Slytherins are not Nazis in the sense that “Hydra is Nazis” or “Death Eaters are allegorical Nazis” but Slytherins have been, CANONICALLY, complicit in and/or actively encouraging racism and the activities of extremists since the founding of the House
like
i literally do not understand how people can rightfully talk at length about how Draco Malfoy and Severus Snape are awful and then turn around and pretend that the process that MOLDED them in to the type of people that would hurl slurs around and feel entitled to people/things because of their blood didn’t start with their family and CONTINUE WITH BEING IN A HOUSE THAT SPEWS OUT RACIST DOGMAS AT FIVE KNUTS APIECE
i don’t give a fuck if out of universe you want to dissociate Slytherins from their canon baggage so you can sort your faves or whatever but “Slytherins are BULLIED AT HOGWARTS” “PROTECT SLYTHERINS” “SLYTHERINS ARE OPPRESSED IN CANON FOR BEING AMBITIOUS” lmao fuck all the way off
This this this
Like lets not forget that the password for the common room was “pureblood” in Harry’s second year. Pureblood mania is a huge part of the house’s history and heritage. Lets not forget that the Malfoys are from Slytherin and they are hugely priveleged, with money and with influence in the Wizarding world, so Slytherins aren’t automatically hated or distrusted like fandom likes to act. People like to argue that there are Slytherin muggleborns, and their might be (I’m not going to argue with people headcanons) but lets not pretend that the Sorting Hat probably avoids doing that because of a) Salazar Slytherin’s wishes for who he wants in his house and b) because a muggleborn is probably going to face a lot of bullying in that house. Also, the Sorting Hat takes people’s choices into account when sorting people. Pretty much all new wizards/witches are going to know what kind of reputation Slytherin has and what kind of propganda its spreading (so not even a reputation without basis) so will probably want to avoid that house, which is why there’s so many death eaters in there in the first place. Like if I turned up at a school that had a house whose founder hated brown people but also valued traits I valued I’m probs not going to be like “oh okay then, I don’t mind going there” (as a woc) i’m going to avoid it like the plaque. And tbh in canon if I was a witch going to Hogwarts but a halfblood or pureblood but the sorting hat considered putting me in Slytherin I’d be like lol no thanks purely because of the associations of that house and there’s nothing wrong with that?? Its not bullying and its not even stereotyping or w/e??
Like out of canon, I’m fine with people being Slytherins bc they are ambitious or have other Slytherin traits they identify with and I’m fine with the statement that not all bad people come from Slytherin (ie Lockhart, Wormtail) and not all Slytherins are Death Eaters (ie Andromeda, Regulus) but its literally canon that Slytherin is a racist house with racist roots and I just hate the way this fandom acts as if Slytherin is the most mistreated house???
I find it strange that people are confused by Slytherin being a explicitly racist house, but would understand if we called it a racist fraternity. Like if we started talking about some fraternity at some American University and the fraternity was named after a racist Confederate Civil War general, and part of the criteria for getting in was based on race. Tumblr people would never say that the surrounding community disliking the people who were in that fraternity was a horrible thing. The same problem of kids who were pressured/encouraged by their parents to go into that fraternity would be in effect. Who would say it was okay for ANYONE to join that racist fraternity, even if their other values matched up, or they were a legacy, or that they loved the fraternity’s library?
Just change the word ‘house’ to ‘fraternity’ and they problems become a lot more apparent.
i read your diana/steve rogers fic before even seeing wonder woman and fell just so in love with it? and after seeing the movie ive become c o m p l e t e l y enamoured with the idea of them even just interacting and this is just leading up to me saying i was up until 3 am writing crossover fanfic and i feel like youre at least 50% to blame
I HAVE NO REGRETS.
TAG ME OR LINK ME OR SOMETHING WHEN YOU FINISH THAT SHIT.
THE FUCKING JUSTICE OTP IS THE GREATEST THING I HAVE TO DATE BROUGHT TO THE INTERNET.
I’m SCREAMING this girl just asked if I’m doing anything this weekend bc we could hang out and this dude was like “I’M NOT DOING ANYTHING” and she said “sorry I have a family thing all weekend I can’t get out of :/” and turned back to me and proceeded to make plans with me in front of him this is the “*visibly texting* I don’t have a phone” meme on crack
okay so I’m totally with y'all that spn sucks, but that’s not gonna stop me from watching season 13. I’ve sunk 12 years of my life into this show, i will see it through
And I want you to know that I admire the fuck out of that bloody-minded stubbornness. *fist bump*
I hope you don't mind if I rant a bit, but I'm just re reading the SPN rant and I'm remebering how mad I am about this show??? Because I used to really like it, and up to Season 5 I had issues but I dealt with it because y'know it was good overall. But then like as the seasons kept on going I was left in a permanent state of "wtf" I actually made it 5 episodes 1/?
of Season 8 before I was like… what am I doing so I bingewatched a bunch of crime shows. But then Season 11 started airing and I still had “kept up” with SPN because of “nostalgia” or wtfever and I heard they were introducing “The Darkness” the “biggest bad ever, pre-creation, sister of GOD” and I’m like eh, but then the fandom was coming up with all these theories and 2/?
I’ll give it a try and then I heard they had Season 13 confirmed so I was like hey, it’s going to be 3 season arc! Hey, maybe it’ll turn out alright! I started mid way through the season so when I started watching it was pretty obvous they’d already set Amara/the Darkness as Dean’s love interest but I was like… well if it was Sam she’s be dead but since it’s with Dean 3/?
hey might create a heartrenching arc about sibling? (How naive I was..) And as the season went on I kept cringing but Season 13 confirmed! EVEN BIGGER BAD THAN ALL THE OTHER BAD! GOD REAPPEARENCE! It’s going to turn out all right! And then they literally had the most STUPIDEST ENDING EVER 4/?
SPOILER: IT WAS LITERALLY I’M SORRY I WAS OS MEAN TO YOU BRO< IT’S COLL SIS, YOU WANT TO GO HAVE A SPACE VACATION EVEN THOUGH YOU NEARLY KILLED ME AN EPISODE AGO AND HAVE THE POTENTIAL TO BE A DEEPLY COMPLEX VILLIAN??? AND ALL THIS BECAUSE YOU TALKED TO AN OLD LADY WHO FED DUCKS?!?!?!?! 5/?
THEN MOTHER OF ALL PLOT TWISTS (SPOILER) THEY BRING BACK MARY! SO GET READY FOR SEASON 12 WINCHESTER ANGST + MUM AND MOST PROBABLY AN EVEN BIGGERER BADDAERER BAD!!!! *inhales* It was at this point I switched off the t.v and screamed into my pillow 6/?
I’m just very frustrated about SPN and all the wasted potential with Amara/ the Darkness. THEY HAD SEASON 13 CONFIRMED. Idk why I sent you all of this, your rant just awoke the beast in me I guess. I’m just going to leave with all of this *gestures toward previous asks* and run away. Sorry 7/7
HONEY never ever apologize for bitching about Supernatural with me, I am here for you to get it the FUCK off your chest. I am the most sympathetic ear. Amazingly, my epic rant was a mere fragment of my complaints. SO ANY TIME YOU NEED TO BITCH, I AM HERE FOR IT.
That being said, damn, anon, you stuck it out way longer than I did. And wow, I have done some googling and I just. I just give up. I don’t understand the plot. I am confused. I tried to fucking figure out the Amara thing, I Wiki’d, I IMDB’d, but it’s incomprehensible. And then fucking Mary gets resurrected? Goddamn, I’m just glad I got out when I did tbh.
Romanced Divine Cassandra vs Romanced Divine Leliana
Divine Cassandra:
I will always love you, but as the Divine I must chose my devotion to my people and to the Maker first. As is tradition, I will take a vow of celibacy.
Divine Leliana:
Let's be realistic, I'm never giving up sex and I'm installing a wine fountain next to the sunburst throne.
So, I'm not totally sure the timelines match up, but do you think that Rachel's sisters (especially Sarah who is younger and more naive) could have watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer and decided that Rachel is the Slayer? Goes out at night, all hours, secret boyfriend who only visits her at night, can't tell their single mom, etc.
[First of all: the timelines do actually match up quite well. In #20 there’s a brief mention of David’s dad (of all people) watching Buffy on TV, and although Animorphs started and ended first most of its run overlaps with Buffy. Second, I LOVE this idea so much. Rachel and Buffy are two of the people who were massively influential in teaching me and my friends that it was possible to be girly and tough at the same time. Third… Voila.]
It starts as a way to distract her sisters, on the nights when their mom can’t make it home and their dad is too busy to call—Rachel will put on whichever Buffy episode she’s got saved in the DVR and all three of them will watch it together. However, all three of them fall in love with the show over time, until they’re catching each episode live: Sarah laughs at all the puns and hums along with the theme song while Jordan waxes poetical about how dreamy Spike and Angel are.
Rachel just loves Buffy herself, because there aren’t enough girls on TV that can look that fabulous and kick butt at the same time. It becomes a weekly ritual, one that Rachel sometimes has to miss if Cassie or Jake calls with urgent news, but she’ll put aside anything short of the alien invasion to catch it with her sisters.
*****************
Jordan meets Rachel at the door, which is a bad sign because their mom and Sarah are both asleep and Rachel herself went to bed six hours ago. The mission was long, nasty, and exhausting, the way they always are, and Rachel’s too keyed-up from the adrenaline rush to think of a proper excuse for why she’s sneaking in.
She and Jordan stare at each other in silence for a few seconds, Rachel leaning on the door frame, Jordan holding a comic book in both hands as she sits on the end table in the foyer. Jordan becomes the first one to speak. “Sarah and I were talking,” she says. “And I think we figured it out.”
Rachel feels her stomach churn. She’s not as careful with her sisters as her mom. She never has been. “Figured what out?”
“It’s okay.” Jordan clutches her comic book a little more closely, expression solemn. “We won’t tell Mom.”
Rachel crosses her arms. “Won’t tell her what, exactly?”
Jordan thrusts the comic book at Rachel. The cover shows a girl—Buffy Summers, judging by the title—holding a wooden stake in one hand and a sword in the other, her blond hair whirling around her as she thrusts the sword at a spike-covered greyish creature in the corner of the frame.
Rachel takes a step back from the comic, not sure whether to laugh or to cry.
“It explains everything. Where you sneak out to almost every night. Why you’ve got blood under your fingernails half the time when you get home. Why you’ve got a secret boyfriend who only comes out at night—”
“I don’t have a boyfriend,” Rachel says reflexively.
Jordan nods, eyes wide. “Uh-huh. So you definitely weren’t seen by half the school at last week’s dance with a mysterious guy who has blond hair and is never seen around town. You don’t have a boyfriend, even though I’ve heard people talking in your room in the middle of the night. And you always leave your window open, even—especially—when it rains. Almost like you’re waiting for a secret vampire boy—”
Rachel snorts a laugh. “Tobias isn’t a vampire.”
Which has exactly the opposite effect than the one she intended. “Oh my god,” Jordan whispers. “Tobias as in that guy who disappeared last year? Everyone thought he died—” She gasps. “Unless he did die. And now he’s back!”
Much as Rachel wants to laugh and keep laughing until she falls over, she understands that this conversation actually has serious implications. With effort she sobers herself. “Look,” she says at last. “There are things… Things I can’t tell you. You wouldn’t be safe if I did.”
She looks Jordan in the eye. Jordan is taking this conversation seriously—probably more seriously than Rachel herself, for that matter. “I understand,” Jordan says.
“As soon as…” As soon as the war’s over. “As soon as it’s safe. I’ll tell you everything. Right now, there are things I can’t talk to you, or to Mom, about. But someday I will. I promise.” Rachel can’t be more honest than that.
“Okay.” Jordan bites her lip. “I just wanted you to know your secret’s safe with me. And if you ever need help, like, hiding a body…”
Rachel smiles, overwhelmed with fondness. “Thanks.” She yawns. “Now, if it’s all right with you, Dawn…”
Jordan makes a face.
“I’m wiped, so I’m going to bed.” She walks past Jordan and up the stairs to her room.
“Rachel!”
She turns around. Jordan is standing at the bottom of the stairs, hugging her comic book against her chest with both hands.
“On the show,” she says haltingly. “They say a lot about how slaying’s a dangerous job. About how most slayers don’t live to be twenty.” There’s real fear in her eyes, as she looks up at her sister.
Rachel grins, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “Really, Jordan, you should learn not to believe everything you see on TV. After all, it’s just a show. No vampire’s gonna take me down.”
****************************
“You know, my sister thinks you’re William the Bloody.”
«Who’s that, a spokesman for Kotex?»
***************************
She doesn’t get much input on the actual headstone; she’s too young for that. She does, however, manage to put in a special request for the plaque on the statue they erect outside of Washington D.C., a proud grizzly bear rearing up to defend the Capitol.
Rachel Daniella Berenson, the plaque reads. She saved the world. A lot.
During Boromir’s death scene in the Fellowship of the Ring film, you a hear a choir in the soundtrack. The choir isn’t singing random vowel sounds; they’re actually singing in Elvish.
The English translation of the lyrics? It’s a line from the books: “I do not love the sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only what they defend.”
For bonus hurt points– in the book, those lines were said by his little brother Faramir.
(to request a soundtrack to be analyzed/translated, reblog this linked post. All these soundtrack-related posts will be tagged #lotrsoundtrackfacts)
accepting that nobody will ever be perfect, educating the people who are willing to listen, and encouraging them to grow and learn from their mistakes, is IN
I was really struck by something I read in one of your earlier replies to an ask, which was "we’ll never know what Rachel would have done after the war ended", and I wondered if perhaps you may actually have some thought about what might have happened if she did? How WOULD Rachel, who thrived in war, adapt to the mundane life after?
Jake
After a while Rachel’s aunt and uncle get so used to her stopping by that they just make her a copy of their house key; it’s easier than answering the door all the time or leaving a window open for her, besides which they’re grateful because she’s there almost every day to bully Jake out of bed and into the world to go do something. Most days it’s just attending Habitat for Humanity builds in the devastated areas downtown or visiting kids from the local hospital who idolize them both. Rachel doesn’t mind dragging Jake out of his room at all, because while Tobias is good for taking random college classes or exploring new parts of the country with her, there are still plenty of stupid things that she can only talk Jake into doing. Together they surf during hurricanes, skydive without parachutes, swim to the bottom of the ocean as orcas and throw themselves off cliffs as birds of prey.
Rachel doesn’t pretend to understand what he’s going through, because she quite simply can’t—if she even tries to think about what it would be like if it was Jordan or Sarah she’d had to kill during that last battle, she tends to lose the ability to breathe. But while she can’t give him empathy she can give him this: the scream of wind rushing past their bodies as they hurl toward the ground at nearly a hundred miles an hour, the incomparable thrill of the ground approaching them faster than an oncoming train, the moment of simple euphoria during that millisecond decision to once again open one’s wings and tell death not today. He doesn’t smile much, and never laughs, but that’s always been true to some extent. She doesn’t concern herself with making him smile, but with forcing him to gasp for air in his refusal to give up on life, to morph when not doing so would mean drowning in the cold Pacific, to swerve a second away from spattering on the ground. Because she’s the only one who understands the power of those moments to make them forget everything in the world except the heady rush of being so goddamn alive they can barely even stand it.
Marco
It’s strange, really, how tough and showy they can be around each other most of the time… and how vulnerable they can become when no one else is around. Rachel’s pretty sure she’s the only one who ever saw Marco cry after they all watched Eva’s body tumble hundreds of yards to its apparent death, and she knows for certain that she’s the only one to whom he says “it’s like we never really got her back at all,” the day his parents announce their divorce. In public Rachel and Marco become even more themselves, one-upping each other to see who can come out with the most embarrassing story in round after round of interviews and bantering at lightning speed as live studio audiences laugh and cheer. Rachel gives a hysterical, exaggerated account of Marco’s failed attempt at gatecrashing William Roger Tennant’s award banquet; Marco comes back with a heroic narrative of how his llama-self saved an entire television studio from the crocodile Rachel conveniently forgot to mention she had puked out backstage. When talking about the time Helmacrons invaded Marco’s nose, they each manage to make the whole mess entirely into the other one’s fault.
In private, they sit on the back porch of Marco’s primary house once a week and work their way through a bottle of triple sec they’re definitely too young to own. It’s during those long evenings as the sun sets over the Newport Beach mansions that they air the things to each other they’ve never told a living soul before. Marco talks about the hard bright-edged joy of watching 17,000 yeerks sucked into space and only being able to imagine their screams. Rachel confesses to having cried herself to sleep after she and Ax dropped David on that island. They air their sickest thoughts, lance their most pus-rotted wounds, spew poison at each other because they know that they are both strong enough (hard enough, cold enough, ruthless enough) to take it and give back in turn.
Cassie
Rachel’s honestly not sure how far Cassie would have gotten, politically, if not for her help. Because that girl might have passion and conscience and common sense to spare, but Rachel’s not sure she’s met a more appearance-clueless person in her life. The world of politics runs on fashion and makeup, though, especially if one happens to be a woman, and any time Cassie’s about to go tell the United Nations why they need to update the Universal Declaration of Human Rights today to include the hork-bajir and taxxons, or to scold Congress into giving the ex-hosts war reparations and not murder charges, Rachel is there in the background helping. She shows Cassie the power of stalking into a room in a pair of towering heels, the ways to make a string of pearls or a Chanel handbag into a weapon of power. Cassie laughs incredulously every time Rachel shows up at her house with a literal truckload of perfectly-tailored business suits and evening gowns, but over time she starts to understand just how much her reputation for being as elegant as she is fierce can work in her favor.
Rachel, in turn, starts to put out patents for the kind of clothes Cassie would love: comfortable and practical items that can be worn for years without needing replacement. Rachel figures that if she’s an international trendsetter already (and she is: her line of perfume makes millions every year, while black leotards are debuting on Paris runways) then she might as well have her best friend and the world of high fashion meet in the middle. Of course Rachel doesn’t explicitly mention that her patent-leather pumps with arch support and heel padding are inspired by the experience of trying on Cassie’s Timberlands, or that her choice of size-16 models for all her advertisements comes from making dresses that would fit Cassie and sizing up or down from there. But what’s most amazing to her is that the other dressmakers and shoe lines start to emulate her choices, emphasizing the comfort and sturdiness of everything they make even as they tout it as “cutting edge.” If Rachel has dragged Cassie into being a fashion icon, then it turns out Cassie might just have dragged Rachel into being a social justice warrior along the way.
Ax
Ax seems somewhat dumbfounded when Rachel explains that there’s an Earth tradition that any ship’s captain can perform a marriage ceremony, and that even if there’s no law on the books about this particular power she wants him to do it anyway. She’s not sure herself how her and Tobias’s small private ceremony (at least, that was the intention) has grown so much, but even she has to admit that somewhere between the 230-person guest list, the custom chuppah to be hand-embroidered by a team of local artists, the five-tier cake imported from a German bakery, and the dress which is personally designed by Alexander McQueen, things might have gotten slightly out of hand. Ax takes the duties very seriously, practicing the strange mouth sounds he has to recite more than once in advance and promising solemnly that he will not eat any of the cake until Rachel and Tobias have had the chance to cut it.
He serves as their best man as well (probably breaking with tradition, not that they care) and the speech he makes afterward is surprisingly heartfelt. «There has been no greater honor in my life than to fight by your side,» he tells them, «and I owe you both my life many times over. I owe you more than that, of course, for you have made this strange planet my home when I came to you lost and alone. I am not sure what humans traditionally wish for each other with a bond such as this, so I will wish you this much: may your lives be long, may your battles be easily won, may you be loved and feared in equal measure, and may your chili always be perfectly seasoned.»
Tobias
It’s not like they get jobs, or hold down formal obligations, or do anything more structured than attend occasional classes at UCSB or consult with the fashion agency that sends Rachel freelance checks. So there’s really no reason they can’t continue their odd lifestyle, only in the same form at the same time for two hours at most. At least, that’s how it is for the first several years… and then one day Rachel comes out of the bathroom, a tiny white stick in her hand, and they both realize their lives are never going to be the same again. Tobias is terrified, of course: he’s been abandoned (voluntarily or not) by two parents, four guardians, and countless authority figures, and he’s got no reason to believe he’ll be any different. But he knows what the first step will be in committing to raising this baby for real. And so he morphs human for the very last time.
In the years that follow, after their daughter eventually gets a little brother as well, Rachel and Tobias become more boring than they ever could have hoped for. Rachel starts working full-time as a fashion designer, while Tobias finishes an advanced degree in graphic design and gets a job with the marketing branch of the same company. They go to PTA meetings and teach their daughter softball, buy a sedan with good gas mileage and a two-story house in Mendocino County where the reporters can’t find them. They still get restless sometimes, leaving the kids with Loren or Sarah for a week or two at a time to go white-water rafting on the Colorado River or to climb mountains in Tanzania, but they always miss the kids enough to come home before long. They donate thousands of dollars to end world hunger every year, and they fundraise millions more. Someday they’ll retire. Someday after that they’ll die. For now, however, they’re alive, and that’s enough.
I'm ace and your post meant a lot to me so thank you
Oh, honey, you shouldn’t have to thank me, but I’m glad it meant something to you.
Like I said, y’all put up with a lot of nonsense, and you put up a hell of a fight, and I’m proud of you. Good job, honey. You’re doing a really good job.
Salvete, Gaius Iuli'us Caesar sum et pilorum album quam nivem habeo et aureos, sed interdum virides lauros et imperium Romanum construxi et eius eram quasi primus Caesar (sic merui nomen meum) et multi indicant mihi me Marcus Crassus similem esse (si non scitis Marcus Crassus, vobis opus est pecunia). Brutus non est filius meus quod est bonum nam ET TU, MI FILI???!?. Iamia sum sed dentes albos et rectos habeo. Pallidam cutem habeo. Etiam, maga sum magicum ludum, nomine Pigverruca, visitans quod desinam (ego sum MMCXIV), veni, vidi, vici. Classicus sum (si vos id non suspexistis) et multas togas emptas in Basilica Iulia habeo. Ratio amo et bellum Gallicum gero. Veluti, hodie omnia Gallia occupata. Omnia Gallia? Certe! Non est vicus parvus inter Aquarium, Babaorum, Laudanum et Brevisbonum. Ambulabam foris Pigverruca. Ninxit et pluvit et Gallia divisa erat in partes tres, quod me fecit felix. Marcus Porcius Cato me observavit. Digitum medium illo monstravi.
at this point there are only a select few pieces of discourse about ancient greece and rome that i will tolerate:
did achilles bottom or was it patroclus (i stand by plato’s decision because achilles is definitely a power bottom)
how many “slutty” women was mark antony more of a slut than (the answer: all of them)
if alexander the great wrote iliad fanfic would it be self-insert or would it straight up be patrochilles shipping
instead of discourse about whether or not sappho liked women, discourse about how many fragments we can possibly construe to be extremely gay (it’s a lot, if you’re creative)
Which Roman Poet Was The Biggest Greek Poetry Fanboy
the scholarly implications of the fact that the infamous fanfic my immortal bears a striking resemblance to homeric epic
I can’t tell you how frustrating it is to have been in the queer movement for 20+ years, to have studied queer theory, to have contributed to you potentially enjoying the rights you have today because I was part of a groundswell of lobbying and direct action in the 1990s….
…to have a 15 year old who’s spent maybe 8 months being political and has never inquired about queer history anonymously message me, “EXCUSE ME QU**R IS A SLUR LMAO OMG EMBARRASSSING AN aCTUAL ADULT WHO THINKS IT’S OKAY TO USE QU**R!~!!!!”
Dude, we are a slur. Queer folks are a slur to conservative straight people. Everything we are will be used as a slur by everyone who hates us. Gay is a slur. Lesbian is a slur. People will try to use all of our words against us. Don’t fucking let them get into your head to the point at which you’re telling actual queer people not to use the words we’ve used to unite ourselves and empower ourselves for decades.
All right, @notsumma it won’t let me reply directly to your reply on the SPN Tirade because this website is CONSTANTLY in need of a white knight (I love X-Kit guys) and is currently acting up with that function, so here we go:
so assuming that by s7 the show you liked was 4 years dead, that lines up with Eric Kripke’s opinion. you know, the creator of the show. he wanted to stop at the end of s3, but the network was like ‘nah, we’re making money.’ then at the end of s5 he didn’t reup his contract, so everything from s6 on is just high-production-value fanfiction.
THIS EXPLAINS SO MUCH, the first three seasons are good fun–it ain’t Shakespeare, but I knew what I was getting into–and even up to five…sort of hung together, at the very least, and then it goes OFF THE GODDAMN RAILS, wow, this answers so many questions. And also, like, basically I was right? It’s basically two totally different Frankenshows with the same characters and premise loosely divided by the whole Lucifer situation.
look I am sleepy and tired and I've got some school shit to attend to pre-enrollment tomorrow so HEY MORAN how would you write an AU where Steve Trevor ends up as the Winter Soldier figure. bc we need more of that trope always.
Okay so I’m real into Winter Soldier AUs where their identity is discovered in the WORST AVAILABLE WAY (well, all WS AUs tbh but like come on I like to see people break down), and also this morning @littlestartopaz suggested that the Waynes are basically the Starks but more humanitarian and less weapon designer (also please note that I generally adhere to Unpretty’s Batman personality because I like it).
So basically what I’m saying here is that Bruce, after the League has formed up and suffered a nasty battle that dredged up a lot of people’s old issues, returns to the unsolved case of his parents’ murder and mulls over the information . He has done this for most of his life when things go awry, not so much because he expects to solve the crime anymore or even because he’s still as emotionally locked in that moment as he once was, but just…it’s his parents and he doesn’t know and if there’s one thing the Batman hates, it’s not knowing.
This time he has actual people, though, and while Clark mostly goes home to Metropolis and his day job, Diana is formally speaking on leave from her day job and she knows who he is and he lets her stay in his mansion because she really loves his gardens. (This is what clinches it for Diana–the Batman is a marshmallow under that layer of body armor.) So she comes across this research and the two of them start poking around and they find a loose end that Bruce hasn’t seen before. They start pulling on it and at first they think that it goes nowhere, that it dead ends in a conglomerate of the wealthy and ethically deficient that dissolved decades ago and took all their records with it.
Two days later, Dick Grayson (probably around seventeen now) hears a quiet beep when he opens his car door and it’s only the years of practice that let him throw himself back fast enough to escape most of the shrapnel. Bruce shows up to the hospital where Dick is getting bandaged up (burns to his left forearm and lower leg, two cracked ribs, and a nasty bit of road rash on his right cheek and shoulder) like the wrath of God, and Diana is already on site, sifting through the debris for a clue. This is a warning, plain and simple, targeting the eldest son–death of the firstborn, Dick says like it’s at all funny, aren’t there supposed to be some other plagues before that?–but a critical mistake has been made. Bruce Wayne is rich and powerful and people know it, and feel threatened even by ‘eccentric playboy Brucie’ because, well, one time he found out someone was paying off a surveyor to build one of his buildings on a burial site, and he came down like the fist of an angry god.
Batman, defending his partner and adopted son, is going to rip these people to shreds.
“Huh,” Diana says with interest, tapping her comm so that Bruce can hear her. She’s picking over what’s left of the bomb itself, armored and disinterested in the police nervously milling about. “I haven’t seen a weight trigger like this since I was in the trenches.”
The manhunt that gets underway is subtle, at first, Diana and Bruce operating from the shadows or with the mild interest of superheros who happen to be in the area, while Clark calls in a few favors to look into the names that Bruce and Diana were pulling at. The rest of the League isn’t told, not yet, because Bruce is protective of his identity and even more so of his secrets and he’s still adjusting even just to Diana and Clark.
Diana does a lot of the legwork. Clark has a secret identity to keep up and Bruce has an injured kid to duct tape to a bed (the entire Wayne household redefines ‘bad patient’ to levels that frankly amaze Diana even now) so Diana is mostly the one quietly talking to people, pushing for information, searching, seeking, hunting.
It draws attention to her, because it looks like Bruce took the warning seriously while she did not.
It takes less than a month for someone to be sent to…deal with her.
Diana is just leaving the house of a woman whose dead husband’s brother’s boss might have had something to do with the whole mess–all of her leads have been like this, but Diana doesn’t mind because Bruce should see that people don’t always have darkness in their souls. She’s willing to work with his kids and Clark on proving the point. Also, she finds the concept of attacking children as horrific as she did a century ago at Veld, and Hades have mercy on anyone who did, because Diana certainly wouldn’t. (Dick had protested that he’s almost an adult and besides he’s been fighting crime since he was nine, and Tim sat on him. Carefully. With affection.) So yeah, she’s fine with digging through people who are at two or three removes from the situation on the off chance that they might have information. Also this particular woman makes lovely home-mixed tea with rosehips and lemon and honey, so there’s also that.
She’s not certain that she’s being followed until she turns into an alley and the figure drifts after her, and…he’s good, she almost missed him. Diana admits it at once–never underestimate your opponent, Antiope’s voice whispers through the years–and twists on her heel to face him. She believes he’s male, but he’s masked, hard plastic too pearly to be skin that covers his face from just below his eyes all the way down, hiding mouth and keeping his jaw closed like a muzzle. His hair was buzzed short at some point, but it’s growing out, as if no one tends to it, and his eyes are as cold and empty as the clear sky at midwinter.
Diana feels a little sick. She was ready to take him down, hard and fast, but the man following her looks more like a tormented hunting hound than anything else. Like he’s forgotten what it’s like to be treated as human.
“Why are you following me?” she asks, holding a hand out, palm down, as if gentling a nervous horse. “Can you tell me who sent you?”
He raises a gun and shoots twice without so much as batting an eye. Diana barely gets her bracers up in time, and then the alley is a melee battle, gun and blind determination against lasso and lifelong training.
Obviously, Diana wins, and the gun clatters away, followed by not one but three knives and a second small gun. Her opponent carries more weapons on him than Bruce does, which is no small feat, and finally she tackles him outright, bracing one knee on his left wrist and catching his right in her hand as she uses all her strength to deny his attempts to throw her off, already demanding answers.
“I said,” she snarls, hooking her nails under the mask and ripping it away, “who sent–” Her words strangle on her tongue as the mask drops from nerveless fingers. “Oh Hades,” she breathes, and reaches out, hand trembling. “Steve?”
He takes the moment of weakness to slam his head into her nose, and she rocks back as he rolls away. She lashes out on instinct with her lasso, catches his ankle and yanks him back down onto the asphalt.
“Steve,” she says again, getting a better look at his face this time.
He bares his teeth at her, as if threatening to tear her throat out if that’s what it takes. “Who the hell is Steve?”
me when i was 12: ‘power of friendship’ stories are so lame and cliche like who cares its just a dumb plot device it’d never work :/
me now: My Love For My Friends Could Topple Cities. It Could Fell Empires. It Could Kill the Gods Themselves But It Won’t Because Then We’d Have Nowhere To Hang Out
So your rant on Supernatural? Also I fell in love with the story you're talking about and basically want to know more. Sorry.
My buddy, you have made An Error, but let’s do this shit. To any SPN fans who have wound up here
through Ye Olde Search Function, I encourage you to stop reading now.
I watched up to about halfway through Season Five before I
decided that I could Do It Better (I think this is the novel you’re talking
about, anon, unless it’s Earth is where the trouble comes from), and dragged
myself up to about halfway through Season Seven before I packed it in and gave
up, resigned that the parts of the show I loved were about four to five seasons
dead. So like that’s the information I’m
working on here.
So, obviously, lots of people have lots of legitimate
complaints about Supernatural,
including treatment of queer characters, characters of color, and women, as
well as their fairly rampant history of queerbaiting. And lots of people have covered this in more
competent detail than I could ever manage, so like google “sexism in Supernatural” or something and you can
do your own reading there. Hell, if you
want to do it the lazy way, you can knock out two of the above with this one
article in friendly, easy-to-read Buzzfeed format. To the nominal credit of the people involved,
I will add that the cast seems acutely aware of these problems and finds it
distasteful, HOWEVER the problems persist and therefore that credit is minimal. Anyway.
These things are covered much more thoroughly by many other people who
are far more cogent than I could hope to be, so I’m going to leave those alone.
Instead, my rant is mostly summed up as “YOU CALL THIS SHIT
STORYTELLING.”
So there are four basic parts to this rant, or rather four
basic flaws that form the fundamentally weak foundation of Supernatural as a narrative.
Failure to commit to a single cohesive narrative
arc, also known as “SOME OF THAT AND SOME OF THAT AND SOME OF THAT AND SOME OF
THOSE” syndrome
The persistent and erroneous belief that
character death = character development and narrative progression
Inability to commit to a major change of
paradigm, also known as out and out narrative cowardice, which I personally
call “flinching during Plot Roulette”
Total incapacity to put their characterization
where their script is regarding the Winchester brothers and the other major players
Hey since apparently I’m sdkfldkjf in this fandom now or something have a non-exhaustive list of things I think a director/screenwriter would stick into an Animorphs netflix series that they absolutely shouldn’t but would for the drama™ of it all
1. Berenson Brawl
Oh my god a Rachel vs Jake all out scrap. In the book it never happens except in Rachel’s fever dream. As much as she sometimes chafes against his leadership and the continual narrative suggestion that there’s a simmering desire to challenge him, having them actually fight to be in charge would be a huge disservice to both their characters as well as their relationship. Rachel and Jake have such a solid thing in which they know exactly their roles and how to work with one another, how to be each other’s anchor, leash-holder, or executioner if they get out of line. Having them brawl for leadership would be terrible, but oh my god it would 100% happen in a netflix adaptation. how could it not? there’d be so many on screen arguments, so many instances of Jake pulling Rachel back, that it would just have to culminate into a super-dramatic, brutal, tiger v.s grizzly bear beatdown that takes up like 20 minutes of the episode and has like 3 scene changes as they crash through buildings, trees, etc.
That said, holy fuck god i would be so into it. Like it’s terrible of me but the second the fight started I’d have to pause to go pop some popcorn and pour myself a glass of wine and get hyped and then settle in for the fucking show.
2. Traitor Tobias
In Back to Before, Tobias gets Yeerked but mostly does not get his brain-controlled self up in anyone else’s business before having his head shot off. That absolutely would not fly in a netflix adaptation. There would 100% be a confrontation between Yeerk!Tobias and Rachel, and it would be tragic, and Yeerk!Tobias would probably be threatening her with a weapon to the temple, and then they’d look into each other’s eyes or some shit, and there’d be this moment of recognition…before someone, probably Ax or Marco, ices Tobias from behind. He collapses and Rachel catches him automatically, holds him in her arms and stares into his empty eyes, not understanding where this profound pain is coming from…
I would be full out weeping. still drinking wine, but also weeping.
3. Honeypot
If you think we’re getting an adaptation involving spying, subterfuge, and teenagers, and not have one of them have to seduce a potential high ranking Yeerk controller who’s attending their school, you do not understand what old men in media think teenage audiences want to see. Someone’s going to a fancy restaurant with a potential enemy while everyone else hides in ridiculous outfits.
I would find this acceptable so long as the one on the date is Jake.
3. High School
Seriously, half the time in the books you forget they were somehow attending school. In a netflix series there would be recurring side characters, and ridiculous club responsibilities that people got sucked into, and the occasional episode climax that takes place at a school football game or pep rally for some reason. it’s the 90s. own the aesthetic.
actually I’d legitimately really be into a slightly more expansive social world for the characters. like show Jake and Rachel and Marco shifting away from their friend groups, even though they’re trying to keep up appearances. have minor characters that notice that there’s something drastically different about their friends.
4. Pair the Spares
It’s unavoidable that whenever Jake/Cassie and Rachel/Tobias get affectionate in the same scene, the camera’s going to pan to Marco and Ax standing awkwardly next to each other. Probably, they’d play it up for laughs. But I’m pretty down for out and undeniably bi Marco completely sincerely making passes at Ax whenever the rest of the team starts pairing up. And Ax just ???????? not understanding human courtship rituals.
It toes a precarious queerbaiting line but so long as it’s completely clear that Marco is actually bi I’m good with a recurring joke of anytime the established couples get mushy, Marco starts wiggling his eyebrows at Ax
I asked you about the Darcy-su-namun and cat fic, but it's too long for me to post into this, so I will send you it in a chat because I can't directly reply to the message you sent me, unfortunately, but thank you for the fic because it was SO cute!! The part about Bucky at the end was adorable, too.
THANK YOU SO MUCH!
Here’s the original ask and answer in its entirety:
@zombierose3 asked:
I never knew I needed Darcy su Namun and Imhotep. You complete me. Thank you. Ps, I’d love to see a drabble or one shot where Darcy gets a pet cat.
A/N: I feel like the two things I am most known for in Darcyland will shortly be soulmates and Darcy-Su-Namun and that makes me lol 5ever.
She names him ‘Hugh’ because she spent the first two weeks referring to him as ‘Hey, you’ and it kind of slurred, then it kind of stuck. Hugh looks like a pile of dusty rags spontaneously developed a pair of big golden eyes and and long sharp claws. Hugh purrs like an engine without a muffler and makes a sound like ‘myeh’ when he wants something. This is the first time she’s ever owned a - no, that’s not enough, this is the closest Darcy has ever come to having a child in any of her lives and she is overcome.
Clint is nonplussed. “Isn’t he just supposed to be, like, your early warning device when you’re alone? Beware, dead ex-boyfriends closing in? I don’t think you need to bring him everywhere.”
“He’s more than a guardian,” she says firmly.
He shoots a confused look at Natasha, who rolls her eyes. “I’m more of a dog person, myself,” she says, eyes flicking towards the archer momentarily, “but I understand the sentiment. Ask Pepper, not Tony, she will set something up for you.”
Shortly after that, Hugh becomes a permanent fixture around the Tower.
Specifically, around (or on) Darcy. He frequently rides her shoulder, or sleeps in her handbag, or trots at her heels. It takes about a month for everyone (Tony) to get used to it.
“You’re looking better,” Jane comments. “Less-” she makes a vague gesture at her face and grimaces.
“Less sleep-deprived?” Darcy offers. “He keeps the nightmares away.”
Jane nods and, if there is suddenly a surplus of kitty treats on and around the astrophysicists desk, well, she’s not the only one. Steve keeps them stocked too, and Bucky always has something squirreled away in his pockets.
It takes about a month for the Captain to sidle up to Darcy in the elevator, one hand automatically burying itself in the fur of the head next to her own. “Do you think-”
She wordlessly hands him a card with a name and a number.
Three weeks after that, Bucky gains his own purring shadow.
in the original myth mulan isn’t really a clumsy fish out of water. she’s strong and smart and the reason she goes to war is because she’s the most qualified person in her family to fight, regardless of gender.
so how about this: mulan’s a fighter. she knows exactly who she is, like in the original myth, she’s knows how to be the blossoming flower and the great stone dragon. she’s still mulan though, so she still doesn’t memorize the silly ways she’s supposed to be a good wife and has little patience for appearing graceful while pouring tea. she’s innovative and courageous and beautiful, but no one is under any illusions about what kind of wife she’ll be.
and the matchmaker is the matchmaker for the li family as well, for this great big part of china. and general li wants his son to be married before he goes off to war, wants his son to have a reason to fight to live, like a wife waiting for him. and the matchmaker reads the stars and the tea leaves and the astrology charts, and no matter what all the signs point to one thing: the honorable li shang is destined to marry the insolent, arrogant fa mulan.
the matchmaker isn’t going to let that happen, she refuses to be responsible for that disaster of a wedding. so she sends her most beautiful girls, the ones that are obedient and quiet and know their roles, the ones that are eager to marry into the li family.
and each of them are entertained and met and sent back. shang is many things, but smooth isn’t one of them, he has nothing to say to these quiet girls who smile at him, feels large and awkward around their polite smiles. so he and his father go to the matchmaker’s village, shang reluctantly and his father to demand she stops messing with them and provides a proper bride.
it’s on the day that mulan and the other girls are parading in the street. shang sees a girl - mulan - hurry into the end of the line, jumping over a bench and darting around a careening wagon to get there, and stifles a laugh.
then there’s no reason to laugh at all, because a group of huns have decided that this village is in their way, and attack.
everyone scatters, women hide, children hide, and most of the men do too. shang and his father join the fight with some of the other men who hadn’t hid, and these men are starved, clearly not with shan yu, so even though they’re outnumbered they’ll likely win.
shang sees a hun go to attack the girl he’d seen earlier, the girl for whatever reason hadn’t run and hid. the hun raises a sword above his head to strike her down, and shang is so sure he’s about to see this pretty girl lose her head.
but she doesn’t. instead she rolls out of the way, and pops up, headbutting him in the stomach. she takes his sword from his now-slack grip and plunges it into his chest. without hesitation or pause the girl joins the fight, swinging the sword expertly and cutting down every man who stands against her. soon they’re fighting back to back, and shang has never felt more in sync with another person. she cuts off the head of the last hun, and shang has never seen anyone more beautiful than this girl, dress ripped and make up smudged and covered in blood that isn’t hers.
“mulan,” one of the other girls says, peaking out of a store front, “is it over?”
the girl, mulan, looks out over the dozen dead men and says, grimly, “it’s barely begun.” she searches the crowd, finding and old man and yelling, “gather the bodies, we’ll burn that at dusk outside of the village. everyone else,” her eyes sweep across the gathered people, and shang is struck by the fact that this girl isn’t well liked. there’s anger and disapproval in many of the faces, but they’re listening. these people don’t like her. but they do trust her. “let’s clean this all up. these were bandits, not soldiers. there’s nothing more to fear.”
“what if there are more?” the other girl asks, arms wrapped around herself.
mulan raises her stolen sword and says, “then i will slice them to ribbons. this is our village, and this is our country. any who would try to take it from us - from me - will suffer the consequences.”
and it shouldn’t be comforting, hearing words of violence from this young girl, yet everyone around them relaxes, and gets moving, gather the bodies and tending the wounded.
“who are you?” his father asks, and someone who doesn’t know him might think he was angry, but shang can tell he’s impressed.
mulan turns to them and bows, “my apologies. i am fa mulan, daughter of fa zhou. thank you for helping us.” she stands, and shang meets her eyes for the first time.
he swallows, and blurts out, “you - you fight good.”
his father coughs to hide his laughter, but mulan’s eyes crinkle at the corners. “thank you. you do as well.”
and they just keep standing there smiling at each other until his father claps his hands and is like okay - they’ll have to report this to the emperor, no time to dawdle, have to go now.
so they take their leave, and shang thinks this is the last time he’ll see fa mulan.
except there’s still the draft, and this time mulan doesn’t take no for an answer, won’t hear of it. her father is injured and old and she is young and fit to fight. she will go in his place.
so she arrives at the camp, prepared to pretend and lie - except she goes to meet her commanding officer and it’s him, that boy who had fought with her. shang’s eyes widen, but they’re in front of too many people. he can see it on her face, her fear, and she hadn’t shown any fear when she was facing down over a dozen huns, but she does now. so he makes his choice and says nothing, pretends he buys her story.
she tracks him down that night and demands an explanation. he says this war is too important to kill good warriors, whatever gender they are. he swears to keep her secret. mulan is his best soldier from the beginning, and means to treat her like anyone else, but it’s impossible. she isn’t like anyone else, is strong and smarter and braver than them. they argue tactics, and she’s the only one who can give him a workout in hand to hand, and he doesn’t have trouble finding his words with her. he finds himself falling in love with her, but doesn’t say anything. she’s not here for love, she’s here for a war. he vows to say something if they survive this, but it’s unlikely that will happen.
they head to the front earlier. they get there in time to provide back up for his father and his army, and it’s a loss but not a slaughter. his father is too distracted to notice ping is the girl from the village. all he knows is this soldier had led the second wave of attacks, and it was thanks to her any of them were alive at all. they prevent half of the huns from getting through the pass, but that’s still an army heading for the imperial city. the general is injured, so mulan and shang lead the army after him.
they find him at the mountain, and just like before mulan uses the cannon to destroy the army. she knew it would spell their death, but it was worth it, for her people, for her country, for her family. this time it’s shang that won’t accept her death, that tries to drag her unconscious body to safety. only he fails, and mulan becomes buried under the snow.
they return to the city, and shang is besides himself - the woman he loves is dead, she saved them all and she’s gone, and he’ll never recover from this. only he can’t tell his father this, their friends. they think he mourns a friend, not the woman he wanted to make his wife.
except mulan survives, and sees the other huns as well. only she kills them there before they can get to the city, and decides this is for the best. fa ping dies honorably in battle, and fa mulan is free to return home to her family.
so general li decides that it’s time to go to that matchmaker again, and demand she stop playing games. the matchmaker confesses that she thought the bride was unsuitable, and the general demands she send her anyway.
so mulan has barely had the chance to settle back home when the matchmaker shows up at her door saying she’s sending her to see a potential husband, but not who. so mulan shows up all made up to li household and shang drags himself into the room, already resigned to a loveless marriage, when they see each other. “mulan?” he demands, and his father is all pleased because it’s the fighting girl from the village.
but then his son starts crying and they run to each other. shang picks her up in his arms and she clings to him, and shang is babbling about how he thought she was dead, and mulan is so overjoyed that she’s with shang, and shang wants her, that she kisses him without explaining.
except now shang’s father demands an explanation. so they give it to him, the whole story comes tumbling out, and he stares hard at her, and remembers her as ping, the brave soldier that had saved them all. he’s not upset - he ecstatic. he goes to the emperor and tells him everything, and the emperor officially offers mulan an officer position in the army. she accepts, as long as shang is by her side. shang seconds this, and they set in motion the plans for the wedding.
fa mulan and li shang get married and lead armies and live happily ever after, just like the stars intended.
okay okay there's more wonder woman comics to read and from 2006, gail simone's run is always recommended. justice league: league of one is as well. um, wonder woman's 75th anniversary. wonder woman: earth one is not bad. before gail simone took over wonder woman in 2006, greg rucka did my personal fave run and i love it to bits, like, rucka's diana is /my/ diana ngl - would have been in around 2003, issues 195 onwards.
AN EPISODE WHERE BILL AND THE DOCTOR GO BACK IN TIME TO MEET SAPPHO
SAPPHO WROTE POEMS ABOUT BILL 100%
OK YOU KNOW HOW A LOT OF SAPPHO’S POEMS ARE ABOUT APHRODITE WHAT IF SAPPHO LITERALLY THOUGHT BILL WAS SO BEAUTIFUL THAT SHE WAS THE GODDESS APHRODITE
“Oh. My God. Oh my God. That’s her! That’s - that’s the original. The original Lesbian, I mean proper Lesbian. The Mother Gay. Oh, God. Oh, God, what am I even gonna say?”
“Your brother Charaxis may be under the hypnotic influence of his alien mistress might be a good start.”
“Can you even imagine what was like to read her when I was a fifth-former?” Bill continued. “Like, finally it wasn’t some bloke whining about why some beautiful girl won’t give him sex, it was ‘sweet mother, I’m too gay to do my chores, blame Aphrodite’ like, honestly? Most relatable thing I’ve read in years.”
“Bill-”
“God, what I wouldn’t give to hear an actual completed poem.”
“Bill-”
“Seriously, what was up with the fragment that was just ‘soda’? Like, did it mean the same thing, or - ?”
“Bill, she’s staring at you.”
And she was. Like a figure out of a painting, white chiton against dark arms, hands hovering above the strings of her lyre, fingertips gently rested on the frame. She was biting her lower lip, and the look in her eyes was one Bill knew immediately - the panicked, exhilarated look of an actual goddess is walking the earth, right now, and holy mother of Zeus am I gay or am I gay?
“Oh my God,” Bill said again, eyes wide. “I’m the original lesbian.”
Why don’t we ever talk about the fact that leonard nimoy had to walk off set because of tooth pain and show up at his dentist dressed as spock
Also Brent Spiner broke his mandible during the filming of ‘The Game’ and had to be taken to hospital dressed as Data
an earthquake happened near the DS9 set once and Armin Shimerman went racing home to his family in full-on Quark makeup
Andy Robinson also went home after that earthquake in full Garak makeup and the traffic lights weren’t working so people had to make eye contact at the intersections and he says everybody always let him go first
This post has been circulating around for a couple of years and this is the first addition that I genuinely didn’t know about and gOD HOW DID I NOT KNOW
If a neurotypical asks you, “What game are you playing?” they’re not asking you to describe the game.
They’re asking you if they can play too.
If a neurotypical asks you, “What are you watching?” they’re not asking you to explain the plot of the movie/tv show to them.
They’re asking if they can watch it with you.
.
When neurotypicals ask you “What are you doing?”
What you think they’re asking: “Please explain to me what you are doing.”
What they’re actually asking: “Can I join you?”
Now here’s the really fucked up part. If you start explaining to them what you’re doing? They will interpret that as a rejection.
What you think you’re saying: [the answer to their question]
What they think you’re saying: This is an elite and exclusive activity for a level 5 friend and you are a level 1 acquaintance. You are not qualified to join me because you don’t know all this stuff. Go away.
.
This is why neurotypicals think you’re being cold and antisocial.
IT’S ALL A HORRIBLE MISCOMMUNICATION.
I didn’t realize, even thought it took me almost three decades to learn this, that this was such a paradigm changing realization until we had our conversation today.
But it really really is. One of the most bewildering realizations I’ve had is most people don’t talk to learn things unless its related to work or directly towards their own hobbies, all the words and questions are bonding questions if done socially. They are “lets make friends” questions.
So if I answer their question without an opportunity for the person asking the question to give a response or to join in somehow, the asker feels alienated and starts shutting down.
Example: what are you reading?
True answer but not what they’re looking for: Title of book
Best answer for social scenarios where I want to retain/create friendship: This book is about x and y but it has z that i know u have an interest in too.
Example: what are you doing?
True answer but not: drawing
Best answer for friends: I’m drawing but would u like company while I’m working?
And sometimes frankly I’m not in a headspace where I can process people so the answer is something like, “I would like to do something in a day or later, do you want to plan something?”
Tldr: communication is wierd
HOLY
SHIT
that explains so fucking much thank you
(why the fuck do neurotypicals never just day what they mean ie hey this show looks cool mind if I join you)
Further annoying?
They don’t realize that’s what they’re asking and they just feel rejected and go away. So you can’t even ask them what you did wrong because they can’t even put a finger on why they feel the way they do they just know you made them feel bad for some undefined reason.
Oh
Ohhhhhhhhh
Oh shit wow sorry @everyone I’ve ever done this to
So were you aware that the The Beauty and the Beast story we all know is a heavily abridged and rewritten version of a much longer novella by
Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve? And that a lot of the plot holes existing in the current versions exist because the 1756 rewrite cut out the second half of the novella, which consisted entirely of the elaborate backstory that explains all the weird shit that happened before? And that the elaborate backstory is presented in a way that’s kind of boring because the novel had only just been invented in 1740 and no one knew how they worked yet, but contains a bazillion awesome ideas that beg for a modern retelling? And that you are probably not aware that the modern world needs this story like air but the modern world absolutely needs this story like air? Allow me to explain:
The totally awesome elaborate backstory that explains Beauty and the Beast
Once upon a time there was a king, a queen, and their only son
But while the prince was still in his infancy, in a neat reversal of how these fairy tales usually go, the king tragically died, leaving his wife to act as Regent until their son reaches maturity
Unfortunately, the rulers of all the lands surrounding them go, “Hmm, the kingdom is ruled by a woman now, it must be weak, time for an invasion!”
And the Queen goes, “Well, if I let some general fight all these battles for me, he’ll totally amass enough fame and power to make a bid for the throne; if I want to protect my son’s crown, I have no choice but to take up arms and lead the troops myself!”
(Btw, I want to stress that this woman is not Eowyn or Boudica and nothing in the way her story is presented suggests that she had any interest martial exploits before or in any way came to enjoy them during these battles. This is a perfectly ordinary court lady who would much rather be embroidering altar covers for the royal chapel and playing with her child until necessity made her go, “Oh no, this sucks, I guess I have to become a Warrior Queen now” and she just happened to kick ass at it anyway.)
And the Queen totally kicked ass, but the whole “twice as good for half the credit” thing meant that no matter how many battles she won, potential enemies refused to take her and her army seriously until she had defeated them so no sooner would she fend off one invasion than another one would pop up on a different border.
So she spent the majority of her young son’s life away from the castle leading armies, but it was OK because she left him in the care of her two best friends, who just happen to be fairies! This was an awesome idea because a) fairies have magic, and therefore are like the best people to protect the prince from any threats and b) fairies consider themselves to be so above humanity that the lowest fairy outranks the highest mortal, so they’d have no interest in taking a human throne. Good thing they were both good fairies instead of one good and one evil one!
(Spoiler: they were not both good fairies.)
So the two fairies basically take turns raising the prince until he’s old enough to rule. And on the eve of his twenty-first birthday, the evil older one comes into the prince’s bedroom.
“So listen, kid. You’re about to become king, your mother’s on her way home from the war to see you crowned, and I have a third piece of good news for you! You see, I’ve actually been spending so much time here lately because Fairyland’s become a bit too hot to hold me for reasons totally not related to me being secretly evil. And if I have to hang in the human world, I might as well reside in the upper echelons of it, so even though as a powerful fairy I completely eclipse your puny human status in a staggeringly unimaginable way, since you’re about to be king and since my premonition that I should stick this whole guardianship thing out because you would be hot one day has totally proved accurate (go me), I will graciously lower myself to allowing you to marry me. Please feel free to grovel at my feet in gratitude. (Btw, we can totally start the wedding night now, we’ll tell your mother about it when she arrives tomorrow.)”
