there is no discourse between gen z and millenials. we are siblings. come on lil bro, ill take you to amc. yeah we can go there early and play the arcade games before the movie starts.
Why do the two reblogs read like a soldier dying in their friends arms and talking about when they’ll get back home to give them a bit of comfort before they die
Hello, we’re big computer company. We are truly grateful for your support! Our latest update will add a giant shit in the middle of your screen. You cannot remove it.
“average englishman is engaged to 3 women per year” is a statistical anomaly. average englishman is engaged to 0 women per year. engagements bertie, who has been engaged to 23 women, is an outlier and should not have been counted
I just saw an acquaintance use "👖🛝" in place of the word genocide and. like. at what point are we going to decide that this kind of self-censorship is too degrading to abide anymore.
This is mean, but when I’m in a safe context to do so, I love pretending I don’t understand what they mean and forcing them to explain in plain language.
guys. GUYS. Wake the kiddos. Did you know there was a, like, Granada Holmes xmas special??? Called Joy to the World. A Celebration of Christmas and Jeremy Brett and David Burke and Rosalie Williams are all in it. And Holmes SINGS and so does Watson!!! AGHHH what the frick the video quality is ehhh but it’s amazingggg
I don’t get why I can’t embed the video here like in a normal video post :////// Anyway it’s here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvZ6aX0NL4c
OHMYGODYOUGUYS!! I had no idea this existed! Jeremy Brett and David Burke and Rosalie Williams as Holmes and Watson and Hudson SINGING CHRISTMAS CAROLS!! *faint*
I can’t believe that this exists, that you found it, that I have never seen this before…and that it is so surreal! Why is Holmes drawing symbols in the snow for a ring of children to dance around? Why does the urchin find a giant glowing star that looks like it should be on the set of Doctor Who? What presence are they attempting to summon? Oh, wait, it’s…the Granada TV headquarters? WE ALWAYS KNEW THEY WERE NOT OF THIS EARTH
i immediately caught “In the Bleak Midwinter” (because there’s a sweet strings version on my SH playlist) and. i’m not trying to liken Holmes’s appearance in Watson’s life to the birth of Christ. but. they do meet on New Year’s Day (fanon). and this song…
In the bleak midwinter
frosty wind made moan,
earth stood hard as iron,
water like a stone:
snow had fallen,
snow on snow, snow on snow,
in the bleak midwinter,
long ago.
Watson’s body has just come back from the brink of destruction. he describes his life as meaningless. possibly it couldn’t get any bleaker.
And the song ends…
What can I give him,
poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd,
I would bring a lamb,
if I were a wise man
I would do my part,
yet what I can I give him,
give my heart.
and they have DAVID BURKE SING THIS? and they cut to a lil urchin boy looking longingly at toys in a shop until he finds a GIANT GLOWING STAR??
Fanfics where Bertie is like 'ooh Jeeves you're my equal ~ what's your first name ~ let me do all the chores if you're sick ~ call me Bertie ~ ect' are misunderstanding Bertie Wooster's character so bad it hurts.
His idle rich ass doesn't have the introspection needed for any of that!! He probably thinks servants pop out of their mothers in tuxedos and aprons ready to serve the rich. He is friendly, but has never once thought about the implications of the class he is nestled in. Nor jeeves. He is NOT progressive. Passively ok with progress if not finding it corny and silly (comrade bingo is an example of this) at most. Maybe.
Anyway he sees Jeeves as his valet. Intrinsically someone there to help. And should help! Because he is a servant. And he's never once thought too deeply about that fact unless he has to spend time without a valet and gets big sad lol
I hit the tag limit, but what I was going to say in conclusion is that I think if they were in a relationship for many years, it might eventually enter Bertie’s mind to do A Chore when Jeeves is miserably sick or something. I think the thought would catch him by surprise and he would be astonished to find himself considering that that might be something he could even do. Then the next step would be convincing Jeeves to let him do A Chore (significantly more difficult).
Thinking about the bit at the end of the Code of the Woosters where Sir Watkyn thinks Bertie stole the cow creamer and Bertie goes “Aha but I have an alibi, Jeeves was here with me” and Sir Watkyn is like “who tf is Jeeves”.
I feel like it really shows you how partial Bertie’s narration is. I mean, to Bertie, Jeeves is his perfect flawless handsome genius valet and the main character of his (Bertie’s) life. The reverence of Jeeves extends to Aunt Dahlia and to Bertie’s pals at the Drones, which are most of the people who Bertie hangs around with, so based on the way Bertie tells it, you’d be led to believe that everyone in the world views Jeeves the same way.
But then, very near the end of a book all about Jeeves and his plots and schemes, you have an important side character barge in and say he doesn’t know who Jeeves is. It’s a glimpse outside Bertie’s extremely rose-tinted lenses. Most people of Bertie’s class who interact with him probably hardly notice Jeeves. It’s what they’ve been taught since childhood to do. In fact, it’s seen as the mark of a good servant to be able to become invisible and anonymous and fade into the background. Sir Watkyn doesn’t even call him “Jeeves” after Bertie introduces him and says his name a bunch of times, just refers to him as “your manservant”.
Holmemes pt. 20. That officially brings us to 200 Holmemes! Brought to you by Chronic Insomnia and ADHD Boredom (very Holmes-coded of me if I do say so myself)
I know we know relatively little about Watson’s childhood but I can just feel in my bones that he was an absolutely model student. Straight As and the teacher’s pet, but the other students can’t even be mad about it bc he’s so friendly and chill. His best subject was science obvs bc he’s a doctor but he also had the classic “queer kid emotionally attaching themself to the English teacher who gives off gay vibes” situation. And you just fuckin KNOW my boy loved reciting poetry in class.
You wouldn't be able to leave suspect's house without opening the closet. Dialogue options would be random anecdote about wife, "just one more thing" for umpteenth time, chat about something unrelated and randomly a "solve case" option would pop-up after chatting up the suspect at least five times.
ok I'm still thinking about this but NOBODY GET ANY IDEAS I'm just having fun noodling.
I think it would be fun to have a Columbo game where you're the murderer. In the first half of the game you have to murder someone and there are various ways of doing it, and in the second half of the game you have to answer Columbo's incessant questioning as he picks up on any gaps or oversights in your murder method.
I think there's no way to escape him completely, but the best ending is like the one of the episode Any Port in a Storm where you and Columbo get to share a drink and conversation while you wait for the cops to come take you away.
Summary: Paris, 1934. Down-and-out soprano Victoria is 5 minutes away from selling her body for a meatball when she meets Carroll “Toddy” Todd, an equally success-less aging gay performer who just got fired. Believing Victoria’s only problem getting work is her lack of a gimmick, Toddy hatches a plot to rebrand Victoria as Victor, Toddy’s new boyfriend and “the world’s greatest female impersonator.” Victor has a lot of success on the cabaret stage, eventually attracting the attention of King, an American mob boss who gay panics HARD and spends most of the movie being in denial and trying to reveal that “Victor” is actually a woman
Starring Julie Andrews (The Sound of Music, The Princess Diaries, my childhood) and Robert Preston (The Music Man), Victor/Victoria a fun, saucy musical that recreates 1930s cabaret aesthetic and antics in 1980s cult classic charm.
Why You Should Watch It: It is a musical and has Julie Andrews in a suit? That’s really all it took to sell me on this.
Victor/Victroria is, essentially, a queer historical piece twice over. It is a loving homage to the style, look, and verve of cabaret, specifically “The Pansy Craze” of 1930s Paris, the birth place of the drag star (though of course drag the art existed prior). The movie is from 1982, fully 42 years ago, which seems not that long ago but is actually WHOLE GENERATIONS of queer kids ago! Some of those kids aren’t even kids anymore! And I bet most have not heard of this film. It’s Pride season, kits! Respect our elders and check it out!
Also, it’s just a lot of fun. It’s fun to follow along on this wild, outrageous romp - there’s singing, dancing, costumes, stunts, jokes, slapstick, and antics that keep getting more ridiculous as it goes on. In contrast to, say, Cabaret, Victor/Victoria showcases the fun, zaniness, and charm of the nightlife scene of that era.
I love old Hollywood actors getting to do classic stage vaudeville schtick and if you do too, this is a great choice. Julie Andrews EATS as Victor, particularly in the Shady Dame from Seville. Robert Preston also eats in the finale in a different but spectacular way. And though you don’t see a lot of screwball comedies anymore, sometimes, all you really want is a scene where four miscreants are sneaking into different rooms in the same apartment just seconds apart and then oops someone else walks in unexpectedly oh no now that guys is stuck on a balcony how will he ever get out of this??? Great stuff
The story is inherently genderfuck in that classic Shakespearean way - the main character is a cis woman playing a cis man playing a cis woman, essentially “an incognito drag king pretending to be a outcognito drag queen.” But despite the jokey premise, it has nuance regarding its subject matter. My read is that it’s not intended as a trans narrative outright, but the idea is there, the same questions are being asked and the same norms challenged, and there is a great scene between Victor and King where V calls out K for being small-minded and hypocritical for being attracted to Victor “as a woman” and then getting angry and blaming Victor for that attraction later. The queer politics of this film are not cut and dry; Toddy essentially commodifies queerness, which is also kinda what the film is doing - it’s straight people playing gay “for the straights.”
But even so, as a genderqueer raccoon who grew up with this flick and saw some of myself in Victoria & Victor’s experiences, I appreciate that the story is not interested in giving clear answers or being overly didactic. It’s a romp. It successfully romps.
Recommended for: Fans of musicals, screwball comedy, slapstick, vaudeville, gags, silliness, schtick, people interested in pre-Pride queer history, anyone who is into the gif below
Content Warnings (Spoilers): The main love interest is a classic macho-boi asshole and he sucks for a lot of the story, including being homophobic, transphobic, and spying on Victoria while she showers. He is challenged on a lot of his opinions and he changes for the better, which is what dynamic characters do, but, you know - prep for some scenes about a real jerk. Also, as an older movie about a historically queerphobic era, there may be some outdated terminology/attitudes, but imo it’s more progressive and nuanced than some stuff you see today, so - your call! Enjoy responsibly!
Critics cite Bertie’s endeavours on Right Ho, Jeeves as jealousy, yet that notion is extremely reductive. For this, I will only comment on books before the release of Right Ho, Jeeves and Right Ho, Jeeves itself as the main subject is the study of this specific aspect of Bertie’s character and how it slowly evolved until reaching its peak on the book in question.
Bertie has introspective, sensitive and vulnerable parts—some of which he is glad to present, some of which he doesn’t even want to recognize. By negating it he’s able to layer to the point of suffocation.
He has a habit of downgrading himself, and it’s clear why. Hearing something so often it conditions yourself to believe it was something you always thought, agreeing to and playing up an externally created notion of your own identity, as seen in Carry On; My Man; Very Good, Jeeves and other works¹. It must be noted that for Bertie this isn’t putting oneself down, rather just ‘stating the facts’—talking about this, for him, isn’t downgrading, simply the truth. But by doing this he is merely ‘progressing’ with the withholding of himself, and that ends up becoming our side-effect.
The inflections are, however, taken into account. While Bertie assures you in Carry On, Jeeves that he doesn’t mind everyone saying he’s a ‘chump’, and admits he is one—even if followed by a demonstration that he’s not all ‘hopeless’ as some might say (here we can note a underlying defiance)—we’re also privy to some of his negative reactions* and thoughts when his ‘mental capacities’ are questioned/insulted to his face (or in the case of The Pride Of The Woosters Is Wounded, within earshot) rather than something he’s saying about himself, having a routine, or relaying the opinion of others to us in sober retrospect.
This is studied more in depth on Right Ho, Jeeves, but there are examples of this in books released earlier². There is already a “front” Bertie uses to protect himself*. Ironically, when it is his time to construct an identity for himself, it is also on the need to asphyxiate. This self-constructed Bertie, different from the externally-constructed Bertie, isn’t a barely sentient, hopeless, irreflective, vapid chump. He is a man confident on his abilities, with initiative and resource, who can have ideas without assistance. In a crisis between the constructed and the genuine, what emerges is an anti-creation, birthed in rejection and to reject. The barely sentient chump, created to suffocate a complex Bertram Wooster, and the self-created rejection, installed to suffocate a known, but negated, equally complex Bertram Wooster, are dissonant in existence, but its precedents share an equal foundation. The anti-creation is stronger, of course, in the sense that it always goes both ways. It protects—impedes—Bertie from his own self and from others.
Indeed, for an instant I had half a mind to withdraw from the case and hand it back to Jeeves. But the pride of the Woosters restrained me.
Things start properly spiraling in Right Ho, Jeeves when Bertie and Jeeves disagree in regards to a white mess-jacket with brass buttons Bertie bought in Cannes. Holding the jacket dear to his heart, Bertie doesn’t have any intentions of parting with it. Some time later Bertie speaks with Gussie and listens to his love woes, in the course of which Gussie happens to make a tasteless remark. To add more fuel to the fire, the next morning Jeeves tells Bertie that Gussie failed enormously in following up with the plan Jeeves advised—a plan which Gussie had told to Bertie when they had their meetup, and a plan Bertie already didn’t like and what made him decide to ‘take over’ the case—in turn making an already agitated Bertie see it all as ‘entirely Jeeves’ fault’ even when Gussie himself denies this³.
Bertie makes it clear in the inner-monologue following Gussie’s remark that in his circle Jeeves is regarded as the “only member in the household with brains and resources” while Bertie is outright ignored in these situations—in Chapter seven, when talking to Dahlia, he mentions how he resents the assumption that Jeeves is “the only fellow with brain” objecting to “the way everybody puts things up to him without consulting me and letting me have a stab at them first”—The characters have well established assumptions, expecting a certain pattern of behavior from him, with this being something which he is very aware of and certainly hurt by⁴. (Bertie himself isn’t excusable of this, of course. I’m not trying to put him up as a martyr, as he has a lot to say about many aspects of others and also maintains his own set of well established assumptions that can go from “harmless” to extremely bigoted, his misogyny being an example. He happily adheres to the system that he can fully participate in while he’s desperate to nullify the one he falls victim to). It is a one man crusade where he’s trying to seek and confirm his own value by proving himself to others. Going off on his own he will, certainly, show to everyone that he’s not only a mere cipher and gain their approval, notice and validation, (as even though Bertie would like to deny, the praise and adulation of the multitude do mean a lot⁵) following self-affirming words that can serve as light and ephemeral comfort coupled with an anti-creation loud enough so it can brute force its way into putting down any (other) vulnerable facet that may arise. This is now the man of abilities, with initiative and resource, who can have ideas without assistance, ingenious like all Woosters, who feels pity for the wreck of once fine thinkers (until the asperity of the Wooster Pride is made to unclawn). After all, it is much more becoming. Wave a hand, shrug a shoulder, ‘you are missing an intellectual treat’.
As pointed out before Bertie, on this matter, isn’t upset at Jeeves—though that is what ends up presenting itself as, or rather, echoing—but much more at what it all ends up representing. Jeeves, the individual, isn’t the root of his inner conflict. We can’t gloss over the fact that when there are no interferences urging him on, Bertie constantly admits, compliments, affirms etc. Jeeves’ capability⁶ he also does this in Right Ho, even if oftentimes under a different tone. Bertie being Jeeves’ official hype man* is of note when put in direct juxtaposition with his assumed attitude when there are interferences—“Nobody has a greater respect for Jeeves than I have, but the Wooster pride was stung”, and this specific issue is directly addressed in the first encounter with Gussie, “People are always nettling me like that. Giving me to understand [...] that in their opinion Bertram Wooster is a mere cipher and that the only member of the household with brains and resources is Jeeves. It jars on me.”—He is doubling down and projecting so nothing cracks.⁷ When Bertie says “Mortified by the consciousness of his own ineptness—or ineptitude—the fellow was simply trying to hamper and obstruct.” about Jeeves, isn’t it in a way analogous to his own endeavours? Inept he is not, yet still mortified by his own consciousness, as it is in the anti-creation’s existence to hamper and obstruct, within and outside. Much like the Scripture prize, proof of a past achievement so obviously given extreme highlight when mentioned, is to him a “victory [that] was the outcome of the most strenuous and unremitting efforts.” So when a drunken Gussie publicly accuses him of having cheated momentarily taking that victory away (while also being a situation in which no one in his shoes would have achieved personal enjoyment, no less ‘A Wooster can stand a good deal, but he cannot stand having his name bandied in a public place’) it is in a second that Bertie decides to shut it down—here, by leaving and promptly countering Gussie’s false claim when it comes up later. The same happens when characters immediately assume that if something intelligent comes out of Bertie’s mouth, it must have been Jeeves’ idea first. It’s all about the idea of this accomplishment, what it represents, and what will end up representing. The results of that—this matters more than the accomplishment itself. It does fulfill, and it’s necessary, of course, as you don’t have the results before you actually go through, but the long-term repercussions are certainly stronger. It’s all about the ‘What Does It Mean’, for you, and for everyone else? Indeed, if he ends up solving everything it wouldn’t be an individual victory, as it would always be recalled as proof of triumph (not to be read as a selfish venture, for obviously Bertie truly wants to help. These things should not be considered mutually exclusive). In abundance, then, consolidating an identity much more dignified. His Wooster Pride would not care if changed with Fear. If he gives in, would that not be just proving the distorted identity? In fact, for things to work satisfactorily, it has to be a repeat of what has worked: a victory gained by the most strenuous and unremitting efforts. It needs to come from within. And then, when all is done, the destruction of the externally created Bertie should be immediate—but at this point is it not already a parasite? ... Not entirely, as we have Jeeves to sort that out (but that conversation is for another time).
Addendum: I also notice some of this on Reggie Pepper⁸. Self-contained in its space, of course, but it is there.
Quotes and Annotations (I always update on Docs first).
a Big and Importand addendum (update?) to this, but straight from my twitter account because i'm too lazy to properly structure it lmfao. Beware -> bertie just completely disengages identity. after violently fracturing from imposed form he's impulsed to Shape a more honourable another and even then it only exists as a concept, smth he can at the same time 'be' and "strive for' bc being handcrafted its compliant enough to exist within both planes. & He dislodged from the external only to a certain point bc bertie's concept of what is meant to be Respectable is obviously influenced by his context ... Begs the question had bertie any proper agency on this at all? I think that maybe in the rupture. sure it's "impulsed" bc nothing just Happens but he took it & then proceeded to -- here is where it ends -- build a personhood from the dominant debris. I say this bc bertie acknowledged he couldn't just keep being Thatbut if he wasn't then ...? He doesn't know who he is bc of That+is afraid to look for maybe there's nothing and If There Is then who can tell if it's good? if That was built on such a deprecating image how could he even have courage to look at his unothered self? so as i said he creates This which is just dominant debris. & He has to maintain it. We know how that goes. Bc he's not allowed to even nurture it (Sure, HE dislodged from That, but did his peers dislodge Him from what They shaped?) let alone feel any kind of effective power in exercising itbc of the former And bc what he has built this concept on r mere alien virtuous bits n pieces that are Supposed to form an image that of course isn't his. in RHJ jeeves sends bertie to MegaHeaven actually. There NEEDS to be a forceful Stop that shit NOW You're going to die Queen. and bertie goes Well yes Give me an omelette girl! And he's free from the torture vortex. white boy can go to funky town where he just does Whatever the fuck he wants and is completely free! And this is what bertie *is*. Not *should be* not *was made to be* By instinctively avoiding Peeking at his self he was merely avoiding freedom and just suffocating further and further Like maybe we all need the hellish bike ride of liberation lmaooo