#truly a tale of two fjords in these live shows #fjord in projekt funball: yes i will psychologically dropkick my friend with this disguise no problem #fjord in darktow: can't pretend to be mean to my wife tho — @wintershades
#absolutely SOBBING bc TRUE#ngl I think Jester would find it great fun he can't manage it#Jester will realize she doesn't want a dom. “I don't want you to be harsh to ME actually. I want you to be harsh and mean to OTHER people.”#She wants to be a princess and go “I don't like their vibe. Remove them.” and Fjord her loyal knight draws his sword and goes “yes my lady! (captainofthetidesbreath)
I just saw a comment on fb that ran off the misconception that dowries were a sexist subjugation of women for the purposes of buying and selling them like objects, and since this morning I would rather die than engage with a stranger on fb I'm going to talk on here instead about dowries as they were around Jane Austen's era/regency England.
Basically: dowries were an inheritance. It was a way to give a daughter what they would need to live comfortably at the time when they were most likely to need it - leaving their father's care and support and beginning a home elsewhere. In Austen terms we're generally talking about a sum of money, but dowries can also include items for a household like linens and China (goods like this were called a trousseau from at least the 1830s onward). Dowries very materially improved the life of a woman as they were meant to.
Some of the ways they did this were actually before marriage. We tend to call every inheritance a woman was to receive a dowry but that's incorrect, most of Austen's heroines don't have a dowry, though we know how much they'll inherit upon the death of their father and/or mother. Fortune =/= dowry. The Bennets of Pride and Prejudice, the Dashwoods of Sense and Sensibility, Anne Elliot in Persuasion, and even Emma Woodhouse in Emma all will inherit a little to a great deal of wealth but not as a dowry. This means that even Emma, who will one day have the staggering amount of thirty thousand pounds, would not be bringing wealth immediately into a marriage (though in her circumstances she has a father who would hardly let her live impoverished if she had chosen to marry a penniless man).
For women as poor as the Bennets in Pride and Prejudice (though they should've had more money each, if their parents weren't useless, as has been discussed) the distinction between dowry and eventual inheritance didn't mean much: a max of fifty pounds per annum in interest was literally less than what some servants were paid so couldn't alleviate the need for their husbands to have an independent income. But what money a woman could bring into a marriage definitely increased the likelihood of her preferences being realised. Northanger Abbey's Catherine Moreland, who "would have three thousand pounds" means she has enough of a fortune to "smooth the descent of [General Tilney's] pride" and make him consent to the marriage of his son to her. She certainly would've been glad her parents saved this money for her, instead of feeling that she was an object being bought or sold. It empowered her choices, rather than reduced them.
That the inheritance of a woman is presented as a dowry also reduces the chances a woman and the man she loves will need to wait to marry until either of them inherit something or he makes a living. If Anne Elliot of Persuasion had had a dowry, instead of a future inheritance (a "share of ten thousand pounds which must be hers hereafter"), would she have broken off that original engagement? In ch23 she tells Captain Wentworth she would've been engaged to him when he had only "a few thousand pounds" and the likelihood of more thanks to an advantageous posting. If she would receive her own few thousand pounds upon marriage would that've been enough to remain engaged from the first, and perhaps even marry once he had added a few more thousands to that instead of needing to wait for Wentworth to build their shared fortune himself?
We can also see that a dowry was an inheritance parents provided for their daughter's benefit, rather than a sale price, by how carefully marriage articles were drawn up. This could legally define pin-money (how much money a woman would receive for her private usage and upkeep from her husband), and often specified that the husband couldn't diminish the bulk sum of his wife's fortune, only use the interest it generated, so that there would always be something to support the wife and her children no matter how spendthrift he was. Think of it like an old-fashioned pre-nup or family trust.
This is a huge reason why eloping was so bad, it meant there hadn't been articles drawn up beforehand and so the legal default of 'everything the wife has is now the husband's in full' applied instead of the chance to preserve her rights to her own fortune. If Wickham had succeeded in eloping with Georgiana Darcy in Pride and Prejudice her thirty thousand pounds would've become his in full when she turned twenty-one, though her guardians could've withheld it before then, and he could've spent it all and left her penniless without legal consequence.
There are plenty of historical examples of husbands without the regulations of marriage articles squandering the fortune and selling off assets, leaving the wife eventually destitute. Marriage articles are a response to that as father's wanted to protect their daughters and her future children. It actually limited the power of a husband in favour of preserving the comforts and rights of his wife, so was opposite of misogyny (though the society and laws which required these extra protections was undeniably sexist and male-centred)
Nor was receiving an inheritance upon marriage a specifically female-only practice. Eldest sons would generally receive the bulk of their inheritance when their father died, but it was common in this time and for centuries beforehand for them to be confirmed as heir or given a set income from their father (or one of their father's lesser estates, if we're talking nobility and the ultra rich) as part of the marriage articles (which would generally benefit the wife for the remainder of her life, either as a jointure or dower). Younger sons, if not already provided for, could also be given something upon their marriage and may have a commission in the army or a church living bought for them, to give them some independence. In Sense and Sensibility, after accepting the engagement of Edward and Elinor, Mrs Ferrars gives her son ten thousand pounds "towards augmenting their income" and this allows the marriage to occur. No one accuses Mrs Ferrars of selling Edward off in matrimony, even though what she's doing is so similar to a dowry that the narration points out it's exactly what "had been given with [her daughter] Fanny".
Fortune hunters and those marrying purely for money and a comfortable lifestyle definitely existed, as they do now, but dowries were not a socially and legally mandated way to give women to men to benefit them financially. 'Mercenary' marriages were frowned upon, and women were taught to look out for fortune hunters (like Wickham). Nor was it considered only men who might marry primarily to benefit from their spouse's wealth (Charlotte Lucas being a sympathetic female example). That both men and women could have inheritances gifted upon marriage, and were represented as seeking to marry for money, helps show that the practice of dowries wasn't a sexist practice which reduces women to little more than livestock.
In fact, there's an argument to be made that the very existence of large dowries being a cultural norm indicates that daughters were valued and loved. Instead of leaving everything they could to the sons (which would be expected if daughters were worthless objects to be given away at any price) these daughters were considered worth saving for, worth drawing up legal contracts to protect the living standard of, and worth leaving an inheritance often equal or greater than what younger sons would receive (as they could earn their own income). A dowry didn't reduce the humanity of a woman, it empowered her choices and protected her future. It was the women without dowries or an inheritance that were in danger of needing to marry whomever would take them.
something really funny about how Projekt Funball was narratively and thematically very dark but it does not seem like it was designed to be deadly per se, while Darktow was very much designed to be lethal and did prove to warrant the deadly warnings to the cast before the show but ended up for the most part comedy hour
Jester Lavorre, recognizing that her guerrilla Sending tactics keep causing people to get obsessed with her and then trying to kill everyone she loves:
I love how we had all this mythos and danger around the Plank King but as soon as battle with the M9 gets underway it becomes clear he's the only human on an island of muppets
[PROJEKT] Funball 🤝 Darktow
A purple friend asks the Nein for help, and the Nein largely give him an irritated response of "You fucked around and found out, now you want us to save you from the consequences of your own actions?"
More seriously though, "only human on muppet island" jokes aside, I truly genuinely love the suggestion that the Revelry's disaster of a fight is in part because the Plank King massively overstretched his organization and resources trying to take over Nicodranas. Like yeah, that's what happens to organizations when they have scope creep, overtaxed bandwidth and limited budget, constant turnover (such as via defenestration...) reducing deep organizational memory, and hostile leadership keeping everything and everyone on edge. Even when they do have talent or assets (mage assassins, dragon turtle under contract) their gross inefficiencies become indistinguishable from incompetence, and these advantages are squandered. And it can happen fast! A year and a half ago the Plank King totally may have had competent aides. His second in command could probably better interpret his communication. But everyone is stressed and burned out and disorganized and there are no employee assistance programs in Darktow. And in the face of a single massive high-stress event - such an attack by the hypercompetent M9 - all of the assorted weaknesses give out and everything absolutely collapses at the seams. Sadly you were just bad at business, Plank King.
I will never forgive Lou Wilson for the absolutely devastating gut punch that was Nydas Okiro's "Brother! It's important to dream!". Placed anywhere else in the story, it would've been just another line about the hubris of the Age of Arcanum, the ambition of the Ring of Brass. It's important to dream, because in the end we will achieve something great and unprecedented. It's important to dream, because no matter what we sacrifice, it will all pay off in the end and everyone will be grateful. It's important to dream, because we have enormous power, which means that we can be the force that changes the world. That's what the Age of Arcanum is about. New heights of genius, technological wonders, being the first to create greatness.
But that's not what that line means. Because to Nydas, bleeding out and dying on the floor, with a sword driven through his best friend's heart, there is no future. There is no great race to the top. No eventual public recognition or the end justifying the means. There is just a reflection on who he was, and who he has become. The life that he lived. When he was just a scrappy pirate, fighting on blood-soaked docks, trying desperately to survive with barely anything to his name... he was a dreamer. And he dreamed of reaching the sky. He dreamed of a beautiful flying city. And in his last moments, even after every bit of pain and destruction that the hubris of this Age has caused, after it killed both him and his closest friends... he is still a dreamer. He got his flying city. And maybe no one will be grateful. And it will never become more than what it was. And maybe it ended in destruction. But the dream was earnest. Even if its consequences were horrifying, the dream was earnest and beautiful. It kept him going. It made him grow. It's important to dream.
I love confident smart competent Svetlana, but I do also need her to be a little bit pathetic and for a big part of her friendship with Ilya to be them lamenting how shit they are at relationships
Svetlana: RED ALERT
Svetlana: GENERATIONAL FUMBLE
Ilya: You asked about their favorite hockey team and then spent fifteen minutes roasting it didn’t you
Svetlana: I thought it was friendly banter and then he went to the bathroom and didn’t come back
Ilya: It’s not banter if you’re the only one talking and he’s sitting there silently weeping into his Bud Light
Svetlana: Remember when you told Jane how much you liked fucking me while trying to lock it down?
