One day, you get a knock on your door. When you open it, you see the protagonist from your favorite book standing there, wide-eyed. “I know you won’t believe me,” they say, “but you’re the main character of my favorite book. I know how it ends and I’m here to change it.”
“Oh thank god, my life is really spiraling out of control lately” you say, relieved
Harry Potter pulls out a handgun “I think you misunderstand the point of this visit”
Elphaba blinks, opens her mouth, closes it. She swallows and tries again. “You came.”
Glinda’s dress is torn and dirty, her pretty blonde curls matter with sweat, but she doesn’t look tired or hesitant; she looks defiant, one fist clutched in the material of her skirt to lift it up off her filthy bare feet, the other tight and white-knuckled around her wand.
“You asked me to come,” she reminds Elphaba haughtily. “I’m only a teensy, weensy, tiny bit late. It was a long walk. Would you mind if I freshen up?”
“Yes, no, of course – come in.”
Glinda seems to be all in, every ounce of propriety cast to the wind; she sashays past Elphaba into the tower, calling casually over her shoulder, “Any chance you’d want to join me in the tub? Or do you still have that ‘allergy’?”
The derisive way she says allergy tells Elphaba everything she needs to know. “You knew that was a lie?”
“I went to school with you, Elphie. If you’d been skipping the showers for all those years, I’d’ve noticed.” Glinda spins dramatically to smirk at her. “And before you start saying ‘oh, Glinda, how could you send a harmless girl here to get captured when you knew she couldn’t defeat me’ – I’ve seen you with baby animals, Elphaba Thropp. I knew you’d set her free.”
Elphaba’s heart clenches, a fist in her chest. “But the shoes, Glinda. Nessa’s shoes!”
“Oh. Yes. Right.” The smile slides off Glinda’s face. She shifts her weight to one foot, then the other. She lifts her wand delicately with two fingers and a thumb, her eyes taking on a faraway look; her lips move silently for a few moments, and then she flicks her wrist, and the ruby slippers clack to the floor in front of her.
For the first time, Glinda looks hesitant, sheepish even.
“I’m so sorry about Nessarose, Elphie,” she says softly. “I didn’t have anything to do with her death, I swear. And Dorothy… it was an accident. She’s just a little girl.” She makes a guilty face at the shoes glinting innocently on the floor. “Little Dotty needed a way home, and I wanted to help her, and… well, we’ve all made bad choices. But I wouldn’t have given away Nessa’s shoes for good. I always planned to bring them back to you.”
Tausig’s crossword is a so-called Schrödinger puzzle, named for the physicist’s hypothetical cat that is at once both alive and dead. In a Schrödinger puzzle, select squares have more than one correct letter answer: They exist in two states at once. “Black Halloween animal,” for example, could be both BAT or CAT, yielding two different but perfectly correct puzzles. Only 10 such puzzles have now been published in Times history.
It’s the theme of Tausig’s puzzle, though, that makes it special. Four entries in Thursday’s crossword can include either an “F” or an “M.” Both are correct; neither is wrong. For example, “Part of a house” can be either ROOF or ROOM. The long “revealer” answer, tying those select entries together and spanning 11 squares smack-dab in the middle of the puzzle, is GENDER FLUID.
This puzzle, with “M”s and “F”s that aren’t fixed, is a masterful blend of subject and structure. “It potentially really evokes what gender fluidity is, which is not moving back and forth between two poles, but actually not being committed to either pole, and potentially existing in many states at different times,” Tausig said.
This is … really cool.
i never really thought of crossword puzzles as an art form, but like… this is art.
Let me tell you a little something about Star Light Star Bright. If you even pick up this little fucker, you will have glitter on you, on your things and all around you for two weeks. Yes, from your maybe two fingertips that you used to give it a smell – it has left it’s mark.
Now if you BATHE with this thing you will become a fairy.
You will also have glitter in your hair for all eternity whether you get it wet or not.
If you like glitter, this is the bath melt for you. There is no escape once you bathe. Happy holidays, from us at Lush.
Since this product is a melt it is literally just cocoa butter and glitter and some other fun things so the oil WITH THE GLITTER will bond to everything it touches. You, the tub, everything. But since our glitter is made from seaweed and sugar it’s soft and biodegradable! I was coated in this glitter for two days and I was not itchy or scratchy, not once!
However, this melt was banned from my household due to the intensity of the glitter.
biodegradable glitter. there is at least one fucking god
NO BUT YOU ALL NEED TO UNDERSTAND HOW FUNNY THIS IS THEYRE LITERALLY FILLING A ROBOT WITH BULLETS, LIKE BULLETS THAT YOU FIRE FROM A GUN. NOW NORMALLY FIRING A GUN TRIGGERS THE BULLET TO EXPLODE CREATING A PRESSURE THAT CAUSES THE TIP OF THE BULLET TO BE FORCED OUT OF THE BARREL AT A HIGH SPEED.
WHaT CAVE JOHNSON’S TURRET’S DO IS LOAD A TON OF FUCKING BULLETS INTO THE CASE OF THE SENTRY LIKE IT”S A GODDAMN GUMBALL MACHINE AND THEN USE A FUcKIN SPRING LOADED PISTON TO FIRE IT THAT IS SO UNNECESSARY AND INEFFECTIVE LIKE NO WONDER CHELL CAN RESIST SO MANY BULLETS THE LIKELIHOOD ITD CAUSE ANYTHING MORE THAN A BAD BRUISE IS LIKE ONE IN A HUNDRED
but it’s 65% more bullet per bullet
Wait a second are you telling me
that Portal is such a perfect goddamn game that they even have an explanation for why a video game protagonist can withstand being shot multiple times??????????
“The water dragon keeps our river safe. Their legacy is sweet clear
water and lush crops and Tar seeping from the blood of those that seek
them out. You can even see their work on their flesh. The poisons
they’ve absorbed for centuries shift across their skin in bursts of
color as they walk the festival, gently inspecting things with golden
whiskers. The elders say to make our offerings pretty and our
conversation pleasant as we give thanks.
But we must never touch them.
And we especially must never search out the source of the lovely, lonely, singing we hear during the summer rains.”
Ad Camp on patreon asked for something that was fun to look at, but not to touch. so have a dragon.
thisacelovesheadcanons 