I’m fucking dying; we’ve got this three year old over, and he finds our Green Lantern mask, so he comes up to me wearing it and asks what Green Lantern’s powers are. So I tell him Green Lantern has a ring that can ‘make anything he imagines’ (I mean he’s three, I’m not going to Get Into It) and he runs off.
And like 40 seconds later, we hear, “Ring, make me into the Flash!”
When Harry gets his first place after Hogwarts that actually has more than one floor, he comes home after getting a load of boxes to find Hermione using a sledgehammer on the drywall beneath the stairs. And Ron’s like, “Look, mate, I borrowed this stuff from my dad, I’ve got a DRILL and a - what’s it called again, Hermione?” “A stud finder.” “Right, one of those, and we’re going to fix your stairs.” Harry’s like, “But there’s nothing wrong with them.” “Yes, Harry, there is.” Harry’s just sort of standing there in total bewilderment while Hermione totally demolishes the wall. “We couldn’t have done that with magic?” “No, Harry, this is personal. You two take this mess out to the skip.” And then Harry stands around a while longer and Hermione puts in support beams in the appropriate places so the stairs don’t fall in, and Ron’s very excited about using the stud finder even though Hermione won’t let him use the drill. When they’re finished, Harry has this set of shelves. So he says, still completely confused, “I thought we picked this place because it had loads of storage.” And Hermione says, “Go get some of my books. I know it’s just shelves, but it’s not a bloody cupboard.”
And every time Harry moves for the rest of his life, Ron and Hermione are there on moving day and they knock out anything under the stairs, even if it’s just a wall. Hermione reads a lot of books. Ron learns to use a miter saw and a carpenter’s square and practices the nail hammering spell until he can do it perfectly on the first try. And sometimes it isn’t very practical but it looks nice…
And sometimes, when they all get older and have children, it’s cozy and has a purpose…
And eventually Hermione gets the trick of there being nothing under the stairs at all…
Which is the story of how Harry Potter never lived in a house with a cupboard under the stairs again for the entire rest of his life.
Some Nat/Steve friend fluff for @littlestartopaz, in
that soulmate AU from earlier, reading it probably isn’t necessary but I’m always in search of approbation. This is
probably just a few months after the Avengers were formed, in my bastardized
movies-comics-wishful-thinking-verse where they all live in Avengers Tower.
Steve and Natasha are sparring, because Steve gets nervous about
sparring with fragile normal humans and Natasha is willing to bully him into
it. Tony isn’t generally one to spar,
given the suit, and Clint’s still recovering from the cracked rib he sustained
on their last mission, and Thor, who could take Steve’s full strength punch
without batting an eye, is still off-planet handling his psychopath
brother. (No one asks Bruce to spar,
because they all like being un-splatted.)
So Natasha drags Steve’s protesting ass into the ring and punches him in
the face until he fights back. Unless he
manages to actually grab her, it’s a pretty fair match.
It’s a system, okay, and if Natasha thinks it’s funny that he’s afraid
he’ll hurt her, that’s between her and the inside of her own skull.
You just decimated that cat-caller, please marry me?
I’m moving and as I was carrying my table out of my old building I dropped it and a leg fell off and I cannot deal with this today but you just said ‘I got this’, busted a hammer and nails out of your purse, and started fixing my table in the middle of the sidewalk?
I saw somebody following you so I was trying to catch up and tell you but I was too late and you just stone cold judo-flipped that mugger and I was going to offer to make sure you got home safe but on second thought would you mind walking me home?
My incredibly stupid cat just jumped out of my apartment window after a bird and you caught her in your arms like a baby and looked up, stared me dead in the eye and said “I think you dropped something”
You walked into my shop, ordered three black coffees like you were on a coffee run for your friends or something, and then shotgunned them one after another right in front of me and I am concerned
Due to some kind of accidental spark all of the fireworks in the back of my car are now all exploding at the same time so I abandoned ship only to watch you bust out a fire extinguisher and rescue my poor car how can I thank you
“My daughter, she tells me when she grows up she wants to be a singer or a comic. I said ‘Well, baby, if you wanna be a comic, you gotta be a writer. But don’t worry, you’ve got tons of material: Your mother is a manic depressive, drug addict. Your father’s gay. Your grandmother tap dances and your grandfather eats hearing aids.’ And my daughter laughs and laughs and laughs and I said ‘Baby, the fact that you know that’s funny is gonna save your whole life.’”—Carrie Fisher (via mybodywakesup)
The problem with shipping a niche ship: you read all the fanfiction in one afternoon and if you want some more you have to write it yourself.
The problem with shipping a popular ship: 16,835 results on AO3. You start playing with tags and sorting through it, full of determination, confident that with so many fanfics you’re bound to find something you’ll like. Two hours, 30 instances of awful writing, 8 squick-outs,13 wtf AUs and 157 just plain uninteresting later you have to rush back to the canon to even remember why you liked the ship in the first place.
The problem with a popular ship: there are 6,285 fics similar to yours and you can’t help but compare your writing with others
The problem with writing a niche ship: you write only for yourself + your best friend who’s either your enabler or just feels sorry for you
I know this is utterly ridiculous to think in a time like this, but I feel like my Animorphs tumblr friends would understand. Ever since last night, I’ve had a line from the Andalite death ritual in book #18 stuck in my head on a loop. “My life is not my own, when the People have need of it.” The People have never had more need. My life is not my own. It’s time to devote it to protecting freedom, in any way I might.
also about that comment on yeerks smothering each other: i’m pretty sure one of the really big social problems yeerks faced was that yeerks in their natural state cannot individually murder each other. they’re softbodied aquatic invertebrates. they have nothing to murder each other with.
killing a yeerk would be a group effort: they would either have to bury a yeerk in the silt of the bottom of the pool and guard him for days, or slowly push a rock on top of that yeerk until he’s crushed, or by group effort isolate and then shove the yeerk out of the pool on to dry land and keep him there until he dries out. these group efforts would be exhaustive and require extensive, determined coordination. basically, yeerks have only ever executed each other.
unfortunately, yeerks gain the capacity to murder people in the space of… a day. a week at the outside. monday: no yeerks had ever murdered anyone. friday: they’d shot like three andalites and were starting in on shooting each other.
yeerks are not emotionally equipped to understand murder. they understand death, and predators, and maybe even socially-mandated execution. but a species with no real form of organized warfare or interpersonal violence gets its hands on guns and spaceships and goes basically fucking nuts. think about it: humans know we can fuck each other up. all our cultures acknowledge and regulate our capacity— and our desire— to kill people we hate.
yeerks don’t have that. yeerks have never had that. they suddenly get that and they go fucking nuts. roughly fifty years later they are still fucking nuts, only even more so because they’ve locked themselves into this completely unnatural, artificial social situation— a highly regimented life of total war— and any yeerk with a host now has the capacity to kill. and they kill each other a lot. their whole ranking system boils down to ‘who is allowed to kill who’. esplin 9466 gets an andalite body but still has a yeerk’s mind, a yeerk’s total lack of… control, awareness, something, and he just fucking starts chopping heads off and never slows down.
the ultimate fridge horror of the animorphs, i think, is that the yeerks themselves are child soldiers: terribly young people in a terrible situation, born into a war they didn’t start, forced to use alien technologies that mutiliate their sense of self, their capacity for pain, their ability to relate to noncombatants, even their fellow combatants. the first victim of the yeerk empire was the yeerks themselves.
Carrie Fisher was important to so many people. she was important to me. I wanted to meet her.
I read that she would’ve liked people to report that she drowned in moonlight, strangled by her own bra. so – that’s what happened. she drowned in moonlight, strangled by her own bra, bc space stuff.
theres a new product by verzion called “hum” that allows your parents to track your car and places you go, if your parents are controlling like mine please check under your steering wheel to make sure that they havent installed this
here is what it looks like installed:
you can read more about it here, and here- this excerpt sums up what information Hum will send:
“a car’s owner will be able to get notified on their phone when the vehicle leaves a pre-determined area or drives faster than a set speed… [Hum] will enable location tracking and a driving log, which measures travel times, engine idle times, and average speeds.”
People in abusive relationships, please check your cars.
I also accidentally befriended a pro Widowmaker by the name of Belpheagor. She kept landing headshots on me and after like the 6th time I wrote in the chat, “Widow plz” because I know from prior experience that it tends to work.
She wrote back, “Mercy I’m sorry, but I have to.” After that she only landed body shots on me, but she was definitely more hesitant to land any shots on me.
Later, I was going around the back of the point to try and get to someone and I ran point blank into her. She stared at me through her scope for a few seconds; I “Hello!”ed to try and pull on her heartstrings. She shot the Pharah coming up behind me, gave me a look, and then grappled away.
She wrote in the chat, “Did you see how I didn’t shoot you” and next thing I know I had a friend request from her.
2017, understand that, given the shit you have inherited from your immediate predecessors, you are considered guilty until proven innocent. You carry this burden.
I’m here for “intimidating” girls. The “I thought you were mean when I first saw you” girls. The girls with “Resting Bitch™” faces. The girls that scare the men that try to catcall them. The girls that stand in their strong ass opinions. The girls that take no shit and get called a Bitch™ for it.
I love y'all and I hope y'all have a good day today.
and this, emphasized for black girls
My nickname around town used to be Miin the Bitch and I wore it with pride.
Sooooo, for the sake of pain, can I have a Nat/Clint fic for the OTP song thing for "Castle of Glass" by Linkin Park
*cackling* All right, let’s play. Trigger warning for…Red Room shit. There’s more of this story, of course, after the events of the last scene, but I felt like this was a good place to end it.
Bring me home in a blinding dream, Through the secrets that I have seen Wash the sorrow from off my skin And show me how to be whole again
‘Cause I’m only a crack in this castle of glass Hardly anything there for you to see
She is very small when she learns what they mean, the words inscribed
over the curve of her hipbone. Not the
words themselves—they’re not Russian, not even the right alphabet, her parents
say they’re French and she wonders
what it means. But they are her soulmate,
her parents say. Someday, somewhere,
someone will say them to her, and that will be the person the universe has
created just for her.
She smiled and traces her fingers over the words, over and over, and
wonders who it will be.
And then her life catches fire and burns to ash, and she is taken away
by a tall man with a solemn face, and given a new name.
Natalia grows up, and learns, and fights, and bleeds.
do you ever watch something and think “this was written by a man”
i was up late night watching an episode of criminal minds fairly recently, for lack of a better thing to do. in the opening scene there are these two girls getting into their car in like a supermarket parking lot, not very well lit, in the middle of the night. another car drives up right behind theirs and won’t move out of the way so this one girl is like “im gonna go see what this guy’s problem is” and gets out of the car, in a poorly lit parking lot, to confront a man who was behaving aggressively to them.
so that was the precise moment i realised that episode was written by a man.
I was watching an episode of CSI where the entire reason they were going forward with the case was that ‘no woman would wear a bra this expensive without also wearing the matching panties’. What porn logic is this? I was, at that moment, wearing the exact bra the Jane Doe was wearing and fuck no I didn’t spring for the matching panties. Even if I did, I wouldn’t wear them as often as a bra. Panties I wash daily. Bras? Not so much.
But in CSI World, police resources were being mobilized on how irregular it would be for a woman to wear a $36 bra, but not caring about how she would look in just underthings.
Never mind not matching, but that they think $36 is expensive for a bra is probably the number one sign it was written by a man.
I just said the phrase “he doesn’t seem like the brightest knife in the toolshed” to myself which after a moment of thinking about it is a perfect mashup of “doesn’t seem like the brightest bulb in the box”/”he doesn’t seem like the sharpest knife in the drawer”/”he doesn’t seem like the sharpest tool in the shed” which are three completely independent sayings that all mean the exact same thing.
So what I’m getting at is I think despite the absolute literal nonsense the meaning still holds and I now plan to say that for everything.
I usually say “doesn’t seem like the shiniest rock in the garden” because the look on people’s faces is hilarious.
This is the best photo I can find of him, you guys. I’m sorry. You should all draw fanart of him because he’s the best. And you know I wouldn’t make such a claim without hard evidence to back it up.
He was born a slave on a Virginia plantation. The year was either 1748 or 1760. Seriously, fans of Hamilton think they have it hard with his age having two years of uncertainty. Try TWELVE.
The name Armistead came from his owner, William Armistead. William Armistead was apparently “a man of strong peculiarities, a gentleman of the old school, wearing knee buckles and retaining English tastes.” (source) Despite his English tastes, several of his sons fought in the Revolution; one of them was killed at the Battle of Brandywine.
We don’t know very much about Armistead’s youth, but I think it’s fair to say it sucked. However, we also know that he learned how to read and write at some point. This would come in handy later.
In 1781, the war came to Virginia. Cornwallis was wreaking havoc and Lafayette, outgunned outmanned etc., was desperately attempting to annoy him without being captured or crushed. It was apparently at this time (at the age of either 21 or 33) that James Armistead asked for and received permission to join Lafayette’s command.
Conditions for former slaves under the British were significantly better than under the Americans. (Witness, John Laurens’ extreme difficulties trying to get a black battalion approved by South Carolina’s legislature. Meanwhile, the British were offering emancipation to slaves who would fight for them. They were using them as cannon fodder and manual laborers, but still.)
James and Lafayette hit it off. Lafayette was an abolitionist, and he quickly realized that James had qualities (e.g. he was literate and quick-witted, but, being black, was also likely to be overlooked) that made him suitable for intelligence work. And, as he wrote to Hamilton around that time, “I shall work devilish hard for intelligences.” (source)
James crafted a plausible story for himself: that he had escaped a cruel owner and wanted to join the British for a shot at freedom. The first person he convinced of this story? BENEDICT FUCKING ARNOLD.
Let that sink in. Benedict Arnold, infamous turncoat, who knew exactly what to look for in a double agent because he had been one himself for two years. Who was only caught because John Andre got himself captured! And Arnold never suspected a thing. And I QUOTE, “Arnold was so convinced of Armistead’s pose as a runaway slave that he
used him to guide British troops through local roads. Armistead often
traveled between camps, spying on British officers, who spoke openly
about their strategies in front of him. Armistead documented this
information in written reports, delivered them to other American spies,
and then return to General Cornwallis’s camp.” (source)
Are you impressed yet? I know I am. IT GETS BETTER.
At this time, Lafayette’s forces were extremely underfunded and bedraggled, and the state of Virginia wasn’t exactly doing its part to supply food/ men (thanks, Governor of Virginia at the time Thomas Jefferson). There were times when it got precarious. Good intel helped Lafayette stay a step ahead.
After Arnold got reassigned James started spying on Cornwallis instead. You know where this is going, right? Cornwallis decided to encamp on this peninsula called Yorktown that is totally not famous at all and wait for the British fleet to come up and take him and his troops away. Lafayette encircled him by land.
This whole time, James was sending Lafayette intelligence about Cornwalls; his mood, his supply situation, morale in camp, the health of the men, how the fortifications were arranged. How did he send his messages, you ask? Dead drop? Smoke signals? Strategic petticoat patterns?
He. Fucking. Walked. From camp to camp. Time after fucking time. (source) How he talked the British into being okay with this, I have no idea, but he somehow did it. Presumably, it was his hard and incredibly risky work that let Lafayette know that Cornwallis was determined to wait for the British fleet to arrive (hint: it wasn’t coming) and that many of his men were sick with malaria (which Lafayette also caught because this part of Virginia was swampy af) and various other fevers. In other words, they were sitting ducks.
Furthermore, Armistead was the ONLY SUCCESSFUL SPY in Yorktown. All the others were either a) caught or b) unable to get good information. (source)
Seriously, if we were making Hamilton lines more accurate, we should change it to, “How did we know that this plan would work? We had a spy on the inside, that’s right JAMES ARMISTEAD!!!”
After the war James wound up a slave again, because life is incredibly unfair. There was a bill that allowed emancipation of slaves who served as soldiers during the Revolution. Can you believe the sheer levels of dickery it must have required for people to argue that this didn’t apply to James, because he had been a spy and not technically fought? He’d put his life on the line every damn day!
James petitioned for his freedom. Lafayette wrote him a letter of reference to support his case, because really, it was only fucking fair. He won his freedom, changed his name to James Armistead Lafayette, and settled down on a farm, where he had a giant family and died in 1830 (or 1832?) at the ripe old age of 70, or 72, or 82, or 84.
OH WAIT I ALMOST FORGOT THE CUTEST PART, although this story is apocryphal and I can’t find a good source. Lafayette returned to the U.S. in 1824 as an old man to tour around, visit old buddies like wacky ol’ TJeff, preside over shit being named after him, and generally be applauded and gushed over and adored from all sides. Apparently he was sitting in a carriage, in the middle of a parade in his honor, when he spots James in the crowd and LEAPS out of the carriage and hauls the guy into a bear hug. Which, okay, maybe it never happened, but my heart wants to believe it’s true.
In conclusion:
1. James Armistead Lafayette was an utter badass
2. Lafayette could have been captured playing cat-and-mouse with Cornwallis in Virginia without him.
3. The Patriots might not have recognized Yorktown for the golden opportunity it was without him
4. The Battle of Yorktown could have been lost without him.
5. Tell your friends, tell your family.
6. If he’s not in Turn eventually I will lose my shit.
7. You should all write fic and draw art about him and then tag me in it so I can reblog it
If writers took every bit of writing advice that was in the format ‘Don’t use X part of the English language’, all English fiction would read like Spot the dog
Haha okay, the teacher I have for YA Lit is amazing. I had her for Sci-Fi Fiction before. But the thing is she was given this class five days before it started since she’s taking over for another teacher.
If they’re going to reference the comic books in later movies regarding Scarlet Vision, I kinda hope it’s that time Wanda punched a girl in the face shouting ‘nobody gives my husband a lap dance except me!’ whilst Vision looked on scandalised.
do you ever just kinda wonder what your selling point as a human being or friend is? like, what was the point at which people were like: hey, I’ll keep this human
do you have feelings about hozier/take me to church/from eden/his whole deal??
Here’s what I wrote about Hozier in 2014
Hozier’s music is this masochistic gospel blues offering to some profane woman-god of whiskey and rough love who probably blows cigarette smoke in the shape of the snake who tempted Eve and I am so here for it.
I essentially stand by it. If we’re going to do the “my significant other is my religion” thing, I want it to be Hozier. He like…gives it a nuance and depth I have hitherto not seen.
From Eden is EXCELLENT and I am very picky about my ficticious depictions of Satan. From Eden is kind of like…the Satan in all of us? The Satan washed up on your front doorstep at 2 am hurting from his own mistakes but not yet ready to ask for forgiveness Like:
Honey, you’re familiar like my mirror years ago Idealism sits in prison, chivalry fell on its sword Innocence died screaming, honey, ask me I should know I slithered here from Eden just to sit outside your door
Just putting this out there cause I’ve had about twenty asks calling me a ‘total fucking weirdo’ a ‘deluded fangirl’ and a ‘brainless tumblerina’ for shipping Vision and Wanda:
PLEASE IMAGINE THE FIRST TIME AN ALIEN HAS ONE OF THEIR HUMAN FRIENDS DIE
‘so hey, that was a great funeral, cool outfits, always glad to learn more about your culture and stuff. So, when is she coming back?’
‘She- she’s not coming back’
‘Yeah, not as Megan, but when is her replacement coming back?’
‘We’re- not hiring anyone new for a couple weeks???’
‘no no no, you’re not getting what I’m saying- I want to ask her about that book she lent me- can I keep it for another week or two, or does her new version want it back?’
The humans stare at the alien and just. slowly start to figure out what the alien is saying. The alien shuffles nervously, their six spindly legs making a skritching noise that echoes in the cold chapel. Finally, the kindest of the humans takes the alien aside and-
‘hey. so. Us humans don’t come back when we die. Not like you do.’
‘what? No, but you clearly talk about reincarnation, and-’
‘Those are just stories, Six. When humans die, we’re gone. We don’t come back.’
The alien laughs ‘No, see, cuz that would mean that- that would mean. That Megan- Megan is-’ The alien cuts off the hissing noise that is their equivalent of a sob. ‘I have to go.’
The alien spends a week in their spaceship, the only place they can send communication to their Mother. When they come back, their carapace is a glistening new shade of red, and they’ve ended up as a different gender. When the lab adviser asks them how they are feeling about Megan-
‘Megan? Oh, yes, my previous version was very fond of Megan.’ The alien cocks their head, like a particularly thoughtful bird. ‘I suppose that I regret her loss. She was a valuable member of the team.’
The lab adviser lets this be- they are aliens after all. But later, when lab hours are done, the adviser notices Six double and triple-checking all the lab equipment, especially- well. The accident that took Megan will never happen again.
The book is never returned.
Now imagine the flip side: Sevan finds out his human friend is due to have a baby in six months. Six months! He asks, and finds that no, there’s no way to delay a human birth. In six months, a new version of his friend will emerge. Will they still like space operas? What about visiting that smoothie place in quadrant 6? Will they even still want to be friends?
His friend asks him to be visit the baby, after it’s born. Of course, of course he will. It’s the least he can do. There’s always that vulnerable phase after birth when you haven’t got the hang of the new motor controls, and everyone needs a helping palp for the first few months.
The night he hears that the new baby has been born, he wails quietly and recites the qualities of his friend that he will miss the most.
Three days later, he gathers his resolve and knocks on the hatch of his friend’s place. Strangely, the access panel hasn’t been lowered - rude. He’ll make sure that’s one of the first things changed. His friends partner opens the door and lets him in and there - there is his friend,looking tired but well, a miniature copy of herself held in her arms. Imagine his joy when he finds out that not only will he get to spend longer with his current friend, but there will be another friend to get to know!
ah yes they call me “No Queue” Jones because I post everything I reblog at once with no breaks in between and then vanish into the night for extended periods of inactivity
can i just give a special shoutout to all the fedex, UPS, and mail delivery people because they work hard as fuck especially this time of year like my family had a combined total of like 30 different packages in the past few weeks and the delivery people really did #that
