#English class system

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Friendship is something to be built up carefully, by people with leisure, it is an art, nature does not enter into it.

Nancy Mitford, The Pursuit of Love

[tuttle-did-it]

@svartalfhild

I caught this as well. And I’ve always felt it’s not an OR situation, but an AND situation.

A) I always assumed that it was the futuristic equivalent to ‘my dad works on the docks but I got into Oxford through scholarship. I don’t want the lads to know I’m on scholarship, so I’m staying silent and hiring a dialect expert. Within two weeks, I’ll have a better Oxford accent than any of you, even the locals.’

And

B) it is concretely canon that Julian‘s father never thought Julian was good enough. Instead of learning to love his son for the person he really was, his father literally set out to change absolutely every single thing about him to mould Julian into the ‘perfect’ son. Like, down to his fucking atoms.

The emotional house-sized weight that this just suffocates Julian with almost made that stupid reveal worth it. That his own parents found Julian was so impossible to love, so broken, they had to turn him into a different person down to the molecular level?

Yeah, okay. I mean, that’s a special fucked up level of childhood trauma. How do you even begin to process this? How can you ever trust them— that if you do something else they don’t like, they won’t put you back in that chair to ~fix~? That is a special form of child abuse.

And Sid played that perfectly. It’s clear Sid hated the main reveal about Bashir (many of us did). But the emotional horror of knowing that the only way your parents could love you was to completely rewrite who you are? Yeah. Sid pulled that off.

But back to the accent specifically: the fact that both of these scenarios are not only possible, but equally probable? It’s a beautiful and yet subtle subtextual storytelling that leaves the audience room to fill in the conversations that must have taken place for this to happen.

Also, both scenarios are EXTREMELY British (even more specifically, ENGLISH). Upward mobility of class through education and accent is VERY common in England.

There are parents who will scold their children if they speak with a lower-class (poorer/immigrant areas) accent, even if they have that lower class accent themselves.

There are kids who will do anything to rewrite their own biography so that no one knows they’re really from the wrong side of the tracks by upgrading their accent to a more posh or less regionalised accent so they don’t sound like their parents.

I don’t know if this was the choice of the writer, the casting director, the actor who played his father’s acting choice, or even Sid saying, ‘You know what? Can we cast someone with a lower class accent?’ But it felt extremely intentional and EXTREMELY English. And bonus points of this was a combination of input from several people.

Regardless, this was a brilliant decision, and this seemingly tiny detail adds SO MUCH more to Julian and his identity.

Also, last thing I will say. I think it’s obvious that this issue between Julian and his parents has deeper ramifications considering Bashir is so strongly coded (and confirmed, depending on which writer you ask) as Autistic, and is canonically Queer (depending on the writer you ask).

These are relevant, fascinating and valid readings into the ramifications of neurodiversity and queerness needing to be ‘fixed’ for the comfort and convenience of neurotypical cis-hets before they can love their ~broken~ Autistic Queer child can hit home for a LOT of us.

I'm surprised that I haven't come across anyone else talking about how fascinating it is that Julian Bashir and his father do not have the same English accent. Like, the implications, y'all.

Julian sounds much more upper class than his father, which would seem to indicate one of two things, either:

a) Julian adopted his accent to deliberately distance himself from his father.

or

b) Julian learnt his accent at a young age at the insistence of his father to further his air of sophistication.

Either way, it certainly adds another facet to Julian's Parental Angst.

[lesbianshepard]

i love finding people i went to high school with on twitter because so many of them will post things and then go "i can't believe they didn't teach us this in school 😱" like buddy, they did. i was literally in social studies with you during that lesson.

[all-seeing-ifer]

not to make posts that i know for a fact will get screenshot to hell and back if i'm unlucky enough for them to blow up but man seeing 99% of posts on this website about "media literacy"/literacy in general is like oh we are notttttt getting serious conversations about education reform are we

[artsandstoriesandstuff]

Oops, I Did It Again (acted so neurodivergent in a class that the teacher thought I was cheating)

[msharmonycobel]

me when the downstairs staff in Downton Abbey were devoted to the Crawleys, always thought they were right and had their whole lives revolving around them: ugh, this is unbearable, I hate the class system, JFellowes knows zero poor people

me when the downstairs staff in The Gilded Age are devoted to the Russells, always think they're right and have their whole lives revolving around them: so true, besties 💖💖💖

[bookwyrminspiration]

Hey Quil do you have advice for what to do when you start your blog? I’m trying to figure this out and I’d really appreciate it.

I hope you’re doing well and that your class schedule sorts itself out! - Amethyst

Hi, Amethyst! Sure thing! Also still working on that schedule stuff--I have a few suspicions for what's causing the problem.

I think the main thing is to find people to follow and reblog what you like. You can follow tags and look through them, but it's quite detached and impersonal--a dash full of other people you've specifically curated is one of the big draws of the site. Tumblr's all about finding your people!!

Another is to block tags you don't want to see--which can be found by going to settings, general, filters, and then just typing in whatever you don't like (you can filter both tags and key words). And it doesn't have to be triggers (of which the most common formatting is "tw [thing]" or "[thing] tw"), but even just a show someone posts about you don't care about (I blocked ted lasso for that reason).

Also block people as much as you like--and again, not just if they're being genuinely shitty, even if they just have a character interpretation you don't like. This is YOUR blog and YOUR online space, tailor it to YOU.

Building a circle of people and finding what tags/people you want to block can take some time, so don't rush it. You'll get there! The main goal is to have fun!

Another thing you can do that might not be immediately applicable: some people have personalized tags for what they post. For example, all my asks are under "quil's queries", my art/writing under "quil's quill", and stuff about me/my life under "quil lore" or "quil's unholy underworld." You can come up with tags of your own--for those things, or for the queue if you use it, or anything else.

But that's optional! Really it boils down to post what you like, follow people you like, reblog what you like, and just engage! Send asks, compliment and share things, and have fun!

If there's anything specific you have questions about or don't understand, feel free to ask :)

[ghost-poppy]

So, my little sibling who is in high school has been getting an influx of teachers who use ChatGPT to make their assignments and has been feeling like they haven't been taught how to do certain things correctly.

If anyone feels that they need tips for studying or some aspect of English/History, please comment because I'm making some guides to help them and I'd be glad to post it on here.

[jjsanguine]

The bilingual dialogue in eccentric romance is frying my brain which is strange because I don't understand Thai or Korean. It's almost like when I watch something with dialogue in sign language and they talk at the same time. The talking distracts me from the subtitles ...that are transcribing the talking.

[chronicillnesscaneffoffplease]

I’ve had a few “whoops this thing I stopped doing is actually helping me” moments recently.

I’ve felt wretched and like I was coming down with the flu recently. It felt more than my normal PEM symptoms, and I was really concerned. And then I realise it’s spring, a bunch of stuff is blooming, and it’s been sooooo windy. And I stopped taking antihistamines and my nasonex sometime last year (antihistamines bc we thought it might have been causing some side effects, nasonex bc I hate the sensation of nasal sprays and need motivation to use it). Pesky hayfever. Needless to say I’m feeling much better having restarted my regimen. I felt a bit silly that I could have avoided feeing miserable though.

I went out for an appointment yesterday in my “knock about the house” shoes that are podiatrist loathed (nil ankle support, nil arch support, worn down), rather than my lace up shoes with my orthotics. After that appointment, I thought I’d check out a new store that’s opened at the shops nearby. I ended up doing a LOT of walking at the shops and today my ankles are sooooo painful and my hips been acting up. I guess it’s good to know that my shoes and orthotics are doing good things in terms of symptom prevention (as well as better longer-term outcomes) but damn do I feel ouchie.

I’m framing it as “yay negative data also tells us important things” because I gotta remember it’s not my fault when these things happen but it is good to try learn from them. And frankly, when there’s so many things going on with your health and condition management as a disabled person, it’s okay when things fall through the cracks. It’s gonna happen. Especially when there’s lots of non-disability stuff going on too. It’s okay.

[fantasy-costco]

Did you go through k-12 schooling in the united states?

Do you have a learning disorder? (ADHD, Dyslexia, etc)

Wanna help me with my homework?

basically, I'm doing a research assignment on how people with learning disorders are educated in the United States. I made a quick survey for my research. If you answered yes to all three of those questions, it would be super helpful if you took this survey. Thank you in advance!

[percysheliey]

final class of the semester done …. no new boyfriend …… no outside uni friends ….. am i the problem

[icewindandboringhorror]

Everytime I face a new character limit on a website that didn't have them before/used to have really long ones... AUGHHhhh the modern social media world was not made for people like me (lovers of details, rambling, elaboration, thorough explanation, and nuance)

[arsonistman]

Ratio would not call you/anyone stupid for not knowing how to do a puzzle or solve a problem immediately. He’d figure it out for himself first ofc, and then he’d give what is in the moment assumed to be arrogant piss poor advice but it actually makes you think and figure it out for yourself. I know this bc I do it too

[dullahandyke]

sidenote speaking of polls that infuriated me, that poll like 'does a story require themes to be good' was sent from hell to kill me