Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

Anonymous asked: Idk if you've answered this somewhere else, but what's your thesis on?

Actually I have NOT answered that, and I am VERY EXCITED about this thesis, please pity my roommate.  

A few things you need to know to explain this whole thing:

• my college requires every student, regardless of major, to do some kind of thesis project to graduate;
  
• my college started as a liberal arts school/social experiment, and would probably let you summon Satan for your senior thesis as long as you could justify it (”Oh, sure, professor, I understand that you’re concerned about that intricate circle of blood on the floor of the art studio, but I have here the proof that this is part of my combined thesis on the history of religious ritual and Ancient Greek, are we good here?”);
• my college generally expects that their science majors (like myself, pre-med track) do an experimental thesis, but my explicit criterion for majoring in the pre-med track was that I not have to do a goddamn year-long experiment;
• I am a history nerd, specifically military history and obscure details that no one else cares about; and
• I have basically constructed an entire thesis around my desire to
• talk about medicine
• talk about history
• title it with a Princess Bride quote

So I’m doing my thesis on the history of battlefield medicine (probably going to have to cut that down, preferably in such a way that I still get to talk about the Revolutionary War, which is my pet obsession) and I’m going to title it “Only Mostly Dead” because I’m an irreverent little shit.

My thesis adviser already gets a little long-suffering with me and I’ve only turned in the preliminary proposal.

speckeltail asked: okay, so, an au where your ocs all work shitty retail jobs

Oh dear Christ.  Okay, let’s see, I don’t make OC’s for fic as a rule, and my OC’s for my original writing all tend to be really aggressive people, this should be fun.  I’ll just pick five at random.

• Sam Lightworth, Horseman of Death and unwilling Antichrist and my fave: she’s the best salesperson in the house, no one is disputing this, she could sell light switches to the Amish and matchboxes in Hell so they’re not going to fire her, but she’s also on so much probation always.  A short list of highlights from the notes in Sam’s file:
  
• punched a customer in the nose for flicking water at her
• found a customer rifling through the shirts she’d just spent an hour folding and almost broke their fingers
• responded to a crying child by setting him on a shelf and telling him that if he wasn’t good she’d sell him (in her defense, it worked)
• threw a grown man into a wall so hard she knocked him out when he tried to grab her ass (the manager doesn’t know how she managed it and doesn’t WANT to know, okay, he deals with too much shit to ask how she sent someone flying without a finger laid on them)
• was found in store at opening with what looked suspiciously like a hellhound (there is a sign, okay, it’s very unambiguous, no pets allowed)

• Max, no last name, my spy-slash-technopath from this novel: she used to work on the floor but she’s shit at selling things and only slightly better at giving directions, so they shoved her in a glorified janitor’s closet with the security system and told her to keep it running.  She helps make sure there’s never any video evidence of Sam’s antics.

• Gwynion, erstwhile Prince of the Unseelie Court and ex-assassination victim, because we need a guy in here somewhere: he’s very polite, which has him one up on Sam, and very efficient, which has him one up on Max, but he’s also…look, the manager isn’t accusing anyone of anything, but no one ever found that one woman who tried to grope Gwynion, okay, the manager’s not saying she disappeared.  He’s just saying they never found her.  There’s a difference.

• Sephie, from this: honestly Sephie doesn’t deserve this, Sephie deserves better than this bullshit and these coworkers, she is a Normal Human trying to pay rent and she needs a drink.  Nonetheless, she gets along famously with everyone and doesn’t mind working the register since Sam isn’t trusted to do it and Gwynion seems prone to causing equipment fry-age.  Sephie is also gunning for the managerial position when their current boss inevitably caves, and stands to make a tidy sum in the pool given the newest hire.

• Angharad “Harry” Ainsel, from this (parts are noted ‘first,’ ‘second,’ ‘third’): the new hire.  The manager almost cried when she walked in, because no one who wanders around with that strange bone crown is going to be a good thing.  She’s almost as good as Sam at the sales end of things, but she’s also making people sign things that don’t look like receipts and has offered to exchange two return items for changeling children.  Also, the bike rack is for bikes, and the no pets allowed thing should cover the bike rack, as far as the manager knows, which means the warhorse is definitely contraindicated.

• Bonus sixth headcanon: the manager quits within three weeks of Harry’s hire (with the apparent intent to move to Bangkok or somewhere similarly distant), Harry and Sephie shake hands as soon as Sephie’s signed her new managerial contract, and the Huntsmaster leaves in the middle of her shift and doesn’t come back to work.  Sephie, when asked how she knows Harry and could she get Sam one of those nice daggers she carried, shrugs and says that her girlfriend has contacts.

lathori asked: Darling, dear, love. Hamilton/Laurens Literally anything during the revolutionary era Perhaps even just how they got together. /Please/, for me? <3

words-writ-in-starlight:

Anything for you, Laurens. Soooo…I know you wanted fluff…we’re not doing that.  I don’t actually know if Laurens was in Washington’s camp for this, but we’re going to assume history is flexible because extensive googling did not produce an actual date or shit for this battle (besides ‘between September 1777 and June 1778’), which was hardly a battle at all.  Also technically Lee sent a letter but whatever, we’re doing Some Shit with history anyway, might as well go hard.

to see our glory

The message from Lee was greeted by a long beat of silence.

“My sympathies, Your Excellency,” Lee said, doing a poor job of imitating poise as his shirtsleeves dripped steadily on the ground.  The word simper drifted through John’s mind at the sound of Lee’s voice.

“Yes,” General Washington said flatly, both hands braced on the table that had been serving duty as a tactical map minutes before. John couldn’t bring himself to look away from where the general’s little finger had pushed aside the marker of a British fort, one that he and Alexander had been bickering over not a day past. “Thank you for informing me, Major General.  You are dismissed.”

Lee left, and the tent was deathly silent, the general still standing over the table with his head down, John still fixed in place where he stood near the far corner of the table, the handful of other men in the tent stony.

“Gentlemen,” General Washington said, his voice perfectly controlled.  “Please send for the Marquis, he will want to know.  If my aides would stay, it would be appreciated.  The rest of you are dismissed.”

Keep reading

Because I AM NICE, and also because @twistedangelsays asked, and also because I’m a history nerd with zero impulse control, I wrote more.  A couple thing: I’m pretending that, for whatever reason, Washington is where Schuylkill happened because otherwise I’d have to go through the above and make a bunch of changes to make it Valley Forge rather than bumfuck-nowhere Tent City, and second of all I’m picturing the musical characters because, uh, I can.  With the caveat that, historically, Laurens was probably somewhere between 6′ and 6′5″, so just imagine that Anthony Ramos got put in a stretcher like taffy.

“You are going to freeze to death,” John muttered once they were back in their tent, rummaging through their sparse belongings for a few moments before coming up triumphant, a clean set of trousers in one hand and a shirt in the other, a soft cloth between two fingers.  “Put these on.”  Alexander made a mutinous noise and John set his jaw.  “Put them on, Alexander.  You have put me through enough tonight.”

Guilt flickered over Alexander’s face and he complied without another word, stripping to the skin and rubbing himself closer to dry with the cloth John offered.  Once he had dressed, he was still shivering, but his skin had regained some of his usual color, and John moved his wet clothes onto a chair before changing himself.

Keep reading

spitandvinegar:

open-sketchbook:

spitandvinegar:

Ok so we all know that the answer to “Where did Captain America learn to steal a car?” is “Nazi Germany” but I think the more pressing question here is when the fuck did this complete maniac get a driver’s license

Because ok, Mighty Mouse 1.0 is too poor to own a car, too short to reach the pedals, has vision problems, and is a goddamn New Yorker in the motherfucking 1930s, why on earth would he ever have learned to drive?

So this little bastard can’t even tell the gas from the brakes, he gets all beefified, he goes on tour with the USO. Unless one of the showgirls coached him through stalling out a car all over some Hollywood back lot, he still can’t drive. He goes to Europe. At some point, some genius looks at him and thinks “this strapping specimen of American hunkhood obviously knows his way around a vehicle, let’s give him a motorcycle,” and Steve “no parachute” Rogers is like “how hard could this be?” and promptly wraps himself around approximately eight trees at the same time.

So then he’s kickin’ ass, fightin’ Hydra, and it’s just months of Bucky being like “give me the goddamn keys, Steven,” and Dum Dum and Morita endlessly encouraging his fucking insane Fury Road bullshit, like the Howling Commandos just use “grenade” as code for “Rogers” when they’re reporting why yet another truck has been destroyed beyond recognition. Yes, sir, another grenade, I agree, sir, it’s very odd that we keep losing vehicles in the same way, that’s the third this month alone

So then he’s in the future and SHIELD is sorting his shit out, and they’re not going to force Captain goddamn America to wait in line at the DMV, they’re all in complete awe in him and they’ve seen the old reels of him on his bike, so when they issue him his driver’s license without any type of road test they go ahead and give him a motorcycle license too

and steve is like …neat.

Ok so then Bucky is back, shit is settled down, everyone’s heading somewhere and Steve gets in the driver’s seat and Buck’s like WHOA WHOA WHOA are you people out of your goddamn minds?! Why is Steve driving, is this some kind of mission, are we heading into a combat zone, is the plan for the vehicle to get blown up?? GIVE ME THE GODDAMN KEYS STEVEN

And Sam is all “what are you talking about, Steve’s a great driver, I saw him jump his bike over a car once”

And Buck is all “yes but have you seen him use a turn signal?”

And Steve’s like, “Listen, we never needed to ‘signal’ our ‘turns’ in Nazi Germany.”

And after that Bucky always drives.

Fin.

okay but

this is basically how just about everyone in the us army in ww2 learned to drive

most infantrymen didn’t receive any instruction in vehicle use, but during ww2 they shipped about half a million jeeps overseas. most of them got used by logistics units and a lot got shipped to russia, but there were still so dang many of them that they would hand them to just about anyone who could have an excuse to use one.

gotta run a message? here’s a jeep. running gear up the line? take a jeep. got a 24 hour pass? just bring this jeep back safe, will you? you’re a cartoonist? here’s your own jeep. they handed them out like candy to everyone.

it wasn’t unreasonable on the face of it because the us was a car culture basically from the minute the car was invented, so most rural kids knew how to drive already. but tons of them didn’t, and at some point they’d almost certainly end up behind the wheel of a jeep.

as a result, accidents were hilariously common.

they pretty much assumed everyone knew how to drive based on the exact same logic used in this post. it was only after the war that somebody sat down and was like, yo, maybe we should make sure these kids know what a car is before we let them drive them.

I ACCIDENTALLY A HISTORY

(via bronzedragon)

madamovary asked: The Amazon also-bought code isn't always the greatest. The last time I was shopping for a cheap apartment vacuum, the most prominent also-bought was "Male Chastity: A Guide for Keyholders" by Lucy Fairbourne.

copperbadge:

Well. I mean.

I can tell you how those are related, I see a causality, but I’m not sure you wanna know.