You know something we don’t get taught often? Why bodies with uteri often have a slight pouche. You wanna know why? Because the uterus leans against the outside wall of the abdominal cavity. The uterus is literally making that little pouche, the belly that we call fat all the fucking time, and that’s why it’s so fucking hard to get a absolutely flat belly! And thank fuck for having a female anatomy professor who is old enough and feminist enough to not give a damn and cheerfully tell us all the details that a male professor might have thought unimportant. Cause fuck this society that ignores organs in order to fat-shame us.
If a guy ever spreads a rumor that he slept with you, don’t deny it. One, because there will always be people who think it’s true, and two, because that dumbass boy just handed you the power to say anything you want about what he’s like in bed, and people will believe it. Say he bleats like a sheep when he orgasms. Say he put on pearl earrings and asked you to call him Daisy. Say he couldn’t get it up until he watched an old Billy Mays infomercial. The power is yours.
there’s all these aus about vader finding luke and smuggling him away to the empire in a clever moment of mental clarity, but please consider this crack au: after being faced with slavery, his mother’s death, tusken raiders, sand, obi-wan kenobi, seeing the larses, and tatooine in general, vader lays eyes on toddler luke skywalker - his son, which meant palpatine lied, holy fuck i’m a father, oh god padme i’m so sorry - and flips.
this is the straw that breaks the semi-rational sith lord’s back. in true anakin skywalker fashion, vader panics, scoops his son into his arms, charges into mos espa and turns it upside down, steals a shuttle from his own fleet, slams random hyperspace coordinates, and is thrown into space with no real idea where he’s going or when he’s going to get there. with a toddler.
to make things more interesting, obi-wan snuck aboard the ship, but dropped his lightsaber in the ruckus of sneaking into imperial ranks. and poor, poor firmus piett, a lowly officer who just so happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, runs smack into him.
and they’re all stuck on a ship, indefinitely. with a toddler.
sweet baby jesus i love this idea
just vader, picking up toddler luke under his arm like a football, and RUNNING LIKE FUCKING HELL
If Snow White literally had “lips red as a rose, hair black as ebony, and skin white as snow,” she’d look like a walking nightmare.
honestly this sounds like the description of a vampire. Which would also explain how she convinced seven dwarves to let her stay with them. How she could control some animals to do her bidding. How she could sleep for a long time without aging. Why the hunter betrayed the queen for her, and why the queen wanted her heart, so she could be sure she was killed properly.
the first baby is born in may, and dies in his sleep. the second does not make it to term. the third lives for a year before an unknown illness claims him. the queen pricks her finger on a needle: old magic. blood on snow on an ebony windowsill. the wind carries the the contract, and the woods accept.
blood now must be repaid with blood later, but the fourth baby is a girl, and she lives.
*
she grows slowly, and out of order. first her hands, long and bony; then her arms, thin, hollow-looking. she never looks quite like a child: no chubby cheeks, no skinned knees, no missing teeth. her hair is thick and so black it sometimes seems viscous. her skin is so thin you should be able to see the blood running through it.
they name her snow white, for the fairness of her skin. so fair that she cries when left in the light too long.
*
the queen dies when snow white is four, still small, and beloved. she is not beautiful, her mouth too painfully red, her eyes too liquid dark, her teeth too pointedly sharp. but only those who do not live in the castle think this. to know the child is to love her. to know the child is to want to please her. to know the child is to know that she is precious.
that she must be protected. that she must be obeyed.
“it is not your fault,” the king whispers to the child on his lip, petting her head. “she was not strong enough. i will make sure you never go hungry.”
the child presses her tiny hand against his cheek. “i know you will,” snow white says.
*
peasants begin to go missing. young boys are snatched from the fields. women are summoned to the castle and never seen again.
“gifts,” her father calls them. “eat. you are too thin.”
the girls are always silent, and the boys always scream. snow white hates it. she wishes they would stop, but she is hungry. she is so hungry. and doesn’t she have the right to survive? isn’t she a child, too?
but her mother’s blood is the only food that ever made her feel full. now she can eat and eat and eat and never feel like she has taken a single bite.
she grows thin. the sun becomes too strong for her to go outside.
“a mother’s blood,” the king muses, and sends his advisors out to find snow white a new one.
*
the kingdom has six queens in six years, but no more peasants go missing. it must be something in the castle, they say. some mold. some terrible illness. something that lingers, and kills you slowly.
but snow white grows healthy regardless. she can be seen, sometimes, on the parapets: in the early years she wears a heavy cloak but as she grows it gets thinner, and then disappears entirely.
she is small, and delicate. her laughter, floating down into the village, is silver and gold and painted in eighth notes. it is said that if you look into her eyes you can see your deepest desire. it is said that she will give it to you. it is said that every time a queen dies it breaks snow white’s gentle heart. she shrinks. she hides away indoors. she becomes frail and cannot leave her bed.
so many queens in so many years. eventually, somebody will notice.
eventually, somebody does.
*
“mirror, mirror, on the wall: who’s the fairest of them all?”
you, my queen.
“there are no others?”
there is one other. but she is young. she was made by the forrest. she doesn’t know what she is.
“another? after all this time? where?”
the kingdom of six queens.
“how strong is her heart?”
she is too young to know for certain. but she when she is hungry, she has always been fed.
*
snow’s new mother arrives on horseback. her lips are red as blood, her hair as black as ebony, her skin as fair as–snow’s.
she marries the king and they spend the night in his chamber. this has never happened before. snow white does not understand. she is hungry. she always gets fed, the very first night. she always gets blood on her gown.
but her father stays in his chamber and does not come out. in the morning, his eyes are hazy and he does nothing but smile. her new mother’s teeth are red.
snow white waits. she isn’t starving yet. surely her father will snap out of it and feed her.
*
“today?” snow white asks, and her father pats her head.
“i will find you a peasant boy,” he says. “a strong one. your favorite kind.”
“that is not my favorite,” snow white tells him. she frowns. he has never told her no before. he, and everyone else, has always done exactly what she wanted. “father, i am hungry. you promised i would never be hungry again.”
she begins to cry, and the hazy look leaves him. he falls to his knees, her face between his hands. “of course,” he murmurs, “of course, tonight, i’ll send her. i don’t know why i didn’t before. i don’t know what i was thinking. tonight.”
snow white kisses his cheek. her red lips leave a print.
*
her new mother does not come. in the morning, her father’s eyes are hazy once again.
*
“father,” snow white begs.
“i promise,” he answers, but he is weak, every night he gives in to weakness because her new mother does not come. snow white is hungry. snow white grows thin. snow white cannot go out into the sun.
*
at last, her new mother comes. she has a plate of food: vegetables, fruit, and a slab of meat.
“eat,” her new mother murmurs. she perches on the edge of the bed.
snow white shuffles away from the sunlight coming through the window. “i’m not hungry,” she says.
“but you must be hungry,” her mother says, smiling. she reaches out to chase the edge of snow’s jaw. “you haven’t eaten in weeks. not even a peasant boy.”
snow white looks up, startled. “they aren’t filling,” snow white says.
“no,” agrees her new mother. “i agree. i prefer kings, when i can get them.”
“i prefer mothers.”
“i am not your mother.”
“then what are you?”
her smile is slow and bitter red. “my mother made the woods a promise, and the promise was me. she did not know that promises must be paid in blood, and sustained in blood, and that the blood was also me. she got what she wanted, and i ate until i was as full as a human could make me.”
“are there others? like you? …. like me?”
“there were,” the queen says. “once, there were many of us, and all of us were starving.”
snow white does not yet understand. “then what happened? where did they go? how did you survive?”
the queen runs a finger along the fabric of snow white’s blanket. her nail rips a line through the thread. “humans are weak, snow white. a thousand of them would not be enough to fill us up. but we are strong. our hearts can sustain a body for a hundred lifetimes.”
her teeth grow long. “i have been hungry for such a long time,” she says.
snow white understands.
she runs.
*
it hurts: her skin is so hot it is nearly on fire. her feet blister as she runs. she has never been outside of the castle grounds, but the woods are dark and shaded. the shade is like jumping into a pool of water. the red bleeds from her skin, leaving her fair and white once more.
she hides inside the hollow of a tree (the woods created her and the woods will keep her safe until her mother’s debt is paid). she sleeps while the hunting parties pass her by, all but one. he is a huntsman. he knows the woods. he knows the woods have favorites, and protect them; but the woods are old and can be tricked.
he waits.
when she emerges, it is dark. her skin is so white he almost wants to drink it. she is small, her hair so black he thinks she has woven the night sky into it. as he notches his bow he thinks it seems a shame to kill something so beautiful, something so beloved by the woods. the huntsman is loved by the woods, too. he knows how its favorites suffer.
she turns to look at him. when their eyes meet he sees his deepest desires. her eyes promise to give it to him. we are the chosen, her eyes promise, as she approaches and he does not shoot. cannot shoot. cannot look away.
“i am so hungry,” she whispers, reaching out to touch his face. “my father hasn’t fed me.”
“she wants your heart,” the huntsman confesses.
snow white knows that already. snow white is beginning to understand the bargain that her mother made.
“she cannot have it,” snow white says, and her teeth get long, and she eats.
*
“mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?”
“Floor to ceiling windows give an open ambiance but very little cover from sniper fire. Creative appetizers and a limited but well selected wine list. Excellent prices. Four stars.”
“Production values at this theater are very high and the classic 1950s construction makes it very easy to contain hand to hand combat in a hallway. They give back to the community and host amateur theater productions all winter long. Five stars.”
“Unflappable staff members are friendly and ready with a book suggestion or a pressure bandage, even right before closing. Free coffee is a nice touch. Sorry about the armchair. Four stars.”
#i am WEEPING at the COMPLETE ACCURACY of this post #eliot ‘if i’m not honest with you you can’t improve’ spencer #always seeking out teachable moments #a true believer in honest feedback #and real constructive criticism #i bet eliot is that person who actually fills out the comment cards in hotels #like in between accidentally trashing them during a fight and fleeing the scene #i bet there is at least one barista in the town of portland who has gone home and been like ‘so my day was weird #this hot guy with huge arms came in and ordered an americano and then brought it back #and insisted on coming behind the counter and showing me what he said was a better way to pull espresso shots #he told me he learned how to do it while waiting out an assassination attempt in italy?! #then he jumped over the counter and walked off yelling DAMN IT at his friend it was v strange’ #eliot spencer stops fights in the street and teaches both sides of the tussle how to better utilize their strengths #eliot spencer always logs online and fills out the customer surveys when the bottom of a receipt requests it #in that episode where hardison runs the con and gives them all an evaluation sheet #eliot hands it in covered in writing front and back and only 15% of it is bitchiness intended to rile hardison up #(it would have been 10% but hardison came over and started bugging him while he was finishing it) #ONCE A YEAR ELIOT SPENCER SITS DOWN AND WRITES A COMPREHENSIVE LETTER TO HIS CONGRESSMAN #a terror in the streets a sub in the sheets and TRULY HOPING TO HELP YOU DO YOUR VERY BEST the rest of the time (gyzym)
it’s been about a year since this post and i’m still not over the genius of #a terror in the streets a sub in the sheets and TRULY HOPING TO HELP YOU DO YOUR VERY BEST the rest of the time
I like to think that Hermione wasn’t the only one to figure out that Prof. Lupin was a werewolf. I mean, even if Snape assigned that essay to just their class, I can’t really believe that nobody else put the clues together.
Specifically, I like to think that there was some upper year who figured it out because they paid really close attention in class. Like, not just “I have OWLs this year and I need to get good grades” close attention, but “Prof. Lupin is so nice and so funny and he has such a nice smile, and wow, I am really gay” close attention.
Let’s all be real, here, Remus Lupin probably holds the all-time Hogwarts record for “Most embarrassing adolescent daydreams and adolescent sexual/romantic awakenings caused”. There was a lot of math being done about age differences by students, but to no avail, because Remus was entirely oblivious to everything, because they’re all children.
That student just wanted to ask some questions about the latest assignment, is obviously genuinely interested in the subject matter, and all that lashes-fluttering was them probably just having something in their eye. He asked and they said so. (And then they promptly turned bright red and screamed pure embarrassment into a couch cushion later when their friend asked how it went. “HE THOUGHT I HAD SOMETHING IN MY EYE, SAM.”)
The result of this student figuring out Prof. Lupin was a werewolf did not result in a panic about their teacher being a werewolf, though. At least, not the sort of panic that Snape might have expected.
“I read that the transformation is really painful, that’s so awful,” says Oliver Beamish, doodling hearts on his Defense essay again. “Do you think he’s okay? He always looks so sick. I mean, he’s so handsome, but he looks ill. I want to smother him and feed him soup, is that weird?”
“Yes, Beamish, that’s really quite queer,” Linda Peakes says, even though she knows that he isn’t actually listening. Replying makes her feel better, though, for having to sit through this and having Oliver Lupin written over every bit of spare parchment that comes into proximity of her friend.
“Is he eating alright? I read that werewolves should eat more before a full moon to help with how exhausting the transformation is - and there was something about filling the bloody and animalistic hunger, but that sounded like bullshit. Do you think he’s getting enough sleep? He should get more sleep; if full moons are really so awful, he definitely needs it. I don’t know if I could take that, though, since he already looks so handsome with rings under his eyes. I want him happy, but I’m not sure I could cope.”
“I already can’t cope; you’ve become a lunatic,” says Linda, weighing the benefits between having a competent Defense teacher and having to listen to Beamish wonder about how to care for his imaginary werewolf boyfriend.
Lunatic, indeed.
She is a master of humor.
Sadly, she has plans for her school path and career track, so the competent teacher side wins. Also, Hufflepuff House took a poll and he’s been rated the nicest and most well-liked teacher after Sprout and Flitwick; she’s pretty sure most of their house would cry if he left, and a heartbroken Beamish might be worse than a mooning one.She’s not willing to risk it.
Heh, mooning. She’ll have to remember that one too.
(She begins plotting the death of Severus Snape when Remus Lupin is fired. She has plans, damn it. Also, so many puns ruined.)
So I lent my friend my mainland Chinese copy of Good Omens, and she’s been commenting on various stuff in the book to me as she read along. One day she messaged, “Crowley’s so cute, chasing after the hedgehogs like that.”
And I said, “……………..what?????!?”
So she told me where in the book it was, and it was the part after Cr&Az realized that Warlock isn’t the kid, talked to the nun, and got out of the hospital. It did say that Crowley was “trying to hit a hedgehog and missing”, but I soon realized that the “second line” she told me that’s about the hedgehog is, “The angel stared out at the rushing hedgerows.” Apparently the Chinese translator read “hedgerows” and thought it was “hedgehogs” again. Obviously it didn’t make a huge change to the plot line, but basically, in the Chinese version of Good Omens, Crowley chased a hedgehog while convincing Aziraphale, “drove in silence for a while”, and then chatted with Aziraphale some more. Meanwhile Aziraphale saw everything but decided to let Crowley do his thing.
So…yeah.
You know, between life and what’s happening in politics and work and too much travel and missing my baby son (he and Amanda are at a conference in Canada and I am hiding to try and make a deadline) it’s been a rotten week.
This, for the record, suddenly made everything really good. It may be my favourite ever Tumblr post.
