#I tend to assume mostly the latter - maybe talking shit to specific people but still. It reminds me of how in Gravity he says

[bumblingbabooshka]

[TUVOKTOBER: Day 6] Based on this line of dialogue:

[og-danny-dorito]

Twisted Wonderland : Some Pomfiore Headcanons

bitcH hhhh- I fucking HATE D*sney but these BOYS- I'm starting with Vil because uhhhh istanhim

{ Vil Schoenheit }

♛ Rich Blonde Bitch Energy™

♛ like that's not even an insult he literally looks like a mean girl and i cannot explain how happy that makes me

♛ cause like,,, there’s no way he’s NOT rich you know what i mean???

♛ like he’s literally a model and an actor by profession and has a fuckton of followers on MagiCam (5MIL exactly, i looked that shit up) not to mention i’m CONVINCED this thot has a youtube channel

♛ yes, it’s a makeup channel

♛ he does some other stuff like vlogs and story times where he talks about drama he heard in the hallways earlier that day and promotes his cosmetic brand because he likes that Coint

♛ he also gives tips for good makeup techniques and how to not fuck up your whole face for certain situations because he likes to flex his skills while also (and he probably wouldn’t admit it out loud) helping people get better at something he personally enjoys

♛ he is a part of the beauty commity as someone who both makes cosmetics and wears them regularly himself and makes a shitton of money from that because he’s pretty and knows that shit

♛ his subscribers/followers make memes of him making weird faces to get certain angles of his face like this and he highkey gets mad that they would sabatoge his good angles like that but says it in the most passive-aggressive way ever

♛ like they have a Q&A video or whatever and they send him something like this and he just looks at the camera and goes “I love your selfie, maybe try to look a little less crusty next time though. Maybe it’s the lighting?” and moves on like he didn’t just end their career, take all their money and snatch their wig with one sentence

♛ that means that his morning/evening routine is like, unfairly complicated. like HEINOUSLY complicated.

♛ he applies like 3 different moisturizers before actually putting his makeup on and because he grows some amount of facial hair be has to put color correctors down, and then he has to use this weird primer from like France or something-

♛ it's super complicated and takes him like an hour but he's the God of Self Care and beauty and if you ask him nicely he'll reccoment beauty products for you (albeit with some underlying insults here and there such as suggesting products for the acne you didn't say you wanted help with and so forth)

♛ also i’m convinced that he’s androgynous/gender fluid since he canonically presents as a man but uses feminine pronouns to refer to himself so like let’s make a petition to officiate that Vil Is Trans 2020

{ Rook Hunt }

♛ big art nerd right here

♛ like, as an art nerd myself you can usually TELL that someone is an art nerd too just by the way that they act and the Vibe they radiate, and this man screams “I will talk for hours about ‘The Last Supper’ and how i’m fairly certain that Leonardo DaVinci was gay”

♛ it’s also canon that his best subject is art and that he likes photography and stage play so like,,, not only is he an art nerd he’s a theatre nerd- ehem -i mean ✨thespian✨

♛ i don’t wanna go so far as to say that he’s one of those theatre kids that ONLY like musicals but like,,, he knows every score to “Phatom of the Opera” (listens to this shit religiously) and has like 5 Playbills for different plays sitting on a shelf that he takes care of religiously

♛ probably hums said musical scores to himself a lot while he’s doing things, mostly cleaning or cooking, to which the latter he does regularly

♛ you see there’s a certain way that he likes his food cause he’s a Picky Eater™ so he just makes a lot of it himself to satisfy his specifics

♛ it’s almost annoying because certain textures and flavors throw his whole food experience off

♛ he likes things that are easy to digest like soups or (his canonically favorite food) Liver Pâté and dislikes things that are too crunchy or hard to chew through like hard candy and fried foods

♛ like,,, not only is having to eat something hard gross cause he has to hear the sound of it in his skull but also because it makes him look sloppy when he eats it so he just avoids crunchy/crispy/overal messy foods altogether

♛ he’s a pretty decent cook even though he barely cooks for other people. the only time he really does cook for other people is when his house is doing a potluck or he has to go to an event where he needs to bring food and most of his share is gone within like 10 seconds because it’s so good

♛ don’t let him bake though. fist fighting god would be easier than helping rook bake and God Save You if you tell him he can’t do it because he WILL do it out of spite and seriously fuck up your kitchen

{ Epel Felmier }

♛ he’s,,, he’s baby

♛ no like fr tho he’s baby, i love him

♛ his whole complex of not feeling masculine enough seriously hits me hard too cause like same, and i feel like he probably does some of the things i did to make myself seem more masculine when i felt like i wasn’t

♛ he probably wears clothes a bit too large for him outside of his uniform, which always tends to make him look smaller than he actually is and kinda counteracts his efforts to look less like a doll

♛ like it genuinely bothers him when someone calls him “pretty” or “beautiful” cause he views it as him possessing more feminine qualities and being seen as more delicate and fragile than he’s supposed to be

♛ he doesn’t realize yet that he doesn’t need to be more physically masculine to still be considered just as manly as a 6’3” bodybuilder with big muscles and a beard, but he’s still 16 so i’m sure he’d pick it up eventually

♛ genuinely feels joy when someone tells him that he looks “handsome” or “very dominant and regal” tho since it gives him confidence and a sense of self-validation

♛ and, even though he’s not very good with words, he’ll try his best to give them a compliment back even though it comes out as a bit stuttered and meek since he’s not used to giving compliments like that

♛ he probably swears a lot though. dude is a quote unquote “brash country boy” who grew up in the middle of god knows where with what i’m assuming is a vast collection of old men to teach that cute little innocent boy how to say every cuss word in the book

♛ for real, his mouth is filthy and it catches most people off guard. in fact, when rook told him he looked a little bit like a porcelain doll at some point he high key looked him in the eye and went “fuck off” quietly enough so that only he could hear

♛ and no one believed him when he said that Epel, the sweetest and most fragile boy in the whole school, told him to fuck. right. off.

♛ needless to say epel made sure to do it more, albeit a little quietly cause he doesn’t wanna cross the line of being indecent

♛ Make Epel Feral 2020

{ ~Thanks For Reading!~ }

[ocular-intercourse]

🍂 and 🌹 for any of your ocs! Id love to learn more about them ;0;!

 thank youu!!!

I’ll stick to my main 5 for this one

 🌹 Does your OC have any scars? How and when did they get them?

You know, uh, i’m mostly aware of my tendencies, i know i like scars, and i know i give most of my characters at least one major traumatizing event, but that question really distilled that:

Finn has one in his left eyebrow from where his abusive dad caught him with his wristwatch when he was like.. 19 or something.

Ace has one on his abdomen and back from when his brother tried (or faked trying??) to kill him, pierced straight through with a sword.

Teddy is baby. I assume he has scars here or there like most people do, a scraped knee as a kid or whatever, but none that are super noticeable.

Asher gets a scar in the latter half of his story. He survives a shot to the head when an enemy of his father’s wants to use him to get revenge. He loses a bunch of teeth, has to get reconstructive jaw surgery, and has a scar from the left corner of his mouth to his ear, a piece of ear is missing. With his father’s money and power, he could have gotten more surgeries to reduce scarring and repair stuff but he got so sick of being in the hospital and under direct control of his father that he left the as soon as possible. He might get surgery someday to make it all a bit less visible, but it’s not exactly high on his priority list right now. He’s no fan of looking at himself anyways, and maybe he uses it to torture himself a little for all the things he considers himself guilty of.

Gyo has, hold on let me count for a sec, 12 scars? One he gave himself to escape a slave owner who considered him too ruined afterwards to keep (the facial scar), one he got from when his mentor tried to kill him (the one on his chest) a bunch of scars from his early army days. There are healers in the empire army who can completely heal a wound, but they are not typically available to low rank soldiers. So those are either from when he was too unimportant to be healed that way, or from situations where he did not have access to healers for some other reason. He himself can keep his wounds together if he focuses on it, so he does not bleed out, but that’s about the extent of his healing ability. At some point of the story he gets a mean scar on his back. He catches a poisoned crossbow bolt meant for the prince that does quite the number on his body. I have a handy scar chart for him actually:

🍂 How does your OC think they will die? Does death scare them? Is there any reason for this?

Ah, wonderful question.

Finn does, very violently, try not to think about it. The thought makes him nauseous. He hates thinking about getting older, not only cause dying scares him, but more so cause he does not want to lose the people around him. He feels like the clock is ticking, always, and it stresses him out a lot. He is the kind of person to get panic attacks picturing something bad happening to his family randomly, cause bad shit has happened to him enough to make these kind of fears reasonable to him. On the other hand, he’s very paranoid about somehow someday losing to his depression. He’s manic-depressive, he’s been struggling with suicidal thoughts for most of his life. One of the big reasons he’s not gone through with it yet is because his best friend killed herself when he was 18 or so, and the whole thing was so painful he keeps that feeling in mind and reminds himself of what he would put his loved ones through if he ever decided to kill himself. So, on one side he is 99,9% sure he will NEVER ever do such a thing to himself, but he spends a lot of time afraid of that remaining 0,01% chance of getting into a mental state where he does not care anymore.

Ace does not really care? I don’t think he’s capable of thinking ahead all that much. Also, with him being in a greek-demigod setting dying is a weird concept anyways, with the underworld and all that. He’s honestly probably a bit too relaxed about it. More of an, ah when it happens, we’ll see what to do about it then, kinda guy.

Teddy is in the same setting, but since he is much more attached to other people in his life, specifically his human family, he’s much more troubled about it. Cause he does not know exactly how this works. Do they go to the underworld too? Will he be able to meet them there, or will they be in other areas? Will they suffer? He really does not like the idea of having an eternal afterlife of sorts if he can’t have his loved ones around him. It’s all a lot to think about and he tends to push those thoughts away.

Asher is all like, excuse the Hamilton quote, ‘i imagine death so much it feels more like a memory‘. He wants to die so badly, it’s pretty much always on his mind, cause he’s in a constant state of suffering and fear and stress and pressure and he’s so so done. If it wasn’t for his younger brothers, he would not be alive today. Eventually you can count Devin among the reasons he’s still going on but that would never have gotten that far if he hadn’t forced himself to stay alive to protect his siblings. Maybe without Devin he wouldn’t even have the energy to keep going despite his brothers, that’s definitely one thing Asher keeps telling him. To him death seems like the perfect peaceful solution to all his problems, just an off switch and then it’s finally all over, not feeling anything anymore?? If there is an afterlife, which he would not want, maybe he could see Adam again. Though that thought is equally scary and wonderful. He’s constantly much closer to a complete breakdown and suicide than most people around him expect. He would be very methodical about it too. Cause nothing about that seems scary to him. The second he would make that decision he would have closure, it would be very purposefully, calm and collected. But, as long as his brothers do exist and he still has the power left to protect them he’ll just be this, uh, thing, very zombie like, going through the motions just functioning, puppeteering this body around and trying to feel as little as possible. With Devin around he can even squeeze some joy out of it every once in a while, which is probably one reason he tries to deny his feelings for so long cause that just makes things unnecessarily complicated?? Not having another reason to live was much easier.

For Gyo the thought of death is probably the most distant. Sure, in theory, as a soldier he’s always willing to lay his life on the line, for the empire and especially for the prince. It’s just that he finds the probability of losing in a fight pretty slim. And if it does happen, when the moment comes when he gets to sacrifice himself for the empire, it’ll all be worth it. He has already gotten more out of life than most other people, being technically immortal, un-aging and all. Other than that, he is just way too sure in his own abilities to fear death all too much. Which is a little ironic cause of all my boys he’s the one that actually does die. Said bolt he catches in the back, there’s no cure for the poison, and it reacts more strongly the more supernaturally enhanced a person is. It was pretty much made to kill Gyo (not personally, but people of his caliber) and make him suffer as much as possible on the way out. It’s a slow and excruciating death. The soldiers and medic around want to make it easier on him and kill him outright but Noor forbids it for the slim chance of Gyo somehow miraculously surviving. Cause it’s Gyo?? He can do anything??! But all that does is make him suffer till he does die eventually. (Now that’s a fun guilty conscience for the prince being selfish in that moment). So Gyo goes to hell and brawls his way out of it and he gets a whole new insight into how things work. He did already die in the most painful way possible and came back from it, i imagine that makes him feel even more indestructible than he did before. If he dies again, he’ll just… sell his soul once more? Or more likely, beat up the thing that runs things down there to let him out again? The more time he spends with that entity the less he fears them so there’s a good chance they won’t be able to talk him into any more deals.

[thelightofthingshopedfor]

@kiwimeringue replied to your post “I know it’s generally rude and very unwise to reply to a fandom...”

ok I'm super curious now, feel free to message me if you want to talk about it all stealthy-like~

@veliseraptor replied to your post “I know it’s generally rude and very unwise to reply to a fandom...”

i'm so curious

apparently I did want to talk about it, because this got looooong (also please do not add more discourse to this post, it’s probably kind of shitty of me but I don’t super want to have a dialogue about it, I just want to barf out my thoughts and defend my own faves on my own post, so if you want to argue with me I would really rather you didn’t and just made your own post instead)

(I also only just realized that I only put “tony stark negative” and “tony stark critical” in the tags, not anywhere before the cut, so here’s your warning now if you didn’t see the tags that this is me being frustrated with a lot things about how Tony is written)

I can't find the actual post now to screenshot or link because I just came across it on my dash, got annoyed, scrolled past, and then made my post when I couldn't stop grumpily thinking about it (so at this point I also don't remember who the OP was or who reblogged it onto my dash, which is probably just as well), but the gist was that almost all MCU title characters have storylines establishing that they're wrong about something and they show growth by accepting that and working to improve...except Steve, who never acknowledges that he might ever be wrong about anything, with the implication that this makes him a bad, self-righteous character who is basically incapable of growth. several other characters--Tony, Thor, Dr. Strange, Peter Parker--were mentioned, but the state of fandom discourse makes me assume any Steve-negative post exists at least in part to show how much better Tony is, which...may not always be a fair assumption on my part, but I do think it's fair to say that's still a relevant context. and of course Steve is one of my favorite characters, so anything even mildly Steve-negative puts me at least somewhat on the defensive right away, which again is not necessarily fair. (the other post that’s already sitting in my notes is about Ragnarok, which is probably even less surprising.)

anyway the post made me grumpy to begin with and then doubly so because I couldn't think of a good way to refute it aside from "yeah well maybe Steve's just a better person than your faves and he doesn't need a whole character arc about realizing he's been an asshole and needs to change because he didn't start out as an asshole to begin with, bet you didn't think of that huh" which is of course VERY unhelpful. but then I started thinking about how I don't think OP is right about the changed characters to begin with, given that a) it's not really fair to compare a character who's only had one solo movie (Dr. Strange) with characters who've had more, b) Spider-Man is kind of an edge case because he's a teenager and a lot of the problems in his movies stem from a combination of him being a fucking teenager and Tony dumping him with tons of dangerous tech that he doesn't have the training or adult impulse control to use safely and then blaming him when disaster inevitably results, and c) the characters who have had multiple movies and arcs focused on realizing they were wrong about something (just Thor and Tony, really) are...maybe not actually great examples because like 75% of that character development seems to reset after each movie and, actually, the narrative still operates under the premise that these characters are basically right even if some other characters don't agree. like...I mean, the only lessons Thor really, consistently seems to learn are "humans are at least not totally worthless (but lbr they're mostly silly and cute)" and "Odin is extremely wise and probably right about almost everything despite mountains of evidence--that grow with every single film he's in--to the contrary". 

and Tony, well--yeah, that's his arc, in theory, and in theory I don't have a problem with flawed characters who keep making the same mistakes because let's face it, that's a very human thing to do. but with posts like this, it's like...you're effectively arguing that he doesn't really make mistakes overall, though, because it’s really just an opportunity for growth? and that when he does, the narrative shows he's wrong, he admits he's wrong, and he makes consistent efforts to change? which...again, obviously I have my own biases, but I have to see this as a weird interpretation because he's basically been the main character of the entire MCU thus far, which means he's likely to get sympathetic treatment and justification from the narrative even if he's ostensibly being called out for fucking up, and that's something I've definitely seen. his entire first movie is about him realizing how wrong he was and working to do better, definitely, but he ends up being his own worst enemy half the time and other people suffer for it. like...he wants to protect the world, okay, that's a reasonable goal. you can argue that the vision Wanda gave him made things worse, and that's possible, but I don't know how much that might be true given that I'm pretty sure he was working on Ultron before that too (and her mind-magic mostly seemed to work by emphasizing something that was already there, not planting new ideas). so he ends up creating a murderbot, with good intentions but he still does it and he keeps it secret from the other Avengers, and now-sentient murderbot immediately reaches the conclusion that humanity is awful and they won't need protecting if they're all gone, and everything breaks very bad, and then Tony...basically does the exact same thing again, without telling anybody else, in hopes that it'll work out better this time because JARVIS? and it does but that seems like mostly luck? and everybody manages to defeat the murderbot, barely, but a not-insignificant number of civilians die anyway because that tends to happen when a sentient murderbot goes on a rampage, and Tony feels really guilty about this when it's shoved in his face, so he deals with his guilt by kind of...spreading it around and allowing the possibility of other major problems down the line so they can hand over some of that responsibility and he can feel less guilty. (that’s not the most charitable interpretation, yeah, but I also don’t think it’s an unreasonable one, based on what’s there in the text.) and then of course things blow up and other problems get dragged in and it's a huge mess and half the Avengers are fugitives, and the general consensus sort of seems to be that nobody was completely right or completely wrong but Steve is the only one who actually apologizes for any of it (no wait, I guess Wanda and Vision apologized but just to each other) and Rhodey reinforces the idea that the Accords were a good idea with no major drawbacks...and then Thanos shows up and things get SO VERY MUCH worse.

and Tony is once again stricken with grief and guilt (not to mention half dead), so lashing out at Steve is understandable, but what he actually says is basically that this is all Steve's fault because he wasn't there (even though he immediately sent Tony that phone, which means Tony could have contacted him at any time but hesitated to do so even when monsters were basically falling from the sky), and he was right about the Accords and Ultron even if the latter didn't work out so well in ways that probably could have been predicted, and...that's what we're left with. nobody else has a meaningful opportunity to say "now hold on a second, you cannot possibly be arguing both for accountability and for your right to decide for the entire world that exchanging some freedom for some potential security is a good trade, and also how are you saying you were essentially right about Ultron when Ultron is what kicked off the desire for the Accords" or, like, anything. (does the world need a security blanket? going by the evidence...yeah, probably? but again. Tony. you tried that and you made a sentient murderbot instead so like, your track record is not great!!)

and then it all culminates with Tony sacrificing himself to save the universe, which I do at least think was a climactic, thematically resonant send-off for such a major character--for the final time, in the most final possible of ways, he reaches a point where there's no more clever tricks and he reacts by selflessly taking the entirety of the consequences onto himself. I can't say I'm happy with it, because I'm not a fan of character death in general even when it doesn't involve my top faves, and it absolutely would have been possible for the filmmakers to keep him alive if they hadn't gone into this with the specific intention of ending Tony's arc with his death. (ditto on all the other major character deaths, which is a big part about why they make me mad--none of them really, honestly had to happen, some even less than others.) but regardless of my feelings on whether it had to happen, it's inarguable that his entire arc from Iron Man to Endgame is that of a brilliant but selfish manchild who changes and grows until he doesn't hesitate to make the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of the entire universe.

BUT THEN THERE'S SPIDER-MAN AGAIN.

spoilers if you haven't seen Spider-Man: Far From Home but like, the entire conflict of that movie was based on two major things: a bunch of disgruntled Stark Industries employees, at least some of whom had to have legitimate, recent grievances (and frankly that whole mess demonstrates--among other things--that Stark Industries must have unforgivably lax security around its arsenal of world-ending weapons); and Tony's decision at some point to essentially REMAKE ULTRON AND THEN DUMP THAT RESPONSIBILITY ON A FUCKING TEENAGER WITH ABSOLUTELY NOTHING IN THE WAY OF WARNINGS, TRAINING, OVERSIGHT, OR EVEN BASIC FAILSAFES, like holy shit my computer spends more time making sure I definitely want to delete that file than EDITH does about confirming that yes this random teenager is a legitimate target for IMMEDIATE DEATH. all the other adults involved in this clusterfuck bear a good share of the responsibility for this too, given that not one of them ever seemed to think either "hey, maybe saddling a smart and very good but basically normal sixteen-year-old boy with the power and responsibility (but not the resources or experience) of a grown-ass adult with unlimited resources is not the smartest move here, and yelling at him when he inevitably fucks up this power and responsibility we dumped on him with no training whatsoever is not actually fair or reasonable" or even "maybe before giving a piece of massively powerful and dangerous tech to a sixteen-year-old boy, we should spend at least 15 minutes going over the device's major functions and how to not accidentally kill someone, even if we figure things like ethics and privacy rights and knowing when not to use this tech aren't that important".

but, but, Tony still made the decision to give it to him, and he did so without building in any precautions at all, which is the exact same thing he did in CW/Homecoming with Peter's new suit (yes, the Training Wheels protocol was a good step, but the fact that it could just be turned off that easily--and that Tony isn't shown even trying to tell Peter to use the training programs or safely practice with the suit--shows that it really, really wasn't good enough) except even worse because EDITH is about 100 times more invasive and destructive than the suit. and he pretty much scolded Peter in Homecoming for getting ahead of himself, but then the second Peter did well in a bad situation Tony was right back to making this teenager an official Avenger and giving him all this power and responsibility he'd just decided Peter hadn't really earned, and Peter turned him down because at that point he had a better idea of his own limits and need for growth than Tony did, and then!! in what must have been one of his last acts alive!! Tony dumped an even bigger, more dangerous power/responsibility combo on him!!! way way bigger than the one he'd already turned down and maturely decided he wasn't yet experienced enough to handle!!! without even giving him a chance to say no!!!! and did not take any of that (or the mess with Ultron and the lessons he theoretically learned there, or the mess with the Accords and the lessons he theoretically learned there, or for that matter the lessons he theoretically learned in his three solo movies about treating his employees well and making sure he knows exactly what his company is doing at all times) into account when designing it, handing it off to other adults who also should have been more responsible about it, and leaving it to a teenager against that teenager's stated wishes, thereby ensuring that this teenager will follow Tony's footsteps in being unable to have a normal life!!!!!

...................but, okay, the point of the original post was that Steve is generally deemed to be Always Right and therefore he never has to change, and that makes him unrelatable at best and also not a great character. which...well, that's part of the point, that's why he was picked for Project Rebirth in the first place because he's a good dude dedicated to doing what's right; even before the serum, he was literally willing to die to protect a few people he barely knew (the grenade scene, remember). he was already starting from a point of selflessness and an understanding of responsibility that the others lacked, so it would be tough to give him a similar character arc without undermining or ignoring the whole point of the character. sure, though, even a character like Steve is imperfect and human and bound to be wrong sometimes, and when that happens he should acknowledge he was wrong and take steps to make amends, and if he's never shown doing any of that, it's true that it's not great even if part of the issue is that he's never really put in a position to do so. 

except, except DID YOU ALL COMPLETELY FORGET THE ENDING OF CIVIL WAR

like, sure, if what you wanted was to hear Steve say "I was wrong about everything and Tony was right about everything, and I will humbly submit to whatever you think is best regardless of my own convictions, my very good reasons for having those convictions, and my personal concerns for my friends, or at the very least I will humbly ask for forgiveness and accept whatever you throw at me, because Tony Was Right About Everything," then...yeah, I'm sure it was a disappointment, especially if you figure Tony was right about the Accords and at least the intentions behind Ultron. it's true Steve doesn't really address any of that, which indicates he definitely still believes he’s right about those parts. but...look, the last time he saw Tony, he was fighting to save his lifelong friend from being murdered from a crime he didn't necessarily remember and really wasn't responsible for. once again I don't blame Tony for reacting emotionally and lashing out at the nearest targets instead of the people who were really at fault, but that doesn't change the facts of the situation, which are, Steve was fighting to save Bucky's life. and when he did that by incapacitating Tony, he didn't go any further; he took Bucky and left. and then he almost immediately sent Tony a letter of apology and a means of contacting him in return if an emergency comes up--and again, yes, his apology wasn't "I'm sorry for everything because I was wrong about everything," but it was a genuine, compassionate apology for the ways he'd hurt Tony even if his intentions were basically good. (this of course assumes that he really did know for a fact that Bucky killed the Starks and consciously chose to hide the knowledge from Tony, and frankly I'm not convinced that's true, but it's not really the issue here.) honestly, I thought his letter was kind of funny because it so closely followed the format of the apology-note meme--you know, "I was trying to do X, but I see now that I hurt you because Y" and everything. he didn't apologize for opposing the Accords or protecting Bucky or fighting in Germany so he could get to Siberia in time to stop what he had every reason to believe was a much bigger threat, because all those actions stemmed directly from his convictions and sense of morality and he wouldn't be Steve Rogers or Captain America if he was willing to compromise his most foundational convictions--but he absolutely did apologize for hurting Tony and recognized that he'd made at least one big mistake where Tony was concerned. 

Tony...didn't. even before doubling down on the Accords and Ultron, I don't think he ever really said, hey, at least some of this was my bad; most of what he said boiled down to "okay this situation isn't ideal but I'm sure if I throw more money at it things will work out fine, more or less". in the Raft and in Siberia he got close to saying that maybe he'd been wrong about a few things, but that all went out the window pretty quick, and I don't think there's ever a point where he--just for instance--at least apologizes for trying very very hard to kill Bucky. and by Endgame, apparently he’s pretty much walked back what little he did kinda sorta think he was maybe wrong about. so.

that's...basically what I've got, OP’s interpretation is wrong because their facts are actually wrong and I was apparently annoyed enough to barf out all these words when I could’ve been doing anything else, the end

[neoyi]

Can you tell us about your HLD headcanons please?

Sure. I should also add a small disclaimer that a lot of the headcanons are just story ideas based on an AU where Drifter and Guardian doesn’t die, instead living out their lives in a post-apocalyptic world and their growing romance and eventual family life they create for themselves whilst uncovering Drifter’s amnesic past. I want to also add that much of these ideas are contradictory to canon since I’m just messing around the world for funsies. …It would have been a romantic comedy. Sooooo on that note…*Drifter can be incredibly hyperfixated with their interests. This largely extends to ancient ruins and past history left behind by civilizations of yesteryear, especially from blue-skinned folks like they are. It’s not just a fascination of What People Did back in the days, but an honest attempt to find any clues of their memories. *Drifter likes games, strategic games specifically. They like solving puzzles and unraveling complex mathematics. They play alien tabletop RPGs; they dig epic, long novels and can memorize obscure facts and useless trivia. They’re the kind that’d have a blog and write long-winded essays on Why This Character Had Amazing Character Development. *Drifter has something of a reputation. Having traveled around the world for years has caused the dude to get into their fair share of scuffles. Drifter’s stance is largely Neutral and the most they do is stay in a place, then move on to find more ruins and historic sights. But every so often, there might be That One Criminal who damns an entire town or some Megalomaniac who uses ancient tech to try and blow up the world and Drifter just happens to be there. With their sword and gun. Wasting the shit out of That One Criminal or that Megalomaniac. And perhaps in time, Drifter became a bit of a legend, the “Red-Cloaked Hero”, the “Savior”, “The Crimson Drifter” or whatever inane nicknames the people named ‘em. Drifter has become a symbol of hope and in these struggling times, some people gravitate towards that. For all Drifter claims neutrality, they don’t sit back when people need help, but it comes with baggage and people tend to recognize them - both the decent folks and the jack-offs who seek to kill ‘em for their own means. All Drifter wants is to be left alone, man. *One of the things I’ll never find the time to do is create small, one-off comics of Drifter getting into all sorts of adventure. Most of these would be wordless and the situations could range from anything to Drifter helping archeologists unlock lost history and fighting a giant robot inside or something like saving a princess in a far-off kingdom from a monster or stuck pulling a heist with some well-meaning thieves. Whatever comes to mind.

*Drifter has helped other drifters and archeologists with their research because for some very odd reason, they can unlock specific tech and locales that even other blue-skinned folks can’t…*Guardian is the son of a farmer and a drifter. His mother settled down from drifting life to tend to the farm with her husband (who is far from a warrior as you can get.) He has an older brother who currently travels the world, getting by through trade stories and inventing weird things. Guardian left the farm shortly after his father died (a stack of alcoholic beverages landed on top of him one day) to travel the world to pursue his dreams of studying history of ancient civilization. He settled in Central at some point and has stayed there since. He keeps in touch with his family.

*Guardian’s real name is “Tim.” I got that name from a joke from an HLD thread I read a while ago. He also has a last name, but it cannot be written here for it is very, very, very long, and contains letters that aren’t even in the current alphabet. *Guardian is into kitschy decor. He unironically loves curtains with corn cob patterns or their world equ. of garden gnomes in his garden. I have a jokethat Guardian must be written to be the most blandest guy you could ever meet. He talks endlessly about the potatoes he’s grown in his backyard, goes to bed at a reasonable hour, and can listen to his neighbor talk about the structure and kind of bricks he used to build his house. Guardian is unassuming, but kind.

*Incidentally, this is why Drifter eventually fell for Guardian and chose to stay in Central: he gives Drifter a solitary, quiet life that they want. Drifter’s gotten into enough shenanigans - whether they wanted it or not - and damn it, they’re just tired. Adventure will always come to them because their need to explore old ruins and tech and those tend to invite trouble, but at least they can do it together! Once they’re finished, Drifter also has a home to go back to that gives them the respite they need.

*Drifter totally had a one-night stand with the Dashmaster. This is not scandalous news in Central because a frighteningly number of people have had one-night stands with Dashmaster. Because he’s Dashmaster.

*Guardian has two jobs in Central: he, along with other volunteers, guards and patrols outside of Central for monsters or any signs of danger. He’s also a teacher at the town’s only school. Subjects vary, but it’s mostly history on his end.

*The Swordmaster is Guardian’s best friend. The two (and a couple of other buddies) hang out at the local bar every week.

*Drifter was the one to propose to Guardian. That was the unexpected part because at that point, they’ve already been discussing marriage. They both just assumed Guardian would propose. *Drifter only ever won once against Soccer Kid. Once.

*Drifter only wakes up early whenever they’re not in town because it’s practical (gotta cover as much ground as possible when you’re on the move.) Whenever they’re in inns and other shelters though, they sleep in. (Guardian always wakes up at the crack of dawn. He is often subjected to pillows being thrown by Drifter whenever he gets too happy in the morning.)

*I haven’t decided where Drifter got their current clothing. I think Drifter got their helmet off of a dead soldier, the cape probably off of another drifter’s corpse, and maybe Drifter - in one of their rare moments - splurged a little on their boots. They’re good quality boots and you need ones that last!*Drifter used to own an old motorcycle they used to travel around for a bit. It got too damaged and had to be abandoned eventually.

*Drifter’s favorite food is red meat. Guardian likes potatoes. *Restless and/or impatient Drifter involves them chewing on things, tapping their fingers, or shaking their legs.

*Guardian’s method of organizing is mostly pushing books and materials off to the side as much as possible. Once Drifter gets the hang of daily chores, they tend to go far enough that things must be alphabetized, we are not animals Guardian. *Drifter is practical enough to be able to fix their clothes whenever it’s damaged, but Guardian is the superior seamstress. He’s also better in the kitchen. Course, a lot of this stems from the latter having lived in civilization most of his life while Drifter mostly learned what they needed to survive. The latter tends to take advantage of what towns offer (ex: they eat conservatively when out in the middle of nature, but stuff their face in taverns because they have the opportunity to do so.)

*The stray dog that wanders near the eastern sector of Central ended up following Drifter when the latter, feeling a tinge of pity, gave the pup some food. The dog has never left Drifter since. This bothered Drifter at first since they had no use for a pet, even going as far as naming the dog “Babo” (”stupid” in Korean), but damn if the dog did not grow on ‘em. (Incidentally I actually drew out most of the pages of this comic, but I never inked or posted them up online.)

*Life before Drifter was well, a drifter, was spent during the last remnants of the blue-skinned (yeah, I never thought of an actual name for these guys) civilization: in the midst of the great war that screwed them over. They were the [NAME REDACTED], child of the Librarian (herself a big contributor to the giant Titans) and a cut character from the game: Rivan. The latter was the last King of their civilization and, well, he was nicknamed Mad King Rivan for a reason. Knowing he was off his gourd in his mad pursuit for power, the Librarian stepped off the Titan project and got the hell out with intent on living a peaceful life alone with her than unborn child. Drifter spent most of their childhood with their mother with no acknowledgement on who their father was. The Librarian spent her time creating the pendant (and Drifter’s companion bot), containing memories of their time, and as much information on their culture as possible, slowly realizing over time that the end was nigh. The Librarian sent Drifter to safety during the last days of their civilization. Drifter was placed in a pod, frozen in time until they eventually woke up with no recollection of who they are. Drifter has no idea the pendant and their companion bot has pretty much all the info they could need (it also requires solving a complex algorithm to unlock the info, too.)

*That said, Rivan is still alive and he not only intends to bring his kingdom back (a big reach in and of itself at this point), he knows he has a child…

I think that’s all I can think or muster. Hope this is good enough.

[words-writ-in-starlight]

reading part 1 and like, it feels silly to go ‘dang nice first line’ when you clearly worked hard on the first line, you know full well it’s nice, but still. nice first line. drops you right in the world, has that ring of myth but also of urgency, explains right away what the problem is, and also now I’m overanalyzing but it does start things right off by making sure you don’t trust Crispin, don’t trust what he appears to be no matter what. it puts you on edge, on guard, making sure you assume

he’ll lie to you (well, to Brenneth). And like. I know what the original story is, it’s not like I needed the reminder, but the sharp sense of unbalance and distrust that you get right at the start of the story is quite good. ++ Funny - I realize suddenly that I don’t actually know what Crispin looks like. I know you’ve described him somewhere, but it didn’t stick, or maybe you just didn’t mention the hair. I don’t remember it being red-gold.

(the hades and persephone au)

Fun fact, I scrapped THREE, count them, THREE intro scenes before I settled on this one, so no, you are no over-analyzing.  Some fragments of the other intro scenes wound up elsewhere in the story, but mostly?  I just chucked them wholesale and started from scratch.  So, like, yeah, I’m really glad that one works out because I was rapidly running out of good places in the story to pick up the action.  Also, this is both a nod to the actual intro to the novel and wildly at odds, because on the one hand, it does open with a mysterious individual who has, presumably, broken into Brenneth’s home, but it’s also all trust all the time with Crispin from the very first line of the novel, so.

Yoo the season thing is tight, that is the good stuff, and by saying it’s jarring you make it into a bad, unnatural thing, not a thing of wonder as it would be in most stories. Nice. ++ “mundane lightning, if such a thing even existed” Interesting. Not even sure why exactly, just.. interesting. ++ I like that he stabs her xD ++ “her best emotionless expression” NICE I like how this shows, without explaining why, not only that she’s upset somehow, but that it’s a big deal (her BEST such

expression, this is a big effort she’s making). It suggests a personal connection, which, ok, I know she has one bc I know Alleirat, but this is fanfic, that’s allowed. Anyway it’s a very economical way of showing it, so nice job. ++ “the snarl evaporated into a smile” Huh. He trusts her, in a way, even if only in that he thinks he knows her well enough to know what to expect. ++ "If you wanted to talk” I wonder if he really does think, even for a moment, that this is just personal.

Crispin…like, to be completely honest, he’s not completely stable at this moment–I was going to say “not completely himself” but that wouldn’t be accurate–and he wants to force Brenneth into saying out loud what’s upsetting her.  Largely because it will upset her to say it out loud.  It’s a cruel jab, to do it in a way that reminds her that they’re friends, but he’s also trying to drive her into lashing out and, quite frankly, attempting his execution then and there, so he goes for cruelty over efficiency.

"gentle note of menace” Interesting. What menace does he threaten? What can he threaten, here? Or is it just generalized menace? Maybe he’s just a menacing guy. ++ "glittered like a jewel in a setting” An unusual metaphor for a person. I like how it makes him hard and sharp, and fey in how he glitters, and trapped, like jewels are by their settings. ++ Brenneth is very polite. I think I like that about her. I think she does it because she’s solid, steady. She knows who she wants to be, and she’s

not about to be any less than that, even in the little things. 

Brenneth is one of those people where a short temper that tends to flare hot and spectacular but largely harmless, which I think is a satisfying contrast with Crispin, who’s slow to lose his temper and coldly precise but absolutely lethal when he does.  And above anything else…she’s sad, I think.  Brenneth doesn’t like admitting it, in any universe, but she’s sad about a lot of things, a lot of the time, and that makes her a little more likely to offer civility to someone trying to hurt her.  Not invulnerable to snapping and getting violent, but it buys 

++ @the shards in his eyes: holy shit that’s good imagery. it’s a common enough concept but you’ve phrased it so poetically that it gains new strength ++ god that conversation’s intense. I like that she was mortal before – grounded in the world, in a life, in mundane mortality. And he emerged from a storm, no connections to anything, not even kin, not even parentage. His first memories a furious and beautiful destruction, chaos given

form. And he’s the one who’s Spring, and she who’s Death. ++ "His hands were burned badly across the palms” Good way to keep her fire in the story, even with her being Death and not anything typically considered fiery. Interesting that his hands are burnt where he touched her, but no part of him is burnt from her touching him, not even his chiton. ++ Shiko is bound to a task Brenneth set her, one that benefits Brenneth’s kingdom, and can only leave at her express will, yet Brenneth doesn’t think

of her as a servant, is even uneasy at the thought. I wonder how she does think of Shiko. It doesn’t seem to bother her that Shiko calls her ‘my lord’. (Incidentally I like the Lord thing. It’s a little weird at first but it works. Not sure how to really interpret it yet, if at all - guess I’ll know later in the story - but I like it.) 

First of all, I use and abuse a lot of misapplied titles in this, and I would say “lord” is probably the most common one, for a number of reasons.  The primary one is probably that Brenneth was introduced into the pantheon as a mortal, which already put her at a disadvantage, so her use of “lord” is making a very clear and specific point about her rank.  There’s that quote re: the Tortall about Alanna making a point with “sir” and Kel making a different point with “lady,” and Brenneth is making the former, whereas Krei eventually makes the latter.

Second of all, Brenneth’s whole stance on Shiko is very conflicted.  On the one hand, she saved Shiko from an eternity of torment, absolutely and without question, but she did it by basically chaining Shiko to the ferry unless she’s specifically sent on an errand.  Shiko has known her longer thank anyone and more completely than anyone with the possible exception of Crispin, so Brenneth thinks of them as equals, but Shiko is acutely aware that her existence as someone not being tortured is entirely dependent on Brenneth’s good will, and Brenneth is aware of that as well.  And, of course, Brenneth killed Shiko, and it was Shiko’s actions that resulted in Brenneth’s appointment as the god of death.  There’s a lot of baggage there.

++ ‘“Well,” Shiko said, and abandoned the sentence.’ And my, what that says about how Brenneth is treated, and what Shiko thinks of it, and what Brenneth thinks

of it. I may be reading too much into it, but after what Crispin said, I don’t think I am. ++ She doesn’t mind thinking of Rada as a servant. Is it the choice? It sounds like though she could compel any shade to serve her (like one from Tartarus), she doesn’t, and they know they have a choice. But Shiko is bound to obey her, so Brenneth is uneasy about it? 

Yeah, basically.  Shiko has to serve Brenneth or her shade will be banished to the Fields of Punishment, whereas allowing shades to serve in her palace gives them the chance to wait for their family.  It’s a kindness she’s offering them, at its core level, whereas Brenneth sees Shiko’s task as the lesser of two fairly serious evils, even though it doesn’t bother Shiko overmuch, and she has a hard time living with having done that to someone who she feels was used and misled, rather than causing problems out of malicious intent.

++ “seeking something to consume” How odd that this is how it manifests. "her godhood was screaming for it” Ok now that’s intriguing. Does

she often get the urge to kill people? Is it only people who ‘should’ be dead? By what measure of ‘should’? ++ I wonder if she only breathes out of habit, from when she was mortal. I wonder if all gods breathe, or if they only bother occasionally. I wonder if Crispin’s heart has ever beat. 

Gods’ hearts don’t beat, as far as I’m concerned.  If they even have hearts, I guess, I’d be hard pressed to make that call on the spot.  Brenneth, basically, kept her mortal body and froze it at the moment of her apotheosis, so she doesn’t need a heartbeat or breathing, but she does them out of habit and as a sort of self-soothing pattern.  Oh, and I’d say that speaking with a throat does require breathing regardless of whether the oxygen is needed, on a purely mechanical level, so for those purposes all gods breathe when they’re speaking aloud.

Also, I’d say that it’s rare for Brenneth and her “god-self”, as it were, to be in direct conflict, but gods kill people for disrespect.  Brenneth does not.  This is her primary conflict with the part of her that operates as a deity first and a “self” second.

++ I think it means Rada’s brave, that he didn’t even back away when his form started to fall apart from her leaking rage. Or that he trusts her, or both. I like him. Witnesses, she asks for. What for?

What did they witness? Does she want to hold a trial? Or does she mean his victims? She can have her pick of those, I think. So many of them work in her palace, and many more are doubtless crowding her kingdom. She could probably just walk out and shout, “who wants to talk shit about the god of spring,” and she’d get like fifty volunteers in 2 seconds flat.

ok I think I’m gonna sleep. also, amusingly, I have now sent you enough asks that I have to prove I’m not a robot to send any more.

Rada is my BEST BOY and I LOVE HIM.  He worries SO MUCH about his boss.  In canon, he was Brenneth’s third in command when she was hunting Crispin, Torei’s most trusted subordinate, and he was EXACTLY like this, eternally fretting over people’s wellbeing and how seriously Torei was injured and whether or not Brenneth had remembered to eat.  He’s a GOOD BOY.  DOING HIS BEST.  His family is from the south of Alleirat in canon, which means their coloring is a lot like Brenneth’s and she reminds him of one of his younger sisters, so he’s particularly protective of her.

And yeah, everyone’s very eager to talk shit about Crispin.  Rada has exactly NO trouble finding volunteers.  He just wanders into Asphodel and goes “hey who wants to complain to the Lord of the Underworld about that fucker” and has a line OUT THE DOOR.

[avoresmith]

Hair Thoughts

AV I want to do A Cool Thing With My Hair Bu-

DO IT. DO THE COOL HAIR THING*

(*From this point on we will assume I’m talking about people in situations where Doing The Cool Thing Hair will not result in you losing your job, place to live, or for some reason otherwise be dangerous to you, and isn’t about a white person looking to culturally appropriate some other culture’s rad hair styles.)

I have the fortune to live in Seattle where I can do what the fuck ever I want and people will be positive and receptive, and most places of businesses honestly don’t give a shit (I see LOTS of customer service people with Real Sweet Hair.), but I still really often get ‘I want to do X but I’m afraid to for Y reasons’. So let this be a general purpose post of reasons you should do the thing and tips on how to do some of those things.

Your hair grows back

Beauty standards that tell you that you can only look attractive with a certain style of haircut are bullshit

Frankly all notions of ‘bad hair cuts’ are just perspective, but fearing them limits you from having hair you TRULY LOVE

There is an ENTIRE INTERNET full of DIY guides and youtube channels for all manner of self hair care so you can do things relatively cheap.

Yes you’ll fuck up sometimes but good news: hair grows back, and you get better with practice

Bodies are hard, they suck, you can’t always control much about them. You can’t be short if you are tall, other anatomical changes may be possible with a lot of dollars but having a lot of dollars is hard, maintaining weight and muscle mass is a daily struggle and long term commitment. Meanwhile, hair? You can do that shit in a few hours, if you don’t like it you can change it, if you really don’t like it it will fix itself given some time. You can change your mind about how you want it to look every few months, or every day if you get really good at Doing Dos. 

Basically it’s like make up, but with a little more commitment, a little more sticking power, and I (personally) think a lot more ability to empower you to Feel Good About You.

YOUR HAIR GROWS BACK

NOW, I, PERSONALLY. Am white with an undercut and I dye my hair various multihued bright colors on a regular basis: pics here

So I can offer various tips on those things under the cut:

ON BLEACHING

Color won’t take to natural hair very well, though obviously lighter colors will do better. But part of the process of bleaching hair opens up the hair to let color IN, so if you skip this step it fades faster.

Bleaching yourself is honestly real easy. Find some DIY guides, do the thing. 

Bleaching is bleach mixed with volumizer, you can buy ‘bleaching kits’ for specific hair types that give you measurements, or just by powdered bleach and large bottles of volumizer in bulk. I do the latter. 

If your hair is blond to medium brown, don’t use a volumizer higher than 20 for any reason, you can probably get away with using 10. (I use 20).

If your hair is darker than that, research it, but have also used 20 on my friend’s hair and just watched it closely and kept it wet. I’ve used 30 as well but 20 works as long as I keep an eye on it and make sure it stays wet. I can get very dark brown hair to a bright gold with this.

If you have Very Dark Hair and absolutely MUST get like White or Platinum Blond. Dooo your research, do hair tests, find several DIYs specifically targeting your natural hair color AND desired hair color. Possibly save up to have a professional who works specifically with what you want do it the first time, then ask them what products they use/pay a lot of attention so you can repro at home.

Bleach works as long as it’s wet, if you let it dry it stops bleaching your hair and is only poisoning it, keep it moist while it is on, it also works better if warm.

DON’T BLEACH ALREADY BLEACHED HAIR. Don’t do it!!! All of the horror stories about people melting their hair is from either leaving it on way too long or bleaching multiple times. You bleach once, and then you dye, then you let that color wash out until it’s light enough that you can dye again. Just bleach your roots when they come back in and otherwise let it go.

Obviously when you bleach your roots there will be a litttle bit of overlap into already bleached hair, this has never hurt me. If you want to know if your hair can handle a second bleaching google tests for that, but what I’m mostly warning against her is ‘don’t try to bleach the dye out of your hair that is a Bad Plan’.

If you are dying your hair some bright colors with vegetable dyes, bright yellow is totally good enough. If you want to dye your hair like Mint Green you’ll need to get it to a platinum blond THEN tone it to white, which I don’t know anything about other than that it’s more work than I want to deal with, but you can totally google this! There are lots of white hair dye guides on youtube!

ON DYEING

VEGETABLE DYES FADE! No matter how bright and saturated you get them and how hard you try, it will run out. This is fine! You will be MUCH HAPPIER if you go in liking blue and also lighter blue and also blue green and all the different ways you hair can fade than being married to one specific tone that must never budge.

Tho that said, if you are coloring your hair That One Hue, it’s pretty easy to work some dye into your hair washing regimen every couple of weeks to keep the color alive, or mix the dye with your conditioner so every time you condition you’re getting a bit more of the color back in!

Dye fades FASTER from warm water and shampoo

As such, when I am maintaining a color I shampoo every four days with cold water, and when I want to wash it out so I can move on to the next color, I shampoo every other day with warm.

The color will probably never fade entirely, as such once you apply a dye you have basically changed the color of your canvas for future dyes. 

I.E.: The first time you’re going to be putting say, red on yellow, when that fades, maybe you are putting blue on pink, this blue will fade into the pink so you may end up with a pale purple instead of pale blue. 

Some basic color theory helps here. If you dye your hair purple and it fades to pink, don’t put green over it next time. You need to work around the color wheel. So if you put a blue over it and when that fades to a blue/purple you can put a green over it and it will fade to light teal. Don’t put contrasting colors that are gonna gray each other out on top of each other.

Similarly, if you want a PINK CHUNK and a GREEN CHUNK on the same head, you can do that. but when you wash your hair/when the hair is wet, separate them so they don’t bleed into each other. (This isn’t as much trouble as it sounds like, I constantly have contrasting chunks on my head).

You can mix vegetable dyes like paints (that’s basically what they are) to get the color you want. The color you get will usually be a bit lighter and brighter than the dye itself.

I use manic panic, which are about 12 dollars a jar and perfectly fine for me. I haven’t noticed a difference between the jars and the special Amplified version except that the shit in squeeze bottles is way easier to open.

The vast majority of the time, my hair only stains if it is wet, and only for the first week or two. So I sleep on at towel if I go to bed with my hair wet and otherwise don’t worry about it. There has been ONE exception to this, Rockabilly Blue, which will stain my hands if I run them thru my hair too much for the first week after dying.

Color Faves

Manic Panic’s Vampire Red is the Reddest Mc Red Blood Red color of red I’ve found. Other reds tend to be a little more orangy or pinkish or kind of muddy.

Manic Panic’s Rockabilly Blue is the bluest mc blue pure deep bluest blue I’ve found. But see above about the staining.

I use Electric Lizard as a green base a lot, mixed with other darker greens it can have more body to the color but still that bright green sheen that lasts a long time.

That said with the exception of reds sometimes being disappointing, I’ve really never found a color I dislike?

I change my hair color roughly every 6-8 weeks. THe longer you let it fade the easier it is to put a different color on top and have it stick. But dye isn’t bad for your hair, it’s actually a conditioner, so you can change the color basically as often as you want and the only risk of ill effects is creating a muddy color, which you can avoid with basic color theory. 

If you do want to get a color stripped as quickly as possible, just wash regularly with hot water and johnson’s baby shampoo or any shampoo that advertising stripping color and then put something new on top.

Yes, you can also dye back to a ‘normal’ hair color, tho color theory still applies (if you want to go brown, which is orange, and put it over pale blue hair, the resulting color will be a bit grayed out).

NONE OF THE ABOVE APPLIES TO BLACK HAIR, which is REALLY HARD to ever get out, tho I have seen professionals do it.

ON UNDERCUTS

HAIR GROWS BACK!!

Undercuts can be hidden surprisingly easily. In fact, buzzing off the under layer of a hair is one method to help hair lay flat (IE if you want a smooth bob). 

So I have over half of my hair shaven off (right left and back) but if I part it down the middle you can only see the undercut up near my ears.

So if you keep your hair undercut somewhere that you can drop hair over it, you can have an undercut and ‘hide’ it from your workplace or family or whatever pretty easily.

If you have thick hair, undercuts are amazing. I literally will never go back to a full head of hair. I like long hair but I never need that much of it again.

I buzz my hair about once a month to keep it where i’m more or less happy with it. Lots of hair places will advertise like 10$ buzz cuts in the window and take care of that in about five minutes. 

I’ve also recently learned it’s pretty easy to buzz my own hair. It’s not quite as clean as if someone else does it but it’s less effort and money for me.

IDK undercuts aren’t complicated but they are kind of scary. But if you’ve ever wanted to do it, you should do it!! I find it very empowering. Fuck you hair you aren’t the boss of me and you’re soooooo soft and fun to touch when buzzed down.

I think that covers basically everything I generally get asked but feel free to hit me up if you have questions.

DO IT, LIVE YOUR HAIR DREAMS, WHATEVER THEY ARE.

[raitchparker]

Sunday, March 5, 2017

Nothing quite builds the desire to write creatively than being paid to write about power tools. So, here I am.

I spent the better part of yesterday in a room full of people as gripped by fear, anxiety, and a deep desire for change as I am. Two organizers, named Scott and Michelle signed onto the Indivisible project within seconds of the inauguration and have been pulling a bunch of us en masse to demonstrations and meetings. There is so much happening every day, to list it out is a litany of science fiction. I can’t list any of it right now. Maybe some day, I will. It’s hard to fathom what history will say about this era. 

What I have to say is that I do not share much passion for my activism. I never really have. To me, it is on par with exercise or eating a mostly low fat diet. I don’t really want to do it, but I know the painful results that await me if I don’t. Also: just like I prefer to hang out with stable and healthy people, so do I prefer the company of people who are awake. I always, always have. I’ve always run to places where awake people gather, like the coasts, the mountains, and parts of the dessert. Now, I’m tucked away in a corner of a small city, reaching out and finding my people. 

One of them, Anne, I had lunch with this week. Another colleague of ours, Debbie, sat with us through a sobering lunch where we stammered our concern, fear, privilege, and resolve. We are thankfully motivated. I am thankfully not alone. 

I felt like complete emotional shit all week. Honestly, I don’t think it’s fair to have to menstruate during the era of T****. Especially with the sick husband and a body of lawmakers who are using the health insurance on which he is so dependent as the most irresponsible political wedge in the history of my lifetime (just this side of abortion, voting rights, and all the other horrible racist shit Congress has done in our name since the founding of the Republic). There were too many days of tears last week. I was wiping them away like an angry child attacks her sadness from the unwanted pain of a scabbed knee. They shouldn’t be there, not this much. 

But they are there, quite a lot. It is not easy, starting over. I heard a voice, the voice of the yogi, to be sure, who in the midst of that turmoil, that grief, that blistering anger that spoke to me in the form of torrents of sobs. It said: “You just started over. Your friends are far away. Your husband is sick. It’s okay to feel alone. It’s okay to be scared.”

Sometimes, you turn into the skid. It’s the only way to stop. It’s also the only way to forgive yourself for moments when it feels like everything is about to fall apart. And so, even in all the spinning, I stopped. I saw the world and remembered that it’s always, always been a place of unfettered cruelty and hatred. To believe I could escape the brunt of it is to see myself as something spectacularly lucky. We have been lazying ourselves through a modestly participatory democracy for a century now. 

So, I listened to the yogi voice, because she’s the smart one. She always knows what’s up. “Please,” she said, “the world is in turmoil. Please, be soft with yourself. Be quiet. Be mindful. Be kind.”

To me, a horrid epoch started with the death of Bowie and was capped with an orange-faced monster’s inauguration. I’d never equivocate the former with the latter, but they both broke my heart, so it matters to me. I’m listening to “Space Oddity” right now, because I need that David, the David who had only recently turned away from being David Jones. I haven’t listed to that album for years, and rediscovering it is lovely.

My friend N--- was the roommate who had this album. We stopped speaking over a decade ago, and she is as self-destructive and messy as they come, but this album ties me to her and a house we shared together. I’ve had a couple of dreams lately where she floats in and is nicer, younger, and friendlier than she would be if I saw her now. It was the version of her I met in the 90s and it was like spending time with her. 

She was one of the first warriors who taught me how to be a real fighter. She led me to yoga and other esoteric practices, she gave me the instinct to chant, which I still contend saved me. So, “Oddity” is a bridge to her, and that time, the girl I think of when Ani DrFranco sings about her “starstruck girl.” I love the way the soul pulls you to the albums you need, because it knows, somewhere buried in its lyrics, in its swells and lush orchestration you’ll find the moment, a bullet, that sends you armed, ready, steaming, and flaming for the fight the next day. 

Because, FUCK. That’s the only word for it, this period. Every headline is worthy of its own new curse word. We are all armpit deep in potential losses. Everyone is scrambling looking for anything to grab so we can all have a hand free to hold onto our very humanity. These are rough waters. We are all exhausted and gasping. 

Bowie buried the shimmery, glossy, very 60s and folky (”Oddity” is his folkiest album by a mile) “Cygnet Committee,” and on it, he sings like a man whose just lost his religion. I’d always assumed it was about war, but I read in the Mojo Bowie edition that it was about the dissolution of an art collective Bowie had helped create. Or something like that. The thing is in storage and I haven’t putted together the damned book cases yet. 

The song structure belies the epic rock drama of other long Bowie movements, like the “Sweet Thing” trio on Diamond Dogs and, of course, “Station to Station.” It is a character song, and, so, no one probably really knows exactly what the song is about unless Bowie specifically said. The orchestration is demanding and remarkable. There is Dylan-influenced guitar laced within it, as well as a direct shout out to Detroit (”kick out the jams”). You can hear him pulling at the boundaries of analogue instruments, with what sounds like a spinet (but could be a Hammond) tinkling in the background. 

I need my fight songs right now, and I forgot this one existed until it spoke to me today. It raised its hands and said “I’m the song. I’m what you needed. I was right here.” I did need it. It reached out from over 40 years ago and clobbered me on the head with its history. 

Who am I to think this is the worst of times anyway? How could this be worse than an era when black and white people couldn’t legally marry? How can I know what it was like to have friends drafted into a war? I would have, had I been a young woman, a woman Bowie’s age, then. Friends of mine would have been dragged, helpless and alone, to Vietnam. 

Who am I, a Jew, to think that my life is harder than my great grandfather, a man so scarred by his own heritage that he wouldn’t tell my grandfather, his own son, his true last name. Who am I to feel suffocated when my own husband can’t take an uncompromised breath?  

I dove into the song and let it take over my sadness. I’d been writing about power tools off and on all day. I’d already taken my husband to lunch at Unioin Loafers, a remarkable bakery and lunch spot that Cassidy has been preaching about since we moved to the neighborhood. We had great food and I drank strong coffee because I knew I’d need it. (I’ve been drinking coffee again regularly for the first time in nearly 15 years. I felt about that for about 8 seconds; there are far worse fucking things I could be drinking too much of at a time like this). 

Herbert at a messy chicken salad sandwich and I had maybe some of the best pastrami I’ve ever had. it was feathery, light, very lean and perfectly seasoned, piled onto their fresh baked caraway, piled to the ceiling. It’s an elegant little spot and I could see sharing a bottle of wine with a sister or four there soon (their wine list is great and super reasonably priced). I sipped on the hot coffee and watched Herbert pick his way through his messy sandwich. (Herbert has a pet peeve about oozy sandwiches; there was a restaurant in our old neighborhood that became his sandwich nemesis for this reason.) 

To know your husband’s sandwich preferences is the normalcy of marriage. Happily married people love that kind of intimacy. I suppose unhappily married people are tortured by them. To one, it’s a reminder of love and companionship, to the other, a sort of torture.  

“When I go to a place like this,” Herbert at one point said, referencing the hip urban crowd (a very diverse one to be clear), the relatively loud music, the crowded dining room, “it occurs to me how wiped out I am.”

I shared with him that the night before, when I was networking with local activists, that I knew it would have been more than he could handle. Walking from parked cars to crowded rooms, backed to more cars, onto another restaurant, where there was more walking. I recognize so many times where he should be with me, and probably wants to, and last night was surely one of those. He’d have been with me at the Women’s March. But I’m doing all of this alone. He’s spending his time alone, in our (albeit fully beautiful and comfortable) house. 

And that’s how you normalize illness. That’s how you come back together when an ideological war is raging around you. You eat sandwiches and you talk about the disease that destroyed your husband’s lungs. You embrace all of it. When you can, you remember how lucky you are to be able to eat a nice $40 lunch with your husband, as heartbreaking as it is that he’s taking medicine that requires he wear 50 SPF sunscreen, even on an overcast day (it was drizzling when we left).

As soon as we got home from the restaurant, I clicked on the space heater and sat down to write about tools. It’s work that’s easy to get distracted from. And so I tend to Facebook and then get back to writing. Writers are experts in killing time. 

Somewhere in there I felt a yearning for the right piece of music that would remind me how to live through all this. I started with Prince’s (lest I remember how crushed I am that he’s fucking dead, too) “Around the World in a Day” which is ridiculous and got me through a blog about dust collection equipment. I went right to Kate Bush’s “The Kick Inside” with her wee, 19-year old voice and her quaint arrangements, belting out tunes on what I’d still argue is one of the most staggering debut albums ever. 

I kept going back to Spotify, until I went back to an old Bowie. I felt the young person who first heard those songs, the 20-something who lived in Tucson, kick at me. It was my kick inside. And I started crying. 

Not right away. I let the opening tracks wash over me. I drifted over to Facebook and posted a link to the song “Unwashed and Slightly Dazed” and I reminded everyone who reads my posts that I still miss Bowie. I got through about 1k words about demolition hammers and portable flashlights with “Letter to Hermione.” 

Then the lyrics of “Cygnet Committee” clobbered me in the face with their relevance, their nowness. I listed to the song two times in a row. I sat in my desk chair and let myself get rocked with deep, deep sadness. I turned into the skid. I let Bowie be my lullaby, as he has been so, so, so many times in my life. I felt possessed by hope, by the sweet knowledge that men like Bowie always matter, too. He mattered.

This is a fighting song. Whatever it’s really about it is, in every way, a 60s song. It’s got a battle march beat at the end, and it’s in the final moments of Bowie crying “I Want to Live” that kept sending me back to the beginning. Mostly, though, it was because I needed to hear this sequence more than anything. Over and over again, as this operative folk rock song churns over on itself, an ambitious 9 minutes of as well-crafted pop as has ever existed on earth, this moment felt like its heart. It pounded its way into me, and out of me, as I just let it bring me into a little pool of sobs, sobs I knew would wring their way out of me until the ship stopped spinning. This is what you listen to when you slide into a skid during the era of T****:

“And We Know the Flag of Love is from Above And We Can Force You to Be Free And We Can Force You to Believe"And I close my eyes and tighten up my brain For I once read a book in which the lovers were slain For they knew not the words of the Free States' refrain It said: I believe in the Power of Good I Believe in the State of Love I Will Fight For the Right to be Right I Will Kill for the Good of the Fight for the Right to be Right.”

Thank you, David. Thank you so much for teaching me that language. I need it right now. I need to remember that I will kill for the good of the fight for the right to be right. I don’t think it will come to that, but that’s what I need tattooed on the inside of my fucking eyes right now. I believe in the power of good. I believe in the state of love. I will fight for the right to be right. I will kill for the good of the fight for the right to be right.

You get through a traumatic childhood like mine by finding the right guideposts from the outside world. Bowie was more than a guidepost. He was a searchlight mixed with a billboard. This way, he said. He helped me name my tribe. I have to be grateful for being someone who loves music right now. Because I can’t give up. None of us can give up. This is a lousy time for giving up. 

About a week ago, I went over to Cass’s sister-in-law’s house for an event she (her name is Rachel) hosted for a friend who has just written a book. Her name is Steph Jagger and her memoir, “Unbound” is about quitting her job and taking a long ski trip. She’s lovely and some of the women there had read her book. I’d meant to, but of president T****, so I only read terrifying headlines right now. My brother-in-law’s brother’s wife, Kris, was there with her two sisters, one of whom is a theater artist and both are lovely. 

It turns out that Dot’s other aunt Rachel happens to live about a block from where this Aunt Rachel grew up. Rachel lives on a street that was literally on my way home from school. About two blocks from her sits the community theater where I did children’s theater when I was a kid. The most tender and loving moments I have of my childhood happened there. 

We got a bit giggly about that when I walked in the door and I drank too much rose. I knew I was a little depressed (heavy and soggy with a horrifically painful and heavy menstrual cycle that would dragged me down even during the relatively restful Obama era). If I could have gotten my hands on fresh doughnuts, I would have walked into her house with three dozen and a bag of sherry to wash them down. That’s how I felt before I got there. 

I spoke to the theater sister about local theater and drank a little too much rose and luxuriated in the simple joy that, yes, this is a part of my new life, too. As hard as things go, I came home at the right time. These were all perfectly charming, smart and accepting people. Kris’s sister Ellie knows a lot about the local scene, has a theater company, and is curious to read some of my writing. It felt like a gift, that night, a reminder of the smart choice I made to come back here, of the world I’m defending, of these nice people who work hard and have the right to raise their lovely children. They loved me and talked me into some well-needed joy. 

I’ll keep stumbling along like this until I can’t. I’ll keep showing up at meetings until I die. I know that now. I’ll never not be involved for the rest of my days. I get it. I did a lot, but it was never enough. I have the gift of extra time now and I will use to show my ass up as long as I can. 

Here we are, facing the dragon of our age. To this, to this epoch, to Herbert’s disease, to the threat of losing our healthcare, to the pain of growing up the child of an alcoholic, to my loneliness, to racism, misogyny, bigotry and ignorance, to the trolls I shall not name who spew venom on behalf of 45, I have this to say:

I will die for the good of the fight for the right to be right...especially if I die right after eating that pastrami at Urban Loafers.