#highly recommend the series! its so fun

[wet-toast-slime]

do not get me started on talking about nexomon because i will not shut up, i have so many thoughts about this series

[palilious]

Happy to share the official art for Escaped Audio's series The New Jersey Rats!

[goldenblueomens]

and if i use my masters in creative writing to rewrite my favourite book from when i was 11 what then

[transgaysex]

lately ive been feeling a little disillusioned with my 3d animation course because ive been getting some rough and unfun projects (mainly those involving after effects, which is the bane of my existence) and also ive had a teammate that straight up made me consider failing a class so i wouldnt share the class with him again next semester and onwards. but today for an assignment i had to follow an online tutorial to learn how to model a human face and it was by far the most fun ive had this semester. i cant wait until i get to do more of that

[koushirouizumi]

{Syo} ~ [Rai Rai All * R i g h t]

[theheadlessgroom]

@beatingheart-bride

Dorian made a face at her description, though he certainly couldn't fault her for it-she was right, every step of the planning process was just another stone in the path leading her to being shackled to that monster for the rest of her days...

It honestly made him shudder, imagining this woman, whom he happily considered a dear friend, this bright, vivacious, kind, free-spirited woman, doomed to a life being married to Pennyworth, having to bear him heirs (who would no doubt grow up to be horrid little brats like their father), forever chained to him, unable to escape...

...it was enough to make his blood boil, but he at least took solace in the fact that they were changing that.

In an effort to turn the conversation towards something happier and lighter, he asked her in genuine interest, "What do you see, in yours and Randall's futures, I mean. Would you like to work at his haberdashery with him, would you like to have children together, would you like to travel and see more of the country...anything of that sort, or...something else entirely?"

[diobrando]

watching bnha bc its genuinely entertaining to see how such mediocre media thrives in the modern age of anime

[umbreonwolfy]

🎶✨️when u get this u have to put 5 songs u actually listen to, publish. Then, send this ask to 10 of your favorite followers (non-negotiable, positivity is cool)🎶✨️

Okay. I'm gonna put my top 5 from the On Repeat playlist that Spotify generates.

Literally obsessed with all of these haha. Very much shows almost all of my interests in one go too.

[vesperaink]

Friends, my necromancer!Tango/grimreaper!Jimmy, Team Rancher modern with magic apocalypse AU, Graveyard Shift, for @mcytblraufest's Reverse Big Bang is here!

But wait there's more--go read chasing crimson written by @aliferous-ly, beta'd by @dibs2win, my fantastic team for aufest. If you love enemies to lovers, unlikely partnerships, and the power of soul-bound magic weapon contracts, this hilarious + dramatic 22.9k fic kicks off from this comic!

chasing crimson

Jimmy Solidarity works for the esteemed god of Death, reaping lost souls and taking care of unsavory characters. He's recently finished his training, and is determined to do well on his first solo mission. Perhaps this "Tango" would be a good start. Only, the god of Death disappeared years ago, and Necromancer Tango Tek's long since discovered a way around dying. He can't say he enjoys Jimmy swinging through and killing him where he stands, though.

Thank you to my team for being as feral about this AU as I am, and kicking everything about it up to 110. I had so much developing this world with them!

Thanks to @onawhimsicot for helping me with the comic's dialogue, fixing my composition woes with "just add more smoke," and encouraging me to complete it in full color! Check out Cadence's aufest fic, I take it back (ill follow till I fly or till im dead), a Cult of the Lamb AU about follower!Tango and Lamb!Zedaph, the meaning of devotion, silly experiments, eldritch transformations, and...the most platonic slowburn ever?

Lastly, thank you to the aufest team for another wonderful event! I had a blast again, and was giggling kicking my feet at everyone's reactions during claims, I loved every single one of them. Graveyard Shift is definitely an AU I'm coming back to. As always, my askbox is open if you'd like to chat, and I'd love to be tagged if anyone makes anything <3

Timelapse / AU art chatter under the cut!

While Graveyard Shift is the amalgamation of many of my interests, the main premise for this AU is loosely inspired by the webcomic, I'm the Grim Reaper, in both its apocalypse themes and its aesthetics! Not a required read, but highly recommend if you enjoy this au, as well as the anime and manga, Soul Eater!

I came up with a lot of AUs for this event but necromancer!Tango and reaper!Jimmy have been rattling around in my brain in separate AUs since before I started brainstorming for aufest. So I smashed them together, naturally.

(Unfortunately I didn't record all of my process, but most of it is here! CW for flashing; song is Angel of Small Death and the Codeine Scene by Hozier)

I could go on forever about concept art and character design if anyone's curious but here's some fun bonus details about this comic:

Originally, Tango's outfit was going to be more like his Dungeon Master outfit but I wanted the setting to be more modern and Jimmy stole the fantasy cloak vibe from him already lol

Jimmy's entrance of lightning is my nod to the Life Series final death sound

The scarf Jimmy's wearing is designed to be a boneyard shawl

The panel of strange text reads "Protection Three" in Galactic :)

+ The name "Graveyard Shift" was thrown at me by Cadence in like 3 seconds flat after i spent 2 days agonizing over a name for this au LOL

[identifying-cars-in-posts]

A long overdue update:

Hi everyone. Long time no see. I literally have not opened Tumblr since the last time I posted here. Hope everyone is doing ok. Figured I owed y’all an apology and explanation for kinda just vanishing.

First, I did in fact get a car! It’s a 2015 Nissan Versa Note. I don’t particularly like it but a friend gave me a deal on it that I couldn’t turn down. Once my life stabilizes I’m probably going to sell it and buy an old truck, maybe a 70s Ford. I’d love a little sports car or a land yacht but rear wheel drive is a bit impractical for brutal New England winters, and the Jeep really put me in Old American Truck Mode. But yes I have a car now!

Second, unfortunately this is an official notice of hiatus. When I last posted saying I was taking some time off it was because I had just had an incredibly stressful move and did not have the energy to keep this blog up. I figured I’d take some time to get settled in, relax, and then pick this back up after a week or two, but the last month has been really rough - the short version is one of the people I was living with turned out to be a pretty horrendous human being who managed to get everybody living in the house essentially kicked out via sheer drama. Within a month and a half. It’s a long story but tl:dr if you quite literally slander a property manager with heavy unfounded accusations of horrible crimes, they’ll probably bail from the whole situation. And since they’re gone the landlord has to hand ownership of everything over to a company that’s forcing everyone still here to vacate. I’m now fighting to not have to live in aforementioned Nissan Versa through the aforementioned brutal New England winter. On top of that, I’m a retail manager so we’re going into our busiest most stressful season, so that’s been an extra level of exhaustion.

So what does that mean for this blog? Well, as I said, I’m officially going on indefinite hiatus, as are the projects I was working on in relation, including the reference website. I’m really sorry, I’m just way too stressed and dealing with way too much. If I could, I would just hand off administrative power to someone else, but this is a sideblog so I can’t hand off login credentials without also giving access to my main/personal account. It’s my biggest regret of this account, but when I started it I never expected it to blow up the way it did back in September - I had no reason to expect to need it to be its own entirely separate blog. I love what I was doing here and I thought that it might even be a nice distraction from everything going on, but the upkeep required with this blog is just more than I can deal with right now. I hope that things settle down soon and that I can genuinely come back here and enjoy what I was doing, but I just need literally anything to level out in my real life and to not be in 100% survival mode, because at the moment I literally do not have the energy to pour into this.

Anyway. Sorry for the long post, I’m not good at not being overly verbose. I’m really sorry for kind of abandoning this project, and I hope I can get back to it relatively soon, it just might be a while.

In the mean time, I hope those of y’all who I turned onto cars as a potential hobby find some other good outlets! I highly recommend Donut Media’s series “Up to Speed” on YouTube, as well as the channels Regular Car Reviews, Doug DeMuro, Garbage Time, and Aging Wheels. All great YouTube channels that are both informative and very approachable and fun.

Godspeed and much love. Hope to see y’all soon

- Identifying Cars in Posts admin ❤️

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL - Must you, Japan? has become Thank You, Japan

Organized, in each category, with ones I'm enjoying most at the top.

BL OLYMPICS! Week 3

This is my last week of passing out metals in various sporting events, as part of the weekly updates.

Aug 2024 Week 2

Ongoing Series - Thai

Century of Love (Weds Gaga) eps 9-10fin - There were a lot more unnecessary dramatic speeches than there was practical medical aid being administered. Very extra, boys. I wonder how long it took them to get that "birds meet hug" shot? Meanwhile, great grandpa‘s attitude that he knows best in every way is thoroughly annoying, and yet absolutely appropriate to his age. My great gramps (RIP), had he had the body of a 20-year-old, would behave in exactly the same self-righteous know-it-all way. The doctor is great. I would like him to get his own romance please? What happens when you are the villain in someone else's reincarnation story? There's a whole fanfic there. And yes I cried. I am a sap for this kinda thing.

Final thoughts:

This is a great little show about a young man who fell in love with a pretty girl 100 years ago, and when she died in his arms, he was cursed to live until he could meet her reborn self. Only this time around, she’s reborn into the body of a man. I love it when Thailand gets all up in its own historical business and reincarnation and shizz. I like this pair (it’s not DaouOffroad’s fault I didn’t enjoy most of their first series.) Daou’s wushu is pretty snazzy and we got a fun meet cute. (Erm... Remeet cute? Meet cute 2.0?) Plus this is a very PRETTY show. Despite some ham handed comedy moments, this ultimately has more in common with something like I Feel You Linger in the Air meets First Love Again, then (as one might expect) Until We Meet Again or The Director Who Buys Me Dinner. The leads turned in great performances, although Daou outclassed everybody else on that screen. It’s a good story and a great BL. I’m not sure this is going in my rewatch rotation, but I can’t find any major faults with it beyond a certain level of camp that is sadly endemic to lackorns. Also I’m going to give it credit as the kind of BL that one could safely recommend to lovers of melodrama and historical romance, without having to qualify it as “good for a BL.” It was, to put it succinctly, simply a VERY ENJOYABLE show. 

Under those auspices I really can’t give it anything less than a 9/10. 

Bronze in Fencing

My Love Mix-Up Th (Fri YT) ep 10 of 12 - It’s cute. They were cute. I enjoyed it a lot. I talk quite a bit about why they're using nai as a you pronoun here:

This Love Doesn't Have Long Beans (Fri iQIYI) ep 6 of 8 - Honestly the side couple is truly stellar in this show. I wasn’t sure about them at first but now I absolutely love them. Not sure how they are going to resolve such intense dislike (from JJ) by the end of the series. But I’m interested to see them try.

Meanwhile, there isn’t anything else airing right now that makes me laugh as much as the behind-the-scenes from this show. Highly recommended.

Monster Next Door (Thai Thurs Gaga ) eps 1-2 of 12 - Oh it is so much fun. I’m particularly delighted that our musician is a drummer and I don’t have to listen to him sing... I hope. I’ve been waiting for Big to lead a BL forever. I’m disposed to enjoy this. We can all be confident in one thing, the kisses are going to be great. I like the side couple too, very indulgent daddy. While I am disturbed by the tortoise in the tiny tank, I love the extrovert friendship group. They remind me of my own college crew. It is a cute premise, but I will need them to actually be together in the same room, looking longingly at each other a smooching within the next couple of episodes.

YouTube served me both episodes 1 & 2, and I don’t think it was meant to. So this may be next week's review as well.

The Trainee (Sun YouTube) ep 6 of 12 - I wasn’t wild about this ep or where this show is going. But I enjoyed the language play. 

Gold in Linguistic Gymnastics

(my new favorite sport)

Sunset X Vibes (Sat iQIYI) ep 9 of 12 - Wow. Sam admitted it just out loud like that! Right after a betrayal? Balls on that boy. Worked on Yo tho. Too well, actually. I wish Yo had made him suffer and dragged him over the coals for a while. But I guess Yo really really likes him back. Meanwhile, the GL side plot also moved quite rapidly. A lot happened in this episode.

I Saw You in My Dream (Weds Gaga) ep 4 of 12 - Them ALL jumping into the water was totally ridiculous. It’s still a little slow, because it is a pulp, but I’m rather enjoying it.

Knock Knock Boys (Thurs Gaga) ep 12fin - Almond and Latte were cute. The breakfast with the four of them was funny. I did laugh a lot. Almond getting "first time" advice from his two resident gay dads (or at least trying to) was super sweet. Also I got a lot of smiley kisses. Nice final ep.

Ultimately how do I feel about this show?

A story about 4 boys of differing personalities who end up living together and pair up, falling in love. Slow moving and waffling, with some artificially generated family drama makes this a classic Thai pulp except that in general it's a smiley kiss of a show. It had plenty of good qualities like great communication and sexual rep (including toys, first time, safe sex, and sexual identities). The heat levels were on point and well executed, and the performances were good. It’s just that the script and the directing were lackluster, rendering it ultimately forgettable. Still, fine on a rainy afternoon with some camomile tea or whatever. 7/10 

Love Sea (Sun iQIYI) ep 9 of 10 - I’m getting some sort of PTSD from this show, It is making me feel like I’m the problem. Trash watch

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

Cosmetic Playlover (Japan Tues Gaga) eps 1-2 of 8 - Anyone surprised by this jump in the standings? Yeah, probubly not. Anygay... this show is GREAT. Warped af but great. Lemme try to explain.

I actually said out loud during ep 1, "Well this is boundary pushing." By which I mean mine and everybody elses. But it’s Japan, *checks watch* it’s about time they turned out something edging into unpalatable and kinky. And because it’s Japan, I’m more forgiving than I would be were this show nested in the clumsy hands of say... Thailand. So actually this being me, and me being of questionable taste, I’m enjoying this show a lot.

You want me to list the ways? Sure.

Younger seme with grabby hands.

The younger one identified the elder gay as his personal property and it’s now: single motivation, on target, against all odds.

Uke cares about his work and not much else.

Seme cares about the uke and not much else.

Uke is gonna make this boy WORK for it.

That one particularly Japanese style of obsession that I actually adore.

Passes the sniff test!

I’m being reminded of that KBL Love Mate. Which I believe I enjoyed but no one else did. For exactly this set of tropes. Only Japan is better suited to handle them. For me this is a case of:

Must you,Japan? = Oh yes? Well, thank you very much, Japan.  

I Hear the Sunspot AKA Hidamari ga Kikoeru (Japan Weds Gaga) ep 8 of 10 - enter the evil girl character. Yawn.

Takara's Treasure AKA Takara No Vidro (Japan Mon Gaga) ep 6 of 10 - It is what it is. 

It's airing but...

Battle of the Writers (Sun YT) ep 2 of 12 - I did not catch ep 2 before they took it down from USA YT. I don’t know why it’s down. Either they got a deal for distribution off YouTube or there’s some sort of scandal. Frankly, I wasn't particularly impressed with ep 1 so I’m not rabid to find wherever it’s gone or why. Still, perhaps someone will let us know the sitch in a comment? It's a me problem. I'm figuring it out.

Sugar Dog Life (Japan Sun ????) 10 eps - OMG a uni student who looks too young and a... COP. GAH. The subversion and kink of it all. Why can't I find it? Do I have to go grey?

4 Minutes (Thai Netflix/Grey) - A rich boy at uni suddenly gains the supernatural power to see four minutes into the future. I have a source, but I've decided to hold off and binge if it ends okay, since it's only 8 eps. I depend upon y'all to tell me if it's safe.

Meet You at the Blossom (China) - it's your funeral (or, more likely, one of the main characters'). You can argue but... statistics. You know my feelings on this matter. MY BLOG, remember?

In case you missed it

The Time of Fever AKA Unintentional Love Story 2 (Korea movie) trailer IS COMING IN SEPTEMBER!!!! (Yeah this is gonna sit here until then)

Next Week Looks Like This:

Ooo, nice spread.

Upcoming BLs for 2024 are listed here. This list is not kept updated, so please leave a comment if you know something new or RP with additions.

Still Coming This Month!

8/12 First Note Of Love (Taiwan Mon Gaga) 12 eps - About a singer with stage fright and his timid fan stars Charles (H4 the puppy one) and Michael Chang (the youngster in My Tooth Your Love), plus side couple featuring a Thai actor Jame (Koh in Gen Y) and Liu Min Ting (of Guardian fame). What a damn tean. I can't wait. With thier powers combined!

8/13 Addicted Heroin (Thai Tues YT) 10 eps - supposedly Jinlo with air this on their YT channel. Stars August (Love Sick) so I'm excited despite Jinlo's poor reputation. From the trailer it looks like it's following the original pretty closely... just Thai style. GIMMEEEEE!!!!

8/16 The Last Time (Thai Fri YT) ? eps - Convoluted story of loss and possible reincarnation or something.

8/22 The On1y One (Taiwan Thurs Gaga) 12 eps - announced in 2023 this one has a high school set stepbrothers trope and is reputed to be high heat. From Taiwan! It's made for me. Based on a novel Mou Mou from the Your Name Engraved Herein folks, so it could go dark. Still, I'm very excited.

8/22 The Paradise of Thorns (Thai movie) theater release - Jeff Satur is back but this does not look like a BL (the gay lover's death is the inciting event). More in Goodbye Mother vein. Looks dark and dramatic. He opposite and extremely well known actor Toey Pongsakorn who has never done gay before.

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENT

Linguistic flirting trope! One of my all time favorites. FANTASTIC. (I did keep hearing Gun yelling Papiiiiiii! in my head tho.)

(Last week)

Streaming services are listed by how I (usually) watch, which is with a USA based IP, and often offset by a day because time zones are a pain.

The tag BLigade: @doorajar @solitaryandwandering @my-rose-tinted-glasses @babymbbatinygirl @babymbbatinygirl @isisanna-blog @mmastertheone @pickletrip @aliceisathome @urikawa-miyuki @tokillamonger @sunflower-positiiivity @rocketturtle4 @blglplus @anythinggoesintheshire @everlightly @renafire @mestizashinrin @bl-bam-beyond @small-dark-and-delicious @saezurumurmurs

Sigh, Tumblr in its infinite wisdom doesn't like too many tags.

[lilac-nites]

List of Lolita Resources

Someone in my comm encouraged me to make this list of resources for new lolitas. We were talking about how hard it can be to find information from Google search and there's just so much misinformation out there. I have a list of links that I've bookmarked and read over the past decade for when I finally become a lolita. I organized the list by sections in a specific order. It goes from information about the fashion and then to where to buy it.

To any new lolitas, there is so much information out there about lolita fashion that is still available. Part of the fun for me was researching the fashion, looking at coords, and learning what makes lolita lolita. There's so much information out there for you to immerse yourself in and even more stuff that's not listed in this resource list.

What is Lolita Fashion

Fyeah Lolita - This is my favorite blog and I still go back and read it. The last post was made in 2016 and the fashion has changed a lot since then, but it's pretty comprehensive and provides a good base knowledge. Imo, I think these articles (1 2 3 4) are required reading for anyone entering the fashion Lolita Fashion 101 - Bay Area Kei did several videos on lolita fashion during lockdowns. I recommend them for anyone that prefers video format. Raine Dragon's Lolita 101 series - Raine is a lolita that still updates her blog and has a lot of information on the history of lolita fashion. And she has a really great article on Chinese indie brands that should also be required reading for anyone new to using Taobao.

Costs of Lolita Manufacturing - One of the first things you'll notice is that lolita can be expensive. This resource breaks down the costs associated with manufacturing and why brands charge what they charge.

Substyles of Lolita Fashion

The below links are for the three basic styles of lolita fashion. If you research more, you'll find that there are different directions that you can take your wardrobe, but I recommend starting with one of the three above to make it easier for to build your wardrobe. Classic Lolita Sweet Lolita Gothic Lolita

Where to get Lolita Fashion

Before even buying anything, you will need a tape measure to take your measurements. You'll need to measure your bust, waist, hips, and shoulder width in centimeters. That's how you will find out which clothes will fit you. Sizing can be different from brand to brand and country to country. I know many are used to buying using letter sizes, but it's best to go by actual measurements. Aim to buy clothes that are 4 - 6cm larger than your actual measurements to allow room for breathing/eating/etc. If you're brand new to the fashion, I highly recommend sticking to the sources listed in the videos below. It's very easy to get scammed if you don't know what to look for and I'd hate for anyone to lose their money on barely wearable clothes from Amazon/Ebay/Aliexpress. Where to Buy Lolita FashionHow to shop for Lolita Fashion online - secondhand is life for lolita fashion and there are so many options. PinkFakeFlowers goes in depth into the many ways to get it. I personally recommend 42lolita for anyone looking to buy from Chinese brands on Taobao.

Plus Size Lolita

Unfortunately, many of the Japanese brands and even some Chinese indie brands are not size inclusive. If you can't fit into the mainstream brands, don't worry there are still options. I always recommend Meta since they have a Plus Size and occasionally a Plus Plus size of their dresses and blouses that goes up to 160cm or even 200cm in some releases. Plus Size Lolita Crash Course Where to Start as a Plus Sized Lolita - This is a wonderful resource listing brands that are size inclusive.

Online Spaces for Lolita Fashion

Lolita fashion is pretty spread out now compared to the EGL (still recommend reading livejournal because its a cool time capsule of the lolita comm) days, but there are still groups on Facebook. BSoLF - Great for beginners to ask questions and be helped by others. It's hard to search here but I recommend looking through the group for info. Your Local Comm (if applicable) - most are still on Facebook even if they still have a Discord. You can search for your local one on this list.

More Resources for New Lolitas

Lolita Tips for New Lolitas Three helpful tips for coordinating an outfit Lolita Tips Tumblr - I don't recommend Fanplusfriend anymore, but 42lolita is a good replacement. This tumblr is a great resource for inspo and there are many answered asks to reference. Unfortunately, polyvore is no longer a thing and many pictures are missing as a result.

Bonus

These are just a mishmash of links to resources/lists/blog that I like. Lolita Collective

Lolita youtubers ask

Lolita tumblrs ask 20dollarlolita and her post on replicas

More plus size lolita brands ask Japanese Wikipedia entry for Lolita fashion and list of brands

Azuki Mikan

Buttcape

Old School Lolita

[identifying-cat-phenotypes]

hihihi!! i LOVE LOVE LOVE cat genetics. where did you learn all you know about phenotypes?

hmm a lot of places! also, dont think i dont know who you are LMAOO jellyfish haii

my first foray into the world of cat genetics was probably this kitten generator on perchance! I just messed around with it for a while, trying to get my cat as a result, but eventually started actually experimenting with it! it is still incomplete, if anyone visits it, but its a good place to get the very basic foundations down.

i'd also suggest whatcoloristhatcat and felinefractus for their thoughts and cat genetics work! They do good stuff, and I've learned a lot from their thoughts on various cats, cat breeding as a whole, and some fun trivia! Good blogs, highly recommend them both!

Another resource I, and plenty of others, recommend is Sparrow's Garden! I don't really have much else to say on it, it's just a good resource.

I do suggest Messybeast for some basic stuff, but not as a resource for EVERYTHING they do on their site. It's good for basics and corrections, but you should not use this site as your only source. Research more about what they talk about, and don't take everything at face value.

and lastly, this simple overview of it all! the series by little hungry warrior on youtube! it was more of a refresher for me, but the present the information in such a way that stuck. It's a good way to get into the most basic and common cat genetics you'd see in your day-to-day life.

AGAIN, WE (me and Jay) ARE HOBBYISTS! I do not make 100% accurate claims sometimes! I learn from others, and my own research! please correct me when i make a mistake, and that includes information about resources I link! <3

signed, mod robin! hbu, mod jay?

Hi! I’m a lot newer into cat genetics than robin, but my first real foray into cat genetics was a series of images called ‘families for the warrior cats fan who doesn’t want to learn genetics’, about 2 years ago. it was really simplistic and doesn’t go into stuff like silver, smoke and rufousing, so it’s probably not the most helpful thing. (oh hey, i know this person! they help work on a silly Warriors redux i read! its good, check it out if you're a warrior cats fan! -robin)

HOWEVER. the most helpful thing for me (that actually got me interested in genetics) was the clangen mod genemod. It’s super helpful for looking at how genotypes affect phenotypes, and what each phenotype looks like without any influencing factors.

mod robin has pretty much covered everything else i might have linked though; but i’m seconding little hungry warriors youtube series! helpful to learn both the basics and the more complex stuff in a very digestible format !

🫡 - mod jay

[evidenceof]

Winnix Country, I'll take you there.

Winnix fic recs finally! I clawed through pages 1-61 on AO3 and then scoured through Dreamwidth because I just need this ship injected into my brain.

Just so we're all aligned, I'm very much into "Classic" Winnix. And while generally I do still read AUs, much of what I keep close are the ones that are entrenched in, before, and after the war. Still enjoy a bit of the supernatural though. So please forgive the lack of non-WWII AUs. :') Ok onward.

Note: All links in blue are restricted to logged-in AO3 users! So hopefully you have an account so you can read some gold.

5+1 tag

The Way I Wear Your Hat by Muccamukk - I will consume anything Mucca writes and live in it for at least two weeks.

Let Me Be Close by armyofbees - So tooth achingly sweet, tender in post-war. Nix combing Dick's hair? I'm so.

I'm Alright Now You're Here by @stopstopstopit - A.k.a. Dick and Nix going, "Was I truly that blind???" about each other and everyone in Easy Company saying, "Yeah." So good, so, so fun. Giggled like a maniac all throughout.

Pre-War

Before the World Begins by rilla (@flomps)- The first time I read this, I cried. Then again the second, third, fourth, etc. Lew and Dick meet in NY before Benning, before everything, and it's under very different circumstances. I love the characterization of Nix and Dick in this so much and the gentleness in the midst of all the smut. A TALENT!

Lancaster County by rachelelpillo - Technically not pre-war because this is an AU where it happens without them. It's bittersweet, but emphasis on the sweet. Teenage Dick and Nix and a whole summertime of falling in love.

Bicostal by dancinguniverse - I am a sucker for anything that starts at OCS. I love this and the telegrams and letters tucked within it.

Wartime

Bird Wedding by rachelelpillo - The way she writes anything really sounds like a summer day to me. This one is very understated and just wonderful if you want something that leaves you smiling. (Highly recommend you go through her work, last she posted was in 2010. :') )

And at Your Touch, I Burn by Muccamukk- CHRIST. A SICK!FIC. God I love this for so many reasons, one of them being just the incredible way Mucca describes the field exercise, the crawl and length of it. And Dick getting sick. Nix doing what he does. It's wonderful. It's perfect.

Vampire Overhead! by joissant - There's a little Vampire!Nix AU for you. In the midst of Bastogne and hunger, there is this and it's fucking fantastic.

love divine, all loves excelling by @flanneryoconnorfanfiction - The way my heart soared all throughout this fic. Religion, for many reasons is often the point of friction for Dick, and this one turns it over its head. It's reverent and (so) joyful and honestly, probably what God should feel like. There are not enough kudos-es in the world.

Post-War

Head Trip by @ezlebe - Two lines from this fic ring in my head daily, that's how much I loved every bit of it. And I mean who isn't a sucker for Operation Varsity-adjacent fics? Harry's in this so it's automatically just extra wonderful for me. I LOVE!! I absolutely love.

Like a Bird on the Wire by semperama - Them coming home without an established relationship is always a trope enjoy. Blanche Nixon is here being cheeky, and Dick is all smiley, Lewis is stressed the fuck out. It all makes for a wonderful get-together.

More than a Team by @mercurygray - I love reading about Ann Winters and I love seeing Nix and Dick navigate those familial relationships after the war. This is short and so, so sweet. Every bit as wonderful as the ice cream.

thyme and rosemary by @oatflatwhite - Yet another one where Ann Winters makes a wonderful cameo. Dick is trying not to be miserable and he keeps writing all these unsent letters to Lew. Featuring the cutest kitten ever.

Series

What Things We Have Heard Together by joissant (4 works) - Quite possibly required reading for Winnix enthusiasts. Feels like such a gift to be able to thread through so many points in their relationship and everyone else tangled in their orbit.

Winnix from the POV of other people Oh my god I love outsiders-looking in fics of the two of them.

Transcript by Corvid Cordelia - LISTEN. If you love Easy Company, you love Winnix, Webgott, Spierton, etc, they're all here. It's such a treat for people who fell in love with everyone's personalities in BoB.

Women in Conversation by shiveringpinkala - Ann Winters tries to surprise her brother and it doesn't go quite as planned. Blanche is in this too so it makes it extra delightful. Love this fic.

Entendre by @thrillingdetectivetales - Harry Welsh has no fucking clue what Buck Compton is implying about Winters and Nixon but he's gonna find out. Again, I love Harry Welsh with all of me.

A special mention to String Quartet No. 14 by @oatflatwhite for a HS AU that had me kicking my feet and smiling all the way to the very last word.

If you have similar favorites, PLEASE LET'S TALK ABOUT THEM. There's still a lot I'd like to re-read and revisit so this will highly likely be updated in the future. I'd love to hear your favorites too. <3

[pookie-mulder]

July 2024 fic roundup

Here are the highlights from this month! I really love doing these. It helps me be more engaged with what I’m reading and actually remember individual fics once I’m done with them (rather than stuffing them in the collective “fic soup” in my brain, where they’ll combine together until there’s no hope of remembering details). Anyway, I highly recommend doing some sort of fic journal! I’d love to know what you guys are reading.

🦆👧 Temporum VI by Emily_M1013

This is the third installment of a wonderful Emily AU, The Mallards series. I love how it puts its own spin on canon events, and I’m delighted every time I see an update in my inbox!

🤫🪪 Snakebitten by @onpaperfirst

My favorite thing about this fic is the way it adds to canon without rehashing what we’ve already seen in the show, building on season 5 so seamlessly. (The motel scene is 👌)

👰‍♀️🤵‍♂️yesterday’s future by @thursdayinspace

This fic answers the question I posed in this post: What if Mulder and Scully got married right after William was born? I loved it so much! The angst and the longing and the overwhelming love were just perfect.

👓😩 spectacular by @thursdayinspace

Scully has a thing for Mulder in glasses. Mulder has a think for Scully in glasses. They bang about it. (And who can blame them, really?)

🌳☕️ Suncadia by @sisterspooky1013

A banger from the great sisterspooky! It’s a casefic set in the weird post-Millennium era where they kiss sometimes but haven’t established the terms of their relationship yet. Pining and yearning abound!

🏥👰‍♀️ Something blue (and something pink) by @sunflowernyx

Mulder and Scully get married during the cancer arc. It’s sweet, angsty, adorable, and tender. I thoroughly enjoyed it!

🐶🪤 A Change of Seasons by Jo-Ann Lassiter

Still making my way through @lilydalexf’s survival fic recs! This one is a one-shot; perfect for when you want a bit of hurt/comfort without all the peril and drama.

🌨️🌲 Frozen by @dashakay

Classic, cozy, cabin-in-the-woods fic where our two favorite agents get snowed in and finally admit their feelings for each other.

🏥👻 Finding Rokovoko by prufrockslove

An instant addition to my holy grail list! This is the first fic I’ve read by this legendary author (I think?), and BOY HOWDY do I see why they’re so revered. I finished this fic in one sitting, reading late into the night (yes, I was very tired at work the next day).

I think it’s best if you go into this one mostly blind. All you need to know is that MSR are teetering on the knife’s edge between UST and RST, there’s plenty of cancer arc angst, and they go on a spooky adventure that will give you the creepy crawlies.

📝📱 Belphegor’s Prime by prufrockslove

Another absolute banger from the legend themselves. This fic is as close to perfection as humanly possible. The way everything comes together is just incredible. If you haven’t read it yet, do it now! Shirk all other responsibilities and devour this fic in one sitting!

One of my favorite things about this fic is how ruthless Mulder is. I don’t think I’ve encountered a version of him quite like this anywhere else. His intense love for his family and his innate sense of duty are intensified to the point where he skirts the boundaries of what’s morally acceptable. He’s so desperate to protect his loved ones and fix the world that he will do anything, even if he risks becoming his father(s). It felt so organic and natural for him to become that version of himself under the extreme circumstances.

Anyway, if you’re a fan of time travel, DILFs, or characters whose greatest strengths become a curse, this is the perfect fic for you!

🎪🎡 More Than a Feeling by @sisterspooky1013

A s6 casefic where M&S go undercover at a traveling carnival. I love how fleshed-out the OCs were — it really raised the stakes of the story and made you care what happened to them. Such a fun read!

🐞🩺 Inspection by @ingridgradient

Our favorite agents use tick checks as an excuse to touch each other. Need I say more? Things get hot! (Thanks for the rec, @is-on-its-way!)

P.S. If you like this one, check out let’s have a look by girlfromnowhere (thanks for finding it for me, @randomfoggytiger!)

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿✝️ Hiraeth by prufrockslove

This is one of those fics that leaves you gobsmacked that someone wrote this for free and posted it online for anyone to enjoy. The amount of detail in this story is truly unbelievable. I don’t even normally like total AUs, but this one won me over!

Mulder and Scully’s medieval counterparts are so far removed from anything in canon, yet they still feel exactly like the characters we know and love. This fic is an absolute master class in characterization. I am now a prufrockslove stan account.

———

Special shoutout to @skelavender’s latest installment of fall into place, which isn’t out yet but I had the pleasure of beta reading. Guys, you are in for some serious shrimp emotions. It’s got everything you could ever want. I can’t wait until everyone gets to see how awesome it is!

[nias-nook]

Bill Cipher and The Unicorn in Captivity

Soooo, I haven't been looking at Bill related posts much since the book dropped as I have mixed feelings on what TBOB and the subsequent site have revealed about him, his motives, his backstory etc., but (and maybe someone beat me to this) one thing I haven't seen anyone talk about yet is this,

So maybe I'm stating the obvious here, but this is The Unicorn Rests in a Garden, also known as The Unicorn in Captivity. This piece was a part of The Unicorn Tapestries. Its origins are shrouded in mystery and super interesting but I'm not really gonna touch on that here.

Now there is something to be said about how this one piece, and the rest of the tapestries tie to Bill. I'll briefly go over what the tapestry meant when it was made then dive into what contemporary interpretations of the piece say about Bill and his fundamental inability to redeem himself.

Also just want to establish before we get into this that I am...Not a scholar when it comes to this stuff. I just happened to recognise this tapestry and its symbolism when it dropped on the website and had to put my thoughts somewhere. I might add more later if I've forgotten anything, which I probably have.

Given this was a piece made in Europe in the Middle Ages, it's perhaps unsurprising that a lot of interpretations of it are biblical, but we can (mostly) safely assume Hirsch isn't going for a Christ allegory here. Then again, maybe he's going for nothing and all of this is pointless.

What is a little interesting in the wake of TBOB is its ties to marriage.

These tapestries are heavily theorised to have been made to celebrate a wedding, and their comparisons of love and marriage to a hunt that inevitably leads to the imprisonment and taming of your lover. Of course, Bill quite literally suggests this method in the book with The Love Cage that he uses in Weirdmageddon, but there's a million 'Billford is canon' posts out there so let's table that as it's pretty self-explanatory. Bill and Ford have been hunting each other for decades and Bill imprisons him in a so-called 'Love Cage' to try and convince Ford to be his 'partner' (be it platonic or romantic). This is what a victory in a relationship is to him.

What I'd like to focus on is the modern interpretation of The Unicorn in Captivity as a self-imposed prison.

"Look at that little unicorn! The beatific smile. He's happy now. He gets to live in a beautiful garden."

"Yeah, in a cage."

"A protective barrier. No one's hunting him anymore. Nor can he hurt anyone with that horn of his."

This summary of the piece is taken from the aptly titled Unicorn in Captivity from another animated series, The Venture Bros. (which, by the way, if you're looking for another show that's a whimsical and fun riff on 80s pop culture with a big mystery element, highly recommend), but this of course isn't the first piece of media to portray it this way. the most notable being The Unicorn in Captivity poem by Anne Morrow Lindbergh.

The unicorn is, on the surface, a prisoner. The Theraprism that Bill is now trapped in is a place he longs to escape, but that's the thing, isn't it?

He could escape any time he wanted to.

He could slip his head From the jewelled noose So lightly tied - If he tried, As a maid could loose The belt from her side; He could slip the bond So lightly tied - If he tried.

Bill, like the unicorn, is trapping himself more than the Theraprism is trapping him, but his situation isn't to be pitied, it's karmic justice. What's so satisfying about Bill's eventual comeuppance is that he's the one making himself suffer. The only thing Bill needs to do to escape is to admit he was wrong, to stop revelling in the suffering of others, but...Well, he chooses not to.

For all of his guilt about his parents and his so-called 'dark and troubled past', Bill has never regretted a single person he's hurt since. He didn't regret taking over the world, he regretted being caught. He didn't regret hurting Ford, he regretted losing him. Bill will probably be doomed to wallow in the Theraprism for all eternity, cursing his situation and blaming everyone else for his inevitable downfall. An overgrown child who once had too much power and lost it all throwing a tantrum for the ages.

But now he can't hurt anyone with that horn of his.