History Memes

I can just see Queen Isabella agreeing to fund the trip just to get rid of Columbus. "Let's just pay him to go out to sea and die, Ferdinand. He's so fucking annoying." Then he walks into court in 1494 with a tan, a cob of corn and a chili pepper talking about "Hey you got any more of them boats? We went to leave Japan and the Santa Maria wouldn't start, I think it needs a new alternator."

Isabella doesn't have room in her head for this much surprise, confusion and anger at the same time so she's trying to ask him how the fuck he isn't dead but she keeps phrasing it in ways that makes Columbus recount his adventure. Like the first thing out of her mouth is "Where did YOU come from?" And Columbus lists all the islands he visited. Then she says "how did you not starve?" And he talks about provisions running low and then the men eating rope and hunting the ship's rats before they made landfall. It doesn't help that Columbus is Italian (and a bit thick) so Isabella's astonished Spanish isn't fully landing. Ferdinand's over there, got his eyes squeezed shut chuckling into his fist because this is the funniest shit he's seen all month but Isabella must NEVER know this or there'll be no living with her.

Then they send him back out and he commits just...all the atrocities.