i’m so serious when i say excessive fear of being annoying/creepy/taking up people’s energy etc holds us back. it seems like it’s just little things but they add up. over the past month i’ve ordered food and drinks almost exclusively by asking “do you have a favorite?” and i know if i said that on twitter or wherever ppl would dogpile me for demanding emotional labor of servers or w/e but every single person i’ve asked has seemed genuinely psyched to answer! i don’t ask if it’s busy obvi, and use a phrasing that gives them the easy out of “i don’t have one”— but no one has taken it! the girl at the cafe confessed to me with something like conspiracy in her voice how everybody raves about the gluten free chocolate chip cookies and sure, they’re great, but the delicious, fluffy homemade waffles are RIGHT THERE. the barbera the bartender recommended was actually kind of awful but it broke the ice and we ended up talking for like 45 minutes. the bodega guy declared that he usually makes himself a burger but tonight was “a breakfast sandwich night” and tbh he was totally right. it WAS a breakfast sandwich night
Also the form of estrogen they prescribed trans women in the 90s, Premarin, looked like this.
And lest there be any remaining doubt.. remember the blue pill? The pill Neo could have taken to forget the truth, bury his troubles and go back to living a normal life, without fearing a system that wanted to destroy him? The pill that was easy, perhaps cowardly according to some, but comfortable?
Here’s Prozac.
For a trans woman in the 90s, where the choice was be safe, suppress, cope, and pretend everything is still how it was, or embrace the danger, accept the truth, realize your full potential, and transition into a world that still thinks you’re a joke and would rather have you dead…. well. The metaphor is pretty fucking clear.
Lana came out as a woman after Speed Racer in 2008, and Lily eight years later after the release of Jupiter Ascending (2016), so if you see original home copies of the Matrix (pre-2008), they are referred to as the Wachowski Brothers on it. It was a branding thing, like the Coen Brothers. That’s how they were called, because they were still presenting as male to the industry and the industry sold them as a creative unit.
I remember after Lana came out, the boxes switched to calling them just The Wachowskis, so I imagine now it’s the Wachowski Sisters.
So, yes, they’ve always been sisters, but if you didn’t know that, it’s not your fault. It’s been a long process and I’m glad they did it on their terms in their time.
working with kids and one of them says “you know you eat 8 spiders a night on average right?” and another goes “no no no those statistics are actually skewed by people who like eat spiders recreationally for fun and stuff” and my head snapped up like a fucking sleeper agent
David and Yuna are clearing out their attic, and they come over with a box of Shane's old childhood stuff to see if there's anything Shane (but realistically, Ilya) wants to keep.
As Shane and Ilya are going through the box, Ilya pulls out a little Centaurs branded notebook, with "Shane's Fun Facts!" written on the front in sharpie. Ilya is understandably delighted.
"What is this?" he asks, smiling from ear to ear, quickly yanking it out of the reach of Shane who immediately tries to swipe it out of his hands.
"It's nothing," says Shane, but the way his cheeks have gone pink behind his freckles tells another story.
"Uh-uh. It cannot be nothing if you don't want me to see it this badly."
Turning his back to Shane so he can't easily grab at it, Ilya opens to a random page and reads in Shane's 8-year-old scrawl:
Lightning bolts are five times hotter than the sun. That is very hot!
Ilya is grinning even wider now.
"Wow, Solnyshko, that is a fun fact."
"Fuck off," Shane says. He doesn't even attempt to grab it again, just kind of collapses and bonks his head into Ilya's shoulder. "I used to have trouble making friends as a kid. Dad suggested I start collecting facts to use as icebreakers. Y'know, to get conversations going."
"Did they work?" asks Ilya, tilting his head so that it rests on top of Shane's as his husband gives an almighty sigh.
"I think they made it worse, actually."
Ilya turns to another page and reads it out loud.
"Oology is the study of eggs. It's so cool because it looks like there are three eggs in the word!"
"Oh god," says Shane, burying his face further into Ilya's neck.
"I think you knew all the worst kids in Canada," says Ilya, putting down the book and wrapping his arms around Shane. "Those facts would have worked on me."
"Really?" asks Shane, glancing up at Ilya's face to see if he's teasing him, but Ilya is being perfectly serious.
"Of course. You came up to me and started telling me fun facts straight away, remember? 'I don't think you can smoke here.' 'Wow, Rozanov, you are the best player ever to watch.'"
"Fuck off, I didn't say that," laughs Shane.
"Well, it was something like that," says Ilya, pressing a kiss to the top of Shane's head. "So at least the fun facts worked when it mattered, yes? Imagine where we'd be if you hadn't come over to break the ice."
This is a reminder for those who handmake Christmas presents that now is not too early to start. It may in fact be a good time to start if you have a lot to make/your craft takes a long time. You should maybe start it now, whether that's brainstorming or actually doing the crafts!
It's important to note that Chekhov's Gun was not originally about foreshadowing, but a piece of advice to playwrights about how every element in a play should have narrative relevance. The corollary to Chekhov's Gun is that if a gun mounted on the wall in act 1 is never used at all in the entirety of the play, then it should be omitted from the play entirely.
Very funny example of writing advice that is very specific to its medium getting overapplied outside its scope. Can you imagine how awful set design would be if people tried to apply this to movies. 60 minute post credits scene in the Matrix where Neo has to fire every gun that appears in the "lots of guns" scene
You have a superpower that keeps you safe: whenever you are in danger, time freezes.
You could be asleep, or in the middle of a conversation, or watching a movie. Time would stop and give you a chance to leave the area, and as soon as you were out of danger, time would immediately start up again
You walk in front of a bus and time stops until you exit its path. Someone tries to mug you, but suddenly you're gone; down the street and around the corner, so even when he turns around he can't see you, and therefore can't come after you.
One day you're watching tv at home and everything freezes. You look around, but you're alone. You get up and walk out of your apartment - the unnatural quiet, and the immobile dust motes suspended in the shaft of light from the window at the end of the hall tells you the danger still has not passed. You leave the building and the city is motionless. You walk down the street, then you go a few blocks, and before you know it you've traversed several neighborhoods, but nothing changes
After what feels like hours of walking, time still hasn't resumed, which means the danger still hasn't passed
After a very long time (you'd say multiple hours, but you can't estimate it well. There's nothing to estimate it by.) walking in random directions, it finally clicks. This isn't something that happened to you, it was going to destroy the whole city at least. You can't check your phone for news, because that requires a current to be transmitting information, so that's not an option. But you can open doors. And bars in the area are sure to have a tv. If any news about this came before time stopped, the screen is likely to still be stuck on that transmission. You know it's a low chance, but you have nothing else to try.
You go through ten bars before you give up.
Your second, desperate attempt is the news studio. If any information was about to be broadcast, you would fing it there. It takes a while to walk there by foot, but you can't take a car, since combustion is sure as hell not going to work when time doesn't. But after walking for a while you come across a bike. That only requires your movement to work, so you "liberate" it from it's frozen rider, after which you manage to get there before getting bored to death.
After trying the necessary doors and not finding a key, you break in through a window. You get lost a few times, not that it matters much, before you find something. They printed out the text, thank god, so no need for a working computer. You read. And then you lean on the wall for support. And slowly sink to the ground.
An atomic bomb. That's what's happening. That's what would've killed you. What would've killed everyone. You stare at the ceiling. Then you stare at the floor. You stare, for a long time. An unmeasurably slow moment. There is no way to stop this. Your best hope is to take your bike and drive until it won't hurt you. You check the paper to see how far to go. It's doable, everything is when your body can't get tired.
But..
You look at the news reporters around you, their frozen faces of fear, as they rushed through the preparations, to at least warn the people of what's coming. You see it in their faces. They knew they would die for this broadcast. And they were still late.
You can't leave them here.
The info on the paper is essential. You can guess at what distance your powers would proclaim you safe. It saved you from many things which would not have necessarily killed you before, so if you merely dragged people to the point where they would get hurt but wouldn't be likely to die... You could do it. It's doable. It must be done.
You start with the tv studio. At first you're uncoordinated, but after the first few you start a system, sweeping the building from one side to the other, from top to bottom. By the time you're done with the first building, you're sure it would have taken you at least three days, had the planet been turning.
You could've spent a century here, doing this. Your body can't get tired, you don't need to eat, or sleep, or to breathe, as all physiological needs are magically suspended. No time passes, no energy is spent, and yet you move. After a few houses, you draw out the safety line with chalk to keep track of it. You read a book, sometimes, just so you don't go crazy. It's not like you don't have the time for it. One by one the houses get emptied. One after another the streets are deserted. Block after block turn lifeless. City districts, moment ter eternal moment, slowly, torturously slowly, become ghost towns.
And then, after metaphorical, uncountable centuries of work, you are done. You took count, every house and every street adding up to a number somewhere around the official citizen count. There's piles of paper filled with the calculations. You still probably didn't get everyone. But you got a lot. You gave them a chance. You breathe a sigh of relief. You sit down, finish your book and take your bag.
And then you cross the line running.
The sound of the air moving around you reaches your ears for the first time in forever. With it, the sound of many, many confused people.
And as the sound of an explosion reaches you, with merely a gust of wind and slight warmth to tell you what has finally come to pass... You laugh.
look at the republican calendar and see which animal/plant/item is associated with your birthday ok. if you're born january 14 you get the day of the cat
Roy Mustang really spends the whole series fancying himself being in some sort of Usurper Rivalship with Bradley only for Bradley's interactions with Mustang to be, "Okay Mustang sit in that office chair while I evil-monologue at you. Do it again. Okay now go away I have to go fight tanks with my swords and then get slaughtered by a holy man of the people I genocided, which will leave my dictator chair wide open."
And then Mustang doesn't even get the dictator chair.
#truly bradley has such contempt for mustang it's very funny#and part of this contempt is rooted in the fact that like. they're both puppets. they're not technically opposed#mustang is wrong when he thinks bradley is his nemesis#bradley's nemesis is indeed scar#not just bc bradley genocided his people#but because bradley is 'wrath' and wrath is scar's fatal flaw that he must overcome#(wow i should write a fic about thisOH WAIT-)#you'd think this means Father is mustang's nemesis.#WRONG AGAIN!#father is hohenheim's nemesis - obviously.#then who is mustang's nemesis? is it truth?#no! truth is ed's nemesis.#mustang's nemesis is: GRUMMAN!#and grumman fucking wins by a landslide#AS FORETOLD by their original chess game where grumman obliterated him#thank you and goodnight - via @parkersgeorg
