New Watson Wife Theory: Watson did indeed marry six times, but it's all lavender marriages, all women from Mary's circle. They live together for a while, then the wive in question goes and Visits Her Mother while Watson can spend time with his very good friend and companion Sherlock Holmes. At some point, Watson's wife fakes her death (husband's husband is an expert) and everyone rides off into sunsets.
Then Mary will wire saying Eyyy John I know another young lady who's in trouble can you marry her please? and the whole thing begins anew.
140 notes
·
View notes
I didn't have someone claiming that only royalty at Versailles were allowed any access to toilet facilities, and everyone else had to walk around with miniature chamber pots strapped to their butt under their dress (men were apparently outta luck!) on my "Versailles myth" bingo card, and yet here we are.
Anyone that knows Ben Franklin was at Versailles knows that man would have written home immediately wbout how the women at Versailles walk around with teeny-weeny chamber pots strapped to their bodies underneath their dresses.
Abigail Adams, too, for that matter. Just for different reasons...
270 notes
·
View notes
I've been moving and navigating further departmental nonsense etc (my pseudo-dissertation got approved for defending, though! l o l). But it was interesting to see the Worst P&P Takes poll I reblogged accumulating more results and the general tenor of responses in the notes.
I mean, the results are definitely to be expected if you're familiar with the side of Austen fandom doing a lot of the reblogging etc. But still, interesting!
Many Tumblr polls specify that they're asking about personal preferences that may be irrational—favorite/least favorite, coolest/most annoying, or something like that. This one, though, asked for the worst interpretation of P&P, not the most annoying one—and the current leader is "Darcy is never really proud, he's just shy and probably has anxiety" against some very steep competition on the Bad Takes front.
I was thinking about why that seemed a kind of tediously predictable choice even though I agree that the take is wrong, and realized that while I do disagree with the shy Darcy interpretation and I particularly disagree with the specific formulation where he is never proud at all, it ultimately feels to me like a failure of nuance rather than just completely wrongheaded like some of the others. And this is probably my fundamental difference with a lot of Darcy takes I see!
In my opinion, a character who is introverted and who feels awkward in various social situations and who doesn't like common social activities and who has to work himself up to talking to his crush and who is repeatedly suggested to behave very differently in contexts where he's more comfortable being interpreted as shy and anxious is not that big of a leap.
Yes, it's important that he is actually fundamentally confident and haughty, that he makes his personal feelings of discomfort other people's problem, and that he thinks he's such a unique and special butterfly that he doesn't need to even put in an effort outside his personal social circle. But it's a misreading that is easy to follow (and long predates the 2005 P&P, as I've mentioned before!).
The additional misreading that a shy and anxious Darcy is also never proud at all is a much more drastic leap, and in my experience, condemnations of shy Darcy interpretations rarely differentiate between "Darcy is shy as well as arrogant" and "Darcy is shy rather than arrogant" as interpretations (although their basic arguments are quite different). But even that as the worst possible misreading of P&P when Darcy is not even the main character is ?????????
I mean, for one alternative (not even the one I voted for!), the idea that Elizabeth is an author avatar Mary Sue seems a far worse misreading of P&P than basically anything to do with Darcy at all. The center piece of the entire novel is Elizabeth's epiphany of self-knowledge about her own shortcomings that do not particularly resemble Austen's at all, but were ethically a concern for her, and she's a complex, interesting character in general whom Austen correctly regarded as a major achievement. Inverting that into Elizabeth as an improbably perfect, reality-warping self-insert is deeply wrong and frankly pretty misogynistic as well.
(ngl though, it's a little funny to see such a blatantly terrible reading of Elizabeth rank so far behind the shy Darcy votes. I've gotten "does anyone actually think/say that?" so many times on my posts about Austen fandom's prioritization of Darcy's character development over Elizabeth's and yet...)
And even just going with the Darcy-centric misreadings, the idea of Darcy as a "bad boy" seems easily the most absolutely wrong take on him. His pride is at least complicated and the finer points can be fairly debated and it's a quality that actually changes somewhat throughout the novel, and you can have discussion over what happened when, whose testimonies should be weighted more, etc. But there is no point at which "bad boy" isn't utterly wrong for him. However, there's definitely a tendency in some wings of the fandom to find the idea of Darcy being misread too favorably more objectionable than him being read too unfavorably, regardless of the particulars, so it's not a surprise.
I suppose you could argue about what "worst" means in the context of variously bad interpretations. Like, is an interpretation that is about a fairly trivial aspect of the book but extremely wrong about it "worse" than an interpretation that is pretty bad but at least comprehensibly so about something very important?
78 notes
·
View notes
AAAAAAAA Congrats Team Past!!!!! There’s something sentimental about the Squid Sisters getting that one last win, but together this time. Don't get me wrong, I 100% wanted Present to win (since I was y'know on the team), and Future fought hard. But I don't know, maybe it's the fact the last time they participated in a Splatfest it was straight up against each other, and then in the second game they literally WERE fighting each other. So for them to win the final(?) Splatfest together is just cathartic. And in a way it kinda puts the final lid onto the New Squidbeak Splatoon story line. What started out as Cuttlefish trying to relive the past turned into what it is today and for the near future. ALSO OFF TOPIC BUT I love the cute little moment Deep Cut had after the score reveal but I DO NOT like how foreboding Frye's words were like girl take that back of course you're all still gonna be together in the future right Nintendo?
20 notes
·
View notes
🏍🦑🐙⚠
Click and Open image for HQ!
[Commission OPEN] | [Cheap-bi Commission OPEN] | [Ko-fi] | [Twitter] | [Instagram]
As a desi, I've got to reference one of the best desi movie songs from a blockbuster film: "Yeh Dosti Hum Nahi Todenge" Sholay (1975), and as a queer desi, it's the classic take on "Living the crime life and being gay af with your pardner." The chaotic energy.
This song was sung by two legendary Bengali idols, Kishore Kumar and Manna Dey. I kid you not; their voices fit perfectly well for these two. A beautifully dynamic voice paired with a softly sweet voice; I can't stop seeing it.
Although I don't speak Hindi (I speak Bangla), I did my best translating the chorus and a verse of the song and have it flow better in English. The entire song is pretty gender-neutral. I swear, the number of desi songs that sing about being romantically interested in a friend and/or referring to their romantic partner as a friend is longer than a laundry list. Also, I saw a cishet cover this song romantically. If they can do it, so can I. Checkmate.
BONUS:
My sis insisted that I must draw this scene, and I delivered.
At least they got them to laugh.
353 notes
·
View notes