[looking at people younger than me] you have your whole life ahead of you [looking at people older than me] you have your whole life ahead of you [looking at myself] its over

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@detectiveinthehat
[looking at people younger than me] you have your whole life ahead of you [looking at people older than me] you have your whole life ahead of you [looking at myself] its over
dude you look so masc wallowing in your misery like that
Various disorganised Ring for Jeeves/Come On, Jeeves thoughts brought to you by...well, nothing, I'm simply always thinking about measly late canon crumbs:
Wodehouse editing out crossdressing ghost Jeeves when novelising the play is honestly...sigh, we could have had it all!
Guy with no employment gap and a passion for lying: āYeah, I was in the war, for sure.ā
Darning looms such as the āSpeedweveā were very popular in the fifties, though I'm not sure that would have been of any help to Bertie. Also, did you know the first London hamburger parlour opened in 1954?
everything will probably be fine but i have to get really anxious just in case
bertie wooster hiding in the closet and horrified at the prospect of marrying a woman yet again i said oh i'm sure
āFanfiction endingā but the ending is that the original versions of them wipe themselves from existence and all that remains is a human AU in their likeness with none of the shared history. Sick and twisted. Wish granted by genie energy.
i just didn't want my light-hearted fantasy romcom that started out with themes like "choosing your own destiny" and "even flawed things are worth caring for and trying to save" to finish by telling me that ACTUALLY your choices don't matter in the end and imperfect things must be destroyed. how'd we go from humanist existentialism to nihilism in one low budget 90 minute sequel.
My main issue with The Other Bennet Sister (both as a book and series) is that it operates on the premise that Mary actually understands and is upset that she is not as brilliant as her sisters, when Pride and Prejudice tells us explicitly that hearing herself described as 'the most accomplished girl in the neighbourhood' at the Meryton assembly is enough for her to have enjoyed a 'pleasant' evening.
I understand that Mary is somewhat of a blank slate (given how little she is in the original novel) and thus that ability to be able to project onto her would be appealing for an author because she is the most infrequently mentioned Bennet sister. But equally, she is seldom in the story because she is not particularly relevant to the plot; it's not an oversight on Austen's part. Her character is clearly defined and we have a good sense of who Mary is (selfish and sanctimonious, rather than neglected and overlooked) even if there are not entire chapters dedicated to her.
Mary Bennet is not heroine material and that is perfectly okay.
Mary is also, by the standards of the day, constantly putting herself forward in a way which was interpreted as a moral failing.
There's a reason we have so many scenes of Austen heroines and other respectable ladies demurring when first asked to play on the piano until the host/hostess insists some more. It isn't modesty, it's morality, and it's why Mary not waiting to be asked to play and not being aware of when she's performed an excessive amount is judged so harshly.
I don't personally agree with a lot of regency lady behavioural standards, but to contemporary readers Mary is attention seeking and vain, not demonstrating any modesty or that demure behaviour which spoke of a woman having good principles. In that way she's way more like Kitty and Lydia then modern audiences can easily see, though their exhibiting takes very different avenues. But it was still an indicator of improper principles.
It's why she's included in the 'that total want of propriety so frequently, so almost uniformly betrayed by [your mother], by your three younger sisters, and occasionally even by your father' (ch35) line that Darcy writes to Elizabeth. She isn't just awkward, unlikeable, or not well rounded - she was often completely lacking propriety. Elizabeth names this judgement on her family a 'mortifying, yet merited reproach ... The justice of the charge struck her too forcibly for denial' (ch36). She doesn't make an excuse for Mary, but includes her equally in the condemnation against the behaviour of Mrs Bennet, Kitty, and Lydia.
Here's the definition of the word propriety, as I believe Austen used it in this context, from the Oxford English Dictionary: 'Conformity to accepted standards of behaviour or morals, esp. with regard to good manners or polite usage; seemliness, decorousness, decency; (observance of) convention.' That is what contemporary audiences, and the sensible characters within Pride and Prejudice itself, thought Mary was lacking. She has a problem with morals, good manners, and decorum. Not awkwardness or being unlikeable, nor shyness or trouble socialising (and in fact, I'd argue that Mary's behaviour is the opposite of shy). Though she's such a minor character it isn't as important a change, many modern interpretations of Mary are very similar to the 'Darcy isn't a snob, he's just socially awkward!' thinking which ignores the book canon.
I'm also a proponent of the idea that, where Kitty and Lydia demonstrate the flaws of seeking experiences and no reflection, Mary demonstrates the flaws of seeking only reflections and disdaining a lot of real world experiences. A situation rectified somewhat at the ending of the book, as with her sisters gone, 'Mary was obliged to mix more with the world, but she could still moralize over every morning visit' (ch61). Hopefully this situation also made her more self-aware, and less inclined to put herself forward indelicately when she didn't feel the need to compete for recognition.
It's so understandable that modern readers project social awkwardness and shy bookish-ness onto Mary, because social standards of behaviour have altered so much in 200+ years and she's a minor character, but Austen did actually write her as confident and forward to the point of vanity and disregarding morals. I have yet to see any novel that focuses on Mary recognise that, and work within that framework for her character arc. And, because it's missed, so too is the nuance of why she's disparaged by the narrator and not praised or particularly liked by Elizabeth and Jane.
This has a flow-on effect of authors needing to find some justification for why Mary is so overlooked, which, since they don't recognise Mary's own flaws, generally means they need to invent or exaggerate flaws in other characters. Which is why you get characters suddenly focusing on likeability, or looks, or social prowess, to a degree that they never did in canon, if at all. I enjoy reimaginings, but you have to be really careful and knowledgeable when making beloved characters shallower or meaner in a way they weren't in canon in order to white-wash a minor character for it to work well, and I'm not convinced they've done that in this instance.
I know I've been very harsh on Mary's character here, so I should add the disclaimer that I actually adore Mary, as I do Kitty and Lydia (yes, even Lydia). They're teenagers whose education (and emotional well being, in the case of at least Mary and Kitty) has been neglected and thrown out into society at a young age to figure it out for themselves, so I'm not at all surprised they've misstepped and gone too far in seeking external validation. Mary sure as hell didn't get enough of it growing up. But Mary isn't judged by the world because she doesn't fit the pretty, sociable, likeable mold her other sisters do, she's judged because of her own actions and the values that demonstrates to respectable society.
I just wish that more works focusing on the younger Bennet sisters recognised the actual (contemporary) errors of their behaviour in a sympathetic way and worked to show how they might improve as they grow, rather than excusing all or most of it and saying that it's everyone else who is acting wrong.
%100, weird how this misinterpretation is so commonā¦Mary is not shy, sheās actually very thick-skinned, to the extent she completely fails to notice the unreasonable amount of time sheās been demanding attention at the piano. She likes to show off: āsuch an opportunity of exhibiting was delightful to herā - she continues into another song after only āthe hint of a hope she might be asked againā despite the fact she is just not good at it. I donāt think itās just regency decorum that makes this problematic either - their society was certainly less comfortable with young people who didnāt possess much talent demanding attention and applause than ours is - but I think that type of insistent misplaced self-confidence is always quite irritatingā¦. Also, by rewriting Mary as shy and upset by her conception of her own inferiority (basically Fanny Price) you put this weird lens on the other characters treatment of her and (as Jane would say) āmake everyone acting unnaturally and wrong!āš. Yeah, if she was a sensitive Fanny maybe they should have treated her with extreme sensitivity , but itās a fictional fact that she *isnāt ⦠sheās more like Mr Collins, self-satisfied and oblivious to her own failings . Her problem is her lack of sensitivity , not crippling shyness or low self esteem .
mad again. crowley's whole point is that humanity doesn't deserve to suffer for the crimes committed by heaven and hell, so his solution is to create a new universe without angels or demons. sacrificing themselves for humanity, sure, I get it. but what about all the humans who were wiped out with the book of life? god gave them the option of returning all those humans, and instead his solution is to start all over a la the great flood, something crowley was staunchly opposed to. so not only is there no happy ending for crowley and aziraphale, but there's no happy ending for recently corporeal jesus, or mrs sandwich, mr arnold, nina and maggie, adam and the them, newt and anathema. it's job's kids all over again. they didn't want the new children the angels offered them, job and sitis wanted their children back. it's the same choice they gave adam. he wanted things to go back to normal with heaven and hell behaving themselves so he could play with his friends. how could crowley and aziraphale be happy sacrificing their existence knowing it condemns all of the humanity they know and love?
I'm not even religious but even I can see from my distant vantage point that the theological implications of the Gomens 3 ending are crazy as fuck.
The destruction of the entire universe and every soul in it is a truly depressing ending. Just because God replaced it with another universe that looked similar doesn't change anything - this is Job and his children all over again. Job doesn't want new children, and neither do I.
must feel good af to be a 1920s dandy calling your gay lover "old thing"
Libraries are sneaky, because once you go in, it's soo easy to get a library card, and once you have one, you can pretty much grab one of everything of all the stuff they have there with no consequence, and take it home. But then once you're home and you've read all the stuff you'll have to go back to the library to return the stuff, and once you're at the library again, you're at the library again, so might as well pop in to see what they got, and then you're hauling half their shit home again, and then you'll need to return to the library to return them, so you're at the library again
And the next thing you know you've read 3000 books, your crops are clear and your skin is watered, an angel descents from the heaven to suck your dick twice a week, and also you've got some books to return so you've got a perfectly valid reason to go pop in to the library. Just a little bit.
I'm becoming the most unemployable version of myself
if a character means enough to me i will truly never stop thinking about them. i just retire them into a little back room in my brain and periodically bring them out to stare at them under a little light
āJeeves was in a deck-chair outside the back door, reading Spinoza with the cat Augustus on his lap. I had given him the Spinoza at Christmas and he was constantly immersed in it. I hadn't dipped into it myself, but he tells me it is good ripe stuff, well worth perusal.ā ā Illustration by Paul Cox for Much Obliged, Jeeves, P. G. Wodehouse, Folio Society, 2000.