Petticoated Swashbuckler

I saw a post saying that Boromir looked too scruffy in FotR for a Captain of Gondor, and I tried to move on, but I’m hyperfixating. Has anyone ever solo backpacked? I have. By the end, not only did I look like shit, but by day two I was talking to myself. On another occasion I did fourteen days’ backcountry as the lone woman in a group of twelve men, no showers, no deodorant, and brother, by the end of that we were all EXTREMELY feral. You think we looked like heirs to the throne of anywhere? We were thirteen wolverines in ripstop.

My boy Boromir? Spent FOUR MONTHS in the wilderness! Alone! No roads! High floods! His horse died! I’m amazed he showed up to Imladris wearing clothes, let alone with a decent haircut. I’m fully convinced that he left Gondor looking like Richard Sharpe being presented to the Prince Regent in 1813

And then rocked up to Imladris a hundred ten days later like

Some people have been wondering about the raccoon. Listen. Listennn. Don't ask about the raccoon.

But does the racoon survive the Uruk-Hai? Does he curl up on Aragorn's head, or does he go straight to Faramir? Does he bite Denethor?

My friend. My colleague. My brother my captain my king. I too have been pondering this question, and in my mind there can be only one ultimate outcome.

A few months later

All hail the High Warden of Gondor.

Epilogue: It ADORES Faramir.

I’m going to wear this on my head like a raccoon and show everyone

op this is beautiful and I’m gonna need to see it interacting with Faramir. Does Aragorn ship it out to Faramir and Eowyn for visits? What does Eowyn think of it?

good afternoon from mănăstirea humorului

i asked my dad to make me a hot chocolate and he’s literally sawing something in the kitchen rn

ok but what if like. werewolves transform under the full moon but theres just this one and by day hes a big tough guy and then when he transforms hes a tiny dog. just fucking. just fucking turns into the tiniest, fluffiest dog

imagine that howling at the moon

imagine

Truly a ferocious predator.

And lastly: (He’s the pack leader obviously)

the big wolves are his younger sisters

oh my fucking god it got better

@momolady

The

Fungi are truly the nearst thing to immortality we have on this planet

The reason you can't easily ascribe real-world political stances to most comic book supervillains is that in comic book reality being an iconoclast genius inventor actually works. It's not even necessarily a rich-guy thing – there are working class supervillains garage-building working time machines, which is something that unavoidably does things to a person's perspective on social responsibility.

Like, yes. Dr. Malfarious may hold certain opinions which superficially resemble real-world Libertarianism, but the difference is that in the real world a person with Dr. Malfarious' attitude and skill-set would end up smeared across a mountainside while trying to send their car to space, while in comic book land that exact same attitude and skill-set lets them be an immortal science wizard who lives on the Moon.

Honestly though, the scene in Incredibles where Dash gets called into the office for putting a tack on his teacher's chair gets 100x funnier when you consider that the teacher almost certainly knows what's going on with Dash.

I mean, he probably doesn't know that he has super speed specifically— "I don't know how he does it!"— but this guy is fully aware of the existence of supers.

This isn't a Harry Potter situation where the muggles don't even know that magic exists— supers were lauded public figures and a key part of the criminal justice system until just fifteen years ago. This dude was definitely an adult and probably already teaching at the time. He may have been expected to include lessons on supers and their role in society in the curriculum.

And while we don't know exactly how supers get their powers, Edna mentions in Incredibles 2 that "it's not unknown for supers to have more than one power when young", so Dash, Violet and Jack-Jack evidently weren't the first people to develop them as children.

This guy lives in a setting in which he knows— with 100% certainty— that there are people out there who are born with special powers that enable them to do impossible things. And, from observing Dash, he knows that what this kid seems to be doing shouldn't be possible for a normal kid.

He absolutely knows this boy has powers. It's the most logical explanation, and it makes perfect sense within the laws of the universe he lives in. He may think that the kid is teleporting the tacks onto his chair, or turning invisible, or shifting reality or whatever, but he knows that some sort of super power is at work here.

The problem is… he can't openly acknowledge it.

Now the supers are in hiding, normal civilians aren't allowed to know of their existence. Even if there is no formal law against it (and there might be a formal law against it), everyone who figures out that their coworker or friend or whatever is a super, and doesn't keep quiet about it, gets black-bagged by a government agency and has their memory erased. There's no way people aren't at least vaguely aware that it's best not to talk about who you think might be a super, because bad things happen to people who do.

When the Principal ushers Helen and Dash out of the room and starts trying to calm the teacher down, he's not doing it because he thinks he's crazy. He's doing it because he's just seen video evidence that this kid is a super, and is trying to keep his friend from being taken away for Re-Education.

Dash is fully exploiting the fact that people like him legally don't exist to pull pranks on his teacher, knowing that the guy can't actually call him out without getting his mind wiped.

Soulmates, but with the British meaning of “mate.” Two homies bound by a platonic string of fate.

If you ever feel like you must be the most unobservant person in the world, remember: I once spent half a year failing to notice that my new favourite restaurant was a money-laundering front for the Ukrainian mafia.

(I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but in retrospect, the fact that it was always dead no matter the time of day - I think the busiest I ever saw it was five people, myself included - well, that should have been a tipoff. Also, the waitstaff kept calling me “Mr. Prokopetz”, which I had assumed was just part of the restaurant’s gimmick, but given that “Prokopetz” is a Ukrainian surname, I’m now force to wonder whether they’d thought I was, you know, in the business. I just liked the pierogi!)

What I need to know is how on earth did OP finally realize his favorite restaurant was a money-laundering front for the mafia.

I’d like to say I put together the clues, but in reality, I just showed up one day to find that the place had been indefinitely shut down, and later learned it was because the managers had all been arrested.

What I really want to know is how good the food was?

Excellent, if your tastes run to the “heavy cream and too much garlic” end of the spectrum.

Every crime front I’ve ever eaten at has had completely amazing food, honestly. I am pretty convinced that if you want to open a front, you don’t choose “restaurant” as your front-business unless you have a relative who loves to cook.

It tickles me that this is evidently a sufficiently common experience that people find it relatable. (Seriously, check the notes!) We should write reviews or something.

did I just read the line “every crime front I’ve ever eaten at” with my own two eyes

Look, I went to college and lived my early adulthood in a town whose entire thing was import/export, and we had a lot of restaurants that were suspiciously empty except when they were closed and filled with very serious men in nice clothes.

They were usually run by someone who was about the right age to be some adult’s parents or grandparents, and in the case of the two Korean restaurants matching this description, they didn’t speak English. Universally though, they were very pleased to see customers, very proud of their cooking, and very very interested in keeping us far away from the aforementioned serious men in nice clothes. And despite having huge dining rooms and never having more than a couple customers, they never went out of business.

Also, because I am very, very stupid and sometimes don’t think before I talk, I once said loudly, over the phone, while sitting in one of these places, “Hey! Yeah if you want to meet us, we’re eating at [place]. You know…[place]? You totally know it. The Front, on Warwick st!”

The looks I got from every single employee were amazing and then I left.

We had a corner store/deli-place near our apartment in college. Everyone knew they were in on something and no one cared because they looked out for their customers and their neighborhood as a whole.

They started stocking my favorites because I mentioned them within hearing range once, would tell their “vendors” to move out of the way if we stopped in. I walked a different route home and got harassed one night and they asked after me. When they found out what happened, they declared “Consider it taken care of, you should never be afraid around here.” Never happened again.

Everyone needs their friendly neighborhood crime lord.

This is both my favorite and makes me fondly remember home. Less of the  eateries, more of the mysterious retail joints that never seem to close despite no one ever buying anything, though. Well. Aside from the juice bar. Didnt last, though. 

I found these places everywhere I lived. My favorite was an omurice place near my home in Japan, and a mother/son officially ran it. The food was incredible, and one night I was there and there was a boisterous crowd of BLATANTLY yakuza men eating and drinking. They started talking to me, and were super nice. Said they wanted to “practice their English,” and paid for my food and drinks and then said they wanted to take me to karaoke. That was a little alarming, but the mother/son, who seriously looked after me as the only foreigner in the area, said I should go, and the son came along. So we piled into a white landboat Cadillac and partied until dawn.

One of the older men at the party took me to my neighborhood and dropped me off out front (the car was literally too big to fit down the small neighborhood streets) and said that I had his blessing.

Which was confusing, but I was drunk, so whatever. Then I went back to the restaurant about a week later and the mother said, “the family approves of you. You may marry our son if you wish and be welcomed.”

I did not marry him, but wow. There were no hard feelings, either. They still helped out if I got harassed by the cops (which happened a lot in these smaller towns with no foreigners) or anything like that.

And to this day, no omurice has ever compared.

Stormlight Characters as stuff the toddlers at my job have done, part 3

(part 1, part 2)

Syl: *walks over to me while I'm changing a kid's diaper*

Me: "Hey, can you take a step back and give him some privacy?"

Syl, plaintively: "I wanna see the tushie!"

Elhokar: *sees one of the other kids crying, starts crying in a very obviously fake way*

Me: "Aww, are you sad because no one's paying attention to you?"

Elhokar: *sniffles* "Yeah."

Lift: took a running jump onto the table, slid across on her stomach, and started hoovering up another kid's Cheerios with her mouth

The Mink: the new playground fence was specifically built to be her-proof; she escaped four times before it had been up for two days

Gavilar: Asked another kid "[name], can I hit you please?" in the sweetest most polite voice and then hit them before they could answer

Renarin: *extremely matter of fact and adult voice* "I'm going to bring my blankie to shul so I don't get scared by the loud noises."

Wyndle: Pointed at a wooden rocking chair, gasped, and said "whoa, that chair is beautiful!"

Gavinor: His mom came in to pick him up and he ran away, climbed on the table, and yelled "NO MOMMY! GRANDMA GRANDPA UP!"

Cryptics: Dragged some chairs over to the rug, sat down, and went "MMMMMMMM" for several minutes for no discernible reason

listen i know each actor brings their own spice to a role, but i just can’t take timothee chalamet’s wonka seriously 

where is the madness behind his eyes??? the malice??? the complete disregard for the laws of mankind and decency???

this man makes me fear that i’ll be shoved into a taffy machine at the slightest provocation 

as! he! should!

I’m not gonna let this gem of a tag on this post go unnoticed.

*rising up from loosely packed grave soil* who the fuck buried me. This is atrocious. Do a better job next time

HOW MANY DOCTORS HAVE YOU KILLED

@crabussy how does it feel to be the funniest person on earth today

The autoclave is designed to kill schmucks I think

It’s a 24yo Tomy SS-325 if it helps, it beeps once when it finishes counting down and beeps again when it finishes depressurizing, the steam is about 90-100c by then iirc

#top loading autoclave??? how do you get your trays out without toughing the sides?

With its basket! It comes with two of them

What's an autoclave?

Are those ink markers?

It's essentially a superpowered pressure cooker designed to get hot and high pressure enough to kill EVERYTHING. Including mold spores. They're used to sterilise equipment.

Those aren't markers, they're tubes of fluid that OP wants to be sterile. It's common practice to autoclave things like nutrient broth before inoculating them with bacteria, to kill off any contamination and make sure that you only grow whatever you put in there to grow.

hope is a skill

hope is a weapon you are trained to wield

favourite additions

You cannot hide this in the tags, bestie. This is too lovely to keep a secret.

The thing about Stormlight is there's lots of characters that are bad people but I don't think there's any characters that I actively HATE hate , or that are bad characters like I'm pretty much down to find out what's going on with anybody at any time. Theres never a moment where I'm like "I don't care about what this person's doing" which is wild considering just how many characters there are

Wait actually I lied FUCK Gavilar Kholin

i'm at a concert thingy and the bands don't start for another 2 hours, but they have the stage set up and are letting people come up and do karaoke. this family just went up w their kids to belt out cartoon songs and when they held the mic up for the baby to try, it babbled cutely for a sec and then grabbed on and unleashed one of those horrible piercing baby SCREAMS at the top of their little baby lungs and i'm pretty sure wiped out the first 3 rows of people lmao

one of the bands sampled the baby shriek and added it to their songs

it's extremely not good to listen to

AGAINST ALL GODS is out in Mass Market Paperback now, and STORMING HEAVEN is out 20th July!

He's also just done a fascinating interview on the latest episode of The Publishing Rodeo!

Honestly baffled this man isn't already doing the numbers on Tumblr. He's basically a Chuck Norris meme.

Chuck Norris WISHES he could do this

Just finished the Traitor Son series by this guy, fantastic series. Probably the first fantasy series I've read to focus on the role of non-combatants, logistics, and especially textile work - seamstresses, clothes making etc, and seem to genuinely respect this as skilled labour that is just as, if not more so, vital as heroic sword fights and cavalry charges and whatnot.

Yesssss he had the most amazing discussion about this last year in one of the Glasgow 2024 Worldcon Presents videos, because he's like "yes I know how to fight but while that's worshipped as cool, that's NOT how you build a society, and arguable it's the dumbest bit - it can't exist without EVERYTHING ELSE"

STORMING HEAVEN is out TODAY!!

Featuring:

Also, if you are in or near Toronto, don't forget there's a book launch THIS SATURDAY, 22nd July, at Bakka Phoenix, where you may or may not get a chance to wave around a bronze sword.

Stolen from Reddit.

Chocolate chip but chocolate chip cookie dough is my favourite. I also had this banana fudge ice cream once that was really good.