Just thinking about how em forster how no way of knowing in 1917 if there would ever come a time where people like him could be free to love whoever they wanted but still made a point of creating a story where the protagonist found himself with a happy ending despite not ending up with his initial lover because he still found how to accept and love himself as he is and found a man who felt the same and not two decades after the book was published an openly gay director decided to make a movie that kept it lovingly close to the source material with actors incredibly dedicated to their roles so now to this day people can read the book or watch the film and understand what forster wanted to say which just goes to show how far this story has come to finally reach an audience to appreciate it in all its glory and connect people to a time that seems so far off to them now simply because forster believed that no one deserves to have a happy ending taken from them and even though he never got to live to see the day where we’re increasingly getting more accepting of each other’s sexualities he’s managed to create a legacy that has managed to surpass the passage of time.
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Aye, you're playing a dangerous game by pointing out 'British food bad' is classism. I've seen these debates before. They never end because people seem to think jellied eels are something we eat every day (and are for some reason really squeamish about haggis, as if it's not literally just a really, really round sausage technically).
It's a hill I will die on. Beans on toast in particular was born out of rationing during the war, and continued afterwards. Food rationing didn't stop until 1954, almost a decade after the war ended.
The UK only paid off its debt to the US and Canada during World War 2 in 2006. In some ways, the US treated its previous enemies better than its allies after the war, they forgave a significant chunk of German debt to allow the country to rebuild.
I don't want my cellphone to have AI I want it to have 3 days of battery time. I don't want my computer to have AI preinstalled I want it to have seven usb ports and high ram at affordable price. I don't want my games to have AI built levels I want them to be so optimized I could run them on a nokia.
Interviews with hockey players are fantastic, because it is a complex game that can be spoken about at length, but during the intermission they'll find the Wettest player imaginable on the losing team and for thirty seconds they'll ask them things like "what do you need to do to get more pucks in the net?" And the player (panting, haunted behind the eyes) says something like "well, we've got to get them in there"
Every work of art says things the creator hasn’t considered, but if you’ve really thought about what you’re trying to say then generally the additional dimensions you didn’t know it had are in alignment with your purpose, whereas if you think you’re making no cultural comment at all you are actually making a LOT of cultural comments, most of which will be unflattering to you
“I don’t want to make anything with cultural dimensions. That’s why I only write within the genre that is legally sequestered away from every other kind of storytelling because of my culture’s attitude towards depictions of sex.”
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I need every sheltered poorly socialized anger-suppressed autistic weird girl late-bloomer suburbanite with passive aggressive helicopter parents who grew up with no steady friends no romantic relationships practically invisible yet still heckled by their peers and belittled by their own family for not passing life milestones to drop everything and watch Dinner in America. Then I want you to open your window scream into the neighborhood and remember that it’s never EVER too late to pick yourself up grow a fucking backbone and get shit done. be passionate be loud as fuck take up so much space that it causes problems live a violently colorful and rich life so that the quiet boxed-in people pleaser you once were breaks down in cathartic tears send post
If Your Scene Feels Lifeless, Someone Is Being Too Polite
Stories stall when everyone behaves. Real tension appears when someone:
• asks the wrong question
• says something they shouldn’t
• notices something uncomfortable
• refuses to drop the topic
• misunderstands something important
• interrupts at the worst moment
They want something REALLY REALLY REALLY bad, but for some reason they can't ask for it -- or can't have it even if they did ask.
They don't notice something that the audience HAS noticed (like in a horror movie when the monster is sneaking up behind the protagonist, or if someone drinks a glass of unboiled water during a cholera outbreak because they don't know about germ theory)
Takes a risk (or otherwise does something they "shouldn't" do) which the audience has to sit through for a prolongued period of time (e.g. slips away from the party to go into the host's private office and rifle through their papers before the guards catch them)
I read this as a kid, and never forgot how perfectly it works as a short story: delineated characters, plot, twist. Today I found it again in an old newspaper from 1952. So here it is, for your enjoyment.
THE ALCHEMIST'S SECRET
by Arthur Gordon
Illustrated by Walter Richards
Sitting quietly in his crooked street in the shadow of Notre Dame, Doctor Maximus did not look like a very remarkable man. But he was. Five hundred years before, he might have busied himself changing the baser metals into gold. But in Paris of the nineties, it is said, he worked at a more subtle alchemy. He changed dreams into realities— provided, of course, you could pay.
The man who came into the gaslit shop this early October evening in 1891, was prepared to pay. He stood just inside the door, blotting his forehead with a silk handkerchief although actually the weather was rather cool. He was holding a heart-shaped package tightly under one arm. "You are Monsieur le Docteur Maximus?"
The Doctor bowed respectfully.
"I have a problem," said the visitor nervously. "I am told you might help me with it."
"Indeed?" said the Doctor mildly. "Who told you that?"
The newcomer glanced around uneasily at the dim shelves, the leathery tortoise dangling from a string, the small stuffed crocodile with its dust-filmed eyes. "Last night we had a dinner guest. A foreign diplomat. First secretary of the—"
"Ah, yes. Pechkoff. It is true I did him a small service."
"He was not very specific, you understand. But after a few glasses of cognac he talked rather freely. I got the impression…"
"Yes?"
"That if it weren't for your— er— assistance he would still be married, most unhappily, to his first wife."
Doctor Maximus took off his glasses and polished the spotless lenses. "She died, I believe, poor woman. Quite suddenly."
"Yes," said the visitor, "she did. So suddenly that there was an autopsy. But they discovered nothing wrong."
"Of course not," said Doctor Maximus, smiling gently.
"My wife," said the visitor with a certain agitation, "is a very beautiful woman. Naturally, she has many admirers. She has always ignored them until recently, but now there is one— I don't know which one— a younger man, no doubt. She admits it! She demands that I make some settlement. I will not—"
Doctor Maximus raised his hand. "The details," he murmured, "do not concern me."
The visitor's face was tight and dangerous. "I am not a man to be made a fool of!"
"No," said the Doctor, "I can see that."
"Madame," said the visitor abruptly, "is very fond of candy." He unwrapped the heart-shaped package and placed it on the counter. It was a box of chocolates. "I thought perhaps you might— ah— improve the candies at your convenience and then post them to her. She would be very pleased. I have even prepared a card to enclose." He took out a small rectangle of cardboard. On it was printed in neat capitals: From an admirer.
Doctor Maximus took the card and sighed. "My fees are not inconsiderable."
"I did not expect them to be," the visitor said stiffly. He did not flinch when the price was named. He paid it, in gold coins. He blotted his forehead once more with the silk handkerchief. "Will you be able to send the candy tonight?"
"Perhaps," said the Doctor noncommittally. "We shall see. And where should it be sent?"
"Ah, yes," said the visitor. "Of course." And he gave Madame's name and address.
Doctor Maximus wrote the information on a slip of paper. Then he scribbled three digits on another slip and handed it over. "You, sir, are customer 322. If there are any difficulties, kindly refer to that number. Not," he added, "that there will be any."
With one hand on the doorknob, the visitor hesitated. "It won't be—" he wet his lips— "it won't be painful, will it?"
"Not at all," said Dr. Maximus. He peered over his spectacles in a benign and sympathetic fashion. "You seem rather upset. Do you want me to give you something to make you sleep?"
"No, thank you," said his visitor nervously. "I have my own prescription for insomnia: a hot grog before going to bed."
"Ah, yes," said Dr. Maximus. "An excellent habit."
"Good night," said the visitor, opening the door into the narrow, ill-lit street.
"Good-bye," murmured Dr. Maximus.
Taking the box of chocolates in one hand and the slip of paper in the other, he went into the little room at the rear of the shop. From the shelf above his test tubes and retorts he took a big black book, opened it, and looked at the record of the previous transaction. There it was, entered only that afternoon in his spidery handwriting:
Customer 321. Complaint: the usual. Remedy: six drops of the elixir, to be administered in husband's hot grog at bed-time.
Dr. Maximus sighed. Then, being a man who honored his commitments, he opened the box of chocolates and went to work. There was no great rush. He would post the parcel in the morning.
In the herb shop, as in life, you got just about what you paid for. But his motto was: First come, first served.
looking for animal references on image searches has always kind of sucked but it's much worse after AI image generation technology has begun to actually past muster, which is why i always just go straight to inaturalist. can't recommend this highly enough. you get to both find out about niche species you've never even heard of and also see some really good photographs like this one
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You and your spouse have been married almost a decade. Your spouse has several bank account, credit cards, and small investments that they haven't shared with you. your finances are separate, save for a groceries account they mete out specific amounts into. You didn't agree to this arrangement, you just didn't really get a say. You've had chronic illness for a while so work has been patchy. You're struggling to cover your cell bill and bus fare in slow months. Your spouse wants to solve this by giving you an allowance ($65/mo). This kind of financial arrangement in a marriage is:
Wow. I was not expecting the massive response this post got, but thank you to everyone who's been filling out this poll and/or commenting on it! I feel like maybe I should give some clarification or context?
I posted this poll because my spouse thinks the above arrangement is reasonable and their prerogative. They feel that what is theirs is theirs, and they don't have to share it with their spouse, and wouldn't expect me to share what's mine with them if the tables were turned. I deliberately avoided using language in the poll that made any of the responses leading, because I didn't want to influence the results. When my spouse and I have arguments about how few of my basic needs they meet, and how vulnerable I feel, they tend to dig their heels in and insist that defining what a partnership looks like is up to the individuals and it's ok to deviate from the norm (which I agree with in principle, but only if both parties agree to the arrangements and can do so freely, not through coercion), and sometimes I genuinely feel like I'm crazy for thinking that there's a basic standard we get to expect from each other mutually, not in this one-sided way, and that my partner is being being both neglectful and controlling at the same time. I posted this poll because even when my spouse makes me feel like I'm being unreasonable, I know in my gut I'm not (not least of all because we very much did talk about our expectations of each other in both the best and worst potential situations, and what they promised me is not what I'm living now).
To see how many people have responded by straightforwardly calling this financial abuse, and to see how few people see this as normal, is validating to say the least. I've begun the process of building myself a life raft out of this situation, and I think I needed to see this feedback - so many strangers responding to what I hope is as neutral a summary of the situation as I intended it to be, and still calling it like I see it.
What I didn't put in the above poll is the even crazier stuff: A few years ago I ended contact with my abusive family, and my spouse promised to take care of me. Not long after they stopped giving me emotional support and asked me to seek it from my friends instead of them. When my computer, my main work tool, suddenly stopped working, they would only help me pay for a new one if I paid them back for it (they put me on a payment plan, but it was better than a bank loan because there was no interest and they let late payments slide). I also contracted a serious chronic illness because my partner was careless and ignored my existing health issues which made me vulnerable, and they failed to take care of me to the point I wasn't even eating properly while in bed with a fever, and for months after. Any support they gave was won at the cost of arguments I didn't have energy for, and reluctantly, but to friends and family my partner presented themselves as a caretaker.
I've struggled to work steadily and most of my limited income went to repaying the cost of my computer, so I depleted any savings I had left after the pandemic. As a result I sometimes couldn't even afford basics like toiletries or even clothes (I once showed up half an hour late to a doctor's appointment because the zipper on my only jeans broke and I had to wear a skirt in the freezing cold), and my partner, while expressing sympathy verbally, didn't take any action to offer tangible support, ie. buying me a new pair of jeans. I didn't have my family to rely on for safety and support. Anything I want or need, whether it's a necessity or something like a trip to visit family or friends who all live far away, I have to meet my partner's parameters since they're the one footing the bill. It took many arguments and detailed explanations of my difficulties and expectations before they would give me basic support like a one-off clothing purchase, and even more negotiation for it to be given in a way that allowed me autonomy in decision making (ie. they handed me a limited budget instead of going shopping with me or asking me to run purchases by them first).
I've given my partner a lot of leeway because they're struggling with several simultaneous neurodiversities and they tend to be passive observers in most situations, rather than active participants. I can see the ways in which they struggle to understand my experience because of their NDs. It has also been several years now since their diagnosis, and they use their ND as an excuse, but won't seek support for it. I have to do the emotional heavy lifting for us both, and if my expectations of them feel reasonable to me, it doesn't matter because if it's outside of their comfort zone, even the simplest things become contentious and they get the final say, since they're the only one in the relationship who have financial independence right now. I have no access to, nor do I get updated on, any of their bank accounts or savings (worrying in case of an emergency), except for a debit card which has a set amount on it at any given time and is only for groceries and recurring bills.
My spouse will give me information on their financial standing occasionally if I ask, but they are very hesitant and reluctant. I have a bank account of my own, and my spouse has asked to see my monthly earnings for the purpose of understanding my needs, but I'm hesitant to show them because of how much of my trust they've compromised, and how private they've always been about their financials (not to mention that it indicates they don't trust me to state my needs reasonably and reliably). I believe that everyone in a marriage should have at least one personal bank account, but our finances aren't shared at all, save for the one shared groceries/bills account. That account does, however, include medical costs, and as long as my spouse approves the spending, I can use it for things like amenities.
I don't know if I will show my partner this poll, but it's really good to have in case I would like to. It shows what I've been saying to them for a very long time, which is that my expectations are based in widely socially accepted ones that most people are aware of, and while I want to respect that my partner's ND may preclude them from having understood this, I also feel it's reasonable to ask that they accept that I'm not unreasonable in having these expectations (especially since they had justified this with commitments they made when we got married and have since broken).
It's been well over a year since this post and I wanted to add an update:
I never did show my spouse this poll, but what I did do was go to
A lawyer
A domestic abuse non-profit
A government agency
and had all three confirm that the situation was economic abuse. It took me several months but I scraped together enough to have a consultation with a divorce lawyer and learned what my options were. I wasn't expecting to get much - even though they'd have to either sell our home and give me half of what he got for it, or buy out my half, I didn't think they'd be willing to do the former or have the money for the latter, but I could at least get alimony and I could take care of my needs and my health problems better and get away from the stress of the marriage. So I asked my spouse for a divorce.
The divorce process itself was... illuminating. I found out that my spouse had several massive savings accounts they had conveniently forgotten to tell me about. And what was lucky for me, they didn't seem to understand that in a marriage all things are legally shared. They seemed to think that if something was only under their name, it was theirs exclusively - like putting a label in your clothes for summer camp. So they didn't secure any of their accounts, and most of them consisted of funds accumulated during the marriage. Not long after that came to light, they moved out (their ND includes being severely conflict averse and you can imagine things became... tense). It took a long time until I could start to relax and feel like I could be safe again.
In the end I walked away with enough to have a safety net. I bought an apartment that meets my disability needs, and have enough to live on for a few years while I get back on my feet (though hopefully it won't take that long). Moving, and doing all this on my own was really hard, but luckily I've had wonderful friends who've helped me and been incredibly supportive. I still feel like I'm putting myself back together and finding myself, but am doing worlds better.
Thank you to everyone who commented and reblogged and added tags - that massive and unapologetic naming of this situation as abuse was so so validating and meant the world to me. I was significantly luckier than most people facing a similiar situation and found a way out. I hope you'll consider donating to one of these domestic abuse non-profits if you're able to, to help others who are struggling:
If you want to volunteer with domestic violence nonprofits, make donations, fundraise for them, or gather information, this can be the ultim
Because of the uk food 'debate' i decided to make bangers n mash or as my mum liked to call it 'Cow Pie' because of how she presented it. Its basically sausages sticking out of the mash but it reminded us of Desperate Dan's cow pies so the name stuck. No idea when it started
Always wanted to give Cow Pie a try when reading the big annuals you'd get for Christmas. Do you roll with gravy?
an interesting thing about clothing in late medieval and early modern europe is that, while lower class people generally did wear brightly colored clothing instead of muddy brown clothes, there were very distinct differences in the color of clothing people of different classes wore. clothing was done with all natural dyes, of course, but they were either dyed locally with cheap and easily accessible ingredients, or they were dyed in holland, italy, the ottoman empire, or even further afield using a jealously guarded secret combination of difficult-to-access ingredients, including (crucially) better-quality fixatives. this means that not only did expensive imported fabrics maintain a dark, rich tone much longer than a locally dyed one, which would get a washed out look after a couple of years, but there were also certain colors that a working class farmer literally couldn’t afford to wear, and even though the difference between a cheap local lincoln green and an expensive imported popingay green might seem subtle to us people then seem to have been very sensitive to those differences. that’s also why the colors puritans tended to wear seem uncharacteristically bright to our modern eye—black was such a rich and expensive color that it would be inappropriate to wear to anything other than a portrait sitting, but the colors orange and kendall green were deeply humble in their origins
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Some ya’ll who are younger need to google Frank Serpico and read about his time in the NYPD and what the cops did to him and attempted to do to him up until the late 90′s. He literally had to go into hiding in Italy and Switzerland and multiple times people tried to kill him. He only came back to America after the mafia (who hated the NYPD a lot, obviously) said “you’re under our protection.”
👆Really really good article by the way. Feels like a good piece to show to folks you know who are still on the fence about things like police or prison abolition. Plus the pseudonym the author uses is hysterical, and he's really quite a good writer.
extremely good article, please read it. at the very least read the "how to be a bastard" section, it outlines a lot of the ways cops will try to trick you
