#*insert airhorn noise*

[dgaftilwedie]

im waiting in the wings watching the both of you. im stealthy and undetectable, like a ninja.

[jjsanguine]

Uea's mother: No not my husband :'( !

Me:

[zumicho]

oomf (from the handful irl that i allow on here) was performing a live reading of mousetrap on our discord call & she asked me how the characters can flirt so well

[strawberyl]

insert airhorn noises here *

[greenmegsnoham]

Megs!! 💖 6 & 9 for AO3 Wrapped: Reader’s Edition!

When I decided it would be fun to do this, I immediately realized I have read SO many works this year, it is all a blur, but I will do my best!!! 💕

6. What's your absolute favorite works you read this year?

🔒 Collateral Damage by @danpuff-ao3

Draco Malfoy/Ron Weasley | E | 16k Fandom: Harry Potter

Yes, I realize you are the one that tagged me in this and asked the question, BUT I cannot discount the fact that this was one of my first 2022 reads and ABSOLUTELY one of my favs! I've reread this... I have no idea how many times at this point. It truly made me fall in love with Dron, and as many as I have read since then, I always come back to this one. It was so well written; you can tell you enjoyed every word!! 💕

an unsteady sun by @museaway

Nanase Haruka/Matsuoka Rin | M | 15k Fandom: Free!

I did a rewatch of Free! thanks to @makeitp1nk and re-fueled my love for RinHaru! 💕 Of course, that meant I needed to go searching for fic and stumbled upon this lovely amnesia fic! I'm planning to podfic it when I'm able! 😍 Thank you muse for being my intro to the Free! fandom, and I absolutely love it here! 🦈🐬

i'm just a guy whose intentions are good by @phenomenalasterisk for @hpcestfest

Harry Potter/James Sirius Potter | E | 9k Fandom: Harry Potter

So Phe doesn't write often. She's a fantastic Podficcer and the world's greatest cheerleader, but when they *do* write - damn. Just. Damn. I was SO in love with her characterization of James in this fic. Just a sweet chubby boy trying to ignore his crush on his dad, and then finding all the love he deserved in return. It was absolutely "wholesome incest" and I loved it so much. I'm so glad you were able to finish it!

9. Favorite rare pair you read works for this year?

Insert airhorn noises here 📢📢📢📢📢📢📢

🐍S N A M E S🦁 (Severus Snape/James Potter)

Good god, I could go on for days regarding my love for this pairing. From the very beginning of my entry to HP fandom I adored Snarry. I was definitely one of those Snape fans with a grudge against the Marauders, but as my multi-shipping grew, my love for James Potter blossomed into a burning adoration that I cannot get enough of.

I can thank GoldenEmpire's The Friend of a Friend for introducing me to this pairing and convincing me of soft, redeemable James. It has since been removed from AO3, which breaks my heart, so I'm thankful I had it downloaded as I reread it CONSTANTLY.

I'll supply my next favorite fic as a recommendation, because, holy shit, this is the wildest of rollercoasters that makes you feel ALL of the feelings in one story... from anger to hope to despair, to anguish and optimism and that ultimate happy ending. I had to take some breaks when the road got rough, but it was so worth the journey!!

Revenge is Sweet by BlueHorizon6 (FFN | AO3)

James Potter/Severus Snape | M | 120k Fandom: Harry Potter

AO3 wrapped: reader edition

[gentlemean]

“so yeah we found this spell in a section that was otherwise focused on all kinds of scrying. We'd already figured out how to remote-view people through mirrors last week, because we were fucking with a segment of code and accidentally set a flag that allowed us to substitute any flat surface, so we turned Andy's desk into a livestream from my bathroom. So we kinda expected that next one would be a scrying spell as well. We had some trouble parsing it, because there was a huge nonsensical string hardcoded in there that was surrounded by syscalls we'd had to disable to get the thing to run on our machine at all, so we were trying all sorts of things. We could only figure out that the program needed to directly interface with a user's soul, from which it took a snapshot and appended it to that weird string before invoking another infernal syscall.

It was supposed to produce a visual output tho, so we decided, fuck it, let's run this thing with a my hamster Ferroconcrete's soul (the fact that hamsters have souls was established a week prior to this experiment when my roommate attempted to replicate a spell that was supposed to bolster a warrior's soul to give it strength to slay all that is holy and good, but the boon was granted to her hamster Squinky instead) and mirror the output to a screen.

We didn't get any usable output though, just noise and half a bible worth of warnings. At first we tried to find any usable information in there. It wasn't a judgement of the hamster's soul (those do render very well and are characterized by upsetting reds and blacks for all hamsters we'd tried this on so far) and it wasn't any kind of remote-viewing we recognized.

I was ready to call it a day and move on to that one fertility ritual we found, but then one of the girls who were supposed to be working on a secure summoning circuit pinged me and told me they had found a similar segment of nonsensical text, and one of her partners had figured out that that text wasn't nonsensical at all if copied to a machine that had no demonic scripts installed at all, because then it just rendered as hebrew script (which obviously needs to be disabled to get anything demonic to run at all, they hate the stuff). Lo and behold, the string was a legacy function called מֶרְכָּבָה

Knowing that, we finally understood the syscalls: the infernal motherfucker who had written that program had used a legacy function from an angelic system, which they'd run in a vm and only passed executable functions to and streamed the outputs back for further use. Well that left us with the problem of setting up a holy system that we could run the function on.

We had the version of hekhalOS that had been leaked in '87 when a US airforce patrol intercepted a messenger angel, misidentified it as a Russian spycraft and shot it down over Alaska where someone got to the remains before the military did and sold the halo. Through sheer luck we managed to get the setup just right and run it.

This time, our hamster had a proper vision that we could observe on our monitors. That fucking program was a scying spell alright, one that utilized a function made to deliver visions of the seventh heaven to worthy prophets. Our hamster was receiving images from the Lord's palace but the demonic program was set up to insert stock soundeffects into the retrieved footage, so every time the old guy tripped trying to catch the hamster that had suddenly appeared in His living room and was now trying to measure His limbs, the footage inserted 2010-esque dubstep drops and airhorns.

We had a blast watching all that, but lost connection after a few minutes when Ferroconcrete was almost caught by two cherubim, and only narrowly escaped over the courtyard's wall. Our monitor showed only the words 'epic fail' in the impact-font, accompanied by a nightcore mix of Linkin Park's 'numb', so we terminated the program after a few minutes.

I guess our plan for next week is to fuck around with hekhalOS some more since we've got it already set up now anyway, maybe we'll try to load Enochian 2.1.3 to see wether we can get Ferroconcrete back."

Oh I've got a fun idea for a unique way to do a story: it's a fictional wiki page documenting the discoveries of a group of reverse engineers trying to figure out how to hack demons. They've got an API to make contracts with demons.

They've figured out to cast spells out of magical code stored in the blockchain (because of course it's a block chain, it's hell)

There's a list of spells people have found, with comments on what they might do, reports on experimentation, and attempts to decode the "source".

Like there's a subsection with a name that won't render properly because you don't have the proper demonic fonts installed, but it's got the reporting name "shinigami eyes". It's a simple divination spell, so called because it makes numbers appear over the heads of people.

They've got a home-patched version to switch it to arabic numerals for the non-hackery who can't read demonic numerals (they're base 6, of course), and they've been slowly brute forcing the different stats they can query.

The first success was a number that represents the number of days it's been since you've visited a library. Apparently that's one of the statistics stored in your the soul! And weirdly, it counts down? The spell has to query the per-person LIBRARY_THRESHOLD and then subtract from it the LIBRARY_CURRENT to get the displayed count.

It could even be real wiki: keep expanding it by adding additional pages for in-universe discoveries, like... the time they figured out how you can get test animals to cast spells from their own soul (which, being without original sin, have effectively infinite reserves).

P. S. Okay that one got me so I can't end here: they have a list of animals it doesn't work with. The implication being that some animals DO have original sin, and even better yet: these hellhackers only figured that out by accidentally selling a horse's soul to Beelzebub.

[eleanorblue]

EleanorBlue’s Five-Part 2022 Midterms Recap; Part Three, Section A: Open Seats in the Senate

I missed the last two days due to Exhaustion and also schoolwork. But now we’re back to talk about the Senate! Before I get started, let me just say: THE GEORGIA SENATE RUN-OFF IS IN ONE WEEK. RAPHAEL WARNOCK NEEDS ALL THE HELP HE CAN GET TO DEFEAT HERSCHEL WALKER. If you’d like to donate to his campaign, you can go here. 

Okay. Back to the recaps. 

I thought this was going to be just one post, but it’s gotten wayyyy too long. So, I’ve divided the Senate section into two: Open Seats and Incumbent Races. 

The Senate was the Big One. The one everyone was watching. The one that launched thousands upon thousands of emails and texts begging for donations. 

“We’re counting on you, EleanorBlue.”

“EleanorBlue, can you rush a donation by tonight to help me defeat [terrible guy]?”

“We need your support EleanorBlue.”

“The clock is ticking, EleanorBlue.”

I discussed in Part 1 why control of the Senate was so important, but just as a brief recap: if Democrats control the Senate, they can continue confirming Biden judges. It will also be easier to get budgets and legislation passed if we don’t have to fight Mitch McConnell in the Senate and just [insert whoever’s gonna come out of that fucking clown car to be Speaker here] in the House. Democrats held the Senate 50-50, with VP Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking vote. So, we needed to hold everything that was up and we had a few opportunities to flip seats to expand our majority.

How did we do with the open seats? 

Pennsylvania

*airhorn noises*

GO FETTERMAN GO!

Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman defeated pee-drinking puppy-killing New Jersey resident Dr. Mehmet Oz. 

The pair were competing for a vacant Senate seat opened after Sen. Pat Toomey (R) retired. This is a much-needed flip for Democrats, in a state that only went for Biden by two points, 50% to 48%. 

I am so excited about John Fetterman. I just want to talk about him for a bit. 

He was very active online during the campaign, as was his wife, Gisele Barreto Fetterman, a formerly undocumented immigrant from Brazil. Fetterman (and his campaign) knew how to use social media in the way most (septuagenarian, octogenarian) senators Do Not. He is an economic populist who has tried to bring his message to those who feel marginalized or left behind. He is very pro-union, supports a $15 minimum wage, and wants to legalize marijuana. When he was mayor of Braddock, he officiated multiple same-sex marriages, even though Pennsylvania law made same-sex marriages illegal at the time. 

Fetterman connected with people unlike any other candidate this cycle. People could identify with him. 

His opponent, Dr. Oz, was a millionaire from New Jersey with a Hollywood Star who could not have seemed less relatable. When asked how many houses he owned, Oz said he had “only” two homes and ten properties, which (a) doesn’t make sense and (b) is not really a situation in which you want to use the word “only.” The Fetterman campaign capitalized on a truly bizarre campaign video Oz made of himself buying an odd assortment groceries in an attempt to demonstrate how terrible inflation is, in which he used the word “crudité” instead of, you know, “vegetable platter,” and fumbled the name of the grocery store.

“Look at me, I am a regular human like you who is familiar with grocery prices because I definitely go to the grocery store and struggle with the cost each week!” 

In May, Fetterman had a stroke. He was off the campaign trail for months, and a health scare always hurts candidates in the minds of voters. Fetterman’s team stepped up and launched tons of funny, relatable, and accurate digital ads--though nothing can truly make up for a candidate holding events with real people. As best they could, the Fetterman campaign tried to turn the stroke into an asset--they characterized him as a fighter, as someone who got knocked down and got back up, and said that he was fighting for everyone who’d ever struggled like him. Oz attacked him for the stroke, of course, but the nastiness of his attacks may have hurt Oz more than they helped. 

Oz and Fetterman debated in late October, and the media immediately piled on Fetterman--with some reason. He did not have a fantastic time. The stroke left him with auditory processing issues, and the closed captioning system at the debate malfunctioned, making his performance seem shaky and weak.  

Here’s a headline from Politico about the debate: 

Fetterman’s debate performance prompts Democratic handwringing

Yeah, it sure did. Maybe more than it should have, considering during that very same debate, Dr. Oz announced that he thought that discussion of abortion should occur between women, doctors, and...local political leaders?!?

“My child has a congenital condition making them incompatible with life and I’m considering getting an abortion to spare them the pain they would suffer after birth. I’ve spoken with my doctor about this. Now I just need to contact my local Board of Zoning representative to make this incredibly challenging decision!” 

Fetterman ran an excellent campaign, with the motto “every county, every vote.” No rural Pennsylvania county was too red for him. He spoke with people--and inspired and convinced people--in the deepest red counties. How did that work out?

John Fetterman beat Dr. Oz 50.9% to 46.6%, flipping a red seat blue. 

“Pennsylvania elections are about margins, and he cut into the margins Republicans had across the counties that they usually control,” said Christopher Borick, a political scientist and pollster at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa. “He got a lot of looks from voters who aren’t very open to looking at Democrats right now.”

Thus ends my love letter to John Fetterman. Phew. I promise my analyses of the next few races won’t go on so long. 

Ohio

Ugh. Yeah, this sucks, but I wasn’t surprised.

Like Pennsylvania, Ohio had an open Senate seat vacated by Senator Rob Portman (R). This was an opportunity for Democrats to flip another seat, but I think we all knew going in that Ohio would be much harder than Wisconsin or Pennsylvania. Ohio used to be a swing state. Like Florida, it is not anymore (even though Democrat Senator Sherrod Brown won reelection in 2018). In 2012, Ohio went for Obama by 2 points, 50.1% to 48.2%. In 2016, Ohio went for Trump by 9 points, 51.1% to 43.5%. In 2020, Ohio went for Trump again by 8 points, 53.3% to 45.2%. It’s pretty red these days! No matter what kind of campaign U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan (D) ran, it was going to be a tough slog. 

Ryan is pro-choice, former...author and personality JD Vance supports a 15-week abortion ban. Vance has spread the Big Lie, Ryan is pro-democracy. Vance has expressed admiration for Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán (ugh ugh ugh gross blegh) and has blamed America’s problems on the “childless left.” Vance bizarrely accused Biden of intentionally opening the southern border with the express purpose of flooding Ohio with fentanyl to kill MAGA voters. (For those of you reading this who are not from the U.S. or are not sure where Ohio is, I encourage you to quickly google a map to see how far Ohio is from the southern border.) 

In his campaign, Ryan avoided describing himself as a Democrat and tried to draw a contrast between himself, as a regular down-to-earth Ohioan whose grandfather was a steelworker, and Vance, as a venture capitalist and fraud.  He also made China one of the primary focuses of his campaign, blaming the country for stealing Ohio jobs and driving up unemployment. 

Pundit hat time. I don’t think this was a terrible strategy. It’s a bit similar to Fetterman’s economic populism, and at bare minimum, Ryan worried the Republican party enough that they diverted millions of dollars they could have used in other races to holding very red Ohio. But the electorate of Ohio was just too red for Ryan. 

Also? In my personal and not data-based opinion...I don’t think Ryan was that compelling of a candidate. I couldn’t get really excited about him the way I got excited about Fetterman or Barnes or Beasley (who I will talk about later). Tim Ryan is like a glass of skim milk. Good for you, but boring. JD Vance is like a cocktail of rat poison and drain cleaner. It’ll probably kill you, but it’s a hell of a lot more exciting and unusual than skim milk.

But a lot of people who are not me like skim milk, and a lot of people did like Tim Ryan. Tim Ryan lost by 6.5 points, 53.2% to 46.7%. That margin is a little narrower than Biden’s margin in 2020, so good for you, Tim Ryan. He also may have had an impact on several House races, which I’ll talk about later. It’s so annoying that JD flipping Vance is going to be a senator, but I am not shocked. 

North Carolina

Shucks. 

North Carolina is one of those states like Ohio and Florida in that is used to be a swing state but has been reliably Republican for the last few election cycles. But! I don’t think we can or should rule it out. Like I mentioned in my state government post (even though I talked about NC as a deep red state), North Carolina has a Democratic governor and would definitely have a more purple legislature if it wasn’t gerrymandered so badly. Besides, in the 2020 election, Trump only won by 1.3 points, 49.9% to 48.6%. North Carolina should be flippable!

Well, not in this race. Senator Richard Burr (R) retired, leaving an open seat. Former North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley (D) ran a strong race against U.S. Rep. Ted Budd (R). She focused on lowering inflation and protecting abortion rights. She outraised Budd by a lot, but outside groups and PACs poured money into the race to support Budd. I guess it worked. Budd, a 2020-election denier who co-sponsored a national ban on abortion (though since running he has stated that Biden is the legitimate president of the United States) beat Beasley by 4 points, 50.7% to 47%. That sucks. Cheri Beasley would have been a fantastic senator, and while I’m not shocked that she didn’t win given the makeup of North Carolina, I am disappointed. 

I just said that Cheri Beasley outraised Budd. She did. However, I’ve seen lots of reporting that she did not get the financial support she needed from the Democratic party, who appeared to prioritize other races over hers. Though liberal groups and PACs began to put money into her race in late September-October, it was a case of too little, too late. Conservative groups were able to run attack ads that portrayed Beasley as a radical leftist in the pocket of Joe Biden. (Lol.) These ads often used blatantly racist imagery to paint Beasley as dangerous and as soft on crime. (Hmm, does this remind anyone of Johnson’s campaign against Mandela Barnes?) Without sufficient financial support from the party, it looks like Beasley was unable to run enough counter ads to defend herself and attack Budd. 

Provided this analysis holds as we get further from the election and learn more about what happened, this was a pretty huge mistake on the part of the Democratic Party. I really think we could have flipped North Carolina. It is a shame we didn’t. 

Okay. Those were the Big Three open seats. The remainder of the open seats were in very blue or very red states I’m going to go through them super fast, because there’s honestly not much to say. 

Alabama

Senator Richard Shelby (R, but used to be D like a thousand years ago) retired after 35 years in the Senate. He was replaced by his former chief of staff Katie Britt (R), who defeated Will Boyd (D) by 36 points, 66.6% to 30.9%. Absolutely no credible new source has reported on her positions so I can’t cite anything without going to, like the 1819 project, but she’s very conservative. Obviously. Interestingly, she was not Trump’s choice in the primary--that was Mo Brooks. I guess she can’t be worse than him. 

Missouri

Senator Roy Blunt (R) retired after 12 years in the Senate. He was replaced by former Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt (R), who defeated Trudy Busch Valentine (D) by 13 points, 55.4% to 42.1%. Reading his Wikipedia page makes my skin crawl. He is as big of a dipshit as you’d imagine. The only funny thing about Eric Schmitt is that the night before the Missouri Republican primary Trump put out an endorsement for “ERIC,” confusing everyone as both top candidates were named Eric. When asked for clarification, Trump’s team said “the endorsement speaks for itself,” which it did not. Both Erics immediately claimed the endorsement. 

Oklahoma

...where the wind comes sweeping down the plain. Senator Jim Inhofe (R)  announced his resignation in February 2022, presumably on account of being eighty-seven years old, prompting a special election to replace him. He’d served in the Senate for twenty-seven years. Inhofe was the bozo who brought a snowball onto the Senate floor as proof that climate change doesn’t exist. He endorsed his top aide, Luke Holland, as his replacement, but Holland lost the primary to U.S. Rep. Markwayne Mullin. Mullin (R) then went on to defeat former U.S. Rep. Kendra Horn by 27 points, 61.8% to 35.2%. He’s an election denier and an anti-abortion zealot. Now he’s in the U.S. Senate. Fun!

Vermont

In November 2021, Senator Patrick Leahy (D) announced he would retire after forty-eight years in the Senate. Can you imagine sitting in the Senate for forty-eight years? I cannot. He is the third-longest serving senator ever. U.S. Rep. Peter Welch (D), Vermont’s lone congressional representative, ran to replace him against political newcomer Gerald Malloy (R), who just moved to Vermont from Massachusetts. Welch defeated Malloy by 40 points, 68.4% to 28.1%. Welch’s top priorities appear to be expanding the Affordable Care Act and fighting climate change, which is great. He’ll be a good senator. I’m glad I could end this list on Vermont instead of on Alabama, Missouri, or Oklahoma. 

Wrap-Up

That’s it for the open seats. We only managed to flip one, which was...well, not entirely unexpected, but still disappointing. Next up we have the defending incumbents. Thanks for reading, and I’ll se you tomorrow!

[supernatural-raptor]

Happy new year I suppose

No regrets about this probs being the last drawing I do this year

[saviorofdusk]

lxndfall replied to your post: I'm 100% sure Riku is losing his left arm and it's...

Trying to one up my arm injury twin? TWO CAN PLAY AT THAT GAME! I’ll cut off BOTH arms!

jasdjsd

IT REALLY ISN’T THAT LMAO BUT GOT FOR IT

CUT OFF BOTH ARMS AND I’LL CUT OFF TOCHI’S LEGS-

(Xemnas is actually going after Sora’s mom and tenuous plot is? Riku loses his arm trying to keep Xemnas from killing Sora’s mom and fails, whomp whomp)

[therealvinelle]

Will aro at some point bully carlisle about him being jealous of eleazar? Would he get offended that carlisle though he slept with eleazar?

(Anon is referring to my fic Bleach on the Brain, as this asked was sent before the sequel cowritten with @theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin, Leech in the Rain, was posted.)

Given all the terrible things that happened and the state of his relationship with Carlisle, Aro hasn't been able to bring up something as light-hearted as that. He's barely been able to talk to Carlisle, period.

Now that they've restored their friendship (insert airhorn noise here) though, all bets are off.

[monster-battle]

@indiansummersunset THANK YOU~!! ✨ Also this request was so beautiful and @bringmethatvegenaise were both really excited about it!! And at first I meant to only add blocks of color so you could tell what houses they’re in but uhhhhhhh I got carried away and I accidentally the whole drawing I’m sorry for who I am as a person.

Victor and Yuuri are doing a great job of not catching the snitch or playing wizard ball and making out nice keep up the good work guys.

[fatalfangirl]

Thank you for the tags @you-remind-me-of-the-babe, @facewithoutheart, @martsonmars, and @johnwgrey! Love all the snippets, and I have new TBR fics bookmarked 🥰

Here's a bit I like from ch. 9 of Bound and Determined:

FIONA

Shouts from Snow follow, interrupted by Baz and the American, but Nico and I don’t stay to watch the shit hit the fan. We’re out the door and in the lift in seconds.

As I pull out another cigarette on the way down, I can’t help but offer, “This would be so much easier if we killed Snow.”

Nico takes the stick from my mouth and breaks it in two. “You love your nephew too much to actually follow through on that idea.”

Sadly, he’s right, but we both know I’d never admit it out loud.

I only have one scene left to write for this chapter, which means (gasp) I might be able to post it later today. (Insert airhorn noises and party poppers here.)

Tagging @captain-aralias, @mostlymaudlin, @moodandmist, @tea-brigade, @sillyunicorn, @whatevertheweather, @otherworldsivelivedin, @aristocratic-otter, @urban-sith, @im-gettingby

[wellsayhelloaagin]

Oop, almost forgot— you’re gay

*insert airhorn noises*

No you

(I’m not ignoring the other message. I’m just keeping it forever instead)

[falinscloaca]

anyways exclusive orientations rule when they they aren’t transphobic/racist i love being a lesbian

...if you say that/agree with it in order to shit on bi or pan people though i’ll fucking. i’ll rip your goddamn eyes out. fuck you. my lesbian/gay positivity isn’t at the expense of our fellows

(insert “lol haha except straight men lolololololol gottem 100% airhorn noise”) 

[glamfellens]

Okay but like. Hear me out. Sesshomaru did meiosis like a cell, thus explaining his twins since in meiosis you get a parent cell and the two daughter cells. *insert airhorn noises*

GOD I HOPE SO

[dressed-to-keehl]

[insert airhorn noise here] ur bitch got a job interview!!!!!! 1 like = 1 prayer wish me luck