You're braver than you believe

Dani & Jamie | The meaning of the Claddagh Ring 

The Claddagh’s distinctive design features two hands clasping a heart surmounted by a crown. These elements symbolize the qualities of friendship (the hands): “You are my best friend”, love (the heart): “And the love of my life”, and loyalty (the crown): “I don’t know how much time we have left, but however much it is I wanna spend it with you”. The Claddagh ring was traditionally worn with the intention of conveying the wearer’s relationship status; if worn on the left ring finger with the point of the heart toward the wrist it means that the wearer is married: “And I know we can’t technically get married, but I also don’t really care. We can wear the rings, and we’ll know.”

Paul “the real-estate novelist”. Three words! That’s all we need to build a complete picture of this man’s personality and history. And then it just rounds out the picture with “never had time for a wife”.

And we don’t even pause a beat before jumping to the equally vivid tragedy of “Davy who’s still in the navy and probably will be for life.”

And these two are talking together! Because of course they are, these kindred souls stuck in their lives of mediocrity.

The whole song’s nothing but lightning-fast character sketches. The old man whose song is “sad and sweet and knew it complete when I wore a younger man’s clothes.”

John at the bar, so firmly established as cheerful and friendly and exuberant before the 180 turn to “Bill, I believe this is killing me.”

The waitress practicing politics.

Even the businessmen “sharing a drink they call loneliness, but it’s better than drinking alone.”

All these tiny little tragicomic figures gathered around a bar’s piano. Sketched in five minutes and thirty-nine seconds–and that’s counting the choruses and harmonica breaks.

On the one hand, it’s kind of fascinating that they know to do that.

raccoons and possums and foxes and crows all succeed in an urban environment because they’re opportunistic and observant. and almost none of them would have observed us pounce on one of their species and then start eating it, you know? a lot of them would have observed that we scream and chase them out of wherever we don’t want them to be, but other animals are territorial too. but there’s a number of situations where humans feed whoever’s bold enough to take them up on the offer, and we do tend to pull garbage off of other animals as soon as they slow down enough for us to catch. ‘a human got me but nothing bad happened’ is a much more frequent thing than ‘a human got me and tried to eat me’.  

I mean, I guess in fairytales and myths we’ve got our fair share of stories about dangerous people/creatures who might well kill you or otherwise ruin your life, but to whom people nonetheless turn for help in desperate circumstances. So it’s not like the perspective is exactly a foreign thing to our own mindset, really… It’s just that, y’know, we can’t actually go make a deal with the faeries when there’s something we can’t figure out.

Of the stories I’ve read, the food of the Fae, its origins and effects, are often strange and/or obscure.- Just like our food to most animals.

The Fae are strange beings that seem to know weird things that give them power or an edge over us.- Just like us to animals.

The Fae work and live by strange rules also often nonsensical or obscure to us.- Just like us to animals.

The Fae can easily obtain vast amounts of things we consider rare/precious/desireable, and have no problem with dishing it out wantonly for no other reason than amusement.- Just like us to animals.

The Fae sometimes are amused by having us around, but only on their terms and IF it amuses/intrigues them.- Just like us to animals.

-they have wild and unexpected parties where you’d least expect to find them, but if you’re bold enough to entertain them they’ll feed you and caress you and play with you all night.

-time runs strangely in their realm. their homes are summerlands: warm and bright, no matter the season. there is always fruit on their tables. but not everyone who comes in from the cold is let back out again.  

-their games are cruel and complex and unfair, but if you can beat them by their own rules you will access riches beyond imagining.

-sometimes they just fucking fuck with you, the fuckheads.

-they will absolutely steal your children away. when your children return— if they ever do— they will come back strange. they will have magic earrings or necklaces or bracelets. they will know things they shouldn’t. they won’t know things that they should. your strange children might survive, might even prosper, might take wives and husbands and have children of their own. but they will always be marked by their time away from your world.

-the price for pissing them off is always death. sometimes just you. sometimes your whole community.