#I've totally read this fic.

[killjoy-prince]

House M.D. but it's when Wilson says House's name

[umblrspectrum]

go read Memento Nori and Like the Stars and What Friends Are For and just generally all of Ad Astra Per Aspera by LadyDaybreaker on ao3

[starflungwaddledee]

from: @starflungwaddledee to: @post-it-notes7

message from santa: "happy holidays post-it-notes! 🎄🥳 i know you very politely only wished for a few modest things- characters high fiving, or struggling in christmas attire- but i hope you'll still enjoy this given that i kinda went the opposite direction entirely! i'm an enormous fan of your work and most times you post anything i wind up browsing your art tag from tip-to-tail in enraptured delight. as such, i thought it was only fair i give back something a little more significant in gratitude for all the joy your work has given me. i knew i wanted to do a comic, so i was thrilled you already had a whole storyverse for me to work from!! this scene seemed the most obvious choice (chapter 8 of "wishful thinking" on ao3) given that i enjoy a dramatic fight scene 😂 i tried to stick as beat-by-beat to the writing as i could and worked in as many details as possible; i hope it'll be fun to see it envisioned this way! merry christmas! ~starflung 🎀🔔 "

[sunatsubu]

smitten reporter has no chance against the flirtations of brucie wayne

[amogus-real-not-clickbait]

part 1 of a little comic / art sequence that i've been working on! :D it's part tribute, part experimenting with brushes n colors and trying new thingz :]

| 1 | 2 | ... |

and thus continues my endless quest of spreading the carrot fics like a plague! if you've seen my art floating around you probs already figured that this au holds a very special place in my heart, forever and always!!

if you haven't heard of it, it's a fic series by @crowned-ladybug called carrot soup!! it made me wish i could speak colors and i need more people to share my struggle xd

go check it out if you're into sweet voice lore and qpr level gayness and just wanna feel warm and soft and warm (hurt/comfort my beloved) <333 there are some heavier themes cos everyone's traumatized but they're working through it! be sure to check the tags and stay safe! <3

[stevebabey]

oh hey gay people in my phone.....

introducing steddie bb project 025 !

what's this.... gasp ! all my quietness and lack of posting hasn't been for naught!? why yes i actually have been quietly ticking away on project 025 for @steddiebang2024

i'm very excited to be able to share a glimpse of it here with you all <3 i'm also so v chuffed to be working with @callunavulgari and to have @roomwithanopenfire helping make this the best possible version it can be <3 i hope to share a little more soon......

[panevanbuckley]

don't get me wrong i love ao3 i would sacrific my soul for ao3 but sometimes i really wish it had that one feature from wattpad where you can comment on paragraphs rather than whole chapters y'know??

[the-ominous-owl]

chapter two hooray!

It doesn’t rain in Zaun.

Sometimes, Vi wishes it would, if only to wash the old blood off the floor of the arena. The owners certainly aren’t going to – they think visible blood riles the crowds – and there’s only so much sand you can pour over it before it stops helping.

The arena itself is a thing built of Zaun, of scavenged metal and neon lights. The space is wide open, walled but unroofed, exposed to whatever sky the Undercity can lay claim to, save for the creaking, criss-crossing catwalks and platforms above. From this lofty perch, the Chembaron’s people hold court over the bet-takers and debt-makers, tallying wins and losses and trading enough coin to bankrupt even a councillor. It’s an odd recreation of the dynamic the Nation of Zaun was allegedly trying to escape, with those controlling the coin elevated above the heaving, howling masses, but Vi isn’t invested enough to point out the parallel.

In the rough centre of the space stands the ring – an elevated platform, illuminated by spotlights hanging from the catwalks and lipped around the edge to keep the covering of sand over the metal floor. It’s large enough to facilitate the always-popular four-on-four melees, but tonight, it’s just Vi and her opponent, circling each other warily in front of a moderately-sized crowd, not quite large enough to fill the area around the ring but loud enough that the air vibrates with their enthusiasm.

The fight, thus far, is not going well.

keep reading on ao3

[rapha-reads]

To those of you wondering (aka no one), I finished both The Vampire Armand and Merrick and I have a lot of thoughts and feels. I'm skipping Blood and Gold for now to go directly to Blackwood Farm (I'll read B&G later), but first I'm going to read something else, just to take a break.

TVA thoughts: man, Armand is messed up. And extremely compelling. But so messed up. As always, the theme of faith crisis, which seriously reaches new heights with these bitchy vampires, is not something I can fully immerse myself in, but it was fascinating to see his numerous metamorphosis. I liked how he bridges Western and Eastern Christianisme, especially through art. Now I'm thinking that if Rolin Jones makes him originally Muslim in the show, that could expand even more the conversation on how faith, and especially Abrahamic faith, has been in conversation for thousands of years and could be such a rich, diverse and spiritual, intellectual and artistic theme. I can already imagine some fascinating discussions comparing (not in a superior way but in a complementary way) coming from Muslim faith to Roman Catholic faith, the way book!Armand talks about the richness of his life in Kiev Rus despite the poverty and ascetism, and the richness of his life in Venecia despite the luxury and abundance.

As for Benamin and Sybille... I don't have much thoughts about them. Sybille is one of those female characters AR seemingly favors, not so much human as a nymph or a dryad, "perfectly splendid". And Benji is a caricature of an Arab child. Nuance? 401 not found.

Merrick thoughts: David for the love if everything, shut. The. Fuck. Up. Holy moly. I like David, I do, but damn the entire recollection of his history with Merrick was looooooong. I'm here to see Louis haunted by Claudia and haunting Lestat's coma, not how hard you're pining for the kid you practically raised! Also. ALSO. You're just going to leave that whole thing with the Olmec or possibly another more ancient Mesoamerican civilisation without ever giving us more? That was the most interesting part of it all! The vodoo history, the connection between Louisiana and Caribbean vodoo and old Native South-American religions! More about this, less about Merrick's perfect breasts, I am begging you. (It is at this point that the reader of this post realises OP is 100% definitely ace and more interested in books and witchcraft than breasts and whether a 70yo man can still get it up - also, hey, Anne Rice's vampires are practically asexual and their lust and pleasure is mostly derivated from blood, with some notable exceptions like Armand and Marius, and a love relationship between two vampires is then based on romantic love and blood sharing, so can I hear a hell yeah for some ace representation or are we still conflating eroticism with sex)

Another thing I kept thinking about throughout the book is how Louis is perceived by his fellow vampires. Since basically the second book, since we've lost his own POV, everybody who's ever said anything about him (so Lestat, Armand and David) have insisted on two points: how very weak and meek Louis is, and also how irresistible, beautiful and charming. Granted, I've known Louis first through his portrayal on the show (hi Jacob you're so fiiiiiiine), and then through his own narration in the first book, but I've never had the impression that he was weak. Beautiful and seductive, yes. Weak? I see a human man going through tragedies and still enduring, going through vampiric transformation and then suffering for decades the loss of his humanity, struggling with reconciliating both sides of himself, but mostly I see a vampire who rebuilt himself after losing everything without sacrificing his sense of self. I see Louis as very strong actually (up to the point where resilience breaks, because resilience cannot be sustained on a long term, but that's another debate). He knows who he is, and don't you know how hard that is? He doesn't cling to faith or pride. He knows he's doomed, he knows he's monstrous, he knows there's nothing he can do to change that, and instead of railing against his fate, he goes on about his undead life. He gets his books and he reads them, he surrounds himself with literature and what little comforts he thinks in his shattered self-esteem he deserves (his ragged sweaters and soft trousers); let's not lie to ourselves tho, Louis doesn't like himself, or more exactly he doesn't care about his corporeal body - what matters to him is his mind, and once again, this author is extremely ace and also very aro and very nonbinary, so Louis to me is very much ace and agender coded, though really not aro, because his love for Lestat (and sometimes his fondness, shall we say, for Armand) is the only thing that can rouse him up from his literary slumber.

...

Oh, man, I have a lot to say about Louis, for how little he appears in the books so far. Still have BF, BC and the PL trilogy to devour. So I guess you can say, for as much as Lestat is occupying my entire brain, very much like him, my favorite is Louis? Yeah, that tracks. Melancholy, quiet, dark-haired green-eyed monster with more humanity than humans, preferring his solitude and the company of books to anyone else, hopelessly and helplessly devoted to one person, expert in brooding and grieving, literature specialist, not very attached to his physical self. Yeah. I'm not surprised.

[number1villainstan]

star wars AU where like 6 months before the start of A New Hope vader finds out leia's his daughter

[doubledyke]

i think ive been bit by the fanfiction bug oh no

[p4nishers]

i have read every post order 66 fic under the sun and i can confirm they all vaguely start like ep3. they all DEFINITELY have cody deflecting at one point or another. very suspicious. u wanna tell us sumn dave? wanna share something with the class??

[td-rairpairs-takes]

I love most Cody ships tbh

Anyway one of my faves is courdy (Cody and Courtney)

Cody is like her lap dog kinda. He'll do whatever she wants he is head over heels

Also she hates him

.

[purplebass]

I realized something when I reread A Life Erased. That Kell's mother as we've "seen" her in the short story, somehow is hinted at in bits and pieces in Lila. It's like Lila was giving hints about Kell's mother all along and his past before he was given up.

His mom gave him a knife with his real initials on it. Lila is fond of knives, and even though Lila is not her birth name, the name she tells Kell to call her after they introduce each other starts with L, just like his real surname. Those two initials on the knife make me think about the initials lovers carve on tree trunks. I've already said multiple times that knives are symbolic of their relationship, and this object is also symbolic of Kell's identity intertwining with Lila's and viceversa.

His mom was a fire magician. The first magic Lila tries to call on is fire. His mom and dad likely did illegal things like thieving and traveled on ships, because the text specifies her arms are tanned. Kell's mom has fair skin and red hair just like him, so I assume she must've been a lot under the sun to be described as tanned. Lila used to be a thief, and now she's the captain of a ship. Moreover, one of the ships Lila raids in AGOS is called the Copper Thief. Who has copper hair? Kell, but also his mom.

Perhaps we will see Kell's parents again in future tftop books.

[merrymorningofmay]

yeah so the fun thing i meant to share is that i was researching anglo-saxon charms for uh, inspiration for my william of lanchester wip, and i came across these four charms for finding stolen things (or cattle).

basically there are three incantations (well, more like two, one of which survives in two slightly different versions) and also this thing:

and all of these charms feature a cross in some capacity, the logic in the incantations being "may i find my stolen stuff like st. helena found the holy cross" (+ two of them also add "may the thief be exposed like judas' betrayal was exposed"), which reminded me a lot of the spell to see your enemy in jsamn.

(and on some level i do think that drawing a cross on some water to see a vision is an intuitive enough idea that susanna clarke could've just come up with it on her own, but even if that's the case, a nice parallel there)