In ancient Greece (469 – 399 BC), Socrates was widely lauded for his wisdom. One day an acquaintance ran up to him excitedly and said, “Socrates, do you know what I just heard about Diogenes?”
“Wait a moment,” Socrates replied, “Before you tell me I’d like you to pass a little test. It’s called the Triple Filter Test.”
“Triple filter?” asked the acquaintance.
“That’s right,” Socrates continued, “Before you talk to me about Diogenes let’s take a moment to filter what you’re going to say. The first filter is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?”
“No,” the man said, “Actually, I just heard about it.”
“All right,” said Socrates, “So you don’t really know if it’s true or not. Now let’s try the second filter, the filter of Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about Diogenes something good?”
“No, on the contrary…”
“So,” Socrates continued, “You want to tell me something about Diogenes that may be bad, even though you’re not certain it’s true?”
The man shrugged, a little embarrassed. Socrates continued, “You may still pass the test though, because there is a third filter, the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about Diogenes going to be useful to me?”
“No, not really.”
“Well,” concluded Socrates, “If what you want to tell me is neither True nor Good nor even Useful, why tell it to me or anyone at all?”
The man was bewildered and ashamed. This is an example of why Socrates was a great philosopher and held in such high esteem.
It also explains why Socrates never found out that Diogenes was banging his wife.
Oh boy but also OH BOY!
I feel like there’s a very useful lesson here that I am struggling to articulate.
apparently ethnic names are hard to pronounce but names white ppl actually can pronounce:
baudelaire, da vinci, chomsky, kerouac, tolkein, vivaldi, fuckin archimedes
White people will learn a fucking fictional language, like Dothraki or High Valyrian and will devote themselves to pronouncing these names/words to the point they’re fluent. But ethnic names are “too hard” and they act like they’re hacking up a fur ball
I have no impulse control so I'm requesting more smut. Hamilton/Laurens, post-Monmouth smut, go forth and make me suffer.
*cackling* Yeah, okay. In actual history Laurens’ wound was much
more serious (not that he didn’t earn it), so we’re going to fudge things a
little in favor of…well. Also! In case you’re curious! Being dressed in just shirtsleeves and
breeches was considered UNBELIEVEABLY improper, which I find hilarious because
it covers pretty much the whole body. Also-also, I pictured historical appearances but tried to make it musical-appearance-friendly, with the difference that Ham is SMOL at 5′7″ in comparison to TOL Laurens at like 6′fucking2″.
When John crashes through the door, Alexander
is already surging up from where he’s been sitting in nothing but his dirtied,
in-places-torn shirtsleeves on the edge of the bed. There’s a heartbeat where the conversation
could go either way, but they are who they are, so the tension snaps into
white-hot rage on all parts.
“You absolute fuck,” John seethes as he kicks the door shut behind him with a
click of the bar-lock. “What were you
thinking?”
Alexander throws his hands into the air,
feeling aching muscles snap taut over bone, and snarls, feral. “I was following
my goddamn orders, John, don’t act like I was simply out on the field
looking for a glorious death!” His voice
is half a shout and he has a moment of gratitude that their room is at the far
end of the second story hall housing the majority of the aides-de-camp. The others are used to Alexander and John
getting into shouting matches—not often with each other, but they fight with
whomever else they please, save the General himself. Even if their comrades had all elected to go
to bed at once after departing the field, any hue and cry of argument from the
last room would be dismissed.
Apparently my director went to see a production of West Side Story a few years ago, and the guy playing Chino forgot his gun before coming out for his final scene. Once it got to the big scene where he is supposed to shoot Tony, he screeched “Poison Boots” and kicked the actor playing Tony until he went down. The girl playing Maria then had to jerk the shoe off of Chino’s foot, and had to do the gunshot scene asking “How many kicks Chino? How many kicks, and one kick left for me”.
There should be a blog dedicated to theatrical urban legends. Like that opening weekend of Dracula where Dracula (still hungover) vomited all over the audience during the first stage direction that everyone has a friend of a friend that worked on the show and was there.
or the one where the bridge never came out for Javert’s suicide and so he just pretended to stab himself and then lay there until the lights went out
best story i heard was when a friend of mine saw a show where juliet forgot to bring the dagger out on stage so she just ripped the squib out of her chest and blood squirted everywhere
During a passion play a friend of my brother was supposedly in, one of the roman soldiers who was supposed to stab jesus on the cross and accidentally grabbed the wrong spear- he was supposed to grab one with a fake tip, but instead he grabbed one with an actual metal tip and, well
Jesus screamed “JESUS CHRIST YOU STABBED ME”.
Since that Jesus had to be taken down due to a bad case of stab-itis, the backup Jesus came in, but he weighed significantly less than the original Jesus- which would have been fine, except that at the end the cross was supposed to ascend upwards with Jesus on it, and the weights hadn’t been adjusted.
So Jesus, instead, ROCKETED UP into heaven (or, just, above the stage).
This is wild from start to finish
I was in Peter Pan once and one night at a performance, the adhesive holding our Hook’s mustache on was wearing off. It was near the end with a big fight scene and when he got attacked, he let his mustache fall and went “YOU RIPPED MY MUSTACHE OFF!” in a scandalized tone and it added a new note of hilarity to the whole scene (which was supposed to be funny anyway)
In my seventh grade play, which was a midsummer night’s dream, Thisbe didn’t have a sword so she stabbed herself with a coathanger
My junior year we were doing Romeo and Juliet and after Juliet poisons herself it was supposed to go dark and she’d get off the stage. well the light crew accidentally turned them back on and Juliet who was sitting up slammed back down on the wooden bed with a loud bang. To which my theater teacher says into the com “zombie Juliet” and everyone who heard that had to keep as quiet as possible while our eyes were filling with tears.
i attended my county’s performing arts high school majoring in vocal studies, (mostly geared towards musical theater and opera styles) and once a year we got a field trip to new york (we were in jersey, so it’s not exactly far). we would do one touristy thing, an actor’s workshop with friends of our teachers working in various performing industries in nyc, and then see a show.
my first year doing this, our industry contacts were 1 actor, 1 casting director, and 1 producer to get different aspects of the business, and they all gave us amazing advice and told fantastic stories. the actor in question was Zazu on Broadway’s The Lion King for several years, and told the best story by far.
in The Lion King, there are only two pieces of pre-recorded noise in the whole show. one, when Pumbaa does a MASSIVE fart while fighting the hyenas, and the other being Mufasa saying REMEMBERRRRRR as Simba climbs Pride Rock. the actor told us while struggling not to laugh that, during one night’s performance, someone forgot to flip the tape of these pre-recorded noises.
so, at the end of the show, the great climax where Simba finally accepts his place in the Circle of Life, the heavens parted and-
everyone froze. and then all ran off stage positively HOWLING with laughter.
the lesson: sometimes there are fuck ups you just can’t recover from.
During a high school production of Beauty and the Beast, where I was assistant costumer and assistant prop master, our director decided that we needed to spice up Gaston’s introduction. You know: in the movie, when Lefou runs in trying to catch the duck/goose that Gaston has just shot out of the sky?
Originally, the actors were going to stroll on stage with our Lefou hauling in the really neat (and real!) taxidermied deer head that we had found in a local thrift store. Now, two days before opening night, our director wants Lefou to run in from off stage and catch a stuffed duck that Gaston has just shot. This, of course, requires two things to work properly as a scene: a gunshot noise, and a stuffed duck.
The gunshot noise, we had covered. Blue-collar, redneck school? Guns a plenty to record. The stuffed duck? Harder than you might have thought to obtain.
Three hunting stores, two taxidermists, and one Pet Supply Store ™, I’d finally found a semi-realistic pheasant squeaky toy. What follows is an account of the ways this dog toy managed to be the nightmare prop of the six show run.
Opening Night: The stagehand, who was supposed to drop the bird from the ceiling catwalk, missed his cue and didn’t drop the it. Lefou’s actor rolls with it and does an excellent job of looking around foolishly before getting cuffed upside the head by Gaston. The stagehand then drops the bird squarely on Gaston’s head. Cue laughter.
Saturday Matinee: Different stagehand throws the bird instead of dropping it and beans Lefou directly in the face with the prop. Lefou falls over. Cue laughter.
Saturday Night: Bird is missing during curtain call. Director hauls the deer head down from it’s place on the tavern wall and tells Gaston and Lefou to revert to the old blocking i.e. no gunshot, no bird, just walk in with trophy. During Gaston and Lefou’s conversation, gun shot sound goes off and a stagehand throws the bird onto the stage…from the wrong side of the stage. Lefou and Gaston stare at it in awkward silence for a solid thirty seconds before Lefou makes off-script, subtle joke about Gaston’s gun going off late instead of early. Cue adults in the audience laughing.
Sunday Matinee: Director begs the stagehands to get the cue right at least once. Gunshot and bird prop go off without a hitch. Lefou accidentally catches the prop when it falls from the catwalk. He’s so startled that he caught it that Gaston runs right in to him. They drop both the gun and the bird props, and grab the wrong prop in their scramble. Gaston spends the rest of the scene gesturing dramatically with a stuffed pheasant, instead of a gun.
Sunday Night:
Director is fed up with bird prop, decides that Lefou should just carry bird prop in after gunshot happens off stage. Lefou accidentally squeezes the prop during the intro conversation, startling both actors into silence with the squeaky toy noise - apparently, neither of them realized it was a dog toy.
Monday Elementary School Show: Lefou walks on stage with the bird. Accidentally drops the prop during conversation with Gaston. Gaston doesn’t notice the dropped prop and steps on it. Cue depressingly sad squeaky toy noise. Cue ten years olds laughing.
In a dress rehearsal for Peter Pan, Wendy forgot one of her lines and started singing the star spangled banner and the audience was singing along and people got emotional
Once during the closing night of our high school production of south pacific, we were havin our pre-show pep talk, and our director reminded everyone (mostly seniors) not to go off script to try to be funny. Of course we had one lead who decided to ignore this advice. So during one scene where the sailors were “fishing” at the edge of the stage, he decides to pull up his rubber fish, make a comment about how it wasn’t big enough, and throw it back into the “ocean”, which of course, was the audience.
Now, this probably wouldn’t have been too much of a problem if he had gently tossed it, since it would have landed right behind the pit. But naturalt, he decided that this fish had to break free in the most dramatic way possible, so he winds up and chucks this fucking foot-long rubber fish with all of his strength.
So now imagine the stage crew, all of us huddled together, silently screaming as this limp fish goes sailing over the heads of the audience in what looks like a low-budget reenactment of free willy, only to slap some poor parent across the face.
I swear, you could almost hear the chorus of “mmmm whatcha saaayyy” rising from all those backstage.
From that moment on, all rubber fish were ferociously guarded by yours truly, under the direction of our stage manager.
This post gets better every time it shows up on my dash
My Junior year of high school our drama club put on Peter Pan,which involved the construction of a small boat fashioned out of scrap wood,plaster and an old wagon. A few of the actors who were cast as pirates had to ride the boat-wagon down the aisle to the front of the theatre,which had a concrete floor that sloped. About halfway down the brake they were using to control their speed gave out,and they crashed into the front of the stage at high speed.The entire boat imploded. The actors just sat there in silence for at least a full 10 seconds in the midst of the wreckage before my friend Adena screamed “ABANDON SHIP” and they all jumped out and took off running.
My school once did a parody of Cinderella and I was Cinderellas dog. At one point Cinderella, the Fairy Godmother, and the dog had to flea the ball. I thought going down the stage steps wasn’t dramatic enough for “fleeing” so I launched myself off the stage and landed painfully in the center isle about three rows in accompanied with a very, very loud thump of face on concrete where I laid there like a dead fish for a while. At this point Cinderella and the Fairy Godmother got to me, not knowing what to do they stepped over me and continued running. But Cinderella had forgotten to loose her shoe so half way out of the room she chucked it back where it hit me in the head. I bolted upright and ran shrieking hysterically out of the room. A moment later the Prince came down to where the shoe was picked it up, looked dramatically at where I had exited and said “I hope that dog’s okay.” completely forgetting his line.
This may be my all time favorite post.
I was once in a production of “Hello Dolly!” and the two leads were complete jokers and would prank each other during rehearsals all the time. The rest of the cast never thought they would do that during a show, but they told the chorus (separately) that they each were planning to add some tongue into the final kiss between Dolly and Horace. Of course, we told neither of them about the other’s plan, so during the very last show, we were all waiting in the wings to see what would happen. What happened was we ended the show with the two leads violently frenching each other on stage as the curtain dropped. They started dating two weeks later.
Last year we did “Once Upon a Mattress” and the jester was supposed to do a somersault off of a stack of like 3 mattresses and then the minstrel and Lady Larken would be covered up with a blanket, but during one show the jester knocked down one of the mattresses and we had no time to fix it so we had to throw the mattress on top of them
In my Freshman year of high-school we put on a performance of Les Mis. In said play there’s the scene where Javert and Valjean confront each-other by the bedside of the now dead Fantine. well, Javert Had his prop weapon (I can’t remember if it was a sword or truncheon,) but Valjean didn’t have his. So we the Crew decided during our builds that we’d rig up a chair to break so our Valjean could use one of the broken legs as a club kind of thing. For all of our shows it went off without a hitch, but for the last one we decided to have some fun.
Originally we really just weakened one of the legs so it would break off after our Valjean hurled the chair on the floor, but for the final chair we too saws and cut into everything. All the legs, the back poles, everything. We cut it just enough so that our Valjean would be able to sit in the chair and not break it, but when he tossed it on the ground? Chaos.
And that’s what happened.
All we told him before the show was “When your toss the chair on the ground, give it your all.” And so when the scene came all of the crew gathered behind the legs and assorted hidden places of the stage to watch. When our Valjean hurled the chair to the ground it shattered. Wood and splinters went in practically every direction and I’m sure that I even saw our Fantine flinch as she feigned death. There was no chair leg left for him to use.
So we all got to witness as our Valjean fended off Javert with naught but a splinter.
Fun times.
THERE ARE BETTER STORIES EVERY TIME I LOVE THIS POST SO MUCH
Back in high school our drama department was putting on a comedy, whose name escapes me now, but the intro starts off telling how the hero was born. The two actors playing his parents came out from either side of the stage and joined in the middle and waved at the audience while the narrator spoke the story. At one point he states ’ they had a bouncing baby boy…’ and a toy baby was literally thrown on stage with a ’ AWAAA’ baby sound effect, then was caught by the father and given to the mother.
Now the first show went off without a hitch.
The second show, my friend was the stage hand that threw the baby on stage.
My friend was also the star quarterback for our football team.
Second show comes on, actors meet in the stage and wave, narrator says his line… And from right stage with the sound effect on cue this baby doll was fucking HURLED into the air about 10 fucking feet and dropped like a sack of wet rags down to the actors and the father actually CAUGHT it first try.
I have never in my life seen the 8D face on an actual person until that day.
IT GOT BETTER
god this post is long but I have one more to add:
I just finished a music theatre prep program where our choir teacher was a head music director for a number of shows that ran in the toronto theatre district and one of the first shows he was involved with was the lion king
so the actors are in maybe their third week of previews, its a sunday afternoon show. They had a wooden puppet for the baby Simba that the actor could put their thumbs into the back of to move its little paws. they affectionately called the pupped “Stiffy”
on this specific day my choir teacher is doing his typical job when he hears a commotion backstage. He heads up to mainstage where the actors are coming off after finishing circle of life, the gorgeous, moving opening song that finishes with baby simba held high in the air while all the animals are cheering. the actors are fucking hysterical.
He asked what happened and one of the actors said that right at the climax of the opening, as baby simba is being held over the cliff, “They dropped Stiffy”
When I was Mrs Potts in beauty and the beast our Lumiere went to make his entrance before be our guest and when he ran on stage his shoes lost traction and he fell squarely on his back losing both his candle head and wig…. With out skipping a beat he turned to the audience and said “it looks like I am becoming human again a little earlier tonight” queue audience dying with laughter and all of us staying completely in character.
I was a stage hand for “Bells are Ringing”. We had made very complicated sets we had to wheel out due to them being raised sets. During a set change I and my partner rolled our set out but in the midst of it the lights came on. So I and the other stage hand are left squatting holding the stage so it wouldnt roll away during the dance number. So we are both trying to hold it still since we didnt get a chance to lock it and the beatniks are dancing. Stagehands must wear all black and so were the beatniks in the scene. So we ended up have other stagehands dance on stage to help us lock it in place. We stagehands then conga lined out in the background. It was opening night so every show after it stagehands conga lined through the dance number.
During Peter pan we hand a door that was to descend during stage changes on wires. During the fiight between peter and hook the door fell and landed on out peter. This resulted in hook screaming like a girl and staring fearfully at the sky exclaimming “doors?!” While peter regained himself.
During “You Didnt Say it Was Haunted!?” Which is a scooby doo like comedy murder mystery, the actor playing the Direction tripped during a major chase scene. So he smacks face first onto the stage with a smacking sound and proceeded to crawl under a table so he wouldnt get trampled by two other actors running through with the kiiller chasing them. He then stood up right when the female killer entered near the table which resulted in both screaming and running off into different wings.
During The Little Mermaid Musical our ursula got stuck to one of the sets due to her coostume so she couldnt move the whole scene. So instead she was wall crumping and dancing as if she was in a music video during her song number. The audience were whistling and cheering the whole time.
‘WHY HAS THAT WIP I’M FOLLOWING NOT BEEN UPDATED?’ ROULETTE!
Author got little to no feedback on previous chapter, thinks nobody cares and/or everyone hates the story
Author received negative feedback and thinks everyone hates the story
Author started another story in order to get rid of writer’s block brought on by WIP and is now totally consumed by new story, keeps staring guiltily at WIP reminding his/herself to continue it
Author’s real life suddenly got TOO REAL.
Author got seduced by another fandom
Author doesn’t use sofware that autosaves and lost most of the next chapter, is too lazy to rewrite
Author has sudden case of believing everything they write is absolute shit and doesn’t want to subject you to sub-par work
The story has been pretty much leading up to the next chapter and Author is now procrastinating out of fear and self doubt because they’re pretty sure they’re gonna mess it up
Author thought it was okay to lead into this one plot point, but due to feedback/further reflection, has now realised that they need to write another 3000 words to get there and is not emotionally ready
Author has the next chapter in fifty little individual scenes and they just won’t effin’ knit together
AUTHOR WENT TO GRAD SCHOOL
Author is/has been depressed for 5+ years and is working on mental health issues while in grad school
Author just can’t find the muse to finish and feels godawful about it.
Author is staring down the barrel of a monstrous Work Trip and comes home emotionally and mentally wrecked on the daily.
Author rethought a crucial element of characterization after reading some killer meta and now doesn’t know how to unwrite herself out of the direction the story was going.
Author started the fic over a summer, has now remembered that college is crushing.
So as I person who works nights, i've recently come to appreciate 24 hour food places, and One would imagine that in Gotham most of the super/bat community have as well. batfam sitting in a Waffle House eating 'like normal people', except that it's 4am and everyone in beat9 ways to Sunday. Bruce is still bleeding all over, Damien looks like he's got half a windshield stuck in his face, Dick is 50%sure he just swallowed a molar, and Steph is just shoveling hashnrowns into her mouth and grinning
And the night staff just completely nonplussed about the entire thing.
The young servers getting tipped like $100 and being like “okay they are sleep deprived I need to give this back”
and the older servers just shaking their head and saying, “Dude that’s just what they do get used to it last time someone refused Batman kindly acquiesced and then later they found $200 tucked inside the bottom of their shoes”
“How did they not feel–”
“He’s Batman, Kerry”
And the cooks refusing to serve them anymore coffee after 4:00 because “no you need to go to sleep I won’t have you bouncing around” (generally said to the younger vigilantes (which they blame on Dick’s early Robin days but the fault actually lies with Tim)
However there was that one time an elderly lady diner owner took Batman’s coffee away and he couldn’t get it back. It was quite an event, the kids near worship her now
This whole “trust Tumblr blindly” thing is eventually going to kill someone, as I became pointedly aware of on one occasion I was making fun of how poorly a particular bleach-based drain declogger was working on my sink and got a chorus of really dangerously misinformed people telling me to pour vinegar in after it because all cute little cool kid diy home care blogs they’re following talk about vinegar like it it’s the big secret the cleaning companies don’t want you to know.
And I cringed knowing that someday, some Well Actually expert who read a blog article once is going to give that advice to someone who unfortunately didn’t take high school chemistry and isn’t aware that MIXING VINEGAR AND BLEACH MAKES CHLORINE GAS.
So there has been a bit of “what if humans were the weird ones?” going around tumblr at the moment and Earth Day got me thinking. Earth is a wonky place, the axis tilts, the orbit wobbles, and the ground spews molten rock for goodness sakes. What if what makes humans weird is just our capacity to survive? What if all the other life bearing planets are these mild, Mediterranean climates with no seasons, no tectonic plates, and no intense weather?
What if several species (including humans) land on a world and the humans are all “SCORE! Earth like world! Let’s get exploring before we get out competed!” And the planet starts offing the other aliens right and left, electric storms, hypothermia, tornadoes and the humans are just … there… counting seconds between flashes, having snowball fights, and just surviving.
To paraphrase one of my favorite bits of a ‘humans are awesome’ fiction megapost: “you don’t know you’re from a Death World until you leave it.” For a ton of reasons, I really like the idea of Earth being Space Australia.
Earth being Space Australia
Words cannot express how much I love these posts
Alien: “I’m sorry, what did you just say your comfortable temperature range is?”
Human: “Honestly we can tolerate anywhere from -40 to 50 Celcius, but we prefer the 0 to 30 range.”
Alien: “……. I’m sorry, did you just list temperatures below freezing?”
Human: “Yeah, but most of us prefer to throw on scarves or jackets at those temperatures it can be a bit nippy.”
Other human: “Nah mate, I knew this guy in college who refused to wear anything past his knees and elbows until it was -20 at least.”
Human: “Heh. Yeah everybody knows someone like that.”
Alien: “……. And did you also say 50 Celcius? As in, half way to boiling?”
Human: “Eugh. Yes. It sucks, we sweat everywhere, and god help you if you touch a seatbelt buckle, but yes.”
Alien: “……. We’ve got like 50 uninhabitable planets we think you might enjoy.”
“You’re telling me that you have… settlements. On islands with active volcanism?”
“Well, yeah. I’m not about to tell Iceland and Hawaii how to live their lives. Actually, it’s kind of a tourist attraction.”
“What, the molten rock?”
“Well, yeah! It’s not every day you see a mountain spew out liquid rocks! The best one is Yellowstone, though. All these hot springs and geysers from the supervolcano–”
“You ACTIVELY SEEK OUT ACTIVE SUPERVOLCANOES?”
“Shit, man, we swim in the groundwater near them.”
Sounds like the “Damned” trilogy by Alan Dean Foster.
“And you say the poles of your world would get as low as negative one hundred with wind chill?”
“Yup, with blizzards you cant see through every other day just about.”
“Amazing! when did you manage to send drones that could survive such temperatures?”
“… well, actually…”
“… what?”
“…we kinda……. sent……….. people…..”
“…”
“…”
“…what?”
“we sent-”
“no yeah I heard you I just- what? You sent… HUMANS… to a place one hundred degrees below freezing?”
“y-yeah”
“and they didn’t… die?”
“Well the first few did”
“PEOPLE DIED OF THE COLD AND YOUR SOLUTION WAS TO SEND MORE PEOPLE???!?!?!?”
My new favorite Humans are Weird quote
“PEOPLE DIED OF THE COLD AND YOUR SOLUTION WAS TO SEND MORE PEOPLE?”
aka The History of Russia
aka Arctic Exploration
aka The History of Alaska
‘But surely you have records of volcanic activity doing tremendous damage to human settlements.’
‘Yep. Pompeii is legendary. Entire cities went. Towns buried under lava, peoples’ brains boiled in the first rush of heat, loads more killed by falling pumice.’
‘ah, good, they learned their lesson and didn’t build there again.’
‘…well…’
‘Are you seriously telling me this volcano is legendary for killing several urban conurbations and you built on top of it AGAIN?’
‘In our defence it hasn’t actually done it since.’
‘What about earthquake-prone areas? Tell me you’re at least vaguely sensible about those.’
‘Oh yeah. After the first major earthquake that flattens a city, we build them better.’
And then the aliens learn what it means to “facepalm” despite not having palms per se….
I have no impulse control so I'm requesting more smut. Hamilton/Laurens, post-Monmouth smut, go forth and make me suffer.
*cackling* Yeah, okay. In actual history Laurens’ wound was much
more serious (not that he didn’t earn it), so we’re going to fudge things a
little in favor of…well. Also! In case you’re curious! Being dressed in just shirtsleeves and
breeches was considered UNBELIEVEABLY improper, which I find hilarious because
it covers pretty much the whole body. Also-also, I pictured historical appearances but tried to make it musical-appearance-friendly, with the difference that Ham is SMOL at 5′7″ in comparison to TOL Laurens at like 6′fucking2″.
When John crashes through the door, Alexander
is already surging up from where he’s been sitting in nothing but his dirtied,
in-places-torn shirtsleeves on the edge of the bed. There’s a heartbeat where the conversation
could go either way, but they are who they are, so the tension snaps into
white-hot rage on all parts.
“You absolute fuck,” John seethes as he kicks the door shut behind him with a
click of the bar-lock. “What were you
thinking?”
Alexander throws his hands into the air,
feeling aching muscles snap taut over bone, and snarls, feral. “I was following
my goddamn orders, John, don’t act like I was simply out on the field
looking for a glorious death!” His voice
is half a shout and he has a moment of gratitude that their room is at the far
end of the second story hall housing the majority of the aides-de-camp. The others are used to Alexander and John
getting into shouting matches—not often with each other, but they fight with
whomever else they please, save the General himself. Even if their comrades had all elected to go
to bed at once after departing the field, any hue and cry of argument from the
last room would be dismissed.
in the vein of the previous ask, if I'm not being annoying--top six animal forms you would choose to morph into?
YOU ARE NEVER ANNOYING ME WITH ASK MEMES. Okay, because I am the way I am, the morphs are split up by function rather than ranked, there are more functions but these are the six morphs I would really really want.
Wolf: Battle Morph
Wolves are tough, powerful, and they have hella stamina on the run or in a fight. If I wanted more agility, I’d go timber wolf, if I wanted power and bulk I’d get an arctic wolf/Yellowstone wolf because they’re about the size of a small pony. I’ve always loved wolves, they’re just absolutely stunning animals, and while I lived out in MT I saw a wolf pack face down a hungry grizzly bear, and that means I have capital-R Respect for them.
Grizzly Bear: Battle Morph
Um, we’ve covered that I’ve wanted to be Rachel since I was Smol, right? But that aside, for just pure crushing power, a grizzly is a good bet. Grizzly v. car ends with a totaled car, I know this from seeing the effects, and they can truck along at a good 30 mph given the inclination to do so. Their vision is for shit, but like. They can also swat a person’s head clear off their shoulders like a fucking soccer ball. Who the fuck needs good vision, I don’t even have that as a human and as a human I can’t bat someone’s head off their shoulders.
Red-tailed Hawk: Recon Morph
So, my logic here. First of all, the vision. A bird of prey is the perfect morph for recon because vision. No point getting up close and personal with your target when you can follow them leisurely at half a mile. Second of all, red-tails are the most common hawk in the Americas, and they thrive in just about every habitat warmer than ‘Arctic’ and wetter than ‘desert,’ which makes them much less remarkable than, say, a bald eagle (I love Rachel). Third of all, and this is the reason I went with a more noticeable raptor rather than, say, a rat with wings (I live on the coast and my view on seagulls is…not generous), a hawk is actually worth something in a fight. A female red-tailed hawk can push a five-foot wingspan with a razor-sharp beak and talons, and even the smaller males have the speed and natural weapons to make a menace of themselves in a fight–a seagull, on the other hand, might blend in with the crowd, but they also have fucking webbed feet. And finally, Christ, if I’m going to turn into a bird I’m going to turn into something that can soar for hours, not flit from roof to roof and eat Subway sandwiches momentarily set aside by their owners. In summary: bird of prey. Also Tobias was a fave so I’m predisposed toward red-tails.
Cat: Recon Morph
Okay, hear me out here: alley cats as spies. Cats can hear through walls, there’s literally no reason not to use one as a spy. Stick me on a roof, I’ll eavesdrop all fucking day (with breaks every two hours for demorphing). Also, while cats aren’t very big, they’re generally pretty good in a fight (as anyone who’s been scratched up by an otherwise-friendly housecat will attest) and they’re pound-for-pound one of the most efficient predators in the world. On top of that, stray cats are a common thing in any city–roll around in some dust to scruff yourself up and walk like the streets are yours. Beats the everloving hell out of a housefly morph.
Dolphin: Water Morph
Literally who doesn’t want to be able to turn into a dolphin. No one, that’s who. I fucking love dolphins. I think I made a comment about this in this write-up, but I’m pretty sure being able to morph, and being able to morph dolphins in particular, has great potential as a treatment for depression (assuming you’re not, you know, the last bastion of defiance against an alien invasion). I’d like to submit my name to that clinical trial, someone hit me up. Also, I’m not a confident swimmer but I love the water, so being a dolphin would be EXACTLY aligned with my interests.
Snake: Fun Morph
Am I picky? No. Would this morph literally ever be useful? No. Do I just really, really want to turn into a snake? Yes.
Okay, like, these things are gorgeous and all, and very impressive, all silvery-brown, but they lost a higher spot on the list because they FUCKING SCREAM and the first time I heard one it was like fuck-all midnight in Bumfuck Nowhere, MT, and I was convinced that my family and I were all going to be ax murdered and no one was ever going to know because we lived in a town of 90 people with no law enforcement to speak of where people went missing in the mountains monthly. However, there’s a certain level of badassery to that, so they still made the list.
5. Normal Lion
It’s…a fucking lion…it had to get on the list somewhere on account of being a fucking lion.
4. Cheetah
Did you know that the reason they get cheetahs dog-friends is because cheetahs are so high-strung that they basically can’t function as creatures? So they get therapy dogs to, like, lower their blood pressure. And honestly same. Also the science of how cheetahs run so fucking fast is AMAZING and makes me happy, they’re like spotted Slinkies with legs.
3. Snow Leopard
MAXIMUM FLOOF. There’s a picture somewhere of a snow leopard with its tail in its mouth and I can’t find it BUT I LOVE THAT PICTURE. Snow leopards are the perfect combination of lethality and floof. Also they do parkour, basically, and you have not truly admired a creature until you’ve seen a snow leopard run across a wall.
2. Black Panther
Actually black panthers are melanistic jaguars! But I like them a lot and kind of always have, I have a toy black panther I’ve had since I was very wee, her name is Casseopia, I think. I was on an astronomy kick. They’re amazing and their black coats are so sleek and beautiful and I’m a fan.
And coming in at Number 1. Siberian Tiger
Everyone remembers how I read Far Too Much Animorphs at the age of seven, yes? I have a genuine adoration for the Siberian tiger because it’s Jake’s battle morph. And furthermore: look at this gorgeousness. How could I NOT.
They’re big, sleek, beautiful, and their numbers are (very very slowly) on the rise. I love them very much.
In conclusion: as we’ve seen, I know little to nothing about big cats, but I like them anyway.
Sean Bean hiking up to the Lord of the Rings sets bc he’s afraid of helicopters is even funnier when you hear that Viggo Mortensen did the exact same thing, except Viggo’s reason for hiking to the sets was bc he wanted to be authentically travel-worn
Like literally you have Boromir doing this pretty cool thing bc he’s scared to death of the alternative while Aragorn just does it for The Aesthetic™
So there has been a bit of “what if humans were the weird ones?” going around tumblr at the moment and Earth Day got me thinking. Earth is a wonky place, the axis tilts, the orbit wobbles, and the ground spews molten rock for goodness sakes. What if what makes humans weird is just our capacity to survive? What if all the other life bearing planets are these mild, Mediterranean climates with no seasons, no tectonic plates, and no intense weather?
What if several species (including humans) land on a world and the humans are all “SCORE! Earth like world! Let’s get exploring before we get out competed!” And the planet starts offing the other aliens right and left, electric storms, hypothermia, tornadoes and the humans are just … there… counting seconds between flashes, having snowball fights, and just surviving.
To paraphrase one of my favorite bits of a ‘humans are awesome’ fiction megapost: “you don’t know you’re from a Death World until you leave it.” For a ton of reasons, I really like the idea of Earth being Space Australia.
Earth being Space Australia
Words cannot express how much I love these posts
Alien: “I’m sorry, what did you just say your comfortable temperature range is?”
Human: “Honestly we can tolerate anywhere from -40 to 50 Celcius, but we prefer the 0 to 30 range.”
Alien: “……. I’m sorry, did you just list temperatures below freezing?”
Human: “Yeah, but most of us prefer to throw on scarves or jackets at those temperatures it can be a bit nippy.”
Other human: “Nah mate, I knew this guy in college who refused to wear anything past his knees and elbows until it was -20 at least.”
Human: “Heh. Yeah everybody knows someone like that.”
Alien: “……. And did you also say 50 Celcius? As in, half way to boiling?”
Human: “Eugh. Yes. It sucks, we sweat everywhere, and god help you if you touch a seatbelt buckle, but yes.”
Alien: “……. We’ve got like 50 uninhabitable planets we think you might enjoy.”
“You’re telling me that you have… settlements. On islands with active volcanism?”
“Well, yeah. I’m not about to tell Iceland and Hawaii how to live their lives. Actually, it’s kind of a tourist attraction.”
“What, the molten rock?”
“Well, yeah! It’s not every day you see a mountain spew out liquid rocks! The best one is Yellowstone, though. All these hot springs and geysers from the supervolcano–”
“You ACTIVELY SEEK OUT ACTIVE SUPERVOLCANOES?”
“Shit, man, we swim in the groundwater near them.”
Sounds like the “Damned” trilogy by Alan Dean Foster.
“And you say the poles of your world would get as low as negative one hundred with wind chill?”
“Yup, with blizzards you cant see through every other day just about.”
“Amazing! when did you manage to send drones that could survive such temperatures?”
“… well, actually…”
“… what?”
“…we kinda……. sent……….. people…..”
“…”
“…”
“…what?”
“we sent-”
“no yeah I heard you I just- what? You sent… HUMANS… to a place one hundred degrees below freezing?”
“y-yeah”
“and they didn’t… die?”
“Well the first few did”
“PEOPLE DIED OF THE COLD AND YOUR SOLUTION WAS TO SEND MORE PEOPLE???!?!?!?”
My new favorite Humans are Weird quote
“PEOPLE DIED OF THE COLD AND YOUR SOLUTION WAS TO SEND MORE PEOPLE?”
so my english professor told us this story last year about how he met his wife and it’s completely possible that he made it up just to entertain us but he says it happened and the story is this
he’s a a cruise with his parents to australia where he’s gonna spend a year or so for some reason. can’t remember why but it was job related. his mom is worried that if he spends too long away from her without her constant advice (my mom is also like this lol) he’s going to do something impulsive and ridiculous.
so, he decides to prank her by pretending to get married to a woman he just met. because he’s obviously so impulsive and ridiculous. so he’s talking to people and stuff and he asks this woman if she’s cool with pretending to marry him to prank his parents. and she says yes. then he goes and talks to the captain and crewmembers and he’s like “i have this ridiculously funny prank where i’m going to pretend to marry this lovely woman to freak out my mom.” and they, of course, reply hell yeah. so like since the first mate has the power to marry people, i guess, he agrees to the fake wedding.
so at lunch he’s like “mom, dad, this is alyssa. i met her last night and we’re in love and also getting married.” and his mom freaks out and that could be that. but no.
if they’re gonna do this they’re gonna go big or go home.
so, he changes his facebook status to “married to alyssa” and invites all his friends to his wedding in the middle of the ocean. (and they believe him and congratulate him and he’s concerned that his friends think he would really marry a random woman he met like six hours ago)
now his mom is getting really nervous b/c alyssa (the fake bride) got her friends she was on the cruise to be her bridesmaids. they got the first mate to “marry” then at dinner in front of people. the mom is horrified.
anyway the next day he goes “just kidding!” and it’s hilarious. but then he has to contact all his friends who were calling him on the phone and stuff to congratulate him to tell them it was an elaborate joke and they all think he’s an asshole and he and alyssa part ways but keep in touch b/c they… actually get along pretty well.
anyway like a year later they meet up again in boston (i think? big city that wasnt new york) and talk and end up dating for like a year and then end up engaged for real. and now he invites his friends to his real wedding and all their RSVPs essentially say “i’ll show up, but if this is another fake one i’ll fucking murder you” and the mom just flat out didnt believe him for a month because she’s not falling for that again.
and now they’ve been married happily for like three years and they’re expecting their second child who has probably been born by now
and the overall point of this post is: imagine your otp
Well this is a prompt for fic if I’ve ever seen one.
godspeed to everyone in retail out there working thanksgiving / black friday. stay hydrated and don’t let the shitty customers get to you too much, it’ll go faster than you think.
one of my favorite tropes is when a character who is sort of morally mediocre and Only In It For Themself is dragged kicking and screaming into caring about other people and doing good things
when people point out a scene/particular line(s) that tugged at their heartstrings
when people ask for your meta of your work that they enjoyed so much
when someone comments on a fic you wrote 982783113502 years ago
getting recc’d
just the small happiness in knowing you made someone out there smile on their way to work/home or at school, in knowing you warmed someone’s heart somehow
