#but they're all nerds

[lesbiantoaster]

Modern (Academic) AU - Nevermore

This modern AU is my extension of modern AU headcanon* where Lenore and Annabel are PhD students in rival research groups at the university of two rival faculties (Physics and Mathematics) that need to share a building because of low funding. Since PhD school is kinda like purgatory on its own so it's quite a fitting setup imo.

>> Lenore's a physicist (specialization: Particle Physics and Programming), while Annabel's a mathematician (specialization: Statistics and Algorithms)

>> They met just before the start of the PhD programs while volunteering as counsellors at a summer science camp organized by their university for high school students

>> They shared a room and bonded over the excitement of beginning the PhD programs, their academic interests, their love for games etc. But it wasn't long before their relationship evolved into something more and soon after they started dating

>> Lenore's style could be described as edgy/rebel but started to dress smarter (like a nice shirt and pants and sometimes a tie too) for the job, while Annabel's is more preppy with floral accents and always wears a small raven-shaped necklace Lenore's got her for their second date

>> Since starting dating Annabel, Lenore started incorporating floral motives into her wardrobe as well (like floral patterned shirts, ties, socks etc.)

>> Lenore's out and proud but her parents disowned her at the beginning of her studies. Luckily she has some rich grandma/grandpa who could financially support her. Her older brother Theo used to be in the same PhD program but before graduation, he disappeared.

>> Annabel is still in the closet.

>> They're both super talented and are soon deemed rising stars of their departments

>> In Lenore's team there are also four other PhD students: Duke, Berenice, Eulalie and Pluto, and they all share the same workroom at the University

>> Duke is Lenore's closest friend; their desks are next to each other and they hit the gym together on a regular basis

>> Annabel's team consists of another PhD student Prospero (who is this stereotype of math purist that looks down on other fields because "Mathematics is the purest form of science" 🤢) and Will, annoying secretary Ada who thinks she's better because she's working at university (she handles the documents and other papers for real scientist but she still thinks she's the next Marie Skłodowska-Curie). There's also a postdoc Monty, who no one likes and no one is sure who hired him (he's a little shady). There's also a Master's degree student Morella (who did her Bachelor's degree at the Faculty of Physics -and she knows the gang from Lenore's group - but switched for Master to Mathematics)

>> Both of their groups research quantum computing but because of the lack of funding they have to fight with each other for the money and rivalry evolves into people despising each other

>> The Deans don't want to do anything with that because they find this whole drama entertaining.

>> Both girls want to go to the same Institute in Europe for their postdocs so Annabel comes up with a plan to get them both jobs at that Institute that includes them pretending to hate each other

>> Everyone knows about the beef of unknown origin between the two most promising PhD candidates

>> Lenore is that kind of TA that gives off an "older sibling"/"cool uncle"/"bad boi" vibe, she rides a cool motorbike every day and the students simply adore her! Some even have an obvious crush on her and try to flirt with her but Lenore is really awkward and such a simp for Annabel lee she interprets it as them being nice/buttering her up for a better grade

>> Annabel on the other hand is pretty much a "ice queen" of the department she's respected for her work but also people low-key (high-key) fear her. She also (but you didn't hear it from me) tends to go harder on students she knows who tried to hit on her pet. But you can't prove her anything.

>> Once a week Lenore has the whole work room for herself and that's when Annabel sneaks out for lunch dates with her gf to talk about each other's day, hold hands and steal a kiss or two

>> However one day Eulalie almost walks in on them but Annabel quickly dived under Lenore's desk. Lenore tried to act normal while Eulalie was looking on her own desk for some papers she forgot earlier.

"You must be really hungry today, Lenore." Said Eulalie.

"Wha- Why would you think that???" All but shouted flustered Lenore.

"Because you're eating chocolate pancakes AND a chicken sandwich" Eulalie pointed to the two meals on Lenore's desk "Weird combination if you ask me... But if you like eating that way I guess that works too." then she leaves.

>> Both Annabel and Lenore are gamers but of a different kind. Annabel loves every strategy game and streams her gameplay in her free time. She is also an international champion in online chess. She and Lenore often play chess together but Annabel always wins. They make a deal that if Lenore would ever win against Annabel the loser will grant a winner one wish.

>> Lenore on the other hand loves tabletop games - especially RPGs. And she DMs a homebrew D&D campaign for the gang + Morella.

>> (Of course when Lenore asked the gang to name their D&D party they chose "Misfits")

>> Lenore feels guilty for lying to her friends and tells Annabel so, to which her gf responds by hugging her and saying something like "I'm sorry, pet, I know it's hard for you but it has to be done... Our future dream jobs depend on it. We are doing this for us and after all... they still are our competition on the job market... no matter how much we might like them or not."

>> After the first year they move in together into the small apartment

>> And they have these cute moments like cooking together, making lunches for one another, Annabel helping Lenore to tie a tie in the morning, Lenore giving Annabel massages when she comes back home all sore after a whole day walking in heels, both girls pulling all-nighter grading students' tests or doing some studying themselves and taking turns making coffee, etc.

>> Now that Lenore's got her own place she hosts most of the D&D sessions for the gang (to not raise any suspicions).

>> Before every session the girls need to clean their apartment of any evidence of their relationship and when the gang comes over Annabel stays in her streaming room playing games/doing some work. Lenore tells her friends that she has this weirdo-roommate that almost never leaves their room and they're better not to be bothered with.

>> All this work, however, goes in vain, when Pluto unexpectedly comes over to Lenore's flat to ask for help with some work before his first conference. To make things worse the girls were expecting the delivery guy to bring them their food that evening. Imagine Pluto's surprise when the person who opened the door was no other but the Ice Queen herself wearing sports shorts and a worn-me-down t-shirt and behind her Lenore was sitting on a sofa.

>> After a while girls manage to calm hyperventilating Pluto down, they ask him to keep it a secret. Pluto wasn't too keen on lying but Annabel managed to persuade him not to tell anyone. He agreed but only if Lenore will come clean about her and Annabel lee relationship.

>> So before the next session Lenore finally tells the rest of the gang the truth. There's feeling of betrayal, some tears and lots of shouting because they (especially Duke) are hurt that Lenore has lied to them.

>> There's some drama and silence treatment towards Lenore for a couple of weeks but it made everyone even more miserable so they eventually all reconcile.

>> At first the gang remains sceptic towards Annabel lee but after some time they welcome her to the group. She occasionally joins them for D&D sessions or board game nights (when everyone fights to be with her in the same team because Annabel gets really competitive and her team always wins no matter the game).

>> Annabel finally has a support system she so needed in her life and that's so wholesome

>> Annabel and Lenore's third anniversary was at the same time as a conference in Cambridge both girls were selected to represent their teams on

>> During free time Annabel took Lenore on a walk around Trinity Colledge (the place where Isaac Newton - a great mathematician and physicist - studied) and proposed to Lenore there (she of course said "yes")

>> Later on that day Lenore asked Annabel to play chess with her to which Annabel gladly agreed

>> Lenore wins

>> Annabel asks "Very well done, pet. I'm impressed with your strategy. So what do you wish for?" Lenore takes Annabel's hand and looks her straight in the eyes and answers with a sly grin slowly forming on her face "For the Queen's hand in marriage" She pulls the ring box with her other hand "... if she agrees, of course". Annabel almost leaps over the table with the chess board to kiss her soon-to-be-wife.

The end.

It was in my head for a while and I wanted to share it somewhere. I just thought what if instead of repressed Victorians they all were just giant nerds and this is a result of my thinking.

*inspired by this post by @incorrect-nevermore and @spoopy-nevermore-dump (so thank you, guys! I had lots of fun making this shit up XD)

Bonus:

>> Lenore's supervisor is an older detached from reality professor who can't for the life of his remember the names of his assistants, so he calls Lenore "Lenny", Duke "David/Damian", Eulalie "Eugene", Berenice "Veronica" and Pluto "Matthew" (for some unknown reason). At first, the gang was annoyed by it but it quickly transformed into an inside joke between the misfits and they even have each other's contacts saved under those names.

[hubedihubbe]

I've been dabbling in cartoon rodents, maybe some of you will enjoy them too!

[hydrachea]

Oh yeah, the polycule is poly-ing.

[findmeinthefallair]

I love The Owl House for many reasons, one of them being the references scattered throughout the episodes

[puppetmaster13u]

Meme Prompts 14

[bluastro-yellow]

Kurvitz stresses that Kim doesn't actually have a character sheet hidden in Disco Elysium's code. Imagining that Lieutenant Kitsuragi has only one natural attribute point in Motorics helps the ZA/UM team to understand the depth of his character beyond what's referenced in the game's dialogue. "We just came up with this stuff for coherency," says Kurvitz. "And because we're nerds."

"I like to think Kim has a Thought Cabinet project called Revolutionary Aerostatic Brigades that he's worked on since he was a teenager," Kurvitz says. "This raises the learning caps for his Reaction Speed and Interfacing."

Kim's high Volition skill makes him impervious to prying, Kurvitz says, as the detective can find out on occasions being met with Kim's brick-wall resolve. Kim often chastises these whims of the detective's, but will occasionally play along. The Lieutenant finds his new partner funny, says Kurvitz.

Kim is naturally shit at Motorics and thinks Harry is funny source

[kaiserouo]

Well someone has to give it its driver updates, Gabriel

[zivazivc]

I saw like two people compliment my fem Casey design and I immediately drew this. The power of tags lol

[fanvoidkeith]

sometimes family is a regular man, his surprisingly smart (and capricious) cat, his phoenix husband, the antichrist, an amorphous slime boy, a nature sprite, a gnome, a wyvern, a shapeshifter, a yeti, a much older and more powerful nature sprite, and her girlfriend the mayor

[dovewingkinnie]

when the hero is more deranged than the loser villain

[sirgawainofgalifrey]

The REAL reason Les Mis is a great book is because it has the duality of you being able to randomly open it to any page and find the most beautiful-soul-crushing-poetic-timeless-eye-opening sentence ever

but also Victor Hugo consciously chose to make every single character is the lamest most socially inept mess and awkward crazy dork you've ever seen and it's great.

[utilitycaster]

this may seem needlessly finicky but I do actually believe it's important: calling Verin a himbo is just one of many examples where like, one of the cast says something off the cuff and it's not exactly the right word or it is highly contextual, and that is fine because no one is perfect especially in improv, but then it gets repeated ad infinitum within the fandom when it never really fit in the first place. We have Verin's stats and he's decently more intelligent than average with a 13 (smarter than most of Bells Hells for one; as smart as Pike); it's just he's the guy with a bachelor's degree with good grades followed by military service in a family where everyone has two PhDs - Matt said "himbo of the family" the way in a family where most people are exceptionally tall you'd call the 5'11" child the short one. In Call of the Netherdeep he appears as thoughtful and competent and promoted to a difficult position at a very young age, and in the campaign his appearance is simultaneously as a leader of troops in a dangerous mission, and someone who cares enough about poetry from a completely foreign and distant culture to have tried to learn more about it. I'm sorry, but if you're using the word "himbo" I don't think you're processing a thing about the character yourself; you're just the latest repetition in a game of telephone that's been going on since mid-2021.

And that's not deeply bad on the surface, and I'm using Verin not because he is the character most wronged by this sort of thing but because he's recent and it's really clear where the word came from and that it's not a good assessment, but something I happen to have a decent knack for is pattern recognition in language. I usually find it really easy to pick up on when someone's plagiarized because of the language and pattern shifts. I tend to remember urls and out of place words well. So I do tend to notice when everyone suddenly starts using a single turn of phrase and I tend to flag it. Sometimes that's not bad; sometimes it means everyone came to a similar conclusion and that's the best way to express that conclusion. But like, when Taliesin called the Yios episode a gas-leak episode and the entire fandom started parroting it? The line "bone-dry takes"? The fact that a lot of ship defenses I see were phrased precisely as "I have eyes"? without actually talking about the ship itself? the fact that I've seen a spike in the use of the term "ontologically evil" including in myself and not all uses are actually correct? And extending this beyond strictly language but consider any headcanon with minimal textual support that catches like wildfire (sidebar: remember how we make, or made fun of the SPREAD THIS LIKE WILDFIRE tendency on Tumblr a decade ago? same concept of repetition of a specific turn of phrase without internalizing) all sort of ping this.

And it's fine, truly, to come to fandom and turn off your brain. I know this will sound sarcastic from me, and that's because I don't personally agree, but I do strongly agree that you can do what you want in fandom and you don't have to listen to my opinions so in the end, yeah, it's fine because I am not the arbiter of "fine". But I think critical thought is a vital exercise and I think precision with language is part of it and so if you find yourself using the same exact words and thoughts as everyone else, that should, ideally, trigger a process of "but are these the right words? what do I see when I see this character and how would I describe them? do I agree with this assessment?" Fandom is an interesting and easier microcosm than reality in which to start doing that.

[captainhysunstuff]

22 more images (with some saucy shenanigans and immature "seduction" tactics towards the end) below the cut:

Ryuk makes his grand return and is brought up to speed with Light and L's immoral union. The date seems pretty successful~.

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Transcript

[seizethedeansofproduction]

they're like the Beatles for people obsessed with one specific aspect of pop culture

[lilithofpenandbook]

Imagine the Marauders all being like "Oh potions is SO easy for us, no difficulty whatsoever, tests are nothing"

And then one day they get a test, and Severus is always one of the first to look at the test, and he just stares at it. He looks it up down. Looks at Slughorn. Looks at the paper. His lips form one single word: shite.

The Marauders have never been so scared of a piece of paper their entire lives as they wait for it to come

[juustozzi]

break trio coffee headcanons (because why not):

Kidou kinda gets deeper into hand-brewing, quite to the nerd depths but instead of making it his personality he just enjoys the meticulous preparation process. he probably has an app to follow the flow rate... and of course he has a chemex. in two sizes, most likely. he still does drink all kinds of coffee, but only in the morning, to not overcaffeinate.

Endou doesn't really drink coffee but he likes sweet coffee drinks and coffee flavored things. he has the adhd brain where caffeine makes him sleepy, so he doesn't really get people who use it to energize.

Gouenji doesn't like the coffee flavor that much, and prefers energy drinks for caffeine boost. though, he's the kind of guy who takes a cup if everyone else's having, more for the social experience than the drink itself. I think he enjoys chai a lot more.