Ms. Smartarse > Recent Status Updates

"But we'll have to save [the world] for everyone, right? Even foreigners?"
"Well, yes. You cannot just save the bits you like. But the thing about the world, gentlemen and ladies, is that it inevitably includes whatever you happen to be standing on."

GET BENT, DIPSHIT!
The love note was scrawled across my grocery list on the refrigerator door. It was fine. I preferred keeping all my reminders in a central location. Now I knew I needed to pick up milk, sugar, bread and a new boyfriend.

"I hope you get what you're looking for."
That sounded like a curse. No, I knew what I wanted: a purebred male, classy and stylish. Not a dog you saw every day. One who would attract the pretty gay boys whenever I took him to the dog park.

The shock was visceral. Adam hadn't been kind enough to get fat... or bald. He was as tall and fit and lovely as when Callum had left him.

As a non-native English speaker I shouldn't feel this strongly, but...

"NITCH" IS AN ABOMINATION! 🤬🤬🤬
nēsh or nish are the only acceptable ways to pronounce the word niche!

... no, I don't care about Webster disagreeing.

Asking (begging?) for police protection be like:
"I'm still not sure about this."
"I'll make sure you have fun."
"I don't wanna have fun."
"Then I'll make sure you have a horrible evening."
"I can do that all by myself."

"We think we found the missing man, but a gator has him."
"What do you mean 'A GATOR 'HAS HIM'?"
"In its mouth. Carrying him around. This is a BFG. You know how to kill 'im right?"
"Yeah. Except it's illegal to kill a gator in Florida unless you have a license."
He'd let her explain to [the colonel] that they weren't legally allowed to kill the gator.

"You think the vegetarian surfer killed [the drug dealing victim] to steal his bag?!"
"There's nothing that prohibits a vegetarian from committing murder, just from eating the body."

He pocketed the cellphone this time, it had become part of his personality. All the film scenes: a destroyed forest in the storm, a yellow flower in grey bleakness, Jackson and the robin.

He was wonderful. The most wonderful man that I knew. The most broken. The most lovable. Nobody had really known him, not even Anna. Not even I. I belive that there are things we still don't know. An even deeper and darker abyss. I don't want to know about it. Not anymore.

Something with his leg was not as it should have been. But then nothing was as it should have been, his body felt as if it didn't belong to him. It was the body of someone who lived in this bleak flat, who didn't play the guitar and who didn't have grandparents like Magnus and Linda, who belonged here because he was the son of someone who belonged here.

This man might be a product of his imagination, if he had been driven mad by the Inhabitants, but Constans could see him too, and he doubted they had the same taste in hallucinations.

"I can't do this with a clear conscience unless I know you'll tell Master Warder what happened."
"Why is a clear conscience necessary?" Sagai asked, not helpfully. "All it takes is a confused sense of duty and a disregard for personal survival."
"Elen will enjoy herself more with a clear conscience," Khat told him.

"A stolen relic is easier to find?"
"Unless a relic is offered for sale, or is in the Academia, it sits on a shelf in someone's house and gathers dust, and no one ever sees it. If it's stolen, it's handled by a dozen people at least and goes on the Silent Market. Much easier to get word of it"

The idea that relics had mysterious purposes was a common misconception among those whose entire knowledge of the Ancients and the Survivor Time was acquired at the knee of their superstitious and half-mad old granny.

"The highest drama in the relic market is when your competitors get fed up with your success and try to kill you," Khat told her.

"What you said about love. That it doesn't ask, only beats us up. [...] Do you think there's ever a chance to hit back?"
"Try it. You'd be the first one to win. Love is an asshole, Elias. She is cold and merciless." Then she laughed again. "But I prefer to remember the nice things. The lovely moments with your father. Skating in the bay. Walks in the forest. They existed, the perfect moments. "

The Mystery of Marie Roget - **
(the most torturous 40 pages I've ever read)

‘I think [your arm] is dislocated, I have seen something similar before. I will take you home, if you agree: my brother is a medical student and he will help you, unless he is out.’

The man said nothing. He was groaning and kept biting his lower lip. Silence signalled assent, and so Alexandru mounted the box.

At the time he had promised his grandmother he would go to see her on Sundays whenever he was able. Today he was able. It did him good to chat to her about this and that and to ask her advice. And her voice as it was in life seemed to answer him, albeit now only in his mind, where it had somehow remained, stored alongside other voices, like the provisions in their larder

It was not swords that had played the largest role in building the empire. Pretense, more than anything, had allowed the Fanduillion bloodline to seize power over the entire continent. Two-thirds of a battle was convincing your enemy he was beaten - at least that was what Daindreth's mother had told him for as long as he could remember.

Amira spared a glance for herself in the mirror. Even with the rouge, kohl, and lip stain removed, she still looked finer in that moment that she had on most days in [home country] Some might say that being betrothed to a monster was the best thing that had happened to her. Something tugged in her chest at that thought.

Amira believed that everyone married for love—just not usually love of the person they married. Yeomen tended to marry for love of grazing land and sturdy roofs. Merchants married for love of money and trade routes. Kings and archdukes married for love of power.

The Murders in The Rue Morgue - ****

The Man of the Crowd - **

The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion - ***

Some women can't even hammer a nail into the wall and keep saying "Oh, my husband will do that.", but when you've been widowed twice, you become more pragmatic. It can't be that hard; if you leave out the beer drinking and the idle wondering, you'll be done in no time.

You can actually see so much more of the neighbourhood through clean windows, not to mention keeping yourself up to date. You can't really accuse me of being "curious", after all one needs to know who one's neighbours are, when we live under the same roof.

"[...]When my sister got married, she became a different person. It sounds silly to say, but she started acting like an adult. I felt even younger, and I was afraid I'd lose myself and become someone who likes balancing the books and complaining about young people these days."

Someone let out a jagged shriek. It might have been the same person who had yelled that it was snowing. The screaming quickly became contagious, and even those who didn't know why everyone else was screaming screamed for no reason.

Have you ever tried to catch the exact moment when a flower blooms? Flowers don't bloom while they are being watched. No matter how hard you try, it always happens when you're looking away.