At one point or another, in Going Postal and Making Money we get Moist’s opinions on pretty much all the people he comes across via his internal dialogue. He finds a lot of things weird and he finds a lot of things disgusting and he’s pretty merciless in his judgements of some people, because he’s generally really perceptive, even though he always sees an opportunity to flatter them in the process.
One thing I noticed in Making Money is how he does not comment on Stanley and Hubert’s quirks. The fact that Stanley (”who went through life with the care of a man reading a manual translated from a foreign language”) needs to go through a script every time he knocks on his door is just met with patience, and even though Hubert is, by all accounts, ~weirder even than the clown accountant in this book, there isn’t a comment from Moist about his unusual behaviour – at one point Hubert falls silent, digs out a notebook and checks it before asking a pertinent, socially acceptable question to Moist because he’s run out of things to say about himself, and Moist doesn’t treat any of this as unusual. Not a mental note or commentary.
I like that Moist isn’t successful because of how he was raised, or because he comes from a good family, or because of previous connections having taught him how to make the right friends – he’s good at people, he can read their moods, and he isn’t uncomfortable with atypical behaviour (except if it’s unhygienic). In fact, he’s consistently more intimidated by performative masculinity than behaviours that don’t conform perfectly to what other people would find “normal”. I didn’t notice this some years ago, but I really like it.
Tag: YES GOOD
And Santa’s all like, “You know, I can handle a few spelling mistakes, I got this,” and Lucifer is like “They’re addressed to me, fuck off, I’m doing it.”
Lucifer being protective of his fanmail is ceaselessly entertaining.
*deep and booming Satan voice* “Belphagor!”
“You summoned me, Your Infernal Majesty?”
“Belphagor, do we have any Barbie dolls in our stores?”
“We certainly do. Would you like one whose eyes glow red or one that chants Your praises in the middle of the night?”
*deep and booming Satan sigh* “Ugh, are all our Barbies possessed?”
“I am pleased to say so, Your Infernal Majesty.”
“Well, un-possess one of them. You heard me! Melody Lian wants a veterinarian Barbie, the one with a cat not the one with a dog. And Belphagor! Make sure the cat has the right number of limbs this time.”
“And let us see, Isaiah Stanfield who asked for a musical instrument will be receiving… a kazoo?”
“The instrument I judged to be most annoying yet still within his likely ability to play, my lord!”
“So young Isaiah will receive this miserable piece of plastic, apparently the finest gift you think I can offer him from my vast holdings, on Christmas morning only to have it confiscated by his parents by New Year’s. Leaving him with no present at all.” *Satan grows even taller, his voice drops dangerously* “Do you wish to make a fool of me, Belphagor?”
“N-no, Your Infernal Majesty! Please, mercy!”
“You will have a suitable present for Isaiah by the time I return. And I expect no more mistakes.” *Satan storms off, muttering* “A million demons at my beck and call and I still have to do everything in this Pit myself…”
A hidden-message ring, from the 1830s.
There are 2 groups of people who will use this: the first for romance, the second for espionage. Pick a side.
Romantic espionage.
dad: I bet in heaven you get to watch the Lord of the Rings extended editions
dad: with J.R.R. Tolkien
dad:
dad:
dad: …and C.S. Lewis giving sarcastic commentary in the background
Imagine Bucky having a really bad day and JARVIS helping him to get through it.
He’s flat on his back and the agony is all encompassing, and he can’t see – can’t breathe, choking on the tube down his throat –
“Sir.”
– can’t scream, can’t –
“Sir.“
He doesn’t so much wake up as open his eyes, and he’s still on his back, still frozen with terror, but he can wheeze desperately. Bed. He’s in a bed. His bed, in the Tower. Fuck. He manages to move enough to curl onto his side.
“Your heart rate was considerably elevated, sir.” It’s JARVIS.
His heart rate is still considerably elevated, pounding hard enough to make his chest ache. He’s had this particular nightmare-memory on loop enough times to know exactly how it ends. He gropes for his left arm, and the metal is a relief, the lack of a bloodied stump is a relief.
“Thanks,” he rasps.
“You’re welcome,” JARVIS says, and there’s no snide there. Eventually, Bucky’s able to sit up. “Would you like me to rouse anyone, sir?”
He wants… fuck. He doesn’t want anyone seeing him like this, still shaking and unable to draw a steady breath. He shakes his head. “Could you just… warmer?”
“Certainly.”
It doesn’t actually help with the shaking much, but it helps with the breathing, and he can close his eyes for more than a moment without horrible things rising behind his eyelids.
“Would you…” he doesn’t quite have words. “Could you just talk to me?“
JARVIS doesn’t miss a beat. “It’s Tuesday morning, sir, Dawn will be in twenty minutes. It’s going to be partly cloudy, and 74 degrees…”
He dresses slowly, and goes up onto the roof to watch the sun rise over the skyline. JARVIS sends up one of the kitchen staff to unobtrusively deliver dry toast and black coffee, and Bucky doesn’t ask how JARVIS knows it’s about the only thing he could keep down right now.
By the time everyone else is up and moving, he’s ensconced himself with a book so it’s okay that he doesn’t talk much. Steve notices, though, and quietly joins him on the couch, also reading, and it’s good.
Steve also brings him a plate of food from lunch, and it smells amazing – roast meat and vegetables, but he picks up the cutlery, and the metal reflects the light – his own goddamn hand reflects the light, and all he can think is scalpel and all he can hear is the whine of the saw and fuck everything –
“Sargent Barnes,” JARVIS says, neutral as ever. “Mr Stark requires your expertise down on Level 17.” Bucky carefully puts the plate down and excuses himself to Steve.
“He doesn’t actually, does he?” Bucky asks when he’s out in the corridor.
“Not precisely,” says JARVIS. “But the gym on Level 17 is empty, and contains the new reinforced sparring apparatus. It needs testing.”
Working out until he’s too exhausted to think helps a lot.
It helps enough that he’s okay enough to eat dinner with everyone else, and lasts a whole hour in the common room afterwards before needing to plead tiredness and bailing.
His apartment is … warm, and there’s quiet music playing from above. “JARVIS, are you serenading me?” He aims for a joke, but he can’t deny the relief that’s easing his muscles. The staff have changed the bed, too, and slipping between clean, smooth sheets feels like an unspeakable luxury. JARVIS dims the lights, enough that Bucky can see the room at a glance, but also close his eyes to darkness.
“Would you wake me, if I…?“
“Immediately, sir,” JARVIS says.
“Thanks,” Bucky whispers.
“Sleep well, sir.”
He really, blessedly, does.
okay we ship darcy with steve or bucky or loki or clint or bruce or tony and even thor and so on
but imagine sif/darcy
tough beautiful asgardian warrior goddess falling for sarcastic quirky earthling
sif asking thor how he courts jane to try and learn the proper way to court darcy
darcy introducing sif to donuts and music
sif and darcy cuddling on darcy’s small ugly couch watching a movie
please gimmie more of this
This is …actually my Sif-ship. In part because I can also totally see Sif feeling more than a little bit bewildered at her reaction to this tiny imperious mortal who kind of needs to learn some manners but is at the same time totally enthralling THOR HELP WHAT IS WITH EARTH WOMEN I JUST THOUGHT YOU’D BEEN HIT ON THE HEAD ONE TOO MANY TIMES. D:
Darcy and Sif planning a shopping trip together and Sif has to stop and clarify, “This is a courting ritual, correct?”
“Well, if you want it to be, though dragging someone through change-rooms usually comes later in the relationship…”
“I have no wish to be presumptuous! Should we perhaps postpone?”
#sif deliberately being as formal and decorous as possible #half because she wants to make it clear this is a COURTSHIP #not a jump-the-pretty-girl-from-nowhere #and partly because it makes darcy make that face #that she makes everyone else make so often #and that face on darcy is adorable
So you mean, “Sif being a giant troll and pretending she thinks two dozen blood-red roses is an appropriate second date gift, because watching Darcy cart them around London under her arm all evening is totally hilarious.”
Yes that is in fact basically what I mean. 😀 (On the other hand those are HELLA fine roses and nobody from Asgard will doubt her sincerity.)
Medusa and her blind boyfriend go out on their first date and he panics because he cant tell her she looks pretty so he says something really stupid like “I REALLY like snakes”
This is so fucking cute
this should be a young adult romance novel right now
Had a sudden urge to draw this.Omg i need more
oh my god
MOAR,
ok but dead poets society remake with an all female cast
dead poets society remake where halfway through the term the girls realise it’s bullshit that their curriculum has them focusing on dead white male poets, and the teacher secretly starts bringing Angelou and Plath and Jordan to their meetings and bucking the required curriculum, and that’s why she gets fired, because she dared to care about something other than men, and her students are so grateful for what she’s just given up to teach them about liberation that they stand on their desks and declaim Erica Jong’s “For All Those Who Died” and she leaves knowing she’s educated a generation of women who will effect positive change in the world
Kimchi and Justice 