nico @atropos-iphigenia - Tumblr Blog

changes sure are changing around here

Ye knowe eek, that in forme of speche is chaunge With-inne a thousand yeer, and wordes tho That hadden prys, now wonder nyce and straunge Us thinketh hem; and yet they spake hem so, And spedde as wel in love as men now do.

chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde c. 1380

youzicha

glossary: eek also and even tho at the time prys great value wonder a cause for astonishment nyce stupid spedde succeeded

You know the form of language, too, can change. Within a thousand years, even the words that were most precious then, seem strange and foolish to us; yet they spoke them so and did no worse in love than we now do.

podcastwizard

hey sorry it's just that i don't think i'm very good at being a person. thanks for letting me try with you, anyway.

grumfy

i had a 4 hour drive today so i put on the revenge of the sith audiobook and the part where palpatine tells anakin to kill dooku came on right around the time that i saw a cybertruck and for a brief and beautiful moment when he said "do it" i had the urge to ram my honda full on into that shitty ass car

grumfy

everyone who says that anakin’s fall in that movie was too sudden has never been so angry at an Elon dickrider trying to cut in front of you at a traffic standstill while a droning, pleasant British voice tells you that murder is okay and necessary. I’m sorry guys but I would have folded too

finalset

adhd is like I think it’s gonna take me fifteen minutes to fill up my water bottle

memory-of-stargazing

“It just means you have to work double as hard as most people!”

Well maybe I don’t WANT to work double as hard as abled people!! Maybe I deserve a BREAK!! Maybe I’ve been working MORE THAN double as hard for MY WHOLE LIFE and it’s led me to immense burnout & caused me to develop several MORE disabilities!! Maybe I should be ACCOMMODATED so I don’t have to KILL MY BODY AND BRAIN over trying to do what abled people can do!! Maybe I DON’T have to work double as hard!! Maybe if there’s the option to let me NOT work double as hard, I should have it, because I’m already working double as hard JUST TO SURVIVE!!

Why do you think disabled people deserve less rest than mentally & physically abled people?

fangirlsovertoomanythings

The way that most of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories’ most horrible villains are rich dudes that are abusive to women, in a time such as the 1880’s, compels me.

gardnerhill

There’s a whole subset of Sherlock Holmes stories that could be labeled Asshole Guys Try to Control Women’s Money.

three--rings

Yup, there’s a huge number of times where Sherlock Holmes is the ONLY person to take a young woman’s complaint or worry seriously and finds out someone is up to some serious evil. Holmes also shows a lot of compassion and empathy with the victims over and over again. (This is why I find “Secretly a woman” or “Trans” Holmes headcanons much more convincing than “sociopath” Holmes.)

waterhobbit

I am never going to shut up about how much I specifically love The Adventure of The Copper Beeches because it is literally Sherlock Holmes listening to a young lady he does not know except as a potential client, agreeing with her that a potential job she has interviewed for that she thinks is SUPER SKETCHY is, indeed, sketchy as fuck and when she says she’s probably gonna take the job anyways because the money is good and she needs it going “OKAY I GUESS but for the love of god please write to us so we know you’re okay we will literally drop everything and jump on a train if you want us to”.

The job turns out to indeed be sketchy as fuck, she writes to them, Holmes and Watson drop everything and jump on a train when she asks them to. I read this story for the first time when I was twelve and it made a HUGE impression.

three--rings

This is also the basis for a lot of speculation about Holmes’ family life. The idea that he has been a victim of abuse, or his mother was abused (or even murdered by his father.) There’s definitely SOMETHING that makes him very aware of how dangerous isolated families can be, and the dark things that can happen behind closed doors. Plus, of course, the motivation to devote himself to stopping crime. And yes, so much of it is of the personal type.

volkswagonblues

dude see this is one aspect of the original books i NEVER understand why modern remakes (cough cough) don’t go all in on. Like, in the 21th c we HAVE all the dumb forensic shit that made Victorian Holmes stand out, but we STILL DON’T HAVE uh….you know, compassion for women and minorities, or the willingness to believe them, adequate community support for domestic violence or hate crimes, etc. etc. which you’d think is exactly where a renegade consulting detective would come in handy. A good modern day Sherlock Holmes remake, instead of trying to convince us that Holmes is some super genius for being better than fingerprint analysis or whatever, could have him just be…a good person who helps out people the police can’t and won’t help. There you go. That’s how to write a relevant modern Holmes.

fahbee

One thing that annoys me is how much the BBC version of Sherlock (and the fandom around it) focus on police cases or cold cases. In the stories, Holmes’ bread and butter cases had fuck-all to do with the police and in a few stories, he actively works around/against them, or outright lies to them. Of the many, many things I wish that show had done differently, this is one is particularly obnoxious since it’s such a gimme.

tiger-in-the-flightdeck

There were very few actual murder cases in the Canon, and Holmes handled them either one of two ways:

Option one: The murder victim was innocent while the killer was an abusive bastard, see Speckled Band. Conclusion, arrest and have the killer charged (Or in the case of Speckled Band, indirectly murder him yourself then shrug and go home)

Option two: The victim was murdered to protect someone that the victim was abusing, or for vengeance, see Boscombe Valley, Devil’s Foot, Abbey Grange. Conclusion, Oops, I don’t know who the killer is, I am suddenly incompetent, oh look a pheasant.

faejilly

#my favorite murder in holmes canon#is when they straight up witness a lady murder her blackmailer#do nothing except destroy his other blackmail material#and then straight up lie to lestrade about it#sherlock holmes#more of this in modern adaptations pls (via @cactusspatz )

muffinworry

Let’s not forget the time Holmes helps a young woman who’s being catfished by her own stepfather to steal her inheritance, and when the villain sneers that the law can’t touch him, Holmes grabs a horsewhip out of sheerest chivalry.

smokingtigerhiddengun

So, the most canon-accurate iteration of Sherlock Holmes in the last few decades is actually Benoit Blanc….

marzipanandminutiae

I think it’s also important to note, and complicates our ideas about what the highly patriarchal/misogynistic society of 19th century England looked like, that these stories SOLD

they were POPULAR

the Victorians LIKED reading about women who won out over shitty men in their lives, even when that plotline reaffirmed a woman’s power and agency or put an active sexist in his place (ie Irene Adler besting Holmes)

which is fascinating in light of. you know. [gestures broadly at all of Victorian gender dynamics, laws, etc.]

sailor-hobbiton

So yes, Benoit Blanc is the best modern Sherlock.

myjetpack

My latest cartoon for New Scientist

voroxpete

To be clear, this isn't a bit. This is what they actually did. "Its too late" is the new "Climate change isn't real"... And its still a lie!

Every serious climate scientist agrees that there is no such as thing as too late, just as there is no such thing as too early. We should have done a lot more than we have to fight climate change, and the world will suffer for our inaction, but there is no point of no return. We can always work to reduce the amount of suffering that occurs, and eventually turn things around to the point where our planet is healing once again. Do not believe anyone who says it's "too late".

shatteredmirror-sys

people need to talk about socially acceptable abuse more. it's literally why we're a system. the spanking that people refuse to believe is physical abuse when there are multiple studies showing it affects kids just as much as any other type of physical abuse. the way a parent might talk down to their kid their entire life and make them feel like they cant make any choices themself or be independent that they only notice when someone else points out how their parent(s) talk too and about them. the parentification of the oldest kid(s) when they have a single parent. the unnoticeable praise towards the "easy" child that all the other children pick up on. the neglect the "easy" child has to go through. a kid being punished for going to their parent(s) when they mess up and need help. not being taught how to clean or cook or do laundry or even how to wash certain parts. it all destroys a kid and it was all socially acceptable in my family and in the communities i grew up in.

- 🐰

lancrewizzard

"Are you telling me that your university has practicing homosexuals on staff?"

Rincewind stammered. "I. I don't think so. Professor Macarona is so good at it he doesn't need to practice, I'm too nervous to ask, and Ponder doesn't have the time with all his other jobs. I suppose the more senior wizards might be practicing homosexuality." He thought back to some scenes in the Uncommon Room. "They certainly need the practice," he added.

discworld-heritage-posts

Discworld Heritage Post

xenasaur

we as a society must get more normal about STDs I'm being so serious

xenasaur

we are in an incredible age of medicine where you can easily get most of them treated, you can get vaccinated against some, and even HIV is no longer a death sentence (and i believe a cure is in the works rn). it is not a big deal. be safe, yes, but also don't be a judgy weirdo to people who do get infected because they weren't "being safe." especially because if you do not perpetually mask in public you have less than zero ground to stand on there.

xenasaur

exactly!!! like, when my friend wants to hang out but I have the flu, I say "sorry I have the flu i don't wanna get you sick" and i will not rest until we live in a world where it's just as normalized to say "sorry I have chlamydia I don't want to get you sick" when someone wants to have sex

coyotetale

The stigma of treating STIs like a “special” type of pathogen is almost funny when I tell people I’d rather get gonorrhea than a cold.

But like. Compare em. Cold symptoms: runny nose, cough, congestion, tiredness, muscle aches, hard to sleep, just general sick feeling. All constant, all disruptive. Gonorrhea symptoms: irritation while peeing, discharge (and that’s if you get any symptoms at all). Localized, mostly a nuisance. There’s no cure for the common cold, just over the counter symptom alleviators that never fully work. Gonorrhea is cleared up within 48 hours with a shot (which is potentially free, if you have good clinics nearby). Sure, you can’t have sex for a week after that, but you can’t really have sex for the 1-2 weeks you’re afflicted with a cold either.

The worst part about gonorrhea is having to tell previous partners they should get tested, but the only reason that’s the worst part is because of the stigma around it. Everyone in a friend group or office catching the same cold isn’t treated with the same stigma, even though it’s the exact same thing (if anything, worse, because when you have a cold you know it and you allowed your friends to be exposed, when you’ve got gonorrhea you often don’t even know).

xenasaur

no genuinely I just got a URI and let me tell you I'd gladly take the easily cured disease that pops up on my genitals over agony when I try to breathe that can only have the symptoms mitigated