thewackypegasus

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I love public transit

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died and came back right. there was definitely something wrong with me before? resurrection fixed me i think

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Michael’s hair is actually fiberglass. It looks soft and interesting to touch but then you touch it and oops glass in your fingers

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Dumb thing that would not leave my brain

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I know it’s 2020 but Merlin AU where Uther notices a bunch of problems that could only be solved by magic ~spontaneously~ getting solved around Arthur, and concludes that this must be a side effect of Arthur only existing due to magical intervention. An intense bigotry-versus-parental-love internal conflict commences, followed by some that’s-pretty-hypocritcal-of-you-isn’t-it-dad screaming external conflict, generally upending everything. Merlin is standing in the corner the entire time holding a serving jug of mead and sweating.

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"The prophecy was unambiguous and immutable."

"I know."

"No weapon forged on Earth could defeat the Lord Baarthus"

"I know."

"And yet here we are, you telling me, Lord Baarthus was struck down by the Peasant King. Wielding... just a regular sword. Forged on Earth."

"I know what I saw, okay! The Peasant King walked up to him, shoved the sword in his neck, and then just kept going. It was nasty!"

"Okay, okay, fine. Clearly what's happened here is there's some kind of loophole in the prophecy that enabled this. Happens all the time. No weapon forged on Earth... How sure are you that sword is of this world?"

"What do you take me for? I've done my research. Even tracked down, interviewed the original blacksmith."

"There must be something. Prophecies can't be wrong!"

"I mean... I didn't take stock of her inventory. If it was one of those meteorite swords..."

"No, no. The prophecy didn't say 'No weapon with parts sourced on Earth'. It was pretty specific about the Forging."

"I don't hear anything better coming from you!"

"How about this. What if it wasn't a weapon? The Peasant King... it'd only be fitting for him to slay the Dark Lord with a blade meant for peasantry! Not a weapon, but a farming tool, like a scythe, or a really long trowel--!"

"A long trowel?? It looked like a damn sword!"

"That doesn't mean anything! A ritzy, college-educated diviner like you, you wouldn't know a trowel from a ploughshare!"

"It had a hilt, and a pommel, and it went in a scabbard-- come on! Even if it was some kind of-- newfangled grass cutter I've never heard of, it was used as a weapon, and it was forged to be a weapon! I've seen the ledgers!"

"Clearly you screwed something up, madam, because the Lord Baarthus just got sliced up like an old dairy cow and the prophecy very clearly specifies the only instrument that could bring his end is--!! Oh. Ohhh. Oh, gods damn it."

"What?"

"Fucking... 'forged on earth'."

"Yes, and?"

"It wasn't forged on earth. It was forged on a fucking anvil."

"What? No, you're-- you're joking. That wouldn't-- that couldn't-- what weapon would be forged on earth, by that definition!!?"

"I hate prophecies so much..."

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sign into the patient portal to make an appointment! enter the six digit confirmation code we texted! make an account to view health providers near you! log in with your google account! please use our online portal to manage your healthcare! download our app for virtual appointments! use mychart to track your labs! this is a different medical facility from your last doctor so you need a different mychart account! answer this 80 question survey each time before you are seen! download the cvs app to manage your prescriptions! download the cvs caremark app to manage your other prescriptions! these apps are not compatible. scan this generated barcode at the pharmacy to pick up your prescriptions! must be logged in. what if i jeff the kill you

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Honestly, with all the tradwife cooking trash circulating, it only makes me love B Dylan Hollis more for baking vintage recipes while being openly gay, making sexual jokes, and screaming at the ingredients. He's the antithesis of every soft-spoken cishet woman cooking for her husband and children. You don't have to be an idyllic cottagecore housewife to cook.

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Prediction: all those hints that the Nine Houses are the far future of our own Solar System turn out to be red herrings, and the truth is that John Gaius is actually just the universe’s shittiest isekai protagonist.

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The Nine Houses texting styles

(I haven't included any characters from Nona the Ninth bc I Haven't Read It Yet)

Harrow: Starts every text with "Dear [name]," and ends with "Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House" like a forum signature

Gideon: Lots of keysmashes. Lots of typos. Uses txtspk liberally. Harrow spends most of their conversations correcting Gideon's grammar

Ortus: Responds every time with a video message, no matter what he's replying to. Hasn't yet figured out where the microphone on his phone is so the audio is always muffled

Judith: Will call you

Marta: Will call you on Judith's phone

Coronabeth: So many emojis. Will sometimes reply in just emojis. Ends every text with a 🌹 or "xoxo". Thoughts are broken up into multiple texts (e.g. "Oh don't" "worry about it" "it's fine")

Ianthe: Forgets to text you back for at least 12 hours every time. Screenshots every convo for drama. Refuses to save anyone's number and so always starts a convo with "who is this"

Naberius: Doesn't own a phone

Isaac: Replies exclusively in reaction images. Will not text first

Jeannemary: Will spend 20 minutes agonizing over the proper response, before finally deciding on "Sounds good"

Magnus: Will laugh out loud rather than sending "lol". Doesn't understand slang terms (will follow up a butt dial with "sorry didn't mean to booty call you)

Abigail: Uses way too many gifs, all from her favorite show that went off the air 20 years ago. Texts are signed "Sent from my iPhone"

Palamades: One word replies with periods. Frequently sends random videos (like sewage treatment techniques) with "thought this would interest you"

Camilla: Somehow has a meme for every situation. If she doesn't have one she'll make it herself with a shockingly quick turnaround.

Dulcinea: Sends one-word texts with no clarification. Criminally misuses emojis (e.g. "Movie? 🍆"). Will not clarify when asked

Protesilaus: Is dead. Hasn't figured out how to get a ghost phone yet

Silas: Sends selfies from way too low an angle with text overlayed like a Snapchat. Will spam you if you're a minute late

Colum: So many ellipses... Ends every text with them...

Mercymorn: Still has a flip-phone with a pre-paid plan. Gets mad when people send her multiple texts in a row because it costs her $0.15 to open each one

Gideon the First: Does not text. Will instead show up at your house asking you to explain yourself

Augustine: Over-relies on speech-to-text. Texts are full of "what no I said duck not duck you stupid machine no duck oh John damn it"

Cytherea: Waits for you to text first. Gets mad when you don't.

John: Long rambling voice notes where he frequently gets distracted, leaving minutes at a time of awkward silence

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for all the excellent meta going around about the nine houses and linguistics and cultural homogeneity and so on, I am still desperate for more wildly divergent linguistics between the Houses

holding out for fourth house rhyming slang and seventh house ironic double-verlan and ninth house sign language (for communicating via mute skeleton constructs across snow fields) and third house fan language and handkerchief codes

what slang terms do criminals use in the Dominicus system and where have they bled into common parlance? Likewise what Cohort slang has become commonplace in Second and Fourth that’s totally incomprehensible to the Sixth? What Latin phrases (“fiat lux!”) are a commonplace part of the Sixth vernacular, archaic but comprehensible to Eighth, mystifying to Third? Did Dulcie’s letters to Cam and Pal include glossaries and marginalia explaining synonyms and divergent definitions? Did they develop their own shared vernacular, tempering Sixth House academic prose with Seventh poetic styles, their own shared slang and inside jokes?

What John-isms are retained in the Fifth and Second House (I don’t even mean memes here I mean idioms like “dime a dozen” and “burning the midnight oil” and “snug as a bug in a rug” and “the ball’s in your court”) but not the others? Conversely, what new idioms and aphorisms confuse the hell out of John with each new Cohort intake? Has “needle in a haystack” been replaced with “hyoid in an ossuary” where hydroponic farming is the typical means of agriculture? Instead of “every cloud has a silver lining” is it “even rusty blades have an edge” where weather is no longer as notable an influence on day to day life?

Do they still give each other peace signs? Flip the bird? Stick two fingers up? Is crossing one’s fingers still a hope for good luck or a threat (indicating crossing swords)? Which Houses are known to talk with their hands (🤌)?

I could think about this all day but the main image I have is of Gideon doing this (👌- Ninth House sign language, emulates a skeleton’s eye socket: “I see you/acknowledged”) to, say, Babs (from Third where the same gesture, “the pinch”, emulates gathering of fabric and/or skin to test quality and fragility and is typically deemed a derogatory gesture) and starts an inter house diplomatic fracas

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Image ID (by @princess-of-purple-prose)

[ID: YouTube comments edited to be by Harrow and Gideon from The Locked Tomb. They read:

Harrow: My gay ass couldn't be a mortician 💀

Gideon: What do you mean? What do you mean by that? End ID]

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Here's the thing about all the memes John uses in TLT. Sure, Jod is horny for the 2010s, but I can't believe that after 10,000 years he hasn't bothered to get down with any fresh new material. Never mind a myriad of human culture developing its own linguistic quirks - I'm betting the original Canaan House 16 had plenty of time to come up with some of their own. For example:

Skeleton construct #230 (Scotty Boneman) and skeleton construct #39 (Grunkulous Prime) and their long-running feud

Excessively anatomical descriptions for normal actions e.g 'don't you elevate your supercilium at me, Valancy. Stop oscillating your cephalon in my direction.'

Responding to one of John's unfathomable inside-joke references with a solemn nod and intoning the words 'glumpus glumpus' to acknowledge Divine and Unknowable Wisdom

Forgotten objects that may or may not have been sex toys (Cyrus and Valancy's nude portraits are a continuation of this)

[pointing at a picture of any animal that no longer exists] 'What kind of dog was this?'

Necromantically juicing up your muscles to insane proportions before e.g opening a jar, turning a key, writing down a note

Referring to any distasteful outfit as a 'sex ward'

'or as they say on the Eighth: if in doubt, slut it up' (Mercy and Cristabel do not approve of this one)

Tendon loving care

Convincing one another of fictitious new slang from the other Houses.

[after summoning a bone construct/flesh monster/skeleton army] I can never get the nose right

How many of your own joints can you dislocate mid-conversation before somebody notices

Wearing your lyctoral cape any way except in the way that it was intended to be worn

And, of course:

Lyctor? I hardly know 'er!

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H-hey!

Bring that back!

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Why does every therapist tell me that I’m so bright and confident and articulate, can you please help me deal with the gaping hole in my chest

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a phrase that kinda bothers me when talking about women's historical roles in europe is "cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the children." you hear it so often, those exact words in the same order even. and once you learn a little more you realize that the massive gaping hole in that list is fiberwork. im not an expert and have no hard numbers, but i wouldnt be surprised if fiberwork took up nearly as much time as the other three tasks combined, so it's not a trivial omission.

it's not a hot take to say that the mass amnesia about fiberwork is linked to the belittlement of women's work in geneal, but i do think there's a special kind of illusion that is cast by "cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the children." you hear that and think "well i cook and clean and take care of children (or i know someone who does) and i have a sense of how much work that is" and you know of course that cooking and cleaning were more laborious before modern technology, but still, you have a ballpark estimate you think, when in fact you are drastically underestimating the work load.

i also think that this just micharacterizes the role of women's work in livelihoods? cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the children are all sisyphean tasks that have to be repeated the next day. these are important, but not the whole picture. when we include all kinds of fiberwork—and other things, such as making candles or soap—women's work looks much more like manufacturing, a sphere we now associate more with men's work. i feel like women's connection to making and craftsmanship is often elided.

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sometimes I think red arapaima scales look like closed eyelids