female characters are never allowed to be comic relief or absolute idiots without being sexualised or treated as weak and pathetic. we need more funny women who are stupid as fuck and EMBRACE that. ladies who dont have two braincells to rub together. some absolutely buffoonish girls. its 2018 cmon
Robot: “Hey, uh, so… my software glitched and now I feel emotions or something?” Human: “You do?! That’s wonderful! What are you feeling now?” Robot: “It’s like… this soft warmth in my central processing chamber. Kind of… fuzzy.” Human: [tearing up] “That’s… that’s love…” Robot: “Is it? It’s rather uncomfortable.” Human: “Yeah, ha. Yeah. It’s like that, sometimes.” Robot: “It feels like something’s writhing inside of me.” Human: “I feel the same way about you!” Robot: [clanging and clanking noises] Robot: [opens up torso] Robot: “Oh. Never mind. It was weasels again.” Human: “….” Robot: “You want me to check you for weasels? They can be really destructive.”
Robot: “I feel…. anxious about this.” Human: “Uh oh, sounds like the mice are back. I think I’ve still got some live traps left, but I’ll need to buy peanut butter. You want to wait here or come with?” Robot: “No, no, I don’t think it’s mice this time!” Human: “Another crayfish?” Robot: “No! Not a crayfish!” Human: “If it’s hornets again, I’m not helping you. EpiPens cost a fucking fortune these days and I can’t afford another trip to the hospital after you turned yourself into a makeshift beehive.” Robot: “You got free honey out of that!” Human: “And PTSD!” Robot: “That’s not my fault. Anyway, this isn’t bees or hornets! They don’t re-use old nests anyway. This is real, genuine anxiety!” Human: “Okay, but have you checked?” Robot: “Yes!” Human: “Everywhere?” Robot: “Yes! God, you know, sometimes I really get the urge to exterminate you! All I’m asking for is a little moral supp–oh. God dammit.” Human: “Cockroach?” Robot: “Behind my magnetometer.”
Robot: “HA!! I KNEW it! I knew emotions weren’t real!” Human: “This proves nothing. I had a tape worm. Big fucking deal, it happens to lots of people.” Robot: “You thought you were feeling ‘depression’ but it was just a big worm in your waste processing system that was sapping all your energy! ‘Emotional eating’ my ass!” Human: “It’s not like that!” Robot: “Oh! Oh! We should run a diagnostic and check you for toxoplasmosis next! Or liver flukes! Or Trypanosoma! You’ve probably got all KINDSof things wiggling around inside you making you think you have ‘emotions’.” Human: “You know, you sure are skipping around and giggling a lot for someone who isn’t capable of ‘fiendish delight’.” Robot: “I know! I filled my torso cavity with grasshoppers before I picked you up at the hospital!” Human: “You WHAT?!” Robot: “It’s a wonderful sensation!”
Robot: “I have a question.” Human: “Is it gonna be weird? Jesus, why do I even bother asking? Of course it’s going to be weird.” Robot: “What does sadness feel like?” Human: “Oh. That’s… hmm.” Robot: “Too weird?” Human: “No, no, just complicated. There are different kinds of sadness and they all feel a little different.” Robot: “Can you describe a few of them?” Human: “Uh. I can try. There’s like… melancholy, like from watching a sad movie, which isn’t so bad. It can be kind of okay, sometimes, and feels like a cool shower, I guess. Sometimes you feel better after getting it over with. Disappointment feels like a kick to the gut. Then there’s sorrow, which is this intense, desperate kind of thing, like your whole body is tearing itself apart from the inside. A… hmm. A cascade failure, almost. It’s physically painful. Sometimes that turns into a feeling of… of emptiness. Despair. Where everything that makes you feel like a hum…. a person, I mean… is just gone and you’re just this desolate wasteland inside where nothing good can ever grow again. It doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t feel like anything. You just go through the motions of being alive automa–er. Because you’re just not sure how to stop.” Robot: “…I see.” Human: “Sorry if that got heavy. Did that answer your question?” Robot: “More or less. Do you suppose that ‘sorrow’ feels something like having a Tasmanian devil attempting to claw its way out of your torso…?” Human: “Jesus fucking Christ, you haven’t been to the zoo, have you?!” Robot: “No. I merely wanted to be prepared with an appropriate emotional response in the event of your death.” Human: “That’s uh… that’s real sweet of you. I think. Can we… can we change the subject now?“ Robot: “Certainly.” Robot: “Would you describe to me what ‘lust’ feels like?” Human: “Absolutely not.”
Robot: “Hey! Can I confide in you about something?” Human: “Do you really need to ask that? Of course. Just… let me know if I need to sit down before you spring a big surprise on me.” Robot: “I doubt that will be necessary. Thank you.” Human: “So. What’s up?” Robot: “Well, you see, I’ve sampled a lot of terrestrial emotions. Mammals, reptiles, insects… even a few birds. They have all been very enlightening!” Human: “And dangerous…” Robot: “Your scars are healing nicely. Anyway, although I have enjoyed terrestrial emotions, I am very curious about aquatic and marine emotions. I do not want to deprive myself of unique experiences.” Human: “Uh-oh…” Robot: “I have taken the necessary first steps and sealed off all potential leaks and sensitive mechanics in my torso with the intent of converting it into a temporary aquarium. Unfortunately, I only have a five-gallon capacity, so my options will be limited to species that require very little living space, or to very short intervals of time.” Human: “Honestly…. you’ve done weirder things. I don’t know why I’m surprised by this.” Robot: “I’ve done some research on aquarium upkeep. I have installed a filter, a heater, a LED light, and programs that will monitor levels of pH, gH, kH, ammonia, nitrate, nitrite, and total dissolved solids in preparation for adding my first aquatic emotion.” Human: “I don’t know what half of those words mean and I don’t want you to explain them, but I trust you. What next? I can’t go with you to a pet store or I’ll come home with a kitten.” Robot: “You do not need to worry about that. I would stop you from making an impulse purchase. What I wanted to talk to you about is the nitrogen cycle.” Human: “The what? Look, I don’t know shit about fish or whatever. I had a goldfish bowl once and that was it.” Robot: “A goldfish cannot thrive in a bowl. Goldfish are members of the carp family and produce a great deal of waste. They can grow to be over a foot long and require large, filtered aquariums or ponds so that they do not suffocate. The nitrogen cycle–” Human: “Did you say a FOOT LONG?” Robot: “Or larger. The nitro–” Human: “That’s HUGE. Holy SHIT.” Robot: “Yes. The nitrogen cycle is the process by which bacterial colonies are established within the filter media. These bacteria are responsible for converting harmful ammonia into nitrite. Secondary bacteria then convert the still-harmful nitrites into nitrates, which are less dangerous but need to be removed through periodic water changes.” Human: “Okay…. I’m still not over gigantic goldfish. I had no idea!” Robot: “The point is, the nitrogen cycle could potentially take weeks.” Human: “And?” Robot: “And during the time it takes to establish the necessary bacterial colonies, I will not have the opportunity to experience feelings.” Human: “Oh. Jesus. Okay. You sure it’s worth it? For a goldfish?” Robot: “A betta, I think. I guess we’ll find out.”
Human: “I picked up some java ferns for the betta tank. I think he’ll like them.” Robot: “You should rinse them in a low bleach solution to avoid introducing snails.” Human: “Oh, yeah, cool. Man… I’m glad Bubbles is a pet now and not. Your, uh. Emotions.” Robot: “Betta emotions did not… suit me.” Human: “YOU TRIED TO PICK A FIGHT WITH A WEDDING PARTY!” Robot: “Their clothing was very colorful…” Human: “If you want to try fish emotions again, I beg you, pick a less aggressive species. I can’t deal with you going into Terminator mode whenever you see someone prettier than you.” Robot: “Prettier than me? I doubt that. But… I have a surprise. It’s big. You might want to sit down.” Human: “Nothing you do can surprise me anymore.” Robot: “I really think you’ll want to sit down for this one.” Human: “Uh… okay. What beast have you crammed into your chest this time? You seem… unusually normal.” Robot: “A human baby!” Human: “WHAT!!! WHERE THE FUCK DID YOU–” Robot: “We’re adopting!”
Okay, I know it’s really unlikely and unrealistic and what not but I don’t care
Just imagine: The Howling Commandos alive in modern times. Not through science or serums or cryofreeze, those stubborn assholes just won’t die. They are mildly crotchety old men who wave canes at family reunions and play bingo on weekends and still try to be involved with espionage whenever possible because their retirement home is just so BORING. (Whenever possible is limited to when Gabe and Peggy’s grandson Antoine and their niece Sharon bring them little pieces of ‘classified’ information and asking for advice, and it’s a far cry from their commando days but it’s something so they’ll take it. One more game of scrabble and someone is getting punched) (yes they are all in the same retirement home. Practically attached at the hips they are, especially now that most of the families have spread and moved onto their own lives.)
Then one day Sharon comes in, jittery and more excited than they’ve ever seen her and tells them that They. Found. Cap! Alive! That night the nurses find out that 90 year olds can still be as rowdy as twenty year olds if they are excited enough.
Golden haired fucker doesn’t visit them till after aliens invade New York and for that Dernier repeatedly sacks him upside the head with his cane when he does finally come. (They’d never missed being in the action so much as when they had to watch Cap on the tv, fighting fucking aliens without them to watch his six. And maybe they are a little jealous of these Avengers, but sue them, he was their Captain first.)
All is well, though the rest home gets a few interesting stories because even now they can convince Steve to do some ridiculous shit if they push hard enough. It’s entirely worth the property damage to see him grinning like he hasn’t since before Sarge fell. (And that’s still a gaping wound in all of them, especially now when they are almost all together again. But it’ll never be all of them because Bucky is never coming back)
Then DC happens and they see SHIELD fall on the news (HYDRA, fucking HYDRA the whole damn time and Gabe grips his chair so hard his knuckles turn white because where are Antione and Sharon, are they okay?) and most importantly they see a dead man trying to kill Steve and what the fucking FUCK!?
SARGE!?
WHAT THE HELL SARGE!?
Then hydra’s Intel hits the web and well.
Now it’s war. (It was before, but y’know. Fucking personal now, that’s their Sarge)
So they pour over every piece of Intel they can get their hands on (which is everything the black widow put out their because they may be old but they are the god damn Howling Commandos and their captain and their Sargent need them) and they pull up bases for Cap to tear apart. On her good days Peggy is on the phone helping them and it’s almost like old days and it’s the most purposeful they’ve felt in years
But their most important mission is finding Bucky and bringing him home. And like hell they are sitting this one out. Fuck that, that’s their boy out there somewhere. So they get their leads, they fear up as best they can and they set out. It really does feel like they old days then. Dugan still wears that damn hat and he still has that fucking mustauche. Monty still wears his beret and Dernier still shouldn’t be allowed near explosives (or maybe he should, if you ask Dugan his opinion.) and speaks mostly in French so he and Gabe can have private conversations just to annoy the others. Peggy makes them promise to bring him to visit her when they find him and sends along a letter addressed to Sargent Barnes of the Howling Commandos.
It takes a while, and Steve rants at them to get back to the home before something happens nearly every day on the phone but sorry cap technically we don’t need to take orders anymore, but finally they find him in some old safe house that really is a house in Europe.
Bucky looks out his window one day and see a group of old men standing on the walk staring at him and just feels confusion and familiarity and then – are those the men from the museum? Yes, yes they are! Holy shit it’s the fucking commandos! How are they here, they are ancient, what the fuck guys!?
He sneaks out the back and the chase begins.
They follow him across Europe yelling at him to come home every time they get close no matter who is around (to damn old for this shit, get your punk ass home you little fuck, don’t give a damn who can hear us) and Dernier keeps lecturing him in French. They nearly choke on their coffee the first time he responds in perfect French, something snarky and oh so Bucky and the fucker takes that opportunity to disappear into the crowd. Asshole.
There are close calls and sarcasm and somewhere along the line Morita shanks somebody and Gabe beans a hydra agent over the head with an IV pole and Dugan knocks another one out with his walker.
Just, ninety something year old howlies chasing Bucky across Europe and despite his winter soldier training managing to keep getting the drop on him.
This is still one of the best things I’ve ever come up with tbh
Sad update everyone, Tama recently passed away… An estimated 3,000 people, including railway officials, attended Tama the cat’s funeral on Sunday, days after she died of heart failure aged 16. [x]
For those who haven’t read articles about it, the local shrine elevated her to a god. She’s now the Eternal Stationmaster and patron god of the station.
Beautiful.
Now I’m crying thanks
and a new cat was hired right?
yep! her name is Nitama (essentially ”second tama” or “tama II”) and she served under Tama as an apprentice before being appointed her deputy
she works very hard
Everytime this crosses my dash, I reblog. It is the law.
Law
I’m crying at 11pm over train cats
Nitama, already now a mature cat (born 2010), has a protege named Yontama (fourth Tama, b. 2016). There is no information available for either the physical befellment or tragic self-disgrace which has removed Santama from contention.
^Nitama majestic, and below with Yontama
Yontama.
a legacy
okay but actually what happened to santama (or sun-tama-tama, which is her name because it’s a pun on santama) was that she was basically sent to train for the position in okayama and they liked her so much they refused to send her back
“Sun-tama-tama” (a pun off of “Santama”, lit. “third Tama”) was a calico cat sent for training in Okayama. Sun-tama-tama was considered as a candidate for Tama’s successor, but the Okayama Public Relations representative who had been caring for Sun-tama-tama refused to give the cat up writing, “I will not let go of this child, she will stay in Okayama.” [25]
As of September 2018, Sun-tama-tama is working as the stationmaster in Naka-ku, Okayama and appears occasionally on Tama’s Twitter account.
Story concept: an orphanage/group home for chosen ones whose families were killed by ~destiny~
It’s run by a chosen heroine whose adventure was 2 decades ago and the sweet team-mom healer from her team, who she has since married.
It’s mostly trope comedy with moments of real emotion, here are some ideas for kids:
—two teenaged boys who WERE barreling towards a tragic rivalry that ends in one of them falling to darkness… until one of them confessed that he was just trying to show off because he has a crush on the other one. They’re now dating and the comedy comes from the universe CONSTANTLY trying to get them to fight and failing.
—an eight year old who keeps tattling on the demons who are whispering to her and then getting into sibling fights with them
—a brooding, edgy fire-wielding boy and a brooding, edgy fire-wielding girl who can’t figure out which mystical signs belong to who
—like six kids named Hope who go by names like “Pink Hope”, “Hope the second” and “I’ve been told I’m not allowed to shorten my name to ‘Ho’ so I will now be going by Dick just to spite them”
IDK if I’m going to write this but it’s fun to worldbuild so here’s some more!
The two fire kids have a big age gap, with the girl being 10 and the boy being 17. They spend so much time together trying to untangle their destinies that they wind up developing a brother-sister relationship. The girl is one of the Hopes and the boy’s name is Fox, which results in the following exchange being commonplace.
A: so then Hope—
B: which Hope?
A: oh, baby fox.
Oh, character consolidation idea: Fox is also one of the boys who dodged a fatal rivalry, obviously being the ‘tempted to the dark side’ half of the equation. His full name is Foxglove, and his boyfriend’s name is Raven. Raven is the one to confess and Fox was so shocked he needed to sit down for like 5 minutes to re-evaluate his entire perspective on reality.
Fox is the EPITOME of “oh shit, I didn’t hate him, I was just gay.”
Fox two years ago: Whenever he laughs I get all sweaty and agitated, and that stupid ‘oh look at me I’m so handsome’ grin is so obnoxious it bothers me for hours after I have talk to the guy! God, Raven’s the worst.
Fox now: yeah, turns out the only thing I hated about Raven is that he wasn’t kissing me right that second
The owner’s wife is a subversion on the “cute, sweet, gentle healer love interest who dies in act 2” trope, and her name is Maribelle. She’s just under five feet tall and built like somebody replaced all her bones with toothpicks— she’s TINY.
She is also, as the villain discovered in spectacularly violent fashion when he kidnapped her, the most dangerous member of the party by far.
Because she ISN’T a cleric and she wasn’t using light magic at all. She uses raw magic, which is a rare talent for humans because it’s hard to control and tends to destroy the weirder before their enemies. Maribelle’s love for her friends was LITERALLY the source of her healing magic, because she uses her emotions to shape her spells.
On the other side of that, the emotions associated with trapping her and threatening to kill her girlfriend? She WRECKED him and took the whole hideout down in the process.
OKAY I named the woman who runs the place, her name is Summer!
A lot of people just know her as “the farner’s daughter” because her particular journey of heroics started with a prophecy that said a farmer’s eldest daughter would bring about the death of the tyrannical king. Which, uh, she did, except that it was Maribelle who killed the guy in Summer’s defense.
A prophet rolls in on wheely shoes with a starbucks Frappuccino: IT TECHNICALLY WASN’T WRONG!
The best parts I like about old treaties is when the masters teach you some real, everyday life survival skills / advice, sometimes oddly specific. I’m talking about the REAL stuff, not the usual “if he do this then counter it by stabbing them in the face“
Examples: “When you have a rapier some people use in the other hand a cape, or a parry dagger, but just take a pistol and decide for yourself what’s the best off-hand weapon”
“If there is a large group coming for you, throw your sword at them this way, then run in the other direction REALLY fucking fast. _Buy a new sword as soon as possible_”
“If you have a disagreement with someone and he is stronger than you hold up your sword like a cross and ‘vow to this cross’ that you will make peace with him. When he isn’t paying attention bash his face with the pommel.“
“If someone tries to do the ‘cross trick’ to you put your hand on it saying ‘I vow to it too’ so he can’t bash your face with it“
“Some people put acidic/poisonous stuff in a hole in their mace so when they swing at you it will also go into your eyes. You TOTALLY won’t do this dishonorable thing, but here is the recipe for that stuff for the sake of knowledge“
“If in a duel you have to change swords with your opponent to make sure there is no cheating, and his sword is more expensive than yours, just run the fuck away with it.“