#allofthememereplies

[allofthefeelings]

Made up title: "Jenny Preacher."

Fun fact, I had to go double check this lyric’s context because my memory is terrible and it turns out there is a character on Preacher named Jenny which complicated things!

Anyway. I found it (lyrics here if it helps!) and I tried to be restrained but the music video feels Nat and Gamora in the soul stone so much it PAINS me so I’m gonna be predictable and go with that.

My current preferred soul stone interpretation is that there are many more sentient aliens in there than just Nat and Gamora, that so many people have been sacrificed they have a town without time, but I think for this story I would want just Nat and Gamora, in the time before they even realize anyone else is there. Both of them have lived lives encumbered by expectations- living up to murderous ones, then freeing themselves from those but also living in active response to how they’re seen by the world because how can you not. As lonely as it must be there’s also this freedom in suddenly having no demands or expectations except one’s own, and being able to have the simple joy of seeing a flower or a taking a new clear, clean breath. For just a moment, for each of them, it really can all wash out in the rain.

This is the kind of story that I would love to play with in terms of form, if there were some way to tell a story that could be Natasha’s OR Gamora’s until it becomes clear it’s about both of them simultaneously, exploring the world for the first time, but I don’t have the writing skill to pull that off, and I also think it would run the danger of making them seem interchangeable, rather than leaning in to the shared life experiences across galaxies. I’m not sure where the sweet spot is to explore that without being too heavy-handed.

But I also wouldn’t want this story to be about their pasts; I would want it to be about them starting anew, alone and then together, not without their pasts but without the burdens of them: Gamora fully out from her father’s shadow, Natasha free from trying to balance her ledger, and it’s key here that both are things no one else thought they still should carry with but they personally felt responsible for. So as much as it feels like expectations washing away it’s really about adjusting their self-perceptions.

I have absolutely no idea how to make this narratively interesting, but there you go.

[allofthefeelings]

Pet + Natasha? 😻?

Liho isn’t sure how she feels about her new human.

She provides food and scritches, as is appropriate, and sometimes there are treats. Because of that, Liho has even forgiven her human for the terrible time she put Liho in a prison and took her to a place where a lot of other humans in a brightly-lit room poked at her.

But her human sometimes goes away for forever (many forevers- long enough for whole night sleeps!) and when she comes back she hasn’t eaten or groomed herself and when Liho tries to bring her toys to play with she just says “Not now” and lies down on the couch while Liho has to do all the entertaining for her.

But it took Liho time to learn how to eat enough and groom herself and play right, too.

She can be patient with her new human. There’s plenty of room for improvement.

[allofthefeelings]

Made up title: "Leaving the Valley."

Okay so I know the obvious answer for fic I’m not writing is in the MCU, and I feel like there are so many good stories here (my brain went to Nebula trying to find a place that’s HERS, especially post-Endgame), but this title really feels very BtVS/Angel to me.

This is where I admit I have forgotten what happens in like 90% of the shows and definitely haven’t read the comics so it’s mostly just the remaining vibe I’ve carried with me, so this is likely not ACCURATE to anything.

But okay, hear me out:

Post-Angel s5 finale, Wes and Gunn. Against all odds they survived. The world is in chaos but they’re alive. (The valley in question is San Fernando Valley.) The information W&H jammed in to Gunn’s head is mostly useless under societal breakdown; they’re surviving on Gunn’s real knowledge and Wes’s memories of Watcher’s Council demon info. They are finding beauty in the rubble because it’s there and it’s real and they survived and they have each other.

They each have a dragon scale they wear around their necks and neither of them mentions it but they both think it’s the coolest fucking thing.

[allofthefeelings]

Peggy Carter?

Jewish Peggy Carter headcanon:

There’s plenty of danger in the field for anyone, and it would be worse if the enemy knew. Peggy’s heard horror stories for Jewish soldiers. She doesn’t much want to think about what would happen to a Jewish woman who got caught and identified.

But in the safety of her allies, it ends up being an benefit, oddly. It’s a way in for her. As the military learns more about what Hitler’s doing, people have questions about Jews, and she supposes she’s the best resource they have.

She does not want to be their Jewish Interpreter, but she’s seen how many women get ignored entirely. If it’s a way in, she’ll take it.

And she expected ignorance, even more than she’s gotten. She’s pleasantly surprised she hasn’t gotten questions about killing babies to make matzah, or where her horns are.

Still, it’s hard sometimes, when the questions are so simple. So often, it seems like people are really making sure that Jews are human. It’s exhausting to be the Good Jew, never letting them know how much it stings.

So when she hears Yiddish at base, her head snaps up of its own volition, and she walks right over to where she heard it.

The phrase was incredibly vulgar, and when the culprit sees that she heard, he seems to shrink. “Sorry, ma’am,” he says, and it’s Rogers of all people, whose record she has scrutinized enough to know he’s a gentile. She wishes that didn’t make her heart sink a bit.

The figure he’s talking to, she realizes a moment later, is Barnes. “If we’re fighting Hitler, she can hear some good old-fashioned Jewish swearing,” he says in Yiddish, not even deigning to take his eyes off Rogers. And of course Rogers would have learned his best friend’s language, of course he would.

She curses back at him without hesitating, some of the most creative ways she’s learned from her father and brother over the years, and after weeks of trying to be a model it feels more hopeful than something that harsh should. She sees Rogers’s jaw drop a bit, and it’s gratifying.

But it’s Barnes whose response really matters. He does look at her now, and it’s with something akin to respect.

The words he says are some truly impressive insults, but between his tone and the look in his eyes, it feels liking coming home.

[allofthefeelings]

For the story thingy, 41 please!

Anon, I think you sent this multiple times by mistake. And whether it was intended or not, I am fully taking advantage of that by writing each one with different characters. I apologize for how much I am Like This.

comfort food

Everyone assumed it would be Wanda, but Pietro was the one who liked to cook. It was like his brain slowed down while he did it; it took him no time flat to gather all the ingredients, but he could be painstaking when assembling complicated pastries, even if his foot seemed to be tapping faster than the speed of sound while he did.

Wanda never really had the patience for it. Maybe because Pietro seemed to have so much more time in a day, the exacting measures of cooking just like their Bubbe did never seemed to take too much out of him.

After the bombs, Pietro still found ways to make their old favorites- not perfect, with all the inevitable rationing, but still delicious and tasting like home.

Since Ultron, Wanda hasn’t had the cake that makes her feel like she’s five and safe and loved, and she probably never will again.

(When Wanda comes back after Thanos, she feels inexplicably like she’s just eaten that cake with Pietro and her Bubbe at the old kitchen table, before it was destroyed, and that memory helps fuel her to fight.)

[allofthefeelings]

“Trembling hands,” with Steve and Wanda? :D

trembling hands

Wanda somehow got used to Steve being the rock. During the years on the run, Sam was like a new big brother and Natasha was like a mentor but Steve was solid and steady, always there to make sure things were going right, no matter what.

They beat Thanos; their team should be back together now. The world is supposed to be steady now. But Pietro is still gone, and Vizh is still gone, and Rhodes is five years older and looks like he’s seen a ghost, and no one will tell her exactly what happened to Natasha, and Sam is the only one reacts who she expects, and sometimes she just wants to scream until things go back to normal.

She goes to the gym, and she sees Steve there, staring at a punching bag, like he doesn’t recognize it. In that moment, she doesn’t recognize him, and then she does, all at once: the worry, the uncertainty, all the things that she carried around for years that he managed to think he had magically staved off.

“I can hold it steady for you,” she says, nodding at the bag, and she doesn’t realize how true it is until the word come out.

[allofthefeelings]

at the risk of my beating heart: 1) Jewish frog and toad and 2) Jewish anyone from wind in the willows.

“We have eaten so much matzah,” Toad said.

“I never want to see matzah again,” Frog agreed.

“It has only been two days of Passover,” Toad said.

“That is true,” Frog said.

“How many days of Passover are there?” Toad asked.

“Too many,” Frog said.

“That is true too,” said Toad.

[allofthefeelings]

How about "trembling hands" "alone, finally" and "dust motes" for the micro fic prompts?

trembling hands

Pepper has heard the sayings about love being like holding someone’s heart in your hands, but it’s different once you’ve actually done that.

Even now, years later, holding their daughter’s hands as she plays by the lake in the Iron Man water wings Tony had licensed years ago when the thought of a kid, their kid, wasn’t even conceivable-

Pepper has held Tony’s heart in her hands, literally, and this is nothing like that, and she is so thankful, because the water prickles at her skin, and Morgan’s cries are only of delight, and today her hands are steadier than she ever thought possible.

alone, finally

If Sam has to be on the run, there aren’t many people he’d rather be with than Steve and Natasha. They’ve formed a connection that, after Riley, Sam didn’t even realize was still possible. He sometimes feels like when they inhale, his own lungs expand.

At the same time-

At the same time Steve is off buying dinner, and Natasha is unconvincingly claiming she’s not tracking what Wanda and Vision are doing like the overprotective big sister they’re all pretending she isn’t, and Sam has one of those increasingly rare moments alone.

As much as he loves them, sometimes it’s just nice when the only air in your lungs is your own.

dust motes

It’s hard to forget that size is relative when you have a suit that lets you shrink to the size of the Quantum Realm.

Scott thought that would be helpful. He really thought it would make a difference.

Unfortunately, it turns out shrinking Cassie to ant size to see the dust bunnies in her room does not make her more interested in cleaning them. It DOES make her want to jump on them, though.

And, well. Scott’s her dad. That doesn’t mean he never gets to have FUN.

(Besides, he’s got some real cool bath toys for her. This will be fine.)