#multiple thesises

[bethanydelleman]

This is perhaps a silly question but did couples in Jane Austen's time always refer to each other by Mr./Mrs. Lastname? It's something I noticed with all of them (even Mrs. Elliot who is very liberal in that regard, much to Emma's dismay). And it's not just in company either, Mrs. Bennet does it in front of their daughters and Lady Bertram when she's alone with Sir Thomas. It just seems very cold and distant in modern times.

Yes, it does feel weird to us and yes that appears to be what they do. In addition, many of the children call their parents "sir" and "ma'am". This is a much more formal society. I would feel just as weird calling someone my own age “Miss Lastname”! However, I know a lot of couples who refer to themselves and their spouses as "Mom" and "Dad" instead of their actual names in front of their kids, so it’s not totally divorced from our society now.

Anyway, one of the reasons we don't know a lot of first names of parents is because they only call each other Mr. and Mrs. Lastname. The exceptions are Admiral Croft, who calls his wife Sophy (her name is Sophia) and Mary and Charles Musgrove. John Mullen argued in his book What Matters in Jane Austen that this shows the contempt that M&C have for each other, but they are almost always among family and they are the same generation as Anne, so that might be why they use their first names. Mrs. Croft never calls Admiral Croft his first name back, by the way.

There also may have been a change in manners between the earlier and later novels. We hear women call men “Lastname” in S&S and P&P, but not in the later novels, then only men use that short form. Emma is highly offended that Mrs. Elton would say “Knightley”, though that may have more to do with their recent intimacy than a social rule, and Mrs. Elton does always refer to her husband as “Mr.” even if she shortens his last name into “E.”

What I find very interesting is that if you pay attention to when Mr., Mrs., Miss, and names are used, you can see how one character thinks of another. Fanny Price always thinks of Mr. and Miss Crawford, never Henry and Mary, even when other characters become less formal around them. When Elizabeth talks to Wickham (post-marriage to Lydia), Wickham uses the informal “Darcy” but all Elizabeth’s thoughts use the formal “Mr. Darcy”. Mr. Bingley is just referred to as “Bingley” about 50% of the time, but “Darcy” only about 30%. This probably has to do with the characters disliking him, but also with his station in society. Even the narrator is respectful!

Which is why I actually love the formal names/Christian names dynamic because you can get so much information just by how people refer to each other. Charlotte Lucas, Elizabeth’s friend, calls her “Eliza” and we can understand this as a representation of their intimacy. Yet when Caroline calls Elizabeth, “Miss Eliza”, it is rude, she hasn’t earned the privilege of a nickname. Similarly, Mary Crawford calling Miss Price “Fanny” before she is actually engaged to Henry is too much too soon, especially since Fanny has not extended this right in friendship.

And when Wentworth says, “but if Anne will stay, no one so proper, so capable as Anne.” It’s not just the praise, he says her first name. It is a sign, on second reading, that his feelings for her have returned.

Last note, given how formal Mr. Darcy is and how respectfully Elizabeth refers to him even when they are engaged, they are calling each other Mr. and Mrs. Darcy everywhere except the bedroom! At least that's what I suspect.

[captainsjack]

@leifdonnellies this essay will be the finale of my rewatch just y’all wait. i also have another essay about shawn & gus that is mostly finished 😌 i just need a few more specifics so once i finish s1 i might post it

[haldenlith]

Magistrate Ramble Bramble

I have the urge to ramble (not herbal), so here we are.

ASSUMING Astarion wasn’t lying when he initially tells the MC that he was “a magistrate back in Baldur’s Gate,” and that it actually was what he did prior to being turned, then that raises the question: what is a magistrate? We’ve all discussed it, and have come to what boils down to three conclusions: lawyer, judge, or politician.

SO, I went poking around the internet to learn what a magistrate actually is so that you don’t have to! Disclaimer: I actually have no idea what I’m talking about, and this is just an amalgamation of shit I read.

Now grab yourself some milk and cookies! Because this shit is long.

In modern times, a magistrate is like... a lesser judge. They take care of civil matters, do preliminaries for bigger matters to help lighten the case load for proper judges. They have legal power, but not a lot of power. I think they’re more of a thing in Europe and such as opposed to here in the US, which, honestly, makes sense, because we Americans have to be difficult and do things differently.

Now, here’s where things get interesting, because that’s not at all how magistrates apparently were back in Ye Olden Times. I even ran across fuckin’ theses (thesises? thesi?) on the legal and political structure of medieval times and shit, and the corruption that came with them. Given that most D&D, and thus Baldur’s Gate, tends to be more medieval-flavored, I’d assume then that we’d be using that time period’s definition of magistrate. And what is that definition?

It’s not very cut and dry, but from what I gather, it was basically the person who oversees the judges, the lawyers, the bailiffs... all the legal nonsense that was the court system. Magistrates had quite a bit of power, but still had to answer to the lord/lady of the land, and/or the queen/king. With that in mind, I’d imagine somewhere particularly busy/well populated would have multiple magistrates, split into districts. It just seems logical.

NOW THAT I’VE RAMBLED WITH ALL THAT SHITE, let’s look into Baldur’s Gate. It’s a Big Fucking City. Hell, not just that, it’s a city-state, and it’s got its own damn parliament and crap. So you best believe they have a bunch of magistrates dealing with all the whackadoodle nonsense that’s probably going on in the courts, and the paperwork, pleading, begging, and bribing that goes with that. With all of that said, I’d wager that a Baldur’s Gate magistrate falls somewhere in between “modern day” and “medieval” interpretation, but closer to the “medieval” end, given all the nonsense that happens in that city (werewolf coup? WEREWOLF COUP?).

Despite the terrifying idea of Astarion with any modicum of power and authority (OOF), I can see him being a magistrate, with that loose definition in mind. It’d make sense, given the “it’s quite tedious, really” comment, as I would think it’s mountains of paperwork and being harassed by people wanting “justice” to tip a certain way. I have no doubt that he was a corrupt magistrate, either. HOWEVER, given Baldur’s Gate’s history, I am 100% on that “gee, Cazador being in the right place, right time sure seems convenient” train. Astarion totally got setup, because honestly? The Gur may have had reason to jump him, but they’re commonly low class, so they had reason to jump ANY of the magistrates or politicians. I doubt Astarion was special in his corruption. Most fishy.

Um, so, if you’re somehow still here, thank you for coming to my magistrate ted talk.

[professionallimits-blog]

TTK University of Applied Sciences (applied architecture)

Anastasia B

In the focus of my research this time were thesises on applied architecture of TTK University of Applied Sciences. I concentrated basically on thesises defended in last two years (2016-2017).

Main trends or directions of these two last years’ thesises remains to be regeneration of abandoned and decadent historical architectural and cultural heritage and/or industrial complexes via opening these places for public, implantation of new functions and intervolving them into the „tissue of the city“. Another subtrend could be designing public use buildings as centers of culture, family medicine center, recreation centers, nursing homes rather than private houses. Also several authors by one or another way tried to offer their vision for solving some problem of Tallinn city’s urban planning.

1. Jürisoo, Heidi. (2016). Peeter Suure Merekindlus. Taaskasutades pärandkultuuri (Peter’s the Grand Naval Fortress: Adaptive Reuse of Cultural Heritage). http://eprints.tktk.ee/2482/

I became exploring this thesis with great interest for quite several reasons. First of all, was set quite ambicious target, taking into consideration scale of the object and it’s specific military context.

Secondly, I noticed that one of the advisors was Tomomi Hayashi, who is a notable Japanese-Estonian architect and person with very different cultural background, who probably watches on the local situation and objects of heritage with different point of view, what made me curious.

Also there were some inaccuracies in the table of contents, this did not spoil the general impression. Some aspects that I marked as strong while reading, were:

In the introduction was seen that subject’s choise was made basing on the author’s own interest.

In theoretical part author multiple times refers to world-known persons, using citates of famous antropologists, architects and urban planners.

There are interesting structure of case study chapter, where are shortly introdused all planned approaches together with laconic supporting schemes and examples of implementig these approaches in the world.

Offered solution are feasible, functional, forward-looking and non-detail-overloaded.

Visualization is clear, stylish and informative, moderate in colours but not boring (only one plot of bomb shelter was out of main style).

As verdict I was enjoying reading this thesis and think that there are quite many good ideas in it. It caused a wish to get on the place and see it by myself and it is also very good, I guess.

2. Tannelberg, Maili. (2017). „Mitte-linn“  - tulevikumaastikud Põhja-Tallinnas ("Non-City" - Future Scapes of Northern Tallinn). http://eprints.tktk.ee/3144/

The reason why I choose for introduction this work was intriguing title-topic and it seemed to me interesting to explore some thesis based on vision of future urban landscape. As a counterweight to Peter´s the Great Naval Fortress thesis, this thesis have almost no push point from the past, vice versa, it is trying to imagine future and adopt today’s less or unused urban landscape for social needs, however, doing it in quite flexible and non-categorical way.

The impression from this thesis was not absolutely positive, also were some irritating moments, but entirely thesis is interesting. So, what I figured out:

Author´s personal relationship with the place and curiosity for checking the solution.

There were some nice describing metaphorical expressions, for example „city’s tissue“ for urban landscape. I can´t say if author thinked it out by herself, but it is genious. It mentally referes to our body´s tissues every single of which has it’s own functions and algorthytm of working.

There also were used citates of  the famous philosopher and landscape architects, but as main expression, theoretical part became to lyrical and weary.

Solution was divided into two phases: 1. Creating about 3 km long linear park ;  2. Partial sealing  this park area with architectural object, creating the kind of new linear district.

Some interesting examples of analogic project carried out worldwide.

Attempt of implementing brand-new materials in linear park planning solution, for example energy-generating light traffic road coating.

Illustrating material is clear, but in some places excessive and unneeded, in my opinion. Plots, despite of some hand-made feeling, have quite many amusing informative details, such as sketches of thoughts emerged during the process, schematical illustration if approaches divided into certain cuts of area, etc. Need time to get used to colour theme, but ok.

Verdict: not an ordinary used topic, it leaves a space for imagination. Can offer quite good challenge in building-up informative and correct theoretical part. In spite of seemingly boundleness, choosing such „slippery“ topic for author could be quite risky. But in that case, seems that brave author could handle it with enough content.

3. Kapsta, Teele. (2017). Aksi saare puhkeala (Aksi recreational area). http://eprints.tktk.ee/3169/

By chance happened that all my choosen thesises were advisored by Tomomi Hayashi. It was the most laconic thesis as well, but nevertheless I found the idea of creating some kind of mental estragement island quite extravagant and surprising in context of Estonia.

Also the thesis has it’s certain weak points, there were also some good and interesting detailes. Things that I liked in this work:

Original object of focus. Totally isolated unhabitated small island.

The author took care to visit the object by herself and check for detailes and nuances.

Quite thorough climatic analysis.

The chapter about history of the island is easy and interesting to read.

There are some gripping examples of similar isolated projects also from nordic climatic region (Sweden, Norway).

Interesting small architectural shapes – wind harf, viewpoints.

Such a intriguing small-sized huts, I got the feeling that I want to get in and try to accomodate in such tiny angular „slot“.

Beautiful atmospheric 3D visualization.

What I didn’t like:

~        Redundant structure and incomplete formatting - too much unjustified subtitles, one of the was only one sentence. Also enough grammatical mistakes. In some places in document there are just blanc sheets for unknown purpose.

~        The contradiction in the description of the construction of the huts.

~        There wasn’t marked any place of dislocation of protected species (Sea eagle) nor on present neither on conceptual scheme.

~        2D plot materials are very pale.

Verdict: In my opinion solution for the problem could be more complex and convincing, especially when you take such isolated small piece of landscape and try to practise both landscape architectural and architectural approach. By now this thesis remaines more draft rather that final thesis as for formatting as for content. Potential weaknesses of such project aren’t discussed at all, however there can be plenty of them taking into concideration location and nature of the place. Seems to be more example about how-not-to-do, but beginning was good.