#Because I went to boarding school in '99

[thepurplewombat]

I'm currently watching a YouTuber react to episodes of Buffy. The first one was Once More with Feeling because her reaction popped up after I watched a bunch of its songs in a row, and I was like 'hey I wonder how she reacted to earlier episodes' and now I'm kind of hooked.

Anyway at the moment she is Not Having A Good Time and I am forcibly reminded of being twelve and trying to act Normal around my family after watching the episode where Jenny dies.

[galacticlamps]

very minor thing I still definitely deserve a medal for:

being raised catholic, and now as an adult repeatedly falling in love with characters that fandoms like to declare catholic, but still managing to reject those headcanons because at heart I'm too much of a stickler for accurate analysis to get behind them when i know the person in question is really meant to be anglican/episcopalian/whatever other flavor of christian

i am being, as the poets say, so brave about it

[intothedysphoria]

Being autistic felt like some big joke.

After barely scraping by a pass from high school, Claudia had threatened to sue the school board. She ranted about Steve not being given the proper support for his exams and after some very scary phone calls, Steve was booked in for an assessment. He came away with gems like:

“Steve is an excessively literal thinker. He does not consider the nuance in instructions or conversation”

“Steve is able to articulate himself well but his handwriting and spelling are poor”

“When I asked Steve about his interests, he talked about basketball for twenty minutes. He got very upset when prompted to change topic.”

The assessment came back. Autism. ADHD. Dyslexia. Dysgraphia. Auditory processing disorder. Steve retook his exams, with accommodations in place, and did much better. He wasn’t into like Yale or anything but it was a pretty ok school.

The one primary drawback was that now he had to attend an autism and disability group every week. For support. So now every single one of his classmates knew that Steve was disabled.

There was one other problem in the group.

Billy Hargrove was fucking phenomenal. He wore double denim, had battle patches on his jacket and his special interest was politics in punk and metal. Really, he was just Steve’s type. Well, from the looks of it he was everyones type.

Billy’s phone was constantly blowing up. He got a steady stream of Instagram dms, Snapchat messages, Twitter replies. It honestly looked exhausting. Not even at the peak of King Steve had Steve ever been that popular.

Then there was the fact that Billy was just a genuinely decent dude. He got angry quickly but that was linked to his autism. Mainly, he just tried to talk to Steve about stuff that Steve really didn’t understand.

The flirting started in earnest after the Christmas break.

Everyone had watched Billy’s breakup with Eddie Munson. The adjective Steve was drawn to use was loud. They were very loud and interrupted Steve’s nightly rewatch of Brooklyn 99.

Billy was very obviously going through something. They’d been together for like three years and that shit sucked. Steve knew that from experience.

What Steve found himself extremely ill equipped to do was answer the message “hey baby 😉😉😉.”

Some variation of that message would drop itself into Steve’s notifications everyday for 9 days. Steve didn’t know how to feel about that.

Sure, Billy was like the recipe for dream boyfriend but Billy was just bouncing around, looking for a rebound. Steves therapist had told him to stop people pleasing so he just didn’t answer for a bit.

Then the messages stopped.

Billy walked into the next meeting looking throughly embarrassed and mumbled a “sorry Harrington” before staring resolutely at the board.

That wasn’t exactly the outcome Steve had wanted either.

Heather, Billy’s best friend, looked like she wanted to slam their heads into a wall. Which was very weird.

She invited Steve to her Valentines Day party, which was even weirder. Steve would never turn down an opportunity to dance to the Backstreet Boys though.

He went dressed in his old Scoops Ahoy uniform, because he was bored and horny, and the first thing he saw was Billy in a red speedo and nothing else.

Steve did not have to excuse himself but it was a close call.

Heather seemed unintested in the actual party and spent most of the time interrogating Steve on his dating history before shoving him into the bathroom and locking the door.

There was an undertone of furious conversation outside before Heather, seemingly reluctantly, unlocked it.

Billy was standing in front of him and Steve tried his damndest not to just stare at his chest.

“Hi”

Why the fuck couldn’t Steve stop staring?

And why was Heather physically pushing them closer together?

Billy cleared his throat and Steve unconsciously gripped at his arms.

Who actually made the move was debatable but Steve found himself in Billy’s arms, shoving his tongue down Billy’s throat.

Maybe not a rebound then.

@shieldofiron @oopsiedaisiesbaby @harringroveobsessed

(Just wanted to quickly post this because I lost the original draft and would be frustrated if I didn’t finish it)

[reflections-in-a-critical-eye]

Hi M, how are you? Coming after the high of Shogun's yesterday's win at the Emmy's made me wonder if you have a favourite historical movie or tv show that is underrated or in the category more-people-should-watch-this? Hopefully you indulge in this type of movie. 😊

For example, for me, one such movie is "Master and Commander: The Far side of the World" :brilliant ensemble cast all across the board, good chemistry between the main leads, engaging story, very good soundtrack, fx that still hold, 99% hystorically accurate 😂 but despite this not many have heard or watched this movie.

Have a nice day!

P.S. can't believe that tomorrow the last episode of AYS will air 😭.

Hi @shimako! Sorry for answering your question late, but I postponed it because I kept trying to think of a list. And honestly, I saw the words historical drama and forgot the underrated part so this is a bit of a disaster, but I'll make it work. Let's just say this is an incomplete list of tv shows that had an impact on me at the time and ages that I had when I watched them. And you'll see that I barely remember the plot, but I sort of know how I felt.

1. Rome

Is this underrated? Hell no! But perhaps in today's age of tv, a lot of people have forgotten about that show. Only two seasons, but it was among the first batch of prestige tv in the middle of the 2000s. I liked it so much that it made go to the bookstore and buy a book about Caesar. If I went through my Egypt phase in middle school, then my Ancient Rome period came in high school.

2. The Borgias

At the time of its runtime, I think it was pretty big. Although I don't think it won many awards. I also remember it being used as an example on scholarly papers about Hollywood using Eastern and Central European studios because of cheap labor and good locations. Budapest and Prague can replace Florence, lol.

The Borgias was naughty. And it had Jeremy Irons who is a fantastic actor in my opinion. Eventually they actually leaned heavily into the siblings relationship which I thought was daring. They went there 👀. And the costumes were so beautiful!.

3. The Tudors

I remember this show through the eyes of a 13-14 year old that developed a massive crush on the actor portraying Henry the VIII. This was like the rock'n'roll version of the story. And it was sexy. A bit over the top. A stepping stone for some actors that would become a lot more famous in the years to come. I think it was on HBO so probably not underrated at the time, but mostly forgotten nowadays.

4. Versailles

I can't remember if it's French or they talk in English. But it was lots of fun. And really gay. They didn't stay away from that. That's all I remember, but give it a try.

5. Taboo

This is that show with a really brooding Tom Hardy who remains like that throughout the story. But if you're interested in 1800s London and England's imperialist plan and its effects on colonized territories, this might be it.

6. Babylon Berlin

I don't know if this fits into the list, but it is a great portrayal of 1920s Berlin. A period in which artistic freedom and experimentation was at its height, but also juxtaposed with political unrest, creating this environment that would lay the ground for the rise of the fascist party. It's a german show, an HBO production and I like that it's not glamourized. You can see it in their clothes, their hygiene habits, their visible sweat and run down outfits they wear in clubs. It feels real.

7. Black Sails

I first heard of this when I wanted to watch more Toby Stephens movies/series but I almost stayed away because it was a Michael Bay production. Black Sails is so smart. At first, it might lure in the wrong audience, even based on the first trailer. It looks like a pirate show full of action sequences and machismo. And then you actually watch it and it flips that exact narrative. It is a direct critique of imperialism. It is also such a good case for any film and gender & queer studies analysis. But more than that, what really sealed the deal for me in what is considered a grade B series with grade B actors, is the meta-textual discourse on storytelling. It's about creating those pirate legends, of creating narratives to protect themselves against the empire. And all that is unfolded through brilliant lines of dialogue. It still remains a 10/10 tv show for me and the actual underrated one.

[tomorrowusa]

The "secret shelf" of banned books at a Texas high school. Texas is like a communist country where citizens need to find covert ways to read books which the state doesn't want them to see.

In the far, far suburbs of Houston, Texas, three teenagers are talking at a coffee shop about a clandestine bookshelf in their public school classroom. It's filled with books that have been challenged or banned. "Some of the books that I've read are books like Hood Feminism, The Poet X, Gabi, A Girl in Pieces," says one of the girls. She's a 17-year-old senior with round glasses and long braids. The books, she says, sparked her feminist consciousness. "I just see, especially in my community, a lot of women being talked down upon and those books [were] really nice to read." These students live in a state that has banned more books than nearly any other, according to PEN America. The Texas State Board of Education passed a policy in late 2023 prohibiting what it calls "sexually explicit, pervasively vulgar or educationally unsuitable books in public schools." Over the past two years, Texas teachers have lost jobs or been pressured to resign after making challenged books available to students. The teacher who created this bookshelf could become a target for far right-wing groups. That's why NPR is not naming her, nor her students.

Yeah, gotta watch out for Texas brownshirts in cowboy hats who yell and threaten people at school board meetings.

"We don't want to jeopardize our teacher in any way, or the bookshelf," another teenager explains. Until recently, he says, he was not naturally inclined toward reading. But the secret bookshelf opened a world of characters and situations he immediately related to. "Just to see Latinos, like LGBTQ," he says. "That's not something you really see in our community, or it's not very well represented at all." The secret bookshelf began in late 2021, when then-state Rep. Matt Krause sent public schools a list of 850 books he wanted banned from schools. They might, he said, "make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex." That made this teacher furious. "The books that make you uncomfortable are the books that make you think," she told NPR. "Isn't that what school is supposed to do? It's supposed to make you think?" She swung into action, calling friends to support a bookshelf that would include all of the books Krause wanted banned. Then she enlisted a student to put it together. "I went through the list and found the ones that I thought were cool," he recalled to NPR over a London Fog latte. "And then she gave me her [credit] card and I bought them. It was a lot of gay books, I remember that."

That same student came out as trans to his family while in high school. "I wouldn't call them supportive, so I had to do a lot of sneaking around," he said quietly. Now 19, he's graduated and works as a host in a restaurant while deciding on his next move. "Having these books, having these stories out there meant a lot to me, because I felt seen," he said. Especially meaningful, he added, during a fraught time when Texas lawmakers banned transition-related care for teenagers. "Because of the way the laws are going for trans people especially," he said, "it could be assumed that [my teacher is] grooming kids. And that would be terrible because that's not what she's doing at all."

Kudos to the teacher and students who are maintaining this mini-library!

Because most of the HS seniors will be turning 18 this year, I hope the secret shelf adds information on voter registration. A minimum of 99% of the book banners are Republicans. And the only way to get rid of Republicans is to vote Democratic. Contrast Republican Texas with Democratic Illinois which has banned book banning.

Law prohibiting book bans in Illinois now in effect

Illinois is known as the Land of Lincoln. Abe Lincoln had less than two years of formal education but he became a voracious reader. He would be shocked and disappointed that his old party has degenerated into a mob of book banners and book burners.

[weirdly-specific-but-ok]

I've my isc chem board exam tomorrow (today?) at 2PM I'm panicking and this is the only thing that I can think to do

Advice? Help? Thoughts? Prayers?

Hey anon maggot I've got you. First, breathe, okay?

My (CBSE) chem board exam was on my birthday when it happened. And I hadn't prepared properly at all due to various health things. I was stressed out and miserable. But guess what. It went fine.

I promise you, the boards aren't the life-changing, life-defining, be-all-and-end-all exams that the Indian system keeps making us believe. I know it's hard to agree with me right now. Everyone told me the same thing and I was still so stressed about it.

Remember these things, okay?

These exams are not competitive exams. They're not trying to weed out people. They're made so even the students who barely grasped the material can still score enough to pass. You will get marks. It's inevitable.

Also, try and write the answers in the way those buggers want it, such as adding steps to calculations, ensuring the format with chemical reactions, including formulae and keywords. It's less about how right you are and more how you are right about it.

These exams are really not going to affect a lot. If you're in the science stream, odds are you're more relying on some kind of competitive exam for entrance to whatever course you're studying. These courses usually just have a minimum percentage needed in the boards.

Even if you are using the boards for entrance into colleges, remember that you have studied, and they're easier than people make them out to be. I swear they are.

Now, I know worst case scenarios might crop up in your brain, and in that case look. Even if you fail, there are retakes. Even if you can't do the retakes, there's a provision to write them again the next year.

Again, these exams are going to be really easy compared to your internal assessments. Schools structure them that way so that their students do well in the boards and their own credibility increases. What's going to be more important than your preparation is that you sit there calm enough to write down what you know, check for mistakes if you have time, don't short-circuit your brain with panic and make avoidable errors, and most importantly, leave feeling okay. Yeah?

There's nothing wrong with being worried, but don't let it get out of hand. You're worth so much more than one stupid exam. Please take my word for this, I've learned the hard way. The next three paragraphs are my personal story, and if you don't have time to read it, feel free to skip it, I'll make my point after.

That chem board exam of mine? I got 99%. And guess what, I still took a gap year because the exam stress of NEET and the boards landed me in the fucking hospital with steroidal injections the week before the NEET and I couldn't take the exam.

I spent the drop year studying myself to literal breakdown for the NEET. And then I realised the week before NEET that fuck, I didn't actually want to do science anymore. The NEET exam was on my birthday, again. I wrote it, because the exams had nearly killed me and I wanted to just write it to get closure. The next week, I got into a design school.

And three months into design school, I dropped out. Because of intense bullying, harassment and isolation by every single student in the small college including the dean because of my mental health and queerness. I loved the course and the material, and I'd been performing well, but I had to drop out anyway. A month later, I got admission into a much more well-known design school for next year. But now I'm not sure I want to do on-campus education anymore, because of how every aspect of my identity will have to be hidden to survive.

The point? There are so, so many factors that they don't tell you about on how life will go and where you'll end up, what you'll study and who you'll be. The boards are a very, very tiny part of that. Honestly, all exams are just one part of that. An important part, sometimes. But not by any means the only. I did extremely well in my exams, even with health issues, and look at my college dropout ass two years after the boards. And yet I'm still really happy, and my career is not doomed.

This may be more than you wanted. But I think it's something students need to hear. I don't want people to be driven to the brink, landed in a hospital like I was, because of a few fucking scores.

As for your exam, well, again: stay calm, and then you'll remember everything. Neuroscience proves that, by the way. It also proves that all the information you consciously or unconsciously absorbed throughout the year will spring up unexpectedly and help you.

It'll go well. I promise. It'll all go well for you.

All the best, my maggot. Take all the love and wishes. I'm rooting for you, always. And I'm so proud of you already. Yeah? Good :")

Love, Asmi

[ghostoftheyear]

The BFF and I are reminiscing about the early days of computers and the internet, and I have to share a few observations.

My first "computer" was a TI-99/4a, made by Texas Instruments (the calculator people). This was in 1983. It was similar to an Atari or Commodore-64 in that it could play games, but it could also be added on to with various hardware. My parents got hardcore into this. Aside from learning about programming, we also had a 300 baud acoustic modem - the kind you literally put the phone receiver on - and I was able to access local bulletin boards and talk to strangers from far away! V e r y s l o w l y. We later got more peripherals like a graphics card and a big old dot-matrix printer. I remember writing school papers on it.

The first computer that belonged to me was an Apple Mac LC that I got for college. It was super expensive and I still have the base somewhere, but the monitor is long gone. I went online with that thing with an external modem... I think the first one I got was a 14.4k. Yes, I did the whole AOL thing.

Internet services were preceded by these sort of walled-garden services like AOL (America Online), Compuserve, and Prodigy. I remember getting into RP forums on Prodigy (specifically for Pern and the Dragon Prince series), running up a huge bill, and getting it canceled. You could chat on these and participate in other activities like games (I remember winning a copy of one of Terry Brooks' novels on Prodigy, but there were no websites or anything like that.

For some time, when the first Internet service providers (ISPs) came into being, I worked at one, answering phones and doing some very basic tech support (literally "have you tried turning it off and on again"). I did billing as well, which was when I first learned that people just... didn't think they had to pay their bills. Three months of non-payment and their service would get cut off and they'd call in, livid. It was an experience. We also played lots of interoffice matches of DOOM and Quake, so it balanced out. I used to use my office computer to download sound clips from movies and parts of songs.

I only used Usenet a little, but it was a thriving community full of various posters and groups. My favorite group was probably alt.barney.die.die.die.

While working at the above ISP, I had to make a website so that I knew some HTML, since they actually wanted people to help customers with that. (I should add there were only like five employees there; the guy who started it up basically was using investment money from his dad. I also remember he tried to make me learn how to mess with circuit boards. I still don't know why he wanted to teach me, but no, I did not retain one single thing from that.) Anyway, I learned basic HTML, and I still have a website today that still uses exceedingly basic HTML.

Can you imagine calling Comcast today and going "yes, I'm struggling with this bit of javascript here, I expect you to help me."

No, because even if you pay them four times what you paid my ISP back then (I think it was around $30 a month for a dedicated DNS), they would tell you to look up a tutorial on youtube.

I don't remember when we switched to 24/7 connections and cable internet and broadband and everything, but I can tell you that I remember getting online, checking my email, going on IRC for a little bit, looking at websites, maybe doing some RP on a MUSH, and then logging off and shutting it down at the end of the night. We didn't expect everyone to be THERE all the time.

Although while I was still with the ISP, I used to get on PernMUSH NC first thing in the morning and sit there all day so my name would be at the bottom of the user list. Because that was a powerful status to have.

My ex and I would trade off computer time. We didn't even play games that needed to be connected to the Internet. We did other things. Can you imagine?

I downloaded So Much Shit from Napster. So. Much. (A lot of it was mislabeled garbage, too. You wouldn't believe how many crappy "parody" songs got attributed to Weird Al.) Didn't use Limewire nearly as much because it was so riddled with viruses. Damn you, Lars Ulrich.

Those days were wild. You could find the worst shit online, but also some of the best. People used Tripod and Geocities and mailing lists and Usenet, just every kind of thing to connect to each other. I had a site just for my fanfic, and I hosted friends on it and even designed their sites. Before AO3, before Livejournal, we were making it work any way we could. I still remember the Outside the Lines mailing list for comic fandom and how people would post full fics on there. And others would complain that not enough Dark Horse comics were getting fics. Some things never do change.

We also regularly got secondary phone lines so that we could use the modem and not be interrupted by phone calls, or have people scream that they'd been trying to call us for hours. Everything had to be connected by wires. If you wanted to game with your friends, you took your PC (and monitor and anything else you needed) over to their house, plugged in and had a LAN party.

Or if you just wanted to browse the Internet without your own PC, you'd go to an Internet cafe and rent one for a couple hours. Sit there, have your coffee and go online.

Everything is different these days. Everyone is connected, online, all the time, and you're practically not allowed to be disconnected. You must be available at all times. As nice as it is to get all our information quickly, I do kind of miss when the Internet wasn't so omnipresent. I could do without what social media has done to us, too. And I really miss MUDs and MUSHes. Text based games where you could RP or just wander around killing mobs.

Anyway, it's been an interesting experience growing up through all of this. I never would have imagined having a phone with all my music and the Internet on it, but they're just ubiquitous now. Strange to think of not having it everywhere I go, and WiFi for everything.

[cieloclercs]

lover, you should’ve come over , send me a description of yourself + a fandom and gender preference, and i’ll ship you with a character

for f1/f2 please;

ok so,

im 18, she/her and straight. im south east asian but went to boarding school in the uk. im 5'4, tan skin , black hair and eyes. I support mercedes and mclaren (mostly, i also support max which is very easy to do since he wins always lmao, and i love the ferrari boys too). I'm studying law college, specifically criminal law. f1 content and weekends are always the highlight of my week. i play tennis and volleyball (as a hobby). im the oldest (girl) in my family (technically) but i have 3 older half brothers and a younger sister. im going to the sg grandprix this weekend which im so so excited about! my fav szn is autumn, and summer. im both an introvert and an extrovert but it depends who im around. my fav shows are brooklyn 99, gilmore girls and friends (kinda basic ik), because i love the warmth they give me. fav holiday is halloween but i hate finding stuff to dress up as. i want to get a rottweiler and a huskey but i dont think im super capable of having pets rn :(. but yeah thats it! congrats on 1k and ty!

i ship you with charles leclerc!

— ok first of all charles x lawyer!s/o is THE PAIRING omg it makes so much sense to me !! also charles x student!s/o but especially law (maybe i’m biased bc i’m also studying law or maybe not shshsh 🤭) there’s something about charles and a kind of academic s/o that just feels so right, even better with an s/o in the social sciences. i’m not entirely sure why, maybe it’s just the vibes 🤷‍♀️ but charles will definitely help you study. he’ll be so dedicated about it too, bringing your flashcards everywhere, helping you memorise details of past cases that you need to know for your exams. i think he’ll even start to learn them himself because he helps you so often, and if you’re like just talking generally about a specific case he’ll come out with something from your revision out of the blue 🤭 it’s so cute because he’ll look super proud of himself afterwards when you look all surprised that he remembers 🥹

— also, charles with an s/o who plays tennis is JUMPING OUT AT ME RN like i can picture it so vividly. he himself is pretty terrible at tennis (i mean let’s be honest the man has no hand eye coordination 😭) but he’s so enthusiastic about playing with you (definitely not because he loves seeing you in a tennis skirt 😏😏). even if he gets absolutely annihilated, he still loves it because he gets to spend even more time with you doing something that you love 🥹

— i get the feeling he’d be really close with your family too, i mean let’s face it, charles is just a family guy in general and everyone loves him, almost to the point that you start to think that your family love him more than you 🫣 ooh another thing that’s jumping out at me is x mercedes!s/o 😏😏 it’s weird i feel like law, tennis and mercedes all give the same vibes in this context 🤔 anyway, count on him playing up the team rivalry at every chance he gets, even if it’s just a joke. because he’s so competitive about it you make a point of supporting mercedes and mclaren even more, but you do secretly root for him in his races 😉 you’re the first person he looks for after a good result, and you’re always there to celebrate with him 🥹

— omg i’ve never actually seen gilmore girls, but my best friend is a huge fan and you’re giving off the exact vibes that i can imagine with charles it’s crazyy 🤭 i can picture you guys binge watching every season. even though charles complains at first, he definitely ends up getting super invested (and maybe even watches a couple of episodes without you in secret 🤫) you guys are like the cold, crisp autumn, matching knitted jumper kind of couple if that makes sense ?? i’m picturing hot chocolate by the fire, also couples outfits at halloween if you decide to go out !! or if you want something a bit more lowkey, a cozy night in on the sofa watching scary movies (charles definitely uses it as an excuse to cuddle you argue with the wall idc) basically just everything i want, you guys are as a couple 🥹

[over-bi-the-wayside]

In middle school me and my friends did this thing called “half day shenanigans” whenever we had half days

We took turns picking a theme then all got dressed for it — one time we did cottage core, my friend picked Harry Potter, another picked fantasy/ren faire — we’re all super into cosplay and ren faires and whatnot, so usually between the three of us we could make it work. And then we’d take our bikes and do something completely random

We went to a Target, bought 99¢ marshmallows and Starbucks(pre-boycott ofc), I grabbed some school supplies and one person got the latest paper copy of Heartstopper. We got some weird looks but we always had the best time, same for when we went to play board games at a local rp store/board game cafe(that actually was the biggest hit), once we got my mom to take us to the aquarium on tickets we got from a school thing. Another time it was just us figuring out scar makeup in my bedroom(we had other people over with my mom and brother. The parents were genuinely concerned we’d gotten in a fight, we were very proud)(and then had to take it off because I had a doctor’s appointment)

Absolutely the most fun, and we weren’t as awkward because we weren’t the only ones. Sure, it led to a very last-minute Sirius Black running through a target to find a random Ravenclaw, but honestly it was the best. Bonus, a lot of folks loved seeing it

My friends and I used to do this thing where we'd dress up on a theme and go do something totally normal.

We dressed up as pirates and went bowling.

We dressed as vikings and went to the grocery store. The security guard told us we had to move our longship because it was illegally parked.

We dressed as Romans and went to Blockbuster. The staff chanted, "toga! Toga! Toga!" at us.

We dressed up all steampunk and went to the museum. Tourists kept taking our picture.

[unhingedwomandiaries]

Found myself arsing about on the internet this morning, clicking through links like a pensioner with a TV remote, when I stumble across this ancient newspaper clipping from '99. There I am, looking proper chuffed about being some sort of child genius at the bloody Elementary School Invention Convention. Christ on a bike.

It was at x Elementary, run by this Gateways enrichment programme and Mrs. X, who probably thought she was cultivating the next Einstein instead of just herding a bunch of sugar-high nine-year-olds with pipe dreams. The article's got this list of 'inventions' that reads like a fever dream shopping channel - electric skateboard (guilty as charged), kitten carrier (because apparently boxes weren't good enough), automatic dog petter (for when your arms are too fucked to show Fido some love), and a briefcase bookstand (solving problems that don't exist since 1999).

Somehow ended up being one of the ten finalists who got shipped off to the 16th Annual State Invention Convention at the university's Gampel Pavilion. Six hundred kids from across the state, all of us thinking we were going to change the world with our Blue Peter reject projects. Some kid won the whole thing with a visor that stopped you crying while cutting onions. Fucking revolutionary, that. Probably living it up in Silicon Valley now, designing apps that tell you when your cat's judging you.

My mom thought the electric skateboard was about as useful as a broken lawnmower. Still dragged her arse to RadioShack though, didn't she? Got me this massive battery to wire up to this proper rank pink skateboard with a monkey on it that my brother had got me. Because nothing says "future engineer" quite like a pre-teen girl attaching a car battery to a skateboard decorated with a primate having an existential crisis.

Obviously didn't win the big prize. Just made finalist, which is probably code for "thanks for not electrocuting yourself, here's a ribbon." The actual boosted board lot definitely did it better years later, probably without risking third-degree burns or social services involvement.

But for one brief, glorious moment, I was an inventor in someone's eyes. Probably just some knackered judge who'd seen too many baking soda volcanoes and was willing to award points for not setting anything on fire.

Fucking hell, why am I even wallowing in this ancient history? Childhood achievements have got a shorter shelf life than milk left out in the sun, and mine went off sometime around Y2K. But here I am, remembering it all like it matters, killing time before the inevitable descent into wondering why I'm not running Tesla by now. At least the monkey skateboard didn't explode. Small victories, eh?

[themonaproject]

Update!!! I repeat, this is not a drill..

Okay so... last night? yeah, last night. So remember I told you I had a crush? Yes, the Chinese boy. BOIIIIII last night was a doosey lmfaoooooooo i cant stop laughing i swear.

Okay so... timeline from when i met him up until last night

I happened to meet him in the lab that I have classes in here at the school. Two girls in my class were having a issue where they had bought something online and...it just so happened that it went to the collection place on the other side of the campus instead of to the one right outside our dorm. They had told one of our teachers about this, so she, the teacher, went to one of her students on the other side of campus and brought him, the boy, to show them where to go where the collection placed was concerned. Anyhow, when the teacher and him came to the lab, the girls had stepped out to the bathroom so the teacher told us to introduce ourselves to the boy and yadda yadda yadda so i, obviously taking an interest in him, started talking to him and asking him questions and such.

...sigh

So i happened to see his nails and that they were painted and i was like, in my mind, "ugh, i hate that i keep finding out that everyone is gay by their nails [and i will clarify this statement in another post lmaoooooo], is no one straight anymore, Jesus, all the hot guys are gay asf" but anyhoos.... At the time, his hair was all black and in the usual asian boy bowl cut, nerdy looking skinny guy right?.... So this was either in April or so.

CUT TO!!!!! the Tuesday, when my class went on a tour on this rainy ass day to pingjiang road. We were in and out of stores and I had seen something and made mention of my upcoming birthday right, so the 2 other girls in my class were like "your birthday?? omg" but i just told them i wont celebrate because it was deadlines time and we had class and so on so i wont be able to rlly enjoy it blah blah blah right

WE ENDED UP HAVING A MEETING ON THE THURSDAY before my birthday with the principal from my country, he came to hang out with us, the international students and invited us out to dinner with him and yadda yadda yadda. Now, I got there first and then the 2 girls came to the room and saw only me there so they ended up inviting me to the club. I would say the club is where my delusions began. Oh yes, definitely the club. We ended p going on he Saturday night to the private event and... when we got to the club, we met up with him and he took us inside. Now... he took us to our seats, played games with our table and, obviously because he's working, he was walking all over the club, making sure all was well, taking smoke breaks outside, hovering some more and yadda yadda. Now... *deep inhale* I hate that... everything happened and turned out the way it is today, but you know what they say, a crush is the result of a lack of information. When I saw him, he had his hair looking like something you would see on a model or pop idol, blonde to the from and rest of the hair black and shaped nicely and ladida... jewelry and all, he was looking fine 99. Now, he took us to the bathroom, obviously because we aint know nun bout the place. While we were in the bathroom, he waited for us to come out and i came out first and was just washing my hands, checking my makeup and yadda yadda, he came to me and sometimes, even tho im speaking english, my mandarin slips out and he almost leapt over the moon because he heard me speaking mandarin. He asked for my wechat and i gave him.

So now the party is happening, he came to check on us and asked me if i was having a good time.

...why just me tho? Was he just taking care of me because im foreign and in his work place? hmm. Anyway... while the night went on, i hadn't seen him for a lil bit so i messaged him to see where he was and he replied immediately.

...where i come from.. that is very green-flaggy. So obviously i liked that. A hot guy, texting back immediately? 10s across the board, right?

Okay, so he told me where he was... and then proceeded to ask me where we [me and the girls] were. Obviously i told him we were still at the table and dancing and blah blah blah. He even sent me a video of where he was...

...the delusions were being feddddddddd, hear what i say to youuu. lmaoooooo THE DELUSIONS WERE BEING FEDDDDDD!!!

Ok now soooo... cut to a few weeks after, exams for him were coming up, my exams were literally in the week right after my birthday. I ended up asking him to recommend some places to eat, right? Responding immediately, he offered a whole lot. I... <.< THE DELUSIONS ARE BEING FEDDDD he recommended so many lawdddd imma eat for the rest of my life clearly. I was grateful. Now, I liked him and so other ppl [my ppls] knew and was cheering for me and him obviously.

Now here is where he started to have me fked up lmaoooo I realised he would never text me first or interact with my posts on wechat. Now On WC, you can determine who can see your posts and who you can block your posts from and whose posts you dont wanna see and such like, right?

I had a thought that he couldnt see my stuff UNTIL i made a particular post about wanting to go outside but the rain was keeping me inside and i wanted it to stop. Now, I'm not a chicken head, when i see some shit, i stay peeping it, yk... so every time we spoke, i started the conversation.... he he did the bare minimum yk. He started our convo ONCE. And it was in the morning, he woke up hella early. 7:47 am. I'm lookin at the msgs rn because i wanna give facts. HE HADNT EVEN GOTTEN OUT OF HIS BED YET! He messaged me to ask if i wanna come to a party at the club. He never got back to me with the price or anything.... !? I was supposed to message him and beg for the price or something? Anyway, I had asked him if there was a event and he had to end up contacting the club to find out info. That... went south, we ended up doing a movie night instead at the dorm so.. that was a bust. Plus, he wasnt even gonna be at the club because he was visiting his family back in his hometown, so i had lost interest from the time he told me he woiuldnt be there. I was wondering if he wasnt keen on telling me because he didnt want me at the club WITHOUT him. idk... delusions were eating this idea upppp tho.

And this is the thing, our convos were always longgg and I realised we had alot in common and could be good friends, if not even in a relationship right? I realised, he was doing basically nada while I was making all the moves, starting convos first 99% of the time and reaching out first.

Now me messaging him about the club came after i had decided not to msg him or interact with his stuff until he put in work where I was concerned. Now atp I was starting to think yhhh this is a one-sided thing... there was so much going on in my head, i literally felt like screaming and couldnt even sleep. My mind was going insane bruh... over this man... AND HE WAS SLEEPING VERY GOOD AT NIGHT TOO YK!?

So now, last night... i mean there was so much he did that had me confused but if it's one thing i know for sure, I aint letting a man tell me more than once that he dont want me. that's fs. Cut to last night, now... I go on wechat moments to see the pics and videos from the graduation event that happened during the afternoon... and... I see that he had posted. So i opened the moments to see what he posted and... he posted a video of his hand grabbing different girls bo0bs in the club and I was--... i was shooketh-- I WAS SO SHOOK I LEAPT ACORSS MY BEDDDDDDDDDD i was too shocked bruh. I was literally like "SINCE WHEN DID THIS BECOME A WHORE HOUSE!!!" mans was on some hoe tactics bruh.... and it all started to make sense to me. he is a WHORE. I--...

Safe to say, that mf crush is done. Yeah, I might srtill think about him and stuff but idk if i still feel the same i felt before that video... He officially killed off my feelings for him bruh... idk wth is going on but I'm not a part of nun.

AND HE HAD THE AUDACITY to be telling me he wants to live a simple and quiet peaceful life... fkin liar. peaceful my ass.

I gone tho lmao

madness

[scholarshint]

A 6-year-old girl won a Google contest, beating 182,000 contestants and earned a $30,000 scholarship.

Sarah Gomez-lane, an extraordinary six-year-old girl, has surpassed 182,000 participants to become the victor of the Google art competition, earning a scholarship valued at $30,000. Sarah, a girl from Virginia, was announced as the winner of the 2018 Doodle for Google contest. According to her parents, her interests and enthusiasm helped her achieve first place in the competition. The 10th year of the competition had the theme of "What inspires you". Sarah's mother, Maria Gomez, explained that on a stormy day last year, when the power went out at her school, Sarah chose to draw dinosaurs because she aspires to be a paleontologist in the future. Sarah emerged as the grand prize winner among 182,000 entries in the Doodle for Google competition. As a reward, she received $30,000 in scholarship funds for college, while her school, Pine Spring Elementary School in Falls Church, was granted $50,000 in funds to invest in technology, as per Google's announcement. The school will be using that money to purchase interactive smart boards, ” WJLA reported. “When they called my name, I was surprised,” Sarah said. The winner was announced after Google invited the finalists for each grade level to its headquarters in California, where they interacted with Google’s professional doodlers for the day. Sarah’s interactive dinosaur drawing was featured on the United States Google homepage. She is also the first winner ever to collaborate with Google’s artists to bring her drawing to life, transforming the artwork into an “animated, interactive experience. ALSO RED: Nigerian lady bags masters degree with 99% grade, wins best student award The doodlers asked Sarah about her artistic process, including what she was thinking when she created the characters and what their likes and dislikes were to enable them to create it. Sarah was chosen because Google was “blown away by her big ambitions for her future, especially at her young age,” Google company said in a statement. Read the full article

[hanna-kin]

Hello! Sorry in advance, I'm pretty sure you would've already explained this, I just can't seem to find it anywhere :(

I've been trying to get my head around Hillerska and how it operates as a school - one of your super informative posts explained that school is free in Sweden, so Simon and Sara don't have to pay school fees as non-boarders. If it's free though, and has such a great reputation, why don't more parents send their kids there? Are "selective schools" a thing in Sweden?

This just confuses me a lot because it seems like Hillerska is a school for the extremely rich, but if a whole bunch of kids can attend as non-boarders then I don't understand why there aren't more of them. If you would be able to please help explain this I would be very grateful, but of course I'd understand if not too :D Thank you!

This sounds like a question for @skamenglishsubs who can and has explained it way better than I can.

One of the aspects that Hillerska is at a fairly remote location. It's not too far from Bjärstad but also not super close to anything.

I also don't think they have to accept every person who applies but I'm not sure.

With "normal" schools you can basically pick and choose. For high school you get in my grades. Some more popular programs are very hard to get into and you need very good grades, more common ones or less popular ones are easier.

That was the case when I went to school. I also think that schools like Hillerska or the real school Lundsberg are important and prestigious for the rich and the people attending but once you graduate it kinda doesn't matter? It won't help yoy get into uni. Hardly any employer after uni will care about that.

It's grades and grades only that matters for uni (like 99 percent of all education) and there are strict guidelines and criteria for grades (that are not followed at Hillerska for some reason)

Edit:

Here's what @skamenglishsubs has said

[woahajimes]

So I have this little headcanon (well,,,, not really a headcanon but more of a nice-to-think-about headcanon because it would never happen but it’s- like the title- nice to think about so im sharing it here) in which they’re all going to the beach in this sorta mini-van that bruce rented. And take in mind that this is the wayne family, but at the same time most people that wear a bat on their chest,,,, so they had to whack some things up.

BUT ANYWAYS, it was Bruce’s dumbass idea to buy a van and call it a road-trip, and honestly? no one was ready. That usually happens with big families, even with one that has most kids over 18. And how everyone was on board with the idea doesn’t matter because this is my headcanon and they are all now squished in a minivan and there are bags in the back and towels in the seats and there’s a cooler on top because it didn’t fit. 

and just for reference the van was like SMALL. it was sort of like the school buses but way smaller, so they’re like buses in which there are three seats in front, driver, and then like two others (the middle one doesn’t really count because that’s where you put waterbottles and stuff). There’s a sort of space in the back, where you usually put the backpacks (these are like elementary school buses and every single kid has those backpacks with wheels and it’s a pain in the ass-) and then there is another set of four seats (that’s more like a sofa but no armrest- god please have patience there is literally not a single image on google im trying to be specific- and those are facing the back of the bus (so the backrest (?) is facing the place with the bags).

THEN we have another seat that’s close to this one but facing the opposite way but it’s only THREE seats so there’s a space for the next row of three seats and then there’s the back one that’s four again.

In conclusion, you can fit 18-ish people, driver counted. 

and continuing with my story, it’s Bruce driving, Alfred as shotgun, a water-bottle or two in the middle, the bags in their respective places... and then... 

disaster. 

Babs is the only one sitting in the four-seat closer to the bags, harper is in the three-seat, Dick is there as well. 

and then there’s the rest. Steph, Cass, Duke, Jason, Tim, Damian, they’re all screaming in the back and they’re throwing towels around and there’s an “OW! THAT WAS MY HAIR YOU DICKHEAD!” and a “THAT’S MINE!” and so many other things because. the back of the bus, it’s cURSED. And Bruce is just driving with a strained smile because he wants so badly to turn around and throw a waterbottle at each of their heads to get them to shut up (of course, it wouldn’t work because not even god can calm down the back of the bus)

Tim and Jason somehow get into this argument of how tim ‘has no friends’ and Tim shoots back that in fact he DOES, that he’s calling them right this instant. And bruce doesn’t even have a chance to yell at them, because now there’s a speedster and a cloned kryptonian right beside the moving minivan and Bruce is lowkey freaking out because none of them (the ones in the van and the ones out) are wearing their superhero costumes, and then Tim is just with his hands pressed on the window and he’s like practically banging the glass and waving and they can’t hear him but he’s like “HEY! HEY HYE HEY YOU GUYS MADE IT!!!” and then dick is just telling them to cut it out and slow down because you know, identities, and Steph is like HOLY SHIT THEY DID MAKE IT and Damian is just sitting upside down with his legs in the backrest off the seat and Duke is in the same position, making fun of Damian because his feet don’t reach. 

Kon and Bart seem to get the hint because they slow down, but not before bart has literally jumped towards the MOVING VAN and vibrated through (i’m like 99% sure he is able to do that so-) and then he literally landed on Tim (tim actually softened his fall, because Tim’s back literally made a ~crack~ sound by hitting somebody’s knee) and stood up real quick and then started waving and laughing at kon, who was now running normal-speed beside the van. 

And then bruce went FASTER and kon was like WHAT THE HECK OLD MAN and he can’t use his powers so he’s literally running behind the van and bart is laughing his ass off and then tim is like “BRUCE STOP THE VAN!” and then Bart is already calling cassie and telling her what happened and you can hear cassie laughing from over the phone and then Tim is just yelling at bruce in the background. Bruce eventually DOES stop, and Tim opens the door for him and Kon crawls in and Bart’s still laughing, and he’s practically leaning onto Dick and Harper, and they’re squished together and bart’s just laughing on the phone while Kon sits on the really far end of the opposite seat (practically on the door) so he’s the furthest from babs as possible because he’s actually terrified of her. Tim is just sorta awkward because he now realizes that he was a bit TOO excited to see kon, and then the back of the bus/van is staring at them and like what the hell and then Tim goes “who doesn’t have friends, huh?”, and Jason goes ‘pfft’ and he calls roy but he’s spending time with lian; he calls artemis and she goes, “but wasn’t this a family trip? what do you need me for?”, SO jaosn calls bizarro and then he barely answers the phone when bizarro goes “RED HER SAID NO. BYE” so Jason slumps and it’s quiet for a second when steph goes “is that GUM IN MY HAIR”. And then jason laughs and its chaos all over again. (i might make a ‘things that were heard from the back of the road trip bus post bc i have so many ideas oh my god)

and then they are at the beach, the bus barely stops and there’s a few bags thrown out the window, and people yelling at Kon to open the door, and Kon not being able to work under pressure so tim opens it and everyone’s pushing each other and Steph has an uneven strand of hair, because Damian went to ‘extreme measures’ and cut it so now steph’s hair is uneven and they were going to keep cutting it “to make it even” but then Alfred was like “you’re all going to clean the van afterwards so think carefully” and then nobody did anything and there’s literally a ziploc bag with steph’s strand of hair (damian didn’t even cut to where the gum was, he cut even FURTHER but yes, the gum is in the bag). 

As I was saying, they get out of the van, and the bags are out and Bruce has NO IDEA what to do. none. It’s alfred that rents a tent and then Damian’s chasing duke into a random restaurant’s changeroom and showers and then cass is dragging harper that’s dragging steph that’s dragging jason and tim is getting the bags with Kon and bart and bart realizes that he doesn’t  have a swimsuit and then he stops walking and Kon seems to realize too and it’s like OH MAN and they can’t run back (because no powers, rule set by bruce when two super-powered bros came in the bus) and They’ recarrying the bags to this tent (do you guys know what im talking about? i feel like we’re imagining completely different things- it’s this but much more people and there’s a bunch of people selling stuff like sunglasses and doign hair, piercings, tattoos even - for the tattoos thing it’s just promo for an actual shop they don’t tattoo you in the actual beach - ) and It’s literally Kon, tim and bart carrying the bags (which they CAN carry between the three, it’s not like they packed up half the manor) and then a minute later or so Steph is sprinting towards Tim and she’s yelling something Tim can’t understand and then Steph points at her bag (that tim’s carrying) and she screams something like “SAND! HOT!” and then she’s like high-knee-ing/sprinting even faster and Cass is just walking barefoot in the sand, super calm, but she’s got Harper on her back. Damian and Duke are racing towards the shadow (because the sand is cooler there), and next thing you know Jason’s aready in the tent with a coconut. 

And if you haven’t thougth about how the Batfam would be in the beach then let me tell you, you don’t have enough spare time because i know for a FAT FACT that: 

It was Jason that insisted on Bruce buying sand toys (a whole bag, i swear)

Damian tried coconut water, didn’t like it all that much (altho he loves the inside- idk what it’s called but it’s edible i swear)

Bruce put on an excessive amount of sunscreen

Duke has swimming trunks with the robin logo just to piss damian off (also Damian has matching ones but with the batman one)

Steph, Cass and Harper rented a banana boat (here’s a picture) and they dragged Jason and Tim along, just to toss them off in the end 

Jason 1000% got stung by a jellyfish 

Bruce bought like seven friendship bracelets from this guy that made them because they looked deadass cool 

They played beach volleyball and let me tell you Damian can throw a really mean overhand serve (actually, i don’t think you THROW a serve, but like,,, serve one-)

dick got buried in the sand, courtesy of Jason

bart was pissy because he couldn’t go in the water, so he and Kon sprinted with normal speed (they both had water-proof anklets that sucked their powers, so it was REALLY  a no-powers vacation, courtesy of Bruce, again.)

the only ones in stock were neon, and they settled real quick so now theyre sprinting back and cardying a bag of keychains they thought looked rad as hell and now tim caught up to them and all three are practically skipping towards the water

,,,,they forgot to put sunscreen on.... all of them,,, they forgot....

tim made a sand castle

in teams of two (kon/bart, tim/cass, duke/harper, steph/jason, dick/damian) got on each other shoulders and basically spent five minutes trying to see who would be the last team standing, splashing water everywhere and stuff

first team to go down was Dick and damian, because steph pushed damian and by trying to keep himself on Dick's shoulders, damian accidentally poked dick's eye (sort of CLAWED in so you know what i mean).

second team to go down was steph and jason, because damian doesnt play fair and so he swam down and literally just scratched Jason's ankle, knowing damn well that the jellyfish sting was there. Jaosn shrieked and steph lost her balance. so much for vigilantes at night with stealth and talent, huh.

third team to go down was tim and bart because kon insisted on being on bart’s shoulders and that’s easy peasy because i mean, bart’s not WEAK, but he’s not TALL either and it’s not like Kon weighs a feather and they’re on the deeper side,,,,, you can imagine the rest

Now there’s two teams, and they call it a tie because otherwise someone’s gonna end up injured (altho tim likes to say that he and cass won)

There’s music playing in the background, with really vulgar lyrics that alfred disapproves of, but you know. It’s not his beach. 

THIS IS REALLY JUST A SCREAM POST SORRY IT’S NOT WHAT YOU GUYS SIGNED UP FOR BUT TAGLIST ANYWAYS: @red-hood-redemption @screennamealreadyused @bikoncon @catxsnow @thesporklecat @thesesickfics-justmakemesick @hauntingsonofrobin anddd i think i forgot someone sorry 

[obsidianpen]

reading this triggered me and now I have to tell a story.

a few years ago, I worked for a small nonprofit founded by a very famous artist - not sure if I should mention names here, but she is still alive and is pretty much the most well known ‘feminist’ artist out here. The mission statement of this nonprofit was to highlight the achievements of women. But when I was there, there was almost nothing being done to do that. They were only highlighting that founding artist’s work 99% of the time. This bothered me.

so, even though I was regularly working more than my 40 hours every week (the place needed a LOT of groundwork done; website work, upgrades on the shop, etc…), I worked my ass off to apply for a grant for a project that I’d proposed to the board, which they said they loved. It was to highlight different female identifying artists, one a month, on our Instagram and YouTube page (that took me forever to make and organize!), with a major focus on traditionally underrepresented and suppressed voices in the art world (BIPOC artists, trans artists, disabled artists, etc). I would find them, reach out to them, interview them, make the videos, and they would be paid a modest (very modest, if I’m being honest, because the grant wasn’t huge) stipend. A project that would support and highlight women ID artists which would in turn support the non profit because they’d share their interviews with their platforms too. Mission statement fulfilled, everybody wins.

I went to the board with the good news. I was surprised when they didn’t seem happy about it. A few weeks later they returned the money because they decided there was ‘no time for that’; I needed to focus all my time working on promoting an award in the founding artist’s name. But that was a lie. Said artist was clearly just unhappy about sharing the spotlight on literally any other artist and their work.

sharing this because it was really heartbreaking for me, and taught me that it is REALLY hard to institute change within an organization that is biased and was built an on agenda from the ground up. So yeah, go join boards and make your voice heard and all that jazz, but if you have a mission, consider starting something of your own. There are lots of business grants and such out there, esp for nonprofits. I know the OP story is about a school, and that really sucks, what happened. But it happens. When working within an organization that has a power structure built over you that does not agree with you, it is so hard to institute real change.

I guess, what I’m really getting at is you can spend a lifetime trying to batter down a wall of hate that’s been built and standing for so long. And maybe it’s a better use of time to build something separate, something better and stronger, with a much further reach.

(and I know I’m ranting here like starting any kind of business is easy; it’s literally the hardest thing and often has to be started while you’re still working somewhere else, but I know a few people who have actually done it, and even though it SUCKS to get going, none of them regret it. I’m only putting this out there because I don’t think many people ever even consider starting a nonprofit or anything like that. But you can, and you should, and there is funding out there to help you - you have to find it and be aggressive as hell. But it’s there)

“It definitely broke our spirits,” said Brittany Harris, 17, a junior and the co-president of the club, when she heard that the board didn’t want to accept the grant that students had worked on for weeks.

LGBTQ teens won a grant for their school. Adults sent the money back.

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Anonymous asked: Great to see you back and posting again. I know you have a very British sense of humour and so I was wondering if you ever saw American comedian Dave Chappelle’s special ‘The Closer’ on Netflix? I don’t know if that is, as you Brits might put it, ‘your cup of tea’ but it has caused a huge flashpoint in the culture wars against wokedom here in the US. Appreciate your thoughts as a cultured outsider. 

All humour is ‘my cup of tea’. I’m not sniffy where I get my sip of laughter brew. It can be drunk from many cups. I enjoy the literary ironic humour of PG Wodehouse, Anthony Powell, and Evelyn Waugh for example to other literary comic writing from Douglas Adams to Tom Sharpe. All very British I know.

But I also grew up in a family saturated on generations of Cambridge Footlights humour (Cambridge University’s famed comedy club) that partly spawned Beyond the Fringe, Monty Python, Not the Nine O’Clock News, Fry & Laurie etc. John Oliver also cut his teeth at Cambridge at the Footlights before he went over the pond to better things. I used to go to the ‘smokers’ (stand up comedy nights) as often as I could when I was a student there. I’ve gone to the odd comedy show but these days I may just listen to an audio especially when I am travelling a lot as I am on a plane for my work. But I love British comedy of Armando Ianucci and Richard Curtis & Ben Elton (the guys behind the Blackadder series) to new faces like Evelyn Mok (a Swedish-Chinese third culture kid).

But I enjoy comedy in other languages for example in France I’ve relied on French friends here in Paris to take me to comedy shows to see Blanche Gardin, Florence Foresti, and Yacine Belhousse for example. And I’ve gone to great lengths to see Eddie Izzard - one of my favourites from behind the bars of my english girls’ boarding school days - do gigs in French.

I also love American humour. As I said, I’m not sniffy about which nation’s humour is better. It’s such a silly waste of time. If it makes you laugh then that’s as pure as it gets. Sure, I don’t like the mainstream canned laughter TV shows that you often see but then we have the same in the UK. But I love 30 Rock, Parks & Recreation, Brooklyn 99, Rick & Morty, Community etc. With stand ups I’ve enjoyed comedians who make you think whilst you’re spilling your guts out such as George Carlin and Bill Hicks. And of course I’ve also liked Dave Chappelle.

I got more than a few asks in my inbox about Dave Chappelle’s comedy special ‘The Closer’ and what I made of it. I really don’t want to focus on the toxic politics of this whole drama but focus instead on the nature of humour instead.

I did watch it on a plane on my lap top. I think the air stewardess in my business class flight thought I needed a sedative because I got a severe case of the giggles. I was trying so hard not to laugh out loud out of respect to the sleeping passengers near me. I just couldn’t help myself. I wet my knickers laughing so hard. Oh, was that too much information? Hmmm.

Overall I loved the show. The one part that did give me pause was when he told the heartfelt and tragic story of his transexual friend, Daphne, who took her own life because of either issues in her life or because of online bullying from her own trans community. He made that story funny and ultimately bittersweet. It would be inhuman not to relate to Chappelle’s pain in losing a friend and also the life story of Daphne herself. That whole story was very loving, compassionate, poignant. Oh and also very funny.

And yet in the fall out of the show, no one has talked about that. About Daphne in particular. Chappelle did more to humanise the transexual community to the mainstream with that one story than the shrill rantings of the transexual extreme activists.

Dave Chappelle. Arguably one of America’s greatest living comedian. Hilarious and humane, brutal and true. It’s true I don’t get all the cultural references but what I love about Chapelle is his craft. This is an artist committed to his craft. He is a master at it. He himself said he laughs at the jokes of racist stand up comedians because he may not agree with the content he does respect the craft.

Do I agree with his politics or his views? No, not always. He can say cutting things about women, about white people, about the LGBT people, and just about everyone else. He makes fun of everyone. What is the problem here? It’s just jokes. Damn funny ones too.

I’m sure I don’t agree with his politics. But I don’t have to but I can laugh at his jokes because they are so beautifully crafted and have a ring of truth, otherwise it wouldn’t be funny.

Humour has been on the minds of thinkers for centuries. As Peter McGraw and Joel Warner explain in their insightful book, The Humor Code: A global search for what makes things funny,  “Plato and Aristotle contemplated the meaning of comedy while laying  the foundations of Western philosophy… Charles Darwin looked for the  seeds of laughter in the joyful cries of tickled chimpanzees. Sigmund  Freud sought the underlying motivations behind jokes in the nooks and  crannies of our unconscious.”

We tend to see comedy through the romantic lens of the  one-off inspired comic whose unique view of the world is entertaining.  But the focus on the individual witty voice misses the gigantic,  political nature of the task of comedy. Comedy isn’t just a bit of fun.

We don’t laugh at things unless they cause us very serious problems at  other points in life. We can see this in the standard category of jokes:  about relationships, family, sex, money, impotence, bowel movements, identity etc. We  laugh most readily around things that in other ways are very  distressing. A good joke invariably has a relationship with darkness,  anxiety and pain.

I’ve always valued humour in people as a precious gift. I love having a laugh and even more if it’s at my expense because I firmly believe humour should be an equal opportunity offender. Moreover what I love about enjoying a good joke is that one the singular properties of certain comedy when done well is the  freedom to explore ideas in an unconventional or counter-intuitive way,  to subvert society’s norms.

No one does that better than a comedian. No one does it better than Dave Chappelle. As the great George Carlin put it, “I think it's the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.“

Being British we’re always raised to enjoy making fun of ourselves and we enjoy nothing more than to see the self-righteous smug and the boorish taken down a peg or two. It’s just who we are. Most other Europeans are the same. I’m very sure this true elsewhere too if my many travels and experience of living in other cultures is anything to go by.

However I didn’t know the real importance of dark humour until I actually served in the British army and found humour as a form of therapy to deal with stress and situations of life and death with my army brothers and sisters. Our shared jokes were so extremely off colour and un-PC that we would dare not repeat them in polite and respectable company. But that kind of shared humour served a crucial importance as any soldier will tell you. By mocking dangerous things or the situations you might find yourself with others, humour can embolden us.

Dark humour helpfully paints what is potentially very frightening as deeply absurd and ridiculous.This was often when we junior officers would look at each other in confused bewilderment at the thinking and decision making of some of our clueless senior officers before we would lead our soldiers on a battlefield mission in Afghanistan.

The comic perspective fills a central need of every society; it enables  us to cope much better with our own follies and disappointments, our troubles around work and love and our difficulties enduring ourselves.  Comedy is waiting to be reframed as a central tool behind the creation  of a better world.

Comedy offers us a way of having a better  time around things which, otherwise, can feel pretty disastrous.  Ideally, in the utopia, comedy and its therapeutic potential wouldn’t be  left to chance. Humour would be deliberately cultivated as a benign  response to a range of entrenched difficulties. Previously, certain  countries had an elaborate carnival season devoted to enforced comic  activities. For a brief time, the weak could boss around the powerful,  priests and nuns were supposed to hold obscene rituals in their churches, serious people were required to get  drunk and throw bags of flour over each other’s heads. Humour wasn’t  just left to those who felt so inclined: it was a kind of duty.

One of the most enduring theories of humour arrived courtesy of the philosopher Thomas Hobbes. It asserts that humour is ostensibly about  mocking the weak and exerting superiority. While this is clearly the  function of some comedy – anyone who has flinched at a comic’s lame  attempt to poke fun at, for example, disability will attest to this –  it’s a relentlessly bleak and far from complete explanation of the  purpose of humour. It’s better for a comedian to punch up then down.

It’s a charge that has been leveled at Dave Chappelle for his many jokes about different groups who have invested a great deal in their identity and also exert their own social and political power. But does he really do that? I don’t think so.

The mainstream media critics publicly hated his comedy special, but the ordinary audience overwhelmingly loved it (if rotten tomatoes metric score of 96% approval is anything to go by). It’s clear that many in the mainstream media had not really watched the show or gave an accurate account. Indeed the mainstream cultural critics in the US and in the UK prevented its readers from knowing that a debate was even happening, let alone what it is really about. If the argument about gender theory is mentioned at all, it is dismissed as a bunch of “anti-trans” bigots - aka “TERFs” - hurting a beleaguered and tiny minority, for some inconceivable, but surely awful, reason.

One of my favourite conservative writers (and who happens gay), Andrew Sullivan, also happens to be a leading scholarly authority on a little known British conservative philosopher, Michael Oakeshott, who was a huge influence in my thinking, Sullivan put it really well, as he always does:

“Chappelle’s final Netflix special, The Closer, is a classic. Far from being outdated, it’s slightly ahead of its time, as the pushback against wokeness gains traction. It is extremely funny, a bit meta, monumentally mischievous, and I sat with another homo through the whole thing, stoned, laughing our asses off — especially when he made fun of us. The way the elite media portrays us, you’d think every member of the BLT community is so fragile we cannot laugh at ourselves. It doesn’t occur to them that, for many of us, Chappelle is a breath of honest air, doing what every comic should do: take aim at every suffocating piety of the powers that be - including the increasingly weird 2SLGBTQQIA+ mafia - and detonating them all.

The Closer is, in fact, a humanely brilliant indictment of elite culture at this moment in time: a brutal exposure of its identitarian monomania, its denial of reality, and its ruthless tactics of personal and public destruction. It marks a real moment: a punching up against the powerful, especially those who pretend they aren’t. Bigoted? Please. Anyone who can watch this special and think Chappelle is homophobic or transphobic is either stupendously dumb or a touchy fanatic. He is no more transphobic than J.K. Rowling, i.e. not at all, and the full set masterfully proves it to anyone with eyes and ears.“

It’s hugely reassuring to see the  ‘powerful’ laughing at themselves - in this case the LGBTQ+ community’s more shrill and self-righteous social justice warrior activists that brook no public criticism of their conduct against women and other critics who don’t have the power to fight back. It is a trusim to say that finding oneself comical is a token of  maturity. It means being able to see one’s faults, without being too  defensive about them.This, I argue, was one of the messages of Chappelle’s comedy show.

The thing that intimidates us isn’t  actually power. It’s power that looks like it’s going to be inhumane:  insensitive, unkind power. So we’re intently interested in things that  reveal a mature, kindly sort of power.

Humour often provides a mechanism whereby  the powerless (or at least the less powerful) can give constructive but  pointed feedback to the powerful. Whether the powerful - in Chappelle’s view that would be the trans and social just warrior crowd - can take social commentary masked as a joke says a lot about their level of maturity.

Humour, as one neuroscientist friend of mine put it, is a form of psychological processing, a coping mechanism that  helps people to deal with complex and contradictory messages, a response to conflict and confusion in our brain. Humour that is in bad taste or cruelly targeted at particular groups may  generate conflict, but humour is also our way of working through  difficult subjects or feelings. In this sense the comedian’s role is not validate our feelings but to make us think.

As a classicist, I may be speaking outside my lane when I talk about medieval history (I would suggest pinging @oldshrewsburyian​ who is an actual medieval historian and the kind of professor who cares about her profession in these cynically consumer driven times (she also infectiously shares my love of bollywood and historical detective fiction). But as I understand it in olden days, the idea of the court jester –  in effect an officially licensed and salaried comic – was built on the importance  of humour to the mental health of the powerful. Even if in the council  room or around the dinner high table, the leading people didn’t feel much like joking, the jester was required to make barbed, witty and perhaps  mocking remarks to deflate pomposity and restore sane perspective. Of course a lot has changed. These days the high table may not be occupied by the feudal elites anymore but by an outwardly more egalitarian society.

Who can disagree with the fact that all of us - leftist, conservative, revolutionary, traditonalist, straight, gay, lesbian, bi, trans, colour, and creed - are not in need of our self important egos and the pompous bubbles they inhabit from being burst open from time to time?

If we live in a world where everyone demands equality, in other words to sit at the same high table, then we also sign up to be equally ‘offended’ by the court jester, however fair or unfair it may feel.

The shrill of cancelling a comedian is not the answer if we find a joke offensive. We have the right to protest because that is the flipside to our right to free speech. We can protest by...not laughing. It really is that simple.

I’ll end by saying you won’t get very far in life if you don’t learn how to laugh at yourself. So much of life will pass you by if you don’t stop and see how absurd one can be. I’ve always lived by that and those are the kind of friends I like to surround myself with. Because only self-centred narcissists take themselves seriously.

Thanks for your question.