Kayla Shannell

Tony: [laughing] No.

Bucky: Who are you? What’s your name?

Tony: My name’s Tony. I’m your husband.

Old Macd*nald had a farm.  

One line later, there are “525,000 Moments so dear”.

So, doing the math, we can glean that there are 600 moments which aren’t so dear.

Women have always been at the forefront of literature, the first novel (what we would consider a novel in modern terms) was written by a woman (Lady Muraskai’s the Tale of Genji in the early 1000s) take your snide “Isaac Asimov” reblogs and stick it

even in terms of male scifi authors, asimov was predated by Jules Verne, HG Wells, George Orwell, you could have even cited Poe or Jonathan Swift has a case but Asimov?

It’s not new.

Stop blowing it out of proportion.

Here we are, 2018, and the Republicans control ALL branches of the government. They still failed to compromise and negotiate.

This is the first time the government shutdown under a one-party government. Ever.

Waffle House is one of the few chains in America that’s open 24/7/365, and where you can get both breakfast and lunch/dinner options at any time (I have had so many Breakfast Cheeseburgers at Waffle Houses). The food is really good, and people eat there at all times of the day or night, but it’s particularly popular as a late-night post-drinking spot because it’s all that’s open and it’s the kind of food that tastes especially good when you’re hammered.

Part of Waffle House Protocol is that all the servers and cooks greet every single customer as they come through the door. It sounds lame, but I’ve never been to a Waffle House where that greeting didn’t feel completely heartfelt. My mom is a health nut who could barely find anything on the menu she was willing to eat and yet she describes the Christmas Day lunch we had there one year as one of the nicest meals she’s ever had because everyone was so warm and welcoming. That sense of camaraderie gets turned up to 11, of course, at 2 a.m. when everyone’s shitfaced.

The jukeboxes have Waffle-House-themed songs on them (once you have heard “Raisins in my Toast” you will be earwormed forever) and there is an arcane system of hash brown ordering: scattered, smothered, covered, chunked, topped, diced, peppered, and/or capped. The hot sauce bottles say “Casa de Waffle.” 

Once, in Oxford (UK), my husband and I walked past a kebab van very late one night and he said “why do I smell Waffle House”

The location of most Waffle Houses means there’s some… classism that tends to get tied up with Anti-Waffle House Discourse, which is probably lending itself, in part, to this being such a fraught topic. (I’m looking at a map and apparently I was born and raised right in the middle of the Peak Waffle House Density Zone)

asoiaf prophecies: the ghost of high heart

t’challa: can you please shut the fuck up

thor: wanna hear about the time my brother turned into a snake and stabbed me?

Shella’s never felt panic like this before.

She strokes her last follower’s–her last love’s–hair and looks up at the moon. Ashley’s sleeping for once, breath rattling in diseased lungs, and it’s only in moments like this that Shella lets herself look within. She can’t hide from Ashley–they’ve known each other too deeply for that–but even Ashley can’t see what Shella keeps locked, locked, locked away.

And isn’t it worse that she’s panicking over her own life and not Ashley’s? What sort of god is she that she can’t cry for her follower’s suffering? Can’t mourn? Can’t grieve?

Shella–when she was not always Shella–has had many followers. She’s seen humans born in her temples and die in them. She’s seen so many humans die that Ashley’s descent into Death’s embrace is natural. Expected.

(Why oh why did Ashley not worship a healing god? Why her? Why Shella?)

Ashley stirs in her sleep, her wrinkles deepening and darkening in pain. This, at least, Shella can soothe. She invites the aches into her own body, placing her hand on Ashley’s forehead and dragging it lightly down the bridge of her nose. Ashley’s pain flows into the joints of Shella’s hands, gnarling her fingers with age, arthritis, and unending sickness. It takes longer for Shella to heal from this than it used to–she’s dying too.

The gods are dying like this. With human weakness sneaking through their divinity and into their lungs.

Shella should have left weeks ago when Ashley asked her to. She should have resumed her young form–twenty-something and free–and found new followers to sustain her. She should have turned her eyes from her fading love and looked to the future like she had so many times before.

(Without Ashley? Without her?)

Shella’s afraid to die. Thousands of years are etched into her bones and she craves a thousand more. How can history end? How can her history just stop? It doesn’t seem possible, but there’s some greater force at play here because she didn’t do what she needed to to avoid this–she didn’t leave Ashley behind.

And now she’s counting Ashley’s breaths like prayer, waiting for a final amen.

When it comes, Shella isn’t ready. She’s not prepared. She doesn’t know. She thinks the spasm in Ashley’s chest is just more pain. She tries to take that too and invites Death into her own lungs unwittingly.

She closes her eyes a heartbeat after Ashley does and does not feel it when the earth reclaims its divinity.

———————————————-

In another world, Ashley wakes up. She can breathe the fresh air without pain. The back of her hands are smooth, free of age spots, and her eyes can see across the field she’s in, all the way to the green forest at the foot of the hills.

Under her hands is soft, wheat-colored hair. Ashley knows who it is by the way her breath freezes in her lungs. there’s only one person–one god–who’s ever been able to do that, to make her willingly stop breathing from awe.

Shella.

Her god followed her to this place. She can remember pleading with Shella to leave, to find whole followers and not broken ones like her. But her god didn’t.  Her god never left her, hands in her hair like her hands are in Shella’s hair now. And now–the first of their new age of miracles.

I think he thought I was gonna ask for an autograph because I was not even lowkey staring I was full on moon-faced and bouncing and he kept looking over at me hesitantly like aw jeez kid fuck off

anyways I finally managed to squeak out that I was a huge fan and asked for advice on writing, “how do I write as well as you do?” in my horrible thick German accent and broken ass English and he gave me the best writing advice I have ever received

“shit kid, stop worrying about how other people do it and just write your story”

Like I thought I was just acquaintances with this person because they never told me details about themselves and we just talked movies and writing . But then they made time to have coffee with me and they showed up out of breath because they ran. Like. RAN to be on time for coffee with me?

And I was like “i don’t mind waiting” cause I never want to run

But they said they wanted every minute they could get because I’m so busy usually

Which is when it clicked that I didn’t get how much they considered me a friend because I just straight away didn’t see MY signs of affection in them and went “cool! Casual buds it is.” But now that I’m seeing their signs of affection, I feel a little silly for dismissing them like that even though I felt like we could be best bros.

TOUCH got a bro that likes to give high fives? Back slaps? Are they a hugger? Do they not blink an eye at cuddles?

QUALITY TIME this bro will (as op stated) sprint to spend every minute possible with you. Every second that you guys are together is a declaration of affection.

WORDS does your bro tell you how amazing and great and fantastic and wonderful you are all the time? Guess what…?

GIFTS do they buy you coffee? Snacks, energy drinks, spot you at the restaurant? Did that one key chain removed you of them? Ding ding!

ACTS are they always doing things for you? Ie: Nah bro, I got this, I can do that, need me to get anything for you, I can help with…?