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.
MY LOVE BUFFY SUMMERS. For this ask meme. Also, buckle up for fucking Buffy/Angel hour, folks, I don’t truck with Buffy/Spike.
A:
what I think realistically
Buffy’s classmates…listen. They’re not as oblivious as the adult population, because…obviously they’re not, they’re the rising generation of kids who go to school with the Slayer, even the most obtuse of them will pick something up eventually. They don’t really know, either, and more to the point they don’t altogether want to know. But they can kind of…tell.
No one challenges Buffy. Ever. Buffy is a hunter of hunters, a killer of killers. Even though they don’t know, something deep down in the mind of even the densest high school student looks at her and quails in fear, looks at her and says strength and danger and protection and fear all at once in a mad jumble.
Willow and Xander go from being regularly shoved around to not even touched. People still talk shit for a while, sure, but by their senior year, the entirety of Sunnydale High would rather be shanked with a pencil and die quick than go toe-to-toe with Buffy Summers.
And God have mercy on you if you lay a finger on her little sister, because Buffy won’t.
B:
what I think is fucking hilarious
Early during that rocky first few months, Giles foolishly told Buffy that she should dress more practically. Out of sheer spite, she went slaying in stiletto heels and club dresses for two weeks until Giles had to reluctantly eat his words.
Angel was planning to come talk to her, but listen. He’s only human. Sort of. He has limits. Buffy kicking back on a mausoleum in a little black dress with blonde hair loose over her shoulders and six-inch heels while she juggles holy water vials with the careless ease of someone with total confidence in her skills–that’s his limit. He’s calling it right now. He leaves, feeling mildly shellshocked.
C:
what is heart-crushing and awful but fun to inflict on friends
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. 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, even though there have been two, one gone through Death’s own hands and the other very close now, since last time–isn’t afraid of Death anymore. They are friends, well-known and often met. Almost twins. She’s not dressed in white, she’s dressed in her own blood and vindication and black, 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.
“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 he’ll never forgive himself.”
I HAVE MET LIAM, Death says, somewhat disapproving. HE WAS RATHER QUESTIONABLE.
The Slayer almost smiles, but tears break over her lashes instead. “I’ve heard.”
Death allows, HE HAS IMPROVED TREMENDOUSLY.
“I won’t die here,” the Slayer says, iron-clad. “You can’t take me.”
Death laughs. ALMOST I BELIEVE YOU COULD STOP ME, DEAR GIRL. BUT 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, 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, and the Slayer 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.
D:
what would never work with canon but the canon is shit so I believe it anyway
Honestly, AU where Angel/Cordelia doesn’t get shoehorned in and there’s no super uncomfortable Spike/Buffy plot and we get 100x more active pining. Deliver! My! Mutual! Pining! Thanks!
In slightly more seriousness, though, (not that I’m not TOTALLY serious about that mutual pining thanks) you know how there’s that one time where Buffy accidentally demonstrates to a room full of morons that she can toss a dude over her shoulder like a paperweight? In my heart of hearts, Buffy is shyly approached the next day by a girl who’s regularly harassed by jackasses and Buffy accidentally becomes the mentor to a bunch of random girls for how To Beat Up A Creepy Dude 101. At work, Buffy walks other girls back to their cars on the regular, and she’s sort of surprised by how many of the people who try to mess with them are just…creepy dudes, nothing supernatural, because…like…very few people are suicidal enough to try shit with Buffy and her standard for comparison is like 99% vampires and 1% miscellaneous other.
Unrelatedly she and Angel are soulmates and they probably have a weird psychic pseudo-sire bond because of the bite on her neck and at some point a vampire asks her about it and she’s like “Well, I saved a master vampire from dying.”
VERY relatedly to the above, Angel is an actual master vampire and gossip is faster than wildfire and word Gets Around that the Slayer (because, much to Faith’s bitterness, Buffy is always the Slayer), one time saved Fucking Angelus from death. The entire supernatural underworld simultaneously explodes with elaborate conspiracy theories, chief among them that the Slayer is actually a vampire. Buffy hears about this after a really long day and the vampire who lets it slip is very confused when the Slayer sits down on the ground and laughs until she cries. Not confused for long, though. She stakes him before he can be confused for too long.
Can I ask what book it was so I can avoid it with all my being?
Orpheum, by D.S. Murphy. It’s kind of a shame, honestly, the magic had the potential to be really cool, I was all buckled up for some good brain candy nonsense but nooooo fucking ‘gypsy fortune tellers’ fucking spare me.
I’m gonna do them all, I’m sorry, I am. For this ask meme.
A:
what I think realistically
Natasha didn’t just wake up one day clean and free to wander into the arms of SHIELD. She doesn’t have the scar from it anymore–it was a long time ago, and a woman in her line of work has to get some laser treatments–but Clint shot her through the shoulder when he caught up with her, and it was her response that saved her life.
He couldn’t kill someone who stared him in the eye and said, plain as day, “Go ahead and do it then. Save all those people from me.” Pause. Bitter laugh. “Save me from me.”
Natasha beat him to a bloody pulp the first time they sparred, for disobeying.
B:
what I think is fucking hilarious
Natasha, most of the Avengers believe at first, is effortlessly classy, humorless, and overall terrifying.
They are wildly unprepared for Natasha’s prankster streak–through a combination of dizzying logic and sweet-talking, she gets JARVIS on her side and convinces him to kill all the systems in the Avengers Tower. While Tony is hammering away at his keyboard, trying to find the problem, JARVIS asks, totally deadpan, “Would you like to play a game?” Tony shrieks. Natasha gets it all on camera.
They are likewise unprepared for the first time Natasha and Clint actually stay there for an extended period of time, which includes Natasha, dressed in a shirt she stole from Clint and comfy leggings, sitting crosslegged on the floor and eating cereal at 2 AM while watching old Burn Notice reruns and critiquing the spy shenanigans out loud, regardless of who’s in the room.
It doesn’t come as a shock to them when Natasha goes through an entire week of addressing Clint by increasingly elaborately incorrect codenames. At first it’s “Duck-guy” or “Crow-man” or “Goose-face,” but by day six she’s calling for “Ruby Throated Hummingbird” over the comms. He walks into the debrief and sits down next to her and goes “Hey, Tarantula” and genuinely fears for his life for the next forty-eight hours.
C:
what is heart-crushing and awful but fun to inflict on friends
The Red Room recruiting nine or ten year olds? Nah. Natasha–Natalia–neither of those then, but Natasha-Natalia-Anja-Laurel-Cara-Kristen-Hana-Jessamine and a hundred other bloodstained girls all the same–was four years old when her family’s home burned to the ground. She killed for the first time at five. She was pitted against another child, then, and a knife was put in the room, and whoever lived, left. She went on a mission for the first time at fourteen. Failed. Accidentally killed the target before extracting information. Punished. Another mission a year later. Perfection.
First wiped at sixteen.
Natasha believes she was wiped perhaps twelve times–not after every mission, like the teacher she barely remembers (blue eyes and hard jaw and numbness–Yakov? she doesn’t know), but often enough to keep her controlled. Her last mission, before she was brought into SHIELD, was supposed to be a routine recon to a hospital in Sao Paolo which was thought to be funneling drugs. A children’s hospital. Competition for a major contributor to the Red Room.
It was far worse. Natasha-Natalia-Mila couldn’t leave those children–some of them barely alive anymore, some of them twisted by experiments into…desperate things–to their fate. She knew about desperate things. She made sure they all died cleanly before she burned the building to the ground.
D:
what would never work with canon but the canon is shit so I believe it anyway
Natasha is in love with Clint Barton, her hypercompetent loser of a partner who lives in Bed-Stuy with a dog and his…trainee? Sidekick? Mini-me? Don’t bring no AOU nonsense into my house.
In all seriousness, comic ‘canon’ is such a moving target that you can justify almost anything, and I basically abandon MCU canon whenever it suits me. That being said, heADCANON THAT NATASHA BELIEVES SHE’S A MONSTER BECAUSE SHE FUCKING MURDERED A LOT OF PEOPLE AND NOT BECAUSE SHE’S INFERTILE WHAT THE F U C K.
Nope, nope, I swear to Christ, I’m going to come up with something that’s not about AOU, I am, I promise, oh my god, um.
Natasha and Vision are good buddies because Natasha had to fumble her way through how to have Genuine Human Emotions a little bit at first (not how to have them, just how to…deal?) and is happy to explain to Vision when he’s confused.
Can you do John Wick for that headcanon post you reblogged?
You’re darn right I can do John Wick! For THIS meme!
A: what I think realistically
John didn’t get into trouble as a kid. John was a well-behaved student, known for being intelligent and quiet and unremarkable. John never got into fights and no one ever questioned where he got bruises, because no one ever noticed. When John left high school, he joined the military and did a four year tour with very little action. And then he fell off the fucking map. He still has living family. They believe he’s dead.
B: what I think is fucking hilarious
John definitely calls in, like, life debts to get people to watch his dog while Shit’s Going Down.
“I need a favor.”
“John,” the smiling English assassin says, “after that time in Bulgaria you know you only need to ask.”
“I need you to watch my dog.”
There’s a long pause, but the assassin’s smile doesn’t crack. “Does he have a name?”
“…no.”
“Okay.” John is a weird dude, even as assassins go. The English assassin rolls with it like a champ.
C: what is heart-crushing and awful but fun to inflict on friends
For the record, I don’t have any friends who have seen John Wick except for the people who have asked me about it on here.
That being said: John hasn’t been to visit his wife’s grave since he buried her. At first it was because he physically couldn’t make himself do it. Those first weeks were such a grey haze of…weight, more than anything else–even the air seemed too heavy to breathe–that he couldn’t leave the house. Even with Daisy, it was all he could do to get up and take care of her. Going to the cemetery…no way.
And then once Daisy was dead…John was busy. John was fighting. John was killing. John had a purpose and damned if he was going to turn away from it.
He was planning to go see his wife’s tombstone the morning after he got home. Instead his house gets blown up and he loses everything of hers that he still owned.
D: what would never work in canon but the canon is shit so I believe it anyway
You’ll never tell me that John’s wife wasn’t a world-class thief. Like, she is to the thief world what John is to the assassin world. They called her the Wraith, and her Interpol file is almost as thick as his, but instead of being a trail of mercilessly efficient kills it’s a laundry list of precious paintings and jewels and artifacts stolen from uncrackable safes and impenetrable museums.
They met while she was stealing a Picasso from one of John’s targets. A classic story: girl meets boy, boy murders target, girl takes painting, girl breaks into boy’s safehouse with champagne. “To celebrate our mutual successes,” she says, and John is gone.
Instead of making a deal with the Devil, she stole the most cherished statue owned by a leading member of her own High Council, and ransomed her freedom back with it. She would have been free for all her natural life–and, John supposes, she was.
It’s just they both expected her natural life to be a lot longer, is all.
I watched all four episodes of Castlevania at 1 AM the other night with absolutely no background and I loved the hell out of it, please tell me about your feelings in elaborate detail.
Oh my god where do I start. (I guess I should say there are spoilers ahead) I’m just gonna give you a walk through on my emotions as the show went on. So there’s the opening scene with all of those skeletons on piles and bats and shit outside of Draculas castle and Lisa fucking just stabs one mid flight like a total BADASS. Right then I knew I would love her with all of my heart. Then when I first saw Dracula my first thought was “this boy is TALL” and then I saw Lisa and Drac together and that’s honestly all I needed. Seeing them together made me so happy. THEN THE NEXT SCENE LITERALLY RIPPED MY HEART OUT AND STOMPED IT INTO THE DIRT. Lisa just wanted to help people with science and medicine but the church was like “NO WITCHES, ONLY MEN CAN DO THAT” and in that moment I hated the bishop and everyone involved in the church and Lisa’s death. Then when she literally screamed don’t hurt them, they don’t know what they’re doing, I COULDNT HANDLE IT. Pretty much I started crying instantly. Then it shows Drac at his house and when he started crying when he found out Lisa was killed I just wanted to reach in and hug him. Then he showed up in the flames that KILLED HIS WIFE, THE ONLY PERSON WHO HELPED HIM NOT TO TOTALLY HATE HUMANS, and told the people to get out in a year or they would die. When he goes back to his castle we get to see a peek of Alucard and I screamed. Then a year passes and NO ONE BELIEVES HIM. And they’re all shocked when he releases the demons of hell??? What did they expect???? Anyway, flash forward to the bar where Trevor is introduced. I instantly fell in love with him and I would honestly probably die for him and he’s an animated character. BUT I LOVE MY DRUNK BOY SM. So basically every scene with him in it I LOVE. He’s a snarky, sarcastic, asshole and everything I need in a protagonist. He had the best one liners in the history of EVER. Then he meets the leader of the speakers and fights off the two catholic guys and honestly WOW the animation is beautiful in the fight scene. Anyway he’s like not at all interested in what people have to say but he’s willing to listen to a little of what the speakers have to say, and they listen to him. So when he goes to find the list speaker just to save them it shows he’s not just all gruff and tough, this boy has a heart. Then he KILLS A CYCLOPS AND THIS SCENE WAS SO AMAZING, THE ANIMATION, MEETING SYPHA, EVERYTHING! Speaking of Sypha, I love her. She calls things how she sees them, and she can do MAGIC, LIKE HOLY SHIT. So they fight the demons later right, but there’s the one with Blue Fangs that goes into the church and absolutely DESTROYS the bishop before eating him. I was so proud of him, literally said “you’re doing amazing sweetie” as he ate the bishop. AND DUDE, TREVORS WHIP IS SO BADASS. The demons exploded and I was just in awe of it all. Then when Sypha and Trevor fall into the catacombs and find Alucards coffin I literally got up and had to do a little happy dance break type thing because EMOTIONS WERE HAPPENING AND I COULDNT HANDLE THEM. Then Alucard pops out and starts fighting Trevor and I’m like “god this is the ship I didn’t know I needed.” THEN WHEN THE PROPHESY IS MENTIONED??? I LITERALLY THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO D I E. I can’t wait for season two to happen because I’ve honestly rewatched season one seven times.
That feeling where you start reading a book with the expectation that it will be fun YA garbage with cool weird magic and bastardized Greek mythology, and halfway through you hit a twenty page chunk of UNRELENTING racist bullshit about “gypsies”.
Oh so at the Buffy panel at Awesome Con James Marsters talked about how sometimes Spike would be in a scene and he’d just have no idea why Spike is there and the script didn’t explain it, and so he just made up motivations and he said he basically just made up 90% of the time that he was there to kill Xander and forgot/changed his mind
Hey y’all, for 600 followers here is some weird urban magic.
He blinked at the
tiled ceiling, crossing into wakefulness from something…not. There was a clamor of noise buffeting him,
just outside the half-drawn curtain hiding him—a tiny besieged encampment
against a hurricane in the hall. The
sheets crackled hard against his hands, more like paper than cloth, a sharp
smell making the bone between his eyes ache, and it took a long moment before
he could sort out the overload and look around.
From where he sat, he could see two more beds, one in the room across
the hall, curtain half-closed like his own, and one in his own room—a hospital,
maybe. He didn’t entirely recall what
the word entailed. Didn’t recall much of
anything, now that he thought about it.
He blinked away the concern and propped himself up on one hand to get a
look around at the other residents.
Kids, he noted. Very young. Younger than him? He wasn’t sure.
Across the hall
was a boy, smooth-cheeked and round-eyed.
He had one arm exposed to the shoulder, one sleeve cut away entirely,
and halfway down his upper arm, the flesh turned abruptly into brass. The metal threaded itself into the higher
tissue, and the boy clutched his arm across his chest in numb shock. The girl in the next bed over was sobbing,
the blank sound of someone crying in an effort to soothe themselves, tears
leaving glistening trails down the glossy porcelain of her cheeks. Her eyes, when she blinked, were bright and
lively, her black hair tumbling in thin dreadlocks around her face, but there
was a chink as a bracelet knocked
against porcelain—her hand, rubbing across her eyes.
He raised his
fingers to touch his own face, but there was no metal or porcelain there, only
the warm give of skin. A touch of
stubble on his jaw—older than these soft, scared children, then, but no lines,
so still young enough—and chapped lips, but all living, perfectly human. He looked down at his arms, sweeping fingers
up from the thin skin at his wrists to the curve of his shoulders where they
met the paper of a hospital gown. He
kicked away the sheet and performed a similar check, up the sinew-and-bone line
of his legs, then tugged the hospital gown away from his neck and looked
down. All skin over muscle, blood racing
at the crease of his elbow and the hollow of his throat.
Far from simply
being entirely human, there didn’t seem to be a mark on him. He wondered why he was here. Hospitals were places for the terribly ill or
grievously injured, that much he was sure of, and he didn’t seem to be either
one. If the noise outside was any
indication, they hardly had the staff to spare for him.
for your Consideration: reverse umbrellas. as soon as u open them they start raining all over u but everything around u is dry. thank you for ur time this was my ted ta
why stop there….. you find this umbrella for a weirdly low price at a yard sale being run by a person wearing a shitty wizards hat. the label says FOR “WEATHER”and when you ask what that means they pretend not to hear you
you try to return it the next day but the entire plot of land has become an applebees. there hasnt been a yard there in almost 30 years, the waitress tells you
I told my dad that I'm nonbinary and now he won't stop saying shit like"I raised you better than this"and"where's my little girl gone"and"you were supposed to be the normal child" (i was adopted because my parents wanted a successful child and my sister has asbergers and my brother has a reading disability and a stutter) and he keeps making comments about God when he has been divorced twice and I dont even believe and I don't know what to do and this has been going on for months and I'm so tired
Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. I wish there was something I could do to fix the situation for you–there’s nothing more insidious than people who are supposed to care unconditionally telling you that you’re guilty of the crime of existing. It sits in your heart and eats at you, like something living, more than any other cruelty I’m familiar with. Combined with the idea that you’re supposed to be in some way ‘better’ than the people around you–more intelligent, more socially adept, more well-spoken, more normal, whatever–it’s toxic like nothing else. I know that it probably feels like everything you do and everything you are is a personal failing of your willpower and your strength, right now, and I want you to take me seriously when I say it is not.
It’s not. You are not failing the test of being human because of your looks, because of your gender, because of who you love or what you enjoy, because of what you do or don’t believe. No matter what kind of abuse the people who claim to care about you heap on your shoulders, they are wrong about this. Your brother and your sister aren’t failures because their brains are wired up differently than the ‘norm’, and you’re not a failure because you’re nonbinary, or because of the way you present.
And because I know a thing or two about being the family failure while also being touted as the family genius, let me add: you’re not responsible for why your parents adopted you. You aren’t beholden to their idea of a ‘successful’ child, and nor are you selfish or monstrous because your parents were arrogant enough to write your siblings off. You are, ultimately, far more the person you choose to be than the person your parents make you, and your parents cannot force you to become like them.
And it’s hard to remember these things. I’m not going to lie to you. You said you were tired–oh, sweetheart, this globe-sprawling clan of people who have come out of terrible families, we’re all tired. But we’re none of us failures because we’re tired. We’re none of us weak, or broken, or monsters because we’re tired. We’re alive, and goddamn, some days that is good enough.
It’s taken me years to settle on this, and trust me, there are a ton of days where I still struggle with it, but here is my one piece of advice I can offer you–and a weak and paltry thing it is, in the face of a situation like yours, but it’s all I have for you, my dear one. The world is not an exam. No one can give you a pass or a failure on this, no matter who you are or what you do or how your brain works or whatever. You are succeeding by the mere fact of being alive.
s/o to any teachers who follow me, if I wrote a couple of very passionate letters about how much specific college professors and an elementary school teacher meant to me because they gave a shit about my ass and sent them, would that be weird? good weird? unacceptable?
So there has been a bit of “what if humans were the weird ones?” going around tumblr at the moment and Earth Day got me thinking. Earth is a wonky place, the axis tilts, the orbit wobbles, and the ground spews molten rock for goodness sakes. What if what makes humans weird is just our capacity to survive? What if all the other life bearing planets are these mild, Mediterranean climates with no seasons, no tectonic plates, and no intense weather?
What if several species (including humans) land on a world and the humans are all “SCORE! Earth like world! Let’s get exploring before we get out competed!” And the planet starts offing the other aliens right and left, electric storms, hypothermia, tornadoes and the humans are just … there… counting seconds between flashes, having snowball fights, and just surviving.
To paraphrase one of my favorite bits of a ‘humans are awesome’ fiction megapost: “you don’t know you’re from a Death World until you leave it.” For a ton of reasons, I really like the idea of Earth being Space Australia.
Earth being Space Australia
Words cannot express how much I love these posts
Alien: “I’m sorry, what did you just say your comfortable temperature range is?”
Human: “Honestly we can tolerate anywhere from -40 to 50 Celcius, but we prefer the 0 to 30 range.”
Alien: “……. I’m sorry, did you just list temperatures below freezing?”
Human: “Yeah, but most of us prefer to throw on scarves or jackets at those temperatures it can be a bit nippy.”
Other human: “Nah mate, I knew this guy in college who refused to wear anything past his knees and elbows until it was -20 at least.”
Human: “Heh. Yeah everybody knows someone like that.”
Alien: “……. And did you also say 50 Celcius? As in, half way to boiling?”
Human: “Eugh. Yes. It sucks, we sweat everywhere, and god help you if you touch a seatbelt buckle, but yes.”
Alien: “……. We’ve got like 50 uninhabitable planets we think you might enjoy.”
“You’re telling me that you have… settlements. On islands with active volcanism?”
“Well, yeah. I’m not about to tell Iceland and Hawaii how to live their lives. Actually, it’s kind of a tourist attraction.”
“What, the molten rock?”
“Well, yeah! It’s not every day you see a mountain spew out liquid rocks! The best one is Yellowstone, though. All these hot springs and geysers from the supervolcano–”
“You ACTIVELY SEEK OUT ACTIVE SUPERVOLCANOES?”
“Shit, man, we swim in the groundwater near them.”
Sounds like the “Damned” trilogy by Alan Dean Foster.
“And you say the poles of your world would get as low as negative one hundred with wind chill?”
“Yup, with blizzards you cant see through every other day just about.”
“Amazing! when did you manage to send drones that could survive such temperatures?”
“… well, actually…”
“… what?”
“…we kinda……. sent……….. people…..”
“…”
“…”
“…what?”
“we sent-”
“no yeah I heard you I just- what? You sent… HUMANS… to a place one hundred degrees below freezing?”
“y-yeah”
“and they didn’t… die?”
“Well the first few did”
“PEOPLE DIED OF THE COLD AND YOUR SOLUTION WAS TO SEND MORE PEOPLE???!?!?!?”
My new favorite Humans are Weird quote
“PEOPLE DIED OF THE COLD AND YOUR SOLUTION WAS TO SEND MORE PEOPLE?”
aka The History of Russia
aka Arctic Exploration
aka The History of Alaska
‘But surely you have records of volcanic activity doing tremendous damage to human settlements.’
‘Yep. Pompeii is legendary. Entire cities went. Towns buried under lava, peoples’ brains boiled in the first rush of heat, loads more killed by falling pumice.’
‘ah, good, they learned their lesson and didn’t build there again.’
‘…well…’
‘Are you seriously telling me this volcano is legendary for killing several urban conurbations and you built on top of it AGAIN?’
‘In our defence it hasn’t actually done it since.’
‘What about earthquake-prone areas? Tell me you’re at least vaguely sensible about those.’
‘Oh yeah. After the first major earthquake that flattens a city, we build them better.’
And then the aliens learn what it means to “facepalm” despite not having palms per se….
Aliens: Well at least you’re not immortal. Your planet is teeming with predators and disease what’s your average lifespan; 30-40?
Human: 70-80.
Other Human: My grandma was 102 before she died.
Alien: A FUCKING CENTURY? What killed her a stiff breeze?
OH: nah, cancer and liver failure. She smoke til the day she died and drank like a fish.
Alien: wait like…spontaneous cellular mutation and IMBIBING Poison? Surely these aren’t common!
ok like these are interesting and all, but i want to know what the aliens do that make us go wtf. like ones that regularly go do repairs on their space ships without putting on a suit because they can release the air bubbles in their body and the radiation doesnt really bother them. they just put on like a fucking sweater and go repair the cracked ship window. they have to take breaks to go warm up and all, but over all its nbd. but then you stick them in like a pond and they’re just like abort abort its too much im dying
>“Human, forgive my asking…” >“Is it about the mountain climbing?” >“We…do not understand your reasoning behind scaling su-” >“Yeah, it’s the mountain climbing. What do you want to know?” >“The mountains on my world are roughly concurrent with yours. But we didn’t scale their peaks until after we developed short-range space travel. The first things to go there were probes and drones.” >“That’s a shame. You could have been up there long before that.” >“But you…no offence, but your people haven’t even mastered atmospheric travel before attempting to climb your mountains.” >“So?” >“So? Many of you died trying to climb them. From faulty, primitive equipment, the weather, don’t get me started on your blasted weather patterns, the weather turning against you, not to mention a sheer lack of insi-” >“Your name was…Sulp Niar, is that right?” >“It’s not just Sul…yes, that is part of my name.” >“Listen, Sulp. I know you and your friends think we’re stupid, crazy, stupidly crazy as a species.” >“I-I would nev-” >“I will admit, we’ve done more than our fair share of stupid on our planet. Some of our stunts were bad enough to leave some scars on her. But let me ask you something. How long did it take for your species to advance from early flight to entering orbit?” >“…one hundred eighty-two cycles.” >“Humans managed that in under seventy ye-cycles.” >“Seventy cy-” >“And a hundred cycles after we developed submersible water vehicles, we managed to land in the deepest trench, the lowest spot, on our planet. Give or take.” >“I can’t…no other species has accomplished such things.” >“And I bet no other species has experienced the losses to achieve them. One time, a man tried to use a hot air balloon to travel to the north pole, in the Arctic.” >“But that doesn’t…there’s no way that would have worked.” >“It didn’t. He disappeared shortly after liftoff, crashed a few days later, and tried walking home while the ice flowed against him. We found his remains almost thirty years after the fact.” >“He was a fool. He should have known better than to try that.” >“No, that man’s a hero. He tried something new, something that inspired people in the future to still try, to this day. His remains were taken back home and giving the utmost respect, despite his failure. Sulp, there was another man, who tried to scale our tallest mountain.” >“Did he fail, too?” >“Honestly, we don’t know. He disappeared trying to make a rush for the peak, just before a snowstorm hit. We found his body almost seventy years later. He fell, and his axe bounced off a rock and killed him. We never found the camera he would have used to photograph his success, and his wallet was missing a photo he would have placed on the peak.” >“Where are you going with this?” >“Before he made his last attempt, someone asked him why he bothered to scale Mount Everest. What is the point, he asked. Just like you’ve done earlier.” >“And…what did this human say in return?” >“He answered with three words. Three words that inspired us to look beyond what we cannot do, beyond what we won’t be able to do for a while.” >“What were they?” >“Because it’s there.”
so i'm assuming that all the reincarnated ham crew look like their musical actors, which, awesome. but i was thinking about jefferson, who was a racist fucker being reincarnated as a black man. like. how would that even go down?
*emerges from cave, shamefaced* Right, so, does anyone remember that this AU exists? Because I swear to God I didn’t forget, I just only now have had the time. I actually have a bunch of prompts for it, not all of them are going to get written based on…like…my inspiration level, but also this series is alive again, so like. Yep. Here is some Jefferson. Full disclosure, I dislike Jefferson and think his economic plan was some racist bullshit, so…that is evident.
To all you newcomers, I do recommend reading the other stuff, even if you could probably figure it out.
So, the academic affairs office holds out longer than their
predecessor. Not by much, but by a
little. It takes two full weeks for Alex
to hammer through his petition to be allowed to take more than max credits—and it’s
quite a petition. Angelica takes one look at the twenty-page,
double-sided, single-spaced letter to the dean of academics and disavows any
involvement, and John grins fondly, remarking that the dean has no idea what he’s
gotten into.
The dean, incidentally, has lived his life with pleasantly dim memories
of Philedelphia with cobblestone streets and a vague impression that he knows
the unfortunate teacher annually strong-armed into teaching History of the
American Revolution. He recalls very
little else of his time in the Continental Congress—indeed, at gunpoint he
couldn’t have identified what exactly he was doing, back then.
He has a blindingly vivid
flashback upon looking at the first page of the letter—the pamphlet, really—and immediately feeds the entire thing through his
shredder.
“Jake,” he says, sticking his head out of his office to look at his
secretary.
“Yes, sir?”
“Approve whatever Hamilton’s request was before he sends anymore
letters. I’ve seen enough for several
lifetimes.”
“You got it, boss,” says Jake, whose past life was a blissfully
unremarkable farmer in the Italian countryside and who therefore has no idea
that his boss is sparing them all a lot of trouble.
Now, the reason this matters is because Alex walks into his Econ 101
class for the first time two weeks into the semester, takes one look at the
lesson outline the grad student wrote on the board, and makes a sound of
absolute incoherent horror.
“Oh my god,” Alex says faintly, frozen in place two steps inside the
door. He was never an especially
religious person, but he’s wondering if maybe the universe is punishing him for
past crimes. He’s not saying one way or
the other if he deserves it, but this seems excessive. “Jefferson is haunting me from beyond the
grave.”
ROMAN SENATOR CATO THE ELDER FAMOUSLY ENDED ALMOST EVERY SPEECH WITH THE PHRASE “CARTHAGO DELENDA EST,” OR “CARTHAGE MUST BE DESTROYED.”
IT WAS HIS BELIEF THAT THE ONLY WAY TO ENSURE ROMAN SECURITY WAS TO COMPLETELY ANNIHILATE THE CITY OF CARTHAGE. THE ABSURD PART, HOWEVER, WAS THAT CATO EVEN USED THIS PHRASE TO CONCLUDE SPEECHES THAT HAD ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH CARTHAGE WHATSOEVER.
HE WOULD MAKE A SPEECH ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE COMPLETELY AND END IT WITH “ALSO, IT IS MY OPINION THAT CARTHAGE MUST BE DESTROYED.”
FOR THOSE KEEPING SCORE AT HOME, THE ROMANS WOULD EVENTUALLY RAZE CARTHAGE, SALT THE EARTH IT STOOD ON TO PREVENT ANYONE FROM REBUILDING, AND ENSLAVE THE ENTIRE POPULATION, BECAUSE THE ROMANS WERE APPARENTLY NEVER LOWKEY ABOUT ANYTHING
JUST AS A QUICK ASIDE WHEN I GOT TAUGHT THIS IN MY ANCIENT ROMANS CLASS, NINE PEOPLE INCLUDING MYSELF ENDED UP CONCLUDING OUR ESSAY ON THE NEXT TEST WITH THIS PHRASE, WHICH MY PROFESSOR COMMENTED ON TO THE WHOLE CLASS
ALTHOUGH SHE ALSO GAVE THE WHOLE CLASS A WARNING ABOUT USING FORMAL LANGUAGE IN ACADEMIC ESSAYS BECAUSE ONE STUDENT WHO SHE WOULD NOT NAME (IT WAS ME) REFERRED TO JULIUS CAESAR AS “A DICK.”
