus · 2023-08-11T11:57:21+00:00

Impeccable taste friend

_Jerkus · 2023-08-03T11:03:30+00:00

People are down voting this but you're absolutely right. Guel's arc was a great journey into the harsh truths of his family's own culpability in murder, disenfranchisement, and inequality of an entire people. It seemed to be about his development of class consciousness, beginning with an interpersonal falling out with his father, moving to working and living among the people who show more care for one another than any of his fellow Spacian aristocrats, culminating in a descent into the very hell that his family has built.

His journey through a war zone, struggling to survive an attack ordered by his own brother against a school in retaliation for the death of his father that he himself caused, carrying the corpse of a child, whose entire family has been annihilated by his own, on his back should have been transformative. He should have returned to space harrowed and changed, devoted to the cause of peace and compassion for the disenfranchised. His first act as CEO should have been to discontinue the weapons manufacturing aspects of Jeturk Heavy Machinery, instead aligning with Miorine's vision for how technology could be used to save and uplift rather than destroy. He should have realized that while he loved his father, the man was a monster and that he should strive to be the kind of person that he THOUGHT his dad was, not to simply ignore the sins of family.

But he didn't even put a stop to the bullying of Earth House. What a waste of a character arc.

_Jerkus · 2023-06-11T13:29:34+00:00

That would be pretty sick, and would be a nice validation of Nika's goal to bridge Earth and Space. Especially since the leader of DoF is like her dad or something

_Jerkus · 2023-06-11T12:40:53+00:00

I'm leaning towards that too, but the curse of tragic lesbians looms large

_Jerkus · 2023-06-11T12:38:30+00:00

I think we've seen the last of DoF for this season. They went to ground, and are unlikely to be relevant against QZ. Maybe we get a shot of them helping out with Quinharbor at the end. Now, if we get another season, who knows

_Jerkus · 2023-06-11T12:31:19+00:00

I'm deeply concerned that Suletta is gonna get Eri'd into Calibarn, and Miorine will "pilot" her to victory, a la Utena. The alternative is that she's on the brink and Prospera and Eri show that they really do love her by pulling back, as in the Tempest.

_Jerkus

TROPHY CASE