Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win
Month
I have someone staying in my hotel tonight that made me think that this would be worth sharing here.
If you are running away/trying to hide from someone that is frightening, abusing, harassing you, and you find yourself staying in a hotel to avoid being found, there’s an extra precaution you can take.
When you check in, ask the front desk clerk to put you as “Unlisted”. They’ll know what you’re talking about. What this means is that as far as anyone other than you and the front desk clerks are concerned, you’re not there. If someone tries to call for you and your room, “I’m sorry. I don’t have anyone registered under that name.” Same thing goes for it someone shows up at the desk. “Unlisted” means you’re untouchable.
Please, please, if you find yourself in trouble and seeking refuge in a hotel, do this. It’s really quick, easy, and painless for the front desk clerk to do, and they are not going to judge you for it.Please use actual words, not just code words. I work in a hotel and have NEVER heard of “Unlisted”. If someone were to come up to me and say that I would just look at you, confused, and ask for clarification.
Just flat out tell the front desk that you’re avoiding an abuser, if you say that you’re just avoiding something or someone, we may hesitate to comply, because you may be hiding from the police or law-enforcement. Please tell the front desk what you actually want us to do. Most places sign privacy/non-disclosure type agreements and if you say: “Hey, I’m hiding from a very bad situation and there might be some abusive people following me. Can you please either put me under a different name or make sure that no one contacts me?” we’ll do it and wont speak another word. Most places would even help you look up resources and try to get you transportation.
You can make it so most phones will be no contact, put up the do-not-disturb sign, and when shift change happens, if you’re still awake, tell the next person, because sometimes shift change is chaotic and important stuff can fall through the cracks. If you’re staying for multiple days, ask to speak with the general manager about your situation and they’ll make sure everything is enforced.
I worked at a hotel for almost 3 years, and I can confirm with the second post. You can additionally tell us at the front desk that no one is allowed to phone you, but you can phone out of your room.
Please do not be vague about it, we’ll likely think you’re up to something illegal. Just be upfront about it. No one’s allowed to see the guest list (or your name on the computer) besides the people working behind the counter, it’s a part of the confidentiality agreement.
Fuck I reblogged this before… Ignore that one. This is the right one
So, your queer history lesson for the day:
Everyone’s heard that pirate’s call each other “matey”. What you probably haven’t heard is that the word matey comes from “matelote”.
In the Caribbean this word was used between buccaneers to signify a life partner. Matelotes could inherit from each other, shared space, fought together, could speak for each other when one was incapacitated or absent, and more often than not the relationship was romantic and sexual.
That’s right folks. Pirates had a term for their gay life partners.
In light of this, I present to you a new alternative for significant other and partner. Bring back matelote.
(You can learn more about the practice of matelotage in: The Origins and Role of Same-Sex Relations in Human Societies by James Niell)
Arrr! Matelotage was such a great idea!
In an age when the English Navy ran on “rum, sodomy and the lash,” (as noted in many writings of the time), homosexual relationships were punishable by death.
The result here was that in the English Navy, relationships went underground. Very often, they became forced, often between a superior and a subordinate. When English crews went on the account, becoming pirates, they looked for a way to legitimize relationships of honest affection.
Matelotage [French; meaning ‘seamanship’] , now used as an English word, became a term for a legal marriage between two men.
[…]
In pirate society (and only pirate society) two men could “marry.” They would exchange gold rings, and pledge eternal union. After this, they were expected to share everything. Plunder and living spaces were obvious, but couples in matelotage were also known to share other property, and even women. If one of the partners was killed in action, pirate captains were careful to make sure that the surviving member received both shares of plunder, as well as any appropriate death benefits.
Simply put, homosexual relationships had been kept under wraps by people in fear for their lives because of draconian laws. Among sailors who had practiced this form of release themselves, it lost its sense of being alien, and so became accepted and legitimized as soon as they (by turning pirate) gained the right to make their own laws. {X}Another excellent addition!
So I’ve been listening to an audiobook of Moby Dick in my downtime, and omg this book is weird. Like prepare yourself for it being super racist, but it’s also intensely gay??? The main character gets gay married to his Pacific Islander roomie like the night after he meets him???? Also I just got to the part with Captain Ahab and omg he is so Extra™ like he actually throws his pipe overboard because it doesn’t fit with his ~*~aesthetic~*~ Let me tell you Great American Literature is wild
UPDATE in this chapter the narrator can’t shut up about how hot his
particular friendboyfriend Queequeg is and describes in loving detail how they’re tied together by this rope while he holds Queequeg over the side of the boat (actually he says “wedded,” WEDDED, i ask you) and he’s never felt more intimate with another human being in his lifeJUST WHALERS BEING BROS
FURTHER FUCKING UPDATE OH MY GOD
okay so item 1: this book recently went from “somewhat racist at brief intervals” to “let’s have a whole chapter of unremitting racism” so like. be aware of that if you ever plan on reading this? it was not fun times
ITEM TWO
Y’ALL.
There is a whole chapter about Our Hero holding hands with his fellow whalers.
WHILE THEY MASSAGE WHALE SPERM.
I could not make this shit up. Here it is, in all its slimy glory, Chapter 94: A Squeeze of the Hand –
“Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers’ hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally; as much as to say,- Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness.”
THIS IS THE GAYEST THING I’VE EVER READ. MELVILLE IS LEGITIMATELY JUST TAUNTING ME NOW. HE’S CREEPILY ROLLING HIS LITTLE WHALER HANDS IN WHALE SPERM AND DARING ME TO SAY SOMETHING WHILE I JUST STAND THERE WITH MY FUCKING JAW ON THE FLOOR. THIS BISEXUAL ADMITS DEFEAT. I HAVE BEEN OUTFLANKED BY HERMAN FUCKING MELVILLE AND HIS GAY-ASS WHALE SPERMFINAL. FUCKING. UPDATE.
this is what i said to @manicpanic88 earlier today, so naïvely: i said, “Meville is straight up thirsty for whales.” I added, “This man truly wants to fuck a whale.”
Let me be clear (and by the way SPOILERS up to antepenultimate chapter of the book follow this parenthetical): I am now on chapter one hundred thirty-something and we have only just now found the whale. Like. This book has been one hundred and thirty chapters of Real Nantucket Whale Thirst™ and almost no actual (Moby) Dick, do you get me? You out there who like pining fic, THIS BOOK IS THE ULTIMATE. Melville did it first, but GAYER, and WITH WHALES.
Anyway so this whole book everyone who has seen or even heard about Moby Dick is like “whoa my sweet fancy aunts, don’t go lookin’ for that there whippersnapper” (this is my attempt at imitating Melville’s weird imitation of a Nantucket accent, it’s not going well for me but it didn’t go well for him either), “whoa, THAT’S A BAD FISH, I heard he took someone’s head clean off / killed his twelve best mates / blew up a ship with the power of his LASER FLUKES!!” i mean no one actually says “laser flukes” but THIS IS THE LEVEL OF BADNESS WE ARE DEALING WITH. THIS IS NOT A NICE WHALE. YOU SHOULD NOT TAKE THIS WHALE HOME TO MEET YOUR PARENTS AT SPRING BREAK, HE WILL DRINK ALL YOUR BEER AND LEAVE THE HOUSE SOMEHOW FULL OF DOG POOP, WHILE IT IS ALSO ON FIRE.
and yet.
here is what Melville has to say about this bad motherfucker when we finally, finally see him for the very first time:
“A gentle joyousness - a mighty mildness of repose in swiftness, invested the gliding whale. Not the white bull Jupiter swimming away with ravished Europa clinging to his graceful horns; his lovely, leering eyes sideways intent upon the maid; with smooth bewitching fleetness, rippling straight for the nuptial bower in Crete; not Jove, not that great majesty Supreme! did surpass the glorified White Whale as he so divinely swam.”
RAVISHED EUROPA. STRAIGHT FOR THE NUPTIAL BOWER. WE GET IT, HERMAN. WE GET IT. YOU WANNA FUCK A WHALE. YOU WROTE A WHOLE ENTIRE BOOK ABOUT WANTING TO FUCK THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WHITE WHALE IN THE WORLD, WHO PROBABLY ALSO HAS PURPLE EYES AND PUTS ITS FLUKES UP WHEN SOME PREPS STARE AT HIM. WE GET IT.
reader, i hope he married it.
I AM DYING OF LAUGHTER OH MY GOD
and also now wondering if the Ishmael/Queequeg relationship was meant to be evocative of matelotage…
I’m limiting myself to just fic-fics, not bullet-point-fics, because, like, I put out too much stuff. Thanks to @buckygreyjoy for tagging me.
1) “This guy needs to chill out,” Chat Noir said, shooting a smirk at Ladybug to see her nose crinkle up. Her look of fond distaste was the highlight of his day, every day, the kind of friendly teasing Adrien had always wished for as a little boy. The only thing better was when she actually shot a joke back at him, leaving a warm weight in his chest and a smile on his face. –from this untitled canon Miraculous Ladybug fic
2) Enjolras is a wished-for child, and he’s told as much every day by his mother, who bought his life with a few drops of blood on white silk in a gold embroidery hoop. From the minute he learns to talk, he’s as fair as the sun and as sharp as her needle, and his country adores their young prince with their whole heart. His mother Queen Lamarque is a good ruler and her Prince Consort is nice enough so all is well, and Enjolras grows up believing passionately in the rights of the people. His tutors despair of him as a monarch but are delighted with him as a politician—it’s very strange for everyone. –from this untitled Snow White AU Les Mis fic
3) The message from Lee was greeted by a long beat of silence. –from to see our glory, a canon-era Hamilton fic about Schuylkill, continued here
4) Eponine is ten, with parents who hate her and a little brother she’s terrified for, when she gets hit in the chest with a pebble. Some other kid tossed it and it’s pouring rain and they probably didn’t even see her, but she goes down like she’s been shot. –from a flower at my feet, a reincarnation AU Les Mis fic
5) “Excuse me, sir, are you awake?” The voice was feminine, warm and husky and stern, with a distinctive curl to the words, slack on the r and sharp over the vowels. New York City, then. Home. –from this as-yet-unpublished Winter Soldier AU Hamilton fic
6) The landslide didn’t take him by surprise. It was hard to take an earthbender by surprise, and harder when that earthbender had spent ten years mostly fending for himself. So Grantaire was well out of the path of the falling rocks before they started to slip, and fully intended to let nature take its course. The rocks were large, but they could be cleared easily, and he was trying to make this village last more than a season, which meant not doing things like diverting massive rockslides. –from things we lost in the fire, an Avatar AU Les Mis fic
7) She isn’t a Skywalker—or maybe she is. She can’t remember, so does it matter? She is herself. –from Shattered Glass and Sandstorms, a First Oder Rey Star Wars AU
8) John hadn’t slept heavily since coming to Valley Forge—the ill ease of a Southern boy exposed to the bitter nip of a Pennsylvania winter for the first time—but he was getting better at it. The tiny hut was better than the tent, and their status as aides de camp of the general himself meant that they were only two to a hut. It meant there was barely space to walk between the slapdash cots and the writing desk they shared and the two chairs. Alexander—who had insisted on the familiar address within scant days of meeting John, all sharp-edged smile and warm dark eyes—had a slightly easier time of it, as he wasn’t forced to stand with his head bowed whenever he drew too near a wall, but not much. –from this untitled canon-era Hamilton fic
9) “This is without a doubt the stupidest plan you’ve ever had–” –from this untitled Steve/Sam/Bucky friendship MCU fic
10) “Oh m’God, who’s cooking, that is amazing,” Rogue called as she swept into the mansion and was hit by a wall of smoky-sweet warmth spilling from the kitchen. “Is that jambalaya? Am I gonna have to do extra Danger Room sessions or somethin’ for that?” –from this untitled Rogue/Remy X-Men fic
Honestly? The first thought that comes to mind is “I write too much Les Mis fic for someone who’s never read the book all the way through” but fuck it, I do what I want. Otherwise, I notice that I like to start with either a declarative statement (see 2, 3, 4, 6, 7) or someone doing something, preferably talking (see 1, 5, 9, 10), and heavy description as a cold open (8) is pretty uncommon. Um, yeah, that’s what I got.
In case anyone’s curious, I’m really proud of the First Order Rey one and I love the X-Men so y’all should feel free to hit me up for that. Also, guess who has two thumbs and is a huge AmRev nerd? *points at self* So yeah, for all your gay canon-era Hamilton needs.
I don’t even fucking know who to tag, just. Whoever. It’s kind of cathartic going through old writing, you should do it if you’ve had a long day.
Prompt from @littlestartopaz: Max and Lessa role reversal? (Reminder that Max and Lessa are the main characters of my novel Polaris, explained in more detail here.)
This is…a weirdly heavy question to just….get in Ye Olde Inbox, but okay, sure, we can talk V for Vendetta, I ain’t got shit to do.
Okay, to appreciate that I’m not just being a bitch here, you need to know that I’m not being funny when I call myself a cynic. I’m pretty serious about that, I consistently expect people to act selfishly and be generally unhelpful until/unless I know them pretty fucking well. @twistedangelsays (yoooo babe, back me up here) can confirm that my usual response to being told to depend on someone for help is to blink blankly and ask “but what would be in it for them to help me with this.” (Her usual response is “they’re your teacher, they’re literally getting paid for this,” but I’d like to kindly remind her that teachers at colleges get paid regardless.) The way I’ve described it several times in my tags is that I’m in love with humanity, and they don’t love me back, so I have a very peculiar view that’s half “God let’s just talk about the Voyager probe and random acts of kindness and the fact that we domesticated our primary predator” and half “I am genuinely not even surprised when people suck, and haven’t been in…forever, maybe.” It’s a very capital-R Romantic viewpoint, think Grantaire from Les Mis, I am Grantaire and Grantaire is me.
That being said, here are my current thoughts on the V for Vendetta thing.
Anyway. TL;DR: I don’t think much of people’s inherent capacity to be functional enough to run a V for Vendetta style dystopian system (this is also where a lot of conspiracy theories break down for me), but hey. I’m sure they’ll impress me with their skill at fucking everything up anyway. Let me take this opportunity to remind my American followers to vote against Trump, I don’t give a damn what you think of Clinton.
And if a revolution starts, I can shoot a gun and have medical qualifications in addition to a good tactical brain, fucking point me at the recruitment office.
the fact that you can work full time in this country and still not afford to live disgusts me more and more every day
Everyone reblog this because it speaks volumes.
Also please note that it’s not “can’t afford insert thing about middle class here” it’s literally “can’t afford to LIVE.” Food, clean water, a roof, medicine, the basics. That is what that covers.
im here for women who’ve survived trauma and come out of the other end furious and spitting blood and im here for women who’ve survived trauma and ended up softer and smaller and less brave and im here for women who refuse to deal with their trauma, who fuck and fight and run, and im here for women in the middle of dealing with their trauma who cry on the floor one day and feel invincible the next im here for any woman who’s experienced trauma. you’re not handling it wrongly. you’re doing your best
Oh dear Christ. Okay, let’s see, I don’t make OC’s for fic as a rule, and my OC’s for my original writing all tend to be really aggressive people, this should be fun. I’ll just pick five at random.
published aus are right here, feel free to send me new ones!
Okay since I have actual existing AUs in my writing tag, what if I actually tried to do the 5 headcanons thing properly.
When somebody says that “a man likes to feel like a man,” all I hear is “A man likes to feel superior to you and it’s your job to make him believe it.”
Someone said this to me once, that a man needs to feel like a man, I replied “well I’m not stopping him” and had to watch this fragile creature try to explain to me that my strong personality could demean men.
Like, if I have to pretend you are a strong man and cater to that then clearly you’re not that strong dude.
carpe diem - seize the day
carpe noctem - seize the night
carpe natem - seize the ass
Seriously, if you guys don’t stop reblogging this I am going to carpe someone’s neck and break it.
carpe collum - seize the neck
I’m still watching Liberty’s Kids because REASONS and I watched an episode with Baron von Steuben, and I get why they didn’t include this in a kid’s show, but this dude is THE BEST PART of the winter at Valley Forge.
LET ME TELL YOU WHY, WITH ABUSE OF CAPS LOCK AND BAD LANGUAGE AND IRREVERENCE.
Okay, some background. Baron von Steuben was a Prussian baron who shipped his ass over to America in 1777 in order to help Washington whip the bunch of random farmers, miners, tradesmen, etc who formed the Continental ‘Army’ at the time into shape. He reached Valley Forge in early 1778 (after almost getting his own soldiers ARRESTED IN BOSTON because he accidentally outfitted them in red coats, honestly this dude’s life is just PRIME HISTORICAL COMEDY MATERIAL, someone get the fuck on that) and immediately made a name for himself as a complete–but effective!–wackjob. He would go outside in the middle of winter in full military dress and have all the soldiers (many of whom were lacking a coat and boots at the time, because the goddess of efficiency Martha Washington had not yet made her presence known) run drills from sunup to sundown, whereas most military commanders of the day were Pointedly Uninvolved in the messy day-to-day shit. He also continued the trend of having commanders who were still learning English (Lafayette spoke almost no English upon his arrival, for example), because when von Steuben reached America he spoke zero English and had to write all his orders in French and give them to either HIS aide de camp to translate or the aide Washington periodically lent him (fun fact: Lt. Colonols Hamilton and Laurens were his usual lent-out aides because they both spoke French).
NOW YOU HAVE SOME BACKGROUND AND WE CAN GET TO THE GOOD STUFF.
REMEMBER THE PANTSLESS FLAMING SHOTS PARTY
YEAH
(ALSO. it is possible Alexander Hamilton was there. it is SO possible.)
Actually hell yes, given Alexander Hamilton’s apparent proclivity to hitting on anything that stood still long enough and wasn’t either British or Jefferson, it’s frankly PROBABLE that, not only was he there, he probably dragged anyone who seemed willing with him. (John Laurens. I am saying he probably dragged Laurens. Valley Forge is a veritable cornucopia of delightful historical hypotheses. I hope you’re all braced for me to do my thesis next year and become VERY ANNOYING.)
I have seen a lot of posts on here talking about individual extensions for chrome to help people, but I haven’t seen a place where they’re compiled together. So here you are!
font/text
- no caps - Makes everything lower case
- Open Dyslexic: changes the font to Open Dyslexic and makes it larger. Personal favourite.
- Dyslexie: changes the font to dyslexie and allows change to font size and colour (blue). Can be turned off. (Doesn’t seem to work on facebook)
- Font Changer: Allows you to change the font on specific website or on everything using a Google Font. I believe you can also upload your own, if there’s a specific font you need.
- BeeLine Reader: Uses a gradient so your eye follows along one line to the next
overlays/colour change
- Color Overlay - Irlen Filter for Chromebook: Puts a coloured overlay over the screen. can choose colour and opacity.
- Sunglasses: Tints the screen grey to reduce contrast
- Desaturate: Removes all colour and makes everything a greyscale
- High Contrast: Change contrast or invert colour scheme
- Deluminate: Similar to High Contrast, but tries to keep photos in tact
- G.lux: Makes the colour of the display change depending on the time of day (also cuts down on blue light so it’s easier to fall asleep)
reduce visual distraction
- Readability: Can change things such as margins, colours, etc… as well as reduce visual business
- Ad Block Plus: blocks ads. What more needs to be said?
- FlashControl: Stops flash animations running by themselves
- Hide GIFS: Allows you to keep GIFS from displaying
- Text Mode: Loads pages in black/white, covers images, with text only.
audio
- SpeakIt!: Reads small section of highlighted text aloud
- Chrome Speak: Reads small section of highlighted text aloud
- Announcify: Reads full web pages. Warning: may stop in the middle of text or not read for the full thing.
A
i’m absolutely screaming my 6th graders had to write essays about their favorite celebrities and one girl wrote hers about abraham lincoln
please remember that i don’t live in america, this is a 12 year old korean girl and when asked about her favorite celebrity her mind automatically jumped to the 16th president of the united states
I hope adding unnecessary question marks culture never ends because like??????? I really love it
okay guys, story time
when I was in about - third, fourth grade or so, I decided to tell everyone there was a ghost in the auditorium. now, this wasn’t too hard to do - the auditorium back then was huge and a little bit creepy when empty, and I’d been backstage plenty of times for various school things that I knew the layout well enough. also, I was not a very popular person, and ghost stories were the easiest way to get popular in my school.
so I said I saw a ghost. no details, I just said I saw a girl covered in blood at the top of the stairs backstage and ran out like my ass was on fire.
over the next year, the entire thing mutated until everyone was claiming that they’d seen the ghost and that they’d FIGURED OUT HER IDENTITY AND HOW SHE GOT THERE, and I was like, “what.”
which just goes to show that you should prob never underestimate the power of a story bc it’s STILL GOING to this day and made it onto a Facebook post that just crossed my feed.
guys. I made up the auditorium ghost. it’s fine, you can all come out now.
Or, #Apocalypse
This is a short fiction piece inspired by this post.
#Apocalypse
It wasn’t funny.
But, then again, it kind of was.
Haley couldn’t stop the laughter bubbling up in her chest even as she felt a few tears escape and streak down her dark features as she posted what would probably be her last few Instagram photos ever.
Haley wondered if things like Instagram survived the end of the world. She suspected she wouldn’t be around to find out.
She glanced around the half destroyed street. No one wanted to die alone. Yet, here she was, her ankle pinned by wreckage. Even if the creature didn’t make a second sweep, she doubted she would survive to see search and rescue teams (was that something they even did after an entire city got destroyed?)
Haley closed her eyes, pretty convinced this was it. Her friends and family weren’t responding to text message, so either they were dead already or somewhere without cell service. She was going die. She resisted the urge to look up how long it takes to die from dehydration.
That’s when her smartphone chirped.
Her eyes flew open, unlocking her screen and glancing down at the likes piling up on Instagram. Her post was getting attention, people asking if she could take any more photos. Apparently she was one of the closest people to the giant, tentacle creature rampaging through New York City.
She shook her head, scrolling through the comments. Haley almost scrolled past it, but one in all caps caught her attention.
“EYO GIRL!! WHERE YOU AT???? TOM SAYS BASED ON THE ANGLE OF YOUR PHOTOS WE ARE CLOSE BY!!!”
WHENEVER YOU SEE THIS POST ON YOUR DASH, STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING AND WRITE ONE SENTENCE FOR YOUR CURRENT PROJECT.
Just one sentence. Stop blogging for one minute and write a single sentence. It could be dialogue, it could be a nice description of scenery, it could be a metaphor, I don’t care. The point is, do it. Then, when you finish, you can get back to blogging.
If this gets viral, you might just have your novel finished by next Tuesday.
Goddamn it, it’s back.
If it stays back, I might manage to finish a third story this year. Jesus.
I swear, this is now my only writing motivation.
BACK AGAIN??? Sigh.
Okay, sorry if anyone gets sick of this, but it’s the best way for me to get myself to write.
SHOWTIME.
Oh my God, nonny, doll, you’re the cutest. I’m so glad you like my slightly deranged writing, you’re just. So nice. To me. What do I do with such nice people.
One of my favourite anecdotes about the first Golden Age of Piracy is that, at one point, Captain Henry Morgan left England in one ship, and arrived in the Caribbean commanding a completely different ship, and nobody knows why. What happened to the first ship and how he acquired the second one are entirely unrecorded.
At some point in his short career (1715 until 1718), the English pirate Ben Hornigold attacked a sloop near Honduras just to steal all the hats of the crew, because his own crew had gotten drunk the night before and they had tossed every single one of their own hats overboard.
Bartholomew Roberts, arguably the most successful pirate in history by ships captured (a whopping 470 in 3 years), didn’t actually want to be a pirate. His ship was captured and he was forced to join the pirate crew.
After the original pirate captain was killed, he was democratically elected captain of the pirate crew less than 6 weeks after being captured by them.
^^^ In case you were curious: model for Dread Pirate Roberts, right there.
Send me a word, any word, and if it’s in my WIP document I’ll answer your ask with the sentence or line it appears in.
Okay I see what you’re saying there but WHAT IF WE DID BOTH??? This got so long, I’m sorry, I got overexcited about fairy tales and I wrote 5K in like a day. (No for real this is almost 5000 words, Jesus, self, what are you doing.)
Enjolras is a wished-for child, and he’s told as much every day by his mother, who bought his life with a few drops of blood on white silk in a gold embroidery hoop. From the minute he learns to talk, he’s as fair as the sun and as sharp as her needle, and his country adores their young prince with their whole heart. His mother Queen Lamarque is a good ruler and her Prince Consort is nice enough so all is well, and Enjolras grows up believing passionately in the rights of the people. His tutors despair of him as a monarch but are delighted with him as a politician—it’s very strange for everyone.
And then the Queen dies, and everything goes to pieces, because the dowager Prince Regent isn’t a ruler by nature and Enjolras is still too damned young to take her place and it’s all quite a mess. Vital government services are falling through, taxes are going uncollected or over-collected, the generals of the army are making warning noises about neighboring countries taking advantage of their weakened state, and everything is teetering on the edge of chaos.
Oh, dude, I want to say I’m sorry, I really do, but I’m just kind of flustered and smug. I’m really glad you (evidently) liked it, though, and I hope you got some sleep in there, eventually.
I’m still watching Liberty’s Kids because REASONS and I watched an episode with Baron von Steuben, and I get why they didn’t include this in a kid’s show, but this dude is THE BEST PART of the winter at Valley Forge.
LET ME TELL YOU WHY, WITH ABUSE OF CAPS LOCK AND BAD LANGUAGE AND IRREVERENCE.
Okay, some background. Baron von Steuben was a Prussian baron who shipped his ass over to America in 1777 in order to help Washington whip the bunch of random farmers, miners, tradesmen, etc who formed the Continental ‘Army’ at the time into shape. He reached Valley Forge in early 1778 (after almost getting his own soldiers ARRESTED IN BOSTON because he accidentally outfitted them in red coats, honestly this dude’s life is just PRIME HISTORICAL COMEDY MATERIAL, someone get the fuck on that) and immediately made a name for himself as a complete–but effective!–wackjob. He would go outside in the middle of winter in full military dress and have all the soldiers (many of whom were lacking a coat and boots at the time, because the goddess of efficiency Martha Washington had not yet made her presence known) run drills from sunup to sundown, whereas most military commanders of the day were Pointedly Uninvolved in the messy day-to-day shit. He also continued the trend of having commanders who were still learning English (Lafayette spoke almost no English upon his arrival, for example), because when von Steuben reached America he spoke zero English and had to write all his orders in French and give them to either HIS aide de camp to translate or the aide Washington periodically lent him (fun fact: Lt. Colonols Hamilton and Laurens were his usual lent-out aides because they both spoke French).
NOW YOU HAVE SOME BACKGROUND AND WE CAN GET TO THE GOOD STUFF.
Let me tell y'all what my co worker does when her friends go on a date: She takes a picture of the person’s drivers license. She doesn’t delete it until her friend(s) return safely.
Everyone needs to be doing this!
I remember my first time picking my girlfriend up to go on a date, and I met her mom that day. She asked to see my ID to take a picture of it “just incase”
I had/have good* intentions so I was cool and went along with it. 😏Yes!!👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾If someone gives me a hard time about taking a picture of their license, that’s a red flag.
Girl, I take their number, license plate (w flash so there’s no debate on the car color at night) and a last seen wearing photo, smh. All my girls coming back safe or I’m on that ass.
If he doesn’t drive, send your friend the location or address of where you the date is taken place. If you change locations, screenshot where y'all at and send it to them. Stay safe.
There is an app called glympse that will broadcast your location to whomever you choose for I think I max of four hours. It’s a little gps program and as your phone moves a little beacon will move with it on a map
Adding that right now^
Safety is important. This is the first I’ve heard of the taking a pic of his license. I just realized how weird I’d probably act in this situation and apparently it’d be seen as a red flag.
ALL OF THIS👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾 BOOST!
the children these days being like………………what will happen when i grow up………what about fandom……
you will still have fandom! you’ll just check twitter on work breaks and write fic after you unload the dishwasher. you might get older but fandom stays the same age. your propensity to read fic does not vanish with age. where do you think all the best written fics from your fave fandom come from??? old as f*ck people. that’s where
ok but seriously, if something really small happened in your day and it made you really happy, but you don’t want to tell anyone bc you feel that it’s insignificant to everyone else tell me, message me that thing because nothing delights me more than enjoying other people’s tiny happinesses
I always want to hear you talk about your special interests. always. got a thing about Russian politics in the 1700s? tell me about it. know entirely too much about the mating habits of aquatic animals? nice, bro. can literally recite every Star Wars movie line-perfect? that’s fuckin impressive. even if I’m not personally interested in whatever it is you’re infodumping about, I’m happy that you’re interested and excited, and I’m willing to learn about things my loved ones care about