#steven stone problems

[lavenderyulu]

the problem with having 4 sygna suits

[eizzil2]

Guys hears me out: What if Sapphire had a sword

[aqqleshiqqing-archive]

HELLO I AM FORMALLY INTRODUCING ANOTHER ROMANTIC SILLY WITH A WEDDING EDIT AHAKAKAHAKAKAJA MR AND MRS STONE BABYYYYYY LEZGOOOO

their kid is ruby and nobody will change my mind smh smh

og ref below!

i stitched this screenshot - i feel so proud rn HSHSHAHAHAHAH

[bxrningdragxn]

"It seems university has given you more time to worship Steven" - My cousin

...I guess she's not wrong

[hpmort]

In this current state of intoxication I realize that my thematic issues with the Steven Universe finale were reliant on projecting Pink Diamond onto Steven, and that it was all based on how it was pulled off- especially how easy it would have been to fix!

Change White Diamond’s pink lighting that makes it look like maybe Steven took control of her to being multicolored, making it more clear that she’s not had her abilities turned back on her, but rather whatever the flushing was supposed to symbolize (which I can kind of identify but can only gesture towards, perhaps not only because I am on drugs), and move “Change Your Mind” from its clumsy placement at the end, and make it play over White Diamond changing hers.

Then, have Sadie Killer and the Suspects play over the part that has the Off-Colors landing and meeting the Diamonds; then, the song ends after the fast version of the the scene with the Diamonds and the Off-Colors.

Everything is the same after that, minus the clumsy implementation of the song “Change Your Mind” into the show, so it ends with the reprise of the theme song.

[metagrossiite]

thinking a lot about steven and his neurodivergency. about him and his rsd, about how he holds those he subconsciously chooses as his people so close to him, to the point where he constantly overthinks interactions after the fact. thinking about how he chooses not to dwell on a lot of it but then sometimes he does and it leads to his general avoidance habit. thinking about how much his special interests mean to him and the levels of exploring he'll do to find or see things he wants so badly to see. thinking about what he'd do if he were to ever sneak or clear his name to go see the crater in paldea specifically

[immamapletreekid]

today i saw a person with a freaking steven stone shirt

[exploding-goobery]

I find it funny about how film academia was all like 'Spielberg's filmography reflects a man with severe daddy issues'

Then the Fablemans came out, and they collectively said 'oh shit'

[thaoworra]

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association recently released the poems that made it to the finalist stage for consideration for the 2024 Rhysling Awards for Short and Long Speculative Poems of the year. Congratulations to all of the nominees! This will be the 46th year these awards have been conferred!

Short Poems (50 finalists)

Attn: Prime Real Estate Opportunity!, Emily Ruth Verona, Under Her Eye: A Women in Horror Poetry Collection Volume II

The Beauty of Monsters, Angela Liu, Small Wonders 1

The Blight of Kezia, Patricia Gomes, HWA Poetry Showcase X

The Day We All Died, A Little, Lisa Timpf, Radon 5

Deadweight, Jack Cooper, Propel 7

Dear Mars, Susan L. Lin, The Sprawl Mag 1.2

Dispatches from the Dragon's Den, Mary Soon Lee, Star*Line 46.2

Dr. Jekyll, West Ambrose, Thin Veil Press December

First Eclipse: Chang-O and the Jade Hare, Emily Jiang, Uncanny 53

Five of Cups Considers Forgiveness, Ali Trotta, The Deadlands 31

Gods of the Garden, Steven Withrow, Spectral Realms 19

The Goth Girls' Gun Gang, Marisca Pichette, The Dread Machine 3.2

Guiding Star, Tim Jones, Remains to be Told: Dark Tales of Aotearoa, ed. Lee Murray (Clan Destine Press)

Hallucinations Gifted to Me by Heatstroke, Morgan L. Ventura, Banshee 15

hemiplegic migraine as willing human sacrifice, Ennis Rook Bashe, Eternal Haunted Summer Winter Solstice

Hi! I am your Cortical Update!, Mahaila Smith, Star*Line 46.3

How to Make the Animal Perfect?, Linda D. Addison, Weird Tales 100

I Dreamt They Cast a Trans Girl to Give Birth to the Demon, Jennessa Hester, HAD October

Invasive, Marcie Lynn Tentchoff, Polar Starlight 9

kan-da-ka, Nadaa Hussein, Apparition Lit 23

Language as a Form of Breath, Angel Leal, Apparition Lit October

The Lantern of September, Scott Couturier, Spectral Realms 19

Let Us Dream, Myna Chang, Small Wonders 3

The Magician's Foundling, Angel Leal, Heartlines Spec 2

The Man with the Stone Flute, Joshua St. Claire, Abyss & Apex 87

Mass-Market Affair, Casey Aimer, Star*Line 46.4

Mom's Surprise, Francis W. Alexander, Tales from the Moonlit Path June

A Murder of Crows, Alicia Hilton, Ice Queen 11

No One Now Remembers, Geoffrey Landis, Fantasy and Science Fiction Nov./Dec.

orion conquers the sky, Maria Zoccula, On Spec 33.2

Pines in the Wind, Karen Greenbaum-Maya, The Beautiful Leaves (Bamboo Dart Press)

The Poet Responds to an Invitation from the AI on the Moon, T.D. Walker, Radon Journal 5

A Prayer for the Surviving, Marisca Pichette, Haven Speculative 9

Pre-Nuptial, F. J. Bergmann, The Vampiricon (Mind's Eye Publications)

The Problem of Pain, Anna Cates, Eye on the Telescope 49

The Return of the Sauceress, F. J. Bergmann, The Flying Saucer Poetry Review February

Sea Change, David C. Kopaska-Merkel and Ann K. Schwader, Scifaikuest May

Seed of Power, Linda D. Addison, The Book of Witches ed. Jonathan Strahan (Harper Collins)

Sleeping Beauties, Carina Bissett, HWA Poetry Showcase X

Solar Punks, J. D. Harlock, The Dread Machine 3.1

Song of the Last Hour, Samuel A. Betiku, The Deadlands 22

Sphinx, Mary Soon Lee, Asimov's September/October

Storm Watchers (a drabbun), Terrie Leigh Relf, Space & Time

Sunflower Astronaut, Charlie Espinosa, Strange Horizons July

Three Hearts as One, G. O. Clark, Asimov's May/June

Troy, Carolyn Clink, Polar Starlight 12

Twenty-Fifth Wedding Anniversary, John Grey, Medusa's Kitchen September

Under World, Jacqueline West, Carmina Magazine September

Walking in the Starry World, John Philip Johnson, Orion's Belt May

Whispers in Ink, Angela Yuriko Smith, Whispers from Beyond (Crystal Lake Publishing)

Long Poems (25 finalists)

Archivist of a Lost World, Gerri Leen, Eccentric Orbits 4

As the witch burns, Marisca Pichette, Fantasy 87

Brigid the Poet, Adele Gardner, Eternal Haunted Summer Summer Solstice

Coding a Demi-griot (An Olivian Measure), Armoni “Monihymn” Boone, Fiyah 26

Cradling Fish, Laura Ma, Strange Horizons May

Dream Visions, Melissa Ridley Elmes, Eccentric Orbits 4

Eight Dwarfs on Planet X, Avra Margariti, Radon Journal 3

The Giants of Kandahar, Anna Cates, Abyss & Apex 88

How to Haunt a Northern Lake, Lora Gray, Uncanny 55

Impostor Syndrome, Robert Borski, Dreams and Nightmares 124

The Incessant Rain, Rhiannon Owens, Evermore 3

Interrogation About A Monster During Sleep Paralysis, Angela Liu, Strange Horizons November

Little Brown Changeling, Lauren Scharhag, Aphelion 283

A Mere Million Miles from Earth, John C. Mannone, Altered Reality April

Pilot, Akua Lezli Hope, Black Joy Unbound eds. Stephanie Andrea Allen & Lauren Cherelle (BLF Press)

Protocol, Jamie Simpher, Small Wonders 5

Sleep Dragon, Herb Kauderer, The Book of Sleep (Written Image Press)

Slow Dreaming, Herb Kauderer, The Book of Sleep (Written Image Press)

St. Sebastian Goes To Confession, West Ambrose, Mouthfeel 1

Value Measure, Joseph Halden and Rhonda Parrish, Dreams and Nightmares 125

A Weather of My Own Making, Nnadi Samuel, Silver Blade 56

Welcoming the New Girl, Beth Cato, Penumbric October

What You Find at the Center, Elizabeth R McClellan, Haven Spec Magazine 12

The Witch Makes Her To-Do List, Theodora Goss, Uncanny 50

The Year It Changed, David C. Kopaska-Merkel, Star*Line 46.4

Voting for the Rhysling Award begins July 1; a link to the ballot will be sent with the Rhysling Anthology, as well as with the July issue of Star*Line. More information on the Rhysling Award can be found here.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Before the 1960s, it was really hard to get divorced in America.

Typically, the only way to do it was to convince a judge that your spouse had committed some form of wrongdoing, like adultery, abandonment, or “cruelty” (that is, abuse). This could be difficult: “Even if you could prove you had been hit, that didn’t necessarily mean it rose to the level of cruelty that justified a divorce,” said Marcia Zug, a family law professor at the University of South Carolina.

Then came a revolution: In 1969, then-Gov. Ronald Reagan of California (who was himself divorced) signed the nation’s first no-fault divorce law, allowing people to end their marriages without proving they’d been wronged. The move was a recognition that “people were going to get out of marriages,” Zug said, and gave them a way to do that without resorting to subterfuge. Similar laws soon swept the country, and rates of domestic violence and spousal murder began to drop as people — especially women — gained more freedom to leave dangerous situations.

Today, however, a counter-revolution is brewing: Conservative commentators and lawmakers are calling for an end to no-fault divorce, arguing that it has harmed men and even destroyed the fabric of society. Oklahoma state Sen. Dusty Deevers, for example, introduced a bill in January to ban his state’s version of no-fault divorce. The Texas Republican Party added a call to end the practice to its 2022 platform (the plank is preserved in the 2024 version). Federal lawmakers like Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) and House Speaker Mike Johnson, as well as former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, have spoken out in favor of tightening divorce laws.

If this sounds outlandish or like easily dismissed political posturing — surely Republicans don’t want to turn back the clock on marital law more than 50 years — it’s worth looking back at, say, how rhetorical attacks on abortion, birth control, and IVF have become reality.

And that will cause huge problems, especially for anyone experiencing abuse. “Any barrier to divorce is a really big challenge for survivors,” said Marium Durrani, vice president of policy at the National Domestic Violence Hotline. “What it really ends up doing is prolonging their forced entanglement with an abusive partner.”

In the wake of the Dobbs decision, divorce is just one of many areas of family law that conservative policymakers see an opportunity to rewrite. “We’ve now gotten to the point where things that weren’t on the table are on the table,” Zug said. “Fringe ideas are becoming much more mainstream.”

REPUBLICANS IN MULTIPLE STATES ARE EYEING DIVORCE RESTRICTIONS

Pushback against no-fault divorce dates back decades. In the 1990s and early 2000s, three states passed covenant marriage laws, allowing couples to opt into signing a contract allowing divorce only under circumstances like abuse or abandonment. Some backers of the laws intended them to send a larger anti-divorce message, the Maryland Daily Record reported in 2001. Speaker Johnson, then a lawyer in Louisiana, was an early adopter of covenant marriage, entering one with his wife Kelly in 1999. 

More recently, high-profile conservative commentators have taken up the anti-divorce cause. Last year, the popular right-wing podcaster Steven Crowder announced his own unwilling split. “My then-wife decided that she didn’t want to be married anymore,” he complained, “and in the state of Texas, that is completely permitted.”

That could change. As Tessa Stuart noted in Rolling Stone, the Texas Republican party controls both chambers of the state legislature and the governor’s office, and could likely make its platform — the one calling on the state legislature to “rescind unilateral no-fault divorce laws” — a reality if it chose. The Louisiana and Nebraska Republican parties have also considered or adopted similar language.  

And Ben Carson, secretary of housing and urban development under President Donald Trump who has been floated as a potential VP pick, wrote in his recent book that “for the sake of families, we should enact legislation to remove or radically reduce incidences of no-fault divorce.”

ENDING NO-FAULT DIVORCE WOULD HAVE MAJOR CONSEQUENCES

Opponents of no-fault divorce argue that it is hurting families and American culture. Making divorce too easy causes “social upheaval, unfettered dishonesty, lawlessness, violence towards women, war on men, and expendability of children,” Deevers wrote last year in the American Reformer, a Christian publication. “To devalue marriage is to devalue the family is to undermine the foundation of a thriving society.”

It’s worth noting that though the no-fault laws initially led to spikes in divorce, rates then began to drop, and reached a 50-year low in 2019, CNN reports. But today, an end to no-fault divorce would cause enormous financial, logistical, and emotional strain for people who are trying to end their marriages, experts say. Proving fault requires a trial, something many divorcing couples today avoid, said Kristen Marinaccio, a New Jersey-based family law attorney. A divorce trial is time-consuming and costly, putting the partner with less money at an immediate disadvantage. It can also be “really, really traumatizing” to have to take the stand against an ex-partner, Marinaccio said.

There’s also no guarantee that judges will always decide cases fairly. In the days of fault-based divorce, courts were often unwilling to intervene in marriages even in cases of abuse, Zug said.

No-fault divorce can be easier on children, who don’t have to experience their parents facing each other in a trial, experts say. Research suggests that allowing such divorces increased women’s power in marriages and even reduced women’s suicide rates. A return to the old ways would turn back the clock on this progress, scholars say.

“We know exactly what happens when people can’t get out of very unhappy marriages,” Zug said. “There’s much higher incidences of domestic abuse and spousal murder.”

It’s unlikely that blue states would ban no-fault divorce, Marinaccio said, but if red states do, their residents would be stuck. Divorce laws generally include a residency requirement, which would make it difficult for people to cross state lines to get a divorce the way they sometimes do now to obtain an abortion. “Your state is the only access you have to divorce,” Marinaccio said.

Divorce is extremely common — more than 670,000 American couples split in 2022 alone. Any rollback to no-fault divorce would likely be politically unpopular, even in red states (some of which have higher divorce rates than the national average).

But perhaps emboldened by their victory in overturning Roe v. Wade, social conservatives have gone after other popular targets in recent months, from birth control to IVF. The drive to increase restrictions on divorce is part of the same movement, Zug said — an effort to re-entrench “conservative family values,” incentivize heterosexual marriage and childbearing, and disempower women. “They are all connected,” Zug said.

[chocochococoffee]

I saw your post asking for cumplane prompts and I couldn't resist giving one:

Fusion au (ala steven universe) where SQQ and SQH can only fuse with one another because fusing with anyone else would reveal them as transmigrators

yayyy thanks for the ask! i did a fanfic for you. its short tho. iis doneeeee but i cant really link it since android tumblr is shit and aint letting me hyperlink. i hate it

https://archiveofourown.org/works/57639514

here

-----

Sometimes Shen Yuan felt that he was thrown inside a nightmare. Airplane called it a fanfic, but didn't call his bro out for being wrong. Gemstones here, alien attacks there, the world the System had for them wasn't Proud Immortal Demon Way anymore. 

Where to start, though? Oh, from the Very Start.

PIDW was meant to be a stallion xianxia. Cheap, easily sellable, you could add whatever bullshit and people would eat it with gusto because Magic Chinese Bullshit solved all problems, no matter what Cucumber would say against it. Now... whatever this world had instead was a mix of intergalactic/sci-fi with some touches of modified xianxia for whatever meaning cultivating could have in their now very touchable, colourful cores. What was this, Land of the Lustrous? Cang Qiong sect itself felt like a direct ripoff outta it. There was no buddhist father of the sects in their mountain though, just a lot of rowdy humanized stones polishing themselves to perfection. Sometimes they polished each other with dual cultivation. Airplane cackled madly when Shen Qingqiu had furiously mentioned it to him, skin dark green in embarrassment. No matter how edited, the core (haha, geddit?) was still the same.

For being a modified xianxia, now that their cores had become actual gems a lot of their training had become a lot more literal. Tangible, even. Airplane decided that it was easier than all the soul and aura bullshit he had written eons ago.

So yeah. Gems. Literal aliens running the whole mountain, training humans (it wasn't the case for every sect, though) and other gems for polishing into immortality. Of course the head figures of every house would have to be gem people, most of them coming from pure lineages. According to some history books, gems had colonized their plane centuries ago. Something about the quality of the soil and the nice fauna.

Airplane had called bullshit on that, he knew it was because of the specialized porn.

Fusion they had called it, the process of becoming one with another gem, the act of purest feelings that would result in a better, stronger core. 

Fusion could also be done within humans, for some reason. He had guessed that the trace minerals inside the alien gems were very accepting of the chelating qualities of the organic complements in humans.

As a result, everyone wanted to fuse. Forget dual cultivation, it was the actual Goal of the gems. It was part of all sects training, it was a required step for perfection.

And everyone could fuse and de-fuse. They could do multiple fusions too! Fusion threesomes, foursomes, maybe more! 

"Do you really believe in that bullshit?" Shen Qingqiu had asked Airplane, now Shang Qinghua, while drinking, while lazing and acting unmannerly outside of every eye put on him. While relaxing in front of the only one who could see him really relax. "Is fusing really a step to happiness?? Today even my own students are asking me why I don't do fusions with anyone in Cang Qiong. They are asking me if I am broken."

Shang Qinghua knew from where those words came from. He had been the one who warned Shen Qingqiu of what fusing really meant.

He had done it once when younger, and he had broken his partner's mind.

They couldn't take all the information inside Airplane's mind and soul. Two lives were too much for a person, even more if they had the information of the world itself.

And yet...

"Not gonna lie to you bro, I do like the idea of fusing. Even Qingge has benefited of it - I believe that it can work miracles sometimes. Just... not with us. Fucking system doomed us sexless." He took a sip of his own baijiu. Tasty shit. 

"Fusionless."

"Whatever, it feels like sex."

Shen Qingqiu had known of his only experience. It had broken him to see that he was unable to participate on one of the best features that the PIDW fanfic they lived in had to offer.

"Your Only sex experience, you mean." 

"Whuh? You come here to call me out while drinking my wine? Pfwuh, you ungrateful child. At least I Have fused once, you are still a Green Sapling compared to Me"

"Well I AM green! And this is bullshit."

To follow the design, Cucumber was also a gem. It was an implicit requirement to be the head of a sect in Cang Qiong. He, though, was not what Shen Jiu had been. 

Everyone knew of the new Shen Qingqiu proud stone, a malachite that had grown from his chest in needles towards his shoulders and neck, a problem not only made his skin get greener shades whenever his emotions ran too strongly but also that required lots of tailoring attempts thus ending with sluttier clothes, making him shine through the hallways of the sects quite literally. He didn't really know how his core had evolved from an olivine to a malachite, their compositions were different, no? And Shang Qinghua had been the only one who knew of the peridot on Shen Jiu's chest, the knew he had guarded and hid all his life, a secret that not even Yue Qingyuan knew at all.

Bullshit world. Bullshit System restrictions also.

"But no, I didn't come here to 'call you out', you swine. I came here with a proposition"

"Whoa, this is new. Are you feeling too alone without Binghe, now?"

"Binghe has nothing to do with this! It... it is more about my. Our. Uh. Our mental health. I was thinking that maybe we could try fusing? We are two people in the same conditions and I thought that maybe the restrictions that affect others shouldn't affect us... wait, what is with that face??"

Qinghua sweated, the astonishment making him acquire an orange tone. "How many cups of baijiu did you drink?? I am not trying anything unless you are sober -- I am sure sober Cucumber wouldn't even try to touch me unless to hit me with your fa-- ouch!" He was hit with Qingqiu's fan.

"I am Not Drunk, Qinghua, I have just started my second cup. My opinion will not change, also, I am telling you -- agh, you are right, this may have something to do with Binghe after all. Today Mu Qingfan even tried to recommend me some fusing to Take my mind out of my Binghe's 'demise' and... you know, it has been one year since I had to thrown him into Jue Di Gorge... Medicines aren't making any effect right now and you heard me, I may be kind of desperate, though, If I am asking this to you so... can you try to listen to me once without being an ironic piece of shit??" 

And sure thing, all that sentence had been acidic as fuck but the pain clad under that was veridic.

For mental health huh... 

"Cucumber bro, you know how this means much more than just treatment, right?"

"I know"

"This also means you will have to understand me, within the fusing bonds and outside of them. You will have to treat me well if we are agreeing to it, even if its just to Try."

"Yeah I will... I am willing to try."

Airplane cackled. "Try?? God, you really are unromantic, you little shit. Go drink some water, let the alcohol flush away first. If I am going to try fusion sexing with you I will not do it with baijiu on the body."

"Hey, I am taller than you!!" But he obeyed his instruction without retaliation, and Airplane thought that may be a start.

When Airplane fused for the first and last time it had been with his roommate, a promising An Ding prospect which meant he was also a tired and hopeless kid with great abilities in math. He had been funny and ridiculous, and also a human. 

He was now six feet under and Airplane excelled in math as a memento of their last dance.

Now they had written their own goodbye letters to their peers and friends, if anything went wrong.

"The best way to start a fusion is by dancing."

"I know, there are many types of courtship dances and Qing Jing teaches more than twenty of them. In my last life I had two left feet and now look at me, master of dances I will never use."

"Oh, not even on me, bro?"

"If you are like me we wouldn't even sync if it isn't something from the modern world, our world."

True that, plus Airplane still had maintained his two left feet from his other life. An Ding never cared to teach them things as frivolous as that, confident on the innate abilities of their own students to learn on their own. Something that Qinghua had planned to change in a near future, of course all depending on how the Binghe domination trope went.

"Got any plans, Cucumber bro? I may have stayed in this world for too long, my mind is already a bit hazy..."

"Hmm. What about Caramelldansen?"

"HELL, NO"

"Gangnam Style?"

"You want us to fuck or to laugh until a heart attack!?"

"Language!"

"Meanie. Hmm, what about Let it Go?"

"Are you kidding me?"

"You know the choreography? I do."

"... of course you would"

It took them a few tries, and they didn't know the choreography as well as they had memed in their own original lives, but they, in time, learnt that the best way to fuse was when in sync with the other, and if it had meant them to be embraced to each other while laughing, it was enough.

"Shizun, what does this mean??"

If the whole of Cang Qiong had taken their reckless union and odd choice of partner with dismayed eyes and mean suspicion, Binghe had been on top if that mountain. Three years training in the underworld had felt like a millennia, and it may as well have been that amount of years considering that coming back may have meant that An Ding and Qing Jing had fused as their leaders had not only become an extremely stable gem, but also decided to keep fused longer and longer. Chrysocolla may have been an invention born two years ago, and may the citrine sparkles shine oddly on their black and green eyes, but the happiness they radiated may have been depicted in books as the bright blue-green colour that made their own robes and hair.

Even when separated they had changed each other, Shen Qingqiu's core turning into what looked more like Azurite, and Qinghua's secret Citrine core changing into various forms of Agate.

"Shizun, are you really happy this way?" Binghe had asked Shen Qingqiu while suddenly missing his green spikes. His new blue robes may not mix well with Qing Jing altogether but it couldn't that it was a beautiful colour.

"Mm, I may be? Now I know many things that I didn't before." He had smiled, finally satisfied. He now had all the information that even Qinghua had reprived to himself and the rest of the world in his mind, thing that became even more ckearer when together, and Qinghua had now someone who loved him and his inventions near. Qingqiu himself had learnt to love his real life inventions too, he could even pass Mobei-jun and see what Qinhua adored in him, too. That was a funny thought, but he had two years of unlearning and relearning new things, enough to be more accepting of what their future could be.

"You think you can convince Shang Qinghua if I can join you?"

If he had fused with Qinghua for that reunion he would've surely not sputtered his tea. That was a certainty.

[damnfandomproblems]

Fandom Problem #5115:

It's hilarious when people in a fandom that's often pegged as "cringe" (Minecraft, MLP, Steven Universe, etc.) try to call out another typical fandom for being "cringe."

Don't throw stones in glass houses, lol

[jadeazora]

Definitely really curious about the next story arc. Volo is such a fun character and I'm glad they're not resolving things with him so soon after introducing him, he'll likely be the main problem behind the PML2 arc. (So, we're avoiding the problem I had with Paulo and the Villain Arc of things being pretty stagnant in terms of his character progression, and then way too rushed towards the end. Volo's already been making moves since coming to Pasio.)

Also, who are y'all's guesses for this year's anniversary pairs? I'm feeling pretty confident in Lance, Cynthia, and Steven guess since all three of them got focus pretty much all to themselves in the Mysterious Stones chapter.

[aqqleshiqqing-archive]

/gen.

where is it.

[porcelain-dionysus]

Steve’s Endgame Ending fixed

What if at the end of Endgame when Steve is returning the stones, he has to give up something he loves, right? So what if he gives up his super-serum effects (an au tweaked and borrowed from @growingpaynes-art ), and turns back into pre-serum-Steve? A list of reasons why I think this would work:

A) Straight off the bat it’s easy to keep Steve in the MCU with Chris Evans’ contract ending if they replace the actor who plays pre-serum-Steve (obviously with a guy who looks similar to the first movie, but without the CGI). I know people might be confused why he looks different but the MCU’s changed actors before and it’s not the hardest stretch of the imagination. Also thematically it’d be cool to have Steve be literally unrecognisable to the audience.

B) I think a lot of writers for the Avengers are so focused on writing ‘Captain America’; ‘bland, stoic, with no sense of humor’, that they forget about Steve Rogers; the young disabled man who would put his life on the line to fight fascists. This would be a great way to get back to the basics of Steve’s character and show the audience who he truly is.

C) Honestly it would just be nice to show that Steve is just as righteous and brave with his disabilities, something not often shown in media. Even the MCU likes to focus on Steve’s asthma and ignore that he actually was disabled. (which i’ll touch on in a second).

*and now for some more headcannon-y stuff*

A) From screenshots from the movie, and a list at Disneylands Tomorrowland exhibit, the canon list of Steve’s disabilites and health problems are:

Asthma

Anemia

Diabetes

Color-blindness

Arrhythmia

Scoliosis

Chronic colds

High blood pressure

Easy fatigability

Heart trouble

Sinusitis

Fallen arches

Partial deafness

Stomach ulcers

Pernicious Anemia

Astigmatism

Nervous troubles of any sort

History of; scarlet fever, rheumatic fever

(Jesus Christ Steven)

B) It’d be cute to see Steve actually be able live with his disabilities, unlike in the 30’s. I cannot stress how much eugenics there was back then (and still is now, but WAY more casually acceptable back then). Even the actual Captain America storyline reeks of it a bit; experiment on a disabled man to ‘fix’ him and turn him into a soldier. However in the 21st century imagine if he could get the help he actually needs! Obviously a lot of his stuff is chronic, but he could actually live with it instead of just surviving like he would have done. And be able to afford them, unlike back in the Great Depression. Back braces, inhaler, mobility aids etc. It’d be nice to see a disabled person living with themselves as the HAPPY ending, instead of as a tragedy as it’s usually played.

C) The story of him actually seeing worth in his old (new?) body and himself instead of just a vessel for Captain America. A self-acceptance arc. Being able to retire in peace without anyone recognising him as Captain America without having to give up his life in the 21st century.

D) The Smithsonian exhibit is so closely tailored to his propaganda persona that it fails to acknowledge him as a person. I wouldn’t be surprised if the general public has never even seen a photo of him pre-serum, or knew how bad his illnesses were besides ‘just asthmatic and skinny’. He could easily walk around and not be noticed by anyone.

Tldr: Steve’s proper ending in Endgame should have had him return to his skinny form in exchange for the stone, and him being able to retire to finish art school in peace.

[iolaussharpe-24]

Barbie in the Mojave - Chapter Two

Thank you to everyone who supported chapter one! You're all lovely!

❤️Taglist❤️

(Let me know if you want to be added or taken off for chapter three. No feelings will be hurt.)

@waywardrose, @my-secret-shame-but-fanfiction, @lunar-ghoulie, @ominoose, @reallyrallyauthor

@steven-grants-world, @clemdango04, @have-you-seen-my-sanity, @missdictatorme, @angelitawings

@outey-spacey, @autismsupermusicalassassin, @mandytrekkie

Feel free to ask questions about anything as well. I'm happy to talk about my process with anyone that's interested.

Chapter Two: Bad Smells and Worse Ideas

Barbie and Ken stopped and sat down, exhausted. Both of them were tired and panting. Both of them had sore feet (though Barbie’s were considerably worse because of her heels). Both of them were soaked in water despite never being anywhere near water. Both of them were mourning their perfectly styled hair. Ken’s was drenched and stuck to his forehead, dripping in front of his eyes. Barbie’s had gotten frizzy and wild, sitting on her head like one of the dried out brown bushes they walked past. Her headband wasn’t doing much to keep it under control either. Each and every blonde strand had gained sentience and turned against her.

They had walked a long way. The car wasn’t anywhere in sight anymore. It hadn’t been for a long time. The sea of sand had slowly but surely started to become solid rocky ground with dry plants sprouting from split stones and small animals and bugs scurrying into little holes at their feet as they came near.

The sun was setting behind them, making their shadows stretch out several feet in front of them as the air turned cold and the sky began to change colors overhead.

“Barbie, shouldn’t we have found the speedboat by now? This place is like an endless beach without the beach!”

“It’s called a desert.”

“Are you sure this is the right way?”

“I think so.”

“Well what did Weird Barbie say?”

“We’re doing what Weird Barbie said.”

“Wandering aimlessly?”

“For the last time, she didn’t give me directions! I was told to drive a sports car to a speedboat to a rocket ship to a tandem bike to a camper van to a snowmobile to roller blades and then I’d be in the real world where I’d find my kid by equally unspecified means! I don’t know what I’m doing or how I’m supposed to do it, but I want to get it done so that we can go back home and everything can go back to normal.”

He contemplated that for a minute, then smiled brightly. “And then, when we can do boyfriend girlfriend things together. Right?”

She nodded, just to make him stop asking questions. “Sure Ken…. It’s getting late,” she added with a sigh. “We should probably camp out… somewhere. Get some rest so we can keep walking in the morning. I was hoping to be done and home by now, but nothing’s been going right, has it?”

It was annoying. Very, very annoying. All of it. She felt like she was going crazy. She knew that there were going to be differences between Barbieland and the Real World. She did. It was a logical inevitability that only made sense. After all, they are two different worlds. Different realities that were affected by one another, but still very much separated from each other. It sounded absolutely insane, but it did, for some bizarre reason, make a weird amount of sense. Like old sitcoms with a supernatural or otherworldly element that everybody treated like a completely normal thing.

Ugh.

Ken was crouched down with a pile of sticks in front of him, hitting two rocks against each other repeatedly. Trying to start a fire. Fair enough. Just like how the sun had seemed hotter than they were used to in Barbieland, the night air, in turn, was colder. Even in the winter, when everyone tended to bundle up in thick coats and fuzzy boots, the cold never really affected them. This did. It was making Barbie’s skin break out into a thousand tiny bumps that gave her a weird tingling sensation as they appeared.

Must be another human thing. Another problem to fix. Like the cellulite on her legs. She shivered at that thought. Would this spread too? At least the cellulite was easy to hide. It was just on her thighs and was easily covered up as long as she wore longer shorts and skirts.

Their clothes sat in a heap near the place they’d decided to call their campsite, despite not having a dream camper or a tent or a backpack or even a sleeping bag – which was the absolute barest minimum of camping gear they could have possibly had on hand. They’d been forced to carry everything while they walked who knows how far for who knows how long and when they finally decided to stop, they’d just dumped everything unceremoniously in the dirt and used their skates, pads, helmets, and Barbie’s hairbrush to hold down their clothes.

She reached up and felt her frizzy tangles. Felt like a bird’s nest. Probably looked like Weird Barbie’s hack job of a haircut. So, just to feel like she had some control over something, she picked up her brush and started trying to tame the beast on her head.

“I think I saw a spark!”

Ken did not see a spark.

Barbie didn’t have it in her to tell him though. Instead, she praised and encouraged him to keep trying. Saying, “You’ll get a fire in no time,” and genuinely hoping that he would. Maybe that was what was so wrong with everything. Fear and negativity. Maybe, if she just tried to keep a positive attitude, and kept smiling, and tried to go on like her world wasn’t turning upside down, she’d manifest that reality and everything would go back to normal on its own. Or, at the very least, they might get lucky.

It took hours before either one of the two dolls could start a fire. And, by the time they did, it had already gotten cold. To keep warm, the two of them mixed and matched the clothes they brought to cover up as well as they could since they tiny flame they made wasn’t providing them with any kind of warmth whatsoever.

Barbie was in a pair of hot pink ankle boots that didn’t match her pants, and a baby blue long-sleeve shirt that didn’t match anything. Ken had closed his jacket, put on a pair of low waisted jeans, and swapped his sandals for his neon yellow roller skates, though he removed the neon pink wheels from the bottom to make it easier on him to walk in the morning.

After a few moments of sitting side by side to keep warm, Ken lifted his head and sniffed the air. “Do you smell that?” he asked, his brows furrowed.

“Smell what?”

“I don’t know. Something smells… bad.”

Automatically, Barbie turned her head away from her friend, breathed into her hand, and sniffed. Not great. Not terrible. But not great. Think that this wasn’t what Ken was smelling, she lowered her hand and sniffed as well. That’s when she noticed it. A sour smell in the air.

She scrunched up her nose at it at first.. and then realized that it seems awfully close.

For no real reason at all, Barbie lifted her arm and smelled the underside.

Oh. My. God.

She retched and lowered her arm so fast she was impressed that it didn’t snap clean off at the joint. Ken looked at her, confused, and she forced herself to smile and pretend that it was nothing. Even as she dug her nails into her biceps just to make sure that he arms stayed down in an attempt to keep the smell from coming out.

She didn’t understand what was happening to her. Why was her body doing all these things it wasn’t supposed to? First, she was leaking water, her hair was messed up, then she started getting bumpy, and now she smelled?! And that wasn’t taking the fact that she got lost or the wrecked car into account, or any of things that happened before she left Barbieland. This was all in the past few hours.

What could possibly be going on in this little girl’s life to change her like this? It didn’t make sense. How could anything be so wrong with a human that it punched its way through to another world just to drastically alter a Barbie in so many awful ways? It was like time and space and fate had it out for her or something! Worse than Raquelle at her most infuriating. Worse than-

Her thoughts were cut short by a sound in the distance. It was loud and shrill and, like so many other disembodied noises in the dark, was both familiar and strange. It sounded like a dog’s howl in the middle of the night, but it was twisted. It was wrong. And it wasn’t alone.

More howls accompanied the first like a choir singing a chaotic chorus together. One by one they sounded off, the noise echoing in the distance. Barbie looked out into the darkness ahead, unable to see anything at all. Ken did the same, though for a very different reason. He started walking away from her.

“What are you doing?!”

“Dogs! I want to pet the dogs!”

She stared at him, incredulous. “Ken! We don’t know anything about this place! And that doesn’t sound like Skipper walking a group of dogs to me. There’s no one around. We’re out in the middle of nowhere! This is a bad idea.”

“Hey, when it comes to petting dogs, there are no bad ideas.”

“If we were still in Barbieland where we know all the dogs!”

He wasn’t listening. He was just marching off blindly into the dark, his silhouette growing darker and darker. Blending into nothing.

“Don’t go too far! I don’t want you to get lost!” she called out desperately.

Ken didn’t answer. He might have been too far already.

Despite how annoying he could be, Ken was still her friend. She cared about him. Didn’t want him to get hurt. As of right now, he was the only piece of home she had with her. Well, him and a small pile of stuff she had been forced to carry since the car crashed, but she couldn’t talk to a cute skirt the way she could Ken.

She hoped that he had enough common sense to stay close.

Despite poor Barbie’s warning, Ken couldn’t see any harm in wanting to pet a dog. Or a cat for that matter. Or a horse. He loved horses. More, he suspected, than Western Stampin’ Ken did. Animals in Barbieland were always friendly and cute easy to handle. Always. And the Real World counldn’t be that different from Barbieland. It just couldn’t. Their world was made to resemble the Real World. To fix all of the problems the humans faced. That’s what the Barbies and Kens were made for in the first place. An unfriendly animal, especially a dog, felt nothing short of unnatural to him.

She was just being paranoid. Had to be. He’d never known her to be paranoid before, but he’d never known her to have any malfunctions either. This must be one of them. Yeah, that made sense to him. In fact, it made so much sense that it might have just been the reason why Barbie wanted to do this alone. She didn’t want anyone to see how bad this problem could get! He could understand that. If there was a chance that she could end up like Weird Barbie living away from everyone else in the Weirdhouse with all of the recalled Barbies and Kens, it only made sense that she wouldn’t want anyone to see that. In her position, Ken wouldn’t want that either.

Another howl sounds as he walks. That’s a good sign, right? Means he’s getting close. Like how being far away from something made it look smaller. But in reverse.

Excited, Ken walked faster. He thought about all the dogs he’d met in Barbieland and how cute they were. With their big eyes and black noses and little smiles. He even loved the old Taffy dog with her three puppies. Two of them had bobble heads, and the third one needed to be potty trained. That’s why the Barbie that owned them all always had a few newspapers in her dreamhouse. She always let him pet and play with them when he saw her.

Just as he was starting to smile from the memory, he stopped in his tracks. There was a dog in front of him. A little puppy.

It had tan fur and a cream colored underbelly. Big black eyes that stared straight at him. It wasn’t smiling though, that was weird. But the same black nose he always loved nuzzling his own against. It stood perfectly still, watching him as he watched it.

“Hi there,” he said softly, sinking down to his knees. He slowly held out his hand and cooed, “It’s okay. I’m not gonna hurt you. My name’s Ken.”

The puppy stared at him, then stepped forward, sniffing his hand. It yipped at him and two more puppies came out from around the corner to join the first.

In that moment, he just knew that Barbie was going to be jealous. He’d tell her that he found puppies and that he got to play with them, and she was going to look at him and say, “I wish I’d gone with you.” He just knew it. What else would she say? He was right. There’s absolutely no way that petting a dog can be a-

Grrrrrrrr…

That wasn’t a good sound.

Looking up at the rocky side of the plateau, Ken saw two more dogs. Fully grown ones. Their teeth were showing as they growled at him. The blond stood up straight, still smiling. “Hi! These little cuties must be yours.”

One of the dogs jumped down, still growling at him, it’s ears low, teeth bared. Then the other dog jumped down to join the first. And a third came from behind him.

His smile fell at bit as he watched. They reminded him of something… unpleasant. Something he’d seen in some of the older movies while at the theater with Barbie. Maybe she was right… maybe this actually was a bad idea. He hadn’t thought that was even possible until now.

Oh no.

Ken took a few steps backwards as one of the dogs started to snap at him, still snarling while it did. He raised his hands, showing the dog his empty palms. “Woah, woah, easy. Easy. I’m not going to hurt you. Or the puppies.”

A loud BANG! sounded from the darkness, echoing through the valley that Ken had been walking in. Almost immediately after, one of the dogs let out a pained whine unlike anything Ken had ever heard in his life. The others turned and ran away while the one that cried fell to the ground, a thick red liquid soaking its fur on one side. He’d never seen anything like it before and… wow… he was thinking that a lot lately, wasn’t he? The Real World was so different from Barbieland. Even the things that were familiar were different.

He looked down at the dog lying at his feet. It wasn’t moving. Wasn’t making any noise. It was more like the dogs back home that way. But in a bad way. A way that made him… not happy. Very not happy. It was like how he felt when Barbie turned down his attempts at doing boyfriend/girlfriend things to have a party with the other Barbies but it wasn’t that. This was different. Like everything else in this world.

He knelt down beside the dog and put his hand on it’s snout. It didn’t react. The fur was coarse and warm. But… it was getting cold. Fast.

He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t even know what was happening. All he knew was that he didn’t like the way it made him feel.

Dirt crunched under heavy boots behind the blond while he knelt over the animal. He looked up to see a man wearing a long coat and a hat standing there. The first person he’d seen aside from Barbie since they left home.

“You lost, brother?”