i hope you’re all aware of the 300 recently discovered love letters between two gay british soldiers during ww2 that are going to be possibly adapted into a film.
they’re beautiful and poetic and tragic and heart-wrenching and brave. i highly suggest going and reading the excerpts.
here’s the one that broke my heart:
“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all our letters could be published in the future in a more enlightened time. Then all the world could see how in love we are.“
this quiz tells you what your homeric epithet would be and well, isn’t this the question that keeps us all up at night? feel free to reblog and put your epithet in the tags, mine is bright-eyed
Today I went to a restaurant, a newer place in town. It filled a building that had stood empty for
three years, and before that, it was a Denny’s.
The tables were clean and the accents were blue, and the waitress’ eyes
were wide and edged with white.
I told my dad, sitting at the new table, that the aura of
the Denny’s lingered. He asked when I had
been to the Denny’s in town—never, I said, but all Dennys’ are the same place, you
know? There are many doors, but they all
open to the same strange otherworld, a place where another plane of existence
opens at the right hours of the night.
The Denny’s was gone and has been for years, but it stuck to
the walls and whispered from the speakers when the music paused. The bar was untended in the middle of Happy
Hour. When we walked in, the hostess
stand was empty. Our waitress had a
sharp note in her voice, strained, and her lips moved strangely around her
words, and her eyes were ringed white, like a startled animal. She was a pretty girl, just a few years older
than me—I might have gone to school with her, but I didn’t recognize her, and
she didn’t seem to know me. When she
walked away, the faint shadow of a red-shirted figure seemed to cling to her
back like mist. Hi, I’ll be your server tonight, she said with a perfect toothy
smile, and I heard the rapid welcome-to-Denny’s-can-I-take-your-order
in my mind before she kept talking, can I
get you anything to drink to start.
I wonder what she’ll dream about tonight, our waitress with
the white-ringed eyes and the unfamiliar face.
If she dreams about her job, but decked out in another primary color and
filled with the transient souls who end up there at odd hours. No one goes to Denny’s, someone told me once,
you just end up there, usually at
late hours and with a mild degree of confusion about what brought you to their
door. If she dreams about the
red-shirted shadow, and about how that stranger arrived for work one day—another day, another dollar, a waitstaff
lackey of the boss but also a keeper of the door to an elsewhere—to find their
job simply closed, the sign gone overnight like it had never been. We don’t know what happened to the Denny’s in
town. It didn’t even go out of business,
it just stopped, like a hand had
flicked a light switch and taken the whole building with it.
I wonder if she’ll dream about doorways and dark lots.
The walls were decked with black and white photographs, of
serious faces and beautiful landscapes, so neatly tiled that there was never
more than a hand’s breadth of clear wall in some places. Their eyes didn’t follow you, and the water
didn’t ripple out of the corner of the eye, but there was something…close about them, I told my mom. Like you might pass your hand over the front
and then reach through, past the paper and ink to the otherplace just
beyond. Not a trap, if you were clever,
but a gateway, which is almost the
same thing. Cut off from the other Denny’s
doors, I told her with a smile, the restaurant had to find new ones.
Ginger ale and a burger.
The food wasn’t a binding contract—the terms of the deal are set out at
the beginning, at a restaurant, even at a Denny’s. You come and they serve you, you pay and they
allow you to leave. Our waitress brought
us the check without a fuss, not so much as a wheedling don’t you want dessert to keep us there. Deal observed. I looked out the window as my mom pulled out
a credit card, overheard part of a conversation about checks. No, we
don’t take checks, cash or credit.
Checks aren’t signed in blood, I mused, but then neither is credit. Digital lifeblood, maybe, a new bond for a
new age, modern contracts to match a modern elsewhere. Deal kept.
I don’t think I would want to dine and dash, at that
restaurant, in those walls.
Two crows spent almost forty minutes on the grass outside,
idly strutting through the all-day dew that still clung. They chattered at each other, and eyed the
window where I watched them, black eyes like drops of intelligent ink. I looked outside every few minutes, and every
time I expected to see another view, something new, something other than the
shoe store and the vast expanse of pine trees.
It was the feeling of lying on my back on the ground with my eyes closed
and feeling the planet spin beneath me, but the stars being the same when I
looked again.
When we walked outside, the pearly grey
sunlight-behind-clouds had faded to a sulky, dull twilight, and there was fog
wrapping thick around the restaurant.
The parking lot was empty save for our car and two others, even though
there had been several more families inside.
We laughed about the old Denny’s in town, about how it had lost its hold
on this reality, and didn’t talk about the empty bar or the wide-eyed waitress
or the way the kitchen was so quiet, even though every staff member was
supposed to be behind the swinging doors.
The Denny’s in town is gone, died quietly in the night
without so much as a flatline. But I
think it might be haunting its replacement.
SO TODAY I was walking to college down a main road, it was really windy (as you might imagine with all the cars) and I was preocupied with keeping a grip on my beanie when I saw these two women walking a little way ahead of me on the other side of the road. One of these ladies was a bit taller than the other and they were holding hands (aww), the taller kinda butch lady had a flannel shirt on
(double aww)
and her partner/friend was wearing a cute cream and beige hijab. Now I swear to God this is relevant, wait for it.
A massive gust of wind suddenly comes tearing along the main road. I nearly lose my backpack, to give an idea of how bad it was. I look up and see the wind rip off this poor girls hijab and send it spiriling away down the street. (She had an undercap on so no major crisis but still, right.)
Before. You. Can. Blink. Our taller flannel-wearing girlfriend of the year TEARS off her flannel like lesbian Clark f***** Kent, throws her shirt over her partners head, and BAM she sprints off LIKE A SHOT after the hijab.
like 10/10, damn son, holy cheesits burrito, that is the very definition of chivalry and romance right there.
Y’all I just cut all my hair off (my hair used to reach the bottom of my rib cage and now it’s buzzed on the sides Ruby Rose style, so maybe fifteen inches or more?) and I’m probably never going to stop petting my own head, it feels so good.
Animorphs must be the only work of fiction that explains why the aliens only attack America
They specifically only attack one town, and that’s both because the first invaders were fooled by Hollywood then spent years doing drugs there, and explicitly because it’s a good neighborhood to raise kids in.
Usually Bones is so casual when he’s off duty that people on board can forget that he knows all their personal information. Not that he’d ever misuse it. But one night everyone was very drunk, amd Jim was insisting that Bones couldn’t possibly remember who on board has an appendix. So everyone lined up and Bones walked down the aisle. Yes. Yes. No. No. Yes. Yes. No. Yes. No. No. No. You’re species doesn’t have one. Yes. Yes.
100% correct.
This might be my new favorite headcanon.
^^accepted lolol
“And you, your liver’s funny lookin’.”
“And you’re missing 3 cm’s of duodenum.”
“Two plates in the left femur.”
“Regenerated kidneys.”
“And if I ever have to see the inside of your peritoneum again, Riley, I’m gonna hand in my papers.”
I’m cackling so hard at the last one!
Everyone has something anatomically or medically weird with them, and some are more obvious than others.
I can see him making his way down the line:
“Horseshoe kidney.”
“Perforated left tympanum at the age of seven.”
“Missing the nail on your right hallux because it just would not stop ingrowing.”
Right, so I got drafted into working for my old job for part of my trip to visit my friends and this is just a PSA that I’m going to be kinda out of touch because I got on a bus at 9 this morning for five hours and worked an eight hour shift and now I’m at a hotel to work a ten plus hour shift tomorrow.
If you sent me a message or an ask today and didn’t get a reply, please assume this post is an apology to you.
On the other hand, the girl in the seat across from me on the bus was an otherworldly creature. Lighthouse sweatshirt girl, you’re beautiful.
In my mind I will forever refer to Jake as "Roach Boy"
Oh my God, the YELP of laughter I let out when I saw this, you have no idea. Roach Boy, with a Roach Motel on his head.
On a somewhat related note I think it’s fucking great that he gets called Big Jake, like, point me toward the fanart where Jake is just. A big dude. Not fat–he’s an athlete, even if he’s not great at basketball–but just big. I have a friend who’s a football player (like…one of the positions that does a lot of running, I know nothing about football) and he’s like six foot and he’s ALWAYS been a really huge dude, tall and broad shouldered and kind of benevolently looming at all times, even when we were Animorphs-age. Draw me Jake like that dude. Just. Real tall and real broad through his shoulders with real big hands and generally kind of unsure about what to do about it. Talk to me about how he goes from kind of cheerfully slouched (I know a lot of friendly huge dudes, you know the slouch I mean, of like “I’m really tall and I’m trying to look approachable”) to ramrod straight and menacing as fuck during the war. He goes from being totally friendly and adorable to…genuinely kind of intimidating?
…listen, I’m sorry for this drastic change of topic, I just have a lot of feelings about Big Jake.
So there's a TV show about the Animorphs... Is that a things that's acknowledged in this fandom or is it Not A Thing We Talk About Shut The Hell Up?
I know there are some people who acknowledge it, but I got through literally a quarter of the first episode before I concluded that I was being unnecessarily cruel to myself and since then I have happily pretended that it does not exist while dreaming about the animated series I want to get someday.
Oh NO! MARCO!!! ANd MArco’s MUM?! Jesus Christ
IT’S SO TERRIBLE AND SO PAINFUL AND I LOVE IT DEARLY
*slams fist on table* Holy crap do I love this thing with Marco’s family. Also is it bad that I found the line about his mother being On Yeerk mothership funny? This is seriously juvenile humour.. and yet
Oh no trust me I too laugh at that joke every time. I’m also always hysterically amused by the recurring joke of “Hey, Rachel, open this door” Rachel, in morph: *breaks down the door*
Like, I’m a huge fan of that terrible joke, it will never not be funny to me.
Okay wow, these are dated: "How long do you think this will take?" Rachel asked. She checked her watch. "I set the VCR for two of my favorite shows, but I forgot to tape the movie of the week." "I'm taping it in case you miss it," Cassie said. Wow.
First of all, yeah, wow, the 90′s were a long time ago. Like, I know how to wind a cassette tape with a pencil and I’m pretty sure my friend’s kid sister has never even seen one before. It’s a trip.
Second of all, I kind of love how much Rachel and Cassie (and Jake and Marco, for all that they try to be gruff about it) are just. Really into their friendship. Like, yes, obviously, Cassie tapes movies that Rachel wants to see and makes sure to hang onto them for her. Rachel probably tapes Animal Planet sometimes, with much complaining, for her best friend. *sighs* I love them. They’re good kids.
grape juice omfg, these kids
In case you had missed that they’re TINY TEENS, they’re teeny tiny teens. Like. Thirteen. Juice box teens. I know that’s not what this is referencing but THEY’RE TINY TEENS, MARCO PROBABLY BRINGS CAPRI SUN WITH HIS LUNCH BOX. Or he would if he brought a lunch box.
“Henry Cavill needs to always play characters with names like Napoleon Solo. It suits him. In fact, he should just consider changing his name to Napoleon Solo.”
Yes to all of these! Not everything has to be Oscar Fodder. Sometimes a movie can just be… fun?
aaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAH I JUST FINISHED BOOK THREE AND AAAAAAAAH MY BIRD CHILD NEEDS SO MANY HUGS like, even though I read a bit of this series when I was little, so I... think... that things do eventually change for the better wrt that situation.... aaaaah that is much worse than I remember it being. wow
My booooooooy I love him, he goes through such a rough time.
And um. Sure! Yeah! Things totally change for the better! I absolutely did not talk all of these people into reading 54 books of unremitting, unalloyed, cold-eyed tragedy!
"His jaw is set hard, no trace of his nervous smile, and he’s standing up straight for the first tine in her memory and the two of them are immediately, viscerally agreed. They are going to war. The others can stay or go, but Rachel and Tobias. They are doing this, because this is what they are. Who they are." I love them and I LOVE this. I love the way you write so much, it's amazing. I've read this drabble twice over. It's so good.
THANK YOU SO MUCH, I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT THESE KIDS AND I’M GLAD THAT OTHER PEOPLE ARE ENJOYING THEM.
character being all “you expect me to do X?” Gilligan Cut to character doing X
the squad gets captured and interrogated separately, and they’re all telling equally terrible, completely contradictory lies
people completely missing the completely unsubtle, very visible dangerous thing in the room with them
alternatively, people absolutely seeing the completely unsubtle, very visible dangerous thing in the room with them and just not giving a shit
bonus points if it’s a beleaguered minimum wage employee who just goes about their business like “yep same shit as always”
someone pretending they don’t know another character is eavesdropping, only to casually reveal at the end of the scene that they know (*leaving* “tell tom that he can come out now” *tom drops from the ceiling in spy gear, irritated*)
choosing to deal with the villain by just leaving them alone in a room with another character
the “hands go down” trope
example: “any questions?” *everyone’s hands go up* “…that AREN’T sarcastic?” *everyone’s hands go down*
how could all y'all forget “ACT NATURAL!”
These are all great but let’s not forget two characters giving extremely biased flashbacks to the same event that each paint the other as an incompetent loon
i would like to respectfully add: scenes where a character walks into a room, sees something scary, and turns around and walks out with no reaction or change of expression
its weird being 18, 19, 20 in 2016 because i remember going into kindergarten and seeing those chunky ass giant computers at the desk and then going through school while technology rapidly develops and graduate in a world where people can have the entire internet and more just in their pocket like idk its so strange to me
sorry to add to the post but I remember in 5th grade when they invented the “smart whiteboard” and my school won one for the library and everyone lost their shit because they were so expensive and I graduated high school last year and by the time I graduated every single classroom had one. Watching technology go from glitchy and expensive to powerful and affordable within less than ten years continues to blow my mind
no but also like owning a flip phone was the Coolest Shit™ and you could take photos(???) and it was like so incredible, and it was all fun and games until you pressed the key for THE INTERNET and you knew you’d be charged so you pressed that cancel key eighty times and prayed to god that he’d take mercy on you…and then iphones became a thing and it was like unreal
Going from vcrs and huge roll in tvs to streaming the movie online and projecting that onto the smart board within the span of 5-10 years.
ok but do you guys remember before proper projectors were put in there was the overhead projector that could only read clear plastics and it projected using light and mirrors
remember when you got your first phone, and it had monoton/polyphone ringtones=? OR THE FIRST TIME YOU COULD ACTUALLY PUT A SONG AS YOUR RINGTONE 1:1 that was such a huge thing…..Also the first phones with coloured displays, 100x100px photos……god what a time….
I remember PRECISELY when smart whiteboards hit my middle school because I was in eighth grade and the installation guy showed up halfway through a geometry class like “Hey, you were supposed to give us height marks and you didn’t, what the fuck”, and my geometry teacher clearly didn’t know what to do, so she pointed to me and said “she’s the shortest person in the school, she’ll give you the height marks.”
So an entire building had whiteboards I could mostly reach for once, and that was nice.
On the humans are weird thing, what about the Hadron Collider?
Like, aliens come to earth and are kind of impressed with how fast our technology is progressing, and they’re like, touring the earth and meeting the greatest minds of our generation and eventually end up at CERN.
Alien: So what are you doing here, Human Scientist of CERN?
Scientist: Oh, well, we made this machine that smashes atoms into even smaller stuff.
Alien: Oh? And how did you achieve this?
Scientist: Well, we throw them at each other at amazing speeds until they break apart. It’s actually pretty cool.
Alien: It does sound interesting.
Scientist: Right? It sucks there’s people who are pissed about it.
Alien: Excuse me?
Scientist: Well, theoretically there’s a chance that we could create a black hole if we go through this process.
Alien:
Alien:
Alien: Why do you persist in this endeavor if this is a possibility?
Scientist: It’s fuckin’ sicc
And then the aliens realize that oh, humans are only so ahead of the times is because they’re fucking crazy and just do shit. And then they leave.
3. It’s been raining for three days and you see her at a bus stop three hours away from your house. If her bus comes at 8:34 and yours comes at 9:15 then you’ll both get to your homes by 10. If her bus comes at 9:15 and yours comes at 10:34 then why are you waiting for a bus in the rain?Please answer clearly, in full sentences. (Not a correct answer: I just wanted to see her one more time).
4. Define two (2):Love | The way the sun hits her hair at six in the morning | Beauty | The moment of silence after your heart shatters
5. True or False:i. You love her. ___ii. It was her fault. ___iii. If you were given a second chance, you’d kiss her in the rain the Sunday before it ended. ___iv. If you were given a second chance, you’d turn right and never meet her. ___v. You can’t regret a single moment that you had her. ___vi. It ended long before either of you said anything. ___
Could you do Brenneth for your ask meme maybe? I want to get to know her better.
My
brain refuses to tick over appropriately in order to ACTUALLY work on Alleirat,
so here are some short li’l headcanons in the hope that it will kick
something into gear. They’re not super detailed because it’s 1 AM and I’m trying not to think about the MCAT too much.
Oh, also, while I’m at this, I’m listening to Hopeless by Halsey and it’s just. The Most Brenneth and Crispin. “Cause you know the good die young, but so did this, so it must be better than I think it is.”
A: what I think realistically
Brenneth likes to sing. She picked it up while she was being trained
as a blacksmith, because she doesn’t really care for quiet, and it just sort of
became a thing. Crispin has real
actual-facts voice training, so he used to bring her songs that he’d learned
and they would sing them together while he lurked in the corner of her
forge. It continues to be a thing to
this day. Her voice isn’t anything
special—low end of alto range, fairly limited range—but she can project and she
has the feel for folk songs, you know
what I’m saying. It used to be kind of
Known that you could bring the singing smith a new song she’d never heard, and
she would charge you a little less than usual for your job.
B: what I think is fucking hilarious
On Earth, once they’re—you know, once
they’re speaking again, Brenneth calls Crispin Darth when she wants to get on
his nerves. Most of their teachers and (later)
their coworkers think it’s an inside joke.
It kind of is. But an inside joke
with a body count.
C: what is heart-crushing and awful but fun to inflict on friends
Torei, Brenneth’s right hand woman that
first time around and her devoted amdri,
wears Brenneth’s name like a brand on her soul and says that love should make
you feel invincible.
Brenneth, who multiple times a week
wakes up choking from a nightmare about the last time she told someone that she
loved them—you’re my best friend, Cris,
of course I love you, and then he says you
understand, right and she doesn’t, and that’s usually where the choking
starts, a scream that doesn’t make it past her throat—doesn’t agree. All love has ever done for her is open gaping
holes in her armor, over vital organs.
Fourteen years and four centuries later,
standing between that same person—of course
I love you and then the choking—and a death sentence, Brenneth still doesn’t
agree. This isn’t invincible. This is utterly, unfathomably, unspeakably
breakable.
D: what would never work with canon but the canon is
shit so I believe it anyway
Listen the book will never progress this
far because I Do Not Like Writing Children and also this is highly unlikely
because Crispin and also because Plot Reasons, but I like to think there’s a
happy future for these poor kids where Brenneth owns a forge again and spends
her time quietly making weapons and trinkets and whatever else she likes, and
Crispin is basically her house husband.
Given the opportunity, he would 100% like nothing more than to bring
Brenneth meals and play with the kids who loiter in her forge and walk to the
market while he tries to figure out how to keep the plants Krei gave them
alive. Brenneth spars for fun, rather
than because she needs to keep her skills up, and Crispin grows his hair out
long again because he can stand to look at himself in the mirror. They sit on their roof at ungodly hours of
the night—they have a deal with the local Lai
Dase population, to the tune of try us,
we dare you, so no one hassles them—and drink wine straight from the bottle
and look at the stars and sing off-key and fall asleep in uncomfortable
positions, with Crispin’s head in Brenneth’s lap.
Basically what I’m saying is that, despite
whatever else they might be into, both Crispin and Brenneth have gotten to the
point in their lives where their absolute top kink is domesticity. Like, once you’ve literally tried to murder each other, falling asleep on the couch together becomes Some Weird Shit. And as much as I’m enjoying putting them
through hell sometimes I like to pretend that they will literally ever
get to indulge in it.
Not gonna lie, my exposure to these books VASTLY predated any exposure I had to…pop culture in general, so rereading them is always an adventure full of “oh wow that’s totally a reference that I Did Not Get” and let me tell you a thing, the Friends reference was…a latecomer even by those standards. I think I was 18 by the time I realized that.
“I’m in,” Marco said instantly.A split second behind him, Rachel said her usual “I’m in."Everyone stared openmouthed at Marco."Just once I wanted to beat Rachel to it,” he explained. WOw. This is Iconic.
THIS LINE. IN PARTICULAR. IS MY JAM.
*inhales deeply* Oh god, I’ve adopted the alien boy. I will love him. I will protect him. I will care for him
Wait, how the hell did Visser Three not realise they were humans when they fell out?
I think you may be ascribing an unreasonable level of pragmatism to our good buddy V3. Dude definitely spent his time hopping around and threatening murder of his underlings and yelling on broadband thoughtspeak about having lost the Andalite Bandits rather than. Like. Trying to get a look at anything that might be falling out of the truck ship.
Visser 3 was promoted because he makes a really stellar battering ram, okay, not for any particular tactical genius. Like, he has his moments, but. Let’s just be clear. Once you meet his boss it becomes VERY clear that he’s not here for his strategic talents.
A VCR…. Wtf
Reminder that these books can be VERY 90′s, bless them.
Micheletto decided to pledge himself to Cesare Borgia in under sixty seconds for a variety of reasons, most of which were reasonable, like:
1) Working for the pope’s son is a better gig than working for a cardinal who may or may not succeed in killing the pope and then staying in favor once a new pope is anointed
2) Probably it would pay better
3) Cesare seems wayy more competent than Orsini, since Orsini hired Micheletto specifically to do this poisoning thing that Micheletto’s kind of doubtful about, which has resulted, obviously, in Cesare catching Micheletto in the act
4) and Micheletto absolutely values competence, and would rather work for someone who knows what the fuck he’s doing and won’t send Micheletto on assassination trips likely to get him killed.
5) This particular assassination attempt is doomed anyway, so why not make the best of things
Headcanon B: what I think is fucking hilarious
Micheletto decided to pledge himself to Cesare Borgia in under sixty seconds because:
1) Cesare looked at him like this:
grinning and breathless and visibly having fun, almost as fast as Micheletto and just as cruel.
2) Cesare kept grinning at him when he shoved Micheletto into a wall with his hand on the back of Micheletto’s neck like he was a fucking dog
3) and Micheletto, an obvious masochist and brutally stupid romantic, fell in love instantly.
4) While I think this is fucking hilarious, I also absolutely believe it’s true.
Headcanon C: what is heart-crushing and awful but fun to inflict on friends
There’s a world where Micheletto chooses Pascal instead of Cesare.
He’s happy, in that world.
Headcanon D: what would never work with canon but the canon is shit so I believe it anyway
Micheletto, the most A Poet a person can possibly be while being absolutely illiterate, ghost-writes the poems of Pietro Bembo while living in Ferrara as Lucrezia’s personal bodyguard/secret pet assassin, Cyrano de Bergerac style. As in, he sits there and brusquely, scowlingly dictates these lush gorgeous love poems to Bembo, who writes them down and sends them to Lucrezia.
"lost the cover art lottery" excuSE YOU I LOVED THOSE COVERS
TRUST ME MY TEASING COMES FROM A PLACE OF TRUE AND UNDYING LOVE.
But also you gotta admit that some of them (…anything where they morph a bug on the cover, I am talking about the ones where they morph bugs, and also the one where Tobias morphs a Taxxon) are. Questionable.
Right, so, today I learned that the MCAT’s labeling system is trash and the thing labeled “practice test” is actually supposed to be the ultimate final step before you take the MCAT proper and it’s modeled exactly like the test and the thing labeled “sample test” is the practice for the practice test but it didn’t say that literally anywhere at all so the point of this is that I accidentally took the MCAT today.
