#my dissertation

[i-didnt-do-1t]

Arts Gatsby and the reason their interpretation of Gatsby as non-white and his father as explicitly Indigenous American is important and so embedded in the text, as taken from my dissertation <3

and this (which I specifically more about minority vs social mobility but stills stands as relevant to the conversation)

[blackmetalbats]

I'VE SUBMITTED MY DISSERTATION I AM A FREE MAN NOW

[enbycrip]

I am at just over 13000 words. Dissertation is due by 23:59 tonight and the hard word limit is 15000.

Just got to finish the chapter about naval pensions and the occupational activity of disabled sailors then the conclusion.

I am in a lot of pain but I did actually sleep last night, only briefly interrupted by my poor Pupper vomming up the grass she ate in the evening so I had to clean it up and reassure her.

The bureaucracy is done. My supervision record is signed off.

Shortly I mainline the coffee and fucking WRITE.

[sofancydancy]

I got a UK 65 on my dissertation!!!! Which is like an A in the states I think? Lol! It's super confusing but I'm so excited!

[inkskinned]

please i love you i'm begging you bring back suspension of disbelief bring back trusting the audience like. i cannot handle any more dialogue that sounds like a legal document. "hello, i am here to talk to you about the incident from a few minutes ago, because i feel you might be unwell, and i am invested in your personal wellbeing." "thank you, i am unwell because the incident was hurtful to me due to my childhood, which was bad." I CANT!!!!

do you know how many people are mad that authors use "growled" as a word for "said"? it's just poetics! they do not literally mean "growled," it's just a common replacement for "said with force but in a low tone." it's normal! do you hear me!! help me i love you please let me out of here!!!

[bolkonskaya]

many things to read (asoiaf reread, cicero trilogy, that interesting metamorphoses translation, whatever arthurian literature i feel like reading) and SO MUCH dissertation work to do. i am actually in the trenches. and giving my opinion on various translations of latin lit that detail the process of analysing sacrificial entrails

[stargirl230]

state of you // 花城

qifrey cover redraw! because i realized what's better than drawing blorbo once is drawing blorbo four times

(no reposts; reblogs appreciated)

[thebigoblin]

Thank you to everyone who filled the form!! I got enough responses to do my dissertation from my batchmates, friends, and y'all!!

The form is closed now.

Helloooo

So I know this is quite a sudden and shocking revival of this blog, especially since the last time I was active here was to post about my dissertation and requesting help regarding people filling out a questionnaire for me.

Well, I'm back! This time with the questionnaire. I'm gonna link it here and hope that the Tumblr algorithm (the people <3) help me out 🥺 Even if you don't fill it out and just reblog, that would be great! I don't wanna yap so much that I pull the attention away lol, so without further ado here's the link. https://forms.gle/hiYzsPgJfLAfX7bC9 I'm just gonna tag it under some trending tags, please don't mind 🙏

[bunny-super-blues]

this guy has a tablet like 100% of the time there's no way he wasn't an ipad baby okay

[merlinsearlobe]

I don’t know if i hallucinated this but i swear earlier seasons Bradley said something about hoping Arthur realises Merlin has magic on his own.

And i wish, i wish, that had been the case.

That Arthur, knocked out, bleeding, injured, awakes too early and sees Merlin, eyes golden and angry, bending the power of the earth in raw wrath and fury towards their enemy.

And Arthur is bloody fucking terrified. But Merlin screams ‘not him, never him, never Arthur’ and the earth shakes and… Arthur can’t even remember what poor soul or creature had thrown him from his horse, certainly not now their body is torn apart by Merlin’s words and his flaming gaze.

Of course Arthur is terrified. Is he hallucinating? Is this some malevolent vision? His head throbs and he can taste blood in his mouth and he can see Merlin, Merlin his incompetent and clumsy and funny and innocent and soft and gentle manservant who wakes Arthur with a brilliant smile and some drivel about lazy daisies, stood like a deep and dark and threatening shadow over what was left of a once-body.

Arthur’s breath comes in short gasps and tears prick his eyes. Panic. And Merlin turns to him as he clamps his eyes shut against the image of Merlin dripping with death and anger. But deep within his shattering mind a small voice whispers to him. The voice is soft and gentle, blonde curls and kind eyes and patient hands cupping his cheek. She reminds him of each time Merlin has looked at him with pure, unadulterated devotion - his eyes deep and blue, a tiny ring of gold-green swirling around his pupils. How each time Arthur’s lain on the brink of death, and Merlin has never left his side, tending to his wounds with such tenderness that Arthur has never felt before. How it was in Arthur’s name that Merlin’s magic, Merlin’s magic, raged.

Another voice, thick and real and worried, breaks through the soft whisper of Ygraine.

Arthur felt shaking hands - how could they be so gentle when moments before it was from them that such unbridled power was released - stroke his matted and sweat-soaked hair, wiping the blood Arthur felt trickle down his cheek away. Arthur forces open his eyes, meeting Merlin’s as the gold fades to the deep familiar ocean-blue.

Did Merlin know Arthur had seen? How much blood had soaked Merlin’s hands when Arthur had lain unconscious, how many victories has Merlin won in Arthur’s name?

And deep within Arthur’s heart he knows he is safe in this sorcerer’s hands. Knows in fact he’d choose these hands over anyone else’s.

But Arthur can’t say the words just yet. He can’t admit to himself that the man he loves is made from that which he hates. Hated. Has been taught to hate. A new wound has been torn in him, one not made of blood and flesh. Because if Merlin is magic, how can magic be evil.

So Arthur lets Merlin’s hands and Merlin’s words and Merlin’s soft smiles wash over him. He feigns ignorance of what he saw.

But he watches. His wounds sit quietly: clean and placid from Merlin’s assiduous care. His face is washed from blood and grime by Merlin, who had fussed and worried as he went. Now he watches. He notices the damp wood Merlin had collected whilst the rain has fallen burst into eager flames within seconds of Merlin’s attentive hands and wonders how he never noticed before.

When they return to Camelot, limping but alive, Arthur notices the stone-deep warmth that graces his chambers. Where his room should be chilled and still from his absence instead there’s a soft and humble feeling of life suffused throughout, and Arthur realises with a small, private smile it is the same feeling that radiates from Merlin.

The lessening part of him argues he should recoil. For why is he rejoicing at feeling the touch of a sorcerer all around him. But Arthur argues back. He’s felt the saccharin, sticky grip of dark, evil magic masquerading as sweet ladies or sycophantic servants. He remembered the groggy, aching return to his own mind after Sofia had dragged him under her spell. Merlin’s gentle, joyous presence is worlds away. His magic may be hidden from Arthur, but Merlin’s grinning insults and blatant disregard for any sort of protocol meant any fears for further hidden motive besides self preservation withered immediately.

Arthur keeps watching. He notices now the shine his armour has, beyond what weary hands and cloth could ever achieve. He notices, or rather feels, when Percival’s muscled arm brings down the practice sword and Arthur - his mind worlds away - notices too late, yet the ensuing bruise is not angry and mottled but timid and quickly fades, even though ordinary chainmail would never have warded off such a blow. He notices Merlin’s unbridled joy when the two of them leave Camelot for the forest. He notices the bird that lands on Merlin’s shoulder, the whispered smiles Merlin exchanges with the creature. He notices the grass grow a little taller beneath Merlin’s feet, the way the trees bend to him as if they’re greeting a long lost friend.

Slowly, magic - or at least Merlin’s magic - loses the rotten, sharp edge Uther had imposed. Arthur begins to yearn to see the flames of the fire burning in his room reflected once more in Merlin’s eye. Still he can’t quite bring the words lingering in his throat up to his lips. Guilt begins to fester. Arthur remembers the years of Uther’s reign, how the screams of burning sorcerers - some of them so young, so young - had echoed through the cold stones of Camelot. He remembers now Merlin’s pale face and wide eyes, ghosted with tears Arthur knew not what for. He knows now.

And so when his knights bring him talk of a druid camp away to the south, Arthur stands tall, facing the court, and tells them to leave it be. That there will be no more raids (not that he had issued any since his ascension to the throne, but no formal proclamation had thus far been made). He tells himself privately he will end the ban on magic. He will forge a Camelot where Merlin will not live in fear, in a half life. The faces staring back are curious, some wary. But the one meeting Arthur’s steady gaze, wide-eyed with a shocked, gentle, proud, smile and slightly trembling hands gripping the wind jug, is that which Arthur cares about. He gives a slight nod. Too subtle for anyone else to notice, but as obvious and clear to Merlin as it ever could be, the two of them long since having needed words to communicate.

Merlin has a lot of questions. Naturally. They tumble from him as Arthur undresses behind the screen. And Arthur knows now that he’s ready. Merlin has magic. Merlin is magic. And Merlin is good. Deeply good. The words don’t quiver and cower in his throat.

And I wish Arthur had then told him. Had taken a deep breath and met Merlin’s gaze and told him he knew. That he had been scared. But he had trusted. Trusts. Loves.

We deserved Merlin fighting beside Arthur, raw devotion and power and fierce, fierce love.

[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.

[enbycrip]

Microsoft Word had an unexplained error when I was submitting at 23:30.

15 mins of desperate trying to work out what the hell the problem was with nothing except a constant “Microsoft cannot save this to your device right now; please try again later”; I had to go on my OH’s computer and submit it what turned out to be 1 minute 43 seconds late.

I *really* hope they don’t take 10% off my mark for under two minutes because I know lecturers are not in any way monsters and want their students to do well. I’ve emailed my tutor to explain. Everything crossed she accepts that.

FINALLY SUBMITTED MY DISSERTATION

[bobbybobinabitch]

while we're on the subject i think we need to talk about jack abbot's quiet panic when robby is on the roof. bc robby being in his spot is Not Normal and he's trying not to freak out. and yeah he does a great job keeping that shit under wraps bc he's literally trained to stay calm under pressure. but the alarmed look in his eye. the desperate way he jumps from comedic to heartfelt to argumentative, trying to find something, ANYTHING, that he can say to get robby to step away from that ledge. the way he leans against the railing, makes himself small. creates an intimate space that invites robby to open up to him, then demands unwavering eye contact while delivering affirmations. robby talking jack down is a given, almost routine. jack talking robby down is unthinkable, and he is terrified.

[sofancydancy]

Okay, so my dissertation is going to be about political botany in 16th century England, right. I thought there would be so much on this?? Like the Tudor Rose, the fleur-de-lis...They're political plants. It's propaganda with nature, and I'm searching everywhere and I CAN'T FIND ANYTHING. I can't decide if this is good or bad and whew...My idea is to look at artists and their patrons and try and identify what certain plants meant in the Renaissance and talk about the painting's political propaganda.

I did find something about the gardens of Versailles reflecting the French crown's ownership of land, which will be helpful, but I really thought I would have to find a tiny niche somewhere, but there doesn't seem to be much at all?

[formula-history]

Ok, it was over a year ago now so I’ve forgotten some details but this is the basic premise/findings of my dissertation

TLDR - I made a model for what I thought would make a successful brand, and the Senna brand followed that, but I don’t think following that model will make you as successful as his is.

So successful sports people become personality brands. Think David Beckham (he’s the best example, I don’t know if other countries have others). His brand isn’t just “footballer and sports related stuff”. He’s got the fashion, he’s got the smelly stuff, he’s got whatever. And while Beckham is super successful, most top of the game sports people will have their own (slightly less successful) brands.

But in Formula 1 that’s missing, I’d argue. Lewis Hamilton, while a seven time world champion, isn’t quite there yet (although I think he’s on the verge of being there). He’s still “Lewis Hamilton - racing driver”, you know? 

The one guy who is there - A. Senna. Fucking hell, the Senna branding team is so damn good. 30 years on, and everything from ketchup to sportscars uses an association with his brand to try to promote itself. The licensing of his name earns millions of charity. 

So the question is really why. And the secondary question is, can it be replicated.

Now seeing as my existence started two years after Ayrton Senna’s stopped, everything I know about him is told through the lens of his death. So the first thing to get out of the way is figuring out if this is a brand that’s successful because he’s dead. Obviously things like the ASI were set up after his death, but was there a successful brand before that. And the short answer is yes.

I mean, the Senninha comic books were out while he was still alive. Iirc he was working with a company on some watch like the week before his death or something. He had a very successful brand.

Great, perfect. I can now determine that death is not a requirement for a successful F1 driver brand. Convenient.

So what is it? There’s a model about athlete brands and elements that are needed to be successful which I used to base my analysis on, looking at what fans look for in their favourite drivers, how that correlated to the model, and then how much Senna’s brand, Hamilton’s brand and Bottas’ brand output reflects this corrected model. And wouldn’t you know it, Senna’s was pretty much spot on to what people said they looked for in a driver (ie, the right balance of things like race action/skill, role model qualities, and personal symbols being portrayed in the social media/marketing presence for the Senna brands). And then Hamilton’s and Bottas’ missing parts of what people liked. I can’t remember the exact parts that people were lacking (it’s been a year and I don’t know where I dumped my diss.) but that seemed to say that you could make a successful driver brand, you just needed the right mix of content, which the Senna team has cracked.

But there’s more to it than that. You see, there’s also this concept called “icon” brands. Now one factor that makes a brand an icon brand is that they “address the collective anxieties and desires of a nation”.

And it’s at this point that I have to say you cannot divorce Ayrton Senna from Brazil.

Obviously nationality is something I looked at in the first part of the analysis because even though most big F1 fans won’t support a driver just because they’re from their country, there’s generally a nationality bias. And even though nationality isn’t a major thing most of the time, there are some countries where it has more of an impact than others. Think about the absolutely huge draw Fernando Alonso is for Spain (especially pre-Carlos Sainz). Dude basically kept the sport alive in Spain. 

And looking at other sports, I had to ask if Brazil was the same way. Was Senna just so beloved because he was a Brazilian racing driver? And not just that, he was a Brazilian racing driver, racing at a time when there were some major political things going on in Brazil. Was this just the case of the guy being in the right place at the right time. Literally.

And it is at this moment that I thank the lord for Nelson Piquet, something nobody has ever had need to do before.

Because here we have another person who would be in the right place at the right time if being Brazilian in the 1980s was important. And there are actually some similarities between the two, in how they controlled their relationship with the press and so on (not saying those relationships were the same, just that they were very in control of their own images).

But for Piquet, being Brazilian was a bug. For Senna, it was a feature. 

I mentioned before symbols. This can be anything from the race number to a stylised logo to a certain hairstyle. I think it’s safe to argue that the Brazilian flag became one of Senna’s symbols, he had it so often. Like, every opportunity he could have. He was proud to be Brazilian and when you looked at research already done into this mythologising of Ayrton Senna, he was like the only thing that people had at the time that made them proud to be Brazilian. 

An important part of Senna’s brand was, and still is, that “answering the anxieties of the nation” thing.

I think you could make a model based on what the Senna brand accounts post, follow it to a T. You could like do the exact same charity stuff, the exact balance of on track action and just being a good role model. You could have the most iconic helmet design possible. But without the circumstances that were around when the Senna brand started, you’re never going to be the icon brand that he is today. 

Which is fine, you don’t need to be. You can still make a tonne of money without getting as far as his brand is. It’s quite insane, I think, for a brand surrounding a single person to be an icon brand (others include things like coca cola). And even though I argued that death wasn’t what made the Senna brand, it sure is a hell of a lot easier to control the image of someone who doesn’t have the opportunity to grow and change as a person. 

So in conclusion, there are things you can learn and take away from what the Senna brands are doing today but you’re not going to make a driver comparable to Nelson Mandela and the Pope (yes, people did rank him up there with the Pope as inspirations). 

So I wrote my Master's Dissertation on F1 driver brands (and why A. Senna's works). So I acquired a lot of random knowledge about him.

Like the fact he thought he saw Jesus in Japan. I think about that a lot.

[foxsnails]

Brown trout, experimenting with just using colours right out the pot rather than mixing