#these history hyperfixations better last me at least through college | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

allysah · 2 months

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list 5 topics you could talk about for an hour without preparing any material (i have reason to yap now).

james “jimmy” stewart.

jimmy is just like. that guy for me. i could probably go on an hours long tirade about him, his films, his characters, his relationships, his military experience, his ptsd, his politics, etc. without interruption. right now i'm specifically thinking of his relationship with henry fonda (who deserves his own honorable mention) which OH MY GOD is one of the best hollywood friendships to date. orson welles said they were either having the hottest affair in hollywood or were the straightest men alive. he realized they were the latter... anyways that leads me into:

old/classic hollywood + its underground queer scene and the hays code.

first of all just old hollywood in general i can go hours and hours about because i just love so many of the actors and actresses. leslie howard and gregory peck are other honorable mentions in that category. however, the queer folks will always be my favorite <3 people like farley granger and marlene dietrich come to mind as well as cary grant and his biwife energy. but just all of the queer undertones from then i just appreciate so, so much. also the HAYS CODE... when i get you... i've seen so many pre-code movies which are just incredible and whenever they put that damn code in place everything got boring... unless they fixed the subtext so then you have films like rope (1948) which is such a good gay film like wtf?? old hollywood is a gem and if you avoid black + white movies or just older movies in general you SUCK!!

franklin expedition.

i've written academic essays about this damn expedition and i had no sources at all. just my mind and a dream. for two years my only thoughts for a future career was becoming a franklin expedition researcher who worked in the arctic. of course that's not gonna work?? okay but these dumb mfers were some of my favorite people on this earth like COMMANDER JAMES FITZJAMES was a real person who walked this earth and i never even got close to touching him. this is sickening. captain francis crozier is ALIVE and WELL on king william island you just cannot see him. i think i will genuinely throw up if they ever find crozier's captain log on the hms terror. the desolation and sickness is just like. eye clawingly scary and i could never fathom what truly went down on that island. i feel so so bad for the cold boys and i love them so, so much.

fallout lore

here’s where i start geekin about shit. FALLOUT IS SO FUCKING GOOD I DONT CARE WHAT ANYONE SAYS. 3, 4 and new vegas are top tier games (yes nostalgia is clouding my head but idc) i also love 1 and 2 but genuinely cannot play a turn based game like that. okay but the entire plot of new vegas is such a top tier storyline and it’s just such a fun silly game and is like made perfectly for gay trans autistic people i love it. 4 is just The Game you play it doesn’t matter you just end up there and it’s always fun idc what the haters say PRESTON GARVEY MINUTEMEN #1!!! 3 is there. BUT ITS SO BAD ITS GOOD LIKE COME ON ITS ALMOST ENDEARING GOING BACK IN THOSE SUBWAY TUNNELS AND GETTING LOST FOR 30 MINUTES!! these games are the only reason i know the layouts of nevada, washington, d.c., and boston. thank you for the geography lesson AND the history lesson fallout. i love you.

civil war politics and battles

ok this is my latest fixation and one that came out of ABSOLUTELY no where. i literally told myself years ago to never become a civil war buff because it's so stupid and only old men like it but here we are. i for real blame this on david straithairn's portrayal of william h seward because otherwise i would NOT care (sorry ddl, i love you still). also atun-shei films and his humongous catalogue of videos. but oh my godddd i'm so obsessed with these annoying fuckers i hate them ALL. lincoln and seward are just an absolute class-act together and whenever i watched gettysburg (1993) it was just over for me. jeff daniels and c thomas howell when I CATCH YOU (I Want You)!!! it's just all so interesting i love seeing how these men ticked. it's like a zoo exhibition but with random dead racist white guys. (i also had like a 5 minute discussion about lincoln being racist today after i gave a book talk on team of rivals in my college comp. absolute all-timer)

HONORABLE MENTIONS!!!

rms titanic. film in general (i have memorized a shit load of the letterboxd catalogue and I WILL not shut up about my favorite films and directors). classic literature. us presidents. history in general. musical theatre. how arthur morgan is the best fictional character ever written period.

TAGGED BY: @rmstitanics (THANK YOU FOR LETTING ME YAP AND BASICALLY JUST RANT. SORRY!)

TAGGING: @brainandnarfunkel + no one in particular, but know if you see this i want you to… and i know you want to yap as well… :)

#me #thank u callie i had to air out the vibe i’m giving for this blog #these history hyperfixations better last me at least through college #if not my whole career (becoming a teacher)#just like my pa….

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auntiebioticslab · 5 years

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I didn’t get any asks for this but that’s okay because unfortunately I am WELL capable of infodumping without anyone’s permission. so here’s the unplanned variable ask meme by @outervvorlds

read mores do not work on mobile because tumblr is garbage from a toilet and my computer is currently on a UPS truck to California. I am so sorry.

Basics! Name, age, personality, etc. What do they look like? Are they a new or old oc?

Her name is Rocket Alexandria Hawthorne! Formerly Rachel Holloway back on Earth but I’ll get to the reason for the name change.

She’s extremely vague about her age (her go-tos are “older than you” and “over a hundred” which are both technically true due to the “being on ice” thing) but she can pass for anywhere between 30 and 50 appearance-wise and the timeline of her Earth memories pretty reliably pegs her as late 30s-early 40s.

She’s a really effortlessly confident and funny person, which is the main reason she could probably talk her way out of her own execution. Also because I have a disease that makes me project my brain shit onto every oc I have she’s prone to hyperfixating due to an Unclear But Definitely Present Brain Thing so she knows a lot of things about a lot of things. Also she’d never openly admit it but she’s a sucker for romantic things and definitely cries at weddings.

This is her:

Her mom was Pakistani and her father was Black but she usually just says she’s from Baltimore.

What are their attributes, perks, and flaws?

She’s got high charm and intelligence, average strength and temperament, and good everything else.

I got her up to level 30 my last play through, do not make me list all her perks. Most of them this go-round so far are buffs to vendor prices and boosts to movement speed.

She has weakness to both plasma and physical damage!

What do they believe in?

Religiously, she’s agnostic but she kind of likes the notion of Philosophism. Morally, she believes that there’s no reason for people to pointlessly suffer just so someone at the top can hoard money, and also that the colony would be better off if Byzantium suddenly burned to the ground.

...she did not burn Byzantium to the ground, don’t worry.

How did they react to becoming Captain of the Unreliable? Are they much of a leader?

She always kind of wanted to be a cool spacefarer, but she hoped it would be under different circumstances. She told ADA that the real Hawthorne was killed by marauders, offered the poor bastard some dignity in death.

She is a pretty effective leader but that’s because she doesn’t really see herself as one? The crew aren’t subordinate to her, they’re her friends.

What was their life like before being iced?

It was boring! She was stuck in a shitty line cook job which wasn’t terrible but also felt like a waste of her education, and she was barely scraping by anyway. That’s why she applied for the Hope initiative.

Did they have any family before becoming Captain? Do they think their crew as family?

Obviously she had parents growing up; they werent as present as they’d have liked to be because Work but she never once felt like they didn’t care for her. They didn’t live to see their daughter off when she boarded the Hope, but that was because of natural causes.

She also had four older brothers! Darren, Brice, Gene, and Andre. She was closest to Andre because the age difference between them was only a year. He’s actually the one who gave her the nickname “Rocket” in the first place; when they were kids they would pretend to be space explorers and their pretend names were Astro and Rocket.

None of her brothers were on the Hope. Darren actually was doing pretty well for himself in a low-level government job and didn’t feel the need to leave the planet, Brice didn’t want to uproot his wife and kids, Gene, well...she still has no idea what Gene was up to when she boarded the Hope because he took a job in another country and lost contact with his siblings years prior. Andre had been dead for years, unfortunately, having died in a work accident a week before Rocket was due to graduate college.

It still nags at her that while she can at least assume all her other brothers died peacefully and surrounded by loved ones, she knows EXACTLY what horrible thing happened to Andre.

As for the current crew, ohhh yeah, they are definitely her family. She cried when Felix said “I’ve got a family” to Clyde.

What’s their fighting style? Who do they bring along?

Ironically for a timeline where Roosevelt was never president, she does practice big stick diplomacy. Well, it’s usually small stick diplomacy because she prefers one handed melee, but still. If she can avoid direct conflict (through stealth or negotiation) she prefers to. The only exception was Tartarus.

There’s no real rhyme or reason to who she has in her party because from a Me As The Player standpoint I just go with whoever gives me boosts to the stats I need for the quest I’m doing. Which, in practice, usually ends up being Parvati and Felix because of that sweet sweet Persuasion buff.

Is Spacer’s Choice their only choice? What do they think of the corporations?

She is...not a fan of the amount of power they have. Spacer’s Choice in particular has a special place in hell as far as she’s concerned. If you held a gun to her head and asked her to pick a favorite...she’d probably ask you to just shoot her. Or she’d choose Auntie Cleo’s because their jingle is the least annoying.

What do they think of the factions? Are they liked or disliked by any?

Rocket has to make an actual effort to get on someone’s bad side so she’s in pretty good standing with most of the major factions. She made an effort with the Board, though 😁

For her part, she’s especially fond of the folks on the Groundbreaker.

What’s their favourite place in Halcyon? Least favourite?

She likes the scenery on Terra 2 and the people on the Groundbreaker, but as corny as it sounds her favorite place in Halcyon is the Unreliable. It’s home to her, and it’ll stay that way forever.

She doesn’t hate Edgewater per se but being there fills her with rage because of how...indicative it is of the way the rest of the colony is being run.

Do they have a favourite alien creature?

She definitely has never done extensive research on the care and feeding of leather boas because she hyperfixated on the idea of getting one as a pet before realizing that recreating the necessary habitat conditions on the Unreliable was impossible, or at least way too expensive.

No, I’m not projecting the amount of times I have done something similar for bearded dragons.

Did they save The Hope?

FUCK yeah she did.

What do they want to do afterwards? - but do they get a happy ending?

She finally gets some use out of her degree; she’s qualified to be a food scientist, like a real actual food scientist, and that’s probably what Halcyon needs more than anything.

Considering a few other things that happen in the epilogue, she doesn’t get a perfect end. But it’s enough.

What do they think of the companions? Friendships, crushes, dislikes, etc.

She immediately thought “now I’M the big sister” after recruiting Parvati and Felix, so there’s that. Probably accidentally called each of them by the name of one of her brothers a few times. Convincing Ellie that she actually cares about her as a person is her white whale of sorts, and she empathizes a lot with Nyoka given her own history of loss. Logically she realizes that Max is a fellow capital-A Adult but also she feels like she’s holding the leash on a feral dog whenever he’s with her. She likes to tell SAM he’s doing a good job.

How do the companion quests go?

Golden ends across the board, babey. I’ve never been one to half-ass shenanigans.

What’s their love language?

Gifts and acts of service!!! She always tries to play it cool until she’s ready to admit her feelings though, so there’s a lot of pretending she just HAPPENED to find this thing she damn near tore the planet apart looking for.

Also she especially likes to flirt by cooking. Even back on Earth she got into a fair few relationships by being like “hey neighbor, I underestimated how much this recipe makes, interested in taking some leftovers off my hands? ;)” when she knew damn well how much the recipe made and doubled it so she had an excuse to see her cute neighbor.

Are they in a relationship? Do they want to be?

She has a crush on a certain rogue scientist, and unfortunately for her it is such an intense crush that she actually gets tongue-tied around him sometimes, which isn’t something she’s used to and that stresses her out a LOT.

Damn now I want to write an immediately-post-game-but-WAY-pre-epilogue fic with the crew trying to get them together so they don’t have to listen to Rocket blasting classical music and frustratedly screaming into a pillow every time she leaves his lab.

How to win them over?

She likes to look into someone’s eyes and see a fire, you know? I mean this in both a platonic and romantic sense—if someone is downtrodden but still determined, she probably at least respects them.

Also if someone she has feelings for does some kind of tender touch thing like brushing her hair behind her ear she McDies. Just completely short circuits. Cannot handle it.

How to break their heart?

If she found out someone important to her was using her or going behind her back it would destroy her. Unwilling betrayals as a result of being under duress are one thing, but deliberate, calculated manipulation? That’s her absolute worst nightmare.

How did those cows get onto their ship??

She wanted to try making homemade cheese and didn’t trust the bottled milk to actually be from a cow after what she learned about the saltuna cannery in Edgewater.

Ok technically she just agreed to deliver the cows to a facility on Terra 2 after the actual ship carrying them had engine troubles on Groundbreaker but she liberated some of the milk while in transit. Not like they’d notice.

A song that reminds you of them,

Sucker Punch by Die Mannequin!

Three random facts about them.

She got that burn scar during her time on Earth. Be careful with hot liquids, kids.

She’s tall—like, 6’5” tall. People who don’t receive proper nourishment don’t get very tall so she towers over most of Halcyon.

After the events of Don’t Bite The Sun she went back to Stellar Bay and told Raymond “I’ll teach you my recipe for breded cystipig chops with mock applesauce if you’ll teach me how to make that casserole”. Good trade for both parties.

#oc: rocket #the outer worlds #yes im tagging it it took forever!!!#basically the moral of the story is #that my only two methods of characterizing are ‘project’ and ‘give them a job’#which i think works effectively #long post #food ment #death ment

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