Anything I find amusing/interesting/important. I'm 30, female, libertarian, asexual, and a history nerd. This is mostly funny and/or geek stuff, but occasionally I'll talk about something serious. Feel free to say hi!
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
Last year, I befriended a Catholic seminarian. We've gotten to be pretty decent friends. Seeing as he was staying in town for the summer and I wasn't, I entrusted him with caring for my plant.
He did a wonderful job, but as he was returning my plant to my custody, he explained "I watered her every other day, I gave her new dirt, moved her into the sunshine, prayed the rosary-"
"What?"
He looked at me, confused. "Isn't she a plant you pray with?"
"No," I said slowly. "She's a prayer plant. That's the... colloquial name of the plant."
Upon seeing his stricken face, I realized something went wrong. Turns out, this entire time, he's been including my plant in on his prayers and leaving her near icons.
Listen, totally cool. My plant becoming Catholic is a great deal for her not dying over the summer. But now I must navigate this interfaith household. Keep me in your thoughts.
The Odyssey movie: a review from a perspective of accuracy to the original text
My qualifications: I've read the Odyssey multiple times in full (once in the Emily Wilson translation and once in the Robert Fitzgerald translation) and consult it frequently. I had a Greek mythology phase last year where I read every single resource on it that I could get my hands on (including multiple university textbooks). I am the proud owner of the EPIC: The Musical CD set and listen to it on repeat. I have read PJO too many times. And oh, yeah, I worship these gods.
Contains spoilers for the Odyssey 2026 (duh). I'll admit that it's a lot of complaining. If you have criticism regarding my criticism, please voice it in a constructive manner or not at all.
Some of the good:
They refer to "Zeus's law" (Xenia) many times. Xenia was an important law within ancient Greece
Both Penelope and Telemachus are shown as intelligent, not just Odysseus
Argos is there
Some of the bad:
No one else can pull the bow back
The ship is somewhat accurate
I like the siren scene
The thing about sacrifices hinging on how much they're worth to the sacrificer is accurate to the religion itself
Telemachus is shown to be somewhat dismissive of Penelope
They completely cut Hermes, who was an integral part of the original epic
Moly and the wind are also absent
Athena and Telemachus do not get any screentime together despite her revealing herself to him late in the original story
They completely cut the Nobody scene
They referred to Apollo as the sun god. Helios should be the sun god. Helios. He's the literal sun
They merged the lotus flowers with Calypso. While it's a good parallel to forced drug use and the like, that's not how it happened
It was just Circe in a shack. She didn't have any women with her, just her sister as a bird
The ending was completely incorrect. Odysseus did not exile himself. Telemachus shouldn't be king
In summary:
They didn't get the cyclops drunk
There was a severe lack of representation for ancient Greek culture. It didn't look like there was much thought put into that beyond what's very surface-level
They didn't involve the wedding bed in the story
In the original, Penelope didn't have that Athena pin (I think they essentially used that in place of the wedding bed)
The beheading of that statue of Athena doesn't make sense at all. Troy worshipped her too
I do not recommend this as a faithful adaptation to the original book. It's amazing as a story and would be wonderful if it wasn't supposed to follow the epic poem. If you want something more accurate, I highly recommend EPIC: The Musical or simply reading Dr. Emily Wilson's amazing translation.
What will one day destroy each of the 50 US States
Alabama - Absorbed by Wyoming
Alaska - Absorbed by Wyoming
Arizona - Absorbed by Wyoming
Arkansas - Absorbed by Wyoming
California - Attempts to contain the spread of Wyoming by rigging itself with nuclear bombs
Colorado - Absorbed by Wyoming
Connecticut - Absorbed by Wyoming
Delaware - Absorbed by Wyoming
Florida - Missing, presumed absorbed by Wyoming
Georgia - Absorbed by Wyoming
Hawaii - Absorbed by Wyoming after the state survived California's suicide attack and continued to grow
Idaho - Absorbed by Wyoming
Illinois - Sacrifices itself trying to give Kentucky enough time to find the lost sword
Indiana - Absorbed by Wyoming
Iowa - Absorbed by Wyoming
Kansas - Absorbed by Wyoming
Kentucky - Attempts to wield the Wyoming Slayer alone and is not strong enough
Louisiana - Absorbed by Wyoming
Maine - Absorbed by Wyoming
Maryland - Absorbed by Wyoming
Massachusetts - Attempts to wield the Wyoming Slayer alone, and is not strong enough
Michigan - Absorbed by Wyoming
Minnesota - Absorbed by Wyoming
Mississippi - Absorbed by Utah
Missouri - Begs Utah not to go down this path, and is cut down
Montana - Absorbed by Wyoming
Nebraska - Absorbed by Utah
Nevada - Tries to offer itself as a servant to Wyoming, telling it that together they could rule the world, but is absorbed
New Hampshire - Absorbed by Utah
New Jersey - Absorbed by Utah
New Mexico - Gives its energy to Utah in the hopes that it will be able to stop Wyoming
New York - Absorbed by Wyoming
North Carolina - Attempts to wield the Wyoming Slayer alone, and is not strong enough
North Dakota - Absorbed by Utah
Ohio - Absorbed by Wyoming
Oklahoma - Absorbed by Wyoming seconds after it finishes deciphering the runes on the handle of the Wyoming Slayer, managing only to croak out the word, "Too"
Oregon - Absorbed by Wyoming
Pennsylvania - Absorbed by Wyoming
Rhode Island - Absorbed by Utah
South Carolina - Sacrifices itself in order to get the Wyoming Slayer to Utah
South Dakota - Absorbed by Utah
Tennessee - Absorbed by Utah
Texas - Absorbed by Utah
Utah - Attempts to wield the Wyoming slayer and is burnt by its protective magics
Vermont- Absorbed by Wyoming
Virginia - Plunges itself into the gullet of the ever growing Wyoming to recover the sword which it ate
Washington - Absorbed by Wyoming
West Virginia - Absorbed by Wyoming
Wisconsin - Cries, "I know what Oklahoma meant!" as it readies itself for its last stand. "Not 'too'! Together! It must be used together!" then reaches its arms into the monster's mouth, and takes hold of the sword with Virginia and with all the other states that have been eaten and lends its strength to all of them for one final attack, even as Wyoming's claws dig into its farmlands
Wyoming - Stands startled for a few seconds, before beginning to crumble
i go to the shop and I ask if they have any raspberries. they say no, they used to sell raspberries, but they haven't had any in stock in the last 15 years. I ask if there's somewhere else I can go to buy raspberries. They say no, with confidence and pride, they're the only shop around who has ever sold or will ever sell raspberries. Other shops might sell other fruit, sure, but they have a monopoly on all raspberries forever. I ask if they're possibly planning on them selling them again in future? they say they can't tell me that.
on the way home, I encounter someone eating raspberries. I ask and they tell me that they grow their own, they got some seeds from the shop back in The Raspberry Days and kept them. They take me to a field of many beautiful raspberry plants and invite me to pick my own, they're free for all the town to pick whenever they'd like.
someone comes up behind us. It's the shop manager, President of Nintendo Shuntaro Furukawa. he hatefully throws a bob-omb that blows up and kills both of us instantly for stealing 200 trillion dollars worth of potential Raspberry Shop That Doesn't Do Raspberries Anymore profits that they weren't making and then he turns around to the camera with a big thumbs up and says don't do piracy or something ok please
[ID: "Cold weather reminder. Do NOT plug space heaters into power strips or extension cords. Plug space heaters directly into the wall outlet. Power strips are not designed to handle the high current flow required by a space heater and can overheat causing a fire."
A photo is attached of a power strip with an extremely charred end. Part of the power strip's wire is also charred. End ID]
For clarification's sake, is this true everywhere? I ask because I know that different countries have different quality home electricity provision; American home electricity Ain't Great compared with most of Europe, for example. In Wales I have never heard of this being a Thing, but our electricity comes in 240V flavour, so possibly the higher current naturally avoids this issue?
My British husband (not an electrician but electrician-adjacent) says yes this is true in the UK as well - anything that uses a lot of power should be plugged directly into the wall rather than an extension lead
In 1982, quite by accident, a zookeeper at Izu Shaboten Zoo in Shizuoka Prefecture discovered that capybaras absolutely loved soaking in hot water, and the practice of providing them an onsen, or traditional Japanese hot spring, was born. Source Massimo; video @yu_haradakei.
