hey, i'm thinking of watching leverage- can you, like, explain it to me
Imagine if Robin Hood was in the 21st century except instead of King John it’s major corporations and instead of Robin Hood it’s an alcoholic ex-insurance cop lying to himself about being a good man and so hardbitten noir you practically choke on the cigarette smoke
oh and instead of the Merry Men you’ve got a hacker with a heart of gold who once drained the Icelandic bank for his grandmother’s medical bills, a self-loathing hitter who likes to pretend he’s an island when in actuality all he wants is someone to ask him to stay, and a thief who doesn’t melt or soften so much as find her footing, her home, and people who love her.
(also, spoilers, they are all married)
………..and Maid Marian is actually a grifter par excellence, femme fatale in the grand noir tradition, who is selfish and kind and the closest thing to a functional adult in the group, which is sort of terrifying, except for all the parts where it is amazing
Okay, so, question about the HamDevil AU (which is everything to me, by the way, I adore it): how the hell do clients react when they wander into dinky broken-down Nelson and Murdock and get told "This is Alex Hamilton, he'll be handling your case, if he gets off on a ramble ignore him, and make sure he puts the right year on your file because Karen might kill him if he keeps dating them 1804"?
I caught some time on my Singapore trip so I could answer this on my phone! so forgive me if it’s a bit scattershot.
by the time the story itself takes place, people have had some time to get used to the idea of a founding father hanging around New York fighting people, so it stands to reason he would’ve found work at some point. still, at first it wasn’t widely known that Alexander had started working at N&M, so the poor soul who walked in first right after the guy was hired probably nearly had a heart attack.
and word has a tendency to spread in Hell’s Kitchen, so N&M experienced a brief boom in popularity, during which a fuckload of clients specifically requested that Hamilton handle their cases. said clients v quickly found out that the musical was not exaggerating when it came to his, er, verbose tendencies.
I wonder how many awkward things people have said to me I’ve completely forgotten about but still makes someone cringe randomly when they are trying to sleep.
“but being abused made you so kind!” being abused made me terrified of being anything less than perfectly accommodating and pleasing in an effort to protect myself from the violence my abuser reacted with but okay whatever
Also see “You’re so mean now. I liked you better before.”
You liked me when I was completely accommodating out of residual fear and now I have basic boundaries and a shred of self confidence it inconveniences you.
“And Hamilton was not always scholarly, especially not when writing for Fenno’s Gazette about the devil, who he believed had been incarnated as Thomas Jefferson.”—Eric Burns, Infamous Scribblers (via aaronsburrr)
i find ‘wait for it’ hilarious because apparently Burr’s entire philosophy in life is “I can be master of my own self, but some things are beyond my control. life and death. love, my past, forces of nature. and Hamilton, I also cannot control Hamilton.”
people who complain about dinosaurs “not being scary anymore” because its been discovered they have feathers and are closely related to/ancestors of birds are so bizarre like
its not about how scary they are, they are/were real life animals and what matters is learning more about them, not how well they fit into your science fiction horror film lol
can you imagine a 13 foot chicken running at you with full intent to eat you??? thats fucking terrifying holy shit
peacocks are synonymous with vain, frivolous beauty and they will attack cars. they will attack you while you try to get to your car. they’re like six feet of useless feathers and they will destroy you. imagine if they were carnivorous and had functional spurs.
a t-rex could look like a gay disco ball and i guarantee that you would fucking book it if it had a problem with you
listen
listen
have you ever met a swan
if anything the birdier they get the scarier they are
Also, I personally am quite fond of the mental image of a Majestic As Fuck pack of feathered raptors that are also capable of brutal evisceration.
I mean, what part of that doesn’t sound deeply, viscerally alarming?
As a kid, my family kept geese as guard animals. And these geese were the most effective GUARD ANIMALS because they would rush at anyone while simultaneously beating their 3 foot wings and biting. Once they broke a man’s femur who was trespassing. A grown ass man’s LEG.
Yeah, if I knew that a 6 foot tall goose lived in the world, I might never go outside.
I love using “my guy” and “my dude” and “kiddos” and “friend” for everything because there’s so much affection yet an unbelievable amount of sarcasm and that pretty much describes my personality
tumblr friendships are hard to maintain like im sorry i know i havent talked to you in 5 months but you’re still super rad and i still consider us friends im just dumb
so okay i know you specified lgbtq+ kids who had been kicked out but my parents are really abusive(not. physically or sexually) but. they think they're the best parents but they terrify me and please adopt me you seem like the best oerson
SWEETIE, yes, of course, absolutely, come here. *hugs you* (Although, oh God, I hope I haven’t convinced you that I actually…like…have my shit together at all, I am a flailing pre-med student eyeing senior year with apprehension. BUT I will totally be your Tumblr mom, I will be everyone’s Tumblr mom, come tell me about your day and let me remind you to eat and take care of yourselves.)
And BELIEVE ME, I know the feeling of people who believe they’re just wonderful and just…are not. It’s a very particular kind of terrible, isn’t it? Especially when they have the rest of the world convinced, and then turn around and are emotionally (or otherwise) abusive to you. You are tough as nails for dealing, I am so proud of you, I am so proud of you, God. Just…you’ll live through this, sweetie, you really will, and it’ll be hard and it’ll be awful and it’ll be terrible and then one day it’ll be over, okay? And just…it’s not about being all right every day, about magically being fine as soon as it’s over. It’s not. It’s about surviving. And then someday you’re going to blink and look up and realize that you’ve had more good days than bad and that you’re more at ease in your skin and that you’re better. I am not fixed, I am not fine, sometimes I still have to bite down a panic attack when I have to talk to my grandmother or a scream when my grandfather starts talking about ‘well, medicine is awfully competitive, I just hope you know what you’re getting into, it can be rough on women, you know’ and spirals into cruel remarks. But I’m better. I really am. It’s really possible. And you’re gonna make it through this, sweetie, you really are, and I’m so proud of you for making it this far.
You are now my Tumblr child, feel free to either come off anon or come back on anon and just identify yourself. (If there are more of you I’ll start handing out nicknames. Greek letters or something, if you don’t want to come off anon.)
All right, drink some water, make sure you’ve had something to eat, get sleep, take care of yourself. Moran decrees it.
I love the phrase “what the entire fuck” because it implies that there exists some scenario that warrants only a “what the partial fuck”.
Well, since there are clearly scenarios which warrant giving zero fucks, it
seems plausible to infer that there exists a 0 … 1 scale of fuckitude, containing a potentially infinite number of fractional fuckery scenarios.
Fractional Fuckery Scenarios is going to be my first short story collection.
Whereas ‘what the actual fuck’ implies that there are metaphorical or theoretical fucks in play.
Dude, you missed fictional fucks, which is both excellent alliteration and hilarious.
Solidarity between girls when one of their boyfriends fucks up is great. Group chat, screenshots, all the sudden it’s The People v Shit Boyfriend court is now in session is the prosecution ready to make an openin statement
En Anglais, on ne dit pas “quatre vingt dix neuf”, on dit “ninety nine” qu'on pourrait traduire comme “Hurr durr, regardez mois, j'ai un système de numérotation fonctionnel” et je crois que c'est magnifique.
Full disclosure, I parlez exactly no Francais, but I speak enough Spanish and Latin to fucking laugh my ass off at this every time.
Bucky cap is really funny bc Steve never had weapons so all the villains only had to watch out for the shield, but then comes Bucky and
One of my favorite parts from bucky!cap is when he tries to give guns to all of the avengers, and they’re all freaking out. AND HE CAN’T UNDERSTAND WHY NO ONE HAS A GUN.
Okay but Bucky the Much Put Upon Older Brother of the Avengers is probably my favorite comic trend ever and if someone wanted to point me toward some fic to that effect, I would not be displeased.
people who complain about dinosaurs “not being scary anymore” because its been discovered they have feathers and are closely related to/ancestors of birds are so bizarre like
its not about how scary they are, they are/were real life animals and what matters is learning more about them, not how well they fit into your science fiction horror film lol
can you imagine a 13 foot chicken running at you with full intent to eat you??? thats fucking terrifying holy shit
peacocks are synonymous with vain, frivolous beauty and they will attack cars. they will attack you while you try to get to your car. they’re like six feet of useless feathers and they will destroy you. imagine if they were carnivorous and had functional spurs.
a t-rex could look like a gay disco ball and i guarantee that you would fucking book it if it had a problem with you
listen
listen
have you ever met a swan
if anything the birdier they get the scarier they are
Humans quickly get a reputation among the interplanetry alliance and the reputation is this: when going somewhere dangerous, take a human.
Humans are tough. Humans can last days without food. Humans heal so fast they pierce holes in themselves or inject ink for fun. Humans will walk for days on broken bones in order to make it to safety. Humans will literally cut off bits of themselves if trapped by a disaster.
You would be amazed what humans will do to survive. Or to ensure the survival of others they feel responsible for.
That’s the other thing. Humans pack-bond, and they spill their pack-bonding instincts everywhere. Sure it’s weird when they talk sympathetically to broken spaceships or try to pet every lifeform that scans as non-toxic. It’s even a little weird that just existing in the same place as them for long enough seems to make them care about you. But if you’re hurt, if you’re trapped, if you need someone to fetch help?
You really want a human.
“Looks like someone for you.”
Jon kicked Ginna’s boots, which were currently resting on the table, and she glanced over toward the door. A clump of knee-high aliens, plump and round and covered in golden fur, were lifting their little pink noses into the air - scenting the air in the bar.
Sashrans. Perfect.
Ginna quickly downed the last of her drink and dropped her feet to the floor. The Gentleman of Fortune was full to the gills of professional companions looking for work, she wouldn’t be the only one in here with a fondness for sashrans. She needed to work quickly if she wanted a chance at whatever job these ones were hiring for. The sound and vibration of her boots caught the attention of the group, and Ginna followed it quickly with a greeting in the quiet shushing sounds of their own language.
A universal translator would take care of most of the talking, but by knowing a little of their language Ginna proved she had worked with their kind before and cared enough to learn it. Caring was probably the most important skill a companion could cultivate.
It paid off. The group of sashrans centered quickly on her and darted over, still in their clump.
“I am human Ginna, companion for hire,” Ginna introduced, tapping the side of her visor to activate the display.
“Sala and Rini, with crew. Spice collectors,” the largest of the sashrans introduced, tapping at their own earbud. Their information began to stream onto Ginna’s display, while her own would be playing in their ear. She was proficient in everything from weapons to mechanics to medicine, xenobiology to politics, and of course survival in any kind of situation from atmosphere decompression in space to a tsunami on a planet. The more varied the knowledge they had the better a companion a human could make, and Ginna prided herself on being one of the best.
As for the sashrans, they’d found a jungle planet with a plant that was delicious to their senses. Cultivation efforts had failed thus far, so the price was high enough to support the risk of hunting for it on its home range. A six-month tour was on offer. It seemed they’d contracted with another professional companion a few times, a man named Drix, and Ginna quickly switched over to the guild’s internal records to see what he had to say of these sashrans and the planet they were harvesting from.
The sashrans themselves would be able to check what Ginna’s former employers had to say about her too.
Drix had enjoyed working with Sala and Rini’s crew, it dripped out of every line of his reports. He’d included good detail about life aboard their ship and the risks of the planet, that Ginna would have to look into closer later to be prepared.
All she needed to know at the moment was that they paid well, the risks were not unacceptably high, and that they treated their human companions well. It sounded like a job for her.
“Sala and Rini and crew, I would take this job,” Ginna told them.
The sashrans shushed and buzzed together, their tones sounding happy to Ginna’s relatively untrained ear, and she hoped she was reading them right. They were such beautiful little creatures, and she’d always enjoyed working for their kind before. They were close enough she could have reached out to touch them, pet their soft velvet fur, but she resisted. Touching them uninvited would be rude.
Finally they turned back to her. “Sala and Rini and crew will, with joy, contract to hire companion Ginna,” the lead one answered.
Contract negotiations went quickly enough, using the standard guild template and modifying it here or there as both parties preferred and agreed upon. Sashrans were easy to haggle with, not like the argumentative akskar. Soon enough Ginna had a contract and three days to prepare her effects for travel.
“It has been a pleasure,” Ginna told the sashrans. “I look forward to being your companion.”
She would have expected them to leave, then, go get their own things ready for launch. Instead the smallest one pushed forward - all wrapped in pale gold velvet fur and their sweet little pink forepaws resting on Ginna’s knee.
“Companion Ginna will now engage in petting for promotion of pack bonding?” they asked hopefully.
“Of course,” Ginna reached out toward the sashran, let them smell her palm, but it seemed this sashran wasn’t shy at all. They immediately pushed their head into her hand. There was nothing in the galaxy so soft as a sashran’s fur. Ginna dug her fingers in around the ruff of the sashran’s neck, gently scratching, and then smoothed the fur all the way down their back.
The sashran made a dreamy-soft pleasure sound, and Ginna mimicked it back. “Oh you sweetheart,” she murmured. Already she could feel that little melting tug in her heart, that protective urge that set some humans on the path to professional companionship.
Come hell or high water, Ginna was going to keep these sashrans safe.
Aw, yes. Look at the adorable scifi! I’m proud to have inspired it.
i bet every time steve annoys one of the other avengers they just go and tell bucky about something reckless steve has done
steve steals natasha’s bagels one morning so she looks straight into his eyes and says ‘JARVIS tell james that one time steve jumped off a plane without a patachute’ and from the other end of the tower bucky shouts ‘STEVEN GRANT ROGERS’
he accidentally breaks tony’s favourite screwdriver and he is very sorry but it’s too late because bucky practically kicks the door of the shop down screaming ‘diD YOU NOT EVEN TRY TO LAND THAT PLANE I AM TOO YOUNG TO DIE FROM STRESS’
clint does it whenever he’s bored like one day they are just hanging out and he goes “hey so did you know steve jumped from an elevator that was at least 200 feet in the air that one time” ‘hey i was trying to escape hydr–’ “he landed on concrete” “EXCUSE ME ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND??? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU YOU ABSOLUTE MORON” ‘i landed on my shield it absorbs the shock’ “DO I LOOK LIKE I GIVE A SHIT ABOUT YOUR SHIELD?????”
What do you like to do in your spare time? What do you really want to do for a job?
Hey, Anon, what’s up, welcome to the inbox, way to help me kill some time, love you.
All right, give me a minute to remember what spare time is like. In all seriousness, though, I read fiction (sci-fi/fantasy because reality is dull and realistic fiction is likewise pretty dull), I write fantasy novels/fanfiction (recently), I watch Netflix and movies and read my old 60′s X-Men comics (look, the costumes are terrible and the plots are ridiculous and I’ll fight you in a back alley for the X-Men, okay?)….and I harass my roommate over whatever is available to me. And of late I listen to Hamilton and suffer over historical characters.
And as for a job, well, there are a few answers to that. In a perfect world, I wouldn’t need to sleep, and I could pull off a miracle and become a bestselling author and still work as an ER doctor and also get a full night’s rest and have free time. (This is related to my slightly weird fantasy of ‘in the event that I had millions of dollars, I would buy a couple floors of an apartment building and take in a bunch of LGBTQ+ kids who’d been kicked out of their homes and make sure they were fed and got to go to school and everything with the one requirement that they go to therapy, because a little therapy is good for everyone,’ which is heavily dependent on my having a lot of money in addition to free time. Also, please do not be led astray by this fantasy, I neither like small children nor am a nice person.) Since this is not a perfect world and I have dubious luck at best, my slightly more achievable aspiration is to work as an ER doctor at a Trauma One hospital and write not-bestselling novels on the side. This will probably be accompanied by a high degree of caffeine consumption and some sleep deprivation. What can you do. Medicine makes me happy, writing keeps me sane, it seems like a good plan to me.
Okay so: Rey, as the result of a midi-chlorian pregnancy. I have no idea what this means but it lines up with some parallels to Anakin: good with building things, extremely strong with the force, etc
The Force: Okay, Luke, so I know my LAST Chosen One didn’t really work out for the galaxy and also you in particular and in fact is STILL kind of not working out for the galaxy and ESPECIALLY you in particular, but listen, hear me out here: a female pilot who’s good with droids with a big fucking stick just fucking WRECKING everybody. Everybody, all the time. Just fucking beating the SHIT out of them.
Luke Skywalker: I LOVE IT.
The Force: Good because I already made her, she’ll be here in like three days for Jedi training, TREAT MY BABY/YOUR NEW AUNTIE GOOD. BYYYYYE LUKE YOU’RE THE BEST.
tumblr is such a bizarre kind of social interaction. like. the rules are so different here. I once unfollowed someone because they said prime numbers were ugly and that was simply the last straw for me. imagine hanging out with a friend and getting up from the table and never talking to them again because they told you they hated prime numbers. that’s what I did.
i wonder if magic is real, but only in a really mundane way.
when i was little i could almost inerringly switch back to disney channel right as the ads ended when i was channel surfing.
maybe youve never accidentally crushed a ladybug underfoot. maybe your microwave popcorn never burns. maybe you can spin around lots and lots of times before you get dizzy.
is that magic??
honestly im not sure if these are magic or just small, invisible skills. im not sure which i like better.
My ankles never twist. I’ve always been rather active, I did track for five years (all the running events), and one time while running I stepped in a hole, lost my shoe, and landed sprawling about five feet away. I pulled my shoe on and kept running.
I have a coworker who somehow makes better coffee than everyone else even though the grounds come pre-measured and all you have to do is load them up and push a button. I have a friend who has inch long nails that never break. My brother can copy origami just by looking at the finished product and my mother can do the same with knots. I knew a guy who never made an error when typing.
Maybe we all have little magics, the kind that you don’t realize you have. Just tiny things that make your life slightly better but are completely unnoticed on the outside.
this is the cutest post i have ever read…
Nooo I’ve actually shared this theory before. Like my Dad is really lucky finding parking spaces. And I’ve never cracked my phone even though I drop it on the time and have an average case. Like what if everybody gets one trivial part of their life that they’re illogically lucky at?
this post makes me feel better about myself
Left turn magic here. I’ve pulled up to 4 lane roads with medians and had no traffic at 5 pm, just to turn left.
Okay, so, now that you're suffering and probably in need of a person to rant to: what are the Foxhole Court books about, I am curious and also overly optimistic about how much free time I'm likely to have this summer.
OmG
well first of all I hope you have a great summer!
and secondly /fuck/ where do i start
Basically the foxhole court books (which is actually called the all for the game series) is basically a trilogy about
Well
A game and a team that plays it? God i don’t know how to describe it
But it’s not quite a sports book and it’s not quite a thriller
It’s suspenseful
But the MAIN THING TO UNDERSTAND is that the characters are absolutely incredible. The characters and their interactions are what make everything worth it. They are fantastic.
I’m going to type this with as much seriousness as i can possibly muster
I have read many, many hundreds of books in my life
these were at the fucking top, and Andrew Joseph Minyard is my #1 favorite book character ever
So basically
1) a really interesting (and made-up?) sport that is written really well even for people like me who don’t like sports
2) incredible twists and turns and surprises; a great plot and excellent writing to back it up
3) CHARACTERS AND THEIR INTERACTIONS
4) Andrew Joseph Minyard
also! If you’re planning on reading them, get them all at the same time. (I got all of them on my kindle for $1.98 cause i had some coupon things? but i don’t think the regular prices are much more) They flow right into each other like one big book. Having all three is a necessity in my eyes; it took me two and a half days, i was so caught up. Couldn’t put them down
so
yeah
there is my rave review. :) EVERYONE SHOULD READ THESE FANTASTIC BOOKS
You should really write a book about your life. In the meantime, tell us all a story, please?
I AM EXTREMELY STRONG: a story about furniture
the summer that i was about thirteen or fourteen, my mother decided to buy a la-z-boy for my stepdad, skip, for their anniversary. she did this because my mother loves giving presents and my stepdad loves sitting down.
she needed someone to help transport the chair from the furniture store back to our house. my brother was, at the time, at Sports Camp For Young Boys Who Want Girls To Kiss Them, and skip was obviously out of the question, so her only option was me.
me at 13, a self-portrait:
pigeon-toed
desperately physically unfit
favorite snack was mozzarella cheese. no garnish. just…… balls of mozzarella cheese
in my “i only listen to blink-182 and my favorite color is linkin park after dark nailpolish,” phase
SO OFF WE WENT.
the chair was in a big furniture warehouse, like a schewels or something. my mother, a woman who never goes into a situation without a to-do list and a plan of action, knew immediately what she wanted.
it was a broad recliner, taupe-ish, with a retractable foot rest. it was the everest of chairs. once you sat in this chair, you were never getting up. you would have to be brought your meals. your loved ones would bid you adieu, sadly, waving from the living room. “we’re going on a family vacation,” they would tell you, and you would say, “there is nothing left for me but the warm embrace of this chair, and death.”
“mollyhall, help us move this,” my mother said.
“us?” i asked. “as in, the three of us? we are moving this chair?”
i looked at the Everest Chair. i looked at my mother. i looked at skinny mcdimples. i gestured at my own noodle arms, and at skinny mcdimples’ everything.
“uh,” i said, pointedly.
“we can DO IT,” my mother insisted.
“uh,” repeated skinny mcdimples, this time with urgency.
“LISTEN,” said my mother, drawing herself up to her full height of a whopping 5’5”, her voice dropping about 6 octaves to decibels typically only heard in whalesong.
“WE CAN LIFT THIS FUCKING CHAIR.
I AM.
EXTREMELY.
STRONG.”
THAT’S MY SECRET. I AM ALWAYS FUCKIN’ PUMPED ABOUT FURNITURE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
skinny mcdimples and i quickly snapped into action, because nobody wants to fuck with a 5’5” hulk woman with a love of leisure seating. my mother lifted the whole front of the Everest Chair, running high on adrenaline and self-righteous fury, while skinny mcdimples and i struggled desperately with the back half, shooting one another frequent, panicked looks.
by the time we got it out to the car, poor skinny mcdimples and i were sweating bullets, hands slipping all over the suede, sending up desperate pleas to the lord jesus to keep the Everest Chair from crushing our bodies the way it had crushed our spirits.
my mother lifted the Everest Chair with one hand and tossed it into the bed of the truck.
“see?” she asked. “i told you. piece of cake.”
“piece of cake,” skinny mcdimples and i agreed, in between bouts of vomiting from exertion and crying.
i think about skinny mcdimples sometimes. how is he doing? is he still working at the furniture store, or did the trauma of the Everest Chair send him into a downward spiral that led to a career 180? did he realize that if he can lift the Everest Chair, he can lift everything? is he a pro wrestler now? did he marry? does he ever think of me, thirteen, chubby as hell, clinging desperately to the back of the Everest Chair and hissing, “i’m gonna die, we’re all gonna die here,” under my breath?
SKINNY MCDIMPLES, WHAT BECAME OF YOU?
we pulled out of the parking lot. i was too physically exhausted to do anything but curl up in the passenger seat and—
thump.
thumpthump.
thumpthump. thUMP. THUMP.
“what is that? is something knocking?”
KNOCK KNOCK.
WHO’S THERE?
HUBRIS.
IT’S YOUR OWN
GODDAMN
HUBRIS,
MOM.
we pulled over.
i bet you thought you’d seen the last of me.
the Everest Chair sat rocking in the truck bed, knocking against the back window every time a breeze rolled by.
“you can sit on it to hold it down,” said my mom. she had a wildness in her eyes.
a sweet, jolly-looking old man in a pickup truck not dissimilar to our own pulled into the parking lot where we were throwing down with the Everest Chair. he leaned out of the driver’s window, his santa eyes sparkling. “do you ladies need help?” he asked. “i have some bungees in the back if you need ‘em.”
there it was!!! our chance for salvation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
my mother’s face darkened. her lips went white. she seemed to expand outward, like the size of her rage with this chair and her tragically useless daughter could not be contained by the human body. her voice sound like the way the sky looks just before it dumps so much water on your house that you have to immediately start bailing water out of the windows with buckets when she said—said, not shouted, because her rage had gone far past shouting:
“WE DON’T NEED ANY FUCKING HELP.”
yes, we did!!!!!!!
we did desperately need help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“wait,” i whispered fruitlessly as Santa Man drove hastily off. my mother turned back to the Everest Chair. she tossed a tarp over it, and stretched a single bungee across its girth.
one bungee cord and a tarp?
ONE BUNGEE CORD?
AND A TARP?
“there,” she said. “piece of cake.”
“look, i don’t want to be the one to bring this up,” i said cautiously as we got back into the truck’s cab, the Everest Chair still thumping merrily. we both ignored it so steadily we made thetell-tale heart guy jealous. knocking? what knocking? HAHA, EVERYTHING IS FINE. AFTER ALL, WE USED ONE BUNGEE CORD. AND A TARP.
“bring what up?” my mother asked.
i swallowed. “um….how are we going to get it inside the house?”
****
6 HOURS LATER, AT THEIR ANNIVERSARY DINNER:
“i love my new chair!!!!! did you have it delivered?”
“mollyhall and i did it ourselves,” my mother said, taking a cool sip of wine. “it was a piece of cake.”
Rey and Poe teaching Finn how to shoot, "Guys I already know how to shoot a target, I was a stormtrooper," No, you learnt how to miss a target, you're not a storm trooper anymore so you should be able to hit a target now."
Finn’s like *long silence*
*checks blaster*
*rapid-fire shoots literally ALL THE TARGETS dead-center*
“They’d check our blasters to make sure we’d fired them, but they couldn’t check to make sure we’d actually hit something,” he says, looking at the blaster again and then just shrugging. “Also, I had the top score in my class every session.”
The new captain jumped from the deck, fully dressed, and sprinted through the water. A former lifeguard, he kept his eyes on his victim as he headed straight for the couple swimming between their anchored sportfisher and the beach. “I think he thinks you’re drowning,” the husband said to his wife. They had been splashing each other and she had screamed but now they were just standing, neck-deep on the sand bar. “We’re fine; what is he doing?” she asked, a little annoyed. “We’re fine!” the husband yelled, waving him off, but his captain kept swimming hard. ”Move!” he barked as he sprinted between the stunned owners. Directly behind them, not 10 feet away, their 9-year-old daughter was drowning. Safely above the surface in the arms of the captain, she burst into tears, “Daddy!”
How did this captain know—from 50 feet away—what the father couldn’t recognize from just 10? Drowning is not the violent, splashing call for help that most people expect. The captain was trained to recognize drowning by experts and years of experience. The father, on the other hand, had learned what drowning looks like by watching television. If you spend time on or near the water (hint: that’s all of us) then you should make sure that you and your crew know what to look for whenever people enter the water. Until she cried a tearful, “Daddy,” she hadn’t made a sound. As a former Coast Guard rescue swimmer, I wasn’t surprised at all by this story. Drowning is almost always a deceptively quiet event. The waving, splashing, and yelling that dramatic conditioning (television) prepares us to look for is rarely seen in real life.
going into summer people, take a good long look at it because you know if you can, you’re going to the beach, or the pool, or whatever body of water is nearby that people swim in. be smart, be safe.
I’m a
sucker for ships where Person A is damaged and Person B is their salvation, and
when you look closer, you find that Person B is damaged, as well, just in a
less obvious/volatile way, and Person A is their salvation right back.
In the musical of my life after I’m long gone, my wife Vanessa is going to be the one who steps forward as the hero. Vanessa is not particularly fond of musicals—she only likes good ones. She is not effusive in her praise, or boastful. But when I looked up from that Chernow book and said “I think this is a hip-hop musical,” she didn’t laugh, or roll her eyes. She just said, “That sounds cool.” And that was all I needed to get started. As I fell in love with the idea of a love triangle between Eliza, Alexander, and Angelica, she said, “Can you have Angelica rap? That would be cool.”
I am someone who is so averse to travel that I wrote a whole musical about not wanting to leave my block in Washington Heights. It was Vanessa who booked us trips and time away from New York. “You don’t get any writing done here because life keeps popping up.” Thanks to her, Hamilton was written in Mexico, Spain, Nevis, Sagaponack, St. Croix, Puerto Rico, The Dominican Republic—long trips where Vanessa would take me there and then leave me alone to write while she explored. She is my first audience, and she’s a tough audience, so I know if I impress her I’ve cleared the highest possible bar. She’ll come home from work and say, “Your king tune was stuck in my head all day—that’s probably a good sign.” This started out as a note trying to explain how my wife really is the ‘best of wives and best of women,’ but I’m trying to get at something more important—this show simply doesn’t exist without Vanessa. It’s a love letter to her.
”—Lin-Manuel Miranda on the role of his wife, Vanessa Nadal, in the creation of Hamilton. From the annotated libretto in Hamilton: The Revolution (via darrenburr)
In Germany we don’t say “I don’t care” we say “Das ist mir Wurst” which roughly translates as “This is sausage to me” I think that’s beautiful.
no you don’t understand we actually do say that
i crashed my car into a bridge
THIS IS SAUSAGE TO ME
We also say “That’s not my beer” for “That’s none of my buisness” and I think that’s beautiful
is germany even real
My roommate dated a German. When I was making dinner one night, he asked my roommate, “this food… does it taste?”
At our confusion, he explained that in Germany, food either “tastes” or “does not taste”. Which he then said he supposed said something about German food.
To be fair we do say “it tastes good” and “it tastes bad” and many variations thereof, but when we want to be succinct, then yes, it just tastes or doesn’t taste.
Other fun turns of phrase in German include:
“Ich versteh’ nur Bahnhof” = “I only understand train station” for when you’re confused
“Hast du Tomaten auf den Augen?” = “Have you got tomatoes on your eyes?” for when someone’s not seeing the obvious
“Auf die Schippe nehmen” = “Take someone on a shovel”, basically means to take the piss out of someone
“Du gehst mir auf den Sack” = “You’re walking on my sack” for when you’re pissed off
the world is beautiful
also there’s two more variations of “Du gehst mir auf den Sack.” (btw by sack we mean testicle. yeah.)
“Du gehst mir auf den Senkel.” = “You’re walking on my shoelace(s).”
“Du gehst mir auf den Keks.” = “You’re walking on my cookie.”
ALSO WE HAVE THE WORD “DOCH” (basically means yes, but in response to someone saying no) AND IT IS A FUCKING TRAGEDY THAT THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE HAS NO EQUIVALENT
I MISS ‘DOCH’ SO MUCH you basically have to settle for “does so” or “yes it does” or something not half as succintly defiant
I also miss “aneinander vorbei reden” = “to talk past each other”, meaning when people are completely missing each other’s points / talking about two different things. It’s such nice imagery.
And we call stupid people “Hans Wurst” = “Hans Sausage” (no matter if you are boy or a girl)
Yeah, if we are surprised we say “Holla die Waldfee” = “Holla the forest fairy”
Seriously though, how do children grow up without “doch” und “trotzdem”?
Holy mackerel I love this soooo!!
Also we have “noch in Abrahams Wurstkessel sein,” or “to still be in Abraham’s sausage pot”, which is basically saying you haven’t been born yet. As in, when Carter was president of the US, I was still in Abraham’s sausage pot.
I know “noch als Quark im Schaufenster liegen”, “to be still on display in the shop window as curd cheese” for not having been born yet.
Or there is the slightly less icky “mit den Mücken fliegen”, “to be flying with the mosquitoes”, or something my uncle says in his dialect: “Sternle putze”, “to be cleaning stars”.
Let’s not forget fremdschämen - to be ashamed/embarassed on behalf of somebody else.
Or our wonderful alternatives to calling somebody “Wimp”: Schattenparker, Turnbeutelvergesser, Warmduscher… (somebody who only parks in the shadow, somebody who forgets their gym bag, somebody who only showers with warm water… the list is endless)
