1) Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2) Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3) Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4) Every sentence must do one of two things — reveal character or advance the action.
5) Start as close to the end as possible.
6) Be a sadist. Now matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7) Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8) Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.
Literally just from the first scene between
Escalus and his father discussing Rosaline I can tell you right off the bat
that I care 100x more about this politically fraught disaster of a relationship
than whatever tense affair they’re trying to arrange with Rosaline/Benvolio. Like, give me a relationship between two
people who genuinely love each other but are trying to deny it and betraying
each other because it’s the Right Thing To Do and doing massive amounts of
damage to each other in the process, and I will immediately and unhesitatingly
shove it into my awful maw with no regard for what canon tells me.
Rosaline being forced to live in the room of her
best friend who died for love while being forced into a marriage by the man Rosaline loves who also loves her
is kind of great to me? What if I wrote
a bunch of miscellaneous bullshit about Rosaline being haunted by Juliet?
I do not
care that much about Benvolio. Like, he’s
had a Rough Life™ and he Drinks And Sleeps Around and like…yeah, poor dude. Even though his carefully calculated descent
into artistic nerdhood endeared me to him for a hot second. Still don’t care. Maybe shove some backstory in there, throw in
some flashbacks, hit me with that gay Mercutio/Benvolio shit, ANYTHING to give
him a personality beyond ‘angry rich boy.’
Anyway. Moving right along.
“You make it sound like our noble lords are a
pack of dogs in the street.” …um, Escalus honey, they kind of are. There was a riot literally under thirty-six
hours ago.
I’m getting a lot of satisfaction out of
Isabella pulling the strings behind the scenes for selfish reasons—getting Rosaline
back as a friend, keeping her brother in power, retaining as much power as she can
for herself—as well as Protecting Her Home.
Also all of her clothes are real good.
Medical history aside: hey, look, boiling
oil. A+ historical accuracy, Paré’s
replacement for boiling oil only barely predated this and it’s entirely
possible for Livia to have learned that from her solider father. I’d also like to point out that this was not
standard procedure for sword wounds, as it was used to combat the supposed ‘poison’
of gunpowder, so like? Yeah, the nurse
being horrified is also totally feasible.
….I’m so pleased with Escalus for stabbing someone’s
hand, atta boy, but on the other hand I was really hoping for another
knock-down drag-out brawl at a serious formal occasion. Like, why else am I even here.
The way Rosaline spits Your Grace like her tongue is made of steel and her words are made
of poison is my life’s blood. Also
please have this become Escalus and Benvolio and Rosaline (and Isabella) all
having horribly tense meetings where they scramble to come up with a plan that
keeps Verona at peace without forcing anyone to get married. I just need a scene of all of them at each
other’s throats as they struggle to find a détente, with Rosaline throwing ice
cold cutting remarks left and right as Escalus fights to keep an even keel and
Benvolio is just generally an asshole (and Isabella cutting through the chaos
like a finely drawn blade with a plan that is terrible and awful and perfect).
ESCALUS, COMMIT TO SOMETHING. MAKE A DECISION ESCALUS. Something besides this sort of dangerously totalitarian
‘death for a death’ rule because, MY DUDE, you gotta at least give them a
trial.
Why am I still liveblogging this terrible
show? Why do I still love it so
much? It’s so bad and I’m enjoying the
literal hell out of it, guys, I don’t even know anymore.
Marco volunteers for the date immediately, as the only one on the team who is single and desperate. (Although, he admits, not desperate enough to sleep with a controller under any circumstances.) The thing is, though, that Sub-Visser Three-Eighty-One has a type: every guy Ax and Tobias have seen her flirting with in the two weeks they’ve been following her around has been tall, dark, and handsome.
Everyone on the team (especially Jake) somewhat doubts Jake’s ability to act well enough to play the part, but the only idea worse than sending Jake would be sending Ax to do it, so he reluctantly volunteers for the mission.
The setup goes more or less according to plan: Jake arranges to bump into the sub-visser coming out of a Sharing meeting, and to their enormous luck she becomes the one to ask him for a phone number. Jake suggests the time and the place, though, and doesn’t have to fake enthusiastic relief when she agrees.
The day of, Rachel spends nearly two hours dressing Jake in various combinations of the seven pairs of pants, eighteen shirts, and five and a half jackets that she bought for the occasion, before Jake throws up his hands and announces that he’s going naked if this nonsense doesn’t end soon.
Marco immediately declares that that would be a brilliant way to get Sub-Visser Three-Eighty-One dancing to their tune.
Cassie shyly volunteers the opinion that Jake looks nice no matter what he’s wearing.
Rachel tells them both to shut up, on the grounds that Jake getting arrested for public indecency would be just as bad for their plan as him showing up in the ill-fitting basketball shirt and ripped jeans he wore when he left the house this morning.
After Rachel’s initial attempt to teach Jake to flirt with her crashes and burns (“You’re the closest thing I have to a sister! I can’t just flirt with you!”) she substitutes Cassie into her own role. To her surprise, that manages to go even worse.
“Cassie,” Jake says, blushing so much he looks ready to pass out. “I like many things about you. You’re the sweetest person I know, and you’re brilliant at not just morphing, but, like, understanding the morphing. Oh, and you’re really smart at other stuff besides. You get people so fast, and there are all these things in science class that go way over my head that you pick up right away. And even though I was mad about it at the time, I thought it was cool that you saved those baby skunks—”
“CUT!” Rachel yells.
“You told me to compliment her,” Jake says indignantly. Cassie is currently examining the toes of her shoes with intense fascination, and appears to be fighting a fit of the giggles.
Rachel sighs loudly. “Not her personality. Think more physical.”
Jake takes a huge breath and draws himself up again. “You are, like, super strong for a girl,” he tells Cassie. “For anyone, really. That time when you pried that fox’s jaws open to make it vomit up the wolf poison—”
“CUT! Cassie, Marco, switch places!”
All three of them stare at Rachel in surprise for a second. Marco becomes the first to react, sidling up and sliding his arm through Jake’s. “So,” he coos. “Why’d a big strong man like you want to go out with little old me, anyway?”
“Because…” Jake glances at Rachel, who makes go on gestures. “Because of your hair. It’s very, uh, nicely done.”
Marco flips a few strands away from his face. “You really think it turned out okay? I only had time to run a brush through it a few times on the way over.”
“Yes,” Jake says firmly. “It is nice hair. And… you are… Notlikeothergirls!”
Marco bats his eyelashes, grinning now. “You really mean that?”
Jake attempts to smile as well. “I have never in my life met anyone like you, Marco. Seriously.”
“Now you’re getting it,” Rachel announces. She and Marco high-five at their own brilliance. Unseen, Jake and Cassie exchange a mutually baffled look and a shrug of bemusement.
Jake sets off for the date trailed fifty feet up by a red-tailed hawk and a northern harrier. He’s not sure why he’s wearing three shirts right now, or why the collars on all three are sticking straight up in the air (“Trust me,” Rachel insisted, “this is gonna be all over the country five years from now.”) like he’s a pastel version of Dracula. He’s also hoping he can take the weird flat sunglasses off soon—Rachel instructed him to hang them from the v-neck of his topmost shirt when he does—because the weather’s overcast and he feels ridiculous.
“What do we know so far?” he asks Tobias.
<Apparently, our dear little alien friend works in an arcade downtown, and is a big fan of shopping in her spare time. Likes: purple fabrics, smelling flowers, and spicy tacos from food trucks. Dislikes: dogs, dog owners, seriously don’t mention Homer, and small children.>
<Her selection of tacos was most excellent,> Ax adds. <The driver of that food truck adds large quantities of a wonderful substance known as Sriracha to his meat and meat by-products.>
<So we may have sampled the taco truck ourselves. Strictly for research purposes,> Tobias admits. <And yeah, Sub-Visser whatever’s got taste. Or Stacy does, jury’s still out on that one.>
“Stacy?” Jake asks, as loud as he dares.
<The name of her host?> Tobias says. <Seriously? Were you planning on walking up to her and being like ‘well, hello there, Iriess one-thirty-two’?>
“Stacy,” Jake mutters to himself, rather than admitting he forgot. “Stacy. Stacy, Stacy, Stacy, Stacy, Stacy.”
<And now you sound nuts, which should make a real good first impression.>
At Tobias’s urging, Jake stops at a stand outside a greengrocer’s and buys a dozen daffodils for her. He’s not sure if he’s allowed to take off the sunglasses when he’s standing under the shade of the awning, even though they make it very difficult to count out bills and change. He does know that he is not under any circumstances to push them back into his hair, because then all the gel will make a weird crunching noise and Rachel will boil him in oil when she finds his spikes deformed. He could probably fit the entire bouquet into one of the ridiculously large pockets on the pants that he’s certain are three sizes too large, but he tucks it under his arm instead. “I hate this,” he mutters.
<Be cool,> Tobias says. <If I could do meet-cute with Taylor in the middle of a coffee shop, you can survive ninety minutes of pumping a yeerk for recruitment tactics and Sharing plans.>
<I would recommend against bringing up Tobias’s decision to meet Taylor alone last March if you wish Rachel to leave the restaurant standing, Prince Jake.>
Jake gives them both a sickly smile of gratitude.
The initial meet’n’greet outside the restaurant goes reasonably well: Sub-Visser Three-Eighty-One exclaims over the daffodils, Jake remembers to call her “Stacy,” and with effort he ignores the skin-crawly sensation of Cassie (now a housefly) landing in his hair. By the time they make it into the restaurant, Tobias and Rachel are already posed at a different table with baseball caps in place, while Marco shuffles around in a white apron busing tables and Ax (despite eight or nine promises that this time he’ll be cool around food) remains safely out of sight and out of morph on the roof. If anything goes catastrophically wrong, the plan is for Cassie to alert Marco, who will create a diversion by overturning a dish cart while Rachel and Tobias hastily duck under the tablecloth of their own table—Rachel to morph, Tobias to demorph—as Ax provides everyone cover. Jake’s pretty sure that if his date wants to shoot him in the head there’ll be nothing the others can do in time to stop her, but at least he knows he probably won’t end up forcibly made into a controller by the end of the evening.
Rachel, blatantly eavesdropping even as she holds Tobias’s hand across the table and they stare into each other’s eyes (if anyone starts looking at them too closely they start loudly sucking face) has to admit that Jake does better than she would have expected. He asks “Stacy” where she got her shoes, laughs in a way that’s only slightly moronic when she compliments his sunglasses, and (after Tobias calls out a suggestion in thought-speak) even remembers to pull her chair out for her before she sits down.
As instructed, Jake waits until after they’ve already ordered their food to turn the conversation to the reason they went to all this trouble in the first place. He’s pretty pleased with how things are going so far, although then again he might just be light-headed from the smell of the instatan Rachel sprayed on him earlier.
“So,” he says. “You’re part of the Sharing, right? How’d you get into that in the first place?”
Ireiss 132 tosses a lock of Stacy’s hair over her shoulder. “My older sister got me into it, actually. She kept begging me and begging me to join, and then one time I just—Hey, you okay?”
Jake forces a laugh, doing his best not to think of Stacy, to think of Tom, to think but for the grace of God... “Sure. Just, uh, zoned for a second. So, the Sharing does a lot of recruitment events, right?”
<Don’t make her suspicious,> Tobias says unhelpfully. <Just keep her on her toes.>
“Yeah, we’ve got volleyball days, cookouts on the beach, whole weekends upstate…” She leans forward a little across the table. “You interested in joining?”
<Say yes!> Cassie suggests, at almost exactly the same time Tobias says, <Tell her ‘hell no.’> Marco, standing across the room, makes eye contact with Jake long enough to shake his head emphatically, just as Tobias adds, <Actually Rachel says to tell her yes.>
Jake closes his eyes for a second to find the patience not to swat at the back of his head and then throw a full plate of food at the next table over. “I don’t know, really,” he says diplomatically. “What do you guys do, anyway, besides sit around and eat hamburgers?”
“It’s all about community outreach,” Ireiss 132 says, apparently not noticing Jake’s hesitation. “We do days where we clean up litter at the park, we raise money to fund cancer research—”
<Of course they do,> Cassie says darkly. <Can’t have anything wrong with their prospective slaves, right?>
Jake, having missed the end of that sentence, has to make an educated guess. “Sounds pretty cool. Don’t you have, like, celebrity endorsements?”
“Oh, sure. There’s Jeremy Jason McCole, William Roger Tennant…” Ireiss ticks the names off on Stacy’s left hand. “That blond lady with the cooking show, Senator Malesin, Senator Argo, Angelina Jolie—”
<Angelina Jolie?> Tobias says.
Cassie gasps. <But she seems like such a nice lady on TV!>
<Who is Angelina Jolie? Is Prince Jake okay?>
<He’s fine. However, Rachel would like me to pass along a few comments with strong language about Angelina Jolie’s lifestyle, dress, and immediate ancestors.>
“Shut up!” Jake hisses.
Ireiss blinks at him a few times.
Jake clears his throat. “I just mean…” He changes his inflection. “Shut up! As in, you’re kidding me! You think maybe I could meet her sometime?”
“Join the Sharing,” Ireiss says. “We could make it happen. Once you get initiated as a full member your whole life opens up before you—you can’t imagine what it’s like.”
Jake forces another smile. He picks up his fork. This helps him to avoid giving into the urge to clamp both hands over his ears, slide under the table, and scream something about how they can never have his body. He can imagine the experience a little too well, and it’s not something he’s ever letting happen again.
Nonetheless, Jake manages to keep lightly deflecting Ireiss’s recruitment attempts while also digging for information, clear through until Marco—with a flourish—brings them a plate of mini cannoli for dessert. After he ducks away from their table he sweeps over to begin polishing the corner of Rachel and Tobias’s.
<Marco says he wants you to save him one, because they look delicious,> Tobias says a minute later.
Jake, who has just been distracted in the middle of Ireiss’s description of how they draw in community members to Sharing meetings, makes a mental note to define the term radio silence for the entire team when they get home. Then he picks up the last cannoli, very pointedly licks it, and puts it back on the plate uneaten.
<Marco says, and I quote, that there are ‘children starving in Montana’ that you are ‘not the man he fell in love with,’ and that he is ‘wounded to the depths of his soul.’ By the way, you do know not to offer to pay for dinner, right? Because you don’t actually want to get a second date out of this.>
“You were saying?” Jake says loudly.
Ireiss clears Stacy’s throat. “Oh, just that we really feel reaching out to vulnerable kids—as through the youth shelter I mentioned, and the after-school program—is the best way to offer them the Sharing as an alternative to gang membership.”
Jake dearly hopes that someone is taking notes on all of this, because if he suffered through the application of that much instatan for nothing he’s going to strangle someone. “That’s really cool. So is there, like, a place where you keep track of all the Sharing’s full members? Some kind of database or something?”
<Too strong, too strong,> Cassie says.
<Prince Jake, Cassie and Tobias have now been in morph for one-hundred-eight of your minutes. May I suggest that you put a wrap in it?>
<So close, Ax-Man, and yet so far.>
“…nothing that formal,” Ireiss is saying. “Hoping for more celebrities?”
“You know what?” Jake stands up. “It’s been real. But I’ve got a thing, so…”
Tobias is right: he emphatically doesn’t want a second date. Waving at Stacy, Jake pivots and walks out the door without another word.
They assemble in Cassie’s barn later that evening, Jake attempting to get one of Cassie’s horse-brushes through the horrible gel-stiff mess of his hair as everyone else trickles in. “Okay,” he says wearily, when they’re all present, “What did we learn today?”
“For starters,” Marco says, “That Tobias is apparently romantic as hell. Were I not healthily terrified of your beautiful and homicidal cousin, I would already be trying to hit that like a—”
<Before you can go any further, no.> Tobias glares at Marco. <Also, to answer your next question, I am also not interested in a threesome.>
“Besides that.” Jake rubs a hand over his face, smearing the makeup that Rachel insisted isn’t makeup across his skin. “What else?”
“I learned that, on second thought, lime green is not your color.” Rachel frowns. “I’m not sure the look works at all. You can take the boy out of the WalMart jeans, but you can’t take the WalMart jeans out of the boy, I guess.”
“Can we please stay on topic?” Jake asks.
“Angelina Jolie’s a controller.” Cassie smiles sympathetically at Jake. “So are two of California’s state senators, and a handful of B-list actors. The Sharing is recruiting at the youth shelter, which is just all kinds of gross and awful, and they’re making a push to move into more schools across the county.”
<Also,> Ax adds, <We have the names of several more businesses that have donated to the Sharing, and are therefore possible yeerk pool entrances. I suggest we start with further research on Burt’s Taco Truck, although I sincerely doubt that any yeerk would have that magnificent grasp of the subtleties of spicy and umami. Still, it warrants much more extensive exploration.>
They rehash everything Ireiss 132 said, hinted at, or confirmed in response to Jake’s questions for nearly two more hours. By the end of it they’ve got a decent plan in place for how to ensure the Sharing can’t spread any more feelers into any more parts of the community, and the beginnings of an idea for how to discredit the whole organization. By then it’s getting late, so Jake and Marco and Rachel all split off to head home.
There’s a note pinned on the fridge when Jake walks in. Midget— Some chick keeps calling the house wanting to know when she’ll see you again. Call her back or get rid of her, but stop clogging up the line with your dumb teenage nonsense.
Jake stares at it in incredulity for several seconds. “Goddamn yeerks,” he says at last, and balls it up to throw in the trash.
I’m usually pretty particular about the sorts of traits that get assigned as humanity’s “special thing” in sci-fi settings, but I have to admit that I have a weakness for settings where the thing humanity is known for is something tiny and seemingly inconsequential that it wouldn’t normally occur to you to think of as a distinctive trait.
Like, maybe we have a reputation as a bunch of freaky nihilists because we’re the only species that naturally has the capacity to be amused by our own misfortune.
Alien: Why are you happy? You’ve been seriously injured!
Human: *struggling to control laughter* Yeah, but I can imagine what that must have looked like from the outside, and it’s pretty hilarious.
Alien: …
Captain XXlr’y: First Officer Jane The Human, your olifactory protuberance is severely damaged! Why is this a matter for mirthful celebration???
First Officer Jane The Human: A SPARKLY LITTLE POMERANIAN THING WITH A GODDAMN UNICORN HORN CHASED ME STRAIGHT INTO A WALL! OH MY GOD! DID YOU SEE THAT? I RAN STRAIGHT INTO THE WALL.
Captain XXlr’y: Yes I just observed this sequence of events! It was terrible!
First Officer Jane The Human: OKAY WHO GOT THAT ON CAMERA, I WANNA SEE.
Captain XXlr’y: So you more fully understand that this is a situation you should never get into again?
First Officer Jane The Human: SO I CAN SEND THE VIDEO TO MY MOM!
Captain XXlr’y: For… for the solicitation of maternal concern…?
First Officer Jane The Human: NO, BECAUSE SHE’LL THINK IT’S HILARIOUS TOO.
viewings of the ancient human art based seemingly entierly around purposefully inducing misfortune are a source of constant xeno-anthropological arguments. As near as anyone can discern, these acts are some kind of core human performance form- so meaningful to their culture that recording these acts was very nearly the first concern on the invention of moving visual media.
Somewhat more disconcerting is the fact that these aren’t just recordings of accidental happenstance, but carefully choreographed, practiced, and refined to such a degree that there are nearly species wise recognizable symbols and routines performed.
There are thesis’ on ‘large wedding cake destroyed’, and hotly argued debate on the purpose of ‘Jackass’
Reblogging this again to suggest a different view of humanity, one where it’s not that we find injuring ourselves to be hilarious is the “defining quirk”. No, this one’s got to do with why you always want a human engineer or programmer (or both) if your ship’s going to be within two parsecs of a human.
Humans break things. They don’t mean to, and it can’t just be their curiosity – other species are curious, but they don’t break things like humans do. Humans make things stop working by trying to do things that they were never meant to do in the first place. I should know, I’ve seen it firsthand – one of the stubborn little bastards decided he was going to get the holodeck to show him an outdated media format called a “Vee-Ay-Chess”, and he spent twenty chrons trying to fix it after it started belching black smoke – and then he was at it AGAIN! And don’t even get me started on how he almost wiped our nav computer to try and play something called “Wolfenstein”.
But the scary part is, for every time it fails, there’s three times it works. There was a time when our warp drive broke down. You know, it was a Caledon Industries model, they’re cheap but they like to break. The problem was that it was a Tritium Reactron Fitting, and it got wedged in the back. Like, “take the ship apart and put it back together to get the fitting out” wedged. We were convinced we were going to be stuck for a few days before our signal got noticed.
And then the human – same one who broke the holodeck twice with his Vee-Ay-Chess crap and almost wiped all our nav data with his Wolfenstein game – he goes into the engine room and begins calling over the intercom for random tools, trash, parts of other things that were working just fine. He spends maybe twelve chrons in there, and when he comes out, he tells us to fire up warp. It sails us right to the nearest star system, no problems. And then the chief engineer takes a look at what he’s done. It looks like – I kid you not – it looks like the entrails of a Galthan Wingbeast. One that got splattered by a bomb.
Says he “jury rigged” it, whatever the hell that means, and we should get it replaced before it breaks again. And that’s why I never go anywhere without a human anymore.
one time alexander the great rode dick for 8 hours and then spent 8 hours the next day riding a horse, and that’s why i believe bottoms deserve more credit
Except no, he didn’t. There is no evidence anywhere that says Alexander the Great was gay. What historical reference says that? His multiple wives maybe? His many children born to them? Or whatever delusion you’ve cooked up to pass your own opinion?
honey , i’m not spending an extra year in uni to get a classics degree not to respond to this directly
i) alexander had one (1) unborn child at the time of his death, because he only, miserably, managed to knock up one of his three (3) wives after his boyfriend died
–> had alexander produced more than ONE (1) child, the hellenistic age would not have been defined by the fallout caused by his generals warring to decide a successor, ultimately destroying his empire and arguably sending everyone from macedon to modern-day palestine into a cultural dark age
ii) macedonian kings took multiple wives to secure succession, a political move that alexander resisted despite the urging of both antipater and olympias (i’ll let you google them on your own time) for almost an literal
decade
– > there’s an anecdote found in the curtius , your “historical reference” – you can google his dates – about alexander’s parents sending him a hooker because they were afraid he didn’t … how do i say it nicely? wanna fuck women
it’s absolutely true that you can’t say alexander was gay; that’s grossly reductive, because sexuality didn’t exist by modern definition in ancient times. more, alexander DID bone a woman, willingly, at one point – a satrap’s (google that) wife, named barsine, with whom he may or may not have produced a bastard child called heracles. getting dicked down doesn’t negate wanting to dick another down, an interesting concept that you would be familiar with if you took a quick jaunt out of that homophobic bubble wrap you’ve duct-taped yourself into. we also can’t FOR SURE 100% conclusively say that alexander and hephaestion boned; but plutarch, curtius, and diodorus are some notable biographers who delve into detail about alexander’s life-long, likely romantic connection to his right hand man, who he mourned so excessively at the time of his death that there was hardly a dime left for alexander’s own funeral. they didn’t make that shit up – you can google what source criticism is, but some of THEIR sources included ptolemy i soter and callisthenes – oof, more people for you to google! modern scholars from reames to borza to müller to green assume that he was getting dicked down for the above reasons, too!
at last, i shall acknowledge that my Humour Post refers to lucian (pro lapsu inter salutandum 8), who has some wink-wink-nudge-nudge content concerning who slept in whose tent when, but who wants to retread old ground? here’s another one of my favorites instead:
323 was the year of alexander’s death (historical!), but even if lucian made all of this up, as this scholar seems to nudge at, it’s still quite telling that a cultural memory and historical tradition that the romans associated with alexander included his love of massive, throbbing cocks, non?
people who share your dreadfully uninformed and outdated opinion include, if i’m not mistaken, a handful of stodgy greek lawyers, a man named william woodthorpe tarn, and helmut berve. tarn was an imperialist, and berve? a literal nazi.
I’m sorry but I just had to reblog this. This is a fucking epic beatdown.
Considering the staggering amount of votes this one got, here you go!
ok so it’s my sweet sixteen and i took two of my closest friends paintballing. We started off alone with just the three of us. Me and this girl formed a truce so we could take out her brother. He found a building with a roof to shoot from so i was criss crossing and sliding behind shelters.
Long story short with this guy i snuck up behind his building and shot him point blank in the ass while he was climbing a ladder.
Except now his sister is my enemy and a much larger threat.
I criss cross my way back narrowly avoiding being shot. I skid to a stop behind this bush with a really gappy fence and go GOOD ENOUGH BRING IT ON and poke my muzzle through. I cant particularly see but I remembered seeing her in a little chapel window. I aim that general direction and open fire. I immediately hear HIT. When she comes out i see where i hit her. Right between the eyes like I couldnt do that again if I tried. Ill take it.
We’re back at the base ops and these massive dudes come over like “yo wanna join us we need more players” and we’re like “oh ya bud the more the merrier” so we go over and everyone is freaking massive and there’s us three tiny lil teenagers. I over hear they’re a military team and just sigh because i know im dead this is just my luck
Apparently they wanted us so that they could simulate having civilian to protect, who were also armed. (They did a piss poor job of this seriously wtf)
So the game starts and im seperated from my friends. They’re on the opposite team.
Im sticking near the leader and just generally trying not to die. He’s giving me orders as softly and nicely as he can, thinking Im scared. I mean really who wouldnt be?
I wasnt. I was ready to kick butt. When I am silent, be afraid, im planning something.
Next thing i know he’s gone. Shot, running, hiding i dont know and i dont care i gotta move there are way too many heavily armed men in these woods for me to be comfortable
Im trekking through this woodsy area keeping as low as possible because the other team has a freaking sniper and im not dealing with that no thanks im just a tiny teenager leave me alone ok
Im doing my thing and trying to find people to shoot because everyone is mia when i see people ahead.
Not my people.
And they havent seen me yet. Im looking around looking for some decent cover or somewhere to take them by surprise and there is nothing. The entire area is just thistle bushes with massive thorns. And then my idea hits. A wicked, mischievous idea. I grin behind my mask and get ready to lay my trap.
I plop myself down right in the middle of these thistles and army crawl to the path their taking and just lay still.
These guys dont see me.
They’re not expecting someone to be in these bushes cause who is that dumb.
The one dudes boot is an inch from my hand and i spring up and yell SURPRISE before shooting him right in the chest and then the two behind him. Three down, way too many to go. I ran away cackling like a witch
Dont die dont die dont die
I head out again and meet up with some more of my group. They stick me at the back to keep me out of harms way. A valiant, if ineffective effort
Enter enemy attack.
We get split up into two groups to flank them and i end up alone again. I moving slowly, spinning in a slow circled because I am EFFED
I’m a tiny lil sixteen year old girl, all alone, with about 15 guns pointed at me. I was completely surrounded. My comrades who had fled to live and fight another day are now making haste towards me like WHO LEFT THE KID BEHIND HELP HER and im like
hell no i got this
I went absolutely ape shit on their asses.
Shots are flying around me like crazy and everyone is screaming. One of the enemies shouts FALL BACK WHAT THE FU–
I hear one if my partners like HOLY SHIT SHE’S ALIVE
I barrel over one of the attackers and side arm his gun away. I break out from the Circle of Doom and make a mad dash for cover.
I leap into the air and spin to fave them. Im not getting shot in the back I an a WARRIOR
I just start spraying with a battle cry to rattle the heavens
I smack back down to earth and land in a crouch
Every single one of the attackers were shot, usually multiple times, and i didnt get shot once. Frankly no clue how i managed but I am NOT questioning it. Luck or skill I dont care
Eventually it was down to two people. Me and the other teams captain.
He’s a big, scary dude. He had a custom gun that could pop off a frankly alarming amount of shots per second.
The odds arent exactly in my favour.
We find each other right in the middle with trenches and tiny little metal fences for cover. Im walking through like plz dont shoot me i am small be nice
The dude pops up from a trench and starts firing. No mercy here.
Fine then.
I duck behind a fence and it is the most pathetic thing i have ever seen.
I have barely enough room to crouch behind it because it’s so small. The other dude finds a nice big trench and big fence the lucky lil jerk.
So we’re poppin up like weasels trying to get a shot in. I cant hit him, he cant hit me. Up and down and up and down. My fence angles down ever so slightly so im tucked in as tightly as I could. My fence is rattling as shot after shot after shot hits. The shots stop, i poke my muzzle over the edge amd lay down some fire.
And the cycle repeats
I get tired of this little exchange so the next time he goes down i lay on some cover fire and sprint like hell for a near by trench like i am just bookin it thinking dont shoot me dont shoot me imma kill you
i slide in and pop up just as he rises to take a shot. Except im not where he thought id be.
I shot him right in the side of his bald lil head.
So i won. My team legit carried me on their shoulders back to base ops
And that’s the time I, a sixteen year old girl, beat a team of militarily trained behemoths
Imagine the Aliens’ reactions if this happened to them
Can you even imagine?? Just this litrlw teenager screaming BRING IT ON YA JERKS
@humans-are-seriously-weird is this an accurate representation (I would have added a gif of one of those action heroes beating up everybody around them but I couldn’t find one)
i realize i’m maybe like, the Nichest of markets here, but i really really really desperately want to watch further adventures of Diana Prince, Curator of Antiquities™
…like, imagine the interdepartmental meetings
Diana: we have recently acquired several exquisite pieces of very early minoan kamares ware. i feel a refresh of the gallery might encourage our visitors to–
some marketing dipshit: look, we can’t get people in the door for pottery. we need another big show, like can you get a vermeer or–
Diana of Themiscrya, Amazon, God-Killer, Daughter of Hippolyta: pottery is important
some marketing dipshit, lightly pissing himself: i agree
Not only will I join you in the Nichest of Markets, but I am suddenly stricken by the dismay that can only come from a depressing awareness of how niche this market is. Does anyone…like…have fic?
“Here you are, Ms. Prince,” says the mail currier. He grabs the tablet from his back pocket, presenting it to her. “If you’ll just sign right there…”
“Of course,” says Diana. She scrawls her name, and the currier dutifully passes over the package. It is reasonably sized, stocky, with the words FRAGILE, HANDLE WITH CARE written along the edges of the Wayne Enterprises logo. “Same time next week?”
The currier laughs. “More than likely, I’d wager. Weird that Mr. Wayne has taken a sudden interest in supplementing the Louvre with his own private collection, but hey. Billionaires, right? Who knows what they’re thinking.”
Diana thinks of the museums in Gotham, filled to the brim with some of the world’s most beautiful antiquities and artifacts, and about Bruce Wayne who cares not a lick about any one them but takes ownership of them anyway for the sole purpose of having free exhibitions open to the general public five days a week. She smiles, agrees, and waves the currier off, until the next time.
She is examining the dish (Uruk period, likely kiln production, as it is a strange almost-blue tint that suggests a high-temperature controlled oven), when Isabell in charge of Eastern Eurasian arts knocks lightly on her half-open door and lets herself in.
“New delivery?” she asks, nodding to the dish.
“Yes.” Carefully, Diana puts the dish back in its box. She makes a note to have one of her assistants come by later to pick it up and send it down to the lab for testing. “The meeting?”
“Oh, uh.” Isabell in charge of Eastern Eurasian arts clears her throat and looks briefly at the floor, embarrassed. Diana lets her have a moment, used to the reaction. “Yeah. Want to walk together?”
Diana is already walking around her, throwing her disposable gloves in the garbage as she passes. “Sure,” she says anyway and waits for Isabell by the door. Isabell jolts when she realizes Diana is already ahead of her. Diana politely chooses to ignore that.
It’s only when she is seated besides Isabell in charge of Eastern Eurasian arts and Haruki in charge of philanthropic outreach that she remembers: Timothy in charge of corporate marketing is going to be at this meeting as well.
She nearly groans aloud, already anticipating his tirade on diminishing returns this financial quarter and his chart predicting a downward trend of attendance among younger visitors.
Timothy in charge of corporate marketing does not disappoint. After the heads of every department say their piece and give the customary updates, Timothy in charge of corporate marketing has an assistant hold out a poster board detailing their declining revenue and inability to attract attention. For nearly half the appointed time for the meeting, he speaks, pointing back to his poster board at regular intervals with frothing enthusiasm.
“Well,” says Diana, when Timothy in charge of corporate marketing finally allows the department heads to speak. “We have recently acquired several exquisite pieces of Early Minoan Kamares ware. I feel a refresh of the gallery might encourage our visitors to—”
“Ms. Prince,” Timothy in charge of corporate marketing interrupts. He is smiling, not unkindly, in the way a headmaster might at a particularly rambunctious child. Diana feels her fist curl, despite herself. “We can’t get people in the door for pottery.” He laughs. “No, no, we’d need something bigger. Grander, you understand. Something that will hold our visitors’ attention. Perhaps if you could get a Vermeer, yes? I hear you’ve been receiving packages from Bruce Wayne himself, and he has a lovely piece, if I do remember correctly. Maybe try asking—”
The way Timothy in charge of corporate marketing says asking, Diana knows that is far from what he actually means. She is about as likely to follow through with that as she is to ask Timothy for anything.
As calmly as she can, she places both hands atop the table and uncurls her fists. Below her fingers, a minuscule part of the grained wood chips. She extends her spine, sitting straight, and beside her, Isabell in charge of Eastern Eurasian arts swallows.
“Tim,” she cuts in. “For how many quarters have our returns, as you keep reminding us, diminished?”
Timothy in charge of corporate marketing blinks. He squints. “Well, I would say for nearly six quarters now.”
“Hm. And remind me, how long have you been with us here?”
The room has the same quality of quiet that Diana is intimately familiar with, bordering on dangerous.
“Nearly six quarters, if memory serves,” says Diana.
“Now, Ms. Prince,” Timothy in charge of corporate marketing blusters, “if you are implying that somehow I am responsible for the state of our returns—”
“I am not implying anything. Just perhaps that big shows and singular centerpieces are not the way for us to go. Isabell?”
Isabell in charge of Eastern Eurasian arts jolts and looks up at her, wide-eyed. “Yes?”
“Didn’t you recently acquire some newly discovered Jomon pieces?”
“Yes.”
“Of course, it’s a matter of opinion, but if we were to redesign the gallery to incorporate the different wares from different eras and locales, it might encourage our visitors to learn more about them and could even encourage repeat visits.”
“I suppose…” allows Timothy in charge of corporate marketing.
Diana stares at him, the same way she might have once stared down her own mother to let her leave Themyscira or even looked down on Ares as he tried to tempt her to his side. She stares at him, and remembers with a certainty that has been granted to her after years in man’s world that he is but a man and like any man, he is fragile and breakable, when she is not.
“Pottery is important, Tim,” she says.
Trembling, unable to meet her eye, Timothy in charge of corporate marketing agrees.
YOU DID THE THING YOU WENT FORTH AND DID IT I SALUTE YOU !!!!!!!!!!!!!
the fact that divine leliana absolutely refuses to hire anyone that doesn’t get along with her nug babies is the most charming and delightful thing in the world and if i didn’t already want to marry her i’d want to marry her even more
ALSO the fact that in the face of rumors about her inappropriate relationship with the warden she just straight up erased the laws against it like
“most holy you’re not really supposed to be making out with your girlfriend in the grand cathedral all the time”
“who’s going to stop me?? the divine?? well i asked me and i now declare us divine and wife, au revoir”
For those of you Not Up To Date, Shiko is my poor necromancer who starts out as the villain of my Alleirat story.
36: Are they in control of their emotions, or are their emotions in control of them?
Ha ha, um? Depends on the emotion. Now, Shiko grew up as a trans girl in a Japanese family. I have More Research lined up and if anyone was comfortable talking to me about life as a trans person in Japan, I’d be thrilled, but I’m making the radical leap that life as a trans person anywhere comes with a certain degree of learning emotional control to not shiv ignorant morons every other day (extrapolated from being a butch queer in a small town as well as various conversations with my trans friends). More to the point, Shiko’s life on Earth often left her feeling very isolated for a number of reasons, which has led her to a good degree of control over her emotions as she doesn’t like to be seen to be upset or distressed. So anger, sadness, etc, not so much–she’s very good at tactical thinking and resisting the immediate impulse to do something to ‘resolve’ the emotion unless she decides it’s a good idea objectively.
That being said, Shiko doesn’t respond well to fear, specifically fear of the unknown, and will immediately grasp at any option that she feels will give her some control over an unknown situation–like for example winding up in a strange world where no one speaks English or Japanese and she can see ghosts. Pretty much Shiko’s response to that sort of event is whatever she feels will give her some understanding and control…with absolutely no thought for what it might result in.
This is the source of like 95% of her problems. The other 5% is caused by buff tree women.
Moran, have you seen John Wick 1 or 2? And if you have, what are your thoughts/feelings on the ball of angry Keanu Reeves plays?
I have seen John Wick and very much want to see John Wick 2 because I will tell you a few things that are very important to me:
Angry Keanu Reeves
Beautifully choreographed fight scenes
Dogs! (Yes a dog dies and it’s very sad but he gETS ANOTHER DOG, headcanon that John Wick is the only assassin in the world who has 15 dogs at home, they’re all beautiful and incredibly well cared for and he loved them all very much.)
Beautifully choreographed fight scenes iN SUITS
Honestly Keanu Reeves in general? I like him a lot. I was introduced to Bill & Ted very young and have not been able to figure out what the fuck people’s issue with him is since then. I recommend Constantine for more gratuitous Keanu Reeves violence with intricate underworlds and good one-liners. Constantine is one of my top five favorite movies and I’m actually weirdly into the theology in it.
Complex networks of underground criminal enterprises with Rules (and God save you if you break The Rules)
Literally any form of media in which the main character is the best and most competent person in any given room, and which isn’t afraid to embrace that wholeheartedly (I really dislike the concept of a character being ‘too competent’ but that’s a separate rant)
Neutral ground hotels/bars/whatever
The moment on the phone with the Russian mob boss where he’s very angry that someone dared to hit his (useless) son, and he’s told that the guy killed John Wick’s dog and took his car, and the mob boss just goes very silent for a moment before he says “Oh”
So anyway I love that movie it’s very fun and I like movies with a lot of gratuitous detail in their criminal empires. Also apparently Keanu Reeves trained for John Wick at the same time that Charlize Theron was training for Atomic Blonde (I haven’t even seen that movie yet but I can already tell you: we could make a religion out of that) and they sparred a lot during that time period.
“It started because I was doing a press conference, and someone was like, “Oh, we loved The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” And I was like, “Well you know we’re doing another one!” And everyone was like “WOAH!” So then I left the press conference and I e-mailed Guy, the director, and Lionel, the producer, and I was like, “Uuuhhh, just a heads up guys, I just told a room full of international reporters that you’re working on another Man From U.N.C.L.E. Soooo when are you getting the script ready?“ And the response was “… are you serious?” I was like, “Yeah, pretty serious.” And then the news started to come out and Lionel wrote back, and he was like “Well, I’ll have a script by the end of the year.””—
Armie Hammer talking about how he really came thru for us to bring us the Man From U.N.C.L.E. sequel we deserve, The Today Show, June 5
There’s a nice explanation of this in the fic, but here is the new system for posting: Dragon Age on Wednesdays (this fic), Animorphs on Saturdays or Sundays (this series), and variousongoinglongerfics replacing one of those two whenever a chapter is finished. Tumblr fic is just going up when it’s done.
Please. Please. Please. Stay away from heroin and meth. Please.
Don’t say “I just wanna try it once, I can control myself.” Don’t say it.
Just please don’t ever do those two drugs. Please.
Please
THISSSSSS
also stay way from Molly and ecstasy. they are drugs found usually at raves and clubs and when taken cause the “happiness receptors” in your brain to be destroyed and can never be fixed meaning you will never feel happy again unless you take the drug again, which leads to dependence and overdose. these drugs also cause hyperthermia which causes your body to heat up at an alarming rate. seriously stay away from these.
We need more of these posts, educating us that not all drugs are harmful. We need more posts that give us information on safe environments for drug users, and what to do if something does go wrong. We need to be told how to safely do these drugs. Telling someone not to do drugs will just harm them more. I’d rather know how to do a certain drug safely than be oblivious and be severely harmed.
I can agree with the first part, H and Meth are a road better left untraveled. I have a couple of friends who have kicked heroin addiction and say it was the worst idea they ever had, the ones who couldn’t kick it are dead.
The post about Molly and Ecstasy is ridiculous and sounds like it was written by a 13 year old with X’s on the back of their hands. Your serotonin production get diminished for about a day, which does generally lead to a gloomy feeling, but it’s not a permanent condition. Hyperthermia is real, but not a guaranteed effect as it affects everyone differently. I overheat every time I do Ecstasy, which is why I wont take it, but I’m also 130lbs with a very high metabolism, not a prime candidate for taking speed.
For those who are curious, here’s some real advice on social drug use….
Know Your Dealer - Buying drugs you’ve never taken off of someone you’ve never met is just stupid. Buying drugs you have taken off of someone you don’t know is also risky, but if you’re careful it generally works out. A lot of times people will try to sell you one thing by saying it’s something else. It’s usually bad product that they can’t get rid of. Other people will straight rip you off. You know how easy it is to fake a hit of blotter? It’s literally a piece paper.
Know Your Limits - I had a friend who used to go crazy with Acid, taking waaay more than was necessary. One day he took an insane dose and got arrested because he was found groping women in the park. There’s a point with all drugs at which you lose control of yourself, your limit is well before that point. And with certain drugs, there is no chance to learn from your mistakes.
Don’t Do It Alone - Particularly with psychedlics, it’s good to have a trip-sitter, someone who is sober and can drive you around and make sure you don’t do anything too stupid. With rave drugs it’s also good to have someone in case you overheat, and again, to make sure you don’t do anything stupid.
Don’t Show Off - Nobody worth a shit cares how much booze you can drink, how many hits of acid you can eat, or how much weed you can smoke. If anything, they’ll shake their head at the total waste. And believe me, there is such a thing as too high
and most importantly DON’T TRY A DRUG UNLESS YOU FEEL READY TO TRY THE DRUG. Don’t ever let someone pressure you into taking something. Nobody else knows when it’s the right time for you, and being scared or filled with doubt will generally end up bad. A lot of people will try new things at concerts or festivals, which is very risky. I recommend testing yourself under a controlled situation before throwing yourself into a crowd of 30,000 people with a head full of chemicals you’re not familiar with.
BOOST THIS
Good post except for the first bit about molly. That’s……… that’s not how it works…
Don’t do drugs errybody. I’ve lost years of my life and multiple loved ones to them. There are way better ways to spend your time and money, I PROMISE. And if you are gonna do drugs, do your damn research and use as many harm reduction methods as possible! Just because they are overly stigmatized in our society does not mean they can’t genuinely fuck your entire shit up.
Also, in the event of a serious disaster–a really bad reaction, an overdose, etc–DO call the paramedics and DO tell them whatever you can about what drugs were involved. The EMTs are not going to hand you over to the cops, but some drugs interact very badly with other necessary medical drugs, and some overdoses are treatable while others are limited supportive care (oxygen, etc). They are legally not permitted to call the cops on you. Please tell them what you know so that they know what they’re dealing with.
so remember when I said that all Diana needed to round out her parallels to Steve Rogers was a brainwashed loved one believed dead for a long period of time?
so if ur in the uk and are eligible to vote in the 2017 general election and u don’t want the tories to get in but ur not sure who to vote for, you can put your postcode into this website and it will tell how best to tactically vote against conservative. i know a spreadsheet version of this circulated already but thought id share because this is super easy to use :)
I have a question about Alleirat. You've mentioned that the society isn't advanced enough for HRT and such (yes I read your tags please don't shame me) is it because they have a heavier reliance on magic? So that the advances we've made with technology would be substituted with a magical alternative? Sorry for the bother,
My dude, I write more tag than post sometimes, far be it from me to shame you for reading my tags.
And yes, you are correct! Alleirat isn’t very developed technologically speaking–they have gravity-driven indoor plumbing, but only a basic system, and clockwork (like…clocks for example, I guess), but it would just never occur to them to do something like build an internal combustion engine because they have magic to perform the same job. Horses (as well as most other fauna) is stronger, more resilient, and longer-lived (also often bigger) due to the high concentration of magic in the world, so short-distance travel is easily accomplished either on foot or on horseback. For long-distance travel (Alleirat as a continent is maybe a little smaller than Russia?), they have what they call kathen, or ‘gates’ (like a magic door, basically), which are controlled and manipulated by teams of specifically trained magic workers who literally cannot do other types of magic. Kathen can’t transport large amounts of cargo because the opening can rarely be made larger than maybe a set of double doors, so shipments are often accomplished by sailing ships or overland caravans.
Medically speaking, again, they’re heavily reliant on magic. A specific kind of magic worker called a flesh worker serves as a universal healer, but that does mean that there are some logistical limitations in comparison to our own medically advanced society. A flesh worker can repair the damage from a sword wound to the chest or even kill a cancer with a thought, yeah, but the idea of an organ transplant, a limb reattachment, or even a blood transfusion just wouldn’t occur to them. So a flesh worker (re: the HRT thing) might be able to increase one hormone or decrease another, but it would be a wicked precarious arrangement far less manageable than our medically accomplished version. Likewise, a flesh worker might be able to perform the equivalent of top surgery (or, if you went to one of the less legal flesh workers, actually alter the bone structure of your face) but…there are a lot of limitations there. Moreover, they don’t have the equipment to even start to approach some of this stuff–like, a flesh worker does all their healing with their bare hands, they don’t exactly keep sterile needles around for blood transfusion.
…I’ve put a reasonable amount of thought into this.
…………………reblog this and say something nice about the person u reblogged it from because there’s too much hate on my dashboard right now and its making me upset so lets start a chain of love
…I 274% did not expect anyone to actually do this ask meme.
But yes! Let’s do the thing!
13.
Which of the 7 Deadly Sins best describes them?
It’s a strong tossup between Wrath and Greed tbh.
Wrath because…Brenneth is angry and she has been for eighteen years, since Crispin showed up in her forge with blood on his hands and an offer to come with him. Brenneth is angry A Lot, there are days where she wakes up and the taste of fury is already on her tongue, and when they turn her loose to go back to battle, she is so, so grateful. Her chest burns hotter every moment, and the magic of the white fire thrives off her anger.
Greed because Brenneth wants her world and her home and her smithy and her people and her city and her Crispin and her sword. Brenneth looks at the world as being ‘mine’ and ‘not mine’ and all of Alleirat is hers and she spends fourteen years on Earth where her first thought of every morning and her last thought of every night is a greedy craving to stand in the Alleirai sun and look over the Talein Mountains and see the twin moons rise. She wants to go home to Alleirat and she wants Crispin to be there with her, free and clear, and she couldn’t give less of a damn about the word ‘impossible.’ Fire is a greedy master.
She would not have called herself particularly wrathful nor particularly avaricious, back before the White Wolf. She thinks of that girl as very naive.
Objectively speaking, the single greatest image that has been produced by the Animorphs series is Elfangor as a reckless Andalite cadet speeding over the Taxxon homeworld in a bright yellow Mustang convertible while he tries to figure out how to make the radio stop blasting Satisfaction and drinks Dr. Pepper.
As a person with a liberal arts degree who basically has never worked in the field for which she studied, I submit to you that Patty Tolan could potentially hold at the very least a Bachelor’s in American History.
Statistically, Black women are the most educated, degree-holding group in America, and STEM degrees are not the only ones that matter.
She could also potentially be an autodidact, but there’s no reason she has to be.
STEM degrees are not the only ones that matter. Those of us with advanced degrees who are underemployed know this. Hell, several STEM degree holders are also underemployed.
Picture Patricia Tolan’s Master thesis on the history of capital punishment in New York being how she identified that ghost in the subway and tell me that isn’t fucking awesome.
She might also have an MA as an architecture historian, which is how she knows so much about specific buildings and their histories
ok but
architecture historian patty tolan predicting the kind of specters that might show up based on the age of the building
architecture historian patty predicting where most ghost activity will be based on which areas are undergoing extreme gentrification, all that ‘renovating’ stirs up a lot of angry ghost energy
patty knowing the escape routes because she’s familiar with the style of architecture and can get everyone out if the ghost gets too hostile
patty being really concerned over the amount of damage their equipment can do to historic structures (and holtz tinkering with it to make them do less damage in the physical world and more to ghosts because she cares about her gf)
patty geeking out when one of the more destructive technologies reveals the original facade of a cool building behind a soulless modern cover
patty being able to calm ghosts down by showing homeowners and renters and landlords what updates to the structure probably got the ghost mad and advising them to get rid of it because its not in the right style anyways
patty going to the archives and doing initial research of a ghost because the archives are cool and its nice to have her hands on original source material again, amazing to be actually using her degree, even if its for something weird and a little scary
I keep imagining the deleted scene where Patty offhandedly mentions she has an MA in history, and Erin asks why she isn’t teaching. Patty gives her the eyebrow. “Nobody’s hiring tenure-track historians. Only adjuncts. Have you SEEN what adjuncts make?”
::in the background, Holtzmann nods knowingly::
Patty finishes, “At least at the MTA, I get dental insurance and overtime.”
Because in all honesty, the situation for liberal arts grad students right now makes this 100 percent plausible.
Reblogging for that awesome addition.
Haha, I read this before I saw the movie, and I think I forgot it was fanon and not actual movie canon. 100% buy.
Y’all, you cannot even adjunct now with an MA–you need a PhD (for sure in NYC). And we still make shit. So basically I’m saying Patty has a PhD.
Patty has a doctorate in architecture history.
Erin, of course, has a doctorate in physics.
Holtzmann has at least two doctorates, a strict warning from the CIA about not traveling in the middle east, and a letter from a certain Director of a certain National Laboratory, both of which carry comparable amounts of weight in the right circles.
Abby… does not. If paranormal studies was a field, she’d be its Grace Hopper. As it is, she’s more of an Ada Lovelace.
And so, when Erin gets in to work, and is in a good mood, the following exchange has been known to happen:
“Doctor.” “Doctor.”
“Doctor doctor,” “Doctor.”
“Abby.”
“…fuck you.”
(Holtzmann once made a comment to the tune of “please do”, and discovered that Abby had quite the throwing arm.)
a new law is about to be passed in Saudi Arabia that will allow the government to execute people for coming out or being openly gay online.
ignoring the fact that this is literally something out of some kind of dystopian novel, in the interests of safety i’ve emptied out my face tag and may temporarily deactivate or password protect this blog.
please reblog this and get the word out, and if you pray, please pray for me and my fellow Saudi LGBTQ+/MOGAI family.
ALSO, for those who need it [x]. its a post on erasing all traces of yourself from the interwebs.
this is not something to read and keep to yourself. please spread this around. may Allah keep everyone safe.
as far as I know, there is no large carnivore who would abandon actively eating a killed meal to chase live prey. chasing and hunting live prey is a risk, as a healthy live creature has the capability to injure a carnivore, or tire it out through the chase. If there is, say, a giant pile of dead bodies to eat, which abandoning would allow other carnivores or scavengers to steal and eat instead, it makes no sense at all.
please stop doing that thing
The sole exception I can think of is if the large carnivore thought the live prey was another carnivore or scavenger, and was chasing them as a threat display to ensure they didn’t steal the dead bodies. Even in that case, though, it would only be a short, mock charge followed by returning to the pile if the opponent fled. With possibly whatever the animal’s equivalent of “and stay out” would be.
Another thing: most carnivores don’t like to fight. They have to mug something to death for every single meal, they have to stay in top shape while conserving their energy. Meanwhile, herbivores have plenty of extra energy because they eat stuff that comes out of the ground and doesn’t fight back, and they often live in big social groups, so they’re better at handling stress and more used to having to actually come to blows with other animals to get their way.
So like, a zebra will try kick your ass just to see what’s up. A tiger won’t do shit unless it’s damn sure it can take you. I’d rather come face to face with a cougar than a stag— have you seen videos of what happens to hunters when a stag catches a dude on the ground? the stag tears the dude apart. Not even to eat him. Just because the stag didn’t like what was going on and decided it was time to curb stomp a motherfucker.
So if you’re deciding what kind of Big Scary Animals to have be a threat, like, forget wolves and lions and eagles and velociraptors. Go drop in a moose.
This is why loud noise can scare bears away. It’s a threat display that normally convinces them that the charge isn’t worth the effort.
-Exception:
If a carnivore is Not That Hungry it might drop something dead to chase something that is doing Extreme Prey Behavior– but it’s not going to be serious about it. I’m thinking of things like a domestic cat that chases birds and mice for kicks. Honestly, I think that the t rex in Jurassic Park was a good example of predator behavior– she abandons something difficult (like the kids in the jeep) for the bright shiny thing she has been conditioned to understand means food (tightpants math guy with the flare + gruff dino man with flare). For the rest of the film, she chases things that run, and then quits and chows down once she has something. This has been one of my biggest beefs with the later JP films, especially Jurassic World– rather than the scares coming from being treated and stalked like prey by animals, the scares are based on monsters killing and eating randomly. (And what’s with the treatment of all the herbivores as good and gentle? Herbivores will fuck you up because they got scared or because you pissed them off and those are the two primary emotions of large herbivores– they won’t eat you, but they’ll still trample you).
+Addition:
The predators that aren’t snipers (like cougars or herons) tend to test individuals in a herd– they want to gauge your health and willingness to fuck somebody up before they commit to you as a target. If you stare them down with your cold dead eyes and gear up to wreck their shit they’ll piss off unless they’re completely desperate. (Like I said, the main emotions of prey animals are Time To Fuck Shit Up and Time To Run). So, I’m desperately tired of all these people running and screaming away from wolves and velociraptors and bears oh my.
Consider:
How much scarier fiction could be if predators acted like actual predators that can be intelligent and patient and are pressing around the edges of your party to find weakness and fear.
Ever gone back and read the original Jurassic Park book? Please don’t, fuckin’ awful I couldn’t even finish it for various reason but the predator behavior like this was a BIG problem. I got so angry at it…haha.
In many situations you’d be more likely to get chased and damaged by a herbivore feeling threatened than a predator already feeding (though push your luck there and see what happens…)
My favourite example of the “herbivores are harmless” fallacy is the
Cape Buffalo. If they’re unhappy about the presence of something that upsets them, they’ll make it go away…
…and if the
something-that-upsets-them
can’t run away fast enough (people, for one) then its going-away can be messy and permanent.
Someone (I think it was writer Robert Ruark) once described Cape Buffalo as “looking at you as if you owe them money.”
This lot all know you owe them money…
…but the big guy on the left knows how much, and that your repayment is late.
You know that thing where, like, a tomboy puts on a dress for a special event or something and everyone acts super “wowed” and goes on and on about how they never knew how beautiful she was? Don’t fucking do that thing.
Yeah for me it’s one thing for people to be like WOAH YOU ARE IN A DRESS and I’m like fricks yeah homie, but another when people say “I never knew how beautiful you are” like BITCH I AM ALWAYS BEAUTIFUL SWALLOW A LIVE WASP
i realize i’m maybe like, the Nichest of markets here, but i really really really desperately want to watch further adventures of Diana Prince, Curator of Antiquities™
…like, imagine the interdepartmental meetings
Diana: we have recently acquired several exquisite pieces of very early minoan kamares ware. i feel a refresh of the gallery might encourage our visitors to–
some marketing dipshit: look, we can’t get people in the door for pottery. we need another big show, like can you get a vermeer or–
Diana of Themiscrya, Amazon, God-Killer, Daughter of Hippolyta: pottery is important
some marketing dipshit, lightly pissing himself: i agree
Not only will I join you in the Nichest of Markets, but I am suddenly stricken by the dismay that can only come from a depressing awareness of how niche this market is. Does anyone…like…have fic?
HAHAHAHA OKAY SO I’m not gonna reblog the meta I just read because I get that everyone is entitled to their own opinions about who fictional characters are in love with even if I strenuously disagree with them and this was in no way directed at me and I don’t want to be an asshole, BUT ALSO just so we’re all aware:
the idea that James was not romantically in love with Miranda is, just. JUST. !!!!!!!!!!! DID YOU NOT SEE THE WAY HE LOOKED AT HER? DID YOU NOT SEE HIM COMMUNICATING WITH HER WITH BOOK-PRESENTS, DID YOU NOT SEE HIM SMILING AT HER LIKE SHE WAS LITERALLY EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD TO HIM (BECAUSE SHE WAS), DID YOU MISS ALL OF TOBY STEPHENS DOING THE ACTING. IT WAS SUCH GOOD ACTING. THE VERY IDEA. THAT HE ISN’T IN LOVE WITH HER. THAT HE LOVES HER LIKE A MOTHER (OH MY GOD, IT WAS A METAPHOR, I AM DYING, DREAM MIRANDA ALSO CALLED HERSELF HIS MISTRESS AND HIS WIFE, AUGH.) DID YOU NOT SEE HIM IN THAT VERY SAME DREAM SEQUENCE LOOK AT HER WITH ALL THE LOVE IN THE FUCKING WORLD ON HIS FACE AND MURMUR I’M RUINED OVER YOU. WHAT. THE FUCK. AND. the idea that James is gay and not bi and isn’t sexually interested in Miranda when footage of him giving Miranda that wolfish fucking grin in the carriage exists is so STUPENDOUSLY, WILFULLY, TREMENDOUSLY WRONG that I want to go scream like a banshee on the moors just to try to cope with the enormity of the degree to which it is wrong.
I get that the show is open to interpretation, and that it doesn’t label anybody’s sexuality because hey oscar wilde hadn’t gone to trial yet and so there were no labels for anybody’s sexuality, but, LIKE, OH MY GOD, if you don’t think James and Eleanor at the very fucking least are bisexual you are RECKLESSLY reading against the grain and this bitter bisexual actually does kind of hold it against you.
Fucking Wonder Woman. I'm dying. Im dead. I'm so gay. I literally gasped outloud and went "I'm gay" during many times in the movie and when Diana looks at Ares and said "Goodbye Brother" AND THEN WRECKED HIS FUCKING SHIT I STARTED CRYING I AM IN LOVE HELP
fuck you fuck ur fucking justice otp im crying now fuck all the feelings u just made me feel how dare
BUT IT WOULD BE SO GOOD.
Highlights of The Fucking Justice OTP include:
Steve Rogers, man out of time in the most literal sense, talking quietly with Diana about what he missed. The history books make it all sound like a horror show, and Diana tells him about a woman in Indonesia who sheltered fifteen orphans after a tsunami, about the ingenious ways that people escaped from the Soviet Union or over the Berlin Wall, about the people who have stood up and fought and died for freedom and honor and love. Diana tells him all the little stories that never get as much attention as the atrocities, all the thousand tiny reasons she still fights for humanity.
Diana Prince is the latest hiree at Stark Industries and her job is the local mystery. They’re pretty sure she’s a secretary except for how she wanders into the labs from time to time and critiques the practicality of Tony’s inventions. Steve hears someone call her ‘sweet cheeks’ and grins to himself when he hears the sound of Diana spraining some asshole’s wrist.
DIANA GOES WITH STEVE TO VISIT PEGGY. IT COMES TO LIGHT THAT PEGGY’S FRIEND DIANA IS ALSO THE WONDER WOMAN FROM VELD, THIS TAKES STEVE A MOMENT TO ADJUST. (It takes him much longer to reboot his brain from the BSOD he experiences when Peggy fondly reminisces about the time she and Diana went ass-kicking together–Peggy’s words. He would have paid all the money in the world to watch that.)
Steve idly braids Diana’s hair when they’re watching movies together, because Diana likes having her hair played with and Steve doesn’t sit still well. One time Diana is Steve’s date to a red carpet event and she gets asked who did her beautifully classic chignon, with tiny braids looping back above her ears like a diadem, and she informs the entire world that Captain America can braid hair. He starts braiding interns’ hair when he gets called onto talk shows.
WONDER WOMAN. WITH. THE AVENGERS.
She and Natasha have very different perspectives of being trained to fight from childhood. (Natasha reminds Diana of Antiope.)
Tony is genuinely very alarmed by Diana because she’s…so genuine? Like, he doesn’t really know how to cope with someone who doesn’t put up a front of sarcasm and prickly behavior.
Clint and Diana agree on a lot of things, and he finds her kind of restful–she’s not a blind optimist, but she has hope, and it’s something Clint has sorely needed in his life.
Bruce finds her kind of unnerving because she gets along really well with the Hulk, who thinks she is The Greatest.
Bucky shows up and Diana is exactly what he needs on his worst days, someone who’s simultaneously very calm around him and utterly invulnerable to even the worst of the Winter Soldier’s violence.
Sam thinks Diana is the Bee’s Literal Knees, but he’s easily as enthusiastic about her friends throughout history, which Diana is also pretty thrilled with, because HER FRIENDS HAVE BEEN WONDERFUL.
Thor is OVERWHELMED WITH DELIGHT when Diana handily whips his ass during a sparring match, and starts introducing her with “This is Princess Diana of Themyscira, the mighty Wonder Woman–she bested me in battle!” Also one day during a battle the world is treated to the sight of Diana, in all her armored glory, raising Mjolnir high to call down the wrath of…well, Diana on the enemy of the day.
Diana could bench press Steve and tbh he’s into it.
Hi! I would just like to tell you that Alleirat is based on ideas/tropes that I find absolutely fascinating (your Evil Nemesis becomes your friend/ally? Trying to adjust after the end of a portal fantasy? Actual diverse fantasy? Loving someone but not saying anything because you are So Unworthy? my exact jam I tell you.) and the snippet was really great! I would be most happy to pay to read the whole thing at some stage if that's the plan?
HONESTLY THIS IS SO GOOD TO HEAR MY DUDE BECAUSE I JUST OVERHAULED MY WHOLE LIFE TO FINISH THIS NOVEL AND START PUBLISHING MY WORK (starting with this one and then probably Alleirat), THIS WAS EXACTLY WHAT I NEEDED TO HEAR TO LOWER MY FUCKING HEART RATE.
On a less panicky note, I’m so glad to hear that this is other people’s exact jam because ALLEIRAT IS MY EXACT JAM. I’m just so Tired of reading shitty redemption arcs or black and white morality or the Narnia plotline where you Outgrow The Magic, this novel (like…all my novels tbqh) is pure spite distilled over years of aggravation. All my novels are total self-gratification and it’s so SO amazing to be told that I’m not the only person enjoying the hell out of these tropes and concepts.
And yes! The plan is to actually publish that motherfucker at some point! I actually write…really fast, so I will keep all y’all posted on any and all developments re: publishing and agents and stuff, and it would be amazing if people actually bought my stuff!
I love you guys so much, oh my god, I’m actually tearing up a little rn.
Okay okay okay. So I’ve seen Star Trek: First Contact about a hundred times and I can’t believe I never noticed this.
So first contact with the Vulcans happens, right? The Vulcan ship lands…
Ooh look an alien. Pointy ears!
He offers what we as Star Trek fans recognize as the traditional Vulcan greeting.
Zefram Cochrane tries to copy…
Haha he can’t do it.
So he of course offers what he knows to be a traditional greeting, namely a handshake.
And ah yes, what a wonderful moment. Two cultures are exchanging greetings, learning about each other. It’s awesome.
Until you remember that Vulcans kiss with their hands.
So basically, this Vulcan offered a nice polite “how do you do” and Zefram Cochrane offered smoochies.
I really hope this came up in conversation later.
The Vulcans did a Kirk on the whole human race.
LET ME JUST STOP YOU ALL FOR A SECOND.
The person above was right, Vulcan’s kiss with their hands. But typically, the way they kiss only involves their index and middle finger being pressed against another person’s. That is a kiss.
In, “The Search for Spock,” you see that in the Vulcan culture, just running your fingers against someone else’s can be considered sex (the scene is super strange, but it’s heavily implied, forgive me if I’m wrong).
So, going on that thought, this isn’t just a kiss.
This is like, a make-out session, or at least a long, passionate kiss.
I just, I just can’t get over it because:
1. There are are other Vulcan’s watching these guys, but the Vulcan in front just fucking accepts the kiss.
2. This takes a second right? Like, Zefram can’t do the Vulcan salute so he offers his hand and this Vulcan just gives him this face like, “oh, um, alright? I guess I shouldn’t refuse.” And he just ACCEPTS IT.
The best thing over all is, after they connect, this Vulcan just gives this guy bedroom eyes. It’s like he’s thinking, “well, bold of you sir, bold. Such a strong grip. Perhaps we can do this again in private.”
I just…
THIS GUY.
I love the beat after the human sticks out his hand. Where the Vulcan looks down and realizes what he’s expected to do and just internally goes “Humans are fucking WILD” and fucking goes for it, full on macks on the first human he’s ever met.
