Disaster

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine s01e13 "Battle Lines"

The hilarious thing about House MD being a loose Sherlock Holmes adaptation is that in the books and pretty much every adaptation Watson follows Holmes around whilst he solves cases and helps him solve the cases and in universe writes about them for an audience, so even though there are varying levels of homosexual vibes and they are friends there is at least a plot reason for Watson to be there all the time. In House though the ‘helping him solve the case’ role is given to his team so apart from House bouncing ideas off of him and the times it may or may not be cancer Wilson following house around to the extent that he does is just kind of Because. If you accept that Wilson is supposed to be the Watson figure in the show then it’s pretty funny that they got rid of all the motives Watson has for following Holmes around all the time and are just left with ‘he’s my bro’. Like he’s not there to solve the puzzles or to get Content out of House solving the puzzles but he is still always there; it ruins his marriage how much he is always there.

truly nothing about house md prepares you for wilson. he's fucking insane. he's been divorced three times. he's the only person who can scheme just as well as house. he gives a patient his own liver bc he felt bad for him - a patient who didn't even know wilson's name. btw. he noticed a patient had depression bc he never mentioned his grandkids. he starred in a porno. he dosed house with antidepressants for several weeks. he allowed his boybestie and his gf to share custody of him and didn't even try to stop it. house told him to buy a piece of furniture that represented who he was, and he bought a $4000+ organ for house. he was gonna torpedo his career to talk abt euthanasia bc one of his patients suffered longer than he had to. he let house move into his 1 bed apartment bc his therapist thought it'd be a good idea. this man would do anything for anybody if they let him. he'd fucking quit his job to save a snail off the sidewalk. bro is not normal in the slightest

ok but the way they've been on again off again for three seasons specifically shrouded in the colours of the swedish flag - showing us the monarchy has intruded on their relationship. even the good, even the private, and always, always the bad and the ugly.

makes this white flag moment of surrender even more powerful. they're stripped of this blue and gold brushed over them by society, colourless and allowed to create their own existence - together, a blank slate. themselves, again and only - forever.

YOUNG ROYALS Season 3 Episode 5

#not a single thought behind those eyes

YOUNG ROYALS (2021—2024)

It’s monumental. He’s doing things for himself and not just for his relationship with Simon. That final look into the camera is him speaking directly to the audience saying: “Trust me, I’m going to be fine. You can go.”

— EDVIN RYDING for The Daily Beast

HERE’S THE THING THOUGH

I used to work for a call center and I was doing a political survey and I called this number that was randomly generated for me and the way our system worked was voice-activated so when the other person said hello you’d get connected to them, so I just launch right into my “Harvard University and NPR blah blah blah” thing and then there’s this long pause and I think the person’s hung up even though I didn’t hear a click

And then I hear “you shouldn’t be able to call this number.”

So I apologize and go into the preset spiel about because we aren’t selling anything, etc. etc. and the answer I get is

“No, I know that. What I mean is that it should be impossible for you to call this number, and I need to know how you got it.”

I explain that it’s randomly generated and I’m very sorry for bothering him, and go to hang up. And before I can click terminate, I hear:

“Ma’am, this is a matter of national security.”

I accidentally called the director of the FBI.

My job got investigated because a computer randomly spit out a number to the Pentagon.

This is my new favourite story.

When I was in college I got a job working for a company that manages major air-travel data. It was a temp gig working their out of date system while they moved over to a new one, since my knowing MS Dos apparently made me qualified.

There was no MS Dos involved. Instead, there was a proprietary type-based OS and an actually-uses-transistors refrigerator-sized computer with switches I had to trip at certain times during the night as I watched the data flow from six pm to six AM on Fridays and weekends. If things got stuck, I reset the server. 

The company handled everything from low-end data (hotel and car reservations) to flight plans and tower information. I was weighed every time I came in to make sure it was me. Areas of the building had retina scanners on doors. 

During training. they took us through all the procedures. Including the procedures for the red phone. There was, literally, a red phone on the shelf above my desk. “This is a holdover from the cold war.” They said. “It isn’t going to come up, but here’s the deal. In case of nuclear war or other nation-wide disaster, the phone will ring. Pick up the phone, state your name and station, and await instructions. Do whatever you are told.”

So my third night there, it’s around 2am and there’s a ringing sound. 

I look up, slowly. The Red phone is ringing.

So I reach out, I pick up the phone. I give my name and station number. And I hear every station head in the building do the exact same. One after another, voices giving names and numbers. Then silence for the space of two breaths. Silence broken by…

“Uh… Is Shantavia there?”

It turns out that every toll free, 1-900 or priority number has a corresponding local number that it routs to at its actual destination. Some poor teenage girl was trying to dial a friend of hers, mixed up the numbers, and got the atomic attack alert line for a major air-travel corporation’s command center in the mid-west United States.

There’s another pause, and the guys over in the main data room are cracking up. The overnight site head is saying “I think you have the wrong number, ma’am.” and I’m standing there having faced the specter of nuclear annihilation before I was old enough to legally drink.

The red phone never rang again while I was there, so the people doing my training were only slightly wrong in their estimation of how often the doomsday phone would ring. 

Every time I try to find this story, I end up having to search google with a variety of terms that I’m sure have gotten me flagged by some watchlist, so I’m reblogging it again where I swear I’ve reblogged it before.

But none of these stories even come close to the best one of them all; a wrong number is how the NORAD Santa Tracker got started.

Seriously, this is legit.

In December 1955, Sears decided to run a Santa hotline.  Here’s the ad they posted.

Only problem is, they misprinted the number.  And the number they printed?  It went straight through to fucking NORAD.  This was in the middle of the Cold War, when early warning radar was the only thing keeping nuclear annihilation at bay.  NORAD was the front line.

And it wasn’t just any number at NORAD.  Oh no no no.

And then, it got better.

For real.

So yeah.  I think that might be the best wrong number of all time.

Source:  http://www.npr.org/2014/12/19/371647099/norads-santa-tracker-began-with-a-typo-and-a-good-sport

No okay THAT is adorable and I’m queueing this for next December.

per anon’s request, i present to you THE best version of beatrice’s monologue in much ado about nothing. i thought about cropping this but decided this scene must be watched in its full glory

What’s really cool about this is this is the first version of this scene that I’ve seen where the tone doesnt whiplash wildly which is so hard to do!!! Bc it’s a scene that comes directly after some rough public shaming and it is both a love confession scene and a scene where a woman asks someone to kill someone and the love confession IS funny but Beatrice’s monologue is not. A lot of the other versions- even well beloved ones like the 2011 version with David Tennant and Catherine Tate- do this scene and there is emotional whiplash, audiences often laughing when Beatrice begs Benedict to kill Claudio. To see it done this way??? Oh my god the line read on “if a were a man, I would eat his heart in the marketplace” DESERVED that cheet

As someone who took etiquette lessons, politeness is an incredibly effective tool for disarming bigots. You can either force them to reconsider their words/actions by directly and calmly confronting their behavior (by using the rules of society in your favor), or you can dip entirely while they appear to be in the wrong.

Both options are great.

Because the thing is, when bigots pick fights, they are 100% counting on you to get louder than them. Or meaner. They want you to react emotionally and provide fodder for their 'You're Too Emotionally Immature To Understand' cannon.

What they aren't expecting you to do is say one of the following phrases in a polite, concerned tone:

For those of you who'd are spiteful and/or dealing with Fundamentalists/Evangelicals/generally shitty Christians:

And my all time favorite:

"It sounds to me like there are some seriously dark and angry forces at work in your heart."

(Nothing stops a Christian bigot in their tracks faster than implying the Devil is causing their bigotry. But you MUST be calm, polite, and gentle with your tone and wording. It is absolutely fair to twist the rules and play them at their own game, but you gotta play hard.)

TLDR: It's much faster to use etiquette, politeness, and rhetoric reversal when eviscerating idiots online and in person, because they aren't expecting you to weaponize their behaviors back in their direction. Don't get angry, get spitefully polite! :)

1.08 | PERCY JACKSON AND THE OLYMPIANS

"The sea does not like to be restrained."

The betrayal scene was everything we could’ve asked for and I’ll tell you why.

Luke taking Percy to where he taught him how to fight. Percy being the one to figure out Luke’s the traitor and Like trying to defend himself. Luke realizing what we’ve all come to realize: that Percy is just like him. Percy, who has been screwed over by the gods over and over in the span of a few weeks. Percy, who has almost been killed and lied to and taken advantage of by gods he hasn’t even met. Luke Percy, who has been limited to what the gods want and what they think and what they believe.

The fireworks illuminating the two boys, one in blue and the other in red. One destined to save the world, one destined to destroy it. Two minds thinking alike but two souls acting in contrast.

Luke isn’t the bad guy in this story. He was a choice. He was the path that Percy just as easily could’ve chosen if Luke hadn’t chosen it first. If didn’t see the good in people the way he does or if loyalty wasn’t his fatal flaw.

I’ve read the books so many times and I’d be lying if I said I was 100% convinced Percy wasn’t going to join him. If I said I 100% didn’t agree with Luke or believe he was in the wrong. If I said I didn’t wish that something could’ve changed this time and one boy saved the other before the end could begin.

only percy “professional little shit” jackson would actively call kronos, the lord of time and his main ancient evil antagonist, grandpa

that is my disrespectful and violently out of pocket king right there!!

This might be a hot take, but I actually like that Percy figured out Luke was the traitor at the last minute. There were A LOT of clues that would’ve been hard to ignore, and he ignored them for as long as he could. And it’s clear that even after accusing Luke, he’s still surprised and heartbroken at Luke’s confirmation of his suspicions. He was holding out hope, guys!!

Also, the Betrayal Scene flows better as an exchange of dialogue and a swordfight than it did, in the books, as a monologue and a scorpion sting. This also leaves a bigger impact on the viewers and characters because it’s more emotional.