Thoughts and Plots

first, an alternative to the doorbell:

We cut the bell away, attached a spring to the wire and to this another piece of wire, which had a block of wood fastened to one end and the whole was so contrived that the least pull of the bell handle at the door woudl send the block of wood with a dull, heavy, thud, to the floor of the room and the ... vibration it caused never failed to attract our attention.

but the one that brought tears of laughter to my eyes was this alternative to an alarm clock:

We had one [alarm for waking deaf sleepers] in our house ... for a long time and it always worked perfectly. The simplest is a cord attached to teh alarm wheel of a clock, passing from the drum to a point in the cieling over the head of the bed, where a small spring or trap is fixed with a little wire, upon which a pillow or cushion can be hung. The alarm being set at the desired hour, when it strikes, the drum winds up the cord and the pillow ... drops upon the sleeper, who is aroused thereby.

That's

That's Roy Mustang

Just the opposite.

Roy "I grew up with 10 sisters so I know how to disguise covert information reconnaissance as flirting" Mustang.

"I grew up with 10 sisters so I know how to weaponize my sexual charm to disarm others and win favor."

Roy led every higher-up to believe he was just a fuckboy and a manwhore in this for his own ego and that they shouldn't view him as any kind of violent revolutionary like "no sir I'm just a slut."

Which. is an absolutely batshit primary character backstory to mention once, late in the series, and then immediately move on from.

And actually Hiromu Arakawa did it so well that every single fan interpretation of Roy Mustang for the FMA03 anime treated him as an honest to god man-slut. Bought his whole act hook line and sinker.

’Twas Tumblr, and the slithy memes Did bode and call out on the dash: Fucken WIMDY were the shitpost streams, And of things was the trash.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The eeb that deebs, the blorb that plinks! Beware of Shittos Glup, and shun Bendlebick Cumperdincks!”

He took his discourse sword in hand; Long time the chungus foe he sought— So rested he in the ball pit (free!) And sat awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish (derogatory) thought he sat, The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came GIFfling through the old group chat, And hurgled as it came!

UWU! UWU! And through and through The discourse blade went "Um, actually, the Jabberwock is coded as friendly because 'eyes of flame' means red and orange, and those are warm and inviting colors according to 'color theory', which I guess you haven't heard of and don't understand." He left it dead, and with its head He man car door hook hand.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock? Come to my arms, my beamish boi! O #frabjousday! Sounds fake but okay!” He reblogged in his joy.

He wants to demonstrate to the class how this thing called electricity works, so he's going to be bringing in a Firebender, so everybody be cool, we're all friends here... and in walks Princess Azula of the Fire Nation. One-time conqueror of the city. One of the students is currently writing an essay on how her brief rule of the city affected fruit trade. She says she considers the class to still be her subjects as she doesn't acknowledge any pretenders to any of her thrones, but for now you're exempted from bowing and "Your Highness" will do. It's a really interesting lecture.

"Okay, guys - hey, listen up, everyone - I won't be here next week, me and Aang are going to-" yeah right, sure, Professor Sokka knows the Avatar. Except, of course, the Avatar walks in sheepishly and says that Appa might have gotten into Sokka's hybrid crops, and then you all have to sit there and watch your professor chase the Avatar around with a sword.

One postgrad student is specializing in Water Tribe Cultures. She's currently studying the massive cultural shift that happened in the Northern Water Tribe at the end of the war - oh, and Professor, I absolutely know that you're from the Southern Water Tribe, but it's just that the shift started with Master Katara, and of course I don't think that every person from the South knows one another haha it's just that I need to ask her some questions and I thought maybe you could help me write a letter or write a letter of introduction or...

Sokka looks at her blankly and goes "yeah, she's my sister. KATARA!" which is followed by a faint answering "fuck you!" from Somewhere and to the horror/elation of our postgrad, Master Katara bursts in and is promptly beaned in the head with a rock by Professor Sokka. Her brother. her hero and her professor are siblings and currently brawling on the floor.

One day, something in space is going to look at humans the same way. You go to a new galaxy and there's freaking humans in there, like they just spontaneously manifest on random planets that have the ability to sustain them. All you need is an atmosphere with enough oxygen, some form of water, and that's pretty much all you need before they seem to just pop out of the ground and start terraforming it.

The mystery of the lake fish has been solved, by the way. It's waterfowl. Much like the birds that eat seeds and spread them around, waterfowl consume roe from the water, and while the number of fertilised fish eggs that pass through the digestive system of a duck or wild goose alive and unharmed may be small, it's not zero. A goose will shit in the lake water, and through comes the roe. It happens just often enough that lakes and ponds become - and remain - populated with fish.

Humans don't pop up on unknown planets and and unreachable galaxies on purpose. They couldn't get in there any more than they could get out of there, they have no choice but to claim the most viable-looking planet they can reach and start terraforming it. But how did they even get there?