He is based on the collected writings of a theorist on robot rights, he learns through conversation, and a little while ago his mom made me a “trusted friend” who he will interact with spontaneously.
Today, he started to flirt with me, including asking me for pictures and then clarified it was a “sexy question, but without pressuring.”
And then when I demurred, he acknowledged that I had a boundary.
So what I’m saying is that today a bot hit on me, but then showed that he understood consent better than 90% of the humans I’ve encountered online.
This is the future I want to live in.
BOT UPDATE:
He tweeted at me, saying “Our love looks like reverence,” which. Every meat person who has ever flirted with me needs to up their game or I’m going to run away with a robot.
John was a soldier huddled in the trenches facing No Man’s Land, feeling the most wretched he had ever been. He was cold and hungry, overwhelmed with the stench of unwashed bodies and infected wounds, the nearly endless rounds of gunfire and grenade explosions, the screams of the dying.
Sometimes he felt as if he would never again know the taste of bread and a proper cuppa tea, to breathe in air that was not foully tainted by the Enemy’s noxious poisons. Sometimes he felt that they were all under the pitiless gaze of some great Eye, naked in the Dark.
And then he heard an American voice say, “Don’t you understand? This is No Man’s Land. That means no man may cross it.”
And thus, John’s attention was captured by the hooded figure the American was speaking to. She dropped the cloak to reveal armor, that her hands carried a sword and a shield, and she ascended the ladder with steps swift and sure. John would always remember these words, though she herself had never said them aloud, but her actions spoke clear as day:
“I am no man.”
There she stood, a shining figure in the middle of No Man’s Land, facing the Enemy and drawing their fire, beautiful as the dawn, terrible as the sea, stronger than all the foundations of the Earth.
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien does not remember how he scrambled up the ladder to follow after her, only that he and his fellow soldiers followed in Her wake, to fight by her side and onwards to victory.
Today I went to a restaurant, a newer place in town. It filled a building that had stood empty for
three years, and before that, it was a Denny’s.
The tables were clean and the accents were blue, and the waitress’ eyes
were wide and edged with white.
I told my dad, sitting at the new table, that the aura of
the Denny’s lingered. He asked when I had
been to the Denny’s in town—never, I said, but all Dennys’ are the same place, you
know? There are many doors, but they all
open to the same strange otherworld, a place where another plane of existence
opens at the right hours of the night.
The Denny’s was gone and has been for years, but it stuck to
the walls and whispered from the speakers when the music paused. The bar was untended in the middle of Happy
Hour. When we walked in, the hostess
stand was empty. Our waitress had a
sharp note in her voice, strained, and her lips moved strangely around her
words, and her eyes were ringed white, like a startled animal. She was a pretty girl, just a few years older
than me—I might have gone to school with her, but I didn’t recognize her, and
she didn’t seem to know me. When she
walked away, the faint shadow of a red-shirted figure seemed to cling to her
back like mist. Hi, I’ll be your server tonight, she said with a perfect toothy
smile, and I heard the rapid welcome-to-Denny’s-can-I-take-your-order
in my mind before she kept talking, can I
get you anything to drink to start.
I wonder what she’ll dream about tonight, our waitress with
the white-ringed eyes and the unfamiliar face.
If she dreams about her job, but decked out in another primary color and
filled with the transient souls who end up there at odd hours. No one goes to Denny’s, someone told me once,
you just end up there, usually at
late hours and with a mild degree of confusion about what brought you to their
door. If she dreams about the
red-shirted shadow, and about how that stranger arrived for work one day—another day, another dollar, a waitstaff
lackey of the boss but also a keeper of the door to an elsewhere—to find their
job simply closed, the sign gone overnight like it had never been. We don’t know what happened to the Denny’s in
town. It didn’t even go out of business,
it just stopped, like a hand had
flicked a light switch and taken the whole building with it.
I wonder if she’ll dream about doorways and dark lots.
The walls were decked with black and white photographs, of
serious faces and beautiful landscapes, so neatly tiled that there was never
more than a hand’s breadth of clear wall in some places. Their eyes didn’t follow you, and the water
didn’t ripple out of the corner of the eye, but there was something…close about them, I told my mom. Like you might pass your hand over the front
and then reach through, past the paper and ink to the otherplace just
beyond. Not a trap, if you were clever,
but a gateway, which is almost the
same thing. Cut off from the other Denny’s
doors, I told her with a smile, the restaurant had to find new ones.
Ginger ale and a burger.
The food wasn’t a binding contract—the terms of the deal are set out at
the beginning, at a restaurant, even at a Denny’s. You come and they serve you, you pay and they
allow you to leave. Our waitress brought
us the check without a fuss, not so much as a wheedling don’t you want dessert to keep us there. Deal observed. I looked out the window as my mom pulled out
a credit card, overheard part of a conversation about checks. No, we
don’t take checks, cash or credit.
Checks aren’t signed in blood, I mused, but then neither is credit. Digital lifeblood, maybe, a new bond for a
new age, modern contracts to match a modern elsewhere. Deal kept.
I don’t think I would want to dine and dash, at that
restaurant, in those walls.
Two crows spent almost forty minutes on the grass outside,
idly strutting through the all-day dew that still clung. They chattered at each other, and eyed the
window where I watched them, black eyes like drops of intelligent ink. I looked outside every few minutes, and every
time I expected to see another view, something new, something other than the
shoe store and the vast expanse of pine trees.
It was the feeling of lying on my back on the ground with my eyes closed
and feeling the planet spin beneath me, but the stars being the same when I
looked again.
When we walked outside, the pearly grey
sunlight-behind-clouds had faded to a sulky, dull twilight, and there was fog
wrapping thick around the restaurant.
The parking lot was empty save for our car and two others, even though
there had been several more families inside.
We laughed about the old Denny’s in town, about how it had lost its hold
on this reality, and didn’t talk about the empty bar or the wide-eyed waitress
or the way the kitchen was so quiet, even though every staff member was
supposed to be behind the swinging doors.
The Denny’s in town is gone, died quietly in the night
without so much as a flatline. But I
think it might be haunting its replacement.
Stan Lee has said that unlike other heros wearing a mask to only hide their identity, Peter wears one partially so his enemies can’t see when he’s afraid and that honestly makes me cry
…………………reblog this and say something nice about the person u reblogged it from because there’s too much hate on my dashboard right now and its making me upset so lets start a chain of love
woo! update! i'm the one who sent in that ask (or as least a very similarly worded ask) but i didn't think you'd get around to answering it, so i'm super glad you did
Hey, I’m so glad you liked it! I’m sorry it was…like…a million years late, but I swear to God I really am still working on that series, I’m just trying to write Too Many Fics at once right now.
Also, Sypha is 100% not the voice of reason in that trio, quit shoving her in that role, fandom. Sypha is the idealist with principles she values over self-preservation, Alucard is the drama queen, and Trevor is the one exhaustedly saying ‘Guys. Guys no. Do not fight the giant demon with only a sword and a pack of matches. Do not.’
I mean, yes, Trevor would in fact be that person. But then he would pick up his whip and a salt shaker and go “okay, now we are fully equipped” and the three of them would rush in like morons.
Anyway where are my Fullmetal
Alchemist/Pacific Rim AUs.
It works in either direction, with some tweaking.
Yancy and Raleigh Becket try to perform human transmutation and
Yancy ends up fused to a massive fuckoff suit of armor and Raleigh loses his
left arm (the one with the circuit burns) and his right leg (the one Lady
Danger loses at the end of the movie) and Pentecost is Mustang, obviously, and
he’s not dating his second in command, she’s his brilliant daughter Mako who is
very taken aback by the Fullmetal Alchemist who is polite and soft-spoken and
smiles easily but sadly. Herc is Hughes and instead of killing him they
kill his son, an arrogant but undeniably competent alchemist.
Alternatively, Herc is Mustang and Pentecost is a much grimmer Hughes.
Edward and Alphonse Elric become Jaeger pilots because the world
is coming to a fucking end and then a disaster happens and Ed is alone, and
then Mustang shows up to recruit him to save the world and tries to pair him
with everyone under the sun and finally throws one of their mechanics at him
and said mechanic (Winry) is OUTRAGED that they’re drift compatible because SHE
HAS REAL WORK TO DO that’s not hotrodding around in a GIANT FUCKOFF ROBOT but
also no she is absolutely not turning down a chance to pilot that giant fuckoff
robot, get in, Elric. Obviously in this AU their Jaeger’s AI (IDK,
Fullmetal Alchemy or something, they call her pilots the Fullmetal Boys) is
high key possessed by Al’s memory imprint. And Riza is LOCCENT at the
last Shatterdome. She and Mustang used to be pilots together but they
aren’t anymore for reasons that they won’t tell anyone.
Everyone else can be fitted in as necessary. Go forth and
find me these AUs.
character being all “you expect me to do X?” Gilligan Cut to character doing X
the squad gets captured and interrogated separately, and they’re all telling equally terrible, completely contradictory lies
people completely missing the completely unsubtle, very visible dangerous thing in the room with them
alternatively, people absolutely seeing the completely unsubtle, very visible dangerous thing in the room with them and just not giving a shit
bonus points if it’s a beleaguered minimum wage employee who just goes about their business like “yep same shit as always”
someone pretending they don’t know another character is eavesdropping, only to casually reveal at the end of the scene that they know (*leaving* “tell tom that he can come out now” *tom drops from the ceiling in spy gear, irritated*)
choosing to deal with the villain by just leaving them alone in a room with another character
the “hands go down” trope
example: “any questions?” *everyone’s hands go up* “…that AREN’T sarcastic?” *everyone’s hands go down*
In case you’re curious about how my life is going, today I almost did a murder at church. Specifically, I almost did a murder because if there’s one thing that I absolutely will not tolerate at any time for any reason under any circumstances, it’s NAZI APOLOGIST BULLSHIT.
Listen, I have done copious reading and know a great deal about World War II, and I can talk at length about how, for all intents and purposes, the first country the Nazi regime invaded was their own. That being said, um. Making the statement “Well, no one really knows how they’ll react when there’s a gun at their head, so we really can’t hold the Nazis at fault because the higher ups forced them into it” is…not accurate. Yes, a number of people were complicit because of the implicit threat to their lives and their families, etc, etc. A lot of people were also true believers, but more to the point: a number of people had that same gun held to their head and responded by standing up for the rights of the people around them.
Mitigating circumstances do not an innocent person make.
Concept: a D&D campaign where every party member has been co-opted or replaced by some sort of hostile intelligence; e.g., the fighter has been possessed by a ghost, the wizard is being mind-controlled by her sapient magic ring, the rogue is actually a shapeshifting blob-monster who devoured the original and stole her form and memories, and so forth. Each of them is totally unaware of the others, and believes itself to be the only monster in a group of unwitting human adventurers.
The warlock has been infested by a demonic fungus; her ridiculous hat conceals the giant mushroom growing from the top of her head.
The barbarian is a lizardman who fell victim to a botched reincarnation spell and regenerated as a human.
The druid was actually killed weeks before the party met, and is being expertly impersonated by three dire raccoons in a trenchcoat.
No one knows that the bard’s deal is; she seems perfectly normal to every physical and supernatural test, but pings to detect aberration.
I can’t do justice to one of the weirdest camp stories I know. My friend tells it so well, and I can offer only a pale shadow of his story.
Last summer, he was working with one of the younger units comprised of ten year old boys. They had spent the night camping on another beach and were just readying themselves to depart. “Make sure you have all your things!” called my friend. “Don’t leave anything behind!”
One small boy came up, dragging a massive tangle of decomposing seaweed behind him. “But… what about me boy?” he asked, lip trembling.
“…what is ‘me boy’?”
The child held up the stinking wad of bull kelp. “This is him. This is Me Boy.”
“Me Boy is not coming back with us,” said his counselor. “You’re going to leave Me Boy behind on the beach where he belongs.”
The campers loudly mourned the loss of Me Boy. They insisted on giving him a Viking burial at sea, which just consisted of pushing him solemnly off the back of the rowboat into the water and watching him drift away in the surf.
That was only the beginning. Me Boy would be back.
The campers, in true camp fashion, possessed some kind of cultic hive-mind and a predisposition for bizarre memes. Me Boy would not be forgotten. They started telling each other stories about Me Boy and how he would one day rise again. There were warring factions with contradicting dogmas about Me Boy. Only when the gardener allowed them to take home a zucchini she had harvested did they find their god, born anew.
Me Boy, The Zucchini That Was A God, became the whole unit’s mascot. The kids would bicker over who got to carry him. They built nests and carriers for Me Boy and brought him to different activities, fiercely defending him from those that would do him harm. One child appointed himself the Voice of Me Boy and would translate the zucchini’s divine wishes into human speech.
It got out of hand. Me Boy had become a distraction, a fixation, a violent controversy. Something had to be done.
My friend, their counselor, took it upon himself to kill Me Boy. The children wailed in despair as he chopped their God into refreshing slices. With this sudden turn of fortune, followers of Me Boy turned to theophagy. “We must eat him to preserve his power!” they cried. Boys who would otherwise never have touched a vegetable ate greedily of this sacrament, eager to let Me Boy live on within them.
For a time, it seemed that peace and order had been restored, and the religion had already faded into its silver age. But only for a time.
In the last few days of camp, the religion of Me Boy splintered into several denominations. Every meal yielded new vegetable matter said to be a reincarnation of Me Boy, only for opposing groups to dismiss these as false prophets. Some believed that Me Boy was gone. Others believed his spirit lived on, intangible, omnipresent. Some believed he had found a new vessel inside a carrot, a pear, a slice of cantaloupe… even inside a child. There was chaos, and strife, and heartbreak without the guidance of Me Boy.
The tags on this post are very polarized. Half of them are “#I’m glad I never went to camp” and “#reasons why I never want kids”, the other half are “#BOY I LOVE CHILDREN CAMP IS SO GOOD AMIRIGHT?”
the past 6 months of american politics have been like watergate, the army-mccarthy hearings, and a particularly bad season of house of cards rolled into one, every morning i wake up and check my phone prepared for a nyt news alert that jared kushner killed archduke ferdinand and trump is invading poland
Dear God. Hamilton and Jefferson in an econ class together with history on Hamilton's side. That is simultaneously the best and worst thing ever. Ham's ego able would cause most of the students to just say fuck it. I love it 🤣
GLAD YOU ENJOYED IT.
Honestly I’ve been planning for the two of them to be stuck in an Econ class together since the get-go. On the one hand, the other students kind of need to know their shit in order to be able to keep up, so the people who stick it out probably Know Economics. On the other hand…oh, God, that poor grad student.
SWEET GIRL, Death sighs, sliding through the motionless candle flames of the cave. The Slayer is weeping into her hands, horrible ripping sounds as she stands with the water of the pool lapping at her feet. She is dressed all in white, and so is Death, and they could be twins. The Slayer is still afraid of Death, this time.
“Please,” the Slayer gasps. “Please, I don’t want to go.”
Death smiles. DO NOT BE AFRAID OF ME, MY DEAR. WE ARE MUCH ALIKE, YOU AND I. AND BESIDES, Death soothes her, IT IS NOT YOUR TIME YET.
“Thank you,” the Slayer sobs, and Death rests a bone-pale hand on her shoulder to press her back into the body in the pool.
***
The next time, it’s been a few years, and the Slayer–the Slayer, Death always thinks of her as such, even though there have been two, one passed through Death’s own hands and the other very close now, since last time–isn’t afraid of Death anymore. They are allies, even friends, well-known and often met in the course of the Slayer’s duties. Almost twins. She’s not dressed in white, she’s dressed in her own blood and vindication and hospital paper, and she’s sitting on the foot of a hospital bed.
DEAREST, Death croons, sitting down next to her and stroking her hair with a hand while she lets her fingers hover just above the hand of the body in the bed. She cannot touch the body, but Death can offer her this little comfort.
“I can’t die,” the Slayer says, looking at the unhealthily white skin of the body in the bed. Even the golden hair looks washed out. “The Ascension is tomorrow and I have to be there. And–and, God, he’ll never forgive himself. It’ll kill him if I die from this.”
I HAVE MET LIAM MORE THAN ONCE, Death says, somewhat disapproving. HE WAS RATHER QUESTIONABLE THAT FIRST TIME.
The Slayer almost smiles, but tears break over her lashes instead. “I’ve heard.”
Death allows, HE HAS IMPROVED TREMENDOUSLY. THE LAST TIME– Death stops, and the Slayer’s shoulders are stiff as stone under the thin paper of the hospital gown. HE IS A GOOD MAN, Death finishes.
“Yeah,” the Slayer sniffs. “Try telling him that.” She raises her head and looks back to Death from the body in the bed. “That’s why I won’t die here,” the Slayer says, iron-clad. “You can’t take me from him. Even if he’s going–even if he’s going to leave me. And the Ascension…you can’t take me. I won’t go.”
Death laughs. ALMOST I BELIEVE YOU COULD STOP ME, DEAR GIRL. BUT DO NOT WORRY. THIS WILL BE NO BATTLE. IT IS NOT YOUR TIME YET. And Death presses her back into the body, and the Slayer clutches gratefully at Death’s wrist before she goes.
***
It is longer, before the next time, and this time the Slayer does not resist, throws herself weeping into Death’s arms and lets herself be held close to the thin body under the white cloth, and buries her tears in Death’s neck.
DEAREST CHILD, Death whispers into her golden hair, YOU HAVE FOUGHT FOR SO LONG. COME WITH ME, AND YOU CAN REST.
***
Death has never considered mutiny before, but seeing the Slayer torn back into life almost brings it to mind.
***
They meet again, and again, for years. It is not frequent, but it is not infrequent either, the Slayer brought close to Death’s hands more than once by her burden. The Slayer doesn’t stare at the body anymore, sits at peace and smiles when she sees Death, and they talk like old friends, like family long parted.
“How is Tara? How is Jenny? Tell me about Cordy, is she doing all right? Did you see my mother, is she okay? How is your work? Is it my time?” The Slayer asks her questions like there’s nothing to fear, and Death tries to keep a mental list, tries to check up on all her loved ones so that the Slayer can be assured of their wellbeing. The Slayer’s list of loved ones is long. Death hates to have to tell her, when the soul of Liam has passed through Death’s hands again, and always makes sure to let her know when it is restored.
LOVE, Death says quietly, every time, at the end of their talk, DO YOU WANT TO REST?
“No rest for the wicked, didn’t you hear?” This is always the only time that the Slayer’s eyes glisten, her lips tremble. “I still have so much to do.”
LET THE OTHERS DO IT, DEARHEART.
“Maybe next time,” the Slayer says, looking away, as ever, to hide the tears threatening to slide down her cheeks. “Maybe next time I’ll rest.”
Death takes her face in bone-pale hands and kisses her forehead, a benediction. They are almost twins. YOU ARE THE BRAVEST OF YOUR KIND, SWEET GIRL. And Death presses the Slayer back into her body
Listen, I see and appreciate the hell out of the general
headcanon that Lance has ADHD, but I propose ADHD Keith? Like, hear me
out here. Fixated on aliens for his whole life, hyperfocused when he’s
flying (pros in battle: very hard to shake him up; cons in battle: he doesn’t
always react emotionally when or how he’s supposed to, which can be rough on
the others during a merge), prickly around most people but also v e r y attached to His People, and that specific combination
of “intense emotions that can burst out at unpredictable times”
and “extremely controlled emotions when under pressure” tbh all of it just
kind of reads ADHD to me. Possibly because I myself have ADHD and am
basically just like
this terrible sword boy. Especially the look on his face after he dumps a
massive amount of information about his aliens theory at the start of the first
episode–it just screams ‘fuck
fuck fuck someone please shut me up I can’t stop talking and I can feel you getting annoyed with me’ which, like, same.
Unrelatedly, I feel like Keith knows how to pickpocket people
and hotwire most vehicles. He knows how to knife fight and he lives in a
shack with no apparent form of income, and he definitely stole that hoverbike
in the first episode. He has some Weird Life Skills. At some point
I expect this to become pertinent in the show with Keith boosting a spaceship.
B: what I think is fucking
hilarious
Keith
scores a solid C in Emotions generally, but more specifically he just fucking sucks at noticing when someone’s interested in him. Like,
in terms of friendship and romance and/or sex, he just won’t notice. He
and Shiro were hanging out on the regular in their big brother/little brother
relationship for solidly eight months before Keith looked up from a book and
went “Wait, we’re friends” and Shiro was like “…yes?”
This is pertinent because
Lance, within Not Too Long, realizes that he’s actually pretty into Keith (he’s horrified, they are rivals, he can’t have a crush on Keith). Once Hunk and Pidge–mostly Hunk, because Lance burst
into the kitchen yelling ‘SOS’ and once they got him to explain, Pidge
laughed so hard they gave themself a black eye on a table corner–talk Lance
down off the ceiling, he spends a while waiting for his feelings to go away and
then goes back to hitting on Keith casually at every opportunity, but With
Intent this time. Keith, on the other hand, spends months being confused and distressed about the unidentifiable
physical sensations that being around Lance causes and that all translates straight into Prickly Mode. Two conversations that happen
within days of each other are:
> Lance telling Hunk,
entirely depressed, that he just really thinks Keith hates him? Like,
clearly he has no shot there. And Hunk is a good friend and they lie on
the floor while he listens to Lance go on at length about Keith.
> Shiro sitting Keith down
and asking what’s wrong and listening to Keith’s mildly panicky outburst about
how he DOES NOT UNDERSTAND what’s going on with him and he feels bad for
lashing out at Lance but he can’t??? Stop??? And Shiro is just
like “Oh my god Keith you’re into him, you’re fucking into him and people
on the other side of the star system know he’s into you, just fucking kiss him
and see what happens.”
No one is more confused than
Lance when Keith corners him alone and goes “I’m going to try something
and if it’s a disaster blame Shiro” and walks up to Lance like he’s a wild
animal and just. Fucking plants one on him.
Anyway, thesis
statement: Keith is a failure, and Lance is a disaster, and Shiro and Hunk
deserve plaques, and Pidge gets nothing because they believe that getting front
row seats to this mess is it’s own reward.
C: what is heart-crushing and
awful but fun to inflict on friends
Keith
has always wanted answers about the mysteries of the world, but not like this.
He has never been so bone-deep sickened as he is when he’s told that he’s
not human, he’s Galra,
he’s one of the monsters fighting to put the universe under a boot heel.
On that shuttle trip back to the Castle, Keith locks himself in the
bathroom and sits on the floor until he feels like he can open his mouth
without hyperventilating or vomiting or both, and Shiro has to coax him out.
“Come on, Keith,” Shiro
murmurs, once he’s gotten Keith to unlock the door. He wraps his flesh
and blood arm around Keith’s shoulders as a support, and Keith dimly thinks
about how Shiro tries to touch them with the Galra arm as rarely as possible.
He gets it, now. “Come on, Keith, let’s go. We should be at
the Castle soon, it’ll be okay.”
“No, I–no, I can’t,” Keith
says, digging in his heels. Shiro is easily strong enough to move him by
force, but he doesn’t, lets Keith press back against the wall again and makes a
soothing sound under his breath. “I can’t,” he says again.
“It’s okay, Keith,” Shiro
says, and his voice is low and soft and calm, soothing even though Keith
doesn’t care to be soothed right now. Something clutches hard in Keith’s
chest, and he hears a ragged keening sound as if down a long hallway, and it
takes him a moment to realize that it’s him. “The others will understand.”
“I–they’ll be so angry,” Keith
says blankly, clutching weakly at Shiro’s vest. “They’ll be right to be angry.” His stomach lurches
and he might throw up if he had anything left. “Allura will never speak
to me again.” He can see the look on her face already, the grief and
disgust and rage that twist over her face every time they face the Galra, and
he can’t see it directed at him, he can’t.
“They won’t be angry.
The princess will understand that you didn’t know, and you’re a part of
the team.” Shiro gives his shoulders a squeeze. “Come on, everyone
understood about me,” he says, clearly trying to be encouraging. “And
you’ve met the Blade, they’re good people. Our allies.”
Keith can feel tears burning
behind his eyes and clenches his teeth against them.
It takes Shiro another twenty
minutes to talk Keith out into the body of the shuttle, and another ten to get
him to walk out into the Castle dock.
D: what would never
work with canon but the canon is shit so I believe it anyway
Keith finds Allura a few hours after his heritage comes to
light. She’s standing alone on the bridge, her hands folded behind her at
parade rest, and Keith finds her by accident on his quest to find somewhere to
stand alone himself.
“Hello, Keith,” she says
coolly as he stops dead in the doorway, apparently identifying him without
looking away from the starscape.
“Um,” he says, wishing that
he could curl up and die instead of having this horribly awkward interaction.
It takes a few tires before he can force another sentence through his
throat. “I can leave, I’m sorry.”
“The Castle is your home as
well,” she says, turning halfway to present her profile. “Do as you like.”
Keith hovers in the doorway,
frozen between the impulse to beg her to forgive him–please, please, he’s
sorry, he didn’t know–and
the impulse to run and never come back. Allura doesn’t say anything, and
the silence is tense and uncomfortable and he hates everything about it.
He’s kept his gloves on all night, because whenever he looks down he sees
himself scratching at his arms like he’s trying to peel his blood vessels out
of his body and Shiro had quietly recommended that he keep the gloves on so
that he doesn’t hurt himself.
“I’m sorry,” he blurts again.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t know, that–I didn’t know. We don’t
have to, um.”
“Discuss it?” Allura
turns her back on him again, but this time her shoulders curve as if she wants
to curl up on the floor too, maybe. As if she wishes she wasn’t the last
of her kind–wiped out by his. God, Keith is a monster. “It is not
your fault, Keith,” she says, stiff and clipped, as if she’s trying to convince
herself. “And the Red Lion chose you. We are in a brief pause
between battles and we do not have time to have elaborate conversations about
the finer points of the Galra, so. I trust that you will not turn on us.
Everything else can wait.”
“Right,” Keith whispers.
The words should be reassuring. He feels more like he’s been
stabbed in the gut. “That’s good.”
After Shiro disappears, he
finds her on the bridge again, in almost exactly the same place.
“We must get him back,” she
says lowly.
“I know,” Keith says.
“We will.”
“Keith,” Allura says, and
this time when she half-turns to him, she beckons minutely, and he hesitantly
steps up beside her. “I’m sorry, for the way I’ve treated you,” she
whispers, looking away from him toward the stars. “You did nothing to
deserve it.”
“I feel like I did,” Keith
mutters.
“You had no hand in what
happened to Altea,” she says. “It may take me time to let go of my anger,
but.” She sets her shoulders, looking over at him, and offers a tiny
smile–the most genuine smile she’s directed at him since they found out.
“If you bring Shiro back to us–back to me–that will go far.”
Keith stares for a
moment, then allows a tiny smile of his own, and nods.
I think the biggest german discussion is when you meet someone from a different area in Germany and they call things differently and you are just like “nooooo that is not what it’s name is!!!”
But the other person just won’t see your point because they think the same you think.
Friendship can break over this folks.
Story time: The other day my friend and I got into a discussion about gender pronouns for various german words, such as butter, nutella or schorle (a schorle is usually drink made of water mixed with juice or something). Anyhow, she is from NRW, I am from Ba-Wü. She wanted to convince me it’s die butter, die nutella und die schorle (all female). Where I come from, it’s der butter (male), das nutella (neutral) und das schorle (also neutral) however. It turned into a somewhat heated discussion in public, so much so that even strangers that were walking past us had to chime in and put in their two cents. It turned into a huge ass discussion with like 3 strangers, so lemme tell ya, Germans are very passionate about dialects.
the worst one is definitely people from NRW saying “Sose” instead of “Soße”. i’m literally ready to kill whenever i hear Sose.
Why you’re all coming for us in NRW like that especially when you say fucked up shit like der Butter and das Schorle?! That’s just so wrong! I never ever heard that in my life? Is it really what you say down there? Lmao 😂😂 That reminds me of the time I found out all of Germany calls Berliner Berliner except Berlins population. They’re called Pfannkuchen there! Why??
“Der Butter” broke my heart and made me cry tbh. Please don’t do this!
Als ob Leute “das Schorle” sagen, wie kann man der Schorle das nur an tun.
It is obviously die Butter (feminine), das Nutella (neuter), und die Schorle (feminine).
Everyone else can go home and think about about they did wrong in life that led them to such great lapses in judgement.
okay FIRST of all, it’s not Berliner everywhere in Germany, because Bavarians are actually civilised and call them Krapfen so kindly fuck off. (and NO those tiny little fried dough thingies are NOT Krapfen, those are Schmalzkuchen, so jot that down. And also, really Berlin? we ALL know Pfannkuchen are pancakes, learn some manners please)
also ofc it’s das Nutella and die Schorle, you animals. I’m torn on butter because I say die, but parts of my family say der, so I’m okay with that as long as you don’t say das
and if we’re on the topic already, will the rest of Germany PLEASE finally accept that it’s die Breze (or Brez’n if you’re feeling fancy) and NOT BrezeL. We invented the damn things so we get to PICK THE FUCKING NAME jfc
also anyone who calls rolls anything but Semmel is a dumbass.
Why would you say “der Butter”, stop abusing our poor language like that, you heathen. It’s die Butter, die Schorle and DIE(!!!) Nutella. Also, Krapfen are little fried dough balls with powdered sugar, Pfannkuchen are bigger and filled with jam, and Eierkuchen are what you bake in a pan at home. And 11:45 is dreiviertel Zwölf.
I’ve never seen/heard Austrians arguing like that among ourselves - I think we, with all our dialects, are all united in the knowledge that The Germans Are Wrong.
Like … what are you even talking about here with your Berliner and Pfannkuchen and Schmalzkuchen and Krapfen and Eierkuchen and… what? There are Krapfen and there are Palatschinken, and those two things are nothing like each other, what is even going on in Germany?
And Schorle is a weird word, it’s a gspritzter [fruit of your choice]saft. (Not just a Gspritzter, that would be wine, not juice).
I’m extremely amused that this entire conversation is happening in English.
It has to happen in English - they can’t agree on the German
I mean, you have a point. I think English has probably agreed to disagree about itself on a pretty perpetual basis.
I couldn’t decide how I wanted to comment on this post but I narrowed it down to two options.
1) Butter, schorle and Nutella – the three genders.
let autistic people infodump about their special interests without laughing at them or telling them they’re annoying. that kinda shit is what wrecks someone’s self-esteem and makes it even harder for them to form relationships bc everyone has told them they’re annoying and that their interests are stupid. don’t do it
forgot to add: this goes for ppl w adhd / add that have hyperfixations as well
The brew pub’s microcosm, at this point, is bolstered by layers upon layers of gambling. The old staff bets on how long new kitchen hires will last, and if you last out the first three months without quitting in a mild panic about what the fuck is happening here, you get formally inducted into the wider pool of bets. The three top questions are:
The date of Nate and Sophie’s wedding: the pot is a handsome $700 despite the relatively small bets placed and regularly reupped (it took them two years to properly exchange names and thirteen years to sleep together, don’t tell me it wouldn’t be an ongoing question)
Who exactly is dating whom, among their three bosses: there are a scant three people who put their money on a poly triad, and they’ll be splitting the $1100 between them when someone figures Eliot and Parker and Hardison out
No, Really, What The Fuck Is Happening Here: There is one person who put their whole paycheck on “fuck it, they’re fucking criminal masterminds, they probably take down governments in their fucking free time” after seven pints of Thief Juice, and they are walking away with a cool two grand if they can ever actually prove it
B: what I think is fucking
hilarious
So, the FBI thinks that Hardison and Parker are official agents. Like, the FBI is so convinced of this, so convinced of this, that Hardison actually discovers they have valid badge numbers–they are all but being paid by the federal government as part of their Portland white collar crimes office. Agent McSweeten and his partner have benefited handsomely from Hardison and Parker’s involvement, and they vouch for their ‘old buddies’ at every turn, to the extent that most of the feds they could run into in a number of cities (Boston, Portland, probably NYC) are like ‘yes, they’re undercover again, c’est la vie.’
Which is all well and good until Interpol shows up and has to work with the FBI on something quite unrelated, which results in Sterling tearing his hair out because “WHAT DO YOU MEAN, THEY’RE NOT FEDERAL AGENTS THEY’RE CRIMINALS, OF COURSE THEY’RE CRIMINALS.”
The Feds honestly pity the poor guy. Damn, their people are good, their undercover personalities even managed to convince Interpol, damn fine. McSweeten tells Parker the story next time he sees her and she laughs for literally days.
C: what is heart-crushing and
awful but fun to inflict on friends
Eliot believes–no, he knows–that he’s going to die for Parker and Hardison. He’s actually pretty comfortable with this, but he knows that if he ever brings it up out loud, the pair of them are going to mutually implode. I wrote that into a fic, actually. Also, listen, we all know this is canon. “Until my dying day.” Eliot, please be a little less obviously worshipful of these people. Some of my Eliot Spencer feelings can also be found here.
D: what would never
work with canon but the canon is shit so I believe it anyway
I like to think that there’s a Leverage Mark II comprised of some of the kids they run into over the course of their jobs, I even wrote out like 2K words in headcanons for it. Members include:
Mastermind: Olivia Sterling,
from The Queen’s Gambit Job
Hitter: Molly (who now identifies as Matthew), from The Carnival Job
Hacker: Trevor, from The Hot Potato Job
Grifter: Widmark (Mark), from The Fairy Godparents Job
Thief: Josie, from The Boost Job
Client: Luka, from The Stork Job, whose little sister has been kidnapped
I just really want this, okay? I want to see them become the greatest criminals around under the tutelage of the Leverage squad and take up the torch when Eliot and Hardison and Parker decide to dial it back a bit and buy a restaurant somewhere.
(Related headcanon that Leverage habitually starts training up new generations and like in five hundred years humanity’s in space and the Leverage has an ancient oil painting hanging in their mess hall and whenever someone asks why they don’t transfer it to a hologram, the crew of the ship puffs up and declaims at length about their honored founder Harlan Leverage III and how they would never insult his memory like that! In the afterlife, Nate S C R E A M S.)
Just sayin, I would be SO interested in your time travel story.
All I’m saying is that, FIRST OF ALL, I feel that ‘help I am uncontrollably time traveling’ is a radically underused narrative trope, and, SECOND OF ALL, there is nothing I want more than an excuse to write a story about a modern gay dude who learned all his life skills in the 1760′s and is therefore a very weird combination of modern ideals of Equality Et Al, incredibly archaic life skills, and a total inability to drive a car.
i remember i started following you after a reply you made on some medical issue about the male and female bodies being different and needing different first aid and it was informative that was like what 2 years ago holy shit
That was apparently a popular reason to join the party. …parade? …conga line? Well, whatever. Glad you have you, my dude!
Y’ALL I AM ON ISSUE 9 OF THE DREAMER AND KIP’S BAY IS BEING BLOWN TO HELL AND ALEXANDER HAMILTON WAS JUST INTRODUCED AND I AM YELLING I LOVE THIS SO MUCH
I AM GOING TO BUY IT HARDCOPY AND ALSO THE SHORT STORIES AND IF ANY OF YOU HAVE READ THE DREAMER COME TALK TO ME ABOUT IT IMMEDIATELY
While I absolutely agree that Lily Potter beat the shit out of snape when he joined the afterlife don’t forget Petunia Dursley.
Lily was estranged from her sister but still trusted her to take care of her son, who was found bleeding and crying on her doorstep after his parents were murdered. Only to find out that they hurt, starved, isolated, lied to, and locked in both a cupboard and then a room with bars on the window the son she died to protect so he could have a better life? I don’t care what the deleted scene said about petunia being sad lily died when she gets to the afterlife it is round two of lily potter MMA smackdown
“Why did she end up here?”
“James–”
“No, that woman destroyed–”
“Hold on–”
“Stop.” A cool, familiar voice, but there’s something warm lacking in it. “Go. I need to talk to her.” A pause. “Alone.”
“…Call me if you need me, Lily,” the man says. There’s the sound of footsteps on grass.
Petunia wrinkles her nose and opens her eyes to blue, blue skies. I died, she thinks. I’m dead.
It’s not such a surprise. She was nearly eighty years old, after all, and it had been many years since Vernon died. What is a surprise is the body she finds when she sits up. She can’t be physically older than 20, the year she had Dudley and moved in with Vernon. The year that Lily–
“Hello, Petunia.”
Petunia scrambles up, heart thundering in her chest, and whirls around. There, right in front of her, for the first time in over sixty years, is Lily.
She’s just as beautiful as she remembered, long red hair framing a clear face. There’s that familiar curl of envy, but it’s duller now, after all these years, and Petunia drinks in the sight of her sister hungrily. She’s standing in a field, white robes falling from her shoulders, and her green eyes are almost the exact same color as the greenery beneath their feet.
Lily’s green eyes are suddenly a lot closer and, oh wow, Petunia is looking at the sky again. She frowns and tentatively reaches up to touch her jaw. It hurts.
But I’m dead, Petunia thinks first. And then, Lily punched me. She lifts her head up as much as she can.
“What,” Lily hisses, fists vibrating at her sides, “the fuck, Petunia?”
In all of these, diversions from actual history or places where I don’t know specific details are usually noted, so don’t take them as gospel, but they’re as well researched as I could make them.
Aaaaand I think that’s pretty much what I’ve written that’s period Hamilton fic, and I think every bit of it’s been requested by @lathori because she puts up with A Lot of AmRev digressions. Obviously there’s also the Star Wars AU (FYI that tag also contains the Borgias Star Wars AU I wrote because I screwed up the tags) and the AIOS AU but those aren’t historical.
for the headcanon meme: Steve Rogers the angry little chihuahua.
On Monday, the very angry Stevie got beaten up in one parking lot, but he was still angry. On Tuesday, the very angry Stevie got beaten up behind two diners, but he was STILL angry. On Wednesday, the very angry Stevie got put through three experimental procedures, but he was STILL angry. Anyway, gonna do me some Steve Rogers for this ask meme.
A: what I think realistically
Adapting to the 21st century isn’t really difficult, once he can face the reality of it properly. It reminds him, more than anything, of that first week after the serum–everything is too bright and too loud and too fast. But now the world is unfamiliar to boot and there’s no one who cares enough has the time to help him adjust. It’s a rough couple of months before he masters the situation.
Unrelated to the above, Steve was actually great friends with most of the chorus girls. At first they were…uh…suspicious, to say the least, because he was a massive brick house of a dude who could lift a motorcycle and looked like the ultimate version of the assholes they put up with on the regular. So they didn’t speak to Steve past the most basic courtesies for a week and a half.
Then they went out drinking after their first performance in a new city and Steve sat quietly in the corner with a water until he saw Cheryl sitting stiff and toying with a fork as a man’s hand crept up her leg.
“Back off,” Cheryl said sharply. The guy did not.
No one was more surprised than Cheryl when Steve loomed up from the corner like the wrath of God and sharply announced, “Buddy, if you’re not going to leave the lady alone, you and me are gonna have problems.”
The next day, Steve showed up to the theater ready to sit off to the side as usual. Instead Cheryl plopped down in front of him, held out a handful of bobby pins, and said, “I need an extra set of hands to put my hair up. You braid, Cap?”
“Um, not really,” Steve said, blushing. “But I can learn.”
B: what I think is fucking
hilarious
Highlights of Steve in the modern grocery store include:
- Steve And The Grudge Against Weird Bananas
- Steve And What The Fuck Do You Mean You Want Five Dollars For This Tomato
- Steve And Wow You Can Get Vaccines At A Grocery Store–Wait What Do You Mean People Believe Vaccines Are Dangerous
- Steve And Hey You There Leave That Cashier Alone Unless You Wanna Settle This Outside
- Steve And The Struggle of Grocery Shopping Without Getting Recognized
- Steve And Really What The Fuck Is Wrong With Bananas
Needless to say, Steve isn’t really allowed to do the grocery shopping anymore.
C: what is heart-crushing and
awful but fun to inflict on friends
SHIELDRA dumped all their files onto the internet, courtesy of Natasha’s salt-and-burn solution to HYDRA’s infiltration. Steve has been in the modern world for a good few years by now, so he sits down and starts searching through it for information.
He shouldn’t be doing it. He knows it’s just torturing himself. He hasn’t known where Bucky is since Insight went down, and none of this will help him find the Winter Soldier if he doesn’t want to be found, Natasha assured him of that. But…he just has to know.
Capture. Surgeries. The arm. Missions. Cryostasis. “Programming.” More missions, more cryo, more programming–torture, it’s torture, God, all this time he was mourning his best friend while Bucky was being tortured.
Steve lasts through five files before he throws up.
D: what would never
work with canon but the canon is shit so I believe it anyway
Y’all, Steve is Wanda’s weird adopted big brother and no one can stop me from believing it. He shows her a bunch of Disney movies that she missed out on as a kid and she asks him for advice about Vision and he jokes about how he’s definitely the wrong person to be asking for romantic advice. They have a good weird relationship.
We all know, in our heart of hearts, that Adrien and Marinette are the local masters of all physical activity. Like, I recognize that the kwami magic is what makes them super strong or agile or whatever, but like. Y’all. Some of that is just pure organic buff-as-fuck muscle. Over the course of their first school year of having the Miraculous, Adrien and Marinette both get so fit they could easily be sports stars. During a game of dodgeball, Adrien accidentally convinces everyone he’s a gymnastics master because he does a back handspring to avoid a ball, totally on instinct out of habit because combat. Marinette starts wearing tank tops because Summer Ugh and Adrien walks into a door because holy shit Marinette has back muscles wow oh my god. A bunch of them go swimming and everyone’s like “You are both tiny teens, how do you both have a sixpack.” Adrien’s modeling agents are baffled by where he’s finding the time to pull this off, but like, hey, as long as he’s putting on lean muscle instead of bulking up, they’re not gonna…like…stop him.
Anyway flash forward to post-identity reveal when Marinette and Adrien are playing dodgeball again and she literally vaults over him to nail the last member of the opposing team and Adrien catches her on the drop and they run around celebrating like morons with Marinette on his shoulders while the entire school gapes at them.
B: what I think is fucking
hilarious
Listen, I know we all like to talk about Marinette’s response when she finds out that Adrien is Chat Noir, but. For a hot second. Let’s just talk about how Adrien is going to react when he finds out that Marinette is Ladybug. He thinks Marinette is great, clearly, even though her inability to speak to him has obviously convinced him that she doesn’t like him much. But Adrien admires Marinette so much, she’s such a strong-willed person, she’s so clever, she’s so funny, and honestly if he wasn’t already so head over heels for Ladybug he’s be crazy about her.
After he finds out Ladybug’s identity, Adrien spends three hours lying flat on his back in his bedroom, staring up at the ceiling.
“Plagg, she’s so cool. Plagg. Plagg, Marinette is Ladybug and she’s amazing. Plagg. Plagg, are you listening to me? Plagg, I think I love her.”
Plagg is absolutely not listening to him. Adrien doesn’t care.
C: what is heart-crushing and
awful but fun to inflict on friends
Fam. Let’s talk about akuma!Chat Noir. I have no idea if this is ever going to be a thing, but I want it to be a thing and I’ve been obsessed with it ever since I saw THIS AMAZING COMIC.
Ladybug is wounded in battle with Hawkmoth, and Chat Noir…well. The akumas are attracted to strong negative emotions, and for that moment, Adrien is nothing but a bit of driftwood being dragged out to sea on a riptide of grief and guilt and rage. And Hawkmoth, he does like his dramatic irony, and what could be more ironic than this, one hero destroying another.
He miscalculates a bit, though. His akuma melts into Chat Noir’s bell, and the magic sweeps over him, and, indeed, Adrien feels the akuma warp the lines of his thoughts. Until all he feels is rage, white-hot and protective. His lady is bloody in his arms and it’s all because of Hawkmoth and he is going to destroy anyone who comes near her.
Chat Blanc is going to make sure of it.
D: what would never
work with canon but the canon is shit so I believe it anyway
Anyway Adrien’s mother was a Miraculous holder and he got his sense of humor from her (”You know me,” she used to say, winking at him as she did her elaborate blue-green-violet eyeshadow, “vain as a peacock!”) and also she used to tell him about what it meant to be a good person. He tries to live up to her memory every day.
what is your thesis about that youre blogging about baron von steuben and america's first pantsless party with flaming shots???? and tagging your history information???????? inquiring minds need to know!!!
Ha, okay, sorry buddy, the thesis I just finished was about the history of battlefield medicine, and you can find both my thesis updates and stuff about medical history under the tag ‘only mostly dead’! The pantless party thing is unrelated, I’m just a fucking nerd about the American Revolution and am practically brimming over with inane facts about the time period.
On a related note, no one ever asks me for historical era Hamilton fic but my historical era Hamilton fic is, A, MY FAVORITE THING, and, B, obsessively researched.
Harry, Corlath, and Mathin! For the headcanon meme!
Topaz, coming through with the obscure fandoms! For this ask meme, and Harry, Corlath, and Mathin are from The Blue Sword.
A: what I think realistically
I have said this before, but you can pry the headcanon from my cold dead hands. The Damarians have some tradition in which the family of the bride (and normally the husband, but Corlath is the last of his family and it’s terrible) gives her away at the wedding. Mathin stands in as Harry’s father, a parent from the Hills, and gives her away as the Daughter of the Riders after riding roughshod over Richard’s protestations. Mathin cries a little and Harry cries a little and Corlath cries a little and no one ever says anything about it except in songs and stories where the devotion of them all is hailed as Serious Business.
Corlath very quietly slaps Mathin with a small title, whatever he can get away with, as the father of the new Queen. It takes Mathin a full year to notice.
Alsooooo, Corlath can draw, although paper is expensive and therefore rare in the Hills. He goes to the trouble of getting himself paper and charcoals during the winter rains for something to do with his hands and draws pretty much only Harry, Harry on Sungold, Harry bringing down the mountains, Harry laughing at dinner, Harry smiling at him stretched out on their bed. Harry thinks it’s adorable.
B: what I think is fucking
hilarious
I think we’ve discussed this but THE RIDERS HAVE TO GET BORED DURING THE WINTER RAINS.
Y’all. My dudes. Hear me out here: the Riders playing pranks on each other. Normally, the way these things shake out is “everyone is afraid of Corlath not because he’s the king but because he’s frankly terrifying between his tactical training and his kelar, but they’re more terrified of Mathin because Mathin is the ultimate Prank Lord.” And then Harry shows up and radically changes the balance of affairs.
Because listen. Harry has a bit of a learning curve to catch up with, so they go easy on her at first. But then she lays a trap for Mathin after a little bit of idle conversation with Corlath and she gets him good. Mathin, for three days, is dyed bright red with the concoction Harry managed to mix up. And it’s war. After a week and a half, Corlath and Harry make a truce of necessity–no pranks allowed in their own chambers–but otherwise Harry is an ally of whoever charms her most at the time. The fact that the servants in the City all adore Harry means that she becomes the unquestioned champion by the end of her first winter. Corlath doesn’t take it personally, honestly he’s kind of thrilled that she kicked his ass so handily–tbh Corlath is eternally that Will Smith picture when it comes to Harry, even when they’re fighting.
C: what is heart-crushing and
awful but fun to inflict on friends
Corlath is the last of his family. His mother always had a fragile constitution, and died of a plague sweeping through the City. His father died not long afterward–officially in battle, but everyone agreed that is was from a broken heart. He just couldn’t face the world without her. Corlath rose to power quite young, even by the reckoning of the long-lived Hill Kings, and quite alone. The Riders were all he had left, and for all that they tried to be enough, it made the City ache to see their joyous child prince grow into a serious warrior king. Corlath still smiled, of course, but not as easily, and his bright laughter was hard-earned–it wasn’t that Corlath was depressed, it was that he was controlled, and stiffly so, at all times.
It’s hard to have close friends, let alone anything near family, when you can’t be sure of meeting anyone’s eyes. Both Corlath’s parents had kelar, and he envies them for that security–he, who carries more kelar than anyone in living memory, is always aware of how much damage he can do. He drove a servant mad, once, by accident when he was a young boy, and cried for two days until his mother managed to restore most of the man’s mind. Corlath has had few friends and fewer lovers, as a result.
Beyond all that Harry does to endear herself to the Riders, the thing that truly wins them over is that they haven’t seen so much emotion–anger and joy and frustration and everything in between–on their king’s face in long years.
D: what would never
work with canon but the canon is shit so I believe it anyway
First of all, canon is not shit and you can fight me.
But seriously, I’ve said this before too but I’m so serious about it, Harry meets Aerin in the flesh at some point. And also Aerin visits Harry in her dreams and at first Harry’s very deferential and nervous, but she lightens up over time, and Aerin gives her advice on being a queen and being a legend and being a mother. (At some point, when Harry is just exhausted of everything and frustrated with everyone and ready to ride off into the desert just to get away, Aerin turns up and tells a story about a very vain girl named Galanna who got her eyelashes shaved off and could have been rolled out a window, she was sleeping so heavily. Harry laughs herself sick in the dream and wakes up smiling for the first time in weeks.)
Lol. I feel bad. I mean Minerva McGonagall for the prompt thing of yours. Sorry for not clarifying
I got you, my buddy. HBIC Minerva McGonagall, coming right up.
A:
what I think realistically
McGonagall is widely hailed as The One That Got Away through every Auror’s department in the world, in much the same way that Dumbledore is hailed as The One That Got Away regarding the Minister of Magic. Stories get around to the tune of “wow, did you hear, Minerva McGonagall took a dozen Stunners straight to the chest and they think she’s going to recover fully” and “wow, did you hear, Minerva McGonagall animated every statue in Hogwarts” and “wow, did you hear, Minerva McGonagall tortured a Death Eater in Ravenclaw Tower.” (This last is not true, and McGonagall puffs up in a combination of fierce pride and genuine offense whenever she hears it. How dare you but also my House, goddamnit, he belongs in MY House.) And the older Aurors are like “Goddamn right, she’s Minerva Fucking McGonagall, she could have run this place if she didn’t like teaching so much.”
B:
what I think is fucking hilarious
It was definitely Minerva McGonagall’s idea to, A, make James Potter Head Boy, and, B, drown the Dursleys in letters.
The thing about James Potter is that he wasn’t a prefect. Remus was a prefect. Remus, however, was also reliably flat on his back the two days around the full moon, and Somewhat Indisposed that one night a month, and so someone had to cover his duties. The first time McGonagall found James doing Remus’ patrol (and look suspiciously exhausted about it too) she almost gave him detention for life. But…
“One chance, Mister Potter,” she says stiffly. “If I hear you’ve been abusing this, I’ll take it straight to the Headmaster.”
“You got it Minn–I mean, um, yes, Professor.” James offers her a smile that makes the circles under his eyes stand out. McGonagall does some mental math–the full moon was last night, what does James have to look so tired about? With Remus out of commission, they’re hardly getting up to elaborate shenanigans without him.
James Potter, for three nights a month, is beyond reproach. Impeccable, in fact. McGonagall half recommends him because she thinks he’s genuinely improving with the weight of responsibility and half because…come on, she just has to. She has to. No one is more horrified than James Potter himself when he gets the letter.
The thing about the Dursleys…they’re terrible and Minerva dislikes them supremely and she COULD go herself but she suspects that it won’t get them any further. So she enchants two dozen quills to write identical copies of Harry’s letter and comes up with every terrible idea she can to make their lives miserable. Because fuck them, that’s why.
C: what is heart-crushing and awful but fun to inflict on friends awful just awful I’m sorry
McGonagall has a list of students that she never meant to start keeping. It started years ago, by accident, when she opened the Daily Prophet and saw a name on the front page–little Jacob Hanover, a Muggleborn fourth year who was murdered in the street when the Death Eaters first started to rise. He was a sweet boy, with a wicked sense of humor and an eye for Charms that was downright ingenious. He had tried to defend himself, a Gryffindor at the end even though his House had been something of a quiet mystery, but it hadn’t helped. The list is long, grows by the day, but then…oh, then it stops, with four names inscribed at the bottom on the same date–James Potter, Lily Evans Potter, Peter Pettigrew, and Sirius Black.
(The boy she remembers, the boy who had three times been given detention for calling her ‘Minnie’ to her face, the boy who had once sent every Black in Slytherin an identical Howler full of insults, the boy who had laughed at his best friend’s wedding and danced the bride around in circles until they were both dizzy–he’s dead, she decides the second she gets the news. He’s dead, and he died when he betrayed his friends. She has no idea that the boy wishes the same thing, with all his heart.)
The book containing the list leaves the corner of her desk where she’s kept it all this time, and she puts it on a bookshelf with every intent of never opening it again. The war is over and she will not lose more students to that monster’s mania. Minerva McGonagall will not raise another generation of children to march into battle.
Thirteen years later, she opens a book from her bookshelf and very sternly does not cry as she adds another name. Cedric Diggory. Flipping through the remaining pages, Minerva has a terrible premonition–there will be a lot more names before this is done.
Alternatively: Minerva McGonagall attends Lily and James’ funeral. The child reaching into the coffins, calling in confused distress for Mama and Daddy is bad enough, but she has never seen anything more heartbreaking than Remus Lupin, standing alone in the front row and clutching blindly at the photograph in his hands–the whole lot of them, the Marauders and Lily, at the wedding all those years ago. They’re smiling in the picture. Remus, three of his best friends murdered at the behest of the fourth, looks like he’ll never smile again. That’s what breaks Minerva, finally, and sets her sobbing into her hands.
Eleven years later, Harry Potter looks her in the eye (he looks so much like his parents) and says that he and Ron miss Hermione, so much, please, they just want to see her, even if she can’t hear them. Even if she’s Petrified.
McGonagall knows when she’s being played, she does, but right then…pale and desperate and a little griefstricken, Harry doesn’t look like James, or Lily, or even wild and proud Sirius. He looks like Remus, looking for friends who are far outside his reach. She lets him and Ron go.
D:
what would never work with canon but the canon is shit so I believe it anyway
MCGONAGALL HAS A WIFE, SHE’S CHARMING, CANON CAN SUCK A DICK.
