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

Prince Aladdin

shanastoryteller:

i just rewatched aladdin with the roommates and it got me thinking

aladdin wishes to be made a prince, but all genie does is get him a lot of stuff and money. that’s not what a prince is. a prince is the son of the king, someone in line for the throne. someone with a lot of money is just - rich. so what i think is:

genie goes okay, that’s a big one - and i can do it! but not on my own, not if you want to do it right. not if you truly want a chance to marry your princess for real, as a prince. and aladdin is a foolish, moral, kind boy - and he agrees. he’s fallen in love with jasmine, an innocent all encompassing love, and he’ll do anything for this sweet, clever girl he only knew for a few hours. so genie takes him across the desert, far from agrabah, and plops right in the middle of a skirmish and is like okay, good luck! and aladdin is like ?????

but there’s assholes with swords attacking a young girl, and aladdin doesn’t even have to think about that, just like when he stood in front of the whip for those little kids. there are three men against him, but he’s fast and clever and has been against a dozen trained palace guards. so it’s not easy to get out of there alive, especially with the little girl to protect, but he manages it with only a thin slice on his upper arm, and he’s endured worse for less. so he picks up the little girl and says “i think we should get out of here, hmm?” and she’s in a pretty red silk getup with tiny jewels encrusted on her like stars against sunset. and she nods and throws her arms around his neck. she won’t talk, only points in the direction of home, but aladdin’s okay with that, he’s used to quiet, scared kids. so he keeps up a steady stream of stories of agrabah, which seems almost like this other desert land. but there are more men with swords and aladdin is like what the fuck is going on, but he hides the girl in a corner and fights them too. and that’s how it goes all the way home. there’s no one on the streets really, and they all scatter when the men attack, and they keep on attacking, he fights his way all the way through the city with the girl on his hip or hidden away.

and he should have known, of course, but he was tired and bruised and bleeding by the time he realized the little girl is silently guiding him to the palace and he’s like why can’t you princesses stay inside??? but he walks up and the guards get one look at the child in his arms and whisk him through and multiple people try to take the girl away but she won’t budge from him, a stubborn pout to her lips as her hands remained locked behind his neck. and he’s finally tossed into a throne room where a tall old man is sitting in agony and two young men pace in front of him, each at least a decade older than aladdin. “they’ve taken our sister!” one of the younger men hiss, “i don’t care about their power or their connections, they’ve taken esfir, and we must go get her!”

“uh,” he clears his throat, “hi?”

and all three men whirl on him and the old man stumble-runs to him. esfir finally lets go of aladdin to picked up and twirled around by her father. the two men are rahim and shapur and they look in wonder at this dirty boy of fifteen who’s returned the girl to them, and he speaks with an accent and clearly is not from here and they get the story from him - he’s traveled across the desert because those in his own country want him dead. “you know,” rahim says as the king clutches at esfir in desperate relief, “you could have held her for ransom. you almost died saving her, and we would have paid handsomely to have her returned safely.”

and aladdin gives him a flat disapproving look, appearing in this moment four times his age, and says “people are not objects or bargaining chips. especially not lost little girls.” and rahim and shapur share an impressed conspiring look and they each grab one of his arms and lead him away. “hey! what are you -”

“do be quiet little brother,” shapur says cheerfully, “we really have to get you out of your rags.”

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(via windbladess)

Themyscira, sex and love

isagrimorie:

elenadolerini:

crazyintheeast:

Let’s talk about Themyscira and just how different  their society would be when it comes to sex and love

First of all as we saw there is no taboo on nudity. The naked body is not considered a big thing. Things like scars and skills in battle are quite considered a far sexier thing then nudity could ever be

Second it’s very likely that due to their immortality and isolation from the rest of the world long term romantic relationships live side with with polyamourous ones as well as casual sex

Which brings me to Diana….the only child on the entire island. Literally every single Amazon on the island would have known her since she was a tiny baby,.

Her fighting skills would be decades if not centuries behind the other Amazons, her skin would be flawless and barely have any scars on it and her muscles while adequate were nothing to really write home about. By the standards of Amazonian society she would probably be the least sexually attractive Amazon on the island. So imagine teenage Diana with her hormones raging, reading all night about the pleasure of the flesh and trying cringe worthy attempts to flirt with the other Amazonian warriors. And nothing works so frustrated she puts all her energy into her training until one day years later…she beats Antiope in a training match. The very same night she gets asked out by three Amazonians and suddenly Diana is finally the new hot thing in town and she is loving it

TL;DR: To the outside world Diana is the most attractive woman in the universe in Themyscira she was an awkward skinny nerd who couldn’t get laid for decades

Where is the lie

Or what if, because everyone saw her as the baby for the longest time, that she struggled to make everyone think and look at her as an adult. 

We’re talking two centuries (according to Patty Jenkins Diana is 800 years old by the time Wonder Woman starts). It is one of the more frustrating things in her life. 

Two centuries. 

And even before she leaves the island the Senators still call Diana, ‘Child’. Imagine the things she did so the other Amazons would stop thinking she was the ‘baby’. We all know Diana can get pretty intense: she’d probably out extra even Antiope’s shooting an arrow on horseback while going through a ring of fire. 

It got to a point that even Antiope was concerned. 

So the first time an Amazon finally showed interest in Diana, after defeating Antiope and performing a (stupidly risky her mother would say) stunt that involved multiple fires, and then kissed her, Diana cried. It was embarrassing. 

So wait, let me just say: if Diana’s used to having to put all her effort into making someone actually take her overtures seriously, the first time she tries to flirt with a mere mortal that person probably reacts like they’ve been struck by lightning.

(via aethersea)

look at me - i will never pass for a perfect bride

shanastoryteller:

so i know i already made a retold mulan post but i just LOVE MULAN SO MUCH so here’s another

in the original myth mulan isn’t really a clumsy fish out of water. she’s strong and smart and the reason she goes to war is because she’s the most qualified person in her family to fight, regardless of gender.

so how about this: mulan’s a fighter. she knows exactly who she is, like in the original myth, she’s knows how to be the blossoming flower and the great stone dragon. she’s still mulan though, so she still doesn’t memorize the silly ways she’s supposed to be a good wife and has little patience for appearing graceful while pouring tea. she’s innovative and courageous and beautiful, but no one is under any illusions about what kind of wife she’ll be.

and the matchmaker is the matchmaker for the li family as well, for this great big part of china. and general li wants his son to be married before he goes off to war, wants his son to have a reason to fight to live, like a wife waiting for him. and the matchmaker reads the stars and the tea leaves and the astrology charts, and no matter what all the signs point to one thing: the honorable li shang is destined to marry the insolent, arrogant fa mulan.

the matchmaker isn’t going to let that happen, she refuses to be responsible for that disaster of a wedding. so she sends her most beautiful girls, the ones that are obedient and quiet and know their roles, the ones that are eager to marry into the li family.

and each of them are entertained and met and sent back. shang is many things, but smooth isn’t one of them, he has nothing to say to these quiet girls who smile at him, feels large and awkward around their polite smiles. so he and his father go to the matchmaker’s village, shang reluctantly and his father to demand she stops messing with them and provides a proper bride.

it’s on the day that mulan and the other girls are parading in the street. shang sees a girl - mulan - hurry into the end of the line, jumping over a bench and darting around a careening wagon to get there, and stifles a laugh.

then there’s no reason to laugh at all, because a group of huns have decided that this village is in their way, and attack.

everyone scatters, women hide, children hide, and most of the men do too. shang and his father join the fight with some of the other men who hadn’t hid, and these men are starved, clearly not with shan yu, so even though they’re outnumbered they’ll likely win.

shang sees a hun go to attack the girl he’d seen earlier, the girl for whatever reason hadn’t run and hid. the hun raises a sword above his head to strike her down, and shang is so sure he’s about to see this pretty girl lose her head.

but she doesn’t. instead she rolls out of the way, and pops up, headbutting him in the stomach. she takes his sword from his now-slack grip and plunges it into his chest. without hesitation or pause the girl joins the fight, swinging the sword expertly and cutting down every man who stands against her. soon they’re fighting back to back, and shang has never felt more in sync with another person. she cuts off the head of the last hun, and shang has never seen anyone more beautiful than this girl, dress ripped and make up smudged and covered in blood that isn’t hers.

“mulan,” one of the other girls says, peaking out of a store front, “is it over?”

the girl, mulan, looks out over the dozen dead men and says, grimly, “it’s barely begun.” she searches the crowd, finding and old man and yelling, “gather the bodies, we’ll burn that at dusk outside of the village. everyone else,” her eyes sweep across the gathered people, and shang is struck by the fact that this girl isn’t well liked. there’s anger and disapproval in many of the faces, but they’re listening. these people don’t like her. but they do trust her. “let’s clean this all up. these were bandits, not soldiers. there’s nothing more to fear.”

“what if there are more?” the other girl asks, arms wrapped around herself.

mulan raises her stolen sword and says, “then i will slice them to ribbons. this is our village, and this is our country. any who would try to take it from us - from me - will suffer the consequences.”

and it shouldn’t be comforting, hearing words of violence from this young girl, yet everyone around them relaxes, and gets moving, gather the bodies and tending the wounded.

“who are you?” his father asks, and someone who doesn’t know him might think he was angry, but shang can tell he’s impressed.

mulan turns to them and bows, “my apologies. i am fa mulan, daughter of fa zhou. thank you for helping us.” she stands, and shang meets her eyes for the first time.

he swallows, and blurts out, “you - you fight good.”

his father coughs to hide his laughter, but mulan’s eyes crinkle at the corners. “thank you. you do as well.”

and they just keep standing there smiling at each other until his father claps his hands and is like okay - they’ll have to report this to the emperor, no time to dawdle, have to go now.

so they take their leave, and shang thinks this is the last time he’ll see fa mulan.

except there’s still the draft, and this time mulan doesn’t take no for an answer, won’t hear of it. her father is injured and old and she is young and fit to fight. she will go in his place.

so she arrives at the camp, prepared to pretend and lie - except she goes to meet her commanding officer and it’s him, that boy who had fought with her. shang’s eyes widen, but they’re in front of too many people. he can see it on her face, her fear, and she hadn’t shown any fear when she was facing down over a dozen huns, but she does now. so he makes his choice and says nothing, pretends he buys her story.

she tracks him down that night and demands an explanation. he says this war is too important to kill good warriors, whatever gender they are. he swears to keep her secret. mulan is his best soldier from the beginning, and means to treat her like anyone else, but it’s impossible. she isn’t like anyone else, is strong and smarter and braver than them. they argue tactics, and she’s the only one who can give him a workout in hand to hand, and he doesn’t have trouble finding his words with her. he finds himself falling in love with her, but doesn’t say anything. she’s not here for love, she’s here for a war. he vows to say something if they survive this, but it’s unlikely that will happen.

they head to the front earlier. they get there in time to provide back up for his father and his army, and it’s a loss but not a slaughter. his father is too distracted to notice ping is the girl from the village. all he knows is this soldier had led the second wave of attacks, and it was thanks to her any of them were alive at all. they prevent half of the huns from getting through the pass, but that’s still an army heading for the imperial city. the general is injured, so mulan and shang lead the army after him.

they find him at the mountain, and just like before mulan uses the cannon to destroy the army. she knew it would spell their death, but it was worth it, for her people, for her country, for her family. this time it’s shang that won’t accept her death, that tries to drag her unconscious body to safety. only he fails, and mulan becomes buried under the snow.

they return to the city, and shang is besides himself - the woman he loves is dead, she saved them all and she’s gone, and he’ll never recover from this. only he can’t tell his father this, their friends. they think he mourns a friend, not the woman he wanted to make his wife.

except mulan survives, and sees the other huns as well. only she kills them there before they can get to the city, and decides this is for the best. fa ping dies honorably in battle, and fa mulan is free to return home to her family.

so general li decides that it’s time to go to that matchmaker again, and demand she stop playing games. the matchmaker confesses that she thought the bride was unsuitable, and the general demands she send her anyway.

so mulan has barely had the chance to settle back home when the matchmaker shows up at her door saying she’s sending her to see a potential husband, but not who. so mulan shows up all made up to li household and shang drags himself into the room, already resigned to a loveless marriage, when they see each other. “mulan?” he demands, and his father is all pleased because it’s the fighting girl from the village.

but then his son starts crying and they run to each other. shang picks her up in his arms and she clings to him, and shang is babbling about how he thought she was dead, and mulan is so overjoyed that she’s with shang, and shang wants her, that she kisses him without explaining.

except now shang’s father demands an explanation. so they give it to him, the whole story comes tumbling out, and he stares hard at her, and remembers her as ping, the brave soldier that had saved them all. he’s not upset - he ecstatic. he goes to the emperor and tells him everything, and the emperor officially offers mulan an officer position in the army. she accepts, as long as shang is by her side. shang seconds this, and they set in motion the plans for the wedding.

fa mulan and li shang get married and lead armies and live happily ever after, just like the stars intended.

read more of my retold fairytales here

(via aethersea)

slyrider:

yourfavouritekindoftrash:

differentjasper:

ok you know that ‘make the princess laugh and you can have her hand in marriage’ thing?

imagine so many come in.

they try, so hard, to make her laugh.

she just sits there, morose, ignoring every man who tries to coax a smile.

one day she’s sitting on the balcony. she just looks so sad.

of course that little thief tries to make her smile.

a girl who goes through the (semi public) royal gardens every day to pick flowers, even though technically only the royal family is allowed to do that. 

she sees the princess while she’s picking them up to sell on the streets, and she’s just… so sad. this princess needs someone to cheer her up.

and she tries. she’ll do silly dances when she comes in, she’ll bring up frogs from ponds and act out comedies, she’ll make flower crowns and exaggerate just how hard it is.

the first few days, the princess doesn’t even look at her.

then she starts noticing. this girl, trying so hard to cheer her up. she probably hasn’t even heard of the hand in marriage thing, she doesn’t know she’s trying so hard for nothing.

but she does it anyway.

one day, the princess starts talking to her as she does these things. “You do know that it’s useless?”

“What?” the thief says. “No way! I’m going to get you to laugh!”

“The best jesters in the kingdom have tried, don’t bother,” the princess declared pessimistically, staring down at the girl.

Then the thief puffs out her chest, “Of course I am! I’ll find the best jokes, even better than the jesters have found! I’ll… fight a fire breathing dog for them!”

There’s no laugh, but the corner of the princess’s mouth twitches. it’s sad how she thinks she can make me laugh…

the girl keeps trying, for years, making more silly stories and trading flowers for jokes rather than food or money. the princess slowly realizes the girl is getting closer and closer, asking her for responses in knock knock jokes and encouraging her to speak when she wouldn’t respond immediately.

the princess eventually had the girl hanging from her balcony, holding on tight to the rail and feet wedged between the columns, grinning and telling yet another iteration of that already old chicken joke.

the princess has been smiling, slightly, but she mostly just looks unresponsive. the girl is happy, it’s better than looking so sad, like she had been years before.

the girl moves on to puns, pointing at the exotic lunch the princess was eating. “Why do the melons have to go to get married? They cantaloupe!”

“You only know that word because of me,” the princess snarks, but there’s a small smile there, a bit of happiness. This little flower girl, this thief has grown into an amazing friend, a wonderful person who genuinely just wants to help. she doesn’t know of the deal, only nobles and jesters could know, not the commonfolk.

“Well, it makes quite the pun,” the girl says, proud of her joke. a smile! what an accomplishment!

“Say…” she continued, “What would you call a princess who got swept up in conversation a thief?” she pulled a flower out of her pocket, waving it in front of the princess’s face. the princess’s eyes crossed to see the flower before they rolled at the obvious setup.

though, it was interesting that it obviously involved them.

“I don’t know,” she admitted, sighing in preparation for another horrible pun. “What?”

the girl grinned. “A pretty theft!” she exclaimed, ticking the flower against the princess’s nose.

the princess froze for a moment, stunned. she had been complimented a million times over, called graceful by etiquette instructors, been called beautiful by many a suitor, been called wonderful by her mother before… she stopped thinking about that. 

she had never been called pretty.

she burst into laughter at the commonplace compliment, as if she was some sort of milkmaid who had somehow grown up to be good looking! it was ridiculous, the notion, yet somehow it had her blushing all the same.

then she suddenly stopped, realizing what she’d done.

the flower thief was staring at her in amazement, a blush of her own speckling her cheeks. her flower tilted out from in front of the princess’s nose, as if it had it’s own amazement.

“Wow…” the girl breathed. she’d never heard something so beautiful in her life.

The princess was silent, knowing what she had just done. She had just laughed for the first time in years.

The girl may not have been aware of the arrangement, but she was quickly swept up in it. A maid had heard the laughter and burst in, to find the thief and the princess, caught up in each other’s eyes, reveling in what had just happened.

The wedding was beautiful, a flower filled affair, a wonderful nod to how it happened. The king was so happy to see his daughter with someone who made her smile for once, tearing up as they were wed.

The princess’s laugh was still incredibly rare. She still had a hard time smiling. But a well timed joke from the girl– no, her wife– and another flower that had a hidden meaning behind it, than maybe, maybe you would hear it.

After all, the princess had finally laughed with the one she loved.

fucking adorable I’m going to punch something

@words-writ-in-starlight dont know if you’ve seen this one yet :D

slyrider:

caffeinewitchcraft:

inkskinned:

writing-prompt-s:

You wake up with two small lumps on your back, just around your shoulder blades. Your friend has a similar dilemma, however, theirs are on their forehead, and look like zits. Small horns protrude from theirs, while feathers come from yours.

Within a month, you have large, white, dove wings, while your friend has long, curly horns. Turns out, you’re an angel, they’re a demon, and you’re supposed to fight. But you both’d rather just go see a movie.

she looks like the way summer tastes. but she’s my best friend. she’s just my best friend, and this entire thing is too cheesy.

she’s spitting up into the sink. blood has been in her mouth a lot ever since the teeth starting coming in. “do you think teething is like?” she lisps around a sore tongue “permanent?”

i’m scrubbing at my eyes. i’m allergic to certain animal dander. my body has been going through shock; fever on, fever off. the truth is that human bodies don’t like foreign cells inside of themselves.

“you know,” i say, “i wrote this story once.” the movie ended a while ago but we had to wait until the bathroom was empty. if we’re lucky, people just think we’re cosplaying. we locked the door behind us.

“my mouth hurts,” she says.

“i was like, twelve,” i say. i feel like there are mites, always, everywhere, crawling all over me. the other day a third set of eyes started growing in my hands. i’m not used to it yet and i get a lot of vertigo and 3D glasses per pair are super expensive. “it was bad.”

“i mean,” she pauses. “we look stupid.” for a second, the fire on her starts again, and she swears while she puts it out. i meanwhile send her another “i can be ur angle or yuor devil” meme, leaning against the counter while she again washes her mouth out.

“it was stupid,” i say. “i didn’t even know the word nephilim, like some kind of pleb.”

“get wrecked, twelve-year-old you,” she says. 

i’ve learned a lot these past few months, have scoured the bible sixteen times. “The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them.” Genesis 6:4. Maybe that’s us. Or maybe we’re in the X-Men. If it wasn’t for the creepy voice who told us otherwise, we have no evidence.

i have trouble looking at her sometimes. not because she’s so different now, but because she makes my heart swell up like balloon. like an explosion. like heavenly light. 

she makes eye contact with my original set. i feel my hearts start revving. she smiles at me in that way that makes me forget about wings and horns and eternal forces.

“i liked the movie, though,” i blurt. 

“ugh!” she rolls her eyes, drying her hands by shaking them off. they again ignite, and she swears again, clapping them out. “it was bad, ray.”

i laugh, we head out. two girls in a jeep with too many layers for the heat. i can’t drive anymore, i’m too distracted by the extra eyes. she does better but has to stop sometimes to put out fires.

she pulls off on the lookout by the watertower to shake a few teeth loose. i stretch and almost fall over, unused to a new body and no balance. my bones are hollowing. 

“was that crack your wrist?” she asks. 

“yuh,” i say, holding it. 

“yuck,” she says, “sounds broken.”

“might be,” i’m biting my tongue, “it’s lit.”

she comes over to examine it. “broken,” she says. she glows in the darkness, but i don’t know if that’s literally her or just how i see her, all alight with life and perfect. she helps me wrap it. we sit on the hood of her car and look out to the forest below us. we sip snapple i stole. i hear my bone heal. we both ignore the noise it makes.

“that guy is kind of a dingus,” i say. i put on a deep voice, “Thou must wage in the eternal war. Put on Earth so that thy may Know; as above and so below.” 

“might not be a guy,” she says. “very gender-specific of you, ray.”

“my apologies,” i say to the sky, “that was crass of me. you can be whatever gender you want, giant sky voice. or many genders. or all. whatever works.”

“i’m still like… what the hell does that middle part about knowing mean. like. also. crack open a grammar book for the modern century.”

i “hmm” into my snapple. my running theory is that our time spent as mortals meant we knew what it was exactly we were fighting for. i don’t tell her this because my entire evidence is how i feel about her, is how every day with her made it worth it, how being her best friend was the best experience i ever had. but like. it’s chill. 

“it’s a broken capitalist heaven economy,” i say. “war eternal?”

she laughs. i love it when she laughs. “at least you can be sure you’re going to the place that profits off of all of this,” she says. “heaven’s got the big guy.”

i make a note in the back of my throat and face her. “you don’t know that,” i whisper, “we’ve talked about this.”

she laughs in a new way, a sad one, staring out ahead of her. “yeah, you and your bible. ‘angels and demons are the same species but separated geospatially,’ blah blah blah, either one of us could be the damned soul, blah blah blah.”

“hey, i did research,” i say. “and i’m right, a lot of angels are…”

“goatish? have devil horns? light on fire?”

“micheal was like, forty to ninety percent fire.”

“micheal also was like, always an angel. he don’t need to question anything. fire? sure, he good. he was born angel.”

“i don’t know they’re like, born,” i say. i look up at her. “but i’m serious. i got like sixteen eyes and counting -”

“nine, you have nine”

“and like that’s not counting the spiritual aspect of this whole thing since -“

“oh my god, ray,” she says, sighing, “not this whole ‘morally impure’ thing again.” 

“i’m just saying,” i don’t like how upset she is, but the more i try to fix it, the worse it is, “i’m not, like, a good person! i’m -” i stop myself two milliseconds before finishing the loaded end of that sentence about her, and how i feel, and the terrible gap before us.

she whips around and looks at me. just really looks, like i’m pinned there by her. for a second, she’s my best friend, not angel or demon, and she’s glaring. 

“that’s not true and you know it,” she says, her voice barely over a whisper, “don’t say that kind of thing about yourself.”

i sigh and pull my hair, dropping her gaze. “i’m sorry,” i say, “i’m just… this whole thing is messed up and, like… i’m not… an angel, i guess.”

“i thought you said that the original angels were all-powerful and scary,” she says, “that purity was a new myth.”

i stare at her. how do i explain to my best friend that i’m taking advantage of her just by being around her; how every time she hugs me i mean more by it, how holding hands with her gives me little shocks that keep me happy.

“you know what?” she says, kicking off the hood, “fuck this, let’s go back to my place and let’s get drunk.”

we do.

late in the night i wake up and she’s not in bed anymore. i’m still drunk and my mouth feels like a trash bin. i blink in the light of her room, grab my toothbrush, put toothpaste on both tongues as an appetizer, just to dispel the taste. stretch the gross chicken-finger nubs of a sore back with six pairs of soon-to-be wings and stumble to her bathroom.

she’s sitting on the floor and her horns are gone. bandages bloodied with green ooze sit around her. black scars hide up in her hairline. 

“how’s it going?” she says casually.

i drop everything onto the sink and drop to her side. “oh my god,” i whisper, my hands touching her warm skin, “what happened?”

she looks at me. our faces are so close i have to stop myself from shaking, but the more i look at what she’s done, the worse i feel for her. i push back her matted hair and reach for new gauze to wipe away the blood she missed. her hand loops gently around one of my wrists, not restraining, just comforting.

“it’s okay, ray,” she says softly, “i found a tutorial on the internet. how to cut off goat horns. it didn’t hurt that bad, i promise. like, when we pierced our own cartilage back in middle school hurt a lot worse.”

i stare at her. “you cauterized your own wounds and you expect me to calm down.” i clean up her face frantically. i feel tears, but i’m not sure in which pair of eyes.

“i didn’t say i cauterized anything.”

“it’s clear!” i almost burst into a thousand pieces, holding her round face in my hands, struggling to lower my voice, “it’s clear.” 

“i’m okay,” she says, half-smiling, “i’m okay.”

“you should have woken me up,” i say. “what kind of -“

she kisses me and i understand why she’s got the power of fire. if i immolate, i don’t notice. we move from bathroom floor to hallway to bedroom. her hands and my hands and our bodies almost feel human.

when we finally separate, her voice is low. “fuck,” she says, “i wasn’t supposed to do that. you weren’t supposed to know.”

i’m breathless. i can’t form words. “know…?” i manage.

she leans in. kisses me again. “i like you, ray,” she whispers, “i like you a lot, you giant six-winged bug.”

“in a gay way?” i ask.

she laughs. “the gayest.”

“okay,” i say. i’m shaking. “because, like, i like you too. like. in the gay way.” my voice sounds different, high and tense and fluttery. almost too loud, even though we’re both whispering.

“your wings kind of look like chicken fingers,” she says, “or like, really big nipples.”

“you know,” i say, “i think the same thing.” i stare at her. all of my eyes, on her, on this girl, on the girl i can’t have, on the girl i couldn’t have even if we weren’t magical beings from a metaphysical plane, because we’re best friends and that matters more than anything. 

i think of us and of our future and of her, surrounded by the pieces of her horns, and of my wings, and of the world. i think of the bad movie we watched and how it was good because she was next to me. i think of the words of the giant sky voice and how we’re supposed to fight in an eternal war and how i do know, how i’ve always known, how love was the only thing that was worth fighting for, how she has always been my angel. how i would tear heaven down in order to have her and that’s how i know: i’m the one who fell long ago. 

she deserves heaven and holy and the best things. she deserves more than a twelve-year-old’s silly plotline, more than to be forced into fate, more than to be a drafted soldier. she deserves a better life than this. 

look out, god, i think, i’ve got a hell of a bone to pick.

“i love you,” i whisper, “and i have loved you for a long time.”

she kisses me. 

in the morning, i’m gone.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH What the fuck AAAAAAH This is glorious!

@words-writ-in-starlight

I came up with a “humans as aliens” scenario on the bus and now I’m writing a story snippet.

tchy:

Karikki was sitting in the ship’s mess when the most recent addition to the crew stumbled into the room and collapsed into a chair with a relieved groan, dropping her head onto the table.

“Rough shift?” ie said, making a sympathetic noise as ie broke off another piece of ir food pack.

Melanie Dupré, recently hired on as a ship’s mechanic and as of one month ago the only human crewmember of the Xanaki Star, mumbled something into the table before lifting her head so that her translator could actually be of use.

“I could swear the ventilation ducts actually hate me personally,” she said. “I’ve been running around all day.” A look of horror crossed her features then, and she groaned again, dragging her hand across her eyes. “And I left my food packs in my room. Goddamn it.”

Karikki churred soothingly. “Don’t worry about it, you can have one of ours,” ie said, getting to ir feet and digging one of the vacuum-sealed silver packs out of the pantry.

Melanie made a noise that Karikki had learned to interpret as grateful and peeled the pack open, looking down at it dubiously. “You’re sure this is okay?”

“We’re nutritionally compatible!” Karikki said. “The captain checked, before we hired you on. Just in case you ran out of your own supplies. It should be fine.”

“Okay. Thanks,” she said, breaking off a square of the compressed nutrition block and popping it into her mouth.

A look crossed her face then that it took Karikki a moment to identify: disgust, ie realized. That was disgust–which was made all the clearer when Melanie gagged and grabbed a napkin, spitting the square out into her hand. “Oh my god,” she said.

Karikki could feel ir antennae fluttering anxiously. “What’s wrong? Are you okay? Is that a bad texture for humans?”

Melanie wiped her mouth, scrubbing at her tongue with the side of her hand. She shook her head. “No, the texture’s fine, it’s just like one of our protein blocks. It’s the [——], I’m sorry, I don’t mean to offend you, but it’s awful! How can you eat that?”

Karikki flicked ir ear. “Sorry, say that again? I think your translator cut out in the middle. It’s the what?”

“The [——]. It [——] awful. I’m so sorry.”

Keep reading

(via cthulhu-with-a-fez)

Anonymous asked: If humans had a third hand what do you think it would be called? If you could play any instrument without practicing, what would it be?

First one: This?  The greatest question.  Okay so like obviously if it was a hand that sprouted from like right above your sternum, it would be called the middle hand, seeing as we already have the right and left hands (fun story, you know that phantom limb thing that happens with ADHD, among other things?  My brain used to really stubbornly spit out ‘middle eye’ as A Thing I Had when I was younger, it was weird).  On the other hand (ha, I’m a riot), if it was another hand below either your right or left hand (wouldn’t it be interesting if it was genetically dictated which side you had your third hand on, like handedness is genetically dictated or which thumb is on top when you lace your fingers) I imagine you would still have a ‘dominant’ hand.  Like, one of the three would be more dexterous than the others.  So maybe you’d have like “Yes, this is my left hand, and this is my right hand, and this is my prime hand.”  WHICH WOULD BE RAD.  Also, if you had two pairs of hands you could have your ‘prime’ hands and your ‘off’ hands, so like ‘prime left’ and ‘off right’ and yeah, this was a good question.

Second one: ANY.  I have very limited patience for learning instruments because I can’t read sheet music for shit (I have tried, I have made an effort, I have spent years on it, but nope, brain won’t do the thing).  I can sing!  But IDK I played the flute for a while, which was fun, and I’ve always wanted to be able to play like a harp or a lap harp, or the guitar.  I would really love to play either of those.  (I recognize that the flute and the harp are both really delicate instruments for someone like me but I like them, okay.  At least the guitar fits The Aesthetic.)

Anonymously ask me anything you want to know!

decepticonsensual:

gallusrostromegalus:

jewishdragon:

frosttrix:

bigscaryd:

animatedamerican:

rainaramsay:

argumate:

gdanskcityofficial:

collapsedsquid:

argumate:

If space travel doesn’t involve sea shanties then I think we’ll have missed an opportunity.

You see though, for sea travel you want big strong people who are capable of managing rigging.  For space travel you want small low-mass people who are technically educated, as they are called, nerds.  Your space shanties are going to be less booming and more squeaky.

in so far as there will be space shanties, they’ll be filk

I call shenanigans on the big strong people; sailors were young and malnourished by modern standards, and climbing around the rigging is easier if you’re small and light.

Like, I am 100% in favor of shanties in as many situations as possible, but I’m having trouble coming up with a mode of space travel that would require multiple humans to move in concert, thus necessitating songs with a strong beat to move to.  

Sea chanties were for providing a strong beat to move to.  Space chanties might very well arise just because we’re bored, out there between point A and point B for so long.

(Also yes, @gdanskcityofficial up there has the right of it.)

Space shanties are for warp piloting. Under warp drive, human time perception and time as measured by crystal or atomic oscillators don’t match. Starship pilots listen to a small unamplified chorus singing a careful rhythm while keeping their own eyes on a silent metronome that the chorus can’t see, linked to a highly-precise atomic clock. How the chorus and metronome fall in and out of sync tells the pilot how to keep the ship safely in the warp bubble and correctly on course.

Depending on route, a typical warp jump can last anywhere from one to ten minutes, and most courses consist of five to fifteen jumps before a necessary four to six hour break to check the engines, plot the next set of jumps, and give everyone a chance to recover. A good shanty team, with reliable rhythm, a broad, versatile, and extendible repertoire, and the stamina to do 3-4 sets a day over the course of a voyage, is just as vital to space travel as a pilot, navigator, or engineering team.

@tmae3114

YESSSSS

Other reasons Shanties will experience a revival in the space age:

• We will sing for any freaking reason, or no reason at all, and Shanties are FUN to sing.
• Deep Space is a lonely place and recruiting people suited to long periods of isolation might be a good idea.  People from Newfoundland/Labrador, for instance.
• SPACE WHALES
  
• THEY’RE DEFINITELY REAL I FEEL IT IN MY SOUL
• “What Do We Do With A Drunken Sailor” is basically a revenge fantasy against your most incompetent co-workers and if there’s something humans love doing, it’s being petty.
  

Plus, no need for work songs in space?  Tell that to all my colleagues who’ve come up with little ditties they’ve sung under their breath while at the computer.

“The Printer Song” and “I Will Fucking End You, Google Chrome” are my favourites.

(via littlestartopaz)