The Wallpapers of my Mind

in my preschool class we’re holding “class president of the day” elections this week. we already elected our first female president on monday, even though one of the boy’s campaign promises was to “bring jewels” to the classroom.

tuesday: we talked about the real election happening today. one child says she hopes hillary clinton wins and all of her classmates chime in with sober agreements. one boy says voting for the drumpf “would not be a very good idea.”

they elected the other female candidate today in our mock election, so she won over the jewels boy and the other boy, who said he would make bracelets for the entire class. my students are surprisingly practical, seeing as they voted for the candidate who would clean the school and help them with their work.

once president, she did do those things, but also punched one of her constituents into the sandbox, so, i mean … she’s sort of a typical politician i guess

wednesday: the children announced tensely to me that trump won the real election. one boy said, “i still don’t like him, but we can’t say we hate him, because then we would be saying we hate the president.”

i said that was true, and that saying we hate him sounds a lot like something trump would say. they nodded and continued to help the toddler class students get their snack plates to the table without dropping their apple slices.

they elected one of the girls again, so she served her second term by helping her friends button their art smocks before we made our galaxy paintings. (because if you think i’m gonna create an art lesson plan to focus any more attention on this shitshow of an election, you are wrong.)

neither of the boy candidates have stood much of a chance in this race so far. one of them came to me and said he was rethinking his campaign promises, and could he make a new poster

he got a paper and wrote a huge list of ways that he would help keep all the children safe, including reminding them to use walking feet and not to touch broken glass. then he volunteered to work in the toddler room and cleaned up all of their messes, and moved all the shelves in my room so he could clean behind them.

i’m feeling so hopeless right now, but these children remind me that there is a future and they. are. it.

thursday: today i was very pleased. our president today is the little boy who made changes to his campaign promises. he also wore tyrannosaurus rex foot slippers. when the voters were shaking his hand to congratulate him on his victory, one said, “good job, and thank you for having monster feet”

he watched everyone like a hawk to make sure they were being safe, and then spent the morning writing in his journal about how much he loves all of us and his bicycle.

sjmattson

Christ loves you, even if Christians don’t. Christ loves you, even if the “Christian” religion doesn’t. Christ loves you.

(via sjmattson)

Also earlier today I saw an article about how the marines in Pirates of the Caribbean have uniforms from 1747. Like, clearly not. Obviously 1770s.

the costuming in that film is all over the place. then there’s the letter from George II? But like Jack Rakham was just killed and he died in 1720?

WHAT YEAR IS IT POTC? WHAT YEAR?

tatzelwyrm

There are zombies and a kraken, and I feel like they fail to draw a clear line between the navy and the EITC in any of these movies, so I feel like we’re beyond dates where this series is concerned…

You have entered generic age of sail fantasy land. Names mean nothing in those movies. The Georges are just generic English names for Kings now. Jack Rackham is just a generic pirate name in that verse. Like all the generic medieval fantasies that pretend to be set in the dark ages, yet there’s a printing press and random ppl can read and there’s always a William and a Lionheart for some reason.

Also, it’s been a while since I watched these movies, but don’t some of the larger ships have crossjacks?

why is the EIC in the west indies anyway? WHAT ARE THEY DOING THERE. BECKETT YOU’RE LOST. GO HOME.

I guess because no one has heard of the south sea company and that went bust around 1720 anyway but who the fuck knows what year it is.

we are lost in a void of ships and jack sparrow’s stupid face that I hate and in the end we are all Governor Swann fighting the Skeleton Hand.

tatzelwyrm

And how did the East India Company get a 100-gun ship and why is Beckett in command of it? And how can two frigates take it out? Yeah, okay the Flying Dutchman is a magic ship, so maybe, but the Pearl isn’t? And why can two people sail the Interceptor, you need at least a crew of twenty, two people can’t take care of all the sails and steer it is not possible they couldn’t possible control that thing.

And who makes a movie in which two fleets are about to go at each other and then only three ships battle it out and the rest just watches and goes home afterwards what is this waste of my time.

it’s such a hilarious combination of weird and inexplicable decisions re: filming.

tatzelwyrm

That is why the best bit in all of the movies has to be the bit in the fourth one when the Spanish show up last minute and just plain destroy the McGuffin of the Week because it was against God (though the lone English marine who tried to defend it is my fave character forever. RIP you were too good for this series).

It’s like the realest shit that ever happened in one of these movies…

copperfire

Jumping into this conversation to agree with all of this, particularly the frustration with that movie in which they have TWO GIANT FLEETS which don’t fight each other, because they clearly thought nobody wanted to watch a giant ship battle for some reason (they are very very wrong), and also the hilarious Spaniards in the fourth movie who absolutely steal the show. They are by far and away the best bit of that movie (though the hilarity of the missionary guy being seduced by a mermaid - I think? It has been a while - is also pretty great, mainly because they just seem to have given up with sense in that movie.)

(I also do actually genuinely enjoy the first one, because it is kind of creepy and I like the level of supernatural in it. They are also less into the confusion about the East India Trading Company, the navy, what year is it, what history is it etc)

I agree with all of this. I’ve heard it said the producers claim it’s a mishmash of stuff from 1700 - 1750, but personally I put it in the mid to late 1760s. It’s all fucked up though.

Not that this is the sort of film to search for any sort of historical accuracy, of course, but it still makes for a fun experiment.

I’m actually thankful Magical East India Company took over as the baddies in 2 and 3 because it brings Redcoat Killing down by 100%.

The thing is Beckett just sort of took the Redcoats and made them EIC soldiers? Or something? Because it’s all the same actors. Even the navy was appropriated by the EIC in a manner that is laughable.

My only argument for 1720s, and I totally, totally agree that it’s all ridiculous and we none of us can truly pin anything down date-wise because WHO KNOWS, but my only thing is that it’s King George II in the second movie (and third? or fourth? or whichever, one of the later ones). We see his name and signature for a fleeting moment. That’s my one thing.

Also Rakham’s death. But w/e on that as it’s never explicitly stated that it’s Rakham’s body we see in the beginning (the one with the sign ‘Pirates Ye Be Warned’ which grammatically makes no sense since obviously the Y is shorthand for Th but w/e this is Disney)

They struck lucky insomuch as they could cite a historical precedent, to a degree - in the late 1700s/early 1800s the British Army struggled to stop officers from defecting to the East India Company’s military, given that the Company offered far better pay and more perks. Especially in places in India, the Army was seen as the second-rate choice for military advancement. So they could say that the Company sort of “bought up” the Royal Navy elements in the film (though of course it would never have happened to such an extent in real life, and it’s a stretch to imagine so many of the rank and file leaving the Navy and then reenlisting in the Company).

ah ok I didn’t think that happened until later - like mid-19th century later. So good work on Disney for hitting something sorta-kinda-can-be-argued accurate-ish there hahaha.

But yeah commissioned officers jumping ship is a bit farcical. Also as I read the films as being 1720 so that is still a bit early as the EIC wasn’t yet the massive power it became (on its way, certainly, but not there yet). But god, I mean what do I know, it’s Disney.