so my chemistry teacher has a playful rivalry with the other teachers on her hall and yesterday a teacher anonymously left a note on my teacher’s board that said “my students are better than your students” so instead of guessing who it was my teacher went around the entire hall and stole pens out of every classroom and, as “an experiment in chromatography”, got us to drop water and rubbing alcohol on the note and sample marks made by the stolen pens to see what color the ink turned and when we figured out whose pen was used to write the note she went to the teacher in the middle of class and confronted her about it
Tumblr needs 9000% more positivity posts about boys. Gay boys. Trans boys. Pan boys. Bi boys. Demiboys. Ace boys. Straight boys too. Boys just need more positivity because I see a lot of girl positivity posts but almost none for boys. Reblog if you think boys deserve positivity posts too
I hardcore headcanon that Ed became something of a mythical figure to the Amestrian military (and probably Amestrian public) after the Promised Day
Like immediately afterward he goes home and stays home to help Al recover, then travels the West as like a scholar, then settles down with Winry and has kids–it’s pretty obvious he never went back to the military at any point during that, and that he’s stayed well and far out of the public eye.
So what’s that leave the military with? “Hey you heard of Edward Elric?” “Oh yeah isn’t he that dude who passed the state alchemy exam at 12, punched God in the face, toppled the whole military coup with Fuhrer Mustang, and vanished? Yeah he had a cubby here for like…4 years.”
And with so many people knowing half-truths about what really happened in Amestris, I fully believe that hundreds of fantastically stupid and marginally correct rumors spread about Ed. “I heard Ed Elric met God twice.” “I heard he’s the only person to ever successfully break the core law of alchemy.” “I heard he’s a 4,000 year old prophet who discovered immortality and that’s why he’s so skilled.” “I heard he fought a tank.” “I heard God personally took his limbs away and that’s why he’s half-metal.”
“I heard he actually invented alchemy.”
“I heard he once beat up Fuhrer Mustang with his own hands.”
Like it’s the most central, prominent piece of small talk among new recruits–who knows the best little factoids about the child prodigy who hangs with God and saved the world and disappeared Jesus-style immediately after. Mustang walks out into press conferences, maximum security with reporters clamoring to lobby their questions at the leader of the entire nation, and somehow he always ends up with a flood of “Can you confirm?” tall tales about Ed.
“Fuhrer, is it true that Edward Elric discovered how to transmute his soul into a higher plane of existence and so he quit the military to achieve the status of a god?”
“Edward Elric is a 32 year old man who lives in a farmhouse out east and raises sheep part-time. Last I heard from him he was learning how to make raspberry pie and trying to teach his daughter how to count to 7. Who the hell feeds you this information? Next Question”
- The picture test: If you can’t tell if something is a hallucination or not, take a photo! If it shows up in the picture then you have a keepsake of that crazy creepy Halloween decoration. If not it’s a hallucination (or a vampire. No, i’m kidding it’s a hallucination.)
- Is some kid in mask causing paranoia? Ask them where they got their costume. Did they make it? How did they get the idea? Focusing on the person inside of the costume will help you remember that it’s just a person!
- Avoid haunted houses, haunted hayrides, ect. Actors will not stop scaring unless it’s an emergency, and I’ve yet to find a place that teaches actors how to deal with anything other than physical injuries. (I once met a haunted house actor who said causing a panic attack meant he was “doing his job right.”)
- There’s no shame in asking friends and relatives to avoid sending jump scare videos or anything else that could cause paranoia.
- (from freeasthepaperburns) Boggart it! If something is making you upset, make it silly. dance with the shadows, sing to the creepies, I bet if make a fish face at the scary face it’ll be a little less scary. I know this is harder than it sounds, but I’ve gotten better at it over the time, and find it helps!
Stay safe babes!
SIGNAL BOOST
For any darlings who may need this! Stay safe sweeties! - Mod Naga
Natalie Portman being confused by the fact that you have to say “hi” to someone before starting a conversation in France got me like ?????
“I feel there’s a lot of rules of politeness and codes of behavior there you have to follow. […] A friend of mine taught me that when you go in some place you have to say “bonjour” before you say anything else, then you have to wait two seconds before you say something else. So if you go into a store you can’t be like “do you have this in another size,” or they’ll think you’re super rude and then they’ll be rude to you.” [X]
So that’s it guys. French are not rude, we just don’t like it when people don’t say “Hello” or “Hi” when they start a conversation.
Don’t everyone say “Hi” before they ask something to someone? What’s next? Saying please is also a french thing or others countries does that too?
Canada is similar. We say sorry and please. The Hello thing seems strange, but it actually makes sense.
Bro, this threw me for a loop when I moved up north. Like in the southern United States you say “Hi, how are you?” And then make a few seconds of small talk before you ask your question or order your food and when I went to Connecticut they were like “What do you want?” Without any hello or anything. In other places they just STARE at you waiting on you to place your order and gtfo.
I laid my hand over my chest the first time, and the only way to describe my look was “aghast” before I said “Good lord!” My husband said it’s the most southern thing he’s seen me do. He thought it was hilarious. But…. Like??? That’s rude as fuck??????? Don’t y'all say say “Hello” before throwing your demands at someone??
maybe this is why everyone thinks new yorkers are rude
this is absolutely why ppl think new englanders r rude. no one has any fucking manners
african culture, at least in ghana, demands you greet a person before you ask them something. if youre in an open market they may even ignore you if you dont.
We do this in Australia as well. If you just started straight off saying “yeah I want XXXX” we’d think you’re rude as all fuck. You say hi, then make your request. It’s basic acknowledgement of the other person as a person rather than some random request-filling machine.
Huh. Speaking as a New Englander, I usually go with “Excuse me,” but sometimes “hi” or “hey,” but with no pause – it’ll be, “Excuse me, hi, I was looking for X?” From my POV, it seems rude to get too chatty and waste some stranger’s time; I assume they have better things to do than make small talk with me, so I just get my request out there so they can answer me and get back to whatever needs doing. I always thank folks for their help afterwards, if that helps?
(The rules of etiquette are strange. People say New Englanders are rude and cold, but once during an unexpected snowstorm here in Seattle, my car got stuck and I was standing by the side of the road at a busy intersection in the snow for half an hour waiting for my housemate to come pick me up, and not a single person stopped. Back in Massachusetts, every other car on the road would’ve been pulling up to check to see if I was okay, if my phone was working, did I need a lift, etc.)
No but this was the first thing my cousin told me in France? you never ever ever start a conversation with anyone, not even like “Nice weather today, huh?” without saying Bonjour first. You HAVE to greet them or, just like Ghana, they’ll ignore the shit out of you, you rude little fucker
(And “excuse me” or “pardon me” doesn’t cut it. you still have to open with bonjour)
[and I can’t speak for New England but coming from Chicago and then moving Out West where the culture is VERY influenced by the South and DETERMINED to think of themselves as small town folk… I HATE when I have to make small talk before ordering food??? Like, if it’s a coffee shop that’s pretty much empty I’ll chit chat for a few seconds, but I’m still not going to make inane conversation about the weather unless the weather is extreme.
In a big city it is rude as fuck to waste my time making small talk with me when we are not even friends or neighbors??? I am here to get shit done. There are four other people in line behind me, and I don’t want to waste their time. I am here, I HAVE MY ORDER ALREADY DECIDED BY THE TIME I GET TO THE FRONT BECAUSE I AM NOT A CAVE WOMAN, and I am being polite by saying both Please and Thank You and not wasting other people’s daylight.]
I live in a small northern city, and I feel it would be rude to engage someone in more than maaaaaybe a sentence of small talk before placing my order. In addition to feeling I was wasting their time, I’d feel like I was demanding emotional labour (small-talk is emotional labour for *me*) that they weren’t being paid to give.
so bizarre. New Yorker here. Saying hi, how are you, etc before these kinds of commercial interactions is what’s rude to me - because ffs, there are people in line behind you, we have lives, move it along. It’s really just a dramatic cultural difference - but borne of a real practical necessity.
Oh my god saying ‘hi’ takes less than A SINGLE SECOND YOU ARE NOT WASTING ANYBODY’S TIME
In Spain you have to say hello to people before you talk to them even people who work in retail deserve that bare minimum courtesy hello??
Transplanted New Yorker here, and the feeling here is: people who work in retail deserve the bare minimum courtesy you would afford anyone else, which is to not waste their time. You maybe say a half-second “hi” and/or possibly “excuse me” to be sure you have their attention, then you get to the point as quickly and concisely as possible. You don’t wait to get a “hi” back, you probably don’t ask “how are you”, you definitely don’t talk about the weather. You smile and keep your tone of voice courteous-to-friendly, you say please, you thank them when you’re done, and you do. not. waste. their. time.
Except ”time” is really only shorthand for the concept: you don’t intrude on their lives more than you have to. NY is a very very crowded city which allows for very little personal space, so New Yorkers have developed a form of courtesy that involves minimizing our unavoidable intrusions on each other. Which is why we hold doors without making eye contact, and why we tend to feel that in any interaction with a stranger, it’s actively rude to do anything but get to the point immediately.
Interesting discussion of regional differences in conversational convention. But the amount of “my way is the right way; everyone else is super rude and also wrong” going on in this post is giving me hives.
Hey. Listen. "Polite” and “rude” are relative concepts. Something you were taught was rude may not be seen as rude elsewhere, and might even be the polite thing to do. Conversely, something you might have been taught was polite might be seen as rude elsewhere. Saying “no one has any manners” about a group of people whose culture and, by extension, whose conversational expectations work differently than yours is really arrogant.
In the US the thumbs up means good job or great. In France and Germany it means one, they start counting with the thumb instead of the index finger. In Greece it’s an obscene sexual gesture.
This guy I knew in college worked with the campus d/Deaf/HoH group and told a story about the dinner they had to welcome everyone in. They were trying to tell this little old lady what one of the dishes was, something casserole I forget what kind, and she was getting really flustered. Finally they figured out they were speaking to her in ASL and she was from South Africa. The ASL sign for whatever it was (spinach maybe?) in South African Sign means sex. They were offering this little old lady a sex casserole.
There’s an Italian toast ‘chin chin’, mimicking the sound of the glasses clinking together. It becomes hilarious when Japanese folks are around since in Japanese chin means penis.
As for the South, I will bet you anything that how we have conversations at the register stemmed from the homestead days when a farmer would come in to town maybe once a month and this would be the only time they’d get to talk to someone they didn’t live with. I like talking with customers! If I can get them to smile then it’s a victory and I have a better day for it. It only becomes emotional labor if they’re an outright ass or are sexually harassing me. But in the big crammed city of New York it makes sense to take the get your shit and get out approach, people have a subway to catch. Out here I had to drive myself anyway since it’s fifteen minutes to the edge of town from where I live, so what does it matter if I spend an extra minute at the register?
It’s important to be aware of the differences and ultimately there’s a degree of ‘when in Rome’ that has to happen. Someone who moves from Greece to the US is going to be startled by the amount of thumbs up but ultimately they’re going to have to adjust. Someone from the US is probably going to be shocked that telling someone they did a good job was taken as an insult and they similarly are going to have to adjust. Mom’s a damn Yankee transplant and said it was weird moving to the South and having cashiers younger than her daughter call her dear, but that’s just what we do. Sweetheart, darling, honey, sugar, they don’t have overtly romantic/sexual connotations here. As long as there’s not a leer attached to it if a guy calls me ‘sugar’ when I’m at work it doesn’t parse as a flirt because it’s not one, it parses the same as if he called me ‘miss’. But when a busload of Californians came through it took me three people to realize that ‘baby’ was not flirting, it was just California.
NOTHING is universal.
This is the biggest place I’ve ever worked so it took some getting used to, like any skill, but even being socially awkward it’s easy to tell what scripts to follow. Test the waters, if they don’t respond then okay this is a move them through kind of person, be quick and efficient and to the point, feel good when they smile at ‘last question I promise, do you want your receipt’. If they do then pull out the five small talk scripts, get a smile, feel good when they laugh at the cat small talk script.
It’s also important to note that claiming your culture’s way of doing polite right is a fantastic way to fall into some really bigoted nonsense. In Puerto Rico the personal bubble is much smaller than in the US proper, like RIGHT at your elbow close. I had a cashier who was super uncomfortable because our steward was getting in her personal space constantly and he was pissed off because he was trying to HELP her with moving orders why is she mad at him? Once I sat them down and explained the difference they both had this aw shit moment because from their own standpoints they were being polite and from the others’ standpoints they were being rude. After that they were fine, when he got a little too close she’d say ‘whoa man my bubble’ and he’d laugh and shake is head and step back.
Lots of non-white cultures have things like that, particularly since white America has serious problems with sexualizing ANY physical contact to the point we’re all touch starved. The normal speaking voice is at a higher volume or it’s more acceptable to show your emotions or gesture when you speak. None of this is WRONG, but when people star getting into ‘my culture is the only right culture’ then guess who comes out on top? It ain’t the little guy.
the last two adds are great, but: I don’t care WHERE you’re from, it will ALWAYS be rude to take the last donut/cookie/slice of pizza/gulp of juice/etc and leave the empty container there for someone else to find instead of throwing it away YOURSELF since it is EMPTY.
“if you don’t consider breasts sexual organs then why do you care if i grab them” well EXCUSE ME BUT IF I JUST STRUTTED UP AND GRABBED YOUR EAR AND FELT IT UP LIKE MMMM YEAH BABY I BET YOU HEAR REAAAL GOOD WOULD YOU NOT BE UNCOMFORTABLE
I work in an ER and we see suicides all the time. And we get at least 3 suicidal ideations a night. We all care about you. I promise, we do. A team of complete strangers who have worked 3+ 12 hour shifts this week who are being screamed at all day and night and probably haven’t had lunch and trust me, we still love you and care about you.
We had a 16 year old patient last night who we couldn’t save. We were in that room with this patient for over an hour, we did everything we could. And let me tell you, we all cried. The EMT’s, the nurses, the doctor. We all huddled together in the doctors dictation room and cried.
I went through the rest of my shift with smudged mascara and tracks on my cheeks.
I remember the names of all the patients that have taken their lives on my shifts.
I remember squeezing the hands, smoothing the hair, kissing the foreheads, and wiping away the blood and the vomit of every patient that has left me too soon.
I can still see every face that I have zipped into a body bag.
Trust me, someone cares about you. You have never met them yet. You don’t ever think about them. They are never remembered when you talk about heroes and role models.
But someone loves you.
damn….
This made me cry
When I was in hospital being seen to, being bandaged and sedated and surrounded by medical staff, my family was ignoring my calls, my friends hadn’t cared to check in. I felt terrified and hopeless and so very unimportant that it was taking everything it had in me to not drink the cleaning products left nearby by one of the cleaners, to make sure I finished the job properly.
There was a nurse though, who came into my room with a soft smile, who held my hand, who took away the bottles when she noticed me watching them for too long. There was a nurse that plugged in my phone to charge in case my family called back, that took away the bloody cloths the paramedics had left me with, that helped me put my hair up when it was sticking to my tear streaked face, because my arms were too sore to do it myself.
There was a nurse that saved my life twice in one night, who made me feel that I was worth being looked after, and her name was Emma and she was the most beautiful person I’ve met.
Months later, I was visiting my mother at the same hospital whilst she was incapacitated with back concerns. Whilst I sat and watched my mum sleeping, a nurse approached to check up on her. She met my gaze and she smiled immediately, face lit with recognition, and she said “oh my gosh, hey! How are you doing?”
People definitely do care about us even if we don’t think they do, and to the original poster?
no offence but when girls stop you mid sentence like “okay sorry but… (insert compliment that makes you feel great all day) …anyway, continue!” > every single song a man has ever written about a woman
as a general rule. if what we’re calling ‘cultural appropriation’ sounds like nazi ideology (i.e. ‘white people should only do white people things and black people should only do black people things’) with progressive language, we are performing a very very poor application of what ‘cultural appropriation’ means. this is troublingly popular in the blogosphere right now and i think we all need to be more critical of what it is we may be saying or implying, even unintentionally.
There is nothing wrong with everyone enjoying each other’s cultures so long as those cultures have been shared.
Eating Chinese food, watching Bollywood movies, going to see Cambodian dancers, or learning to speak Korean so you can watch every K drama in existence is totally fine. The invitation to participate in those things came from within those cultures. The Mexican family that owns the place where I get fajitas wants me to eat fajitas. Their whole business model kind of depends on it, actually.
If you see something from another culture you think you might want to participate in, but you don’t know if that would be disrespectful or appropriative, you can just…ask. Like. A Jewish friend explained what a mezuzah was to me, recently. (It’s the little scroll-thing near their front doors that they touch when they come into their house. It basically means “this is a Jewish household.”)
“Oh, cool,” I said. “Can I touch it? Or is it only for Jewish people?”
“You can touch it or you can not touch it,” she said. “I don’t care.”
“Cool, I’m gonna touch it, then.”
“Cool.”
It’s not hard.
You want to twerk, twerk. I’ve never heard a black person say they didn’t think anybody else should be allowed to twerk. Just that they want us to acknowledge that they invented that shit, not Miley fucking Cyrus.
this is a good post.
Thank you, I was trying to sort this out in my head but you explained it very well.
are you a “i know literally nothing about hockey who’s stanley and why does he have a cup” check please fan or a “i know the blood types of every member of the pittsburgh penguins” check please fan
I want everyone to know what Hillary Clinton did tonight. It isn’t just that she ‘won’ the debate; Democratic presidential candidates have been winning these debates on substance since 1980 and often, it doesn’t help them in the election. She went in there tonight with two objectives: 1) make people warm up to her personally and 2) make Donald Trump self-destruct. Donald Trump’s objective was to make people believe that he is a grown-up, or at least that he can pretend to be a grown-up for ninety minutes.
I knew how it was going to go down as soon as she said, “Donald, it’s good to be with you.” I knew for two reasons. First: because she really meant it. She was genuinely pleased to be on a stage with him. And it’s not because she likes him. It’s because she knew she was going to fuck him up and she knew exactly how she was going to do it and she was really looking forward to it.
Second: she called him Donald. She called him Donald all night long. Consistently and deliberately and for three good reasons. One: it reminds everyone that he has never held a position that gives him any right to a title other than “Mr.” Two: it seems friendly, but it also really pisses him off. And three: By calling him Donald, she avoided repeating his brand name.
This is the level on which Clinton and her team are working. Donald Trump has staked everything on his last name–the name he inherited from his father. It’s Trump this, Trump that, Trump the other. When he puts his name on a thing, it doesn’t say Donald anywhere, it just says TRUMP. TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP. Trump is a good brand name. It’s a noun, it’s a verb, it’s triumphant-sounding. “Donald” has none of those qualities. If she’d been calling him “Mr. Trump,” every time she said it, she would be advertising the Trump brand, which is of course the exact opposite of what she’s there to do. So she called him Donald. And he could not take it.
Without losing her temper, raising her voice, or descending to his level, she made that bastard reveal himself to the Jedi. She brought up things that are going to seem completely unsympathetic to voters, but of which Trump himself is really proud: like not paying any federal taxes (”That makes me smart,” Trump said), stiffing his contractors (”Maybe they didn’t do good work,” Trump said; “I took advantage of the laws,” Trump said), his repeated bankruptcies, the $14 million loan from his father (”A very small loan,” Trump called it). She noted that he exploited the housing crisis for personal gain (”That’s called business,” Trump said). She called him out for his racism; he responded by proving that she’s right (Trump, apparently, is aggrieved that he did not get a medal for opening a club that did not discriminate against Black people even though it was in a really nice part of Florida). When he made what to me was a cryptic jab about her “staying home” while he was traveling, she just smiled and said, “I think Donald just criticized me for preparing for this debate. And yes, I did. You know what else I prepared for? I prepared to be President. And I think that’s a good thing.”
He tried to talk over her. She ignored him. That was beautiful. One, because it’s exactly the way Trump should be treated, all the time; and two, because it made him even madder. His inability to get a rise out of her made him lose his mind. This is a man who wants to be President of the United States. And he spent an entire 2-minute segment begging people to call Sean Hannity so he could vouch for the fact that Trump was always against the Iraq war. Nobody would talk to Sean Hannity, he complained. Why would no one talk to Sean Hannity?
She was capable of actually remembering the original question and getting around to answering it after dealing with the human distraction standing next to her. He often seemed to completely forget the question seconds into his answer. At times, he was so busy talking over the moderator that he didn’t even hear the question.
Hillary Clinton has been dealing with entitled, narcissistic, patronizing, asshole men her entire life as a Senator and as Secretary of State. She has skills in this area. She used them all tonight; and she enjoyed doing it. She looked like she was at ease, confident, and having a great time. She looked young. That was the way I put it to Mrs. Plaidder, and she agreed. She looked fresh, and energized, and exhilarated by the challenge. And that only made Trump’s “stamina” bullshit seem even dumber.
She stayed focused, despite his distractions. She dropped every bomb she came to drop at exactly the right moment. She used everything he bragged about against him. She made him too mad to put together a coherent sentence. And she smiled.
We knew she could to the job. We now know she can win this election.
During, I believe, the 2012 presidential election, people used to pass around a photo of Obama pointing forcefully at the camera with the caption, “Everybody chill the fuck out. I got this.”
Y’all can chill the fuck out now. Hillary Clinton has this shit handled. She knows how he works and if he is ever fool enough to share a stage with her again she will fillet him. And yes. I AM WITH HER.
make sure you’re registered to vote HERE, it’s so easy to do.
like straight up, register to vote. yall cant escape it like tumblr is showing you how to register. fucking hell register to vote and vote for hillary clinton.
No. Do not vote Hillary. For the Love of god and all that is holy dont vote either of them. Vote Gary Johnson. Vote third party. All votes matter and a third party vote is never wasted. Abraham Lincoln was a third party candidate. It is NEVER WASTED.
Except this isn’t even remotely the same and it will be a wasted vote because there’s no way in hell a third party vote will be enough to out number the Republican Trump voters and we’ll end up with a literal actual fascist in the White House.
Don’t vote third party, not in this election. Now is not the time for a protest vote.
Vote Hillary in and then CONTINUE to vote in all your smaller elections. The majority of congress is up for election this year. You wanna see change, you want to make your voice heard? STAY POLITICALLY ACTIVE AND KEEP VOTING. You’re right, every vote can and does count, you can help change the course of American politics and history, but it doesn’t end with the Presidential election. But voting Hillary is the start.
It’s worth noting that even crowdiamagio has changed their stance at this point.
I know Tumblr is largely young and likes to sometimes poke fun at us older people, but please, in this case, listen to those of us who voted in 2000. I GET the idea of a protest vote and wanting a viable third party. I do. I was all about that in 2000. I, along with a lot of other idealistic people, voted for Ralph Nader in 2000. I wasn’t crazy about Gore, but I was convinced that SURELY the American people couldn’t elect someone like Dubya. (I mean, the question is whether the American people actually DID, but that’s another rant.)
I was wrong. We got eight years of one of the worst administrations in US history.
This election IS NOT THE TIME for a protest vote. There’s too much at stake. I don’t care if you don’t like Hillary on a personal basis. She is one of the most qualified people to ever run for President, and her “scandals” are either part of an elaborate 20 year smear campaign or literally no worse than any other politician’s. (See John Oliver’s raisin analogy.)
I honestly do not know how anybody could watch the debates last night and come out of it thinking that Donald Trump is in any way suited to be president. That leaves Hillary. A third party candidate is not going to win. To vote for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein is literally only going to help Trump. Nothing else.
Save your protest votes for local elections, for a year when the choices are not so dire. This election is literally going to mean life or death for a lot of people in the US, and if you’re on this site, chances are good you’re one of them.
Throwing away your vote on a message no one will hear, and which will change no outcome, is sometimes presented as ‘voting your conscience’, but that’s got it exactly backwards; your conscience is what keeps you from doing things that feel good to you but hurt other people. Citizens who vote for third-party candidates, write-in candidates, or nobody aren’t voting their conscience, they are voting their ego, unable to accept that a system they find personally disheartening actually applies to them.
I’m hunting for a fantastic tweet I saw recently, about how saying things like, “I live in a blue state, my vote doesn’t matter, I can vote however I want” essentially creates a two-tiered system, where you grant yourself the INCREDIBLY privileged status of “voting with your heart” while your neighbors do the work of making sure that state stays blue and we don’t all die in a nuclear holocaust.
It’s extraordinary how third-party voters are framing this as a question of ethics, when it’s really your privilege versus collective pragmatism. And as Shirky says in that piece, the major third parties are deeply ineffectual—charities and foundations actually doing this good, moral work could use your dollars and your vocal support to help enact change.
I’m glad the OP (or rather, the first reblogger) has changed their mind, but something absurd, like a third of all under-30s?? are voting third party. Please, please, please spread the word: it’s true, a third-party vote isn’t a waste. It’s just a vote for yourself, and a big fuck you to the rest of us.
I will keep spouting this statistic until the end of time:
If even 1% of the people who voted for Nader in Florida (not 1% of the people who voted in Florida, 1% of the people who voted for Nader in Florida) had voted for Gore instead, Bush would never have been president.
Bush beat Gore by less than the # of votes for Nader in both Florida and New Hampshire; in that election, even getting NH’s 4 measly electoral votes would have changed the outcome. But I’m not sure young people today realize just how fucking close the vote in Florida was.
This isn’t hypothetical - this happened less than 20 years ago. And it can happen again this year.
im putting together a couple of scottish folk mixes bc that’s what i do and im honestly curious if anyone in my country has ever been unequivocally happy about anything ever
scottish trad music genres:
Everyone I Love Is Dead
The English Have Stolen All My Sheep
You Want To Be My Boyfriend? First You Must Answer These Riddles Three
The Protestants Have Stolen All My Sheep
I Love You A Lot But You’ve Left Me And It’s Raining [fiddle solo]
The Sea Is Treacherous, Just Like The English
One Time Bonnie Prince Charlie Punched Me In The Face And It Was Awesome
The Fairies Have Stolen All My Sheep
We have of course the traditional Irish music genres to go with them:
* Everyone I Love Is An Allegorical Representation of Ireland
* The English Stole My Farm And Put Sheep On It
* You Were My Boyfriend But Now You Won’t Even Come To The Window To Look Upon Me And Our Dead Infant Child (In The Rain)
* Whack Fol Too La Roo Umptytiddly Good They’ve Stopped Listening Now Let’s Talk About Revolution
* Something In Irish, I Think It’s About Fairies, Or Maybe A Cow
oooo can I add to this? don’t forget Appalachian folk balladry, the American cousin of Scottish and Irish traditional music and just as uplifting as its Anglo-Saxon highland forbears!!!
genres include:
I Left Everyone I Love Back Home In The Holler To Be With This Guy Who Doesn’t Wear Shoes Or Have Teeth But He Plays A Mean Jug
The English Told Us Not To Move West Yet, We Ignored Them, My Entire Family Was Killed
You Were My Boyfriend But You Tied A Sack Of Rocks To My Petticoats And Threw Me In The Creek (And My Baby Too)
Mama Loves All 14 Of Us A Lot But She’s Weary Of Our Shit And Now She’s Dyin’ (Gather Round)
The McCleans Stole A Firewood Log From Our Pile So We Won’t Rest Until The Last Of Their Male Kin Is Laid In The Cold Ground
We Knew The River Would Rise But We Still Didn’t Fix The Levee
The River Rose, The Levee Broke, Everyone Died, It Was Just As We Reckoned (dulcimer twang-a-lang)
When The Rebels Come A-Marchin’ I’m A Southern Man And I Feed Their Horses My Best, When The Yankees Come A-Marchin’ I’m A Northern Man And I Feed Their Horses What The Rebels Left
The Tennessee Valley Authority Killed All My Sheep Somehow
Don’t forget that old standby “The Mine Collapsed and Everyone Died”!
I think someone needs to put in a word for the English folk tradition though:
I Met a Girl and We Went Hunting (It Was a Metaphor for Sex)
I Met a Girl and We Caught Some Birds (It Was a Metaphor for Sex)
I Met a Girl and We Found Her Lost Pet (It Was a Metaphor for Sex)
I Met a Girl By Staying At Her Parents’ House and She Made My Bed (It Was an Especially Thinly-Veiled Metaphor for Sex)
I Am a Girl and I Regret Engaging In Metaphors for Sex Because Now I’m Pregnant
I Met a Girl and Bribed Her Into Sex But She Stole My Horse and Ran Away With It
I Met a Girl At an Inn and We Had Non-Metaphorical Sex But She Stole My Stuff The Next Morning and Now I Have Syphilis
Your Fiance Died Either at Trafalgar or Waterloo, Let’s Get Married, I’m Glad You Said No Because I’m Really Him In Disguise
Lord Nelson Sure Was Awesome
The Press-Gang Dragged Off All the Important Men in My Life (And Now They Are Dead)
Farm Laborers Are The Salt of the Earth And Are Never Grindingly Poor
Begging Is a Completely Viable Career Option With Flexible Hours and Unlimited Access to Alcohol
i know that people being on their phones has become like a symbol of apathy and uncaring but so many people i know use social media to share love. like yesterday i got to watch a wedding livestreamed to everyone who couldn’t make it. i’ve seen my friend slowly learn how to cope with being a teen mom because of a massive outpouring of “mumblr” support + tips. i’ve seen my friends come out as gay, learn to cook, discover the flaws in their feminism, work for social change, make good life choices, go to amazing places, develop passions, form educated opinions, learn to love themselves. i’ve seen people post the bravest recovery posts and shy political posts and everything in between.
and i don’t honestly care how edgy you think your art is. what you’re telling me when you draw grey people looking at a white screen is that you don’t care what happens to the other people in your life.
but i do. i care about the boy i’m in a long distance relationship with, but i also care about people i’ve never met. i’ve been following some people for three years and genuinely care about their experiences. i’m glad you’re still in touch with the people you love, even if you’re not paying attention directly to me! i get happy when you finally dump him! i’m sad when your cat gets sick! i give a shit.
i don’t think technology is taking empathy away from us. i think it’s changing it.
“Trump just criticized me for preparing for this debate. You know what else I prepared for? Being president.”—Hillary Clinton, an actual adult arguing with a child. (via ashermajestywishes)
Trump has pledged to sign the First Amendment Defense Act (FADA), if passed by congress. It was first introduced in the House on June 17, 2015 and would effectively legalize anti-LGBTQ discrimination across the board, including among employers, businesses, landlords and healthcare providers, as long as they claim to be motivated by a firmly held religious beliefs.
It’s important to vote here, folks. Trump presidency is a massive no.
Please vote hillary I’m begging you
Vote for Hillary. A third-party candidate may be closer to your ideals, but a vote for anyone other than Hillary is a vote closer to Trump winning. The race is CLOSE, if the well-being of others matters AT ALL to you, please vote Hillary Clinton.
If you are LGBTQIA or remotely care about the LGBTQIA community and our wellbeing you NEED TO VOTE FOR HILLARY
Trump is a repulsive evil fucking COCKROACH that despises LGBTQIA people and if this slimy reptillian scumbag got elected one of the first things he’d seek to do would be to make it legal to take jobs AWAY from queer and trans americans
If you are LGBTQIA: THAT MEANS YOU
If you remotely care about ANYONE who is LGBTQIA: THAT MEANS PEOPLE YOU CARE ABOUT
Vote for Hillary and keep this bigoted and repulsive sack of shit and his hateful agenda of evil OUT of the white house
Once upon a time, I was running a DnD game for some friends. The player characters were checking out reports that a local town had been having trouble with monsters. They’re informed that it was true, a few years ago, but a copper dragon set up a lair in the mountains and chased all the awful creatures out. A dragon slayer showed up shortly thereafter and neither dragon nor slayer were heard from again. Players are disappointed at first, but then quickly perk up when some other plot threads become apparent.
A few sessions later, the place they were staying burned down (their fault), forcing them to check out the more expensive tavern in town. There, they meet Allie Cohol, a half-elf woman with red hair that owned and ran the tavern. She was cheerfully greedy, but still helpful and always ready with a cheesey joke… And after only the third joke, one of the players, Bill, froze and locked eyes with me. “You fucker. She’s the copper dragon,” Bill says.
That reveal was supposed to be a big thing later, so I’m kinda on the spot. Fortunately, another player, Fran, pipes up and says, “nah, that’s stupid. The dragon in the mountain is a red herring. We’re here for the cultists.” The cultists were in the sewer and the PCs were actually working for the cleric Big Bad without them knowing.
“No, listen,” Bill continued. “Red hair. Greedy. Bad jokes… Her name is Allie Cohol.”
Everyone around the table gives him a fairly blank look, but I’m sweating bullets. Threads that I had spun oh so carefully were half a heartbeat away from unraveling. Bill is getting this real wild look in his eyes and pounds a fist against the table. “Allie Cohol. HER NAME IS ALCOHOL.”
Fran then slowly pans over and looks me dead in the eyes. “The deadly joke ability. She’s a goddamn dragon.”
*slides $20 across the ask box* what do Alderaanian wife braids look like?
“You should go see Leia.”
Han blinked, startled by the sudden voice, the sudden farmboy-cum-Jedi standing in the doorway and blocking the light. It was after-hours even for the track, he hadn’t been expecting anyone in the pilot’s lounge.
“Hello to you too, Luke,” he drawled, leaning back in the armchair. “Good to see you, been too long, how’s the search for Jedi shit going? Myself? Well, I’m not too bad, bit of a trouble with my joints—getting older’s a rum business, you know? But I can’t complain; complaining’s the business of them who don’t have enough else to do, as I like to say.”
Luke stared balefully at Han, and Han got the sense he was just restraining himself from rolling his eyes. “You’ve never said that before in your life. And also, you should go see Leia.”
“Kid, I know you’re last of the Jedi or whatever these days, but you gotta work on your small talk.”
Luke rolled his eyes. “You are the most frustrating, stubborn—”
“To be fair, you knew that about me already,”
Han laughed, stumbling to his feet and crossing the lounge to Luke. With a sigh, Luke let himself be enfolded in a hug.
“Han—”
“Yeah, yeah, I heard you. Is she hurt?” Han asked. (He still wasn’t entirely sure how the Force-thing worked, but he knew Luke and Leia kept tabs on each other, even across the galaxy.) A thought struck, and he sucked in a breath. “Kriff, is it—is it Ben? Is Ben okay?”
“Ben is fine. Leia is fine. She’s just…it’s a politics thing.”
Han exhaled, laughing. “Mother of Kwath, kid, you got me terrified over nothing. I am not the politics guy. Leia has politics guys, I am not them. I’ll give her a comm tonight, but I’m—sure she’s got it handled.”
“It’s about you,” Luke said pointedly, and Han felt cold well in the pit of his stomach. “This time, you are the politics thing.”
“Oh,” Han said.
.
.
“It’s idiotic,” Leia dismissed, when he commed. “Even if—someone’s choice of spouse said anything about their character at all, you are a war hero and a general. You led the assault on Endor! And now you’re an entrepreneur—”
“That’s a lot of syllables for someone who travels around the galaxy, betting on themselves in starship races, sweetheart.”
“The essence of politics is describing things in more syllables than they’re worth,” she bit out, and he laughed, outright. Even over the crappy satellite feed, he could see her relax a little at the sound, breathe out.
She looked so small and very far away, her face on the monitor.
“Do you want me there?” he asked. “Because I can be there—Chewie can take the Falcon, and I’m pretty sure farmboy still remembers his way around a ship if he needs a co-pilot. I could use a vacation.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s fine. I’m fine. You have the Outer Rim qualifier in two weeks, and this is just another stupid fight over something that doesn’t matter. A distraction. Once I get this bill approved, they’ll drop it.”
“Yeah, but—”
Before he could finish, there was a loud clattering sound from her end of the connection, and a shout of “Is that dad? Can I talk to dad?” with Threepio’s fainter, “Master Ben, really!” By the time he’d talked (argued) with Ben and talked (argued) with Leia again, the matter was dropped.
Luke looked up when Han entered he cockpit, smiling a little when Han groaned and let himself sag into the pilot’s seat. “So, about the Outer Rim qualifier—”
“Maybe you don’t know this about me,” Luke said, his tone thoughtful. “But I’m a pretty good pilot. I once flew an x-wing with my eyes closed and blew up the Death Star. So I could probably handle going really fast around a track once or twice.“
“I can see why the Empire decided to kill all the Jedi,” Han grumbled.
.
.
Normally, Han would have arrived on Chandrila at some ungodly hour, shucked off his boots at the door, and crawled into bed beside Leia still smelling of the Falcon, too tired to do much more than mumble against her cheek and pass out.
It was strange to be there in the sunlight, walking up the last of the stairs just as she was emerging from the suite. For a minute, he just watched her—she was on another planet, reading something on her datapad and all her attention focused there; he was still surprised she didn’t bump into walls when she did that.
He’d teased her once that it was the only part of the Force he actually believed in.
Han grabbed her elbow before she could pass him, and she looked up in shock. “You should be careful, Senator,” Han drawled, as she laughed. “I hear there are some real criminal elements in this part of town.”
“Oh, well,” she said, her eyes alight, “they can’t be as shockingly criminal as my husband.”
(Every time she kissed him like this, it was like that first time in the Falcon, his skin aching and hot, more alive than he’d ever been because death and her were staring him down. The kissing wasn’t the reason he left—or the reason he came back—but it was a reason, all the same.)
“Hello, stranger,” she murmured, when they separated.
“Hey,” he said, inhaling the smell of her, whatever product she put in her hair these days—it reminded him of Endor, something sharp and green. “Thought I’d come and apologize for not listening to you in person.”
Her mouth curved. “You never listen to me, I’ve gotten used to it.”
It took about two days for Han to realize it was worse than Luke had let on. He wasn’t sure why everyone suddenly cared about Leia marrying a Corellian bastard of an ex-spice smuggler—the justice who married them had asked if there were any objections five years ago, no one seemed bothered then—but people cared. And he trusted Leia when she said it would stop after the bill, but the bill was being stalled in some committee, and—
“Politics,” Han sighed, when Ben asked why Han was being talked about on the holonews. “It’s all just politics, kid, don’t worry. We’re going to be fine.”
On the third week, when they still weren’t fine, Han put Ben to bed and sat down across from Leia at the dining table. She had datapads spread around her and a pinched look on her face; Han almost balked, but— “Maybe I might be willing to go to some of those parties,” he said. Her gaze snapped up, to him, and he offered a weak smile. “You know, those ones I hate, with the tiny food and the awful people. And maybe I can show your senator friends that…I am that civilized Hero of Endor, and you didn’t screw up, by picking me. You know, if you think that could help.”
“Han—”
“Or, I mean, we could get divorced, but I worked really hard to convince you to marry me in the first place, plus there was a war. I don’t think I’ll get so lucky a second time.”
Leia looked at him for a long, long moment, then exhaled. “Well, we’ll try the first, and if that doesn’t work, there’s always the second option. Maybe you can ask for Threepio in the settlement.”
“Your sense of humor has not improved with time, princess.”
.
.
“You shouldn’t shout you know,” Han said, settling against the doorframe and offering a grin. “My wife wouldn’t be too pleased if she found out I brought a beautiful stranger into our bedroom.”
Leia met his gaze in the mirror and pointedly rolled her eyes. Han stuck out his tongue at her. “I thought you’d be dressed by now,” she said, her mouth twisting. “The party starts in an hour, and—”
“It’ll take me ten minutes to change. I didn’t want to wrinkle anything waiting for you.”
“I’ve seen you preen for forty-five minutes, Solo, don’t lie to me.”
He snorted, watching as she set down her brush and began braiding her hair. He’d always liked her this way, barefoot and unarmored, the most herself she could be. He’d always liked being one of the few allowed to see it.
“Did you need me for some reason? I can change into the suit right now if you think of some interesting ways to put wrinkles in it.”
“Just you hand,” she interrupted, shooting him another look. Her hands were still moving, doing something complicated with the strands she had gathered at the top of her skull. He crossed the room to her side, “Put your index finger…here,” she said, tapping a place where the strands wove together. He pressed his finger in exactly that place, and she wove the hair around it, like a ring. “Take your hand away? And—then thumb in the divot over my ear.”
“Okay,” Han said quietly.
There was something steadying about it, just her soft directions, and him, and their hands. He’d watched her do this before, braid and coil and brush and knot—the traditional art of Alderaan, passed down from mother to daughter. They each had meanings, and Han knew some of them; the circlet interwoven with a lace was her imitation of the crown of Alderaan, and when she wore that high coil of braids, it meant she was grieving.
(What about when you wear it loose like this? he’d asked once, when he was pouring it through his fingers like water. He liked it best down, a veil around her shoulders.
Nothing, she had said. This is just me.)
“I haven’t seen this one before, have I?” he asked when she was finished, touching the soft honeycomb cluster behind her ear, looping to an equally complex knot on the other side. It took him a moment to realize that the twisting coils were the size of his fingers, left over of his hands.
“No, I haven’t—done this one before,” Leia said quietly, smoothing back a flyaway strand with her fingertips.
“I’m surprised,” Han chuckled. “Would have though you had plenty use for braids that say you’re ready to fight.”
“These aren’t braids for fighting,” Leia said. She wasn’t quite meeting Han’s gaze in the mirror, and he thought he saw a blush. “My mother wore these each year on her wedding anniversary. These are—the traditional name is ‘the work of loved hands’ but they’re better known as wife’s knots. They’re one of the few styles that is unique to every wearer, because it requires two sets of hands.”
Han couldn’t think of what to say, if there was anything to say. He wanted to kiss her, but he didn’t trust himself. He felt like he’d get lost in it too easily, let the whole world and everything in it slip away because she was there, with wife’s knots in her hair.
“I didn’t screw up, picking you,” Leia said, rising to her feet. When she turned, her expression was fierce, stern. She’d ordered men into battle with that expression. “And either way, I did pick you. I’m keeping you, and there’s nothing the New Republic can do about it.
“Now,” she said, “get changed. The party starts in an hour.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Han said quietly, and followed her out.
it will never cease to delight me that in the trilogy, gimli is shown to be charming, with all the polish and grace of a trained diplomat—he trades wits with elrond and speaks so graciously to galadriel that she gives him a gift denied feanor; his extemporaneous description of the glittering caves is what convinces legolas to travel there with him after the war, he sings the song of durin so well that sam begs to learn it.
whereas legolas is this big cheerful lug of a hunter-tracker, incidentally a prince, only unwittingly beautiful and graceful—his speech is decidedly stiff and formal, even when he’s trying to be gentle, but then turns around and starts singing without realizing he’s forgotten half the song. He has strange moments of seriousness, when the ancientness of him shines through, but then—
I do wonder what their first conversations were, gimli dignified but a little chilly; legolas stiff even as he attempted humor, but a way forward nonetheless.
The Bullet, an ensemble member with nothing to separate her from the rest but a poof of curls at the top of her head, morphs not only into a Greek Chorus member, but into a signal of death approaching until she eventually (historical spoiler alert:) approaches Hamilton at the end of the show as an embodiment of the shot that killed him.
At the start, the Bullet is indistinguishable from her fellow ensemble members. Most of the ensemble steps into the spotlight a couple times, though, as everything from named historical figures like Samuel Seabury and James Reynolds to small speaking roles, and the Bullet is no different. After “You’ll Be Back,” she steps forward for the first time as a spy receiving a letter, only to have her neck snapped by a redcoat and become the first death of the revolution. However, unlike the rest of the ensemble, who return to the anonymous chorus until their next role, the Bullet never seems to leave that first moment behind. Her next appearance as a singular character is in “Stay Alive,” when she becomes the actual Bullet for the first time as she passes Hamilton by at the sound of the gunshot at the top of the song, and from that moment on, every second she is allowed the audience’s full or even partial attention, she becomes a harbinger of death.
Though her connection to death is most apparent in Act II, she is absolutely present and aware of his role as the Bullet from the beginning. When asked about playing the Bullet in an interview with “The Great Discontent,” Ariana DeBose, the original Bullet, said, “I always know I’m aiming for him—even if the rest of the ensemble members don’t. So even if I’m just a lady in a ball gown at a party, there’s still a part of my character that knows that that moment is going to come.” Even when the spotlight is not on her, every moment the Bullet is onstage has significance. Whether it’s in “My Shot,” when the ensemble unfreezes one by one as Hamilton moves toward them during his first recitation of the “I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory” monologue and the Bullet is the last one to move, her hand still outstretched toward Hamilton as he steps in front of her, or it’s in “Ten Duel Commandments,” when the ensemble lines up between Hamilton and Burr, singing, “Pick a place to die where it’s high and dry,” and the Bullet places herself directly at Hamilton’s side, the connection between them is already being formed. Knowing that the Bullet is fully aware of the final meeting she and Hamilton are hurtling toward makes the short moment in “Ten Duel Commandments” when Hamilton looks at her lining up beside him, the only time he ever seems to truly see her before his final moments, and the pair stand side by side for numbers six and seven of the Commandments, moving through the choreography in sync, feel hugely significant in a way it never would otherwise.
Several songs later, during “Yorktown,” she kills a redcoat with Laurens in South Carolina. They celebrate for a brief moment before she returns to the ensemble, and the show moves on. It until three songs later that the audience and Hamilton learn that Laurens was shot and killed in South Carolina not long after the fighting ended. It is a short and easily dismissed interaction, but this is the first moment that her actions are entwined in someone’s death. This quick look the Bullet and Laurens share in “Yorktown” begins to feel like Laurens sealing his fate with a handshake in retrospect.
This quick tie the Bullet forms with a person as they are about to die becomes extremely important in the second act, when she really steps into her role as the Bullet. Her spoken lines, though few, are particularly significant, as every one of them eventually leads to someone getting shot – namely, Philip and Hamilton. In “Blow Us All Away,” she tells Philip exactly where to find George Eaker, the man who will kill him, singing, “I saw him just up Broadway, couple of blocks. He was going to see a play.” Philip follows her directions and challenges him to the duel that will kill him. Her only other spoken line is as one of Burr’s supporters in “The Election of 1800,” when she says, “I can’t believe we’re here with him” and flashes Burr a large, hopeful smile. Burr leaves the exchange with a fist pump, believing he has the election in the bag, only to have that hope ripped away when Hamilton’s support of Jefferson leads to him losing the presidency and challenging Hamilton to the duel the whole show has been foreshadowing. At the start of “Your Obedient Servant,” when Burr actually challenges Hamilton, the Bullet actually pulls Burr’s desk onto the stage and hands him his quill so that he can begin his fateful letters, edging his toward the battlefield. Every action she takes ensures that Hamilton meets her one last time.
Once she has successfully gotten the pair to pull their guns on each other’s, she appears for a final time as the actual bullet, slowly approaching Hamilton throughout the entirety of his final monologue and coming dangerously close to him as he moves, scatter-brained, across the stage. Halfway through, he steps right in her path, turns back and stumbles out of the way, and as he frantically repeats, “Rise up, rise up, rise up,” she lunges for him, only to be pulled back by another ensemble member as Eliza steps in her path. Once Hamilton has been shot, she joins the ensemble once again, satisfied that the path she’s been on since the beginning has come to an end.
WE CAN ALL AGREE ON LANCE AND KEITH also have you seen the galra!keith theories yet
GLAD TO HEAR IT.
And yes I have, and on the one hand I’m not sure if I think the people making the show have that level of forethought going on here (look, I am very skeptical of TV producers, I just am), but on the other I would be ALL THE FUCK OVER THAT. Like. It would combine all my favorite tropes, especially if Kieth doesn’t know he’s Galra at the time of the first season. Weird messed up identity issues! ‘He’s our friend but he’s the enemy’ issues! ‘Oh wow what if I start to turn purple’ issues!
I am Here For It, is the point here. And if that happens I expect some Pain. It would be glorious.
O K A Y. Only took me like nine days to get a new computer, so here we go, posting of this story will now resume its daily schedule. This is Part IV, Parts I,II, and III are also available. This scene takes place the day after the previous one–Jack is no longer dying of a divine-level hangover, is the point. Also, please feel free to correct my German, I do not dich the language.
“Hey, Jackie,” Idunn said, already
sliding forward a travel cup with an elegant cursive J on the side. Her handwriting would have made calligraphers
weep with envy, although her print letters were angular and sharp-edged as
blades. “How are you feeling?”
“Eh,” he said with a shrug and an
expressive hand motion. “Ich bin gut, aber erschoft.” Jack’s eyes widened at the sound of his own
words and one hand flicked up to touch his lips, a betrayed look crossing his
face.
“Didn’t know you spoke German,
Jack,” Idunn said in a strange voice—careful and calm, as if bracing herself or
someone else against an oncoming onslaught.
“Wen haben Sie erfahren?”
“I…didn’t?” he said through his
fingers, and felt almost shaky with relief when the words spilled out in
familiar English. “What the fuck?”
