I hate in the MCU or anything when the aliens or whatever are attacking and everyone’s just ‘oh yeah we be chilling just cowering over here’ as if seventy percent of humanity isn’t really angry all the time like catch these hands motherfucker I’ve bitten people for trying to steal my chips you think you can just steal my whole fucking planet YEET HERE COME MY TEETH film people be using responses to natural disasters but I promise if human sized things came to throw down humanity would be ready to fuck them up like yeah you got laser guns I got this dope ass stick I just found let’s go you ugly fuck
silentwalrus1: #yeah bicht!!!!!!#gimme the battle of new york with fuckin chitauri comin down and the shift manager of the times sq H&M has finally had Enough#Tracie bout to kill this alien with a traffic cone#’ JUST PRETEND THEY’RE TOURISTS’ she screams choking out goddamn Lizard Lite with her lanyard#10 feet away a park slope mom is beating an alien to death with her four year old’s knockoff eco friendly razr scooter#every single retail employee gets ten years’ worth of therapy in one day#captain america’s kill count: 83 aliens#kathleen from accounting: 94 and also her boss
Here’s another from the History Secret
Santa Archive! For today, rather than sort of getting into a longer,
more in depth description of some historical event or person, I
thought it would be fun to mix things up a bit, and just give you a
bunch of amusing little snippets. I hope you all like them!
The emperor Domitian, the last of the
Flavian dynasty in the Roman Empire, was a) not a very well-liked
ruler and b) very paranoid about assassination. After executing
random senators, sexual debauchery, and indulging in weird
psychological torture involving a meal of all black food in a totally
black room, a freedman named Stephenus finally got Domitian alone and
stabbed him to death with the ruse of saying, seriously, something
along the lines of, “Emperor, I need to speak with you in private!
I have just learned of a conspiracy to assassinate you!”
Mithridates VI of Pontus, also called
Mithridates the Great, is most notable for waging an almost
successful war against Rome (no mean feat), and also being terrified
of being poisoned. Like some sort of Dread Pirate Robert’s times
1,000, this king spent most of his young adulthood eating small doses
of various poisons and building up his immunity to almost every known
toxin. In addition, he invented a supposedly universal antidote that
is still called mithridae
(one recipe includes
frankincese, myrhh, and
cinnamon!) Unfortunately, after Pompey defeated Mithridates in
battle, the Pontian king tried to commit suicide by poison, but found
he couldn’t turn off his immunity. He ended up dying by sword,
instead.
The
month February takes
its name from the februa,
or a cord of goat hide that specially selected men would use in a
religious festival to essentially smack fertility into women (or at
least, that’s how the Romans saw it). In the Lupercalia, the young
men chosen dressed in the
skins of recently slaughtered goats, and most sort of arranged these
skins into loincloths as best they could, so they could run around
the city whipping various women without flashing the entire city.
Marc Antony, however, did not care about modesty, basically at all,
and he participated in this festival, and, to make a long story
short, we have historical verification that at least one member of
the Second Triumvirate was VERY well endowed.
Laksmibai,
Queen of Jhansi, and instrumental figure in the Indian Rebellion of
1857, was awesome in many ways, but she was a particularly skilled at
horsemanship. She could apparently ride a horse no-handed, clutching
the bridle in her teeth to steer, and would often go into battle as
described, but swinging a sword in each hand.
Romulus,
the mythical founder of Rome, was probably named after the city, and
not vice-versa as the legend suggests. Many possible meaning for the
name exist, including the idea that the name may originate from rumina, a descriptor
for what the hill of the original city may have reminded people of. Rumina means “breast”
in early Latin.
The
16th
President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, apparently really
liked cats. At one point, after a big loss for the Union side in the
American Civil War, one of his generals kept trying to brief him on
how their troops could recover and what needed to be done, but
Lincoln kept getting distracted by some abandoned kittens he could
see in the background of the camp. In the end, the general had to
promise that the kittens would be taken care of before the president
would focus on the aftermath of the battle.
Gaius
Octavian, later Augustus, was quite short, even
by Roman standards, and wore
platform shoes to make himself appear taller. And
speaking of Roman emperors, the process of deifying dead emperors had
become so common by the beginning of the Flavian dynasty that, on his
deathbed, the emperor Vespasian announced, “Oh dear. I think I’m
becoming a god.”
I’ve
seen varying historical opinions on this fact, but Romans may not
have generally learned to read silently. So, every time they, for
example, got a letter, they had to read it aloud. Julius Caesar
seemed to be one of very few people who could read silently, and this
ability apparently freaked people the hell out.
Suetonius,
an ancient Roman author who described the lives of the first twelve
emperors, as well as Julius Caesar, only had his works saved because
they’d all been thrown in to a well preserved garbage dump. The
complete works of Confucius were only preserved because someone hid
them in a wall. My personal favorite historical preservation story,
though, is that Christian monks apparently preserved the works of
Livy and Virgil
because they both wrote short poems about some awesome baby being
born soon that would end up saving the world. These passages were
later interpreted as being about Jesus, but, in reality, at the time
both Augustus’s and Marc Antony’s wives were pregnant, and both
writers were likely trying to butter up the two most powerful men in
Rome.
Marcus
Caelius, a prodigy of Cicero’s, was once working as basically a
prosecuting attorney in the case of a man believed to had poisoned
his wife. The defense argued
that the accused couldn’t have used the type of poison (aconite)
because it has distinct symptoms when consumed. Marcus Caelius argued
that aconite had fewer recognizable symptoms if absorbed via a, ahem,
different orifice. Such as the vagina. In the trial, Marcus Caelius
announced, presumably eyes blazing and pointing at the accused, “I
do not point the finger of guilt! I point at the guilty finger!”
essentially making a fingering joke in the middle of a SERIOUS MURDER
TRIAL.
I read most of this to Mr Seldnei this morning, and he quite enjoyed the Domitian story, replying with: “I have uncovered a plot to kill you! And it is me! Stabby stabby stabby.”
What I’ve taken from all this is that
Laksmibai,
Queen of Jhansi, is a lot like who I wish I was. And Abraham Lincoln is a lot more like who I actually am.
Further evidence that humans have always been humans.
We were driving to a restaurant and wanted to see how long the wait was. My dad handed me the phone book and asked me to look up the number. I, for whatever reason, thought he said “get rid of this”. So I opened the window and chucked the phone book while we were going 70 MPH down the highway.
great
I stuck my hand in a bowl of soup simply because I hadn’t before.
same
When I was maybe 10-12, I threw one of my dad’s golf clubs that had no head on it like a spear down the hallway after telling my brother it would be cool.
absolutely
One time I was eating a lemon poppyseed muffin. The phone rang, so I reacted by shoving the entire muffin my mouth and eating it as fast as I could, nearly choking to death, and I didn’t even make it to the phone before it stopped ringing.
huge mood
Gave my sister a piggyback when she was giving my other sister a piggyback at the same time
People who guested on Sesame Street or The Muppet Show often mentioned this phenomenon in interviews.
I’m reminded of a possibly apocryphal story where a talk show was doing a Kermit the Frog guest spot, and the sound technicians couldn’t figure out why the audio pickup was so terrible – until they realised that they’d unthinkingly attached the wireless mic to the puppet rather than the voice actor.
Man human imprinting is crazy. My friend’s roomba zoomed by me and I got this intense urge to reach down and pat it. Like it’s just a machine? But it’s a good boy? It spends all day cleaning and sleeping and exploring the house and never complains and it’s just so good little robot? Pet robot?? Pet the robot????? Why am I like this???
1. Humans say ‘ow’, even if they haven’t actually been hurt. It’s just a thing they say when they think they might have been hurt, but aren’t sure yet.
2. Humans collect shiny things and decorate their bodies and nests with them. The shinier the better, although each individual has a unique taste for style and colouring
3. Humans are not an aquatic or even amphibious species, but they flock to bodies of water simply to play in it. They can’t even hold their breath all that long; they just love to splash!
4. When night falls and the sky goes dark, humans become drowsy and begin to cocoon themselves in soft, fluffy bedding.
5. Some humans spend time in each other’s nests! Just for fun! It’s not their nest; they’re just visiting each other.
6. Some humans use pigments and dyes to make their bodies flashy and colourful! They even attach shiny dangly bits to their cartalidgous membranes!
7. Humans are very clever, and sometimes adopt creatures from other species into their family units. They don’t seem to notice the obvious differences, and often raise them alongside their own young!
8. If a human sees another creature in distress, they can commonly be observed trying to help! Even at their own risk, most humans are deeply compassionate creatures!
9. If a human hears a particularity catchy sound or tune, it will often mimic it, even to the point of annoying themselves!
10. Sneezes are entirely involuntary, and completely adorable. Especially when the human in question becomes frustrated
11. Humans love treats!!! Some more than others. Many humans will save these treats specifically for a later date when they are in need of comfort or reassurance. IE, pickles, pop tarts, Popsicles, etc
12. They’re learning to travel in space!!! They can’t get very far, but they’re trying!!! So far, they’ve made it to the end of their yard, and have found rocks
this sounds like it was written by a really enthusiastic alien humanologist
shortly after william the conquerer came to power he initiated something known as ‘the doomsday book’- he sent envoys to survey his new lands to record the properties he now controlled so they could pay accurate taxes. every acre of field, every mill, livestock, buildings and their relative size- all would be recorded to determine the wealth of each settlement so a percentage could be expected as rent. for an example of what this book meant; the previous king was aware of and collected taxes from about 20 grain mills in england, william’s audit shot that number above 200. you dont know the meaning of ‘pedantic’ untill you start reading about medieval grain mills, theres a church that paved its floor with confiscated ‘illegal’ millstones to ensure that the town had to get its flour from the church’s official mill and one war simply about stealing the same millstone back and fourth for quite a few decades
of course word of these envoys traveled faster then they did, virtually every town they came to had time to claim they had far less taxable wealth then they actually did have by the time the audit arrived. in one of the more over the top cases an entire village pretended to have caught insanity- when the taxmen arrived they saw screaming laughing idiots with underwear on their heads so they left as fast as they could considering at the time insanity was thought to be literally contagious. it would be over five years before anyone tried to audit that town again. its safe to assume a large number of other villages also had sudden cases of strange diseases, mysteriously disappearing cows, or very large shrubberies and haybales shaped like buildings and you dont need to look over that hill either. thats not even touching how many small communities just plain didnt technically exist because they were too small, somewhere weird, or in legal limbo of who owned it
of course when the feudal part of feudalism started moving its gears you found that the local lord of that village was unlikely to divulge the exact amount of rents they could collect to THEIR lord either, knowing that the more they admitted to receiving the more they were expected to hand over. this was not exclusive to england either, the more you learn about feudalism the more you have to ask how all these minor lords out in the boonies kept having the money and soldiers to do all the political intrigue bullshit, the answer is also tax evasion. each village kept claiming it had fewer people living in shittier houses with less land and fewer livestock then they actually had, and each local lord kept claiming they were receiving less rents then they actually took so were also adverse to an accurate audit.
their knowledge of tax loopholes also extended to finding out that clergymen were either exempt from tax or received a far lower rate of tax, so proving you qualified as a clergyman was an endeavor that paid dividends. specifically to prove you were clergy you proved that you could read and write enough Latin to satisfy an official, so you could spend some money to hire someone to tutor you enough Latin to fake it. its estimated that due to this fully ten percent of medieval english households wrote ‘clergy’ on their tax forms.
another and even more extreme example was the peasants revolt of 1381, london was swarmed by the unwashed masses from all sides instigated by an official trying to collect (a lot of) unpaid poll taxes, an angry mob driving a teenaged king Richard II to retreat to a boat in the river, and culminating with 1500 peasants being executed by an emergency militia. this doesn’t sound like a huge success untill you dig into some of the details- peasants from a large number of villages all arrived at london at the same time, leaving dedicated forces specifically to stop ships from acessing london to break the siege, the peasants executed a select number of court officials and started burning paperwork- but systematically only burning the ones detailing who owned plots of land, debt records, and a few criminal records. the peasants who besieged london and scared the king into the river had successfully purged a whole lot of debts and reclaimed a lot of land in one very ballsy and highly coordinated move that relied on them being seen as illiterate dirt farmers with no ulterior motives besides pitchfork mob riot and trying to kiss the queen mother while they touch everything in the tower of london with their grimy hands
found it. this is… this is amazing. I did a BA in Medieval British History and we never, ever, once considered this. Not once. At a major Canadian university.
a friend of mine forgot the word “lamp” once and said “light faucet”
I’m shaking from laughter. Yes, this is the right way to start a Friday morning.
Listen guys, I have a BA in English and an MA in Professional Writing and I have:
Forgotten the word “gums” and called them “teeth cuticles” Forgotten the term “liquor store” and called it a “rum-o-rama” Forgotten the word “mohawk” and called it a “head mustache”
The list goes on and on. Wording is HARD.
You know that putty you put in holes before you paint a wall? I forgot the word “putty,” called it “hole-be-gone” instead, and now my whole family refers to it as hole-be-gone.
it’s hard to make the brain do the english, ok!?
I wish I had this skill. When I lose a word, my brain derails. I use the term ‘derail’ because it is the mental equivalent of a train derailment (just easier to clean up)
At the staff meeting, my boss referred to the clipboard as “that snappy board”
My 4-year-old nephew didn’t know the word “knuckle” so he told us his finger knee hurt.
I had a French-Canadian friend who couldn’t remember the word for “feet” so they said “leg hands” and couldn’t remember eyes so said “seeing balls”
My German friend didn’t know how to say that the container holding her lasagna had leaked, so she said “the box drooled”
German for slug is “Nacktschnecke” (naked snail) so “Schnecke ohne Hause” (snail without house) is logical enough. After all, this is a language where gloves are “Handschuhe” and a bra is a “Büstenhalter” (though not a Titzling; if the place with the frequently-stolen signs is anything to go by, that’s more likely to be a town in Austria…)
I have the reverse happening to me in my native tongue. I often forget that we call spatulas a “frying shovel” in Swedish -_- my boyfriend teases me for it while cooking
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