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slowburningechoes · 1 year

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I was wondering if you could do something with like, maybe write a smut about Professor Reid x Female Student. Thanks <3

uhm, yes!!! professor reid makes me swoon cw: smut (18+, minor dni), brat!reader, unethical relationship (title ix is important babes), age gap (15 years), fantasization, mutual masturbation, oral (f!recieving), office sex, makeshift gag usage, exhibitionism, unprotected sex (pls wrap it up), breeding word count: 3.1k

secrets demand silence

Spencer knew this wasn't right - thinking of you, his top pupil, as he palmed the bulge growing in his slacks. It was an unethical and immoral concept at its core. After all, he couldn't have you and thinking of you this way just made his yearning even more unbearable.

He leaned back in his leather desk chair and tried to get the thoughts and images of you out of his mind, but the erection in his pants grew nonetheless. He couldn't help but think about the way you always sat at the front of the class wearing the cutest blouses and the shortest skirts. How you were always the first to chime in to answer his questions, rhetorical or otherwise. You had always done the reading and studied well for exams, but if you had to cram some last minute you would always come to class early with your hair pulled back with a claw clip and strands caressing the sides of your face as you stared intently at your textbook. There were so many times he wanted to bend you over the lectern right there and take you at the front of the empty lecture hall. Sometimes while he lectured, he would notice you biting down on your pencil and crossing your legs tightly and perversely, he hoped it was because you were soaking wet and thinking of him in the same inappropriate ways he thought of you. Spencer often wondered if you ever dashed to the bathroom or to your apartment to satisfy yourself from the tension those thoughts caused, just like he was doing now and like he had so many times before.

He tried to stop thinking of you, he really did - but it just didn't work. His cock was so enlarged that it was barely contained by the dark material - so, he decided to give in to temptation... once again.

Spencer knew the details of you from memory, but a little reference couldn't hurt. Thank god the institution didn't have access to his private browser history, he already had your social media pages pulled up from previous times he let his lustful thoughts control him. He had even decided his favorite picture of you: you were at some cozy little bookstore in between two aisles of shelves wearing a cream button down with a khaki v-cut sweater vest over top and a light brown plaid skirt that was just long enough to barely hit the middle of your thighs, your hair was wispy and pulled back by a matte cream claw clip and you were wearing the wide wire frame glasses that always made him take a second look. You weren't just standing there in the picture, though, you had your back plastered against one of the shelves, with your foot kicked up against the bottom and your eyes buried in a book. You looked so intelligent and beautiful, like you were in your natural habitat.

The last time he had touched himself to the thought of you was the first time he found that photo and he couldn't help dreaming about pinning you against that shelf and kissing you so deeply that the book fell from your hand and you were begging for him to touch you. That was a wonderful fantasy and one of his favorites, but after today's class Spencer's mind had created a new one.

He had started discussing a case that the BAU had worked in rural Alaska towards the end of lecture after one of your peers had asked about the places he had traveled during his work with the FBI. The conversation only scratched the surface, but it brought back the memory of the intimate homey inn and how there were limited rooms, so everyone else had to double up except him.

Now, so many years in the future, Spencer was wondering what it would be like to have to share a room like that with you. The inescapable proximity and the fact that you would be on the other side of the bathroom door with water dripping down your body as you dried off. How small the bed was and how close you would have to be because of it.

His imagination began to run wild as he freed his throbbing cock and wrapped his fist around it. He started to wonder what you wore to bed usually and how the fabric would feel when it inevitably brushed against his skin. He imagined waking up with the most strained morning wood imaginable and you making the softest whimpers in your sleep. He wondered if you would let him wake you up with a deep kiss and you would take him by surprise and straddle him.

Spencer was embarrassed that even the thought of kissing you made his dick twitch in his hand as he pumped it, but it did so desperately.

His need only increased as his imagination kept going, his eyes shut tight as he began to establish a rhythm. Spencer started to think about you grinding your core against his erection, moaning into his mouth and the wetness pooling on the area revealing that you slept without panties on. He would lift your sleep shirt to put your perfect tits on display for him before bringing one into his mouth as he bucked himself into you.

His fantasy hadn't even let him inside of you yet when his orgasm began to creep upon him at an increasing rate. Spencer's eyes were closed and his mouth was gaping as he increased the speed of his hand.

He couldn't help but let hushed mumblings of your name slip out as he worked himself with anticipation... what he didn't expect, though, was that you heard them.

You had just entered his office to see the shocking and glorious sight of Dr. Reid pleasuring himself. You hadn't knocked since he'd always said he had an "open door policy", but now you thought he may need to reconsider that. You had thought about what his cock might look like, but the reality of it was more than you could've ever dreamed of. He was lengthy, which was expected, but he was also impressively girthy. He would fill you up and stretch you out, the thought of which made your core begin to ache with a need that grew with every stroke he made down his member.

Before you could think consciously about your decision, you found yourself locking the door of his office behind you. Dr. Reid was so immersed in his self-gratification that he didn't notice the light "click" the lock had made.

The only thing that broke his trance was when you finally broke the tense heated air with a hesitant, "Doctor Reid?"

"F-fuck! Y/n?" his eyes shot open and he immediately began to panic, trying to maneuver himself back inside his pants and close out his browser before you made it around to his side of the desk - but to no avail. "W-what are you doing? Shit..."

You let your heart and sexual desire lead over your head as you came to the edge of his desk and propped your ass on top of him. Looking to your right, you saw your profile pulled up on his monitor. When you glanced down at him, his eyes were wide with shock, his cheeks flushed pink from embarrassment, and his cock still swollen and twitching with need.

"What am I doing? What are you doing, professor?" you inquire suggestively, spreading your legs open in the process, your skirt leaving little to the imagination.

"I-I," he attempted to begin his justification.

You flipped the bottom of your skirt upwards to reveal a pair of lacy black panties, which you began to rub your fingers down gently. Spencer couldn't help but suck in a tight breath and stare as you teased the outside of your need.

"Because it looks like you were jerking off to the thought of me," you hum, smirking down at him and pulling your panties to the side you reveal your bare pussy.

A hushed groan escaped him and his dick slapped against his stomach firmly. "I-I'm sorry, y/n."

"Don't be, professor... it's so hot," you dipped your middle finger between your folds and moaned softly for him, trying not to be too loud.

"Y/n..." he whimpered with a shaky voice, watching you intently. "T-this is wrong."

"Mmmm, but it feels so right," you sigh, pushing two fingers deeper inside you and moaning again. "Doesn't it?"

"Y-yes," he responded, beginning to palm his erection again.

"Don't be shy, Dr. Reid - I already saw your little show," you reassured, opening your eyes to smile at him devilishly. You circled your clit before choking out his name again with purpose and need, "Dr. Reid, please."

"Fuck, oh-okay," Spencer muttered before wrapping his fist around his length once again, pumping at a growing rhythm.

The sight of him stroking himself again made your wetness grow, your fingers motion in it eliciting the most delicious noises. The combination of those noises in combination with your moans made Spencer absolutely feral. Touching himself and watching you wasn't enough. Suddenly, he lunged forward towards you, spreading your thighs open with his hands.

"Professor!" you gasp, surprised by the contact and the strength of his grip.

"Can I taste you?" he blurts, his breath hot against your inner thighs.

You nod adamantly and begin to scoot your underwear down your legs to assist him. "Yes, please."

He hooked his fingers around the fabric and pulled them down the rest of the way before planting wet kisses along your inner thighs and up to your core. The feeling was like ecstasy, your mind was blank except for thoughts of pleasure and your body became tingly with anticipation. You were relieved when Spencer licked a stripe up your slit, dipping his tongue into you and gathering your arousal on his tongue. Just as he wrapped his lips around your clit and sucked gently, your legs snapped around either side of his head. He begin to switch between lapping at your center and taking the sensitive nub between his lips. It was excruciatingly satisfying, so much so that you gripped onto his locks firmly and subconsciously bucked your hips up into his mouth, demanding more as the pressure in your abdomen grew.

"Dr. Reid - I'm going cum," you whimpered, pressing his head against your core firmly. "Keep going, I'm begging you."

You feel him nod in agreement and moan into you as he continued to use his tongue strategically to motivate your climax. He began to devour you in a nearly animalistic manner, still methodic with his movements but with a desperation that made your thighs begin to quiver around his face. It only took him sucking gently on your clit one last time for you to fall apart, coming uncontrollably all over his face, grinding into it. You stifle your moans by biting down on your knuckle as he continues to lap at your pussy until you became numb from the excessive stimulation.

When he pulled his face from between your legs, his lips, chin, and the bottom bit of his button nose were soaked with your arousal. Plastered across his face was a mischievous smirk as he licked the arousal from his lips.

"You taste so... so fucking good, y/n," Spencer complimented, before leaning up to kiss you so that you could taste it as well.

You tried to respond as he moved away from your lips, but he was already working to remove your blouse. "I-is this okay?" he paused to ask when it was about halfway up your torso.

"You don't need to ask, professor. Anything you want to do is more than alright with me," you assure, peeling off your top to prove it to him.

Spencer stood there for a moment, staring at your breasts cupped by your beautiful black bra that matched your lacy underwear he had peeled off earlier. He reached around to your back to unsnap your bra, which he did so with ease. The fabric slipped from your shoulders and dropped from your chest, the cool air brushing against your bare skin causing your nipples to perk up and become hard.

"They're even more perfect than I imagined," he whispered, cupping them in his hands and bringing his thumb to caress your nipples.

"You've thought about them, hm, professor?" you tease, raising an eyebrow up at him. "Not a very appropriate way to think about your students, is it?"

Spencer cuts you a look of exasperation and snaps back, "Be quiet."

His demanding tone made your body writhe with warmth, "Oh, yes, sir."

"You act like you don't like me thinking of you like this, touching you like this - when you're the one who came over and put yourself on display for me," he growled.

"You were the one stroking your cock with a picture of me pulled up for reference," you responded with a sassy tone.

Your face was suddenly snatched between his hands, his thumb and fingers pushing your cheeks together. "And that made you so so wet. You know... after all the times I've fantasized about you, I never imagined you'd be such a brat."

You give him a smug look before biting you bottom lip and bringing him down for a deep passionate kiss. "Are you going to keep blabbing or are you going to fuck me?"

A loud huff came from Spencer as he leaned down to pick your panties up from the ground, stuffing them in your mouth. You gag around them slightly as they fill your mouth, muffling your teasing words.

"Since you're quiet now, I will," he whispered in your ear, sucking on your neck by your collarbone.

You moan in satisfaction, the sound barely vibrating through the fabric, your desperation making your professor chuckle smuggly. "That's much better. Can't have your loud mouth getting us caught, can we?" He spreads your legs back open, sliding the pads of his fingers in between your folds.

You shake your head "no" insistently, wanting to be good for him so that he would enter you. Your obedience worked, Spencer dropped his slacks and underwear to the floor and lined his tip up at your entrance. His dick brushing against your throbbing folds made you whine and grip onto the edge of the desk.

"I'm not even inside of you yet, beautiful," he hummed, enjoying your desperation.

He didn't wait an extra second to fill you, though, pushing his cock fully inside of you with one good stroke. You are stunned by the sudden force, his girth stretching you out with a stinging pleasure just as you had expected it would. He was much bigger than any other man you had been with and he knew exactly where to place his thrusts for maximum satisfaction for both of you. As he began to establish a pattern of his thrusts and their intensity, your walls began to squeeze around him for more. You wrap your arm around his back and scrape your nails down it with intense urgency, your simultaneous moans stifled by the makeshift gag in your mouth.

"You feel a-amazing, y/n - holy shit," Spencer struggled with his words, separated by quiet groans motivated by your pussy clenching around him. "So-so much tighter than I could've dreamt."

You smiled at his comment and looked up at his head thrown back and mouth gaping open as he fucked up into you harder. His left hand dug into your hip and the other came to tangle his fingers into the hair at the base of your head.

The deeper he pushed into you, the closer you became to reaching your second orgasm. The rhythm of his thrusts made your clit numb with pleasure, satisfying the nerves so much that you did not need external stimulation for your climax to rock into you. The grunts flowing from Spencer's lips in combination with the satisfaction made it come upon you quickly, your knees attempting to buckle together and your breaths becoming sharper. Your tightness increased, causing the cum to suddenly rush to the tip of Spencer's cock, causing his orgasm to rush into him as well.

The euphoria came crashing into both of you simultaneously, resulting in the most sloppy and melodic hushed noises you had ever heard. Your orgasm finished before his, your body tingling with satisfaction and your senses heightened.

"Y-y/n, baby - I'm going to cum in you," he muttered in between his struggled breaths.

All you could do was silently beg through the panties stuffed in your mouth, you wanted every drop of him inside of you. Thankfully, Spencer must have felt your body agree, your pussy opening deeply for his seed to spill inside. Within seconds, he was grunting lowly and coating your walls with his cum. The feeling of him flooding you was the greatest satisfaction you had felt before, warm and full.

As he came down from his own high, he looped his fingers into the lace embedded in your mouth, pulling it out slowly.

"How do you feel, beautiful?" he asks in a gentler comforting tone.

You latch onto his neck and pull him down to you for a sensual open-mouthed kiss. "Absolutely wonderful... I think I'll have to come by office hours more often."

"I think I'm going to have to change that open door policy, hm?" he suggests. "Only for you."

"Oh, you don't do this with all your students?"

Spencer responds with an eye roll and his thumb brushing down your bottom lip. "No, y/n... only you."

"What about outside of here, hm? You have some girls you meet up with when you get lonely?" you tease again, trying to gauge where this relationship was headed.

He lets out a sigh of annoyance, "Y/n. Only you - you're all I think about."

"You're all I think about, too," you blurt out in agreement.

"Mmm, so no hot college hook ups for you?" he decides to play your game.

"No... I-I've been waiting for you," you respond, tracing your fingers down his chest.

"I'm yours, if you'll have me, y/n. Let me make you dinner at my apartment," Spencer whispered, kissing your lips softly. "We - we have to keep this on the down low, but I can't go another day without you."

You smile at him and nod, "I'd love to have dinner with you, Dr. Reid. I'm yours, as well... don't worry, I graduate in May, but I'm good at keeping secrets regardless."

requests are open!

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creedslove · 6 months

Text

RE-ENCOUNTER 🎨

Marcus Pike x f!reader

"I'd rather get divorced while still loving you, than remaining together and risking to hate you"

Summary: you and Marcus had a brief but loving marriage, until it wasn't anymore. Choosing an amicable divorce you both moved on with your lives until destiny made you run into each other once more, with a difference this time: your ex-husband was engaged now

Warnings: mentions of divorce, a little bit of angst, fluff, some jealousy, age gap (their ages are not specified but he's 10 years older than her)

A/N: besties, I'm so happy I finally managed to write something for our husband Pike. I've always wanted to do so, but I knew I couldn't just force myself into it otherwise it wouldn't work properly, and just like that, this idea came up and I couldn't get it out of my mind ❤️ also, I know some people don't like age gap, but I can't imagine reader being Marcus age mostly because reader is me 🥴 and also because it would make sense to the story, so although it's not specified, I pictured them getting married around early 20s(reader) early 30s (Pike) and running into each other again around late 20s/early 30s (reader) and late 30s/early 40s (Pike)

3.9k words

You weren't fond of getting married young, to you, it sounded nothing like madness, as you simply couldn't wrap your head around the fact that people often abdicated from their lives, plans and dreams to get stuck in a relationship. It made no sense to you, especially since you had been working your ass off during all your years in college, the prospect of having a successful and promising career motivated you to go after your dreams. Relationships, marriages, building up families hadn't crossed your mind at all, a little affair with a cute guy here and there were the only things that ever got remotely close to dating, at the same time you only saw yourself as someone who wouldn't settle down.

And that was before Marcus Pike walked into your life.

If someone asked you to explain what exactly happened, perhaps you wouldn't be able to understand it yourself let alone explain it to someone, but that man swept you off your feet. You'd met him during a history of art lecture at campus one Thursday evening. He had just joined the FBI in the art department, fresh in his new job but still assisting his former professor and mentor in college lectures. He was probably ten or so years older than you, and yet, you couldn't keep your eyes off him. He was by far the most handsome man you'd seen in those four long years you'd spent in that institution, there was something so captivating in his beautiful eyes, his breathtaking smile and how smart and sweet he was towards anyone. And he caught you staring; it seemed you took his attention as much as he took yours, and even if you needed that lecture for extra credit, you couldn't give a single crap about medieval art, because that man was everything you could see in front of you. That was so unlike your personality, usually, you'd be focused on everything else, but you simply couldn't look away from that handsome assistant.

When the lecture was finally over, you were sure you'd missed at least half of it, being too busy concentrating on someone else instead of the subject, you still had a few doubts about the matter and you walked to the stage, willing to ask the professor some questions and clarify any doubts you had, and that was the moment you both locked eyes for the first time. The handsome guy that caught your attention, whose name was Marcus, soon found out the moment you shook hands and realized how big his was compared to yours and how truly handsome he was, even more so than you had already noticed when you were a few meters away. He was also mesmerized by you and he couldn't hide it, he knew you were younger than him, but at that moment all he could process was how gorgeous and smart that girl was in front of him. He kept around while you talked to his mentor, being polite enough not to interrupt him but holding himself back so he wouldn't add his own comments. He just wanted an excuse to talk to you, see if he could approach and see where things could go, so the moment he had the opportunity to be with you alone for a while, he immediately threw his charms - and Marcus was a charming guy - in your first conversation you liked how intelligent and nice he was, he made you laugh and when he invited you to have pancakes some dinner nearby the campus, you couldn't say no.

And that was the beginning of your love story.

Everything you believed went through the roof from the moment you met Marcus. He was incredible, the most fascinating man you'd met and whereas he was older than you, that only seemed to spice things up both in the sexual and emotional sense. You had never been treated like that before, he made you feel like a queen, as cheesy as it may sound, that's just how you felt through your relationship with Marcus. He was a gentleman, sweet and he didn't know what to do in order to please you; he went slowly at first, even if his intentions were clear from the very first time you went out to eat, he was a little afraid you would be weirded out by him, and he couldn't be further from the truth. Each time he took you out on a date, it felt like you were living the plot of any sweet but cliche rom com movie. It felt just too good to be true and a part of you feared that it wouldn't work. But it did, for as long as it lasted.

The dates with Marcus were so special, he was thoughtful and he always made sure to take you somewhere nice; it was either a nice restaurant so you could get to know their different menu, or art galleries in which he would show you his favorite works and tell you as much as you wanted to hear about them. He was always afraid of boring you with his subjects but on the contrary, you always enjoyed listening to him talk, it was entertaining, soothing and you could spend hours watching how his eyes sparkled whenever he addressed anything he truly enjoyed. And even if he put some effort into them, your favorite date by far was whenever you two would spend some time just hanging out together in his apartment. Dim lights, old movies on TV and Marcus' protective grip around your body, always pulling you closer and making sure you were warm in his embrace for the rest of the night.

The first kiss you shared with him after you both went to the movies together. It was a classic movie rerun and even if Casablanca wasn't your favorite, you knew he enjoyed it, and seeing it on a big screen was definitely a nice experience. Besides, he promised you that once Titanic hit the theaters in the next classic session, he would definitely take you.

At the end of the movie, you walked out the theater holding hands, you were silent, but instead of reflecting over the story you'd just watched you reflected over your relationship with Marcus; you were falling deeper and deeper for him, deeper and more intensely than you ever thought you would, and when he stopped and placed your hands on your hips you couldn't resist being kissed by him.

It felt right.

The first night you both spent together was right after he took you to see the concert of his former band; he'd left the band when he graduated from college, but he still remained friends with the guys and eventually enjoyed visiting them on stage. And that night he insisted on taking his bass for a last ride and even risked a song on the microphone, all of that for you.

By then, there was no fighting or convincing otherwise, you were head over heels for Marcus; especially when you two had sex for the first time after that. One could think Marcus is too soft, but not when it comes to that; he knows how to act, how to please and how to demand what he wants and after you tried him, a real man, there was no way you could go back to college boys ever again.

Your relationship evolved fast and in less than a year he proposed to you; he was sure you were what he wanted in the future, just as you had thrown away all your beliefs and you'd surrounded yourself completely to the man you loved, so you said yes. Even if your whole life you said you wouldn't get married, not while young at least, not without having a consistent, successful career.

And there you were, fresh out of college, with very little work experience, a job in an area you didn't want but had to take in order to gather experience and knowledge and walking down the aisle in a white dress, feeling as happy as you could be, in order to become Mrs.Pike. The honeymoon had to be in Paris, a few people told you that couldn't be more cliche, and even if they meant it out of spite or if they were actually right, it didn't really matter to you; it felt so right for the two of you. Surrounded by art constantly during the day and making love at night, it was like a dream coming true, and you remember hoping your entire marriage would be like that: light, fun, full of love and happiness. And it was until it wasn't anymore.

You couldn't tell exactly when things started to go downhill, but if you had to guess, it would probably be due to the lack of time you both faced towards the end of your relationship. It just started getting harder after about a year, when the two of you really began struggling for your own careers. You, in your area, and Marcus with the FBI, it seemed to have become an obsession for you both, as date nights, walks in the park and gallery visitations simply stopped happening in order to focus on your extra tasks, overtime, solving cases. At some point it became a looping of excuses and promises to spend more time together:

"We'll go next weekend honey"

"We can have dinner together tomorrow"

"I promise I'll take you with me next time"

Needless to say, they never truly happened.

Just as you two distanced yourselves without even realizing, the bickering also started, adding another venomous sting to your relationship. Suddenly, small things turned into bigger ones, sources of stress and fights; if someone ever told you one day you'd have heated arguments with Marcus over a dropped sock, or an unwashed plate on the sink, you would call them crazy, but when that unfortunately happened to the two of you, you were shocked for a while, not believing you had become the kind of couple to argue over stupid things like those. It was heartbreaking. As you two barely had time for each other, sex was also off the table most nights, being too tired to do anything else other than sleep, Marcus suddenly came up with the idea of having a baby; he had a deep hope of fixing your marriage by getting you pregnant, after all, having kids had always been part of his plan and he was sure it was part of yours too.

At the same time you hadn't really thought it through. Technically, you had. You wanted kids. At some point, in the future, it wasn't rocket science to figure that adding a baby to a troubled marriage could not be the best idea. And yet, you couldn't bring yourself to tell him that, not when you saw the spike of excitement in his eyes, not when he held you and kissed you like in the beginning of your relationship, how he made time for you even if his FBI work was killing him, he still managed to bring you flowers, kiss you and made love to you. Perhaps he was trying to save your marriage, or he was just trying for the baby, you weren't so sure, but you could see the effort. And it was why it broke your heart to know you couldn't get pregnant at that moment, not with your job finally taking you places, the new opportunity of actually building a career and how young you still thought you were, being married was hard, but it was about you and Marcus, two adults who could handle yourselves but a baby? It was way too much responsibility. You couldn't find a way to tell him that, even if you were being a coward, it pained you you felt so hopeless to simply lie to Marcus and tell him you'd stopped taking your birth control pills, and even more so each time he looked at you with those disappointed, sad eyes, month after month of excitement and longing for that baby to be there, just to get a negative test after another. It was eating you up alive and after his insistence on taking you to a doctor - which you immediately refused - he managed to find your hidden stash of pills among your stuff. You tried explaining everything to him; how you weren't ready, you were scared and how broken you'd been at seeing him so upset. You cried, you opened your heart to Marcus and told him you wanted to be a mom to his child, some day, not at that moment, but in the future because things were finally working for the two of you once more. But you had lied to your husband, and lying to Marcus had no turning back.

He had no other option other than asking for a divorce after you lied and broke his heart, he felt upset, he could've forgiven you for many things, but not for playing with his heart when it came to the kids he dreamed of every single day.

You were tired, upset and at some point during your divorce process you'd convinced yourself you didn't love him anymore, but the reality was that you were just so empty you weren't able to feel things, you were numb.

The day you both signed the divorce papers in front of your lawyer and you were questioned whether you two wanted to go ahead with that decision, your heart shattered into a million pieces, more than any fights, when you heard Marcus' justification to why he was asking for the divorce.

"I'd rather get divorced while still loving you, than remaining together and risking to hate you"

When you heard those words, you had a sudden urge to get up and tear those papers into pieces, tell him you were both making a huge mistake, that toyover him and that you could make it work, you wanted to tell him you still had a beautiful future ahead of you, you and the gorgeous family you would have together. And the moment you took a deep breath to finally say all that out loud, you looked at Marcus signing the papers and officializing the divorce.

That was the last time you saw your ex-husband Marcus Pike, you just had no idea the next time you would run into him again would be in a few years later, while he was taking his new fiancee on a date.

•••

Marcus sighed as he could see the lack of excitement in Teresa's face the moment they got to the exhibit, he just didn't know why she agreed to go out with him if she didn't like it, it would be so much easier for the two of them if she was honest and told him she'd rather stay home and read a magazine, that way they would both be happy, and Marcus wouldn't have the feeling he was trying too hard all the time. Teresa liked him, she must have liked him, otherwise she wouldn't have accepted his proposal and moved to DC with him. It was still early, she'd been there for a few weeks but he was confident things would work. He was hitting his forties now, one divorce, no kids and even if he finally got the position he had not only dreamed of but also worked so hard for in his dream job, he still felt something was missing. It took him a failed marriage to realize that money wasn't everything he needed, he simply missed the family he never had.

When he found Teresa he was still trying to pick the pieces of his heart, still trying to make things work on his own and when he saw her - an attractive, mature and intelligent woman, he thought that maybe he wouldn't be alone this time. You'd been the love of his life, he was convinced of that, but you two had gone way too fast and too intense, you were still young, you had so much to live so it made sense to him he would let you go and be free. He vowed himself not to rush into things, but this time it wasn't his choice, he was liking Teresa more and more and even if they weren't compatible most of the time, but when the opportunity of a lifetime came up he had to take his chances and she'd said yes. Still a little unsure and divided between him and Jane, but she said yes.

As they walked through the exhibit, he paid close attention to all the beautiful paintings scattered around the long hallways. He loved that atmosphere, the pictures so beautifully made by talented hands years or sometimes centuries ago.

"So it's just flowers?!" Teresa broke the silence as she looked around unimpressed and dragged his attention back to reality

"It's not just flowers, it's Monet… don't you like it? You told me you liked his paintings on our first date.." Marcus stated confused until the realization that she was just lying so she wouldn't appear ignorant or perhaps try to impress him a little. He saw how she cleared her throat and tried fixing what she just said but he stopped listening the moment he caught a glimpse of someone else crossing the same room and standing next to Rouen Cathedral, admiring it intently. He didn't even need to look twice to know it was you. You, who always loved that painting, even if it wasn't Monet's best in your ex-husband's opinion, you who had a fascination with old constructions such as cathedrals and would always snap several pictures of them, you, who was never exceptional at art but managed to get by and eventually fell more and more in love with art because of Marcus, not because you wanted to impress him or have him thinking you were smart, but because he actually made you see why he had that passion for it. And the moment that you turned around, his heart skipped a beat.

You looked the same, and yet, you also managed to look even more beautiful; more mature, more confident in yourself and for a brief moment Marcus was frozen in time, it was just like the first time he saw you, in which he could only see you in front of him and nothing else. He had no idea you still had that effect on him, it was so unusual and surprising and even if he had stalked your social media profiles here and there over the course of your separation, even if he wasn't proud of it, it was completely different than seeing you right there in front of him. He wasn't sure what to do, should he approach you? Talk to you? Pretend he didn't see you?

However, he didn't time to think any further about it, not when you turned around and spotted him, your eyes widening at the moment you saw him. Much to your surprise your heart also raced at the sight of your ex-husband. Was it your mind playing tricks or was he even more handsome? You hadn't planned on approaching him, but you felt as if you were being taken involuntarily towards him.

"Marcus?! Hi!" You said with a sweet smile as he politely greeted you, expressing how surprised he was to see you and even more so to actually talk to you

"Wow, you look great… So beautiful" he smiled as you blushed softly and giggled

"You too, still very handsome… so what brings you to D-" you interrupted by a woman who walked in and wrapped her arm around his waist. She eyed you up and down, even if she still tried to be polite and discreet about it. You swallowed hard feeling awkward and Marcus turned to the other woman

"This is Teresa, my fiancee and this is my ex-wife" he cleared his throat as he said your name and Teresa simply nodded her head. You returned the gesture and the moment you meant to ask him a question she barged in

"You're his ex-wife? But you're so young…" you could see the light pink spreading through his cheek and groaned at how dumb she really was.

"Yeah, I'm younger than him… and are you a little older than Marcus?" You returned the sting with the same amount of poison and she scoffed, looking at him and groaned

"I'll go to the restroom" she said without looking into your eyes and walked away, making you chuckle as Marcus shot you a questioning look which you just shrugged and went back to the question that was lingering on your mind

"So, what are you doing here in DC? Having a romantic getaway or vacations?"

"Actually, I've moved here after I was promoted to the head of the new art department" he said with his typical smile and you could see how his eyes crinkled, your heart warming up as you expressed genuine surprise and happiness to know that. You were a witness to how hard he had worked for that and it just filled your heart with pride to know he made it. You weren't sure how to act, perhaps it wasn't right, but you had already wrapped your arms around his neck and given him probably the tightest hug you'd ever done. Even if it was brief, you couldn't help but feel how built up he was, how stronger he'd become and his characteristic scent made you so warm on the inside, it felt like you could've stayed forever in his embrace.

"I'm so happy for you, Marcus! Honestly, you deserve it! I know I haven't been the most supportive wife and I'm very sorry about everything that happened, I should've been nicer to you, but well, all I'm trying to say is that I'm so proud of you!"

You said wholeheartedly and even if there were so many other things you needed to tell him, you knew it wasn't the right time and place. He just smiled and nodded, taking your hands into his big ones and thanking you for the support.

"Do you think we could grab a coffee or something? Just catch up?"

"I'd love to, but I don't know if it's a good idea, I mean, I can tell Teresa isn't my biggest fan and being honest with you, I wouldn't like my fiance's ex-wife around very much, but it's amazing to see you Marcus, truly, it makes me glad to know you are somewhat closer" you smiled again but let go of his hands the moment Teresa returned. Once more she just lingered around him, almost territorial as if she wanted to show you who owned Marcus. He also felt that, and it made him quite uncomfortable, so he cleared his throat and looked at you, saying goodbye and explaining they had dinner reservations.

As you watched them both leave, you felt a pang in your chest, thinking of the wonderful place he was probably taking her, the elaborate dates he had planned, the beautiful family they would probably build together. It could've been you, it was you for a while, unlike he might have thought you wanted all that with him, but it took you a divorce to realize it was a situation of the right person, wrong time. Perhaps if you tried again, it would work, you would like it to work, but Marcus had moved on, found himself someone he cared about and you had no right to break his heart and ruin his happiness once more.

____

A/N: my besties, I really hope you enjoyed it! I don't know if this is just a one-shot or if there'll be a continuation but I am so happy how this turned out. I love Marcus and I'm so happy our handsome FBI boyfriend finally got his own piece here! ❤️ remember that feedback is life, I'd love to hear what you all thought of it ❤️

#pedro pascal #pedro pascal x reader #pedro pascal x you #pedro pascal x y/n #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro pascal fanfic #pedro pascal one shot #pedro pascal imagine #marcus pike #marcus pike x reader #marcus pike x you #marcus pike x y/n #marcus pike fanfiction #marcus pike fanfic #marcus pike imagine #marcus pike one shot

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fatehbaz · 8 months

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all the time, gotta walk away, for a moment, take a break, infuriated, when reading about European implementation of forced labour in plantations (especially in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, whether it's sugarcane or rubber or tea or banana, whether it's British plantations in Assam or Malaya; Belgian plantations in Congo; French plantations in West Africa; Dutch plantations in Java; United States-controlled plantations in Haiti or Guatemala or Cuba or Colombia). and the story is always: "and then the government tried to find a way to reimpose slavery under a different name. and then the government destroyed vast regions of forest for monoculture plantations. and then the government forced thousands to become homeless and then criminalized poverty to force people into plantation work or prison labor." like the plantation industries are central (entangled with every commodity and every infrastructure project) and their directors are influencing each other despite spatial distance between London and the Caribbean and the Philippines.

and so the same few dozen administrators and companies and institutions keep making appearances everywhere, like they have outsized influence in history. like they are important nodes in a network. and they all cite each other, and write letters to each other, and send plant collection gifts to each other, and attend each other's lectures, and inspire other companies and colonial powers to adapt their policies/techniques. not to over-simplify, but sometimes it's like the same prominent people, and a few key well-placed connections and enablers in research institutions or infrastructure companies. they're prison wardens and lietuenant governors and medical doctors and engineers and military commanders and botanists and bankers, and they all co-ordinate these multi-faceted plans to dispossess the locals, build the roads, occupy the local government, co-erce the labour, tend the plants, ship the products.

so you'll be reading the story of like a decade in British Singapore and you're like "oh, i bet that one ambitious British surgeon who is into 'economics' and is obsessed with tigers and has the big nutmeg garden in his backyard is gonna show up again" and sure enough he does. but also sometimes you're reading about another situation halfway across the planet and then they surprise you (because so many of them are wealthy and influential and friends with each other) and it'll be like "oh you're reading about a British officer displacing local people to construct a new building in Nigeria? surprise cameo! he just got a letter from the dude at the university back in London or the agriculturalist in Jamaica or the urban planner from Bombay, they all went to school together and they're also all investors in the same rubber plantation in Malaya". so you'll see repeated references to the same names like "the British governor of Bengal" or "[a financial institution or bank from Paris or New York City]" or "[a specific colonial doctor/laboratory that does unethical experiments or eugenics stuff]" or "lead tropical agriculture adviser to [major corporation]" or "the United Fruit Company" and it's like "not you again"

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pazzesco · 7 months

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~ Helen Keller ~

Helen Keller (colorized)

Miss Helen Keller - Portrait US Library of Congress

Helen Keller was an author, lecturer, suffragists and crusader for the handicapped. Born in Tuscumbia, Alabama, She lost her sight and hearing at the age of nineteen months to an illness now believed to have been scarlet fever. Five years later, on the advice of Alexander Graham Bell, her parents applied to the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Boston for a teacher, and from that school hired Anne Mansfield Sullivan.

Keller (left) with Anne Sullivan vacationing on Cape Cod in July 1888

Through Sullivan’s extraordinary instruction, the little girl learned to understand and communicate with the world around her. She went on to acquire an excellent education and to become an important influence on the treatment of the blind and deaf.

Helen Keller in 1899 with lifelong companion and teacher Anne Sullivan. Photo taken by Alexander Graham Bell at his School of Vocal Physiology and Mechanics of Speech.

Her unprecedented accomplishments in overcoming her disabilities made her a celebrity at an early age; at twelve she published an autobiographical sketch in the Youth’s Companion, and during her junior year at Radcliffe, she produced her first book, The Story of My Life, still in print in over fifty languages.

Helen Keller �� Groundbreaking Girls

Painting of Keller's colorized portrait by Wayne Pascall

Her friendship with Mark Twain

"Helen Keller, Miss Sullivan, Mark Twain and Laurence Hutton."

“From that day until his death we were friends,” Keller recalled later. She was already a fan of his work and thrilled to his deep voice and his many hand gestures, which she followed with her own fingertips. She wrote of him:

"He entered into my limited world with enthusiasm just as he might have explored Mars. Blindness was an adventure that kindled his curiosity. He treated me not as a freak, but as a handicapped woman seeking a way to circumvent extraordinary difficulties. There was something of divine apprehension in this rare naturalness towards those who differ from others in external circumstances."

Helen Keller with Mark Twain - Twain came to Keller’s defense, after reading in her book about a plagiarism scandal that occurred in 1892 when, at only twelve years old, she was accused of lifting her short story “The Frost King” from Margaret Canby’s “Frost Fairies.” Though a tribunal acquitted Keller of the charges, the incident still pissed off Twain. The letter is attached to the photo above

Letters between Mark Twain and Helen Keller.

Though Helen hailed from a respectable Southern family, 19th-century America was flummoxed by the prospect of teaching a deaf-blind girl to talk, read, and learn. Helen’s tutor and governess, Annie Sullivan, fought for her admission to various schools that offered special education. But the cost of educating someone like Helen was high. Clemens wrote to a rich friend on her behalf:

"It won’t do for America to allow this marvelous child to retire from her studies because of poverty. If she can go on with them she will make a fame that will endure in history for centuries. Along her special illness she is the most extraordinary product of all the ages…lay siege to your husband & get him to interest himself and Messrs. John D. & William Rockefeller & the other Standard Oil chiefs in Helen’s case; get them to subscribe an annual aggregate of six or seven hundred or a thousand dollars- & agree to continue this for three or four years, until she has completed her college course…."

Thanks to his intervention, the support of his friend Henry Rogers and Standard Oil, Helen was able to complete her education and graduate cum laude from Harvard’s Radcliffe College. Clemens and Keller remained friends for the rest of his life. They shared an interest in radical politics and a love for life despite their different temperaments. Helen, an avowed optimist, often made fun of Clemens for his avowed pessimism, telling him she didn’t believe a word of his sardonic jokes. As for Clemens, Chambliss writes that he felt she was one of the most important historical figures of all time, “the most wondrous person of her sex that has existed on this earth since Joan of Arc.”

Keller, Sullivan, Twain, & Sullivan’s husband John Macy above at Twain’s home

We also have Twain—not playwright William Gibson—to thank for the “miracle worker” title given to Keller’s teacher, Anne Sullivan. As a tribute to Sullivan for her tireless work with Keller, he presented her with a postcard that read, “To Mrs. John Sullivan Macy with warm regard & with limitless admiration of the wonders she has performed as a ‘miracle-worker.’” In his 1903 letter to Keller, he called Sullivan “your other half… for it took the pair of you to make complete and perfect whole.”

Twain was especially impressed by Keller’s autobiography, writing to her, “I am charmed with your book—enchanted.” (See his endorsement in a 1903 advertisement, above.)

Keller & Clemens also shared a love of dogs

Helen Keller with her dog Sir Thomas.

Helen Keller seated on a window bench with an arm around her dog Sieglinde.

Helen Keller seated on a bench indoors, possibly in the photographer's studio wth a dog seated on the ground beside her.

Helen Keller seated on a slatted bench in front of a Farm House in 1935 with her dogs Dileas, on her lap, Maida beside her & Golden.

Helen Keller teaching a girl sign language.

Widely honored throughout the world and invited to the White House by every U.S. president from Grover Cleveland to Lyndon B. Johnson, Keller altered the world’s perception of the capacities of the handicapped. More than any act in her long life, her courage, intelligence, and dedication combined to make her a symbol of the triumph of the human spirit over adversity.

Helen Keller - 1880-1968

Helen Keller Archive

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blueiskewl · 7 months

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Why These Imperfect Korean ‘Moon Jars’ Sell for Millions

Old, round, imperfect and beautiful — that’s how fans of Korean art describe the moon jar, or “dalhangari.”

These unassuming, plain white pots have entranced everyone from rapper RM, of K-pop sensation BTS, to philosopher Alain de Botton.

The former director of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, Beth McKillop, has called the moon jar an “icon of Korean identity.” And if price is any indicator of popularity, one recently sold for over $4.5 million at a Christie’s auction.

This month, a rare example from the late 17th or early 18th century will go on sale at Sotheby’s in New York, where it’s expected to fetch more than $3 million.

“A large moon jar has always been expensive, but I think the big uptick in prices and value is… because their appeal is now global,” said Angela McAteer, Sotheby’s international head of Chinese art for the Americas and Europe, over video call. “You’ve got an international cohort of bidders competing for them, so it’s gone beyond the traditional connoisseur collecting community of Korean art.”

Huge price tags also result from the jars’ rarity. Although made for over a century in the royal kilns of Korea’s last kingdom, the Joseon dynasty, few are thought to exist today. Estimates for the number of larger ones (those more than 40 centimeters, or 15.7 inches, tall and wide) that have survived over the years range from 12 to 30.

Having passed through auction houses and antique dealers across the world, several of these are now in the collections of institutions like the British Museum and Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, as well as in the hands of private collectors.

‘Owning a piece of happiness’

The first moon jars were created in the royal kilns in Gwangju (a city just outside Seoul, not the larger southern city of the same name) from 1650 to 1750. They were made from pure white porcelain and kaolin clay, and, following the neo-Confucian fashions of their day, the pots reflected values such as propriety, humility, frugality and purity. They were likely used at court and in upper-class homes as containers for food and liquids, or as decorative vessels.

In the mid-20th century, moon jars began gaining international appreciation thanks to influential admirers such as Japanese folk crafts scholar Yanagi Soetsu and British potter Bernard Leach, who bought one from a Seoul antique store in 1935. Leach once said that having a moon jar was like “owning a piece of happiness,” and would later give his to fellow potter Lucie Rie for safekeeping during World War II. It stayed in her studio until her death and was later acquired by the British Museum.

Charlotte Horlyck, lecturer in Korean Art History at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, wrote in the Art Bulletin journal that after World War II the moon jar “caught the attention of an early generation of postcolonial Korean artists and scholars who sought to restore Korean art history and national identity,” as the pieces “resonated with the visual language of international modernism and minimalism of the mid-20th century while remaining a distinctly Korean work of art.”

The moon jar’s allure

When Sotheby’s announced its forthcoming sale, the auction house described its 44-centimeter (17.3-inch) moon jar as an object that inspired, astounded and soothed those who “stand in its presence.” It’s a funny thing to say about a pot, to speak as if it’s alive, but the jars’ visceral, emotional impact on people is something that comes up time and time again in the literature.

Choi Sunu, a former director of the National Museum of Korea, has described the museum’s moon jars as being like companions, or muses that have inspired his writing and stirred his creativity. Bernard Leach admired the pots for their “natural unselfconsciousness.” In 2012, South Korea’s then-Unification Minister Yu Woo-ik used the pot as a metaphor symbolizing a reunified Korean peninsula (moon jars are created in two hemispherical pieces and joined in the middle).

More recently the rapper RM, of K-pop group BTS, posted a picture of himself hugging a modern-day moon jar on Twitter, telling fans that the pots made him feel calm.

“It’s hard for someone to really comprehend how a pot can make you feel that way,” said McAteer. “It has this real meditative presence. If you’ve sat in front of a great (painting by US artist, Mark) Rothko and you feel this kind of palpable energy emanate from it, and you could sit for hours and just feel something in its presence — the moon jar has that too.”

“The more you look at it, the more there is to see. It looks different from every angle,” she added. “We had real issues with the photography and the catalog because it looks like a different piece every time you rotate it, or you change the lighting. The surface is just alive, you know.”

“You can see how the glaze coalesces; you see these spontaneous bursts of this blush color that’s happening in the firing. You can lose yourself in its surface.”

Modern masters

Modern Korean potters have been inspired by the jars, and a number have come up with their own homages. Ceramist Kim Syyong covers his pots with a black glaze, while Yun Ju Cheol’s versions look spikier like a pufferfish and Choi Bo Ram’s unvarnished, textured blue vases have a denim-like quality.

Others, like Kwon Dae Sup, have looked to closely recreate the process used by the potters of yore. The 71-year-old ceramist produces unadorned white jars and allows for all the beautiful imperfections produced to shine through. He works out of a studio in Gwangju, where the royal kilns that produced moon jars were once located.

There’s a great deal of preparation that goes into making a moon jar traditionally. It’s labor-intensive: washing, sifting impurities from the clay, kneading and rolling it to remove air bubbles, carrying around these large hunks, not to mention hand throwing the clay itself to that oversized bowl shape without collapsing, and the work keeping a pine wood fire burning for 24 hours while the pot hardens in the kiln. Kwon also built his own kiln to replicate the old process as closely as possible.

“I do this because it’s fun,” he said in a phone interview. “Every time I make something, it’s novel … The quality of the material is different every time. The conditions in which I make the pots is new every time.”

Kwon said he also feels an emotional connection to the moon jar. As a student he was so moved by a one he saw in a Korean antique store that he decided they would be his life’s work. “They feel alive,” he said.

In a 2019 book on his work by Axel Vervoodt Gallery the potter is quoted saying he tries to produce art that needs no addition or subtraction. “I wish to create work that has an imposing presence but harmonizes with its surroundings regardless of where and when it is displayed. It should give peace of mind and a sense of comfort to all who look at it.”

By Christy Choi.

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bestiarium · 1 year

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The Stronsay Beast [modern cryptid; globster]

In September of 1808, a strange marine creature washed ashore on a beach of Stronsay in the Scottish Orkney Islands (at the time, the island was called Stronsa). It resembled no known animal, having six arms, paws or wings, which were about 4.5 feet (1.4m) long and resembled plucked goose wings. When the news reached universities and scientific institutions, anatomists were called upon to visit the carcass and find out what kind of animal it was. Unfortunately, by the time these scientific men reached the ‘Stronsay Beast’ – as people had taken to calling it – the corpse was decomposed and weathered beyond repair. Few biological traits remained recognizable, so eyewitnesses were called upon to describe what the creature had looked like.

According to these eyewitness reports, the creature was about 55 feet (16.8m) long when it washed ashore and had a long and thin neck. At the end of the tail was something resembling an ear.

Scientists were puzzled, and some were of the opinion that this creature must have been a sea serpent, whose existence was considered plausible by many at the time. Spearheading them was John Barclay, a respected professor in anatomy at Edinburgh University who adamantly claimed that the carcass was the first solid evidence of the existence of giant sea serpents. His opinion was opposed by Everard Home, sergeant-surgeon and lecturer in surgery and anatomy at London’s Royal College of Surgeons. He did not believe in great sea snakes and claimed that the ‘beast’ was simply the torn and shredded carcass of a basking shark. He dismissed the eyewitnesses as unscientific and relied only on the shape of the bones that were found within the corpse.

During the discussions on the nature of the beast, reverend Donald Maclean entered the stage and claimed to have seen the creature alive in June, several months before it washed ashore, near the coast of the island Coll. The reverend claimed that the creature had a small neck with a broad, somewhat oval-shaped head that looked at his ship. Alarmed by the approaching animal, the boat was steered towards the shore. Eventually, the water became too shallow for the large creature and it returned to the open waters. The reverend also estimated that the creature was about 70 to 80 feet long (21 to 24m), which is much larger than the corpse on the beach. Additionally, he claimed to have questioned the crews of several fishing vessels that supposedly also encountered the creature. According to these reports, the monster had a head as big as a small boat with big eyes as large as plates. Although it looked terrifying, the creature did not attack.

Eventually, belief in the existence of giant sea snakes died out (at least within the scientific community) and Barclay’s conclusion was no longer taken seriously. Today, biologists agree with Home that the creature must have been a dead basking shark, or rather the damaged remains of one.

Source: Jenkins, B., 2022, The ‘Stronsay Beast’: testimony, evidence and authority in early nineteenth-century natural history, The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science, 0, published online. (image source 1: MechaDaveO on Deviantart) (image 2: Home’s drawing of a basking shark compared to a reconstruction of the Stronsay Beast based on eyewitness reports, on the same scale. Image source: Phil. Trans. R. Society of London, 99, 206-220 (1809).)

#cryptids #urban legends #aquatic creatures #monsters #mythical creatures

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avelera · 1 month

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So I was re-reading my Amnesiac!Nicky/Joe from the Old Guard fic, Lights Out, as I try to polish off the last chapter while the inspiration is still with me (like...4 years late, I am so sorry orz) and for the record I listened to so many historical lectures to write this fic like, dear lord, basically took online lecture courses on Middle Eastern history, which is was almost entirely new to me, on Islam, on the Crusades, just... so many lectures on the Crusades. It basically sparked an actual interest in me in the Medieval Era ( was an ancients-only girly before that and really didn't see the appeal), because actually if Nicky was from Genoa in 100 CE it would have been easier to write him than 1100 CE because the mindsets are just so foreign in that time.

So anyway, since then I've continued listening to lectures, definitely picked up a bunch while writing Dreamling stuff because hey, I'm a slut for immortals and I always use the hyperfixation to delve into new historical eras. And sure, in the years since with all the new lectures I've listened to, going back to re-read Lights Out has revealed some things I would have done a bit differently, some ways I might have better portrayed a Medieval mindset in Nicky than what I did, but for the most part, they were gratifyingly minor!

Until I listened to a lecture on Catholic history and realized the single biggest historical error in the entire fucking fic.

See, I was raised Catholic, got out literally as soon as possible, but I have an enduring interest in the Catholic Church and its history as an institution. So while writing Lights Out, brushing up on Catholic Church history besides the Crusades didn't really feel like a priority. I already knew a fair amount and from personal experience felt I could at least fake the perspective of a devout Catholic.

But there was one thing, one fucking thing I got entirely wrong and only learned it in the last week, after spending literal decades of my life studying European history.

I said that Nicky went to seminary school, that he fully became a priest and then was defrocked in order to go back to Genoa to be his father's heir after his elder brothers died of a fever. I was trying to reconcile the historically impossible idea floated in some Old Guard behind the scenes stuff that Nicky could be both a priest and a Crusader, because priests were actually forbidden from fighting in the Crusades.

But here's the thing: there were no seminary schools for priests until the 1500s.

Like, it was actually kind of a big deal and credited with one of the reasons that Protestants broke away was that there were so many shitty priests because no one was actually forced to even learn all that much about the Bible or the faith at all!

This blew my mind. I thought that priests got some sort of training and had some sort of school system going all the way back to early church but apparently I was completely wrong.

Probably the more accurate thing would be to say Nicky was in a monastery and got training there and was forced to leave.

But the whole idea I had around him having actually completed some sort of training before being yanked back to secular life? Completely anachronistic for another 500 years argghhh....

#lights out #tog fic

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pianonoita · 3 months

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Help preserve the teaching of ancient material culture at the University of Helsinki!

If you're a student, a researcher or a teacher of Latin, Greek, or classical archaeology, or just generally interested in classics, this is for you!

University of Helsinki is planning to disband the teaching of Ancient Culture, starting from the summer of 2024. This includes the subjects of Greek and Roman archaeology and material culture of the ancient world; a discipline previously known as classical archaeology. The signatories of this petition demand that the regular contact teaching of Ancient Culture or classical archaeology will continue at the University of Helsinki, and this way in Finland. The optimal solution to this would be the re-opening of the position of university lecturer of classical archaeology, and selecting a new lecturer to this position. This way the continuation of teaching will be ensured in a discipline that ultimately is one of the cornerstones of European civilisation.

The teaching of material cultures of the ancient world supports the studies of philology, other humanistic disciplines, and the understanding of European history of civilisation and cultural heritage. Competent teaching has been a requirement for the high-profile projects taking place at the University of Helsinki, and the research at Finnish Institutes in Rome, Athens, and Middle East. The experts of the field have made it possible to organise various popular exhibitions that have brought research of antiquity and its legacy into the knowledge of larger audiences.

The teaching of classical archaeology first began in Finland in the 1780s. At the University of Helsinki, the basic studies (15 study points) have been available for students since the early 1980s, and the intermediate studies (30 study points) since the early 1990s. After the discontinuation of the lectureship of classical archaeology in Oulu, the University of Helsinki offered regular contact teaching of classical archaeology as the only instance in the country between 2014-2018. Until 2018, classical archaeology also had the status of an independent discipline. Since then, teaching has been organised with multiple projects from different disciplines, and students have been able to complete two study modules of 15 and 30 study points, or 3-6 courses respectively.

Now the university plans to disband the teaching and discontinue the study modules. The courses have been extremely popular among the students. The arguments used in support of not opening the position of lecturer of classical archaeology in 2018 included the excellent resources of the discipline in relation to number of students. Now the decision to discontinue the teaching is supported by claims that the discipline is unable to provide a long-term solution to the unstable teaching situation, and students do not complete the entire study modules, only isolated courses. Re-opening the position of lecturer of classical archaeology is the only long-term solution that benefits both students and the university; it secures competent teaching, enables the completion of study modules, and brings stability to the uncertain situation that has lasted for years.

By discontinuing the teaching of ancient material culture and disbanding the study modules, the University of Helsinki debases both teaching and research, and erodes its own status as a European elite university that regards sophistication and civilisation as its key values. This decision will drive away both students and international experts, as well as funding for research projects. By opening the position of lecturer of classical archaeology and selecting a new lecturer to this position, University of Helsinki can ensure the continuation of expertise appreciated in the academic world, in Finland, and in the international arenas.

More information on the history of teaching ancient material culture and classical archaeology in Finland: http://www.taidehistorianseura.fi/tiedotteet/taidehistoriallisia-tutkimuksia-50/

Statement by the student organisation of Ancient Languages and Cultures, Symposion ry: https://rostrasymposion.wixsite.com/rostra/post/symposion-ry-n-kannanotto-antiikin-kulttuurin-opetuksen-puolesta

Please consider signing the petition and spread the word! This would be a huge tragedy for the teaching of classical philology and archaeology in Finland! The decision is not yet final, so we still have a chance to make a difference!

The petition site is unfortunately only in Finnish. The site will ask your name and email address to sign the petition, but you can choose not to share your name publicly. Your email address will not be published anywhere. You can also leave your own comments.

Thank you so much for helping! <3

-Sofia, the chair of Symposion, student organisation of classics at the University of Helsinki

#classics #history #ancient history #ancient rome #ancient greece #classical philology #classical archaeology #classical studies #suomi #helsingin yliopisto #university of helsinki #archaeology

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mariacallous · 1 month

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A few weeks ago, a Russian autocrat addressed millions of Western citizens in a propaganda event that would have been unthinkable a generation ago—yet is so normal today as to be almost unremarkable. Tucker Carlson’s interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin has now been viewed more than 120 million times on YouTube and X, formerly known as Twitter. Despite the tedium of Putin’s two-hour-long lecture about an imaginary Russian and Ukrainian history, the streaming and promotion of the interview by Western platforms is only the latest successful foray in Russia’s information war against the West, which Moscow is showing every sign of winning. And in this war, the Kremlin is not just weaponizing social media, but relying on Westerners themselves to spread its messages far and wide.

A decade into Russia’s all-out information war, the social media companies seem to have forgotten their promises to act after the 2016 U.S. presidential election interference scandal, when Russian-sponsored posts reached 126 million Americans on Facebook alone. Policymakers not only seem oblivious to the full breadth and scope of Russia’s information war, but fears about stifling freedom of speech and contributing to political polarization have led them and the social media companies to largely refrain from any action to stop Russia’s ongoing campaign.

This inaction comes amid growing signs of Russian influence operations that have deeply penetrated Western politics and society. Dozens—if not hundreds or more—of Russian agents have been observed everywhere from English towns to Canadian universities. Many of these agents are low-level and appear to achieve little individually, but occasionally they penetrate institutions, companies, and governments. Meanwhile, a flood of money props up Moscow’s ambitions, including hundreds of millions of dollars the Kremlin is pouring into influencing elections, with some of that money covertly (and overtly) funneled to political parties and individual politicians. For many decades, Western societies have been deluged with every sort of influence imaginable.

While there have been some countermeasures since the start of Russia’s latest war—including the United States and European Union shutting off access to Russian media networks such as RT and Sputnik in early 2022—these small, ineffective steps are the equivalent of information war virtue signaling. They do not fundamentally change Western governments’ lack of any coherent approach to the many vectors of Russian disinformation and hybrid warfare. At the very moment when Kremlin narratives on social media are beginning to seriously undermine support for Ukraine, Western governments’ handle on the disinformation crisis seems to be getting weaker by the day.

For Putin’s Russia, “information-psychological warfare”—as a Russian military textbook calls it—is intended to “erode the morale and psychological spirit” of an enemy population. A central aspect of a wider war against the West, it is conducted online through relentless barrages of fake, real, and misrepresented news, through a cultivated network of witting and unwitting shills such as Carlson. The Kremlin’s messaging has an extraordinary reach: In the first year of the Ukraine war alone, posts by Kremlin-linked accounts were viewed at least 16 billion times by Westerners. Every one of those views is part of a full-spectrum attack against the West designed not just to undermine support for Ukraine, but to actively damage Western democratic systems.

Moscow launches its attacks using a playbook familiar to anyone who watched the disinformation campaigns linked to the 2014 invasion of Crimea and the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Bots, trolls, targeted ad campaigns, fake news organizations, and doppelganger accounts of real Western politicians and pundits spread stories concocted in Moscow—or in St. Petersburg, where then-Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin ran an army of trolls posting on Western social media. If the specific technologies are new, Russia’s strategy of information warfare is not. During World War II, Soviet propagandist Ilya Ehrenburg memorably described the pen as “a weapon made not for anthologies, but for war.” From the early Bolshevik era to the end of the Cold War, his peers spent decades spreading disinformation abroad in hopes that countries targeted by Russia would be unable to “defend … themselves, their family, their community, and their country,” as Soviet journalist turned defector Yuri Bezmenov put it.

What is undoubtedly new is a polarized Western public’s enthusiasm for re-centering its own identity around Moscow’s narratives—and becoming an unwitting weapon in the information war. Take, for example, the QAnon movement, whose supporters have long gathered critical energy from talking points supplied and amplified by Moscow through social media. QAnon supporters espouse a range of grievances familiar from Russian propaganda: anti-LGBTQ+, anti-liberal, and especially anti-Ukraine sentiments. QAnon channels on the messaging app Telegram, for example, rapidly turned into fora for anti-Ukraine and pro-war sentiment.

While ordinary users are certain that they are merely speaking their minds, a domestic policy issue has ultimately turned into a vehicle for Moscow to exert influence over national security decisions. QAnon support has spread from the United States to countries across the West—and each group of adherents, regardless of location and platform, seems to espouse the same pro-Putin sentiments and the same skepticism about providing support for Ukraine.

Such phenomena are all too familiar, whether they relate to the U.S. presidential election influence scandal, to the constant reiteration of Moscow’s talking points about NATO, or to the web of useful idiots—from quasi-journalists to rappers—who seem to function as mouthpieces for the Kremlin by consistently spreading favorable narratives under the guise of asking questions or presenting two sides of a story.

Moscow also exploits non-Western networks, such as Telegram and TikTok, to its own advantage. Today, 14 percent of adult Americans regularly consume news from Chinese-owned TikTok, where thousands of fake accounts spread Russian talking points—and where Russian propagandists can count hundreds of thousands of followers. TikTok has occasionally revealed Russian bot networks, but its efforts to stop the spread of Kremlin-aligned content have been lackluster and ineffective. Millions of Americans hoover up material created by Moscow’s propagandists, bonding with influencers and other users who also share this material, constantly propagating Moscow’s viewpoint on Ukraine. TikTok’s unwillingness to cooperate on countering such disinformation has left U.S. lawmakers with little choice but to mull an outright ban of the network—and even then, that would largely be over China-related concerns, not because lawmakers recognize the crucial role TikTok plays for the Kremlin.

Even where they ostensibly have more control, U.S. policymakers have been unwilling to do much to stem the tide of pro-Russian propaganda. Since Elon Musk took over Twitter and renamed it X, the network has all but openly welcomed Russian influence campaigns onto its servers. The platform even hosts Kremlin-aligned neo-fascists such as Alexander Dugin, who uses it to spread his apocalyptic vision of the war in Ukraine to his 180,000 followers, including via discussion spaces in English. Hundreds of accounts—many belonging to ordinary Westerners—boost Dugin’s reach (and that of similar figures) by following him as well as liking or commenting on posts. X’s streaming and promotion of the Carlson interview and Musk’s own echoing of Russian talking points—such as highly specific claims about Ukraine using phrasing normally employed only by Russian officials—have come in for heavy criticism. But just as damaging are the smaller communities created around figures such as Dugin, where Western users do much to spread an anti-Ukraine message.

As we enter the third year of Russia’s attempt to conquer Ukraine, it has become apparent that the Kremlin’s information war is fully integrated into the military one. Some of that is aimed at Ukraine, with Russian disinformation campaigns attempting to sow distrust in the country’s political and military leadership. But for the Kremlin, the information war against the West is key. That’s because Putin’s theory of victory in Ukraine runs through Western capitals: If Western support can be undermined over time, Kyiv will lack the weapons and resources to keep fighting. The war over Western opinion is therefore at least as existential for Putin as the fight on the ground in Ukraine.

Yet despite abundant examples of Russian narratives showing up in Western debates, there is almost no serious discussion within governments or among the public about how to end Russia’s information war on the West. Many in the West worry that interfering online will lead them down the slippery slope of repressing free speech. Perhaps they cannot see the conceptual link between information war and military war—and refuse to recognize that the West is already at war with Russia, even if that war is not a military one.

If anything, there are signs that governments are taking Russia’s influence campaigns less seriously today than in the past. The British government first stymied the release of a damning report on Russian interference in British politics—and once the report was released, it did little to act on the findings. In Washington, the Biden administration is scaling back its efforts to head off Russian disinformation. Flummoxed by a barrage of criticism reflecting freedom of speech concerns, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security shuttered its Disinformation Governance Board in August 2022, even as Americans were being barraged by an unprecedented wave of pro-war and anti-Ukraine propaganda on social media. Since then, the U.S. State Department’s parsimonious funding has chiefly gone to small-scale nongovernmental organizations offering fact-checking and disinformation tracking services—a drop in the bucket at best.

When Western governments do address foreign hybrid threats, such as cybersecurity and election interference, they are increasingly focused on China. And invariably, they still identify such threats merely as “influence” or “interference,” rather than as part of a larger, concerted military effort. Their responses thus mistakenly circumscribe Russia’s hybrid warfare as a discrete, restricted, and targeted policy of disruption. In reality, it is an ongoing, fluid, and broad phenomenon that invites continued violence.

Any Western vision for future peace in Ukraine—and any discussion of a return to business as usual with Russia—must be paired with restrictions on Russian interference and influence in Western daily life. Ukraine, which has been actively battling Russian influence as part of its war against Moscow since 2014, has already developed approaches from which the West could learn.

First, Ukraine has taken to heart that “information is a weapon that Russia is using against the West,” as Ihor Solovey, head of Ukraine’s Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security, put it to Foreign Policy. The West, too, must reframe Russia’s disinformation campaigns and other influence activities in the language of war. Academics arrested in Norway and Estonia, Western politicians serving Kremlin-controlled companies, and fake Facebook groups all function—for Moscow—as part of the same military spectrum that includes soldiers and tanks. When an agent or influence operation is uncovered—such as the German Wirecard executive exposed as a Russian spy—politicians should be clear in stating that the West is under attack from Russia.

Second, Western policymakers must act in concert—forming a coalition analogous to the Ramstein group that coordinates military aid to Ukraine—to pass laws and take other measures to ensure that Russia is not able to feed its information directly to Western citizens through social media. Although citizens should be free to discuss any stories they like, enemy combatants should not have the right to free speech in the West. That means that figures such as ultranationalist Dugin should not be welcome on Western social media. The platforms should be threatened with paralyzing penalties for allowing Moscow’s propaganda to spread.

The U.S. State Department’s recently released framework for combatting disinformation falls far short in this regard. When Moscow is already fighting its hybrid war deep inside Western societies, restricting Moscow’s access to social media portals is an urgent and essential act of national defense. The time for vague plans, investigations, and reports is over. It is time to use the West’s superior technical capacity to ensure that no Russian bots, trolls, or fake accounts are able to access X, Facebook, and other platforms again.

Finally, Western governments must move beyond ineffective fact-checking to embark on a mass program of civic education through schools, universities, and public advertising. Such a program should relentlessly emphasize the threat that Russia’s influence poses, clearly label it as an ongoing war, and give the public tools for understanding and countering Russian attacks in their varied forms. A recent Canadian government campaign was a good start, but framed disinformation as a vague threat that “hides well”—rather than exposing it as the tool of a foreign government attacking Western societies. Ukraine’s program of anti-disinformation education has proved robust and could serve as a model.

Of course, some Western citizens could still choose to access Russian propaganda through non-Western services, such as Telegram and TikTok. A truly bold government would respond to the Russian threat not just defensively but in kind—for instance, by flooding pro-Russian channels on Telegram with Western messaging and establishing other channels that subtly spread anti-Russian narratives.

When Russia invaded Crimea in 2014, the Kremlin spent millions of dollars on trolls to spread its messaging online. For Putin, the money was well spent. Since then, Russia’s approach has been constantly refined, reaching deeply into electoral processes and public debates—ultimately affecting decisions about how and whether to aid Ukraine. Yet Western policymakers are still letting themselves be caught on the back foot, because they either do not or will not confront the reality that the Kremlin is waging a war on the West in which all citizens are already a part. Resolving this problem will require bold and potentially unpopular action.

As artificial intelligence and other technologies make the dissemination of messaging to Western audiences ever easier—and as the tide appears to be turning in Moscow’s favor on the battlefield in Ukraine—it is time for Western governments to act. Otherwise, Moscow will win not only a military war in Ukraine but a hybrid one all across the West.

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twisted-wonderland-shenanigans · 2 years

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This maybe a lil crack

But what if

Yuu was in history class learning about human that used to roam the world and their relic that was left from that era, opening the text book Yuu saw one of the example of the relic and was shock that they can read the relic (maybe its in a language that they know or it just suddely dechiper by them self who knows )

Yuu saw how the description of the relic translated was wrong like, they think its about how the human live back then, but no it was more of a diary or a poem for an unrequited love. And there was Yuu confused and amused at the same time.

This can go two ways

Yuu would tell them the truth, like a good person they are

Be lil demon and just snickers to them self leaving the rest of their classmate and teacher confused on whats going on and why is Yuu laughing, when the teacher ask what so funny they would say "nothing, nothing at all, sir/mam" and grinning at them with an amuse look

*slaps table excitedly* Yeeee!! Yes, yes, yes, yessssss! Thank you for reminding me of that one early Owl House episode where Luz was able to show how human things actually worked/verified the authenticity of the fake human items!

I’m also reminded of these two posts I found before where tools were found but no one knew or had any clue as to what they were for (one believed that the discovered tool was used to tell time or something) while the other was a bone tool…and it turned out that the bone tool is one still used to this day in leatherworking because “they simply hadn’t found anything that works better” and the other a little old lady explained that the “time calendar” tool was actually something still used…to knit the fingers of gloves!

It really goes to show that it pays to ask around, and you might just learn something new that’s actually not so new. :V

Now as for Yuu in this situation… >v> Before I go into this though, I will point out that–based on what’s been hinted at in the Twisted Wonderland novel–there’s a spell around the school that translates spoken language (and I’m assuming written language, though don’t quote me on that). If that’s the case, let’s imagine that the languages that humans spoke in Twisted Wonderland evolved into an entirely new series of dialects and accents. There would still be similar languages (let’s say French, which I find interesting considering we hear and see Rook clearly speak French words yet–if the translation spell really is there–it doesn’t completely translate everything and means there might be some limitations to the magic itself.

This means though that Yuu–if they speak French or hear any other similar language–might be able to communicate somewhat easily enough, give or take some dialect differences. In some cases though, a common human language could be considered a dead language in Twisted Wonderland!

Ahem…sorry for the rambles, I just love worldbuilding and theorizing about how things work in stories. XD With that out of the way…>w>

////—----------////

Setting: Magical History class, 3rd year/junior class

On the way to class one day, Yuu and Grim were stopped by Crowley to deliver a message to Professor Trein as he was on his way to yet another meeting with the research institutions to discuss some new studies they wished to conduct (after all, Crowley is technically their guardian, and Yuu is under the school’s guardianship during their stay in Twisted Wonderland). Given it was PE that they were heading to next, Grim readily agreed before Yuu could even respond.

It was a surprise for the third years to see the resident human enter the classroom in the middle of a lecture, the professor pausing long enough to accept the message with a nod. In the process of writing a hall pass for Yuu and Grim though, one of the students called out, “Hey, teach! Let’s see if Yuu recognises any of the human artifacts in the lesson!”

“...artifacts?” Yuu repeated, looking at Trein in confusion.

While he normally would have scolded the student for such an outburst, however, it was a shock to see him actually agree. “It would be interesting to see if we can learn something about human history from a true human,” he’d said, passing the book over to Yuu.

Leaning in their seats, the other students watched as Yuu scanned the images, noting which ones looked similar to things from their world and what they didn’t recognize. With each one that was explained, the students would do a double take and wonder, “Wow…how did historians get that so wrong?” or “Huh…well they came pretty close!” Even the professor was invested, listening curiously–and some thought they saw the excited swish of a tail under his robes, though no one dared point this out or the fun would end quickly! Before they knew it, class was progressing so fast that they were left with only a few minutes before the bell rang.

Just as Yuu was getting ready to hand the book back to the professor, they stopped and stared at one photo with a frown that slowly morphed into surprise, shock, then–

“Pfft…hahahahahahHA!!!!!” they cackled loudly, the sudden sound startling everyone–including Grim and Lucius–as the human hunched over in laughter. At one point they barely managed to get the book back on the desk before crumpling to the floor, clutching their sides as they continued their laughing fit.

“Yuu? What’s wrong??” Trey, one of the students in the class, asked in concern.

Eventually Yuu’s laughter calmed into giggles and snickers, barely keeping their composure as they pulled themselves up off the floor yet still grinning. When they’d managed to speak, what they said threw them for a loop: “That picture with the tablet,” they said, a slight wheeze in their voice as they struggled not to burst into another fit of laughter. “It’s…pfft!...it’s…someone’s diary!”

“EH?!?!”

“D-Diary?!”

As it turned out, the diary entry spoke of a young human girl from the ancient times, and how she would play pranks on her older brother with her friend “Lily” the bat monster whenever he would visit town.

“Oh my!” Lilia chuckled in amusement. “It’s been ages…I wonder if she ever asked out that boy she liked?” He got more than one baffled stare, but Lilia simply smiled and shrugged.

In the end, it wound up being an entertaining lesson for the third years, and when word got back to the researchers? Yuu would find themselves looking into other ancient artifacts and explaining what they did know and translating what they could.

At least it beat getting chased around by Coach Vargas that day on the track!

The way Yuu would respond depends on you, but I couldn't help but fiddle with this idea 😂

#twisted wonderland #twst #twisted wonderland monster au #twst monster au #trey clover #twisted wonderland Yuu #twst Yuu

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