I hope you like host clubs, cat.
They told us there was no God but… God was here the whole time
Oh my god this was real I fucking thought it was an onion article ajdjdbahdhdbsnsjaj
My favorite thing is that Europe is spooky because it’s old and America is spooky because it’s big
“The difference between America and England is that Americans think 100 years is a long time, while the English think 100 miles is a long way.” –Earle Hitchner
A fave of mine was always the american tales where people freaked out because ‘someone died in this house’ and all the europeans would go ‘…Yes? That would be pretty much every house over 40 years old.’
‘…My school is older than your entire town.’
‘Sorry, you think *how far* is okay to travel for a shopping trip?’
*American looks up at the beams in a country pub* ‘Uh, this place has woodworm, isn’t that a bit unsafe?’ ‘Eh, the woodworm’s 400 years old, it’s holding those beams together.’
A few years ago when I was in college I did a summer program at Cambridge aimed specifically at Americans and Canadians, and my year it was all Americans and one Australian. We ended the program with a week in Wessex, and on the last day as we all piled onto the bus in Salisbury (or Bath? I can’t remember), the professors went to the front to warn us that we wouldn’t be making any stops unless absolutely necessary. We’re headed to Heathrow to drop off anyone flying off the same day, then back to Cambridge.
“All right, it’s going to be a long bus ride, so make sure you’re prepared for that.”
We all brace ourselves. A long bus ride? How long? We’re Americans; a long bus ride for us is a minimum of six hours with the double digits perfectly plausible. We can handle a twelve hour bus ride as long as we get a bathroom break.
The answer. “Two hours.”
Oh.
English people trying to travel around Australia and wildly underestimating distance are my favourite thing
a tour guide in France told my school group that a particular cathedral wouldn’t interest us much because “it’s not very old; only from the early 1600s”
to which we had to respond that it was still older than the oldest surviving European-style buildings in our country
China is both old and big. I had some Chinese colleagues over; we were discussing whether they wanted to see the Vasa ship (hugely expensive war ship which sank on it’s maiden voyage after 12 min). They asked if it was old, I said “not THAT old” (bearing in mind they were Chinese) “it’s from the 1500s.” To my surprise they still looked impressed, nodding enthusiatically. Then I realised I’d forgotten something: “…I mean it’s from the 1500s AFTER the birth of Christ” and they went “oh, AFTER…”.
My dad’s favorite quote from various tours in Italy was “Pay no attention to the tower – it was a [scornful tone] tenth century addition.”
do you ever look at yourself on a slob day without makeup or your hair done and realise. if I lived during the medieval period i would not have gotten a significant other with this face. no one would fight for my hand or honour. the only thing that would take me is the plague
Excuse you, person who has probably almost all her teeth and has showered within the last six months and not even a single pockmark in her face at all, medieval men would have sung an ode to your face.
so is it a thing in (american) english to use “texas” as a word for like, something that’s out of control or chaotic, or as like, “crazy”? like “that party last weekend was totally texas!”
because that is a thing people say in norwegian and i just think it’s important for americans to know that?
this is the best thing I’ve ever heard
i’m sorry wHAT
This is like the time I found out that in Israel “Ma po ze, Chicago?” (What is this, CHICAGO?) is a saying for when people are acting unruly.
in finland if something is far away or in an unknown place we can say that “se on huitsin nevadassa” (it’s in nevada) you can also politely tell that you’d wish someone to fuck off by wishing that they’d go to nevada
I am both amused and nodding my head at the accuracy.
One of the most bizarrely cool people I’ve ever met was an oral surgeon who treated me after a ridiculous accident (that’s another story), Dr. Z.
Dr. Z. was, easily, the best and most competent doctor or dentist I’ve ever encountered – and after that accident, I encountered quite a number. He came stunningly highly recommended, had an excellent record, and the most calming bedside manner I’ve ever seen.
That last wasn’t the sweet gentle caretaking sort of manner, which some nurses have but you wouldn’t expect to see in a surgeon. No; when Dr. Z. told me that one of my broken molars was too badly damaged to save, and I (being seventeen and still moderately in shock) broke down crying, he stared at me incredulously and said, in a tone of utter bemusement, “But – I am very good.”
I stopped crying on the spot. In the last twenty-four hours or so of one doctor after another, no one had said anything that reassuring to me. He clearly just knew his own competence so well that the idea of someone being scared anyway was literally incomprehensible to him. What more could I possibly ask for?
(He was right. The procedure was very extended, because the tooth that needed to be removed was in bits, but there was zero pain at any point. And, as he promised, my teeth were so close together that they shifted to fill the gap to where there genuinely is none anymore, it’s just a little easier to floss on that side.)
But Dr. Z.’s insane competence wasn’t just limited to oral surgery.
When I met Dr. Z., he, like most doctors I’ve had, asked me if I was in college, and where, and what I was studying. When I say “math,” most doctors respond with “oh, wow, good for you” or possibly “what do you want to do with that after college?”
Dr. Z. wanted to know what kind of math.
I gave him the thirty-second layman’s summary that I give people who are foolish enough to ask that. He responded with “oh, you mean–” and the correct technical terms. I confirmed that was indeed what I meant (and keep in mind, this was upper-division college math, you don’t take this unless you’re a math major). He asked cogent follow-up questions, and there ensued ten or so minutes of what I’d call “small talk” except for how it was an intensely technical mathematical discussion.
He didn’t, as far as I can tell, have any kind of formal math background. He just … knew stuff.
I was a competitive fencer at this point in time, so when he asked if I had any questions about the surgery that would be necessary, I asked him if I’d be okay to fence while I had my jaw wired shut, or if it would interfere with breathing.
“Fencing?” he said.
“Yes,” I said, “like swordfighting,” because this is another conversation I got to have a lot. (People assume they’ve misheard you, or occasionally they think you mean building fences.)
“Which weapon?”
“Uh. Foil.”
“No, it won’t be safe,” and he went off into an explanation of why.
Turns out, he was also a serious fencer – and, when I mentioned my fencing coach, an old friend of his. (I asked my fencing coach later, and, oh yes, Dr. Z., a good friend of mine, excellent fencer.) (My coach was French. Dr. Z. was Israeli. I never saw Dr. Z. around the club or anything. I have no idea how they knew each other.)
So this was weird enough that later, when I was home, I looked Dr. Z. up on Yelp. His reviews were stellar, of course, but that wasn’t the weird thing.
The weird thing was that the reviews were full of people – professionals in lots of different fields – saying the same thing: I went to Dr. Z. for oral surgery, and he asked me about what I did, and it turned out he knew all about my field and had a competent and educated discussion with me about the obscure technical details of such-and-such.
All sorts of different fields, saying this. Lawyers. Businessmen. Musicians.
As far as I can tell, it’s not that I just happened to be pursuing the two fields he had a serious amateur interest in – he just seemed to be extremely good at literally everything.
I have no explanation for this. Possibly he sold his soul to the devil.
He did a damn good job on my surgery.
Some god is slumming it on Earth with maxed-out stats helping people and his dive bar of choice is oral surgery.
npr:
In the lush green mountain town of Lares, Puerto Rico, even the dead and buried were scarred by Hurricane Maria.
The September 2017 storm dumped so much rain onto the town’s only cemetery that it triggered a landslide. The flow of mud and water was so powerful that it damaged nearly 1,800 tombs — expelling caskets from their graves and sending some of them tumbling down a hillside.
The damage was so extensive — and so horrifying — that health officials locked the cemetery gates. They haven’t been reopened in the 14 months since. And so, for the families and friends of those buried in the Lares Municipal Cemetery, every day has only brought more heartache.
“My father is in there. My grandmother is in there,” said Giovanni Ramirez Santiago. “The town can’t take this anymore.”
Now, the town’s residents are furious that officials have yet to make any repairs. And the longer they’ve been kept out, the more desperate they’ve grown to get in. They want to see the damage to their family members’ tombs but are also fearful of what they’ll find.
“We want to fix them up, take them flowers,” said José Luis Rivera López, whose parents and sister are buried there. “But we can’t. If we cross the fence, they’ll arrest us.”
Across Puerto Rico, people are trying to leave the traumas of Hurricane Maria behind. But doing so has been impossible because the pace of the island’s reconstruction has been so slow. In Lares, the unrepaired destruction in the town’s cemetery has been an especially brutal reminder of everything the storm took.
The yearning for closure — for peace of mind — has led many residents to take drastic measures. Since the start of the year, more than 50 people have gotten permits to exhume the cadavers of their loved ones and take them away, according to figures provided by Puerto Rico’s health department.
‘My Father Is In There’: Anguish Builds In Puerto Rico Mountains Over Decimated Tombs
Photos: Erika P. Rodriguez for NPR
i’d be really curious to know what percent of queerbaiting is
a) an intentional marketing scheme to stir interest in the project and attract certain fanbases (lgbtq people and young women) vs.
b) members of the creative team genuinely wanting to write queer characters but the corporate side of things force them to tone it down but they still leave little hints vs.
c) they legitimately did not know how gay something would come across
The answer:
A is 100%. Because B and C are not queerbaiting. The literal meaning and definition of it is A.
Please tumblr learn the difference and stop shitting on good shows
Anyone who’s still not clear:
Teen Wolf show-makers asking fans what they wanted, getting the answer ‘canon-queer relationships’ and then just hinting at Stiles being bi and having the characters people ship hang out platonically is queer-baiting
Gravity Falls having the two male police officers hold hands and show genuine affection to one another, but not being allowed to confirm they were married because the studio wanted to sell the show to Russia and China is queer-coding
Arthur Conan Doyle genuinely not understanding why some people would think two men living together, declaring their undying affection for one another, and constantly referring to Holmes as a ‘confirmed bachelor’ was a bit gay is queer-subtext
Clear now?
protip if a nerd dude tries to give you a pop quiz about the fandom on your shirt/bag/cosplay by asking you to answer a banal and obscure trivia question to prove you’re a Real Gamer, turn the question back on him. ask him about the thematic implications that bit of trivia has on the actual story. ask him about the character development and motivations of the minor characters he’s making you list. ask him if he thinks the major in-universe event he’s testing you on was successful in carrying forward the underlying tone and intent of the work itself. ask him about fucking literary devices. you know that one super tough and intimidating lit teacher everyone encounters at least once in their lifetime? become that teacher. make him sweat.
me putting my fuzzy socks on: 🙂
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