Are you a vampire person or a werewolf person? Are you a latte person or a cappuccino person? Horror or scifi? Denim Jacket or Leather jacket? Spring person or fall person?
AU where people age until they reach 18 and then stop aging until they meet their soul mate so they can grow old together.
i’d never die
but imagine already being in a relationship at 18 and then at 22 you’re both sitting there looking at each other and realizing that you both haven’t aged a day
imagine platonically moving in with ur best friend at 18 and then realizing a few years later that you’ve been aging together
imagine purposely never finding your soul mate so you can reign eternal
holy shit i think we may have stumbled upon the greatest romance/adventure concept ever
What if you killed your soul mate so you’d make sure you never aged.
This just makes me really want a story where the main antagonist is someone who has been killing their soulmate for centuries whenever they find them, and the main protagonist is the newly re-incarnated version of their soulmate
okay but you guys dont realize the potential.
imagine meeting a handsome young man who’s seen as a player and sleeps around a lot and you notice a scar along his arm and ask where he got it. he just look down at his feet and said “i used to be a soldier in world war one”. He’s been sleeping around and hooking up so much cause he’s been trying to find his soulmate for years but hasn’t yet.
Imagine going on your first date with someone and you really hit it off and then the next day you notice a grey hair and call them on the phone excitedly screaming and they both just sit on the phone hysterically crying and laughing.
Imagine sitting in silence with your partner and having them say out of the blue “i feel so old when im around you… but… in a good way” and thats the moment you know that they love you.
imagine having a dog thats 18 in human years and it starts to get gray patches of fur because they loves you so much.
imagine noticing you look older and freaking out but then stopping and getting super confused because “im not dating anyone right now…. which of my friends is my soulmate… WHICH ONE IS IT!?!?!?” and then they hopelessly date everyone they know in order to find out which one it fucking was. it was the pizza delivery guy the whole time. they went on 27 dates that all ended in confusion and heartbreak and it was the god damn pizza delivery guy from a month ago the whole fucking time.
imagine someone dating their partner for 5 years and then having an affair. only after the affair do they start aging.
imagine nuns who start to age after they ceremoniously “marry god”
imagine people getting surgeries to look older cause they dont want people to think theyre alone.
imagine having parents who wont let you date anyone but they start to notice you aging and then you have to have a terrifying “surprise im gay and i have a boyfriend haha oops” conversation
imagine seeing couples with teenage kids and the couple both looks 18.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the part in Fury Road where Max goes off into the night with a can of guzzoline to blow up the Bullet Farmer’s car, and I think it’s the only point in the movie where Max does a cool, heroic thing on his own… and we never see it! We see him walk away from the War Rig, there’s a big explosion in the distance, and then trudges back carrying bags of guns and ammunition (and a boot for Nux).
In any other movie, the camera would have followed him, and him blowing up the car and taking out the baddies all by himself would have been a big set piece. But in Fury Road, it’s an almost comical BOOM in the distance. And it works so well within the context of the rest of the movie.
Throughout Fury Road, we basically never see Max do badass, heroic things on his own. It’s always within a group (Furiosa, the Wives, the Vuvalini), and always to help or assist others – never for himself, never to make himself look cool. Furiosa gets to do cool stuff on her own, the Wives get to do cool stuff on their own, the Vuvalini, but not Max.
I read Fury Road as partly a wonderful deconstruction of the “loner badass (male) action hero” narrative – which was an incredibly popular narrative in 80s action movies, of which Mad Max is one of the granddaddies. In the old Mad Max movies, Max gets to do cool badass stuff on his own all the time. The movies center around him Getting Shit Done which driving a cool car and shooting baddies.
But in Fury Road, he is always working with others. In Fury Road, he is a hero because he learns cooperation and empathy and works for the safety of others – and unlike the other Mad Max movies, where he exchanges his help for guzzoline or other supplies, he does it for no goods in return, other than regaining his own humanity.
Yessss, I love that moment. It’s a minor cliche – badass guy going off to do some unseen badass thing that is comically only shown in a MASSIVE DISTANT EXPLOSION – but in the context of the movie it deemphasizes Max’s lone heroism to reinforce the importance of his working with the group and in a supporting role. Max helps, especially with his hope/revelation, but you never doubt Furiosa and the others would have sucessfully escaped without him.
I’m always struck by the difference in Max when he leaves and when he returns.
When Max leaves, he has his longest and most complex conversation in the movie at that point with Furiosa (three sentences! with different words in them! yeah, we’re grading on a curve here). He makes a request, speaks clearly, stands upright, makes eye contact for most of the conversation, and otherwise acts more engaged and human than we’ve seen him yet.
When Max comes back, he’s hunched over and only meets people’s eyes in darting looks for brief moments. He seems confused when they ask him questions, and when he speaks, he’s monosyllabic and slurring his words. His main acts of communication – giving the wheel and boot to Nux – are entirely silent.
Basically, after going off to enact an epic feat of violence, Max returns distinctly worse than he left. He’s not physically injured, but the violence he committed did him visible psychological damage.(Knowing George Miller’s abiding interest in telling stories about what violence does to humans, on both sides of the equation, this was no accident.)
And Furiosa recognizes it – the way she watches Max, the hushed tone when she says “That’s not his blood,” her very careful body language. She’s been there: she knows what he did and what it cost him. (and she’s probably a little grateful he didn’t walk up to the War Rig with a machete that first time)
It’s just such a great, subtle moment that completely subverts the normal way an action movie handles this sort of scene – not only by withholding the actual action and undercutting ‘lone heroism’, as discussed so well above, but by telling us that it’s not a triumph. It’s not a moment of glory. It’s not shiny or chrome.
It’s a necessary killing. And it hurts Max to do it.
This is Furiosa’s face when she recognizes that it’s Max walking toward them out of the fog:
When she says “It’s not his blood”:
Watching him carefully as he washes the blood off:
She’s glad he’s alive, sure, but there’s nothing triumphant or high-five-y about this scene. She knows what it cost him.
And actually, the film is constantly undercutting the idea of heroic, triumphant violence, all the way through.
The sandstorm chase, which Nux thinks is going to be his heroic triumph, ends with a flare sputtering out impotently in the dust.
The fight against the Rock Riders, which feels the most classically heroic–in which we see Team War Rig working together as a group for the first time–is undercut by Angharad falling off the Rig, breaking the team as soon as it’s assembled. The moment where everyone should be high-fiving over their surprisingly seamless teamwork, they’re grieving instead.
Even the climactic moment of the film–yay, we killed the Big Bad!–is undercut by the fact that Nux dies and Furiosa is gravely wounded.
While this movie produces an incredible adrenaline rush (at least it did for me), we never get to just revel in that rush and vicariously enjoy these characters’ competence at violence (which is what we go to action movies for) without awareness of the consequences. They’re always reminding us of the cost.
based on the assumption that human blood can survive in a vampire for about the same amount of time it can in a human body, vampires would only need to feed three or four times a year (red blood cells live about 110 days on average). this would be if they completely drained all their victims.
humans can survive losing up to about 40% of their blood, which means that a vampire pushing their limits with each victim would probably need to feed 12 times a year minimum
so like once a month
Hey guess what else happens once a month involving blood
omg no
Now that’s recycling
“Actually, period blood would be really good for a vampire; it’s incredibly nutritious, because it’s supposed to feed a foetus! And it’s probably the cleanest blood in the human body. It’s sterile.” My wife contributed.
Yall ever realized the movie Lucy bout a shorty who got too much sherm in her system so she turned into a usb? Yall know that shit coulda happened to me?
It’s funny how science fiction universes so often treat humans as a boring, default everyman species or even the weakest and dumbest.
I want to see a sci fi universe where we’re actually considered one of the more hideous and terrifying species.
How do we know our saliva and skin oils wouldn’t be ultra-corrosive to most other sapient races? What if we actually have the strongest vocal chords and can paralyze or kill the inhabitants of other worlds just by screaming at them? What if most sentient life in the universe turns out to be vegetable-like and lives in fear of us rare “animal” races who can move so quickly and chew shit up with our teeth?
Like that old story “they’re made of meat,” only we’re scarier.
HOLY SHIT THEY EAT CAPSAICIN FOR FUN
YOU GUYS I HEARD A HUMAN ONCE ATE AN AIRPLANE.
A HUMAN CAN KEEP FIGHTING FOR HOURS EVEN AFTER YOU SHOOT IT
humans are a proud warrior race with a pantheon of bloody gods: Ram-Bo, Schwarzenegger, etc.
REMOVING A LIMB WILL NOT FATALLY INCAPACITATE HUMANS: ALWAYS DESTROY THE HEAD.
WARNING: HUMANS CAN DETECT YOU EVEN AT NIGHT BY TRACKING VIBRATIONS THROUGH THE ATMOSPHERE
WARNING: HUMANS CAN REPRODUCE AT A RATE OF 1 PER SPACEYEAR. DESTROY INFESTATIONS IMMEDIATELY
THE HUMAN MOUTH HAS OVER THIRTY OUTCROPS OF BONE AND POWERFUL JAW MUSCLES.
HUMAN BITES CAN BE FATALLY INFECTIOUS EVEN TO OTHER HUMANS
WARNING: HUMANS CAN AND WILL USE IMPROVISED WEAPONS. SEE CLASSIFIED DATA LABELED J. CHAN.
HUMANS CAN PROJECT BIOWEAPONS FROM ALMOST EVERY ORIFICE ON THEIR BODY. DO NOT INHALE
OH GOD THE HUMANS FIGURED OUT DOOR HANDLES OH GOD OH GOD
More seriously, humans do have a number of advantages even among Terrestrial life. Our endurance, shock resistance, and ability to recover from injury is absurdly high compared to almost any other animal. We often use the phrase “healthy as a horse” to connote heartiness – but compared to a human, a horse is as fragile as spun glass. There’s mounting evidence that our primitive ancestors would hunt large prey simply by following it at a walking pace, without sleep or rest, until it died of exhaustion; it’s called pursuit predation. Basically, we’re the Terminator.
(The only other animal that can sort of keep up with us? Dogs. That’s why we use them for hunting. And even then, it’s only “sort of”.)
Now extrapolate that to a galaxy in which most sapient life did not evolve from hyper-specialised pursuit predators:
Our strength and speed is nothing to write home about, but we don’t need to overpower or outrun you. We just need to outlast you – and by any other species’ standards, we just plain don’t get tired.
Where a simple broken leg will cause most species to go into shock and die, we can recover from virtually any injury that’s not immediately fatal. Even traumatic dismemberment isn’t necessarily a career-ending injury for a human.
We heal from injuries with extreme rapidity, recovering in weeks from wounds that would take others months or years to heal. The results aren’t pretty – humans have hyperactive scar tissue, among our other survival-oriented traits – but they’re highly functional.
Speaking of scarring, look at our medical science. We developed surgery centuries before developing even the most rudimentary anesthetics or life support. In extermis, humans have been known to perform surgery on themselves – and survive. Thanks to our extreme heartiness, we regard as routine medical procedures what most other species would regard as inventive forms of murder. We even perform radical surgery on ourselves for purely cosmetic reasons.
In essence, we’d be Space Orcs.
Our jaws have too many TEETH in them, so we developed a way to WELD METAL TO OUR TEETH and FORCE THE BONES IN OUR JAW to restructure over the course of years to fit them back into shape, and then we continue to wear metal in out mouths to keep them in place.
We formed cohabitative relationships with tiny mammals and insects we keep at bay from bothering us by death, often using little analouge traps.
And by god, we will eat anything.
We use borderline toxic peppers to season our food.
We expose ourselves to potentially lethal solar radiation in the pursuit of darkening our skin.
We risk hearing loss for the opportunity to see our favorite musicians live.
We have a game where two people get into an enclosed area and hit each other until time runs out/one of them pass out
We willingly jump out of planes with only a flimsy piece of cloth to prevent us from splattering against the ground.
Our response to natural disasters is to just rebuild our buildings in the exact same places.
We climb mountains and risk freezing to death for bragging rights
We invented dogs. We took our one time predators and completely domesticated them.
On a planet full of lions, tigers and bears, we managed to advance further and faster than any other species on the planet.
Klingons and Krogan and Orcs ain’t got shit on us
We drink ethanol (in concentrations high enough to be used as an effective as microbicide or a solvent!) for the express purpose of achieving blood toxicity and disrupting normal brain function… AS A RECREATIONAL ACTIVITY!
On the same subject, we also deliberately incinerate assorted substances and then inhale the particulate-heavy smoke and vapor resulting for the same effect. EVEN IN THE FACE OF SAID SUBSTANCES BEING CARCINOGENIC, BECAUSE WE JUST DON’T GIVE A FUCK.
Humans do not have biological castes. Kill their commander and another will take its place. Soldiers left alone on a planet will start farming and manufacturing to survive. Farmers and manufacturers will take up arms and kill you if pressed. Just because two humans look different doesn’t mean they cannot do each other’s jobs.
Breeding does not kill them. A single human can mate dozens or hundreds of times in a lifetime. They often do so as recreation. Xenobiology team six believes they do not have a mating season but this is too strange to be true.
Their appendages are not designed for hitting, so they developed special training to make them very good at hitting anyhow.
The proteins making up their bodies are toxic and cause prion disease. Do not touch anything humans have touched. Do not consume earth foods. Fire does not adequately remove this contamination.
Humans perceive sixteen times the colors we do. Do not hide in bushes or vines from humans. They can distinguish your pelt from the foliage with ease.
We tried venting waste gas into the tunnels to kill the humans when they attacked. Turns out they breathe it.
Everything on their planet came from a single biological strain. They developed comprehensive genetics BEFORE they developed space travel.
They lack radio receptors and cannot be brought into compliance with right-thought simply by broadcasting to them. Even after we learned how to translate it into sound-waves one of their hatchlings drove the Great Authority mad by responding to every demand with a single question: “Why?”
there’s dozens of stories about some kid from our world falling into a different, magical one, being the chosen one or the close companion of the chosen one and saving the world, and then going home where they’re delighted to see their family again and have a new appreciation of their own life. but what about someone who didn’t miss it? what if you save the world and you’re given your medal and stripped of the magic you learned and put back in a world you never missed? and you’re furious.
maybe you gave up a few years of your life. you have callouses and muscles and a few scars and maybe a missing eye or something. you definitely have some blood on your hands. you might have PTSD you can’t talk to anyone about. and suddenly you’re fifteen again, in a body that’s too soft and too short and too complete. you’re always cold because there’s no magic burning in your veins anymore, and even as you grow up the feeling of not fitting doesn’t go away because when you look in the mirror at eighteen you look all wrong: this is not what you’re supposed to look like at eighteen. the sky clouds and you rub at the phantom ache of injuries this body never received. you wake up screaming sometimes remembering the sorcerer who burnt your hand to ashes, or the final battle you almost didn’t make it through, or the moment you felt the magic in you go out.
but here’s the thing: they took you and made you into a weapon that was determined enough and powerful enough to save a whole world. they can put you back where they found you but they can’t undo everything. and there’s this, too: the place between worlds clings to you. you can’t tease fire out of the air but you can feel the pull of the doorways all the time, although none of them so far go to your world.
but you try to make it work for a decade, anyway. you’re dutiful. but one night you leave work late and for the thousandth time you catch yourself searching the sky for firebirds. and you break. of the three portals within five hundred miles, one is a howling, frozen wasteland and one is a deep violet void, but one opens into a misty forest that you step into and don’t look back. it’s not your world, but if you keep going long enough, you’ll get there.
(and maybe much, much later, hundreds of worlds later, you climb through a window, or a door of woven branches int he middle a field, or push aside a curtain, and as you set foot on new land you feel the fire in your veins and sparks at your fingertips and finally, finally, you’re home)
