ship’s computer crashes due to virus acquired during a porn download from a lower decks ensign
firmware update was pushed out to the fleet, has vital error in the clock program that causes every computer to repeat 2300. translators have to explain to the enemy why everyone is an hour late to peace talks.
unintelligble message is sent out into the void because someone’s pet cat walked across their keyboard. message is interpreted as a marriage proposal.
universal translators break, everyone is reduced to hand gestures
viewscreen has dead pixels in the upper left corner, drives the captain a bit bonkers
space gps tells us to take a right where we should take a left. plucky recent academy grad on the graveyard shift realizes that this would take us into the sun and makes the course correction. ship’s computer advises her for two hours to make a u-turn when it is safe to do so
“siri, how do I land a space ship” is heard over the ship speaker system.
okay it’s Eleanor @queerandgrumpy’s fault that I’ve given this so much consideration but it’s time for official scores
Edward Ferrars okay so he’d be gentle and sweet and would stroke your face a lot, but sense without sensibility only gets you so far, you know? Edward is the guy you can take home to meet your mum but you don’t feel any particular compulsion to take him to bed. there’d be no passion, and he’d also have no idea what he was doing, but he’d be very nice about it which it why I moved him up from my original 2/10 to a: 3/10
Colonel Brandon
he’s got the brooding and the passion, as well as the intense longing, but on the other hand, he’s on the older side, and not in a sexy way, and he’s so scrupulously moral in a really straightforward way that he probably wouldn’t do anything, well, particularly interesting 5/10
Willoughby (just looked it up and his first name is John?? I refuse to accept that, it never even occurred to me that he would have a first name) okay so Willoughby is everything Brandon isn’t, sure, that’s the point, and he’d think he was fantastic, but he’s that guy who does no foreplay, finishes after five minutes, falls asleep immediately, and then smirks at you later like he thinks he gave you a really good time 2/10
Fitzwilliam Darcy
okay here’s the thing, Darcy would be really good, but only once. so much repression, so much longing, the single best night of your life, but after that he goes back to being shy and awkward and also he feels really weird about what you did together and it makes him even more awkward than before (yes, even if you marry him) 7/10
Charles Bingley oh god can you even imagine? there’s nothing hot about that level of earnestness. he has no idea what he’s doing and neither do you if you even consider going to bed with him 2/10
George Wickham he’s got a bit more game than Willoughby but you can tell how little he respects you and it makes you feel dirty. he’s also probably into some weird shit and gets all defensive and strange if you don’t feel like indulging it 3/10
Mr Collins I refuse to even picture this 0/10
Colonel Fitzwilliam he’s reasonably attractive, he’s nice, he’s considerate, he knows what he’s doing, he doesn’t really want to get involved but he still cuddles you and gets you breakfast in the morning 6/10
Edmund Bertram look, he’s just not hot. it’s impossible to be that into him unless you’re Fanny Price, and you’re not. also you can kind of sense that he’s projected this idealised version of you onto you and it’s weird. all of it’s weird. you tell your best friend about it and she asks how it was and you say “it was weird” 1/10
Henry Crawford I mean we know he’s good, right? he’s “leave your obscenely rich husband” good. I didn’t want to get too detailed and specific on this post, but Henry Crawford gives you like a solid hour of oral before anything else happens, and he does that every time, not just the first time when he’s trying to impress you. but he’s such a shit human being that you feel kind of torn a lot of the time, and also you didn’t sign up for a threesome but his ego is a substantial third presence in the room and you’re kind of tired of having to stroke it 8/10
Mr Rushworth I refuse, and so does Maria 0/10
George Knightley (yes, his name is George, it surprises me every time too) god, okay, Mr Knightley, he’s that older man, the one who only really exists in your fantasies; he knows what he wants, he knows what you want, he’s not even doing the whole repressed longing thing for most of his life, it just genuinely doesn’t bother him that he’s not banging anyone and he only wants to do that with someone he cares about, so if he takes you to bed he really, really cares about you and he wants to make this good for you, he wants to make this so good for you and he’s going to make sure he does as though your sexual satisfaction is the single greatest goal of his life 10/10
Frank Churchill he should be good, right? you thought he was going to be so good, and you can’t even put your finger on anything specific that wasn’t good, but man, it wasn’t good. I mean it wasn’t bad, either, it was just… really, really average. but it seems worse than average because you had big expectations 5/10
Elton (his first name is Philip? I never knew this until now and I refuse to acknowledge it) I also refuse to acknowledge that Elton and sex could have anything to do with each other 0/10
John Knightley I know, no one else has thought about this, no one else cares, this one is just for me. John Knightley, the lesser known Knightley, he’s that guy who would be kind of hot if he only dressed better and wasn’t such a dick, you’ve never really talked to him but then at a party you end up sitting together and you realise that you hate all the same people and at some point you end up making out in a corner and then sneaking into a bedroom and just going for it and it’s not the greatest thing ever but it’s better than that shit party you’re at and he makes you laugh a lot while it’s happening and you never really hang out again but sometimes he catches your eye and winks at you 8/10
Henry Tilney okay so he may be a clergyman but this guy knows things, he’s read some scandalous novels, and has a scandalous older brother who probably never shuts up about his exploits: Henry Tilney knows things. how good would he be in application though? everything he does will be pretty okay, but he’s not hot enough or suave enough to make it really amazing. he’s definitely a good time AND he’s a guy you can take home to your mum, but he lacks that extra level of sex appeal that you get from someone like
George Knightley or Henry Crawford 7/10
John Thorpe fuck that guy. by which I mean, do not, under any circumstances, fuck that guy 0/10
Frederick Tilney okay so he’s hot, and he probably knows a thing or two, but he’s too fundamentally selfish to care. he is entirely focused on his own pleasure, and he even knows that he could make it better for you, he just doesn’t give a shit. but like, he kind of makes you feel like you’re into that? 3/10
William Elliot you have an advantage over Anne Elliot here in that he’s not your cousin, but like with Anne he’s still totally just using you. he’s real charming though, and this boy has gotten around and knows exactly what he’s doing. he’d be a really good time if you couldn’t tell he was already figuring out who he wants to sleep with after you 6/10
Captain Frederick Wentworth jesus, okay, here we go, I just got all flustered just thinking about this. you’ve never seen so much repressed longing in one place and it doesn’t even matter if you’re not the one he’s longing for, he’s still going to pour so much pent up angst and lust into every movement that he’ll be the best thing you’ve ever had. he’s considerate and sensitive too though, he looks at you the whole time, directly at you, and holds your face in his hands when he kisses you, and he directs you so, so gently and holds you to him like you’re precious and fragile, even when he’s throwing everything into it in a way that leaves you literally breathless. you feel things you didn’t know could be felt, emotionally and physically. you think it’s over and he smiles knowingly at you and says “ready to go again?” when you’re falling asleep he pulls you closer to him and whispers that you’re beautiful. you’ve never felt as safe as you do in his arms, and even though you’re exhausted now you know you’re going to do it all over again in the morning and probably into the afternoon I can’t even give him a numerical score, whatever scoring system you’re using he’s better than the highest possible score
ماهرخ
Mahrokh, literally “moon-face”. A Persian name chiefly for girls. The moon is associated as one of the highest levels of beauty in Persian culture. To be named this is to be called the silent beauty of a full moon on a clear night. (via baklavugh)
Look, I don’t believe in God, but I will not disrespect the Good Gentlemen of the Hills. That’s just common sense.
Between this and the Icelanders with their elves I do not understand what is going on above the 50th parallel.
My general rule of thumb: you don’t have to believe in everything, but don’t fuck with it, just in case.
^^^ that part
This is truer than true. Especially the Irish part.
Let me tell you what I know about this after living here for nearly thirty years.
This is a modern European country, the home of hot net startups, of Internet giants and (in some places, some very few places) the fastest broadband on Earth. People here live in this century, HARD.
Yet they get nervous about walking up that one hill close to their home after dark, because, you know… stuff happens there.
I know this because Peter and I live next to One Of Those Hills. There are people in our locality who wouldn’t go up our tiny country road on a dark night for love or money. What they make of us being so close to it for so long without harm coming to us, I have no idea. For all I know, it’s ascribed to us being writers (i.e. sort of bards) or mad folk (also in some kind of positive relationship with the Dangerous Side: don’t forget that the root word of “silly”, which used to be English for “crazy”, is the Old English _saelig_, “holy”…) or otherwise somehow weirdly exempt.
And you know what? I’m never going to ask. Because one does not discuss such things. Lest people from outside get the wrong idea about us, about normal modern Irish people living in normal modern Ireland.
You hear about this in whispers, though, in the pub, late at night, when all the tourists have gone to bed or gone away and no one but the locals are around. That hill. That curve in the road. That cold feeling you get in that one place. There is a deep understanding that there is something here older than us, that doesn’t care about us particularly, that (when we obtrude on it) is as willing to kick us in the slats as to let us pass by unmolested.
So you greet the magpies, singly or otherwise. You let stones in the middle of fields be. You apologize to the hawthorn bush when you’re pruning it. If you see something peculiar that cannot be otherwise explained, you are polite to it and pass onward about your business without further comment. And you don’t go on about it afterwards. Because it’s… unwise. Not that you personally know any examples of people who’ve screwed it up, of course. But you don’t meddle, and you learn when to look the other way, not to see, not to hear. Some things have just been here (for various values of “here” and various values of “been”) a lot longer than you have, and will be here still after you’re gone. That’s the way of it. When you hear the story about the idiots who for a prank chainsawed the centuries-old fairy tree a couple of counties over, you say – if asked by a neighbor – exactly what they’re probably thinking: “Poor fuckers. They’re doomed.” And if asked by anybody else you shake your head and say something anodyne about Kids These Days. (While thinking DOOMED all over again, because there are some particularly self-destructive ways to increase entropy.)
Meanwhile, in Iceland: the county council that carelessly knocked a known elf rock off a hillside when repairing a road has had to go dig the rock up from where it got buried during construction, because that road has had the most impossible damn stuff happen to it since that you ever heard of. Doubtless some nice person (maybe they’ll send out for the Priest of Thor or some such) will come along and do a little propitiatory sacrifice of some kind to the alfar, belatedly begging their pardon for the inconvenience.
They’re building the alfar a new temple, too.
Atlantic islands. Faerie: we haz it.
The Southwest is like this in some ways. You don’t go traveling along the highways at night with an empty car seat. Because an empty car seat is an invitation. You stick your luggage, your laptop bag, whatever you got in that seat. Else something best left undiscussed and unnamed (because to discuss it by name is to go ‘AY WE’RE TALKING BOUT YA WE’RE HERE AND ALSO IGNORANT OF WHAT YOU’RE CAPABLE OF’ at the top of your damn lungs at them) will jump in to the car, after which you’re gonna have a bad time.
If you’re out in the woods, you keep constant, consistent count of your party and make sure you know everyone well enough that you can ID them by face alone, lest something imitating a person get at you. They like to insert themselves in the party and just observe before they strike. It’s a game to them. In general you don’t fuck with the weird, you ignore the lights in the sky (no, this isn’t a god damn night vale reference, yes I’m serious) and the woods, you lock up at night and you don’t answer the door for love or money. Whatever or whoever’s knocking ain’t your buddy.
^ So much good advice in this post right here
I live in the south and… you just… don’t go into the woods or fields at night.
Don’t go near big trees in the night
If you live on a farm, don’t look outside the windows at night
I have broken all these rules.
I’ve seen some shit.
If it sounds like your mom, but you didn’t realize your mom is home…. it’s not your mom. Promise.
One walked onto the porch once. Wasn’t fun. But they’re not super keen on guns. Typically bolt when they see one.
You think it’s the neighbor kids.
It’s not the neighbor kids.
Might sound like coyotes but you never really /see/ the coyotes but then wow that one cow was reaaaaaally fucked up this morning. The next night when you hear another one screaming you just turn the tv up a little more. Maybe fire a gun in the air but you don’t go after it. If it is coyotes then it’s probably a pack and you seriously don’t want to fuck with that and if it’s the other thing you seriously REALLY don’t want to fuck with that.
So in the south, especially near the mountains, you just go straight from your car to inside your house, draw your curtains and watch tv.
If you see lights in the fields just fucking leave it alone.
Eyes forward. Don’t be fucking stupid. Mind your own business. Call your neighbors and tell them to bring the cats in. There’s coyotes out. Some of them know. Most of them don’t.
Other than that everything’s a ghost and they died in the civil war. Literally all of everything else is just the civil war. We used to smell old perfume and pipe tobacco in the weeks leading up to the battle anniversaries.
Shit’s wild and I sound fucking crazy but I swear to god it’s true.
Every time this post comes around, it’s my favorite to open up the notes and read the stories. Probably shouldn’t have since I’m sleeping alone tonight, but you know, it’s fine. 😂
Austrian girl here who has lived in Ireland for 5+ years. This shit is LEGIT. I’ve seen it with my own two Catholic eyes.
Sure, visit during the day. That’s alright as long as you’re respectful. But you couldn’t PAY ME ENOUGH to go there at night. These are also the last places where you wanna start littering.
I grew up in southwest Pennsylvania which is a weird mixture of American cultures and environments. I was in the heavily forested mountains (northern Appalachia) but had lots and lots of corn fields and cow pastures. Like the Smoky Mountains and fields of Kansas combined. And being so cut off from a lot of the world, we had our fair share of ghost stories.
We had ‘witches’ in the mountains (more like ghost-women who will snatch you up by making you wander in a daze around the forest like the Blair Witch before killing you or letting you back out into society but you’re… different). Or devils in springs or abandoned wells (don’t look too long into one or something will follow you).
But we also had the cornfield demons. I’ve witnessed this many times. You’ll be in the passenger seat looking out the window and see red glowing eyes in the cornfield. No light shining in that direction. Just two red dots a few inches apart faintly glowing in a pitch black cornfield. They’re not the glow of deer eyes in the headlights. More like the embers of a dying fire. Sometimes, as you drive away, you’ll look out the back window or side mirror and you can see the eyes have moved to the edge of the corn field, still watching you. If you bring it up with the driver, they’ll call you paranoid, but grip the wheel a bit tighter and driver a little faster.
I was walking to a friend’s house one night. It was about 20 minutes down a dirt road with forest on one side and a cornfield on the other. I’ve walked past it many times and wasn’t really concerned. My main worry was coming across a skunk or porcupine. I didn’t have a flashlight because the moonlight was bright enough and I knew the walk really well. Then I saw the eyes. I immediately averted mine (because for some reason that’s how to not annoy it) but they kept wandering back. They were still there, watching. I heard rustling and saw the eyes come closer and I took off running. I got to my friends without a scratch, but I was terrified. I mentioned it to my friend and that’s when I found out it was A Thing. Her parents agreed and shared their stories. I brought it up more and almost everyone knew what I was talking about. It was a phenomenon a lot of folks around town experienced but never mentioned. To this day, I don’t linger around poorly light cornfields at night.
Faeries and Wee Folk and Liminal Spaces, oh myyyy…
I just…yes. This. All of this. And then some.
You don’t have to understand it. You don’t have to believe in it.
But if you know what’s good for you, DON’T FUCK WITH IT.
For my followers that ask about Fae stuff.
Remember; even if you live in a city, if you hear a tapping on your window at night. Do not look out your window.
persephone's corner 