Edwin A. Abbott Gave Flatland An Unreliable Narrator That Describes His Sexist, Classist, Racist Society

Edwin A. Abbott gave Flatland an unreliable narrator that describes his sexist, classist, racist society with pride in terms of “I am a Square. I have 4 sides. the more angles and sides you have, the better you are as a person. Also you can't change this even though the people in power will encourage you to try,” and he wrote this for Victorian societies in 1884 to the tune of “THIS IS WHAT YOU SOUND LIKE. THIS IS HOW STUPID YOU SOUND.

"You claim to know intimately the nature of every being around you, yet you know nothing. You call yourself a square despite the fact you’ve never seen one! YOU'VE NEVER ACTUALLY SEEN A SQUARE.”

In the book, A Square goes down a rabbit hole of thought until eventually drawing the conclusion that women should be educated. It is after this that A Sphere chooses to teach him about the 3rd dimension, and says it's because A Square “seemed a man of sense.” A Sphere mentions the importance of love and art, something A Square thinks is ridiculous because "love" is for women, and "art" is for socialists I mean chromatists. A Square never really does get it though. He fails to explain the 3rd dimension to his fellow Flatlanders, partly due to comedically terrible political timing, largely due to the fact A Square has always been prone to understanding only what is directly in front of him. He lives out the rest of his days in prison.

And then 123 years after the book was published, Ladd Ehlinger (an incredibly reactionary misogynist and racist) makes an adaptation of the book where he voices the main character. He releases a movie that pathetically mimes the social commentary of the original, and now lives out his days as a sad, angry man crying on YouTube about leftists. He's lived out the plot of Flatland, playing an even worse version of A Square's role. The only thing that's missing is getting sent to jail and that’s bc unlike A Square, Ladd Ehlinger doesn't experience oppression of any kind.

However, exactly like A Square, he didn't get it. He didn't fucking get it.

Thinking out loud

A few days ago I saw someone on TikTok kinda trashing how much Stancest content there is on Ao3. Most people seemed to agree, but honestly? If I see a ship with tons of fanfics, my first thought is like—wait, am I missing out on something huge? Like, maybe there’s actually some fire stuff going on there.

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stancest

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veiledsanctum

4 months ago

FIDDLESTAN NATION RISE AND SHINE

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veiledsanctum

5 months ago

Here is my hot take of the day: f¡ddl3st4n is just repressed Stancest. Like, pretend all you want, but we damn know that the nerd x jock ship you want to see (and is way more canon) is another one, babe.

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veiledsanctum

5 months ago

I’ve been rewatching Gr@vity F@lls (censoring to prevent the antis from finding me) and I’ve discovered how impatient I am. When will my favorite cocky old man show up and kiss his twin brother?!

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veiledsanctum

5 months ago

'Swap AU' proposal

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veiledsanctum

5 months ago

i'm giving my twt a break from discourse so i'm putting it here: people who are like "UMMMM what does stan have to do w billford????" are either acting deliberately dense bc they hate stancest or they have zero media literacy lol.

ford fucked a dude that canonically parallels his twin brother. THAT'S what stan has to do w billford. and again, i say "canonically" bc it's obvious that their parallels were DELIBERATE. this isn't a case of just like, looking too deeply into things or w/e. the "same coin" theory exists for a reason, and although i don't personally believe in it, it's one of the most popular theories in the entire fandom specifically BECAUSE of stan & bill's blatant similarities.

i already wrote a whole damn novel about it, so i won't repeat myself too much, but i'll just say that believing with your whole chest that stan had NOTHING to do with ford & bill's partnership is actually insane lol.

ford subconsciously missing his brother and projecting his desire to reconcile with him onto bill, as well as bill PURPOSELY stealing stan's childhood nickname for him ("sixer") and copying many of his mannerisms in order to more easily manipulate ford are literally the foundation on which their relationship was built. stan's influence is present in their VERY FIRST MEETING when bill calls ford "sixer." c'mon now. even if you don't ship stancest, the link between stan & billford is undeniable.