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Tumblr is such an awesome website. What if your diary had a pvp option
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Thinking about Home Alone from old man Marley’s POV…you’re a hermit who volunteers countless hours of his time in the winter salting and shoveling the sidewalks to make the neighborhood safer. Despite your kindness, the neighborhood kids whisper rumors about how you must’ve murdered your family, which are even crueler for how they remind you of your estrangement from your son.
It’s almost Christmas. The neighborhood is deserted, and you could swear you overheard some commotion about your next door neighbors, the McCallisters, going out of town for the holidays the morning after that storm that knocked the phone lines out, but you keep running into their youngest kid. He’s so spooked by you (rumors) that he accidentally shoplifts a toothbrush. Your inability to smile (estrangement) and bloody hand (shovel?) aren’t really helping the situation. But what can you do? You keep to yourself too much to know these people, and you don’t have any reason to suspect something is seriously wrong. You mind your own business and shovel your salt.
On Christmas Eve, you go to the local church for your granddaughter’s choir concert, because it’s the only way you ever get to see her. You encounter the neighbor kid again, alone—and it’s…weird? That’s weird, right? Maybe you’re not so great with estimating kids’ ages, it’s been so long since your son was a kid, but this one looks…roughly elementary school-sized? And sure, you live in one of those Mayberry neighborhoods where nobody locks their doors, but what’s this little boy doing out all by himself after dark? Come to think of it, he’s been all by himself every time you’ve seen him in the last few days. And what kid would choose to come to a boring ass church on their own? You ask him if he knows your granddaughter, thinking maybe he must have some connection to one of the performers, but no. He’s just here because he feels bad. Maybe about that toothbrush he stole?
You’re a little concerned, so you keep him talking. His answers to your questions are a little evasive, but he doesn’t say anything that alarms you, and he comes across as surprisingly mature. Maybe you misjudged his age? Or maybe the parents are into that new-age, free-range, Montessori parenting stuff that’s supposed to foster independence, or whatever. Considering your relationship with your own son, you’re certainly not in any position to judge others’ parenting. The kid even ends up giving you advice, nudging you to swallow your pride and reconnect with your family.
You go home. The phone lines are finally fixed, so you call your son for the first time in years. The conversation goes far better than you expected. Tears are shed on both sides, cursing all the precious time lost to pride. You make plans to see him and properly meet your granddaughter for the first time ever tomorrow. Then you hang up the phone because you hear a commotion outside. Two men shouting? This is a quiet street, and never moreso than on Christmas Eve. Something isn’t right. You yank on your gnarly-looking boots, grab your shovel in case shit goes sideways, and follow the raised voices across the street to the Murphys’ house.
The front door is open. Not a thing people do in Chicago in December. Looking around, the place has been ransacked. You’ve got a bad feeling about this. You tread lightly, but statistically speaking, you probably fought in one of the Big Wars, so you’ve seen some shit before. You’re not just gonna turn tail and run. You detect the sound of water running somewhere, but that’s not nearly as disturbing as the threats you’re hearing from the two male voices in the kitchen. You find these grown adults—who look like they must’ve gotten beaten up by a third guy?—about to hurt the neighbor kid. So you look at the shovel in your hands and decide that if the local kids are gonna call you the “South Bend Shovel Slayer,” you may as well make it count for something.
You can already hear the sirens approaching, so you don’t stick around to deal with the flood or see what happens to those two—you know how incompetent the cops are in this town, and you’d rather not get mixed up in some trouble when you’ve got plans to see your son tomorrow. You just wanna get this shaken-up kid home safely. Except...he's really not that shaken up? In fact, he's weirdly chipper. You know kids are "resilient" or whatever, but four hours ago, this one was telling you a story about being afraid of the furnace in his basement; why is he less rattled right now than you are?
You're so mystified that at first, you don't even notice nobody else is home. The kid ropes you into helping him "clean up some stuff" around the house. You gradually piece together that this "stuff" is the aftermath of an elaborate network of booby traps that would make the VC blush—Jesus Christ, kid, punji sticks are against the Geneva Convention!—and get a sinking feeling about the injuries those two guys had. Did this kid single-handedly fight off a pair of home invaders? Why is he smiling? You know the phone lines are back up again because you called your son earlier—why didn't he just call 911? Why is he smiling? How’d they get across the street, anyway? At the church earlier, when he said he felt guilty for doing bad things—what sins has he committed? Montessori parenting my ass! Why is he smiling?! What the fuck happened here?!
You don't want trouble. You don’t. Want. Trouble. All you want is to see your son and meet your granddaughter tomorrow. Clearly this kid is more than capable of handling himself if he can beat a couple of grown men half to death with unconventional weapons. Sketched the fuck out, you wish him a merry Christmas and go home, glancing over your shoulder the whole way.
You chalk it all up to some sort of A Christmas Carol-ass weird dream. Pretend it never happened. Reunite with your son. Mind your own business and shovel your salt. Now, though, whenever the neighbor kids whisper about you, you just eye the McCallister house uneasily. There is a dangerous monster on this block—but it sure as hell isn't old man Marley.
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Source: x.com
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Some people's Home Alone hot takes are that Kevin is apparently evil for doing what most kids that age would do if they could in that situation
My Home Alone hot take is that if you walk into three consecutive death traps and still don't take the first chance to back out, you deserve everything that happens to you afterwards. Not in a moral sense, just in a "knowingly and willingly slapping a hot stove after you already got burned multiple times" sense
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*through gritted teeth* when i do something wrong and am politely asked to change my behavior its just a simple request to fix a problem and not an indictment of my character. when i do something wrong and am politely asked to change my behavior its just a simple request to fix a problem and not an indictment of my worth as a human being
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i dont want 22 episode seasons back. i dont want 8 episode seasons. i dont actually want a prescriptive number of episodes per season
its the era of streaming. we dont need to fil x number of timeslots.
i want tv shows to be able to determine for themselves what their optimal number of episodes per season to tell the story they want at the pace they want. maybe thats a 3 episode season. maybe thats a 50 episode season. i dont care, i just want the decision to be made for practical and artistic reasons rather than corporate ones
Reblogged i-suggest-murder
woke up and someone spilled vanilla extract all over my dash, so as punishment you strange little beasties are getting all the VANILLA FACTS i know:
- vanilla is the 2nd most expensive spice in the world (2nd to saffron)
- which is why more than 99% of what we call "vanilla extract" is actually vanillin (vanilla's dominant flavor compound) and is not extracted from real vanilla.
- luckily, even professionals struggle to tell the difference when it comes to things like baked goods. but there is a distinct difference in non-heat treated products like vanilla ice cream. real vanilla has a more complex, individualized flavor profile.
- why is vanilla so expensive? because it is a ridiculously delicate & demanding crop. complete primadonna.
- vanilla beans come from vanilla orchids. these crazy flowers bloom for A SINGLE DAY and have to be HAND-POLLINATED in a process that is exhausting, delicate, and requires specialist knowledge passed down over generations.
- then, if you're lucky, you get vanilla beans.
- which then require months of further specialized treatment.
- the entire process takes about a year and can go wrong at any stage
- vanilla has been cultivated for over 800 years (possibly much longer). the first known cultivators are the Totonac, an indigenous people of Mexico.
- the Aztecs used it as a sweetener to balance out the bitter taste of cocoa. it was popular in a drink called xocolatl--the precursor to modern hot chocolate!
- it is only pollinated by a very specific orchid bee!!!
- which is why no fruit could be grown outside of Mexico until the 1800s
- Edmond Albius, born into slavery, invented the pollination method we still use today--launching a global industry when he was just 12 years old.
- today, the majority of the world's vanilla is grown in Madagascar
- if you want real vanilla, read the labels carefully--it's harder to find than you think!
in conclusion, those tiny black specks you see in fancy vanilla ice cream? those are vanilla bean seeds! itty bitty orchid seeds!!! they are delicious and also a PRISSY BITCH!
(src)
Okay, but what about Saffron? Why is that more expensive?
ok i love saffron but it is a fucking CUNT look at this shit:
this is saffron. it's made up of tiny red threads. each of those threads?
- THREE TO A FUCKING FLOWER.
- it takes 75,000 flowers to make ONE POUND of saffron
- do u see this field? do u see this fucking field?
- this field will produce enough saffron to fit in a goddam...baggie? a basket? a smallish bucket, perhaps?
- and did I MENTION
- the harvesting has to be done BY HAND
- are u
- are u comprehending
- the Bullshit, are u comprehending it yet?
- can u imagine. having to sit over a pile of thousands of blossoms and pick each. motherfucking. thread. by hand.
- and after hours and hours
- (your joints aching)
- (your fingers stained)
- after hours of this nonsense, lo and behold! you have harvested--about a thimble full of fucking saffron
- jesus wept and so should you
she's such a whore why do i love her
*pointing at the banilla beans, after explaining to my girlfriend that the pollination method was to push the pollen back into the flower
THESE, These are selfcest beans!
Reblogged dogpuppy
do you think a cornered mouse would dream of cheese
come on man
Reblogged teawitch
Eartha Kitt's career is just so iconic because there's no way you don't know her even if you don't know you know her. You like Christmas music ok well she's Santa Baby. You like Disney animated movie ok well she's Yzma. You like Disney Channel original movie ok well she's Madame Zeroni. You like comic book ok well she is Cat Woman. She won.
You like making the racist wife of a war mongering president cry on national television? She did that
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my corner store guy is a 50 year old man who's my best friend in the world and recently he was like "you're too pretty to be single I have some nephews you should meet. very handsome!" and I was like "a niece might be more up my alley" and he just got more excited and said "ah even better! I was overselling my nephews but my nieces are very beautiful"
OP the tags!!
‘I was overselling my nephews’ is KILLING me
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my corner store guy is a 50 year old man who's my best friend in the world and recently he was like "you're too pretty to be single I have some nephews you should meet. very handsome!" and I was like "a niece might be more up my alley" and he just got more excited and said "ah even better! I was overselling my nephews but my nieces are very beautiful"
OP the tags!!