#dissertation feels

[chapollynh]

I finished DS9 and here's my first offering to the fandom.

The show is just SO GOOD!! I wanna talk about it so bad, so I will spam the tags quite a bit... My bad. Also, the people who said Bashir would get better - you were right, he became a lot more fun! Plus he's got a teddy bear, that's peak character right there.

[egophiliac]

Since book 7 part 5 (the part where we meet Meleanor/Maleanor 👀) is coming to EN this month, i would love to see your take on lilia’s proposal to meleanor! i mean they were like little kids right? it couldn’t have been that serious…i think the only reason she even brought it up again is because she could tell lilia still genuinely loved her…(even if he didn’t realize it himself?) but, oh well! Let’s think about silly childhood shenanigans to numb the pain! ^_^ (orz)

oh shit?! get ready for a doozy guys, it's comiiiiiing ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

I chickened out of posting the whole thing (look, I get VERY carried away when it comes to these wacky kids and their Tragedy), but I do believe that it probably ended with Lilia getting embarrassed and just shoving the first thing he sees into his mouth to try and cover for it.

(we're just lucky it wasn't a frog this time)

[bluebells-and-dragonflies]

God, the intimacy of Astarion feeding from you.

Astarion drinking from your neck as he pulls your body closer to his in bed, his chest up against your back, his arms wrapped around your waist. It's a casual thing, now, his whispered can I? and your answering nod, as much a part of your bedtime routine as your bath or his curl care. You sigh as his fangs pierce your skin and his fingers flex against your stomach. His breath hitches when the taste of you hits his tongue, and that's familiar too, the physicality of it, the noises he makes low in his throat as he drinks, the way he grows warmer against you as your blood begins to flow through his veins. Nothing else makes you feel so heady, so intoxicated- so comforted.

Astarion drinking from your wrist when he’s starving for it and can’t wait to get you more comfortable. Pulling him into an alleyway one night on the way home from the Elfsong because you can see how badly he's craving in the way he can't keep his eyes off of the pulse point in your neck. He seizes your arm with both hands (can I? Yes-), bringing the soft skin on the inside of your wrist to his lips. He has just enough presence of mind to kiss the heel of your hand distractedly before he bites, fangs sliding through your skin and into the vein. The sound he makes can only be described as a growl, something feral and possessive (and you'll never tell him that it turns you on, since he would be insufferable about it- a promise to yourself that lasts exactly as long as the space between the moment and the next time you're tipsy and want him).

(NSFW Below!)

Astarion drinking from your inner thigh, one hand holding your leg steady and the other cupping your cunt. You groan, eyes shut in pleasure, as his thumb comes to rub your clit. The pain of the bite is barely pain this way- it collides with the pleasure in your belly and sends you almost out of your mind, overwhelmed with sensation and heat. He takes you all the way there, takes just enough from you to have you relaxed and pliant and soaring somewhere above your own body, plays you like an instrument with all the knowledge of you he's gathered over the months, the years. He knows when you're close, knows to crook his fingers inside you just so, knows the reaction he's going to get when he pulls away from your thigh for just a moment and looks up at you with dark eyes and tells you to come for him, he wants to see it, you fall apart so beautifully and it's all for him, isn't it, tell him how good he makes you feel and when you climax with his voice in your ear and the scent of blood on the air he has the audacity to laugh at how well he understands you, your body.

He's soft, after, softer than he'll ever be with anyone who isn't you. He licks you clean before he takes you to the bath, carrying you with the strength your lifeblood gives him. It's the least he can do for you, with everything you've given him: not just your body, but your trust, your closeness, and he will never stop being grateful.

[official-linguistics-post]

on reconstruction and historical linguistics

to follow up on today's reblog, i want to comment briefly on the apparent misapprehension that linguistic reconstruction is just guesswork with a fancy name, because that's not accurate!

reconstruction is based on specific, well-attested constraints of linguistic development. we know from centuries of investigation that languages tend to change in predictable ways. we also have a decent understanding of the complexities introduced by phenomena like language contact, which can result in borrowing on multiple structural levels. our methods are well established and borne out by evidence.

comparative reconstruction involves applying these known constraints ("rules") in reverse on a collected body of words in related descendant languages. when possible, we also incorporate historical written evidence, which often provides midpoint references for changes in progress. it is always recognized by historical linguists that reconstruction can be imperfect; we cannot know what information has been lost.

the results of reconstruction can be mixed, but i'll let campbell (2013:144) explain:

How Realistic are Reconstructed Proto-languages? The success of any given reconstruction depends on the material at hand to work with and the ability of the comparative linguist to figure out what happened in the history of the languages being compared. In cases where the daughter languages preserve clear evidence of what the parent language had, a reconstruction can be very successful, matching closely the actual spoken ancestral language from which the compared daughters descend. However, there are many cases in which all the daughters lose or merge formerly contrasting sounds or eliminate earlier alternations through analogy, or lose morphological categories due to changes of various sorts. We cannot recover things about the proto-language via the comparative method if the daughters simply do not preserve evidence of them. In cases where the evidence is severely limited or unclear, we often make mistakes. We make the best inferences we can based on the evidence available and on everything we know about the nature of human languages and linguistic change. We do the best we can with what we have to work with. Often the results are very good; sometimes they are less complete. In general, the longer in the past the proto-language split up, the more linguistic changes will have accumulated and the more difficult it becomes to reconstruct with full success. (emphasis mine)

or, to quote labov's (1982:20) pithier if less optimistic approach:

Historical linguistics may be characterized as the art of making the best use of bad data, in the sense that the fragments of the literary record that remain are the results of historical accidents beyond the control of the investigator.

in sum, historical linguists are very realistic about what we can achieve, but the confidence we do have is genuinely well earned, because linguistics is a scientific field and we treat our investigations with rigor.

---

Campbell, Lyle. 2013. Historical Linguistics: An Introduction. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Labov, William. 1982. "Building on Empirical Foundations." In Perspectives on Historical Linguistics. Winifred P. Lehmann and Yakov Malkiel, eds. Pp. 17-92. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

[cuubism]

i feel like dream in human aus is usually characterized as being more stoic and stern while hob is more easygoing, but i think it would be funny to have a university au where hob is the professor who's like "no work is deserving of 100%. find 27 more sources and do it again" while dream is just like "they put their dreams into it, hob 🥺 A+! A+! A+! A+!"

[my-darling-boy]

Talking to a guy who’s a nurse studying his masters degree and he’s just asked what I do and I KNOW design and illustration are very professional sectors which hold an important role in society but every time someone says they’re like a doctor or an engineer and they ask what I’m doing I just feel like

[akajustmerry]

She cried for other reasons too — that the “Succession” chapter of her life has ended. “I’ll never have an opportunity to speak those lines, or get given new lines, new jokes, new worlds for Shiv and Roman to exist in together,” Snook says. “Just sadness for never getting a moment to play with these brilliant actors again.” (When I tell her that Culkin had said to me that perhaps Shiv and Roman might make up at some point, Snook brightens. “I feel like Shiv and Roman would reconcile in a way where he would be the shitty but great weird uncle for her kid, and there might be some sort of strange little family unit that gets splintered off.”) - Sarah Snook, Variety.

Kieran Culkin as Roman Roy and Sarah Snook as Shiv Roy | Succession (2018-2023)

[igneous-crocnroll]

sketch I meant to post on Friday, for the last Fat Dragon Friday of the year! A relaxing, reclined lass, that regulars of this blog will certainly recognize 😉

[scliffe]

Honestly when I say that I love romanticizing Sebastian and Ciel’s relationship to hell and back; I don’t necessarily mean that I think they should have a romantic relationship—something like [a pair of lovers destined to tragically love each other until death do them part]—it’s cute and sweet, but it doesn’t fully encapsulate what their relationship is like to me. While I appreciate their physical closeness, it’s of lesser importance to me whether they actually have a romantic relationship or sexual relations; what I desire is for Ciel and Sebastian to be part of each other forever—[beyond even death].

Their relationship cannot be fully conveyed through descriptions like romantic or platonic. They are bound together by something even more intimate than romance or sex—Ciel is promised to Sebastian with something indissoluble; beyond any romantic or sexual relationship, which can be broken, ended or divorced. The contract demands that Ciel will eventually grant Sebastian his soul to devour—thus becoming one existence together for eternity. Their oath to each other is not written in official papers; it’s engraved in their body and soul. It is irrevocable. Given the nature of their doomed end—where it is certain that only one of them will remain in the end—their covenant becomes such that there will be no escape for either of them. With the more time they spent together and the more memories they gently collected of the other party; they're both eroding and molding each other to fit the shape of each other's palms—leaving lasting, permanent damage on each other. Both of them will be changed—and have been changing—irreversibly since their very first meeting, to the point where their final parting will never be a true parting as they will leave their own selves within each other.

They must become more and more in tune as soulmates are with each other—until Ciel’s will becomes Sebastian’s will; until Sebastian’s hunger becomes Ciel’s hunger; and Sebastian’s hands wrapping around Ciel’s throat are also Ciel’s hands around Sebastian’s own throat—until they eventually become one.

[internetgiraffekid1673]

Guys I'm teaching my very patient father about fandom again. He says Spock/Kirk is bad and dumb, he thinks Kirk/McCoy is obvious and peak because "Kirk and McCoy are two of the gayest womanizers ever in television."

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

i think it is fascinating that the first time we see mulder have sex (in 3) and the first time we see scully have sex (in never again), both of them approach it fundamentally as an act of self-harm.

mulder, wracked with the grief of losing his partner, trying to save this woman he just met as an act of penance, while scully's necklace dangles around his neck.

scully, processing that she does not have much longer to live, feeling terrified and frustrated, once again trying to force herself into doing what society expects of her, as if that will bring the happiness she has been denied.

i just think it's neat.

[tyzfol]

Let a tagora into your consort stock market he can be trusted with. financial security 🩵

[nicollekidman]

"please step back from the ledge, you're too close" says the man who brought them to the cliff, wants to jump off, and feels irrational jealousy towards anything that would make her back away from the ledge even as he can see her body crumbled on the ground..... "there's no danger in falling if you can fly" says the woman who's building herself a pair of wings from blueprints not meant from her species..........

[melchinafan]

…Hold on. Might be a stretch to connect these dots, but…I've been trying to puzzle out for a long while who or what the opossum in Laurent's painting is, and I think I found a theory that ain't half bad. Once again, spoilers ahead, primarily for chapter 7:

First quick thing I noticed while writing up the image description: that is in fact not red curtains hanging behind the owl, as I've previously thought. It's actually a jacket, as indicated by the lapels and a small button on the left. It seems to be hung over the nest as if to protect it from the rain, or for privacy. (It also serves nicely as an artistic study of light, shadow, and fabric wrinkles.) Fascinating to consider in relation to the giant nest found in one of the abandoned mill town buildings (the one with the broken roof, next to St. Powell's Church). Plus the fact that the Rougarou's outer wings have lapels, and that we don't see Laurent wearing a jacket, just a vest. Thank you Compulsion, love a good vest look.

Other general observations include the fact that this appears to be a highly skilled oil painting, and an unlikely subject to have been purchased or commissioned. It's not hard to imagine Laurent practicing painting (as well as piano) over the decades, often alone out in the Juke Joint. (Teddy's Juke Joint, by the way, per an old Jolene poster over the piano. Just in case you hadn't noticed that sweet heartbreaking little detail, that Laurent seems to have named it after his dad.) The general composition also shares some visual similarity with the painting Saturn Devouring His Son, though I don't see any further parallels to extract from that for Laurent. Just a similar sort of eeriness.

Given the subjects of this painting, and that it's probably something Laurent made himself, it appears to be vent art. But rather than a rough or erratic style, with raw emotion peeled directly out onto the canvas—it's the sort of style and medium that requires a solid amount of control and focus, maintained over a long period of time. It's a subtle and appropriate detail, aligning well with how Laurent tries to stay in control of his emotions. Makes me think he finds painting meditative or the like, regardless of whether what he's putting to canvas might be morbid.

Now, for the symbolism of the subjects. While it's obvious the owl is Laurent, I find the opossum less clear. It could be representative of the sawmill boss, since that is the one person we know Laurent killed, and it's a guilt he still harbors. Even if he had it comin', as the Chicago showgirls say. But opossums are sweet, and it doesn't feel right to link them to that asshole. There's even a cute family of opossums that cross a fallen log above the path in chapter 7! So I've kept searching for some other potential answer that might make sense without indirectly demonizing opossums.

Another idea I've pondered is the possibility that he might sometimes eat wildlife in rougarou form, and has complicated feelings about that. It would be very Tobias Animorphs of him. Bonus fascinating coincidence: an Ellis & Son sign behind the sawmill boss' desk says "Cornelius Tobias Ellis," but that's just some red string silliness.

Or—for the new idea I just landed on earlier—it could be evocative of the primary other opossum that we see: the one that perches on Shakin' Bones' shoulder, both in-game and in the announcement trailer.

Consider that Shakin' Bones is a Charon-type figure—typically leading folks to the Crossroads or other (safer) locations, rather than directly to death, but…the implied link is there. So an owl (both as what Laurent becomes, and as used in-game to suggest the spirit of a dead person), eating an opossum (as related to a man who can help people cross over to death, or at least get to the Crossroads)…could perhaps be a representation of Laurent's relative agelessness and presumed immortality. Not necessarily as a hostile attack against death, or a deliberate rejection of a normal human lifespan—that would be better represented by something unusual, like an owl acting akin a shrike and impaling its prey. Laurent has no reason to feel ill will toward Shakin' Bones, after all. Instead, it could be showing his immortality as the natural consequence of becoming a rougarou. Having overcome the standard passage to death, as natural as a predator eating prey...even if the reason and the result lean more unnatural, or supernatural, for someone who was once just a human. (At the same time, it's using the "natural" versions of animals as potential representatives of two "supernatural" entities. Taking a fantastical story, and masking it as an everyday occurrence. So that's yet another layer of making it appear relatively "normal" to those who wouldn't know what it might be symbolizing.)

Maybe it's a bit far-fetched for a theory, but...I like it better than the sawmill boss idea. (Another question then arises: how does Laurent answer when folks ask about the odd painting behind the bar...?)

Now, one theory does not preclude another, especially when it comes to interpreting art. It could be all or none of the above. If anybody else has thoughts, I'd love to hear them! I haven't seen any discussions about this painting, so I'm curious if there's something else that hadn't occurred to me.

[finelythreadedsky]

favourite classical texts of all time?

oh, homer! those are the real 'turn it and turn it, for everything is in it' texts of classical antiquity. and the oresteia. i also love the aeneid and the homeric hymn to demeter. i work primarily on tragedy but i guess i work mostly on form (??? whatever that means), and i have particular soft spots for antigone and medea in ways pretty unrelated to my actual research interests. and sophocles' tereus. that's my personal pet lost play.

[louferrignojrofficial]

if i got the chance to interview oliver stark about 911, you bet your ass i wouldn’t waste a single question over something like ‘will tommy be jealous of buck and eddie’s friendship?’ after we have seen multiple times he isn’t, and most recently in the new episode. not to mention we’ve seen even eddie isn’t jealous of buck and tommy’s relationship, and we were shown that yet again in the premiere. there are so many more interesting things you could ask about buck’s actual relationship and that story, or even buck and eddie. but no.