me, waking up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night: the rockbells trained den to be a therapy/support dog for automail patients which is why pinako trusts den to watch ed and why den always follows ed around when he’s in resembool
I cannot think this is a coincidence; Aaronovitch is too much of a history and architecture geek and has watched too many episodes of history documentaries not to have known this going in.
Those boat-shaped bulwarks around the piers of a bridge (seen above in the context of London Bridge itself): Are called “Starlings.”
“… a starling …is a defensive bulwark … surrounding the supports of a bridge.. Starlings are shaped to ease the flow of the water around the bridge, reducing the damage caused by erosion or collisions with flood-borne debris, and may also form an important part of the structure of the bridge, spreading the weight of the piers.
SO:
The bridge itself does not rest on the starlings… but the starlings protect the fundamental structure of the bridge from being worn away, or from being hit by debris from floods.
Peter is not only the “herald of the dawn,” but can we say that as “Nightingale’s Starling” he also came in just in time to keep the foundation of the Folly from being worn away by time, or damaged by the flood of new magical dangers?
Think about hawkeye having a key to mustangs humble abode because some mornings come about where its a half hour past mustangs starting shift so she has to drive down and enter his apartment where she knows he will be in the bedroom using snuggling edward (whom is either asleep or rather annoyed that mustang is all over him at 7 am) to not go to work. She has to stand in the doorway and glare at him and thats all it takes for him to jump out of his stupor. What is the point of mustang having his own car if he wont get his tush into it to go to work?
one time she sends havoc instead and when roy smells the cigarette smoke he jumps up like “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING IN MY HOUSE???” and havoc smiles and says “hawkeye sent me. she said you’re less likely to do this again after i tell all the guys that you’re a cuddlebug and they and i tease the hell out of you for weeks about it.” and roy’s like “why couldn’t she just tell them that herself?” “because hawkeye doesn’t tease people. she has other people to do it for her. now come on, you’re late. mornin’ boss.” and ed’s like “‘sup” and turns over and goes back to sleep.
one of these days im gonna go all the fuck in on why trans kakashi is still completely canon compliant but yall arent ready for this many takes in one day and i know that
I kinda like to imagine what it would be like if it just… did not occur to Loki that Hela was gonna be genuinely evil about taking over Asgard. Anywhere else, sure, fine, he doesn’t care, but that’s not what you do with Asgard.
(Of course, on one hand, it absolutely did occur to him, he’s cowardly in many ways but not ignorant. On the other hand, following this thought thread for the pure amusement of it, Hela basically seemed to be the sincerely evil conqueror this chaotic neutral dandy been trying to be for the past few years but better, he would absolutely throw a fit and not think about it.)
Like, Loki landed on trash planet and was like, “Welp, I have been sorely, embarrassingly outmatched by a sibling I never knew I had, who is me but better at it. I live here in this trash heap now. I’m going to become the kept floozy of a madman until I murder him and also get smashed at 8 am for the rest of my millennia-long life while wallowing in my misery.”
Then Thor shows up and is like, “Loki, get your ass out of someone else’s bed, we need to go back and save Asgard from our villainous sister.”
Loki’s desperately like, “Uh no, you embarrassed me in front of everyone? I would kill everyone in this room and then myself before I ever went back to Asgard now. Go away. I’m plotting to rule this trash heap, where I now live.”
And Thor replies, “It suits you perfectly. One problem. Our ‘villainous’ sister’s usurpation of the throne involves actually killing our people. She didn’t take over Asgard just to build great golden statues of herself, flirt with the entire court, eat grapes languidly, drink of all Dad’s good booze, and watch glorifying plays about herself while wearing Dad’s fanciest bathrobes. She’s not like you. She’s actually killing our people.”
And Loki’s just… completely flabbergasted, despite the fact that Hela’s first action was to make a very good go at trying to kill them both (completely normal thing to do in the Asgardian royal family, really).
I bet while Al’s in the hospital post promised day there’s a pretty strict limit on how many people can visit him and there’s a fight about who gets to go in the first group because everyone’s dying to see him
Team Mustang gets in an argument amongst themselves about it
Havoc: I should go first. I wasn’t even at the battle when he came back.
Falman & Fuery: Neither were we!
Breda: None of us were except the Lieutenant and the Colonel.
Roy: Well I was blind! And I outrank you! I’m going in the first group.
Riza: We’re drawing straws.
Ed: omg literally none of you are going in the first group, Teacher and Sig are.
Which starts the new argument of who’s going in the second group. And it’s not just Team Mustang – it’s also Major Armstrong, Dr. Marcoh, Maria Ross, Denny Brosh, Zampano, Jerso, Heinkel, Darius – literally everyone wants to go see Al. The doctors are losing it because half those people are also injured and should be laying down and resting still, dammit – the boy’s brother was bad enough and now they have to deal with an entire room full of people ignoring doctors orders to go see the Elric boy
Ed complains to Al about everyone being idiots about it (even tho he’s thrilled – of course everyone loves Al, his brother is the Best) and Al’s so touched he starts crying
Some headcanons because I don’t really have the TIME to write an entire series but I DO have the time to rhapsodize about my Love for this concept.
So the new girl’s name is Chihiro and she’s weird and charming and friendly and fearless. She always wears a lucky purple hairtie and she stops to bow to every shrine she comes across and she takes her time writing her name, every kanji clear and precise and unmistakable. She goes from new to popular in about a week and her teachers tell her parents that their daughter has a natural gift for making friends, open and cheerful with anyone who’s civil to her. She doesn’t have answers for anyone about those two months that her family was just kind of missing, but other than that she’s an open book.
Chihiro is known for being open, even.
So when a girl in a salmon uniform shows up at the school looking for her sister Sen, a year after Chihiro’s arrival, and Chihiro launches herself into the stranger’s arms with a whoop of delight, everyone is…a little lost.
Chihiro’s sister is scary. One of the older boys hit on her and she broke his wrist. Chihiro told her to behave and her sister waved a hand and said, “Relax, Sen, he had it coming.” She moves like a bulldozer–if you’re in her way, your choices are to get out of it or get flattened. Within the day, it’s been firmly established that Lin, whoever the hell she is, is some kind of thug. She comes by every few months and brings Chihiro brief letters from “Young Master Haku” and from “Granny” and “the boilerman” and everyone walks a little warier around Chihiro because her sister is clearly a yanki and not to be toyed with. Chihiro’s an easygoing person, but honestly Lin absolutely radiates “they’ll never find the body” and it handily resolves any issues that Chihiro might otherwise have.
When Chihiro is fifteen she leads an ecological initiative that is…absolutely absurdly successful, largely because she looked around at the other students in her class and said “This is something I really care about, who wants to help me” and every hand went up. Probably half of them actually care about the environment, and half of them are doing it to cover their community service requirement. Half of them are hoping to woo Absurdly Charming Local Student Ogino Chihiro over the next few months. There is some overlap between these groups.
Over one year, they raise an astonishing amount of money to contribute to a campaign to tear down some abandoned apartments in Chihiro’s old town and restore a river, and at the celebration they throw at the end of it all, she gets up and speaks and smiles and about three quarters of her class sighs in unison.
“I never expected to raise this much, thank you all so much for your help,” Absurdly Charming Local Student Ogino Chihiro says, beaming.
“Oh no,” her classmates say, dismayed. Turns out finishing the project means being done with weekly meetings led by Chihiro.
Lin needles Chihiro about Young Master Haku and Chihiro blushes furiously every time and changes the subject to how her grandfather is doing.
The things that are Known about Chihiro’s grandfather are as follows:
Generally known as “the Boilerman”
Has a great many pets, all called “Sootball”
Likes Chihiro very much
Does not like Lin nearly as much
Smuggled Chihiro out of her great aunt’s house once
Does not like blood on his walls
Once hid Young Master Haku for an entire night, possibly related to the blood situation
There are some serious concerns about what the Boilerman does and why he has such strict opinions about blood on his walls.
The next year, Chihiro’s parents are out of town on Parents’ Day, which is how everyone meets the Boilerman and also Granny, who do not seem to be married and bicker constantly about everything except Chihiro and Granny’s sister, who seems to be Lin’s boss and also the great aunt who necessitated the smuggling. Granny mutters about Chihiro’s river fundraiser and Chihiro scolds her for almost killing someone, apparently Young Master Haku, and Granny scoffs that “he was fine” while the Boilerman complains about blood on his walls. Chihiro asks after an old friend and Granny says “Well we almost had bandits but he took care of them and we won’t have to worry about that anymore” and goes on to praise this person’s spinning.
So, everyone concludes, they’re terrifying.
By the time Young Master Haku actually shows up, Chihiro is seventeen and she’s managed to convince the school to send her whole class to see the un-damming of the Kohaku River, and her class has pretty soundly hashed out what’s up. It goes like this:
Chihiro’s great aunt runs a yakuza clan and Young Master Haku is her heir and Lin is one of his direct underlings, and after a falling out Granny and Great-Aunt split the clan and now hate each other, and the Boilerman works for Great-Aunt and saved Young Master Haku’s life after Granny tried to bump him off to put Chihiro in his place.
Chihiro seems pretty well out of the family business, though, and went and fell in love with the guy she was supposed to be replacing, and although Great-Aunt doesn’t care for Chihiro as much as the rest, her son likes her and her heir likes her and so does everyone else, so the two clans play nicely for Chihiro’s sake.
Young Master Haku, once he shows up, is almost as terrifying as Lin in his coolly remote way, but he obviously dotes on Chihiro and she wears river pearl earrings that are probably worth more money than anything else she owns and grins, silly with glee, whenever she sees him.
No one tries to get Absurdly Charming Local Yakuza Daughter Ogino Chihiro to go out with them anymore because can you fucking imagine.
tora42's nonsensne 