morgynleri:

So, go down to feed and medicate my dog, and there is someone other than my parents to bounce the crazy plot bunny off of.

This plot bunny has fangs and several years worth of where it wants to go.

Because the whole bloody thing is going to end up spanning from the time frame of Arrow’s Fall through to at least Storm Breaking. Possibly a bit later. And all this because I was contemplating an OT3 because I can.

Also, adding to the head canons:

Ivan (Vanko) is a Karsite Sun Priest with mage-talent, who once Karse and Valdemar are no longer enemies, ends up meeting Tony, and they fall into a rivalry over whether magic or technology are better. Sometimes good-natured, sometimes vicious and painful.

Coulson is a hertasi, Fury has mage-talent and some mind-speaking, and they’re both coming up with the people with the gryphon from the far south (I know who, I just cannot for the life of me remember their name and how to spell it, and I’d rather describe who they are then mess up spelling).

Still haven’t figured out any headcanons about Loki, nor have I figured out headcanons about any other villains from the movies.

And while I’m thinking about it, Sam is coming from the far south too, because I can, and because that gives me a way to have him doing things in the air readily without making him a gryphon. Because I don’t want to do that to him. Species-swapping Coulson, yes. Doing that to Sam, no.

Also, Hydra can go rot, Ancar and company are quite nasty enough without giving them any extra oomph.

*wanders off to go read more*

Ended up talking to mom about this plot bunny because she’s in the midst of a reread of the Arrows trilogy.

*grins very widely*

So. Alternate and additional headcanons to my original thoughts on this whole idea.

Thor and Loki as Companion and Herald (this time), who have been functionally trading off who gets to be Herald and who gets to be Companion over many many many lifetimes ‘cause it’s fun. They remember this when they’re dead, and have a vague idea of it while Companions, but not a clue while Heralds.

Loki tends to be a all the damned Gifts except Healing, and Thor tends to be all the damned Gifts except Bardic, and the first time they did this Thor was one of the early Heralds and Loki walked out of the Grove, and they have been a hot mess of a relationship ever since. Bickering, swapping roles, driving various other Heralds to distraction, making everyone around them nervous.

(Also, when Thor is Companion, at a gallop, people tend to wonder where the fucking thunderstorm is, the sky is clear, what the fuck?, and while Loki is Companion, people get nervous around him and cobblestones because his hooves fucking spark.)

Natasha as instead of a Karsite ex-extremist, as a former spy for the Eastern Empire who found herself going “what the fuck?” when she found herself with a Companion (because she tries very hard to be a good person, and also she’s not really sure she ever wants to go back, and just Reasons), and is functionally working with Alberich and later Kerowyn.

Clint as one of Skif’s friends, who just kinda tagged along with Skif because hey, he’s bored, and maybe there’s something better where his friend who is going to be a Herald, of all things, is going. He’s going to end up one of Natasha’s students, ‘cause reasons, and also, because spies that aren’t Heralds can be useful in places where it’s not safe to send a Herald to spy.

(ok, so I may not keep all of these, and instead keep the ex-extremist Karsite bit for Natasha, and she can still pick up Clint, but he keeps this backstory, and he’s mostly with her because he’s traveling and collecting information and reporting back to Alberich and later Kerowyn)

Steve and Bucky grow up in villages on either side of the Valdemar-Ruthwellan (sp?) border – Bucky in Valdemar – and Steve gets Chosen (because it can happen to people not born of/in Valdemar), and Bucky goes with him to Haven and joins the Guard, because there’s no way he’s letting Steve – skinny little scrap who will fight anyone who is being an ass – go off to be a Herald in a “shoot me now” uniform without him. Even if he can’t be a Herald himself.

Bruce. Bruce is someone who lived in the lands of the Hawkbrothers (mostly using that name for them because I forgot how to spell the proper name, damnit), who got into an area where the magic hasn’t been tamed/healed/fixed yet, and got changed. He’s very tall and very broad and very annoyed by this change, but he’s still otherwise the constantly curious person who wants to learn everything he can that he was before. And generally gentle and kind, even if most people are at least mildly terrified of him.

lacefedora:

Flower crown Garak to go with Flower Crown Julian. Featuring the Scarlet Dahlia (red) meaning dishonesty, Anemone (purple) meaning forsaken, and Ivy that stands for endurance and faithfulness.

flowers are still heavily referenced but this time I tried harder to get them to scale haha. and scarlett dahlias are so intense man.

i was thinking of making a series but flowers are fucking exhausting maybe i’ll just make a star trek halo series instead.

lacefedora:

so… Julian in a flower crown. Amaryllis mean pride(the big ones); Peonies(the pink ones) promote healing; and Mallow(the small ones) mean ‘consumed by love’. Which felt appropriate for Julian.

The flowers were heavily referenced but I’ll be honest I was only guessing on the size scale on everything but the peonies since I’ve never seen amaryllis or mallow in person

deadcatwithaflamethrower:

bemusedlybespectacled:

ardatli:

hearthburn:

ardatli:

I can’t. Every single sentence in this could not be more wrong if the author deliberately set out to be the wrongest person in wrongville. I just. 

I don’t care what else might be useful in this book, if your introduction is as fundamentally incorrect as this, the reliability of everything else you’ve ever said and that your editor has ever touched is immediately thrown into question. 

Monochromatic MY ASS. 

I… that is… such bullshit. Wool and silk are arguably the easiest fibers to dye. Cotton’s a stone bitch to color. (Let’s not even get into ‘change clothes irregularly’, that’s bullshit too.)

I know, right?? Protein fibres suck up dye like no-one’s business; it’s cellulose that hates it. 

And as for the others… linen bedsheets, bitch. And linen and silk woven so finely as to be practically transparent. And I’d like to take my records of inventories with 100+ linen shifts for one person, because of multiple-changes-per-day, and shove them up his grant. 

It’s like he assumes that without cotton we also wouldn’t have, like, modern inventions and techniques? “Wool is hard to clean” I mean yeah you have to use Woolite on the gentle cycle and air dry but that’s not that much harder than using normal detergent

Aside from how fucking wrong this dude is about textiles…you guys do realize that Mister DIckbag here is actually attempting to justify how we *needed* the slave trade so that we would have the Cotton-Driven Modernized World, right?

Where is this dude, who published him, and how many parts can you separate a body into with a gardening hoe before the hoe’s edge is too big for the pieces.

*eyes the photo and highlighted text in the original post, and twitches a moment before screeching angrily*

Linen is a fucking awesome damned fiber, and the only godsdamned thing I can wear when my skin has decided that EVERYTHING is evil and itchy. And I still have TWENTY YEAR OLD LINEN TUNICS THAT ARE WEARABLE. Not tunics that rarely get worn, but my damned working tunics that get worn about a third of the days out of the year. Granted, I have only four left that are that old, and two are going to become one tunic because there are worn spots in the one I prefer to wear, and one of them hasn’t been worn in several years because it’s had to have a fair sized patch put on it, and is currently being decorated so it’s a spiffy fancy linen tunic. But still.

And pretty much all the ancient scraps of fabric that have been found after thousands of years? LINEN AND WOOL AND SILK. Linen-wrapped mummies. Wool pieces in salt caves and bogs. Silk and wool and linen fragments in burials. And yeah, several of them look pretty drab because THEY GOT OVERDYED BY THE GROUND THEY WERE BURIED IN.

(I do not have the spoons to go finding links, but. Mummies of Urumchi. There’s a book about the Hallstadt bands. Women’s Work. Woven Into the Earth. Linen. And those are just the ones I can remember off the top of my head and have access to. My spelling may be off on the couple of non-English words, because the books are downstairs, but still.)

And as for the colors – HAVE YOU SEEN THE COLORS YOU CAN GET WOOL AND LINEN AND SILK IN? Check out Red Fish Dyeworks if you want to see the sort of colors that can be achieved for hand-dyed silk and silk blends while still not getting into more modernly-popular colors. Bokkens (I think that’s how it’s spelled?) for linen. Jaegerspun for wool. (Hello, yes, these are people I get thread from, and my mom’s shop doesn’t have the room for all the colors.)

Washing… Linen needs to be rinsed and hung to dry mostly, unless you get it muddy or very gross. Also, it was underthings for centuries because it’s actually pretty damned easy to wash.

Wool takes forever to dry, so you generally don’t want to get it wet as much. HOWEVER. If your wool thing does get wet and/or muddy, hang it up where it gets good air circulation to dry. When dry, brush off the dirt. (Hey, the things you pick up from doing reenactment when a majority of your clothing is linen and wool and the only reason cotton is used is because when making clothes for growing kids, cotton is cheaper.)

Silk I’m honestly not as familiar with for pre-modern cleaning methods, but you know what? Dry cleaning is not a modern invention, so even if people didn’t wet-wash it, they could still readily clean it. Though they’d probably have paid someone else to do dry-cleaning, because people have been paying other people to do their laundry for fucking millennia. (That I picked up from someone else’s research for fanfic. Pre-internet fanfiction, at that, so book-research.)

If you hang up your tunics/dresses/gowns, they smell less. Sweet-smelling herbs in among clothes and in the chests/closets where they were kept were a thing. Clothes aren’t inherently smelly unless you’re a complete ass who doesn’t bother to take care of your clothes.

AND COTTON IS A NATURAL FIBER, YOU COMPLETE AND UTTER NUMBSKULL!

*takes a deep breath*

I am going to go get dinner and maybe walk in circles for a bit to calm down, because stupid fucking pieces of less-useful-than-shit are not good for my health.

Hugs for EVERYONE*

morgynleri:

*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.

in which Sirius Black failed to Argue with a Hat, Part 6

deadcatwithaflamethrower:

Long one for the road/beginning of the week:

Part 1  Part 2  Part 3
Part 4 

Part 5

The social calendar that Mother
planned for July utterly excludes Sirius and Regulus. Sirius dreads next
summer, when he’ll be fifteen and ready to be shown off in true Pure-blood
style like a marriageable bauble on a leash. Lily says the Muggles have trouble
with gender equality, but Wizarding Britain Pure-blood society doesn’t.

Everyone is property. Everyone is a
commodity. Everyone.

Keep reading

norcumi:

dharmaavocado:

Tagged by the lovely @greymichaela.  Thanks darling.

Rules: Post the last sentence you wrote, and tag as many people as there are words.

The Count pressed a kiss to the skin above his left eye
and then his right, and left him standing under the sun in a flat field with a
dry throat and an empty chest.

I am not tagging 35 people but I will tag @adigeon, @lazaefair, @benevolentbridgetroll, @norcumi, @lazefair, @punsbulletsandpointythings, and anyone else who wants to play.

1, forgive me if I scream RATHER A LOT and flail over implications because holy CARP.

2, this caught me at a good sentence, ignoring the starter memes.

Ok, Janet was now not the only scary
medical type in the room.

Consider yourself tagged if you want to play!

Ooh!

“I’m not sure how he made Lieutenant in the first place.“

Tagging anyone who wants to play; I don’t have enough spoons to make a list.

judayre:

So, like… two apartments ago, I saw this pic by probably Lady Northstar of Thorin shaved and in Elf style clothes kneeling calmly and a bit of head story about Thorin being a sacrifice to Thranduil for aid against Smaug and being very changed after 100 years when they get him back.

And I thought “that’s a really cool plot idea.  How would I do it?” (Because that’s just what I do – I am completely an idea thief)

It has stuck around in the back of my mind for a while and now I feel like poking it.  It is far less sexy than the original.

Keep reading

colossalcryptid:

hemlockcryptid:

forest-of-books:

aeruh:

forest-of-books:

forest-of-books:

aeruh:

forest-of-books:

forest-of-books:

A helpful guide to some common birds here in the western US

Here are a few more, for your birding needs:

please allow me to thank you by giving you one in return

Thank you for your contribution to the birding community

Here is some more helpful identification knowledge of birbs

for you

@sparrowlicious

@autobotphoenix

… aesthetic annoyance? More like “windowscreen murderbird”

*eyes the hole in the screen where the sodding bluejays have attempted to dive bomb the cat multiple times*

in which Sirius Black failed to Argue with a Hat, Part 5

deadcatwithaflamethrower:

What do I do when I feel terrible? Pass out shinies. Because Reasons.

Part 1  Part 2  Part 3 
Part 4

They don’t get anything Animagus-like
done during that first visit to Cokeworth. Sirius isn’t really surprised. Regulus
must have expected it, since he didn’t bring any of their borrowed books from
the family library.

It takes the entire afternoon
before Regulus and Sirius begin to relax. As long as they mind the rules about
electricity—do not prod it with metal, do not stick fingers into the sockets
where the glass bulbs go—it’s actually one of the safest buildings Sirius had
ever been in. Mr. and Mrs. Evans keep proving that they aren’t child-eaters in
disguise.

Sirius doesn’t think that nursery
story (either version) should be read to four-year-olds. He really doesn’t think his Aunt Cassiopeia
should be allowed to read anything to children, ever. Not even adults need that
much detail in regards to exactly how the evil Muggle ate the kids.

He’s still mildly suspicious of
anyone who is this bloody nice. It’s
unnatural. Lily isn’t even that nice all the time.

Spending the day in a Muggle house
does cement Sirius’s belief that when he snags Regulus and runs from Twelve
Grimmauld Place, they should hide somewhere like this. They wouldn’t need magic to survive. Muggles do bloody
well everything without magic (which does include killing each other).You don’t
need a wand for Potions, as Severus is fond of repeatedly pointing out with
utter disdain. Their summer homework is always theory, and reading is for
bloody everyone. There is probably some way for Aurors to track wizarding kids
without the Trace; it just seems best not to chance it. Sirius can easily see
himself living without Transfiguration and Charms during the summer until he’s
seventeen. Regulus might whine a bit about not using his wand, but he’ll
survive.

That’s the entire point. Surviving.
Sirius doesn’t trust his mother, father, aunt, or uncle not to
accidentally-on-purpose kill them just because they wake up feeling like
Murder. It wouldn’t even be the first time that happened in the London townhouse. Sirius has talked to his great-uncle’s portrait, done before he was stabbed to death by a great-great-grandmother. To be fair, she wasn’t born a Black, she married one. To be less fair, that still didn’t make her any less fucking bonkers.

Before leaving to walk back to the
train station so they’re home in time for the typical late-evening Black
family supper, Sirius and Regulus meet Petunia Dursley, Lily’s older sister. Petunia
has a long face that would be pretty if she learned how to bloody well smile.
Instead, she has a sour grimace fit to rival Mrs. Snape.

Petunia turns up her nose at Lily,
scowls at Remus, projects outright loathing at Severus, ignores Regulus, and
decides to fall head-over-heels in love with Sirius.

What? No, this is absolutely not
on!

“You’re not like the others,”
Petunia croons at him when she corners him at the end of the hall. She
literally lied in wait for him to get out of the bloody loo. “I can tell.”

“Look…Petunia.” Sirius tries edging
around her. “I’m just as magical as they are.”

“You’re not ugly,” Petunia retorts. “Or selfish, like my dear sister.”

Sirius glares at her. The way she
spits out ugly and sister is revolting. “Your sister stands
up to protect others when they need it, even if they don’t ask for the help.
She hates injustice and she hates bullies, and she rightly hated me until I removed my head from my arse.
Severus is brilliant and teaches other kids how to do amazing things if they
ask him nicely. Regulus is a conniving little genius who probably has a
terrifying career in politics waiting for him, and in our world, that means a
great deal. Remus is smart, crafty, creative, and one of the kindest people I
know outside of your own parents. If anyone here is selfish, it’s definitely
you.”

He escapes while she’s still
sputtering indignantly about How Dare He!
Sirius probably just made another enemy, but he’s good at that. Besides, it’s a Black
Family Tradition.

Sirius spends part of the train
ride home memorizing England’s rail lines, changeovers, and train stations.
Just in case.

At night, after the supper
interrogation of Regulus and Sirius’s agreed-upon report of How Things Went with
the Pure-blood Witch who Fell On Hard Times, Sirius goes upstairs and fetches
his charmed scroll from his desk. He pens a note for Remus, asking if he’s
about, and then goes off to brush his teeth. He has a five-minute argument with
the sink tap before it dispenses water, but the third storey bath has always
been spiteful.

Sorry
I missed you, mate, is on the scroll in Remus’s writing when Sirius unlocks
his bedroom door to go back inside. I
didn’t notice there was a message waiting until I came to bed. We should really
figure out how to charm some sort of silent alert into these things. Maybe wand
vibrations?

You
didn’t miss me. Haven’t gone to bed yet, was just off arguing with the sink.
Literally. Also behaving myself and not writing so many jokes about wands and
vibrating.

He can all but hear Remus sigh. We use these scrolls in class, dingbat. Wand
vibrations seem safer than something audible.

Good
point. Sirius chews on the end of his quill, which is already a bit ragged.
He never has the chance to use up the business end of a quill before he’s eaten
the top half. I realized on the way home that
I was still trying to put this entire bloody year together in my head.

How’s
that, then?

At least Remus is kind enough not
to remind him that Sirius spent half of the term being a complete arsehole. The way you guys were acting today. Were you
and Severus friends before the whole falling out bit I had with the others?

Sort
of, Remus replies. We were civil to
each other. He always noticed I wasn’t participating in the other nonsense.
Well, unless he decided to hit me with something because I was there. Then I’d
hex him back. Fair is fair.

And
you were already friends with Lily, Sirius writes.

No
but yes? There is a pause as Remus thinks. That was another bit of civility because I “wasn’t acting like a
toerag” to quote the lady herself. Lily and Severus are a package deal, so once
you’re friends with one, you’re friends with the other.

That explains a lot. Sirius hadn’t
understood how he and Lily Evans had suddenly become friends, but once he was
on proper speaking terms with Severus, she was just there. All the time. It
hadn’t been a bad thing, just bloody confusing, since before that moment she
hated his guts.

Are
Lily and Severus dating? Sirius asks. Because
I can’t tell.

Remus draws several large question
marks on the scroll. Beats me. If they’re
going to be that sort, I don’t think anything will come of it for another year
or two. Lily isn’t looking at boys and cooing yet, and Severus doesn’t seem to
notice anything is fit unless it’s a potions ingredient.

Sirius draws himself laughing. It’s
not a bad sketch. He could make a go of it as a decent artist, though the
family wouldn’t approve. Not that they approve of him anyway.

Then he makes himself ask the next
question, though it kills the laughter. How
are you getting on with Potter and Peter?

That time there is such a long,
long pause that Sirius wonders if he’s going to have to write to Lily’s scroll
and ask her to check on Remus in the Evans’s guest room. Then Remus finally
says, I’m not. We’re not friends anymore.

Sirius blinks down at the page. What? Why the fuck not?

Because
I’m friends with you, Severus, and Regulus, you daft shit! Remus replies. You really didn’t notice?

I
don’t notice things unless they’re trying to make me dead, remember? Sirius
bites his lip instead of the quill. Fuck.
I’m sorry. I thought they just weren’t turning up on full moons because I was
there. Not that Sirius can help much on full moons anyway, but Remus does better
if there is someone he trusts nearby.
The wolf can smell Sirius, and the wolf, on some deep level, thinks Sirius is
pack.

That means at twilight once a month,
Sirius goes out to secure the Shrieking Shack with magic so an enraged
adolescent werewolf can’t escape it. He magically seals the second floor and
then spends the night listening to scrabbling, crying, whining, howling,
barking, growling, and other assorted werewolf noises before dawn brings sharp
cries of human pain. Then Sirius is useful again, feeding Remus pain potions
from Madam Pomfrey’s stash, convincing him to drink water, and then chivying
him back to Hogwarts through the tunnel so Remus can pass the fuck out in the
hospital wing. Sirius worries about Remus during the summer, chained up in the
family basement in Wales with no one nearby that smells like pack.

They have less than three weeks
before Remus has to go home for the full moon. Sirius counts the days; it’s
been habit since the beginning of second-year.

I’m
worried, Remus writes next, as if he’s aware of Sirius’s thoughts. They didn’t do anything this year, but James
and Peter know about me, Sirius. What if they tell people?

I
know it sounds very much like a Black thing, but bribery is an option. The
Potters aren’t that flush, Sirius responds while thinking. And on the Animagus front…maybe that’s our
answer.

Please
explain that magical leap of logic, arsehole. Werewolves can’t be Animagi!

Sirius grins. The books we’ve been reading don’t say that werewolves can’t be
Animagi, either. None of them say you can, but why not give it a go? If you
become an Animagus, you can prove to everyone how you “turn into a wild animal”
by demonstrating it in front of the whole of fucking Gryffindor House. Also, if
the curse works the way it should, it would affect the Animagus Transfiguration
magic, and your Animagus form would be a large wolf! Ta da, problem solved.

Remus draws crude eyes that stare
off the page in a blank, shocked stare accompanied by animated blinking. Then
he writes, Please never say that you’re
stupid ever again.

No promises, mate. I proved for nearly three years
straight that I’m a complete imbecile.