VERY IMPORTANT a dam in the Netherlands, the weerdsluis lock, is directly on a migratory path for spawning fish. They have a worker stationed there to open the door for the fish, but they can take a while to open it. So to keep the fish from getting preyed on by birds they installed a doorbell. Only, the fish don't have hands to ring the doorbell. If you go to their website, they have a LIVE CAMERA AND A DOORBELL that YOU RING FOR THE FISH when they're waiting, and then the dam worker opens the door for them! I can't express how obsessed I am with this. look at this shit. oh my god.
Please check on the fish doorbell once in a while :)
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country bumpkin merlin not knowing anything about city life and accidentally courting arthur without knowing
merlin, watching gwen give lancelot her favor: why do you do that
gwen, heart eyes at lance and not paying that much attention to the conversation: so he knows i’m rooting for him
merlin, with an Idea: ah.
gwaine, lover of chaos, pisser offer of nobles and royals alike, ultimate wingman: merlin…you have such lonely lips. shall i introduce them to mine?
merlin, unaware of the game gwaine is playing: so you can steal my breath away? i think not, scoundrel
arthur, crushing his goblet in his hand:
merlin: arthur’s been in a bad mood recently :( i should cheer him up
merlin, remembering when arthur was put out when merlin brought morgana flowers and not him: i know just the thing
merlin, bringing a bouquet of carnations, roses, and tulips and setting them on arthur’s table while he’s eating breakfast: good morning, sire
arthur, trained on flower language in hopes that one day when he was to take a queen he could woo her easily, trying not to audibly choke on his sausage as he reads merlin’s declaration of love sitting in front of him:
arthur, who recently found out about merlin’s magic and was trying to find a way to bring it up, catching him in the act and watching merlin panic to explain himself:
merlin, Freaking: and i swear to you arthur, i have only ever used it for you. my magic is yours. my life is yours. i am yours. i would never do anything to harm you. i have protected you for years and will continue to do so at your side if you’ll have me
arthur, already believing them to be courting, desperately trying to figure out if that was a proposal for marriage or not but tired of being confused and deciding fuck it: here.
merlin, taking it: i…uh…huh?
arthur, watching merlin with hawk eyes and trying to figure out what he’s thinking and feeling: it’s my mothers sigil
merlin, confused as FUCK but is focusing on the fact that arthur is handing him something of his mother rather than a death sentence: my…my lord?
arthur, realizing how scared merlin’s must be about him finding out about his magic and trying to comfort him while also proposing, killing two birds with one stone: i will always keep you at my side, merlin, so long as we both shall live. if you’ll allow me.
merlin, almost collapsing with relief and tearing up, smiling at arthur as if he had parted the storm clouds to allow sun to shine down on them in that moment: of course…of course, arthur. always and forever.
merlin, watching the castle staff rush this way and that: wow. this banquet must be incredibly important
sir leon the long suffering, day one ride or die, one of the original merthur shippers: banquet? merlin, this is for your wedding
merlin, overworked and exhausted: my WHAT? to WHO??
leon, regretting everything he’s ever done in his life that led him to this moment: to…arthur?
merlin, over joyed but also absolutely befuddled: i’m getting married to ARTHUR?????
leon: you two have been courting for the past year or so, have you not?
merlin: i’ve been COURTING ARTHUR?????? FOR A YEAR?????????
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Actual Phone Conversation I Had With A Girl Absolutely Going Through It This Morning:
me very quickly: hi this is dylan from x. how are you today? is now a good time to talk?
girl on the phone: what? oh you know! it's just work, work, work.
me: haha yeah! Just another busy Monday :)
girl on the phone i have known for exactly 11 seconds: sometimes i wish it would just stop. it's relentless. and it's every week! how many mondays can someone go through?
me trying to do my job: ha ha i know right? so I'm calling--
girl on the phone i have known for exactly 16 seconds: i'm so tired. i'm soooooo tired. shelby kept me up all night again. she will not get over keegan. they keep calling each other just to yell i swear to god.
me: only 4 days till the weekend and some sleep! :D
girl: yeah. but she's sleeping with me. at my house. didn't he tell you? who is going to get the dog? or the fucking 300 dollar blender I got them?
me: unfortunately no! so i would love to know more but the reason i'm calling is to get you scheduled for x job interview are you still interested?
girl whispering: what?
me awkwardly: it's...i'm dylan. from x. the x job you applied for. we would like to interview you for it.
girl: oh my god. no. oh my - I am so sorry. I thought you were my friend--I cannot believe--I told you work was relentless. I don't really mean that! I talked about blenders!
me: no, no I totally get it. It can be. But that's why you're interviewing for somewhere better! Tell Shelby to apply too! Do you have any availability on Thursday?
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Pop culture reduces It's a Wonderful Life to that last half hour, and thinks the whole thing is about this guy traveling to an alternate universe where he doesn't exist and a little girl saying, "Every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings." A hokey, sugary fantasy. A light and fluffy story fit for Hallmark movies.
But this reading completely glosses over the fact that George Bailey is actively suicidal. He's not just standing there moping about, "My friends don't like me," like some characters do in shows that try to adapt this conceit to other settings. George's life has been destroyed. He's bankrupt and facing prison. The lifetime of struggle we've been watching for the last two hours has accomplished nothing but this crushing defeat, and he honestly believes that the best thing he can do is kill himself because he's worth more dead than alive. He would have thrown himself from a bridge had an actual angel from heaven not intervened at the last possible moment.
That's dark. The banker villain that pop culture reduces to a cartoon purposely drove a man to the brink of suicide, which only a miracle pulled him back from. And then George Bailey goes even deeper into despair. He not only believes that his future's not worth living, but that his past wasn't worth living. He thinks that every suffering he endured, every piece of good that he tried to do was not only pointless, but actively harmful, and he and the world would be better off if he had never existed at all.
This is the context that leads to the famed alternate universe of a million pastiches, and it's absolutely vital to understanding the world that George finds. It's there to specifically show him that his despondent views about his effect on the universe are wrong. His bum ear kept him from serving his country in the war--but the act that gave him that injury was what allowed his brother to grow up to become a war hero. His fight against Potter's domination of the town felt like useless tiny battles in a war that could never be won--but it turns out that even the act of fighting was enough to save the town from falling into hopeless slavery. He thought that if it weren't for him, his wife would have married Sam Wainwright and had a life of ease and luxury as a millionaire's wife, instead of suffering a painful life of penny-pinching with him. Finding out that she'd have been a spinster isn't, "Ha ha, she'd have been pathetic without you." It's showing him that she never loved Wainwright enough to marry him, and that George's existence didn't stop her from having a happier life, but saved her from having a sadder one. Everywhere he turns, he finds out that his existence wasn't a mistake, that his struggles and sufferings did accomplish something, that his painful existence wasn't a tragedy but a gift to the people around him.
Only when he realizes this does he get to come back home in wild joy over the gift of his existence. The scenes of hope and joy and love only exist because of the two hours of struggle and despair that came before. Even Zuzu's saccharine line about bells and angel wings exists, not as a sugary proverb, but as a climax to Clarence's story--showing that even George's despair had good effect, and that his newfound thankfulness for life causes not only earthly, but heavenly joy.
If this movie has light and hope, it's not because it exists in some fantasy world where everything is sunshine and rainbows, but because it fights tooth and nail to scrape every bit of hope it can from our all too dark and painful world. The light here exists, not because it ignores the dark, but because the dark makes light more precious and meaningful. The light exists in defiance of the dark, the hope in defiance of despair, and there is nothing saccharine about that. It's just about as realistic as it gets.
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Jason: oh so being an anti-hero is sexy and cool when your fuck buddies do it, but god forbid I-your SON-even touch a duffel bag full of heads. Is it the lack of tits B? Is it?
Bruce:
Jason:
Bruce:
Jason: 🤨
Bruce: never say that to me again *melts into darkness*
Dick: *muffled wheezing from medbay bed*
Jason: see how he didn’t answer?
Dick: *actually dead from his broken rib puncturing a lung*
Jason: *pokes dick* *pokes dick* *pokes dick*
Jason: if I had tits this would have never been an issue :/
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