@thehumantrampoline / thehumantrampoline.tumblr.com
Kermit the Frog would be an ideal assassin because if caught he would need to be tried by a jury of his peers (Muppets) and you would not be able to find a Muppet who does not have a pre-existing opinion on Kermit the fucking Frog. case thrown out. kermie can kill again. it's easy being green
I don't know, I think his chances are still good on getting out but if the court put in the work they could fill the box.
not letting these tags get away
I'm reading the scriptwriters' guide for TOS and it's cracking me up in many places. It's so obvious that, from the very beginning, they were already aware of so many of the issues people complain about today.
First there's a multiple choice quiz, what's wrong with this scene?
Answer: C! Absolutely Kirk would not hug the yeoman at this point! That's unprofessional!
The Prime Directive gets explained. As I keep telling people, it's not never broken, it's just supposed to only be broken for very good reasons.
For people wondering how to write a stardate: you make up some numbers!
No saluting! Yes optimism!
There is so much "think of the budget" in here. Yes you can use the shuttle bay but only if it's relevant, we have to use miniatures. Yes you can have a space suit but please don't ask for zero gravity. And where aliens are concerned, you can have some makeup but please focus on the interior differences not just tentacles!
Honestly I think Spock is a better alien than, say, Jabba the Hutt, because as human as he looks, he's much more different on the inside. People like to dismiss Star Trek aliens as "forehead of the week" but it's kind of a stage shorthand for "we're about to discover a unique culture, these people are different from you in ways you might not expect."
And to wrap up:
Dru takes doll hunting very seriously and extremely literally.
I think a very important unwritten piece of locked tomb canon is that corona and ianthe are absolutely both writing home regularly to mummy throughout the entire series - not with any helpful plot points or anything, they just want pocket money. Their mother, hatefully running a planet that she also hates, has the knack of silently wiring pocket money in an incredibly nasty and hurtful way - despite not accompanying it with a note or anything - just a sort of careful psychic warfare involving timing, amounts of money, the transfer service, etc.
(Although at at one point she asks if one of them has Babs, or if he’s dead or what. Corona ghosts her and ianthe texts back “who”)
Anyway, breaking off your meeting with god or the rebels or whatever because mummy has just sent you $465.73 in THEE bitchiest possible way
the idea that one moment Mummy and Daddy Of Ida receive official condolences from the Emperor Undying, the Kindly Prince of Death, the Necrolord Prime that both their daughters and their cavalier have tragically died during their glorious pursuit of Lyctorhood, look here are their coffins isn't this sad :( and then like an hour later a note flutters in from Coronabeth all "mummy dearest please forward my pocket money to this address, xoxo your favourite child" is, as the kids say, sending me
extra special Amok Time Day this year because it’s been 56 years…
happy 9th pon farr spock!
a septennial amok time anniversary occurring on a friday
this hasn’t happened since 1995 and won’t happen again until 2051!
even more disco elysium doodles- my number 1 goal is to make kim smile and or laugh any moment i can, this is my life mission. i also love the idea of kim just having to put up with this grown man and his accidental homosexual tendencies
(i am currently 20 hours into the game- and th achievements ive got so far ar ‘goodest of good cops’ ‘literally the sorriest cop on earth’ and ‘gurdi-ball is lit’)
me standing in the living room: this room does not look.... straight
the room:
i'm pretty sure there is not a single straight line in this apartment btw like even my front door is at an angle
Hey OP, do you live in a funhouse?
well i am a clown so
in its defence i am like... 85%? sure the floor is level.
i make no such claims about the ceiling but it's hard to tell bc they're 2m90 / 9ft 6 high and i am so very far away from them
sat on the toilet like. oh yeah. there are zero straight lines in here
lads i'll not lie. rendering my living room to scale is......... not better
standards have dropped so low that i just said the walk in cupboard was straight bc the right wall is only 2cm longer than the left and the back only 3cm longer than the front
99% sure this is the straightest part of the whole flat and it's a cupboard
measuring everything in here so i can render it properly to plan furniture and my god there are so many angles
so far of the forty (40) angles ive measured... 2 of them are actual right angles
i still have 2 rooms to go
a grand total of 3 right angles exist in this apartment
i did have to do this plan AGAIn bc the blueprint software kept adjusting all the lengths and angles to try and make it make sense so i had to do every room separately and stitch them together the reality is somehow worse
there's a man coming wednesday to do an energy efficiency report that involves taking the dimensions of the rooms and i am SO EXCITED to see bill's soul leave his body
I think we’re all sleeping on whatever the fuck Crowley’s Deal in Wessex (537 AD) was. What the fuck was he doing? ‘Fomenting dissent and discord’, what does that even mean, when you get right down to it? What was his game plan? Just skulk around the foggy woods as the Black Knight and jump out at travelers and yell, “BOO!”, and hope that did the trick?
And who the fuck were his little gang? Who were these guys?
WHO WAS THIS SCENERY-CHEWING DUDE?
Did Crowley pick him special from the Igor Emporium of Offensively Stereotypical Henchmen, or did they have to workshop that whole bit? “No, no, more scuttly. More sinister muttering! CREEPIER!”
They certainly seem to have a good working relationship with Crowley (”He’s all right, lads, I know him.”) and don’t seem fazed by the fuckin’ weird conversation he and Aziraphale proceed to have. They obviously know that their purpose here is not to murder the bejesus out of everyone who comes frolicking through the fens.
Of course, it’s not like Crowley even has the stomach for murder, so, like, what do they even do? Do they just kick around the odd traveler and then impress upon them how incredibly lucky they are to have barely gotten away with their life and send them fleeing to the next town to talk about The State of Bandits These Days? Discord and dissent, honestly. Does Crowley just draw some fake black eyes on his obviously theatrically-trained henchmen and send them into nearby taverns to proclaim loudly that THE BLACK KNIGHT is turning the whole of WESSEX (537 AD) into A NO-GO AREA, really KING ARTHUR should have dealt with him by now, too bad HE SUCKS. Just watch, I bet he won’t even SEND ONE OF HIS KNIGHTS, not even that useless SIR AZIRAPHALE, to deal with this BLIGHT UPON THE LAND.
This may seem like an exaggeration, the idea that one can learn how to properly think like a criminal by learning how crime stories work. On a personal note, let me tell a story from the Leverage writer’s room.
Apollo Robbins (http://www.istealstuff.com/) runs a crew of professional thieves who consult for law enforcement. He was also our criminal consultant on Leverage. Every few weeks he would visit the writer’s room to advise on the scripts and keep us up to date about new cons and the latest in criminal technology.
One day during the third season he sat in with the writers while we broke a story. We posted the details of a real-life white collar criminal up on the room’s whiteboard, using him as the basis for our Mark. We looked at his weaknesses, how he moved his money, what his hobbies were. Once we were happy with that element of the story we added a Vault to the mix, one that used an interesting new alarm technology we’d researched. We then spent about an hour figuring out how to circumvent that alarm. We even sketched out a map of the imaginary building so we could keep track of our Crew’s movements during the Job.
“Well, I’m done here,” Apollo muttered. Noting our confusion, he pointed at the board and index cards cluttering the wall. “This is exactly how real Crews plan these things. This writer’s room is now a fully functioning criminal gang. You could be thieves.”
Of course writing television pays better than crime (usually), with far less chance of being arrested (usually), so we all managed to resist the temptation. But aside from the day a US Attorney asked us to change a plot because we’d created a scam that was a little too foolproof, or when a Homeland Security Agent admitted they were spooked by a security hole we’d exploited in our season finale, it was certainly one of the proudest moments I had on the show.
Source: "CrimeWorld" by John Rogers in Fate Worlds Volume Two: Worlds in Shadow. Evil Hat Productions, 2013: 20.
shelley's ozymandias but it's about lost websites & broken links from bygone days of internet history
look on my works ye mighty and despair [geocities link]
Say no more!
I met an admin on an antique site,
Who said: two vast and broken hyperlinks
Stand in the cyan menu. To their right,
A glitter gif of Mickey Mouse still winks,
Whose pixel smile, and endless looped delight
Tell that its maker well those passions knew
Which yet survive, stamped on this lifeless shell:
The mind that shaped them, and the hand that drew.
And on the header green, pink words appear:
My name is Ozzie Mandias LOL
This is my homepage—come pull up a chair!
Little beside remains. Round the decay
Of QuickTime music tracks, boundless and bare,
The leveled geocities stretch away.
Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1984)
I’m having some feelings right now and they are not innocent.
this always drives me crazy because he knows he’s being introduced to watson’s childhood friend and this is without a doubt one of the most dramatic entrances he’s ever done, and it’s so that he can make sure he looks good and watson looks great and that they are the most attractive and amazing couple that’s ever come out of watson’s little school
10 more @incorrect-muppet-quotes bc they’re my life blood
cursed emojis that no one asked for but I don’t care
free to use!
free to use!
who needs coherent words when you have cursed emojis
free to use!!!
interviewer: you are straight
kermit: 😐
I’ve already talked about a Leverage crossover where the Hargreeves are conmen but I’m. losing it thinking about. a Leverage AU where the Leverage team sees these kids on tv, and they just go. oh shit, that’s just fucking wrong. (I know the timelines don’t match up but let’s pretend the umbrella kids were born a little later, or that Leverage takes place a little earlier, or something like that. I don’t know.)
But these fucking umbrella kids show up on TV, and at first none of them are paying much attention. Not right away. They’re busy running cons, and none of them except Hardison watch TV for fun very often.
So they’ve all heard bits and pieces about this Umbrella thing, and aren’t quite sure what to make of it. Superhumans, huh? Eliot mutters at one point. Whatever. Our lives are already so goddamn weird.
But eventually they catch a broadcast while they’re home in between cases. it’s playing in the background while they’re enjoying a meal together at the brewery.
The Umbrella Academy saves the day yet again! the broadcaster declares cheerily. We go now to a statement at the Louvre from their leader, Sir Reginald Hargreeves.
It’s just novel enough to catch their attention–being who they are, they all perk up at the word Louvre–and it gets them half-watching as they chat over breakfast.
It’s Parker that sees it first. She’s Parker, so what catches her attention is actually not the fact that one of them is covered in blood, nor is it the fact that their father is calling them by numbers instead of names. It’s the way that they stand, tense and upright. It’s the way that the one covered in blood is trembling minutely, so fine that it’s almost imperceptible. But she notices. And she notices the way that the one to the bloodied boy’s left–the fifth one in line–leans over ever-so-subtly when their father is looking away. Whispers something with the barest movement of his lips. And then, after a moment of hesitation, he links hands with his shaking brother, twining their fingers together. Parker knows that whisper, knows what this is. She used to do that with her brother. Used to hold Nick’s hand, just like that, when their fosters were scaring him, trying to provide comfort even despite the fear of being caught.
It’s not long before the others follow her gaze. She’s stopped engaging in the conversation entirely, is just staring at the television with a death glare, nose wrinkled.
“Parker, baby,” Hardison says. “That’s your angry face.”
“I’m angry,” she says, and doesn’t elaborate.
“Got it,” Hardison takes it in stride, as he always does.
Eliot’s frowning at the TV. Unlike Parker, his eye does jump to the most obvious thing first. To the boy, no older than eleven or twelve probably, drenched head to toe with blood. There’s no rips in his clothing; Eliot’s pretty sure the blood isn’t his. He’s standing up straight, but his shoulders are slightly hunched. Like he’s injured. Broken ribs, maybe? And he’s been taught to hide them too. He’s also not the only one with that too-stiff posture. These kids aren’t standing up straight. They’re standing at attention. Number One, their father calls one of them, and what are those? Fucking callsigns?
Sophie and Nate are watching too. Their faces are carefully blank. They aren’t happy, Parker’s pretty sure, but they’re trying not to react.
“What the hell?” Hardison says slowly. He’s the last one to catch on, though only by a very narrow margin. He lacks Sophie and Nate’s cynicism, and the years of personal experience Parker and Eliot have, but he’s still too smart to not figure it out almost immediately. And he is first one to abandon the stunned stillness that’s fallen over the rest of them, pulling his laptop out of his bag, already quickly tapping away at the keys.
“This ain’t right,” Eliot says, voice a growl in his chest. “This is–this is–it’s televised child abuse.”
Sophie makes a quiet noise of agreement then. “It is,” she says, quietly disgusted. “Those poor children.”
Nate is still staring at the screen, lips pressed flat.
“This Reginald guy looks rich,” Parker says. Then: “Can we kill him?”
Eliot chokes on his drink.
“How is this even legal?” Sophie asks. She sounds curious, though not particularly surprised by the grievous violation of child protection laws before her. “It’s so…blatant.”
“Sir Reginald Hargreeves,” Hardison says, no longer typing. “He is–oh shit.” And the typing resumes, faster and a little more panicked than before.
“Hardison?” Nate prods after a moment, giving Hardison a sidelong glance.
“Yeah, yeah, it’s all good,” Hardison says. “The INTERPOL files on this guy are locked up tight though. Almost tripped their security system there. I didn’t, of course, but–”
“You couldn’t get in?” Eliot says, smirking.
“Yet,” Hardison says. “Dammit, man, it’s been less than five minutes. Give me a couple hours and that thing is mincemeat. Metaphorically speaking, of course. But I do see what’s going on here and,” he clicks his tongue, shaking his head in disappointment. “Y’all, this is hinky.”
“Yes, I think we got that,” Nate says. The corner of his lip twitches up.
“Yeah, yeah,” Hardison says. “This guy has got friends everywhere. No one knows how he got the kids, but it looks like he technically bought them–”
“He what?” Sophie sounds like she’s been suckerpunched. Parker can’t think of the last time she heard Sophie sound so shocked.
“Oh yeah. You think that’s bad? The numbers aren’t code names The numbers are their name names. Like, legally. I just found an article that said he ordered them by how useful he thinks they are, but judging by the adoption papers it was actually in the order he, uh,” Hardison coughs, “acquired them.”
Eliot is swaying where he stands. “Common tactic. He’s pitting them against one another so they’ll be easier to control. It undermines the self worth of the ones lower on the scale and makes the ones that are higher up feel obligated to do what he wants. Son of a bitch.”
“…And it looks like he leveraged their powers as excuse to gain exemptions from child protection laws,” Hardison continues like he hasn’t been interrupted. “Claimed their abilities meant they don’t need the same safeguards.”
“That’s bullshit!” Eliot sounds thunderous.
“I know, buddy,” Hardison reaches over blindly, waving his hand around vaguely until he finds Eliot’s shoulder. He gives it a comforting squeeze. “I didn’t write it.”
Eliot heaves in a shuddering breath. “That’s just–”
“Evil,” Sophie finishes.
“I’m inclined to agree,” Nate says. He’s not watching the TV anymore. He’s staring off into the middle distance, arms crossed over his chest.
“Oh!” Parker perks up. All the grief and distress that had been brewing on her face vanishes like storm clouds parting for the sun. “Nate! Nate, are you scheming? You look like you’re scheming.”
Nate makes a noncommittal grunt. “It would be dangerous.”
“They’re in danger,” Sophie says softly, jerking her head in the television’s direction.
Eliot’s long-since gotten to his feet. He’s pacing, and that’s how Parker knows he’s furious. When Eliot is too angry to stand it, he has to move, has to find some way to handle the rage roiling under his skin. Usually he cooks, chopping vegetables with furious aplomb. And when he can’t cook, he paces.
“They’re fucking child soldiers,” he says. “I can’t–” he cuts himself off with a furious shake of the head. I can’t believe, he was about to say, Parker thinks, but he had to stop because that’s not true. Eliot knows better than anyone what the government–what the world does to people they find useful, whether its skill or power that makes them so.
“Y’all are behind,” Hardison says in sing-song. “I’m already trying to burn this motherfucker down.”
“Hardison, do not tip our hand,” Nate says, snapping into his leader-voice automatically. Parker grins. He’s already got a plan, then. She knew all that reluctance was just for show. Sophie laughs, as clear and bright as the ringing of a bell, and even Eliot perks up.
Hardison grumbles, closing his laptop and stuffing it back in his messenger bag.
Nate is grinning a little too, though it’s that angry smile he gets sometimes when Parker knows he’s thinking about hurting bad people. She understands. She’s wearing hers too right now. Nate glances them all over, and for all the malice dripping off the knife’s edge of that smile, his eyes are soft. Maybe even a little proud.
“Fine. Fine. You guys win,” Nate says, lifting his hands in defeat. He’s putting on a show of being beleaguered, but Parker can hear the sparking anger in his voice, and oh, how could she have forgotten? Sophie is so gently righteous, Hardison so achingly distressed, and Eliot so full of fire and fury that she almost didn’t notice Nate’s seething wrath, nearly forgot that Nate looks at every injured child in need of help and thinks of Sam. “Everyone, get your things. Hardison, get us some plane tickets. Let’s go steal some children.”
“Okay, okay. I ain’t complaining cause, like, fuck that guy,” Hardison says, slinging his bag over his shoulder. “But stealing children? Could you have made us sound anymore like kidnappers?”
“Hardison!”
“I’m just saying.”
HELL YEAH THIS IS EXCELLENT
Give me Parker teaching Five how to pick a safe.
Give me Harrison teaching Luther and Ben how to code.
Give me Sophie teaching Klaus and Allison how to act (aka lie really good.)
Give me Elliot teaching Vanya and Diego how to redirect their anger and bitterness (once Vanya is off her meds of course.)
Can you even imagine when they find out about Vanya?
Parker is the one to figure it out. Parker, who was always a few degrees to the left of the rest of the world, who encountered her share of foster parents who thought the things that made her who she was could be cured, or at least blunted, by medication. They all know what withdrawal looks like, but it’s Parker who sees the way Vanya’s eyes glaze over and figures out that what she’s withdrawing from is a serotonin inhibitor, just…a really strong one that had plenty of time to build up in the girl’s system.
She tells Hardison that something’s wrong with Vanya, concerned about the apparent strength of the medication someone was giving to a child, and inside of a day, Vanya is experiencing the joys of a blood draw, the glories of orange juice and a cookie and a nap while analysis is performed.
When the results come back, everyone gets very quiet. The children are already legally theirs; even Hargreeves doesn’t have the resources to pay lawyers faster than Hardison’s hands on a keyboard. But now Hargreeves is off-limits, at least until Vanya is old enough and detoxed enough to rationally answer the most important question in the world:
Do you want us to kill him? Or do you want to do it yourself?
