Fred: Prepare For Trouble!

OH THIS TWEET RLLY HIT ME FRIENDS

The World's Tree

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

Thor (2011)

Loki (2023) — 2.06 “Glorious Purpose”

I hate you preserving beauty at the cost of enjoyment.

I saw a video of a woman with extremely thick hair doing a thinning method at home. One comment said "my hairdresser heart weeps" because apparently her method may lead to frizz and impact a unified hair look. The woman had so much hair it was giving her headaches.

Its the same as people telling me when I had long hair never to cut it because its so impressive. Its people telling natural redheads never to dye their hair because its such a rare pretty colour.

Its transmasc people being told they were so pretty as a girl and are wasting that.

Its girls being told they are wasting their figure/physical attributes because they are not displaying them constantly and wearing comfortable baggy clothes.

It's people telling you to never go in the sun, not smile and not to use a straw because it will give you wrinkles. Its being told not to eat certain foods because they are bad for your skin, or to do eat other foods because they are good for your skin regardless of whether you enjoy either of those foods. It's being expected to put hours into your skin care and prioritise it over activities you enjoy so you have younger looking skin when you are old.

It's being expected to wear clothes that are uncomfortable because they make you look thinner/more like an hourglass. Not to move in certain ways because it will be unflattering.

It's telling people not to prioritise themselves and their interests in their decisions but instead to prioritise their skin/hair/figure/etc.

I did not agree to preserve whatever natural features i was born with like a one man historical society for myself just because i happened to be made of those genes. I have every right to use and enjoy my body in ways other people don't think fitting and that don't preserve features that currently fit societal beauty standards. I do not agree to hold aesthetic pursuit over comfort and health and happiness.

I know one thing. When i am old i will certainly regret every single day i ate a papaya for breakfast (i hate papaya) instead of a pancake and didn't go into the sun. I will not regret having wrinkles, i just hope they are from laughing.

if i was a doctor who companion the first thing i’d do is go back to the 19th century and introduce them to hozier

So I just had a thought

What if supernatural creatures don’t exist anymore? What if they did once, but through the years, they slowly mixed in with humans?

You can see the blood of fairies in the way a ballet dancer hovers in mid air before he or she hits the ground. You can see it in the way that middle school girl never forgets when someone makes her a promise. You can see it in how that one little boy in the kindergarten class seems more comfortable in the forest on that field trip than the others.

You can see the blood of dryads in hikers who never trip over roots. You can see it in that suburban grandmother never lets any of her garden die. You can see it in that one kid who climbs a tree faster than his friends, barely looking at the branches as he goes.

You can see the blood of naiads in the way a professional swimmer seems to command the water to help them. You can see it in how a cross country runner needs a water break more often than his teammates. You can see it in the way that one girl in your class always has a water bottle on her desk.

You can see the blood of mermaids in a surfer who can be tossed around underwater for a long time without drowning. You can see it in a teenage boy who doesn’t have to pretend to be unbothered by the pressure when he races his friends to the bottom of a swimming pool. You can see it in the little girl who wades into every stream she sees on a hike without quite knowing why.

You can see the blood of sirens in people who never have a problem with getting people to date them. You can see it in that soprano who can hit notes most of her fellows can only dream of. You can see it in the camp counselor who all the straight girls have a crush on, who can play guitar and sing better than any of the others.

You can see the blood of shapeshifters in the way an actor adjusts their personality to become their character with scary accuracy. You can see it in the subconscious, barely noticeable changes a tween girl’s eyes make to match her outfit better. You can see it in the way you always lose that one friend in a crowd if you’re not careful, because he’s just too good at blending in.

People who carry the blood of werewolves don’t change with the full moon anymore, but you can still see it in the way your best friend always knows something is wrong, though even they don’t know they’re smelling the changes in your body chemistry. You can see it in the way that one guy always seems to eat more than the reasonable amount of red meat at an all-you-can-eat buffet. You can see it in the way that one werido never has a problem when the teacher turns off the lights before a PowerPoint presentation because her eyes adjust quicker and better than yours.

The blood of supernatural creatures may have mostly faded away. But if you look closely, you can still see it.

I bet Lyra learnt to wear makeup when she started attending that girls’ school. I bet she made lots of female friends, and they taught her to do pretty things with her hair, and she watched them wear pretty clothes and gradually started to ask them for advice on how to wear pretty clothes.

I bet she found learning to be feminine just as hard as learning to read the aletheometer. And I bet she tried to be scornful at the start, out of habit, but when she was lonely and sad at night a girl came over to comfort her and they became close friends and Lyra would come to realise that some of the friends she had made at that school were people she would gladly fight and kill to protect. And I bet she saw that they weren’t any good at fighting with their fists like she was, but that they were fighting to protect her just as hard, taking care of her when she was sad and lonely over such odd things, and defending her from cruel people who would mock her for her spotty knowledge and odd opinions.

And I bet she became an activist for all sorts of things as well as being a renowned scientist. I just. I have a lot of feelings about Susie Pevensie and Jane Darling and all the fantasy queens who lost their kingdoms, and I feel like Lyra’s definitely one of them, one of the ones who realised that in her own world things were much harder and more difficult and she couldn’t have power in all the same ways she used to, but she learnt to use the power that was there for her, and she used it wonderfully.

HEY!!

if youre an artist who cant afford photoshop definitely DO NOT go to my google drive to pirate the program, that would be so bad!!!

do NOT click this link right here and DO NOT enter the password ghostE2008 when it asks for it!!! thatd be super bad!!

"I know what I'm doing."

Ravenclaw, frantically looking for directions

the funniest thing in the entire pirates of the caribbean series is definitely that one scene in At World’s End where they have parlay but davy jones is part of it, and rather than have him stand in the shallows or something they get a big bucket of water and have in stand on it on shore

who thought of that idea? who thought “put davy jones in a bucket of water” and had the guts to suggest it aloud? and then who went “hey that sounds like a great idea!”

at some point someone told davy jones their idea was for him to stand in a bucket of water and he agreed to it

you have invited strangers into your home, helen pevensie, mother of four.

without the blurred sight of joy and relief, it has become impossible to ignore. all the love inside you cannot keep you from seeing the truth. your children are strangers to you. the country has seen them grow taller, your youngest daughter’s hair much longer than you would have it all years past. their hands have more strength in them, their voices ring with an odd lilt and their eyes—it has become hard to look at them straight on, hasn’t it? your children have changed, helen, and as much as you knew they would grow a little in the time away from you, your children have become strangers.

your youngest sings songs you do not know in a language that makes your chest twist in odd ways. you watch her dance in floating steps, bare feet barely touching the dewy grass. when you try and make her wear her sister’s old shoes—growing out of her own faster than you think she ought to—, she looks at you as though you are the child instead of her. her fingers brush leaves with tenderness, and you swear your daughter’s gentle hum makes the drooping plant stand taller than before. you follow her eager leaps to her siblings, her enthusiasm the only thing you still recognise from before the country. yet, she laughs strangely, no longer the giggling girl she used to be but free in a way you have never seen. her smile can drop so fast now, her now-old eyes can turn distant and glassy, and her tears, now rarer, are always silent. it scares you to wonder what robbed her of the heaving sobs a child ought to make use of in the face of upset.

your other daughter—older than your youngest yet still at an age that she cannot be anything but a child—smiles with all the knowledge in the world sitting in the corner of her mouth. her voice is even, without all traces of the desperate importance her peers carry still, that she used to fill her siblings’ ears with at all hours of the day. she folds her hands in her lap with patience and soothes the ache of war in your mind before you even realise she has started speaking. you watch her curl her hair with careful, steady fingers and a straight back, her words a melody as she tells your eldest which move to make without so much a glance at the board off to her right. she reads still, and what a relief you find this sliver of normalcy, even if she’s started taking notes in a shorthand you couldn’t even think to decipher. even if you feel her slipping away, now more like one of the young, confident women in town than a child desperately wishing for a mother’s approval.

your younger son reads plenty as well these days, and it fills you with pride. he is quiet now, sitting still when you find him bent over a book in the armchair of his father. he looks at you with eyes too knowing for a petulant child on the cusp of puberty, and no longer beats his fists against the furniture when one of his siblings dares approach him. he has settled, you realise one evening when you walk into the living room and find him writing in a looping script you don’t recognise, so different from the scratched signature he carved into the doors of your pantry barely a year ago. he speaks sense to your youngest and eldest, respects their contributions without jest. you watch your two middle children pass a book back and forth, each a pen in hand and sheets of paper bridging the gap between them, his face opening up with a smile rather than a scowl. it freezes you mid-step to find such simple joy in him. remember when you sent them away, helen, and how long it had been since he allowed you to see a smile then?

your eldest doesn’t sleep anymore. none of your children care much for bedtimes these days, but at least sleep still finds them. it’s not restful, you know it from the startled yelps that fill the house each night, but they sleep. your eldest makes sure of it. you have not slept through a night since the war began, so it’s easy to discover the way he wanders the halls like a ghost, silent and persistent in a duty he carries with pride. each door is opened, your children soothed before you can even think to make your own way to their beds. his voice sounds deeper than it used to, deeper still than you think possible for a child his age and size. then again, you are never sure if the notches on his door frame are an accurate way to measure whatever it is that makes you feel like your eldest has grown beyond your reach. you watch him open doors, soothe your children, spend his nights in the kitchen, his hands wrapped around a cup of tea with a weariness not even the war should bring to him, not after all the effort you put into keeping him safe.

your children mostly talk to each other now, in a whispered privacy you cannot hope to be a part of. their arms no longer fit around your waist. your daughters are wilder—even your older one, as she carries herself like royalty, has grown teeth too sharp for polite society— and they no longer lean into your hands. your sons are broad-shouldered even before their shirts start being too small again, filling up space you never thought was up for taking. your eldest doesn’t sleep, your middle children take notes when politicians speak on the wireless and shake their heads as though they know better, and your youngest sings for hours in your garden.

who are your children now, helen pevensie, and who pried their childhood out of your shaking hands?