BookloverForInfinity

i was working at a little cafe where I could deny service over bad behavior, harassment etc. & mask mandates had just ended a week before & already people were being weird about me still wearing mine—an N95, the kind shaped kinda like a duckbill.

so this man walked in, looked at me sooo scathingly, laughed at me, and said “damn. never known a woman to choose…practicality over looks.”

And I just said, “oh. you can go, you’re not getting a drink.” And he said, “what???”

I said, “sir, you just walked in at 6 am & called women impractical and me ugly in one sentence.”

I'm sick of seeing that lie peddled by clickbait news sites and popular accounts trying to ridicule her with "Oh you didn't expect coffee to be hot?".

What actually happened should radicalise you.

In 1994, Stella Liebeck, who was 79 years old, spilled coffee on her lap while in the passengers seat of the car. The coffee was dangerously hot and caused third-degree burns over 16% of her body including her inner thighs and genitals.

*Warning - Very graphic images of the burns*

Image 1.

Image 2.

Stella originally tried to settle with McDonald's for the cost of her medical care - $20,000. They only offered her $800.

Throughout the case it was discovered that McDonald's were selling coffee between 30-40 degrees higher than other places. That change in temperature causes third-degree burns much faster, if it had been from somewhere else she would have had roughly 20 seconds to wipe away the coffee and avoid third-degree burns.

The White Princess + Costumes

Elizabeth Woodville, Dowager Queen of England's blue & golden dress in Episode 01, 02 & 03.

I sometimes see fanfic writers suggest that Robby has some religious trauma related to his sexuality.

From my standpoint, that is highly unlikely.

I say this as a fifty-ish year-old Ashkenazi Jew who grew up in the same progressive Jewish tradition that Robby did.

It is a matter of canon that Robby grew up a member of Rodef Shalom, a Pittsburgh synagogue in the Reform tradition. That means Robby (who’s probably in his early to mid fifties) went to a Reform shul in the 1970s and 1980s.

The Reform movement is the largest of the liberal denominations in modern Judaism. Originating in mid-19th century Germany, Reform Judaism sees Jewish traditions as evolving as our world around us evolves, and we Reform Jews do not strictly adhere to halakha (Jewish law) in the same way Orthodox Jews do.

Growing up in a Reform shul in the 1970s and 1980s, Robby would have learned a form of Judaism that was progressive and tolerant by the standards of that era. The Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) declared same sex relationships to be legitimate in 1977, and the first openly queer rabbinical students enrolled at Hebrew Union College (the Reform rabbinical school) in 1990. Queer folk were not shunned or shamed in Reform Jewish communities of that era the way they often were in other religious traditions.

It is likely that Robby encountered openly gay Jewish people at synagogue when he was a young man, whether at Rodef Shalom in Pittsburgh or later when he moved to New Orleans (attending, perhaps, Touro Synagogue or Temple Sinai there).

In my view, if Robby has hangups about his sexuality, it’s not for religious reasons.

Sheev’s attempts to drag Anakin away from Obi-Wan is one of my most favorite things about Star Wars because a) it’s HILARIOUS and b) it says everything about their relationship right there and how important it was.Obi-Wan’s presence in Anakin’s life was such a fundamental stabilizing force that of course Palpatine had to break it apart.  He did absolutely everything he could to drive a wedge between them–sometimes successful, sometimes not. He would make little comments constantly about how, oh, I’m sure Master Kenobi cares for you, but does he really? or would put Obi-Wan in a position where he had to do his duty to go undercover to save the Chancellor and hurt Anakin doing it, or would just tell Anakin to leave his Master behind already because they had to escape this burning ship.And, even after all the shit they’ve been through, when Palpatine looks at him all wide-eyed innocence and says, “Leave him, or we’ll never make it.” Anakin makes this incredible face:

adkjsas THAT FACE. is the best thing ive seen omg anakin’s just like usually Obi Wan is the only one suggesting i leave him behind AND I HAVE ENOUGH TROUBLE W THAT AS IT IS W/O U ADDING TO IT, CHANCELLOR.

ANAKIN IS SO FULL OF SALT IN THE FIRST HALF HOUR OF THE MOVIE IT’S SO GREAT. He drops into the elevator, Obi-Wan almost lightsabers him to death, “Oh, it’s you.”

OMG MASTER HOW THE FUCK DID YOU NOT KNOW IT WAS ME? WTF. And then Artoo is taking awhile to get into gear and help them:

NO COMMENTARY FROM THE PEANUT GALLERY, MASTER. >:| AND THEN DOOKU STARTS SHIT TALKING HIM, TOO:

FINE.  FINE.  They deal with Dooku, get dropped down another elevator shaft, just barely escape the elevator hurtling a crushing death at them, then get stuck in the ray shields, where he councils patience and Obi-Wan is like “Who the fuck are you and what have you done with my former Padawan?  You’re suggesting patience?”

This is Anakin Skywalker’s fucking life. AND THAT’S NOT EVEN INCLUDING THE AMAZING FACE HE MAKES IN THE DELETED SCENE:

HIS LIFE IS ONE BIG SALT PILE, HE CANNOT BELIEVE HE HAS TO PUT UP WITH THIS SHIT. Though, honestly, Sheev really steals the scene when the ship is crashing, like he cannot BELIEVE that this is the kind of shit The Team goes through and HOW THE FUCK ARE THEY NOT DEAD IF THIS IS HOW THEY ACT??

AND WHEN ANAKIN CUTS HIM FREE FROM THE DROIDS:

Now, a lot of people take that too far and claim that they only cared about money, and not about anything else, and that's just not true; most people did not want to be miserable, and they didn't want their children to be miserable. But there's a big difference between "the ideal is marrying someone you like and respect who will treat you well" (the standard in Austen's day) and "the ideal is for True Love to triumph over everything."

friend whos always available: i can do whenever

friend whos constantly busy: im sorry i have work and then school and then the labyrinth and then more work :( i can do tuesday at 3:00 am for five minutes tho

friend with the randomly generated sleep schedule: (no response)

friend who went missing in the woods behind their house 12 years ago and hasn't been heard from since: (no response)

HELLO you are asking questions that literature and poetry THROUGHOUT the middle ages has asked, and it is from this questioning that we derive things like the Codes of Chivalry (which is not "how to treat a noble lady really nice" but is actually "how to be an ethical person when you're rich and you own a horse" and includes such things as "don't run people over with your horse")

In fact I daresay you already know instinctively just from cultural osmosis what a good boss -- a good liege lord -- is and does based on the tropes that have survived to the current day and the kinds of things that get Hugely Praised in things like legends of King Arthur.

A good boss (liege lord) is:

Merciful. He is not having his peasants killed for things like poaching rabbits during a famine. In fact, he is working to mitigate famine. During times of individual hardship, he might negotiate with a peasant for a payment plan on their annual rent.

Patient. He is not impulsive, he does not lose his temper.

Prudent. He makes choices that are thoughtful, considered, conservative (in the sense of not needlessly risky--he's not investing his entire fortune in having everyone plant an unproven crop). He is making sure local infrastructure like roads and public buildings are maintained and kept in good nick.

Gentle. He doesn't haul off and slap a servant or a tenant for breaking a dish or making a mistake. He doesn't abuse animals, his wife or children, or his employees. He doesn't rape the servants.

Generous (both in money and in spirit). He is not extorting the peasants for an amount of rent that is beyond their means, he is not raising taxes every year to cover his own lavish lifestyle. He is paying his servants a living wage (or, if wages are low, he's giving them room/board/clothing to make up the difference). If someone in a tenant's family dies, the lord is sending a gift of condolence, or helping to pay for the funeral, or possibly even ATTENDING the funeral and speaking a few kind words about the deceased, ESPECIALLY if they were a really upstanding and important member of the community. If one of his tenants is gravely sick, the lord is sending a basket of food or paying for a doctor. He is giving charitably (generally this will be, like, a bequest to the church so that they can run a hospital or an orphanage or a school for the local village children).

Pious. This classically means "goes to church, submits with humility to God" but to me this quality is subtextually standing in for "maintaining an ongoing sense of Perspective that HE'S not god, that there are higher powers he is Accountable to, that he too can be Judged, etc, so that he doesn't end up going on a weird fucked up power trip"

Humble. One of the most admiring things you hear about a lord doing in literature and epic poetry is, "He ate off of wooden plates while his followers ate off of gold and silver." Humility isn't about being meek, it's just about not thinking so much of yourself that you turn your nose up and sneer at what "lesser" people do. In other words: Don't be a fucking diva. If your carriage gets stuck in the mud, climb out and help everybody else push, you're not gonna die from getting mud on your shoes.

Condescending. This word has changed wildly in meaning/tone over the last couple centuries -- it's now a rude thing to do (because we've done away with legal social hierarchies, so someone acting like they're lowering themselves to your level IS insulting), but in older times, a high-ranking person "condescending" to a servant was worthy of praise and admiration: it means they were setting aside rank and privilege to speak to them with the easygoing, friendly respect and compassion they'd give a peer. This is things like... Treats those beneath him with courtesy and respect (ie: listens soberly and attentively when one of his servants or tenants comes to complain about a problem). Having a sense of humor and kindness about it when the lord and a servant both come around a corner at the same time and run into each other and the servant gets knocked to the ground and starts babbling apologies--the condescending (positive) lord helps them to their feet with his own hands and cracks a joke to show them that it's ok (as opposed to just walking off without a word or insulting/scolding them). This is also things like trusting a farmer, woodcutter, or artisan to speak with expertise about their own livelihood and taking their advice into consideration if they tell the lord that one of his ideas won't work.

Good boundaries. The ethical liege lord knows that it's normal for the staff to probably be softly bitching about him in private (even with a really good boss, we all grumble from time to time). He's not eavesdropping on them, he's not going into the staff areas where they should reasonably expect to have a degree of privacy, etc.

Righteous and protective of "the weak". The "weak" here doesn't necessarily mean physically weak, this is often used in the sense of someone politically or socially weak, aka The Marginalized -- the poor, the disabled, women, children, the elderly, etc. If a lord sees someone like this being mistreated or abused, he's supposed to step in and put a stop to that.

Committed to reciprocity. In a highly hierarchical system like feudalism, every person (from the lowest peasant all the way up to the crown prince) legally OWES their liege lord certain things (taxes, labor, service, loyalty, etc). A good liege remembers and takes very seriously the idea that this should be a balanced and reciprocal relationship -- in other words, he owes something BACK. Feudalism is modeled very strongly on the family system: If children owe their parents obedience and service, then parents owe their children care and protection. This still applies when the "child" is a farmer and the "parent" is a local baron. Or when the "child" is a duke and the "parent" is the king.

Basically, we get so caught up in the aesthetics of nobility that we forget that it literally is a managerial position that comes with responsibilities that were... very similar back in the day to the same ones we have now. Humans have not changed all that much. At the end of the day, a really good boss in the 1400s versus in one from the 2020s displays most of the same qualities of personality, even if the details of execution are different.

The next question is, of course, "well, but this theoretical liege lord is HIGHLY idealized -- how often did that actually HAPPEN? Wasn't it more likely that everyone was exploited all the time?" and to that I say: Well, maybe. But again, I don't think humans have changed all that much. Just like the bosses of today, there's a SPECTRUM: A really really good boss is rare and precious and one that you tell stories about for years after you've left that job, but a truly, genuinely, homicidally nightmarish boss is also pretty rare. Most bosses are sort of meh -- they have their good moments, they have their shitty moments, but they're tolerable and you can get along with them well enough to do your job, and then you roll your eyes at them behind their back. Generally, humans don't take outright exploitation lying down. Being a bad boss in the historical period is how you get peasant uprisings and revolts, and you know that to be true because your parents raised you with that knowledge, so unless you are very stupid or inbred or an egomaniac, there is literal personal incentive to at minimum be a Tolerable liege lord. And that means hitting at least SOME of the above bullet points.

TL;DR: In the words of Honore de Balzac, "Everything I have just told you can be summarized by an old word: noblesse oblige!"

Whatever think think they're doing by it, a lord trying to insist that their servants dispense with the honorifics and formalities and sit with them as friends is not being nice, they are engaging in a power play. It's a power play because it's forcing the servants to constantly figure out the behavioural sweet spot that's casual enough to not be chided for being stiff, but also formal enough to not give the person in power an opportunity to punish them.

You cannot casually pal around with someone who has that kind of power without risking offending them, and offending them is bad because they have the power to have you fired without references or hope of employment elsewhere, or publicly humiliated, or whipped bloody. They may say they won't break out such measures in response to a joke poking fun at them, but you cannot safely trust that they'll follow through on that promise.

Green Chile Chicken Quesadillas

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Bridgerton + Headpieces