wait is 5! = 120 an actual math thing i just reblogged it bc i sincerely believe that yelling a number makes it bigger
An exclamation point after a number means factorial. Five factorial is 5 times 4 times 3 times 2 times 1. Three factorial is 3 times 2 times 1, etc.
But the more exclamation points after a number, the less big it is, a double factorial is every other number, so 6!! is 6 times 4 times 2, which is less than 6!, So yelling a number makes it bigger, but yelling louder makes it smaller again
it’s because you scared it
@mathionalist this struck me as just kind of adorable
There are roughly five and a half fucktillion extracanonical gospels out there. For the first couple centuries after Jesus bit it, his followers wrote a ridiculous amount of fanfic. There were a gajillion different headcanons floating around about exactly who and what he even was (God pretending to be human? human who got possessed by God at his baptism? human who got promoted to demigod after his death? simultaneously God and human all along??) and lots of early Christian communities ~conveniently~ discovered a Totally 100% Authentic Eyewitness Account that supported their pet theory (and also, proved that their fave disciple was clearly the best).
Big Name Fans argued about all the major disagreements, periodically throwing conventions specifically to bicker until they reached some sort of consensus (more or less – sometimes the hold-outs ended up saying “screw you guys, we’re gonna go form our own church!”) Toward the end of the second century, a guy named Irenaeus wrote a meta arguing that there were four fics worth reading – no more, no less – and they were ones that folks somewhere along the line started to claim were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. This idea caught on as a popular bit of fanon, and over the next couple of centuries it gained so much support that it was declared canon.
So, what’s the point of this Jesus fandom history lesson? Basically, that the discovery of yet another extracanonical text isn’t particularly earth-shattering. Headlines like “Ancient Bible changes everything! Pope freaking out!” are bullshit, but that’s how it’s always framed cause more accurate headlines like “Old manuscript discovered – Historians say ‘Ooh, nifty!’” aren’t very good click-bait.
The actual history and politics of the various gospel texts are really fascinating though (if you’re a huge fucking nerd, like me). In the Gospel of Judas, he’s the only disciple who really understands Jesus, who told Judas to “betray” him. Also, God’s a Glow Cloud. The Infancy Gospel of Thomas has kid!Jesus smite other kids for being little shits. The Gospel of Peter is hella anti-Jewish, but has one cool bit with a character that’s literally a walking, talking cross. There’s a whole book called “Q” which has never even been found, but scholars are pretty sure exists cause Matthew and Luke copied a lot from it.
Seriously, leaning about this stuff made me go “woah, this is freaking awesome – why the hell did my parents’ church make the Bible seem so damn boring??” Well, probably cause all those white upper middle class folks didn’t want us kiddies to dig too deep and find out what a radical, anti-establishment bamf Jesus really was, but that’s another rant for another time…
Reblogging because this is what I live for. As a medieval history major, I got taught first and foremost that we’d be spending four years reading lies and biased half-truths and mythologies. Our job was to find the places they agreed and work the rest out from there. “Do the edge pieces first, Maggie.” I took an entire seminar on forgeries, because so many of the sources historians use to piece together the past are known fakes, but the best they can do is read between the lines or have no lines at all. There’s a reason why medieval historians read farm reports featuring travel descriptions and saints’ lives involving demons-living-in-buckets with the same attention to detail. Every dry history text you’ve read in your life comes from a pile of sources like this, bits of maybe-truth cobbled together with toothpaste and narwhal horn dust.
The moral of the story is be curious, and look for the lies in truth and the truth in lies. It’s pretty great: hello, history, riddle me this.
I want to reblog this as a reminder to people what I’m really working with here, and why I tend to be so critical of those who claim there’s only one answer to the question of what we do know, and what we CAN know about history. To reiterate the above:
Every dry history text you’ve read in your life comes from a pile of
sources like this, bits of maybe-truth cobbled together with toothpaste
and narwhal horn dust.
The moral of the story is be curious, and look for the lies in truth and
the truth in lies. It’s pretty great: hello, history, riddle me this.
The further you go down the research rabbithole, the weirder and more exceptional and amazing and interesting the narrative becomes. What we know about these times and places has been contingent upon the judgement of whoever has access to the primary sources, the dusty piles and the scraps of maybe-truths.
Now, with more and more libraries and museums digitizing their collections, we can all access these sources. We can watch or participate in the discovery of these narratives, which have long been pushed to the margins because those who had power to decide what is and is not “important” about history declined to mention them. Now we have the access to dig through it ourselves, for those who have the ability and the interest to do so, and see what amazing people, events, and narratives there are to be shared that we have decided are interesting and important.
In 1938, Bucky Barnes comes home from a long day at the docks and looks down at a full sink. He directs a halfhearted glare in the direction of the small lump doodling something at the kitchen table. “Goddamnit, Steve. Dishes.”
In 2016, Steve Rogers rubs his face and drags himself into the kitchen before heading out to search the city — the cooling trail — again. He drops his plate into the sink. There’s already some other things in there. He’ll get to them later, probably. When he has time. It doesn’t really matter.
He turns to go.
The shadow behind the refrigerator shifts slightly, and the Winter Soldier hoarsely whispers, “I swear to God, Steve, there’s a fucking machine for it right there.”
The interested reader should consult What Tolkien Officially Said About Elf Sex, the most extensive guide to elf sexuality I’m aware of. Also, be aware that I haven’t read Silm and anything in here contradicted by Silm is a result of ignorance.
The bits I find interesting are that (1) elf marriage is defined as being sex— the party is considered a good idea, but strictly optional, (2) elves don’t commit adultery and (3) elves can apparently tell from the way someone moves whether they’re wed or unwed. Now, this may just be that elves are Good Catholics, but are you kidding, there is an opportunity for my favorite tropes. I propose: elf hypermonogamy!
(I actually totally thought elf hypermonogamy was canon until I was researching my answer for this ask. GODDAMMIT TOLKIEN.)
Elves are universally demisexual: they literally do not experience sexual attraction to people they aren’t in romantic love with. Elves are only capable of being in love with one person at once. It takes them a long time to get over love; it’s quite common for a rejected elf to never fall in love again, and most of those who do go centuries before they do.
So, how does that affect my favorite ships?
I feel like Legolas/Gimli is super-more-awesome if Legolas was literally never sexually attracted to anyone before Gimli and has no idea what this emotion is. So he is all like OH GOD THIS DWARF IS SO ANNOYING 😡 😡 😡 I JUST WANT TO THINK ABOUT HIM ALL THE TIME. BECAUSE HE’S ANNOYING. I WONDER WHAT HIS HAIR FEELS LIKE. And eventually this gets to the point where even Mr. They’re Taking The Hobbits To Isengard starts wondering if something’s up.
and then at Lothlorien he seeks the advice of Galadriel and Galadriel is like “Legolas, you’re in love” and Legolas is like “???!???!!!!!!”
and Galadriel thinks to herself “JESUS CHRIST, Legolas, Luthien and Arwen are one thing, human boys are sort of cute, but DID YOU REALLY JUST FALL FOR, OF ALL PEOPLE, A FUCKING DWARF”
(and then Gimli does the hair thing and she’s like “well, at least he has good taste”)
and then Legolas ends up having sex with Gimli. Now, dwarves totally have a culture of warrior homosexuality. (Also: everything homosexuality????) So Gimli is all like “ah, yes, manly men blowing off some steam in a manly way after battle, this surely does not mean Feelings” and Legolas is like “:( 😦 😦 I will go stare at a river and write love poetry in Quenya more beautiful than the hearts of Men can bear” but he totally doesn’t let Gimli know because he doesn’t want to Pressure Gimli Into A Relationship and also because he will Take What He Can Get
and then at some point Aragorn is sadly singing to himself about Luthien as is his third-favorite hobby (behind beard growth and still not being king) and Gimli is like “why the hell would she give up her immortality anyway, dude, it’s fucking immortality? why can’t she marry an elf instead” and with one thing and another Aragorn ended up telling him about the Elvish Facts of Life
and then Gimli storms up to Legolas and is like YOU KNOW USUALLY I LIKE TO BE INFORMED WHEN I’M MARRIED TO PEOPLE
and Legolas is like “…I’m… married to you but you’re not married to me?”
and Gimli is like I DON’T KNOW WHAT NANCY SHIT YOU PONCY MOTHERFUCKERS GET UP TO BUT AMONG DWARVES MARRIAGE IS USUALLY CONSIDERED A TRANSITIVE PROPERTY
and Legolas was like “I am sorry, I understand if you will never speak to me again” and he is mentally drafting, like, the world’s saddest poem, like, it will win the Saddest Poem contest Elrond holds every year
and Gimli is like YOU FUCKING MORON OF COURSE I WANT TO BE MARRIED TO YOU HOW ELSE CAN I GET TO SHOW YOU ALL THE PRETTY CAVES
and Legolas is like “oh. Oh!”
and then he ends up smuggling his boyfriend into Valinor, I assume by just sort of shoving him into the luggage. “Dwarf? What dwarf? I don’t have a dwarf. What, no, my bag isn’t wriggling, you’re seeing things. Gosh, there are weird sounds on the sea, that one sounded almost like the word ‘fuck’.”
also I feel like this whole thing makes Elrond and Arwen infinitely more amusing
Elrond: NO YOU ARE NOT GOING TO MARRY ARAGORN Arwen: GRANDMA DID Elrond: AND LOOK WHERE THAT GOT HER Arwen: I DON’T CARE I LOVE HIM Elrond: THERE ARE LOTS OF NICE BOYS IN VALINOR, I’M SURE YOU’LL FIND SOMEONE ELSE Arwen: NO I WON’T Elrond: …fuck. You’re right. Arwen: (looks smug) Elrond: you know Elros really had the right idea, immortality is awesome but at least HUMANS HAVE THE CONCEPT OF SERIAL MONOGAMY
this needs another reblog bc every reason, but also because i think of the phrase “among dwarves marriage is usually a transitive property” a lot and laugh hysterically
…. YOU TAGGED ME IN THIS HOW DID YOU EVEN KNOW. we have never – how the hell did u
i mean YES this is absolutely something OF INTEREST TO ME bc nerd analysis of FANTASY ROMO DYNAMICS is always gonna be my shit, i will clap my hands and kick my heels and approve of Analyzing Romantic And/Or Sexual Social Dynamics Of Fictional/Fantasy Societies till the cows come home (LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT GARGOYLES/THE CLAN PHEROMONE HEADCANON I JUST SPRANG ON @cemetery-prince, I SAY) –
but I am also laughing bc yeeEEAHHH I ALSO SHIP LEGOLAS/GIMLI LIKE YEAH and as far as i know *i have never told u this* and have not reblogged shit with them in like 3 years bc they are a Lapsed Ship/Fandom of mine (u know the ones that lie DORMANT) so like
Title: Armed And Dangerous Rating: G Summary: Bucky hates everything, except maybe little kids with prosthetic arms.
It was Sam’s idea to go to the hospital, which was not that surprising. Bucky was getting used to living with two proud, stubborn, bleeding goddamn hearts, and while their chipper Pollyanna outlook on life desperately needed his dark and morbid sense of humor to balance it, he knew in truth nothing would ever stop Steve and Sam from worrying about orphans and crying over ASPCA commercials.
So it wasn’t surprising that Sam thought a visit to the children’s hospital was just what they needed after nearly a year of what Bucky dryly referred to as “Hydra and Seek” – where he torched Hydra outposts and Steve and Sam tried to pin him down and forcibly drag him into a group hug.
Steve, Sam said, needed to be reminded that he was a hero, that people liked and admired him, and Bucky would concede that Steve couldn’t generally find his self-esteem with two hands and a map. Bucky, Sam said, could use to be reminded that people in general were not horrible monsters. Bucky felt this was overstating things. Most people were just horrible. They weren’t monsters. He was a monster.
“What if I snap?” he asked. It was a legitimate question. It’d happened twice, once when Steve had tried to elbow him out of the way while cooking (the knife went into the wall, not Steve’s arm, but it was a close thing) and once when he’d been brushing his teeth, and the toothbrush had hit his gums wrong, had reminded him of the bite-guard and the prep machine. Since then, he’d just used mouthwash.
“They’re little kids, you won’t snap,” Steve said. “Besides, I’ll be there.”
“What exactly are you telling the hospital?” Bucky asked.
“That Captain America and two war veterans are coming to help hand out Cap dolls and stickers to the kids,” Sam said.
Which was how Bucky ended up yawning his way through a car ride at 9 in the goddamn morning on a Saturday, with Steve in full getup in the front seat.
When they finally got to the hospital, someone gave him a coffee, and that cheered him up while he watched Steve get mobbed by tiny kids in wheelchairs, on crutches, with bald heads, with bandages. Sam had a box of stickers as big as some of the kids, and soon most of the kids were clutching Cap dolls and covered in stickers as they crowded around Steve to touch the shield and pat the wings on his cowl and ask him questions. It was, Bucky had to admit, really nice to see people who just loved Steve for being awesome. Because Steve was awesome, when you got down to it, and too many people gave him too much crap for it.
He wasn’t doing much himself, and nobody seemed to mind that, when he heard the slap of hospital clogs on the floor, and a little kid appeared in the doorway, watching with dark eyes. He held onto the frame with one hand. His other hand was bright blue plastic, jointed at the wrist and fingers.
“Did I miss Captain America?” he asked breathlessly.
“No, he’s right over there,” Bucky said, pointing to the crowd of kids around Steve.
“Oh,” the kid said, looking disappointed. “I guess he’s out of dolls, huh?”
“Nah, he brought like, a million of ‘em. Go get one,” Bucky said, gesturing him forward. The boy started to shake his head, then caught sight of the arm, eyes widening. Bucky tucked it away in his pocket quickly, but it was too late.
“Is that a ‘sthetic?” the boy asked, darting forward to grab it. Bucky stiffened. “Whoa, cool. Is it bionic? Mine’s 3-D printed.“
“Um, positronic,” Bucky said, because that’s what Steve’s pal Tony said it was. He wiggled the fingers, and the boy gasped.
“Is it strong? Can you lift stuff? I can’t lift much. Lift me!” he demanded, wrapping his arms around Bucky’s wrist. Bucky rolled his eyes, but he raised his arm until it stuck straight out, with the little boy dangling from it and shrieking excitedly.
Like a flock of goddamn birds, the other children noticed that someone was giving Prosthetic Arm Rides, and they all abandoned Steve to poke and tug at Bucky’s arm. Bucky scooped the boy up and said, “Captain America’s free, you wanna go see him?”
“No, I wanna play with your arm!” the boy insisted. Bucky glanced at Steve, then at Sam, then carefully set the boy down and reached across his chest, disengaging the arm from its socket. The children screamed happily.
“I’m gonna getcha with my arm!” the boy yelled, grabbing it from Bucky and chasing a little girl in a wheelchair, who zoomed around the room, laughing.
“Look, the Grinch’s heart grew three sizes,” Sam said.
“Get lost,” Bucky replied.
“Guess we better put in an order for some Bucky Barnes dolls,” Steve said. “We’ll get ‘em to do the arm in silver, bet they can make it detachable with that velcro stuff. it’ll look nice."
"I hate you both,” Bucky said, but he crouched down so the rest of the kids could push his sleeve up and poke at the socket mount for his arm.
Your honor! Please direct your attention towards the manga.
As you can see there are small pieces of paper sticking out of every volume.
But no such paper is sticking out of the Batman comic.
The reason? The Batman book doesn’t belong to the library. The photographer put it there to take a picture.
Once again making hasty assumptions, Wright?
First of all, I’d like to direct the court’s attention to this particular spot, in the top right-hand corner.
Notice how the words are blocking the top of the Batman book.
With this in mind, how can you claim that there is “no such paper sticking out of the Batman comic”?!
Say whaaaat?
Well uhm
Look at the size of the paper pieces, they’re all sticking pretty far out.
If there was paper in the batman comic, it would be big enough to stick up over the text.
And while gravity does exist, it probably won’t make the paper do a 90 degree turn and just lean horisontally left at the middle.
Still grasping for straws, Wright?
Hypothetically, if there were a paper there, this picture would not be able to prove its presence. I’ve taken the liberty of drawing a diagram to illustrate my point. We are faced with three possibilities. It is possible that (1) the paper was simply tucked in deeper than the others.
Paper is a soft material, Wright. It’s not unreasonable for it to do a (2) 90 degree turn.
Or perhaps, (3) a paper does not exist there at all.
Either way, you cannot prove your client innocent without sufficient evidence.
Which, of course, is impossible thanks to the obtrusive words.
I’m sorry Edgeworth.
I concede that I can’t disprove theory 1
But the image you submited for theory 2 is contradictory.
Look at the tilt of the other papers. They clearly prove how much the paper would tilt.
And theory 3 is my point! Why would the library’s book not have this piece of paper when the other library books do?
While you still have thory 1, there is another contradiction.
The books are not in alphabetical order, this proves that the batman comic was placed there specifically for the picture!
Ack.
(Perhaps I should’ve left the artistry to the forensic artist…)
Now hold it right there! It doesn’t matter which direction the paper is going because it’s impossible to prove it even exists!
Those theories are all the same! We do not have enough information to prove them. There could be an infinite amount of papers in there for all we know. I simply presented them only so that the court could better understand your baseless conjecture!
… I suppose the order of the books do seem out of the ordinary. However, therein lies not just one possibility. Clearly, those are Japanese graphic novels, also known as “manga”. And the Batman comic book is a graphic novel, too, no?
Seeing as it currently has only graphic novels in the shelf, it is possible that any other novels have simply not yet been restocked. Asserting whether or not this effect was deliberate is useless– there is no way of knowing if the photographer and the captioner are the same person, let alone their involvement in this picture.
Face it Wright, you can’t prove any of these groundless accusations!
I thought I was gonna go to bed early tonight but I guess not
hey friend you just unleashed my nerdy wrath buckle up
short answer: no, I know r&j is a tragedy and I read it as such. Shakespeare didn’t write “romances”, at least not in the sense you mean (some people call his later stuff that’s harder to put into a genre ‘romances’, such as the winter’s tale and the tempest)
so no I’m not a moron thanks
here’s the long answer:
I presume you’re “one of those people” who likes to count themselves as the Specialest Snowflake In All The Land because they don’t buy into the fake cheesy idea of //romance// that everyone else so blindly believes
maybe you like to talk about how romeo and juliet were “just horny teenagers”, how they knew each other for three days, how romeo so loved rosaline thirty seconds before spotting juliet, so clearly he’s fickle and silly. they weren’t actually in love, they were just teenage idiots. because only stupid girls buy that stuff. you’re more mature than that. am I right?
well, here’s the thing, sunshine- you aren’t special. I hear this same damn argument right down to the last word every time I mention my love of this play and it ENRAGES me every time because 99% of the time this is coming from /other teenagers/. other young people talking about how this isn’t a story to be taken SERIOUSLY. it’s silly and frivolous and unrealistic. they don’t realize that this play is dedicated to them.
and it’s criticizing people just like you.
while I do believe that these two young people were soul mates (I’ll get to that later), I don’t really think this is a story about love. it’s a story about /passion/- how love and hate are only a hair’s breadth apart and their overwhelming capacity for healing or for destroying. the emotion that drives mercutio to defend romeo from tybalt. what drives mercutio to be killed at his hand. what pushes formerly docile, dreamy romeo to slay his cousin in law: it all begins to seem like the same continuous passion, enflaming the same group of people on the hottest day of the year.
as a result, love isn’t a pretty thing in this play. it’s linked inextricably to death, to murder, to chaos. love is presented as the most dangerous force in the universe. it leaves five bodies in its wake, and then at the end (people forget this) it’s what finally brings the ancient feud to an end. it’s not silly. it’s not frivolous. o brawling love, o loving hate.
and who are the conductors of this unstoppable force? who sets verona burning and then rebuilds it better in under a week?
kids.
people with a shitty understanding of this play who love to dismiss it and downplay it like to call it a “cautionary tale”- why you shouldn’t think with your dick, why you should grow up and not be so rash, be sensible.
I agree with part of this. it is a cautionary tale. but it’s directed at YOU.
you, who devalue youth. you, who underestimate teenagers and what they’re capable of, who wave off their every thought or feeling with “just a kid”. who think that love is a pretty little silly thing and that no one under the age of 25 is capable of really experiencing it. that the kids don’t MATTER.
capulet thought it- he dismissed tybalt’s rage during the party as dumb kids throwing a hissy fit. he wrote juliet off as a child who should be seen and not heard, shuffled from her father to her husband, guided by the wisdom of those older and wiser than her.
in the world presented in the play, age has NOTHING to do with wisdom. the adults range from careless (montague) to helpless (lady capulet) to blithering (the nurse). the wisest character, the most eloquent and intelligent one with the most beautiful poetry, is fourteen year old juliet. (go back and read it. whose speeches are the most beautiful, sophisticated, complex? Juliet’s.)
okay, fine, you say. but they didn’t love each other, they just saw each other and got hot and bothered and wanted to jump the other’s bones! anyway, what about rosaline?!
I’ll address rosaline first:
shakespeare likes making fun of the poets of old (take for instance his “my mistress’ eyes” sonnet, a deliberate parody of the Petrarchan model of frilly love poetry). heres another example in romeo. when we first meet romeo he’s mooning over a girl in the frilliest, stalest, most formulaic verse imaginable. we get the feeling he’s enjoying himself, basking in his misery.
notice, though, that we never see rosaline on stage. she represents romeo’s vague infatuation with the //idea// of love, the pretty image he made up in his head from reading old poems. this not only creates an incredible arc in his character, but makes his love for juliet obviously the real deal by comparison. he meets juliet and his world goes into free fall; he’s rash and violent and impulsive, and the verse that was so stale and ingenuine before shifts into some of the most famous passionate poetry in the english language. in his first scene, he asks “is love a tender thing?” he falls in love with juliet- REAL love, not the kind in poems- and comes to answer his own question: no. no it fucking isn’t.
but, you say. but they CANT have loved each other! you don’t fall in love just by LOOKING at someone!
yeah, I know you don’t.
but here’s the thing. if you aren’t willing to suspend some modicum of disbelief, you won’t get anything from shakespeare. period.
we’re already assuming that these people just happen to walk around speaking in blank verse and rhyming couplet. the plot of hamlet relies on the existence of a ghost, a midsummer night’s dream on fairies, macbeth on witches, the tempest on magic, measure for measure on the friggin /bed trick/- is it SUCH A HORRIBLE STRETCH FOR YOUR CYNICAL POSTMODERN MIND TO MAKE that characters can identify their soulmates with a look? have we reached that level of lazy cynicism as a society that magical love flowers and vengeful ghosts are believable, where a woman can turn into a boy by shoving a hat over her hair and statues spring to life as deceased loved ones, but love at first sight (a very very common Elizabethan plot device; it’s /everywhere/ in shakespeare) is just too much of a stretch?
no one rolls their eyes at hamlet because “ghosts aren’t real. are you one of those people who believe in ghosts?” no- they take it for the plot device that it is in order to get to the message of the play as a whole, and the truths of the human conditions it reveals, with the help of some purely theatrical elements.
but kids in love. that’s far too silly.
it’s really fucking sad.
and questions like yours, anon? those make me really, really fucking sad.
bringing this back cuz someone tried to challenge me today
when i forget to log into ao3 and i have to click proceed to see an adult fic, i actually get a kick out of it. like i am an old timey queen and my bard is apologetic: “gentle lady, dicks do touch in this next ballad. would you prefer another?” and i give him a gesture of command like, “nay, you may proceed, minstrel. bring forth the tale of dicks”
Kimchi and Justice 