Derkieee

Want one of your fishmongers to return? Just to go your MyMonger tab, click on "banished" in the dropdown menu, and select the gear icon to manage your shunned mongers.

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.)

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.)

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saw a strider straight up step on a metrocop right now. it tripped on something and looked like it was gonna faceplant but just impaled this CP lmao

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city 12 btw

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Okay, I get this is funny and all, but... Striders are basically animals. So this was probably very distressing for the strider, especially since synths tend to be very attached to their handlers. So, yeah, ACPAB, but let's not make jokes about animal abuse, mkay

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what

The most obnoxious phase of the pandemic was the one where organizations started declaring random other shit “the real pandemic”

that really was the real pandemic

why is twilight sparkle there

Can't believe I have to dust this bad boy off again

carly rae jepsen never fails to remind everyone to be in love and to be brave and earnest and horny about it. she gets it.

bungus

welcome to ‘no note bungus’. reblog and you will feel a sense of accomplishment and goodwill wash over you

one of the things i love about ebenezer scrooge, and a christmas carol in general, is that, unlike most fictional rich people, scrooge doesn't allow himself the luxuries that he denies to others.

like. he is enormously wealthy, but does he spend his money on good food and nice things and indulgences? no. he keeps his house dark because it's cheaper to not light things, he eats gruel, he barely even makes a big enough fire to heat himself, let alone the room. he scrimps and pinches pennies everywhere he can - including in areas that other people would consider "necessities" rather than "luxuries."

the story of a christmas carol is as much about ebenezer scrooge coming to realize that his misanthropy and miserliness is making himself as miserable as it's making everyone around him, and learning to once again take joy in living in a way he hasn't allowed himself since he was a boy.

it's genuinely cruel to ebenezer scrooge to compare him to assholes like elon musk and jeff bezos.

for all that he is a terrible, terrible person, at least scrooge isn't a damn hypocrite.

#i hope you know i was picturing the muppet version while reading this via @biroace02

i mean i was picturing the muppet version while writing this, so yes, correct.

reblog this post to fire Guided Missiles at the person you reblogged it from

every time i see slur discourse i think about this post

truly no video game moment will ever surpass the part in portal 2 where glados says "well, this is the part where he kills us" and wheatley says "hello, this is the part where i kill you" and you unlock the achievement titled "the part where he kills you" (description: this is that part) and the chapter title appears on the screen and reads: chapter nine: the part where he kills you

The plague doctor covering me in leeches

Me: my god.. i did it.. i killed him..!

Angel on my shoulder: we're extremely fortunate. You shot him in the side of the head and you're wearing gloves. Place the gun in his hand and set the house ablaze. Officer Goger's tragic suicide will be the perfect cover story

Devil on my shoulder: Goger was always eating stuffing and spelt wheat and steel cut oats. Bet he'd taste reeeeal good on a spit with an apple in his mouth. Come on, i've seen the way you've looked at him..

My tulpa, a 6'9" DD smokeshow hottie PS1 graphics anthro leopard girl in a lab coat: you must put a baby in me Your Highness, quickly!

i was playing overclown earlier and there were like 2 jesters guarding the jokepoint and we had three fucking booboos on our team that wouldnt switch to something useful like a bozo or a bongo and right as we were capturing the first point this goddamn kookoo used his clown car ultimate and won them the match. terrible game