Well what the fuck did you think was gonna happen?

Scotney Castle, England

This time I decided that historical laundresses probably knew what they were doing, and grabbed a metal pole to stir my DIY laundry cauldron and poke the floaty bit back under the surface. Historical laundresses were right, it works great.

As I stood there, I had a moment where I though, ‘oh wow, so many women in my family tree must have done this exact set of motions throughout history.’ Which should be a humbling and heartwarming feeling of connection, right?

Wrong. I swear I could feel twenty generations of shtetl women going “For this you went to college? You want to work with old shmattes all day, fine, but you could have saved the tuition to buy a house.”

Human: We just train new people how to do it?

Elf: *gears visibly turning in their head*

Human: Are you alright?

Elf: I just realized that we didn’t have to let that whole city fall to ruin just because my grandfather died.

Human: My cousin made it.

Elf: Impossible! Those metalworking techniques were lost a hundred years ago!

Human: What do you mean lost? My great-grandmother learned to make these swords from an elven smith, then taught it to her kids.

Elf: That's ridiculous. No elf would give such secrets to a human.

Human: They didn't. Meemaw delivered the metal to the forge, and no one kicked her out when she stayed and watched. She always said they barely acknowledged her even when doing business with her, like she wasn't worth noticing.

Elf: Come to think of it, my great-uncle always was rather single-minded when he started working.

Human: So he wasn't ignoring her, he just forgot she was there?

Like, most of the major story beats, at least the ones that directly affect her, have a prominent visual component so she’s following along with the basics. But she has no idea who cave johnson is, or what wheatley was trying to explain to her, and she certainly wasn’t hurt by any of glados’ insults.