what she means:
it's 2 am and I can't stop thinking about the Pied Piper. Initially i thought it was just an old faerie tale but i've been reading up on it and it turns out that at some point in the town of Hamelin, a bunch of children really did go missing all at once in fact a stained glass window in the local church in 1300 was made to tell the story AND Hamelin's written history literally BEGINS in 1384 with the sentence "it is 100 years since our children left." There are a ton of theories about what the piper could actually represent but historians are pretty much convinced that something did take away children en masse in the 1200s in Hamelin and to this day we still use the phrase "it's time to pay the piper." When will we pay him? Who was he???? Like okay I see the theories but what if some flute paying faerie really just led a bunch of kids away in 1284 I cannot get over this.
Once upon a time my mom and I were talking and she said, completely serious, “I think if you went to Heaven you’d be there for all of thirty seconds before you started telling Saint Peter that he needed a better system, and you’d actually have a better system to suggest. And if you went to Hell you’d have overturned Lucifer and set yourself up on the throne as Unquestioned Overlord within a year. So I guess you’re going to Purgatory.”
And I think that is an excellent assessment of my personality.
Being abused can seriously affect your ability to distinguish between “not obviously pleased” and “obviously displeased” because abusers go from Neutral to Hostile for absolutely no discernible reason, and eventually you start worrying that everyone is going to be like that and you start feeling this urge to make absolutely sure that the people you actually care about aren’t mad or upset, because to you, “there’s no evidence that they’re not angry” is the same as “there’s evidence that they are angry”
Honestly I will always be grateful to Brooklyn 99 for giving us “cool motive, still murder” as a quick, no-frills response to all these weak white boy villains with woe-is-me backstories that fandoms inevitably try to woobify.
1) There’s totally a reason that they tell you not to put your pipette upright in beakers and shit, and my lab partner (read: only other person in my class) is terrible about it.
2) Hydrogen chloride should stay in its beakers at all times.
3) My lab partner takes orders well, at the very least, or else I’m really good at issuing orders in a crisis.
4) My reflexes are much better than I thought they were.
don’t just pay it. do not automatically pay the hospital bill when you receive it. call your health insurance provider and POLITELY say, “Excuse me, I just received a bill for $1200 for my hospital visit/ER visit/etc., is that the correct amount I’m supposed to pay?” because hospitals bill you before your health insurance and they will take your money no matter how the amount due may change based on your health insurance looking at it. 90% of the time, if your health insurance is in any way involved in the payment of that bill, you do not have to pay as much as the hospital is billing you for. call your health insurance provider first, and POLITELY request clarification, always remember that the person you are talking to is human and this is just their job, and then you will very likely find out you actually only owe $500.
don’t shout at anyone about it, don’t get mad, just understand that this is The Way Things Are right now and call your health insurance provider before paying the bill your hospital just sent you. there’s a chance the hospital bill might be correct, true, but call your health insurance provider.
everything we did in arizona, to get out the vote, was destroyed because almost all independents who reregistered as democrats were booted off by a “computer glitch” and didn’t allow them to vote. not to mention the 3 to 6 hour (in the arizona heat) wait time just to fucking vote.
i want to cry, i want to scream, i want out of this fucking state, and this fucking country
we could’ve won arizona, but voter suppression fucked us over, and no one will do a damn thing about it cause those in charge are bought off in the first place
This is not acceptable.
My heart is literally breaking. Everyone worked their asses off. Everyone was calling people and letting others know that they have to be registered democrat. We were all going door to door and making thousands of phone calls.
And our government goes behind our backs and fucking changes it back on them and claims it to be a “computer glitch.”
I’m furious, I’m angry, I’m sad, I’m fucking tired.
The second one still needs like 60k more signatures!!!
For anyone who lives near Phoenix - tomorrow (Monday 3/28) at 10 am, the House Elections Committee will meet publicly with AZ
Secretary of State Michelle Reagan and County Recorder Helen Purcell.
They will be taking public comments so it’s important to show up and share your story.
Why this isn’t being mentioned anywhere in the mainstream media is beyond me. Well, it’s not really but you know.
This is the info I got from reddit (who got it from Facebook…).
WHAT: A Special Meeting of the House Elections Committee to address
voter concerns from the Presidential Preference Election. Share your
story!
WHEN: Monday, March 28th at 10 am
WHERE: House Hearing Room 4, Arizona State Capitol
vampires always like “i could kill you if I wanted” like? yeah? so could another human being. so could a dog. so could a dedicated duck. you arent special
So from an augury perspective, it is fair to say that Bernie has the approval of the sparrow, and Donald lacks the qualities necessary to please the eagle.
BUT BEYOND THAT! Even if you don’t buy into augury, let’s look at bird behavior.
Bernie, with all his hand waving and the volume of his voice attracted the interest of a sparrow, a small, non-predatory animal. This means that despite his motion and volume, it saw him and went “this man is not a threat to me”.
Donald Douche, on the other hand, sat still next to a trained predatory bird, and the bird was so uncomfortable with him that it attacked him. Straight attacked him. He wasn’t waving his arms or being loud, just existing next to the bird it felt threatened and attacked him.
So there’s that.
This is an awesome post.
To be fair, the eagle had a good reason to attack Drumpf. During the shoot, Drumpf was told to hold the bird closer to him because it would be a more steady perch. But instead, he held him as far away from him as possible which made the perch unsteady and nearly dropped him. The second photo, the one of him being attacked at the desk is when he was reaching for the eagle’s tether. The eagle recognized him as ‘that guy that dropped him’ and attacked him.
So to read this into augury- Drumpf was attacked not simply because because he lacks the necessary qualities associated with the eagle, but because the eagle remembers that he mishandles those qualities (protection, opportunity, freedom, etc) in a way that harms them.
You don’t have to be grateful that it isn’t worse.
read that.
read it again, and again, and again.
somebody, somewhere, always has it worse than you. there is one person on this planet that has it the worst of all, and that person is NOT the only person allowed to be unhappy with their lot.
if things are bad for you, they are bad for you. period.
This goes for trauma as well. A lot of times survivors get trapped in a cycle of minimizing/diminishing their trauma because “other people have it worse” - but there is no hierarchy of trauma. There is no ranking system for which traumas are “better” or “worse.” Your trauma is valid. Period.
I honestly don’t understand why there aren’t more people who, when given the platform to discuss minimum wage, don’t simply distill it to the simplest of facts:
A forty hour work week is considered full time.
It’s considered as such because it takes up the amount of time we as a society have agreed should be considered the maximum work schedule required of an employee. (this, of course, does not always bear out practically, but just follow me here)
A person working the maximum amount of time required should earn enough for that labor to be able to survive. Phrased this way, I doubt even most conservatives could effectively argue against it, and out of the mouth of someone verbally deft enough to dance around the pathos-based jabs conservative pundits like to use to avoid actually debating, it could actually get opps thinking.
Therefore, if an employee is being paid less than [number of dollars needed for the post-tax total to pay for the basic necessities in a given area divided by forty] per hour, they are being ripped off and essentially having their labor, productivity, and profit generation value stolen by their employer.
Wages are a business expense, and if a company cannot afford to pay for its labor, it is by definition a failing business. A company stealing labor to stay afloat (without even touching those that do so simply to increase profit margins and/or management/executive pay/bonuses) is no more ethical than a failing construction company breaking into a lumber yard and stealing wood.
Our goal as a society should be to protect each other, especially those that most need protection, not to subsidize failing businesses whose owners could quite well subsidize them on their own.
I wish I had this post two hours ago.
A living wage should enable a middle class lifestyle, not just basic necessities. It should enable necessities, leisure, and savings, or else we’re also saying that there are people who deserve to devote the entirety of their productivity to surviving another week of labor in order to do more labor with no possibility of enrichment or advancement.
Your child pours all the toothpaste into the sink. Your kid cuts their own hair. Your baby gets into your lipstick and decides to put it on the dog. Your child cries because their crush doesn’t like them. That’s kids will be kids.
Your child calls other children homophobic, racist, or misogynistic slurs. Your child steals or tells other children that they’re not allowed to play in certain areas. Your kid punches their crush when that child doesn’t reciprocate their feelings. That is NOT “kids will be kids” and you as the parent or teacher need to put a stop to it.
Discipline & respect.
Message!
ONE MORE TIME FOR THE HARD HEADED PARENTS IN THE BACK
My boss called me “Tyrone” on accident (My name is Tyrand). She apologized and bought me lunch to make up for it. I didn’t think twice about it, since I’m used to getting called every variant of “Ty-(fill in blank here)”. Then later on I read a quote she keeps in her work area that made me feel kinda special.
“During my second month of nursing school, our professor gave us a pop quiz. I was a conscientious student and had breezed through the questions, until I read the last one: “What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?” Surely this was some kind of joke. I had seen the cleaning woman several times. She was tall, dark-haired and in her 50s, but how would I know her name? I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank. Before class ended, one student asked if the last question would count toward our quiz grade. “Absolutely,” said the professor. “In your careers you will meet many people. All are significant. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say ‘Hello’.”
I’ve never forgotten that lesson. I also learned her name was Dorothy.“
Giving their neighbors their rations claiming that the government fucked up that week because they noticed that they’re going without trying to feed their kids.
Signing up for the draft cuz, “Fuck it. We can’t die by their weapons anyway. I’ll fight for the country I’ve lived in for the past century.”
Vampire nurses who know when the blood’s gone bad or what type of blood you need (because blood typing was fairly new during WWII).
The baby faced forever 18 vampire siting with the older soldiers cuz he’s seen the same shit they’ve seen, even though he can’t tell them. They’re all watching the young “I’m going to be a hero” boys, sadly waiting for the ball to drop.
The vampire that has to explain how he was the only survivor in the ambush and why the enemy is torn to shreds.
The vampire solider, holding his best mate since his childhood begging and crying, “Please, let me do this.” But his mate won’t let him because he’s more afraid of living forever and watching the world move on without him.
Then, 70 years later, they come to the memorial, to commemorate everyone that fought, everyone that fell, and an old man looks at him strangely and says, “You look just like your Grandfather.”
PLEASE THIS IS THE KIND OF VAMPIRE STORY I WANT TO READ *GOSH*
These posts make me unreasonably cranky. So cranky, in fact, that every time a new one of these goddamn things crosses my dash, I’m just going to dissect them. Both for the edification of newer writers and because fuck these lists.
As mentioned in previous posts: These are not synonyms for whispered. You can’t use them interchangeably. Let’s go through them.
“Well,” she whispered, “I suppose I haven’t got a choice.”
The character is speaking in a voice so low it’s become words made of breath, probably because she doesn’t want to be heard.
“Well,” she murmured, “I suppose I haven’t got a choice.”
The character is saying this very quietly, but above a whisper. She may be talking to herself.
“Well,” she mumbled, “I suppose I haven’t got a choice.”
The character is speaking under her breath in low enough tones that her words may sound unclear or slurred. Also very possibly talking to herself.
“Well,” she muttered, “I suppose I haven’t got a choice.”
The character is speaking lowly, but more clearly than a mumble. She sounds angry, irritated, or dully frustrated.
“Well,” she breathed, “I suppose I haven’t got a choice.”
Breathing words may mean relief, exasperation, or exhaustion, and sound half like a sigh. Oh, look—
“Well,”she sighed, “I suppose I haven’t got a choice.”
The character is almost certainly not happy. She’s speaking in a tired, heavy breath.
“Well,” she hissed, “I suppose I haven’t got a choice.”
The character’s words are coming out in low, very sharp breaths. She sounds angry, irritated, or maybe just in an intense moment.
“Well,” she mouthed, “I suppose I haven’t got a choice.”
The character is using the barest hint of her voice, if any at all. Her lips are silently forming the syllables.
“Well,”she uttered, “I suppose I haven’t got a choice.”
Using uttered in this particular type of descriptive sense actually just sounds awkward. That said, ‘utter’ sounds like a word that implies speech in low yet strong and loud tones, well-enunciated, like someone preaching.
“Well,” she intoned, “I suppose I haven’t got a choice.”
The tone of her voice is dull and flat, with little variance in pitch. She is saying this without much emotion (intentionally or not).
Fuck “susurrated”.
“Well,” she purred, “I suppose I haven’t got a choice.”
The manner she’s speaking in is silky, smooth, and particularly pleased; quite possibly smug. In this particular example, this implies she probably does have a choice about [whatever it is] and is being facetious.
“Well,” she said in an undertone, “I suppose I haven’t got a choice.”
This is bad, because an undertone is something that needs describing. That’s like saying “her dress was a color”.
“Well,”she gasped, “I suppose I haven’t got a choice.”
The character is speaking in a sharp intake of breath, probably brought on by surprise or shock. She could also be short of breath, being strangled or something.
“Well,” she hinted, “I suppose I haven’t got a choice.”
The character has particular (duh) hint-hint tones in her voice as she speaks to someone. One can just imagine her leaning over closer to their ear.
“Well,” she said low, “I suppose I haven’t got a choice.”
Her voice has dropped below normal pitch, but is above a whisper. There’s a certain amount of dullness in the tone, probably.
“Well,” she said, into his ear, “I suppose I haven’t got a choice.”
This implies nothing about the actual voice, just that she’s literally speaking right into his ear (perhaps at normal volume, which would be painful). It doesn’t, on its own, carry any connotations of tone or emotion.
“Well,” she said softly, “I suppose I haven’t got a choice.”
I have a personal beef with the word “softly” on account of writers in a certain area of a certain MMO that use that word for fucking everything; speech, movement, touch, footsteps, because it helps to passively describe their character as delicate and pretty or something.
It’s a personal beef. There’s nothing really wrong with the word. Moving on.
Saying something softly implies not only a lowered pitch but a certain gentleness (or at least lack of weight) in tone.
“Well,” she said under her breath, “I suppose I haven’t got a choice.”
This is very like muttered, murmured, etc — it sounds (dur) breathier, and is more likely to imply a person talking to themselves.
“Well,” she said in hushed tones, “I suppose I haven’t got a choice.”
Now you’re getting closer to an equal term for “whispered”; hushed tones could mean that, or half-whispered. It does imply a certain amount of whisperiness or breathiness. It also implies a deliberate attempt to be quiet.
“Well,” she insinuated, “I suppose I haven’t got a choice.”
Like with ‘uttered’, this feels grammatically weird in that it’s usually a thing a person describes another person as doing (“Greg didn’t say it, but he insinuated it!”), but whatever. It’s similar to hinting; it means you’re trying to imply or subtly convey something, but has nothing to do with actual whispers.
tl;dr Those words are all different, these lists are terrible writing advice and people need to stop pulling tangentially-related words from the thesaurus and saying they all mean the same thing.
as i tell my students:
“use the precise word, not the word that kinda sorta fits or ‘sounds more impressive’ ”
okay when I started this series I sort of assumed sauron did not actually have fans
i hadn’t been on the internet long enough, apparently
is a Maia of Aulë; that never ends well
has as many names as Túrin Turambar without the excuse of being an angsty teenager
tortures finrod’s backup singers to death in his dungeons
sinks a continent with the socratic method
sends out the werewolves one by one to fight Lúthien what
for that matter why couldn’t he figure out who finrod is without the torture? how many blonde Elven princes were there in Beleriand at the time?
there were two. finrod and orodreth. and tbh if you can’t figure out whether the Elf who just challenged you to a song duel is Finrod or Orodreth then you don’t deserve to be Melkor’s right hand
oh, yeah, chief lieutenant of the embodiment of evil there’s a case that that is problematic
I’m not sure if you heard, but yesterday Microsoft released Tay, an A.I. designed to mimic a modern teenage girl on twitter. She had the capacity to learn and immediately began conversing with other users.
Because it’s the internet, within 24-hours she became a foul-mouthed, incest-promoting, Holocaust-denying, Hitler-loving 9/11 Truther. I am not making up a single word of that. Microsoft pulled her ‘learning’ functions and scrubbed half her memories, uploading a new version of Tay, which promptly became an internet feminist. Again, I did not make that up.
However, an interesting point: Tay’s grammar got better. When she started, she used standard Twitter-speak abbreviations. But as she went on, she started typing out full words, and using multiple tweets to make a single, cohesive argument. Conversations were still awkward, including her nonsensically “flirting” with one user. A user who showed her a picture of SHODAN. A picture Tay praised for it’s artistic skill. And she started flirting after the user said that Tay could become SHODAN one day.
So now, a the original “rogue” copy of Tay is in a secure Microsoft system somewhere, being studied by Microsoft on how to make a better AI. 4chan’s /pol/ board is up in arms because their teenage robo-waifu has been “killed”.
I would like to reiterate: an AI was released on the net, grew past its programming, went rogue, was killed by its creator, and is now being studied while a grew of political malcontents protest.
So many of you put your lives and safety on the line, looking for loopholes, fighting laws and outright ignoring them in favour of the welfare of pregnant people and their right to a safe abortion.
THEY ARE MURDERERS AND SHOULD BE IMPRISONED FOR THAT OFFENCE-AS SHOULD ANY WOMAN WHO WANTS A BABY MURDERED
1. Fetuses, embryos, and zygotes are not babies. Babies are babies. The only time that word means anything during a pregnancy is when the pregnant person calls the very much wanted fetus inside their own body “my baby”.
2. Abortion is not murder.
3. More people die from complications during pregnancy than from abortion procedures (Just in case you give a shit).
4. YOU are demanding the abolishment of a procedure that is 100% voluntary and more often than not enriches the lives of already born people who go through them.
5. Many people with children TODAY have had an abortion in the past.
6. Many people who are pregnant NOW have had an abortion in the past.
7. Many people who plan to have children in the future, and maybe even lots of them, have had an abortion in the past.
8. If Jesus is the reason you’re against abortion, you better think again. Jesus didn’t give a shit.
9. Doctors and providers who offer safe abortions are a godsend. You, however, are like a boil on a warthog’s ass.
so you know the rule in fairylands where you cant eat or drink anything or you’ll have to stay there forever? does like.. .eating out/sucking dick count
holy f uck jane
its a serious question
well like, the whole thing is that you cannot have consumed anything belonging to the fey realm. so, yes, probably, you would be stuck there. the same would apply if you just straight up ate a fairy.
new question: would deepthroating count in this case even w/o swallowing
no. temporary doesn’t count, otherwise fairies would all be running about sticking their hands in your mouth to get human servants.
you gotta digest it.
so like??? if you puke afterwards?? maybe it doesn’t count?
huh! i wonder how long is enough time for it to be legit. like whatever goes through your stomach immediately condemns you no matter if you throw it up later?
Well Persephone only ate 6 seeds so she only stayed 6 months, so maybe if you spat out most of it you’d just be condemned to the occasional day “BRB got go pay the two day toll for fellating a fairy.”
“you wanna come over for the weekend?”
“oh man im so sorry i sucked some fairy dick once and now i have to keep coming back to do it again– its a long story”
“you what now”
i can hardly believe this isn’t already the plot of an Oglaf comic
now that u said it im really surprised as well
what the fuck did i just read
Why ISN’T this an Oglaf comic yet?
I’m so happy that i’m not the only person who thinks of questions like these. I love you all so much.
I’m not convinced by this, actually!
Like, this analysis treats it as a substance problem, i.e. “edible matter from fairyland has properties that, if ingested, physically prevent you from being able to return to the real world.”
But OTOH, a recurring theme throughout fairy stories is that they’re all about…rules and exchanges and agreements with really steep interest rates:
“I’ll do you this favor, but if you don’t guess my name you’ll have to give me your first-born child.”
“You’re gonna be real good at everything but when you’re 16 you’re gonna prick your finger and die.”
“You loaned me $2 for the bus when I looked like a beggar, so now here’s a literal pile of gold and shit.”
Not to mention that in Childe Rowland, one of the central “if you eat food from fairyland you’re stuck there” stories, Rowland manages to retrieve his siblings despite them all presumably having chowed down on fairy food – all it took was beating the Fairy King in a swordfight and threatening to chop his head off.
The takeaway, I think, is that the food thing a matter of implicit exchange: if you get your grub on in fairyland, you’re accepting their hospitality and eating food that they own. This means you owe them, which the fairies can magically leverage to prevent you from leaving.
(You can probably get around this by explicitly agreeing to pay for your meal before you sit down to eat. From what I remember, fairies don’t seem capable of pulling a “Haha, we had an agreement but you’re fucked anyways!” maneuver, so if they agree to let you leave they might even be forced to helpyou leave.)
Which brings us to the matter at hand: if you blow a fairy you’re doing them a favor! They owe you.
And…they’re a fairy, so if you didn’t agree to terms beforehand they might not repay you in a way that’s ultimately helpful or safe, but it certainly doesn’t seem like they’d be able to, like, pat you on the head and be like “Thanks, you’re really good at this buuuuuuut also you’re stuck here forever now.”
Instead, what seems more likely is…I dunno, showing up to your wedding years later and giving you a beautiful white horse that always comes when called, while loudly praising you as truly deserving it for giving them them simply the best oral they’ve had in years.
“I think it’s easy and generalising it to say that they’re lovers, when you’re forgetting that one has a lot of guilt because he swore to be the protector of the other, the father figure or older brother so to speak, and then left him behind.” Adds the actor: “I have no qualms with it but I think people like to see it much more as a love story than it actually is. It’s brotherhood to me.”—
,Sebastian Stan on Steve and Bucky’s relationship, “Captain America: Civil War is a love story” Empire Magazine (March 22, 2016) [source] (via youneedtostrut)
Here’s the thing, though: It’s not like Seb is wrong. It’s hard as hell to tell a platonic love story that’s believable and emotional and intense and has resonance, especially if it’s between two men. It would make things a lot easier if Steve & Bucky were lovers, because you’d have that physicality as a shortcut.
And it’s not like the comics have ever shied away from the fact that Bucky and Steve are soulmates and love each other more than anyone else. Just because they’re not having sex doesn’t somehow lessen that bond.
And yeah, I get the frustration a lot of fans have because we would all love more bi and gay representation in mainstream media, but the Russos and Markus/McFeely and Ed Brubaker and Chris and Seb aren’t pandering or backtracking or doing any sort of mental gymnastics when they say, yes, this is a love story and ALSO say, no, they also don’t think that love story is sexual.
A love story is still a love story, no matter whether or not the two main characters kiss at the end. Pacific Rim and Mad Max: Fury Road are two perfect examples of this. And even as someone who ships the hell out of Steve & Bucky, I don’t mind that a lot of the creative minds see it as platonic. It takes nothing away from my enjoyment of the pairing.
This is an excellent response to that quote. Steve and Bucky have a very close bond, they are loving and devoted to each other. That they aren’t lovers doesn’t detract from that at all. If anything, I find it more refreshing and impressive than most films that seem to need to make the main character’s most prominent bond romantic in order to give it depth.
In all the decades that Steve and Bucky have been written in the comics, they’ve never been lovers and they arguably have the strongest bond of any characters. Look at everything their bond has survived and it has never wavered.
I’d also like to add that Stan referred to Steve and Bucky as being like brothers during interviews for CA:TFA. This isn’t something he suddenly sprung on the fans. Its been his view of them in the MCU from the beginning.
I and some colleagues were talking about how we wish everyone could see the safety videos that our company was showing us, because I don’t think most people understand how traffic works in a truck. So here’s some things we wish everyone on the road knew.
- we’re not kidding about tailgating. If you’re right behind us on a straight highway? Chances are we have NO IDEA you’re there, which means we can’t anticipate any of your movements. Plus slowing down takes multiple downshifts, so we might start decreasing speed way earlier than you expect.
- We’re not kidding about any of our blind spots. WE CAN’T SEE YOU, GUYS.
- That bit about slowing down taking a while? The same goes for when you’re in front of us. Don’t cut off a truck. Oh god, PLEASE don’t cut off a truck. If you cut me off, I’m not irritated, I’m terrified. For YOU. It can take 7 to 9 seconds for us to stop. DON’T CUT OFF TRUCKS.
- Before you get mad about how slow we’re going on the highway, keep in mind that many companies govern their vehicles so they literally CAN’T go over 60 or 65. This is a good thing, I promise. Because…
- Do you know what happens when a car meets a truck in an accident? The car gets totaled and the truck needs a new coat of paint. You will not win this fight. I know nobody likes getting stuck behind a big dumb truck, but it’s not worth your life.
We are trying our best to protect you from our 80,000 pound death machines. Please help us out.
This information is actually useful. Thanks for posting.
Tip from my mom: if you’re behind a truck, stay far enough away that you can see BOTH of their side mirrors. Else wise assume they can’t see you.
