Concept: financially struggling biology student discovers that the reason her monthly data bill is so high is because an ant colony in her basement has been stealing her wi-fi.
“I’m not angry,” she says from the top of the basement stairs. “Just disappointed.”
Below, a million hard exoskeletons glitter in the light streaming through the open door. The floor is completely covered in them, the hard-packed dirt rounded and molded into their home.
With a sigh, she starts down the stairs. “Don’t you swarm at me. I give you food, I give you shelter and this, this is the repayment I get! Where’s the Queen?”
There’s the sound of insects rushing past each other and a black mound begins to form. It grows higher and higher, moving slowly towards the bottom step, until it’s at her waist. Slowly, the top layer of workers peels back to reveal the Queen in all her glory.
The Queen is easily the length of her hand, glittering and gorgeous in the faint light. She had been the one to make the Queen last semester as part of her final project. Her professor had given her an A on the condition that she destroy the Queen and her genetically enhanced children, but, instead, she’d taken them home.
“Look at this,” she says, thrusting her bill in front of the Queen’s tiny head. “I can’t afford this! I don’t–where did you all even get computers?”
The ants surge guiltily, producing a mac that looks very, very familiar.
“You stole my ex’s laptop.” It’s not a question. “That’s–alright, that’s pretty funny. I’m not going to take it away, relax, but you all need to figure out how to pay for this, okay? I can’t feed you and entertain you on my stipend, okay?”
The Queen regally nods. There’s a shift in the air as she communicates with the others and another mound of ants forms and pushes forward. This one opens to reveal a plastic bag filled with dirt-covered jewelry and a handful of…ancient coins?
She takes the bag, staring blankly at it. “Okay…I’m not going to ask. I don’t want to know. I’ll invest in better internet and pretend that you guys aren’t about two seconds from opening a chop shop or crime ring or whatever in my basement.”
The ants wave agreeably.
She turns to go and pauses halfway up. “I have to ask. What do you guys even need internet for?”
The mac flickers on to show Jessica Jones paused halfway through episode six.
“Fair enough,” she says and goes to google local pawn shops that don’t ask too many questions
1944 – Snowball the cat tries to take over a machine gun in Normandy so she can shoot some Nazis herself.
Blessed post. Good kitty
i want someone to read that headline in an old timey reporter voice
Okay fun fact: cats were actively deployed to trenches and ships to help deal with rodent infestations in both world wars, and they had the curb cutter effect of keeping the men’s spirits high.
One cat, Simon, was given the rank “Able Seacat Simon” after dutifully killing rats and mice that were destroying the HMS Amethyst’s food supplies. The ship had come under fire during the Chinese civil war and many of its crewmen had died. The cat had been gravely injured, too, but he picked out the shrapnel himself – seriously – and went straight to killing the rodents that were overrunning the ship. He unfortunately passed from his injuries two weeks before he was scheduled to receive the Dickin Medal. To this day, he is the only cat to receive this award.
Here’s another WW1 trenchcat, who would have been ratter, mouser, companion and gas warning – not AFAIK by dying, like a canary, but since cats reacted to the smell of gas long before it was strong enough for humans to notice, the troops had a bit more time to get their masks on, and the cats went into gasproof boxes.
Meanwhile, somewhere on the other side of No Man’s Land…
Meet Percy, mascot of HMLS (D20) “Daphne” with Lt Drader. Both survived the War, and Percy retired to live out his peacetime life in the Drader family home.
(Here’s a video clip; given how noisy, hot and smelly early tanks were, Percy seems remarkably unfazed.)
A US Army tank cat, Mustard of the 321st, with a Renault FT light tank and its driver Sgt Postal…
A Royal Artillery kitten (the battery mascot)…
Pincher of HMS Vindex on what looks like a Sopwith Pup scout…
Togo, ship’s cat of HMS Dreadnought (though I’ve also seen “HMS Irresistible”)…
Ship’s cat of HMS Queen Elizabeth atop 15″ main battery…
And speaking of big ships and big guns…
“Make nice all you like, Human. I despise you. I wanted a billet on a battleship, not this tinpot destroyer…” (Ching, of HMAS Swan.)
set in the 90s but there were 0 (zero) chokers or butterfly clips explain to me This
“Parvati scowled and removed a large ornamental butterfly from the end of her plait” (pg. 247, The Goblet of Fire)
I want to imagine that some fan got so heated over this post that they literally went through every single book, page by page, until they found something to fire back with.
I feel like this could be a new variant of the nomadverse AU Transformers fanfics. Jazz in the hall of Mountain King Prowl, or (detective) Prowl in the hall of Mountain King Jazz, or, well. Megatron would make a very good Mountain King.
so, i only went in to get the shiny silvally code. should’ve taken like a minute or two at most but i was in there for upwards of ten. it was deeply unsettling right off the bat when i walked in because it was quiet. like really quiet. the tv that plays the gaming news and the speaker that plays the ads weren’t running. the cashier says hello and i get in line to wait. it is dead silent. nobody in the store is making any noise except for the cashier, who is typing. she’s helping a little boy sell 12 PS4 games. the boys mom is walking back and forth behind him sipping her gas station brand cup of coffee. literally just walking back and forth from one end of the store to the other. all the while the entire store is silent, the kid is silent, the mom is silent… all 5 of the other full grown adults in this store are silent. and i’m the only one in line behind this kid, these other adults throughout the store are like standing in one space just staring and being quiet. they weren’t browsing, they weren’t talking. nobody was making any noise. i wasn’t making any noise. i was standing there thinking about how eerily silent it was in this gamestop and wondering what the hell was going on – hyper aware of every move i made because i didn’t want to make a noise and break the silence. this carried on for literally 10 minutes before another cashier came in through the front door and loudly exclaimed “i can’t leave you alone for five minutes.” he called me to the counter and asked me what i needed help with. it was like immediately the ambient noises of gamestop all returned at once and i stepped forward to get my code.
my favorite part of this is the implication that not only was the first cashier somehow responsible for the eerie silence to begin with but also that this has certainly happened before
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