lmao god, english upper class people… I was reading Mathilda, and there’s all these monologues about the protagonist going insane from loneliness and not knowing how to act when she finally strikes up a friendship again; she has retired to a cottage in the woods and is essentially in hiding. All this time we’re given the impression that she is utterly alone in that cottage. Much woe about the completeness of her loneliness. and then.
what do you mean your servant …? in your cottage in the woods where you were so utterly alone? that one?
pt 2, this time Frankenstein by the same. Said Frankenstein is greatly relieved when he returns and the ‘apartment was empty’ because this means his monster has fled. but then
…did that servant materialise out of thin air to bring him food in his room. The place not actually empty, just empty of people of his own class. he just left the servant and his monster with each other while he was out.
Eventually the monster was like “well this is awkward. I’m out.” and the servant presumably just filed the encounter under “weird shit upper class people do” and went on with his life.
I remember taking this college elective on film adaptations and we talked about the controversy caused by the PBS adaptation of Emma, which made a point of putting servants in every. single. scene, confronting the audience with the reality that the main characters are surrounded by servants constantly and are choosing not to acknowledge their presence. Emma is consoling her “poor” friend Harriet over her misfortune and the entire time a servant is standing there silently brushing Emma’s hair or some shit.
Virtually every other adaptation of Emma does a very good job of invisiblizing the constant presence of the working class labor force that allowed these people to live the way they did.
A quote from Mary Shelley’s Mathilda: ’[…] arrived and quite incapable of taking off my wet clothes that clung about me. In the morning, on her return, [highlighted] my servant [end highlight] found me almost lifeless, while possessed by a high fever I was lying on the floor of my room.
A quote from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: […] hands for joy and ran down to Clerval. [highlighted] We ascended into my room, and the servant presently brought breakfast; [end highlight] but I was unable to contain myself. It was not joy only that possessed me; I felt my flesh tingle with excess of sensitiveness, and my pulse beat rapidly.]
FYI, Agatha Christie’s volunteer work during WWI was at a local hospital for service members. Eventually she trained as a dispenser (US term is generally pharmacy tech) and - gasp - put on the *payroll*!!
Her first book, The Mysterious Affair At Styles, used her pharmacy knowledge. Her favorite review of the book was from an industry journal.
In WWII, Christie updated her certification and worked in a hospital pharmacy near her apartment in London.
I love how the plot to the medical story is, itself, very redolent of a Christie novel. Poisoning! Scotland Yard! Convict-turned-forecsic-advisor! Van Gogh! Every plot twist truly worthy of a whodunnit.
straight people are so fascinating even when they aren’t actively trying to be homophobic. I had a class a few years ago where one assignment was to summarize some eighth century arabic poetry about going out for drinks with the lads before indulging in some gay sex and like half the class came in and said “I’m sorry idk what was happening in this one, they mention having sex with a servant but they also say the servant’s a man? where’d the woman come from? I’m so confused.” and a few days ago in a shakespeare class I made a comment about how cleopatra and octavius caesar are kind of parallel characters in possessively bartering for mark antony’s attention and one of my classmates responded as though I’d been talking about octavia and not caesar, despite the fact that I said “caesar” and “him” multiple times while describing the actions he specifically took. fully incapable of comprehending of anything that’s even a little bit gay.
This is all one take?? And they have MULTIPLE people as Robin Hood so that they can “cut” between them by spinning the camera??? Wow. That’s so complicated but super clever
I know everyone loves a good “Robert gets kidnapped and Z-team saves him” story (trust I have read every one on the market, they will never grow old to me)
But. Have we considered. Robert goes missing, everyone panics, does the whole nine yards of tracking him down. They finally figure out his location, and rush towards generic villian location of the week, busting down the doors and ready for a whole dramatic fight.
And Robert is just. Sat there. Covered in blood, but only like a third of it is actually his. He’s just casually tying up the villains, maybe pops a shoulder back into place. It’s super clear he WAS tortured, but he’s just. Chugging along.
Robert notices the team get there and is SO confused.
“…what are you all doing here?”
“We uh. We came to save you?”
“Oh. Well, as you can see, I’m fine.”
And then he forces them to help him with the paper work
You know technology literacy is dying because I saw this meme with 76k likes
F11 the full screen button? You’re scared of the full screen button? F10?? It opens the menu bar???
Computers are so scary what if I accidentally hit F12 in a steam game and it takes a screenshot. What if I press shift + F12 while in word and accidentally save my document 😖
If you had to learn what the F keys on your computer do through me reblogging this post, then I’m glad you did. Computer literacy is not a skill that gets taught anymore, and it is absolutely one that needs to be taught in order to be learned. Don’t ever feel bad for not knowing something, but ☝️ don’t ever stop learning learning about your environment, the tools you use, and especially the people around you
Never stop learning+ Never stop sharing what you learned
I wish that every person that hides their antiblackness behind faux antiracism is exposed for that 🙏🏾 I think there’s something particularly insulting about someone who uses the language meant to help to shield themselves from accountability. Feels particularly evil to me in a way being openly racist isn’t.
This is me when people try to use progressive anti racist terminology to explain why they dont like race swapped characters. Cause yes it would be cool.if these companies did something with their existing non white characters instead, but were not going to sit here and act like thats the real reason your upset about this race swap. Check the most recent version of wonder man from Marvel for example.
FAX NO PRINTER! “why don’t you do something with the Black characters that already exist?” Are YOU Doing anything with the Black characters that already exist 👀 since you think it matters so much 👀 where are the Black characters on your page? 👀 are YOU supporting Black creators with original Black characters 👀 or is it just classic “(‘White’ things) for White People Only” white supremacist rhetoric couched in “I’m not racist I’m just concerned” bc you know you’ll get called out if you say it so bluntly 👀👀
I feel like the only way people fall for that sort of rhetoric is if they, too, are unwilling to engage with their own potential bias.
And while I know I cited white supremacy (which to me is the core issue), trust I know it happens in nonblack circles too. The entirety of the Black anime cosplay conversation exists. It’s quite tired. Antiblackness is ubiquitous.
> pull out illustrated diagram explaining what is objects and what is gambling
> they laugh and say “it’s a good collectible sir”
> look up how to buy a collectible
> its gambling
> #wait are labubu’s blind bags?!
Labubus are blind bags but they’re also blind bags with some of the most insane dark patterns stacked on top. The online store for them has a thing where they tell you what you got the second you order it online so that you can immediately try again if you didn’t get the thing you wanted.
There’s also a shake feature that is designed to encourage you to buy more than one by narrowing down the possibility space on a crate of options so that if you’re hunting a specific model you can verify that it’s guaranteed to be in one of these three IF you buy all three right now!!!!!
You can read more about what dark patterns are and how to spot them here.
“It’s funny,” I told Flewin. “We have an old Nintendo Game Boy floating around the house, and Tetris is the only game we own. My wife will sometimes dig it out to play on airplanes and long car rides. She’s weirdly good at it. She can get 500 or 600 lines, no problem.”
What Flewin said next I will never forget.
“Oh, my!”
/end id]
TL;DR on the article
The husband was writing an article on classic video game records, was surprised to find out that holding the Tetris record is a bit of a big deal, and mentions how good his wife is at it.
The guy he’s talking to mentions that the record is 327, way lower than his wifes usual scores of 500-600.
They travel to a tournament, and she goes to do her attempt. Just after she beats 327, and is climbing higher, a judge brings up to the husband that the specific version she’s playing actually has a different record of 545.
She overhears that she needs to beat 500-something, and keeps going, setting the record at 841.
which, they later find out, is her second-best record
There was a decent but ultimately forgettable fantasy novel I read a long time ago that had a single moment that stuck with me.
The protagonist has just won the world famous sword fighting competition in the big, rich capital and is talking to his mentor, and says something about being the best swordsman in the world. The mentor frowns and tells him that no, he isn’t. He is the best swordsman out of the people that could afford to show up to this tournament. There could be a mercenary way out in the mountains, patrolling a snow encrusted fort’s walls that could kick his ass and there was no way to know until he was already losing to the guy.
I think about that a lot, and how for every apparently dominant competitor, there might be a fucking ronin out there somewhere capable of destroying them.
