#class 1-A's live is probably at the top of the list

[yeoldenews]

A Guide to Historically Accurate Regency-Era Names

I recently received a message from a historical romance writer asking if I knew any good resources for finding historically accurate Regency-era names for their characters.

Not knowing any off the top of my head, I dug around online a bit and found there really isn’t much out there. The vast majority of search results were Buzzfeed-style listicles which range from accurate-adjacent to really, really, really bad.

I did find a few blog posts with fairly decent name lists, but noticed that even these have very little indication as to each name’s relative popularity as those statistical breakdowns really don't exist.

I began writing up a response with this information, but then I (being a research addict who was currently snowed in after a blizzard) thought hey - if there aren’t any good resources out there why not make one myself?

As I lacked any compiled data to work from, I had to do my own data wrangling on this project. Due to this fact, I limited the scope to what I thought would be the most useful for writers who focus on this era, namely - people of a marriageable age living in the wealthiest areas of London.

So with this in mind - I went through period records and compiled the names of 25,000 couples who were married in the City of Westminster (which includes Mayfair, St. James and Hyde Park) between 1804 to 1821.

So let’s see what all that data tells us…

To begin - I think it’s hard for us in the modern world with our wide and varied abundance of first names to conceive of just how POPULAR popular names of the past were.

If you were to take a modern sample of 25-year-old (born in 1998) American women, the most common name would be Emily with 1.35% of the total population. If you were to add the next four most popular names (Hannah, Samantha, Sarah and Ashley) these top five names would bring you to 5.5% of the total population. (source: Social Security Administration)

If you were to do the same survey in Regency London - the most common name would be Mary with 19.2% of the population. Add the next four most popular names (Elizabeth, Ann, Sarah and Jane) and with just 5 names you would have covered 62% of all women.

To hit 62% of the population in the modern survey it would take the top 400 names.

The top five Regency men’s names (John, William, Thomas, James and George) have nearly identical statistics as the women’s names.

I struggled for the better part of a week with how to present my findings, as a big list in alphabetical order really fails to get across the popularity factor and also isn’t the most tumblr-compatible format. And then my YouTube homepage recommended a random video of someone ranking all the books they’d read last year - and so I present…

The Regency Name Popularity Tier List

The Tiers

S+ - 10% of the population or greater. There is no modern equivalent to this level of popularity. 52% of the population had one of these 7 names.

S - 2-10%. There is still no modern equivalent to this level of popularity. Names in this percentage range in the past have included Mary and William in the 1880s and Jennifer in the late 1970s (topped out at 4%).

A - 1-2%. The top five modern names usually fall in this range. Kids with these names would probably include their last initial in class to avoid confusion. (1998 examples: Emily, Sarah, Ashley, Michael, Christopher, Brandon.)

B - .3-1%. Very common names. Would fall in the top 50 modern names. You would most likely know at least 1 person with these names. (1998 examples: Jessica, Megan, Allison, Justin, Ryan, Eric)

C - .17-.3%. Common names. Would fall in the modern top 100. You would probably know someone with these names, or at least know of them. (1998 examples: Chloe, Grace, Vanessa, Sean, Spencer, Seth)

D - .06-.17%. Less common names. In the modern top 250. You may not personally know someone with these names, but you’re aware of them. (1998 examples: Faith, Cassidy, Summer, Griffin, Dustin, Colby)

E - .02-.06%. Uncommon names. You’re aware these are names, but they are not common. Unusual enough they may be remarked upon. (1998 examples: Calista, Skye, Precious, Fabian, Justice, Lorenzo)

F - .01-.02%. Rare names. You may have heard of these names, but you probably don’t know anyone with one. Extremely unusual, and would likely be remarked upon. (1998 examples: Emerald, Lourdes, Serenity, Dario, Tavian, Adonis)

G - Very rare names. There are only a handful of people with these names in the entire country. You’ve never met anyone with this name.

H - Virtually non-existent. Names that theoretically could have existed in the Regency period (their original source pre-dates the early 19th century) but I found fewer than five (and often no) period examples of them being used in Regency England. (Example names taken from romance novels and online Regency name lists.)

Just to once again reinforce how POPULAR popular names were before we get to the tier lists - statistically, in a ballroom of 100 people in Regency London: 80 would have names from tiers S+/S. An additional 15 people would have names from tiers A/B and C. 4 of the remaining 5 would have names from D/E. Only one would have a name from below tier E.

Women's Names

S+ Mary, Elizabeth, Ann, Sarah      

S - Jane, Mary Ann+, Hannah, Susannah, Margaret, Catherine, Martha, Charlotte, Maria

A - Frances, Harriet, Sophia, Eleanor, Rebecca

B - Alice, Amelia, Bridget~, Caroline, Eliza, Esther, Isabella, Louisa, Lucy, Lydia, Phoebe, Rachel, Susan

C - Ellen, Fanny*, Grace, Henrietta, Hester, Jemima, Matilda, Priscilla

D - Abigail, Agnes, Amy, Augusta, Barbara, Betsy*, Betty*, Cecilia, Christiana, Clarissa, Deborah, Diana, Dinah, Dorothy, Emily, Emma, Georgiana, Helen, Janet^, Joanna, Johanna, Judith, Julia, Kezia, Kitty*, Letitia, Nancy*, Ruth, Winifred>

E - Arabella, Celia, Charity, Clara, Cordelia, Dorcas, Eve, Georgina, Honor, Honora, Jennet^, Jessie*^, Joan, Joyce, Juliana, Juliet, Lavinia, Leah, Margery, Marian, Marianne, Marie, Mercy, Miriam, Naomi, Patience, Penelope, Philadelphia, Phillis, Prudence, Rhoda, Rosanna, Rose, Rosetta, Rosina, Sabina, Selina, Sylvia, Theodosia, Theresa

F - (selected) Alicia, Bethia, Euphemia, Frederica, Helena, Leonora, Mariana, Millicent, Mirah, Olivia, Philippa, Rosamund, Sybella, Tabitha, Temperance, Theophila, Thomasin, Tryphena, Ursula, Virtue, Wilhelmina

G - (selected) Adelaide, Alethia, Angelina, Cassandra, Cherry, Constance, Delilah, Dorinda, Drusilla, Eva, Happy, Jessica, Josephine, Laura, Minerva, Octavia, Parthenia, Theodora, Violet, Zipporah

H - Alberta, Alexandra, Amber, Ashley, Calliope, Calpurnia, Chloe, Cressida, Cynthia, Daisy, Daphne, Elaine, Eloise, Estella, Lilian, Lilias, Francesca, Gabriella, Genevieve, Gwendoline, Hermione, Hyacinth, Inez, Iris, Kathleen, Madeline, Maude, Melody, Portia, Seabright, Seraphina, Sienna, Verity

Men's Names

S+ John, William, Thomas

S - James, George, Joseph, Richard, Robert, Charles, Henry, Edward, Samuel

A - Benjamin, (Mother’s/Grandmother’s maiden name used as first name)#

B - Alexander^, Andrew, Daniel, David>, Edmund, Francis, Frederick, Isaac, Matthew, Michael, Patrick~, Peter, Philip, Stephen, Timothy

C - Abraham, Anthony, Christopher, Hugh>, Jeremiah, Jonathan, Nathaniel, Walter

D - Adam, Arthur, Bartholomew, Cornelius, Dennis, Evan>, Jacob, Job, Josiah, Joshua, Lawrence, Lewis, Luke, Mark, Martin, Moses, Nicholas, Owen>, Paul, Ralph, Simon

E - Aaron, Alfred, Allen, Ambrose, Amos, Archibald, Augustin, Augustus, Barnard, Barney, Bernard, Bryan, Caleb, Christian, Clement, Colin, Duncan^, Ebenezer, Edwin, Emanuel, Felix, Gabriel, Gerard, Gilbert, Giles, Griffith, Harry*, Herbert, Humphrey, Israel, Jabez, Jesse, Joel, Jonas, Lancelot, Matthias, Maurice, Miles, Oliver, Rees, Reuben, Roger, Rowland, Solomon, Theophilus, Valentine, Zachariah

F - (selected) Abel, Barnabus, Benedict, Connor, Elijah, Ernest, Gideon, Godfrey, Gregory, Hector, Horace, Horatio, Isaiah, Jasper, Levi, Marmaduke, Noah, Percival, Shadrach, Vincent

G - (selected) Albion, Darius, Christmas, Cleophas, Enoch, Ethelbert, Gavin, Griffin, Hercules, Hugo, Innocent, Justin, Maximilian, Methuselah, Peregrine, Phineas, Roland, Sebastian, Sylvester, Theodore, Titus, Zephaniah

H - Albinus, Americus, Cassian, Dominic, Eric, Milo, Rollo, Trevor, Tristan, Waldo, Xavier

# Men were sometimes given a family surname (most often their mother's or grandmother's maiden name) as their first name - the most famous example of this being Fitzwilliam Darcy. If you were to combine all surname-based first names as a single 'name' this is where the practice would rank.

*Rank as a given name, not a nickname

+If you count Mary Ann as a separate name from Mary - Mary would remain in S+ even without the Mary Anns included

~Primarily used by people of Irish descent

^Primarily used by people of Scottish descent

>Primarily used by people of Welsh descent

I was going to continue on and write about why Regency-era first names were so uniform, discuss historically accurate surnames, nicknames, and include a little guide to finding 'unique' names that are still historically accurate - but this post is already very, very long, so that will have to wait for a later date.

If anyone has any questions/comments/clarifications in the meantime feel free to message me.

Methodology notes: All data is from marriage records covering six parishes in the City of Westminster between 1804 and 1821. The total sample size was 50,950 individuals.

I chose marriage records rather than births/baptisms as I wanted to focus on individuals who were adults during the Regency era rather than newborns. I think many people make the mistake when researching historical names by using baby name data for the year their story takes place rather than 20 to 30 years prior, and I wanted to avoid that. If you are writing a story that takes place in 1930 you don’t want to research the top names for 1930, you need to be looking at 1910 or earlier if you are naming adult characters.

I combined (for my own sanity) names that are pronounced identically but have minor spelling differences: i.e. the data for Catherine also includes Catharines and Katherines, Susannah includes Susannas, Phoebe includes Phebes, etc.

The compound 'Mother's/Grandmother's maiden name used as first name' designation is an educated guesstimate based on what I recognized as known surnames, as I do not hate myself enough to go through 25,000+ individuals and confirm their mother's maiden names. So if the tally includes any individuals who just happened to be named Fitzroy/Hastings/Townsend/etc. because their parents liked the sound of it and not due to any familial relations - my bad.

I did a small comparative survey of 5,000 individuals in several rural communities in Rutland and Staffordshire (chosen because they had the cleanest data I could find and I was lazy) to see if there were any significant differences between urban and rural naming practices and found the results to be very similar. The most noticeable difference I observed was that the S+ tier names were even MORE popular in rural areas than in London. In Rutland between 1810 and 1820 Elizabeths comprised 21.4% of all brides vs. 15.3% in the London survey. All other S+ names also saw increases of between 1% and 6%. I also observed that the rural communities I surveyed saw a small, but noticeable and fairly consistent, increase in the use of names with Biblical origins.

Sources of the records I used for my survey: 

Ancestry.com. England & Wales Marriages, 1538-1988 [database on-line].

Ancestry.com. Westminster, London, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1935 [database on-line].

[pure-smut]

say red.

featuring: Iwaizumi Hajime x f!reader

contains: academic rivals to lovers, dom!Iwaizumi, rough s*x, degradation, dirty talk, creampie

note: all characters are over 18!

MDNI | 18+ content

word count: 2k

series: 1. say red | 2. say red | 3. say red

masterlist

You’d never paid attention to Iwaizumi Hajime. Just another face in the lecture hall, another voice answering questions, another serious guy with a serious face taking things so seriously.

It’s only when you’re paired together to work on a semester-long project that you pay attention to him for the first time. And wow – he’s fucking annoying.

“We need to meet up more than once every two weeks,” Iwaizumi tells you, frowning at your suggestion. “We won’t get enough done before the deadline.”

“It’ll be fiiiine,” you sigh. “The project barely contributes to our grade. All we need to do is pass.”

Iwaizumi narrows his olive eyes at you, entirely displeased.

“How are you,” he bites out. “… top of the class?”

You give him a sweet smile, throwing up a peace sign.

“Because I’m great, obviously.”

You had somewhat noticed that Iwaizumi’s name was always second below yours whenever test scores were published. It’s clear that’s a sticking point for him because he clenches his teeth so hard, you can see a muscle bouncing in his jaw.

“We’re meeting up twice a week,” Iwaizumi says, standing. When you open your mouth to protest, he gives you a hard look. “That’s final.”

You roll your eyes and shrug.

“Fine, fine.” A grin crawls across your face. “Iwa.”

He shoots you a disgusted look.

“Don’t call me that.”

“What, Iwa? It’s cute.”

Iwaizumi pokes his tongue into his cheek and rolls his eyes skyward.

“Whatever.”

With that, he gathers his bag and stomps out of the lecture hall. Your gaze follows the back of him as he disappears, the smile only slipping off your face when he leaves.

“So annoying,” you mutter to yourself, packing up your own things.

But it’s only until the end the semester. You can grin and bear it that long. Plus, it’s like you said before – the project barely impacts your grades. Iwaizumi might want to force you into way too many boring meetings but you have absolutely no intention of cooperating.

*

Iwaizumi messages you his address and a time to come round to work on the project.

Gotta buy a girl dinner first before you invite her to your bedroom, you message him back. He ignores you.

Like most other students, he lives on campus with a few other roommates. You half-expect to see them when you arrive at Iwaizumi’s but he tells you he’s chosen a day when everyone else is out.

“I need some peace and quiet if I’m dealing with you,” Iwaizumi says.

“Flattered,” you reply.

His room is neat and tidy, a smattering of volleyball trophies on the shelves. You vaguely remember that he’s on the college volleyball team but you didn’t know he’s good enough to have trophies. You smooth your features into something neutral so he doesn’t know you’re impressed.

You both sit at his desk, where Iwaizumi’s already set up notepads, pens and sticky notes.

“You’re prepared,” you remark, eliciting a heavy sigh from Iwaizumi.

“I’m sure it seems that way to someone who doesn’t even bring a pencil to class.”

You swing side to side on his wheely chair as Iwaizumi launches into his plan for the project, talking you through the list of bullet points. You make noncommittal noises, your eyes drifting off.

He has kind of a nice face, you think, your gaze dropping from his short dark hair to his sharp jaw. Iwaizumi’s wearing a t-shirt that stretches across his broad chest, the sleeves tight around his biceps. Damn, he’s pretty built, too.

Iwaizumi continues talking as your mind wanders. You wonder if he’s a good kisser. Hmm, probably too serious for that. Only chaste tongueless kisses and missionary in the dark.

You grin at your own thoughts and Iwaizumi stops talking mid-sentence.

“What are you laughing at?” His brow furrows. “You’re not even fucking listening.”

“Uh, no, not really,” you admit, throwing your hands up in defeat.

“Jesus christ…” Iwaizumi puts his elbows on the desk, digging his palms into his eyes.

He wants to launch himself out of the window. How is it possible that you of all people beat him in class? He freezes when he feels your finger trail over his shoulder.

“What are you doing?” Iwaizumi looks up.

“You’re so tense,” you say. You’re not lying – Iwaizumi’s muscles are like boulders. You give his bicep a poke and realise there’s almost no give. “Maybe that’s why you’re taking this so seriously.”

“You’re just taking this too lightly,” he says, frowning.

You’re looking at him weirdly, your eyes locked onto his, and the way you’re touching his arm is making his cheeks feel warm. What the fuck is going on?

Iwaizumi’s adam’s apple bobs as he swallows hard and you smile, knowing you’ve got him. You stand up to move over and put yourself in Iwaizumi’s lap instead. His thighs are as hard as the rest of him and it feels like sitting in an actual chair. You wrap your arms around his neck.

“You’re kind of cute, y’know,” you say, cocking your head.

“Kind of,” he echoes, giving you a flat look. “Thanks.”

Iwaizumi’s hand rests on your thigh despite his unimpressed tone. You give him a sweet smile and trail a finger along his jaw, feeling the slight stubble there.

“Maybe you need some stress relief, hm?” you suggest, dragging your finger down to his hard chest.

“And you’re offering?”

“I thought you were supposed to be smart?” You cock an eyebrow. “Obviously, yes.”

Iwaizumi regards you, eyes sharp, and your breath hitches. Your smile nearly falters but you save it in time. It feels like he’s looking through you, into you. It’s a struggle to hold his gaze but you’ve never been one to back down. So you look right back at him.

Iwaizumi’s eyes soften and you see him smile for the first time. No, he smirks.

“Say red,” he tells you. “And I’ll stop.”

“O-okay.” You’re annoyed at yourself for stammering but something’s changed with Iwaizumi and it’s thrown you off.

“Repeat it back to me.”

“If I say red, you’ll stop,” you tell him and he gives a short nod, satisfied.

“Good.”

Iwaizumi stands abruptly, picking you up with him and throwing you on the bed. You yelp at the sudden movement, bouncing softly against the mattress.

“What-?”

You don’t have time to ask what the fuck is happening before Iwaizumi’s on you. He presses his mouth against yours, kissing you roughly. He pushes his body between your legs, forcing them apart to accommodate his thick frame.

One of Iwaizumi’s hands grabs your hip as the other snakes around your throat, holding you with enough force for you to feel it but not so hard you’re gasping. His soft lips are in contrast to the sharp stubble scratching your skin, his tongue sliding over yours.

Okay, I might have been wrong, you think. There’s nothing chaste about this.

Iwaizumi grinds his bulge against your clothed pussy, now exposed to him as he tugs up your dress. The friction through two layers of fabric is teasing, making your hips buck, desperate for more. You moan into his mouth and he squeezes your throat.

“Needy little slut,” he says roughly.

Iwaizumi’s degrading words only serve to turn you on even more. His voice has completely changed, now deep and throaty and utterly commanding. Iwaizumi keeps one hand around your neck as his other reaches down to unbutton his jeans.

“Is this what you want so badly?” he says as he pulls his cock free.

You gasp as it slaps against your mound, sending a spark of pleasure through you. You try to nod but Iwaizumi has your throat in too tight a grip.

“Use your fucking words,” he spits. “Tell me.”

“Y-yes, I want it. Please, I want it.”

Iwaizumi reaches down and you hear a violent rip. You’re not able to look down, your head fixed in place, but there’s a cool breeze across your exposed pussy. Your mouth drops open as you realise he’s ripped your panties clean off.

Iwaizumi smirks at your reaction.

“You act like a slut, you get treated like one.”

The Iwaizumi you knew before, so serious and studious, is long gone. You look up at him, his eyes feral, and realise you’ve severely underestimated who you’re up against. He lines up the fat head of his cock with your dripping hole.

“Look how fucking wet you are already.” Iwaizumi pushes himself inside you and you give a choked moan at the feel of him stretching you. “You don’t even need me to get you started, do you? You’ll spread your legs for fucking anyone.”

Iwaizumi’s flurry of degradation is making your pussy drool for him, only spurring you both on. But a nugget of defiance forms in your chest, even as tears stick to your lashes.

“This what your needy little pussy wants?” he demands, pushing in deeper to bottom out.

His cock feels so fucking good, dragging against the sensitive bundle of nerves inside you to make your whole body feel like it’s on fire, but your determination not to let him take over fully kicks in.

“Y-yes, Iwa,” you breathe out.

Iwaizumi’s jaw clenches.

“I told you not to fucking call me that,” he grits out.

As if to punctuate, he starts to pound at you hard. Every slam pushes you closer to the edge, sending a jolt through your body to the tips of your toes. His large hand around your neck is delicious, pinning you beneath him as he fucks you raw. You sink your nails into his forearm, lustful whimpers falling from your lips.

“S-sorry…” you gasp. “… Iwa.”

Iwaizumi growls, moving faster and setting a brutal pace.

“Fucking brat.”

You don’t have the strength to talk back anymore. Iwaizumi’s cock is pulling you to the edge, making your eyes roll back in your skull as he rips an orgasm from you. Your pussy clenches down like a vice grip around his cock and a moan escapes Iwaizumi’s throat.

“Fuck… fuck…” he groans.

Iwaizumi fights the urge to squeeze his eyes shut, wanting to watch you bounce under him. Your walls are so slick, so hot, so fucking tight. You’re tearing down all his restraint, moaning so sweetly even as his fist is wrapped around your throat. He knows he’s not going to last much longer.

“I’m… gonna cum…” Iwaizumi says, voice hoarse.

“Inside me,” you plead. “Cum inside me, Iwa.”

Your words tip him over the edge.

His grip tightens on your neck, almost making you dizzy, as he thrusts once, burying himself fully. The moan he makes as he comes undone inside you is intoxicating, satisfying in a way you can’t explain. Iwaizumi’s chest heaves as he half-collapses on top of you, his arms shaking as he holds himself up.

Neither of you say anything, breathless and sweat-slicked.

“Well.” You break the silence with a grin. “I dunno about you but I definitely feel better.”

Iwaizumi’s serious face returns as he rolls his eyes, pulling away from you. He tugs a few tissues free from a box on his nightstand, handing them to you first before himself.

“What a gentleman,” you coo, cleaning yourself up.

“It’s polite. I’m not a savage.”

“The way you fuck says different.”

Even though you’ve still got his cum spilling out of you, Iwaizumi’s ears go pink at your comment. He ignores you and buttons his jeans back up. Cute, you think with a smile.

You point at your destroyed underwear.

“And you ruined my panties. That was rude.”

Iwaizumi’s cheeks tint as he blushes harder.

“Yeah, sorry.” He rubs the back of his neck. “I’ll buy you a new pair.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Finished cleaning yourself up, you hop off his bed and straighten your dress. “I’ll just make sure I’m not wearing any next time.”

Iwaizumi stills.

“Next time?”

“Duh.” You put a hand on your hip. “That was great, right? And my head feels totally clear. I think I’m actually ready to listen to your project plan or whatever.”

You take a seat at his desk, hands clasped demurely on your lap and smiling sweetly.

“Twice a week you said?”

[catsukiiee]

# POSITIONS & R&B.

౨ৎ class 1-a & class 1-b boys x masc/fem!reader

[fan favorites only]

wordcount ; 893

paragraphs ; 41

sentences ; 53

songs used ; songs listed by each character.

all of them are their canon ages (24+)

# CLASS 1-A

# TENYA IIDA [ blame by bryson tiller ]

Tenya doesn’t care what position you two start off in, as long as he’s able to get inside you and hear your moans, then he’s sated. Unfortunately, though, our glorious king, Tenya Iida, cannot last long in any position where he can't see your face. That man NEEDS to see your face; he’s absolutely addicted to seeing your every reaction, especially when he goes deep, sound is not enough. He loves having you in the eagle position, don't even try hiding your face in the pillows.

“I wanna see your face, please.”

# DENKI KAMINARI. [ let em' know by bryson tiller ]

Desperate. That’s the only word I have for this motherfucker. Wanna have sex? He’s down. In doggystyle? Even better. Trust he’s losing his mind as soon as he sees you bend over; expect to have your hair pulled and your shoulders marked with bite marks at the end.

“Look at my little masterpieces.”

# EIJIRO KIRISHIMA [ gang over luv by brent faiyaz ]

As gentlemanly as he is, he’s far from a gentleman in the bedroom; in fact, his favorite position is low doggy. Simply because he can push your face into the mattress and go ham. You want to try and crawl away? Nah baby, he’s grabbing BOTH your arms and locking your ass down; you aren’t running until you’re both finished and he’s tired.

“Why are you moving? Cmere baby.”

# RIKIDO SATO [ ballin by partynextdoor ]

Lethal. He’s strong as fuck, so you better expect to have your pussy absolutely obliterated after a couple of deep strokes, but just like Iida, he needs to see your face to cum, and he's not pulling out either. His favorite position to put you in is young stallion.

That's exactly why y'all have five kids.

“A few more won’t hurt, baby.”

# HANTA SERO [ things & such b partynextdoor ]

THIS MOTHERFUCKER RIGHT HERE IS CRAZY.

The moment you mention wanting to have sex, you don’t even need to move to the bedroom, he loves fucking your brains out on the couch anyway, locking one of your legs over his shoulder while his hands hold your other leg down to keep your legs open so he can watch himself going in and out, your hands WILL BE TIED. Sero is obsessed with watching your breasts bounce to, it drives him insane and makes him finish in a matter of minutes, and he’s not stopping even after cumming first.

The messier the better.

“Look at you sucking me in, goddamn.”

# SHOTO TODOROKI [ jaded by drake ]

Probably the calmest man you know outside the bedroom, but when you’re both in the mood? Your back will be hurting. He loves seeing your back arched; if he goes too deep and you ruin the arch, he’s pushing you right back down immediately.

“What did I say? Lower it back down.”

# IZUKU MIDORIYA [ can i by drake ]

A whole power bottom, he loves having you on top of him, guiding your hips while you ride him. When he's feeling a little adventurous, he likes to grab your throat, forcing your eyes to stay on his as he starts to fuck up into you. HE'S A WHINER. The closer he gets, the whinier he gets.

“Can I cum in you? Please let me cum in you. I wanna cum in you so bad, please. Fuck, I'm cumming."

# KATSUKI BAKUGOU [ altitude by monetell fish ]

As soon as the “Wanna have sex” comes out of your mouth, it’s over for you; it doesn’t matter if y’all are in the living room, bathroom, kitchen, or out in PUBLIC. Trust, he’s going to find a way to have your ass folded and panting. He likes folding you into a pretzel just as much as he likes having you on your hands and knees.

Wanna try and move his hands? They’re locked behind your back. Start squirming and crawling away? He’s got a solution for that ass.

“Stop fucking squirming and take it.”

# HITOSHI SHINSO [ first fuck by 6lack ft jhene aiko ]

Gentle touches and hard deep strokes.

He’s far more focused on having his hands explore your body while doing it, might accidentally brainwash you when he asks, “Is this okay?” or “Want me to go harder? I can’t understand you baby.” 

He loves positions where he can see your face as well.

# CLASS 1-B

# NEITO MONOMA [ sweat by zayn ]

This bitch cannot accept defeat; all that shit talking about lasting longer only to cum inside you after a couple of pumps, seeing your back glistening and your ass rippling each time his hips snapped against you was enough to send him over after five minutes. Don't worry though, he keeps going until you're finished, and then keeps going... and going just to get the 'last word' in his own way.

“What was that? All I hear are mumbles, tsk tsk, what a shame.”

# TETSUTETSU TETSUTETSU [ feel it by jacquees ]

Oh baby, he LOVES folding your ass as much as he loves your reactions to him going balls deep each time. Pulling your hair, shoving his fingers into your mouth when you got too loud, and pushing your back down into a deeper arch just to hit it deeper when he has you on your hands and knees.

'Overstimulation is key' is his mindset when he's fucking you.

“Yeah baby, keep cumming.”

i think y'all can tell who i listen to a lot and which characters are my favorite by writing this 💀..

I'M SORRY IF THE SONGS DON'T FIT THE CHARACTERS </3 THIS WAS ORIGINALLY GOING TO JUST BE ABOUT SERO BUT THEN I HAD AN IDEA

TEACHERS ARE NEXT!

[morgansorgans-org]

Collection of nrmt/klpl fics!

An oomf on Instagram asked if I could compile all my favorite Ace Attorney fics! They are all and Wrightworth and Klapollo fics. The first few are my favorites (usually means they made me cry or emotionally impacted me 🧍) but I like all the others I linked here ofc as well! Many of these came from rec lists on tumblr, because that’s how I started out reading aa fics!

Wrightworth fics

Legal Partners by Miggy, 132k words, 34/34 chapters, 2013

Summary: Miles Edgeworth isn't totally sure how he ended up in this bet to demonstrate the strength of his and Phoenix Wright's (entirely professional and platonic! really!) relationship, but he knows it's Klavier's fault.

Absolutely one of my most favorite fics ever, I’m not gonna lie. Genuinely so good. I was clutching my phone the entire third act of the fic, absolutely ridden with anxiety. I read for 12 hours straight that third act, during exam season, eyes absolutely bloodshot and had a splitting headache by the end because I was staring at my phone for far too long. It’s so good.

I think my biggest qualm I have with this master class of a fic if I had to say, would probably be the characterization of Klavier? he feels too straight in this I don’t know how else to put it. But honestly it’s so minor I don’t really care and I’ve read this twice (which I never do)

Project Matchmakers by WingSongHalo, 126k words, 16/16 chapters, 2018

Summary: It was quite distressing, Pearl thought. For years previously, she had been quite fixated on the idea of her cousin and Mr. Nick living happily ever after. Even after she had accepted that this would never happen, she was always somewhat enamored of the idea that one of them would someday be caught up in a whirlwind romance, passionate and adventurous.

So she was rather surprised to find herself immensely enjoying the steady, familiar relationship she saw between a defense attorney and a prosecutor. It wasn't loud or flashy or wild, but calm and reliable and quiet. Rather than a blazing fire that consumed everything, theirs was an affection like a candle flame, bringing forth light and warmth.

Well, except for when they were in court. Then they were rather more like two overzealous flamethrowers.

An excitable group of girls (and a reluctant Apollo) team up to make Phoenix and Miles realize they're crazy about each other. But are such measures really necessary?

Canon universe.

Loved this one. Very good. I loved the side casefic it had and how it affected the main characters as well. I love the everyone ships wrightworth trope so much.

A Night You’ll Never Regret by MaudMoon (Idle_Wanderings), 88k words, 7/7 chapters, 2018

Summary: After learning about a clerical error on their wedding certificate, Maggey and Gumshoe decide to go all out and invite their friends and family to a vow renewal ceremony in Las Vegas. Edgeworth, spurred on by his sister's threats encouragements, decides to use the trip as an opportunity to express feelings he's been holding onto for years.

However when Edgeworth, Larry, and Phoenix wake up the morning after Gumshoe's bachelor party, it doesn't take them long to realize things didn't go as planned: Edgeworth's cards have been declined, Larry has been mysteriously injured, and Phoenix wakes up wearing a wedding ring. And, to top it all off, Gumshoe is missing. They'll need to rush against time to find Gumshoe before his wedding, and to do that they'll need to figure out what the hell exactly happened last night.

Soooo good! I love the mystery aspect of it all and everyone recounting and slowly piecing together what happened. It’s very sweet too and also kinda nsfw be warned…. also Maya x Rhoda was definitely not what I was expecting tbh

To play due process like a fiddle by Harmony, 19k words, 1/1 chapters, 2024

Summary: As far as Miles can tell, Agent Lang's initial impression of certified hot mess Phoenix "That Man" Wright upon their first meeting wasn't exactly the most positive, and tragically enough, it's not like Miles can really blame him for having that perception.

That said, they both probably should've known that Phoenix hadn't been named the Turnabout Terror for nothing.

(Or: what it means to judge solely based on first appearances and then have all of your expectations rocked off-balance, especially when they revolve around one of the most outstanding attorneys the criminal justice system has ever known).

Deeeeeelicious. So good. Love the tension between Phoenix and Lang and them essentially kinda fighting for Edgeworth even though it’s a very skewed battle against Lang. Aaaagh

A fool in love (with you) by gen, 17k words, 1/1 chapters, 2016

Summary: Miles and Phoenix (finally, no really, after two years of being engaged) decide to tie the knot. On the day of the wedding, they are reminded of all the moments that got them there.

Sooooo cute! This one helped inspire me for my last chapter of my own wrightworth fic actually! This author actually wrote a klapollo long fic I’ve been meaning to check out actually, called The Sound of Silence. I’ve been scared off by how heavy the warnings of the angst ahead are ngl. But this one shot in contrast is very fluffy and sweet!

A Beginner’s Guide on how Not to Write Steel Samurai Fanfiction by chameleonwrites, 16k words, 6/6 chapters, 2021

Summary: Verity Baytum, a court stenographer, has a secret passion for writing Steel Samurai fanfiction based around the pairing Magisteel. When she finds an unlikely source of inspiration during her job, she can't help but watch court proceedings in search of further lines that fit her fics.

Miles Edgeworth, said source of inspiration, has a secret passion for reading Steel Samurai fanfiction based around the pairing Magisteel. It doesn't take long for him to realise the reason the characters sound like him and Wright is not due to personal projection.

I really liked this one, it’s very funny and sweet. I also realized this fic kind of predicted the name Verity for an AA character…

Yours, Mine, and Maybe Ours by estelraca, 13k words, 1/1 chapters, 2015

Summary: Phoenix convinces Miles to bring Trucy in with him for Bring Your Daughter to Work Day, despite Miles' misgivings. Everything becomes even more complicated when Kay Faraday and Shi-Long Lang call on him for assistance. Set between the original trilogy and Apollo Justice; mild spoilers for both Investigations games.

Loved this one! I really like any fics with Trucy as a bigger character (wow who knew look at all my SNS accounts with trucy pfps) especially ones that delve deeper into her relationship between her and Edgeworth.

The Prosecution Rests by Commander_Freddy, 4k words, 1/1 chapters, 2016

Summary: Miles Edgeworth goes to bed, and then wakes up.

Very good. Short but impactful and angsty and sweet. Commander Freddy has some other very good AA fics you should check out also.

Archeology by sunsmasher, 8k words, 1/1 chapters, 2014

Summary: Phoenix and Maya finally clean out Mia's office. Far, far too many people help.

Very short but very good. Deals with Mia grief and also has side Wrightworth content.

To Their Happiness by ,,,,, 41k words, 10/10 chapters, 2024

Summary: Trucy Wright sees that her daddy's friend, Miles Edgeworth, makes him happy in a way she can't. She knows he's sad and lonely, despite trying his best to hide it from her. She makes a promise to herself that she would try to have Miles around as often as she could, for his happiness.

Or, an evolution of Wrightworth's relationship through Trucy's eyes. Trucy and co. sees Phoenix and Miles feel that special way that adults feel for each other and tries to matchmake them. It's mostly Trucy doing that, though.

teehee. you think I wouldn’t go without promoting my OWN fic? you thought wrong!!! I’m also working on a Klapollo fic (it’s like 37k words so far) but I’ll be lucky if it gets uploaded by the end of 2024 with the pace I’m writing it at. It’s so close to completion though…

Klapollo fics

Hot for Justice by indirectkissesiniceland, 43k words, 26/26 chapters, 2013

Summary: After the events of State v. Misham, Klavier finds himself in a slump, stressed at the prosecutor's office and unable to pen new songs. To his surprise, he finds creative inspiration—and unexpected feelings—spending time with Apollo. Now if only he could release the new tracks without raising any suspicion as to whom his love songs are for.

God, is there a klapollo fic rec list without Hot for Justice on it? It’s such a classic, and rightfully so. This fic also inspired me as well to write my next fic! It’s just this good.

Vacation All I Wanted by JJsADragon, 111k words, 24/24 chapters, 2020

Summary: “A vacation?” Apollo asked.

“Yeah! You know what a vacation is, right Polly? When are you going to get another opportunity like this? A beach vacation? A pool? It’s not like you could afford this place without splitting the cost.”

One condo. Six lawyers. Seven secret plans. What could possibly go wrong?

This fic is like. A need I go on? Moment. It’s so iconic and good. This along with Legal Partners probably permanently organized my brain chemistry, I think. Good god the angst. The fluff. this fic genuinely made me sob which. A book hasn’t done that to me in a very long time! there’s a scene where Apollo talks about grief and that was very relatable. This fic also does breach the subject of suicidal ideation, but it is brief. In general this is a lighthearted fic!

If it’s really me you seek by seamint, 83k words, 21/21 chapters, 2021

Summary: “Anyway,” Ema keeps going, fully ignoring his sarcasm in favor of staring at a neat corner where the walls meet the ceiling. “I asked if he wanted to go to your party together, but he said he wasn’t going.”

“What?” Apollo suddenly finds it very hard to breathe. “Why?”

“Hell if I know,” Ema says nonchalantly, but then she turns to him with a smirk. “See if you can figure it out: I believe he told me, and I quote—ahem—'Ach, I would, Fräulein, but I believe Herr Justice would be more comfortable without me there.’”

Or, when Apollo comes home from Khura'in only to learn that Prosecutor Gavin is avoiding him, the last thing he expected was for Gavin to offer to let Apollo stay at his house while he looks for a new apartment.

It’s been a hot minute since I read this one (one of the first klapollo fics I read) but this one was veryyy good. Very much inspired me. Honestly all of Seamint’s stuff is good.

And if all my wishes could come true by seamint, 45k words, 8/8 chapters, 2022

Summary: “‘Our son’ my ass. You’re getting way too into this,” Apollo grumbles, rolling his eyes. “Is this your dream? Do you dream of being divorced and paying alimony, Gavin?”

Klavier doesn’t tell him that as far as dreams go, his is to live in a world where a relationship with Apollo, past tense or otherwise, is at all possible. Apollo doesn’t need specifics, or terrible confessions in vet clinics that show how badly Klavier wants to play pretend with him.

Or, Klavier, Apollo, and how cats bring people together in the most convoluted ways possible.

Looove this. Very fluffy. Mikeko being the center of attention as well and that’s of course why we’re reading this who cares abt klapollo frrr

Turnabout Dungeons (and Dragons) by Synthpop, 170k words, 33 chapters, 2016

Summary: According to Mr. Wright, Dungeons and Dragons is good, if not crucial, for cultivating trusting relationships between friends and coworkers. Apollo has his doubts.

So goood. I love D&D and Klapollo and this is the perfect mix of this. Bard klavier, paladin apollo, need I go on? Phoenix is the dungeon master and Ema, Trucy, Athena and Simon are also apart of the party as well

can I go where you go by parchmints, 40k words, 6/6 chapters, 2021

Summary: Apollo Justice has rotten luck: he actually wins the grand prize for a mail-in contest, but It's a couple's getaway to a fancy ski lodge in the mountains and Apollo is aggressively single. With no one to go with, Apollo offers them to Klavier since surely, a rockstar would be able to find a date before then, but Klavier has a better idea—they go together and pretend they're a couple. That way, they both get a vacation, plus free food and wine.

And well, Apollo's never been one to pass up free food.

So good!!! There’s some wonderful art in this one as well!! I remember being super hooked by this one and giggling over the fake dating stuff. Loved it

Things are as they are by hechima, 34k words, 3/3 chapters, 2021

Summary: Klapollo cabin fic. That's really all this is.

Need I say more? Yes, two cabin fic recs back to back. One cabin in the snow and the other in some desert. Loved the character analysis in this one.

Gravity by Euphorion, 46k words, 7/7 chapters, 2014

Summary: In the aftermath of his brother's arrest, Klavier is trying to balance his law career and a solo music career, with some success—but with less savory consequences as well. His fans are fixating on every aspect of his life, desperate for his attention and jealous of his relationships with the people around him. They've singled out his courtroom rival, Apollo Justice, as the target of their frustrations.

hooo boy this one is pretty angsty in a way. Lots of things going on in this one. We have some crazy Gavinners fans in this, endangerment of lives, stalking, mail… it’s a bit dark but very engaging!

It’s all that I am and all that I have by eternalmagic, 58k words, 12/12 chapters, 2016

Summary: Apollo sucks in a breath, attempting to steel his nerves. Should he honestly send this...? He doesn't even know who this man is. This is a huge, huge mistake. But, even so, he hits send before he can remind himself of how awful an idea this is.

Dear You,

I think I love you. Just wanted you to know.

From,

Me

Klavier's phone pings with an email notification, and the moment he reads it, the smile fades from his face. God, this was so much easier when he didn't know that the sender hated him in real life.

[ or, the you've got mail au. ]

Sooo good! I’ve never watched the movie before, and honestly, you don’t have to. It’s very engaging and oh my goddd the angst you have to get through to get to the fluff…. So worth it.

Anyway, Here’s Guilty Love by u_andcloud, 129k words, 22/22 chapters

Summary: The entirety of Ivy U is smitten with Klavier Gavin—with one exception. Apollo Justice could do without Klavier’s constant presence in the quad, where he serenades passerby with acoustic versions of his band's songs. Apollo is also not particularly fond of Klavier’s clothes, his hair, his tendency to sprinkle German into his conversations, or the fact that, despite all of this, Klavier is still at the top of the class.

So when Klavier asks Apollo to help him start a club for aspiring lawyers on campus, Apollo isn’t entirely sure why he accepts. It’s a resume builder, he tells himself. It’s not like he has to like the guy.

Except, well....he's starting to think that he might.

[Or, a simple college AU turned AA4 re-imagining.]

AHHHHH. College AU fic set in Ivy U. In AU fics like these, I’m always interested in how the author will deal with Kristoph, considering his story is so intertwined with both Apollo and Klavier. This fic did it so well and seamlessly my goddd. I loved it.

Undeniable you (the currents pulling me onward) by experimentaldragonfire, 59k words, 11/11 chapters, 2020

Summary: Kristoph Gavin is found dead in his prison cell, and Klavier Gavin is the prime suspect.

With nobody else available to defend him, Apollo Justice flies in from Khura'in to take the case--but during the course of the trial and its aftermath, long-hidden secrets come to light.

I looove Klavier being suspected of murder fics. They executed this concept very well. I know abt experimentaldragonfire as they were one of the hosts for the klapollo minibang (2024) I was apart of! Their writing is indeed, fire. Check out their other fics as well!

Apollo Justice: Between the Cases by joggingoctopus, 84k words, 18/18 chapters, 2023

Summary: What happened between cases in the Apollo Justice game? Here's one way things could have played out!

A retelling of apollo Justice, kind of! I really liked how the author explained some of the stuff in Ace Attorney, and it will go into my personal AA belief system I think. They also have a sequel fic which I’ve yet to read bc im very scared! (Clay things)

Delicate by ronsenberg, 30k words, 5/5 chapters, 2020

Summary: Everything about the situation is wrong, from the suitcase in Apollo’s arms to the blaring of car horns from the cars waiting behind him. It doesn’t matter. “I have been thinking-” he starts, voice faltering. It is very unlike him to be at such a loss for words, but he has never found himself in a situation quite like this before. “Ach, wondering, really-”

Apollo raises his brow, glancing at the digital clock on the dash and back into Klavier’s eyes in quick succession. “Klavier, my flight-”

“-Marry me?” The words come out in a rushed and poorly articulated interruption. Apollo blinks, his mouth falling slightly open in surprise. “When you come back, ja? Marry me.”

A Post-Spirit of Justice Proposal fic.

As of writing this right now, I just finished this fic so it’s very fresh in my memory! I really liked it! The way they wrote what would most likely be a realistic depiction of Klapollo if it were to happen in real life. It has all the downs and lows and the highs that you’d expect in a realistic relationship.

Glowing embers dying fire by virtualmushroom, 88k words, 20/20 chapters, 2023

Summary: Klavier has a crush on Apollo and he makes that abundantly clear.

Apollo, however, is oblivious and takes Klavier's enamored flirting for simple teasing. After all, why would a famous prosecutor rockstar come to like an "average" guy like him?

Despite that, Apollo comes to unlearn the preconception he has of Klavier and see beyond his mask, into the person he really is, someone not as cheerful as he may appear.

An also realistic in-canon depiction of Klapollo I really like! This was also written by my good friend!

Words Come Fluently by ItsyRoyal, 50k words, 12/12 chapters, 2021

Summary: Klavier Gavin is the most famous rockstar in the world. Guilty Love is about to go platinum and the tour sold out fourteen stadiums. So there's really, really no reason why one anonymous music critic on Youtube who hates him should get under his skin. And yet somehow he'd do just about anything to convince MikekoMusic to like him.

Apollo has been doing Youtube as a fun side hustle while he tries to break into the talent management industry, and he's just landed an assistant gig working for Kristoph Gavin. Whose main client is his golden boy younger brother. Whose music Apollo has been anonymously trashing for years.

Yeah, this is all going to go fine.

auuuuuuuuuuugh oh my god the DRAMA in this. Really good. The best part about this is the reassurance of no murders and clay BEING ALIVE!! I love clay alive fics, esp if they’re of him reacting to Klapollo.

Mission Control by ForeheadandFop, 12k words, 1/1 chapters, 2015

Summary: Like any good friend, Clay takes an interest in Apollo's career; he can't help it if the most interesting part is Klavier.

Loved this as well. Very good. It fulfills my needs of clay reacting to klapollo as mentioned above but however. This is canon compliant….🧍happy ending though …

I think that’s it for my list for recommendations! Sorry a lot of them are long fics 😭😭

[crowhoonter]

rating Parahumans guys on how well I think they'd be as parents

Brian: I think Brian would believe he is a great father, but there is too much repressed emotions and depression in there to properly care for and raise a child. 3/10, Not particularly good.

Alec: Alec has lacked a real positive parental unit in his life, and while I don't think he would purposefully be shitty to a kid, I think he might fall back on what he knows from his own youth. Might be a fun older brother though. 3/10, needs to focus on himself first

Danny Hebert: Too sad about his wife dying to properly parent. no further notes. 2/10, Danny please get it together Taylor is relying on you

Armsmaster: Would rub off his worst personality traits onto a kid, resulting in them being the average r/malelivingspace user. Might also encourage child to grow poor facial hair. 1/10, I feel bad for whatever unfortunate soul is consigned to this fate.

Coil: Coil would be an absent father for 90% of your childhood, unless you were useful for his plans. In that case, he would feed you drugs or some other unethical thing and make you work for him (child labor (bad)). 2/10, conditions are poor but you might get to meet some of the other children he has, fixing the playdate situation.

Kaiser: See in story results. -5/10 Nazis don't make good parents.

Uber and Leet: They come as a package deal obviously, and they are actually pretty okay parents, they aren't great obviously but they aren't tremendous failures either. That is until you show up on one of their livestreams and then you are the laughingstock of the school. 4/10 Don't upload your kids online.

Scion: Too sad about his wife dying to properly parent. Also not emotionally available. 1/10, get it together man people are relying on you.

Mark Dallon: Not necessarily a bad parent, but he has a laundry list of problems that he needs to work through before he can begin to think to focus on his kids. 3/10, he's trying by god. He's not doing good but he's trying.

Number Man: He would probably respond to any question his kid asks with some weird philosophical math metaphor. Is a killer cook though. Also math classes would be a breeze. Unfortunately, most of his time is dedicated to cauldron. 5/10, grades will be great.

Accord: The worst type of helicopter parent. He would make itineraries to follow any time his kid went out and would require them home in pristine condition super early. Has a rigorous study schedule and puts a lot of pressure on you to succeed, and you know he wants whats best for you but like its stifling and you aren't really living for you but for him. Sure grades are good but you just can't do it anymore. 4/10, the depression and GPA are soaring.

Jack Slash: As seen in Worm, he is an absolutely killer parent. Has a fun family vibe? check. Engages with his children's interest and allows them to pursue it? check. Keeps his child intellectually and creatively stimulated? check. Takes his family all over the country to see new exciting places and people? check. Dude is simply top tier on the parenting skill. Sure the family dynamic is a bit unorthodox, but when the results look this good can you really argue? 10/10 Jack Slash has got it going on.

[fellow-travelers-fic-recs]

Fellow Travelers Fic Recs | Hot July

It’s the middle of summer and the mercury’s rising… Why cool down now? Here’s a long list of hot and steamy fics to keep you busy for a while. A variety of kinks for all persuasions–BDSM, Dom/sub undertones, Father Skippy fantasies, student/teacher sexy times, getting off at the office, Rehoboth Beach bondage and spanking and so much more. One thing’s for sure, they’ve all earned their E rating. Crank up the A/C and check them out!

The list starts with the top ten highest rated NSFW fics in the fandom, followed by everything else in no particular order.

Happy Reading!

Looking for more recs? Check out the FTFR fic register. Not quite what you're looking for? Tell us what you had in mind, here! → 💌

✨ Show the authors plenty of love with your comments and kudos on the fics you enjoyed after reading! Likes are lovely, but please reblog to share this content with your mutuals! ✨

🍑 sacred word, bind me [E, 8K] By brokendrums | @brokendrums Tim takes a vow of silence, Hawk vows to break it.

🍑 We are tragically meant to be [E, 1K] By Fuddlewuddle | @fuddlewuddle He looks softer in his sleep, Hawk muses; fingertips lightly skimming over the ridge of Tim’s cheek bone, the curve of his ear feeling the small indent from where the frames of his spectacles rest whenever he’s awake.

Part 1 of Fellow Travelers

🍑 Teacher's pet [E, 11K] By ascandalinpink | @ascandalinpink Tim’s first class for today is his first class ever in this particular elective. It’s a foreign affairs course taught by professor Fuller, whom Tim has never met, but he’s heard about him. All high praise, which leaves this course highly sought after.

As the professor enters the classroom and the chatter around him dies down, Tim understands perhaps why this course is so popular. And it might have nothing to do with the curriculum itself.

Or, Tim starts sleeping with and develops feelings for his college professor.

🍑 Mad about the Boy [E, 5K] By redmyeyes | @redmyeyes “Tell me,” Hawk said, tilting Tim’s head back to give his forehead a quick kiss, “what does my boy want for his birthday?”

“Am I still? Your boy?”

Part 4 of Fellow Travelers

🍑 More. [E, 2K] By redmyeyes | @redmyeyes Tim wants more. Hawk obliges.

Part 2 of Fellow Travelers

🍑 Feeding on chaos and living in sin [E, 2K] By Fuddlewuddle | @fuddlewuddle Tim doesn't expect Hawk to call. And even when he does, the call doesn't go as Tim expects. But then he should probably stop trying to predict what Hawkins Fuller will do.

Part 2 of Fellow Travelers

🍑 I Guess I've Got The Christmas Blues [E, 5K] By captainquint | @jesterlesbian Tim Laughlin stood in front of Hawk, one hand still raised as if to continue banging on the door, his tweed jacked dotted with snowflakes. Water droplets were trapped on his glasses, maybe from melted snow. But with how red-rimmed his eyes were, there might have been teardrops on his glasses as well.

Hawk’s slightly intoxicated reflexes took a moment to spring into action upon seeing Tim. “Skippy,” he grinned, “what, did you miss me that much? I’ll still be here after New Year’s."

Tim’s face screwed up in a look of righteous fury that Hawk knew meant an argument was coming. And before he could react, Tim was shoving Hawk backwards and into the apartment, slamming the door behind them.

“You absolute ass!”

Or, Tim confronts Hawk about his being investigated by the M Unit.

🍑 the thrill of your sweet embrace [E, 4K] By redmyeyes | @redmyeyes 1957 anthology series. Standalone chapters of missing/extended scenes from 1957.

Part 7 of Fellow Travelers

🍑 Love [E, 2K] 💠 By Ikharys "It's going to be okay," Hawk whispers. Something in Tim's eyes makes it clear that he doesn't believe it, but he's not willing to argue. Or, the cabin scene, but a little different.

🍑 Lost Somewhere [E, 1K]💠 By Anagrrl Humming to himself a little, fingers digging into his palms briefly, Tim leans forward.

🍑 Can I? [E, 3K] By mailboxbutterflies | @mailboxbutterflies The kink is consent. The kink is open communication. (But also the kink is praise).

Or, taking the "Is this alright?" line from Ep1 and running with it.

🍑 Who Do You Belong To? [E, 2K]💠 By mrschesapeakeripper “That’s my good boy.” All those years later and the praise still made him blush. Or, the missing scene from the mutual masturbation episode. None of that "no touching" nonsense.

🍑 You taste divine [E, 1K] By nightfall_in_winter | @carnivalrow Hawk joins Tim in the shower in episode 6 because he wants to kiss him...there!

🍑 Love Is An Angel Disguised As Lust [E, 2K] By ConsumingLove (Bluebellstar) | @bluebellsinburbank Hawk's eyes darkened, from outshining the daytime sky to rivalling the night. His lips curved into a wicked smirk. If Tim didn't know better, he might suspect he'd just played right into Hawk's hands. "Educate me." That wasn't exactly what Tim had intended. But, his attention caught by the glint off Hawk's wedding ring, Tim decided he could work with that. Or, the edging fic that's probably sixty percent soft.

🍑 I want you to fuck me [E, 2K] By nightfall_in_winter | @carnivalrow THAT scene from Episode 8 but slightly different. :) Chapter 1 is Hawk's POV, Chapter 2 is Tim's POV.

🍑 Educate Me [E, 13K] By fullerthanskippy | @fullerthanskippy A Hawk x Tim AU in which the timelines jump from 2012 to 2014 to present day 2024. When present day Tim receives an invitation to the 10 year reunion of his Georgetown graduating class, he is filled with both hope and dread that he will run into one particular professor.

One man who was the through-line of his two years in grad school. The man who taught him more than he could have ever learned in the classroom.

When Tim is re-acquainted with Professor Hawkins Fuller, he immediately flashes back to 12 years prior, when he first encountered the man that he had no idea would be the greatest love and loss of his life.

Or, tons of garbage filthy smut sprinkled in between pining, angst, and fluff. Contains explicit material including but not limited to the likes of top!hawk, bottom!tim, top!tim, bottom!hawk, dom!hawk, sub!tim, bratty!tim, and much, much more. Enjoy!

Part 1 of Educate Me

🍑 you’re a gas leak and i’m a woodhouse [E, NR, 2K] By Anonymous “I want you to treat me like one of those bathhouse boys.” Part 2 of we do have reputations, we keep it secret

🍑 Rail me until I can't stand [E, 4K] By nightfall_in_winter | @carnivalrow Various missing scenes from episodes 1 and 8. Chapter 1 is Hawk's POV of their last time before Hawk's betrayal. Chapter 2 - Tim's POV of the same scene. Chapter 3 is a missing scene from Episode 1. Hawk is Tim's first because Skippy never went all the way with Bob...

🍑 After Hours [E, 1K] By ConsumingLove (Bluebellstar) | @bluebellsinburbank “That’s it,” Hawk praised, petting through the soft strands of Tim's hair. “Good boy.” Tim moaned softly around him, swallowing him deeper into the blissful pressure of his throat. Or, The office sex fic that no one asked for.

🍑 I Belong to You [E, 2K] By Cyantific | @beyondxmeasure This isn’t even close to how he saw their night ending, but here they are, and if Tim wants it rough, who is Hawk to deny him? Or, the ‘Hit me.’ scene… but a little different. In which Hawk still hits Tim, just not where you think.

🍑 in the still of the night [E, 1K] By thewindyoubargainedfor | @thewindyoubargainedfor Tim stayed up, waiting for Hawk to call. Hawk made it worth his while.

🍑 Only Himself To Blame [E, 1K] By ConsumingLove (Bluebellstar) | @bluebellsinburbank An evening out leads to some fun on the floor.

🍑 All Tied Up With Nowhere To Go [E, 2K] By captainquint | @jesterlesbian “Are they too tight?” Hawk asked, tugging on Tim’s wrists.

Tim’s wrists were, at that moment, bound to the headboard of Hawkins Fuller’s bed by some carefully knotted neckties. Tim was struck by the thought of Hawk wearing one of these ties to work on a later day, becoming distracted in his office thinking of what they had done with them on this night. His mouth twitched up at the corner.

“Hey, are you listening to me?” Hawk placed a hand under his chin and tilted Tim’s face towards Hawk’s own. “This is important. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Tim rolled his wrists and wiggled his fingers to show they were fine. “I’m not made of glass, Hawk, you don’t have to treat me like I’ll break.”

Hawk teases a tied-up Tim Part 2 of FT Valentine's Day 2024

🍑Shut Up and Drink Your Milk [E, 4K] By bre_thomas | @bre1995 ConsumingLove (Bluebellstar) | @bluebellsinburbank It all started with Hawk's "shut up and drink your milk" and then whispering how he wanted Tim to "fuck him". With those words alone, Tim doesn't hesitate. An extension of the Episode 8, '57 sex scene.

🍑 they said beware (lord hear my prayer) [NR, 2K] By Anonymous Tim’s eyes strayed to the windows, what lay beyond them—who lay beyond them.

🍑You're an Angel, I'm a Dog [E, 2K]💠 By spiffyyy He was never that good. “Father, forgive me for all the times when I fall short of your standards…” He took a breath and watched the ceiling fan rotate once, then twice. “And I’m sorry for this. It was what you gave me.” Tim picked his phone up and swallowed dryly before tapping on the notification to open Grindr. Or, the unlikely pairing of religious trauma and a Grindr hookup.

🍑Control and desperation [E, 3K] By mailboxbutterflies | @mailboxbutterflies Now Tim was really confused. "H...Hawk I really need to pee��" "I said no. You want to be a good boy for me, don't you, Skippy?" Tim nodded slowly as he started to put the pieces together. "Then hold it," Hawk repeated coolly. Tim saw a familiar fire behind Hawk's eyes. The kind that suggested he would be rewarded if he obeyed. "Okay, fine." And then, "Or at least I'll try." Or, Hawk makes Tim wet himself and then rewards him with shower sex.

🍑 Bloom [E, 2K] By hot_hellboy | @hot-hellboy Hawk fists Tim for the first time.

🍑 Fetch [T, 1K] By Deputy_Buck | @deputy-buck Hawk was consumed in drafting a small speech for a function Senator Smith had organized —something about acknowledging McCarthy's threat to the State Department but encouraging diplomacy— when Tim showed up on his doorstep looking like a kicked puppy. His boy promised that he would be quiet and that all he needed was to be somewhere safe while he felt this way.

🍑 Forgive Me Father [E, 2K]💠 By Loopygrove Hawkins lets Tim finish.

🍑 I want you to fuck me [E, 2K] By nightfall_in_winter | @carnivalrow THAT scene from Episode 8 but slightly different. :) Chapter 1 is Hawk's POV, Chapter 2 is Tim's POV.

🍑 Like Other Couples [E, 4K] By palfriendpatine66 | @palfriendpatine66 After the trip to Rehoboth Beach in ep 3 “Hit Me”, Hawk takes another shot at giving Tim the romantic dinner he wanted, this time opting for a more private affair.

🍑 Have You Ever? [M, 1K]💠 By Cozy_coffee “Has anyone ever licked that cute little ass of yours?” A fic in which a bold Hawk introduces a somewhat shy Tim to the pleasures of rimming.

🍑 hell is empty, and all the devils are here [E, 4K] By alorchik | @alorchik Hawk Fuller, a committed skeptic, spends his summers in a country house, living a solitary bachelor's life. His routine is disrupted when he unexpectedly encounters a young local priest who now constantly occupies his thoughts.

🍑 Our Little Remedy [E, 2K] By captainquint | @jesterlesbian A pinch of teeth at his neck made it known that Tim had heard him. He seemed restless tonight, rowdy in a way he got when too worked up about something. And it usually ended in one of two ways. Either an explosive argument that ended with one of them storming out, or fucking until they both lay exhausted, sweaty and sated. He could work with that. “Skippy, are you trying to ask me for something?” Or, bathroom blowjobs at the Cozy Corner.

🍑 all of my fighting done [E, 1K] By startagainbuttercup | @startagainbuttercup How he spent four weeks not kissing him, Hawk would never know. He doesn’t want to ever, ever stop, as he presses Tim to the door and gently licks into his mouth, touching his face and his solid body under him.

🍑 Chain of Command [E, 2K] By ConsumingLove (Bluebellstar) | @bluebellsinburbank Corporal Laughlin and Sergeant Fuller have some fun together.

🍑 'Home' [E, 4K] By bre_thomas | @bre1995 Hawk comes to visit Tim after a rough visit with his parents. And then spends the next morning with Tim. Filler/Missing Scene from Episode 2 'Bulletproof' The "It doesn't matter, I'm home now," kiss.

🍑 Two Can Play At That Game [E, 7K] By bre_thomas | @bre1995 ConsumingLove (Bluebellstar) | @bluebellsinburbank Hawk and Tim spend a very enjoyable morning together.

🍑 Got It Bad, Got It Good [E, 4K] By ConsumingLove (Bluebellstar) | @bluebellsinburbank Tim is in training for a marathon. Hawk thinks his Skippy ought to stop teasing him so much.

🍑 I Wanna Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart [E, 3K] By captainquint | @jesterlesbian Hawk tipped his hat politely towards Tim, the way he always did when he rode back into town and stabled his horse at the Liberty Bell, where Tim worked as a stablehand. The pay wasn’t much, but it was steady work, and the off-chance of spotting Hawkins Fuller in leather chaps astride a horse sweetened the pot considerably.

Hawk flashed Tim the look that he understood meant “Meet me around the back,” so Tim dawdled for a few moments more, trying in vain to wipe off as much dirt and muck as he could from his shirt before oh-so-casually strolling to behind the stables, where it met the treeline and provided just the right amount of cover.

🍑 Don’t Pull Your Love Out [E, 5K] By Cyantific | @beyondxmeasure Hawk visits Tim in prison, and it stirs up a lot of feelings, and a lot of memories. Part 4 of Man's Second Best Friend

🍑 It's Rude To Speak With Your Mouth Full [E, 1K] By ConsumingLove (Bluebellstar) | @bluebellsinburbank Hawk was playing with fire, he knew, but the minute Tim had walked into his office, eyes lighting up just from the sight of him, Hawk had been powerless to resist. Whatever his boy wanted, he would have. And when Tim stepped between Hawk's legs, dropping to his knees with the grace of a lifetime of devotion - well, there were definite perks to working late.

Yet another office sex fic.

💠 Authors: If your tumblr (or other socials) isn’t linked, and you'd like it to be, let me know and I'll be happy to add it. Or, if you are linked, and you'd rather not be, please contact me to remove it.

[genericpuff]

So Webtoons is getting sued by a bunch of law firms in class action lawsuit. Saw it on reddit. Apparently they lied to shareholders about revenue which is like one of the worst things I could imagine doing to your shareholders. Then their stock dropped again. Wow....wonder how this is gonna effect readers going forward or how they're gonna be more exploitative in the future. Not saying the down of Webtoons has begun but I wonder if it's gonna be the start of it.

Yep, I've been following this since the initial investigations began.

All that said, we likely won't see anything of this for a while, if anything even comes of it. The reality is that Webtoons... really didn't actually lie about being bad at making money. It's literally outlined in their IPO documentation:

So these lawsuits, at least in my opinion (*I AM NOT A LAWYER NOR AM I ANYONE WHO HAS ANY EXPERIENCE PLACING WALL STREET BETS, TAKE WHAT I HAVE TO SAY WITH MOUNTAINS OF SALT) is less about Webtoons 'lying' to shareholders and more so about them kicking the debt down the road which these lawyers want to try and hold them accountable for. It's not uncommon for startups to seek out private and/or public funding to help them stay out of bankruptcy, but such practice is incredibly shitty because if a company was already near the point of bankruptcy to begin with, what exactly is going to change to ensure that they actually make that money back with an additional net gain for those investors?

So in that sense, either something will come of this, or it won't, nothing's really a guarantee as of now. It's just as common for startups seeking public investments to get sued within their first 1-2 years because a company not returning on their initial investments within 3-6 months is a prime cut for lawyers to drool over. Despite their attempts to be honest about their earnings, the vast majority of Wall Street investors are paranoid little fuckers who invest in whatever's new and exciting with the hopes that it'll turn them a profit quickly and without headache. Unfortunately, Webtoons isn't a company that's known for having huge profit margins, which these investors would have realized if they knew anything about this industry or at the very least, bothered to read the fine print that Webtoons was obligated to lay out for them in their documentation. At best the majority of them saw Webtoons' offering that covered buzzwords like "content generation" and "AI" and went "yes please, I love money!" without realizing that webtoons, as a medium, have some of the highest production expenses to lowest-paying demographics out there and therefore companies like Webtoons aren't going to be a short-term gratification. It's more like waiting it out for the "next big thing" that will make that stock valuable again, a massive gamble that isn't guaranteed to payoff. And that's just the game of Wall Street in general.

That said, it's because of how difficult it is to directly monetize digital comics that Webtoons often has to rely on selling merchandise and IP rights in the hopes they'll land a whale - but even their pre-existing whales like Lore Olympus and Let's Play have either nothing to show for themselves, or have left the platform entirely. Of course, they'll vaguely claim that two of Netflix's highest-performing projects came from their platform, but any peek at an aggregated Top 10 list will prove that that is simply not true, and at best, they're referring to True Beauty's live action adaption, which is simply not even close to breaching that list of all-time top-performers (except probably in Korea but this is Goldman Sachs and their American investors they're trying to convince), All of Us are Dead (see above, same situation as True Beauty), and Heartstopper which is... not even an Originals series. Of course, that didn't stop Webtoons and Tapas from boasting about Heartstopper's Netflix adaption and its success on the platform, but literally none of its success is exclusively owed to either of those platforms, Alice Oseman flies solo and if anything, Heartstopper never would have gotten to the point it's at if it were tied down to a Webtoon Originals contract.

So in a sense, until anything comes of these lawsuits, they're more so just lawyers jumping on their own investment opportunity - the opportunity to get settlements from Webtoons for both their clients and themselves by extension. At best what they feasibly have against Webtoons is the company getting way too high on their own supply without anything to feasibly show in terms of profit for their IP's. Considering how many IP's they sold to television and film production studios back in 2019-2022 when they were at their peak over the lockdowns - a peak that is long in the rearview mirror - they are incredibly behind in actually paying off those promises. Even in a recent meeting they held just the other day with Goldman Sachs, they're quoted as saying: "When Rachel Smythe was a graphic designer in New Zealand, 4 or 5 years ago, and she had a story to tell, we enabled her to not just tell it in one part of the world, but globally. She became a NYT Bestselling author, she is rumored to be releasing soon as a major animated release."

When even the company that hosts Lore Olympus as its prize pig can only say that its long-anticipated TV production that both Rachel and Webtoons have been assuring people on repeat that the show is "still happening" and that what they've seen so far "looks amazing" is simply 'rumored to be releasing soon'... I don't even have the words to describe how embarrassing that is for them. Never mind the fact that Lore Olympus has been over for months and both it and its creator, Rachel, have been falling into the pits of irrelevancy. They don't have any other home-runners to bet on, they're just continuing to bank on Rachel as their own example of someone who "got big" even though it was years ago and that fame is now shrinking with the passage of time, you can even see the performance of the series dipping in its own front-end metrics over time. They are trying so hard to convince people that they're worth investing in when the one thing that actually DID have that kind of allure has now come and gone.

Never mind the fact that again, most Wall Street investors probably don't even participate in webtoon culture so the name "Rachel Smythe" isn't some golden ticket to fortune. Lore Olympus might get a bit more of a reaction, but it's going to be a lot more mixed due to how divisive the series became in the end, and general audiences who are new to Webtoons as a public company (and the medium as a whole) are still not so likely to know what the fuck that means or why it's significant. The best time to pull the "we have Rachel Smythe!" card in the public investing pool was, like many other things Webtoons has fallen behind in, years ago. Now it's clear Webtoons thinks that Rachel is their own personal J.K. Rowling, but they forgot the part where Rachel is creating for an incredibly niche and historically unprofitable medium that is nowhere near as big as what Harry Potter was back in its prime, and - personally speaking - that Rowling and Rachel are both, well... terrible at what they do.

Webtoons also has the added burden of not being a startup company. They're not some grassroots Silicon Valley tech startup run by a bunch of friends "with a dream", they're an extension of an industry that thrives overseas but barely has any infrastructure to support it here. They've been bankrolled for years by an overseeing tech company - Naver - but have consistently failed to get out of the red and so of course, now they're turning to public investments to help them out and subsequently, are passing that debt off to the next highest bidder, which is Wall Street. They had nearly a decade to figure their shit out here in the West and while they had their opportunities to thrive, those opportunities have come and gone, a lot of doors have closed and now this all feels like their own attempts to rip those doors back open again.

There is a LOT to insinuate already that Webtoons - a Korean-hosted platform - wasn't ready to enter the Western market and this fumbling of their public stock image is yet another great example of that. Even outside of Webtoons, other Korean-run platforms like Tapas have relied on private investments to keep them afloat (and still do, Tapas is still operating privately) and have routinely struggled to get a real foothold in the greater Western industry despite how much they hyped themselves up as the "next big thing". They're all playing the same game over and over again expecting better scores even though the playing fields are entirely different than what they've come to expect in Korea, where much of the entertainment industry is built around webtoons, much like how our entertainment industry in the West is built around comic giants like Marvel and DC (and even those giants are faltering as we've been seeing over the past several years).

Anyways. I don't know if this lawsuit is gonna go anywhere, there's a lot to the legal process that could lead to a variety of different outcomes, but at the very least, their plummeting stock value and the lawyers circling them from above is yet another notch on their belt of fuck-ups over the past few years. I know it's easy to say this in hindsight and I'm not the kind of guy to say "I told you so", but considering I've been following along with the bullshit of these major platforms for years and knew as soon as Webtoons was rumored to be going forward with an IPO that it would lead to disaster, I'm pretty confident in saying, "No really, I told you so." And I don't entirely blame the investors for that (except for the ones that clearly didn't read the fine print) - I also blame Webtoons for that, because they are a chronically unprofitable company run by a bunch of clowns who manufactured their own demise by getting in WAY over their heads and clearly don't even have a concept of a plan let alone an actionable one.

And that sucks, because the people who stand to get hurt the most are the ones who were made those empty promises years ago, long before the platform entered Wall Street - and that's the creators who were promised that their livelihoods would be secured and their work would be protected.

I will forever bully and make fun of Webtoons for everything they've done in and to this industry. I hope at the very least those investors learned an expensive lesson, and that the damage these lawsuits have already caused to Webtoons' public image - regardless of whether or not these lawsuits win - empowers others who have been screwed over by them to speak up and make their moves. They are not a monolith. They are a brittle business operating from the trunk of a clown car on their way to becoming a penny-stocks sham.

Fuck Webtoons <3

[xaharadesert]

10 of my Favourite Horror (Adjacent) Movies and Why You Should Watch Them

(Not in any particular order or subgenre. TW are super vague, spoiler-free, and from my memory, but I would recommend looking up more specific ones before watching any of these if you are easily triggered. Not all triggers are listed because these are horror movies, so stuff like death and murder is to be expected.)

Let me know if y’all want a part 2, because I’ve got about 7 more! (It could have been one post if Tumblr didn’t limit my images to 10)

1. Parasite

A struggling lower class family slowly integrates itself into the household of a rich family without their knowledge.

Most of you have already seen this one, or been told to watch it. I am no different: this movie is popular for a very good reason. Divided into 3 clear acts, starting with comedy, and making its way through drama into horror. Also, great commentary on classism, very psychological at times and makes you wonder who you should really be rooting for.

Scary: 2/10

Gore: 3/10

Disturbing: 5/10

Psychological: 6/10

Actual genre: Dark comedy thriller

2. The House That Jack Built

Serial killer Jack recounts some of his most influential murders.

A bit infamous and controversial for being very messed up, but still really good. Highly psychological, with a lot of narration and use of metaphor. Especially fun if you have any knowledge of Dante’s Inferno. Definitely not one to watch if you want a protagonist to root for.

Scary: 3/10

Gore: 6/10

Disturbing: 10/10

Psychological: 8/10

Actual Genre: psychological horror art

TW: sexism, corpse mutilation

3. Creep (1&2)

A man is hired to help film messages from a dying man to his son.

I’m usually not a fan of found-footage, but there’s something special about Creep. On top of that, this is one of the few movies where I can confidently say I like the sequel more, which is shocking because the first one was amazing. Very funny and off-beat, with a sense of foreboding underlying the whole thing.

Scary: 3/10

Gore: 1/10

Disturbing: 3/10

Psychological: 4/10

Actual genre: found footage psychological horror

Edit: now has a TV show! Haven’t watched it yet, but saw some clips and it looks great! Follows the same formula as the movies :)

4. Mother!

A woman and her poet husband live quietly in a secluded house away from society.

Very metaphorical and highly feminist; definitely not a movie that everyone appreciates, but if you enjoy analysis or just being really weirded out then this is a good for you. Starts slow and snowballs toward the horrific climax.

Scary: 3/10

Gore: 7/10

Disturbing: 7/10

Psychological: 8/10

Actual genre: psychological horror

TW: cannibalism

5. Perfect Blue

Mima is a young pop star looking to join the acting industry.

Brutally realistic to the point where I had to stop watching and take a walk at one point. Very much “female rage” and a protagonist that will live in your head rent free for the next 6 years (or maybe that’s just me). Very triggering in a lot of ways, but worth it if you’re not sensitive to the topics it covers.

Scary: 5/10

Gore: 4/10 (animated)

Disturbing: 8/10

Psychological: 10/10

Actual genre: psychological thriller

TW: depersonalization/derealization, nudity, stalking, rape scene (she is acting in a tv show but it is still the most uncomfortable scene of the movie), inaccurate portrayal of DID

6. Midsommar

A couple and their friends go on a vacation to their friend’s remote hometown for a Midsommar festival.

Probably the best-known out of this list, and again for a good reason. 90% of the film takes place in broad daylight, and the visuals are absolutely gorgeous. Once again will bring up the question of who is in the right and who is in the wrong (I have the answer to this question and I will fight you in dms if you’d like).

Scary: 3/10

Gore: 8/10

Disturbing: 8/10

Psychological: 7/10

Actual genre: folk horror

TW: long and graphic sex scene, nudity, close up and graphic gore, cult stuff, suicide

7. The Call

A woman moves back to her childhood home and receives a call from the woman who lived there 30 years prior.

I got really into modern Asian horror films a few months ago and this is one of my favourites. The dynamic between the protagonist and antagonist is one of my favourites, and finishing this movie felt like finishing a 3 season TV show because of how well paced it was. Really hoping there will be a sequel with the same concept, even if it is not likely.

Scary: 6/10

Gore: 3/10

Disturbing: 6/10

Psychological: 6/10

Actual genre: psychological thriller

TW: abuse

8. Incantation

A cursed woman takes back custody of her young daughter and does everything she can to keep away the effects of her curse.

This one was popular on TikTok for a while, and for good reason. Another found footage in a more traditional sense, and a bit confusing at times, but overall a really solid scary story. Very cool effects as well.

Scary: 6/10

Gore: 4/10

Disturbing: 6/10

Psychological: 5/10

Actual genre: supernatural horror

TW: derealization

9. Pearl

A farm girl dreams about leaving home and living as a show girl.

Mia Goth is a national treasure, but we all knew that already. I watched this one before X (the actual first movie) because I didn’t know they were connected, but I much preferred this one. The Wizard of Oz vibes combined with Pearl’s unsettling behaviour made is a really creep film to watch.

Scary: 4/10

Gore: 4/10

Disturbing: 6/10

Psychological: 5/10

Actual genre: horror

TW: porn

10. The Platform

A man is stuck in a prison where a platform of food is lowered through the layers of cells for inmates to eat as they please.

I’m a sucker for psychological movies that take place in a very limited space. If you’ve ever played and enjoyed the game Presentable Liberty then I’m gonna go ahead and say you’ll like this too. Not every question is answered, but the film is more about the human condition than the prison they inhabit, so it’s not too much of a problem.

Scary: 2/10

Gore: 9/10

Disturbing: 8/10

Psychological: 9/10

Actual genre: social science fiction horror

TW: cannibalism, suicide

[vintagetvstars]

Clint Walker Vs. George Maharis

Propaganda

Clint Walker - (Cheyenne, Kodiak) - Low melodic voice, fucking enormous chest, and he's 6 feet 6 inches for some gaddamn reason. Loved him as Cheyenne Bodie so very much.

George Maharis - (Route 66) - "...I don’t know if I can fully capture what makes him so hot to me, but haven’t we all loved a bad boy with a sensitive soul at some point in our lives? And for me, nobody did it better than him..." Full text propaganda below the cut.

Master Poll List | How to submit propaganda | What is vintage? (FAQ)

Additional propaganda below the cut

Clint Walker:

George Maharis:

One of the stars of Route 66 (1960-1964,) one of the most ambitious television shows of its time. The series followed two drifters traveling the country in a Chevrolet Corvette convertible, Maharis played Buz Murdock, the working-class bad boy with a sensitive soul. Each week he and his friend Tod would arrive in a new city or town and stumble into some local drama (all filmed on location around the country.) Although he was supposed to be one of two leads, as the show went on it became clear Maharis was the superior actor and the scripts started to reflect it. The writers would give him increasingly demanding roles (in one episode, for example, his character is temporarily blinded and has to learn to adjust while staying at a school for the blind) which he always pulled off the aplomb despite the minimal prep time and demanding schedule of shooting 30-episode seasons of TV in a new location every week.

All of this should’ve set him up for a long career as the next Brando or James Dean, but the long hours took a toll on his health and the producers refused to lighten his work schedule to help him recover. On top of that, he was gay in an era when that could ruin your career. The producers weren’t happy when they found out and that probably influenced how they treated him. Subsequent vice squad arrests after leaving the show would hamper his ability to find high profile roles. I don’t know if I can fully capture what makes him so hot to me, but haven’t we all loved a bad boy with a sensitive soul at some point in our lives? And for me, nobody did it better than him. So vote for him for that reason, or as an F-You to all the homophobes who ruined his career.

CW: Brief discussions of murder and (implied) attempted assault

[stillprettyunoriginal]

Ok, but I reached an eureka moment and I need someone to hear me out: will x theo could be potentionally wholesome. Like, you have just some guy who's dating this perfect dude and Will is aware, hell he is probably used to people asking him how he bagged a baddie like Theo, all meanwhile Theo is Will's number 1 fan/supporter, he's absolutely smitten for this wet dog of a man. Their dynamic has so much potential.

NOW YOURE THINKING!!!! Oh my gosh what if I told you they’re in my ship list titled “to write”?

The fun thing about these two is that typically Will’s presence adds a sense of dedication and loyalty like no other to ships, sort of like Annabel in his weird little way that he genuinely WILL GO LEAPS AND BOUNDS. But Theo is dramatic, a bit of a typical sort of man, polite and witty and trying to establish his own life after his father’s while I’d imagine ending up a bit as his father’s golden child. I can imagine looking like a man who wanted the power, the presence that comes with dating this prize and top tier rich boy, entirely regular seeming and with little connection to wealth. But I doubt Theo could see it that way. Because Theo would see Will’s weaseling into his heart as evidence that he is loved, and he is more, right? Theo is rich and high class with his manners and music and the skills and life of what a man of the era should be, but Will loves him and that can be a jarring realization when he’s used to adoration for other reasons. Theo would LOVE him like that, and Will would do his best to try and change, adjust to his environment: be a richer man, learn how to live the life, try to tame his hair. But Theo would likely laugh at him in those fancy clothes, loving and telling him it looks so wrong. Theo would catch Will returning to the grounds or the garden, attempting to get fruit from their tree, and he’d fall in love again with the quiet thought and consideration and little moment of peace that Will gains. He’d love Will’s love, his care and attempt to learn and fit in, and his appreciation for small things. He’d love how he ACTUALLY LISTENS beyond the sound of money in his pocket or fancy clothes. They’d just love.

[pitter-patt-art]

Ace Attorney AU August (halfway progress update!)

Okay technically it's the 16th (lol, 17th by the time this is done) so a little over halfway actually, but still I thought since I haven't had anything finished to post the past few days this would be a fun alternative!

I've been going a little nuts (affectionate) over @augustwritingchallenge's AU-gust prompts list this year so August has been a wild ride (about 40k words of one, in fact. so far.) but seeing as I will get attached to even the jokiest of AU ideas instantly, I've completed* a whopping 5 whole fics of 16, lol. Considering the shortest of those is over 3k and the longest is over 12k, I think the problem with not finishing these in a timely manner is entirely on my verbose foolish thick skull, haha, but I'm still having a blast with it.

Here is my ao3 series where I'm posting!

And a rundown / progress report / quick teaser of all the AUs including those I've yet to finish, if anyone's interested:

(*by "completed" I should note two of the already posted fics are basically assuredly going to be continued past the challenge, but let's say "completed enough to post and be on theme")

1. Canon Divergence - complete - 4.5k words ("For the Murder of Mr. Wrong" link)

Mia POV, gen. What if Dahlia succeeded in poisoning Phoenix and framed Doug Swallow instead (and then Mia defended him in court)? Basically a 3-1 rewrite. Fun Fact: I only came up with this AU because before I even remembered AU-gust existed at all, I'd come up with like 4 totally separate AUs in which I poison Phoenix in various ways With Real Consequences because it amuses me, lol, but he survives all those other ones and I eventually realized I hadn't even considered straight up killing him off yet so I figured I should try it at least once, haha.

2. Colorless - complete 1st chapter - 3.2k words ("Grey Matters" link)

Phoenix POV (for 1st ch --prob alternating after), wrightworth. "You can't see color until the first time you touch your soulmate"-soulmate AU. 1st chapter is their first meeting as kids (skipping the class trial itself). Fun Fact(s): I really love a color soulmate AU! Big fan of the "only see the color of their eyes" type of one too but uhhh on top of that working better for things that have wild anime eye colors, you could not pay me enough to try to figure out what the HELL is going on with Ace Attorney eye colors at any given time lmfao. (Also--spoilers for what i haven't written yet but hey if you're here you earned it--this IS one of my very many "teehee what if i poison Phoenix just a smidge as a treat for me" fics. NOT my fault the man ATE GLASS. That's on him.)

3. Dark Academia - complete "1st chapter" - 4.4k words ("The Spirit of the Laws of Magic" link)

Mia POV, lanamia. Magical boarding school setting featuring corruption and missing-student conspiracies and a most likely overthought system of magic with hierarchies and prejudices in societal views of academic/formulaic vs folk/innate magic. Fun Fact: I really thought for SURE i was going to skip this day entirely, lol. (foolish.) I don't think i've actually ever personally read anything "dark academia", technically--so if this doesn't read EXACTLY that way, there you go, but i did my best. I also then thought I could live with keeping this vague but I accidentally thought about it too long so... plus at least two people on top of myself at this point have expressed interest in more of this and so I have some semi-concrete Plans™ now.

4. Zombie Apocalypse - conceptualized (but not started)

Concept: probably gen and Phoenix POV, but also because I'm me and they're them, at least a little bit wrightworth even if it isn't necessarily explicit in any meaningful way bc they are Not Normal about each other lol. A little sketchy on how much of an "AU" this counts for, since it could probably be argued to be canon compliant somehow, but basically just: Universe where they make a Pride and Prejudice and Zombies-type Steel Samurai reboot movie thing (featuring, you guessed it, zombies), and Miles comes over and forces Phoenix to watch it with him just to have someone to bitch about it at, and then during that time Maya blows her way into Phoenix's apartment as well with the exact same intentions except her "day job" isn't quite as time-sensitive-strict so she's already finished watching it earlier and knows all the spoilers. Honestly a good chance Phoenix and Pearl (who came with Maya) end up hiding out in the kitchen together to let Maya and Miles rile each other up in front of the TV, but I'm never exactly sure where they'll take me once I wind them up and set them loose on the page, so who knows. I also hadn't necessarily determined the exact time frame yet but for it to make sense as a reboot-type movie/special episode/whatever it probably should be 7yg-or-later so Trucy may or may not be there as well. (That said, in my struggles to complete an actually short one-shot, I probably shouldn't even include Pearl let alone Trucy, lol.) Fun Fact: I also thought I'd skip this day bc I'm not the biggest zombie guy in the world, and to be fair, I managed to do Way Less with it than the dark academia prompt so, yippie?

5. Chess Players - incomplete (currently 3k word WIP)

Miles POV, wrightworth. Miles is a chess grandmaster and back in Japanifornia for the upcoming world cup tournament, but his greatest challenge is actually to FINALLY best Franziska in their annual who-can-get-the-best-Christmas-gift competition. Luckily, he just so happened to hear of an artist who makes bespoke chess sets, so the plan is to get a custom board made for Franziska without her finding out. The plan is not to get trapped in a weird art collective labyrinth with some model-photographer named Cindy who keeps hitting on him but also happens to be protective of the artist he's there to see because "she and her boyfriend kinda-sorta owe him big time", but this is what he gets for coming here without doing any extra research into the artist besides seeing his work and hearing only "his name is White, or, eh, something like that, you know how those artist types are" from Mr. Amano. (AU where we replace law with chess and no I don't think Phoenix could necessarily hack it in the top-world-grandmasters-level of chess tournaments HOWEVER have you considered he DID go to art school so what if he just tries selling custom chess sets until somehow that reconnects him with Miles. Is that somehow a more insane plan than studying law? Maybe. Did Manfred still shoot Gregory but now it was over fucking chess? Maybe. Idk. But I did let Greg live this time at least!) Fun Fact: we can all DEFINITIVELY blame my lovely, terrible, very wonderful friend Ben (shameless friend plug! she's an outstanding writer and has some AA fics of her own too!! @kindlystrawberry on tumblr!!) for making a total joke about "well what about au where they make chess pieces instead" while i lamented not knowing enough about chess to write an actual match and spawning this ENTIRE concept. It is her fault. 100%. She is the guilty party. (I want to finish this one VERY BADLY. Save me.)

EVIDENCE!!!!! Guilty.

6. Reality Show - incomplete (currently 700 word WIP)

Phoenix (& Franziska) POV(s), background wrightworth wedding planning going on as set up but it's also definitely just one of my many excuses to set Phoenix and Franziska up as bitchy worsties who can't admit they enjoy each other's company and will cut you down if you suggest it as such. So far I've only written the quote "set-up" section which is in Phoenix's POV, but that was SUPPOSED to be like 5 paragraphs and cut away and then lead into my actual plan for the main body, which was to be in Franz's instead, so. This is very similar to the zombie one in that it's them watching reality tv instead of being contestants on a show (I don't personally like or watch a lot of reality tv so my creative well was somewhat dry on how to make that work) and then I accidentally thought about Phoenix and Franziska watching something just to judge and tear apart the decisions of every person on it and that was too fun to not consider further, haha. Basically the plan is just they get left alone together and don't know what to do with that and end up wine-drunk and making fun of some reality dating show of some kind and Miles and Trucy come back to them losing it together over something stupid and are like "......uh. what's happening." Fun Facts: I really love the thought experiment of Franziska somehow discovering how often Phoenix's internal dialogue/reads on situations and especially people can be So Bitchy And Judgey despite his affable complexion, and her unfortunately finding his opinions to SOMETIMES be somehow slightly okay. Moderately correct, even--occasionally. I know the section she follows you-as-Phoenix around in T&T is really not long at ALL, but I adore it. There's something about it that so badly makes me want to force them into proximity more (to both their chagrin, I'm sure).

7. Farm/Ranch - complete - 12k words ("Two Little Dickey Byrdes" link)

Gumshoe POV, gumbyrde (tho i still think dickeybyrde is a funnier ship name). 5+1 things--except more like maybe 7-or-8+1 to be honest--so it's more: over 5 times Dick and Maggey sit on a wall together and 1 time they find someone else there instead. AKA: Dick runs his family's small farm (think fantasy farm like in a farming sim or maybe horse girl novel type of thing that has nothing to do with what a real farm is like lol don't worry about it) and Maggey starts working at the next farm over as the latest of her many odd jobs. Fun Fact: oh god this one got so far away from me. it was not supposed to be this long lmao. it's literally the elaborate set-up to a very silly Nursery-Rhyme-I-Didn't-Even-Know-About-Prior-To-This -based punchline!?! still, i was pleasantly surprised by how happy i was with this once it was done... two sittings and about 16 total hours later. haha).

8. Nomad - incomplete (planned/outlined)

Apollo (or possibly Klavier) POV, klapollo. Sort of Jove-Thalassa swap adjacent, but basically: AU where Jove survives the Khura'in fire but loses his memories for [contrived convince sake reasons]. (And also possibly loses some or all of his eyesight just to really go for the parallels?) Therefore: Jove and Apollo stay with Dhurke and Nahyuta and the Defiant Dragons for a time, while Jove recovers, but eventually they leave and head out on their own, just the two of them, and do the traveling musician thing, both because it's dangerous in Khura'in and Dhurke already canonically didn't want Apollo to get caught up in it and potentially get hurt to begin with and because with a functioning actual parent Apollo doesn't need to be taken in by him--and also Jove from what little we know seems like he prefers to be on the move and was already a world traveler anyhow, so even amnesiac maybe he gets a little antsy stuck in one place too long. And so like amnesiac Thalassa, Jove thusly becoming a renowned mysterious musician--and then Apollo, sweet tone deaf Apollo, becoming the sonager of all time (like a momager but...you get it) because he's not that into music but he IS into arguing for better conditions/making deals (contracts!! international legalese!! woohoo!!) with venues and promoters and stuff. And then--oops dang Lamioir still exists and now they have a meet-cute (2 electric bugaloo) (but by then it's later enough Trucy still exists because it will be a cold day in hell when I don't find a way to make her work) and they do music collabs or join up to form a group or whatever and OOPS this means now that Apollo and Jove are with Lamioir when The Gavinners / Klavier specifically meet her and get her to come to do the Guitar's Serenade concert eventually. And Apollo and Klavier ofc thusly also have a meet-cute and then talk and bond etc etc. AND THEN the au STOPS THERE and I DON'T think about how without Apollo Phoenix is totally getting convicted of Zak's murder because there's no way that trial works out as well for him with some other attorney and I also don't think about how reasonable it would then be that maybe Trucy ends up helping Valant with his work setting up the trick for the concert afterward on account of the one father in prison and the other being dead and having left behind a notarized confession clearing Valant's name of suspicion, etc. AND I DEFINITELY do not think about how i could then still so easily get everyone in one place at the concert for Turnabout Serenade and/or any possible funny Sibling (And Thalassa) Reveal that could happen i dont i dont i do not--

9. Accidental Baby Acquisition - conceptualized (not started)

Gen, possibly my weakest / least defined idea on this list, but basically: Phoenix kind of already lives this in canon, lol (insomuch as an 8yo counts as a baby) so I thought, well, how to take it a different direction, then? And I thought, I don't usually go for a Phoenix Fey kind of au because I personally really love the relationships he has with all the Feys as-is in canon and so it's not quite as funny to me as, say, a Miles Fey AU where like Misty and Gregory are married, or any of the ones in that bent, because I'm sorry but that's just SO funny (and sad, but mostly funny) any way you slice it--plus his NAME is RIGHT THERE mia-miles-maya he FITS--anyhow, that completely aside, there are just a lot of reasons I really love the platonic relationships the Feys already have with Phoenix and I don't think it NEEDS to be made specifically familial to still be so very important, y'know? BUT. That said. AU where Phoenix is idk abandoned as a baby or maybe his parents die young or something and it's like a Thing to leave babies at temples or churches or whatever, right? So like--Phoenix adopted by the Feys AU but only because the more i considered it the more i thought it would be WILD for him to literally know Maya her entire life, and it's fascinating to me to consider a Maya who ISN'T basically left all alone to her own devices (and Morgan's) and who has someone absolutely in her corner in the village the entire time even after Mia leaves (who isn't a baby when Mia leaves, love you tho Pearls), AND also and perhaps more importantly, the ships-passing-in-the-night-ness of a scene where, like: Morgan does something sketchy or whatever and Phoenix wants to keep Mia updated but for whatever reason decides to go down to the city and actually tell her in person and so he's waiting outside the courthouse or something (possibly part of or perhaps Most Of the reason he goes in person is because he knows her first courtroom trial is that day and he wants to see her + hear how it went) and when he gets there she's in a heated argument with some asshole in a fancy over-embellished jacket and once that guy leaves Phoenix is like "Sheesh, what's his problem?" You know???? And maybe he really would never even know!!!! Bc he grew up in Kurain!!!! And has no reason to care!!! About some random prosecutor who was mean to Mia!! Aaaah!!! So that, and on top of that, Diego would be there too ofc at that point, and I feel like he would ALSO be quite a funny interaction in this scenario. ("Wow, someone's popular, kitten, you have all sorts of guys waiting on a chance to talk to you, heh?" "Uh.--I'm sorry, WHAT did you just call her")

10. Enemies-to-Allies - incomplete (currently 370 word WIP)

Ema POV, faraskye. Cyberpunk AU where Lana is still under Gant's thumb and Ema, with no other way to stay close to her and getting rejected from any of the sorts of jobs she really wants to do, decides to just join the security force (or cyber police or w/e I decide to call it) and is tasked with hunting down the Yatagarasu, guerilla hacker supreme who is threatening the sanctity of the capitalist overlords. Except Ema's squad gets ambushed and she's captured and tied to a pole, and with her useless fop partner seemingly not coming to rescue her (if he even noticed her absence), she does some quick cost-benefit analysis and decides she didn't really like that job anyway and maybe there's another way she can get her sister back in her life. So she breaks free of her own handcuffs (which she definitely didn't modify into incidental ineffectiveness she's still testing for bugs) and helps fix the "Little Thief" device her captor seems to have broken despite how obviously valuable and impressive the tech is, and they eventually come to something of an agreement. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, and all that. Either Ema as the hardware-engineer one and Kay as the software-programming one as the two sides of the tech coin, or else Kay can just be like doing the physical sneaking kind of spy stuff only--or maybe she knows a little about software but not so much she's a pro the way she is with infiltration and such. Possibly toying with the idea Kay herself is just completely an android, but if not, I think she has some cybernetic cyborg things going on regardless. Possibly from or inspired by her father? I also like the idea that Gant did something maybe more drastic with regards to having dirt on Ema to get Lana to do his bidding--like maybe Ema has a whole cybernetic hand because instead of just her handprint on a leather jacket, Gant has some sicko jar with her entire hand in it in his office safe, or something. I don't know why this would be useful to him but it is certainly an image. I also find it funny if Miss Fingerprint Powder Enthusiast doesn't actually have any fingerprints of her own anymore somehow in this AU, lol.

11. Retail Worker - complete - 6.7k words ("The Bake Anything Boulangerie" link)

Apollo POV, gen. Phoenix gets a job at a bakery instead of the Borscht Bowl Club during the 7 year gap, and Apollo happens to stumble across it and ends up meeting the Wrights while he's still in high school. He becomes a regular at the bakery and is already close to them by the time "Shadi Smith's" murder comes around. And also, yes, sibling reveal right away--at least as soon as Phoenix realizes and can reveal it. As a treat. (Other reveals, though, I might put poor Apollo through on a delayed basis. Also as a treat, lmao, just not one for him.) Fun Fact: I'm being redundant bc this is also in my a/n, but, Baker Phoenix lives rent-free in my brain because Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright was in fact the very first Ace Attorney game I ever played, technically, and Maya and Phoenix semi-brainwashed in that bakery was literally one of my first impressions of them. ........followed immediately by starting a let's play of Justice for All (which i watched through the first case, after which I was like oKAY fine maybe i DO need more context here, i should probably figure out what the actual first game is, and went back to start the series properly at the beginning hahaha). What do you MEAN i have a disproportionate fascination with amnesiac Phoenix, even if I have yet to finish and publish one of my myriad AUs that utilize stupid, unrealistic, plot convenient re-temporary amnesia?? Hm???? Idk what you're talking about. Also everyone who complains about 2-1 is wrong lmao it's objectively (okay subjectively is what i'm saying yes BUT objectively) such a funny place to start without knowing broad plot strokes, it's great. I both knew so much and absolutely shit-all nothing about Maya after PLvPW and 2-1, LMAO. god.

12. Animagus Wings (Joker) - incomplete (planned/outlined)

Miles POV, wrightworth. Angel/Demon AU, except I'm playing super fast and loose with the rules on that because all my knowledge of Christian-mythos comes from firstly and unknowingly the Chronicles of Narnia and more recently and cognizantly Lucifer (Netflix) and Good Omens. I know that's probably more or less what we're all doing with this kind of AU but still, I'm not even sure I want to refer to Heaven and Hell here, I'm kinda on the fence about maybe just keeping it all very vague? I also accidentally semi-worldbuilt more than i intended incidentally on account of "But Then How-Why Names If Angelic Creatures?" Format-wise it would semi-follow gomens s1 where it's hopping through some meetings between long stretches but also a kind of pre- and post- Fall type of thing? And potentially à la Lucifer becoming, like, these are My Mortal Humans and i will be Spending Time With Them, screw you celestial duties, I'm making my own Free Will, etc. And i mean i guess Lucifer is also a crime procedural lmao maybe they still solve crimes in the end too. Fun Fact: I didn't want to do the original prompt for several reasons, and sure fuck jkr is one of them but even before I knew about her I still wasn't really the biggest hp person in the first place? So i wouldn't know/don't remember at all the way it works without having to do the specific research and i...don't want to haha. Hence. And I know the prompt seems to be using it loosely / might just be borrowing the word and not actually referencing hp specifically but tbh either way human-animal shifter things just in general I can be somewhat picky about haha. (Okay okay plus full disclosure the ONLY idea I have for this sort of thing actually ties into my day-3-dark-academia-extended-au-verse and i COULD make my life simpler by just connecting the two days but Heh who would I be if I simplified things for myself... *sigh*) All that to say: I saw "wings" on the wild card list and I thought, ooh, well that's still sort of a related concept! Let's tag that one in! So it's still kind of day 12 prompt-adjacent, if you squint.

13. Found Footage - incomplete (planned/outlined)

Video Transcript POV? Is that a thing? Possibly capped by a little Phoenix POV (but i don't want that to get too long), wrightworth. Larry's new girlfriend of the month bakes weed brownies and Larry does not realize this and swings by the Wrights' apartment to beg some kind of help off Phoenix and forgets the whole tray there somehow (because it's Larry) and they leave to deal with Larry's thing and by the time they figure the brownies out, in some twist of fate Miles and Trucy have been hanging out (last minute babysitter/adult supervision? but she's at the very very least 14 or 15 here and most likely older, and Nick clearly isn't the most strict about like uhhh supervision in general lol sooo idk. he's helping her with a project or smth. it doesn't really actually matter; he's THERE, that's the important thing.) The point I'm very clearly getting at is they accidentally get incredibly high (not dangerously so because I'm not going that far haha but also, neither of them has actually been high before, so they are Affected) before Phoenix finds out what was in the brownies and tries to warn Trucy and hurry home to like, dispose of them or at least put a warning label on them or whatever, but he is too late lol. By a lot. Definitely an underage drugs tag on this bad boy because it's definitely sometime 18-or-earlier for Trucy, let alone 21. (idk about other places but as a Californian I can tell you Japanifornia "LA" could theoretically have it legalized at 21 for anyone (like alcohol) and 18 with Dr's permission--which Trucy definitely does not have in this AU lol.) Basically, Phoenix grabs Trucy's phone to get photo evidence so he can let them never live this down (after making sure they're okay lmao), but he ofc doesn't get technology so he doesn't realize he leaves the phone still recording when Trucy asks him for something / needs his help, so the recording just keeps going and captures a lot of tomfoolery and eventually some inebriated-to-Extremely-sober Feelings-Adjacent confessions (or maybe more like allusions). Idk, this was actually a fic I thought of before August and wanted to use as an excuse to try a Weird Format for fun, but then i saw this was a prompt on the list and...well. Fun Fact: Cannabis was legalized in California on November 8, 2016 (the first election I could vote in!!! ......uh, rip. lol. but yeah babey I helped legalize weed at least!! gotta remember the positives), which means it was legal right in time for Miles' case(s) / Turnabout Goodbyes!!! Yay!! I mean, I suppose that's genuinely seriously one way to try to mitigate nightmares and manage insomnia--not that I think Miles Edgeworth would ever deign stoop so low as to use an aid to manage his severe PTSD and trauma symptoms, psshaw, who do you take him for? (Get these people some help lol. They all need so much therapy.)

14. Princes & Princesses - conceptualized (not started)

So I've been reading a lot (a LOT) of isekai and/or revenge reincarnation romance fantasy manhwas lately (like, oh, too many, hahaha. they're quite good and they're VERY popular in webcomics at the moment.) Soooo. Soft pitch: Apollo already gets slapped into so many wild backstories he's constantly trying to dodge in an effort to be just a Normal Guy, he's honestly, like, the PERFECT protagonist for one of these lmao. And tell me Kristoph doesn't make a perfect "Upstanding Duke" kind of persona, and Klavier couldn't be the "wild rake" younger brother no one expects much from, and all I'm saying is it wouldn't be that hard to contrive a reason Apollo tries to get Klavier to agree to a contract marriage the way all these stories go, lol. And also, something something, Apollo from the "real world" is an orphan/has an absent family (also like so many of these manhwa protagonists, lol) but then he gets to actually have one in his second life!! I'm such a sucker for that shit. Slightly harder pitch, and the reason I did not let myself actually start writing anything (...yet): so what if the actual plot of the "original romance novel" Apollo is familiar with from the "real world (Earth)" is actually about the slightly older generation and something something instead of admiring Phoenix as a defense attorney, it's just that he instead was Apollo's favorite "love interest" character (not, like, for himself, just the one he most liked to read about) in every way except what a blithering idiot he became when the author had him fall for the female lead--but BEFORE that, he's a cool information guild leader guy who seems like he's trying to work toward some way to improve conditions for commoners in the kingdom (but abruptly there are no more mentions of this after he gets involved with the lead, which is annoying). Aaaand... I guess what I'm saying is, Dahlia is the original female lead because she REALLY fits the whole White Lotus trope, and I'm thinking Klavier is the original male lead because A) hilarious, B) fits in with the idea there's more going on in the ACTUAL world Apollo ends up in that is written in such a way as to make things seem different in the novel (like, that Dahlia and Klavier are actually as nice as they seem and that the terrible things that happen around them are just the trials and tribulations of being main characters and not anything they're directly involved in). And Apollo, the character in the novel Apollo, is an adopted prince of Khura'in, but he's the sickly younger prince and of course not actually of the royal bloodline (and also a man, considering Khura'in is matrilineal), so Rayfa and Nahyuta are the ones the public and other nobles actually know and care about and deal with. But wait! As it so turns out, The Wright Anything Information Guild (I feel like the actual guild name CAN'T have their freaking name on it front and center lol but you get the idea) happens to know some other things that aren't really expanded on in the original novel, and might be key to preventing Apollo's death so he doesn't follow the path of the original story, and also idk maybe Apollo and Trucy are half-fae or something like that and instead of like Aw Yay Bracelet in this AU it's more of a secret Iron Shackle Tool That Will Hurt I Mean Totally-Definitely-Help Us Later (still, in a way, passed down to him by Thalassa, but more as, like... she's kind of a secret hostage and does not manage to hide pregnancy number one so Apollo's now also a secret hostage, but she manages to escape so they don't know about Trucy, only she didn't tell Apollo basically anything to "keep him as safe as possible" or w/e, and......) Well, anyway. It got away from me before I even really wrote anything, that's all.

15. Secretly Alien - unfinished (currently 2.6k WIP)

Trucy POV, gen. Apollo gets sick of very consistently always losing the card games they play at the Wright Anything Agency (usually and in the specific instance the fic starts, Bullshit/BS) and in a stroke of inspiration somehow ropes everyone into playing Among Us instead. ("What! It's still a game of trying to lie/trick everyone else--like you like!--but I actually stand a freaking chance, so we're playing this or I'm going home.") Yes. This is my Among Us AU. Hi. They play Among Us. I'm justifying this one as prime AU territory however because A) Among Us has to exist in this universe, and even more pressingly, B) I found a way to force Phoenix to have--for at least a period of time if not moving forward in perpetuity--an actual smartphone instead of a Nokia-type brick cellphone. Which even under the wild but somehow plausible considering Ace Attorney circumstances I contrived, is just automatically a complete AU lmao. Fun Fact: I am so mad this one wasn't just totally finished day-of, lol. Why I ever thought I could give myself run of an entire WAA 4-person conversation and NOT get instantly derailed is beyond me. (And I want to get the prosecutors there, too?? Someone take the characters away from me.) Anyway. No, I have not written ANY of the actual Among Us part yet. Sigh. Also I haven't personally played amogus since like, 2021? maybe? And I know (now) that it's been pretty updated since then, but, ehhh, I'm just gonna run off like, lockdown-era amogus rules and vibes, lol. If I can get to the game part.

16 - Hobby Drama - conceptualized

I'm going to go out of order this time to say: Fun Fact: I have ALWAYS wanted to write a Reddit-style fic!!! I absolutely love them and I've read some REALLY, really good ones, so I've always wanted to try my hand at it. So theoretically this is the perfect time to make that a reality and write a r/HobbyDrama subreddit fic, buuut I got stuck before starting because I'm torn on two possible routes to take it (I can easily foresee myself caving and just doing both lol). - Option 1: Steel Samurai fandom discourse, always a fun/funny thing to think about, definitely would enjoy having Maya and Miles post some stuff for that. - Option 2: courtroom law fandom discourse, because come ON, how are those galleries ALWAYS SO FULL. The little wiggling rabba-rabba onlookers have GOT to have investment in this shit. And why WOULDN'T they, honestly. I've seen those trials and I have, in fact, spent a Lot of time thinking about them, not that any posts I've made lately would reflect that in any way or anything. Like I know it's hard to tell, but if I can be invested in the Lawyers Fandom, who's to say the people in the courtrooms aren't????? And I LOVE an outsider POV fic actually, I think they're so fun. So anyway. Reddit fic. You will be mine. Just as soon as I can hone my energy

And, what the hell, since it's so late now by the time I complete this "Heh This'll Be So Quick To Throw Together" post, I'll include today's, too:

17 - Flower Shop - conceptualized (at work earlier today. lol)

AU where Daddy Hawthorne is like, 97% less shitty. And the Hawthornes have a flower shop instead of like a gemstone industry or whatever. And he takes both Dahlia and Iris with him instead of dumping one of his daughters at a fucking secluded mountain temple and seemingly forgetting about her forever. On second thought, maybe what I actually mean is he's like 999% less shitty, lmfao. Anyway, Iris POV, but Dahlia (while not a "nice" person by any stretch) is not pushed to such extremes or nearly as desperate as canon, so Valerie lives, Terry Fawles lives, Doug Swallow lives, and Dahlia gets to live a good life overall--because as much fun as I love using her as a villain, she's really such a product of the absolute worst circumstances and I really do find her interesting so I've been kind of wanting to explore her in a less cartoonishly evil light, haha. (Don't get me wrong, I do love the cartoonishly evil light too, but I like spicing things up sometimes.) Like, she does (more) normal teen rebellion things ("Look at my inappropriately older boyfriend, Dad" "I'm going to talk my way out of speeding tickets and petty shoplifting as a bid for attention" etc.) and she still totally orders Iris around and Iris still totally does whatever she asks very much to her own detriment and has to learn to break away and be her own person. Fun Fact: I have a very passionate love for Iris/Adrian Andrews. Is that. Um. Is that a ship anyone else has ever considered before? Is that just me? I'm not sure but very possibly I'll just make this a rarepair fic as a treat, for me alone, teehee. (Like... it's about the becoming the master of your own destiny it's about breaking out of codependent cycles it's about how I genuinely honestly think they'd be each other's type and have chemistry even though they've obviously never interacted lmao... idk what to tell you.)

AND THATS MY AU-GUST UPDATE POST!!!

If you made it this far, take a sprinkle of my undying affection, and may you be blessed with AU inspiration if you so desire it!! (If you do not desire it, hopefully you are not cursed with it. I do not take refunds if you are. Sorry.)

Wish me luck with completing some more fics soon!!! Unfortunately weekends are actually my least free time because I work the most and the earliest hours so I have less time and am more tired, but also on Wednesday I'm leaving for a family vacation, which will either be the BEST thing to happen in regards to AU-gust or the WORST thing lmfao. If nothing else I have 2 flights, and I actually Love writing on an airplane, so fingers crossed for it being Good. <3

EDIT: Now with part 2 for the rest of the month here!

[unch4rtedwxters]

– Two Minutes Notice, Helluva Boss

ᴡʜᴀᴛ ᴛʜɪɴɢꜱ ᴅᴏ ɪ ʟɪᴋᴇ?

bolded = favorites

✩ keeper of the lost cities ✩ riordanverse (except kane chronicles) ✩ the inheritance games ✩ heartless ✩ gifted clans series ✩ project hail mary ✩ the martian ✩ the hunger games ✩ the pandava quintet ✩ osemanverse (except for i was born for this) ✩ wings of fire (i haven't read in a while tho) ✩ amari and the night brothers ✩ caraval (only read book 1 so far) ✩ the folk of the air (only read book 1 so far) ✩ harry potter (i don't interact with the fandom much; i hate jkr) ✩ deathcast ✩ the song of achilles

✩ high class homos ✩ the d!ckheads ✩ our walk home ✩ baby tyrant ✩ heartstopper ✩ don't read this ✩ just pancakes ✩ our corner ✩ live with yourself ✩ homesick ✩ from a knight to a lady ✩ lore olympus ✩ sunflowers and lavender ✩ crow time (not finished reading) ✩ loving reaper ✩ go away romeo ✩ hyperfocus ✩ the recloseted lesbian ✩ meow are you?

✩ ducktales 2017 ✩ rise of the guardians ✩ luca ✩ bluey ✩ the amazing digital circus (murder drones/tadc sideblog) ✩ murder drones ✩ how to train your dragon ✩ hazbin hotel ✩ helluva boss ✩ the wild robot ✩ percy jackson and the olympians ✩ heartstopper ✩ avatar the last airbender (i'm on s1 ep4 lmao) ✩ pokemon (sorta? the only anime i've watched is the indigo league and i haven't even finished watching it lol. i'm more of a game player and even then it's just legends arceus and scarlet) ✩ marvel (not anywhere NEAR done watching) ✩ lackadaisy ✩ inside out ✩ my little pony (fim, mlp: the movie, mlp: a new generation, most of the equestria girls stuff) ✩ the lion guard

* = watched playthrough but haven't actually played ✩ minecraft ✩ growbot (haven't finished yet) ✩ pokemon (legends arceus and scarlet) ✩ rayman legends ✩ roblox ✩ minecraft dungeons (haven't finished yet) ✩ kinitoPET * ✩ garten of banban (i've kinda played it? i found a remake of the first chapter on roblox and played that but idk if it counts) ✩ suck up! * ✩ phasmophobia * ✩ plants vs zombies battle for neighborville (yes this one specifically) ✩ the longing (haven't finished yet)

disclaimer: most likely won't be posting about the artists i listen to, it's probably only gonna be musicals. also of the artists i have listed, i probably only listen to a few songs from them except for a choice few

✩ hamilton ✩ epic: the musical ✩ hazbin hotel ✩ helluva boss ✩ back to the future musical ✩ the lightning thief musical ✩ spongebob the musical ✩ luca (soundtrack) ✩ the wild robot (soundtrack) ✩ the amazing digital circus (fan songs + soundtrack (i listen to a lot of soundtracks when i do my hw guys)) ✩ murder drones (soundtrack) ✩ hunger games ✩ httyd ✩ lion guard ✩ my little pony ✩ gooseworx ✩ ed sheeran (omg look it's something relatively normal) ✩ bailey spinn ✩ imagine dragons ✩ OneRepublic ✩ AJR ✩ one direction ✩ calum scott ✩ JVKE ✩ + several more but there's too many to list so these are just a few random ones towards the top of my liked music lmao

[purplephantomwolf]

Love in Motion

Chapter One

Synopsis: Lydia gets a wrong number text from Lando Norris.

Note: This is not an accurate portrayal of how the real people in this act. I do not know them personally, so I will not be portraying them accurately.

Warnings for this chapter: None

Next chapter: Chapter Two

Masterlist

April 4, 2022

12:30pm

     I sigh, turning my attention away from my organic chemistry professor to my laptop screen. I watch as the 20 best drivers in the world complete the last lap of the first race of the 2021 Formula 1 season. I just recently got into Formula 1, so I’m watching the 2021 season to get a feel for the sport. One of my best friends says the 2021 season is a great season to watch because of the fights between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton. I silently cheer as my favourite driver, Lando Norris, finishes P4. I look up at the clock and see that it’s only 12:30. Still 35 minutes left of class, I think. I let out a little audible sigh, turning back to my laptop. I move on to watching qualifying for the first Italy grand prix of the 2021 season. I have just clicked play when I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket. I grab it and see a text message from an unknown number. 

Unknown number: Did you make it home from the club okay?

Me: *One image attached* Considering I’m currently in a chemistry lecture, I think you may have been given the wrong number. I’m sorry.

     I send a picture of my view of my professor, laptop, and notes to the unknown number. 

Unknown number: Oh, thank you! I’m sorry for bothering you!

Unknown number: Hang on, are you watching Formula 1 while in lecture?

Me: It’s okay! Also, yes I am watching Formula 1 while in lecture. I’d rather be learning about Formula 1 than boring organic chemistry. Also, why are you texting someone about getting home from the club okay? It’s 12:30 pm?

Unknown number: It’s currently 2:30 am for me. I was attempting to text a girl I was talking to at the club, but it looks like she gave me the wrong number. 

Me: Oh, that makes sense. Wait, where are you that’s 14 hours ahead of me? Also, I’m sorry about the whole wrong number thing. That really sucks. Unless she gave you the wrong number cause you’re a creep. Then you deserve it. 

Unknown number: I’m currently in Melbourne, Australia. And I wasn’t being a creep! At least, I don’t think so. I hope not at least. I try my best to not be a creep. 

Me: Alright, that’s good. I doubt you were being a creep. And Australia? Jeez, that’s so far from me. I’m in Minnesota, United States.

Unknown number: That's only a little far from Australia. 

Me: Yeah, it’s going to be not fun to watch the F1 race this weekend, but staying up is so worth it to see the race live.

Unknown number: Big fan of the sport? 

Me: Yeah, I am. I just recently got into it, so I’m watching the 2021 season to learn everything I can. I’m also attempting to watch all the qualifying and races live.

Unknown number: Oh cool. That’s got to be tiring Considering most of the races are in Europe. Waking up early every day of the weekend must suck. 

Me: I mean, yeah. It kinda sucks, but it’s not too bad. I’m not waking up super early unless it’s races in places like Japan and Australia. The earliest I have to wake up is like 6 for other races. That’s not too bad though. 

Unknown number: Oh, that’s not too bad then! Which team do you support?

Me: Well, there’s not a specific team I really support. If I have to choose one, it would be Ferrari, probably followed by Red Bull. I support drivers more than I support teams really. 

Unknown number: Okay, then who are your top three drivers?

Me: That is a hard decision to make for 2 and 3. Lando Norris is for sure my number one driver, but I have like 5 drivers tied for second and then 5 tied for third. I made a tier list one time lol

Unknown number: Okay, so what’s the tier list then? I’m curious

Me: The people within each tier are in no particular order. So it goes 1. Norris 2. Verstappen, Leclerc, Gasly, Ricciardo, Sainz 3. Schumacher, Albon, Stroll, Vettel, Tsunoda 4. Bottas, Guanyu, Ocon, Russell, Hamilton 5. Latifi, Magnussen, Perez, Alonso

Unknown number: Hmm, interesting. So do you dislike tier 5 then?

Me: No, I don’t dislike any drivers. Unless you count past drivers *cough* Mazespin *cough* Tier 1 is my all time favourite. Tier 2 are ones I also support a bunch, but are not my all time favourite. Tier 3 are ones I support, but not much as tier 2. Tier 4 are ones I support some. Tier 5 are ones I don’t support at all. 

Unknown number: That’s a funny nickname for Mazepin. But why don’t you like him?

Me: I’m not sure. I just get a weird vibe from him. 

Unknown number: Interesting. But I get what you’re saying. Can I ask why Lando is your favourite? My favourite is Carlos. 

Me: Sure! Lando is my favourite because of his personality, humor, and how he speaks out about mental health. I really struggle with depression and anxiety, so having such a public figure speak out about it is amazing. Also helps that he’s got the boy next door charm. That’s definitely my type lol.

Unknown number: Ahh, okay! Those are good reasons to like him! Now, I feel weird talking to a nameless person. Can I ask you what your name is?

Me: My name is Lydia. Can I ask what your name is?

Unknown number: Lydia, that’s a pretty name. My name is Luke. 

Me: Nice to meet you, Luke. 

     I look up when I hear a commotion around me. I see that my classmates are packing their things and leaving. Wow, time really flew by talking to this stranger. I put my phone down and quickly pack my things. I sling my backpack over my shoulder and head out. I feel my phone vibrate with a text again. I see that it’s Luke again. 

Luke: Nice to meet you too, Lydia. 

[quendiviner]

@shadowfells on it boss 🫡

ok so. klara is v. corpo v specifically. the backstory stays. what shall i say. she's some kind of mix of netrunner and a solo i think. loves double barrel shotguns and precision rifles (specifically hypercritical) and throwable knifes. is also not afraid to use her fists. used electrifying mantis blades a lot. loves the quick and "deadly" quickhacks like synapse burnout and system collapse

klara also finds it hard to like. let go of some of her corpo lifestyle preferences. she only gets food from city center bc other places often give her stomach ache, still wears suits/typical office wear, constantly watching out for backstabbing and stuff like that. drinks coffee a bit too much.

she prefers riding bikes more than cars but uses both. sometimes ends up on the metro thing. her favorite radio stations r morro rock & vexelstrom. she also doesn't know the street jargon and sometimes goes "???" when someone says smth.

stole a coffee machine from her old arasaka apartment and brought it to the megabuilding flat.

toby's some kind of a top class netrunner who originally worked for biotechnica but then kinda leaked info about their unethical practices and dropped off the grid. wanted/on elimination list of most megacorporations bc it likes to 1) go through their files and do the same thing as it did w biotechnica or 2) slip some of their money to the poor ppl. nowadays it mostly stays in net for fun tho. sometimes it fucks around with the blackwall (the quencies...)

outside of net if you'd meet it you'd think it's just some guy (gender neutral) bc it's quite literally the embodiement of 🧍🏻 emoji (i mean. so is actual toby, but it's even more of that here bc its whimsy is almost gone. you know. constant florida toby mode on). it mostly does some little tasks in different night clubs or works as a "freelancer" for poor people or the moxes, mostly solving net related problems or running light gigs, and taking v little money for what it does. maybe sometimes is like a joytoy or something. who said that.

also gets tummy ache from most food and only ever eats at one (1) specific place that serves pierogi. mostly drinks a specific water brand. still doesn't touch alcohol

roach race kind of guy, really loves arcade games.

funny thing is they actually live in the same megabuilding but like. have never seen each other. probably.

canon story wise toby would show up sometime after the voodoo boys main quest. it is just sitting there in her flat when she walks in. first thing it does is say "your flat security is shit". klara thinks about just leaping at it with mantis blades bc who the fuck is that but decides it looks too pathetic for that.

anyway. it somehow probably noticed johnny and the biochip signatures in net or something, originating from the same building as it. could also be related to the blackwall thing i guess. toby basically goes "i know someone who may help but they're out of town" and klara's like "uh huh sure 🤨" and is like, basically "i'll see what's in this city first." and so she goes on w the questline and all but, like, toby's there helping out or something. maybe it's a bit lonely. sometimes they stay up late to talk abt random stuff and the whole chip problem. sometimes they also end up falling asleep together on the couch or bed. toby's also taking care of nibbles when klara goes somewhere. at some point they get really close.

toby gets into some kind of situation (like it always does) (most likely a life threatening one) and klara somehow manages to pull it out of there and toby's all like "🥺🥺 u didn't have to do that" and klara goes "of course i did i fucking love you you dumb idiot". teehee.

anyway. they move to the glen apartment at some point. and after klara goes through all the possible quests she's like "hm. what did you say about out of city help again". anyway. then we have the aldecaldos ending and they just contact this person toby knows who might help. and they do. yippee

that's all i have hehehehe

[twig-tea]

A question for you because you seem like one of those people who has watched everything: how did you get started watching bl, and what are your ultimate favorite shows?

Double-barrelled! I'm honoured.

How did I get into BL?

The short answer is that ~2016 the YouTube algorithm served me up Lovesick and I immediately went EXCUSE ME WHAT IS THIS and looked up everything else available and watched literally everything I could get my hands on (which at the time was easy because there was only a handful compared to today, but it still felt like a wealth of content to enjoy).

The longer answer is that I used to be really involved in GL (I was the secretary at the first Yuricon in North America in 2002 or 2003) and then BL manga fandom (was in a scanlation group for awhile) through ~2006? so its extra hilarious that this wasn't my route in; I apparently took a break right before they started making live action versions in Japan. But when I got into Thai BL it was fun rediscovering these tropes in a new medium and through the lens of a new-to-me culture, noticing how they differed and how the genre had matured (and how it hadn't), and on catching up on the stuff out of Japan, seeing some of the manga I read over a decade ago come to life! So I mention this history because it's definitely a part of why I stayed (and probably why the algorithm found me relatively quickly).

I only started tracking things in a spreadsheet in 2020 (and it's not nearly as comprehensive or useful as @absolutebl 's), but I did try to backfill the highlights of what I've seen and I have over 550 rows on there, fwiw. I'm a completionist so I do try to watch everything, though that's getting more and more impossible these days.

Ultimate Favourite Shows

This question is so hard. I know you didn't even give me a limit but you have to understand @lurkingshan, I can't choose favourites, I have a draft top ten list that has been blank for 3 years because I can't commit. Okok. I'm just going to list shows as they come to me (not in any particular order):

Thailand: Until We Meet Again, He's Coming to Me, Diary of Tootsies, WhyRU, Ingredients, Not Me, Secret Crush on You, I Told Sunset About You & I Promised You the Moon, Triage, You're My Sky, Make it Right, La Pluie, My Ride, Bad Buddy, My School President, Laws of Attraction, Moonlight Chicken, Dear Dr I'm Coming for Soul, To Sir With Love/Khun Chai, The Eclipse, Midnight Museum, Lovely Writer... Grey Rainbow [ducks, hides, runs away]

Japan: Doushitemo Furetakunai (no touching at all), Kinou Nani Tabeta (What did you eat yesterday?), Our Dining Table, Takara-Kun and Amagi-Kun, Old Fashioned Cupcake, 7 Days (mon-thurs & fri-sun), His (miniseries & movie), I Want to See Only You, Kieta Hatsukoi/My love mix-up, the Cherry Magic Movie, Life~Senjou no bokura/Love on the Line, 180 Degrees Longitude Passes Through Us, Given (anime is my fave version), Tokyo in April Is..., Cornered Mouse Dreams of Cheese, Utsukushii Kare/My beautiful man

Korea: Our Dating Sim, Semantic Error, The Lover [BL side], Color Rush, Blueming, Cherry Blossoms After Winter, Love Class 2, Made on the Rooftop, Discipline Z, Light on Me, To My Star (yes both seasons), Strongberry (faves are Long Time No See, Confidential Coffee Break, and A First Love Story), Sing My Crush, Just Friends?

Vietnam: Goodbye Mother, Hey! First Love, Nation's Brother, You Are Ma Boy, Follow My Sunshine, FOOLs, Tien Bromance: My Small Family, Love Bill

Philippines: Gameboys, Gaya sa Pelikula, Boys Lockdown, Cheat [warning: horror], Your Home, Better Days

Taiwan: Be Loved in House, My DNA Says Love You, We Best Love (1 & 2), HIStory (Crossing the Line is my fave, and second fave is...Make Our Days Count [ducks, hides, burrows into ground]).

Other: Summerdaze (short from Singapore), Stay Still (Hong Kong), HeHe and He (Hong Kong, final season in progress but s1&2 are so funny) and the bromances/difficult to categorize: Scumbag System, Word of Honor, The Untamed, Guardian, Coffee Prince, Bromance (Taiwanese), Great Men Academy, Mr Queen, Sleuth of Ming Dynasty, SCI Mystery

*deep breath* ok I'm stopping lol narrowing it down any less than this gives me pain so I won't try. Also I'm sure I forgot something obvious (and Tumblr was eating drafts of this at various points). All I can say about this list is it's under 100 and that's the best I could do.

Thanks for the ask, and to anyone who made it this far thanks for reading!

[enlitment]

Top five history books?

Thank you for the ask! ✨

Some of my favourites may be well known at this point after the book ask, but I'll try not to repeat myself too much!

1. Ghosts in the Middle Ages: The Living and the Dead in Medieval Society by Jean-Claude Schmitt

A fascinating book on a rather niche topic which explores the changes in people's belief about ghosts/souls of the dead coming back to life. Schmitt does not only focus on obscure anecdotes however; he analyses what role the so called 'revenants' came to play in medieval society (spoiler alert: the Catholic church used stories about them to their advantage to pressure people into paying indulgences and/or spread Catholic doctrine).

2. Historiography in the Twentieth Century: From Scientific Objectivity to the Postmodern Challenge by Georg G. Iggers

Not sure if this is cheating or not, since I had to read it for uni? The title sounds quite bland, but I actually enjoyed reading it quite a bit! It gives you a framework for how to think about other history books in terms of reliability and potential biases. The author also explores the question where is the line between history and fiction (and whether it is as clear-cut as we would like to think). (It also defends the Age of Enlightenment legacy from postmodern criticism which I appreciate, though I'm not sure this would be of much interest to people who don't study/aren't into philosophy.) Still, it's quite a short, comprehensive read and a great place to start when one wants to learn more about historiography imo.

3. The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History by Robert Darnton

Probably my favourite book on this list, since it hits so many of my areas of interest (French history, the 1700s, cultural and especially book history). It includes six essays which analyse different aspects of French culture across different social classes, ranging from villagers' fairy tales to analysing the texts of the Encyclopédistes. It's also very engaging and fun to read, though be warned, if you like cats, maybe skip the titular chapter, the name is quite literal I'm afraid!

4. Jean Paul Marat: Tribune of the French Revolution by Clifford Conner

Okay, I'll confess, I'm only about half-way through, but I'm really liking it so far! It reads more like an apology/ a text that tries to correct some of the problems with previous biographies on Marat, but I actually quite like it. It makes for an interesting read.

The author definitely has biases on his own, since it is clear that he shares much of Marat's political views, but a) he's upfront about the fact b) I don't think that the goal of all historical books should be to be as objective as possible - there's a room for subjectivity in my opinion, as long as it is reflected c) he cites his sources much more meticulously than - let's say - Scurr d) his biases are also my biases

Plus, Marat is such an interesting figure to read about! That said, this Goodreads commenter puts it much better than I ever could:

5. From Olympus to Pantheon: The Religion and Ethics in Ancient Times by Ladislav Vidman

A super interesting and accessible overview of the religious practices of ancient Greece and Rome! The author explains that many books focus on mythology, but his aim is to explore the lesser known aspects of the Greek and Roman religiosity, such as the ritual sacrifices, the oracles, the mysteries etc. It was a fascinating read, though the chapter on the sacrifices was very, very vivid in its descriptions.

(The author also seems to low-key have a crush on Vergil, explaining how he was a great role model and essentially beautiful inside and out. Not a deciding factor, but definitely a bonus!)

I unfortunately don't think the book was ever translated from Czech though, which is a shame. It would be certainly worth it!