I would like it to be known that I am
So
Very
DONE
Plato makes up Atlantis as an allegory and over 2,000 years later people are still looking for it. You might as well be looking for Narnia.
Plato: Luxury and unlimited power are forces that corrupt human beings and lead them to being colonialist and stupid. The gods will punish Athens if we continue to exploit others for our own gain. I have invented this society as a parable to illustrate my point because I tend to use metaphor for a lot of things.
Everyone: But where are you hiding it though
Plato: I’ve purposefully included details like a mud shoal west of Iberia that doesn’t exist and references to a volcanic eruption that we all have cultural memory of as an obvious indication that I made this up. Are you paying attention? It’s a metaphor. I’m using literary references. You can go west of Iberia yourself. It’s not there. I explained where it is and it’s not there. You all know it’s not there. Please stop it with the luxury and exploitation. That’s my main point here.
Everyone: Yeah but where is it though
Plato: Orichalcum is just a fancy looking metal. It’s kinda like fancy copper. I made it up for this fake parable city.
Everyone: So it’s magic, then.
Plato: I want Athens to be a bit more like Sparta.
Everyone: Where’s the magic metal
Plato: I just think that greed is bad, generally. We should stop doing that.
Everyone: Where are you hiding the magic metal???
I need UK journalists to not show 43 degrees is not beach weather like people are gonna die
Americans do not interact
Im Australian, and 43C is NOT beach weather. That is VERY hot, even for us, but for the UK its apocalyptic. At 43C you should not even be going outside if you can help it, treating it like beach weather is a one way ticket to heatstroke.
I agree with not going outside for long periods of time but you will have to plan something to reduce the heat within your households. Especially if your house is designed to retain heat
Fans pointed at open windows will pull out hot air and allow it to circulate - don't put them IN the window, leave some room by the side for extra air to get drawn in.
If you can't afford cold packs (and if you can, stock up on some NOW), get some ziplock bags and freeze them, with wet washcloths or ripped up towel inside. You want them to be ready in the freezer when you need them. Wrap them in a tea towel and put them on your wrists and ankles.
A big bowl of ice water in front of a fan will blow cold air into the room and make a massive difference. Again, if you don't have ice cube trays get some and freeze them *now*, don't wait until you're already in trouble (although I am melting at quarter past nine but my thermoregulation is bollocks so I don't know if that's the heat or just the me). If you can't afford to get any, clean out empty yoghurt pots or Tupperware or whatever you have that can hold water. Even if you end up with a giant ice cube from a lunchbox, it'll help.
Even just opening two windows at a crack will allow some air circulation - I sometimes prop open my bedroom door and leave the bathroom door open, both windows are locked at a crack because of the cats but it creates a nice little line of wind along the landing.
If you're someone who needs something on them to sleep, take your duvet out of the cover and just use the cover.
Remember that water acts as a lens - you do NOT want to wear a wet t shirt in the burning sun. I did this when I was 8 and if I tan on my back you can still see the scars.
Read the instructions for sunscreen carefully, and use the highest spf you can find. Reapply as per the instructions. If you get burned, Malibu do an amazing aloe-based spray on after sun, I got mine from Savers for 3 quid and it lasts ages. I keep it and any other after sun in the fridge, which means it's incredibly lovely to put on. Aloe is magic for burns so definitely gravitate towards that if you can. My son got badly burned (he's ginger, he went to an outdoor pool and they forgot to give him sunscreen) and he's had 2 helpings of it and you wouldn't believe how much better he is (he couldn't even really wear a shirt).
Make sure your pets have plenty of fresh cold water to drink, and if they usually have dry food consider giving them some wet food for one of their meals (cats are notoriously not always great drinkers but wet food will get them some liquid). Keep the curtains and/or blinds closed in south-facing rooms. I have blackout curtains in the front room and the front bedroom (my son's) and they make a MASSIVE difference to the heat. Make sure pets have access to these cooler spaces if you can create them.
Keep oven/hob use to a minimum if you can. I like making a massive pot of something that can be reheated in the microwave if necessary - the oven especially adds a lot of heat. Or get some wraps and ham and cheese and eat those.
Cordial or fruit juice can be better than water if you're sweating a lot. Cordial is cheap as chips. Salty snacks are also good.
Go to Iceland and buy a billion lolly ices. It's especially a good way to make sure kids stay hydrated.
I realize op asked for Americans not to interact, and whether or not they're being cheeky, I feel obligated to reblog this to save lives.
That temperature is absolutely murder, even moreso with humidity.
Please, be safe and stay hydrated!
For reference, 43 degrees celsius is roughly equivalent to 109.4 degrees fahrenheit. That’s bad.
This is nearly DOUBLE the typical average temperature of the UK. I don't care if you grew up in Satan's asshole, if you woke up one day and it was twice as hot as it usually is, you're gonna have a bad fucking time. The infrastructure is not built for 40+ degrees, and with the government doing... The thing it's doing, I doubt they're gonna even bother to help people, so people need to see things like this post to be able to help each other instead.
Heads up UK folks, we're looking at hitting 40°C again in about two weeks. Now's a great time to prepare however you can, figure out what you can do to make things more bearable
Putting a wet tea towel in the freezer for 20 minutes (in a freezer bag so it didn't stick to anything) then tying it to my wrists/ankles helped a lot last year, so I'll share this post in the run up in case it helps anyone else
Keep an eye out for people struggling, including yourself
For people with latex sensitivities: aloe contains a natural latex, so do not use it on any burns you may get during this, it'll just feel worse
barbie dreamhouse baba yaga hut!!!!!
Only a single one of you so far has mentioned 'Barbie Yaga' and I'm so proud of them and disappointed in the rest of you /j
Howl’s Moving Dreamhouse
Lighthouses are an underrated form of wizard tower. A grey-bearded old man spends all of his time tending to a light that must never go out, for if it does it will bring disaster? What else could that be?
I'm more comfortable when my strangers got a little mud on em, when they're a little dirty. Something I don't quite trust in the pristine stranger, like maybe they also got pure pristine opinions. Maybe they wanna have pure pristine people, y'know?
A little disheveled, little bit scruffy kinda stranger bedfellows, figure maybe they're not fused about personal purity, they're okay to be a little bit fucked up and weird in the vicinity thereof. Not about to drown myself in the tar pits, but if it's too clean it makes me nervous like.
So my family has a Gay Pirate Plate.
Stay with me.
We do not know how the hell the Gay Pirate Plate was first acquired. This being a point of contention is actually pretty plot-relevant; the saga of the Gay Pirate Plate began with my grandmother and her sister, who, for some ungodly reason, both BADLY wanted the Gay Pirate Plate and believed it to be rightfully theirs.
I should back up, firstly, to establish: The Gay Pirate Plate is the cheapest, tackiest, ugliest plate in existence.
It is in no way a collector’s item. It is physically impossible for it to complement anyone’s decor, because the colors in it are garish. It’s just a ceramic plate with a gay pirate painted on it, and the painting is, this cannot be emphasized enough, extremely bad.
(How do we know the pirate is gay if he’s just posing on a plate? Listen. Fully 100% to stereotype, but he is. He is gay. There’s an energy. That pirate is a flaming homosexual. That pirate has sex with men and does it frequently. That pirate is fucking gay, all right, he just is.)
Anyway. The point is that this is an extremely cheap and ugly plate with a poorly-executed painting of pirate on it who is like a nine on the Kinsey scale.
My grandmother and her sister fought a blood feud over this plate for their entire lives. It would be on the wall in my grandma’s house, and then her sister would visit, and then it would be gone. She’d visit her sister and the plate would be on the wall and her sister would pretend it had always been there. She would steal it back, hang it up, and, when her sister visited, pretend it had always been there. This continued for DECADES.
When the sister died, the Gay Pirate Plate lived triumphantly in my grandmother’s house. And then my grandmother died. And my aunt, who had lived with her and been her carer throughout her life, rightfully inherited their house.
We visit my aunt after the funeral and stay with her for a week or two.
Me, my sister, and our dad. Her brother.
The three of us look at each other. We don’t say anything. We studiously avoid making eye contact with the Gay Pirate Plate mounted proud and ugly on the wall. We notice one another studiously avoiding looking at it. We notice one another noticing. We say nothing. We come to a silent consensus. We pack up to leave. We get in the van. Our aunt comes out to say goodbye. I loudly announce I need to use the restroom before we leave. She obviously stays outside to continue talking to my dad.
I take down the Gay Pirate Plate, stuff it under my oversized sweatshirt, go outside, and get in the van. She happily waves goodbye as we drive off.
Two days later my dad gets a phone call that opens with hysterical laughter and “You FUCKING ASSHOLE did you seriously STEAL THE PLATE–”
Anyway. The gay pirate plate lives in my dad’s house currently.
But he’s trying to get me and my sister out to visit him. And plate mounts are cheap.
The rules of Gay Pirate Plate are simple by the way.
- The plate must be clearly and openly displayed in a place of great prominence whenever it is in your possession. When it is not in your possession, the display piece must remain in place. This is where you would put your gay pirate plate, IF YOU HAD ONE.
- No active steps may be taken to prevent the theft of the Gay Pirate Plate. That goes against the spirit of the game, as does attempting to hide it.
- The plate MUST be stolen and cannot be gifted or removed with permission. Should you witness attempted theft of the Gay Pirate Plate you are required to intervene and return it to its place.
- Every time your sibling successfully absconds with the Gay Pirate Plate, you must respond with indignant fury, as if you have not also repeatedly and blatantly stolen the Gay Pirate Plate.
WOE
PLATE BE UPON YE
To the anon who just sent in a submission, and everyone else who's sent a similar one in the past--
You are absolutely, objectively, unequivocally, and eternally not the asshole for telling someone about your abuser or rapist. I'm not going to post it because that's not really the right kind of material for this blog, nor do I want to open the stage up to victim blamers, but I am telling you right now so you know. You are always absolutely blameless for seeking support after being abused. I wish healing and safety and happiness for you, please be well <3
Secondary poll based on the comments so far:
You two should reconsider your relationship if you're not able to compromise
You're perfect for each other, never involve anyone else in this situation
See Results
propose to him with the worst fucking ring you can possibly get your hands on. like not a half-assed, "oh you won't like anything I get anyway," passive-aggression ring, that is not the play, you need to do your research and take some interest in the things that matter to your enemy future husband and really learn about like, the gemstone cuts or whatever, and then you need to get him the most eye-catching ring you can find that would also be completely offensive to his overdeveloped sensibilities. He's putting in all this effort to bribe the cat to bite you, it's the least you could do to step it up in response.
So that anon came back with an adorable proposal story, but I fucking love this idea and need it to make it into someone's fanfic or something
Anonymous asked:
UPDATE What's up, it's the proposal guy. You said you wanted to know how this turned out, so I figured I'd tell you. First some context though, because I'm mean and I wanna keep you in suspense longer.
1- I don't wanna doxx us so I'm not telling you where we live, but suffice to say, neither of us are American, and gay marriage has been legal here for less than five years. For both of us, this is the first relationship we've had where marriage was even an OPTION, and I think that's where we've been getting some of that whole 'this has to be a REAL proposal with EVERYTHING' idea.
2- I gotta figure out how to explain this properly. So, I'm pretty used to being the GUY guy in relationships? I was always the one who did the nice gestures, not the one they got done for. Before I met my dream guy, I didn't really notice or care that it was such a thing, I just assumed that's how shit worked. Also, I promised I wouldn't talk a lot about his stuff here, but his last boyfriend before me SUCKED. Anyway point here is, it turns out we both REALLY like feeling swept off our feet sometimes, and a big part of finding each other has been getting to feel special for once? That's a stupid sappy way of putting it the point here is I think all that's what morphed into "I need to be the one getting proposed to, also it has to be completely perfect", and then our Petty & Extra genes got involved.
So I'm sitting in bed thinking about all that up there, and watching all the comments coming in basically being like "Dude, you are BLOWING this" on repeat, and telling me to compromise, and I look up and see him flossing in the bathroom and making all these doofy faces at the mirror, and it's like a switch just flips in my brain, and I'm like "Oh, I'd rather he gets to have his perfect proposal than we both have an okay one". I'm gonna do it.
Morning rolls around, and while I'm 'out for my jog like normal' I hit up a pawn shop for a temp ring (the ring pop thing is cute but NOT HIM). I found one I was at least confident wouldn't get ruined the first time he got his hands greasy (he fixes old machines as a hobby it's hot as hell), got back home, and hid the box in the toe of my nasty ass workout shoes in the bedroom closet, since I figured he'd check there last.
He was still asleep, because he stays up late no matter what and then is SHOCKED he's tired the next day, so I called and booked a table at our usual anniversary spot. (Side note about the 'he picks bad restaurants' thing. This isn't an 'I like Greek, you like Chinese' situation, dude's just BAD at finding places. He either assumes pricey is tasty and I get to eat some overrated gourmet bullshit, or he'll try and find something hip and underground and risk giving us food poisoning again, and he REFUSES to give up and pick somewhere we've been before when it's his turn to plan date night. I'm obsessed with him <3.) Date was set, I'd propose on the 21st.
Some of you might have noticed this, but fun fact! It's currently the 16th.
Last night I'm doing dishes and he's been sent to our room for mug collection duty, and he's taking FOREVER, so I go check just in case he found the ring, because the man's a gift tracking BLOODHOUND. Turns out he hasn't, he's found my Angry Box.
I assume other people have an Angry Box? Basically, we had this huge messy fight right when we first moved in together, and I never wanna let it get that bad again, so I have this shoebox where I keep a bunch of our stuff I can look at if we're fighting and hopefully cool off. There's one of those photo booth roll things, letters we wrote when he moved back with his parents for COVID, the wine cork from our first date, shit like that. Anyway, he's just sitting on the floor staring at it, and I explain about the Angry Box, and then he! Proposes!!! Kind of.
He definitely didn't have anything prepared, because by 'propose' I mean 'ugly cried & rambled at me for several minutes before I figured out it WAS a proposal', but once I got on the same page it was amazing. I said yes, and he had to admit he didn't have a ring for me because he was CONVINCED he'd win and I'd do it, so I grabbed mine because, yeah, he was right. He was like "this is the ugliest ring I've ever seen" and I was like yeah well the plan is to replace it later and he went "No. You can pry this off my cold dead fingers. After I'm buried with it." So I guess it's not a temporary ring anymore.
I'm just gonna go ahead and skip to this morning. I pointed out we still have the reservation, and he said I should propose there anyway because "We can get a free dessert. They have those creme brulee shot glasses you like. And for love, or something" and I said ok deal, but that means you gotta get me a ring to keep it fair, and his eyes LIT UP. When I swung by his work for lunch he was still on the phone with a jeweler and he had a whole page of notes on three other ones. Pray for me.
OH PS: I was RIGHT that he'd been the one behind the cat biting me, but it wasn't about the proposal stuff, it's because I paid my baby sister three dollars to shout 'fuck you' every single time he enters a room she's in for (if you ask me, he should be madder at my sister for charging so little), and he did it by giving her a bunch of treats for biting his hands too, so now neither of us can pet our baby girl without oven mitts on. HOLY SHIT I love this man.
am-i-the-asshole-official answered:
Oh my goddddddd I love everything about this <333 I awwww’d out loud on a voice call, like, six times while reading. You two are friggin perfect for each other and so obviously smitten with each other and I wish y'all all the happiness in the world
PS Are y'all planning to have a big wedding? If so oh boy I can’t WAIT to get that one in the inbox
gallusrostromegalus