Y'all are about to get a shit ton of snow, ice, and feezing temperatures, so as someone from the North, I have some advice
If temperatures drop below 25° F, you may want to leave your sinks trickling or dripping over night to avoid the pipes freezing
‼️Keep cat litter in your car if you have to drive. If you get stuck in the snow, you can pour the cat litter under your tires to give them traction
If your hands are stiff and freezing, don't immediately put them in front of a heater or under hot water, you can burst your blood vessels doing that, because they'll try to expand too quickly. You want to slowly thaw them out until you get feeling back in them and can move them properly again
Don't lick your lips when they get dry, you'll make it worse due to the cold and dry air, just wait until you get inside somewhere and use lip balm
Cold air will come through your windows and the cracks in your doors (if you live in an old house), seal them up best you can. My family puts a sort of cling film over the windows to keep the cold air out and the warm air in
If you have a basement (in an old house), cold air will come from there, too. We have a trapdoor in our pantry and it gets COLD
‼️It's a good idea to keep extra blankets or jackets in your car, because if you do end up sliding off the road, it might take some time for someone to reach you
Share this around so more people see it
Any other northerners who have more advice, feel free to share in the comments or in reblogs
Swap AU where Bilbo was the one sent to destroy the ring
But because everyone knows he wouldn't get very far on his own, I've decided Gandalf sends Lobeilia with him because she was the one eavesdropping
I think they'd be bickering the ENTIRE time
Otho gets left behind and just wonders where tf his wife is
I think she'd be aggressive, yelling at people and hitting them with her umbrella
Lobelia: Where do you think you're going!
Bilbo on the boat, genuinely trying to ditch her: I have to destroy the ring myself!
Lobelia: Well you're not ditching me in the woods! *wades into the water*
Bilbo, paling: NO! Go back!
Lobeilia: *struggling to swim because of all her skirts and her umbrella that she's not leaving behind*
Bilbo: *considers letting her drown but rescues her anyway because he doesn’t want to explain to his cousin that he let his wife die out in the forest*
Bilbo, collapsing at Mount Doom: I can't ... I can't do it, Lob-
*Lobeilia picks him up angrily, fully planning on throwing him into the volcano*
Lobelia: Throw it in, Bilbo!
Bilbo:
Bilbo, turning around: No-
Lobeilia: *jumps on him and rips it off his finger, throwing it in* YOU ARE NOT KILLING US OVER A STUPID RING! I CAME ALL THIS WAY WITH YOU, YOU ARE THROWINIG IT IN!
Like let's say she's still alive and in her 80s, she's in a wheelchair (ambulatory, she has customized canes) she still lives in their old home because a part of her hoped Stanford would come back, and she didn't want to leave their home, so he'd know where to go back to.
She wanted to stay put in case Ford came back.
So imagine her shock when both her boys come back home to her
Obviously Stan immediately starts apologizing for faking his death, putting her through grief, her arranging and attending his funeral, but she stops him like "I'd much rather it be fake than real." That's her baby boy, back from the dead, something most people don't get, so to her it's a miracle.
Her Jersey accent is thick, and it actually brings out the twins' accents that had faded over time (Stan's sounds natural to him since he always retained it a little, but everyone finds it funny when Ford's accent comes back because he just doesn't seem like the type to speak like that)
THEY MOVE HER INTO THE SHACK
The boys wanna take care of their mama and keep her around since it's been so long, and Caryn is delighted to be moved out of a loud city with rough memories and into a quiet little town where the people are odd but nice. Ford and Stan both work together to make the Shack accessible for her. Ford actually sat in her wheelchair to test everything and make sure she could get around on her own.
They catch her up on everything, and at first they don't think she'll fully believe them but she's like "Stanford built an international portal and got lost for 30 years? Stanley took his place and turned his home into tourist trap? Yeah, that seems like something my boys would do."
When she learns Stan taught himself engineering to re-build the portal, she's obviously very proud of him. "You were never dumb, Stanley, ya just learned different. Honestly, I always thought ya had A-D-H-D but Pa never wanted ya tested. But look how smart and creative ya turned out, son! I think ya did good." And Stan is definitely not crying.
Personal headcanon: Caryn was also really smart and picked up on things quick. The boys had to have gotten it from somewhere, and it wasn't Filbrick. He just took the credit because 1) he was the worst, and 2) times were different back then and no one would have really taken her seriously. But she's the one who would fix things around the house since she taught herself how to keep the place together and running since Filbrick wouldn't pay anyone to come and repair anything.
Imagine little Stan standing behind her with a flashlight while she fixes the wiring in the wall because an outlet stopped working. Both of the boys helping her while she fixes the car for the third time that week because it keeps breaking down. Mama Pines taught herself how to keep things up and running because no one else would or could.
Caryn meets Mabel and Dipper when they come back in the summer, and Mabel is THRILLED
She's technically met them before but they were still newborns at the time so they don't remember her, and she hadn't gotten a chance to see who they'd become
Mabel makes her a sweater and she wears it with pride. And I really think it would go like that scene from Elemental
Caryn: You made this?
Mabel: Oh, yeah, it's nothing-
Caryn: Nothin? Babygirl, my designer dresses were made by 'nothin.' Oh sweetie, you have got to do somethin' with this skill. And to think, I have an original 'Mabel Pines.'
And don't think I'm leaving Dipper out of this, he gets his great-grandma's attention too. She loves talking to him and listening to him tell stories about the monsters they've encountered in the past. She sees a lot of Ford in him, but she also sees a lot of Stan in him in other ways.
I think Dipper's love for "girly" music is something Stan used to share before Filbrick "disciplined" him for it. Child Stan used to sit in the kitchen with his Ma and sing along to the radio, usually listening to whatever she had put on.
Now all three of them sit in the kitchen and listen to the radio while Stan cooks.
Ford feeling like a failure for putting everyone in danger, and Caryn just goes, "Come talk to your mama." And he does. He goes and talks to his mama, like he always has in the past. She's in her 80s and they're grown men in their late 50s, but she's still their mom, and you never really quit being a mom.
I might actually write a short fic about this, I love it so much.
I think it's interesting that Animal doesn't speak in full sentences unless they're song lyrics
This could mean either:
Stringing together his own sentences are harder, but song lyrics are easy to remember due to the rhythm
He can speak in full sentences and just doesn't
I'm leaning toward the first option because there are so many instances where it would have been easier to speak 'normally,' if he were able, but he doesn't, so I think maybe singing is easier because his brain has already locked in the rhythm and beat of the song, so it comes out fluidly.
Maybe it's a similar phenomenon to how we store language in our brain; Regular language gets stored in a different area of the brain than curse words. This is why stroke and dementia patients can still curse up a storm but regular speech is much more difficult, because the brain holds onto those words differently
Maybe Animal's brain just stores away music in a different part of the brain than it does speech, and that's why it comes out fluid and coherent
I understand he's a Muppet, I just thought it was interesting to think about
