i feel. like on a fundamental level. i do not understand x reader fic. i am not exactly opposed to it because let a thousand blossoms bloom etc. but like. i genuinely don’t get it. it seems like the exact opposite of how i engage with fiction. like the whole point is that i’m not in there. i don’t wanna be in there. if i’m in there it’s going to be very stressful.
#we dont use honorifics in my first language so whenever i have to select options (usually for flights) im always so confused#like what is actually the difference between miss and ms#i like miss bc it sounds more historical and im a historian so
"Miss" means an unmarried woman. "Mrs." means a married woman. (both of these have origins in the word "mistress" as in "mistress of the house".)
"Ms." - prounounced MIZ, btw - is a third option popularized by gloria steinem in the 70s - mainly through her feminist magazine Ms. - which is meant to be a neutral term, usable for any and all women regardless of marital status (hence the soul destroying irony of the tags above). it gained wider general acceptance when geraldine ferraro, the first woman to be nominated as VP on a national major party ticket, started using it widely to avoid confusion, since she was married but used her maiden name professionally. eventually over the years it came into common use though i do think the brits are a little more critical of it than americans (as far as i'm aware lol)
When someone on the 600 hall misspells "summer" on the whiteboard and you and the AP World History teacher keep giggling about it, you find an online English-to-Sumerian cuneiform translator.
They're just lucky I didn't write about Ea-Nasir's shitty copper.
Current twitter drama is Europeans confidently declaring that they don't need to drive or use overpriced public transport to get to the MetLife stadium for the World Cup; they will simply walk down the highway to get there. Girl it's New Jersey. They're gonna splatter you for fun.
I think a lot of Europeans think that the stadium is in the middle of a city and surrounded by infrastructure, which is why they keep insisting that they can just walk from point A to point B. It's not! It's in the fucking Meadowlands!!!! You have multi lane highways and a literal toxic swamp and that's it!
"Well if there are a LOT of football fans they'll stop for us!"
There's a video online of a trucker who accidentally hits a flock of sheep in the middle of the highway at full speed and splatters them. Has to turn the windshield wipers on to wipe away the blood. This is what every Jersey driver yearns to do once they get on the turnpike.
girl help they're now demanding NJ build a bridge over the highway (???? from where???) or shut down the fucking I-95 (one of the busiest highways in the country that everyone commutes on) for their little soccer game.
I live close enough to the Meadowlands to regularly curse the hubris of the American Dream mall and this is the funniest shit I have read in YEARS. A lot of the European twitter people seem to think we are DEFENDING the Meadowlands and the general layout of the area like we think it was good urban planning. Girl no! It is a shithole, we know it is a shithole! (Although the actual swamp is kinda pretty from the window of a train heading to Secaucus Junction.) We are not trying to express pride, we are trying to save your life!!!!
I MEAN. I know people talk a lot of shit about American arrogance and they're not wrong to do so, but look at this, my fucking god.
Right like, no no. We KNOW it is horrible. We KNOW it should not exist like that. MetLife stadium shouldn't have been built in a swamp like that. Everything about its existence is bullshit. This is probably the WORST stadium to try and get to, considering that it is illegal to try and walk there.
FIFA has also intentionally MADE it worse. Because they're closing the parking lot. They're also preventing ride shares from what I can tell??
Meanwhile the governor of New Jersey is saying this is going to cost NJ $48 million to deal with the ridership, and wanted money to offset that, which FIFA doesn't ever do. So they decided to massively inflate train fares to offset the cost.
Again, while trying to prevent rideshare services from occurring.
Oh, ALSO people in New Jersey and New York City are all being told to "work from home" on days of the world cup matches because the public transit congestion is expected to be that bad, coincides with rush hour, and because for some of it, they're full closing off public transit to anyone who doesn't have FIFA tickets.
And then there are people complaining about our "shitty national stadium" and I don't even know how to begin to explain that MetLife isn't even the biggest capacity stadium in the US. It's not even in the top ten. (It is #15).
I genuinely do hope everyone is just being a bit of a troll when they say they're going to walk on the 95 or some shit because people will 1000% die. I don't even know what a comparable metaphor for this is.
Can I explain to you, O people of the internet, how shitty the past three weeks have been? For these have been the sort of weeks the expression, "If I didn't gave bad luck, I'd have no luck at all," was written for.
Yes?
Okay.
So.
The first full week of April was Spring Break for my district. Which I desperately needed, but knew was not in the cards, because we were driving to Cleveland for the memorial service for two of my aunts,* which we knew would be somewhat fraught because all of my dad's siblings desperately need therapy and none of them will fucking go.
Whatever. Everyone mostly behaved, my sister and I ran interference on the Complicated Relatives, and I paid for everything for my sister and me, because she works for the part of the federal government that's not being paid at present.
Whatever. I can help. So I will.
On the way back from the memorial service, I got a notice from my bank, however, that there was fraudulent activity on my debit card. Awesome. Fantastic. I try to call to figure it out, but it's after 5 PM on a Friday. So I lock everything down as best I can, make note of charges, and leave a message with the bank for Monday morning.
My sister drops me off at my place late on Friday evening, I raise the garage door, and she notices that my back right tire is flat. I've picked up a screw and the tire spent the past week slowly deflating in my garage.
So Saturday morning bright and early, I put the spare on my car and gingerly drive to my mechanic. It's about time for an oil change, and my brake pads are getting worn-- I already knew that. Because of the tire puncture and the age and wear on the tires, and purchase four new tires as well.
This is shaping up to be an expensive month.
Monday, I talk to my bank. The fraudster tries to call and impersonate me?! Oh hell no, shut it down. So we do a hard reset on my accounts, issue new cards, and I have to leave school early to make it over to the bank before it closes to show ID in person and such. No idea how they got access in the first place.
The rest of the week is insanely busy. It's my sister's birthday on Tuesday, we're supposed to have dinner to celebrate, but I get a migraine while teaching second period and ask if we can celebrate on Saturday instead. Sure, she says.
So on Saturday, I hop in my car-- with four new tires and new brake pads, all newly washed, birthday present nestled in the passenger seat. I make a left out of my neighborhood. I drive less than a quarter mile and--
An older man pulls halfway out into my lane from a cross street, like he thinks he's going to turn. I can't swerve around him. There's a pick up truck in the opposing lane. I try to stop, skid, hit the corner of hit car, SPIN A FULL 180 AS ALL THE AIRBAGS DEPLOY, and come to a stop facing oncoming traffic in the lane I had been traveling in.
I'm okay, for most versions of okay. (Very mild concussion and raging migraine that will not quit.) The older gentleman is okay.
My car is fucking toast.
I'm not at all at fault, though, and there were lots of wonderful witnesses who stayed and helped and made sure I and the other driver were okay. The pick-up truck driver swerved onto the curb to avoid hitting me while I spun out and basically talked me down from a panic attack. There are good people out there.
But now I've got an aching head and a very sore chest (goddamn, but seat belts were a good invention), insurance claims to figure out, it's two weeks until AP exams for my srudents, AND I JUST FUCKING SPENT ALMOST $1200 ON THAT CAR LAST FUCKING WEEK.
__
* Note: they passed this summer, but things were Complicated. Like, they each lived in different states, neither left a will, and one had a hoarding disorder. It took a long while to figure things out. Thus having to wait until April for the service.
#hes explaining boundaries to an alien who watches him sleep. grace u have no luck on this agsfegsbs#separately. -> where my bedroom :D?#also “BEDROOM??” is so funny to me. rocky basically took over the whole dormitory (via @purpldmddanger)
im such a fan of how Andor painted revolution as a movement of a million shitty, desperate, deserving-better people throwing their bodies on the gears, the machinery, and the levers of power. One way out and it might not even be your way out. Maybe there was never a way out for you. But you helped carve the way for everyone behind you, and isn't that worth everything?