My favorite thing ever is how Ron just sent Charlie a random letter like “hey yo there’s an illegal dragon at hogwarts, could you come and smuggle it out of here, please?” and Charlie was just like “yeah sure, I’ll trespass into the castle and steal a dangerous magical creature, of course, lemme just hit up my friends”
It’s better if you imagine Charlie and co as a group of Grad Students trying to avoid their other responsibilities.
Charlie is drunkenly revising the third draft of his thesis on proper care and feeding of greenhorns when his family owl slams into the window.
Three of his friends jump and look around. Glinda doesn’t raise her head from her folded arms; only groans, “Is that Baines coming to do me in?”
Charlie totters to the window and fetches Errol from the window pane. “No such luck,” he says. “You’re still going to have to take the exam.” After some consideration, Charlie lays him on a clear patch of floor to recover. “Do owls take firewhiskey?” he asks the room at large.
“It’s not fair,” Glinda wails into the tabletop. “I swear he didn’t say anything about Bridgewort’s handling practices when we did the review in class.”
“Oh, Merlin,” says Ali, freezing over their notes like a Medusa wyvern had bitten them. “Oh, Merlin’s sweet saggy socks. Is he covering Bridgewort?”
“That’s what he said when I went to his office hours.” Glinda sits up. “You know his lapdragon singed my new sweater?!”
Charlie decides not to give Errol a nip of whiskey. Flying under the influence is really not done. He unties the letter from Errol’s leg. Ron’s childish spiky handwriting spells out Charlie’s name on the front. Inside is a hastily scrawled message.
“Yes, we know it ruined your sweater,” snaps Ysabelle. “You told us twenty times. Why didn’t you tell us Baines told you we’re going to be tested on Bridgewort?”
“I meant to,” says Glinda. “Sorry.” She flicks her pile of notes. “I was lost in the miasma of gloom and desperation.”
Ali puts their head back and groans. “I’m gonna die. I’m gonna say ‘fuck it’ and just fucking walk into a dragon’s mouth so I don’t have to do this.”
“Hey,” says Charlie. They don’t hear him.
“How much is this worth again?” Glinda asks her bottle of butterbeer.
“Twenty-five percent,” Ali and Ysabelle chorus. Ysabelle adds, “and the thesis is fifty percent of our total grade.”
“Hey!” Charlie repeats. They look at him. He waves Ron’s letter. “My littlest brother at Hogwarts has an illegal dragon he needs to get off campus. Anybody up for a midnight flight?”
Ali slams their hands down on the table and stands up. “Fuck yes,” they say decisively. “Maybe I’ll fly into the Whomping Willow and die a quick death.”
So there has been a bit of “what if humans were the weird ones?” going around tumblr at the moment and Earth Day got me thinking. Earth is a wonky place, the axis tilts, the orbit wobbles, and the ground spews molten rock for goodness sakes. What if what makes humans weird is just our capacity to survive? What if all the other life bearing planets are these mild, Mediterranean climates with no seasons, no tectonic plates, and no intense weather?
What if several species (including humans) land on a world and the humans are all “SCORE! Earth like world! Let’s get exploring before we get out competed!” And the planet starts offing the other aliens right and left, electric storms, hypothermia, tornadoes and the humans are just … there… counting seconds between flashes, having snowball fights, and just surviving.
To paraphrase one of my favorite bits of a ‘humans are awesome’ fiction megapost: “you don’t know you’re from a Death World until you leave it.” For a ton of reasons, I really like the idea of Earth being Space Australia.
Earth being Space Australia
Words cannot express how much I love these posts
Alien: “I’m sorry, what did you just say your comfortable temperature range is?”
Human: “Honestly we can tolerate anywhere from -40 to 50 Celcius, but we prefer the 0 to 30 range.”
Alien: “……. I’m sorry, did you just list temperatures below freezing?”
Human: “Yeah, but most of us prefer to throw on scarves or jackets at those temperatures it can be a bit nippy.”
Other human: “Nah mate, I knew this guy in college who refused to wear anything past his knees and elbows until it was -20 at least.”
Human: “Heh. Yeah everybody knows someone like that.”
Alien: “……. And did you also say 50 Celcius? As in, half way to boiling?”
Human: “Eugh. Yes. It sucks, we sweat everywhere, and god help you if you touch a seatbelt buckle, but yes.”
Alien: “……. We’ve got like 50 uninhabitable planets we think you might enjoy.”
“You’re telling me that you have… settlements. On islands with active volcanism?”
“Well, yeah. I’m not about to tell Iceland and Hawaii how to live their lives. Actually, it’s kind of a tourist attraction.”
“What, the molten rock?”
“Well, yeah! It’s not every day you see a mountain spew out liquid rocks! The best one is Yellowstone, though. All these hot springs and geysers from the supervolcano–”
“You ACTIVELY SEEK OUT ACTIVE SUPERVOLCANOES?”
“Shit, man, we swim in the groundwater near them.”
Sounds like the “Damned” trilogy by Alan Dean Foster.
“And you say the poles of your world would get as low as negative one hundred with wind chill?”
“Yup, with blizzards you cant see through every other day just about.”
“Amazing! when did you manage to send drones that could survive such temperatures?”
“… well, actually…”
“… what?”
“…we kinda……. sent……….. people…..”
“…”
“…”
“…what?”
“we sent-”
“no yeah I heard you I just- what? You sent… HUMANS… to a place one hundred degrees below freezing?”
“y-yeah”
“and they didn’t… die?”
“Well the first few did”
“PEOPLE DIED OF THE COLD AND YOUR SOLUTION WAS TO SEND MORE PEOPLE???!?!?!?”
My new favorite Humans are Weird quote
“PEOPLE DIED OF THE COLD AND YOUR SOLUTION WAS TO SEND MORE PEOPLE?”
aka The History of Russia
aka Arctic Exploration
aka The History of Alaska
“How did you select these poor unlucky victims? Were they perhaps prisoners, or religionists atoning for some mortal sin?”
“No, actually, they mostly… volunteered.”
“Oh mate, Wait ‘til you find out about the people who live there.”
“WHAT?!?!”
“You breathe what?!”
“Oxygen. I thought y’all did, too.”
“We breathe nitrogen! That’s what the filters we wear are for!”
“Y’know, I was wondering about those things.”
“You honestly breathe oxygen? But that stuff’s so corrosive that we use it to etch glass!”
“Oh, yeah… We do that too. Versatile stuff, oxygen. We also use it to start rockets, since we need something that burns well…”
“You–you understand that the ground is unstable, right? You won’t be able to build on that planet.”
“Earthquakes? How big?”
“We have measured them to be 4.0 on your Richter scale.”
“Nah, that’s nothin’, we’ll take it.”
“You’ll what? The planet experiences weekly tectonic shifts! We’ve recorded spikes equivalent to a 6.0 on your scale!”
“Dude, we get like 500 of those a year.”
“Five hundred?!”
“We don’t even feel anything under like a 4.5, my guy. So let’s do this, where do I sign?”
THE LIST OF THINGS NINTENDO PREDATES INCLUDES, BUT IS NOT LIMITED TO:
THE SHERLOCK HOLMES FRANCHISE
UNITED STATES PRESIDENT DWIGHT D. EISHENHOWER’S BIRTH
THE NOVEL “DRACULA”
THE NOVELS “THE TIME MACHINE” AND “WAR OF THE WORLDS” BY H.G. WELLS
THE FIRST MODERN OLYMPIC GAMES
THE DISCOVERY OF HELIUM ON EARTH
… Okay. I believe you. But like… how?
NINTENDO WAS FOUNDED IN 1889 AS A CARD GAME MANUFACTURER AND ALL THOSE OTHER THINGS HAPPENED IN 1890 OR LATER
WHAT THE FUCK I THOUGHT DRACULA WAS EARLIER WHAT THE FUCK
YOU COULD WRITE A DRACULA FANFIC WHERE DRACULA TRAVELS TO JAPAN AND BUYS A PACK OF NINTENDO BRAND PLAYING CARDS AND IT WOULD BE HISTORICALLY ACCURATE. SAME DEAL FOR SHERLOCK HOLMES.
No no no no no!
Don’t write fanfic!
Those things are in the public domain!
You can legally write, publish, and sell a Dracula book where Dracula travels to Japan and buys a pack of Nintendo brand playing cards!
top six female characters (if this is still running??)
Oooo-hooo-hooo, it’s been a goddamn WHILE since I went into my inbox, yeah, I have a lot of stuff to catch up on. But yes! This is still going! This is the top six meme, for those of you who (justifiably) have forgotten since a month ago.
Also, this ask if just goddamn MEAN. How??? Am I supposed to pick????
By cheating ruthlessly, that’s how.
Books
Jamethiel Priest’s-bane, of the Kencyrath Chronicles, because she’s fierce as fuck and rides a rathorn into battle and is probably going to end the world. Literally what else could you WANT in a character.
Harimad-sol AKA Harry Crewe and Lady Aerin Dragon-killer, and I’m cheating MORE by putting them in the same category because they’re from the same series. They are my beloved childhood friends and heroes, okay, the Blue Sword andthe Hero and the Crownare goddamn glorious.
RACHEL. Because GODDAMN ANIMORPHS. I’m not going to say more because I’m writing an epic rant about every book as I reread it. Also Cassie gets honorary mention because GODDAMN CASSIE.
Hermione Granger. C’mon, y’all, I’m part of the Harry Potter generation and I’m a Gryffindor, Hermione is basically mandatory for this list.
Kitsune Yukiko from Stormdancer, my L O V E. Someone come cry with me.
Um! Um! I only have one more, um! THERE ARE TOO MANY. Fuck it, Galadriel. And Arwen. They’re tied for LOTR lady-love. With Eowyn as a close second.
Movies/TV
IMPERATOR FURIOSA, ‘nuff said.
The Honorable Miss Phryne Fisher, because I’m literally watching Miss Fisher right now and remembering that I adore this show and have the worst crush on Phryne. Also her lesbian doctor friend is awesome.
Buffy Goddamn Summers.
Echo from Dollhouse. “I’m not broken.” And honorary mention to Dolores from Westworld. “I imagined a narrative where I wasn’t the victim.” God, stories about empty bodies being filled up with souls are my SHIT.
Rey. And General Leia Organa.
MAKO MOTHERFUCKIN’ JAEGER-DRIVIN’ KAIJU-STOMPIN’ MORI
Comics
Rogue. I like shitkicker comics Rogue a lot more than movie Rogue, not gonna lie to you.
Natasha Goddamn Romanoff.
Wonder Woman. Because she’s fucking Wonder Woman.
Kitty Pryde. I feel that she has been grievously wronged by the movies and I’ve taken it very personally.
Ororo fucking Monroe, god, Storm is everything to me, she’s a goddess.
Jean Grey. I know a lot of people think Jean is…I don’t know, boring or something? But I just. I love her a lot, I got started on the comics rather than the original movies, and Sophie Turner CRUSHED IT in Apocalypse.
Hi! I'm the person who usually comments on your stuff as torp. I just thought I'd drop by and let you know how much I enjoy your blog and your writing. I came across one of your fics by chance and you just sucked me in. Anyway, I hope your day has been/continues to be great!
*claps hands over face* Torp! Doll! You’re too nice to me I??? How do I do the compliment thing? Thank you so much, oh my god.
wait: anakin only had one gene donor. the only genes he’s carrying, apparently, are his mother’s, and the force bullshitted the rest. so, if you were to try and clone him - wouldn’t you just get clones of shmi?
imagine palpatine trying to clone vader and ending up teenage shmi skywalker, here to fuck you up
That might explain Rey…
That… That’s.. A shockingly good idea. It helps that it fits the casting perfectly.
If this were the case, it would mean that Rey could legitimately say to Luke “I am your father.”
And it’d be true, from a certain point of view. :)
*pulls up pictures of Shmi and Rey*
….
Holy shit, that could totally work
I have never wanted anything as much as I want this to be canon. NEVER.
this is the only ‘Rey comes by her Force sense/badassery from somebody else’ version I can accept.
So there has been a bit of “what if humans were the weird ones?” going around tumblr at the moment and Earth Day got me thinking. Earth is a wonky place, the axis tilts, the orbit wobbles, and the ground spews molten rock for goodness sakes. What if what makes humans weird is just our capacity to survive? What if all the other life bearing planets are these mild, Mediterranean climates with no seasons, no tectonic plates, and no intense weather?
What if several species (including humans) land on a world and the humans are all “SCORE! Earth like world! Let’s get exploring before we get out competed!” And the planet starts offing the other aliens right and left, electric storms, hypothermia, tornadoes and the humans are just … there… counting seconds between flashes, having snowball fights, and just surviving.
To paraphrase one of my favorite bits of a ‘humans are awesome’ fiction megapost: “you don’t know you’re from a Death World until you leave it.” For a ton of reasons, I really like the idea of Earth being Space Australia.
Earth being Space Australia
Words cannot express how much I love these posts
Alien: “I’m sorry, what did you just say your comfortable temperature range is?”
Human: “Honestly we can tolerate anywhere from -40 to 50 Celcius, but we prefer the 0 to 30 range.”
Alien: “……. I’m sorry, did you just list temperatures below freezing?”
Human: “Yeah, but most of us prefer to throw on scarves or jackets at those temperatures it can be a bit nippy.”
Other human: “Nah mate, I knew this guy in college who refused to wear anything past his knees and elbows until it was -20 at least.”
Human: “Heh. Yeah everybody knows someone like that.”
Alien: “……. And did you also say 50 Celcius? As in, half way to boiling?”
Human: “Eugh. Yes. It sucks, we sweat everywhere, and god help you if you touch a seatbelt buckle, but yes.”
Alien: “……. We’ve got like 50 uninhabitable planets we think you might enjoy.”
“You’re telling me that you have… settlements. On islands with active volcanism?”
“Well, yeah. I’m not about to tell Iceland and Hawaii how to live their lives. Actually, it’s kind of a tourist attraction.”
“What, the molten rock?”
“Well, yeah! It’s not every day you see a mountain spew out liquid rocks! The best one is Yellowstone, though. All these hot springs and geysers from the supervolcano–”
“You ACTIVELY SEEK OUT ACTIVE SUPERVOLCANOES?”
“Shit, man, we swim in the groundwater near them.”
Sounds like the “Damned” trilogy by Alan Dean Foster.
“And you say the poles of your world would get as low as negative one hundred with wind chill?”
“Yup, with blizzards you cant see through every other day just about.”
“Amazing! when did you manage to send drones that could survive such temperatures?”
“… well, actually…”
“… what?”
“…we kinda……. sent……….. people…..”
“…”
“…”
“…what?”
“we sent-”
“no yeah I heard you I just- what? You sent… HUMANS… to a place one hundred degrees below freezing?”
“y-yeah”
“and they didn’t… die?”
“Well the first few did”
“PEOPLE DIED OF THE COLD AND YOUR SOLUTION WAS TO SEND MORE PEOPLE???!?!?!?”
My new favorite Humans are Weird quote
“PEOPLE DIED OF THE COLD AND YOUR SOLUTION WAS TO SEND MORE PEOPLE?”
aka The History of Russia
aka Arctic Exploration
aka The History of Alaska
This would be cool cause it would explain why other aliens are always more advanced than humans technologically. They have it easy and don’t need to focus on developing tech for Earth quake proof housing or need extra powerful and strong heat or cooling devices to live in their homes, so their technology went to improving space travel and sorts.
And then in the future humans essentially become the China of the universe and we’re known for our advanced survival technology that we could sell to other beings trying to colonize, since they don’t have the tech to survive hostile planets and then the money just goes back into us being able to survive better and better, and knowing daredevil humans, they’d make space-galaxy-history trying to survive the most deadly planets and spawning entire fuckin colonies in these deadly places and other aliens would never fight us for the territory cause they can’t live there on their own so we essentially just everywhere freaking out our alien neighbors with our fascination of just putting up with Bullshit to expand and live.
So there has been a bit of “what if humans were the weird ones?” going around tumblr at the moment and Earth Day got me thinking. Earth is a wonky place, the axis tilts, the orbit wobbles, and the ground spews molten rock for goodness sakes. What if what makes humans weird is just our capacity to survive? What if all the other life bearing planets are these mild, Mediterranean climates with no seasons, no tectonic plates, and no intense weather?
What if several species (including humans) land on a world and the humans are all “SCORE! Earth like world! Let’s get exploring before we get out competed!” And the planet starts offing the other aliens right and left, electric storms, hypothermia, tornadoes and the humans are just … there… counting seconds between flashes, having snowball fights, and just surviving.
To paraphrase one of my favorite bits of a ‘humans are awesome’ fiction megapost: “you don’t know you’re from a Death World until you leave it.” For a ton of reasons, I really like the idea of Earth being Space Australia.
Earth being Space Australia
Words cannot express how much I love these posts
Alien: “I’m sorry, what did you just say your comfortable temperature range is?”
Human: “Honestly we can tolerate anywhere from -40 to 50 Celcius, but we prefer the 0 to 30 range.”
Alien: “……. I’m sorry, did you just list temperatures below freezing?”
Human: “Yeah, but most of us prefer to throw on scarves or jackets at those temperatures it can be a bit nippy.”
Other human: “Nah mate, I knew this guy in college who refused to wear anything past his knees and elbows until it was -20 at least.”
Human: “Heh. Yeah everybody knows someone like that.”
Alien: “……. And did you also say 50 Celcius? As in, half way to boiling?”
Human: “Eugh. Yes. It sucks, we sweat everywhere, and god help you if you touch a seatbelt buckle, but yes.”
Alien: “……. We’ve got like 50 uninhabitable planets we think you might enjoy.”
“You’re telling me that you have… settlements. On islands with active volcanism?”
“Well, yeah. I’m not about to tell Iceland and Hawaii how to live their lives. Actually, it’s kind of a tourist attraction.”
“What, the molten rock?”
“Well, yeah! It’s not every day you see a mountain spew out liquid rocks! The best one is Yellowstone, though. All these hot springs and geysers from the supervolcano–”
“You ACTIVELY SEEK OUT ACTIVE SUPERVOLCANOES?”
“Shit, man, we swim in the groundwater near them.”
Sounds like the “Damned” trilogy by Alan Dean Foster.
“And you say the poles of your world would get as low as negative one hundred with wind chill?”
“Yup, with blizzards you cant see through every other day just about.”
“Amazing! when did you manage to send drones that could survive such temperatures?”
“… well, actually…”
“… what?”
“…we kinda……. sent……….. people…..”
“…”
“…”
“…what?”
“we sent-”
“no yeah I heard you I just- what? You sent… HUMANS… to a place one hundred degrees below freezing?”
“y-yeah”
“and they didn’t… die?”
“Well the first few did”
“PEOPLE DIED OF THE COLD AND YOUR SOLUTION WAS TO SEND MORE PEOPLE???!?!?!?”
My new favorite Humans are Weird quote
“PEOPLE DIED OF THE COLD AND YOUR SOLUTION WAS TO SEND MORE PEOPLE?”
aka The History of Russia
aka Arctic Exploration
aka The History of Alaska
“How did you select these poor unlucky victims? Were they perhaps prisoners, or religionists atoning for some mortal sin?”
“No, actually, they mostly… volunteered.”
“Hang on, there’s an atmospheric phenomenon on your world that can rip apart one of your residences?”
“… Yes? I mean only in certain bits of it but”
“And if I’m understanding you right it can carry the debris for long periods at lethal speeds?”
“Uh-huh, sounds about right”
“And some of you *seek these things out in person as a recreational activity?!*”
“Oh, man, remind me never to tell you what happens when a tornado encounters a large fire, I’m not sure you could handle it. ”
I really want a science fiction story where aliens come to invade earth and effortlessly wipe out humanity, only to be fought off by the wildlife.
They were expecting military resistance. They weren’t counting on bears.
Imagine coming to a hostile alien world and being attacked by a horde of creatures that can weigh up to 3 tons, run at 30 km/h (19 mph), and bite with a force of 8,100 newtons (1,800 lbf).
By the time you realise that they can traverse water, it’s too late. The surviving members of your unit manage to make it back by shedding their excess gear and running for their lives; the slower ones were crushed to death within minutes.
You later describe the creature to one of the humans you captured, wanting to know the name of the monstrosity that will haunt your nightmares for cycles to come.
The human smiles as it speaks a single word, slowly and distinctly, in its barbaric tongue.
“Hippopotamus.”
This is giving me the biggest, creepiest grin I might have ever grinned
Imagine being the next crew to go down to earth and thinking “it’s fine, we got this. We have the weapons and equipment necessary to deal with bears and *shudders* hippopotamuses. We’ll be fine.”
And at first you are, you’ve learned how to dodge. You’ve learned where their territories are. You know how to defend yourself.
But then one night you are sleeping in your shelter. You’re in a tree covered temperate part of earth. It seems benign. There are been no sightings of the dreaded “hippos” around. Not even any bears. But there is a slight rustle of the undergrowth. You try and ignore it telling yourself it is just the wind.
Then you hear the rustle again. closer this time.
You peer out into the darkness but see nothing amongst the trees.
The rustle again and now you realise you can smell something. It’s musky and slightly foul. It’s the smell of an omen, a warning. But what of? Where is this smell coming from.
You sit up, but it’s too late. The foul smelling creature is on you. You are hit with 17kg of coarse fur and vicious bites. Long dark claws tear in to you and you are pinned down white the striped creature tries to bite your throat.
It takes some doing but you manage to wrestle free. Blood drips from your wounds and already they itch with the sign of infection. The creature has a bloodied snout, rust rad, mingling with the black and white hairs. It lets out a terrifying growl from the back of its throat and looks to attack again. It’s between you and your knife, so your only choice is to back away.
Eventually the creature gives up and snuffles off in to the undergrowth, down a hole near your shelter you hadn’t noticed before.
When you make it back to your base you once again consult the captive human.
“Badger.” they say, with a solemn nod.
One word: Moose
“Our vehicles are far superior to the local human models, in range, speed, armament, and any other metric you care to name! Nothing could possibly-”
BAMrumblerumblethumpcrash!!!
“That’s called a moose.”
Wolverines.
Also.. dolphins.
The invasion is going slowly. The humans have caught on and are actively destroying information on the planet’s flora and fauna before Intelligence can capture and process it. All that they have are survivors’ accounts. Bears. Hippos. Badgers. Moose. It is becoming obvious this mudball planet is a full-on Death World to the unprepared, and you are so very unprepared.
You lost Jaxurn to a plant. Not even a mobile or carnivorous plant, just one that caused a vicious allergic reaction on contact that killed him in less than a rai'kor. Commander Vura'ko died to an insect bite, a tiny local pest that sucked a tiny bit of her blood and apparently replaced it with a bit of its last meal, which was full of disease. Backwash. She died to bug backwash. And yet you honestly envy them after that… thing you encountered…
When you got back to base the quarantine officer refused to let you inside. They had to roll a containment tank outside to put you in, because you all knew there would be no chance of eliminating the smell if it got into the ship’s air ducts. Smell. You wonder if your nasal slit will ever recover from this stench.
And the smell would. Not. Leave. After incinerating your gear the Q.O. had you use every cleansing agent they could think of, including a few janitorial ones, and still everyone fled the stench if they were downwind of your tank. Desperate to protect everyone’s nasal slits from the smell the quarantine officer interrogated the humans. From them, a glimmer of hope: there was a cure. Somehow the juice of a certain fruit on this mudball was the only thing that could break up the chemicals in the little horror’s spray. Immediately the Q.O. sent a team to recover buckets of the stuff and made you bathe in it. That was hours ago and it didn’t seem to be working, though. All it was doing was turning your blue skin an interesting shade of purple.
Sighing in frustration you wave the med-assist on duty over, who only approaches after checking the wind direction. Annoyed, you flip on the tank`s vox speaker.
“The humans did say it was “grape” juice that removed “skunk” stench, right?“
Every night.
It came for someone almost every night.
Any soldier alone was a viable target for this native monster that moved unseen by any but the security viewers, usually only spotted in hindsight. They were taken as silently as this earth-monster moved. Sometimes they’d find the remains in the morning taken up a tree and hung there, mostly eaten, as if it were a grisly reminder that the monster was still there, waiting unseen, to strike again.
What little they saw of the monster on the vidfeed showed true horror. Yellow eyes that shone with all the light it could gather. It had fangs as long as his grasping digits. Claws half that size formed curved hooks that allowed it to climb up their fortifications with impunity. And in the underbrush, its spots made it almost impossible to see clearly in the undergrowth, if it could be seen at all.
Even the native sentients, the humans, had a healthy respect and fear for it.
The earth natives called the monster a leopard.
It was a constant fear that muddied the senses, and let the monster hunt even more effectively as the soldiers were always on edge. Sleep deprived with fear, it made them even better targets for the monster.
But rumor was that there was worse on this planet. Rumors of a monster like a leopard but larger, and bigger in every imaginable sense. Stripped instead of spotted, which leaped from the underbrush with a sound.
A sound that burst eardrums, paralyzed entire units, and let the monster kill with impunity. While the Leopard wrestled soldiers down and ripped their throats out. This other monster, the Tiger, killed with its pounce alone.
“We’ve been through this,” Group Leader 455 snapped. “The dissection of an Earth life form will help the scientists make weapons to combat the rest of this planet’s hellbeasts. And these are domesticated. Harmless.”
The troops were not-quite-looking at her in the way troops do when they don’t want to be seen to contradict a ranking officer, but can’t quite muster a correct Expression of Enthusiastic Assent. “The name of this species,” she pointed out, “is synonymous with dullness and slowness in the language of the Earth barbarians.” Well, one language out of several thousand—these creatures needed Imperial guidance more than any other world on record—but there was no point in confusing the rank and file.
More not-quite-looking. 455 bubbled a sigh and consulted her scanner. “That one,” she decided. “Alone in the separate pasture. Scans suggest that it’s a male, which means it’s probably weaker. Possibly it’s kept isolated so that the females don’t eat it before mating season. And yes, I know some of you are here on punishment detail, but you’re still soldiers of the Imperium. This squad is perfectly capable of handling a lone, helpless, pathetic male cow.”
I’m enjoying this immensely. Wait until the aliens try Australia for size…
It was a strange creature Tar'van glimpsed at on the vast island known to the humans as ‘Australia’.
“I would warn you not to fuck with us, mate.” Their forced guide, a prisioner, had warned with a chilling grin upon capture. “If you think a moose is bad, wait until you tango with a red back.” To this day Tar'van fears the creature known as the red back, and what horrors it would bring.
The prisioner turned out to be of little help,the stubboness of his people causing them to refuse the danger that the captured human warned of. Tar'van recalls a moment when one of his squad members approached a creature know as a dingo, insistent they had seen these creatures before and they were tame. They barely escaped with 5 of the original 7 members of his squad.
Another moment Tar'van recalls was the brutal mauling they witnessed by the hands of a creature called an ‘Emu’
“Don’t feel too bad,” the prisioner mocked. “We lost a war to the Emu’s as well.”
Now with only 4 members of their squad left, including themself, Tar'van had learned to listen to the prisoner, to be wary of the simplest of creatures. This human was of the sub-species of ‘Zookeeper’ after all.
The ‘Zookeeper’ looks off to the distance, where the creature is.
“It’s a kangaroo, leave it be and you’ll be fine.” Tar'van nods, a human signal of acknowledgement if they are correct. The human smiles a bit.
“That creature cannot possibly harm us.” Tar'van’s squadleader protests. “It is so docile. I will aproach it and bring back it’s head to show this human is a fearmongering liar.”
The human reels back, a look of disgust crosses their face and anger passes through their eyes.
“Fucking do it mate, I dare ya.” The human hisses. The squad leader puffs up their hoinn gland, a sign of pride to their species, and aproached the so called ‘Kangaroo’.
“This will be unpleasant.” A squadmate mutters as they watch their leader raise their fist and bring it down on the creature. The ‘Kangaroo’ looks a little stunned by the impact, before it raises itself upon its strong tail and uses its powerful heind legs to launch their squadleader backwards through the air.
Their squadleader lands upon the ground, unmoving with black blooded oozeing from them. It appears Tar'van is the squads leader now.
“I don’t know what they expected.” the human says, smugness filling their tone. “Kangaroos are fucking shreaded. 8-pack and all.”
Tar'van steps forward to the human, whom inches back in a sign of fear as Tar'van pulls their blade from its holster, and in their first act as leader, frees the human of the bonds around their hands.
“Please,” Tar'van bags. “Get us back safely.”
@kryallaorchid, you guys really lost a war to emus? Why was it necessary?
oh, mate, you never mess with the emus.
(Jesus christ. Dont get us started on kangaroos)
They had faced Emu’s. They had lost one in the battle but had experienced them. But this was no emu.
Looking to their guide, they all stare in horror as his face changes from calculating to fear. Pure, heart consuming horror as he stares at the large bird. “Cassowary…” They mimic him in fear. Squawking the horrific name as another joins the first in the mad run towards them.
The only ones to survive was the native guide and Tar'van. The guide was carrying the soldier over his shoulder as they made their way back to the settlement. Tar'van was a wreck. Periodically alternating between rocking in complete silence and whispering broken words in horror. When they consulted the native all he said was “Its spring…. Magpie season…”
“Listen up, troops. This armour upgrade has been tested both in the laboratories of the best Imperial military scientists and in the field. We are impervious to the stings of any insect on this hellhole of a planet, striped or not! We can brave the perils of its wildlife, and conquer it at long last! Revenge for our fallen companions! Glory to the Emperor!”
“Excuse me,” the native Terran guide speaks up in a tired tone, and the squad’s cheers die on their lips. “This is Japan. You haven’t seen what–”
“Silence, worm! No sting can penetrate this plating!”
The guide tries to warn them once again, merely earning a blow that throws them to their knees. The troops set out, morale high, certain in their ability to brave the wildlife now and thirsting for vengeance against the non-sentient native species. One soldier thumps his fist against a tree. A hollow sound follows.
In an instant, the soldier is the centre of a storm of the striped insects. At first, no one pays it any mind. Their little stings cannot penetrate the new plating, after all.
But then the soldier falls to his knees, and the squad stares in horror as the insects enclose him in layer upon layer of their own bodies, all moving. The squad’s medic yells a warning at everyone to stay back, watching the readouts of the unfortunate soldier’s armour on their diagnostic screen with undisguised horror. The insects aren’t even stinging. They simply keep moving, one atop the other, and the soldier’s body temperature is slowly rising until he drops to the ground, quite literally cooked alive. The insect swarm takes off, unharmed save for the ones that were crushed when the trooper fell.
Finally asked about what happened, the human sighs. “Japanese honeybees. They do this to wasps, too.”
“How?” You ask. “How has your species dominated this planet?”
The human bares its teeth. A smile, they call it. Something humans do when they are happy. Yet you can’t help but think of all the creatures with the their large fangs and sharp teeth. (What kind of species uses a threat signal as a sign of happiness?)
“Persistence and ingenuity.” The human answers, still smiling.
It doesn’t matter that this one is your prisoner. Humans, you decide, are as terrifying as their planet.
“And scattered about it … were the Martians–dead!–slain by the putrefactive and disease bacteria against which their systems were unprepared; slain as the red weed was being slain; slain, after all man’s devices had failed, by the humblest things that God, in his wisdom, had put upon this earth.”
– HG Wells, The War of the Worlds,1898
I’m picturing aliens going up against a hoard of Canadian geese, or a swan.
I think at that point they’d just give up.
Or fire ants
No one even MENTIONED snakes yet…
This thing gets better EVERY FUCKING TIME I SEE IT.
“Let us try the creatures that the humans keep for domestic companionship”
“Is that a miniature tiger?”
“Why does this human own a small pack of wolves?”
The aliens ask their human captive why small wolves live with them.
“Oh, you mean dogs? Yeah, they’re the only animals that can keep up with us.”
The aliens look at each other in fear. “What do you mean?”
“Oh well that’s why you guys ‘won’ is because humans aren’t super fast or strong. I think my middle school biology teacher called us pursuit predators? It means we evolved to hunt things by following them at walking pace until they had to stop to sleep and then catching up to them then. Dogs are the only animals that can keep up with us. Did you know one time a pack of wolves tailed a herd of caribou for three days straight?”
“Uh… okay, what about these small round things with big teeth?”
“Omg dude no if you give a hamster enought time that little fucker can chew through concrete :)”
The aliens wonder if the surrender of humanity was a trap.
Somebody do sharks or sea creatures next. Giant squids would wreak havoc on their ships.
The aliens have sophisticated technology which pretty much allows them to live underwater, which is something even the inventive humans have never managed. Submarines have nothing on alien submersion pods, which can withstand the crushing pressures of even the darkest depths of the oceans and seas.
The aliens aren’t expecting any difficulties with their underwater expeditions. Of course, that’s when four of the life signs on the central screen simply vanish, like they’d never been there.
Alpha turns on the direct communication lines to the remaining submersion pods, and the only thing they hear through the tinny speakers is screaming.
Alpha resists the urge to turn and stare at the shackled human standing behind them, but Beta, Gamma and Theta have no such compunctions.
The human shrugs. “I mean, we’ve never really been down there so we’re not entire sure, but we’ve heard stories of giant squids and stuff. No smoke without fire, and all that.”
“There can be neither smoke nor fire underwater, human, cease your prattling.”
The human snorts. “It’s a phrase. A metaphor? Man, I don’t know, I studied marine biology, not literature.”
The human is unable to tell them anything useful about what might have happened to the submersion pods, but retrieved footage later shows tentacled behemoths snaking out of the depths of disturbed silt and cold water, and crushing the submersion pods effortlessly, in full view of the outer-hull cameras. The monsters have giant beaks which rip through the organic alloy sheets, and into the bodies of the pod pilots within.
The outer-hull cameras register the blue of fresh spilled blood and gore, at the same time the on-board cameras register screaming and the red glow of critical power failure.
The last thing the aliens can see on the retrieved footage is thin, long, snakelike creatures appearing out of the darkness and gloom, creating their own light and descending upon the remains of their brethren. They are accompanied by creatures that look like plastic bags, but which feed upon the toxic remains of the organic alloy of which the pods were made.
The human appears completely nonchalant - there is no love lost between slave and master. “Wait till you see sharks.”
I’ve seen this post go around a few times, but this time I have some thoughts: 1) This is more or less the plot of Animorphs.
2) Earth has Poison Dart Frogs, we’re clearly a Death World.
3) I’m now imagining them deciding to set up a base on the poles, because life on this planet is clearly dependant on plants. So, that frozen wasteland should be safe of any dangerous megafauna. Cue Polar Bear out of nowhere.
my brother is teaching his cat how to high five by giving her a treat every time she successfully taps her hand to his hand, which is all well and good, but now she thinks that she is entitled to food every time she high fives someone. i can’t eat in the same room as her anymore because she’ll just bap my hand rapid fire and then go nyoom straight in for my pizza like no Kelly that’s illegal go finish ur own dinner
So there has been a bit of “what if humans were the weird ones?” going around tumblr at the moment and Earth Day got me thinking. Earth is a wonky place, the axis tilts, the orbit wobbles, and the ground spews molten rock for goodness sakes. What if what makes humans weird is just our capacity to survive? What if all the other life bearing planets are these mild, Mediterranean climates with no seasons, no tectonic plates, and no intense weather?
What if several species (including humans) land on a world and the humans are all “SCORE! Earth like world! Let’s get exploring before we get out competed!” And the planet starts offing the other aliens right and left, electric storms, hypothermia, tornadoes and the humans are just … there… counting seconds between flashes, having snowball fights, and just surviving.
To paraphrase one of my favorite bits of a ‘humans are awesome’ fiction megapost: “you don’t know you’re from a Death World until you leave it.” For a ton of reasons, I really like the idea of Earth being Space Australia.
Earth being Space Australia
Words cannot express how much I love these posts
Alien: “I’m sorry, what did you just say your comfortable temperature range is?”
Human: “Honestly we can tolerate anywhere from -40 to 50 Celcius, but we prefer the 0 to 30 range.”
Alien: “……. I’m sorry, did you just list temperatures below freezing?”
Human: “Yeah, but most of us prefer to throw on scarves or jackets at those temperatures it can be a bit nippy.”
Other human: “Nah mate, I knew this guy in college who refused to wear anything past his knees and elbows until it was -20 at least.”
Human: “Heh. Yeah everybody knows someone like that.”
Alien: “……. And did you also say 50 Celcius? As in, half way to boiling?”
Human: “Eugh. Yes. It sucks, we sweat everywhere, and god help you if you touch a seatbelt buckle, but yes.”
Alien: “……. We’ve got like 50 uninhabitable planets we think you might enjoy.”
“You’re telling me that you have… settlements. On islands with active volcanism?”
“Well, yeah. I’m not about to tell Iceland and Hawaii how to live their lives. Actually, it’s kind of a tourist attraction.”
“What, the molten rock?”
“Well, yeah! It’s not every day you see a mountain spew out liquid rocks! The best one is Yellowstone, though. All these hot springs and geysers from the supervolcano–”
“You ACTIVELY SEEK OUT ACTIVE SUPERVOLCANOES?”
“Shit, man, we swim in the groundwater near them.”
Sounds like the “Damned” trilogy by Alan Dean Foster.
“And you say the poles of your world would get as low as negative one hundred with wind chill?”
“Yup, with blizzards you cant see through every other day just about.”
“Amazing! when did you manage to send drones that could survive such temperatures?”
“… well, actually…”
“… what?”
“…we kinda……. sent……….. people…..”
“…”
“…”
“…what?”
“we sent-”
“no yeah I heard you I just- what? You sent… HUMANS… to a place one hundred degrees below freezing?”
“y-yeah”
“and they didn’t… die?”
“Well the first few did”
“PEOPLE DIED OF THE COLD AND YOUR SOLUTION WAS TO SEND MORE PEOPLE???!?!?!?”
My new favorite Humans are Weird quote
“PEOPLE DIED OF THE COLD AND YOUR SOLUTION WAS TO SEND MORE PEOPLE?”
aka The History of Russia
aka Arctic Exploration
aka The History of Alaska
“How did you select these poor unlucky victims? Were they perhaps prisoners, or religionists atoning for some mortal sin?”
“No, actually, they mostly… volunteered.”
“Did you complete in depth psychoanalysis on these individuals?”
“Er, not usually…they were just kinda really smart and they wanted to learn more so we kinda let them do whatever.”
“You let the most intelligent of your species sacrifice for the sake of curiosity?!”
sirius black getting so drunk one night that he transformed into padfoot and ate everything that dogs cannot eat and he wakes up the next day and he’s like whAT THE HELL DID I dO and he’s on edge for the next couple of days crying ‘am i going to die’
james has to remind him that he’s not really a dog but then remus is quiet for a second before going ‘but he ate it as a dog’ and they’re all like stumped for words until peter asks mcgonagall a ‘totally hypothetical’ question about eating things whilst in animagus form
I bet all the Hogwarts teachers get an unreal amount of “totally hypothetical” questions from students.
“Hey Slughorn wtf’s a horcrux? Just for laughs” -Voldemort
do you think after Ron and Hermione got out of the trapdoor and raised the alarm and were being patched up in the hospital wing
do you think they were given the most royal proud mama smackdown by McGonagall like “ how DARE you infiltrate a death maze you are ELEVEN and miss granger how on earth did you solve my chessboard i”
and hermione interjected like “oh professor it wasn’t me. i’m useless at chess. it was ron.”
and McGonagall turned to look at Ron Weasley in total amazement at this 11 yr old kid who had been pretty ordinary in all her classes but had apparently beaten her in death chess and he just shrugged like “rookie mistakes, professor. you made some rookie mistakes.”
let’s stop seeing sex as the biggest thing you can do to show someone you love them
everyone knows that the real way to show someone you love them is to find them a really cool rock. not a diamond. just a neat rock that you think they will enjoy
Not a rock THE ARKENSTONE
Why just one rock Why not three Why not the silmarils
kids have no concept of anything. i walked into my kindergarten class and one kid asked me what my name was. when i said miss jones, he said “i like that name. did you know i’m in love with you”
i asked my four year old cousin how old he thought i was going to be at my next birthday and he said 8. im 23
once i told a 6 year old that i had finished school and was doing “more school” [university] and she asked “why haven’t you found anyone to marry then”
We were at a museum and I was asking for the student discount and my nine year old cousin looks up at me with his eyes wide and says “wait you’re a STUDENT??”
I used to babysit these three kids and the eldest who was around 11 at the time was talking about how adults are boring and when I told him I was an adult he said, “That’s not true, you’re my age”
our aunt teaches and she has this story about a little girl who really was always pretty quiet in class and then on the final day of kindergarten she just up and stated ‘i’m all teached now. i don’t need to be teached anymore. i’m done of being teached.’
once when i was 19, I told my little cousin that i was 19 and she looked up at me with huge eyes and went, “Does that mean you don’t have to bring an adult with you to the pool?”
My 6 year old cousin saw me driving for the first time, looked up at him mom and said “does that mean she is married now?”
I watched my dad and my niece (3 at the time) arguing over a pair of pants and whether or not they were also a dress. My neice’s argument was that they were, in fact, also a dress because they were blue.
I asked the kids in my daycare class what they thought I should be for Halloween and this little boy goes, “ooh I know! A pickle! You’d be such a good pickle”
On the first day of class with my favorite student of all time, I said, “Are you okay? You look like you have a question.” And she looked me right in the eyes and said, tremulously,
“Can a piranha eat a stapler?”
One time I was working with a kid and he looked up at me and asked “Do you have a boy?” I had no idea what he was talking about, but I told him that I did not have any boys. He looked shocked and then deeply concerned and said “Well, you better hurry up and shave your arms so you can get married; August is next month!”
I was sitting on the floor with my 3yo niece and we were playing with her younger brother’s alphabet blocks and the O had an octopus on it. So I picked it up and asked her what it was.
“Octopus,” she said, all curls and smiles.
“And what kind of animal is an octopus?” I asked. I was looking for “fish” or “sea creature” but I would have accepted almost anything–”weird,” “gross,” even “slimy.” “Underwater” or “it lives in the ocean” would have also been acceptable.
She looks me right in the eye and says, happy as a clam, “It’s a cephalopod.”
kids, when you’re choosing your college schedule, you’ll hear a voice saying “just take the 8AM class. it won’t be that bad. you’ve done it for this long” that’s the devil talking
I think a lot about who I am to other people in the world–particular who I am to strangers as a mere concept in their lives.
Today this woman called our information desk and said, “my son’s band is playing tonight. I want to come see him, but he never answers his phone…..I want to be there. Have you heard anything about his band?”
And I felt so bad for this lady but I’m not in the music scene around here so I had to tell her no, sorry.
Five hours later, I’m hiking and run into a group of guys setting up for some outdoor performance, and as I watch them unload the drums it hits me.
“Hey,” I said, “are y’all in a band?”
They said yeah and smiled and I told them “one of your moms called today. She wants to watch you play, but she can’t get a hold of you. Call your mom.”
And they all pulled out their phones and started discussing whose mom it probably was as they presumably dialed their own.
And now, unless we meet again and recognize each other, that’s who I’ll be forever to those guys–some mysterious courier for mom-messages who came out of the woods and told them their mom called.
I didn’t even tell them why their mom called me. Who am I to their mom?? Nobody even asked. They just took my word for it and called their mothers.
No you don’t understand how frustrated I am that we always depicted the Apostles as old men, especially when it comes to during-Jesus-alive stuff.
They were probably late teens to early 20s, given the time and the description and some Biblical passages.
They were not ancient old men with long beards and wrinkles at the Last Supper.
They were young adult rebels with a cause.
where my punk-rock apostles at
I can’t remember where, but the bible says that Jesus was the only one who was old enough to pay the temple tax required by Jewish law, none of the disciples had hit that age. A quick google tells me that Jewish men pay it from the age of 20 - all of the disciples were teenagers.
Not all of them! Matthew 17:24-27 addresses the issue of the temple tax, in which Jesus tells Peter to get a four-drachma piece from a fish’s mouth to account “for my tax and yours”. In addition, Peter is the only person directly mentioned to have a mother-in-law; Jesus heals her in according to three accounts (Matthew 8:14-17, Mark 1:29-31, and Luke 4:38).
So! The “Disciples were ancient old men with long beards and wrinkles" factoid is actually just statistical error. The average disciple was under 20. Simon Peter, who lived with his mother-in-law and his fishing boat and payed the temple tax was an outlier adn should not have been counted.
i picked up a new class of year sevens today and i was writing on the board (in very illegible overly loopy cursive) and one girl was like “miss rose, i think you’re a very similar person to your handwriting” and i was like “why do you think that sweetheart?” and she was like “it’s very pretty but a lot of it is just unnecessary”
and can i just say i don’t think i’ve ever been dragged that hard in my life let alone by an eleven year old
I wonder if, in superhero universes, the villains ever get contacted by those “Make a Wish Foundation” and similar people.
I mean, the heroes do, of course they do, kids who want to meet Spiderman or Superman or get to be carried by the Flash as he runs through Central City for just thirty seconds.
But surely there are also the kids, who - because they are kids and sometimes kids are just weird - decide that what they really, really want is to meet a supervillain. Because he’s scary or she’s awesome or that freeze ray is just really, really cool, you know?
Oh, man, that would absolutely be a thing. The heroes would be so weirded out by it. The villains with codes of ethics would totally band together to force the villains without one (should they be the one requested) to do their part for the cause.
But imagine the person who has to track down the villains and organise everything?
Like, the first time it happens, no one actually thinks it’s possible, but one of the newbies volunteers to at least try. They get lucky, the kid wants to meet one of the villains who is well known to have a personal code of ethics (eg one of the rogues), and it takes them weeks to track the villain down to this one bar they’ve been seen at a few times, plus a week of staking out said bar, but they finally find them.
So they approach the villain, very politely introduce themselves and explain the situation, finishing with an assurance that, should the villain agree, no law enforcement or heroes will be informed of the meeting.
The villain, assuming it’s a joke, laughs in their face.
At this point, the poor volunteer, who has giving up weeks of their time and no small amount of effort to track down this villain, all so a sweet little girl can meet the person who somehow inspired them, well, at this point the employee sees red.
They explode, yelling at this villain about the little girl who, for some unknown reason, absolutely loved them, had a hand-made stuffed toy of them and was inspired by their struggle to keeping fighting her own and wasn’t the villain supposed to have ethics? The entire bar is witness to this big bad villain getting scolded by some bookish nobody a foot shorter than them.
When the volunteer is done, the villain calmly knocks back their drink, grips the volunteers shoulder and drags them outside. The bar’s patrons assume that person will never be seen again, the volunteer included. But once they’re outside, the villain apologises for their assumption, asks for the kid’s details so they can drop by in the near future, not saying when for obvious reasons. They also give the very relieved volunteer a phone number to call if someone asks for them again.
A week later, the little girl’s room is covered in villain merchandise, several expensive and clearly stolen gifts and she is happily clutching a stack of signed polaroids of her and the villain.
The next time a kid asks to meet a villain, guess who gets that assignment?
Turns out, the first villain was quite touched by the experience of meeting their little fan, and word has gotten around. The second villain happily agrees when they realise it’s the same volunteer who asked the other guy. Unfortunately, one of the heroes sees the villain entering the kid’s hospital and obviously assumes the worst. They rush in, ready to drag the villain out, but the volunteer stands in their way. The hero spends five minutes getting scolded for trying to stop the villain from actually doing a good thing and almost ruining the kid’s wish. The volunteer gets a reputation among villains as someone who can not only be trusted with personal contact numbers but who will do everything they can to keep law enforcement away during their visits.
The volunteer has a phonebook written in cypher of all the villain’s phone numbers, with asterixes next to the ones to call if any other villains give them trouble.
Around the office, they gain the unofficial job title of The Villain Wrangler.
The heroes are genuinely flabbergasted by The Villain Wrangler. At first, some of the heroes try to reason with them.
Heroes: “Can’t you, just, give us their contact details? They’ll never even have to know it was you.”
The Villain Wrangler: “Yeah sure, <rollseyes> because all these evil geniuses could never possibly figure out that it’s me who happens to be the common thread in the sudden mass arrests. Look man, even if it wouldn’t get me killed, it would disappoint the kids. You wouldn’t want to disappoint the kids would you?”
Heroes: “… no~ but…”
The Villain Wrangler: “Exactly.”
Eventually, one of the anti-hero types gets frustrated, and decides to take a stand. They kidnap the Villain Wrangler and demand that they give up the contents of the little black book of Villains, or suffer the consequences. It’s For the Greater Good, the anti-hero insists as they tie the Villain Wrangler to a pillar.
The Villain Wrangler: “You complete idiot, put me back before someone figures out that I’m missing.”
Anti-hero: “…excuse me?”
The Villain Wrangler: “Ugh, do I have to spell this out for you? Do you actually want your secret base to be wiped off the map? With us in it? Sugarsticks, how long has it been? If they get suspicious, they check in, and then if I miss a check-in, they tend to come barging into wherever I am just to prove that they can, even if they figure out that they’re not being threatened by proxy. Suffice to say, Auntie Muriel really regretted throwing my phone into the pool when she strenuously objected to me answering it during family time. If they think for even one moment that I’ve given them up, they won’t hesitate to obliterate both of us from their potential misery. You do know some of the people in my book have like missiles and djinni and elemental forces at their disposal, right?”
Anti-hero: “Wait, what? I thought they trusted you?!”
The Villain Wrangler: “Trust is such a strong word!”
Villain: “Indeed.”
Anti-hero: “Wait, wha-” <slumps over, dart sticking out of neck>
The Villain Wrangler: “Thanks. I thought they were going to hurt me.”
Villain: “You did well. You kept them distracted, and gave us time to follow your signal.” <cuts Villain Wrangler free>
The Villain Wrangler: <rubbing circulation back into limbs> “Yeah well, you know me, I do whatever I have to. So I’ll see you Wednesday at four at St Martha’s? I’ve got an 8yo burns unit patient recovering from her latest batch of skin grafts who could really use a pep talk.”
Villain: “… of course. Yes… I… yes.”
The Villain Wrangler: “I just think you could really reach her, you know?”
Villain: <unconsciously runs fingers over mask> “I… yes, but, what should I say?”
The Villain Wrangler: “Whatever advice you think you could have used the most just after.”
Villain: <hoists Anti-hero over shoulder almost absently> “….yes.”
The Villain Wrangler wasn’t lying to the Anti-hero. They know that the more ruthless villains would not hesitate if they thought for one second that the Anti-hero would betray them.
But this is not the first time the Villain Wrangler has gone to extreme lengths to protect their identities.
Trust is a strong word. The Villain Wrangler earned it, and is terrified by what it could mean.
My first official deadpool headcanon is this. This this this.
Okay but this whole concept actually makes a lot of sense, because villains are a lot more likely to be disfigured/disabled/use adaptive devices (bc ableist tropes), so of course, say, a child amputee is going to be more interested in the villain with a robot arm who almost destroyed New York than the heroes that took him down.
Also, imagine one of the kids gets better, and a few years down the line becomes a villain themself, except their crimes are things like smuggling chemo drugs across the border for families that can’t afford treatment, or stealing from corrupt businessmen to make donations to underfunded hospitals (idk this turned into a Leverage AU or something) and every time the heroes encounter her, they’re like “oh no. she’s getting away. curses. welp, nothing we can do.” Though it isn’t that she can’t take them on; bc of course once the villain from way back when found out what she was up to, he started helping/training her.
“I thought they just hired someone to dress up and pretend to be you,” she says, amazed, when he reveals himself. “I didn’t think they actually got the real you!”
Every year the Villain Wrangler gets a very expensive gift basket from the pair.
and for the kids who don’t get better the villains are there too, they show up to every funeral, they bear too small coffins on their shoulders and the heroes stand aside
they are fierce with grieving families assuring them that their child will not be forgotten, and they don’t balk at negative emotions, they don’t tell people to be strong or “celebrate their child’s life,” because these parents have every right to their grief and anger
and the lost children are never forgotten. flowers appear on graves during birthdays and anniversaries, heroes find pictures of those kids and they carefully take them down and ensure they’re delivered to the villain’s cell, and a few villains can be seen with friendship bracelets wrapped around their wrists the cops have learned not to try and take them off
This is all soooo good, but I wonder what effect this has on the villains. Like, can they really wreak indiscriminate havoc when they know the kids that worship them might be in the area? Like, what if they attack a shopping mall and it just so happens that Annie’s mom ran in for a pair of shoes or something? What then?
So what you’re saying is that there is now an organization of henchmen who do round the clock, exhaustive research in order to make sure the villain’s plan isn’t going to ruin the life of some kid. Just imagine some aunt getting a call from an unlisted number.
“I swear I am not a bill collector ma’am. It’s just. Well. Ok and I swear I am not a stalker even if this is actually going to be a very creepy phone call, but you said you were going to the mall at four? Is it possible you could reschedule or postpone that trip for about an hour? That mall is way too close to…well. It just wouldn’t be safe. I could wire you some money, and you could go to the much nicer mall one town over? Would that work for you? No? You are calling the police? Yes. Yes that is the sensible thing to do. Definitely do that. You have a nice day, ma’am. Tell Marcus Doctor Evil says hello and to have a nice day.”
And then the poor minion has to call the villain and explain why robbing X bank isn’t a good idea that day.
“Yes. Hello. Sir? Oh good I caught you before you left the base. Look, Marcus Smithson’s aunt is going to be near the blast radius for that job you have scheduled so-yes. Yes I am aware that rescheduling is going to be a lot of work since most everything is already set up, but….but, sir think about poor Marcus! She’s his favorite aunt, and the woman refused to ‘reorder her life around some crazy mastermind’. ……no…..no, please do not kidnap the aunt, sir. It’s terribly rude. Yes I realize you weren’t going to keep her or doing anything other than drop her off at an alternative location, but, well, citizens frown upon that sort of thing and….yes….Yes, of course. You have a good day, too, sir.”
And they turn to their coworker and are just like “So if I don’t come in to work tomorrow it’s because Doctor Evil threw me in his dungeon and/or sent his hellhounds to maul me. Please remember to send help.”
Oooooh yes.
But but but… what happens when one falls through the cracks? When Lord Dominion or whatever does a typical baddie thing but then Penny’s new best friend gets caught up in the damage and Lord D didn’t even KNOW Penny had a new bestie so how was he to know but now the kid is devastated and it’s all his fault? I mean, how does that even shake out?
Penny SWEARS REVENGE! Lord D is distraught but also somewhat proud. He sends Penny a very sincere apology and also a bunch of tips on how to execute a proper vengeance plot, in case she decides not to accept the apology. He sends henchmen to spy on her, and he keeps the surveillance photos of her sitting in her room, plans and schematics strewn all over her desk. He puts them in his wallet and brags to all his villain friends that one of his kids is taking up scheming, look at her go, she’s already started on pattern analysis of his latest heists. He’s so proud. Later this month he’ll show up on her way home from school so she can have her first Confrontation.
omg yes. Yes to all of that. There will inevitably be mistakes and tragedies.
Penny is an intelligent kid. She catches on to the spying henchmen pretty quick and bribes some of them to her side with snacks. That first confrontation does not go like Lord Dominion expected because Penny has minions (minions that are using his OWN WEAPONS against him, even)
Lord Dominion is the proudest villain ever, even if he did almost lose an ear thanks to the impeccable aim of a nine year old with a grudge. He does let the laser blast graze him just so he can have a scar to show people because that girl is a villain after his own heart.
He doesn’t want to ask his villain rivals to help her out because that would imply he doesn’t think she’s capable of eventually growing strong enough to kick his ass. Turns out Penny already thought of that and has mailed letters asking for advice to Lady Sinister, Lord Dominion’s long time, mostly friendly rival. (She mailed a letter to Lord D’s arch nemesis, but man. Heroes are always trying to make you do The Right Thing. Penny doesn’t have time for the high road. Plus, the low road has lasers.)
Lady Sinister thinks Penny is the best thing ever and while she has mostly stopped kicking Lord D’s ass, she still breaks into his hideout to sit in his favorite chair with a glass of wine and brags about her new favorite up and coming villainess. (She doesn’t warn Lord D about the attack rabbits she agreed to train for Penny as a favor, and for obvious reasons, she is going to be a bystander at the next confrontation, filming everything on her phone to post the dark web so all their villain friends can see this)
Crack AU where Anakin can all of a sudden hear the background music that we all hear. Those pleasant chats with Palpy become a lot more ominous. Though Anakin admits that the fights have become a lot more epic. Thoughts?
Hahahahaha. Love it!
And okay, my first though was “and the galaxy was saved because even Anakin Skywalker would struggle to keep trusting Palpatine with that music playing in the background”
Anakin think he’s gone COMPLETELY insane (maybe he’s finally been electrocuted too many times and its fried his brain). He doesn’t tell anyone though because he can still fight just fine just… everything is a lot more musical. He doesn’t want to be thought crazy and taken off the front lines.
Once he figures out what the various musical cues mean he actually finds them useful in figuring out how dangerous a situation is. Also battles are so much cooler now and boring landscapes are slightly less boring because at least now they have mood music. Yep, he can live with this.
(Although he is always confused why the ominousness that is The Imperial March starts playing at some of his decisions)
Starfleet Admirals get worried when Captain Kirk bursts into their offices.
Starfleet Admirals get a little scared when Captain Kirk bursts into their offices followed by Commander Spock.
Starfleet Admirals get fucking terrified when Captain Kirk bursts into their offices with both Commander Spock and Doctor McCoy by his sides.
I love this because I get why the admiral is scared. Kirk bursts in by himself, that’s troubling but not full red alert yet. He’s followed by Spock and oh shit it’s yellow alert because whatever Kirk’s cooking up, Spock is on board with it and if Spock is on board then it means it’s Logical and they’ll probably get their way. But then sometimes they both have insane schemes that somehow Kirk talks Spock into but if McCoy is with them then RED ALERT, RED ALERT, THE VOICE OF REASON IS NOW ANOTHER AGENT OF CHAOS AND WHATEVER THEY WANT THEY’LL GET EVEN IF THEY HAVE TO STRAP FOUR WARP CORES TOGETHER AND RIDE THAT SHIT BACK TO THE MESOZOIC ERA TO DO IT
And if Spock and McCoy arrive without Kirk? oooooohhhH SHIT!!!
this hannukah, live in the spirit of the festival and punch a neo-nazi in the face
Don’t go for the face you’ll break your fingers and have to spend the holiday in the hospital. Elbows and palms for the face. Fists for the throat, gut, and kidneys. Have a safe and joyous holiday.
them: SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST MEANS HUMANS MUST BE INDIVIDUALLY SELF-SUFFICIENT AND COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT
biologist:
Like literally the only reason we didn’t go extinct is because we are aggressively social creatures who community organized and helped each other when faced with disasters that drove other species over the brink.
(Like we’re so aggressively social that we looked at APEX PREDATORS and went ‘they look soft! Friend????’)
(The answer was yes because wolves are also aggressively social and they adopted the strange tall not-wolves just as eagerly.)
humans @ wolves: holy shit these things are so cute i wonder if they’ll let us pet them?
wolves @ humans: holy shit these things are so cute i wonder if they’ll pet us?
Crack AU where Anakin can all of a sudden hear the background music that we all hear. Those pleasant chats with Palpy become a lot more ominous. Though Anakin admits that the fights have become a lot more epic. Thoughts?
Hahahahaha. Love it!
And okay, my first though was “and the galaxy was saved because even Anakin Skywalker would struggle to keep trusting Palpatine with that music playing in the background”
Anakin think he’s gone COMPLETELY insane (maybe he’s finally been electrocuted too many times and its fried his brain). He doesn’t tell anyone though because he can still fight just fine just… everything is a lot more musical. He doesn’t want to be thought crazy and taken off the front lines.
Once he figures out what the various musical cues mean he actually finds them useful in figuring out how dangerous a situation is. Also battles are so much cooler now and boring landscapes are slightly less boring because at least now they have mood music. Yep, he can live with this.
(Although he is always confused why the ominousness that is The Imperial March starts playing at some of his decisions)
“Then when G-d asks [Cain], ‘Where is your brother Abel?’ he arrogantly responds, ‘I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?’
In essence, the entire Bible is written as an affirmative response to this question.”—Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, Jewish Literacy (via mermaideleh)
this hannukah, live in the spirit of the festival and punch a neo-nazi in the face
Don’t go for the face you’ll break your fingers and have to spend the holiday in the hospital. Elbows and palms for the face. Fists for the throat, gut, and kidneys. Have a safe and joyous holiday.
There’s a certain amusingly meta aspect to the fact that I am writing a paper on the developmental differences that make it common for girls with ADHD to go undiagnosed, while struggling to override the fact that I’m a girl with ADHD and executive dysfunction that really don’t want to do a research paper today.
i’m watching this documentary about halloween and there’s a part where they’re explaining that ghost stories got really popular around the civil war no one could really deal with how many people went off and died and
the narrator just said
“the first ghost stories were really about coming home”
IIRC, the Civil War also played a huge part in forming the modern American conception of heaven as this nice, domestic place where you’re reunited with your loved ones. People (particularly mothers) responded to the trauma of brother-killing-brother by imagining an afterlife in which families would once again be happy together.
(also not doing this in the correct tag-style, because I wanna KNOW— )What documentary is this? Or is there more than one? Any books on the subject? THIS IS FASCINATING.
cool (ghost) story, bro.
reblogging because, as a us history phd student, i want to say YAY for how much of this is totally on point. i also want to rec the book where a lot of this is covered very, very well, which is Drew Gilpin Faust’s “This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War.”
a lot of books on the Civil War are deadly dull because they’re about battles and shit, but as a transformative moment in mindset and ideology, it becomes *fascinating*
the other book I’d even more highly rec is David W. Blight’s “Race and Reunion,” which is about how the “(white) brother against (white) brother” image of the war was invented and how throwing African Americans to the merciless viciousness of post-Reconstruction racist whites was part of constructing this “oh everybody was white men and everybody was noble let’s celebrate them all” approach to Civil War remembrance
very good stuff
Thank you! This looks like exactly the sort of reading I’m after! *adds to wish list*
Also, look for David Blights recordings of his Yale lecture series on The Civil War. 21 hours of class lectures, and its FASCINATING. He barely touches on the battles other than to use them as timestamps as to what was going on. Most of it focuses on what the mindset of everyone was going into the war, and what happened on the way out. It’s an amazing series that will change your entire perception of the war - how it happened, and how it wasn’t going to be possible to avoid it, because of the inherent evil of slavery and how it was destroying damn near *everyone* except rich white people.
