#class commentary

[monsters-demons-and-heralds-ohmy]

I adore fics where child Jayce and Viktor meet, they are adorable.

But considering the time when Viktor was a child (probably mostly pre Cassandra's vent system when the grey was terrible) and what just living in his neighborhood did to him (causing his illness)…

I just keep imagining a tiny Viktor trying to take Jayce to his home to play and they just... can't even get close. Because at that point Viktor is used to breathing in poison and Jayce's body recognizes it for what it is. (kinda like the Chembaron's meeting scene)

I keep imagining little Viktor just staring at Jayce confused like, "what's wrong?" Not even realizing what he's breathing will eventually kill him.

[howifeltabouthim]

They might be coated in money, but the money didn't rub off.

L. P. Hartley, from The Hireling

[daydrinking75]

"oh sure, beauty is terror. go on then. quiver before it. not like it will pay for your tuition. but wait, you dont have to, do you? so then beauty is a luxury given to those who can afford to live outside reality. that's not beauty; its delusion. and even if im wrong, to me, beauty is facing reality in spite of terror."

[mediamatinees]

Another Eat-the-Rich Film, "Parasite" is an Exploration of Class at Its Deadliest

The wait is (finally) over! My review of Bong Joon-Ho's materpiece, "Parasite" is now live!

Content Warning: Parasite contains depictions of severe class disparity, violence, grooming, and extreme manipulation. Viewer discretion is advised. Spoilers for Parasite ahead! In January of 2020, the English-centered film industry was put on blast for not giving foreign language films their proper flowers. Director Bong Joon-Ho, already celebrated by Hollywood and audiences alike for previous…

[gameshowtrainwreck]

"Going Postal" by Terry Pratchett

I just don't understand the outrage being directed to those who have expressed some degree of satisfaction from the news of that United Health Care CEO getting shot. Why would his death be any more outrageous or any more unacceptable from the slow, often painful deaths endured by those at the stroke of his pen?

Frankly, the victim got off lighter than what some movies use for plotlines. It's not something I woulda done, probably not even how I'd do it (a couple of ideas, but they're assumptions that would require stuff anyone privy to the investigation might have already ruled out and i feel as if i contribute enough to the problem of online content as it is anyway), but the ruling class experiencing the same kind of terror they've been okay with allowing everybody else to endure is not something that really moves the needle for me. Frankly, I hope they never catch the shooter and the perp becomes a folk hero for the 21st century. Hell, murder ballads about the shooting are already popping up online. This shooting is reviving folk music. Nobody but family weeps for the low-born criminals dead in the gutter, why are the rest of us low-born expected to weep for an industry who has killed more than the drug cartels? Nah. They spent a lot of money on a lot of politicians to fuck us all over. As ye have sown, so shall ye reap. If a paycheck depends on abstracting people into a line item on a ledger and people end up dying because of it, then you really should consider another line of work.

"I have never laid a finger on anyone in my life, Mr Pump. I may be–– all the things you know I am, but I am not a killer! I have never so much as drawn a sword!" "No, You Have Not. But You Have Stolen, Embezzled, Defrauded And Swindled Without Discrimination, Mr Lipvig. You Have Ruined Businesses And Destroyed Jobs. When Banks Fail, It Is Seldom Bankers Who Starve. Your Actions Have Taken Money From Those Who Had Little Enough To Begin With. In A Myriad Small Ways You Have Hastened The Deaths Of Many. You Do Not Know Them. You Did Not See Them Bleed. But You Snatched Bread From Their Mouths And Tore Clothes From Their Backs. For Sport, Mr Lipvig. For Sport. For The Joy Of The Game.”

― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

Sometimes there are people in this world who will make their best contributions to humanity on their departure. If you're afraid that might happen to you: (1) if you're letting shit get so bad in your interactions with others that somebody might take a swing at you that's probably something you should turn yourself in to the authorities over and try to plea bargain even though you can still get shanked in prison, and (2) lol why are you rich enough to work in health insurance and still fucking slumming it on tumblr? Get tae fuck with that scrub-league bullshit. Rich people are horrible fucking fanfic authors anyway, look at what's getting made in movies. (yes, golems speak by capitalizing every word of dialogue in the Discworld novels, it's something Sir Terry Pratchett did with his books and supernatural characters; Death is a character in them and speaks in small-caps without quotation marks. It's a little annoying personally, but Terry is such a good author you get used to it to the point where it feels wrong without it)

[hussyknee]

KJ Charles is screamingly funny about the upper classes but I think the absolute funniest scene I've read so far is in this Will Darling book (set in the 1920s).

[SPOILERS for Will Darling: The Sugared Game.]

.

.

.

A gaggle of Woosterish trust fund babies accidentally burst into the climactic scene to gape in bewilderment at the bad guy who's cornered, desperate and brandishing a gun.

Tfw you encounter such an overmoneyed idiot that you nearly have a commiserating moment with the homicidal maniac trying to kill you.

[chronurgy]

Gortash designs and builds mechanisms so I imagine he has to be able to sketch fairly decently in order to sketch his projects and designs. And I'm imagining a pile of charcoal sketches of Durge, done over their entire acquaintance, starting out with sketches of them in battle and then slowly becoming more detailed and intimate and as they do, the titles changing from things like "The Bhaalspawn" and "Bhaal's Chosen at Their Bloody Work" to "The Chosen in Contemplation" and finally just Durge's name

[voltairineandviolethaze]

Every institution of our day, the family, the State, our moral codes, sees in every strong, beautiful, uncompromising personality a deadly enemy; therefore every effort is being made to cramp human emotion and originality of thought in the individual into a straight-jacket from its earliest infancy; or to shape every human being according to one pattern; not into a well-rounded individuality, but into a patient work slave, professional automaton, tax-paying citizen, or righteous moralist.

- Emma Goldman, “The Child and Its Enemies” (1906)

[dramadramallama]

Final thoughts and trying to organize my feelings around Heesu In Class 2.

It truly felt like a "regular," quality kdrama, except for one thing. One very important thing: two of the main characters are gay, and endgame. Like, I don't think we realize how unthinkable a (mainstream) Korean show like this was, just two or three years ago.

It might not be 100% faithful to the source material but it is 100% faithful to the story it sets out to tell. It had a clear direction from the start, hit the mark several times, and never lost sight of that finish line: @lurkingshan and @twig-tea put it very succinctly and pertinently when they said the drama had, respectively, "a legible narrative" and was "carefully calibrated."

On top of that, it has a great re-watch value with a lot of blink and you'll-miss-it details, and beautiful direction. A lot of care went into how the scenes are set up and shot and it shows.

I completely understand that some people might prefer a drama with a different, more "targeted" focus (i.e literally everything converging towards Hee-su narratively) but that doesn't mean anything else is automatically wrong/bad. I feel like you can find that elsewhere so easily; it's just not that kind of story. I also think it's such a restrictive way of looking at things... Gay romance does not need to be locked in the confines of your average BL. I don't want to watch the same arbitrary BL tropes being applied like it's the law. How boring. We finally have a high budget, high quality Korean drama with—I cannot stress this enough—A GAY TITLE CHARACTER that gets the same treatment a straight coming of age romance kdrama would... and I, for one, am delighted in, and celebrate the creative liberties they took. It was a risk, but it paid off.

It only feels like other characters take "too much space/time" away from Seung-won and Hee-su than they actually do because 1. the show has a longer runtime, and more episodes and 2. the show does not follow the "classic" boys love formula. Hee-su does not exist in a bubble where everything that happens happens only TO HIM. However what happens around him definitely serves to highlight his struggles, his fears, or his emotions in general. I'd go even further and say that not everything happening in relation to Hee-su has to be about Seung-won... Characters can exist outside of their love interests. It's one of the reasons the drama felt so well-rounded to me.

Hee-su is the hero of this drama, but the show does a wonderful job of reminding us the other characters are not NPCs, not puppets, not props. And they also are orbiting around their own centers, and that does not diminish Heesu's character or his relationship with Seung-won. In fact, the drama makes a point of underlining how extraordinary it is that they (tiny specks of stardust) could find each other (in the vastness of the universe).

I love metaphors and the cosmic theme threaded through the episodes was just the cherry on top. I don't want to focus too much on the criticism I've read for the show but I will admit that most of what seemed to rub people the wrong way is actually what made it special to me.

Yes, we get more perspective from different points of view, and we get to see the other characters struggle and grow up too, but the drama never loses sight of, or erase Hee-su. It's more like the narrative sometimes switches to a broader lens, and we have access to a wider spectrum of colors. Everything (Hee-su included) gets to feel more three dimensional. When ep1 and 2 aired, I said the show felt "full" but maybe a better way to put it would be that it's not flat.

I can argue about it ad nauseam, but the matter of the fact is Hee-su is The Main Character, and he's GAY, very GAY, and it's his story and his struggles being told. The actors did a wonderful job and made me feel so much. And it ends well!

It was lovely.

[katierosefun]

pyramid game is such a perfect little drama for the sapphics because you've got a whole demented psychological thriller going on about high school girls creating a whole fake social class system that results because one bored little princess bitch thought it'd be funny, and you've got all these dynamics that can only be boiled down to some kind of love story because like. ye lim and eun jeong's dynamic? the princess idol and her athlete bodyguard. soo ji and ja eun's dynamic? the cold mastermind and the compassionate heart. even whatever da yeon and seol ha have got going on? typical hitter and loyal dog dynamic. the list can go on.

[paragon-of-anxiety]

the jasmine throne is amazing. the two main characters are: a woman so deeply committed to being kind that she's worried about losing more of her humanity with the more power she gains and This Cunt.

[elwenyere]

The way class and money work in Austen is really interesting, and it's specific to the transition from a system of income and prestige based primarily on land ownership to a capitalist one where wealth increasingly circulated through commercialism and market exchange. In Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Bennet is a member of the gentry: the only one in Meryton aside from Mr. Darcy whose source of wealth (a 2000-pound-a-year income from the family estate) is solely landed and generational (the Bingley sisters don't acknowledge it, but their fortune was acquired by trade, and Bingley's - and his father's - unfulfilled intention to purchase an estate at some point would be a way to acquire some old-money prestige). This is what makes Elizabeth, even by Lady Catherine de Bourgh's estimation, a "gentleman's daughter." This is also a key part of what puts the Bennet sisters in a precarious financial position. The family estate is entailed to the male next-of-kin (Mr. Collins), so none of the daughters can inherit it or plan to live on its annual income after Mr. Bennet's death. In the meantime they're still required to undergo certain expenses to keep up the social appearance that validates their status (keeping a carriage, having new gowns, etc.), but they cannot work for a salary without forfeiting their gentility, and the kind of education that would be allowed to them (even if their parents had hired a governess, which they didn't) would be limited to those "accomplishments" that increased their value on the marriage market and reaffirmed their class status (when Darcy and the Bingleys discuss what makes a woman accomplished, the list largely involves proficiency in deportment and the decorative and performance arts, and only Darcy includes improvement of the mind through reading). And while the public behavior of Mrs. Bennet, Lydia, and Kitty in particular takes an embarrassing toll on the family's social standing - and Lydia's running off with Wickham is potentially catastrophic for their moral standing - for members of the landed aristocracy like Lady Catherine de Bourgh (and to a lesser extent Darcy, as he admits the connection will hurt the Bennet sisters' prospects), it's the ties that Mrs. Bennet's family, including the Gardiners, have to trade and to commercial wealth that makes their social status suspect. As Lady Catherine says to Elizabeth when confronting her about the rumored engagement to Darcy: "You are a gentleman’s daughter. But what was your mother? Who are your uncles and aunts? Do not imagine me ignorant of their condition." In many of her novels Austen explores the tensions created by shifts in the early-nineteenth-century class structure, as a more capitalistic system of wealth generation and transfer emerged. In Pride and Prejudice the Gardiners play a key role in getting Elizabeth and Darcy together not only by physically bringing them into the same space again but also by serving as a morally laudable example of the new, trade-based and professional middle class, whose behavior wins Darcy's respect and helps overcome aristocratic prejudices. Austen also satirizes (including in the opening line of P&P) the way the marriage market made spouses into an asset of capitalist exchange, and she interrogates (more or less sympathetically, in the cases of Charlotte Lucas and Caroline Bingley) what it means for women to assent to commodifying themselves as marriage products.

The income Austen gives Darcy in P&P is fairy-tale level, in a novel that would otherwise be described as realist. He could certainly support an in-law or five, but beyond that it's interesting to consider what that kind of rarefied wealth means for Austen's attempt to imagine (through Jane and Elizabeth) a path for women to achieve financial stability without losing themselves.

[ghost-bison]

what i love about rtd companions is that even martha who was a fricking doctor was just a normal young adult. donna was the most normal woman in her mid-thirties you could find. rose was what people call a "chav". and the ninth doctor didn't have a "posh" accent. he sounded like a northerner. this is great

i am a northerner myself, but from france, where (surprise!) people with our accent and background are belittled like in britain, as we're working class. france isn't as elitist as britain but it's been getting worse

i live in france where people like rose are called "cas-sociaux" (charity cases basically, "cassos" for short) which has become an insult. we use it to tell people they're stupid. so basically, your level of intelligence is mesured by your up-bringing. if you're rich and still have both your parents, you're smarter. if you're poor and have only one parent, you're dumb. which is fucking shit, btw

but this classicism can be associated with so much racism in france towards mixed-raced people (and immigrants in general, even those who are now naturalized). cause statistically speaking, a lot of them are poor. thing is, they're poor and some of them even labeled as "delinquants", not because they're lazy or stupid, but because white people won't let them get jobs! duh

so yeah, i know rose is white (2005 uk tv, right?), but she's still poor and "underpriviledged" (much like myself, and even more so than myself), and eccleston even talked about this during a convention, how when billie piper was cast as rose there was a lot of negative feedback, because she was a pop-star. it's again very much linked to classicism, "people having to stay in their boxes"

and it's crazy hilarious and fantastic how the doctor himself gives a big fuck you to all those people who have been fans of the show for so long, by giving ZERO FUCKS that rose lives in a council flat or donna is considered a "lowbrow" due to her up-bringing her education and job or that martha has more melanin than his previous companions

the most brilliant creature in the universe would rather travel with your curious broke ass than with some snooty sophisticated daddy's girl and it makes the boomers so mad

[free-luigi]

[cupidsncheerios]

okay i know we all write jayvik vampire aus where viktor is the vampire, because have you seen his face, BUT

have we considered vampire piltover v human zaun where jayce is trying to invent a sufficient blood replacement for vampires to drink instead of killing zaunites, and viktor is an already anemic zaunite who immediately supports jayce's project the SECOND he hears about it because if one more of these literally bloodsucking bourgeois bitches tried to take away his already struggling red blood cells. let's just say jayce's apartment wouldn't be the only thing on fire

anyway so because they need blood to test and he's a good friend, jayce talis becomes the first ever vampire to decide he maybe likes getting bit. this isn't bc nobody else has tried it, jayce is just weird

[pumpkinspiceshiplover]

Class 1B Incorrect Qoutes

Komori: What'cha eating?

Kurorio: A B & J.

Komori: Don't you mean mean a PB & J?

Kurorio: No, we were out of peanut butter, so I used regular butter.

Kurorio: It's not great.

******************************************

Tsuburaba: Can you accidentally forge someone else's signature? Follow-up question: How do you reverse it?

Awase: 1st, How do you accidentally forge someone else's signature?

Awase: 2nd, What makes you think I know how to fix it?

Awase: and 3rd, whiteout and bubble letters.

******************************************

Tokage: Hey! Check out this photo of a random child I just found!

Honenuki: You mean this random photo of a child, right?

Tokage: .....

Honenuki: ......Right?

Tokage: ......

Honenuki: WHO'S CHILD IS THIS AND WHY DO YOU HAVE A PHOTO OF THEM??????

******************************************

Monoma: So as I was saying-shoot it's 4 already?

Shinsou: Yeah? Is something wrong?

Monoma: I have to go. It's time for me to make fun of Class 1A.

Shinsou: You have a set time for that?????

Monoma: Yeah, you don't? It's a part of life?

Shinsou: No it isn't!

Monoma: BTW, if you see Shiozaki today, tell her tomorrow's her turn.

Shinsou: You take turns?