stop telling ppl to write like hemingway i promise u adverbs are not another face of the dark lord satan its ok
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
IMO Adverbs can be pretty nasty sometimes (”’I can’t wait!’ said Tom excitedly” is still a pretty bad sentence) but it all comes down to how you use them, and what words you put them together with.
Generally, you should try to avoid using adverbs in phrases like ‘she said happily’ or ‘he screamed loudly’. Aside from that, adverbs aren’t inheritly bad.
And ‘So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past’ isn’t a bad sentence at all.
thats not really anything inherent to adverbs, it’s just redundancy. the dialogue is speaking for itself. ’“i can’t wait,” said tom excitedly’ is a bad sentence, but ’“i cant wait,” said tom flatly’ is chill. id probably throw a comma in there before ‘flatly’ for pacing but u do u
“dont use adverbs” is basically a really shitty way to verbalize “redundancy is often awkward and makes your audience feel condescended to if it’s not done well”–because lgr there are times when redundancy is okay, there are times when literally everything is okay
break the rules of literature. theyre shitty rules anyway
First they came for the verbs, and I said nothing, because verbing weirds language
Then they arrival for the nouns, and I speech nothing, because no verbs
Then they for the descriptive, and I silent because verbless and nounless
“Let’s face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren’t invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it? If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which an alarm goes off by going on. English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race (which, of course, isn’t a race at all). That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.”
But, no, because there are reasons for all of those seemingly weird English bits.
Like “eggplant” is called “eggplant” because the white-skinned variety (to which the name originally applied) looks very egg-like.
The “hamburger” is named after the city of Hamburg.
The name “pineapple” originally (in Middle English) applied to pine cones (ie. the fruit of pines - the word “apple” at the time often being used more generically than it is now), and because the tropical pineapple bears a strong resemblance to pine cones, the name transferred.
The “English” muffin was not invented in England, no, but it was invented by an Englishman, Samuel Bath Thomas, in New York in 1894. The name differentiates the “English-style” savoury muffin from “American” muffins which are commonly sweet.
“French fries” are not named for their country of origin (also the United States), but for their preparation. They are French-cut fried potatoes - ie. French fries.
“Sweetmeats” originally referred to candied fruits or nuts, and given that we still use the term “nutmeat” to describe the edible part of a nut and “flesh” to describe the edible part of a fruit, that makes sense.
“Sweetbread” has nothing whatsoever to do with bread, but comes from the Middle English “brede”, meaning “roasted meat”. “Sweet” refers not to being sugary, but to being rich in flavour.
Similarly, “quicksand” means not “fast sand”, but “living sand” (from the Old English “cwicu” - “alive”).
The term boxing “ring” is a holdover from the time when the “ring” would have been just that - a circle marked on the ground. The first square boxing ring did not appear until 1838. In the rules of the sport itself, there is also a ring - real or imagined - drawn within the now square arena in which the boxers meet at the beginning of each round.
The etymology of “guinea pig” is disputed, but one suggestion has been that the sounds the animals makes are similar to the grunting of a pig. Also, as with the “apple” that caused confusion in “pineapple”, “Guinea” used to be the catch-all name for any unspecified far away place. Another suggestion is that the animal was named after the sailors - the “Guinea-men” - who first brought it to England from its native South America.
As for the discrepancies between verb and noun forms, between plurals, and conjugations, these are always the result of differing word derivation.
Writers write because the meaning of the word “writer” is “one who writes”, but fingers never fing because “finger” is not a noun derived from a verb. Hammers don’t ham because the noun “hammer”, derived from the Old Norse “hamarr”, meaning “stone” and/or “tool with a stone head”, is how we derive the verb “to hammer” - ie. to use such a tool. But grocers, in a certain sense, DO “groce”, given that the word “grocer” means “one who buys and sells in gross” (from the Latin “grossarius”, meaning “wholesaler”).
“Tooth” and “teeth” is the legacy of the Old English “toð” and “teð”, whereas “booth” comes from the Old Danish “boþ”. “Goose” and “geese”, from the Old English “gōs” and “gēs”, follow the same pattern, but “moose” is an Algonquian word (Abenaki: “moz”, Ojibwe: “mooz”, Delaware: “mo:s”). “Index” is a Latin loanword, and forms its plural quite predictably by the Latin model (ex: matrix -> matrices, vertex -> vertices, helix -> helices).
One can “make amends” - which is to say, to amend what needs amending - and, case by case, can “amend” or “make an amendment”. No conflict there.
“Odds and ends” is not word, but a phrase. It is, necessarily, by its very meaning, plural, given that it refers to a collection of miscellany. A single object can’t be described in the same terms as a group.
“Teach” and “taught” go back to Old English “tæcan” and “tæhte”, but “preach” comes from Latin “predician” (“præ” + “dicare” - “to proclaim”).
“Vegetarian” comes of “vegetable” and “agrarian” - put into common use in 1847 by the Vegetarian Society in Britain.
“Humanitarian”, on the other hand, is a portmanteau of “humanity” and “Unitarian”, coined in 1794 to described a Christian philosophical position - “One who affirms the humanity of Christ but denies his pre-existence and divinity”. It didn’t take on its current meaning of “ethical benevolence” until 1838. The meaning of “philanthropist” or “one who advocates or practices human action to solve social problems” didn’t come into use until 1842.
We recite a play because the word comes from the Latin “recitare” - “to read aloud, to repeat from memory”. “Recital” is “the act of reciting”. Even this usage makes sense if you consider that the Latin “cite” comes from the Greek “cieo” - “to move, to stir, to rouse , to excite, to call upon, to summon”. Music “rouses” an emotional response. One plays at a recital for an audience one has “called upon” to listen.
The verb “to ship” is obviously a holdover from when the primary means of moving goods was by ship, but “cargo” comes from the Spanish “cargar”, meaning “to load, to burden, to impose taxes”, via the Latin “carricare” - “to load on a cart”.
“Run” (moving fast) and “run” (flowing) are homonyms with different roots in Old English: “ærnan” - “to ride, to reach, to run to, to gain by running”, and “rinnan” - “to flow, to run together”. Noses flow in the second sense, while feet run in the first. Simillarly, “to smell” has both the meaning “to emit” or “to perceive” odor. Feet, naturally, may do the former, but not the latter.
“Fat chance” is an intentionally sarcastic expression of the sentiment “slim chance” in the same way that “Yeah, right” expresses doubt - by saying the opposite.
“Wise guy” vs. “wise man” is a result of two different uses of the word “wise”. Originally, from Old English “wis”, it meant “to know, to see”. It is closely related to Old English “wit” - “knowledge, understanding, intelligence, mind”. From German, we get “Witz”, meaning “joke, witticism”. So, a wise man knows, sees, and understands. A wise guy cracks jokes.
The seemingly contradictory “burn up” and “burn down” aren’t really contradictory at all, but relative. A thing which burns up is consumed by fire. A house burns down because, as it burns, it collapses.
“Fill in” and “fill out” are phrasal verbs with a difference of meaning so slight as to be largely interchangeable, but there is a difference of meaning. To use the example in the post, you fill OUT a form by filling it IN, not the other way around. That is because “fill in” means “to supply what is missing” - in the example, that would be information, but by the same token, one can “fill in” an outline to make a solid shape, and one can “fill in” for a missing person by taking his/her place. “Fill out”, on the other hand, means “to complete by supplying what is missing”, so that form we mentioned will not be filled OUT into we fill IN all the missing information.
An alarm may “go off” and it may be turned on (ie. armed), but it does not “go on”. That is because the verb “to go off” means “to become active suddenly, to trigger” (which is why bombs and guns also go off, but do not go on).
no one really needs me and that makes me really fucking sad
no listen okay nobody really needs oreos or tv or pictures of clouds: but they’re all stuff that makes the world better for existing. i think the whole western idea of “you must have worth! you must have value! you must be NEEDED!” is really poisonous. you are not for sale. you don’t need a “worth,” a “value”. you don’t NEED to be needed!!! it’s okay to just BE! a few days ago a girl thought i was out of earshot and said “omg she’s so pretty!!” and yeah i don’t need to hear that, but it made me so incredibly happy!!
plus: there’s literally no way for you to know how you’ll effect someone through your life. my friend didn’t commit suicide because a passing stranger on the train happened to say something into his phone that connected with her soul (”of course you deserve love, you are breathing, aren’t you?”) and she didn’t have the chance to thank him or ever see him again but she needed to hear that. i think we need to be in places + talk to people + overhear certain things: but they’re never the stuff we expect. in the meantime, i promise, for at least one person (that’s myself): you’re my oreos. i sure as hell would be a sad girl without you.
you don’t NEED to be needed!!! it’s okay to just BE!
I really enjoy Marvel’s Netflix shows, Claire Temple is Sick of Your Shit and Claire Temple is Concerned About Your Drinking, and I can’t wait for the third show, Claire Temple Can’t Even Give You Stitches, Please Stop Fucking With Her Career.
ok so in high school on away game days, the football players and cheerleaders would have to share busses because our school was broke as fuck so our cheer bus would always have a group of varsity footballerers in the back of it. one day my genius friend and I were discussing our feminist rage when she said “bridget you should totally throw a tampon back there and see what they do” and me being myself, stood up and hurled a one (1) tampon at the Manly Men. IT LOOKED LIKE A WAR MOVIE. THE BROS FACES WERE FILLED WITH HORROR AS THEIR BUDDY GOT SHOT. HE WENT DOWN SO DRAMATICALLY AS SCREAMS FILLED THE BUS. BOYS WERE SLINKING AS FAR AWAY FROM THE DEADLY TAMPON AS PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE. ONE BRO WAS EYEING THE EMERGENCY WINDOW WITH ALL SERIOUSNESS, READY TO FREE HIMSELF FROM THE THREAT. BEING IN CHICAGO, THE BUS DRIVER PULLED OVER ASSUMING A KID ACTUALLY GOT SHOT. A GIRL HAD TO GO GET THE TAMPON SO THE GUYS WOULD STOP SHITTING THEIR PANTS AND SIT THEIR ASSES THE FUCK BACK DOWN.
I have deduced 2 things from this whole experience: 1. men are ridiculous 2. I wish I had thrown more than one tampon
TRUE STORY
When my brother was in high school, as a prank, someone stuck a pad to the front bumper of his truck. A CLEAN, UNUSED PAD.
My brother came home from high school, 17 years old, CRYING and my dad made ME go get it off his truck.
I had honestly forgotten about that until just now.
I sincerely regret never having done this during my school days.
story time (again!)
one time, in the middle of my freshman year, I was sitting in the band hall talking to a bunch of friends before school. let me preface this story by saying they were all guys (one of the hazards of being in the saxophone section–guys outnumbered the girls 6:1). Anyway, I dug around in my backpack for a tampon and slipped it into the sleeve of my sweater and was about to excuse myself to the restroom (which, if anybody has been paying attention, they would’ve known what was going on, because I’ve never been exactly subtle about things like this) but one of the guys kind of guffaws and goes “what’s in your sleeve? a tampon?” and I guess the way he rolled the word off his tongue like it was some kind of insult really bothered me, so I just pulled the brand new, still wrapped tampon out of my sleeve and went “you guessed it” and popped him across the cheek with it. I walked away to the restroom, vaguely aware of the strangled noises and sounds of disbelief and horror coming from the group of guys. They were all paying attention enough to know that I was digging in my bag for a tampon or pad, but apparently, the sight of the thing was too much for them. That group of guys couldn’t look me in the eyes for a few weeks, all because of a wrapped tampon
Yep. I’m an electrician, and we carry voltage meters with us (slang: “Wiggy”, from an old brand name of meter that just about no one uses any more). They take up too much space to put in a tool pouch, so if you don’t want to leave it in the tool box/bag, you’ll have a separate pouch on your tool belt for it. A long, narrow pouch that is convenient as hell for putting spare tampons in where they’ll stay clean and undamaged until needed.
A lot of the guys just leave their meters back in their tool boxes, which are in the gang box, which is usually some hike away from the actual work. So, “can I borrow your meter?” is something I hear a lot. And the response is always, “sure.” They always emit a high-pitched scream (somewhat similar to the tone emitted by the meter when voltage is present) when the tampons fall out when they take out the meter. “WHAT ARE *THOSE* DOING IN THERE?!!” I’ll pick one up and do my best Groucho Marx imitation (with the tampon as cigar): “Whaddya think they’re doing in there, sweetheart?” (wiggling eyebrows, “cigar” tapping). Their reaction is adorable. In almost thirty years of doing this work, I’ve yet to get a blase–“oops, didn’t mean to drop your tampons” response.
So what I’m getting from this is tampon shotguns/grenades as a weapon against overaggressive dudes in public spaces, y/y?
oh my god, what a genius idea. some dude won’t shut the fuck up, you don’t even look up from your phone as you pull a tampon out of the bag and just wave it at the motherfucker like a wizard’s wand. AWAAAAAAY.
Reminder to my fellow dudes: if you’re this freaked out by being reminded of how women work, you are not remotely ready to actually touch one of them.
I have literally made a man scream by handing him a clean, wrapped tampon. Actual screams.
When I was in college a bunch of girls thought it was awesome to freak out boys to put an unused pad on their door, and they retaliated by putting moldy bread under their door.
So the girls put a tampon under the boys’ door. The boys decided, I guess, in a logical manner, that the best thing to do was to stick an unused diva cup on the door handle. Because apparently we would find it as horrifying as they did?
After that the RA’s decided it was sexual harassment and put an end to it.
Omg it got better
We used to sneak our drugs into parties that had security by hiding them in or under maxi pad packages because security were almost always dudes.
My sister once stuck a maxi pad to her door to keep our brother from going into her room while she was away. He got mad and told my mom, who wouldn’t stop laughing, and told him if it bothered him so much than he didn’t deserve to go into her room.
listen: fight club and pulp fiction are good movies, i love them both personally, but if a guy (and you KNOW the type of guy i mean) says they are his Favorite Movies then u need to run. RUN. plan ur exist exit strategy now. if ur texting him then just make something up. “haha i gotta go now. it was nice talking to you. bye!” if you’re somewhere with him just leave. do parkour if you have to. run like the wind. get away from that man
Even David Fincher, who directed Fight Club, agrees with this:
“My daughter had a friend named Max. She told me ‘Fight Club’ is his favorite movie,” he said. “I told her never to talk to Max again.” (link)
i hope at least some of you don’t have swimming anime blacklisted, not because i want to inflict my anime on you, but because i know i always enjoy watching people have emotional meltdowns over things i’m not personally invested in when it’s like
[picture of a hat]
#fuck this #fuck this hat #my life is over #how could anyone post this #i’m done. i’m done. #gets into a submarine sinks to the deepest level of the ocean buries self in the marianis trench #hat fandom
“hat fandom” has become such a common term in my friend group to describe a fandom you’re not a part of but enjoying watching people be into that i forget not everyone knows about it
i am literally 100% sure that ultimately it was lily who asked james out like
james is matured and he’s like “okay you’re gonna ruin it all if you ask her out”
because they’re friends
honest to god friends
who actually talk and laugh and have meaningful conversations and honestly james doesn’t think he could handle it if he messed everything up
so he just kinda sits there in love with her
so in love
and lily’s over here like “i so do not love him”
“no really marlene we’re friends i don’t love him”
“okay yeah he smells really nice and i really love that thing he does with his hands when he’s thinking and it’s really really cute when he runs his fingers through his hair and have you seen the way his ass looks in those quidditch robes”
“but i do not love him”
and marlene’s like “you’re a fucking idiot”
and james decides that he has to at least try to move on so he starts dating amelia boot
and lily can’t figure out why it bothers her so much but she avoids them at literally all costs and she just can’t see them together and she sort of feels like she’s going to throw up and god fucking damn it she loves him
“don’t say i told you so marlene, you bitch”
“i soooo told you so”
but now james is with amelia and it’s too late and lily doesn’t know what to do
so she just kind of sucks it up and tries to hang out with him except it’s so hard because she really really wants to kiss him
(his lips look really soft)
but she can’t and it’s killing her and she kind of thinks amelia hates her?? or, at least, she sends her dirty looks from across the table
and james can’t figure out why amelia doesn’t like lily because everyone likes lily until one day amelia sits him down and asks him to stop talking to her
“you’re still in love with her, james, and you’ll only get over it if you stop talking to her”
james doesn’t think that’s physically possible
so they break up and sirius gives him a knowing look but james keeps quiet about the reason because the last thing he needs is for lily to find out that he still loves her
lily is ecstatic
“i think it’s kind of awful that you’re this happy about your friend breaking up with his girfriend”
“shut up mary”
but they’re at the three broomsticks a month later and it’s just the two of them and they’re waiting for the usual bunch and lily decides she’s going to do it
she has to because she can’t live like this for the rest of her life. she can’t let james potter slip away
“do you love me?”
and oh shit it comes out so wrong that was not what she wanted to say not at all she was going to invite him to get butterbeer later and oh god her cheeks are turning the color of her hair and she thinks she’s going to sink into the chair
james thinks he might be dying
“do i what?”
lily’s already fucked it up this much, she might as well keep going
“do you love me? because i do. love you, i mean.”
and then she stares at her hands and waits
and waits
and waits
and then she looks up because what is taking the asshole so long to reply?
he’s just grinning at her. smiling, as if she’s just told him he’s won a million galleons or signed to play with the chudley cannons
“yeah, yeah i reckon i’ve loved you this whole time”
“pay up, moony. i told you she’d be the one to confess first”
but can we consider that Rhodey does, in fact, outrank Steve Rogers?
now picture rhodey meeting steve and steve snapping a salute
that is all
and Rhodey would be totally serious about it until the second Steve walked out of the room and then he’d totally turn and look at Tony with crazy eyes and Tony would be like “JARVIS TOOK PICTURES FROM EVERY ANGLE YOU’RE WELCOME”
NASA scientists have reported that they’ve successfully tested an engine called the electromagnetic propulsion drive, or the EM Drive, in a vacuum that replicates space. The EM Drive experimental system could take humans to Mars in just 70 days without the need for rocket fuel, and it’s no exaggeration to say that this could change everything.
But before we get too excited (who are we kidding, we’re already freaking out), it’s important to note that these results haven’t been replicated or verified by peer review, so there’s a chance there’s been some kind of error. But so far, despite a thorough attempt to poke holes in the results, the engine seems to hold up.
LITERALLY one of my favorite parts of this is that it’s called an EM drive, but all the scientists who talk about it are very stubborn about calling it a warp drive. I guarantee you their lab door has a sign taped to it to that effect.
(hey tumblr please don’t delete the previous people’s comments like you did the last time i added someone’s tags to a post mmkay)
No but that’s actually so clever okay like the people who live in the castle would get a general idea of the patterns and how to move around efficiently but like for anyone planning on attacking it would be impossible to infiltrate like how the hell do I attack the headmaster when I can’t even find the bathroom why the fuck am I in a chemistry supply closet okay these stairs went to the main hall but now I’m on my way to the broom closets holy fucking shit fuck leonard SAID the dorm was on the left of the three headed hippogriff but I’m here and it’s just a painting of a man with a donkey face is this a fucikgin joke leonard do you think this is funny because it’snot. its not okay siri how the hell do i get to the nearest anything “here is: the nearest painting” like fuck you siri
actually considering all this, the changing floorplan probably worked exactly as designed when it came to the battle of hogwarts in the late 90′s. the invasion was towards the end of the term, so the students, especially the renegade students in hiding, had the full term to master getting around the school quickly, quietly, and efficiently. the invading deatheaters were generally their parents’s ages, and hadn’t been back to hogwarts in several decades, if they’d even attended at all. so, while the adult invaders easily outmatched the adolescent defenders in strength and skill, hogwarts was a lethal maze to the deatheaters, while it was home to the kids.
I’ve been thinking, if house points are mostly awarded for scholary achivements, then how come we have never seen the house full of smarts, ravenclaw ever win the house cup? by all means, they should be trouncing the others.
my theory is that ravenclaw outdoes all the other houses both in gaining, and in losing points. they rack up all the possible points for classwork, assignments AND extra school work. But they also lose a buttload in their other pursuits of knowledge: - not returning books on time - staying in the library after hours - sneaking in the restricted section - setting up secret potion labs for RESEARCH purposes - throwing things off the tower FOR RESEARCH - throwing things into the lake FOR RESEARCH - taking small field trips into the forbidden forest to get samples and take notes on the wildlife -
illegally tampering with muggle stuff FOR RESEARCH - “borrowing” school equipment and ingredients for said research - that pet kidnaping incident they never talk about that was sparked by a conversation about muggle schools “wait, you dissect frogs in class? WE SHOULD TOTALLY DO THAT TOO” - combining random spells and testing them on the student body - using said student body to test the secret potion lab’s latest creations - referring to non-ravenclaw students as test subjects in the vicinity of disapproving teachers
what I’m saying is that while the other houses may preceive ravenclaw as a group of quiet bookworms, they are actually more troublesome than the other three combined. FOR RESEARCH.
…..good thing we’re adults and no one can take house points from us anymore tbh
I honestly cannot say how many times someone has asked me my reasoning behind an action and it has been “for research” or “I wanted to know what would happen” or something similar. >_____>
Ravenclaw: the house of “Oooh, what does this button do?”
IT HAS COME TO MY ATTENTION THAT THERE IS A (VERY SMALL BUT APPARENTLY EXTANT) FAN BASE ON TUMBLR FOR THE KENCYRATH CHRONICLES.
Beloved followers and non-followers alike, let me tell you a thing. The Kencyrath Chronicles are up there as my favorite books ever. Not the way I talk about loving Harry Potter–Hogwarts is my home, to coin a phase–or even the way I love everything Robin McKinley has ever touched–and I love her stuff like I love BREATHING, it’s not always at the forefront of my mind but when I go too long without it I ache, go read all of it immediately. No, no, no. This, my love for the Kencyrath Chronicles, is a WHOLE OTHER CREATURE. Just talking about these books makes my hands shake and my bones feel heavy and my blood become a tangible fizzy thing in my veins. Like, if being in love doesn’t feel this good, I’m honestly not interested.
These books are about grand sweeping battles between good and evil and how those grand ideals become petty and ugly and messy as soon as you look closely enough, and how people fight them anyway because it’s their purpose or because it’s their choice or because it’s their people they’re protecting. Magic is rampant, from the great and hated Three-Faced God of the Kencyr people and its ‘blessed’ chosen ones, the Shanir, who are hated and cherished by their own people and by themselves for how close they are to their meddling deity, to the wandering bands of rathorn (ARMORED FLESH-EATING UNICORNS, PEOPLE, HOW MUCH MORE OF A PITCH DO YOU NEED) and the migratory trees (yes, you read that correctly). The main character is wild and casually vicious and desperate to be gentle, and she is loved by people everywhere she goes but she’s never really one of them, and the running joke in-universe is that you can track her progress across the world by falling buildings and burning cities (”…the Riverlands in ruins and you in the middle of it, looking apologetic” is a personal favorite quote). The writing style fucking breathes with power and imagination and magic. I am not a tough sell on books, really I’m not, but these books. Trinity. The fact that these books are not the most popular things since Lord of the Rings fucking breaks my heart, it really does.
So like. Go read them. Immediately. The first two books, God Stalk and Dark of the Moon, are sold as an omnibus called Dark of the Gods, and please forgive their God-awful covers (why is the canonically very flat-chested lead a D-cup? Don’t know, just kind of relieved I read the older edition with the less awful cover). If you’ve read them and you liked them, please please PLEASE COME INTO MY ASK BOX AND NEVER EVER LEAVE.
(On a somewhat related note, I’ve read more books than I could care to count in my life, so if anyone ever wants a fantasy/sci-fi rec, I got you, hit me up.)
it’s kinda cool how our generation has created actual tone in the way we write online. like whether we: write properly with perfect grammar, shrthnd everythin, use capitals to emphasise The Point, use extra letters or characters for emotion!!!!!, and much more - it means we can have casual conversations, effectively make jokes using things like sarcasm that’s usually hard to understand without context and much more. this “incorrect English” has really opened avenues of online conversation that isn’t accessible with “correct English” which is pretty interesting
My class and I literally taught some of the nuances of this to our english teacher, things such as the difference between “yes” and “yes.” or “..” and “…”. It makes perfect sense linguistically that we would create this complexity to ease communication in a medium without body language and tone, but what my teacher was really floored about was that none of this had ever “learned” it, we’re “native speakers” of a whole new type of english.
I want an inverse spy flick. The spy is a woman. Her whole team is made up of diverse women. All the villains are women. There is only one man in the entire movie and he is a Strong Male Character who is like 25 and decently ripped and has a scene where he slowly steps out of a pool wearing speedos because he is Confident and In Control of His Sexuality. We see his ass when he has to tug down his pants to get at the knife strapped to his thigh. His nipples are always erect for no fucking reason.
They are undercover in a nightclub. In order to keep their cover from being blown, he has to kiss another man.
He knits to relieve stress and to keep his mind sharp. It is never discussed by any of the characters.
Someone asks him how he knows how to do Traditionally Feminine Thing. “I have four sisters,” he answers.
This is also how he knows how to fight while armed with nothing but a purse, a high heel shoe, and a can of hair spray. During this fight, he is, for no apparent reason, shirtless.
The lead spy is Helen Mirren. She nails the Action Boy in the shower. There’s a lot of lingering closeups on the way the shower spray runs across his breathlessly ecstatic face. We also hear every breathless whimper of his climax, while out in the hallway Lucy Liu is smoking impatiently, a duffel bag full of rocket launchers slung over her shoulder. The President isn’t going to kidnap herself, here, christ.
Action Boy emerges in a small towel, sheepish yet radiant. Helen Mirren emerges in a tuxedo, also smoking, also with a duffel bag of rocket launchers.
In one scene, the lead villain captures the Strong Male Character. He is, once more, inexplicably shirtless as she ties him to the chair. He makes some quips about his sexual independence before he is rescued by a sweat-drenched Helen Mirren, who kicks down the door and nukes everyone in the room. Strong Male Character’s hair remains perfect throughout the ordeal.
Strong Male Character is heartlessly slain in front of Helen Mirren’s eyes despite all of his skills and combat prowess. His body slumps to the ground, lifeless but supple. Helen Mirren makes a witty quip at Strong Male Character’s killers before quickly and dramatically slaying them all.
She steals one last glance at Strong Male Character. His beautiful eyes stare back from a handsome face with perfectly tussled hair, lips positioned a if in a gentle sigh. There’s no bringing him back now. Helen Mirren walks away, stronger than before. Strong Male Character’s death has hardened her, but given her the strength and resolve to complete her task.
Roll credits.
An after credits preview clip comes on as a teaser. Helen Mirren with a huge explosion tearing things up behind her walks toward the camera with a new Strong Male Character wearing the tiny, tattered remnants of a burned shirt about his flexing pecs and deltoids, and he is carrying the bag of rocket launchers as he steps in behind her.
So Matt Bomer?
I’m seeing Matt Bomer
and then fandom burns itself to the ground trying to find some guy to slash him with
Nah, Matt Bomer is almost 40. Despite his good looks and great bod, he’s way too old to play the shaggable romantic supporting character to 70-year-old Helen Mirren.
Matt Bomer plays Helen Mirren’s sadder-but-wiser ex, computer-savvy, gorgeous but still single, fiercely independent (but it’s all an act).
Helen Mirren shows up on his doorstep to ask him for one last hacker job, for old time’s sake. Matt hauls off to slap Helen in the face, but Helen catches his wrist, pulls him close, and kisses him long and hard. Matt struggles at first but finally melts into her embrace.
Lucy Liu strolls past them into Matt’s chic apartment, slapping Matt on the ass as she mutters “Some things never change, do they?”
Late the next night, as Matt and Helen hack into the CIA database, Helen tucks a stray lock of Matt’s hair behind his ear and asks him why there’s no husband or kids in the picture after all this time.
Matt turns his sad, beautiful eyes toward her and confesses that there has only ever been Helen for him, but he couldn’t stand never knowing if she would come back alive when she left on a mission. Helen and Matt nearly have a moment, but the computer beeps with the results of their search.
The next morning, Helen goes into the kitchen to find Matt’s 20-year-old nephew has come to stay for the weekend. Helen and the camera slowly pan up and down his gorgeous, toned, oiled-up and glistening body as he stands, nearly-naked but for his tight, black satin booty-short underwear, and starts making a gourmet vegetarian omelet.
He turns around and smiles at Helen. “You must be a friend of Uncle Matt. I’m Caden. You hungry?”
Helen’s eyes drift down to Caden’s bulging crotch. “Oh, I could eat,” she quips.
Helen Mirren and the actor who plays the 20 year old nephew get together in real life. Everyone is delighted by this.
I don’t think financing this would be a problem; distribution probably would. We could hack into the network feed for the Super Bowl, perhaps.
You know you grew up on Steve Irwin when you see a photo of a crocodile and think, “Wow. Just beautiful.”
And you see Stingrays as the devil themselves
nah man Steve would have forgiven that stingray and absolved it of its sins
He would have apologized for getting into the stingray’s space and making it afraid.
He actually did! Some of Steve Irwin’s last words were, “it wasn’t his fault. I startled him.”
He actually did forgive the stingray. He knew that he had scared it, and that it was only acting to protect itself.
If you put your ear up to a seashell you can hear the sound of mY HEART BREAKING INTO A THOUSAND LITTLE PIECES
This is why I get so mad whenever my folks have Animal Planet on lately and it’s all about WHAT ANIMALS ARE GOING TO MURDER YOU IN YOUR FACE?
EXOTIC PETS RIP OWNER TO SHREDS!
SNAKES! WILL THEY EAT YOU? (YES)
Steve Irwin (and at the time at least his contemporary follow-behind Jeff Corwin) ushered in such a pure unbridled LOVE of exotic, ferocious, terrifying animals. He respected the animals so much, he loved them.
Yes, crocs would charge and snakes would lunge, but he would respect when the animal deemed its boundaries well crossed and let it go back on its merry reptilian way.
This was the Tone for my childhood. My education of wild animals was Steve Irwin talking about how beautiful this deadly crocodile was, how majestic and chill and peaceful coexistence could be.
It was Jeff Corwin screaming and yelling at people at the discovery of a snake carcass, killed because of ignorant fear of it. It was harmless, and lost, and scared, and decapitated and he was livid. Why? Why would you do that? It was non-venomous, it didn’t want to be where it was any more than you wanted it to be where it was – why didn’t you call someone to release it?
And now it’s just… “Everything is murderous and animals will eat your face and everything is Ruthless Killing Machines”
and just.
I feel like I’m watching my own father’s work be tainted whenever AP is on. It’s so upsetting.
Yes. Thank you. This is exactly why I can’t stand some of the stuff they air now. Because yes, that shark or snake or crocodile could kill you, but so could a reasonably determined domestic cat, so could another human being, you’re so much more likely to die at the hands of a human being, and if that animal is coming after you it’s because you’re in its home or you’re hurting it or something and God I could just cry.
Every once in a while I remember that, during the last round of workshopping people’s writing in my fiction class, I got into a fight with my teacher and the rest of the class about whether or not motive mattered in writing. This one story was about this guy who was a serial killer and his girlfriend who…evidently knew he was a serial killer for months if not years and did nothing and the last scene was her murdering him with poison in his food. (There were a lot of really heavy rape-y abusive overtones and I was kind of like…sweetheart, have you considered therapy rather than exorcising your issues onto all of us.) And I made what I thought was the totally valid remark of “Well, it’s not clear what makes her snap and murder him; like, she’s known for a while, generally people don’t just suddenly DECIDE to kill their significant other who they’ve shown no violent inclinations toward in the past without some sort of prompting, and like you don’t need to get into the motive much in the story but maybe hint at it? Because murder?”
And the whole class basically sat around talking about how motive doesn’t matter and it’s fine that she just kills him for no apparent reason and how in writing it’s fine if there’s no motive because the characters do what they need to for the writer’s plot to work and I was just like “Wow, that’s right, this is why I fight with most of you about writing so much, it’s because in order for a plot to function, motives need to…like…exist.”
Like, if your character goes to get a smoothie, it matters if they’re getting it because they’ve had a bad day and smoothies are a fave, or because they’re on a health kick and they’d rather have a milkshake, or because they’re meeting someone there, or whatever. It changes the character’s backstory and behavior. Am I crazy?
i don’t understand the “women have to have a child - before its too late” rhetoric
if you’re unsure don’t do it because i realised the other day that ANY time, between now and my death, i can choose to have as many children in my life as i like. i could become a “big sister”, or a foster parent, or work with kids. or adopt kids, or about 50 other ideas i haven’t thought of. i’ve never wanted a child but if i did and i was too old to have a biological one the options are endless
literally the only choice you cant change is having one. that choice you’re stuck with for the rest of your life. whereas im free to choose to be involved with kids as much or as little as i choose. or i can stay being the “mother” of a sillybutt rescue kitty, it’s all still open and available to me and always will be
“Can I tell you a secret? You don’t have to be in a relationship.
I mean it. I know they force it down your throat until you choke on it. Girls aren’t pretty unless they’re wanted. Boys aren’t men unless they’re having sex with someone. People aren’t lovable until they’re dating someone.
But a relationship won’t always make you happy, and as wonderful as romance is, it isn’t the only love that exists. I have seen friendships that are deeper and more pure than couples who swear it’s forever - and yet the friendship is the one people ignore.
I have heard so often “nobody loves me” out of the mouths of people who are single. And it kills me because if you ask them: where are your parents, your teachers, your classmates, your pets - they say, yes, okay, but it doesn’t count. Of course it counts, love doesn’t diminish just because someone doesn’t want to have sex with you. In fact, doesn’t it sort of make that love more real that they want nothing - not even a date - out of you?
It is pretty to be in love. It’s magical, I’m sure. But it’s also wonderful to stop for ice cream in your prom dress with six other girls. It’s also wonderful to go visit the world with nothing but a bunch of buddies who are really excited about learning.
The problem is: we’ve made everything about “the one”. But maybe “the one” is just you, loving yourself, having fun, and being happy. Maybe instead of looking for our other halves, we should be piecing ourselves together.
Maybe I wasn’t born unfinished. Maybe I am the one who makes myself better.”—Single serving size // r.i.d (via inkskinned)
apparently you can’t be employed by the CIA if you’ve ever illegally downloaded music
breaking news: in 20 years, the CIA will operate out of the president’s basement, staffed by four old men and six guinea pigs
Okay so what this really means is that in 20 years the CIA will be staffed only with people who were incredibly paranoid and went to great pains to hide their music downloading activities from surveillance.
…which sounds exactly like the sort of person you want working as a spy so.
In 20 years the CIA will be staffed only with people who have implicitly or explicitly lied to the CIA.
Hey transmasculine and gender-variant folx! If you wear a chest binder, I made an Android app that you can use! It reminds you to take off your binder at the end of the day and also to stretch out your back during the day. You can find it in the Google Play store here.
If you’re having issues with it, or have any feedback for me, I’d love if you could email me at binder.reminder.team@gmail.com. And if you like it, feel free to rate and review it!
the thing that bothers me is that disney and marvel seem to still be under the impression that the only way to get a female audience in the seats for their action films is to add a romance
and this is extremely upsetting
why cant i as a woman like a movie thats built on drama and political tensions?
why cant i as a woman like a movie that has cheeky humor?
why cant i as a woman like a movie where people punch each other and there are huge battle sequences?
why is it that because i am a woman these major studios feel that i will only watch their movies if i see two straight people kiss
but can we consider that Rhodey does, in fact, outrank Steve Rogers?
now picture rhodey meeting steve and steve snapping a salute
that is all
and Rhodey would be totally serious about it until the second Steve walked out of the room and then he’d totally turn and look at Tony with crazy eyes and Tony would be like “JARVIS TOOK PICTURES FROM EVERY ANGLE YOU’RE WELCOME”
@ the people who followed me for one specific thing i’m really sorry my interests are all over the place and that sometimes i will suddenly start posting a fuck ton of something i’ve never mentioned before whoops
