#This wouldn't count as fictionalization as Watson wouldn't know

[quill-of-thoth]

Letters from Watson: The Man with the Twisted Lip

Crimes in Context. Sit down bloggers, it's time for a few rounds with my current least-favorite monetary system, and an actual scale of the wealth difference between the poorest and wealthiest Victorians. I already did some math here, where @thethirdromana did some research regarding other contemporary math failures about begging. I swear this will be interesting after we get through the math.

Imperial Currency Definitions

Pound, or "quid" or "pound sterling": Literally one pound of silver coins. (Sterling is a silver alloy.) The gold coin representing it was called a Sovereign. It's worth 240 pennies or 20 shillings. There was also a gold half-sovereign. (120 pennies, 10 shillings...)

Shilling: 1/20th of a pound. A silver coin. Penny also pence, but only as a plural: 1/240th of a pound, or 1/12th of a shilling. Confusingly, there were silver pennies, copper pennies, and bronze pennies, with the exact same value, during the 1800's - silver pennies were minted specifically for royal charity, to be given out on Maundy Thursday. (The day before Good Friday.)

A lot of victorian accounts are written in Pounds, shillings, pennies, represented as L/s/d, but there were also other coins. I do not like them any better than this setup, but they provide context, so here we go.

Guinea: One pound and one shilling. Not it's own coin by the 1890's, since the last ones were minted in 1814, probably because they're stupid. I've seen it cited that if a professional gentleman was paid a guinea he got the pound and his clerks or assistants got the shilling.

Crown: Five shillings / a quarter pound. Represented by a silver coin.

Sixpence / Fourpence (Groat) / threepence / twopence (half-groat): conveniently, the numbers within the name tell you all you need to know. These were silver but twopence was also only minted for Maundy money during this era. Halfpenny / Ha'penny: Half a penny, a bronze coin. Farthing: A quarter of a penny, also a bronze coin, presumably for transactions like buying a single egg or leaving an extremely insulting tip.

Typical Wages:

Poverty: Laborers and factory workers may get anything from 4 shillings (0.2 pounds) to 1 pound per week. Women and children were routinely paid much less for the same work as men. Francis Moulton's 8s room from The Noble Bachelor cost up to two weeks wages per night. If an average adult male working in a factory was paid about 1 pound per week, he would make about 50-52 pounds per year. If a maid was paid 4 shillings a week, she would make about 10 pounds a year. If a child was paid 1 shilling a week, they would make about two and a half pounds a year. My sources cited a variety of years from 1860 on, so take all of these as ballpark estimates. The difference between 10 pounds and 50 pounds per year doesn't sound that stark, but today it's the equivalent of 1,000 pounds (1,200 USD) and 5,000 pounds (6,000 USD). Neither is enough to live on now, and it wasn't enough to live independently then, but it's the difference between living on L 2.7 / USD 3.2 a day and L 13.7 / USD 16.4 per day: You starve a lot faster at that first rate.

(Obligatory note that live in servants often had it better than factory workers making the same wage on account of having room and board provided as part of their compensation. Hence why a governess - a gentlewoman in distress - considers L50 a year a fairly comfortable wage: she's not paying rent, or for the bulk of her food. Like today's population of new graduates teaching English abroad.)

Comparative Wealth: Neville St. Clair states he's making about L 700 a year by begging. This is the equivalent of 71,000 pounds / 85,200 USD today. It's about the same salary as a modern university chairperson. At the time of this story it's enough to live in an upper middle class suburb very securely, with several servants. It is, however, an absolute bullshit number. To acquire five hundred and sixty six (ish) pennies per day, in 691 coins, St Clair probably had upwards of five hundred people toss him a coin. Presuming that the reason nobody gave him twopence was low circulation of that specific coin, we can estimate that few, if any, people gave him three pence or more, judging by a lack of any of three pence, four pence, or sixpence coins. (There also aren't any farthings but I'm not sure what 0.25 pennies could actually buy you in those days. Possibly people who had any money to spare didn't carry them.) If Neville works his corner for just long enough to get home by the 5:15 train, and it takes him maybe ten minutes to change out of his disguise, it's a reasonable assumption that he leaves his corner by 4:30 ish. He isn't noted as leaving particularly early in the mornings either, so I'm going to roughly estimate that he works about eight hours a day. If so he is earning more than a penny per MINUTE begging. He's getting someone throwing him a penny every 55ish seconds. There's a line of his benefactors dropping coins into his hat. Threadneedle street was home to the Bank of England and the London Stock Exchange: presumably St. Clair picked this location because people going to and from either actually had some money to spare. But it also leads to an inevitable alternate idea: since it's impossible for St. Clair to be regularly making two pounds a day begging, perhaps his beggar disguise is for more criminal reasons... perhaps a long running plot to rob the bank? Either he is casing the place or he's a lookout. Or perhaps he's the accomplice of a clerk skimming his own pound or two a day out of the change from deposits, handing it over to St. Clair whenever he walks out for lunch or at the end of his day so that he's never discovered with a truly stupid amount of pennies.

And as far as Holmes is concerned... he's brilliantly deduced the bizarre portion of this case. Who cares that the scale of the begging is impossible? The Victorian middle class could be just as blinded by propaganda regarding the poor as we can be today. Even though there were no official public services and the myth of the welfare queen is a modern invention there were definitely people who resented the entire idea of charity: human nature has not completely changed in the last 130 years.

[help-i-need-a-cool-username]

So for AAW this year i decided to explore some QPRs since ive never done that before (does that even qualify for AAW?). So without further ado (i'll try to keep it quick) these are the relationships that give me the strongest QPR vibes theres no particular order just a attempted color gradient

1. Joan Watson and Sherlock Holmes (Elementary)

Ive talked about these two before for AAW 2019(?) so ill touch on them briefly (and i'll put the link in the notes). Disclaimer: This is a show that i watched in bits and pieces, almost primarily from reruns. The longterm focus of this show is clearly these two's relationship. In the beginning they were stuck together, and then they chose to be together but they still had issues, at one point they stop talking to each other (like legit didnt talk one of them moved away and they didnt stay in contact), were together with issues again, and then they were primarily okay, and at one point left/fled the country together even though only one of them had to. Throughout the show there are these spoken moments that really tell the depth of their relationship, from either them or other characters. Off the top of my head theres "you named a species of bee after me," "i think shes the person you love most in this world," "i consider you to be a exceptional person. So i make a exceptional effort to accommodate you," "this is your home," "i'll stay. Of course i'll stay," and that line in the picture. They dont seem to struggle that much when it comes to describing their relationship and believe "partners" sums it up best. They live together, see each other as the most important/favorite person in their lives, and are raising a child together.

2. Aziraphale and Crowley (Good Omens)

Im not sure these two count, being not human and all. In the show and in the fandom (and i assume the book) people, and they themselves, struggle to understand their relationship and on top of that they arent supposed to be on good terms with each other (one is a angel and one is a demon). Are they friends? Enemies? Boyfriends? Best friends? Crowley at one point comes to the conclusion that never having Aziraphale in his life again is worse than the end of the world. One of the definitions for a QPR is "undefinable relationship," which fits nicely here.

3. Mako Mori and Raleigh Becket (Pacific Rim)

Disclaimer: i havent seen this movie since it was in theaters and therefore dont remember much. If i had know what a QPR was when i saw this movie it would have made so much more sense. One of the background themes is strong relationships (you cant power the robots without it) which includes familial, platonic, and romantic. These two were left ambiguous, all the shots were framed in that typical "they're gonna end up together by the end" way only for nothing to confirm it at the end. It was wonderful. You follow two different gendered strangers who become super important to each other and share all their darkest secrets and memories and give each other soft looks to not end up dating at the end. Wether or not you see it as a QPR its a movie that doesnt erase m/f friendship and thats just fantastic.

[sorry guys its 2am now these paragraphs are gonna be a little shorter]

4. Carol Danvers and Monica Rambeau (Captain Marvel)

Before Carol disappeared it was clear she was living with Maria, her best friend, and helping her raise Monica, Maria's daughter, from a young age. Its clear her "death" greatly effected them.

5. Maka Albarn and Soul Eater Evans (Soul Eater)

I recently rewatched this show and their relationship on the surface seems like Two Kids Who Are Opposites And Dont Like Each Other Are Forced To Do Group Project type relationship but its actually so much deeper. They're roommates and best friends and each think the other one is the greatest person they know. They both have arcs centered around protecting the other. Soul states on multiple occasions that he's not into Maka, and Maka compares their partnership to her parents' marriage but never actually expects or acts like Soul is her boyfriend. Its clear they're gonna stay together for a long time coming.

6. Clint Barton and Kate Bishop (Marvel Comics)

Okay so i could say so much on this but let me start this off with a big Disclaimer: i have not read these comics, all of my knowledge comes from fan works (like the entirety of ao3 and tumblr) and wiki pages. These two. THESE TWO. Ahhh i dont even know what to say because i dont know if this is a thing where fanon versions are entirely OOC. These guys have something like a 12 year age difference, so from the outside their relationship seems weird. People (real or fictional idr) keep trying to slot them into familial roles (big brother and little sister, uncle and niece, dad and daughter) but the truth is they're friends and partners. Ya its a little weird with their age difference but if they were both 10 years older most people wouldn't even notice the age difference. Clint makes it clear to us just how much he loves Kate. She's super important to him. Just looking for pics for this post i saw so many panels displaying how close they are. Idk if its canon or not but fanfic really gave the impression Kate basically lives part time at his place. These two give me vibes that they have the kind of closeness where they could cuddle on the couch together and it wouldnt be weird. And i mean full horizontal doing a balancing act in order to get them both to stay on the couch between the backrest and the edge so they could nap. Like if one of them was married their spouse wouldnt be surprised to wake up in the morning and find them both eating breakfast in their PJs. Like these two would kiss on the mouth but it wouldnt be romantic at all just a way to express emotion. They just give me this vibe thats led to so many headcanons and idek if its canon