Seriously, after a lifetime of knowing the man, one would think that Arthur has now memorised his antics by heart. But no; here they were, far away from their kingdom because Gwaine simply couldn’t keep his mouth shut at a bar fight and had to insult a green knight of all colours.
Which, par expected, brought a curse on Camelot. And not just any curse, mind you. If Gwaine was cursed to turn into a frog, Arthur wouldn’t have bothered. But here he was, turning into—
“Gwaine, I swear if you so much as blink with Merlin’s face once more, I will personally take the knight’s axe and behead you.”
From beside him, Merlin, who has been cursed to swap bodies with Gwaine, chuckles. Arthur scowls, not knowing whether to look at him or at Gwaine who’s in his form.
“Why the hell are you laughing?” Arthur grits his teeth, the hilarity of the situation escaping him.
“Sorry,” Merlin coughs, trying to hide his streak of snickers. “It’s just— Gwaine, can you do that lip thing again? I never knew I could do that!”
“He is absolutely not allowed to do that!” Arthur shouted, and the mischievous two broke out in laughter once more. God, his poor heart was too old for this.
One time in highschool our teacher said that it was never under any circumstances okay for a boy to hit a girl and I asked “not even in self defense?” and he said “no” so I pointed to the kid next to me and said “so if I just started whaling on this guy then he’d just have to take it? What the hell” and he was like “you two have had the same homeroom for three years do you not know his name” and I was like “that’s not the point right now” and Mr. K if you’re out there reading this I’m still mad about it
the argument actually took up most of the class after that but there was a point where he said “why do you want men to hit women so badly?” And I answered “I don’t want anybody to hit anybody, I just think assuming that no woman you meet could possibly hurt you is kind of insulting” and I didn’t WIN per se but you could kind of feel the air shift as the conversation went from “chivalry good” to “girls might WANT to kick your ass”
Anyhow it’s been like 15 years now but I still swear by “capacity for harm is not gender-specific”, “nobody should be hurting anybody”, “men can be abused too”, and “gender equality means accepting that women CAN hurt you” so suck it, Mr. K
I’ve noticed more and more in public bathrooms that people skip the handwash and just take a squirt of hand sanitizer from wall dispensers on the way out. hand sanitizer is NOT effective against most things that come out of your ass. i cannot stress this enough. i’m begging y'all. please. please please please please please use the soap.
i’m out here immunosupressed fighting for my life to not get naturally selected while people around me touch a public toilet handles and walk back to their tables to immediately eat a burger
Thank you for bringing this up! Many hand sanitizers and household cleaners proudly claim to “Kill 99.99% of germs.”
In fact, this does not mean that the product kills 99.99% of all germs known to exist.
It means that, during product testing in a controlled environment, the product killed 99.99% of the germs it was specifically tested against. As you might imagine, Lysol isn’t testing its kitchen disinfectant spray against millions and millions of unique microbes.
In the U.S., labeling laws usually require that companies actually identify somewhere else on the label which germs are being tested and killed. Next time you see a “kills 99.99% of germs” label, check out the rest of the label, and you’ll find the small print which specifies that it kills 99.9% of one type of flu, or Covid, or E. Coli, etc. This is why many labels even include an asterisk, i.e.: “Kills 99.99% of Germs!*” Look for the companion asterisk elsewhere on the label for more info.
The way we kill these germs to prevent infections varies based on the germs’ structure. Essentially, we need different “weapons” (cleaning methods) to fight different microbes. A product that kills Flu Viruses and E. Coli can’t necessarily destroy Norovirus or Giardia.
No product is effective against every type of germ, even common germs which regularly cause illness in households and communities.
Hand washing is effective against more germs, not only because it can destroy germs which hand sanitizer cannot, but because it simply washes them off your hands.
People raising important notes here, like allergies to hand soaps in public toilets or the fact that public toilets often don’t bother to refill their dispensers. My advice is to grab an empty little hand sanitizer bottle and put some hand soap in there. Or cut a small sliver of bar soap and keep it in a durable lil’ ziploc bag. I’m not being funny. If access to soap is prohibitive to handwashing in your day 2 day life, bring the soap with you. You can take your fate into your own (clean) hands.
I figure in all the history of grifters and cons, at least once there must have been a snake oil salesman who advertised their product with such passion that their own children believed it.
This could mean anything, really
I realise it’s prob not what this post is about, but you get this in cults, actually. The first generation (in charge, I mean) knows it’s a grift, but then they die off and the new lot are true believers. And, as a result, they’re often worse.
