For the made up fic title: Only the end of the world said the cat
My first thought was DMBJ because talking animals/animal shifters/animal transformation is this fandom's bread and butter.
In my head the Iron Triangle find a cursed cat statue, and when Wu Xie touches it (because he always touches things he shouldn't) there's a voice in his head telling him that the end of the world is coming.
Then, of course, it's up to the Iron Triangle to navigate a tomb that's going to unleash the end of the world. Something to do with electromagnets ripping a hole in reality until everything collapses in on itself.
They take the cat statue with them and in the end part of saving the world also involves breaking the curse on the statue and he turns back into Liu Sang
Would you write a Jiang Yanli time travel fix-it? I can't help but think somebody not in possession of the full story for once might be interesting?
Jiang Yanli closed her eyes forever, and woke up in her own bedroom, years before.
“I think I’ve heard stories about this,” she said blankly to her ceiling.
She had, too – stories in the marketplace or in travelling shows, told time and again in plays and puppets: the reborn hero, wronged in their first life and able to re-do it in their past to better their destiny. Women who were tricked into bad fates triumphing over those who schemed against them, men who collected all the treasures they had been denied before…
Why was she sent back?
There was saving her parents and sect, of course, and naturally that in turn would avert the terrible fate suffered by Wei Wuxian, who turned to demonic cultivation to save them all and then inexplicably succumbed to it. Saving Wei Wuxian would save her husband, and therefore, she hoped, save her own life.
Only – she didn’t know anything.
Anything.
She hadn’t accompanied her brothers to the Cloud Recesses, she hadn’t been sent to the indoctrination camp, she’d been away visiting her grandmother when the Jiang sect had been attacked, she’d been sent to shelter in safety for the entirety of the Sunshot Campaign and communicated with her brothers on the front line only through letters that could not reveal any details…
Even afterwards, when she married Jin Zixuan and could finally be allowed to learn things about Lanling Jin, she’d become pregnant so quickly that there hadn’t really been much opportunity to do any of the work of being mistress of a sect, especially not with Madame Jin there to worry and fret about the next heir being born healthy and strong.
She didn’t even know what time she’d come back to!
Jiang Yanli stood and lit a candle, trying to examine her body – it was her childhood bedroom, so it was before the fall of the Lotus Pier, but how old, exactly, was she? Not a child, in her teenage years…maybe she should have been vainer in her youth, because she honestly couldn’t quite tell.
It was easier with her boys. She knew every event in Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian’s lives, every bruise and scrape and growth spurt – if she could see them, she’d be able to figure it out, surely.
She considered her door thoughtfully, but – no. It was late at night, and they would be asleep, surely.
A rumble of thunder came from outside her window, the pitter-patter of rain abruptly beating against the wall, and she sighed and gave it up. Surely there was nothing that she could do tonight that she couldn’t do tomorrow.
Not that she knew exactly what she could do at all. Warn her parents? It wasn’t as though they didn’t know of the threat of the Wen sect already. Give them dates, times, for the few incidents she did know? Why would they believe her? Wouldn’t they just assume she’d had a bad dream?
It was a problem.
She settled down in her bed to consider it.
And so it was, a few shichen later when the pre-dawn light would have started peeking around the horizon if it hadn’t been suppressed by storm clouds, that she was awake when a servant ran over to her room. “Young Mistress!” her maid hissed excitedly outside the door, clearly longing to get her attention but under orders not to wake her up. “Young Mistress, are you awake?”
“I am,” Jiang Yanli said, opening the door. “What’s the matter?”
“Your fiancé is here and demanding to see you! He’s flown all night!”
“My – fiancé?” Jiang Yanli asked blankly, and then realized: this must be before the Cloud Recesses, before the engagement to Jin Zixuan had broken. But if so, why was he here? “I’ll go to meet him.”
“Hurry if you want to make it before your mother wakes up,” the servant advised, and that was a very good point. Such a request was highly inappropriate.
Jiang Yanli rushed to the greeting room, unable to resist a smile when she saw Jin Zixuan standing there: fifteen years old at most, not even wearing a cloak and soaked through to the bone from the rain. He looked like a bedraggled yellow puppy – even the vermillion mark on his forehead, which was made of paint that resisted running, had disappeared.
“Jin-gongzi?” she said, remembering at that last moment that she couldn’t call him A-Xuan.
He turned to look at her, his eyes wide and wild and terribly sad.
“A-Li?” he said, and Jiang Yanli couldn’t help smiling broadly as tears came to her eyes.
“A-Xuan?” she said. “Is it you? Did you…?”
“The last thing I remember is the Qiongqi Path –”
It was him.
Jiang Yanli threw herself forward into his arms with a sob. She was the same height as him was at this point, he’d had a late growth spurt, but it didn’t matter one bit, not to either of them.
“I don’t know what happened,” she said in a rush. “I woke up tonight –”
“Me, too. I was in my room – I came here at once.” He looked at her. “We have to change things. Everything!”
“Of course,” Jiang Yanli said. “But how? I’ve been thinking all night. The Wen sect is still too powerful right now, and who would believe us?”
“The Nie sect would, probably,” Jin Zixuan said. “And I’m sure we could convince A-Yao to help – I don’t remember when he was thrown out of Jinlin Tower, just that it was my birthday some year –”
“We’ll figure it out,” she assured him. “I was thinking –”
“A-Li!” her mother howled from behind her. “What are you doing?!”
“Right,” Jin Zixuan said, going pale. “Step one: survive your mother.”
Of course, now the question becomes: at what point does Clint find out that his cat is actually a flerken?
It happens so quickly, he barely registers that something has happened.
It’s been three weeks since he came home from... well, from New York. At the time of the battle, when the hole opened up in the sky and when aliens came crashing down from above, all he had thought was that he needed to get through it. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t slept for weeks. Not since that fateful night at the PEGASUS research base, when Loki had taken him against his will. It didn’t matter, because all he needed to do was make sure that nobody got hurt. That the world didn’t end. Because it was his responsibility.
It’s been three weeks since he came home, and he’s struggling. SHIELD has sent him to see doctors, they even suggested going to a PTSD-group in town from other veterans, to talk to someone who went through something similar, but he hasn’t been able to. Because he’s the only one who’s tried it. Along with Selvig, but he’s off in Stockholm talking about science things.
Goose has been incredibly clingy as of late. She was never a big cuddler - something Fury had warned him off when he let her stay at the farm - but ever since he’s come home... She’s been different. As if she knows that there’s something wrong. Something building up inside of Clint, as if she knows that there’s nobody on this round Earth who can relate to the pain of being brainwashed by a God and by powers that shouldn’t exist.
She’s been grooming for the last part of the hour. Clint has pulled the curtains shut, the migraine that’s been building in his head is massive. Any sound, any light, anything at all is a bother, as if it ends up being amplified by some sort of machinery. The light hurts his eyes and the sounds...
There’s a fly in his room. Even though he can’t see it, he knows it’s there because he can hear it. He can hear it buzzing, stopping, moving on and buzzing some more. However, when the fly starts hitting the window repeatedly in an effort to get out, Clint lets out a sigh and a ‘for fuck’s sake’ as he turns around in the bed, covered in a thin sheen of sweat, waiting for anything to stop the pain.
He will later on blame it on being feverish and absolutely mad with pain, but he knows what he saw. Tentacles coming out of the cat’s mouth, going straight for the fly and killing it instantly. Well, rather than that, eating it.
It takes him ten seconds to let go of the pillow he’s been clutching, hit with the sudden realization that his cat is apparently an alien, but the sweet, sweet silence of the room without the repeated buzzing of the fly forces him to finally fall asleep.
Three days later, he tells Fury what happened, and Fury tells him not to trust the cat. He might lose an eye if he does.
oneiriad replied to your post “happygirl2oo2 replied to your post “I’m kind of curious if Nate is...”
If I remember correctly, Nate was introduced to be at least partly a relatable audience surrogate character by the writers, so - maybe it's the canon version of those reader/character fanfics?
Haha yeah, something like that!
And oh, the “relatable audience surrogate”, because no TV writer can ever conceive of the audience consisting of anyone but mediocre white men.
Okay, that’s a bit unfair. I love Nate. I do! I’ve even written him! But I just can’t relate to “relatable” characters. :-)
oneiriad replied to your post: is fanfic not a thing anymore????? i cannot think...
Maybe it’s just one of those shows that don’t inspire people in that way? I mean, there are so many shows and movies and books I love, but only a few, and rarely the best, that give me that itch to write.
haha probably, didn’t mean to question the integrity of the fandom or anything sorry about that
For the Secret Alliance of Legendary Animals and Associates, I nominate, for Jax, an embiggened firefly acquired during a shrink ray shenanigans themed episode. About the size of a fruit bat and with a taste for nectar, it's harmless and friendly, but it tends to freak people out. Jax likes it, though.
Choose: Vikings dragon ships or Black Sails pirate ships?
Black Sails pirate ships, ONLY because having been on a cruise in the worst weather since 1945 and thinking I was genuinely going to die, at least the pirate ships have an inside you can go and be dry in.
How about Mick fan art with both Len and Mrs. Brisby?
Ooooo that would be even better!
I have been toying with a mini comic idea that’s about Len and Mick in the Legion of Doom and Len snarkily defending Mick’s right to a service animal on the job and possibly questioning them about health benefits, expected payout, sick leave, what do you mean that’s the plan that’s a terrible plan, etc, just basically going at them like this is one of his jobs with Mick behind him snickering and playing with with Rat Friend.
