#Story of the Century | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

biggest-gaudiest-patronuses · 7 months

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the fact that shakespeare was a playwright is sometimes so funny to me. just the concept of the "greatest writer of the English language" being a random 450-year-old entertainer, a 16th cent pop cultural sensation (thanks in large part to puns & dirty jokes & verbiage & a long-running appeal to commoners). and his work was made to be watched not read, but in the classroom teachers just hand us his scripts and say "that's literature"

just...imagine it's 2450 A.D. and English Lit students are regularly going into 100k debt writing postdoc theses on The Simpsons screenplays. the original animation hasn't even been preserved, it's literally just scripts and the occasional SDH subtitles.txt. they've been republished more times than the Bible

#due to the Great Data Decay academics write viciously argumentative articles on which episodes aired in what order #at conferences professors have known to engage in physically violent altercations whilst debating the air date number of household viewers #90% of the couch gags have been lost and there is a billion dollar trade in counterfeit “lost copies”#serious note: i'll be honest i always assumed it was english imperialism that made shakespeare so inescapable in the 19th/20th cent #like his writing should have become obscure at the same level of his contemporaries #but british imperialists needed an ENGLISH LANGUAGE (and BRITISH) writer to venerate #and shakespeare wrote so many damn things that there was a humongous body of work just sitting there waiting to be culturally exploited...#i know it didn't happen like this but i imagine a English Parliament House Committee Member For The Education Of The Masses or something #cartoonishly stumbling over a dusty cobwebbed crate labelled the Complete Works of Shakespeare #and going 'Eureka! this shall make excellent propoganda for fabricating a national identity in a time of great social unrest.#it will be a cornerstone of our elitist educational institutions for centuries to come! long live our decaying empire!'#'what good fortune that this used to be accessible and entertaining to mainstream illiterate audience members...#..but now we can strip that away and make it a difficult & alienating foundation of a Classical Education! just like the latin language :)'#anyway maybe there's no such thing as the 'greatest writer of x language' in ANY language?#maybe there are just different styles and yes levels of expertise and skill but also a high degree of subjectivity #and variance in the way that we as individuals and members of different cultures/time periods experience any work of media #and that's okay! and should be acknowledged!!! and allow us to give ourselves permission to broaden our horizons #and explore the stories of marginalized/underappreciated creators #instead of worshiping the List of Top 10 Best (aka Most Famous) Whatevers Of All Time/A Certain Time Period #anyways things are famous for a reason and that reason has little to do with innate “value”#and much more to do with how it plays into the interests of powerful institutions motivated to influence our shared cultural narratives #so i'm not saying 'stop teaching shakespeare'. but like...maybe classrooms should stop using it as busy work that (by accident or designs)#happens to alienate a large number of students who could otherwise be engaging critically with works that feel more relevant to their world #(by merit of not being 4 centuries old or lacking necessary historical context or requiring untaught translation skills)#and yeah...MAYBE our educational institutions could spend less time/money on shakespeare critical analysis and more on...#...any of thousands of underfunded areas of literary research i literally (pun!) don't know where to begin #oh and p.s. the modern publishing world is in shambles and it would be neat if schoolwork could include modern works?#beautiful complicated socially relevant works of literature are published every year. it's not just the 'classics' that have value #and actually modern publications are probably an easier way for students to learn the basics. since lesson plans don't have to include the #important historical/cultural context many teens need for 20+ year old media (which is older than their entire lived experience fyi)

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rydy · 9 months

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“I am a cemetery by the moon unblessed.” ― Charles Baudelaire, Paris Spleen

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procrastiel · 1 month

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Saw this on twitter and had to redo it

#i mean #need i say more #good omens #ineffable husbands #michael and david #david and michael #david tennant #michael sheen #ineffable idjits #the sheenants #my boys. erm. two grown men not my boys at all.#the love story of the 21st century #new tag #lookin swell 😎#nye #good #stage play #neil gaiman #the ineffable sandwich

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starbuck · 7 months

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reading and watching “classic” books and films is such an interesting experience because, before you get into them, when you only know them by name and maybe the vaguest plot outline, they’re intimidating and stuffy and up on a pedestal, but then you finally take the leap and check them out and realize that almost every story that’s achieved such a legendary level of popularity did so because something in its emotional core reached out and grabbed a lot of people by the throat and you are NOT immune.

#not that anyone but me probably needs to hear this but…#it’s OKAY to have Big Feelings about popular things #they’re popular for a reason - it makes sense to have a big reaction #but yeah - i should really know by now but i’m STILL floored every time i read or watch a classic and it Gets Me #like. this story has been Getting people for decades or centuries or MILLENNIA and yet STILL i’m surprised #‘i didn’t think the story would Get me’ says man about story that’s Gotten everyone who’s ever heard it

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ghost-bxrd · 2 months

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Prompt:

Instead of going for Tim, Jason goes for the easiest way to utterly destroy his Replacement and kidnaps his civilian boyfriend to demonstrate just how easy it is to lose something (or someone) you love in this line of work.

And while the whole “make the Replacement beg” part of the plan is going amazing…. Jason really didn’t plan the whole “keeping a conspiracy theorist teenager hostage” through to the end.

Bernard just wants to know what the new crime lord’s deal with Robin is. And why— and how— exactly he’s supposed to be a bargaining chip when he can count the times he met Robin on one hand. oh! and could someone maybe tell his boyfriend, Tim, that he’ll be late for their coffee date on Tuesday?

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ceremonial · 1 year

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“If what we have is half, then we shall make it the very best half. I love you. It is enough. I am your Queen. And as long as I am so, I shall never leave your side. You are King. You will be King. Your children will rule. Together, we are whole.” Queen Charlotte & King George III in Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story (2023)

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amariram · 15 days

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#i can see merlin finally telling his story after 1500 years #the last sentence is so painful #but it is also very true #he doesn’t have a picture of arthur #and after a thousand centuries he doesn’t remember him as he would #and oh arthur gave him a purpose and someone to love unconditionally #so yes be saved him in any possible way too #merthur #merlin #bbc merlin #arthur pendragon #titanic #merlin fandom #bradley james #colin morgan

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minnow-doodle-doo · 5 months

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Batman is owned by the people, not DC. My man is a modern myth.

#hes like Hercules #or Gilgamesh #idk if that makes sense but his stories and lore have been widly known for almost a century #a collective of so many voices writing him and drawing him and putting that man and his family in situations that #it he will probably last long beyond my lifetime

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weirdlookindog · 1 month

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John Tenniel (1820-1914) - Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Raven', 1858

#john tenniel #the raven #edgar allan poe #19th century #horror art #art #book illustration #story illustration #illustration

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biggest-gaudiest-patronuses · 10 months

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i vote that next year instead of reading Dracula we do a Jeeves & Wooster Book Club. those two never got the rabid tumblr shipping fandom they deserved (disqualified for the sheer technicality of being published a century too soon). we must correct this injustice

#jeeves and wooster #i want to watch tumblr go rabid i want to watch ao3 overflow with jeeves/wooster fanfiction #yes obviously the fandom EXISTS but it's a cozy little neighborhood #a handful of talented artists and writers doing their best to keep their charming little village going #but i'm tired of cozy i want this fandom TRENDING #I WANT TO SEE THIS ON MY DASHBOARD PEOPLE #i swear to you if they made a shiny new tv series tumblr would absolutely obsess over these characters. good omens levels of obsession #it's just such a great dynamic! the good-natured overly-trusting bumbling idiot in constant need of rescuing!#the stoic all-knowing genius who quietly masterminds mayhem in order to protect this one moron he's devoted himself to for some reason #jeeves as a morosexual is just such a beautiful interpretation of the original text #wooster as a happy-go-lucky himbo who stumbles his way into a relationship with a protective caring and supremely competent mastermind #the angst and social complexities of a same-sex cross-class relationship in turn-of-the century london!#oh AND half the stories are about jeeves helping wooster get out of engagements/desperately avoid marriage #two men who live together constantly scheming to maintain their bachelorhood. this is quite literally the main plot point #the gay subtext is there! the gay subtext is there and very ripe for picking!!!#this thing is LOCKED AND LOADED we can pounce literally any time

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dunyun-rings · 1 year

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The Forget-Me-Not Valley bachelorettes but medieval style 🗡🌾

#harvest moon #story of seasons #bokumono #hm muffy #hm nami #hm celia #hm lumina #medieval #middle ages #14th century #15th century #costume design #alcohol/#my art

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justaz · 3 days

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merlin owns an arthurian museum with authentic items from the third/fourth century as well as statues, busts, and portraits from different artists over the years of king arthur. who better to ensure everything is real rather than someone who was there? eventually, people are pushing for him to find more artifacts bc its been a few years and he history nerds are bloodthirsty beasts. people also want to find excalibur but whatever. merlin caves and is like “might as well see what else fell into lake avalon” so they dredge it up. merlin is relaxing at home when he gets a call. he’s expecting them to say they found something small like perhaps a link or armor or a rare, old jewel. then he hears

“we found a body”

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fashionsfromhistory · 1 month

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Custom Dress worn by Elaine Roebuck to her Bat Mitzvah

Christian Dior

Spring 1957

“It all started when I was twelve years old and I wanted a bat mitzvah. My father said absolutely not — girls didn’t have bat mitzvahs in those days,” Roebuck tells me. “My mother rallied for me and finally my father said OK. The next thing I knew, we were on the train to Montreal to look at my dress.”

The dress in question is a silk organdy masterpiece custom designed by Monsieur Christian Dior himself. Dior did not design for children back in ‘57, but he made an exception. “Not just anyone could go in and say ‘whip me up a dress for my daughter’s Bat Mitzvah’ – that wasn’t their business,” says Dr. Alexandra Palmer, the museum’s senior fashion curator. But that’s just what Elaine’s mother, the late Molly Roebuck, did. “She had a motto: If you’re going to do something, you better do it right,” says her daughter. “And in her mind, Dior was just right.” Likely, the exception was made on account of Dior’s relationship with Holt Renfrew, the prestigious high-end retailer with exclusive rights to his collection in Canada back when it launched.

So, with the help of her friend, buyer Betty Macpherson, Roebuck commissioned the dress in Paris. It was to be modest, but fantastical enough for such a special night. After a few months of trading sketches with Dior himself, the muslin models arrived in Montreal, where Dior’s pieces were made-to-measure for the Canadian market. “The dress was dreamlike and it made me think, or maybe even feel, like a princess,” says Roebuck. The end result was a full-skirted silk organdy cocktail dress with daffodil embroidery. As it was a one off, the fabric never appeared in Dior’s collections. “I knew the dress was special, but at the same time, I didn’t think I was different from any of my friends,” she says. (Teen Vogue)

Royal Ontario Museum (Object number: 2013.68.14.1-2)

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katabay · 23 days

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THEY SAY THERE IS A CARPENTER FROM THE PROVINCE PERFORMING MIRACLES IN THE CAPITAL

another scene and some sketches of the fake byzantine empire ocs! thomas is a carpenter, john is a merchant. there's an emperor (two, actually) in here, looming ominously over everything.

(I call it the fake byzantine empire because the setting is playing with byzantine history that spans across three centuries, but it's also pulling from things like Statius' Thebaid and later medieval literature. folk catholic horror, probably. doctrinal debates and schisms are in here)

on the topic of nameless and unknown saints, tho, sometimes I think about this excerpt from an essay in Closet Queeries and the time I was on my way to Tanjay and saw an abandoned chapel along a road with a statue of a saint I didn't recognize inside

Closet Queeries, essays by J. Neil C. Garcia

⭐ places I’m at! bsky / pixiv / pillowfort /cohost / cara.app / tip jar!

#emphasizing the byzantine empire part lest someone call this bible fan art like what century do you think these things take #place in. come on #i will say there IS gospel narrative inspiration/parallels occurring in the story but it's NOT a 1-1 retelling in the slightest #we diverge heavily right before the pasyon arc because i have other shit i want to do #original tag #komiks tag #the carpenter & the merchant #ANYWAY i was visiting family in the ICU today so you will have to suffer my handwriting bc i simply do not feel like doing digital #lettering

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sableeira · 1 year

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whoever edited that bsd official art to make it look like chuuya is holding onto dazai’s arm will be put on trial for irrevocably changing my brain chemistry and making me so much worse

the original and the edit in question. this artwork really makes me crave a mid to late 19th century historical au where Chuuya is a swordsman struggling with changes to his job due to the meiji restoration and with Dazai as a detective/private investigator who hires Chuuya as his bodyguard when a seemingly harmless investigation turns dangerous. they kind of hate each other (as per usual) but Chuuya needs the job and Dazai, while he proclaims to dislike chuuya, is also very smitten with chuuya’s fighting style and temper (as per usual).

#also the person who edited that bsd dead apple official art to make it look like they are holding hands will be put in jail without a trial #the red ribbon tangled around their intertwined hands 😵‍💫#<- does that person know the impact and damage that edit did to society?#oh yeah btw I’m not sure if the clothes fit mid - late 19th century but those decades make for a cool setting #bungo stray dogs #bungou stray dogs #bsd fanart #soukoku #skk #bsd dazai #chuuya nakahara #osamu dazai #bsd chuuya #my art #bsd #I need more skk historical aus :( if I had the time and a solid story idea (more than just the vibes) I would write this #although I feel like I wouldn’t be able to do that setting justice with my current knowledge about mid to late 19th century japan #I finished this one a month ago and just didn’t post it because there was stuff that I wasn’t happy with (finally managed to fix them lol)

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ceremonial · 1 year

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Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story 1.02 'Honeymoon Bliss'

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