Bethany T > Recent Status Updates

These requirements are calculated for total absorption of all food-stuffs: but in practice, by visual proof, this does not take place: this is especially noticeable in the case of fats, a quantity of which were digested neither by men, ponies, nor dogs.

So fascinating to see where they were scientifically at this time. Wow.

It is no use repeating that Englishmen will respond to every call and stick it to the death: they will (some of them); but they have to pay the price all the same.

And then the begging that is necessary to obtain even this equipment. Shackleton hanging round the doors of rich men! Scott writing begging letters for months together! Is the country not ashamed?

Saving people, hunting things, the family business. 😆

"For God's sake, look after our people."

He was a brave soul. [...] He said, 'I am just going outside and may be some time.' He went out into the blizzard and we have not seen him since.

Scott wrote home: "A last note from a hopeful position. I think it's going to be all right. We have a fine party going forward and arrangements are all going well." Ten months afterwards we found their bodies.

With the pad, pad, pad, of fin'skoed feet, / With two hundred pounds per man, / Not enough hoosh or biscuit to eat, / Well done, lads! Up tent! Outspan.

"I am waiting for a receipt for some penguins' eggs." At last it becomes clear from the Explorer's expression that what he is really waiting for is not to take a receipt but to commit murder. Presumably this is reported to the destined victim: at all events the receipt finally comes.

Thus impiously I set out to die, making up my mind that I was not going to try and keep warm, that it might not take too long, and thinking I would try and get some morphia from the medical case if it got very bad. Not a bit heroic, and entirely true! Yes! comfortable, warm reader. Men do not fear death, they fear the pain of dying.

It is extraordinary how often angels and fools do the same thing in this life, and I have never been able to settle which we were on this journey.

When we first got down to the shore and things were looking nasty, Wilson sat down on the top of a rock and ate a biscuit in the coolest possible manner. It was an example to avoid all panicking, for he did not want the biscuit.

I have quoted this review at length, because it gives the atmosphere of hero-worship into which we were plunged on our return. That atmosphere was very agreeable; but it was a refracting medium through which the expedition could not be seen with scientific accuracy—and the expedition was nothing if not scientific.

Polar exploration is at once the cleanest and most isolated way of having a bad time which has been devised.

Lucy is 100% the killer.

"Oh yeah,” he said. “Right.” Something curled in the back of his head, a question mark.

Uh oh.

So here’s what you do if you’re a Black guy trying to make it work in an unfamiliar world: You just put your head down and do the work. You do twice as much work as the white guy sitting next to you, and you do it twice as often, and you get half as far. But you do it. You just sit down and practice, over and over, and eventually someone turns to you and says, “Wow, you’re way better than I expected you’d be.”

A reverse Holmes and Watson, perhaps? I'm interested in this dynamic and hope Lord Alexander joins Sandman's crime-solving.

Ryder waits by the door, keys in his hand, making me think he was just…the driver.
“Hey, Tinker Bell,” he says, nonchalantly standing amongst the strewn medical supplies and medical brochures. “You good?”

"Is there any way to escape a fae contract?”
“Yes, and it’s fairly straightforward.”
I relax a little. “What do we have to do?”
“Kill him.”
“Rowan!”

Oh, no! Not fated mates!

"He enjoys stealing my things.”
“I’m not yours.”
His stormy eyes meet mine, and something about the way he’s looking at me makes me think he disagrees.

“You told me it was cute and worthless.”
“That’s before I realized you could call a storm and ruin Ash’s entire day. If there is a gift that needs to be protected, it’s that.”

Did...did Rowan just agree to indentured servitude?

“I know where you sleep.”
“You’re smaller than a house cat—I’m not too worried. And if you’ll remember, I know where you sleep, too.”
“Yeah,” Rowan says. “In your girlfriend’s house.”

“Look at you,” Rowan says wryly. “Who needs magic when you have a stick?”

Damn, boy. But also, I bet he turns out to be just the worst by the end.

For all I know, the variety Ash prefers is worth its weight in gold. It might be picked on foggy spring days by silent monks, washed in gathered dew, and dried in the heat of a dragon’s cliffside cave.

Revulsion briefly passes over his face, like peanut butter is for peasants.

“You can’t turn back to your normal self?”
“I can. I just haven’t accomplished it yet."
“So…you can’t.”
He ruffles his feathers, peering at me with his unblinking eyes.