#also i still don't know what to do for my dissertation

[lucy90712]

Can you do a Jude Bellingham imagine where his girlfriend is very burnt out from school. They do long distance so she tries to get everything done so she can go spend time with him & watch him play. One day when she lands to watch him play against Barcelona he finds her stress crying in the room alone because she tries to be there for everyone around her but it’s costing her to stress out about getting things in on time. Somehow Jude calms her & they enjoy their day before he plays against Barcelona.

Thank you

-a very stressed & burnt out student

A/n: this is me right now too, I hope things get easier for you soon

WC: 2.0k The last few weeks maybe even months have been so stressful. Ever since I went back to university I have done nothing but go to classes and study. I know it's my final year but I didn't think it would be this difficult but there is just so much to do between assignments for classes and preparations for my dissertation. For the first few weeks I feel like I was coping pretty well but recently it's all just hit me like a truck and now I feel like I'm drowning in books and being suffocated by deadlines. 

To make it all 100 times worse where I chose to go to uni is away from my family and very far from my boyfriend. Don't get me wrong I love it here but at times like this I just wish that I had someone here to tell me it's all going to be ok. I've been really missing not just my family but my boyfriend Jude as well, I haven't seen Jude since before I came back to uni which was at the end of august and it's been killing me. I also haven't been able to talk to him as much as I would like as I've been really busy and he's been busy too with his move to Real Madrid and having to get used to living and playing over there. 

These last few months have been hard on our relationship, even though we've been long distance for a few years now we have never gone this long without seeing each other and the fact that we haven't talked as much hasn't helped. Finally we are going to see each other though as I'm flying over to see him play and just to spend a few days with him which has got me through the last few days. In order to be able to go and see Jude I have been working extra hard to get my work done as I want to actually spend time with him which I can't do if I have assignments to do but it's been difficult. All week I've only left my apartment to go to classes and I've pulled far too many all nighters but I've got quite a lot done so I guess it's somewhat worth it although I still have some things to do. 

I had an alarm set to wake me up before my flight but it wasn't needed as I'd been awake all night packing and doing uni work. The worst part was despite all my hard work I had to pack a few of my textbooks and my laptop as I didn't manage to finish everything in time. I tried to put that behind me though as I got to the airport because I still want to enjoy my time with Jude and if I'm stressed and feeling down then I'm not going to make the most of the time which I really do want to do. Jude has been telling me all week how much he's been looking forward to today he promised me that we was going to get up early to pick me up from the airport before he has to go to training which is how I know he's serious as he hates getting up in the morning. 

~~~~~~~~~~

After a few hours in the air I landed on Spanish soil and somehow I immediately felt a bit more relaxed as I knew it was only a matter of time until I would be in Jude's arms which is exactly what I need. As I got off the plane I text Jude to let him know I had landed which he answered right away telling me he was already waiting for me in the arrivals lounge with a disguise on so he didn't get recognised. Knowing he was waiting for me made me walk a bit quicker to collect my bag and once it was in sight I grabbed it and ran towards where Jude would be waiting for me. 

It took me a minute to find Jude but eventually I saw him stood with a hat and sunglasses on which didn't offer much of a disguise but he wasn't surrounded by people so clearly it does something. Once he saw me coming he swiftly made his way over until he was close enough to pick me up and nearly kill me with how tightly he held me. It felt so good to be in his arms again and smell his cologne it made me feel like I was home again which is exactly what I've been needing. Jude held onto me for a good while before he took my bag in one hand and my hand in the other leading me out to his car which was parked outside. Once we got in the car Jude leaned straight over the centre console and smashed his lips onto mine which led to us making out for a bit too long so we had to rush back to Jude's place on he could drop me off before going to his training session. 

Once Jude had left I went and made myself some breakfast as I didn't have time to eat before I left and I had to make myself a cup of tea because despite being in Spain I'm still British and we can't go a day without a cup of tea. Jude knows me well enough that he had brought a new pack of my favourite tea and put it on a shelf he knows I can reach along with a mug which he had clearly just brought for me. I enjoyed my cup of tea before I took my bag upstairs to go and unpack. To my surprise the room was quite clean and Jude had cleaned out one of his draws for me, well not quite there was a few hoodies and t shirts in there still but he left me a note telling me I can wear them so they are mine now. Of course I had to put a hoodie on before starting to unpack all of my stuff. 

I unpacked most of my stuff pretty quickly but then I got to the bottom of my suitcase and saw just how many text books and folders I had to pack. Seeing it made the realisation hit me that I still have so much work to do and once again all of the stresses started weighing down on me like it was physically crushing me. All week I've been so deep into work mode I bottled up all my emotions but now they are all coming out at once and for some reason I can't stop crying. It's like all of the pressure and stress has finally reached the surface and the mental breakdown all my friends warned was coming has finally arrived. I've never felt so overwhelmed in my life and I just don't know how to cope all I do know is that I need to get myself together before Jude gets back as I don't want to worry him plus I want to enjoy our time together. 

My attempts to calm myself down didn't go well if anything I just got more overwhelmed and cried more. I was so in my own world that I completely lost track of time so when I heard the front door close and Jude call my name I panicked. As his footsteps got closer to the bedroom I desperately tried to wipe the tears from my face but then I realised my eyes would still be all red so I just put the hood on the hoodie up to try and cover my face.

"Hi darling do you need any help unpacking?" Jude asked a he walked in 

"N-no I'm f-fine" I sniffled

"Babe what's wrong?" He asked clearly concerned 

"Nothing" I said 

"I know you're lying to me I can hear you sniffling what's made you so upset you know you can tell me anything" he said trying to make me open up

"I'm sorry I'm just stressed I've got so much work to do for uni I worked so hard all week so we could actually spend some time together but I couldn't finish everything and now I have loads of texts books in my suitcase and I'm just feeling a bit overwhelmed I'm really sorry I'm ruining our time together" I rambled 

"Hey hey slow down it's ok there's no need to be sorry it's ok tell me exactly what's going on and we can fix it together" Jude comforted 

"I still have two assignments I need to finish before the end of the week and I'm so exhausted from pulling so many all nighters but I just want to actually spend some time with you because I've really missed you" I said a bit more calmly this time 

"Ok we can work this out I know you're tired but how about I help you finish those assignments then we can just have a relaxing evening together get some sleep and be ready to do something together tomorrow" Jude suggested 

"That sounds good" I said 

Jude then picked me up and sat me on his bed before grabbing my laptop and books for me. I explained to him what I needed to do and then we go to work together. One of my assignments I just needed to reread so Jude did that for me to make sure there were no mistakes then I just needed to finish one other assignment and then do the same. Jude was so helpful and read the parts of my textbooks I needed to me while I typed and he let me talk through my ideas with him even though he doesn't understand what I'm studying. In just over and hour we were done and I instantly felt so much better and when Jude started giving me kisses I felt even better. 

 Being the amazing boyfriend that he is Jude got some chocolate from downstairs for me to eat while he ran a bath for the both of us to share. It was only when Jude came to ask me which bubble bath I prefer that I realised just how much he had brought for my visit. He doesn’t like to take baths so he wouldn’t have bubble bath just lying around and the chocolate I was eating was my favourite one so he must’ve got that especially for me as well. Jude is such a sweet boyfriend all the time but little things like this just make me realise how truly perfect he is and it makes me so grateful that I ended up with Jude as I know he truly cares for me. 

Once the bath was ready Jude helped me get in then he got in himself and sat behind me letting me rest my back against his chest. The entire atmosphere was so relaxing which helped me finally let go of all the stress and anxiety that has been fuelling me for the last few weeks. Nothing needed to be said either both of us were more than content just sitting there in silence as Jude’s fingers played with the rings on my hand especially the promise ring which he gave me last Valentine’s Day which I think is my favourite piece of jewellery I own. After a while of just relaxing Jude started to wash my body for me which meant I didn’t have to move at all as his hands gently rubbed over my skin. 

Once the both of us were clean we got out the bath and Jude gave me some of his clothes for me to put on which I very happily did. He then picked me up and carried me downstairs to the sofa where he piled blankets on top of me before sitting down and spreading them out properly. All of the sudden I felt the tiredness take over so I snuggled up to Jude and just let my eyes close and sleep consume me. Just as I was drifting off I felt Jude kiss the top of my head and whisper I love you which put a smile on my face just as I went into a dreamland. 

#jude bellingham x reader #jude bellingham imagines #jude bellingham imagine #jude bellingham #football imagine

[maniculum]

Google Docs vs. Thomas Malory

I'm working on the Malory chapter of my dissertation, and at one point Google Docs' spellcheck red-underlined a word but failed to provide a suggestion.

I thought it was odd that Google Docs was unable to spot the fact that I'd dropped an R, and then I recalled hearing recently that Google had started using a machine-learning-powered spellcheck that was, frankly, terrible.

Incidentally, clicking "Why am I not seeing a suggestion?" takes you to a section of their Support page that reads as follows:

Words where spelling is not recognized are underlined in red to warn you of a possible misspelling. When you click on the word, you'll see a "Spelling" label. If there is no spelling suggestion available, you can choose to edit the word, add the word to your personal dictionary, or ignore the suggestion.

Note that this does not answer the question, which to me implies that the real answer is "because it's crap". (Quick aside: I'm not one who is generally inclined to trust spellcheck anyway, as I am in my 30s and remember when "blindly taking spellcheck's suggestions" was something one would get mocked for, but I am annoyed that it's actively getting worse.)

So I decided to play with Google Docs a bit and see what it had to say about all the words it was underlining in the Malory quotations. (This may be a bit unfair, since "modernize 15th-century spelling" is not a function spellcheck is meant to have, but I also think that ruining a perfectly adequate spellcheck system with machine learning isn't fair to its users, so they started it.

Some of my favorite results below the cut.

Okay, that's also not a Modern English word. It's still Middle English, just a different variant spelling. Google Docs, you are out of your lane here.

This is not in the OED, and Googling it reveals that it's a surname. Weird guess here, Google Docs. At least capitalize it if you want me to lump Mx. DeVellis in with the fiends.

Buddy (derogatory), I don't think that one's correct either.

I thought this was just nonsense guessing, but apparently there's a company called "Bonwyke" that sells window films. You know, I'm somehow not surprised that the machine knows the names of corporations.

Google Docs failed to even come up with a suggestion for about half the words it underlined, which is fair, but the ones that stumped it include the following off-by-one-letter spellings:

calle ("call")

mayden ("maiden")

nyght ("night")

It's also continuing with this malarkey:

Google Docs, worstie -- you have got to learn what an abbreviation is. This isn't even an uncommon one. Why do they confuse you every time? If you're really using machine learning, surely you should eventually figure out that periods are used for purposes other than ending a sentence.

Anyway, I'm only three pages into writing this chapter, so I may well come back with more of these, but in the meantime allow me to leave you with a spelling suggestion that I just think is funny.

The Strongest Wayne. And Percival did what to him?

#damnable machines #thomas malory #le morte d'arthur #medieval literature #academia

[19burstraat]

queering futurity in crooked kingdom

if I had any real time for this (I do not) I'd be tempted to write a real essay about it, but I have a dissertation and two other real essays for my actual degree, so let's do a bad tunglr bullet point analysis. I'm... largely generalising and paraphrasing here, and I suspect this has a billion things to iron out or that I forgot about, but I hope this might be a bit interesting regardless of how much you may or may not know abt queer literary theory lmao.

in extreme short, there is a subset of queer theory around what is, in essence, queer time. there is a heteronormative future/'futurity', and it is marriage, children, a good job, a nice house, and dying at a good age after a fulfilling life. queer* and trans people both reject and often cannot access this: plenty couldn't/cannot get married or have children, or had to surpass lots of obstacles to do so, many queer and trans people were or are killed young, or died prematurely in the aids crisis. and so we get queer temporality; a resistance to the heteronormative future that is refused or inaccessible, and to reproductive futurism; the concept that people value the future over the present... and this manifests in kicking back against things like the symbolic 'child' as a representative of futurity. not real children, but empty platitudes like think of the children! think of the future for your children! there can also be a development of a death drive, which is sometimes literal and sometimes metaphorical, which is, again, basically a rejection of 'the future'.

while the grishaverse doesn't have homophobia as such, you can still do queer readings, bc it is ofc influenced by our world, by virtue of being Written By A Person From Our World. and especially in kerch, there's still stuff like patrilineal inheritance... buuuut reproductive futurity & friends are very deliberately destroyed by the end of crooked kingdom. mostly by the usual culprit (taps sign that says IT'S KAZ AGAIN LOL) but by the narrative and the other characters as well. walk w me! I don't think this is a real analysis more just a lot of Thoughts but... nvm

*used here as an umbrella term since the theory I'm pulling from is the field of queer theory

the two men (van eck and rollins) who are most concerned with reproductive futurism (having heirs and a legacy, 'building something that will outlast them'), are promptly buried under the rubble of their building efforts by our usual culprit. kaz uses the mentality of legacy and lineage against them both; he kidnaps van eck's pregnant wife to use as a bargaining chip, and he uses rollins's son and heir against him, because he knows what's most important to these men is their line, their work being handed down. he deduces that rollins has a son through rollins' vanity around building something to 'last', and his naming of the kaelish prince. rollins is literally themed around monarchy and descent; the king of the barrel, the kaelish prince, the emerald palace. kaz, for his part, is the bastard of the barrel. the illegitimate son, not produced by any conventional family structure, ketterdam his mother and profit his father... and therefore he is the perfect person to blow up this imagined monarchy

wylan is rejected by van eck for his disability, for being supposedly incapable of continuing his father's legacy; and so we gather that the actual child doesn't matter to van eck, it's what The Child represented to him, which was the future of the van eck company. the illegitimate kaz restores van eck's disowned son to the succession through sheer trickery, and jan van eck's trading empire is succeeded by his son he attempted to reject, and his farm-boy barrel-tough boyfriend. they bring home the first wife that van eck had committed, for failing to produce the 'perfect' heir. no perfect heteronormative future here!

(also by virtue of wylan and jesper being a mlm couple, there is now way less emphasis that can be put on the idea of biological children 'continuing' the line, and it somewhat stops the expectation that ruined wylan's life from being passed down)

the two m/f couples are also very distant from this idealised reproductive futurity. matthias dies, ruining any idea of a 'conventional' future he could have had with nina, and while his death is generally more about the extremist brainwashing stuff explored w the drüskelle, it does blow to shreds that futurity even more, and nina's power is also a very literal HEY GUYS. LET'S THINK ABOUT DEATH... plus she leaves ketterdam to take matthias to be buried at the end of the book.

kaz and inej both do very dangerous jobs and separate for long periods of time. they may marry or they may not, they may have children or they may not, they may be physical with one another or they may not. it doesn't really matter; they'll try, but we don't get to find out how far they may or may not get, which honestly I kinda like. their future is open, the river running carrying inej to the sea. also, inej makes an explicit rejection of this kind of 'normal' future:

So he wasn’t fit for a normal life. Was she meant to find a kindhearted husband, have his children, then sharpen her knives after they’d gone to sleep? How would she explain the nightmares she still had from the Menagerie? Or the blood on her hands?

we don't really know whether or not kaz as a character is queer (I do not think kaz knows either lol) but it doesn't really matter, you can still read him as a queer figure both a) just if you want to! and b) in this sense of queer temporality, bc he's the crux of a lot of it. we already covered the bastard thing and his happy habit of kicking reproductive futurism when it's down, and as Edelman says: 'If the fate of the queer is to figure the fate that cuts the thread of futurity...' well, kaz 'build something new. watch it burn' 'he knew exactly what he was going to leave behind: damage' brekker is our man!

he does not give a single flying fuck about the future. he destroyed van eck and rollins' legacies, and he'll do that shit again. he doesn't have enough of an ego to consider a 'legacy' for himself besides destruction, which is a rejection of a legacy in itself. his plans for the future amount to fucking shit up and making a bunch of money to use to do more damage, until he gets shot/stabbed/hanged/drowned/whatever, which he constantly anticipates.

kaz also has a massive distrust and disdain for traditional family structures, because he's seen them crumble twice; his actual family are all dead, and the hertzoon con was built on creating a convincing family mode to lure them in. "my mother is ketterdam, she birthed me in the harbour; my father is profit, I honour him daily" is a sneer at paterfamilias type families where the mother is there to just give birth and the father is the head of the family, to be honoured and served, rather than loved. he also has zero sympathy for the 'think of the children!' thing, bc he knows it's disingenuous; who thought of him? no one. rollins was happy to con kids with the false promise of family and safety, and all the people he paid off were happy to turn the other way. was there no one to look after you? no, there wasn't. his mother is ketterdam: filthy, feral ketterdam. no nurturing mother has he!

So he threatens Alby and Hanna with no qualms, because while he doesn't actually ever intend to hurt children (...not physically anyway, apparently upsetting them is fair game FJJFJD), he knows the power of the threat— the idea of the child— is often more impactful than the actual act itself. ("Inej, I could only kill Pekka’s son once. He can imagine his death a thousand times.") it certainly works on rollins and van eck! he'll make you think of the damn children alright!

inej takes direct action to defend actual children, not just the idea of them, and then we hear in rule of wolves she's hated by the kerch government for it because she's fucking with their profits. (look also to how they flapped about searching for wylan, one rich man's kid, and are completely useless about hundreds of forced indentures. what a surprise...)

she reunites with her parents, but she worries persistently about whether or not they will accept her for who she has become, and we are never quite told whether or not they do. we like to think so, but we don't actually know. and although she gets to see her parents again, her future is on the wraith, not with them.

most people have dead or splintered families, actually. only inej has both parents, and for three - four years, they didn't have a daughter.

The general proximity to death in general is very potent; nina's power, kaz's whole backstory, the camping out in a graveyard. jesper's recklessness and love for fights, inej being ready to die rather than be a captiver again and kaz's response to that being 'not just yet', rather than not at all...

all following into the whole no mourners, no funerals thing!!! the fact that they know they won't be remembered or cared about if they die!!!

Edelman: 'Choosing to stand, as many of us do, outside the cycles of reproduction, choosing to stand, as we also do, by the side of those living and dying each day with the complications of AIDS, we know the deception of the societal lie that endlessly looks toward a future whose promise is always a day away.'

SOC:

Inej's mother and father might still shed tears for the daughter they'd lost, but if Inej died tonight, there would be no one to grieve for the girl she was now. 

“No mourners, no funerals. Another way of saying good luck. But it was something more. A dark wink to the fact that there would be no expensive burials for people like them, no marble markers to remember their names, no wreaths of myrtle and rose.”

pick up what I'm putting down guys please please I don't have time to tease this out properly but like. I think kaz and wylan are the linchpins here. (again)

#this is for / the fault of the people who encouraged this full post on the meme lmao #six of crows #crooked kingdom #kaz brekker #wylan van eck #inej ghafa #soc meta #soc duology #my post

[qcomicsy]

Explain which fucked up character is more of a twink; Jason or Bruce. Elaborate on why you think this. (12 marks)

Alright So,

Jason is a hunk

He's not a twink, I believe if anyone ever called him a twink he would be so shocked he would forget how to punch them. He's a hunk. A twunk even. He's built, strong looks as big as a fucking closet.

I mean look at this mf

Now his father???

This is what twink death looks like:

And for the definition.

You know those gradients people do with actors and other celebrities when they go from Twink to Daddy? As much as Bruce Wayne isn't my cup of tea.

This is him.

Like– It's literally him

He's the Twink -> Daddy Gotham edition.

And before someone comes in here and says " Oh He's still a twink–" Do not lie to yourself, he can be whatever you want him to be in your heart, but that man is huge, he's a CLOSET. His son is 6,0 and he managed to be BROADER. He's humongous. He can carry bane on his fucking back that's not a twink deed that's a brawny motherfucker he could break our arms like a twig.

I, in fact. I could argue that Bruce Wayne could actually be a bear depending on the artist that draw him (which also makes debatable the argument that Bruce Wayne in fact shaves his chest and I would say that's probably with laser because no razor makes a man chest and abs that smooth.) but I don't think the fandom is ready for that.

On an unrelated note, Jason Todd from Wayne Family adventures is a twink and I will fight people on that–

So in conclusion,

Jason Todd, is a twunk he was never a twink in his life. His father on the other hand was a Twink that evolved to a Daddy, which leads us to the end of my dissertation where measuring which fucked up character is more of a Twink... Bruce Wayne wins the crown, congrats Bruce Wayne you will always be famous.

Thanks for coming to my Ted talk where I say things with enough confidence that makes it seem like I am right. Because I am.

#Now if we're talking of the entire Batfamily Dick Grayson takes the award #and you know what? Good for him. GOOD FOR HIM #I spend too much time on this as someone just take me out #on a date? #I don't know guys be creative #twink Bruce Wayne #can't believe I'm using this tag #this is where my life lead to? #yeah #I suppose it is #And I don't know how to feel about it #thanks for the ask babe I love the opportunity to be more deranged on this site than I was on this past few months #q asks #long post #🦇🐦

[smytherines]

Fuck it, here's an Agent Mega dissertation

Alright since I have such elaborate headcanon for my beloved precious Owen Carvour, I guess I should do it for Agent Curt Mega too. Sigh.

So, going off of the last big one, if Owen is born in 1928, then I'm gonna say Curt was born in 1930. I'm forever won to the Texan agent mega headcanon, but I think it's safe to say that Mrs. Mega is not from Texas, probably more like New York or I've seen people say New Jersey.

We know nothing about Agent Mega's dad, but I imagine he was kind of a loser and low level con artist and moved his pregnant wife down to Texas to do scams around the bustling oil industry, and then soon after Curt was born a scam collapsed and he ran off. It's either that or an Aladdin 3 situation where he was secretly a spy the whole time and had to go into hiding.

So we've got mama Mega, raising a VERY hyperactive (read: ADHD) little boy on her own, in a place where she doesn't have any support, and he just becomes her entire world. But she has to work a lot, so Curt becomes used to taking care of himself, and most importantly- keeping himself busy so he doesn't lose it.

In this headcanon Curt would only be 15 when WWII ends- not old enough to fight, but definitely old enough to have personally known a lot of kids from his hometown who come home in caskets. I just truly think of WWII as a formative experience for both these guys. For Curt it just feeds into that inferiority complex.

Now anybody who has ADHD knows that you already spend a lot of your life feeling inadequate, feeling self-conscious about not being able to be the person other people want you to be (*especially* if you're queer). You get defensive, especially when criticized. You also get restless.

I headcanon Curt as growing up in Abilene, Texas, mostly because I have a friend who grew up there and I've visited and the vibe is right.

I don't know if anybody has ever seen The Last Picture Show, but its a film set in small town Texas in 1951-1952 (so a little late for our timeline but still) and it's (more or less) about two high school seniors essentially trying to escape this suffocatingly small, dying town before they become doomed to spend their lives trapped there.

That's definitely what I think about Agent Mega too- this gay, ADHD teenage boy climbing the walls of this little town, never being able to fully be himself. But he's got a lot of energy (and more than a little anger) to burn off, so he does sports. It's Texas, so football for sure. Maybe wrestling too. Perhaps wrestling is even where he has his gay come to jesus moment.

And when he isn't doing sports, he's home, alone (mama Mega is working so hard), out back drinking a beer (or two, or three) and teaching himself how to shoot. I think he becomes hyperfixated on becoming an expert marksman, because with all of this shit he cannot control, all the stuff he is supposed to be but isn't, this is one area where it feels like he has the power here.

What starts off as "kid drinking beer to feel cool and rebellious" starts to morph into a lifetime dependence on alcohol. Substance use is a big issue for a lot of ADHDers for the same reason I think it would be for Curt- it calms him down. It eases that constant restlessness in his bones. It softens the edges of other people's criticisms of him. It makes him care a bit less what others think about him.

In a vicious cycle, he drinks to avoid feeling those big feelings (especially as a man, especially as a gay man, especially as a gay man in Texas), but the drinking leads to more criticism, which leads to more drinking to numb the emotional response to that criticism.

But his hyperfixation on learning to shoot pays off. Let's say he becomes a junior state champion trapshooter (did I look up trapshooting competitions from the 1940s? yes I did). He's good, especially when he hits the sweet spot of drinking just enough to calm his ass down but not so much that he's useless. Maybe this is how he comes to the attention of the A.S.S.

And he fully believes that these skills he cultivated, the ability to hit hard and run fast and shoot accurately, his ability to escape when it doesn't feel remotely possible, is why many years later he just kinda rolls his eyes at Owen for insisting that they do things carefully and methodically. Careful didn't get him out of small town Texas. Careful didn't get him the exciting non-stop life he has now, a life where he *almost* gets to be himself a lot of the time.

When Owen "dies," and its Curt's fault, he naturally turns to drinking to numb that pain. But its a lot of pain, so it takes a lot of alcohol to kill it.

I'm sure I could go on, but as always I have rambled a lot here so I'm just gonna leave it.

#spies are forever #agent curt mega #saf headcanon #SAFtistic

[captainsophiestark]

The Curse of the Sun and the Moon

Klaus Mikaelson x Reader

Masterlist - Join My Taglist!

Written for Fictober 2023!

Fandom: The Vampire Diaries/The Originals

Day 7 Prompt: "Do you recognize this?"

Summary: Klaus' SO is writing their doctoral dissertation on cross-culture myths. Much to their irritation, Klaus knows a thing or two about those.

Word Count: 1,877

Category: Humor, Fluff, maybe a tiny bit of angst?

Putting work into an AI program without permission is illegal. You do not have my permission. Do not do it.

"Love? Hello, can you hear me?"

Slowly, I turned my head away from the paper in front of me, still not taking my eyes off the drawings. A hand waved in front of my face too, but I ignored it.

"What do you want, Nik?" I muttered, only half paying attention to him.

"I want to know you haven't gone into a coma," he whined, flopping down into the chair next to me. I cracked the tiniest smile, but didn't let my train of thought wander from the work in front of me.

"I haven't gone into a coma," I repeated. I didn't say anything else after that and neither did Nik for a moment, until he sighed.

"You must understand why I'm concerned when you respond to my questions like you're in a trance."

I sighed, making a last note before finally looking up at Nik with a tired smile.

"I'm sorry, babe. I know I've been pretty wrapped up in all this lately, but I'm writing a doctoral dissertation in folklore and mythology. I've kinda got my hands full, and if I don't put in the hours to get this done right, it's all going to be for nothing."

Nik rolled his eyes dramatically before fixing me with a look.

"You know, if you just became a vampire with me, you wouldn't have to worry about things like school and work anymore."

I narrowed my eyes. "If I ever make the decision to become a vampire with you, all I'm going to do is go back to college for more degrees and studying. I love doing this, even if it makes me want to walk into the ocean sometimes. All eternity is going to do is enable me to throw any kind of practical job application for my studies out the window."

Nik sighed heavily, but he had a smile on his face all the same.

"I probably could've guessed that answer, couldn't I?"

"Probably."

We shared a smile, and then my attention drifted back to the paper in front of me. I stared at it for a few moments, still half-aware of Nik watching me fondly, when an idea struck like lightning.

"Wait, Nik... I just thought of something." I rushed to turn the paper around on my desk so it faced Nik instead of me. "Do you recognize this? I mean, you've been around for a thousand years. Chances are probably decent that you know something about this, right?"

Nik stared at the paper for a minute, then slowly looked up at me, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

"What did you say you're doing your dissertation on again?"

"I'm focusing on myths that appear to transcend cultures throughout history. There's a couple examples of stories and legends that exist in basically the same form in cultures that had no contact. This one, usually referred to as something along the lines of 'the curse of and the sun and the moon', is the main one I've decided to focus on. So... any chance you can tell me anything about it?"

Nik's tiny smile turned into a full on grin, a twinkle in his eyes as he looked at me. My heart leapt.

"Oh my gosh, you totally know something! Tell me, I can't wait. I'm gonna have to find some sources other than you if I want to put it in my paper, but-"

"This is mine, love," he said. I stared at him, trying to process what his words meant, but I came up empty-handed.

"What do you mean? Is this copy of the myth yours?"

"In a way."

Nik looked back down at the illustration depicting the curse, this one of Aztec origin. It was my favorite of the versions I'd found, although the same curse had also appeared in Roman scrolls and a half-dozen other cultures from around the world. He ran his finger over the lines of the drawing fondly.

"I drew this."

My mouth dropped open, and I looked quickly between Nik, the drawing, and back again.

"What... what do you mean you drew this? This is an Aztec myth from the 13th century-" I stopped short as my mind finally caught up. "...which I guess you were alive for..."

Nik smiled and kicked back in his chair, ankles crossed and a proud expression on his face. I just stared at him in shock.

"There is no such thing as the Curse of the Sun and the Moon, love," he said. "The real thing is the Hybrid curse, placed on me. A long time ago, Elijah and I planted this myth in cultures all over the world to get every single werewolf and vampire in the world looking for the components I needed to break my own curse. And it worked."

Nik finished his explanation with a smirk, but I didn't react. I just kept staring at him, my brain going through the equivalent of a computer's blue screen of death. This could not be possible.

"Hold on a second," I said, holding up a hand to stop my own swirling thoughts before looking at Nik again. "Let me get this straight. You drew this ancient Aztec drawing I have on my desk right now?"

"Yes."

"And you created the Roman scrolls I found that kick-started this project?"

"I did."

"And you completely made up the myth of the Curse and the Sun of the Moon, then did the ancient equivalent of editing it into a bunch of wikipedia articles to make everyone believe it was real, all so other werewolves and vampires would do the work of finding things you needed for you?"

"That's right."

"So this curse, this myth that permeates a dozen different, separate cultures, the cornerstone of my dissertation... is just a lie you made up a long time ago, that nobody ever disproved because you're just so fucking old you could create mythology at the same time that these ancient cultures actually existed?"

"Exactly."

I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose, taking a deep breath in and letting it out slowly. Then, my eyes snapped open, and I snatched up a scroll from the top of my desk and hucked it at my boyfriend.

"Are you FUCKING KIDDING ME NIK?" I cried, shooting out of my seat. Nik looked a little shocked, partly because the scroll had hit him smack in the face and then partly because I never got this kind of mad at him. "You can't just fake historical documents to serve your own purposes!"

"Technically, I didn't fake any historical documents. I made them at the same time in history that they're supposed to be from."

"DOESN'T COUNT! My whole dissertation is about examining the phenomena of cultures that had no interactions somehow telling the same stories. There's all kind of examples of it, but this was going to be my ace in the hole, and now I can't use it!"

"Sure you can," Nik said, at last standing from the chair. He was smart enough not to walk towards me, but I hurled a pillow from my chair at him anyway.

"No, I can't! What am I gonna say? Oh, well you see, all these different cultures had the same mythology without talking to each other because my boyfriend is a motherfucker who lied through his teeth to manipulate people, and he's old enough that he completely got away with it!"

Nik shrugged. "Sounds good to me."

"ARGH! I can't believe you- Oh my God."

"What?"

"The stupid fucking vampire myth was going to be another example supporting my dissertation. But that's gone now too. 'Oh, why do all these cultures have the same mythology about a curse and blood-drinking creatures who stalk the night?' Well that's simple, professors! It's because my boyfriend, one of those blood-drinkers, just kept showing up to plant a bullshit story and got other myths written about him in the process!"

"I'm still not seeing the problem, love, that sounds like an excellent presentation."

"NIKLAUS MIKAELSON! I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!"

I rushed to close the distance between us, smacking him in the chest and then continuing to whack him in the shoulders, arms, and chest again.

"You. Can't. Just. Make. Up. Mythology. That. Influences. History. Forever. For KICKS!" I shouted, punctuating each word with a hit. Nik just watched me, not moving even half an inch from the force of my shoves, watching me rage with a small smile on his face.

"I've never seen you like this before, love," he said, his voice silky and low. It only made me want to hit him more. "I quite like it."

"UGH!" I shouted, turning away from Nik all the same. I stared at the desk, my mind finally getting into the later stages of processing. I'd have to completely ditch all this work. "Nik, this is the worst thing you've ever done. And I've dated you long enough to know about the bad things you've done. Holy shit, I'm going to have to ditch so much of this work. I'm going to have to completely change my topic, all because you're fucking ancient and a good artist and a better liar."

After a second, I felt Nik's arms slowly, gently wrap around me from behind. He rested his chin on my shoulder, nuzzling into my hair. Part of me still wanted to hit him, but not enough of me to actually do it.

"I'm sorry, love," he said, voice low and sweet. "Tell me what I can do to make it better."

I huffed a sigh through my nose. "You can tell me where Elijah is. He's a part of this too, I need to kill him next."

Nik chuckled, pulling me tighter to him. I relaxed a little bit into him.

"How about we start with a movie marathon of your choice, all of your favorite junk food, and I dagger any of my siblings who try to disturb you while you're working next week?"

I paused, thinking, dragging out the moment with a little hum. Nik kissed my cheek, slowly moving further along and down towards my neck, and after another minute I sighed.

"Fine. I guess we can start with relaxation and peace. But I am not getting over this any time soon. And I'm still going to attack Elijah the next time I see him."

"It's a deal."

"Of all the things I thought might be a challenge about dating a vampire, I never could've predicted 'destroys my doctoral dissertation by secretly being the subject of my dissertation'."

Nik snorted a little laugh in my ear. "And I never would've thought this would be the closest we came to a deal-braker for you, what with all the murdering I've done."

"I might not be able to claim the high ground on that front much longer."

I twisted around to look pointedly at Nik, but he just smiled right back at me. Wisely, he used his vampire speed to whisk me out of the room before I could look at my ruined dissertation again. This situation was absolutely, completely ridiculous, and I knew I'd probably still be processing for the next few decades. But I loved Nik and the rest of these stupid, lying, ridiculous, ancient vampires, and I'd keep loving them no matter what. Even if I wanted to kill them, sometimes, too.

****************

TVD/TO Taglist: @elenavampire21

#fictober23 #the vampire diaries #the originals #klaus mikaelson #klaus mikaelson x reader #the vampire diaries fanfiction #the vampire diaries oneshot #the vampire diaries imagine #the originals fanfiction #the originals imagine #the originals oneshot #klaus mikaelson fanfiction #klaus mikaelson imagine #klaus mikaelson oneshot #elijah mikaelson #the mikaelsons #vampires #the sun and moon curse #the curse of the sun and the moon #the mikaelson family

[howi99]

Pet AU

God...I feel sorry for jaune but also for his team. I can see Adam being hard on jaune as he is very weak and not prepared for combat.

I can say jaune would give it his all but he is very unprepared. But maybe there is a silver lining with this. Jaune was made leader his strength right now is his brains and strategy. Maybe he starts training with all his team mates every day to start trying to catch up?

PE class

Blake: You know, it's impressive how Jaune isn't actually dying on us.

Ilia: *shrug* If anything, he got a good amount of stamina for an untrained civilian.

Jaune: *Running laps with all his equipment on* How *huff* many *huff* more?

Adam: *behind him, running as well with a whistle in his mouth* "whistle" Less question, more running!

Jaune: *huff* Fuuuuu-

Blake: No swearing! Mo- i mean headmistress Kali is watching us.

Jaune: -dge.

Kali: *who is looking at everyone's training* You know Blake, I don't mind if you call me mom on campus.

Blake: It's weird.

Kali: *clenching her poor heart* My daughter is in her rebel phase. Oh the humanity!

Blake: *roll her eyes*

Adam: *whistle* Ok, we can stop.

Jaune: Oh thank god!

_____

Study time

Adam: ... I don't understand.

Jaune: What do you mean?

Adam: Why are we learning about literature instead of training to kill grimm?

Jaune: *looking at his own paper* I mean, we still need to be educated. Besides, i don't see Blake and Ilia complaining.

Blake and Ilia: *both reading the same book. They are both smiling like idiots*

Adam: They have... A weird obsession with that series. I think it's called ninja of love?

Jaune: *shrug* the prof said we could choose the book we wanted to write our dissertation about. As long as it's not porn, i don't care what they both are reading.

Adam: *was going to say that it probably was smut, then just give up* What did you choose?

Jaune: *give the book he was writing about to Adam* Take a look.

Adam: "The girl who fell through the world." Hey, i know that story.

Jaune: You do?

Adam: Yeah! I was always a fan of the rusted knight.

Jaune: *chuckle* like everyone else.

Adam: What? You prefer another one?

Jaune: Yeah, the Red Warrior. The man who saves the less fortunate and helps the rusted knight and Alyx during his adventures!

#jaune arc #rwby #rwby au #answer #pet au #adam taurus #blake belladonna #ilia amitola #kali belladonna

[anna-scribbles]

hey anna! the wait for kwami’s choice part 2 truly is abysmal and it’s so hard to navigate through the tag with all the leaks about, do you have any fic recs to tide us over until gloob puts us out of our misery?

not only do I have fic recs, I also have way too much to do rn and therefore will spend an inordinate amount of time crafting a detailed rec list for you 😘 (we can also just consider this my 2022 ao3 wrapped lol)

goes without saying perhaps, but ANYTHING by @peachcitt is gold and also uniquely devastating, some of my particular favorites being:

metamorphosis - 97k, enemies, sleepovers, you get it. i'm normal

those benevolent stars - 23k, ladrien thief/prince/soulmates au. what more do I even need to say

chat noir's white french man hit list for feminist purposes - 7k, hilarious and devastating, this fic is a child to me

double dare - 32k, ladrien, absolutely everything. cemented my friendship w/ peach bc I had to scream at her everyday abt it

I thought the plane was going down - 11k, attuned to my tastes specifically, adrinette having a History while on airplanes

@carpisuns also puts out banger after banger like it's her dayjob, specializing in understanding the ridiculous nature of the lovesquare to such a degree and also being the funniest person alive. some of my faves from her are:

tell me something I don't know - 120k, the marichat fic EVER, mar's dissertation on lovesquare and guess what she's right

pink - 14k wip, adrien loves marinette, SOFT

two idiots and a hamster (collab with @botherkupo) - 24k, adrinette roommates, makes me cry laugh

@picayunearts is a goddess on earth. she bends word and image flawlessly to her will. recently she has enraptured me with

final girl - 41k, marichat, au where marinette succeeds in giving up her miraculous to alya in origins. INCREDIBLE marinette character study

@rosekasa invented ladynoir and i'm not afraid to say it. check out everything on her ao3 but just note the following

when things were good - 15k wip, breakup fic/post hawkmoth takedown, has been ruining me in a SPECIAL way

new marinette 12k, post-guardianship memory loss marinette, a classic

like poles of a magnet - 12k, enemies au, hurts my feelings

ya'aburnee - 13k, ladynoir, HURTS ME VERY MUCH. I'VE NOT RECOVERED

@buggachat's fics always feel like i'm attending a course on adrien and marinette's true characterizations explained to me by someone with a PhD in lovesquare and I walk away enlightened. she has an incredible gift for storytelling and just Getting It. anyway read

maintaining a professional distance - 43k, ladynoir hotel room shenanigans, god-tier characterization

when you're near 10k, ladynoir dating but adrinette have never met, a classic

@sha-nwa should honestly quit her career and write lovesquare fanfiction for me full time. proof:

the way I loved you - 68k, marichat break up fic, will be cemented into my mind forever

photograph - 1k, sweet adrinette, abby loves making me cry

things WOULD be amiss if I did not mention @officialratprince (carolinaa on ao3) bc their fics derailed my homework schedule on several occasions last semester, though I'll be honest that their fics are not for the faint of heart or those who wish adrien agreste to have a good time. my faves are

I will take it / it can't go wrong series - 3 fics at 16k, 25k, and 39k, adrien's journey through experiencing child abuse and his friends being there for him, culminating in gabriel's court trial

home sick - 14k wip, adrien gets pneumonia and Everything Is Really Bad

other various fics I love for various reasons:

how hawkmoth got his groove back series by @agrestenoir - 2 fics at 3k and 1k, one of my favorite crack fics i read last year. had me crying laughing

1 step forward, 3 steps back by agnes writes - 10k, breaks my heart every time I read it. also makes me legitimately angry at adrien while still keeping him in character which is a feat in and of itself

the last day on earth by reiaji - 10k, chat blanc keeps happening as marinette gets older, I am incapable of not recommending this fic

okay now go forth and don't do your work<3

#such a struggle for me to hold back and not just list every single one of everyone's fics. #looking at this list I realiize that I in fact read a lot of fanfiction #I cant even find it within myself to feel cringe about it bc these are all legitimately so GOOD #ml #miraculous ladybug #ml fic rec #mlb fic rec #anna rambles #asks

[unpretty]

May I get the dissertation on Beverly Hills Cop. Please.

andrew just turned on our bluray so i dug through my inbox to see if this ask was still here. however i'm not gonna do anything fancy, just liveblog obnoxiously.

ultimately it's an 80s cop movie so don't expect it to age well and not be that. it's still aged better than eddie murphy's delirious but that's not saying much (do not try to watch eddie murphy's early standup in 2023).

anyway first of all the theme song fucking rules, i'll never forgive crazy frog for what they did to this song (and also the many other crimes of that vile amphibian)

eddie murphy really carries this fucking movie. can you believe they wanted to give this to stallone??? fucking imagine. he wanted to be a cool guy named snake who drove cool cars. we can't be in the worst of all possible universes because that didn't happen and he stuck all his bad ideas in cobra (1986). allegedly he quit over a disagreement about orange juice, which is probably not true but is very funny to imagine. every anecdote you've ever heard about a funny scene being improvised actually came from this movie, i think. this might be the only movie where that's true. the original script is, according to Everyone, fucking dire. it was actually twelve scripts clumsily pasted together. they had no choice but to let a bunch of feral comedians run wild and waste miles of film because they kept making each other laugh. it was the only way to salvage anything out of that script.

i know what i just said about the script but the beginning of the movie is a fucking masterclass in efficient storytelling. every beat conveys multiple important points of information. you meet axel doing an illegal deal and. okay the part where a cop car slowly comes up behind them in the alley while they're arguing about money is extremely funny. there's a whole fucking chase scene before they reveal that axel was a cop the whole time which really sets the tone. this man is a con artist. he's doing his own thing. everyone's sick of his shit. he'd be extremely good at his job if his job was being a wacky vigilante and not a fucking cop.

they introduce A Mysterious Figure From His Past whose whole deal establishes that axel actually was a criminal, and he's got criminal friends, and those friends were so good they took the fall for his ass. they love him! he loves them!! he owes his whole scummy life to this guy!!! it makes it good and devastating when he fucking dies, and yeah, sure, of course axel is going to travel to beverly hills to avenge his dead friend. the scene is set, it took very little time, it told you very little directly. all things i enjoy.

from here on out a major source of tension is the fundamental difference in policing between a poor black city and a rich white city. they deliberately designed the beverly hills police department set to look like a private security firm for rich people. they had to invent the concept of gps, which did not exist, for these bougie cops. axel expects to be able to get away with a lot more than he does. he expects the cops to put up with a lot less than they do. the scene where bogomil makes taggart apologize to axel and asks if axel wants to press charges is cringe as fuck for how it makes this look ridiculous and not fully fucking reasonable to expect a cop not to punch a guy, even if he's being annoying on purpose. but it's important to establish the level of culture shock this is for axel, who has never in his life seen a white officer experience a consequence (he personally experiences many consequences).

if axel foley were played by a white man there is a 100% chance there would have been a romantic subplot with his lady friend who worked for the same rich asshole as their murdered friend. we're all clear on that, right? like. i enjoy the lack of a romantic subplot, but we all know why that's missing, right? they did not leave jenny single for girl power reasons.

allegedly bronson pinchot didn't tell anyone he was going to do that fucking accent in the art gallery scene until they were already filming. i feel like that scene is just two men trying to get each other to break on camera. anyway pinchot got a gig on perfect strangers because of it so good call buddy.

fucking. taggart and rosewood. john ashton and judge reinhold. fucking perfect. they were teamed up in the audition and instead of acting like cops they acted like an old married couple and the genius doing casting was like "yes perfect" and they got the job and also stuck the audition scene in the movie. the part where rosewood talks about all the red meat in your bowels. excellent. i love them. rosewood being the by-the-book cop because he's a rookie while taggart is rougher around the edges is so good. rosewood actually having a blast and really wanting to tell the fun story of how axel distracted them with food delivery and stuck bananas in their tailpipe is so good. damon wayans is credited as "banana man". there are no small roles in this life.

and the movie does my favorite thing, which is establish that taggart and rosewood and even bogomil actually are competent. they don't seem like it because axel is there literally sticking bananas in tailpipes, but they ARE good at their jobs. the strip club scene? they could have made it another "axel foley is the coolest cop" scene where he brings that guy down. but instead the other cops see that he's onto something and follow his lead.

the "supercops" scene is great because ashton fucking breaks. you can see him break. he is trying so hard not to break but it's too fucking funny.

there are multiple scenes where axel fucks up and it's always because he's actually very emotional and upset about his fucking friend getting murdered by a rich guy who expects no consequences. all of his major fuckups are because he really cannot stand that guy being a smug asshole about it. the scene at the country club is the one i could most stand to cut, but it's important for establishing axel's rage and also hubris. he is angry and he is impatient and he KNOWS this motherfucker is up to something. he wants to ruin this man's life. he wants to humiliate him. he doesn't care if it's legal. however you couldn't lose this scene without also losing "this all happened the last time i parked here" so it has to stay. also the part where axel pretends to be gay and implies he gave another man herpes as a con hasn't aged well. i still laughed, but, you know. i recognize it for what it is.

there's such a good scene with bogomil. where he's like. axel. for the love of god. give me something. you are clearly an intelligent man and you clearly think you are onto something. we are on the same side here. what the fuck is going on. and axel lays it all out and bogomil is like "that all sounds very plausible but you have jack shit for evidence, we are going to try to find evidence so we can do something about this LEGALLY" and then it's made clear that he is also beholden to authorities, specifically an appointed official who is very much on the side of wealthy shitheads. "i wanna be a good cop but politicians won't let me" is horseshit but as a narrative device it's a good one. definitely preferable to that bbc sherlock "i am a genius, let's establish this by surrounding me with bumbling morons" approach. i mean it's true that cops are all bumbling morons but it's bad storytelling if your main character is also, literally or figuratively, a fucking cop.

rosewood being talked into helping because he's young and really wants to do good is also good. is there axel foley/billy rosewood fanfic? there must be. rosewood is smitten with axel. you can see it. axel tells rosewood to think of him whenever he gets out of the shower. the signs are all there. where was i. jenny's insistence on participating (because she ALSO wants to avenge her dead friend) creates an unfortunate damsel situation, but that works out because the instant a white lady is in danger that creates all the incentive the plot needs for the cops to be useful. did you know she was an amateur bodybuilder? they should have let her kick ass.

then at the end when bogomil is like. hello boss. i have an explanation for everything that you cannot disprove. which is bad! they killed a man and are falsifying a police report. but also it's an axel move and that makes it okay because it's movies. axel convincing bogomil to talk to his boss by threatening to stay in beverly hills is a quality gag.

there's an alternate universe where the character does that and becomes a private eye and we get a procedural tv show out of it. apparently that almost happened. instead we got beverly hills cops two and three, which aren't as good, because they were actual movies with real scripts and not just bizarre fever dreams assembled from scraps of action movies that no one wanted to make glued together by comedians wasting film with some of the best one-liners you've ever heard.

#original #beverly hills cop

[f1llory]

i know this all started like 11 years ago but i'm still so mad at how the hunger games movies have removed practically every trace of the avoxes that they can. i know that movies can't include everything from the books, but the avoxes are so important to the story and it does a real disservice to the movies by removing them. also, it would have added maybe a couple minutes per movie to include them the way they were in the books.

there are mentions of them here and there, and we do see lavinia briefly, but the only avox who's there in any meaningful way is pollux. and they couldn't take him out of the movie! not only is he important to include with the camera crew, he has to be there because he's the one who leads the group through the tunnels. if it were possible to cut him out of mockingjay, i think they would have.

removing so many scenes with lavinia genuinely detracted from my enjoyment of the first movie. especially witnessing her capture & carrying the guilt about it. when there are avoxes waiting on her, katniss does treat them politely, but i think it would have been so important & impactful to see her truly recognizing lavinia and her humanity and trying to communicate with her like anyone else. fixing this probably wouldn't add more than like 5 minutes to the runtime, but it would be such an improvement.

and don't even get me started with darius being removed from the movies. maybe he shows us a little less about katniss's character than lavinia would, but the mentions of him in catching fire add so much to our imagination of the hob and illustrate just how different peacekeepers were in district 12. this is also the first time this has happened to someone katniss actually knows. i think this would take maybe a minute and a half to fix? at most. really all we would need to see is darius talking to katniss in the hob, then being one of the peacekeepers getting captured when thread takes over.

obviously they kept pollux in because they literally couldn't remove him from mockingjay. i don't really have any complaints about his portrayal in the movies, which is kind of surprising given how passionate i am about him. also, the movie actually portrayed castor's death better than the book! it wasn't really in the book, basically castor was there and then he wasn't. so the movie version has a lot more impact.

also, it sucks that we didn't get to hear what happened to lavinia and darius. i always have intense second-hand embarrassment at the fact that in the book, peeta realizes pollux is an avox then immediately starts trauma dumping about seeing lavinia and darius tortured to death. if it were done as written in the movie, i might have experienced literal physical pain. but at the same time, i think it's very important that katniss finds out what happened to them. also in the books, squad 451 hears all the avoxes in the tunnels screaming as the mutts kill them. i feel like that would have been really easy to add in.

anyways we are moving on before i write an entire dissertation on pollux.

it was even worse in tbosas! the movie cut the scene where snow sees dr. gaul experimenting on and torturing avoxes. it would have been absolutely horrifying to see that translated to the screen, but it's incredibly important to snow's character development and his transformation into someone who both allows and perpetuates that cruelty. also, justice for ma plinth! i think it would have been incredible to see more of her and the way she treats people. in the book, she is so kind and caring to the avoxes working in her house. they're able to communicate with her, and she cooks food that will be easy for them to eat. since treating the avoxes as remotely human is so unusual, treating them with such love and respect is a revolutionary act, and goes to show what kind of person sejanus was raised to be. i know that this would add quite a bit to the runtime, but it probably should have been two movies anyways.

i know that side/background characters are cut from movies all the time. it happens. but even without getting a lot of lines, the avoxes are incredibly important to the story. these are people who have been enslaved, tortured, and dehumanized more than basically anyone else in panem. once characters truly see the avoxes, they're forced to confront the true brutality of the capitol and what they'll do to keep people in line. i think the movies don't truly force audiences to confront the brutality of this punishment. any rebellion is punished by literally robbing people of their voices and cutting them off from everything they've known. even if there's someone left to buy their freedom, they're physically disfigured for life--even removal of part of the tongue can have catastrophic side effects.

also, characters' perceptions of avoxes can say a lot about the kind of person they are. avoxes are the lowest class in panem, and treated with about as much agency as a piece of furniture. people aren't supposed to treat them like people. they're only supposed to talk to avoxes when giving them an order. despite this, there are certain characters who choose to show them kindness and love.

anyways i'm gonna end this here before i write a post so long it crashes tumblr but pls ask me literally anything about pollux i am in love w him <3

#the hunger games #thg #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #tbosas #avoxes #pollux #lavinia #darius #peeta mellark #katniss everdeen #sejanus plinth #ma plinth #president snow #coriolanus snow

[oldshrewsburyian]

Hi! I've seen your recent post about Goodbye Eastern Europe, and I was really interested at first. Unfortunately, after a couple of research in a few different languages related to some of the countries concerned by the umbrella term of 'Eastern Europe' I failed to find any reliable review praising the book. The author (a journalist)'s own website pops up, as well as articles on History Today and The Washington Post... But the great majority of the results are US-centered and I fail to see a review written by someone whose job it is to study and explain any of the territories concerned. Considering this, why should people read it? (I don't mean to be rude, it's an honest question)

Wow, okay! First of all, sincerely, I am glad that you are interested in assessing the credentials and qualifications of the authors of trade market histories. Many of these are, alas, 'histories.' Many are the emails I have sent to publishers saying "What qualifies this agèd political scientist to opine about Shakespeare?" or "Why does this economist think he knows anything about the Middle Ages?" So: I do appreciate that your skepticism is both healthy and well-earned. Secondly, let me say that I, um, appreciate that after implying that I am incapable of both critical reading and even superficial research, you clarified that you did not mean to be rude. Noted.

I'm going to discuss Mikanowski's credentials and methods first, and then offer a brief excursus on the respective timelines of mass-market and academic review publishing (which, I realize, you did not explicitly ask for. But I think it's relevant to your concern about not seeing academic reviews.) One: Mikanowski has done graduate-level training in history. I'm not sure whether or not he defended his dissertation at Berkeley (their list of abstracts is limited to institutional access.) I suspect he may not have done; but he does include his dissertation advisor in the acknowledgments of his book, which I think is important, as it indicates that he's part of the category of ABD graduate students who decided that completion didn't match up with their personal/professional goals but still made enough progress and did good enough work to be on cordial terms with their supervisors! This, uh, matters (there's also the kind of student who studiously avoids their advisor as a prelude to leaving the program.) Also, Mikanowski's work was far advanced enough, and of high enough quality, that he got an ACLS fellowship for it. Also also, I would weep with joy and disbelief if my students (B.A. or M.A.) were doing the kind of work he was doing as an undergrad at Princeton. They aren't. I digress. My point is: the fact that he has work completed in top-rank programs, acknowledged by competitive grants, and affirmed by ongoing cordial relationships with respected scholars matters. Tony Grafton is in the acknowledgments as having read and critiqued the manuscript, and while Tony Grafton is a very kind man in ways that many academics of his stature are not, he also has a very low bullshit tolerance, as is right and proper.

So much for credentials. But even more importantly, Mikanowski's notes and bibliography reveal that he is using this training profitably. The work contains more thorough references than many books for crossover markets, which I appreciate; also, the bibliography is academic in character, even though it would be light for an academic monograph. My point is: it's using up-to-date research and niche research and primary sources, all in multiple languages (I honestly lost track of how many languages. I think it was at least five, because I am research-fluent in four and thus think of more than that as impressive.) For what it's worth--and you may think that little!--I was also impressed by how he was using his sources, and supplementing them with the kind of embodied research that may sound nebulous but is, I think, genuinely helpful in helping us answer questions like: in what ways does a building dominate a square? What is the relationship of a town to its environment? How long does it take to walk from Point A to Point B, and what does one see along the way (or: what would one have seen in the fourteenth, sixteenth, nineteenth centuries?)

Finally: Goodbye, Eastern Europe was published less than three months ago. Academics may not even have been asked to review it yet. Standard turnaround time for writing a review is about three months. Time from submission to publication can be six months to a year. This is not taking into consideration that since the start of the pandemic, particularly, the fact that academic labor has been deliberately gutted and casualized means that it's hard to find people to do this unpaid work (we often don't even get copies of the books to review anymore.) The book may or may not be reviewed in academic journals. But if it's going to be, I'd be looking for those reviews in... maybe a year.

I hope this is helpful.

#asks and answers #history side of tumblr #jacob mikanowski #goodbye eastern europe #books #nonfiction

[belovedgrayson]

How different would Bruce and Dick's relationship be if Bruce was better at communicating?

Anon! Thank you for this question! It sent me into a vortex trying to figure out what direction canon would have gone in had Bruce communicated well with young Dick. (You didn't even ask about canon I'm so sorry)

I wrote something way too long and incoherent so I'll try to summarize in points!😭(I failed at summarizing I'm so sorry x2)

In terms of canon: It would be wildly different. Omg almost everything about it would be changed if Bruce communicated his true feelings to Dick. Bruce's inability to mentally let go of Dick was the core reason we ended up with seventeen hundred Robins. (+ He still misses Dick's Robin days years later my man never recovered from losing his Golden Child.) He loved and cared for Dick so much that he didn't know what to do with himself. Keep Dick around and potentially endanger his life again (after Joker shot him)? Let go of him so he doesn't have to deal with the guilt of hurting his boy? What to do! What to do! Oh, maybe withdraw from Dick and let him leave, then succumb to the crushing loneliness and grab a kid off the streets and pretend he's doing it for whatever bullcrap reason (until Dick comes back and presses him enough for him to snap, break some freaking glass, and say "FINE! I did it because I missed you😔💔now please leave before I start to cry") I can't imagine what would've happened if, instead of all that, Bruce had been able to tell young Dick "I can't let you keep fighting crime beside me because if anything happens to you I won't be able to forgive myself but I also can't live without you and I don't know what the hell to do I love you too much". Can you imagine if he told that to Dick Grayson, the guy with 473892 EQ who also loves Bruce way too much? +++ Dick would've been present when/if a new sidekick came in, and they wouldn't have become Robin because the Robin name and costume is personal to Dick and was never meant to be passed on! They would've had another name and costume. Who knows where canon would've gone from there!

As for their relationship: If Bruce was a good communicator he would've been able to clear most of the internal conflict that Dick's had for years about not being good enough. All Dick has wanted since he was a kid was Bruce's approval, and it's something he continues to fight tooth and nail for. Who knows where Dick would be if he didn't have that weighing on him 24/7? If Bruce had been open with him would he even be Nightwing now or would he have become someone else? We will never know!!!

Anon, remember the shock and pure emotion on Dick's face here?? This came years later and Dick immediately forgave him, excused him, and hugged him. Imagine if we'd been able to get this level of openness from Bruce when Dick was younger? Dear lord surely I would not have survived.

(There are some pretty great moments of healthy communication between these two in old comics that I absolutely adore, but then this would turn into a full doctoral dissertation and I need to stop talking some time this century)

#ask me anything #i feel like i just ran a marathon

[forthegothicheroine]

I'm finally reading Mad Love, having seen the cartoon episode, and thinking about the "problematic" part: Harley having slept with her professors to get passing grades. Here, in no order, are my thoughts on this.

You can maybe sleep your way through college, but I don't think you can sleep your way to a PhD. Unless you sleep with the whole dissertation committee.

That sounds like something Harley would claim she had done.

At this point, Harley was a secondary character usually played for comedy. Paul Dini giving this backstory was meant to be fleshing her out and making her more complex, whereas from the perspective of her as a modern day hero it sounds like it's undercutting her.

Dini had no way of knowing she was going to become maybe the most popular character in the whole DCU in thirty years. He might have done it differently in that case, or he might not.

I do like that it establishes why she was completely unprepared to treat the Joker. That's a movie pet peeve of mine- when therapists who work with people on parole get flustered when the guy is just vaguely rude to them, they've presumably been doing this for years.

You could also have her cheat. That would come across as more straightforwardly unethical, as opposed to someone else taking advantage of her.

I'm okay with the retcon that she had an affair with a teacher, foreshadowing her future exploitative relationships. I used that in my Breaking Bad Memes AU.

Ultimately, I'm neutral on whether this specific backstory should still be used. It definitely doesn't fit the modern version of the character as well as it did the original animated one. Still, I disagree with calling it "problematic" or that it was made up by "some fuckboy writer" (her creator!) I think it's a gross, embarrassing, uncomfortable thing in the life of a very morally complicated character. I think that still makes sense, and she still isn't portrayed as having deserved what happened to her. I can take or leave it, but I don't think it's inherently wrong to write.

You can get into a big discussion about whether Harley doing something bad sex-related is worse than her killing lots of people but I don't even know if it's still canon that she killed a lot of people and the less I try to figure out continuity the happier I'll be.

#batman #harley quinn

[ghouljams]

Hi sorry I really didn’t want to cause an argument about a/b/o designations I just get excited to talk about it especially because I feel like so often it’s seen as a means to an end of just writing really intense smut but it does have really interesting implications with regards to gender and sexuality and the way people approach them both. But I also struggle with wording stuff, and of course all sex is opt in I think what I was really trying to say is more that because I read Betas as not having as strong a hormonal reaction they don’t run the risk of losing control during a heat or rut (which ofc is still not in line with your take on a/b/o) again I don’t really have the words to describe it because I don’t experience a sex drive in the same way as allos. Again I’m really sorry if I upset you, I do really like your take on omegaverse and I’m not trying to like change your mind or au or anything, I just got overexcited

- Acespec anon

I have a bit of a short fuse despite having a high tolerance for bullshit, it's not your fault. I don't want to come off as angry or upset with anyone in my asks without cause(ai or theft causes mostly). I also had just gotten out if therapy so I was still running a little high emotion, which is not an excuse and I'm sorry for getting frustrated.

Anyway continuing on my basic agreement with your read on traditional betas. While I do really love the kink aspects of a/b/o, the super high "losing control during heat/rut" thing is something I find just like... not feasible for a functioning society? Like I read a fic once where an omega went into hest in a grocery store and every alpha in the area was trying to get at them. What??? Like huh??? You're telling me every alpha in the world is a border line rapist? That is simply not how society functions, please take a seat.

From my perspective (which is that of an allo person) and through my lense of gender politics I've always thought that betas were thrown in as just "anyone I don't want to think about having sex" which good or bad generally does end up with that character being fairly ace. However I also see it as super lazy writing. Betas have the most versatility, they're the most interesting! I know a/b/o is just an excuse to skip straight to the sex but there's so much world to explore within the au! You've added 3 new genders!!! That's so cool, tell me about all of them!

Betas in traditional omegaverse are such a wasted opportunity to do something interesting. Which again just speaks to the inherent biases of the author, if your not an alpha or an omega(man or woman) you're not worth expanding upon. Ugh I could write a dissertation on traditional omegaverse.

I think secretly even us allos hope to be betas in traditional omegaverse, the alternatives sound like he'll on earth. That's why I'm fixing the whole au 🛠

#ghoul speaks #omegaverse #a/b/o

[dallonwrites]

LOVER BOY - WIP INTRO

[ lover boy by @dallonwrites / sfgate / tumblr user catilinas / lover boy | little weirds by jenny slate / lover boy / hellraiser (1987) / manhunter (1986) / the lost boys (1987) / lover boy ] this post has alt text.

disclaimer: this is my own original work

Genre: Literary that wishes it were horror Setting: San Francisco, 1987/88 Aesthetics: fake blood, uncanny SFX in old horror movies, grainy home videos, a deeply orange sunset, retro arcade games, an empty mall, overripe fruit, anatomical heart models, heart shaped candles, leather jackets, rolling fog, the moon in the ocean, bowling alleys, red lights, trying to see a ghost in the hallway, real blood, mixtapes from former lovers, nightclub bathrooms, vampire fangs, neck kisses Summary: Sometimes, to cope with change and unpredictability, Beau likes to pretend he's the protagonist of a blood-soaked horror movie. And all he's ever wanted is a lover. But after the death of his childhood best friend he retreats into himself - frustrated at love and frustrated that Bobby hasn't haunted him the way he promised to - until he's jolted back by former friends needing his help with a movie project, an ex lover returning as new ones find new ways to hurt him, his friends and his community getting sicker, and a near death experience that comes with the urgency to record everything around him whilst he still can. The more that happens, the more he tries to find ghosts around him. The more times he sees blood on his hands, the more painful his old coping mechanism becomes, as his thoughts become less and less tasty.

what if you were autistic but you didn't know it because it's the 1980s and your special interest is horror movies and sometimes your brain feels a little bit blood-soaked but it's okay because it feels good! it makes you feel better, right? but then your best friend dies and also you lose the closest person you had to a lover and you wonder if you've wasted your time obsessing over romance but you don't have time to think about it because life keeps happening and nobody seems to care that your community is dying and no matter how hard you try you never see a ghost in the hallway or the bathroom mirror like you want to, and then your lover comes back but he's different, and so are you, and you really want to stop looking death in the eye, so you try to capture everything around you on your video camera to show that you were here, we were here and we're alive, and your queerness is your heartbeat and all you want to do in this life is love, so that's what you do, despite everything, whatever that love looks like, even when everything gets louder and brighter and too much to bare and you're starting to get scared by the blood in your thoughts

I call this "the culmination of my growing obsession with horror and the undergrad dissertation I wrote on how the AIDS crisis functions in queer narratives". I think it's my favourite thing I've started in a long time! There's so much flesh to this story that I haven't even dug my hand as deep into it as I could go. It's fun, it's silly, it's raw, it's sweet, it's emotional, it's complicated, it's a bit bloody, it's theatrical, it's trying it's best. It doesn't take itself too seriously but it's also crying in the bathtub you know

Characters (just a few otherwise this would get way too long)

Beau (he/him) the bestest boy in the whole world. Someone pleeeease take him to a farmers market on a chilled Sunday afternoon

Benji (he/him) Beau's little brother who Beau thinks is the bestest boy in the whole world. Even though he loves bugs and dirt and wants to be a shark when he grows up

Bobby (he/him) dead but before he died he thought being a ghost would be so fun. It'd be so much easier to sneak up on Beau! He could finally go to Fire Island! He loved handmaking jewellery and wanted to be a volcanologist.

Felix (he/him) the ex lover! He's doing sooo much better since the last time you saw him! Hey why is he crying in that movie theatre bathroom

Tiff (she/they) Beau's old friend and roommate. Tattoo artist who collects eye shaped decor and broken rotary phones. Lesbian/gay solidarity is the backbone of this novel.

Dorothy (she/her) In love with the moon and acrylic paints. What if you bumped into your ex boyfriends twin sister and feel like you shouldn't get involved but then you remember she's realllyyy fun to talk shit about people with?

#who peeped the hannibal/red dragon reference at the end of the summary LOL #wip intro #lover boy #long post #ALSO i will be reblogging a version of this with text image descriptions later today #THIS IS SOOO MUCH DIFFERENT TO WHEN I INTRODUCED THIS PROJECT LAST YEAR LOLLL #i deleted that post but remember when this was the Beaulix novel? now it's just Beau! #this is by far the most fun take on grief ive done in my writing about grief to cope with my own era #i read this wip intro and i remember 2020 when i created beau and he was just meant to be a guy that liked surfing and gave felix weed #and look where we are now

[meraki-yao]

That question was super serious im trying to figure out what's going on, love that taylor got all that exposure but it was a bit surprising, Im from a super homophobic country (illegal/death penalty type homophobic) and china is probably more progressive from where i stand but by western standards its still a lot conservative. So it was odd that an actor who's only popular in certain groups for playing a queer character is getting hyped up there.

Heads up, I went on a rant lmao

I agree. And I was really freaking anxious the whole time he was there because of it.

Okay, for those who don't know, here's the thing about LGBT+ in China. And I'm only gonna talk about the sexuality aspect because the gender aspect is a whole other topic and a lot less progressive than the sexuality side (that being said trans lives matter)

The official stance promoted by the government, ergo the public, is condemning it. Thankfully not in an illegal/death penalty type, but more in a "if we ignore it and don't talk about it, it will go away" type.

There were a couple of years I think in the mid-2010s where significant progress was being made in terms of both representation (see shows like Guardian, the Untamed, Word of Honor) and pride organizations and support (see Shanghai Pride)

But starting in mid-2021 the government suddenly cracked down on queer representation. "Effeminate" men were publicly condemned and called "sissy" BY THE OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT NOTICE (I was fucking fuming when I read it). Dangai (BL, or simply, adapted from gay novels) shows were banned. Multiple LGBT+ organizations were shut down without explanation. And just this year, when a singer with a famous song about being an LGBT ally supporting the community held a concert in Beijing, anyone with anything remotely resembling a rainbow was banned from entry and had to hand in the rainbow object, even if it was their clothing. And those stuff were never returned. The older generation, such as my parents' generation, condemn it. It's not an optimistic sight.

But here's the fucking truth: queer people, have always existed, and always will. So actually, younger people, I'd say 30 years old and younger, the vast majority accept queerness. Gay couples are sharing their lives on Bilibili. Danmei (explicitly gay) radio dramas, novels, and comics are still being produced and consumed. There are so many people watching Western gay shows and movies such as RWRB as well as producing gay fan content. And honestly, part of it is due to the shipping culture here (which is a whole other topic I can write a dissertation on).

Either way, what I'm trying to say is regardless of whatever the "official stance" is, the demographic that's active on social media is accepting of it. Which is why RWRB could gain such popularity in China.

As per my last ask, I think the main reason for inviting Taylor is his willingness to try things the local way. A lot of times Chinese capitalists/executives don't really care where the star got their fame from, they just care that they are famous.

The difference with Taylor is that actors in China of a similar level of status locally to Taylor and who have been in queer productions don't talk about it after the promo period is over. If anything, gaining fame from being in a Dangai is kind of considered shameful. In fact, they actively avoid it. Taylor is of course, more than willing to talk about RWRB. In fact, during the videos, live streams and stuff, I was actively observing if RWRB would be brought up by the Chinese side/host. It wasn't. During the Little Red Book livestream, despite basically everyone in the live chat spamming RWRB comments, Taylor was the one who said "Oh I see talk about RWRB, what do you want to know?" And I understand that there are several potential reasons why RWRB wasn't brought up by the host, including time constraints, pre-set questions, pre-set agendas etc, but latent homophobia is also a potential reason.

Either way, yeah. I don't really know what the conclusion of this ramble is but here you go 😅

#rwrb #red white and royal blue #rwrb movie #taylor zakhar perez #alex claremont diaz #anon ask #answered #PLEASE NOTE THAT I PERSONALLY DO NOT AGREE WITH THE “OFFICIAL STANCE” #I AM AN AVID ALLY AND ALWAYS WILL BE LOVE IS LOVE BABY #also please note that everything I said hear about is about mainland China #we here in Hong Kong have a slightly more progressive and optismic situation #more so in Taiwan where Gay marriage is legal #meraki essay