Can we have a Harry Potter AU where Regulus Black is the Death Eater spy turned potions master instead of Snape?
I can’t believe I only JUST realized all the comedy potential that is Sirius showing up to kill Peter 3rd year and finding his supposedly evil brother working at Hogwarts and having civil conversations with Remus about Harry’s grades
Please let this be after a full year of awkwardness of Regulus working with his evil brother’s ex
Sirius and Regulus are both convinced they’re the good brother
searching for that fine line between “i need to stay informed” and “i can’t take any more of this.”
Pick the latter. Always pick the latter.
I realize how absurd, even unnatural that sounds. Your reflex response is probably something like, “but then how will I {various terms for maintaining positive self image}?”
But here’s the thing.
You have almost certainly been conditioned to stretch yourself way past what is actually mentally healthy.
The fact that you’re even thinking about needing a break is a surefire sign that you do need a break. That instinct to ask the question is pretty much all you’re going to get (unless you’re a cis, straight, white, abled man worth over 100 million dollars). Anything else has probably been crushed out of you by the pressures of living in this world, and the worst way to find out you should have been listening to that nagging voice that said “take a break” is by having a nervous breakdown because you physically cannot handle the stress anymore.
We’re taught from day one not to recognize our own stress, and not to deal with it. Suppression is the only thing most of us ever get the chance to learn. Everything else is written off as being needy, or not caring enough about other people, or just not being good enough.
In much the same way that “diet culture” convinces people that they aren’t actually hungry until they’re on the verge of passing out, a culture of being expected to serve others before ourselves convinces us that we’re not actually stressed until we start having random emotional boilovers at the sound of a door closing too loudly across the hall.
And one of the first signs of stress overload is memory problems. The kind that leave you feeling like no matter what you do, you can’t quite process everything and remember the important bits, so you just overcompensate and look for more, and more, and more.
Take the break.
What you need to worry about, basically always, is yourself.
You are the only person who can ever actually put your needs first all the time. No one else can be expected to, so it is of absolutely critical importance that you do it.
Once you break out of the pattern of obsession and actually recover, you can return to politics, or social media, or what the fuck ever with a clearer head, and be more productive and more comfortable.
*hugs you all* Because today is a day for hugs, and I’m going to run out of spoons if I go putting hugs in everyone’s ask box.
Feel free to reblog this to give a hug to every one of your followers.
*who is comfortable with being hugged. If you do not like hugs or are uncomfortable with physical contact, or even just prefer not a hug from someone not a mutual friend, cookies or other snacks suitable for your dietary needs and restrictions.
So, reading fic while trying to get a thing done that is hand work, but not enough to engage my brain all that much. And the fic started off interesting. It did not stay that way.
Mostly because canon-with-different-window-dressings is not actually my preferred sort of AU, and it frustrates me no end. More so the further from the divergence point it gets. It’s part of what’s making me glare at an old AU, actually, and contemplate further changes than I’d done the first time because of where the divergence point is.
Just. When all that changes is who is the strongest friendship, and who someone dates, that’s not enough for me. Especially when the canon from which the fic derives has so damned many issues in the first place.
*sighs, and thumps head on desk* I’m going to go poke at writing something, because damnit, I need something that wanders far from its canon now.
@jabberwockypie asked for “Methos & MCU Loki, Magical Accidents + Awful First Meeting”.
Ok, so this one is going to be more outline, because this one wants to be an entire AU.
So, Methos is a couple hundred years post dropping Kronos down a well and walking away from being Death on a horse when he meets this very young and somewhat confused sorcerer (ok, so he assumes sorcerer rather than alien or deity, ‘cause hey, he’s not that far away from having been all but a god himself, and still is working on not thinking of himself as one, so he’s just going “there are no gods”, because it works for him).
And he really doesn’t think he’s in any fit state to teach anyone anything, but this barely-more-than-a-kid (still a kid, honestly, Loki’s a teenager who’s experimenting with magic, and poking at things, and accidentally poked at a way to get between one world and another without using the Bifrost. He’s still trying to figure out how he did that) really needs someone to look out for him, at least. Because oh is he clueless. And a bit arrogant as sorcerers so often are, but Methos can live with that. (He’s lived with worse, and recently. This is nothing.)
… Things go downhill from there. Because nothing can go wrong with a confused and cranky teenager who’s experimenting with magic and an ex-terrorist with an ego the size of Europe, right?
Methos and Loki will never admit to what happened that first month or so they knew each other. There may or may not have been witnesses, accidental shape-shifting, and an incident with a horse. (The myths have to come from somewhere, and after all this time, who knows how the story distorted?)
And that covers the tropes themselves.
Fast forward to post-Highlander canon, and oh, about the time Thor’s hammer lands in New Mexico.
Methos is hiding from MacLeod, the Watchers, and probably his bar tab with Joe, and he’s meandering his way toward Mexico because tropical sounds like a plan. He hears about this weird hammer out in the desert when he stops at a bar, and decides to go take a look, because curiosity has always been a weakness of his (or a strength, depending on how you look at it, but this time, he decides it was definitely a weakness).
He might not recognize Mjolnir on sight, but he does recognize the decorations on it, and is contemplating bolting, because he Does Not Get Involved these days… except Coulson shows up, and Methos has the misfortune of being recognized because of a short disaster of a lifetime that was the one just after Adam Pierson, and is supposed to have been dead for the last several years.
Methos is not best pleased to be stuck in New Mexico, and even less so when after they catch Thor trying to get his hammer back, Loki shows up. Granted, he’s there to make sure that Thor never tries to come back to Asgard, but that doesn’t mean he lacks a few minutes to spare to drop in on an old friend.
This shapes up to be several more awful first meetings. (Thor, Sif, the Warrior’s Three, Jane and Darcy, Clint Barton. Methos is not entirely sure this is better than having to deal with Watchers, MacLeod, and Joe refusing to give him more beer until he pays up – which wouldn’t be a problem if the old Watcher would just take his money, instead of insisting he pay his bar tab with true stories.)
Shit happens, Thor goes home, and Methos hopes that maybe things will settle down. Except, no, he doesn’t get to go hide somewhere tropical and warm and lovely and spend a lazy decade on a beach somewhere. No, he gets dragged off by Coulson to meet some director or another, and oh, look, someone else from early on in that disaster of a lifetime, does someone have it out for him? (Why, yes, yes the author does have every intention of making your life entertaining, Methos, why do you ask?)
Which is how Methos gets unwillingly recruited to SHIELD, and ends up being on the helicarrier when Loki is brought in during Avengers.
This goes about as well as you think it does. Put one ex-terrorist with 5000+ years of experience in how to fuck with humans, and one alien sorcerer with PTSD who is about to make a spectacular game of getting himself safely away from his abuser on the same flying vehicle, and launch a brain-washed assassin and a team of mercenaries at it.
Yeah.
Methos has a newly-Immortal Coulson on his hands, a desire to go after Loki and ask him what the fuck, and also Thor has noticed he’s here. This is fine. Great. Excellent. He’s glad he arranged for the other three Horsemen to end up short their heads, so at least that can’t go wrong.
He’s still not going to get that lazy decade on a tropical beach any time soon.
…. And that’s where my brain goes “need more input before weaving Methos into the whole of the franchise”.
Sometimes it’s difficult for people to seek contact with each other because they can feel intimidated by others. Using this meme, you can send the symbols to my askbox that represent to you how intimidating I am to you. This way, it could be more clear to both sides how things are based on these feelings.
😗 – YOU ARE THE SOFTEST BEING. 😀 – I’m not afraid of reaching out to you. 😃 – To me, you are easy to approach. 😊 – I think you are a really friendly person. 😶 – I’m not sure if I can reach out to you. 😐 – You seem a little distant from others. 😓 – I feel like you would not really like me. 😲 – I’m afraid of reaching out to you. 😟 – I wish I had the courage to start talking to you. 😥 – I am very intimidated by you. I wish it wasn’t that way, because you seem cool. 😫 – I admire you from the sidelines because you seem cool and I’m just a dork. 😧 – Senpai, notice me???? 😦 – I feel really insecure when I want to reach out to you. 😨 – You intimidate me….a whole damn lot. 😭 – I wish I could be your friend but to me, you are so hard to reach out to. 😱 – I am so incredibly intimidated by you, it even makes me a little anxious sometimes. 💀 – OH MY GOD DON’T EAT ME PLEASE
*hugs you all* Because today is a day for hugs, and I’m going to run out of spoons if I go putting hugs in everyone’s ask box.
Feel free to reblog this to give a hug to every one of your followers.
*who is comfortable with being hugged. If you do not like hugs or are uncomfortable with physical contact, or even just prefer not a hug from someone not a mutual friend, cookies or other snacks suitable for your dietary needs and restrictions.
I have at least notes on all four prompts recieved, and have just hit a wall (it’s been very warm today, I’m actually surprised I didn’t hit a wall sooner), so no responses posted tonight.
One is threatening to turn into a long-fic, one is already giggling about spawning an entire AU, one has two muses exasperated with me, and one is threatening to settle on a crossover AU. They are all awesome prompts, and I am going to enjoy poking at them. 😀
There's a Mirror on the Wall 