Random Headcanon: Ronald McDonald regenerates when killed, horror movie monster style, but the Burger King’s immortality is dependent on serial reincarnation. That’s why the latter tends to disappear from the public eye for a couple of decades every now and then; when Ronald loses a fight in their eternal struggle for dominion over all fast food, he’s fine in like a week, but when the King goes down, he needs to wait for his reincarnation to grow up.
(Though this would seem to give Ronald an insurmountable advantage, it’s less decisive than you’d think, because Ronald is actually kind of terrible in a fight. The knowledge that he only needs to win once makes him sloppy.)
Quite so. The Colonel is older than Ronald, and even the King, but his reach is bound by the fact that he can’t affect the material world on his own – he’s strictly limited by the capabilities of his current corporeal host. Like all elder ghosts, however, he can cast a mean curse, so it’s best to tread carefully in his court.
Wendy’s a tough one to pin down. Once a mere figurehead empress, she’s taken a more active hand in the politics of the Fast Food Wars since her father’s mysterious disappearance scarcely a decade past. Nobody’s quite sure what her deal is; to all appearances, she’s a perfectly ordinary fourteen-year-old girl – but she’s been fourteen for a long, long time.
Collecting a variety of requests:
The Taco Bell Chihuahua is gone. In her hubris, she challenged the Colonel to single combat, who unhinged his jaw like a snake and swallowed her whole. Nobody’s quite prepared to say she’s dead, since the powers of the Fast Food Wars have been known to come back from worse, but it’s been fifteen years now, and few expect her return.
The Five are a sinister cabal who eschew personal names and identities, being known only by their collective title. The secret to their power is that they’re actually a telepathic hive-mind; though their members are technically mortal, the collective itself can recover from individual losses as long as at least one of them survives.
Despite its icy clime, the Dairy Queen’s kingdom flows with milk and honey. Her subjects are well-fed and happy and want for nothing – but there’s always something brittle about their smiles. In truth, beneath her jolly facade, their glorious sorcerer-queen’s heart is as cold as her realm: all shall love her and despair.
The Caesar is an anomaly in the Fast Food Wars: a mortal who contends with gods. What he lacks in personal prowess, he makes up for with his vast armies and spy networks. The title is non-hereditary; the current Caesar ascended to the throne in the traditional fashion: by literally stabbing his predecessor in the back.
Jack be nimble, Jack be quick – though the Fast Food Wars’ fields are bestrode by giants, all know to fear the Giant-Slayer. Cursed by the Old Gods to the form of a child’s toy for some forgotten jape, Jack rules still from his castle in the clouds. A wildcard in the Wars, he’s as likely to decimate his own realm in a fit of pique as he is to march against others.
It has latterly been revealed that the previous Caesar survived his assassination, making his way in secret to the frozen lands, where he became vassal – and, some whisper, consort – to the Dairy Queen. The mark of his successor’s poisoned spear remains upon him, staining his skin a sickly ocher, and for this he’s known as Orange Julius.
Make a campaign world based around the lore of The Fast Food Wars.
This is the best Demolition Man prequel fic I’ve ever read.
the subway isn’t a person, as far as anyone can tell. it’s a strange underground realm filled with jaunty steampunk citizens. but none of the others dare set foot there. it neither attacks nor defends. it simply runs on time.
‘Queer’ was reclaimed as an umbrella term for people identifying as not-heterosexual and/or not-cisgender in the early 1980s, but being queer is more than just being non-straight/non-cis; it’s a political and ideological statement, a label asserting an identity distinct from gay and/or traditional gender identities.
People identifying as queer are typically not cis gays or cis lesbians, but bi, pan, ace, trans, nonbinary, intersex, etc.: we’re the silent/ced letters. We’re the marginalised majority within the LGBTQIA+ community, and
‘queer’ is our rallying cry.
And that’s equally pissing off and terrifying terfs and cis LGs.
There’s absolutely no historical or sociolinguistic reason why ‘queer’ should be a worse slur than ‘gay.’ Remember how we had all those campaigns to make people stop using ‘gay’ as a synonym for ‘bad’?
Yet nobody is suggesting we should abolish ‘gay’ as a label. We accept that even though ‘gay’ sometimes is and historically frequently was used in a derogatory manner, mlm individuals have the right to use that word. We have ad campaigns, twitter hashtags, and viral Facebook posts defending ‘gay’ as an identity label and asking people to stop using it as a slur.
Whereas ‘queer’ is treated exactly opposite: a small but vocal group of people within feminist and LGBTQIA+ circles insists that it’s a slur and demands that others to stop using it as a personal, self-chosen identity label.
Why?
Because “queer is a slur” was invented by terfs specifically to exclude trans, nonbinary, and
intersex people from feminist and non-heterosexual discourse, and was
subsequently adopted by cis gays and cis lesbians to exclude bi/pan and ace
people.
It’s classic divide-and-conquer tactics: when our umbrella term is redefined as a slur and we’re harassed into silence for using it, we no longer have a word for what we are allowing us to organise for social/political/economic support; we are denied the opportunity to influence or shape the spaces we inhabit; we can’t challenge existing community power structures; we’re erased from our own history.
Pro tip: when you alter historical evidence to deny a marginalised group empowerment, you’re one of the bad guys.
“Queer is a slur” is used by terfs and cis gays/lesbians to silence the voices of trans/nonbinary/intersex/bi/pan/ace people in society and even within our own communities, to isolate us and shame us for existing.
“Queer is a slur” is saying “I am offended by people who do not conform to traditional gender or sexual identities because they are not sexually available to me or validate my personal identity.”
“Queer is a slur” is defending heteronormativity.
“Queer is a slur” is frankly embarrassing. It’s an admission of ignorance and prejudice. It’s an insidious discriminatory discourse parroted uncritically in support of a divisive us-vs-them mentality targeting the most vulnerable members of the LGBTQIA+ community for lack of courage to confront the white cis straight men who pose an actual danger to us as individuals and as a community.
Tl;dr:
I’m here, I’m queer, and I’m too old for this shit.
These windows you create onto yourself, they never show all of you. There is mystery here. You have freedom to move. The window doesn’t define you. And it certainly shouldn’t offend you when people comment on what you’ve shown them. They are remarking upon one instant, their temporary moment touching yours. Any reflection you see is translucent and tiny. The window isn’t you. You are the whole person behind it.
peter parker in the 2002 movie is fuckin…. incredible. he gets bitten by a fuckin jacked red blue spider and he doesnt say “hey someone should take me to the hospital mayhaps?” he just goes home. then the bite swells to the size of a fuckin jawbreaker but he’s like “nah i just need a nap.” then he wakes up the next day and discovers that he DOESN’T NEED HIS GLASSES ANYMORE and he has a fuckin six pack. does he flip his entire Fuck? no. he says, “cool.” iconic.
Selkies aren’t like most of the Gentry. They belong to the sea and earth, echoing a discordant blend of beastial instinct and humanity, a strange mix that humans have difficulty understanding and makes them very uncomfortable. More importantly, selkies have an extreme vulnerability, like a target painted on their backs, and while that target is well protected and small and very hard to hit, if a human manages to land a bullseye some poor selkie will be dragged off, forever a captive separated from home. No matter how hard they try to hide their pelts, they are still animal enough to be easily distracted and forgetful, and all it takes is one mistake. The only thing that can save them after that is the intervention of another human. So unlike other fair folk, they appreciate kind, helpful humans a great deal.
Although it was rare, more boys at Elsewhere have managed to steal a selkie girl’s pelt than you would think. For all that selkies were wild and disconcerting, some humans are sadistic and possessive enough to capture one for her extreme beauty alone.
There are also humans who find this practice disgusting and horrifying to the degree that they refuse to allow it to continue.
There is a very quiet, secretive club on campus called the WSP. Outsiders don’t know what they do. They don’t hold many meetings, communicating and organising almost exclusively through a group text. There are many members, all kinds of different people. They wait, and watch, and act with quick and quiet efficiency. The full name of their organisation is Women for Selkie Protection.
When they return a pelt to a captive girl and walk her back to wherever she wants to go, their eyes do not fill with pity, but with barely contained rage. They do not do anything to the boys responsible. They do not need to. A few days after one returns a girl’s freedom, she might pass a beautiful girl with dark, knowing eyes and too sharp teeth, their eyes meeting, mouths twisting twist into gleeful, ferocious grins. She might quietly whisper “Sister,” as she passes. The beautiful girl might whisper it back.
Specs wasn’t really an engineer. Their friends took him to be more of the theoretical sort, someone who could crunch numbers but was never seen in the lab for more than the minimum amount of time. He could be relied on for knowledge, but anyone who’d been in group projects with him had heard he preferred working with people, and that splitting work with him and expecting it done was a lot less productive than sitting him down in a work space on campus and bouncing the work between you.
His flatmates knew he wasn’t in the flat that much, and assumed he spent the rest of the time with societies and work. If anyone had checked, they would have noted that there was always a two hour gap in his schedule, but since he seemed to be perfectly ordinary (or as ordinary as the majority of EU student body were, at least) no one paid it much attention.
The shop students knew him as the guy who’d borrow their time to get little things done on their machines. A pinch of solder and iron to fix a wire, a small bit of the forge to cast some metal bits in the unused space of a bigger project. The chemistry students knew him as the guy who’d drop liquids in the liquid waste bin. Never more than a glass, a good way of disposing something you didn’t want to drink or keep nearby. The physics students knew him as the guy who’d request a few minutes with some of their meters. Strain gauges were the most common, but voltmeters and pressure gauges were close behind.
He always had an air of detached interest whenever gossip about the Gentry passed around the lecture halls. It was always another student who’d had a run in with a shadowy figure down by the lot, or had met Jimothy to trade beads, or had carefully not looked too closely at their flatmate recently.
Specs remained a guy with a few good friends who was a nice enough person to chat to throughout his first year. Then, in his second year, his sister came to EU.
Frizz was a drama student, eccentric, always ready with a smile and with a temper that was righteous in its fury. She wrote her own plays, sang her own little songs and drew in her spare time. She and her brother met up every other day for a quick hug, her drama friends quickly becoming acquainted with the smaller group of second year chem eng students who accompanied the elder sibling. When Frizz began dating, in as quietly dramatic a fashion as always, her brother was the one who looked her partner in the eye and stared for half a minute before calmly patting them on the shoulder and giving them a grin when he felt them shaking.
It was only a few months before Frizz had racked up a substantial number of encounters with the Fair Folk, as the liberal arts students tended to. One of Specs’ friends caught the occasional glimpse of worry beneath his usual friendly demeanor, but since Frizz had seemingly taken her brothers words of mild caution to heart she’d not come out of any of them the worse for wear.
Then, halfway through the year, Specs went backstage after a production had finished, he and the rest of the group of friends who’d come to support those of their number involved, to find Frizz’s partner running to him, terror in their eyes.
“They took Frizz!”
Specs face lost all emotion, and the rest of the group took a step back to give him space. A couple of them followed him as he left the theatre with a steadily quicker stride, and lost him as he began sprinting out into the grounds. They hoped he would be alright, knowing that the loss of a sibling would be heartbreaking. One or two of them resolved to go to his flat to comfort him the next day.
What they didn’t expect the next day was for Specs to be sitting behind a table on one of the main university paths with a selection of gadgets and items in front of him and a big digital timer counting down.
The first person to approach him was met with a fake, friendly smile and asked if they’d like a free sample. When they asked him what on earth he was doing, he took a yo-yo from the table in explanation.
“I’m starting off with the smallest stuff. Wholly iron and steel, six metres long wire string. Get it swinging at two and I guess you could even wrap someone up in it. Time goes on, I’ll start getting rid of the bigger stuff I’ve got stashed around. There’s a spray paint system I worked on the other day, it’s got a lovely red finish at up to twenty metres. I put some red iron-based paint in it, easily replaceable.”
Of course, most people steered clear of his stall, afraid of angering the Fair Folk, but there was always someone desperate, and soon he’d given out about thirty of the smaller things. There were several people who observed a tall man, lines of red rising on his skin in a manner that suggested something had coiled round him, stride over to the table.
“You will stop,” he said in a sibilant, angry tone.
“Huh?” came Specs disinterested reply. “Oh, you’re right, two hours have gone past and still my sister hasn’t turned up. Time to move on to the next batch.”
The man seemed to grow taller, hands becoming more pointed. Specs pulled a hula hoop from the stand and tossed it over the man’s head, breaking a catch and allowing a spool of chicken wire to spring from within, encircling his interrogator. After a couple of minutes, he pulled the chicken wire down, taking a small water pistol from the table instead. The tall man glared and retreated.
After half a day, Specs was seen walking to several iron electric boxes and pulling out things stashed within, before returning to the stand to place his unearthed stash on display. Unlike the steadily grander toys he’d been selling, these things didn’t hide what they were made for. An ugly looking thing with springs held several iron bolas. A mass of batteries were strapped to a couple of electromagnets with a supply of iron filings to feed between the two. Swimming goggles with lenses and rocks. Flashlights with reticules and chemical warning labels. Ball bearings and a hand cranked handheld self reloading catapult.
For those who were desperate, the rumours that had spread around campus were enough to bring them in. Each piece of equipment was explained, warnings about not firing this through a glass window, it could put someone’s eye out, that shouldn’t be aimed at the legs in case it trips someone up, this should be handled with a paint mask and with no-one in the immediate vicinity.
In the evening, as Specs handed out the last of the things he hadn’t been holding onto for himself, a group of assorted people with burn scars, pocks of red and faces in assorted angry expressions that looked near inhuman came towards him.
“You’ve made a lot of people angry.”
“They can join the club. I still haven’t seen my sister.”
“You have no more threats to hand out. You will be sorry.”
“Oh? No, I’ve got a whole wardrobe full of these things. Then there’s the emergency stashes I made, just in case. Then the stuff I’ve left half finished. And, of course, I might start handing out copies of my designs, I had a bunch of people interested in what I offered today and I’m sure some of them would love to know how these things work, try a hand at making their own-”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Wouldn’t I? I don’t see what the problem is. I’m just putting my frustration into something productive. If only my sister were here to calm me down…”
The next day a girl with Frizz’s face approached the stall. She left when Specs offered her a wire Chinese finger trap to try out.
It was midday when Frizz herself appeared, wandering drunkenly over to Specs stall and hugging him as though she’d never let go. Specs brushed her hair with a hand covered in iron rings, murmuring in her ear. He kept one arm around her as he packed up the stall, hefting the duffel bag and stall with difficulty with one hand before the siblings’ friends arrived from class to help.
That evening, in Specs flat, with Frizz lying exhausted on the couch in the kitchen, one of his friends quietly asked why he’d had all that stuff prepared. In the course of one and a half days he’d handed out enough anti-fae tools for a small mob, and he’d been hinting he had even more. One of Frizz’s friends, the one who never wore iron and smiled all the time, looked slightly scared as she asked why he hadn’t used it.
“My family have always been creative,” he said. “You can see my sister’s talent. My dad paints, my mum sings. I imagine things. And some of those things are not very nice.”
He looked at his hands. After two days of being either clenched or solid as a rock, they were shaking now.
“It was fun to imagine solutions to a problem I’d never faced. To make something cheap, effective and that I’d never need to use, but should have around just in case. Heck, I even said to myself that it was alright to design bigger, because it wasn’t as if it’d be used on anyone nice.”
just moving along like everyone else 