#Quote from an Email

[stories-me]

Potential Character for Mrs. Kelsey and Tumblr 10/22/2024:

Klaus Baudelaire, Scholarly Orphan:

What he’s from: “A Series of Unfortunate Events.”

Personality:

Klaus is extremely intelligent for someone a little older than twelve years old (at the beginning of the series). A running gag in the series is someone explaining what a word means, and he replying “I/We know what [Word] means.”

Klaus is acknowledged as the reader and researcher of his siblings. He is a bibliophile and loves nothing more than to read a good book. Having read more books than most people do in a lifetime, Klaus thrives off reading and would want no more than a good book, a comfy chair, and the warm glow of a reading lamp. He is known to have read a good deal of the Baudelaire’s private library before it was destroyed in the terrible fire in which the children’s parents both perished. He also reads whatever he can anywhere else including the remains of the V.F.D Library, Josephine Anwhistle’s grammar library, Dr. Montgomery Montgomery’s reptile library, Charles’ library, etc.

Klaus is always there to help his sisters with most words and phrases they do not understand and has a photographic memory, being able to remember many things he reads. This has helped the Baudelaire orphans immensely on various occasions. Klaus believed all his life that if you read enough books, you could solve any problem (something which the Baudelaires’ friend Quigley Quagmire agrees about), although after living with Count Olaf, he is no longer so sure about this.

Despite being knowledgeable, Klaus does not already know all things in all fields. For example, in The Bad Beginning, he doesn’t know what Molotov cocktails are. In The Ersatz Elevator, he doesn’t know what “xenophobe” means, so Jerome Squalor explains it.

Herman Melville is one of his favorite authors, and he particularly enjoys “the way Melville dramatizes the plight of overlooked people, such as poor sailors or exploited youngsters, through his strange, often experimental philosophical prose.” which is basically what A Series of Unfortunate Events is. He also admires Hammurabi. His least favorite poet is Edgar Guest, saying, “he was a writer of limited skill, who wrote awkward, tedious poetry on hopelessly sentimental topics.”

While generally polite and well-mannered like Violet, Klaus has a tendency to correct people when they are wrong, which can make him seem like a rude and annoying know-it-all at times. For example, he can’t help but correct someone who claims an eagle is a mammal instead of a bird. In the TV show, when someone says, “You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar”, Klaus replies, “Actually, you’ll catch the most flies with manure.” However, Klaus does not do this because he is trying to be elitist or condescending, but rather, he cares a lot about accurate information because he feels true knowledge can empower people and make the world a better place. He can also be rude in other ways. For example, in the The Reptile Room: Part One, he snaps at both Violet and the Broken-Hearted Crocodile.

While Violet tries to be hopeful and optimistic, Klaus seems to have a bit of a pessimistic side, especially his film version who shoves Captain Sham to the floor. He is often shown complaining and venting about his situations.

How he is like me:

We both are intelligent, are sometimes frustrated by life, and want to help others. Also, we both like to read, hate injustice, and have a form of support system (like my family, friends, etc., and his sisters). I mostly want to help some of my peers in Inspire do things correctly (or, at least, not bother me), but they can be very frustrating sometimes. Recently, though, I found out something. Here it is, straight from the email my parents got (and sent to me):

One of our staff (Britney) was leading a group about kindness and empathy. She went around the group and complemented each client individually, then had them take turns choosing a friend and saying something nice about them. One of the clients made a comment that “you are all my friends and I care about all of you.” Britney asked Michael how it makes him feel to know that the peer considers him a friend. He said “I did not know that. It makes me uncomfortable to be honest. Because most often, I’m frustrated with everyone.” He said he feels embarrassed. 

The peer responded “It’s okay. I know you don’t mean things you say. You’re still my friend, Michael.” He was tearing up and wiped his eyes. It was a very sweet moment and I think something he needed to hear. I just wanted to share. It was such a genuine moment for both of them. I love that Michael can be honest and vulnerable – knowing how he feels helps us address those feelings in a way where we can try to build him up. He’s got a lot of goodness in his heart.

Kelsey Notes:

Sometimes we have to refrain from wanting to correct others and just let them have their thoughts about something for the sake of a social situation/ conversation.

Sometimes, correcting someone in the middle of a sentence ends up stopping the natural flow of the conversation-

this can cause people to lose their train of thought and eventually just give up what they intended to talk about

Wanting to correct others can give them the wrong impression of you- that you are more concerned with things being “right’ instead of just engaging in a conversation

It can be conflicting when you are around others who do “annoying things” but you overall don’t dislike who they are

It can be hard to be patient when we are overly fixated on something that bothers us

Sometimes fixating on minor annoyances can be an opportunity to avoid real conversations

          i.e. it might come more naturally for us to get frustrated rather than ignore minor annoyances and maintain attention to a task or conversation happening around you

it is difficult to always think about things to talk about to make small talk with others. 

It can be easier to talk about what’s frustrating you rather than try to change the subject

          You can’t really initiate a change in subject if you don’t know what to talk about

[soracities]

Mohja Kahf, from "Men Kill Me", E-mails from Scheherazad

[thebeigelunatics]

this quote by eve best from an article in the standard (2017) is doing a lot for me tbh.

[barksbog]

so so so badly i want something similar to one of your fire drake plushes. when you open commissions again, what are your ideals for references in order to make a modified version of it?

the firedrakes are a special case because they are based on my lovely friends project @draconesmundi. So any design heavily inspired by hers would need an approval from her personally first!

otherwise if you´re just looking for a chunky dragon with a similar shape feel free to use any photos on my website as reference. easiest for commissions is a clean sideview + maybe a top and bottom view. If you want me to directly base it on a certain pattern you can absolutely trace over my plush photos for commission refs aswell. just credit me if you post the ref anywhere!

here is the concept art for the fire drake plushies for example (sketch by me, colouring and overall creature design by @draconesmundi)

-

my comissions do include a concept stage tho. so even less specific refs are absolutely fine. I will basically supply you a sketch of the plush in my style with design notes and we can work through any changes and ideas before i actually start work on the plush!

[tj-crochets]

this poll brought to you by a text I got from one of the other [my job title]'s contractors while I'm covering for him being gone. The contractor texted me "The answer is as always [his name] [his company ID number]" To which I could only say "what was the question?"

[kaidanalenkosprmanager]

THE BEST OF SHENKO 1/?

The end of the world has a way of reminding you of all the things you forgot to say do. Mass Effect: Legendary Edition (2021)

[ukulelekatie]

no offense but if we're gonna train search engines to assume humans are stupid and constantly making typos, we NEED to stop naming companies things that look like typos of regular words

[batjpeg]

some people are just terminally stupid

[yesterdayiwrote]

For someone who's so thoughtful when he speaks, Lewis really does still give some absolutely terrible quotes when he's talking to journalists...

[spirngakawening]

Something something proximity/touch/space & wanting & perspective

Chase Petra - In an Emergency Such as the End of the World

Leo Tolstoy - War and Peace: Book 4, Part 4, Chapter 12

half•alive - still feel.

War and Peace 4.4.12

Louie Zong - Asymptotic

Nerdy Prudes Must Die - Just For Once

Into the Woods - Agony

War and Peace 4.4.12

The Hush Sound - Sweet Tangerine

War and Peace 4.4.13

half•alive - still feel.

Spring Awakening - The Guilty Ones

[charlotterenaissance]

yay one of my neighbor's fifteen loose dogs bit me, animal services won't do anything, and despite cops constantly and i do mean constantly driving up and down my street because of a stupid highway that goes right through my neighborhood not one of them has done anything about it! which means if i want to go on a walk i have to cross two lanes of a busy road to get to another street just to avoid dog bite 2: this time i'm taking the leg off because no one will do anything about the fifteen loose dogs! 🥴

[bibleofficial]

it needs to become acceptable to end emails w ‘please kill yourself. thank you, [name]’

[pureanonofficial]

Richard Burton said of his reading, “I have banged along so quickly because I am so nervous. In the recent production with Peter O’Toole at the Old Vic, they played the full four-hour text. Since there are no cabs outside the Vic in the late evening, a Londoner without a private car has to catch the 11:20 underground or he’ll spend the night with friends. According to O’Toole, the final scenes were played not in terms of Shakespeare but the subway. Actors simply used their lines to plead with the audience to remain. ‘Good night, sweet Prince’ was not a farewell to dying Hamlet but a sad good-by to departing patrons. As for Fortinbras, the people who saw the O’Toole production wouldn’t know him from the Second Gravedigger.”

— Letters from an Actor, William Redfield. Richard Burton on the troubles of shows with long run-times.

[themanwhowouldbefruit]

my doctor was sooooo fucking worthless and unhelpful im going to masturbate and i hope it fucking kills me

[penultimatestalematewithdeath]

tell me more about the development/ new clarity of lockwood’s character beyond the charisma & crushing!! like later in the series!! such an interesting train of thought you got there & i Need To Know More

Wait wait hold on let me grab my books because I could write an ESSAY on this!!

(this post turned out really long so i enabled keep reading lol. Tl;dr Lockwood and Lucy both grow a lot when Lucy is gone after THB and that absence fundamentally changes the way that the two interact for the rest of the series.)

kay, we have a distinct shifting in dynamic after the events of THB. Lucy leaving L&Co. and then returning fundamentally altered how they (Lockwood and Lucy) see each other and how they interact. We see Lockwood let Lucy in and be more obvious about his flirting, and we see Lucy start to actually allow herself to think romantic-adjacent thoughts towards Lockwood. Stroud (I think, someone check me on this) mentioned once how it took Lockwood to loose Lucy to really realize how much she meant; this is the moment where that happens. What really embodies this shift are the scene where Lucy leaves the company in THB compared to when Lockwood asks for her help in TCS.

In THB ch. 26 (pg. 372-374 in my version) we get Lucy leaving the team. Lockwood says two very important things here. "I'm surprised to hear that. I thought you and Holly -" is his classic deflection. Reading into it, one sees him knowing what's about to happen, and attempting to diffuse the situation by throwing Lucy's reasoning onto something he thinks he understands. She's leaving because of workplace spats; Holly's relationship with Lucy. Then we get "'Is that it?' Lockwood asked quietly. 'Is that really what this is all about?'" which is where we see him lashing out in a way. He's furious and doesn't know what to do with that emotion. He's been revealing more and more of himself to Lucy through this book, trusting her with his past, and now she's leaving? How dare she? Through this, Lucy doesn't describe what he looks like or what he's doing. She's avoiding him, ignoring him, ignoring any feelings she may have.

Then we get TCS and its only been four months but boy have things changed. Lucy describes his smile in ch. 5 (pg.51) as "warm but somehow hesitant, as if it hadn't been used recently. It was the smile I'd hazily imagined a hundred times; only now it was real, solid, meant just for me." And by god is that a LINE! And there's more quotes I'm not going to put here because this is already so long and then "Lockwood leaned forward, and I noticed a scar on the side of his neck - not large, but white and raised - one I'd never seen before" (pg. 59). And a bunch to read more into and then "I looked over at Lockwood as he sat shoulders-forward, head slightly bowed. He seemed more different than I'd ever seen him: not vulnerable, exactly, but certainly exposed." This whole scene is SO interesting in contrast to the last time we saw Lockwood! He's vulnerable, he clearly misses her, he (likely) is throwing himself Further into danger (see: scar) because she's gone! Its one of the times we see him fully stripped of his ego and charisma (there may be more in THB but I'm only starting my re-read of that now lol). He comes not as a boss, but as a friend, a fellow agent, an equal. Lockwood doesn't give her orders like he does in the earlier books. Things have Changed.

Then we get the first moment she meets the team as a whole again (around pg. 79) and she notices how Lockwood is "making more of an effort than usual" and she questions "For me? No. Penelope Fittes was far more likely." A moment where Lucy almost EXPLICITLY mentions wanting Lockwood to dress up for her? Unheard of before now! This is no longer an unconscious or avoided crush; she's got feelings and she's aware of them at this point.

And don't get me started on the scene with "'What the heck was that?' I said. 'The Shadow?' Lockwood glanced at me from under his bangs. 'Of course the Shadow ....' He shook his head" (pg. 326). I could say SO MUCH about those lines oh my god. The point here, though, is that it's a direct moment where Lockwood is CLEARLY being awkward because they just held hands, his feelings are obvious! He's not perfectly composed and charming! Lucy recognizes this enough to narrate it into the moment! They're awkward about it, and don't verbally communicate it, but they both recognize their own feelings in a way that isn't really seen before TCS!

TCS is also the point where Lockwood becomes Much more open about his past compared to TSS, TWS, and THB. Through Lucy's eyes, he becomes something more than just a charismatic boss who loves the spotlight. She sees his rough edges, his trauma, his flaws. She sees how broken he is, because he is offering the information willingly. We shift from blind admiration and oftentimes annoyance at his inability to open up to a knowing love that we readers love. Yes, Lockwood is still charismatic and Lucy is still crushing on him! But also! He's more human now! And Lucy is not just infatuated in a way she can easily ignore anymore.

Lockwood and Lucy both grow a lot when Lucy is gone after THB and that absence fundamentally changes the way that the two interact for the rest of the series. There's like, a bunch more I want to say and quote but like. This post is already super long so I think I'll leave it there.

[pynkhues]

dunno if you already saw, but here's the links yo Rolin and Mara's interviews for the gold derby panel. idk if it's only me but i love to hear Rolin talk about iwtv, he's do entertaining.

https://x.com/iwtv_updates/status/1856621918859808864?t=3uen93INoc2i7qs93FZN-A&s=19

https://x.com/iwtv_updates/status/1856588570879782944?t=gyDcR4pQGycbkvmt6a43uA&s=19

and I especially loved this part of Rolin's interview. that's a very solid advise imo.

Somebody sent me the link to the full interview on Wednesday, but I haven't had the chance to watch it yet (all of my jobs have been unexpectedly hectic this week!), so I really appreciate the little snippets, anon, thank you!

I love hearing Rolin talk about the show too - I actually really missed him on the little episode footnote videos with s2 - and you're right, that that is really good advice. As someone who semi-writes professionally, I lowkey think having a dumb, no stakes thing I can play around with creatively is why I write fanfic still, haha.