To a telepathic race, Humans would be terrifying, borderline psychotic, monsters.
Let’s start with “Intrusive Thoughts”. You ever been walking alone and wonder what would it would be like to jump off the bridge, or leap into traffic, or just punch a random person? Those are intrusive thoughts and everyone has them but most sane people never act on them. They’re still there but we know to ignore them.
To a telepathic species, these random urges that cross our brains would seem like humans are constantly on the verge or violent and self destructive acts and some unknown force holds us back.
Second, let’s take into account grudges, dark imaginings and just general seething anger.
Recent events in my own life have taught me there is always one person in any group of people who is so stressed by the little things at least one other person is doing that they wish they could strike out. Hit them, shout at them, swear like a sailor, or destroy their stuff. I know because, apparently, I’m that person. But I hold it in and tolerate and say nothing to maintain the peace.
To a telepathic species we would seem like barely in control psychopaths who are waiting for this moment to snap.
Finally there’s “compartmentalisation” our ability to separate our thoughts and our feelings. We can go through such a stressful time at work, school, or other places, and we want to quit, want to leave it all behind, quit, storm out etc. Adults can wake up in the morning hating that they have to go into a job they don’t like, but once their out of the job at the end of the day, once we’re away from that place, everything is fine. Because those problems are “work” or “school” problems and not part of our outside life.
To telepathic creatures we would be schizophrenic sociopaths. Or masochists, because despite our apparent hate of or jobs we keep going back.
Let’s be honest if the events of the Marvel Cinematic Universe actually happened, and Loki did try to take over earth, we probably would have just let him.
Loki: You are meant to be ruled.
Us: Yeah you’re probably right, the United States just elected Donald Trump as President. Clearly we can’t be left unsupervised.
This is a Jack Handey quote, actually. People talk about certain writers shitposting before shitposting was a thing, but Jack Handey practically invented shitposting. He wrote these short nonsense one liners and they published them in the National Lampoon and played them on SNL in the 90s. There’s a shit ton of them and they all sound like shitposts. Here’s just a few:
“I hope if dogs ever take over the world, and they chose a king, they don’t just go by size, because I bet there are some Chihuahuas with some good ideas.”
“Contrary to what most people say, the most dangerous animal in the world is not the lion or the tiger or even the elephant. It’s a shark riding on an elephant’s back, just trampling and eating everything they see.”
“To me, it’s always a good idea to always carry two sacks of something when you walk around. That way, if anybody says, “Hey, can you give me a hand?,” you can say, “Sorry, got these sacks.“”
“If you saw two guys named Hambone and Flippy, which one would you think liked dolphins the most? I’d say Flippy, wouldn’t you? You’d be wrong, though. It’s Hambone.”
“I think a good novel would be where a bunch of men on a ship are looking for a whale. They look and look, but you know what? They never find him. And you know why they never find him? It doesn’t say. The book leaves it up to you, the reader, to decide. Then, at the very end, there’s a page you can lick and it tastes like Kool-Aid.”
“If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.”
“If you’re an ant, and you’re walking along across the top of a cup of pudding, you probably have no idea that the only thing between you and disaster is the strength of that pudding skin”
“I wish I lived on a planet that had two suns—regular sun and “rogue” sun. That way, when somebody asked me what time it was, I’d say, “Regular time?” And they’d say, “Yeah.” And I’d say, “Sorry, all I have is rogue time.” It’d be fun to be a stuck-up rogue-time guy.”
“If you’re a cowboy, and you’re dragging a guy behind your horse, I bet it would really make you mad if you looked back and the guy was reading a magazine.”
“I hope some animal never bores a hole in my head and lays its eggs in my brain, because later you might think you’re having a good idea but it’s just eggs hatching.”
“If your friend is already dead, and being eaten by vultures, I think it’s okay to feed some bits of your friend to one of the vultures, to teach him to do some tricks. But ONLY if you’re serious about adopting the vulture.”
“If you ever fall off the Sears Tower, just go real limp, because maybe you’ll look like a dummy and people will try to catch you because, hey, free dummy.”
“We tend to scoff at the beliefs of the ancients. But we can’t scoff at them personally, to their faces, and this is what annoys me.”
There were so many of these, and they were all hilarious. Still are.
“It takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at that man.”
“The face of a child can say it all, especially the mouth part of the face.”
“I bet one legend that keeps recurring throughout history, in every
culture, is the story of Popeye.”
“Anytime I see something screech across a room and latch onto someones
neck, and the guy screams and tries to get it off, I have to laugh,
because what is that thing.”
“The memories of my family outings are still a source of strength to me.
I remember we’d all pile into the car – I forget what kind it was – and
drive and drive. I’m not sure where we’d go, but I think there were some
trees there. The smell of something was strong in the air as we played
whatever sport we played. I remember a bigger, older guy we called
“Dad.” We’d eat some stuff, or not, and then I think we went home. I
guess some things never leave you.”
“well, that’s not ideal” whenever something is going wrong
“we are in the timeline that god abandoned” whenever i’m mildly inconvenienced
“can’t you see that your fighting is tearing this family apart?” whenever two or more coworkers are arguing
referring to taking medication as “eating medicine”
“time to go back to prison!” when putting animals back in their cages
referring to inanimate objects as (s)he, particularly when i break something and say “oh no, he’s dead.” this concerns them especially when i follow it up with “that’s not ideal”
“what are they gonna do, fire me?”
I work in a blood bank, and constantly refer to blood types as flavors, such as “Oh, you need two units? What flavor is he?” And my older coworkers just look at me confused but my coworker that’s my age doesn’t miss a beat and responds “A Pos”
this is probably my favorite comment on this post so far
“What is this?” Your tone was full of amusement and merriment, eyes scanning the letter so deftly tucked beneath a stack of books.
Jamie froze, half-torn between lying and tearing the letter away from you. In the end, he did nothing, staring blankly at the red insignia of a lion imprinted on the wax.
Your expression sobered quickly as you read the signature near the bottom of the letter. You fixed him with an accusatory glare, clenching the thin paper in your right hand as you addressed him. “Cersei.”
He approached you cautiously, holding his hands out as a sign of surrender, reaching for the letter contained in your hands.
You quickly pulled it out of his grasp. “You said you cut off all communication with her. You lied to me.”
“I did!” He defended. “I told her to leave us be, but she’s my sister, she’s family. I can’t just disappear without a word!”
“Is she more? Is she more than family to you?” You demanded. You’d never heeded the rumors, believing him when he told you that she was his past and you were his future. But some part of you had always wondered if the whispers about your husband were true. The conflicted expression he wore seemed to disturbingly push you towards the truth.
“Y/N…” he warned lowly, drawing closer and again reaching for the letter, this time a bit more insistently. “Give it here.”
“No,” you asserted, again moving out of his grasp, “answer the question!”
Jamie’s expression was cold, defensive, and so unlike how you’d ever seen him. “I told you to ignore those rumors.”
“Is that all they are? Rumors?” Your upper lip trembled, but you kept your expression as neutral as you could manage.
His silence betrayed him.
Your firm exterior crumbled. You took a step back, and then two, and then three. You clasped a hand over your mouth, breathing stuttering and trembling. Your back collided with the wall, and you let the letter finally tumble from your grasp. Your eyes watered, and your chest squeezed painfully. “I feel sick.” You sunk lower, back pressed to the wall, hitting the floor and pulling your knees up to your chest.
Jamie finally snapped into action, sliding down onto his knees and drawing close to you, desperation clear in his body language. He reached to cup your cheek, dismayed when you pulled away. “Hey. Hey. It doesn’t mean anything, I’m still here, I married you, I want to spend the rest of my life with you!” He spluttered promises like a drunk spluttered lies.
You pushed him away, grasping for the traitorous letter and thrusting it at him. “You don’t understand Jamie. This,” you gestured between the two of you. “This won’t work, this can’t work anymore.” You held up your hands to keep him at bay. “This was all built on a lie! You were never running with me, you were always running from her!” You scrambled to your feet, tears spilling onto your cheeks. “I never want to see you again!”You snarled at him, hiding your hurt in anguish.
Jamie watched as you disappeared from your home, and disappear from his life. All he could do was stare.
That feels entirely plausible tbh. Like I could just see my cc au Malfoy sitting at his desk going “okay how do I keep them alive while they’re here. okay, so most of the shit we got into was because of sheer adult negligence. So I’ll just never leave. This is fine.”
But then there will be times he absolutely has to leave. Like the time Potter himself calls him up because they found a dark artefact in a London basement and Malfoy’s the only one with the extensive academic knowledge on the subject able to identify it (well that and his father, but Luscious Malfoy would rather die than help the Ministry so no one asks him) and Astoria *tells* him just to go, it’ll be *fine*. She’s sitting upright today, in a comfortable chair close to the fire, wand out as she works on something beautiful with silk thread. And it’s not that he doesn’t *trust* her–or his son’s reverence for his mother. It’s just that…well…it’d make him *feel* better if she’d let him seal the house and shut off the floo…except she won’t and he won’t distress her by asking, so he does the next best thing he can think of. Because if he can’t be here, then he can at least cast a sentinel that Looks like him to be seen around the place.
That this is technically blood magic and technically possibly not entirely legal is neither here nor there.
Until the day something does happen and it ends in a duel with Potter standing back to back with him, the smoking debris of the drawing room drifting down around him. When Potter spies the sentinel–guarding the children like it’s supposed to–Potter just turns to him, and with profound and heartfelt understanding says, “Honestly, same.”
And if you’ll permit me to say, the Dial Tone Au and Cursed Child Au are totally the same universe. And given Dudley’s presence in Harry’s life, and Malfoy’s enforced presence through his son, that absolutely 100% means Dudley and Malfoy meet more than once. Like at Christmas when the Malfoys find themselves invited to the Burrow for Boxing Day and Malfoy wants to decline, he really wants to decline like he has done for the last few years. But Potter insists (actually his wife does) and even Astoria seems to want to go (…it’s lonely here, he knows, both their families having abandoned them for being muggle supporters…) and Scorpius all but *begs* so Malfoy finds himself standing stiffly behind Astoria’s chair (and he can’t help but be thankful to the Weasley woman for the subtle ways she manages Astoria, the way her needs are met without alienating pity) by the fire in this cramped ramshackle house his son is so in love with, drink in hand as he listens to the two women compare the latest fashion in Witch Weekly as chaos reigns around them and…
“He’s a bit of a stuck up git, isn’t he?” Dudley murmurs, low enough not to be heard by anyone but Harry as the two cousins sit at the table peeling potatoes. Harry could have done this in seconds with his wand but Dudley always feels alienated when there’s nothing he can do to help with dinner, so they sit and peel and talk about nothing in particular.
Harry looks up, absently pushing his glasses back up his nose to regard Malfoy. He looks stiff and out of place, dressed all in black as usual, eyes focused on nothing as he stands over Astoria–almost like a sentinel on guard…until she reaches up with a pale thin hand and squeezes his, and he looks down clasping hers in his, listening to what she has to say with such utter devotion before turning his attention to Molly Weasley with a smile so full of warmth Harry barely recognizes him…
“Oh I dunno,” Harry says, throwing a sliced potato into the pot. “I think he’s trying.”
Which of course means Dudley and Malfoy have interacted in some way. Profoundly wary of each other because fellow bullies (however in the past) Know each other. It’s like some horrible gut instinct that raises it’s head up in acknowledgement and says “I’m a miserable bastard, you’re a miserable bastard, I’ll tolerate you but only as far as I can throw you”.
That they both have a history of bullying Harry is just…well it’s a little too close of a reminder of the people they were. Who they are trying no longer to be. But there too is a kind of uncomfortable unity.
Perhaps more so for Dudley becuase from what he’s gleamed about Death Eaters they were a sort of magical nazi party…that his parents held similar ideas of purity (albeit in reverse) is…Uncomfortable…
Later he’ll learn from Harry that Malfoy was a child when he was branded as one of them. And that makes something else dark and ugly rear up inside him. He’s become many things as he’s grown, calmer for one and he hopes more compassionate. But the thought of anyone harming a child, posh little rich git or not, awakens a malevolence in him no amount of therapy or mindfullnes can tame. There’s a special place in hell, for adults that do things like that.
So he tries. In his own gruff way. The first time he asks if Malfoy had seen the quidditch match that weekend the other man nearly drops the glass he’s holding, but he manages his own stilted reply. Yes, he did. He thought the Slugthorn Selkies played rather well. Dudley thought so too, but Harper fumbled a little too much on the last goal. Yes, Malfoy agrees.
It’s monstrously painful conversation to anyone else listening, which they frequently try not to, except Harry who will occasionally chime in that the Harpies are still doing well and that was all that mattered in This household.
The year Malfoy sits down at the kitchen table and starts peeling a potato with a knife and asks about the football is…well it’s Something, but Dudley speaks confidently into the shell-shocked silence, peeling a potato as he asserts, yes, he’s been watching. They’re Liverpool fans at home. When Malfoy offers his condolences like theres been a death in the family, Harry laughs so hard he snorts cider out his nose.
I love every single thing about all @thebibliosphere’s Harry Potter AUs but honest to god the thing that has really made my day is her phone’s contribution ….
Luscious Malfoy ftw!
Who said it was a typo :p
Though in all honesty that is a great typo and no one can tell me that wasnt Lucius Malfoy’s pet name at hogwarts.
andtheytoldustotellyouhello 