#arthur birling

[unsuspicious-nobody]

I type 4 Eva on the groupchat and they think I mean forever when I actually mean for Eva Smith from an inspector calls who deserves better

[deschainartnerd]

They are allowed to bite and maul him I think

[an-inspector-balls]

eat up children - 🥧

[secretagentsagainstwhatever]

I saw ‘An Inspector Calls’ on stage today and holy shit

[ultcrackshipskirmish]

Round 1: Brason (Jason Grace x A Brick) vs Bir-cler (Arthur Birling x Once-ler)

No photo for Bir-cler sadly if you have one please send it via asks

[aninspectorcalls]

"ARTHUR BIRLING is a heavy-looking, rather portentous man in his middle fifties, with fairly easy manners but rather provincial in his speech."

Mr. Birling is wealthy, and comfortable in his life, but he does not come from a high class family - shown by his "provincial" speech. This presents him as the embodiment of the middle-class capitalist ideal.

[novuit]

I'm grieving so badly over the quotes I remember that I never got to write down, so I'm going to draw a bunch of doodles with the quotes I still remember before I thankfully forget it forever. And to the people doing gcses right now, let's celebrate the end of having to memorise quotes from british plays by getting sloshed over champers and then drink more seeing as we have more exams this week!!! :D

(Edexcel gave us easier questions than I thought, I don't know what I was so worried about, hahah...)

[khorazir]

A yellow car at Birling Gap. Arthur Shappey would call that brilliant!

[can-of-w0rmz]

My English teacher’s been off for a long while so we’ve had a good load of substitute teachers, and one of them is teaching us An Inspector Calls and can I just say, is so much less dry than my actual English teacher. I’ll be real, classic lit nerd though I may be, I don’t like that play. Honestly can’t really stand it. But we’re leading a hate campaign against Gerald Croft now? Hell yeah I’ll write an essay for you on him let’s get this bitch! You give me those quotes and references on why he’s a dick I barely paid attention to his character but it’s drama now and I have personal beef with him let’s go

[cabinpressurechallenge]

Alright, I had hoped to have this together sooner, but I'm busy! I just got my airframe cert :)

Without further ado! 2024 prompts:

November 29th: Abu Dhabi

prompts: ice / light

discussion: Who is your favourite character?

30th: Boston

prompts: home / hurricane

discussion: What’s your favourite Arthur moment?

December 1st: Cremona

prompts: nuts / loss

discussion: What’s your favourite Douglas moment?

2nd: Douz

prompts: big / red

discussion: What’s your favourite Carolyn moment?

3rd: Edinburgh

prompts: maps / uphill

discussion: What’s your favourite Martin moment?

4th: Fitton

prompts: rain / heart

discussion: What’s your favourite episode?

5th: Gdansk

prompts: salt / wind

discussion: What’s your favourite word game?

6th: Helsinki

prompts: gift / present

discussion: Which is your favourite series?

7th: Ipswich

prompts: pool / fool

discussion: Who’s your favourite minor character?

8th: Johannesburg

prompts: shade / brave

discussion: Who is your favourite friendship?

9th: Kuala Lumpur

prompts: service / nervous

discussion: What’s your favourite ship?

10th: Limerick

prompts: sunset / room

discussion: What’s your favourite MJN family moment?

11th: Molokai

prompts: cracker / speed

discussion: What scene makes you laugh the most?

12th: Newcastle

prompts: games / wrong

discussion: What’s your favourite Herc moment?

13th: Ottery St Mary

prompts: river / piano

discussion: What’s a scene you know by heart?

14th: Paris

prompts: glass / discover

discussion: Which Birling Day is your favourite?

15th: Qikiqtarjuaq

prompts: facts / volume

discussion: How did you get into Cabin Pressure? 

16th: Rotterdam 

prompts: honey / whistle

discussion: What are your favourite Cabin Pressure fics?

17th: St Petersburg

prompts: names / fly

discussion: What’s a scene that makes you cry?

18th: Timbuktu

prompts: colours / repeat

discussion: What’s your favourite piece of CP fanart?

19th: Uskerty

prompts: drinks / tree

discussion: Do you like anything else by John Finnemore?

20th: Vaduz

prompts: dragons / badge

discussion: What’s your favourite Theresa moment?

21st: Wokingham

prompts: puzzles / coffee

discussion: If you could change something about CP what would it be?

22nd: Xinzhou

prompts: waiting / breath

discussion: What would your dream CP revival episode be?

23rd: Yverdon les Bains

prompts: underwater / swim

discussion: Which part of CP do you find most relatable?

24th: Zurich

prompts: gold / rainbow

discussion: What does CP mean to you?

[o-uncle-newt]

ONE: it creates traditions

Despite not being a Christmas-celebrator myself, I'm really glad that the final episode of this show aired as a Christmas special, because it's equally timely to talk about Molokai.

I wrote extensively about Molokai last year, and my main takeaway is that it celebrates ritual in a way that's really important. And I was thinking about it, and so many of the themes that I elevated in previous posts I've done this year are related to this as well. It's important to how funny the show is, how heartwarming the show is, how good the show is for mental health... so many different things.

I recommend reading the above post for a full breakdown, but what I raised about Molokai was that it's basically about the importance of creating and/or participating in rituals and traditions, things that mark your life and add pizzazz to it. Martin, living a depressing life on his own in an attic, has no reason to like Christmas when it's just another dull day, but enjoys it when he's exposed to and participates in ritual. Arthur, it turns out, creates ritual all the time, whether invoking existing traditions re Christmas or creating rituals around things like Birling Day.

I argue, pushing that further, that CABIN PRESSURE is about creating a kind of comforting ritual, tradition, what have you. Don't get me wrong- the comedy is often sharp and creative, there's story and character development over time... but it's not so much that the shape of the show is familiar as that the expectations are. This is going to be funny, this is going to have interesting people, this is going to let those interesting people be comically nasty to each other but also let them have real relatable emotions, and at the end of the episode GERTI will fly again.

There's also the repetitive element of features like games, particular character mannerisms, etc. One of my favorite sitcoms, the 60s spy spoof Get Smart, was written with the main character, Maxwell Smart (Agent 86) given many catchphrases, and the actor who played him actively encouraged the writers to create more because having those kinds of repetitive and funny elements is a good hook and a comforting element to viewers. They ended up being some of the most iconic parts of the show, not just because the lines are funny but because of the way they're said by Max/Adams and the way the character who says them is written. Plenty of Get Smart fans can be caught saying "missed it by that much" or "sorry about that Chief" or, my favorite that I say all the time, "he should have used his powers for niceness instead of evil."

The characters of Cabin Pressure don't have catchphrases in the same way- or rather, it's limited to things like "brilliant" and "yellow car"- but it contains so many different elements that listeners can count on in an episode. If the whiskey is stolen, obviously Douglas did it and the question (which will be answered creatively) is how. If this is a situation where Douglas can save the day, he will- and if he doesn't, then there will be a satisfying reason why. People won't recognize Martin as captain- and if they do then that's a sign that something is off kilter. JF creates the boundaries of the world that we step into and then plays within and around them in incredibly innovative ways. It's such a good formula for keeping things interesting and comforting.

And here's where I go to praise JF as the creator- because he ended up taking on an interesting form of commitment to create ritual in our own lives, maybe because he saw how much we'd already done it ourselves. Thanks to the show, already as of S4 people were taking traveling lemons to different locations, playing Yellow Car by Arthurian rules... and then, he started posting a variation on Get Dressed Ye Merry Gentlemen every year, and as a decidedly non-Christmas person it's basically the only thing about the holiday that I look forward to. (Incidentally- one of the things that made me want to post about this is my curiosity what he'll do this year when he's no longer on Twitter...)

But the biggest ritual-creating thing he did, of course, is do 26 episodes of Cabin Fever. He posted the episodes on a regular schedule (and warned us in advance when he started spacing them out), he gave us games to try and puzzles to solve, and he gave us something to look forward to that would add some fun and shape to our lives in a time that could be both shapeless and stressful. I myself was still recovering from my very early bout of COVID, isolated in my room, bored and miserable and not at full breathing capacity and still only getting over the feeling that I could have potentially died, when Cabin Fever arrived and gave me something to look forward to. It created ritual, which created meaning, which was one of the most thoughtful things someone could have done for me around then.

So, a tribute to Cabin Pressure, a tribute to the wonderful John Finnemore, a tribute to the idea that we can take our own action and join with others to create ritual that gives us meaning and comfort... and a tribute to all of you who have been doing/following along with Cabin Pressure advent in various forms. This too is a form of ritual, community, and tradition that I look forward to continuing to participate in- as part of a really cool fandom.

In the meanwhile, happy tenth freaking anniversary, Merry Christmas to all the Christmas people, almost-Happy Chanukah to all the (fellow) Chanukah people, and just generally wishing a beautiful year full of things that give your life shape and meaning.

[placetnemagistra]

Just need to shout derangedly about the Cabin Pressure / JSFP allusions in Good Omens 2, please add your own!!

Yellow Bentley — yellow car

Aziraphale as the incompetent detective / newspaperman with a Clue — the Birling Day episode where Arthur & Martin incompetently investigate Douglas’s theft of the Tallisker

Crowley ordering a large Tallisker — also Birling Day

A number of JSFP sketches where people who are total opposites are thrown together for long periods of time (eg the wildlife cameraman who doesn’t like snow leopards and the gay leopard Professor who absolutely adores them) or are bickering/unlikely but devoted spouses (the train driver and the train manager; the “Don’t Know Much About History” song sketch) - it’s a whole dynamic!! It has prepared him for this assignment!! (As has the practice of people being irrelevantly but cheeringly gay)

[deschainartnerd]

You all helped to kill her

[an-inspector-balls]

she birling on my eric until i goole - 🥧

[garfieldbussys]

clo this isnt funny anymore.

arthur is deteriorating in front of my eyes and i dont like it what is happening right now i dont know if i can handle this its so sad

what does campbell have against this poor policeman hes always having a go at him its unreal

ALSO wait hang on whats poll doing also tommys found her kids OH NO HER DAUGHTERS DEAD POLL IM SO SORRY ☹️

ANYWAYS i cannot WAIT to finish this cause that means i can go on a rampage of reading fics SO excited

poll ily but put the gun down babe ik youre hurting but babes anyways they’re opening the garrison again since it was blown up last ep ALSO finn is SO grown up its crazy

finns talking to arthur i have a feeling this isnt gonna go well NO NO NO FINN NOT DRUGS PLEASE FINN DO NOT I SWEAR YOURE KIDDING ARTHUR NO

oh no hes fucking high off his tits isnt he 😐 ffs

why do i have a feeling another bomb is gonna go off idk i just feel like smth really bad is about to happen- hes got graces letter out hes burning it good to know i wont be seeing her again then

ADA BABY YOU MADE IT 🫶🫶

i think shes come to speak to poll shes so drunk i LOVE drunk poll shes so funny shes dancing with some guy

could you imagine if this guy ended up being her son that would be HORRIFIC cause it looks like they just had like 4 rounds tbh

why are blackcurrent soothers so good like???

HAHA POLLS DOING THE WALK OFF SHAME

ITS HER SON

hang on is that- IS THAT ERIC BIRLING FROM AN INSPECTOR CALLS OR AM I BUGGING

anyways thats it for ep 2 onto ep 3

i love ada so much and i love in fics where she’s like the best big sister ever i just can’t

and you finally watching arthur like crumble in front of your eyes is so upsetting i actually hate season 2 for him it’s so upsetting

no because finn is like 14 why is 6foot ?!?! what have the shelbys been feeding him??

LMAO THE UNIVERSAL experience of watching eric birling appear on your screen as the iconic polly gray’s son 😭😭

[mysticaleyeliner]

New headcanon:

Aziraphale learned to play Yellow Car from an air steward named Arthur he met one time when he miracled a damaged plane to land safely in St Petersburg.

This other time in Paris, a pilot named Douglas was stealing Mr Birling's Talisker when a mysterious passenger in sunglasses snuck onto Gertie and necked the whole bottle, and now that's the only whisky Crowley drinks.