learning many things in the bathroom at the car mechanic

Goethe-Institut did a web series a while back aimed at new arrivals in Germany and I like how it make sure to teach people that a lot of Germans are rude af

like, this is a genuine scene from an ep:

#Ok but for a second there I was like #this is a bit exaggerated #it’s not that rude to say hi to strangers #just a bit weird #but then I realised #the rude person is probably meant to be the one ignoring the ‘hi' 

Well she’s obviously doing it wrong. You got to mumble “Guten Tag” in no one’s actual direction upon entering the waiting room. Then you don’t speak a word (you gotta grab a magazine though, because if you’re on your mobile people will find that asocial) until the doctor calls you and when you get back to retrieve your jacket you mumble “Auf Wiedersehen”.

If you say “Guten Tag” while sitting down it’s either because you’re passive-aggressively shaming the person you’re talking to for not saying “Guten Tag” (which is of course highly respectable, but weird if they did say it) or worse: 

You’re trying to make small-talk.

See also: when entering a crowded bus, tram, subway or train, you do not say a single word. You look for an empty bench. If there are none, you will have a neighbour. You stop at an empty spot and mumble something like “tschulli-ng” or “s-nch-frei?” to the person occupying the other spot on the bench. You nod in an upward direction. They reply a mumbled “türlich” while vaguely looking somewhere near your face and moving their bag if neccessary. You sit down, nod gratefully, and keep your mouth shut for the rest of the ride. Neither of you wanted this. You wanted freedom. Don’t bother each other.

If an entire bench in front of you becomes available at the next stop, though, it is not the polite thing to free your neighbour and yourself up. No, you stay right where you are. The silent stranger next to you is your silent stranger now.

Welcome to Germany. This is how we express love.

None of these people are joking.

And if you’re the one sitting at the window and you want to get off at the next stop, you begin to loudly rustle with your bag whatever, because that way you can signal the other person that you need them to get up without having to speak to them.

Like man I get scared of interacting with people but this just takes it to a whole new level.

and today i learn that i socialize in public like a german

It’s nice to be reminded sometimes that Dutch culture and German culture were one and the same for a really long time and in many ways they still are XD

Though here the other person probably wouldn’t actually shove a literal magazine in front of their face. They’d probably say “hello” back in a super confused voice while doing their level best to nonverbally express their confusion that you tried to interact with them in the first place and please don’t do that again.

I’m having trouble deciding between moving to Germany immediately or never going there ever.

Visit Sweden, spend at least 30 minutes in public there, then move to Germany and soak up the friendly social atmosphere.

(seriously. I’m Dutch, autistic, and an introvert and I sighed with relief when I returned from a trip to Sweden because thank fuck, here there are actual people engaging in verbal communication in public spaces. The constant quiet in Sweden freaked me out. Me. Who normally has to fight urges not to commit bloody murder on public transport because why do people have to make noise all the time. I was relieved to be overhearing 3 conversations and 2 phone calls at once because at least it was better than deadly silence. In Sweden the above image series would’ve ended not with a single raised magazine but with an entire waiting room full of people staring at the person who spoke in public like they’d personally kicked open the gates of hell and unleashed the armies of chaos.)

Anyway my point is Germans are actually quite friendly, they just don’t like small talk. Same mostly goes for Dutch people. And if anyone tries to convince you that we’re standoffish, visit our northern neighbors and bear witness.

I was at a concert in Stockholm with around 30-40k people. No one talked to people outside of their friend group. We were all there to see the same band we all love that had came back for a reunion week or something. After the concert on the train back from the arena into the city, I sit down next to 3 people who are talking about their favourite songs. I did the biggest sin you can do in this country, I joined their conversation and said, “That is a great song!” They looked at me like I had grown tentacles out of my head and I was speaking a demonic language! I sat silently for 20 minutes until my stop, giggling silently about how we sang our hearts out together 40 minutes earlier, and now we can’t even look at each other.

Happy National Library Week!! A great time to ask everyone you know if they have a library card.

(◡‿◡✿)

(ʘ‿ʘ✿) “what you say ‘bout me”

(ʘ‿ʘ  )ノ✿ “hold my flower”

✿＼(｡-_-｡) “Kick his ass, baby.  I got yo flower.”

do you guys remember “kick his ass baby i got yo flower”

this is like asking a medieval christian monk if he remembers the ten commandments like if not what have I been wasting my years learning

“Finally, some nice weather!”

(via)

When you're out to slay.

When you're quivering in your boots.

My favourite thing in the world is seeing folks act like real human beings around big celebrity personalities

Story where everyone is gay and also a kinda shitty person

LEGALLY BLONDE ( 2001 ) dir. Robert Luketic

Every summer I forget how much I fucking love spiders I’ve drunk one every day this week

Drinking spiders??!

You put ice cream in a glass and pour soft drink over it. It creates a thick layer of delicious foam on top of a sweet, creamy drink with ice cream in it.

And yes I did attempt to get a picture by googling “Australia spider” like a fucking moron.

I think that’s called a float in the states. Although we usually plop the icecream into the glass after the soda. Similar effect though.

We wouldn’t be able to call it that because the word is way too easy to confuse with a floater, which is a meat pie floating in a bowl of pea soup. It is every bit as delicious as a spider though. I should get some pies and pea soup.

I would like to announce that this is not a standard Australian food, it’s exclusively a South Australian one and the rest of Australia is just as appalled as the rest of the world.

It’s not our fault that the rest of Australia is incorrect about food.

#WE HAVE SPIDERS IN AOTEAROA and they serve CUNT#im gonna steal ice cream from work this weekend and make spiders with it. i will steal the fizzy from work also#i fucking hate my boss 

Living your best life I see

“average person eats 3 spiders a year" factoid actualy just statistical error. average person eats 0 spiders per year. Spiders Georg, who lives in South Australia and BADLY misinterpreted our survey question,,

which one of u was going to tell me that tea tastes different if u put it in hot water?

y- you were putting it in cold water?????

Radish. Answer the question radish.

yeah??? i thought for like. 5 years that ppl just put it in hot water 2 speed up the tea-ification process didn’t realize there was an actual reason

You dont have the patience to microwave water for 3 minutes???

[ID: Tags reading “u think i have the patience to boil water wtf ?????” /End ID]

why are you. putting it in the microwave to boil it

Do you think I have the patience to boil water on the stove

Its takes less than a minute

Bestie is ur stovetop powered by the fucking sun

How long does it take you to boil a cup of water on the stove

Like seven minutes

Just stick the mug on top of the stove on medium heat n it boils in like two minutes… less than that is u use a saucepan…

Crying you’re putting the whole mug on the stove ???? On medium heat???? Ur stove is enchanted

Every single person in this post is a fucking lunatic

Yet another post that reads like four shakespeare characters who come out in the middle of the play to talk about something completely unrelated for comic relief

(Enter RADISHN’T, MOTHMAN MISATO, BOIMG FROG and CATS'N RAINCOATS, stage left. They are having a HEATED DISCUSSION.)

RADISHN’T: Prithee, which one of you had planned to tell

Of diff'rent flavours gained by simple act

Of brewing tea with water hot, not cold?

MOTHMAN: Egad! you poured the water cold? Wherefore?!

FROG: An answer from you, Radish, I must beg.

RADISHN’T: Indeed I did, dear friends - why does this shock?

Without the guide of others I assumed

That heat was merely added for the sake

Of expediting this solution’s brewing!

Half a decade I have spent, or more,

Not questioning this worldview I had made.

In fact, I am myself a bit surprised

That you might think that I, your dearest friend,

Might have a patience of sufficient stock

To wait until a pot of water boils.

FROG: Three minutes overtaxes patience so?

The microwave will beep when it is done!

CATS'N: My friend, this answer vexes me the more!

Can it be true that thou dost boil by nuke?!

FROG: Are you in turn, my friend, so shocked to know

That I have not the patience, like our Root,

To boil upon the stove our favour’d drink?

CATS'N: It takes less than a minute!

FROG: On what plate?

Perhaps your dinner cooks atop the sun?

CATS'N: How long can take your stove to fill the task

Of boiling but a single cup alone?

FROG: In minutes?

CATS'N: Yes!

FROG: I counted seven, once.

CATS'N: Perhaps you ought to have your timepiece checked!

If on a middle heat you place the cup

You soon will have the scalding drink you crave.

Two minutes, in a mug upon the plate

Or even less, if you should have a pot.

FROG: You cause me tears - is this how thou dost live?

You place upon the iron stove a mug?

A mug, ceramic, filled with water cold?

How do these flames, though medium in height,

Not shatter like a glass this fragile thing?

Surely, then, your kitchen is bewitched

With magicks far beyond the mortal ken!

(The FOUR realise they have wandered into the THRONE ROOM. The ROYAL COURT watches with fascination.)

KING: Ev'ry single person in this group must be a fucking lunatic, it seems.

I’m sorry but the THOUGHT that has been put into this, I actually CAN’T—

The fact that nearly every line is so metrically considered- near perfect iambic pentameter witb the occasional trochee for emphasis, but usually retaining a strong sense of rhythm nonetheless. And then the king comes in at the end, so wound in his disbelief that his response is reduced to prose.

And the even better thing about this is how easy it would have been to structure the king’s line into iambic pentameter: it is effectively already said as such because of the way wizardlyghost has phrased it, yet they haven’t!! They did not break the line, rendering what, by all typically of both Shakespearean canon and other periods context should be the character with the most command and authority in the whole play. If there was ever a more effective way to convey a genuine “what the fuck??”, I know of it not.

But it gets better!! Shakespeare regularly uses meter in order to represent class divide; the nobility usually speak in iambic pentameter, save for a few particularly chosen moments (e.g. Lady Macbeth’s descent into madness, Othello’s realisation of Desdemona’s “betrayal”) or just lines where Shakespeare needs to suggest high emotion or when a character is lost in thought. Supernatural characters like the fairies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Witches in Macbeth usually speak in trochaic tetrameter, an inversion of iambic pentameter. Lower class characters, particularly those used for comic relief (usually under the influence of alcohol), speak with no structure at all: their language is plain prose. Therefore, if this is a conversation between these types of characters, as the prompt from silvergirachi suggests, why the hell are the characters speaking so eloquently???

Now, this is Tumblr. It is subsequently logical to assume that this may have merely been a humorous recreation (and a very good one at that) of the Shakespearean style in a way that is widely recognisable to an audience that may or may not have read a great deal of Shakespeare, which is understandable. However, logic is boring so I’m going to probe further into this to the point where future historians will look to this as an example of overanalysing.

The inherent eloquence of the characters here suggests an unusual subversion of the roles typically assumed in Shakespearean comedy. This could be interpreted along two major avenues: firstly, that the rhetoric displayed by the speakers is fundamentally representative of how truth can be expected even from the most seemingly pointless or ludicrous discussions. Furthermore, it could suggest that it matters not how well constructed your speeches are: if you talk bullshit, it’s going to sound that way despite your attempts to hide it.

This is similar but not identical to the second avenue of interpretation: there is the implication that the noblemen in the play are in fact the comic relief characters, therefore implying that the “common people” of the play are the ones whose influence, though not expressed in such a highly spoken manner, makes a lot more sense than whatever the hell this is. If this was a real Shakespeare play, I would call it a subtle exploration into the innate corruption of the rich and powerful. Well done, op.

Now, I doubt any of this is actually grounded analysis in any way, shape or form, but if someone else can take this to the extremes of writing a Shakespearean scene, why can I not analyse it as such? And where else to do so than Tumblr?

im in tears i didnt think anyone would put this much analysis into this‚ thank you so much

i also like that everyone else gets a version of their handle and then tumblr user pidoop is promoted to king

And now I want a cuppa tea…

dear people with OCD: the next time you have spiraling & intrusive thoughts, what-ifs, or catastrophizing scenarios, I am sending a cardigan-wearing 46-year old NYU professor directly into your brain and he says "Aaaaand scene!!!" and he claps his hands slowly. and he says "Wow. Wow. Powerful stuff. Evocative imagery. A little bit post-modern, a little bit hysterical realism in the vein of Don Delilo but let's pause right here." and you will recognize your thoughts as a perplexing avant-garde film shown to an audience of 15 liberal arts students who are now trying to get a good grade and sleep with their professor.

I almost posted this without the professor-fucking part but I decided that it is in fact crucial to combating OCD. sometimes you have to fight fire with fire i.e. spiraling thoughts with strong negative emotions get countered with strongly emotive surprise, cringe, and humor

sometimes the OCD brain can't just be stopped from fantasizing completely, but you can redirect that anxious mental energy toward crafting a fictional setup and story that doesn't involve you or your fears at all

another thing I do is interrupt intrusive thoughts with a very conscious and deliberate "and then an elephant walks in." and I'd make myself commit to the bit. it would force me to reframe everything and specifically understand it in an absurdist context, make me confront how ridiculous the initial thoughts even were, and there is honestly no way to keep being serious and distraught about your what-if scenarios when you've introduced a fucking elephant into the mix. film studies professor is also that elephant.

so it goes from scary thoughts about my life -> step back. this is a weird fictional film now. -> characters are analyzing the film -> those characters are super messy and have their own problems, and I'm watching them now and eating popcorn at this soap opera

I need you to understand that now I am seeing this whole scenario but the professor is an elephant. Exactly as described, an elephant wearing a cardigan and no I do not understand how it is managing the clapping noise with legs that bend the way an elephant’s do. And yes the students all still want to sleep with him

A+ ADDITION

Happy Leland Melvin Day!!!

I think more of us writers here should pick a scent to associate with writing. At the very least a generic "writing mode" scent, whether a perfume or candle/room spray etc., or if you wanted to get really extra with it, a perfume for each story/project. And then every time you'd sit down to start writing you'd put on that perfume or light that wax melt or whatever and before long you'd learn that that smell meant "write!!" (and even "work on that particular project!!") and I can only imagine that would help with getting into the zone. Also I love creating a mood for stories when I'm writing, carefully curating the right audio and visuals, having a perfume to go with it would only make me (and I presume all the rest of us) even more powerful.

La Mode nationale, no. 36, 7 septembre 1895, Paris. No. 5. — Corsage de foulard. No. 6. — Corsage de mousseline. No. 7. — Corsage de soie. No. 8. — Corsage-veste. No. 9. — Corsage fantaisie. Bibliothèque nationale de France

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