You Know What I Would Find Really Hilarious?

Power doesn’t corrupt, it reveals. Give someone the ability to be who they’ve always wanted, and you’ll discover who they’ve always wanted to be.

Looking for a fic

I’ve been lost in the rabbit hole for days looking for this story. It’s marvel’s, tony stark centric, I believe. I don’t remember much except that it’s set after civil war (maybe?) and Tony is BAMF, saving the world from alien all by himself. I also remember Carol Danver congratulating him on the treaty by uniting earth into one voice (type civilization 1 or something similar to it). Tony was kinda dubbed as king (or leader) of earth, something like that. Possibly Tony/Bucky pairing but I’m not too sure about that.

Everyone was panicking. The Avengers had just received a ransom video showing Tony in the hands of some HYDRA kidnappers. They were currently rewatching it, hoping to find some clues to where HYDRA was keeping Tony, as JARVIS couldn't locate him.

"What'cha watching?" a voice over Steve's shoulder said, startling him.

Behind him stood Tony. Steve couldn't do anything other than gawk at Tony, who, other than a few scrapes and bruises, looked completely fine.

"I guess you didn't want to wait for us to rescue you," Bucky remarked.

Tony grinned. "Where would be the fun in that?" he said.

Heyyy, noticed you said that you're confused about Megatron (what with D-16 and Megatronus being thrown around), and I thought I'd explain! I do not mean to demean you in any way, I'd just like to explain because I like talking :>

Megatron is, well, Megatron- Optimus Prime's arch-enemy, the leader of Decepticons. That stays the same throughout basically every continuity (show, comic, yadda yadda…).

D-16 is a newer "past" version of Megatron- I believe that he's exclusive to the Transformers One movie. He's a miner with Orion Pax, best of buds, and also Megatronus Prime fanboy (Megatronus Prime being one of the thirteen Primes to emerge from Primus). After discovering Sentinel Prime's betrayal, as he killed the thirteen to seize power, he gets way pissed off about it and kills Sentinel, taking the name "Megatron" to honour(?) Megatronus Prime.

Megatronus is a bit older- he's the past version of Megatron in Transformers Prime. In this, he was a successful gladiator from Kaon, and he wanted to start a revolution or something of the like to end the social castes that Cybertron lived under that's based on your alt mode. But, oh no, he's been evil all this time! He becomes Optimus Prime's #1 hater after Optimus, at the time Orion Pax, is chosen to be the next Prime instead of him (they also were friends in this too, and Orion was an archivist).

In the comics (at least the 2005 IDW comics), Megatron was always Megatron, though he started as a miner. After some shenanigans happened, I'm not exactly sure as to what, Megatron is sent to the Pits of Kaon to be a gladiator. After that, somehow, he starts the Decepticon movement and then the war. Orion Pax, in this continuity, is a police officer who is deeply concerned about the state of Cybertron, which lives under a caste system, like the Transformers Prime universe.

Also, the show that you're talking about with the episode where Optimus gets amnesia is Transformers Prime. The episode in question, though, could be Season 1, Episode 26, in which Prime initially loses his memory, or Season 2, episodes 1-3, which focus on the aftermath.

Have a good day! Many apologies if this offends you!

Hi!

Thank you for your answer, it was not offensive at all. I really appreaciate you taking the time to explain a bit of the show(s) to me.

Also, thank you for sort of adding the reasoning behind Megatron creating the Decepticons, I hadn't realised it was a point I wasn't yet aware of.

Have a nice day!

I just thought, and I guess it's kind of unrelated, but what if Severus's patronus isn't a doe, but a bambi? It was supposed to grow into a stag, but it never got the chance, it could never fulfill itself and remained forever young and unchanged, stuck in time and memory, perhaps in an effort to retain a semblance of the few good moments it could recall, maybe as a result of not being allowed to develop and grow into its full capabilities.

from lily pov btw 🥹

I've been reading a lot of Bill Redeption fics, and I've noticed how Mabel is usually the first to warm up to the triangle.

Now, I've seen a post sugesting a scenario where she is the last instead, because of all the shit he put her trough during Weirdmagedon with the Dream Bubble. And it's true, it would be good to read.

But is there any fic where the first to warm up to Bill is Dipper?

I'd like to see Dipper reluctuanly getting closer to the Dorito because he is curious like his grunkle Ford was, but also because with all of Bill's weirdness and crazyness, Dipper can't help but be reminded of Mabel. I want Dipper to take a look at this strange and now very lost creature trying to make sense of his insane, new reality in his own way and see Mabel. See her in the weird things Bill could sugest to eat, on the strange ways he'd like to have fun, on the risks Bill would sometimes take without realising, on his wish to always have fun, on his constant talking, on his need to be seen and heard and not to be alone.

I want him to take a look at this no longer so evil Dorito and find his sister on him.

And how could anyone so alike to his sister be completely bad?

And then, on the other side would be Bill, seeing Dipper and being unable to not see Ford the way he first found him, naive, cautious with others but so eager to know more. Not a substitute, never that, but a memory of old, good times.

Just... think, try to imagine this.

Headcanon Time

Pitch is a dramatic bastard who knows how to bluff his way out of a bad situation. His 'defeat' in the end was totally faked

Hear me out

Onyx, earlier during the tooth palace scene, must've sensed the fear Pitch felt when the boomerang was thrown at him. What was he reaction? Turning on him? No. Getting him out of there. The nightmares also came to check on him after Jack blasted him out of the sky. They show no signs of being fickle enough to turn against him.

Also, the nightmares are not really threats (whole diff headcanon), and they dragged him to his,,,,, home. Like telling a teenager to go to their room. 'oh no, not the place I prefer to be anyway.' So man got dragged into his lair, by his own almost harmless minions who do care about him, conveniently right when the guardians have him truely defeated.

Here's what really happened.

Pitch, apon Jack saying "Looks like it's your fear they smell." Has a realization that he has no more cards up his sleeve. He's lost. He gets a strike of panic because oh shit he's lost. Considering Sandy's treatment of him earlier and Tooth punching him, the guardians would not treat his defeat kindly.

So he runs, his nightmares, as they do, pick up that he's genuinely afraid and are like "oh shit, daddy's in actual trouble, we gotta get him home." So that's what they do.

Pitch, being his clever self, feigns struggling and fear of his nightmares to convince the guardians that there's no need to continue to go after him or worry about him, because he's getting his due punishment. He closes the lair behind him, both as a way of reaffirming that assumption, and to obviously keep the guardians from coming after him.

I mean come on, he obviously controls the entrances to his lair, there's no way Jack wouldn't have found that entrance before in his 300 yesrs, so Pitch made it specifically to lure Jack in.

Obviously, the guardians are shoot first, ask questions later kind of people. They function based on first assumptions and haven't been known to think particularly critically. Pitch bets on this and makes a plan around it multiple times. He knows how to take advantage of it.

He's a dramatic little shit, and a kid who's very good at worming their way out of trouble.

Y'all

Imagine if Bilbo lost his lil acorn once Smaug was dead.

Throin sees Bilbo looking around all panicked, digging through some pile of gold or gems, and asks about it, and this is where he learns about the acorn.

So of course he offers to help look, while they're looking for the Arkenstone, and eventually they've got the whole company looking for both. Thorin's head seems a little more clear suddenly, so everyone's more looking for the acorn than the arkenstone, because yeah they're looking for the arkenstone, but they'll know it when they see it, they have to CONCENTRAIT to find a lil acorn, and it's important they find IT soon or it'll get crushed, or die or rot. The arkenstone has lasted this long. It'll last a little longer.

And because they've all got he mindset if "yeah thats a bit of gold, but it's not an acorn. Sure sure some pretty gems but it's not an acorn!" In there heads, they stave of the gold sickness.

When Fili shouts, "I found it!" They're all rather disappointing when they realise he means the Arkestone. Thorin pockets it, but they return to their search for the acorn right away.

Then, one day, Thranduil shows up demanding the white gems and Thorin's standing up on the barracks like "Sure, if we come across them."

And Thranduil's like "what do you mean if you come across them?"

"There was a dragon in the mountain for over a century! He wasn't exactly cleaning and we're a bit preoccupied with our own search at the moment! I'll send them your way once we find them! If takes a day or a year, you'll live!" And then he disappears from Thranduil's sight.

Only to reappear after a moment, looking slightly irritated. The hobbit is by his side looking, perhaps hopeful? With a roll of his eyes, Thorin says, bitting out the words like they physically hurt to say "If you would like, perhaps you could send a select few of your most trusted guard, and if they might help us in our search, they can also look for your gems as well?"

Thranduil has never been more caught of guard in his life. Did a dwarf, one whom he'd had imprissoned in his dungeon less than a month ago, just invite his people into his most recently reclaimed treasurey?

"I'm sorry. What?" He blinks up at the dwarf- most elegantly, he assures you.

"Elves have very keen eyes, do you not?" Asks the little hobbit. "We're looking for my acorn, you see, that I got from Beorn the skin changer, I seem to have lost it in the dragon's chase, and we fear it'll be crushed. Throin says your box would likely be in the front of the treasurey, and we haven't searched there yet, though Smaug did follow us through there, so it's a fine place for your people to start. It would be greetly appreciated."

And really. The argument could go on, Thranduil's really not sure he believes there IS an acorn, but if it gets him those damned white gems, fine. He sends Tauriel and her guard, and Legolas volunteers himself.

When Bard shows up asking for aid for the town Thorin throws his hands up. "Your just as bad as the elves! We just got our montain back! Fah! At least you asked for nothing so specific!" And practically chucks a chest full of randomly scooped up gold and gems over at the man. "But if there is an acorn in there, you are to return it immediately!"

There isn't an acorn.

"Why would there be an acorn?" He asks Thranduil that evening as he takes tea with the Elven king who's made camp outside the Lonely Mountain as a statement to the dwarven king he doesn't mean to leave without what's rightfully his, regardless of their compliance.

"His husband appears to be rather attached to it." Thranduil shrugs. "I don't pretent to understand the ways of haflings, but if the hobbit has half so strong a love for that which grows from the earth, as the dwarves do that which is mined from it, and I was a king who'd dragged my consort half way across Middle Earth to risk his life battling a dragon for its hoard, I'd think it wise to have the Mountain turned upside down for one measly acorn as well."

Dain shows up and is about ready to storm the peacefully-aiding-the-humans-at-this-point-because-we're-here-what-else-do-we-have-to-do elves on principle, but Thorin puts a stop to it quick.

It takes Dain a day and a half to realised that Thorin did infact say "they were all looking for an Acorn," yesterday, and several minutes to understand that he was saying "no, we found the Arkenstone days ago," today.

And of course, the orcs and goblins show up and are defeated by the forced of them all, united under Acorn Peace Treaty of 2942

Sadly, weeks go by, and they do not find the acorn. They do eventually find the Gems, and Legolas and the majority of the elves return to Mirkwood, Legolas having made good friends with the Company, especially Gloin (this is a suprise tool that will help him later) but Tauriel remains, and if Thorin wasn't smitten with the hobbit, he might comment on just how close Kili is growing to her. At least she's respectful. Might just teach that boy a think or two. The opposite is, of course, true, and Tauriel becomes just as much a menace as the princes.

As the weeks go by and proper cataloging of the treasury commences, every dwarf who comes to help is shows a picture of the acorn every single morning, and promised a just reward for its discovery.

Eventually, Bilbo has to concede they aren't going to find it, but, well, by then he's not exactly planning to return to the Shire for long enough to care for a sprouting tree.

He does return long enough to stop all his things being auctioned off, no he's not a ghost, thank you very much, and have Bag End transfered to his cousin Drogo and his wife, before setting back out for Erebor with the things he intends to keep.

It's years before anyone thinks of the poor lost little acorn again, decades, infact.

One day, in the early morning of the 21st Durin's day after the reclaiming of Erebor, a dwarf comes rushing from the treasurey to find the Royals preparing for the celebration.

"Is it one of these, your highne- uh, Bilbo, your lost acorn?" He asks, stuttering over the title he knows the hobbit dislikes. "I can't really.... tell them apart."

And Bilbo just blinks, because in the cupped palms of the dwarf's are perhaps 15 or 20 little acorns...

"Where did you find these?" He asks.

"They were in the back."

"The back?" Thorin repeats, then catches himself and shoos the dwarf back the way he came "Show us."

They all- Bilbo and Thorin, the princeses, and a handful of the company who'd been present- follow the dwarf down into the treasurey, and then through the treasurey, past all the neat piles of gold and the many chests of organized gems and stones and all manner of other treasures, until they're presented with a very familiar back door.

Or rather, a hidden passage, tucked away in an alcove, where another handful of acorns' the few the Dwarf who'd brought them the first had likely missed- are scattered about.

"You did... just have the one, right Uncle Bilbo?" Fili asks.

"Or course I just had the one!" Bilbo retorts. "I couldn't have possibly carried that many with me all the way from Beorn's!"

With a resigned sort of sigh, as he begins to piece together the answer to a decades old mystery, Thorin steps forward and follows the tunnel up, up, up, and out of Erebor, the others- save the dwarf who brought them, dismissed by Bilbo with a smile, a thanks, and an oh, no, you may keep those- right behind.

As they walk, the acorns start to increase. Though there's never so many as to begin piling up in the tunnel, by the time they reach the end, the majority of the ground is covered in a solid layer if the little things, and the crunch underfoot as they all emerge onto the ledge which they had all once stood, with batted breath in the moon light as they realised they were at last, truly home.

"Was that here last time?" Kili asked, studying the impressive Oaktree shading the entire ledge that sat in front of the secret entrance to Erebor.

The trunk of the tree was wide and solid, sitting right up against the mountain side, and rather winning the battle of wills against the carved stone architecture of the dwarves. Its limbs grow twisted and wild, up and out in all directions. It's easily 250 or 300 feet tall. There is all sorts of life flittering about in its florishing branches, all covered in brilliant green leaves, and fresh green little acorns.

The growned all around them is covered in acorns as well, so many more than the tunnel.

"No." Thorin says, watching a squirrel dash down from the trunk of the tree, shove several acorns into its cheeks, and dash back up the trunk. "No it was not." He turns to Bilbo, and raises an eyebrow. "Lost it after the dragons chase, you said?"

Beet red and look quite flustered, all Bilbo can manage out is a squicky little "oops."

"'Oops' indeed." Thorin returns, smiling fondly.

So...

Does anyone know about a retelling of the Minotaur myth where Ariadne pretends to be in love with Theseus so he'll lead her into the labyrinth where she'll be able to rescue her brother?

Everyone knows the movie Megamind, right?

I liked the trope of goofy villain who was not, in fact, good at being bad. Then he falls in love with someone and chooses to stop trying to be bad.

I also say "trying" because what the movie showed us that Megamind wasn't, in fact, bad. He was "given" that role and when he realised he couldn't escape it, he embraced it.

But what if that trope was done more seriously?

I'm not talking about Megamind specifically. It could be used for any original story or ff, but it could work.

One where a villain, and I'm talking about a real villain, one that has done some serious shit, meets someone new.

Or maybe a new group of people. This could work as a romantic trope, found family or both.

And this person or people they meet is/are... a bit strange maybe. They are not evil, not even bad, but they have an odd moral standing. They are good with some people, with those they care about, maybe they are even involved in some charities, not even to commit fraud, but because they genuinely want to help.

But they also understand that sometimes, people do awful shit, sometimes a person is forced to act and do horrible things. Sometimes people choose to step over some heads in order to reach some goal. And it is... It's not "ok", but they get it and keep on living.

And sometimes, when they feel cornered and/or with no option, they are also willing to crush some skulls themselves.

And when this villain starts hanging out with them, they start finding things they have in common and start enjoing their time togheter. Inadvertently, villain starts remembering what it was like before, how he felt, how he acted, the things that mattered before, his main, true goal and the actual reason villain is doing all he's doing, the reason they've done everything they've done.

They also find out that this new person (or people) get it too. Maybe they won't help, or maybe they will, but that's not what's important.

And without realising, villain starts relaxing around who they've met. They start talking more, they start laughing and smiling and acting more goofy.

They don't change. They still are who they are and still act the way they've always have. But, when they are with that someone, they are happier, and when they are asked to stay for lunch they do so knowing that it's ok, they are welcome, there's no ulterior motive, they are safe. When they are taken to a party or a birthday they have fun. And everyone there knows who they are and what they do. Half of them think it's justified, the other half doesn't care. And when they are asked to help with some cause, they don't mind. It's always fun when that person is around (besides, who wouldn't want to play with the pups on the animal shelter).

They are still a villain, though some people have started labeling them as a "renegade", a "rogue" or his least favorite "anti-hero". They are not. They're still a villain, they just have little... moments, reserved for a select few.

Those few keep them centered, they help villain to remember their goal and prevent them from falling pray to a futile seek for power or control. They are a villain, they just have their priorities clear.

And on the day to day, what if they started smiling more? What if they remember to thank the cashier or the waitress in a cafe? They know what it's like to work serving people who treat you like another piece of furniture in the restaurant. What if they, sometimes, give some spare change to a homless person on the street, or if they donate some old clothes from time to time? They've got no use for them.

They are a villain. Some even would say THE villain. They are not good. They just... know how it feels when you are tired or feel a bit... helpless.

They forgot, for a long time. But they remember now. They were reminded.

It's not sympathy and definitely not empathy, obviously. What are you even saying?

They are bad, ruthless, cruel...

But sometimes they remember how it was before for them and just for a moment they simply... forget that they are bad. It's nothing important.

And if it makes them just a little warm, a little content and maybe... proud, when they do it; when they see the other smile at them for being able to share whatever this is; when they make a small difference for someone they don't even know, well... That's noone business.