i will never be over the fact that during first contact a human offered their hand to a vulcan and the vulcan was just like “wow humans are fucking wild” and took it
#iiiiiiiiiiiiii mean vulcans had been watching humans for a long time#they knew the significance of a handshake but still#they had to find some fast and loose ambassador#willing to fuckin make out with a human for the sake of not offending them on first contact#lmao#star trek
give me the story of this fast and loose vulcan
“sir…these…these humans…they greet each other by…” *glances around before furtively whispering* “by clasping hands…”
*prolonged silence* “oh my…”
“sir…sir how will we make first contact with them? surely we…we cannot refuse this handclasping ritual, they will take it as an insult, but what vulcan would agree to such a distasteful and uncomfortable ritual??”
*several pensive moments later* “contact the vulcan high command and tell them to send us kuvak. i once saw that crazy son of a bitch arm wrestle a klingon, he’ll put his hands on anything”
I swear Vulcans only come in two types and they are “distant xenophobes” or “horny on main for humanity”. Also apparently this guy is Spock’s great-grandfather and frankly that explains everything.
Hey so I looked into this at one point and that handshake literally created a lifelong telepathic bond between the two of them, and basically all of Solkar’s descendants were later obsessed with humans, including freaking SPOCK, so I’m not saying that handshake was so gay and good that it created an intergenerational telepathic bond between Solkar’s descendants and humans, but I’m also not….not….saying that.
The slow deliberation with which Solkar takes Cockrane’s–I’m sorry, Cochrane’s–hand… The sheer sensuality witch which Solkar infuses an otherwise borderline impersonal social ritual… It clearly shows a very conscious knowledge, on Solkar’s part, of what the significance of the handshake is in Vulcan terms and of how affected he is by it.
That’s why he’s so slow in doing it, and so sensual. A part of Solkar can’t believe this is happening, despite it being a perfectly logical thing to expect from a human, and the rest of him can’t believe how good it is.
I bet that if the camera zoomed in any further we would see the dilation of Solkar’s pupils and a quickly-repressed shiver of delight. Cochrane’s firm, businesslike clasp is probably (in sexual terms) being perceived as a deliciously carnal display of dominance.
No wonder Solkar is all like, “TAKE ME, YOU WILD-MANNERED BARBARIAN WITH ENTICINGLY ROUGH CALLUSES.”
#somehow the idea of vulcans being Horny On Main always gives me the giggles#like literally all they had to do#was be like actually#hand contact is very intimate for our species#and im p sure humanity as a whole would not find that insurmountably weird#there are human cultures that dont shake hands#vulcans are logical enough to think that through on their own#so clearly that vulcan was just down to fuck#down to fuck in a public#professional diplomatic situation no less#and he did not fucking care who knew it (via kittykatthetacodemon)
This is my favourite Star Trek post, complete with headcanons, corrections, the truth coming out of her well to shame Spock even. Seriously perfect fandom work.
They could have explained none of it and responded to the offered hand with a polite bow. First contact was gonna be with the guy who proved they were technologically ready for it but any human aware of Japan and China would recognise that
k but imagine Rocky wanting to learn about how humans became the apex predators of their planet so he has Grace “hunt” him in the biodome as an experiment and during it he thinks Grace isn’t trying or taking it seriously which is bad bad bad because this is for research purposes
only for Rocky to get more and more tired as the experiment goes on just to realize that Grace isn’t which makes him panic so he puts as much distance as he can between them and finds a (hopefully) safe spot to sleep and when he wakes up the human is crouching over him like “got youuu” and Rocky has never shrieked so damn loud before in his life
sooo this inspired me and then prev's tags did too:
so there's a mini fic under the cut I smashed out in like an hour. kinda low effort but whatever. might keep it going on ao3 with more little experiments
At some point, Grace of course realizes it's living in a zoo enclosure. Then comes a Discussion.
"Rocky."
It sat Rocky down and brought up the subject by being uncharacteristically blunt and saying "Look, I would've appreciated a heads-up before becoming a zoo attraction."
Which sent Rocky into a total panic - it told the xenology team to not let Grace know! Now Grace is going to be offended or mad about being a zoo animal! There's no way to sugarcoat this! - and had it screeching out apologies. It won't be able to withstand Grace being mad at it, because the last time Grace was mad at Rocky Grace ignored Rocky. IGNORED. The silent treatment had grated so bad on Rocky's nerves it felt like it was going to go insane.
"ROCKY! CHILL OUT!"
Rocky slows. Grace is still kneeling from where it had settled after first saying 'we need to talk' (worst words in the universe, by the way). Rocky doesn't get any closer, just fiddles nervously with its fingers.
"Rocky, look. This isn't- I'm not mad about it. Honest! I kinda…" It rubs the back of its 'neck' with a hand. "Kinda already figured it out a while ago."
Grace laughs, flashing its 'teeth'. "I mean, we'd do the same thing on Earth if this was all reversed. I get it! I'm an alien, I knew this was a possibility."
"Along with dissection," Rocky grumbles. "And starving to death. Does not mean good thing. Does not mean Grace happy about it."
"But I am! Look, Eridians are learning from me, right?"
Rocky hums a begrudging confirmation.
"Then I'm happy about it! You know me. Once a teacher, always a teacher. Plus, it could be worse."
That is true, all of it. Rocky sighs. "Okay. If Grace is sure Grace not mad at Rocky…"
"I'm sure, buddy. C'mere." Grace reaches forward and wraps Rocky in a 'hug'. Rocky accepts it, reciprocates, feeling the familiar noises of Grace's organs.
"Team will ask more questions," Rocky warns. "Want to do experiments on Solean behavior."
"Oho, boy. I'm looking forward to that."
And Grace isn't lying, and neither is Rocky: within days of the conversation, the xenology team is approaching Grace and asking many more questions about Solean things, especially enrichment and differences between their respective biological functions. They already were, of course, but something seems to have emboldened them.
What everyone finds absolutely ridiculous is Solean hunting, though.
"Sorry," Historian Lilith wheezes out. It's almost laughing too hard to keep going. "You're saying- you- Soleans just walk your prey to death? And you became the apex predators on your planet? How does that work?!"
Every other member of the team present is cackling, including Rocky: Grace alone stands sober, pouting in the way it does when it's offended.
"What's so unbelievable about that?! It's a very effective way to hunt!"
Rocky snorts. "Grace lying. No way walking is efficient! Ambush is better. Example!" And Rocky lunges playfully for Grace, relishing the squeal and the scramble backwards. Then Grace stands up taller. "Okay! I'll show you. Who wants to get hunted?"
Everyone instantly steps back, leaving Rocky at the forefront. Figures. All that talk about how it's not realistic and yet they scatter at the idea of being the prey. Frankly, Rocky can't blame them - nobody wants to be hunted, after all, especially by an alien that breathes oxygen - but it raises a hand anyways. "I volunteer. Grace hunt me. Then we know truth once and for all."
The grin that split Grace's face somehow seems even creepier than usual. It goes off to prepare, murmuring about contacting the substitute teacher that takes over when Grace gets sick. Huh?
Rocky disregards that and prepares by simply making sure the atmosphere suit is fully ready. It knows Grace isn't really going to hurt it, but it has to reassure several members of the xenology team and Adrian, who's come to watch, of that fact. "Seriously? It's Grace. Grace won't hurt me. Grace can't even hurt me!" It starts to mutter about how ridiculous they're all being when someone points out that Grace could potentially break the atmosphere suit with the abundance of rocks in the enclosure, trapping Rocky in the deadly Solean-safe atmosphere, which stops Rocky dead.
It's Atmosphere Specialist Superman, well-known to be paranoid even at the best of times. Eridians have no 'faces' like Soleans, but Rocky deliberately rotates towards the idiot just to hammer in the absolute stupidity of what Superman just said, and then smacks Superman so hard several team members have to pull it off of the scientist. It's swearing and screeching the entire time, and it takes a few Earth hours to calm down properly.
The very idea of Grace deliberately hurting Rocky in such a way - when Rocky knows for a fact the scars from the Adrian Incident are still fully apparent to the Solean senses, when Grace spent months freaking out over every little sneeze or cough Rocky made when in the prototypes of the atmosphere suit - is preposterous. Grace would never ever hurt Rocky like that, would never do anything to expose Rocky to its atmosphere ever again even accidentally. They're both so very careful about it. Rocky is still steaming about Superman's insinuations when it walks inside Grace's enclosure.
Grace is waiting by the airlock. Rocky huffs. "Unfair. Go farther. Too close for start, cheater."
Grace holds up its hands in the almost-happy movement ("When I put my hands up like this, this means surrender.") and steps away a good distance. It's still smiling. "Not gonna matter, Rock," it calls. "I'm about to get you back for alllll those times you ambushed me on the trip here."
"Yeah, right!" Rocky shifts, preparing to run. "We see who is better predator."
"Ready?"
"Ready!"
"GO!"
Rocky bolts. The sand is hard to traverse, its arms slipping both from the xenonite covering and the loose grains, but it already knows it's a faster runner than Grace. And when it clicks to see where Grace is, Grace is so far behind it's laughable. Oh, this is gonna be easy.
Rocky reaches the edge of the biodome, a little worn out from the run. Luckily, it just had a sleep cycle, so it won't need to sleep for another few Solean days. Grace is out of range. HA!
It meanders back closer until it can hear Grace, leisurely strolling along the beach. "What wrong, Grace? Too slow?" It calls out.
A ripple of laughter comes from Grace. "You'll be eating your words soon enough." It sticks its hands in its pockets.
Rocky snorts, and decides to continue to be a little shit. It goes back and darts around Grace, mocking it, staying juust far enough away where if Grace lunges Grace won't even be able to touch it. Grace does give chase eventually, but Rocky just carefully climbs up the cliff face. Damn, humans are stupid! Every time Rocky thinks they're not so bad, Grace does something like this. It's not even chasing Rocky! It's just slowly following.
The biodome cycles over to night, Rocky can tell by the click! of the flashlight Grace carries. It settles on top of the cliff, enjoying the sounds of Grace trying its damndest to climb the cliff. Technically it's well past the time Grace should be asleep, but they're both too stubborn to call quits and the xenology team isn't in a hurry to interrupt this glimpse into Solean hunting methods.
Rocky has to run again when Grace reaches the top of the cliff and starts to chase it again. This keeps going, Rocky running and mocking Grace, Grace just continuing on, unshakable. Rocky only starts to worry when night falls again and Grace is still able to catch up to it!
It yells to Grace, who's a slightly shorter distance behind by now. "Grace need sleep."
"Grace has slept." Grace shouts back. "Remember, I can wake up easily. I've been sleeping and eating regularly, I promise."
"Good!" Rocky lets itself feel some relief that Grace isn't neglecting its health for this experiment. Then it goes right back to insults. "Then Grace have no excuse to be so slow!" It makes a 'fart' noise in Grace's direction and scuttles off, laughing at the offended sound Grace makes.
Day comes again, and Rocky gets frustrated. What in the actual fuck?! Something's not right. Grace has been at this for two Earth days and nights now. If Grace was going to catch Rocky, shouldn't that have happened by now? Is Grace even taking this experiment seriously?
Well, Rocky does know Grace is taking it seriously, because Grace is doing it. Hasn't given up. Hasn't called it quits. So the only reason why must be because this persistence way of hunting is, in fact, not effective, and Grace is just too stubborn to admit it! HA! Get wrecked, Grace.
Frustration turns to glee, which then curdles into nervousness as the day still goes on with no sign of Grace stopping the pursuit. They've both been running in circles: the biodome's not that big, all told, and Rocky can't access a quarter of it due to the fake ocean. No matter how long Rocky runs, there is always the inevitable appearance of Grace on the horizon, and Rocky refuses to entertain any other notion than that the reason for it is the small space. The alternative is too scary to consider.
And, even scarier, Rocky can feel a sleep cycle is imminent. It's exhausted. All the running it's been doing must have brought the sleep cycle on sooner. And Grace, last Rocky heard, still shows no sign of tiredness. Urgh!
Rocky pushes itself just a little harder, until Grace is far beyond Rocky's range of hearing and Rocky is well hidden: Grace is still on top of the cliffs over by the outer wall of the dome, while Rocky's down below nearer to the water. Then it finds one of the caves. It knows this cave in particular is the science cave, where the xenology team has been watching on the camera feeds and listening to this whole debacle, and where Grace usually goes to talk to the xenology team about things.
"I have to sleep," Rocky manages. "Can't keep going." It collapses, and the world vanishes. No worries. Grace won't catch up, and if it does, it won't think to look for Rocky here.
When Rocky wakes, it first hears a clamoring from the observation room. Many voices shouting over one another in panic. It sends a spike of fear through Rocky, and it taps at the floor to hear better - and nearly has a cardiac failure then and there, screaming louder than it's ever screamed before in its life.
Grace is standing right. over. Rocky. Looming, really, and it's never sounded taller or more ominous.
"Hiiii."
Then Grace plunges down, wraps its arms around Rocky. "Gotcha!" It opens its mouth and presses it to Rocky's carapace, leaking saliva all over the suit and pressing its tongue to the xenonite as if it's trying to eat Rocky.
Rocky shudders in disgust and cusses Grace out with every word it knows, smacking it lightly with an arm. "CREEPY! Scared Rocky, nearly kill Rocky with heart attack! No no no bad Grace! BAD BAD BAD GRACE!" This is not the first time this has happened, but it's the first time it's struck such raw fear into Rocky.
Grace is laughing, sending vibrations through Rocky's body. "I told you," it says in that light singing kind of voice it likes to do. "I tooooold youuuu! Persistence predators, baby!"
"That no count! You wait until I fall… asleep…" A horrible idea begins to dawn on Rocky. "No." There's no way. There's no way. It's too awful to think of, and yet it's the only possibility.
"Well-" Grace settles back, crosses its legs underneath it and turns towards the window to the observation room: where, by the way, everyone's gone silent with their own realization of what exactly Grace just did. "You guys didn't let me finish explaining earlier. See, a lot of prey animals on Earth are very fast for short sprints, like Rocky here." It gives Rocky a noogie. "But they can only run for so long before they have to stop moving to catch their breath. So humans evolved to be able to endure long stretches of exercise without having to stop for air. We chase an animal, track it using its footprints or the direction it was going in, keep following it, and then eventually when the animal's forced to stop, we catch up and kill it for our food. So that's what I just did!" Grace flashes its teeth again. It's terrifyingly happy about all of this.
Meanwhile, Rocky quite literally cannot move from fear. Grace has sparked fear before: their first meeting, when Rocky had no clue what to expect but it certainly wasn't some squishy cold bag of meat that breathed oxygen of all things; over Adrian the planet, when the ship had been sent into an uncontrolled spin and Rocky had known what it would have to do to save Grace and Earth and Erid all at once even if it meant death; for a few moments when Rocky had been floating in its tomb, the original Eridian ship, and had heard a cracking-thumping sort of noise coming from outside.
All of those instances were tiny bits of dust next to this type of fear. The revelation that Rocky's wonderful and clumsy friend could have, just now, very easily killed Rocky in Rocky's sleep and that its species did so regularly was the singular most horrifying concept anyone could ever have imagined. Grace probably had no idea that the Solean way of hunting was the stuff of the worst Eridian horror stories. Something that just kept going, kept chasing you until you were forced to rest? Fucking WHY?! WHY, of all the aliens Rocky could have EVER brought home, was it a species THAT HUNTED LIKE THAT?! WHY?!
"That-" it weakly starts - still feeling like it was about to, as the Soleans say, 'shit its pants' - "Very… nice, Grace. Thank for demonstration."
It crawls out from under Grace's arm. "Back soon," and lunges for the airlock. It needs… more than a little bit of processing time. That whole thing was fucking disturbing.
Grace just waves, oblivious to Rocky's internal turmoil. "See you later, Rocky!"
at some point in your life you will be boiling fruit, water, sugar, and lemon juice in a pot to make a syrup or jam. the instructions will tell you to simmer for a certain amt of time. your timer will go off and you will look at the pot and go, "hm, this doesn't look thick enough. maybe i'll let it go for another 10 minutes." this is the devil speaking. it's only so liquid right now because it is at boiling point. it will thicken when it cools down. learn from the follies of my youth and do not let this happen to you
at some point in your life you will be making a sauce or a stew in which you need to add cornstarch to thicken it. and you will prepare a slurry of starch in cold water and think "this looks like way too little starch to thicken this amount of liquid." this is the devil speaking. cornstarch instantly polymerizes at 95°C and if you add too much it will turn into an impossibly thick goop.
at some point in your life you will be making some sort of cream based dessert that requires gelatin to thicken it. and you will soak some gelatin sheets in water and think "this is too few gelatin sheets for this amount of cream." this is the devil speaking. it will thicken in the fridge and if you add too much you will end up with milk jelly
at some point in your life you will be baking cookies. you will take the sheet out after twelve minutes as the recipe instructs and the cookies will still be glistening and soft. "these don't seem cooked enough," you will think to yourself, "i should place them back into the oven until their edges are nice and golden." this is the devil talking. this is how you get dry, overdone cookies. the cookies will continue to bake on the warm sheet for several more minutes and then harden up after sitting on a rack for a while. trust the process. trust the process.
at some point in your life you will be adding a small pasta to a soup and you will think "that is not enough small pasta." this is the devil talking. the pasta will absorb the stock and expand. this is how you end up with a soup that is a solid mass of soggy ditalini.
…..not even six hours later i got an offer of a well paying full time long-term job with free room and board in queens in nyc, allowing me independence and a way to escape an abusive situation and an unhealthy environment
likes charge reblogs cast, folks, this is the good luck post
the last time I reblogged this post right before I got a great job, in a permanent work-from-home position, with benefits, retirement, and a salary literally 3x what I was making before, doing something I really like.
Random thing for people to consider is that since Laika is the saint of one way trips should Felicette be known as the saint of safe landings since she did make it back to the ground safely
tu LANCES félicette ? tu lances son corps comme la fusée ? oh ! oh ! prison pour les scientifiques ! prison pour les scientifiques pendant Un Mille Ans !
In A Study in Scarlet, Watson mentions that when he served in Afghanistan he had an orderly named Murray who rescued him after he was shot in the Battle of Maiwan.
And I really do like the idea that this Murray could be somehow related to Mina Murray, that would be a very fun way to connect Dracula and Sherlock that I don’t think I’ve seen before. Unfortunately I don’t know how well it fits timeline-wise to either story, and also Mina having a family would make some scenes in Dracula really weird.
Like she says, “I never knew either father or mother,” so it’s possible that she had an older sibling/cousin/aunt/uncle that could be Watson’s Murray, but if you were going monster hunting and you had an older sibling/cousin/aunt/uncle who was a military trained medical professional, I assume you’d tell them
So, Dracula is set in 1895. Watson was wounded in the Battle of Maiwand in 1880. It would not be inconsistent for Mina to have an older brother who served and was present at this battle.
One might suppose this relative died in subsequent action in that war. The loss of their beloved son then so devastated Mina's parents, that they departed to Afghanistan to recover his body, leaving behind their very young daughter. They never returned, and Mina was then an orphan. At that age - perhaps as young as 3, or 6 at the oldest (guessing she was between 18 and 21 at the start of Dracula) she'd have little if any memory of her parents.
#what im hearing is this would be a perfect setup for a crossover #where Watson hears that the man who saved him in the war died and his little sister is now an orphan #and convinces himself he has a Duty to that little girl #i dont know the timelines but it could be a perfect extra reason for Watson to get married so there would be a Womans Touch #since two bachelors living the detective life would have a hard time raising a little girl esp at that time #and having a wife would add a layer of respectability to it and make it look more proper
I need Rocky to be soo weird by eridian standards by the time he meets Grace. buddy is not okay in the slightest. 46 years of solitary confinement with 22 corpses for company. Grace is a canon sad wet, sobby cat but i need Rocky to be a clingy, codependent (only colloquial meaning) and unstable mess at him.
I love the idea that the Eridians briefly think that Rocky Came Back Wrong.
He shrugs and nods and does weird shake things with his carapce and their just like.... bro, why are you moving like that? He also talks so fucking slow and enunciates like his beautiful family is 20 years old. But when Grace is done being scurvy and rickets ridden and is capable of joining the thrum outside his earth enclosure, they realize Rocky spent a few years talking to a slow as fuck human incapable of converting to Eridian seconds in his head. He's pausing to congugate and he frequently needs words above a 1st grade level defined to him.
Damn, our planet was saved by a 30 year old? The planet fucking sent a CHILD into space? Rocky spent the entire time in space babysitting. You need to sleep. You need to eat. Damn, build him a statue he's now the patron saint of children.
we all love dynamics that remind us of the moon and the sun but I am baffled by the lack of love for dynamics that are reminiscent of the moon and the EARTH.
I am so full of life but you are the reason my tides have a rhythm. you are the reason my oceans are brimming with life. you are the reason I can see the light in myself even when it all seems dark and you are the reason my orbit is stable and my seasons make sense. do you see it
You wake up suddenly to find an androgynous being by your bed, congratulating you on your ascension to godhood and vanishing without explaining your domain or power set. Now you have to figure out what kind of god you are, and why you're a god to begin with
I woke up feeling groggy and disoriented, because that’s what happens when you’ve been at work until 2 AM, got home after three, and then some asshole wakes you up at DAWN. I sat up - on a bit of a tilt, I admit - and tried to glare.
The androgynous person with the wild curls, brilliant smile, and faint glow around them didn’t seem to care. “Hail, Jenna! I congratulate thee on thy elevation to godhood!”
I stared at them for a second, then managed a semi-comprehensible mumble. “Wha?”
“Thou art a newly ascended goddess, and I am sent to bid thee congratulations and well-wishing!” The smile got even brighter. Whoever… whatever… this person was, they were abso-fucking-lutely delighted about this wonderful news. “I must away, for I am a busy messenger, but we twain shall meet again!”
And then the bright figure was gone and I was left sitting there, still half asleep and fully bewildered. After a second, I tried speaking again. “… goddess of WHAT?”
There was no answer.
I lay back and tried to convince myself it was all just a dream, but… it wasn’t. Sometimes it’s hard to tell, but not this time. Some glowing, jolly … being… had woken me up at the asscrack of dawn, told me I was a goddess, and then left.
I mean… what the fuck?
I would have decided that it was a hallucination, I think, except that as I lay there, I realised slowly that even though I’d been asleep for maybe a couple of hours, I wasn’t tired. I really, genuinely wasn’t tired. It’s been so long since I wasn’t tired that it took me a while to even identify what was going on. And nothing hurt. Not my back, my shoulders, my knees, my hands… nothing.
I got out of bed and looked down at myself. I still looked the same, as far as I could tell. Medium build with a bit of middle-aged sag, scars on my hands from decades of kitchen work, the pallor of someone who spends all their time working nights, and the same ratty nightshirt I’d gone to sleep in. I went over to the mirror to check my face, and that was the same too. Lined, pale, with sharp eyes and a thin mouth, framed in slightly greyed brown hair. Ordinary. Not the face of a goddess.
But I wasn’t tired. Nothing hurt. In fact… I felt great.
Figuring I might as well ride the weird rush while I had it, I went to make myself an early breakfast… and a proper breakfast, too, with scrambled eggs and bacon as well as toast and coffee. I sat down to eat at my battered old kitchen table, and tried to think.
Obviously I wasn’t, like, capital G God, or anything. That would have presumably involved more fanfare than a single cryptic messenger. And they’d said ‘a’ goddess, not ‘the’ anything. And they’d used my name, so I wasn’t newly appointed as one of the gods anyone had heard of.
So… goddess of… something, I guess? One of those minor deities that accrued around stronger pantheons, or in isolated places. Like how little European villages in the middle of forests accumulated forest gods, or island countries picked up gods of seas and streams and stuff. I really hoped that was it. That level of godhood was something I could just about comprehend. Maybe I was the goddess of something really minor, like aglets, or deep-frying. I am really good at getting a balky deep-fryer to behave.
I really hoped that was it. I thought I could just about cope with becoming the goddess of deep-fryers, or pancakes, or something. That seemed like a… a manageable amount of divinity.
It felt strange being awake all day before work, and I did try to nap, but I just wasn’t sleepy. I tried, and ten minutes later I was standing in the kitchen again, mixing a batch of cookie dough. Baking helped - it kept me busy, at least.
It was a relief when I could head to work. I’ve worked six days out of seven at the Blue Plate Diner for the last fifteen years, and been part-owner for the last six. That kitchen was as much my home as my shabby apartment, if not more so.
I went in early, and sent Rio the day cook home. He looked exhausted, and was grateful to have his shift cut a little short, especially since I promised to pay him for the hour regardless. The day waitresses greeted me, though we don’t know each other well - I never work days - and Stanley the sous was there already.
I walked into my kitchen and immediately felt better. This was what I’d wanted, I realized, what my apartment kitchen hadn’t been able to give me. My kitchen, my domain… every inch familiar, every dish known by heart.
And then… I knew. I felt it.
I could feel the heat of a million grills. The bubble of a million fryers. And the prayers… oh, the prayers. A great silent roar of prayers that the orders would be right, that the rush would end, that the pizza wouldn’t burn and the fries would cook quickly. The pleas for endurance, for patience, for enough tips to get by, for a good smiting for a shitty customer.
Oh, I’m definitely going to be doing a lot of smiting when I figure out how.
I am a goddess.
I am the goddess of short-order cooking. And here in my kitchen, in the very seat of my power, I could do anything.
Stanley yelped and jumped back as my eyes snapped open, and I could see them glowing in my reflection on the grimy window. And then I did what every cook, whether they admit it or not, has always wanted to do. I raised my hands and I woke my kitchen up like a goddamn Disney magician.
Utensils flew on their own to their tasks. The fryer bubbled, blorped, and cleaned itself in one swift shudder, hocking out a lump of unknowable black ick into the nearest garbage can. The fridge opened itself so a dozen eggs could float out and over to the right station. I looked the other way, and the walk-in freezer popped open, spitting out two dozen rolls ready to be thawed. Sauces refilled themselves with a glance. A fry basket filled itself and put itself down in the cleanly gleaming oil. Oh, yeah. This is my domain. My temple. Here, my will is all.
Stanley was still staring, open-mouthed, and I grinned at him. “I became a goddess today.”
He stared at me, eyes popping, and then he slowly grinned back. “If anyone was gonna be a kitchen goddess, you’re it. No doubt.”
I didn’t just stand there and watch the magic cooking. I’m a cook. I use my hands, always. But now it was like I had a hundred, a thousand more hands. Like I could see every inch of the kitchen, all the time.
And not just mine, either. While I grilled steaks and burgers, made salads and fixed milkshakes, my awareness expanded out further and further. Blocks away, a nervous kid at McDonalds stumbled and tried to catch himself, and I steadied him before his hand went into the deep-fryer. A woman at a food cart, out of napkins, prayed and found a package that hadn’t been there a moment before. An over-worked pizza chef got their second wind and three simple orders in a row. Food didn’t burn, orders didn’t go wrong, soft-serve machines unclogged and coffee-machines purred obediently. I was aware of all of it, doing all of it, and yet I was still fully aware of my own kitchen, my own diner, of every order going out in record time and the food being better than anything than even I’d ever managed before. I didn’t get tired… in fact, the longer I was in my kitchen, the better I felt.
By the end of the night, Stanley was a fervent believer, as were both the waitresses. I couldn’t hear their prayers quite as clearly as those of actual cooks, but counter staff and wait staff seem to come under my protection too, if they’re in one of ‘my’ restaurants. I tested my limits… anything that could be called short-order cooking seemed to be it. Fast-food, diners, and the like, mostly. Food carts that served hot food were mine, but dessert places of all descriptions weren’t. Bakeries and cafes were both off my list, and I could feel - I can’t explain how - that they belonged to different gods. Fine dining restaurants were outside my purview, and most delis, but anywhere with a deep-fryer or a grill lit up in my mind’s eye.
Closing up was a lot easier when the kitchen had become self-cleaning, so Stanley helped out in the front of the diner. Then we headed home. When I got back to the apartment, I wasn’t tired at all… I felt better than I ever have, charged by contact with my temple and my mostly unknowing believers. Turns out that gods - even minor ones - don’t need sleep to recharge, which is certainly a nice perk.
So that’s me. Jenna, the Short-Order Goddess. The Lady of the Grills. Patron of the Order Window. I have nothing to do with coffee. That’s someone else’s domain. But from the chain burger to the corner chippie, I watch over the kitchens and the staff of them all. They are my people, and I will care for them.
Just watched that clip of the Vampire dancing in Sinners, and it occurs to me
This creature has walked the earth for over 100 yrs before the movie starts.
It’s established that he is alone, a foreigner in a foreign land, but more than that, he is an immortal being bearing witness to the turning of the Ages with naught but his memories to give comfort of what Home once was.
How many of us in this Age can claim to truly understand? Travel to any major country on the world, you can get a taste of your home country’s cuisine if you look hard enough. Miss the tales and songs of your hometown? YouTube , Spotify , it’s all available at a click of your fingers.
Not to him
He must have lived a lifetime truly alone, almost forgetting what was like to be among people, His People. I cannot even imagine the silent relief, that unrecognized longing that must have burst to the surface when he stumbled into that party, when he found that boy that could, for just a few hours, help him member what Home was like. The moment when he has his thralls play his songs, may has been first time in an age he has been able to dance and sing the songs of his countrymen freely.
It’s why the scene with the rocky road to Dublin sounds so jarring if you expect just another vampire movie, in that moment that immortal monster is just a lad from the green isles, reliving the days when the light still had meaning for him.
I'm just saying, if you're going to worldbuild magic being a "raw, primal force, akin to and interweaving with nature itself" you gotta explain to me why animals don't use it
I know the normal answer is "they just aren't smart enough for it" but idk I've seen enough media where a character uses a spell in a moment of brain-off panic ilI feel like animals could probably stumble into a spell or two like, accidentally
In med school, I quickly learned that medicine is not about being a hero. It was a humbling, but a nonetheless soothing realisation.
Then residency started, and I learned that I do feel like a hero from time to time, just not the way I imagined it to be. It's the little things, it's making a little kid feel safe, it's watching someone leave after the surgery with a smile and relief on their face, it's listening to a lonely, elderly person talk about their day.
And now I'm still in residency, but with more years and experience behind my back. And it turns out, doing medicine will sometimes make me feel like a hero just the way I imagined it, when I signed up for this shit. Unfortunately, it's still not what I expected...
Sometimes, saving a life is nothing special. It's just the ordinary everyday life, nothing sort of heroic. I know what to do: stop the bleeding, put in some fluids, give oxygen. Etc. It feels good, science is marvelous, and I'm still on cloud nine about the fact that this is my job. But it's just a job.
And then there are gruesome cases. You might even win a life, but at what cost? What for? Was it really worth it? The cost is usually not mine to pay... I have some very deep and probably unsettling thoughts on this topic, but it's not what prompted me to write this long as hell post, so I will not elaborate. I'm pretty sure we all know what I'm talking about, anyway.
And there are a few cases, a few patients, where you look at them and go, oh shit.
Time to go all in, and time to do it now, because if you hesitate even for just a moment, it's game over. And the whole damned shift is spent by their bedside, working along your team until you can't see straight, and you all put your whole chest into it. You are all bloody, the room looks like a battlefield, and there are suspicious stains on your socks.
Does the patient survive? Sometimes yes. More often, not. Maybe it's irrelevant. It's about giving your literal all, doing everything you can and beyond, because you see the slightest chance for survival.
Those are the moments that mostly stick with me. And maybe it's egotistical. Maybe it's delusional. But knowing that I was able to provide that small chance, that flicker of light to someone, makes me feel like it was all worth it. I love the quiet moments of comfort as well. But this? This makes my heart and soul light up.
It is about knowing we did everything. My hands are goddamn dirty, but my conscience is clear.
This post is long and cheesy: I am trying to start a tradition here. It's the end of the year, so why not reflect on the year behind us with a bit of overflowing emotions? If anyone else feels like joining in, I am offering the tag #the pink side - talk whatever you feel like rambling about :)
im getting really fucking sick of all this “it gets better!” bullshit. im going to have depression for the rest of my life. it’s not going to “””get better””” fuck you
