Agatha Christie Appreciation Post

“Oh Mr Sheffield!” - Fran Fine

Propaganda Machine

One thing I think about all the time is the sheer scale of propaganda out in the world right now.

Consider for a moment, Henry IV of Castille. He was the brother of Isabella of Castille, who became Queen after his death, and it was because of her that Christopher Columbus set out on his voyage for India. We know SO MUCH about Isabella and Ferdinand and the conquest of the Americas but we know so little about Henry IV. And yes, that's in part because he didn't do as much and wasn't as significant, but it's also because during his rule, his position as monarch was tenuous. He had a lot of detractors and people vying for his throne. These detractors put out huge amounts of propaganda, about him and his daughter, and because there's so much nonsense to wade through to pick out even a sliver of truth, we know barely anything about his reign.

If Historians can be largely clueless as to what happened 500 years ago, in a time where there was no social media or internet, and there were highly limited mediums through which to spread propaganda and misinformation, how screwed does that make us now?

Surely it'll be hundreds of times more difficult to ascertain what happened when there are thousands of contradicting tweets, videos and articles surrounding every issue. It's unspeakably horrible to imagine that 600 years from now, Historians might look back and believe the words of Anti-Vaxxers, or take everything Trump and his supporters say as gospel. I'm not saying they will, because Historians are super smart, and a big part of the discipline is taking sources with a grain of salt, but I think it's a legitimate concern, that we're going to lose the lessons we could've learnt from our present, because it's so bogged down in bullshit.

why are people still simping for kylo ren when he looks like someone chucked a dark-sider in warm water to de-thaw and left him there too long

This made me laugh with absolutely squat context.

To whoever invented the pineapple freddo frogs;

you suck

and I hope the next time you go to the cinema a child is crinkling a wrapper really loudly in an important and quiet scene.

Things I've always wondered about in Keeper of the Lost Cities

Foxfire's school hours. It's well established that elves live across the globe, and with light leaping it's not hard to travel, but like, if they live all around the world, they all live in different time zones. So some kids would go to school when it's dark at home. How do they decide when? It's not talked about at all in the books and this annoys me a lot. Is there Elvin Standard Time?

I know that they make a big point in the books that they have no Human prejudices but I think that clearly they do. Everyone's a little weirded out by the fact that Sophie wears pAnTs and doesn't like dresses or glitter (which is scandalous and totally not common for millions of girls around the world) and clearly they don't have any boys who wear dresses or girls who shave their heads. All the girls and boys conform to stereotypically gendered forms of beauty. No muscular girls. No fat characters. No short boys. No feminine girls. No trans or gender neutral characters. What's up with that?

On that note it really feels like Shannon Messenger is becoming J K Rowling just a little. There are no openly gay or queer characters after eight and a half books so something smells a little funky there.

The crystal palaces. Where do they get all that crap from? There's a reason these are precious stones.

The nobility. Everyone acts like it's super exclusive but like, there has to be one mentor for each kid at Foxfire, because classes are individual, and there has to be hundreds of kids. So there's hundreds of nobility whose only job is to teach kids. Not even go on missions or emissary work or whatever.

This is just edition one everyone strap yourselves in.

Ye Olde Contraception

Me: …

Ye Olde Doc: …

Me: sir keep your herbs away from my hoo-ha

My parents r now so invested in the quest to get Taylor Swift eras tickets that if we don’t end up succeeding my house will be looking very Shakespearean. Tragic stylez

Please welcome your new favourite ship dynamic:

Deranged x Also deranged but hiding it better

M*A*S*H

My parents told me to go and watch this, so I was initially very very skeptical, because they told me Crocodile Dundee was gonna be good and that is a whole separate disaster.

But it's...so good.

Most of the jokes have aged so well and it is eerily clever how quickly it can transition from laugh out loud funny to bawling my eyes out sad.

I love all the characters so much (Except Frank. Hello Frank) And it was made in the 70s. But there are still elements of it that are progressive today, and the themes and ideas about war are pretty timeless.

None of my friends are watching it, and the MASH community on Tumblr is frighteningly small. I'm really hoping someone wants to yell about it with me.