#judge mainwaring

[gnome-adjacent-vagabond]

I appreciate that filmmakers repeatedly find ways to attach Peter Lorre's characters very closely to characters that are noticably taller and/or ganglier than he is. Whether they have romantic tension or just seem like they're great friends/colleagues, there's a sort of bonded pair [or trio] vibe they give off that I live for.

[soapkaars]

Maybe a silly question, but do you have any specific headcanons for how the medical malpractice gang are related or came to know eachother?

Not a silly question at all! And sorry I only just now got to answering you!

I've toyed with different headcanons with these four idiots. One of my favourites is that they're related but they have no idea that they are. To me that's the funniest one! As to how they met...

Gogol and Fenninger definitely met in Paris. Fenninger trying to run whatever criminal enterprise he has on his mind together with his accomplices/cronies/friends/lovers and Gogol, because, well, he lives there. I imagine they came across each other in a café and first pointedly ignored each other until doctor Wong or Prince Saliano loudly started commenting on their appearances and how they look like each other.

Arthur and Herman definitely met each other in the good ol' US of A, with Herman and Jonathan on the run and ending up in that podunk village run by Arthur. Hell, they might even be staying over at Nathaniel's old inn with Nathaniel trying to recruit the two for one of his experiments, Jonathan plotting to kill the old professor, Herman trying to stop Jonathan, and Arthur barging in with a 'what's all this, then?' Also I imagine Jonathan trying many attempts on Arthur's life simply because he's a sheriff. Also Arthur is completely clueless to Jonathan's criminal status.

Fenninger met Herman in Heisenberg, Germany because they went to the same medical school and Fenninger dropped out to live a life of crime, and because I think that would be funny. I just like the idea of Fenninger being sent there as a young lad by his rich parents to make something of himself (and because he refused to join the military like any good Viennese of higher standing should) and meeting Herman as a nervous student doing his goddamn best to make it through.

As to how they all met the others? Fenninger and his gang are on the run after the whole Kay Kyser incident and decide to lay low in the countryside, coincidentally where Arthur and Nathaniel live. There they come across Jonathan and Herman who recognises Fenninger as that cool rich kid who was always copying his answers in class. And Gogol...? He was at a conference in New York when his taxi got hijacked by this gang of idiots (Herman, Jonathan, Fenninger, Saliano, Mainwaring) on the run and gets recognised by Fenninger!

By that point I simply imagine them just constantly bumping into each other in the most unlikely places and in the end just resigning themselves that they are somehow cursed by fate to constantly see each other and making the best of it.

[faustiandevil]

Happy ‘ween!! I am a day late, because I had to work yesterday and only now I could finish this.

When I showed You’ll Find Out to my friends I kept describing it as what if Scooby Doo was a big band instead of a group of teens. I mean that’s basically the movie. You got a spooky mystery, there’s a dog, and a couple a villains. It’s an early Scooby movie.

[angelamontoo]

Alternatively

[angelamontoo]

beautyandterrordance:

Peter Lorre, Bela Lugosi & Boris Karloff, in You’ll Find Out (1940).

[pluralzalpha]

Thanks to the TARDIS wiki, we have hi-res scans of Clive's Doctor photos from Robert Hack's illustrated edition of RTD's novelisation of "Rose." We can see that there are more incarnations illustrated than there included in the text. As well as the first thirteen (numbered) Doctors, the wiki lists the Fourteenth and Fugitive Doctors, but I can't see them there (there's the hair of one who could be either Ten or Fourteen, but it's not clear).

Clearly visible, though, are the Fifteenth Doctor, and the two Doctors RTD invented for the novelisation - a black woman with a flaming sword and a child in a wheelchair with K9. At the time the book originally came out it was generally assumed these were future incarnations, but they could be past lives before the First Doctor.

Most excitingly, though, are the two Morbius Doctors included. On the first selection, there's a sideways-sitting picture of the George Gallaccio Doctor (aka Doctor Crocus) and an upside-down picture of the Douglas Camfield Doctor.

I'm also intrigued by the picture beneath the snaps of the Third Doctor and the Whomobile and the Eighth Doctor. It's probably supposed to be the Third Doctor and the Brigadier, judging by the filly cuffs and 'tache respectively. It doesn't really look like either of them, though. (The soldier looks more like Captain Mainwaring from "Dad's Army!")

[bethanydelleman]

Lady Susan Readthrough: Letter 41 and Conclusion

Summary: Catherine cannot bring Frederica to visit as Lady Susan had come and taken her to London. Catherine did what she could to prevent it and assured Frederica that she could write in distress. A+ on Aunting. Lady Susan did not reveal what happened with Reginald while at Churchill.

Suspecting that Lady Susan is monitoring their correspondence, Catherine determines to visit Frederica in town and try to bring her back to Churchill. Lady Susan asks if Frederica is looking well and suggests town may not be good for her daughter's health. Catherine urges her over several days to let them take her daughter back to the country and succeeds at last.

It is clear afterwards that Lady Susan wanted Frederica gone, as she marries Sir James herself three days later! Catherine maintains tacit custody of Frederica until she marries Reginald.

-+-

Catherine is a bit wary that Reginald has actually left Lady Susan for good:

Pray heaven, Reginald may not be in town again by that time!

Catherine's husband continues to not be very bright:

Her manner, to be sure, was very kind and proper, and Mr. Vernon believes that Frederica will now be treated with affection. I wish I could think so too. 

To say that the end of the letters was a blow to the finances of the government is hilarious!

Mr. Vernon, who, as it must already have appeared, lived only to do whatever he was desired

I think this means Mr. Vernon is a malewife? Catherine really does seem to direct this relationship and hold most of the brains.

was met with such an easy and cheerful affection, as made her almost turn from her with horror. No remembrance of Reginald, no consciousness of guilt, gave one look of embarrassment; she was in excellent spirits, and seemed eager to show at once by every possible attention to her brother and sister her sense of their kindness, and her pleasure in their society.

Lady Susan has no remorse, maybe only regret, but she is able to show whatever emotion she pleases. Catherine is totally disgusted by her.

The first hope of anything better was derived from Lady Susan’s asking her whether she thought Frederica looked quite as well as she had done at Churchhill, as she must confess herself to have sometimes an anxious doubt of London’s perfectly agreeing with her.

For whatever reason, Lady Susan wants to be rid of her daughter, so she opens the door to Catherine taking her to Churchill, but of course she makes Catherine work for it!

Lady Susan’s maternal fears were then too much awakened for her to think of anything but Frederica’s removal from the risk of infection; above all disorders in the world she most dreaded the influenza for her daughter’s constitution!

LOL! I doubt it!

Lady Susan was managing three men, Reginald, Mainwaring, and Sir James. She loses Reginald, Mainwaring is unavailable, and she settles for Sir James. Without Alicia paying her way, it's unclear how Lady Susan is supposed to live, so I guess it's not surprising. By the end of the book, she is unwelcome everywhere.

Frederica was therefore fixed in the family of her uncle and aunt till such time as Reginald De Courcy could be talked, flattered, and finessed into an affection for her which, allowing leisure for the conquest of his attachment to her mother, for his abjuring all future attachments, and detesting the sex, might be reasonably looked for in the course of a twelvemonth.

Still so strange that they set Reginald up with the daughter of the woman he was engaged to! Then again, with how Lady Susan is I guess Frederica probably knew she would end up with her mother's sloppy seconds.

Whether Lady Susan was or was not happy in her second choice, I do not see how it can ever be ascertained; for who would take her assurance of it on either side of the question? The world must judge from probabilities; she had nothing against her but her husband, and her conscience.

You can only imagine that when Sir James has a freak horseback riding accident, she'll be back and the whole affair will start again?

Sir James may seem to have drawn a harder lot than mere folly merited; I leave him, therefore, to all the pity that anybody can give him.

This is VERY similar to Austen's final word on Rushworth:

She had despised him, and loved another; and he had been very much aware that it was so. The indignities of stupidity, and the disappointments of selfish passion, can excite little pity. His punishment followed his conduct, as did a deeper punishment the deeper guilt of his wife.

But this is a wonderfully hilarious note to end on:

For myself, I confess that I can pity only Miss Mainwaring; who, coming to town, and putting herself to an expense in clothes which impoverished her for two years, on purpose to secure him, was defrauded of her due by a woman ten years older than herself.

I kind of wish we ended with letters, but maybe Austen just wanted to wrap up at this point. She does often have very rapid wrap-ups after the two main characters get engaged.

Here is the masterpost.

Anyway, I love this little novella and I hope you enjoyed reading along with me!

There will be character analysis next.

[gaykingslayer]

ranger's apprentice characters as (dumb) shit i've done in my life

halt: brining up the existence of ireland to a person who didn't know what ireland was almost everytime i see them

crowley: being a loyal eurovision watcher

horace: putting my finger in a blender

will: shoot at two guys who were making fun of me and my friend for fucking around with our shitty bow at a play ground

cassandra: push a guy so hard he fell to the ground and started crying after he insulted me during musical rehearsal infront of atleast 15 people

alyss: bullshit my way through a debate and then get the highest grade of the class

gilan: ask someone i liked to dance and proceed to get rejected because i was 'too tall'

george: writing letters to a friend every few weeks for a year when i moved away and never getting a reply

[angelamontoo]

(via fyeahpeterlorre, jamiskoli)

[fandomsofadistractedwriteblr]

[Image ID: a strip of crossstitch fabric with two embroidery designs on it: a green oakleaf with the word “ranger” stitched over it in an uneven script and a small sunflower. The other pictures are closeups of the two designs. End Image ID.]

some stress sewing to keep me from getting distracted over finals week. I started the oak leaf a while ago and decided to finish it which is why it looks kind of lopsided. It’s my first time trying embroidery but I could tell I improved a lot just between the two designs so I’ll keep practicing this summer (and maybe try to turn these into patches?)

the oakleaf is inspired by the necklaces the characters wear in the Rangers Apprentice series. I headcanon that Alyss learned how to embroider from Pauline along with the diplomacy education (since historically, a lot of discussion happened around a sewing circle between women as they worked together and so it would be important to know). And she knew how important the identity of their jobs were to her friends because choosing day defined their entire lives, so she made little patches like this for all of them as graduation gifts when they finished their apprenticeships. I want to do the rest of them at some point. Jenny would put hers (a ladle) on the pocket of her apron. She made a matching oakleaf for Horace’s battle frock after the adventures in Gallica. George got a quill, and he put it on the flap of his satchel, so he can see it every time he goes to take out notebooks. The sunflower is just because I think sunflowers are pretty.

I also want to embroider the flag that Eilonwy makes for Taran in The High King - Henwen on a blue background (with the wrong colored eyes). Idk I just think the idea of fantasy girls both swinging swords and making pretty decorations for their SOs is a Neat idea

[tinyshe]

China’s disturbing use of technology is creating a totalitarian surveillance state

China's surveillance state should scare everyone.

Doug Mainwaring

Mon Feb 7, 2022 - 10:29 am EST  

(LifeSiteNews) — Just out of range of the TV cameras beaming the feel-good Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games to the planet lies the world’s most suffocating totalitarian surveillance state, engineered and enforced by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

“The CCP uses invasive state surveillance and police powers to track citizens and foreigners throughout the country and ensures that no one can hide from the repression of the party,” notes the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee (RPC) in a report released last week, titled “China, Human Rights, and the Olympics.”

“China’s authoritarian regime ruthlessly deploys the very latest in surveillance and artificial intelligence technology to monitor and control its 1.4 billion citizens,” observed The Washington Examiner’s Amby Conn Carroll. “This is unsurprising since any totalitarian communist state must exert maximum control over its people in order to survive.”

“Maximum control” has clearly reached new heights thanks to advances in technology and the near-universal use of social media over the last decade.

“What we have now in China is the nightmare of the world’s first truly totalitarian state,” said Steve Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute and a China expert, in 2019.

“The Left has always said that true totalitarianism is impossible to achieve because there are never enough minders,” Mosher told LifeSiteNews. “That’s no longer true.”

Reporters Without Borders ranked China 177 out of 180 in its 2021 World Press Freedom Index, barely edging out neighboring North Korea.

Big brother is big in China

“The [CCP] is able to continue these abuses through an advanced surveillance network, strict control over information, politically motivated arrests, unlawful killings, torture, and state-sanctioned ‘disappearances,’” according to the RPC. “China’s vast surveillance networks can track people throughout the country and applies a ‘social credit score’ based on data collected by the state to judge citizen’s loyalty and restrict their freedoms accordingly.”

“China’s social credit system incorporates a moral edge into the program, which is why many have compared it to some level of dystopian governance, such as in George Orwell’s ‘1984’ in which the state heavily controls every aspect of a citizen’s life,” wrote Business Insider’s Katie Canales in December.

According to a report by market research firm IDC published in 2019, China was expected to have a staggering 2.76 billion surveillance cameras in operation by 2022, roughly two surveillance cameras for each of China’s 1.4 billion citizens.

Westerners are uncertain just how many surveillance cameras are now keeping watch on Chinese citizens, but human rights and technology observers agree that the CCP state has the world’s largest surveillance network.

Worldwide civil liberties and privacy advocates alarmed 

“While the expanding Orwellian eye may improve ‘public safety,’ it poses a chilling new threat to civil liberties in a country that already has one of the most oppressive and controlling governments in the world,” suggested Anna Mitchell and Larry Diamond in a 2018 The Atlantic commentary. “The installation of an all-seeing-eye for the government alarms civil liberties and privacy advocates worldwide.”

“China is rapidly adopting CCTV (closed circuit television) surveillance as a means to monitor the movements of its population at a huge scale,” Paul Bischoff, a researcher on surveillance topics, told The Daily Mail.

“CCTV in China is not just about stopping crime, but also enforcing social norms and behaviors that the government approves of,” he added.

Fortune.com has called China a “global surveillance superpower.”

The extent of China’s efforts currently in place to monitor ordinary citizens and control their activities is mind-blowing, pushing its reach into the most intimate aspects of their lives.

In some public restrooms, users must first undergo a facial recognition scan before being allotted toilet paper.

Facial recognition technology is also employed in “smart” classrooms, tracking students’ attentiveness and even their facial expressions.

And if a pedestrian jaywalks, facial recognition systems immediately charge the offender a fine and subtract points from their social credit score. Additionally, their images and names will get projected onto large LED screens as a means of inflicting public shame.

When China released the Wuhan Virus — COVID-19 — upon the entire world, the CCP seized the opportunity to increase video surveillance of its own citizens who had tested positive for the virus. Those diagnosed with COVID-19 found video cameras installed outside the doors to their homes, a measure meant to ensure that they remained in quarantine.

“I can’t bear the thought that our everyday lives are completely exposed to the government’s scrutiny,” a man who had been subjected to 24/7 remote observation by the CCP government told CNN. When the period of his confinement was over, “he took out a hammer and smashed the device in front of the community workers.”

China’s surveillance state should scare everyone

The Atlantic’s Anna Mitchell and Larry Diamond offered a prescient look toward the future when they wrote in 2018 that “China’s Surveillance State Should Scare Everyone.”

“The country is perfecting a vast network of digital espionage as a means of social control — with implications for democracies worldwide.” The duo continued:

China’s experiments with digital surveillance pose a grave new threat to freedom of expression on the internet and other human rights in China. Increasingly, citizens will refrain from any kind of independent or critical expression for fear that their data will be read or their movements recorded — and penalized — by the government. And that is exactly the point of the program.

Moreover, what emerges in China will not stay in China. Its repressive technologies have a pattern of diffusing to other authoritarian regimes around the world. For this reason — not to mention concern for the hundreds of millions of people in China whose meager freedom will be further diminished — democracies around the world must monitor and denounce this sinister creep toward an Orwellian world.

“The purpose of China’s international surveillance state is no different than its domestic one,” suggested Amby Conn Carroll. “Both are designed to give the communist Chinese government maximum control over the people it interacts with.”

“The Chinese government, which has built an extensive digital infrastructure and security apparatus to control dissent on its own platforms, is going to even greater lengths to extend its internet dragnet to unmask and silence those who criticize the country on Twitter, Facebook and other international social media,” warned a New York Times report published at the turn of the year.

The Atlantic’s writers are right: China’s surveillance state should scare everyone.

[gnome-adjacent-vagabond]

Just watched You'll Find Out (1940). It's not helping the Peter Lorre brainrot; I'm fixated on the evil maybe-polycule now.

Look at them. Lorre clearly in charge, Karloff looking like he JUST woke up (to be fair he did, right after getting knocked out by Kay Kyser of all people), and Lugosi hurgling angrily behind them. They're arranged like nesting dolls. They're wild. They're in love. They're at a sleepover. Peter Lorre is CLEARLY in charge.

This movie was wild from start to finish. Not the best, of course, but pretty fun and very corny. The second half is just a sleepover. A seance is held, college girls go wild over some rather strange band performances; two of them are very into Peter Lorre. Peter Lorre smokes like twenty cigars over the course of the movie.

There are a couple VERY questionable moments because the movie does unfortunately take place in a house full of stolen African art, so that's something to be wary of.

My main note is that it would have been better if the evil trio had a bit more screentime and Kay Kyser's musical numbers were cut just a bit, but I get why it was done.

[soapkaars]

I hope it's still alright to request things of The Medical Malpractice Gang, but what is each members idea of a perfect date?

Perfectly alright! I hope you didn’t mind the wait!

Cue: 'it's always sunny in Philadelphia' theme music

Gogol: Loves macabre plays with lots of torture. In another lifetime would definitely be a fan of torture porn films like Hostel (and very frustrated at the characters who got away). Never misses an execution by guillotine. So passionate about his job that he doesn’t like operating for money. (But still somehow rich enough, where’s that wealth come from?) Plays sad, dark music on his organ and reads sad, dark poetry. I think a perfect date for Gogol would be a goth girlfriend. Watching a slasher together (the more blood, the better), long walks in the cemetery (and making out on one of the graves, Mary Shelley fashion), attending a public execution together and commenting on whether the victim was a ‘squirmer’ or a ‘twitcher’ (I’ll leave to your imagination what those words mean), a romantic dinner for two in the Parisian catacombs (‘I know a spot’)…

Fenninger: ‘I'm already in a relationship… with crime.’ Will change his answer no matter what you ask. Prince Saliano seems to have some history, but he refuses to talk about it. Judge Mainwaring will smile knowingly and say whistfully: ‘there was that time in Monaco… we were at a place that served some delightful mussels…’ but is interrupted by Saliano walking in the room. He glares at you, and then says: ‘he walked off and left me with the bill.’ It's unclear if he's talking about Mainwaring or Fenninger.

Einstein: first you have to convince Jonathan that it was a simple question out of curiosity and in no way, shape, or form, swearing on your grandmother’s and great-grandmother’s grave, are you interested or even into Herman, I promise you he's not my type [lying], and only then will he untie you and allow you to ask. So what's Einstein's idea of a perfect date? Not having the police corner you in a rickety apartment in Soho, a quiet dinner without screaming, long walks through nature without dogs hunting you and sniffing your trail, do you remember that delightful place in Hong Kong? Yes, before you flayed the owner Johnny. I liked the food there. Oh perhaps take a rowing boat in Central Park without having to dump a body… just simple stuff you know.

Lorentz: now you have to convince Arthur that you’re not trying to flirt with Nathaniel. Swear on your grandfather’s and great-grandfather’s grave, etc. Etc. Etc. He looks at you suspiciously, and then finally answers you. A nice evening together with a delicious casserole ended with recruiting salesmen to be martyrs of science (‘it's just the way he looks so excited you know, when we alea jacta est another sucker into the machine. He's so dreamy then.’) he also likes to go square dancing together with Nathaniel.

[faustiandevil]

POV: You are Kay Kyser + band and the evil gays are making out right before gunning you down. What you do?

Original meme image under the cut.

[angelamontoo]

Yknow what I always found super weird about the ending of You'll find out?

Why is Saliano the only one wearing what seems to be just normal clothes when everyone else is wearing Pajamas?

It would be one thing if it was the outfit he was wearing earlier in the film, but its not. He was wearing a tux and then his sorcerer robe. Why did he change into a normal shirt, slacks and suspenders and why didn't Fenninger and Mainwaring aswell???

[angelamontoo]

beautyandterrordance:

Right now: You’ll Find Out, 1940

beautyandterrordance:

Right now: You’ll Find Out, 1940