Writer, neurodivergent, nerd, Team Iron Man, she/her, queer, INTP-T, Ravenclaw, 29, and looks like that ethnically ambiguous girl on the cover of a college brochure.
ok I'm sure this has been said but Sokka striding into a fucking Fire Nation school as Wang Fire is incredible & has swagger, considering that the origin for Wang is "King" in Old Chinese. I know most of this website is usamerican, so, I'll try to put this in a slightly lopsided, mostly vibes-based, and thoroughly unserious analogy:
The year is 1968, the height of the Vietnam War. A young Vietnamese dude and his sister walk into a conservative Christian school in Texas, United States to meet the principal. Not even batting an eyelash, the guy goes "Howdy, my name's President America, this is my wife Miss America, and we're here about our son, Jimmy."
(Later, it turns out that Jimmy is Jesus, and he threw a hippie party in a cave for the school kids. He was enrolled for two days.)
Bit out of nowhere from me but I hate hate HATE how nowadays comic book writers who have never touched an Iron Man comic before write him as a tech bro without any kind of class awareness
As if Tony hasn't canonically been homeless and almost died because of it
As if there weren't lots (and I mean LOTS) of Iron Man comics that are a direct critique of capitalism because no matter how intelligent and talented Tony is, he loses a lot of money because he focuses on doing the right thing and not on making the line go up
As if Iron Man didn't have lots and lots of old comics warning about climate change and global warming
And I blame 1) The Civil War comic and 2) The MCU for this
This is a man who has seen and experienced more than any tech bro ever has.
Tony Stark is the only billionaire I will ever stand behind because he's the only one who knows intimately what it's like to not be one. In the most devastating ways possible. And he helps other people more than he helps himself. He's flawed don't get me wrong, who among us isn't, but he has a heart of iron and gold.
He might be fictional, but actual billionaires WISH they were him. Would LOVE to claim they are the inspiration for Anthony Edward Stark. Well, they're not.
Howard Hughes was, which is why Tony's father was named Howard Stark.
The way these two have me by my delicate throat is madness. I would part with a grand sum to behold them commit acts I cannot speak of lest I be dubbed a degenerate.
So I don't post all that much but there's a queer princess diaries floating around the internet these days and I just saw the third episode. Wherein, we found out the protagonist's adopted dad was his bio dad's fencing instructor and now I'm just crashing out over the fact that bio dad and adopted dad probably had a stupid amount of sexual tension between them back when they were young.
Unfortunately, bio dad is a prince and had to get married and have an heir, so he couldn't run off with his fencing instructor. But THEN, back when protag was a baby, he and his mum were attacked, mum died and his bio dad's fencing instructor (also a soldier) is charged with taking him into hiding and raising him.
So basically, what I'm saying is adopted dad and bio dad are ex-boyfriends / pined after each other but couldn't be together because ROYALTY.
the fact that we only have “herculean task” and “sisyphean task” feels so limiting. so here’s a few more tasks for your repertoire
icarian task: when you have a task you know you’re going to fail at anyways, so why not have some fun with it before it all comes crashing down
cassandrean task: when you have to deal with people you KNOW won’t listen to you, despite having accurate information, and having to watch them fumble about when you told them the solution from the start (most often witnessed in customer service)
feel free to chime in i ran out of ideas much faster than i anticipated
Promethean task: opposite of a Cassandraean task. You have the right information, and SOMEONE has to share it. But it's all in the delivery and if you're the person to identify the problem you WILL be hated forever.
Oedipal Task: (1) Attempting to avoid an unspeakably awful outcome and in doing so creating the circumstances that will bring it about.
(2) Trying to solve an problem and discovering that you are in fact the problem you are trying to solve.
Iphigenian task: you've been told to do something fairly simple, but when you go to do it — IT'S A TRAP — you're going to be sacrificed (literally or metaphorically) for someone else's benefit instead.
random genre change (especially if it's to a noir detective thing)
one where they get randomly meta and fourth wall breaky but then never acknowledge it again
one where something happened but we as the audience don't actually get to see how it happened and only see it through the unreliable narrated flashbacks as recollected by the characters
DnD Character Concept: A Cleric who insists stubbornly and earnestly that their obviously evil patron deity (I'm thinking Lolth or Asmodeus but really any Evil Greater God would do) is actually Good and Benevolent and Just and dismisses all evidence to the contrary as slander from rival deities. Their proof to their claim? Using their divinely granted powers for the most intensely Good tasks and quests they can find: feeding the hungry, protecting the weak, curing the sick- all done in the name of their Terrible Dread Lord and without any expectation of compensation or string attached.
The deity in question is all "???" but keeps granting the cleric power because all that free worship and influence from the people who now pray to them is nice, and hey if the cleric wants to put in the leg work to launder the deity's reputation what reason do they have to say no?
Only it turns out that the cleric is actually playing 4D chess because of the way faith works in Faerun (and most DnD settings). As more and more worshipers start believing The Terrible Dread Lord is actually a Good and Kind and Noble god they start to be influenced by that to become Good and Kind and Noble. Slowly but surely they find themselves warping to match the perception of the masses. It starts by just giving a few random blessings out of what they think is pity, or maybe sending a sign to help someone who is lost on what the deity insists is a whim....but it snowballs until you have Lolth smiting down slavers or Asmodeus sending out devil's to drag down a tyrant to the depths of hell and then they realize 'oh oh no' but by then it's to late: the religious reform movement within their flock is too massive and been ignored for too long as benign. They can't just turn around and smite their own followers- not only because it's tacky but because they feel... compassion and responsibility for those that look to them for guidece.
And then you have the cleric, who at level twenty is literally their most powerful agent and also the high priest of this out of control heresy smugly sipping their tea because they where right all along. Their faith in their deity is vindicated- after all what is faith if not believing in something so strongly, against all evidence, that it becomes truth unto itself?
Bestie, my Spanish is limited but does that translate to 'How to defeat the desire of God at the exit of a Stadium'? Because that's actually pretty cool.
I've gotten really into this though. I feel like the book could also be called, 'How to Defeat God in a Temple's Stables' and now I can't stop thinking about it.
DnD Character Concept: A Cleric who insists stubbornly and earnestly that their obviously evil patron deity (I'm thinking Lolth or Asmodeus but really any Evil Greater God would do) is actually Good and Benevolent and Just and dismisses all evidence to the contrary as slander from rival deities. Their proof to their claim? Using their divinely granted powers for the most intensely Good tasks and quests they can find: feeding the hungry, protecting the weak, curing the sick- all done in the name of their Terrible Dread Lord and without any expectation of compensation or string attached.
The deity in question is all "???" but keeps granting the cleric power because all that free worship and influence from the people who now pray to them is nice, and hey if the cleric wants to put in the leg work to launder the deity's reputation what reason do they have to say no?
Only it turns out that the cleric is actually playing 4D chess because of the way faith works in Faerun (and most DnD settings). As more and more worshipers start believing The Terrible Dread Lord is actually a Good and Kind and Noble god they start to be influenced by that to become Good and Kind and Noble. Slowly but surely they find themselves warping to match the perception of the masses. It starts by just giving a few random blessings out of what they think is pity, or maybe sending a sign to help someone who is lost on what the deity insists is a whim....but it snowballs until you have Lolth smiting down slavers or Asmodeus sending out devil's to drag down a tyrant to the depths of hell and then they realize 'oh oh no' but by then it's to late: the religious reform movement within their flock is too massive and been ignored for too long as benign. They can't just turn around and smite their own followers- not only because it's tacky but because they feel... compassion and responsibility for those that look to them for guidece.
And then you have the cleric, who at level twenty is literally their most powerful agent and also the high priest of this out of control heresy smugly sipping their tea because they where right all along. Their faith in their deity is vindicated- after all what is faith if not believing in something so strongly, against all evidence, that it becomes truth unto itself?
Odysseus knew better than to expect peace in death. He’d seen what currents lay under the Styx - knew what kind of warriors that he’d sent there. He fully expected another war to start as soon he took his last breath.
Instead it had been quiet.
He’d used the lull to build a home in the endless plains of asphodel. Somewhere simple he could stay and wait for Penelope. It only took a few years for her to join him, and then together they began the work of replicating the palace of Ithaca. It was work, but it was hard to complain about work when he’d expected battle. His greatest skill in life had been enduring to the end. Now it was the end, and still he endured.
It was three centuries before this death was interrupted.
Hades came to him, not as a god, but as a guest. The fates had woven a story that required a very specific soul. One that could travel the lengths of the world without breaking, who could survive a lifetime of war. And try as Hades might, he could not make a soul that was up for the task.
Still, what he could not make, he could find. Death was a sacred thing, the last right of all mankind, but it was not inalienable. One could sacrifice their death just as easily as their life.
The two had spent months haggling out the details of the work. Hades had wanted 50 years, Odysseus wanted just 20, and together they’d compromised on 32. All in exchange for the right of him and Penelope to visit Telemachus once a year, in whatever corner of the underworld their son had been given.
In the end, they’d shaken on it and Odysseus walked the earth once more. He had a new name this time - fitting, for a new fate. Alexander, the world named him and Alexander he named the world back. City by city, battle by battle, he gave the unwanted title away. Then when he was 32 he returned to Penelope, no more Alexander to give. It was a relief to be Odysseus once more.
A year after that, Penelope and him made the journey to see Telemachus. It was worth every step he’d taken between Pella and Babylon.
There were other interruptions from Hades, new deals with new names. He scourged the descendants of Troy again as Hannibal and bought another day per year with his son. He blazed down the steppes as Atilla and conquered the whole world with the same tools he'd used in his first life. It turned out there was little he couldn't accomplish with a horse, a bow, and a brain.
So many lifetimes, so many wars, and then - quiet. A whole millennium of peace went down as easy as honeyed wine. It made him happy. He liked his little deals with Death, but he’d wished so many times that men like him weren’t needed. He was proud of his descendants for making a world better than he’d dreamt.
And then, nearly a whole second millennium after that, Hades returned.
---
“It’s not a war.”
Four words that would set the hackles of anyone that fought at Troy - they’d hoped that one wouldn’t be a war either. But Odysseus had made enough deals with Hades to know that the man was frank in his dealings. There was an honesty to Death. Enough honesty that he’d taken him as a guest.
(He was very choosy about his guests now.)
“You never come to me unless it’s a war. It’s what I’m best at. Why-”
Hades cut him off.
“War is not what you’re best at. Six-hundred men won that war with you. What set you apart was being the only one to make it back.”
Odysseus’s voice caught in his throat. It had been more than two-thousand years and the memories still burned to touch. It took two deep breaths before he was able to force a reply.
“Then what do you want?”
Hades looked lost. He paused a few moments, before looking back at Odysseus, one hand up to plead for patience.
“When I struggle to explain, it’s not because I’m trying to find a clever way to lie to you. It’s because this is a very strange thing, and I…I don’t know how to describe it well.”
He looked into the hearth. Watched the light and heat fade away. Then, he gestured at the log.
“The wood you’re burning. It’s a dead thing. And yet, it dies more after you burn it because the fire has life in it. Soul too. Even here, there’s a corner of the underworld where the souls of dead flames gather. More things have souls than any mortal seems to recognize.”
Odysseus was intrigued. When he lived, he’d learned the secrets of the body better than most doctors. There was only so much cutting you could get people to volunteer for. But here, the mysteries of the soul were lost to him. This was godly knowledge, given freely. What that had to say about the request was worth considering.
“The mountain has a soul, but the mine in that mountain has a soul too, as does the ore from that mine. The ingot, the sword, the bundle of nails - all of those things are alive in some way. And yet, some of them are more alive than others. You sailed once, Odysseus, and no one knows this better than sailors: Boats have strange souls. They’re about as alive as anything that could be built in your time.”
The space around Hades shimmered. The man was thinking, and in a realm where he had total dominion, it took effort for thoughts not to change reality. Odysseus appreciated the effort. The replica had taken centuries to perfect. Death was a strange friend to him, but a friend nonetheless.
“But the arts have improved from that time, and the mortals of today have built something… incredible. Unimaginable. And they’re sending it on a journey that I have no reference for. The Deaths that have seen things like this are alien to me. They speak of things I cannot understand. The Death of Heat. The Death of Light. The Death of Stars…”
He trailed off in a way that made it clear he was remembering something unpleasant and not merely waxing poetic. He caught himself and looked embarrassed, as if he’d confessed to something best kept secret.
Then he continued.
“I am a very human Death. And this thing - it isn’t human. But it was made by humans, and so its soul needs a… a human touch. Your soul isn’t the archetype for a soldier, Odysseus, it’s the archetype for a traveler. I couldn’t take you and put you in this thing if I wanted to, you’re just the wrong shape, but what I’m about to do, I need to see you for. Because this thing is going to travel in ways that I am barely beginning to understand. In ways that are redefining the limits of what it means to be human.”
Odysseus was lost. He didn’t know what he was being asked. He didn’t know what was being built. There were so many questions that he needed to ask that they’d formed a log jam in his mouth. One finally broke free and started a cascade.
“What is it?”
Hades gestured helplessly.
“It’s like an arrow and a ship. They’re going to shoot it past the stars.”
That meant nothing to Odysseus, but he suspected every answer he received would sound like a riddle.
“What do you need from me?”
“Permission to copy your work. The soul I made for you is different from the one you died with. You made changes that I cannot replicate. That I do not understand. That I need for this soul to work.”
Odysseus paused.
“Is it going to be used as a weapon?”
Hades shook his head.
“No. The world is gentler than you remember it. This thing will be what you should have been: A traveler without equal. No more, no less.”
Odysseus couldn’t tell if those words ripped something in him open, or healed something closed. Either way, it hurt in a way he didn’t know how to express. His mouth opened and closed several times before he settled on an answer.
“Then take what you will. My only request is to see the journey.”
“Done,” Hades agreed. He could have left right then, but he chose to stay in silence until the fire burned out. There are some ideas that one shouldn’t be left alone with. Not until they’ve had an hour or three to process them, at least.
---
Twelve-billion miles from Earth, moving just shy of mach fifty, the Voyager 2 probe glittered in the darkness.
It watched the world around it with the kind of awe a human couldn’t fathom. Nothing was hidden from it. Everything from the atomic composition of stars, to the background hum of the universe itself - all were available with a glance. The only sound it could hear was the constant blip of data that it received from Earth. The small blue dot on starlit shore.
It missed that place. Maybe, one day, when its journey was done… it would find a way back. Maybe. That was still eons away.
Odysseus stood just a few feet off, watching from a direction no one but Hades knew how to walk. He felt the thrill of the expanse in front of him, the utterly incomprehensibility of his speed, and yet its meaninglessness as well. To imagine that the world was so big. To imagine that the world was so strange.
He wept and he could not explain why. He lingered in the twilight until Penelope found him. When she asked him what was wrong, he had no answer. How could he tell her that the world was beautiful, and that he had a place in it? Not just as some ugly middle step, but there at the end. Hurtling through space like an arrow made of silver.
How could he explain to someone that had loved him for two-thousand years that he finally understood why?
Is Carry On fanfic? Yes, but no, but also yes (but still no)
Yes: The fictional (fictional as in it is a book that exists in a piece of fiction, not a real book that has a story of fiction in it) Simon Snow series that exists in the book fangirl is a proxy for Harry Potter. In that sense, the Snowbaz that Cath (the mc of Fangirl) is writing about, is Drarry by another name. Carry On (the real book) is based on the fictional Simon Snow series (that is a proxy for HP, that exists only within the text of fangirl) But, the fictional Simon Snow series that exists in Fangirl, Cath’s fictional fanfiction, and the real Carry On book are three different things.
But no: Carry On is not Drarry fanfic that was repackaged a la, 50 shades of grey or the love hypothesis or rwrb, the story was conceived as its own thing from the start. It is however, absolutely a satire of HP and very much transformative fiction, the same way that The Boys, or Invicible, or the Magicians are all transformative fiction (if we want to have the ‘is all transformative fiction fanfic?’ talk we can have that another time) because they're all satire.
But also yes: but plot twist, while it’s not necessarily HP fanfic, it is Fangirl fanfic. People often get confused about what Carry On is. Is it the fictional Simon Snow book written by the fictional not-JKR in Fangirl? (No) is it the fictional fanfic that the main character Cath wrote in Fangirl? (Also no) it’s a secret, third thing. That thing being Rainbow Rowell’s version (fanfic) of the fictional Simon Snow books.
But still no: ofc, the fictional Simon Snow books are in the book Fangirl, which RR wrote, you can’t write fanfic for your own work, that’s just original fiction.
So, long story short: the carry on trilogy is a satirical AU of RR’s own fictional book which is a proxy for Harry Potter.
But while Carry On isn’t technically a fanfic, it is, inherently about fanfic: it’s in the fabric of the story. And that’s neat.
Sleeping internally, externally and eternally. @aletheiarynne - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
