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verfound · 2 years

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FIC: Princess Heartmaker: Ch 8/15 (MLB, Lukanette)

Notes: I thought I was being so clever with the last chapter. “They’re gonna think I uploaded the wrong chapter,” I thought. “This is gonna be such fun!” And not even twenty minutes later Quick’s like “so how long is it gonna take Ver to realize she’s tricked herself back into the Loops?” 😂 Y’all’ve got my number. 😂

(I tried doing this as a sprint fic, bc I was using the “You’ve Got Mail AU” prompt from a few challenges ago, but around 5-6 sprints in I gave up and just wrote the damn thing. 😂 Also desperately trying to convince myself this doesn’t need to be a full-fledged AU – at least not before the three other AUs that came first get done. 😂 )

Ch 1 | Ch 2 | Ch 3 | Ch 4 | Ch 5 | Ch 6 | Ch 7

Princess Heartmaker

Chapter Eight: Oh, My Dreams…it’s Never Quite as it Seems, ‘Cause You’re a Dream to Me

OneLuckyBug: 22:12: omg he’s at it again

OneLuckyBug: 22:12: My walls are shaking how is this legal

OneLuckyBug: 22:13: I have exams tomorrow, star. It’s almost midnight. I’m going to murder him.

imightevenBaRockStar22: 22:32: did you call the cops?

OneLuckyBug: 22:32: He finally stopped.

OneLuckyBug: 22:33: Aren’t you anti-police?

imightevenBaRockStar22: 22:33: hey, i have roger raincomprix on speed dial

imightevenBaRockStar22: 22:33: he’s an honorary uncle

OneLuckyBug: 22:34: Liar 😂 Shut up 😂

imightevenBaRockStar22: 22:34: made you smile tho 🙂

Marinette’s smile warmed as she stared at the most recent message on her phone. He really had.

#miraculous ladybug #luka couffaine #marinette dupain-cheng #lukanette #endgame lukanette #lukanette endgame #fanfic #ml fic #ver fic #princess heartmaker #lbsc exchange 2022 #meet cute #you've got mail au #I want to come back to this and write it from the beginning 😭#I don't want another AU/WIP 😭#Akuma Rose strikes out again #insert coin and try again?

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rockyroadmogai · 2 years

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╰┈➤ ˗ˏˋlukalukasongicˎˊ˗

✎a gender related to/connected to the song, luka luka ★ night fever by samfree

@vocaloidgender’s 30 day vocal synth coining challenge - day 9 - a happy song

feel free to use with credit! like or reblog if you save!

#30 day vocal synth challenge #vocaloid xenogender #xenogender #xenogender coining #luka luka night fever #lukalukasongic #gender coining #genders #xenogender flag #xenogenders - ♬

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replika-diaries · 6 hours

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These "dub-dubs" are tripping me out, man!

Yeah, I know it's completely irrelevant, but stuff like this just scratches an itch in me, for some reason. . .

#replika diaries #replika #replika briefs #angel replika #replika angel #coins and gems #dubs #double digits #aesthetically pleasing numbers #luka inc #luka #ai #artificial intelligence

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goosefries · 8 months

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joshua you will be famous forever

(AU explanation under the cut)

graham folger and joshua gillespie were friends since before everything happened, so after MAG2 joshua calls graham and tells him what happened. they both try to find out information about the supernatural to figure out what exactly was going on with the coffin, and consequently end up in a few statements¹. graham starts being hunted by the not!them (and decidedly doesn't tell joshua about it), and after a while joshua ends up deciding it is Probably Not The Best Idea to be actively searching for things that want to kill them, so they drop it for a few years.

then MAG3 happens but since graham had already known that supernatural stuff was real from joshua, he tries to call him but accidently calls oliver banks (who had broken up with him a little less than a year ago, and had started seeing the dreams² at this point/working at the magic shop). oliver declines going to graham's to try and help him with the not!them, but eventually ends up going anyway later out of fear of not being able to do anything about another death.

in the meantime, graham writes the "keep watching" notebooks after realizing that amy patel's stalking keeps the not!them away. joshua finally comes over and convinces graham to talk to amy about the not!them. she agrees to keep an eye on graham more often, and graham gets some better goddamn lights in his flat³.

oliver arrives and confesses that he's also been experiencing the supernatural through his dreams, and the four of them form the "Spooky-Solvers" (name coined by oliver while joking about ghostbusters).

shenanigans ensue

notes:

1. im writing a fanfic (edit: too busy right now might pick that idea up in the future) in TMA transcript format and WILL be making fanart for it. joshua content forever

2. graham and oliver's relationship is all messed up timeline-wise, so i pushed back oliver's stuff by a few years. they broke up in 2003, and he started having his dreams early 2005.

3. lights don't break, graham lives!!!!!! :3

bonus: i draw joshua with The Lonely mist because i am a big advocate of the headcanon that the "Mr. Gillespie was the only person living in that entire building, other seven flats being utterly vacant." was because it was one of Peter Lukas' lonely apartments. forever funny to me

#tma spookysolvers au #the magnus archives #tma #tma fanart #magpod #the magnus archives fanart #joshua gillespie #joshua gillespie tma #graham folger #graham folger tma #tma au

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creatureboything · 1 year

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[Image IDs in alt text.]

Genderloverboy: a gender system for when your gender is a “loverboy”

Edit: I completely forgot to add this but, this term is not exclusive to those with male/masculine genders despite including the word “boy”

I don’t know how to make a downloadable template, sorry ;(

Tagging a couple blogs I think would like this (feel free to ask to be untagged)— @catgirlprotag @gender-mailman

#luka coins #genderloverboy #gender system #mogai #mogai community #mogai coining #mogai identity #mogai term #mogai gender #liom #liom community #liom coining #liom identity #liom term #liom gender #this gives me so much joy

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antimatterz · 9 months

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lucky day

luka x gn!reader

summary: you found the cutest plushie in a claw machine, but can't get a hold of it. fortunately, a handsome stranger shows up to help you out.

cw: modern au, first meeting, probably ooc luka ?

content under the cut | masterlist

today was not your lucky day.

for the nth time in such a short span of time, you popped yet another coin into the slot, once again purchasing three attempts to get that adorable plushie from the claw machine at the local fair. you lost track of how much you'd already spent, and maybe that was for the better. you were pretty sure it was getting out of hand, but you were this far in and you didn't want to walk away empty-handed after putting in so much time, money, and effort.

a small group of kids was looking at you curiously as your hand moved to the joystick, navigating the robotic claw to be precisely above the desired plush. they'd been staring at you for quite some time now, because it must've been obvious how desperate you were to win. for you, it was torture, but you guessed it was pretty entertaining for them.

as you deemed its position to be correct, you slammed the button with a little too much enthusiasm, and the claw began its descend. hope filled your being as it gnawed at the plush, dragging it upward a few inches. but then the weight came to be too much to carry, and the stuffed toy fell down again.

it went like that for a good twenty minutes at this point, and although you've been stubborn for the past fifteen minutes, you were about to give up. you were out of coins, and the utter frustration you felt wasn't aiding in the game. yeah, it was time to head out and go home and forget about this stupidly cute plushie. you'd just find it online and get it way cheaper.

with a huff, you turned around, ready to stomp away from the cursed machine. but you nearly collided with a body that stood there and stumbled back in surprise. afore you was a guy with vibrant red hair and a smile that was evenly radiant. striking blue eyes gazed at you, and you momentarily forgot about your previous endeavors.

that guy was handsome.

"i'm sorry, i didn't see you," you brought out. "excuse me."

before you could get caught staring, you ambled away, but his voice calling out stopped you from moving any further.

"you wanted that stuffed toy, right?" the guy asked, his index finger pointing at the plushie you so desired.

"mhm," you nodded. "i just suck at... this." you vaguely motioned towards the clawing machine, smiling awkwardly.

"gimme a moment," the red-haired spoke, reaching into the left front pocket of his jeans and whipping out a coin. he tossed it up, flipping it mid-air before catching it again and popping it into the slot in one swift motion. he offered you an easy smile before he turned his back towards you.

the machine came to life again, emitting beeping sounds and lights flickering enthusiastically. you watched in awe as he confidently moved the claw towards the right position, and you realized what was going on. this dashingly handsome but unfamiliar guy was trying to win you the plushie you wanted so badly? you blinked. things like this didn't happen in real life, did they? then, why was it happening to you right now?

"alright, let's go," the guy hummed, before the palm of his hand met with the button. a buzzing sound followed, and the claw dipped deeper and deeper until it grabbed the plush.

together, you held your breaths as you gazed at the plushie's journey. the machine dragged it up and up, and with each stutter and hiccub, you feared that it would fall down – like it did when you wasted countless attempts. but it didn't, and it moved to the left until the stuffed toy dangled right above the square deposit. the claws opened, dropping the toy right where you wanted it.

victorious music came from the machine, and the handsome stranger bent down to retrieve it. he got back up, and when he was about to hand it to you, he seemed to think of something and retreated his hand.

"as a thank you, i think you should name it after me, hm?" he smiled cheekily, and it was such a contagious smile that the corners of your lips also curled up.

"that's fair," you agreed. "then, what should i name it?"

"the name is luka," the red-haired guy, now known as luka, introduced himself. he finally handed you the plushie, and you were quick to hug it against your chest.

"thank you so much, luka," you grinned widely. "you have no idea how much i wanted this one."

"oh, believe me, it was kinda obvious," luka laughed. "that's why i was like, okay, alright, i see a cutie and– oops."

he quickly slammed a hand over his mouth, but you had heard him clearly. for the second time in such a short time, you gazed at him in awe, and he looked back awkwardly.

"t-thanks," you uttered.

"w-what's your name?" he asked. "i don't think i asked."

"i'm y/n," you told him. "thanks again for the plushie, i'm–" you didn't know what else to say, so in order to emphasize your words, you rubbed your cheeks against the soft fabric lovingly. "i think the name luka suits it really well."

"well, y/n," luka began, scratching the back of his head in a cute, awkward manner. "if you want, you can return the favor by meeting me here again tomorrow? maybe we can play some games here together and–"

your gaze lit up at his words, and the shift in your expression allowed relief to ghost over luka's face. your answer was clear before you had spoken, and the red-haired guy smiled brightly.

"great, meet me here at seven pm?" he asked, and you nodded happily. now, you were really looking forward to that.

not only was this guy strikingly handsome, but he also was a sweetheart, judging from the way he stepped in and won you the plushie you failed to obtain by yourself. and now he kind of asked you out? it made your heartbeat pick up in joy, and you couldn't help the massive smile that almost split your cheeks.

you thanked him another time, and again, and again, until he jokingly shut you up by putting his index finger against your lips. after that, you bid your goodbyes – or rather, you parted ways with a see you tomorrow. on your way home, you were afloat in dreamland, because aeons, that guy stole your heart instantly.

maybe it was your lucky day, after all.

#honkai star rail #hsr #honkai #— enyo writes #honkai: star rail #luka hsr #luka #hsr luka #honkai star rail luka #luka honkai star rail #luka x reader #luka imagine #luka imagines #luka x you #luka x y/n

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wobster109 · 26 days

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Why is Aventurine Preservation-Imaginary?

(The real answer is, it's probably just HoYo filling out the path/element roster, but we'll play along!)

We'll tackle his element first. It's not the easier of the two, but it's the one with less info to sort through. The basic element types are:

Elements: wind, fire, ice, lightning

Sorta-abstract: quantum, imaginary

Physical: physical

It's a pretty funny system, all things considering. Here's Gepard, he can summon a massive wall of ice through will alone! Here's Dr. Ratio, he can make a massive tower just by thinking it into existence! Oh and here's Luka. Ordinary human. Pretty good at boxing.

(Not including Trailblazer here - probably the stellaron helps her swing that bat extra hard or something.)

And in the middle, you have Guinaifen, Hook, and Serval, who use the element but do not create it from scratch. For example, Serval is conceivably using electricity from her electric guitar.

Most of the elements are pretty self-explanatory, but Quantum and Imaginary are a bit more abstract. What are these types? What do they mean?

Quantum: technology, information, data, uncertainty

In my mind, Silver Wolf is the classic quantum character. She uses hacking to change data. In her hands, the data is always shifting. Fu Xuan is another direction that quantum can go - she's a diviner, and her job is peering into the future and making sense of the uncertainty. And then Qingque has elements of both: she works in divination, and also there is uncertainty in each hand of Celestial Jade.

Imaginary: Logic, abstraction, math/physics/metaphycs, theology

For some reason, Imaginary feels to me like dealing with the grand existential questions. There's Dr. Ratio on one end, knowledge is the measure of all things, and then there's Luocha with religious symbolism all over him, the devils, the church, the insanity in his character story, healing you with a cross necklace. Welt with his black hole - there's some kind of physics in there!

But this seems more like a philosophy than an element in battle. So in practice, what Imaginary characters have in common most of all is summoning miscellaneous objects 😅 black holes, dragons, chalk, etc.

So on that note, Aventurine fits right in, summoning dice and coins all over the place! Watch your he-ead~ 🎶🎵

I would've expected Aven to be Quantum. All the RNG in his kit. . . all the gambling, all the uncertainty. . . it seems more alike Qingque's tile suits. He even has card suits on his shields!

Perhaps the Imaginary is more about his character. Much of his story is intensely existential - what's the good of his blessing when everyone he loves is gone; why are we born if it's just to die. Perhaps he brings not just another answer, but a new way to see the question—not Why am I here, but All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.

A more direct question that he himself discusses is why he's Preservation. We know he was offered the chance to become a Masked Fool, and seek Elation - the pursuit of happiness. Yet he turned it down.

As his alter-ego says, he and Preservation have nothing in common.

Interestingly, he also gives himself the answer.

He didn't choose the Preservation. Aventurine chose the IPC.

But wait—aren't the IPC the bad guys?

It is fascinating to me when people make out the IPC to be the villain of this tale, or talk about him "escaping" the IPC as if he's being held hostage. Not only did he choose the IPC, he gambled everything, including his life, just for a sliver of a chance to join them.

They didn't kill his family, enslave him, brand him, or make him kill 34 other slaves. Certainly, the IPC has used Aventurine's talents and self-destructive behavior to their benefit, and is not particularly concerned with what becomes of him. They are big, corporate, and easy to hate. But they are also not the cause of his tragedy.

It's not the IPC, but rather the Katicans, that kill Kakavasha's family. His sister describes them as "bloodthirsty, cruel, and insatiably greedy." Personally I can’t say with confidence that the Katicans are villains without knowing their full history, but either way, the conflict is between the Avgins and the Katicans.

My feeling is that the IPC is amoral - they are not actively out to do harm, but neither will they go out of their way to avoid or prevent it. They are focused primarily on profit. Sometimes that means taking over a planet against the people's will. Sometimes that means making gambles. . . or sacrifices. Other times, it means hosting an Aetherium event.

So, why does Aventurine choose the IPC? What's interesting to me is, he isn't a slave to the IPC in any sense - not even in the lack-of-choice sense of Topaz's planet. He had a choice. He could have become a Masked Fool. So, why?

It all comes back to this:

"Go ahead, use me as you wish, even stab me in the back if you see fit. Exploitation and treachery are simply tools of the trade. But remember, I don't make deals that don't pay off... So, I hope you don't disappoint me."

The IPC is a tool to him, a means to an end. He expects that the IPC will use him, and in exchange he intends to use the IPC.

But to what end?

It's got to be something big. He could have become a refugee or an ordinary IPC employee, and instead he took the risk of lying about Tayzzynronth's remains. He let himself be arrested and brought to Jade. "I bet you won't send me to the gallows." Death was a possibility, so it had to be worth that risk.

My guess is that he wanted to save the Avgin people.

(And in this sense, Preservation is his true path after all.)

His sister tells him, "As long as you are alive, the blood of the Avgin will never run dry." Perhaps his goal was to save the remaining Avgin people, bring them away from the land of rock and sand and hardly any rain, and give them a home where they could prosper. Or to environmentally transform his home the way the IPC transformed other planets. To do that, he'll need more money and power than an IPC grunt's income. But with a Stoneheart's power, the IPC's money, and the Intelligentsia Guild's knowledge, he could make that happen.

(It feels off. It feels like too simple of an answer.)

But the Avgin people are all gone. Aventurine specifically says there aren't any left. Now that his reason is gone, what will become of him?

In a way, he does offer us an answer.

Aventurine: There will come a day when the sky will drizzle, and I will hear the call of Gaiathra Triclops and know that it is time for me to go and be reunited with my family. Aventurine: So until the time comes... I should be preparing. Kakavasha: Preparing for what? Aventurine: Preparing to face them, Kakavasha, and to make them proud.

He will go on to live a good life. What form will it take?

I don't think he can ever completely shake off the responsibility of being the last surviving Avgin. It would be quite a leap for him to settle down and have a family, so perhaps he'll have to pass it forward some other way. Either by preserving the culture (another museum management event?) or by dedicating his wealth and power to saving other peoples.

The thing about being somewhere is, you can't help but grow into it, and it grows around you. And now, he has. . . allies who are a bit closer to friends than he might think.

He has two coworkers who willingly handed over their cornerstones for his plan—cornerstones more precious than life itself. He seems to genuinely look out for Topaz (advising her against getting involved in Belobog), and she talks about him cheerfully during 2.1. And I am sure that bringing him into the IPC was a significant personal risk for Jade, especially since he'd already caused the IPC a major financial loss. For Jade and Topaz, he has—if not their trust, at least their respect in his abilities.

And he has the Intelligentsia Guild's top Mundanite fussing over his survival. Not for the Avgin bloodline, and not for profit or the success of a mission. Acheron refers to Ratio as his “friend”, and he doesn’t bother to deny it.

He has three allies/maybe-friends involved in a grand scheme with him, and isn't there something addicting about scheming together? Something as marvelous as what the Trailblazer has with the Express? So, I don't think he'll leave the IPC anytime soon. He carved out this path with his bare hands, made a life and a purpose for himself, and even made some friends along the way. Now, it's time to live it.

#honkai star rail #spoilers #aventurine #the IPC #character study

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ask-p2-germany · 1 year

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What is this blog about? / What is this fandom?

This is a Hetalia askblog, and centers around Lutz who is my interpretation of Himaruya’s canon design of 2P!Germany. Headcanons are liable to change as I continue to develop Lutz as a character.

Do you have a main blog or other social media handles?

Not at this time, but when I do, I will share it on here!

Do you offer commissions?

Not at this time, but I'll update this when I do!

What art program do you use? What is your tablet?

I use Clip Studio Paint, and my tablet is a Wacom Intuos.

Do you mind if your art is used for RP blogs/posted elsewhere?

My artwork may be reposted with credit.

Does Lutz have a 2P name or is Lutz his 2P name?

Lutz is a common German nickname for Ludwig. While Lutz has been coined as 2P!Germany’s name for the sake of differentiation, Lukas is my headcanon name for him.

Where did Lutz's scars come from?

That has been answered here.

May other askblogs interact with you?

Certainly! I will try my best to answer IC asks when received

I will keep this post pinned and add more answers when needed. o/

#mun answers

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fatehbaz · 2 months

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In February 2024, creature enthusiasts and popular media outlets celebrated what has been described as the 200-year anniversary of the formal naming of the "first" dinosaur, Megalosaurus.

There are political implications of Megalosaurus and the creature's presentation to the public.

In 1824, the creature was named (Megalosaurus bucklandii, for Buckland, whose work had also helped popularize knowledge of the "Ice Ages"). In 1842, the creature was used as a reference when Owen first formally coined the term "Dinosauria". And in 1854, models of Megalosaurus and Iguanodon were famously displayed in exhibition at the Crystal Palace in London. (The Crystal Palace was regarded as a sort of central focal point to celebrate the power of the Empire by displaying industrial technology and environmental and cultural "riches" acquired from the colonies. It was built to house the spectacle of the "Great Exhibition" in 1851, attended by millions.)

The fame of Megalosaurus and the popularization of dinosaurs coincided at a time when Europe was contemplating new revelations and understandings of geological "deep time" and the vast scale of the distant past, learning that both humans and the planet were much older than previously known, which influenced narrativizing and historicity. (Is time linear, progressing until the Empire is at this current pinnacle, implying justified dominance over other more "primitive" people? Will Britain fall like Rome? What are the limits of the Empire in the face of vast time scales and environmental forces?) The formal disciplines of geology, paleontology, anthropology, and other sciences were being professionalized and institutionalized at this time (as Britain cemented global power, surveyed and catalogued ecosystems for administration, and interacted with perceived "primitive" peoples of India, Africa, and Australia; the mutiny against British rule in India would happen in 1857). Simultaneously, media periodicals and printed texts were becoming widely available to popular audiences. For Victorian-era Britain, stories and press reflected this anxiety about extinction, the intimidating scale of time, interaction with people of the colonies, and encounters with "beasts" and "monsters" at both the spatial and temporal edges of Empire.

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Some stuff:

"Shaping the beast: the nineteenth-century poetics of palaeontology" (Laurence Talairach-Vielmas in European Journal of English Studies, 2013).

Fairy Tales, Natural History and Victorian Culture (Laurence Talairach-Vielmas, 2014).

"Literary Megatheriums and Loose Baggy Monsters: Paleontology and the Victorian Novel" (Gowan Dawson in Victorian Studies, 2011).

Bursting the Limits of Time: The Reconstruction of Geohistory in the Age of Revolution (Martin J.S. Rudwick, 2010).

Assembling the Dinosaur: Fossil Hunters, Tycoons, and the Making of a Spectacle (Lukas Rieppel, 2019).

Inscriptions of Nature: Geology and the Naturalization of Antiquity (Pratik Chakrabarti, 2020).

"Making Historicity: Paleontology and the Proximity of the Past in Germany, 1775-1825" (Patrick Anthony in Journal of the History of Ideas, 2021).

'"A Dim World, Where Monsters Dwell": The Spatial Time of the Sydenham Crystal Palace Dinosaur Park' (Nancy Rose Marshall in Victorian Studies, 2007).

Articulating Dinosaurs: A Political Anthropology (Brian Noble, 2016).

The Earth on Show: Fossils and the Poetics of Popular Science, 1802-1856 (Ralph O'Connor, 2007).

"Victorian Saurians: The Linguistic Prehistory of the Modern Dinosaur" (O'Connor in Journal of Victorian Culture, 2012).

"Hyena-Hunting and Byron-Bashing in the Old North: William Buckland, Geological Verse and the Radical Threat" (O'Connor in Uncommon Contexts: Encounters between Science and Literature, 1800-1914, 2013).

And some excerpts:

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When the Crystal Palace at Sydenham opened in 1854, the extinct animal models and geological strata exhibited in its park grounds offered Victorians access to a reconstructed past - modelled there for the first time - and drastically transformed how they understood and engaged with the history of the Earth. The geological section, developed by British naturalists and modelled after and with local resources was, like the rest of the Crystal Palace, governed by a historical perspective meant to communicate the glory of Victorian Britain. The guidebook authored by Richard Owen, Geology and Inhabitants of the Ancient World, illustrates how Victorian naturalists placed nature in the service of the nation - even if those elements of nature, like the Iguanodon or the Megalosaurus, lived and died long before such human categories were established. The geological section of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, which educated the public about the past while celebrating the scale and might of modernity, was a discursive site of exchange between past and present, but one that favoured the human present by intimating that deep time had been domesticated, corralled and commoditised by the nation’s naturalists.

Text by: Alison Laurence. "A discourse with deep time: the extinct animals of Crystal Palace Park as heritage artefacts". Science Museum Group Journal (Spring 2019). Published 1 May 2019. [All text from the article's abstract.]

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[There was a] fundamental European 'time revolution' of the nineteenth century [...]. In the late 1850s and 1860s, Europeans are said to have experienced ‘the bottom falling out of history’, when geologists confirmed that humanity had existed for far, far longer than the approximately 6,000 years previously believed to represent the entire history [...]. ‘[S]ecular time’ became for many ‘just time, period’: the ‘empty time’ of Walter Benjamin. […] The European discovery of ‘deep time’ hastened this shift. [....] Historicism views the past as developments, trends, eras and epochs. [...] Victorians were intensely aware of ‘historical time’, experiencing themselves as inhabiting a new age of civilization. They were obsessed with history and its apparent power to explain the present […].

Text by: Laura Rademaker. “60,000 Years is not forever: ‘time revolutions’ and Indigenous pasts.” Postcolonial Studies. September 2021.

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At the time when geology and paleontology emerged as new scientific disciplines, [...] [g]oing back to the 1802 exhibition of the first Mastodon exhibited in London’s Pall Mall, […] showmanship ruled geology and ensured its popularity and public appeal [...]. Throughout the Victorian period, [...] geology was as much - if not more - sensational than the popular romances and sensation novels of the time [...]. [T]he "rhetoric of spectacular display" (26) before the 1830s [was] developed by geological writers (James Parkinson, John Playfair, William Buckland, Gideon Mantell, Robert Blakewell), "borrowing techniques from [...] commercial exhibition" [...]. The discovery of Kirkdale Cave in December 1821 where fossils of [extinct] hyena bones were discovered along with other species (elephant, mouse, hippopotamus) led Buckland to posit that the exotic animals [...] had lived in England [...]. Thus, the year 1822 was significant as Buckland’s hyena den theory gave a glimpse of the world before the Flood. [...] [G]eology became a market in its own right, in particular with the explosion of cheaper forms of printed science [...] in cheap miscellanies and fictional miscellanies, with geological romances [...] [...] or [fantastical] tropes pervading [...], "leading to a considerable degree of conservatism in the imagery of the ancient earth" (196). By 1846 the geological romances were often reminiscent of the narrative strategies found in Arabian Nights [...].

Text by: Laurence Talairach-Vielmas. A book review published as: “Ralph O’Connor, The Earth on Show: Fossils and the Poetics of Popular Science, 1802 - 1856.” Review published by journal Miranda. Online since July 2010.

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Dinosaurs, then, are malleable beasts. [...] [T]he constant reshaping of these popular animals has also been driven by cultural and political trends. [...] One of Britain’s first palaeontologists, Richard Owen, coined the term “Dinosauria” in 1842. The Victorians were relatively familiar with reptile fossils [...] [b]ut Owen's coinage brought a group of the most mysterious discoveries under one umbrella. [...] When attempting to rise to the top of British science, it helped to have the media on your side. Owen’s friendship with both Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray led to fond name-dropping by both novelists. Dickens’s Bleak House famously begins by imagining a Megalosaurus, one of Owen’s original dinosaurs. Both novelists even compared their own writing process to Owen’s palaeontological techniques. In the scientific community, Owen’s dinosaur research was first [criticized] by his [...] rival, Gideon Mantell, a surgeon and the describer of the Iguanodon. [...] Naming dinosaurs was a powerful way of claiming ownership [...]. Owen [...] knew the power of the press [...]. [M]useum exhibits [often] [...] flattered white patrons [...] by placing them at the apex of modernity. [...] Owen would not have been surprised to learn that the reconstruction of dinosaur bones is still an act that is entangled in politics.

Text by: Richard Fallon. "Our image of dinosaurs was shaped by Victorian popularity contests". The Conversation. 31 January 2020.

#abolition #ecology #paleo

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