Hey You. Look At My Description

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[lightweightkate]

I’ve been cackling about this for like five minutes now

[saul-tortellini]

[hamletthedane]

100% Disagree

It’s an underdog story about classism in which the folk hero (Johnny) is confronted by a powerful man (the Devil) who tries to exploit the hero’s perceived ignorance and inferiority by offering a great reward with impossible odds. Although Johnny warns him that looks can be deceiving, and that he’s going to regret the dare because Johnny is the “best there’s ever been”, the devil is blinded by his greed and arrogance.

The devil creates an awful cacophony of technically excellent fiddle playing that would be impossible for Johnny to replicate. It’s a trick.

But Johnny just grins at him and starts to play “simple” classic country fiddling songs - Fire On The Mountain, House Of The Rising Sun, and Daddy Cut Her Bill Off. He doesn’t rise to beat the Devil - he simply creates his own music from his home, in the style that he knows, and his love of it and the familiarity of the music make his “backwoods” fiddling more perfect than the Devil could ever achieve.

It is thus the devil’s pride, not Johnny’s, that allows Johnny to Bugs Bunny his way into a golden fiddle.

(In that sense, I do agree that it is the most American song: in a land of prejudice and inequities, great power lies - dormant but ever-present - in those we underestimate and attempt to exploit.)

[mylordshesacactus]

It’s so easy to underestimate the significance of the fact that all of Johnny’s songs are classic folk-americana tunes, honestly! Like, of course thematically what matters is meeting “technically challenging but obnoxious” with “genuinely skilled and beautiful, you just didn’t expect him to be good because he’s poor,” but the music choices are significant for another reason.

Bluntly: Standards.

Sure, the Devil’s portion of the song is extremely technically challenging to replicate....but that’s only relevant to us, retelling the story and trying to replicate it. He didn’t have that standard to be judged against. He just did a bunch of complicated lightning-fast screeching, and tried to set Johnny up to match him, and lost when the kid refused to play that game. The bargain, after all, wasn’t “anything you can do I can do better”. It was just “I’m a better musician than you” and Johnny is the one who actually understands what that means.

But also: all of those name-dropped tunes are incredibly iconic. They’re at least as extremely technically demanding, but more importantly, if Johnny had fucked up even one note it would have been immediately obvious. Every musician in that area knows those tunes. He had to play them perfectly, blend them seamlessly together, and put his own spin on them in order to meet the challenge, and there were no imperfections for the Devil to claim victory over.

All the Devil had to do was make noise. Nobody could tell him that he did it “wrong” because the obvious retort is “no, that’s exactly what I was trying to do, if you think I did it wrong then let’s see you do it better” and that, right there, is the trap. 

Johnny had more heart, of course--that’s the point, that lightning-fast fretting work is nice and all but if you don’t understand and respect the history and culture and the interplay of music you’ll always be lesser than those who do. But he also gave himself the better demonstration of skill, because he did the harder thing, and held himself to a pre-existing standard.

(Also he didn’t summon an entire goddamn backup band to do the heavy lifting for him, but like. Of course this is the American folklore Devil, the trickster-spirit archetype figure who is really more akin to the Fae and not the actual Christian concept of Satan, but “the Devil cheated” still isn’t exactly an instant disqualification. That’s kind of a given. He is, after all, the Devil.)

[prismatic-bell]

I would like to note my mother got to see Charlie Daniels play this live, and there’s one more reason the Devil lost:

Care.

See, apparently Charlie Daniels actually kept extra fiddles on the stage for this song, because playing the Devil’s part WILL snap the fiddle strings. Yes, both Johnny and the Devil have longer solos in the live version because this song is really just Charlie Daniels showing off (earned, though, lbr), but my mom said his fiddle strings were literally SMOKING long before he got into the extended part. And so by necessity, when one set of strings snapped he’d drop the fiddle and pick up another.

The Devil is using his fiddle the same way he uses people: he’s abusing it, treating it as something worth nothing but disdain. I want to pause here briefly and note that when this song was originally written, the best violins in the world were considered to be the Stradivarius violins; there are now modern violins that match or beat their sound, but that’s an EXTREMELY new innovation. This means the Devil is likely playing on a violin worth tens of thousands of dollars; even if he’s conjured an infernal violin for himself, the contempt he shows for Johnny’s (implied) poverty and simplicity says it doesn’t look like just any old violin. And yet, he treats it like garbage—and that’s exactly what comes out of it.

(If you’re wondering where the violin comes into this, a fiddle is a violin played differently, and this is one great way to show the difference between “high” and “low” art is spelled B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T.)

Meanwhile, Johnny is some backwoods hick who’s probably never even heard the word Stradivarius, wouldn’t know what to do with one if he had one, and likely plays an absolute shitkicker that looks like hell and cost him fifteen bucks at the pawnshop.

But Johnny VALUES his fiddle. He doesn’t so much play it as make love to it. What we hear is beautiful because he understands he’s not the only one with a soul; instruments have souls, too. He’ll take that solid gold fiddle because he can use the money, but he’ll go right on playing his cheap beat-up old thing until the day he dies. He loves it like he loves his home and his music, and that love makes magic.

The Devil loses because he doesn’t understand the concept that love will beat out greed every time. Johnny wins because he values and respects what he has.

[patricia-taxxon]

i dislike small talk. not because i think im better than everyone and only deserve thoughtful conversation, but because the purpose of it is outside of my field of vision, like infrared light. i dont have access to the thing that allistic people have happen between them when they go through the motions, i'm not smarter than you i'm actually way dumber

[patricia-taxxon]

like... words mean a lot more, somehow. it doesn't matter that the words have no informational value, cus there's this whole rainbow of implicit meaning. like, you say "nice weather we're having" but you mean "you're heard, i enjoy your company, you can speak soon" (incomplete list, because im autistic)

[clusterduck28]

Genuinely, I think smalltalk would be much easier if we could just make random noises at each other.

Removing the explicit linguistic layer of communication clears the view for the implicit emotional layer to reveal itself more clearly, and since the core message lies on said layer, why obscure it in the first place?

tl;dr meow at your homies.

[what-even-is-thiss]

The point of small talk is to kind of get a good look at each other. You start off with mostly uncontroversial topics like the weather, what job you have, what hobbies you might have, where you grew up, where you take your dog to get groomed, to try and see if you can get along with this person, basically.

If you really want to get good at small talk, treat it like a mystery game. Your goal is to figure out if you want to be friends with this person. To do that you’ve gotta uncover some stuff about them. And they’re playing the same game. Trying to figure out which boundaries are and aren’t okay to cross, trying to bring up certain topics. Can you talk about religion or politics with this person? Do they like nascar?

Small talk is how you peel back the onion layers of walls people have up. Because for obvious reasons you don’t want to open up about everything to everyone you meet. Some people are more private than others.

And sometimes after peeling back those onion layers you find at the core is someone you can just meow at. And that’s pretty cool.

[purplesaline]

This is a good metaphor!

Also you lose the game if the person gets angry/upset/uncomfortable which is why you don't just dive right in and ask really invasive personal questions off the bat

[escuerzoresucitado]

[vamp-orwave]

[Video description: a short clip from 'The Lighthouse' (2019) in which Robert Pattinson's character spits out a mouthful of alcohol, sets down the bottle, and begins a drunken jig to the chorus of TaTu's 'All The Things She Said.' As the camera pulls in on his face, the jig becomes increasingly wild and frenzied. End description.]

[lesvegas]

Let's make a bowl of ramen

Broth

Noodles

Green onion/scallions

Egg

Garlic

Pork

Menma/bamboo

Pickled radish

Nori/seaweed

Cheese

Chili oil

Fish cake/narutomaki

Voting ended onMar 29, 2024

[lesvegas]

Hate to be like this but please reblog for size I wanna see how crazy this can get <3

[lesbianshepard]

phrasing of this is taking me out

[voregeoisie]

[katelyn-danger]

Harder to crucify a being with eight legs

[biscoff-und-taxis]

#spider Jesus died on the asterisk for our sins

you can’t just leave this in the tags

[sandersstudies]

My husband’s job primarily employs adult men but there is one (1) teenage girl and my husband said originally he worried she might be a bit of an outcast but instead every man on the crew was like “huh guess I am a dad/older brother now.”

[sandersstudies]

She was in a car crash on the way to work one morning and called my husband to let him know she’d be late and he was like wtf guess I’m gonna be late too because I’m coming to pick you up and then he told his team and they were like I think you mean WE are coming.

[hoonkus-deactivated20230701]

Imagine you are a teenage girl probably rushing to get to work and you crash your probably new car and feel absolutely miserable and now you’ll be late to work but then suddenly in the distance a car full of all the adult men you work with just pulls up and is like “we came all the way here to pick you up” the mental image right now is fr.

[sandersstudies]

Apparently she tried to call her dad but it was 3am and he was obviously sleeping so she called my husband and he not only came to find her but fished her glasses out of the hood of the car (she’d dropped them while looking inside), drove her to the hospital, and told her to take the day off. She insisted on coming back to work so he used his lunch break to watch TV with her to make sure she didn’t doze off (concussion risk).

You’ve heard of the Mom friend but my husband is very much the Dad friend. He said when he answered the phone she said “hey please don’t be mad” and he’s never felt such powerful Fatherhood energy in his life.

[deliciouspaintthinner]

Girl: *calls for aid*

Every single dad packed into the car:

[sandersstudies]

This is possibly my favorite response to this post

[i-like-to-think-that-im-cool]

This girls father: Thanks for helping my daughter out guys

Your husband and all his coworkers:

[brightlotusmoon]

[naamahdarling]

The "fuck everyone and fuck helping the needy and vulnerable and actually fuck caring about other people" mindset is not natural to us as a species no matter what people say to justify their own callousness and apathy.

[argumate]

A seemingly silly gesture is done for the sake of safety.

doctors should do this, although perhaps with less yelling.

[arundelo]

I liked this a lot and was going to tumbl it myself but you beat me to it.

“In the rail context, when train drivers wish to perform a required speed check, they do not simply glance at a display. Rather, the speedometer will be physically pointed at, with a call of ‘speed check, 80'—confirming the action taking place, and audibly confirming the correct speed.”

[arundelo]

Reginald Braithwaite:

If you don’t point to the knot on your harness when calling out that you are tied in, and we don’t audibly call out “On belay… belay on” to each other, we aren’t climbing together.

These exact same rituals have been developed for climbing because everyone, experienced, and inexperienced, can make mistakes.

The greatest climber of her generation (of any gender!), Lynn Hill, opens her autobiography with the story of how she was distracted while tying in, and nobody thought to check her, because, well, she’s LYNN HILL.

She climbed 75’ up an easy (for her) warmup climb, called for tension on the rope, sat back, and fell the entire distance to the ground. She was very lucky to survive.

[isaacsapphire]

Rituals are an important part of safety.

[fireleaptfromhousetohouse]

My theory is that this extends to subtler forms of safety, like ‘not burning out from overwork, shooting up your office and taking a bus full of tourists hostage’. The coffee/cigarette break gives an opportunity for decompression and self-reflection in much the same way as prayer.

[apricops]

Writing “CORRECT LEG” on a patient’s left leg before surgery might seem silly but it’s a lot better than the alternatives

[argumate]

“what idiot wrote RIGHT LEG on the left leg? stupid nurses…”

[shacklesburst]

a lot of pilots often do this as well, though it’s not quite on the same level of being a general rule as with Japanese train companies, but it totally helps

[eightyonekilograms]

Yeah, if you listen to actual pilot radio chatter, the popular conception of it in media is totally wrong. Pilots/ATC almost never say “roger” to affirm a command, they always repeat the command back with their callsign to be sure they got it right, e.g.

ATC: “United two-one-four, turn heading one-eight-zero, climb and maintain four thousand”

Pilot: “Turn heading one-eight-zero, climb and maintain four thousand, United two-one-four”

That way if the pilot heard it wrong they can be corrected, instead of just saying “roger” when they could have the totally wrong idea of what to do and no one would know. Safe system design is all about including rituals like this.

[fairy-anon-godmother]

The call-and-response is important. Two people can have a conversation and think that they are agreeing but have completely different takeaways. 

[argumate]

DJ: all the ladies in the house put your hands up!

ladies in the house: *verbally confirm that their hands are indeed up*

[earnest-peer]

I recall a story from the daughter of a military pilot, whose dad would always say the words “you have control” when he handed her back her baby - and wouldn’t actually let go of the baby until she said “I have control” back to him.

[ms-demeanor]

how do you find love?

You have to be willing to be hurt and trust people not to hurt you.

But also go out and do regular activities with people who share similar interests. I'm extremely unromantic in terms of how friendships and relationships are built. Go out and spend time with people who are into the same stuff that you are into and eventually you will probably find someone in that group who you are romantically compatible with and who is open to a relationship at the same time you are.

Like there are tons of jokes about various communities being insular and socially incestuous but, like, the reason improv groups have all dated each other is because they spend a lot of time together doing things they like and that's actually a pretty good foundation for a relationship.

Also, real talk: you have to be okay with being alone. You have to like yourself enough that it wouldn't be the end of the world if you were all you had. That is really difficult for a lot of people, but genuinely one of the ways to start liking yourself more is to go out and do things that you think fun and interesting people would do until you discover that you have tricked yourself into becoming a fun and interesting person.

But also take that with a grain of "I lucked into a long-term relationship at eighteen because I met someone cool at a coffee shop where I worked."

(however, being regulars at a coffee shop did legitimately used to be a way to meet people, I know lots of people who met at the coffee shops I worked at and found their partners there, but that's because coffee shops used to be the kind of place where people would go and hang out for hours after work every day and interact with new people and I'm not sure how much that's a thing anymore, which is why you have to manufacture it by, like, joining an adult kickball league or getting deeply involved in your local larping scene or whatever)

[ms-demeanor]

If you're so traumatized that you can't trust people then you SHOULDN'T be dating, you should be working on getting yourself to a place where you are able to trust people. You can do this by spending a lot of time in low-stakes interactions and building friendships and acquaintanceships with people who you aren't investing romantic interest in. Build trust with other people in a way that allows you some resilience if you do end up having your trust betrayed by a partner.

If you're mentally ill to the point that you believe you can't have interests or hobbies as a result of that mental illness, you ALSO shouldn't be dating, and should be working on getting to a place where you are interested in the world around you and can enjoy doing things for the sake of doing them.

It's not "nobody is going to want to date you if you don't have hobbies" it's "it is fucking terrible for you and for any potential partners if they are the only thing you have going in your life."

Those are really really good indicators that you *aren't* in a place where a relationship would be good for you. If that's where you are, you SHOULD be alone because you need to work on being okay with yourself.

"I'm so depressed that I can't have any hobbies" - my friend, you don't need someone beside you in the lifeboat, you need to start bailing out the lifeboat.

"I'm too traumatized to trust people" - then why on earth would you open yourself up to the potential for further abuse by trying to date people who are interested in a relationship with no trust?

"You have to love yourself before you can love someone else" is trite advice that I don't think is necessarily true, but you are not going to find good relationships if you are so alienated from yourself that you think you can't have *interests.*

[marinella-ela]

[phoenixwrites]

#that giraffe is being so cute and curious and gentle#and that is running full speed because this is the worst fucking day if his LIFE#like IMAGINE having your butt gently scooted by the snoot of a pressence so massive#your body is not designed to even see high enough to see the top of#abd hes just gently nudging you along as you run for your life as fast as your legs can carry you#giraffe is playing humans are enjoying turtle is living out a cosmic horror story

[anime-books-and-movies]

✨️The giraffe✨️:

Vs.

The turtle:

[galactic-kosher-ace]

So. Today in class we assigned Macbeth roles to students to read. When I asked the class who wants to be Lady Macbeth, a young man raised his hand. I kind of stared at him like “Lady Macbeth,” and he nodded like “I know what I’m about ma’am.” So then the student who ended up as Macbeth raised his hand and said “HE’S THE ONE, HE’S MY WIFE!” So I said “yeah sure why not,” and the entire class period they were blowing kisses to each other and winking at each other, and every now and then Macbeth would say “I’m the luckiest man on Earth” and Lady Macbeth would put a hand to his chest, and be like “BABE!”.

I just stared at them, knowing that they CLEARLY have never read ‘Macbeth’ before, so… all this lovey dovey… I don’t know if I have the heart to tell them the truth.

Update:

Macbeth is absolutely willing to fucking throw down for Lady Macbeth. Has already threatened a wall, a desk, a few students, a textbook that was neither his nor Lady Macbeth’s, and me

Lady Macbeth is enjoying the attention and has begun to use this new connection to his advantage. I’m starting to suspect he’s read ahead in the play.

Macbeth is going to end up living in detention at this rate.

Macbeth has no idea that he is the tragedy of the story. Claims to be the hero of the play, fails to see the irony in this

Macbeth slowly scooted his desk across the classroom to hold hands with Lady Macbeth. He was not subtle.

Macbeth has proposed on several occasions. Lady Macbeth just laughs and says they’re already married.

Macbeth’s girlfriend is in the class with them and is “totally not jealous or anything just thinks this whole fucking play is a waste of time”

Lady Macbeth should probably be a theatre major at some point, he fucking rocked Act V scene I

Other teachers and staff are emailing me about the “lovely lords”. Lady Macbeth now refuses to answer to anything other than Lady Macbeth and is always very upset when people don’t call him by his proper title.

[therootbeersprite]

THIS is what “boys will be boys” ACTUALLY means

[brightlotusmoon]

[cipheramnesia]

Lakes and graveyards are very similar in that if you detonate a large explosion inside either one a lot of dead bodies come to the surface.

[geekandmisandry]

Hi, um. How is being the necromancer's apprentice going for you OP?

[cipheramnesia]

You want I should raise dead, I raise dead, no problem. You want banish dead, no problem, have plenty more nitro. I do this, ten minutes.

[dee-the-red-witch]

CHUNKY STEW IS NOT BANISHMENT.

[cipheramnesia]

Chunky stew, very bad necromancer. We banish, no problem, no chunks. I give you number of cousin Yvgeny. Will power wash house, very good prices. No other necromancer does this for you.

[geekandmisandry]

Is....is...is Yvgeny....alive?

[cipheramnesia]

Eh. Is alive enough.

[alternative-snake]

make a Beast

eyes

wings

legs

teeth

bioluminescence

spikes

fur

nose

claws

scales

height

length

Voting ended onJan 22, 2024

i must ask you reblog this so said beast, you know. actually has attributes

[aplpaca]

[legowerewolf]

[zooophagous]

An underrated horse fact is that if you have horse that is both A. Not stupid and B. Likes you, it will actively try to prevent you from falling to your doom when you fuck up as a rider. Like actually make an effort not to drop you like a cell phone. I think horses deserve more credit for that.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

My mum's favourite horse was a total bitch who hated everyone and everything except for playing polocrosse (she was a polocrosse horse). When she was on the field she'd do everything to win, including keeping a stupid rider properly seated no matter how bad at staying on they were, but the instant she was off the field all bets were off. Her favourite tricks included:

breathing in deep when being saddled for anything that wasn't a polocrosse game, so that the saddle straps will be loose and the rider will fall on their arse. This is a favourite trick of bitch horses and most horse people will check for it so it tends to fail.

biting people. Her name was Nipper, because she liked to bite people.

Doing the breathing trick, waiting for you to correct her and tighten the saddle, and biting you when you were distracted by that

stepping on your foot when you were leading her or standing with her. This wasn't being clumsy. She would step on peoples' feet on purpose.

standing behind you with her head over your shoulder watching stuff, then deciding she wants to watch over your other shoulder. When a horse wants to do this, they just lift their head up over yours; easy. Nipper would lift her head up over yours, then dip her head down halfway through to hit you on the head with her jaw.

chewing the fuck out of everything

chasing dogs, other horses, and small children (not in a 'let's play together' way, she found their fear amusing)

enticing people to hand feed her and then biting the hand that feeds her

She was always very careful never to hurt anyone more than a bruise but boy did she love giving those bruises. If you were in real danger (such as being pressed between two horses and risking being trampled), she would use her own body to protect you. And then bite you. But she'd play these stupid games constantly and then as soon as she was on the field it was like 'me and my rider are best friends, we are a TEAM that will WIN THIS GAME' and was totally trustworthy until the chukka was over. (Between chukkas, she was not trustworthy. I'd keep her warm between chukkas and she'd resent me because she wanted to be out on the field playing with the other horses, not doing something silly and pointless like 'take a few minutes at a slower pace so your stupid horse heart doesn't explode'. Between chukkas was prime Step On Derin's Feet time.)

[sirfrogsworth]

Reminder that Tom graduated from Harvard with a degree in political science and Chaya has... a real estate license.

[thefrogman]

American Idiot was originally an apolitical tribute to Forrest Gump and God Save the Queen was a pro-monarchy tune wishing good health upon Elizabeth.

Rage Against the Machine merely expresses frustrations over malfunctioning appliances. Zack really hates it when the washer turns his Che Guevara shirts pink.

[writing-prompt-s]

Aliens have captured you, and placed you in one of their nature preserves. However, they have sorely miscalculated on two issues: The amount of calories needed to keep a persistence predator sated, and the lethality/brutality of a hangry human.

[jumpingjacktrash]

first alien scientist in hover car: i don’t understand, all these creatures thrived together in the original environment, why is it eating them to extinction here?

second alien scientist: maybe we should add more crayfish? it ate the whole population in one sitting, that was kind of a surprise.

me, without looking up from scraping a caribou hide: i can hear you, assholes.

alien scientists: (staring)

me: yeah, i learned your language. you keep sitting there talking about me like i can’t hear you, that’s gonna happen.

first scientist: fascinating. we knew you were arguably sentient, but… (making notes)

second scientist: why are you eating everything? your food requirement in your home environment was less than half this.

me: i didn’t have to catch it myself, you idiots! you yoinked me out of the middle of a camping trip! i bought all that food at a store! i bought my CLOTHES at a store. i bought my BEDDING at a store. I DID NOT HAVE TO KILL MY OWN TENT.

me, finally looking up, shaking a flint knife at them: what the hell kind of scientists could go to earth and not notice the dominant species lives in cities? did you just swoop by in a hurry and grab everything out of the park without looking?

scientists: (silence)

me: … oh my god.

scientists: we’re grad students.

[djhinnwe]

I need this as a film.

[insanity-of-flora-deactivated20]

The aliens submit their research on the human species, and their captive human (having learned to read their language because students cannot keep paperwork in order) Submits their own counter-critique of their study from having lived it.

[nawilla]

The human subject is also granted a degree.  It is not honorary.

[captain-safetypants]

The human subject and aliens (post docs now) proceed to exchange a series of viciously “polite” rebuttals and counter rebuttals in the next seventeen issues of the intergalactic journal “Intergalactic Ethnology Forum Quarterly,” until the feud culminates in a knock-down appendage fight at the annual conference which ends with everyone covered in slime. Then they go out and commiserate over cheap synthohol and mozzarella sticks.

[caspercryptid]

New sleep style: hitting the snooze button so many times that you sleep two additional hours in ten minute intervals. I call this Horse Sleep

[caspercryptid]

Worse sleep. That was meant to say worse sleep

[caspercryptid]

I Am So Fucking Tired

[caspercryptid]

Literally immediately after reblogging this to correct it I went "wow, it has a reblog already?" And got all the way to checking my notifs before I realized. That it was me.

[caspercryptid]

I actually wasn't that far off you guys

[caspercryptid]

HOLY SHIT THE POST IS SAVED

[caspercryptid]

Anyway horse sleep: sleep, but horse. Worse. Sleep but worse. Definitely one of the two.

[caspercryptid]

We shall have a summer wedding

[caspercryptid]

I didn't like that fact very much daddy