I don’t know.
↳ Of course you do, you ridiculous girl. Cast your mind back to the night of April the thirteenth.
The night of the cotillion?
↳ You’re not well-dressed enough to play that stupid with me, child. The evening after.
I did nothing that day.
↳ You did plenty.
The visit to the chateau with Messrs. Grosgrange and Sternbrow?
↳ The very same.
They were merely being polite!
↳ I was not questioning their behavior. I was questioning yours.
But the châtelaine apologized!
↳ If you cannot realize, even at this late moment, that she was apologizing on your behalf, I fear that there may be no hope for you.
But the girl was unharmed!
↳ Something far more important than that girl was damaged that day. Your reputation in good society.
It still doesn’t explain why Lady Marchmonster cut me as I attempted to join the cribbage game before dinner.
↳ That day was not your only error.
But her husband and my father were always the greatest of friends!
↳ Friends?
Father has dined with Lord Mm at his club on numerous occasions!
↳ At his club, certainly, like any common business acquaintance. But when was he ever invited into the Marchmonster home? When were you ever introduced to the family, as a young lady worthy of their notice?
This is ridiculous. Who can remember such arcane and unspoken rules?
↳ It is precisely your lack of respect for the way things are done that prevent you from being accepted as a member of society.
I am received by numerous famili–
↳ I said nothing of FAMILIES, you impudent slattern. I spoke of society. Until you can learn the difference, you had better stay at home.
There is only one person in the room.
it me
This perfectly captures how I feel – reading Jane Austen is a lot like playing Pokemon with my nephews when they were younger. I can tell that there are RULES and that they are IMPORTANT but I have no idea what they are and it kind of feels like they just make them up to make me loose.
(Now that I think about it, it’s also like playing cards with my grandma after she had dementia – everyone else would follow Hoyle’s rules and she’d just follow her internal Gram Rules. My cousin and I used to joke that we’d invented a new variation of Rummy called Grandma Rummy. (I miss my Gram)).
Me, when I tried to read Howard’s End. Something obviously happened in that last scene ’cause y’all are all freaking out, but I don’t have an earthly clue.
This is why I had to stop playing Legend of the Five Rings. Being a samurai (even a weird, westernised, magical samurai) is Very Stressful.
Jane Austen Pokemon 😀
“Who’s That Gentleman?”
“It’s Mr. Darcy!”
And don’t even get me STARTED on that ridiculous nosegay of yours.
You know which one.
Who can remember such arcane and unspoken rules?
Who else is on Team Would Totally Survive Fairyland because they could, yes, they most certainly could?
YES.
I would thrive in a world of stiff formality and extensive, codified rules. You mean I could go to social functions and ALREADY KNOW what is going to happen and what I am supposed to do, and slip into a nice and cozy script that I’ve been trained in since infancy? I could actually know what the dress code is or what food I’m supposed to bring because rules and words have meaning and aren’t a horrifying mash up off “dressy-casual.”
SIGN ME UP. I mean, let’s get rid of the horrifying classist patriarchy garbage, but give me all of the lovely rules.
Deeply-entrenched and universally-acknowledged social rules are truly blessings for the socially anxious and/or awkward.
What if you’re socially anxious and awkward and also hate all the rules because they’re invariably gender-normative? -_-
Then you’ve just got to stick it out until you’re old enough to be an Eccentric Spinster (you can achieve this by age 27 or by the marriage of two sisters younger than yourself, whichever comes first). This is assuming, of course, that you have money of your own.
I only have one sister younger than myself, who is married, but my brother (also younger) is also married. Am I a spinster?
When he hired me, ex!boss said that the company dress code was business casual. This appears to mean that the sales staff wears clothing without holes or obvious stains.
THAT’S NOT WHAT BUSINESS CASUAL MEANS!!
Ah, see, the mistake there was that you were supposed to hear the quotation marks.
It was “business” “casual,” you see. Quite different.
He went on to describe it more fully as “nothing gross, provocative, or obscene,” so whatever, words mean nothing, just try to look like you work in an office.
Oh, hello me.
…. how did you get the transcript of my last performance review meeting?
Lily Bart doesn’t need this right now.
(just kidding Lily Bart would never be unaware of her faux-pas she is aware of every faux-pas she will ever make before she even makes them.)
And yet, she’ll keep making the very worst possible choices at every turn: https://theawl.com/the-house-of-mirth-as-a-poorly…
DAMMIT LILY USE THE LETTERS
!!!!!!
AAAAAAAH I am heartbroken again. Lily Bart! Make better choices!
This just changed my life. USE THE LETTERS OR MARRY SELDEN THE DAMNED LAWYER LILY.
I think it was when I started going on about how the monarchy, and thus the peerage, was a broken and ridiculous system that needs to be shut down immediately.
I’d make for a poor social climber.
I think it was when I started going on about how the monarchy, and thus the peerage, was a broken and ridiculous system that needs to be shut down immediately.
I'd make for a poor social climber.
I’m still not convinced that cribbage is actually a real game that people play. Is it a card game? Is it like shuffleboard? Has anyone actually witnessed or participated in a game of cribbage? Are we sure it’s not just a corruption of the word “Quidditch” caused by Ronbledore’s travels through the space-time continuum?
I have played a hefty amount of cribbage in my short life and yet, I cannot honestly refute the notion that it is a result of the Ronbledore Effect.
This may, in fact, be the only reasonable explanation for the fact that when you try to explain the rules of cribbage to somebody who isn’t familiar with the game, it makes less and less sense the more you talk about it!
I also feel like there was a heavy Calvinball vibe to the creation of cribbage. “So we’re tied at 119 points and you’re about to count your hand … Wait, no! I get two points because … because the flip was a Jack! Yeah, that’s it!”
Calvinball! Yes, this is how I feel playing almost any game with my nephews. No, Aunt Cleo, the royal celery card ALWAYS wins (except when you have it).
I played tons of Cribbage in community college, because I was sixteen and could not go to parties. I think I still have a board somewhere.
I have a cribbage app on my phone. I play it when I’m watching Netflix things I only need to pay like 50% attention to.
That is BRILLIANT. I normally knit, but sometimes if I’ve had too much wine I can’t knit so cribbage would be perfect.
I may or may not frequently have something in garter stitch or 1×1 just to knit while drinking.
I played it in college when I briefly dated someone with a cribbage board. I enjoyed it. It is a card game that requires an extra prop.
cribbage is a lot of fun! My grandmother has a 3 person board, and I would play with her and my sister. Speaking of, we should definitely do that again next time we visit.
…I was coming down here to post this, verbatim. Maybe to add ‘and mother’ to the list of family members. If you had said ‘brother,’ I would have been sure you were, in fact, my sibling. I’m still half-convinced of it.
(of course, I own my own three person board, I’m not a BARBARIAN)
My great uncle (he was awesome and also my grandmother’s brother) was such a cribbage badass that we once played a three hand game on a two hand board, with what I vaguely remember to be matchsticks of different sizes.
it was fun! but I have literally NO RECOLLECTION of the rules. So if we do play again it’s gonna go poorly.
You use a board to keep track of points in cribbage, but the board doesn’t have to be any particular shape, it just needs a certain number of holes to put pegs in. This makes it a good game for tourist destinations where you are staying in a cabin without TV and the gift shops sell novelty boards made out of driftwood or moose antlers.
It’s a card game that also requires a peg board.
I played a fair amount of cribbage in my youth, before I moved on to euchre (yes, I grew up in Michigan).
My dad used to play it with our next door neighbor – honestly I think it was just an excuse to have a glass of sherry in the afternoon.
And I still have my cribbage board although I haven’t played in decades. But it seems wrong to give it away.
I always play with my grandma when she visits from, coincidentally, Michigan.
All of this, but Indiana. And grandfather, instead of father.
Oh hi, are you me?
I miss cribbage. And Euchre. I married someone who Does Not Understand my inner yearning to have people over for card/board game night with non-ironic Midwestern desserts. D&D and beer he could get behind, but not this.
I adore cribbage and grew up playing it. My fiance loves euchre but i Can Not figure it out. I can’t tell if you are Midwestern or just like our desserts (lol), but I think these games are definitely a thing in these parts (Wisconsin for me).
Oh,I’m Indiana all the way!
I love cribbage! I picked it up from a computer game version, but it turns out that cribbage is Serious Business to both sides of my husband’s family, so it was a way for me to get accepted by them very quickly. It also gives me something to do at gatherings of in-laws. My husband recently joined the local cribbage club, where he’s the youngest member by at least two decades.
Had to stop playing cribbage forever after getting the highest number of points possible from a hand dealt by my brand-new husband, on our honeymoon, in France! His Nibs, indeed!!!
When I was a baby, my parents would play cribbage after dinner to determine who did the dishes and who put me to bed. At least, they did until my mother hit a winning streak and my father decided that they needed a different way to decide on the division of labor.
Thing is, I still don’t know which job the winner got.
Obvs the winner got you!
I love this family secret. YOU MUST NEVER KNOW!
I love cribbage! However, no one ever wants to play with me, so I haven’t played in ages. My grandmother was always up for a game but since she died she is less keen on playing cards. Fortunately.
(if there are any Halton/Oakville Toasties who want to play cribbage, hit me up! Also, if you are an Oakville Toastie period)
I have played cribbage! There was a cafe/bar near my home back in Seattle that screened Top Chef and Project Runway and I used to go, and for some reason the young gay men that also went played cribbage and I joined in. I can’t remember at all how it’s played so maybe it is Ronbledore.
“But the châtelaine apologized!”=name of my new garage band.
What happened to the girl, though??
If you are even asking, you will never be in a position to know. How could you?
We all agreed we would never speak of those events again.
I can only say that it was a blessing Doctor Whatwhistle was in attendance, even if he is obsequious.
This comment is so perfect, I wish I could like it a million times. I laughed aloud. Luckily I’m alone in the office today.
How many times did you carelessly put yourself into danger of bodily harm, so that you could have been daringly rescued by the rakish and fabulously wealthy Duke Marquis Sir Lord Grangemere at great peril to his own health, so that he could fall madly in love with you in your weak and feminine state?
> Um, none? Because I watch where I’m going and never venture into the docks?
It’s like you’re not even trying.
The DOCKS? Good Lord girl, I was talking about a stroll in the slightly damp!
Proper Society Ladies don’t even know what docks are, because that’s where trade happens.
Excuse me, if Lord Marchmonster and the young lady’s father are both in business, neither of them is socially eligible.
I think I’m going to need an “Impudent Slattern” t-shirt.
Did you take part in the group activity that all the other young people, even those from the highest classes and best of society, were enjoying? You knew you were supposed to disapprove gently and excuse yourself as the rest of the group mocked you for being a spoilsport to show Lord Grangemere the strength of your morals!
Fanny Price, is that you?
Our Fanny! She is so Good! Dear, sweet, insufferable Fanny.
Poor, dear, remarkably fragile Fanny.
“Your first error, you must realize, was to take Mr Scalthwaite’s part in that argument on the terrace. You will learn (soon, and painfully) that to show a mere puppy like George Scalthwaite any partiality is to sacrifice your interests and squander the regard of your friends. They will not soon extend themselves for you again, I fear.”
“But Mr Scalthwaite was right, and Lord Moncreiff quite in the wrong! I don’t believe the poor of London should be crowded onto ships with trap bottoms and destroyed in mass noyades on the North Sea. The idea hardly seems Christian.”
“And what signifies that? Your Methodist enthusiasms have no place at Brindling Hall. Now—there may still be time to repair your mistake. If you hurry to the solarium, you will yet find Moncreiff at the piquet table; a show of contrition should secure you a game with him. This is your last chance, child! If you don’t let him win, I wash my hands of you.”
I dream of a world where Mallory gets really into Twine, a tool for making text adventures.
Yes. This.
An unapproved emotion flitted across my face during my carefully choreographed smiling routine. I had it under control within a second, but in that second, he had glimpsed every flaw in my character and deemed me unsuitable.
“The Secret Behind Glowing Skin and Hair!”
—
You look so radiant, they say. So gorgeous. Your hair has such a lovely shine. What’s your secret? You smile mysteriously. All your smiles are mysterious now. Your surface glistens subtly beneath the light. Your lips move. Oh, nothing impressive, they say. A close observer might see the muscles in your face moving contrarily, as if straining against the surface.
Is… is this the right place to share this Choose-Your-Own-Interview with Ryan North, author of the one-day-ago-released Chooseable Path Adventure, Romeo and/or Juliet?
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/choose-your-o…
Because it’s amazing and I want all of reporting to take this format, please.
(Probably a faux-pas. I am a terrible social climber who had no idea you weren’t supposed to bring your extra beers home.)
Urgh, I had such a crush* on Ryan North in college and it kills me now that I could have also been making internet content back in the Wild West days of the early web and be a cewebrity today.
*the kind of crush where you want to kiss a person but also BE them?**
**is this every crush??
Half my crushes could be described that way.
(at least)
Oh! I’m in the middle of that book RIGHT NOW. It’s great!
I am delighted at this link.
In retrospect I don’t know why I wasn’t expecting death endings.
i have the hamlet one and it’s awesome!
YES this is the right and proper place. And, I assume, the right place to share that time Mr. North was trapped in a hole and escaped by virtue of social media: https://storify.com/halfcadence/ryan-north-s-thri…
Well this has got me even more jazzed to go see Love & Friendship this weekend.
IT’S SO GOOD. It was inexplicably only on in one teeny tiny cinema in my city, but I dragged myself out there to see it and I’m so glad I did. Lady Susan/Mrs Johnson 5eva.
Meeee toooooo! Unfortunately I can’t re-read it first though because my lovely complete Jane Austen set is in boxes somewhere at the moment.
I LOVED Love & Friendship! It was perfect!
That night, in a sudden burst of inspiration, she built a jetpack powered by casual sex and was never seen again.
don’t ‘what’ me, you know what
Wow. Way harsh, Ty.
I once thought I had committed a faux pas, but it was even worse. Turned out I had committed a fope pas, which is a social blunder in the presence of the Fope. The Fope is the Pope of fops. I didn’t even know that fops had a Pope, but they do. That wasn’t my mistake, though. My error was in staring at his hat. You’re not supposed to stare at the Fope’s hat. Well, you are, but ONLY during certain rigidly defined interactions, or formal acts of veneration. Otherwise you’re just supposed to admire it circumspectly, viewing it sidelong with a casual glance and/or an approving tongue cluck as you bask in its aegis. Later I was discreetly offered some literature that outlines the general protocols. I don’t know that I can fully endorse their belief system, but on the other hand I’ve seen that hat and JESUS CHRIST
If anyone apologizes, anyone, especially a servant… you are quite ruined, I’m afraid.
You become kinky and "high protocol" and follow the rules that kind of seem like they might be gender-normative, but they're actually not at all – it depends on who are the dom/mes and who isn't and what ruleset they are following (which is well spelled-out – that's part of the fun).
(I'm not protocol-kinky, but I can see why some people LOVE it.)
Mmm, the only American I know in RL who plays cribbage is from Virginia. I wonder if it's regional in some way (not withstanding a fair amount of geography between Virginia and Michigan).
I'm not aware of cribbage being regional (although judging from this thread it is common in the Midwest). I made the Michigan comment mostly in reference to playing euchre, which is a very Midwestern game and which I have mostly encountered in Mich.