Holy Shit

holy shit

Fury: Did you have to stab him?!

Carol: You didn’t hear what he said!

Loki: What did he say?

Carol: ‘What are you going to do, stab me?’

Loki: That’s fair

Fury:

I like to imagine that the Winter Soldier would have been programmed with basically every language that he would need for missions, and, for the sake of versimillitude, his handlers would make sure that he had the appropriate accent/diction and backstory to flawlessly pass as a native of a decently sized city in the country he was working in. So he speaks French like he’s from Toulouse, German like he’s from Cologne etc., allowing him to seamlessly blend in with the locals when he’s out raining destruction across Europe.

Unfortunately, the Red Room – not being known for its commitment to multiculturalism – didn’t think this system through very carefully when it came time to send the Winter Soldier off to do his first ever long mission for their comrades in China. They just program him to speak Mandarin like a statistically unremarkable proletarian from Zhangjiakou and send him on his merry way.

So he arrives in China with his Soviet handler and the following circumstances align to make the entire mission, from the perspective of the Red Room, a disaster from start to finish.

1. It’s 1971, and China is not open to the outside world. Most of the men on the Soldier’s strike team have never met a foreigner in their lives.

2. Those who have met a foreigner have never met one who speaks completely fluent Mandarin with a paint-peeling Hebei accent.

3. This is ENORMOUSLY INTERESTING AND ENTERTAINING to everyone he encounters.

4. Instead of being unremarkable and blending in with the locals he gets mobbed by curious spectators everywhere he goes. His strike team, despite being a little scared of him at first, are so excited to talk to a foreigner who they can actually communicate with that they constantly come up with excuses to hang out and chat.

5. China’s relative lack of development in the early seventies means that there aren’t the facilities to wipe him or put him in the freezer, so the main weapons that Handler Dima has at his disposal to keep the Soldier in line are 1. it’ll be hard for him to run away because he tends to attract crowds, and 2. He sometimes looks very ashamed of himself if you give him a sternly worded talking-to.

6. The Soldier is having the time of his life. Look at me, look at all of my friends, I have so many friends, EVERYONE LIKES ME.

The Winter Soldier, doing shots of baijiu and toasting to the health of Chairman Mao. The Winter Soldier, chain smoking and eating millions of sunflower seeds while playing Fight the Landlord with his new pals on a cross-country sleeper train. The Winter Soldier, doing morning tai chi and calisthenics along with his team. The Winter Soldier, preening every time someone tells him that he looks like a movie star (his handler says “They’re just saying that because they only ever see Europeans in films,” to which the Soldier replies, “But Dima, why don’t they say that you look like a movie star?”). The Winter Soldier, showboating shamelessly for his strike team, who have started calling him Lao Da and looking to him for orders while ignoring Handler Dima, who can’t speak Chinese and definitely can’t shoot two people at the same time while doing a backflip. The Winter Soldier, making elaborate Chinese puns and teaching his guys useful English phrases that he can’t remember learning (Did you come here alone, doll?). The Winter Soldier, harassing his buddies until they show him pictures of their wives and kids and then sincerely complimenting them on their beautiful families. The Winter Soldier, suspecting that he has experienced this kind of camaraderie before but unable to remember when and how.  

His next mission, in Vietnam, is the first time that they muzzle him.

Crowley isn’t unkind. Like, in general. He’s just not.

He creates mischief, and he’ll do bad things if he must, but given a choice, he generally chooses the kindest method to do something that he can get away with.

He refuses to kill children. He would rather run than fight. He scares the shit out of the paintballers, sure, but they all get near misses. He lets Aziraphale question the lady at the convent because Aziraphale will be kinder about it. He freezes time for Aziraphale in Paris, rather than come in guns blazing or by hurting anyone. He takes Jesus to see the world- the stories will say he did it to tempt him, but we see Crowley’s face and we know he did it out of compassion, out of a hope that he could save him, somehow, by showing him everything that was available to him. He delivers the antichrist and immediately seeks out an angel to help him undo what he has done, and by raising the child better, not by any unkindness.

And look at the other demons. Hastur tells him about the pastor: ‘i put doubt into his mind’ which implies direct manipulation of mortals. Hastur caused that evil directly. Crowley isn’t like that. Crowley tends to affect the environment, to set up situations, to cause low grade evil that isn’t really any one particular person’s fault and won’t damn anyone on its own. He leaves people the free will to choose to commit the evil or not. His evil is the sort that knocks out the phone network and leaves people the opportunity to either get mad and lash out or shrug and go about their business. His brand of evil is to do his best to give humans a fighting chance to do the right thing, still.

Like he’s just. Kind. Or at least, as best as he can be, considering his job requirements and the role he must play to continue to exist.

And how must it feel, to want to be that kind, while knowing it is against the rules and could get him killed?

And how must it feel to be have found this absolutely perfect angel, and angel who should hate him, who should want him dead, who should try to kill him, himself….. who presents him every opportunity to be kind, and so obviously approves of it, even loves his kindness at every turn?

When all of hell would destroy Crowley for his kindness and when none in heaven recognized it, the one angel he is beside on Earth not only notices but adores it.

And that’s what makes it different, when Aziraphale asks him, with just a look, to clean the coat. That’s the difference- Crowley’s kindness.

Aziraphale cleaning his own coat with a miracle would be an act of selfishness that Aziraphale would remember every time he looked at the coat.

But Crowley?

If Crowley does it, that’s an act of kindness. That’s something Aziraphale would want to remember every time he looked at the coat.

And that’s why Crowley does it- because he wants to be kind, and he’s so, so willing to indulge the only creature in any world that has ever noticed or cared.

can we just talk about the time that Lupin was recovering from a full moon and Snape taught the DADA class and made all the students write essays on how to kill werewolves for Lupin to read when he got back I hate Snape so much it’s not funny

concept: a retelling of hamlet with the frame story that it’s a tabletop rpg being played by a bunch of overzealous college kids and an increasingly frazzled dm trying to keep them all from rushing headlong into situations and dying immediately. horatio is the dm’s vaguely self-insert npc character. thanks