Visual arts senior Alia Payne is a first-year staffer on the Muse. Joining the publication as a cartoonist, she dearly hopes that her work will please the masses. In the event that they don’t, however, she humbly requests that you refrain from gathering your pitchforks, and will readily offer you a crisp one-dollar bill on the condition that you do not disclose her whereabouts. When she is not indentured to the arts or playing drums with a garage band, Payne is obsessing over subjects such as ancient history, Roman à clef literature, or just thinking about how dateable Alexander the Great would have been. Her hopes for the future involve studies in archaeology and paleoanthropology; she dreams of one day contributing to the field and to our understanding and preservation of our ancient roots.

Also, she identifies with the early neanderthal on a spiritual level, but that’s neither here nor there.