#i don't know if i have to write a thesis

[swordsofsaturn]

early seasons spn homophobia is actually so crazy because they literally do not look gay. hamfisted gay jokes when the characters look straight as hell. "you look the type" they literally don't. is the thing

[scificrows]

Okay, my brain refuses to think about anything other than Murderbot, so I looked at every use of the word "friend[s]" in TMBD and... created some pie charts. Normal human activities.

Some Thoughts™ I had while putting this together (under the cut):

In All Systems Red, Murderbot notes that the PresAux crew are all close friends (twice! and goes on to explain their internal relationships which I think is very cute). This is pretty much the only use of 'friends' in ASR, except for when Murderbot says that SecUnits can't be friends with each other.

It seems that this may be one of the first times Murderbot has ever really been around a group of friends before? Murderbot notes that this is not the norm for its contracts and admits that the fact that they are all friends and the way they interact with each other make it actually enjoy that contract (before!!!! the hostile attack, so it already enjoys this contract before they start seeing it as a person etc ghghhhh). [Inference: Friendship seems enjoyable.]

The first character that calls Murderbot its friend is ART in Artificial Condition. Murderbot immediately refutes this (and then goes on to call ART its friend to its clients for the rest of the book). [Inference: Maybe ART is Murderbot's friend. And maybe that is... agreeable]

Rogue Protocol has more than twice as many instances of the word 'friend' as any of the other novellas. Why? Miki. Friendship and its implications for non-humans are a central theme because Miki is friends with everyone. Murderbot initially scoffs at the notion that Miki and Miki's humans are friends. At the end of the book, after witnessing how desperately Don Abene tried to stop Miki from trying to save them, and her grief after its death, Murderbot has to admit that she had in fact been Miki's friend. [Inference: Humans can be friends with bots and can sincerely care about them]

In Exit Strategy, Murderbot tentatively uses the word "friends" for its humans for the first time (several times actually). It questions whether it can actually call them its friends or not and later realizes that it had been afraid what admitting that the humans are its friends would do to it. At the end of the book, Mensah tells Murderbot the PresAux crew are its friends, which is the first time a human has directly said that to it (at least on-page). [Inference: Humans can and want to be Murderbot's friends]

In Network Effect, Murderbot seems to be more habituated to the word 'friend', confidently calling ART and Ratthi its friends, like it is no longer just trying the concept on unsure if it fits. There are many instances in which other characters refer to MB as ART's friend or the other way around and Murderbot's humans refer to Murderbot as their friend several times. Generally, there seems to be less hesitancy, because yes, all of them are Murderbot's friends, why wouldn't they be. [Inference: SecUnits can have friends. This SecUnit has friends. They care about it a lot.]

Conclusion: The Murderbot Diaries tell the story of a construct that does not seem to consider the possibility of friendship for itself and is fine with that - until it accidentally starts caring a little too much and suddenly more and more people annex it as a friend (ew) to the point where it can no longer deny that this is happening and has to begrudgingly admit that yes, it has friends now and maybe that is actually not a bad thing.

[ghostlyarchaeologist]

Eliot receiving his Hanzo sword.

Leverage S03E14 The Ho Ho Ho Job.

Bonus:

[himbohimhoe]

Holding out hope that the writing in veilguard will get more bearable but rook saying to lucanis that it's "not nice that Spite hurt him" and he "shouldn't accept that it’s fine bc it wouldn't be ok if a person did that" like. That is a demon. Built off a single emotion called SPITE. Rook I am finding it really hard to believe that u have lived in thedas for more than 30 seconds.

[cisthoughtcrime]

.

[bogkeep]

stars finally aligned for me to watch castlevania: nocturne and oh, i like it so much more than i expected to. i was dragging my feet because i gotta be in the correct Mood for dark and violent shows and i'm not familiar with the games and don't know any of the characters etc etc etc.

anyway. i don't usually have a lot of interest in vampires as monster in and of itself, the whole blood sucking thing just holds no interest to me - the one aspect i DO find very interesting is vampires as immortal former humans. what i like about the castlevania cartoons is that they have vampires from many different eras and cultures, which is Exactly what i want from vampire stories, so i'm sold. what i like about nocturne specifically is that they have made the allegory explicit - vampires as the oppressor class, nobility and slave owners, and set the series during the french revolution. that's so tasty. that's so good. placing a vampire slaying series in a historical context, and a world where vampires are Known entities and not secret monsters is so delightful. i am so glad i'm finally watching this

[maxybabyy]

literally losing my mind over your frat boys au klllllljkkljkllkklljll

please know it has been living in my mind since yesterday, so here's part two, aka what i actually thought about when i saw the original ask (@gaycrunch) ...

part i (re: this)

He finds him outside, hunched over on the porch with his phone in his hand and a half-full bottle of vodka open between his thighs.

“What’s a pretty boy like you doing out here all by himself?” Daniel asks, teases as he drops down to sit next to him. “If only there was a party somewhere, with like, good people and shit.”

Max grunts, barely moves as Daniel hooks his knee over Max’s. He brings the bottle to his mouth, swallows a mouthful of vodka as his free hand comes to rest on Daniel’s knee. “You know already probably, this is why you are here,” he says, digs a finger into the scar on his kneecap, the faded line from when he cut himself on a beer can.

Daniel does, was pulled aside by at least five different dudes who told him where Max had gone, “But I’d rather you tell me, Maxy.”

Max pours another shot into his mouth, keeps the bottle by his lip as he talks. “What even is a rose? This makes no sense, Daniel,” he says, and to his credit, he does sound frustrated. He’s a little drunk too, always is these days when the night falls, but Daniel doesn’t know if it’s cause or consequence.

“It’s an old school thing,” Daniel relents. He steals the bottle from Max’s hands and takes a tiny sip just so he won’t keep drinking. “Reckon I’m plenty sweet for the lot of us, yeah? Don’t need a lady to tell me how to act.”

He didn’t know frats still did this kind of shit, thought they were all past it now, that men could be graceful and charitable too. Hadn’t even thought to mention it to this year’s pledges, but then maybe, Max could have used the lecture anyway.

“Did you really tell her to go suck a bunch of dicks? Because if so, Maxy –“

Max huffs. His leg shakes underneath Daniel’s knee, jostles loose the slide he wears on his foot. “I of course did not say this,” Max says, snappish, taut. “She said she was the best at sucking dick, and I said, ‘this probably is not true’. She showed me this thing she did with her tongue, with her straw you know, and it did not look good, Daniel.”

Daniel chokes down a laugh, relents easily when Max reaches for the bottle again. He watches with unbridled want as Max pretends to suck off the lip of the bottle, interrupted too frequently by his own commentary on the technique.

Daniel reckons he’s right, the tongue is too much, barely touches the bottle at all. Not like Max had done that night, lips heavy around his dick, his tongue firm against the underside of the head.

“So like, you didn’t tell her to suck a dick?”

Max jams his elbow into his side, jolts when Daniel clams his hand around the top of his thigh to keep him in place. “Always this was not – Daniel, I would not say this,” he says, glares at Daniel when he doesn’t relent. “I said maybe that she had to practice more. I have of course sucked a lot of dicks, if she wanted to be like me, then.”

Daniel laughs, loud and surprised, and suddenly Max laughs too.

The Kappa Alphas are dicks anyway. They wouldn’t lose anything if Daniel took them off the social calendar, isn’t really a party if the entire frat can’t go, is it?

“Why didn’t you go home?” He asks after a while. The lid has been put back on the bottle of vodka, and Max has been fed whatever was left in his cup of water.

Two weeks after officially becoming a pledge, Daniel had found Max passed out in a pool of tub juice, white tee soaked in sticky sweet alcohol. He hadn’t vomited – Daniel doesn’t know then if he wouldn’t have just left him there – but Daniel had dragged him upstairs and into the shower. Had scrubbed the marker off his face but left the blue marker in his hair to watch the botched, fucking dip dye his hair had held onto for almost a week.

Max had slept in his bed that night, does it at least every two weeks now, cuddled up between Daniel and the wall. They haven’t fucked since that first time, since Daniel realised Max would be pledging the frat. But sometimes they kiss, and it’s. It feels nice, feels easy, breezy even.

“I have to wait for Carlos,” Max says, shrugs.

Daniel had elected not to pair himself with Max, chose instead one of the legacies who seemed to find power in whatever fucking hazing ritual Daniel threw at him. He kinda regrets it now, knows how shit Carlos must be at this big brother stuff. Knows he left more than an hour ago with Max’s friend from the lacrosse team, apparently without saying shit to Max.

“Nah, Maxy. You’re fine,” he says, squeezes his thigh again when Max hesitates. “Let’s go back to the house, yeah? Maybe Carlos is waiting for you there or like, we can send him a text or something.”

Max doesn’t look convinced, sceptic, like he’s the one who’s on his third year in the frat. But he takes his hand when Daniel gets up, pulls him to his feet. “Lando has the dorm tonight,” he says, shows him a picture of a sock on a doorknob.

It looks fake, but Daniel hasn’t actually seen it for himself ever. Like with the rose, doubted it was even done anymore. But then, Lando’s always been an odd guy.

“There’s always the couch if you want,” Daniel offers, shivers. “Or like, there’s also my bed. Probably the best if you don’t wanna wake up when Scotty gets home.”

Daniel doesn’t hold his breath, he doesn’t, listens instead to the crunch of the road underneath them. It’s no more than ten minutes until they’re home, Greek row almost condensed down to one block.

“Okay, Daniel,” Max says, quiet in the dark night. His hand brushes against Daniel’s, and he tries not to jump, stays still in case Max does reach out. “I think that would be very lovely.”

[mushiemellows]

Another Day in the Sun

Chapter 1: Mechanical Precision

Rating: T

Summary:

Sometimes, days on the open sea tended to blend together. The Strawhats didn’t really seem to mind. No one’s noticed that they keep living the same day over and over again, but the machine keeps ticking.

((The crew gets stuck in a time loop. Franky and Robin need to play Matchmaker in order to try and break them out))

extra notes: I'm doing a bunch of writing warm ups out of a book I'm reading. I figured I'd use this new fic as a sort of practice space. I'm trying to keep things fun and casual, but there's a story here. It won't be nearly as long or detailed as my other stuff, but I'm having fun writing.

(tagged initially as Frobin and Zosan just bc that's what I'm setting up in these first chapters, but there will be a lot more.)

[not-cool-enough-to-scuba-dive]

actually I would quite like to hear your thoughts on gender philosophy in omegaverse worldbuilding? :3

hm. anon, I fear this is a far larger can of worms than you probably anticipated. I'm going to spare you the worst of it by only giving you a short version, but be careful what you wish for.

I'm also hiding it under a cut because even the short version is embarrassingly long.

I'm hardly a connoisseur of omegaverse content, nor would I consider myself anywhere near an expert. I don't want to speak for all fics as I've admittedly not read many. I did do my master's diss about legal gender recognition, so this is more about gender and philosophically sound worldbuilding than an indictment of any particular writing or story tbh.

the short answer is I find omegaverse worldbuilding really interesting, but I've never fully been able to enjoy it due to the way a/b/o identities tend to have a biological determinist slant to them imo, and tendency for a lack of real world implications of what the omegaverse does to gender and character interactions anywhere outside the bedroom. I'd love to figure out a version that's more inclusive and philosophically/ideologically consistent, both with itself and with my own views on real life gender (basically, I want to make it make more sense, have less biological determinism, and be more inclusive of the wider range of human experiences). this is a big task, and ngl I haven't achieved it and don't anticipate doing so any time soon. I have like, a concept in my head, taking apart all the key pieces and putting them together again but different, but to make it thorough enough would require more effort and time than I have because I'm like, employed 😔

I feel like someday if I ever get invited to a powerpoint night though, this could be It.

[midnight-mourning]

Gonna be fr with you chat, work/research this week kind of one-hit killed me, and we still have a LOT to do next week to get ready for the semester/start of the study (and I have a good bit of work to do for my thesis) I also have to finish moving & unpacking my apartment and do the final for my summer class

Tl, DR; If I get a chapter out next week it'll be at the end of the week and no sooner than that

Very much appreciate the paitence and support, hopefully we'll get back on schedule soon <3

[corcnaiism]

;-- when i have a handful of drafts and inbox asks aching for my attention, but i'm instead disappearing into the void and spending hours world building my oc's lore and writing one-shots for side characters bc i'm just a chill guy

[one-silly-cart00nist]

UPDATE: so the consensus seems to be that the episodes don't quite represent how time flows, and the creators themselves said that Craig's around 6th grade in the present episodes.

I still think this was a fun lil thing to look into and still find the Gibson detail worth pointed out

so I've been doing the math* and if we take that COTC starts with Craig in the 4th grade and count every start of school year/winter episode that passes... Craig would be 12-13 as of Heart of the Forest?

and it lowkey means that Elders started out as 15-ish years old?

there's also an unintentional hint that Gibson might be born in 2005 since that's in his social media handle and people tend to do that

so if he's meant to be 17-18 rn to be graduating that would put the show in current future (caught up with real time give or take a year)

[sochilll]

Okaaaay just finished my first re-read of all 3 Hunger Games books since I was 12..... inconsolable frankly

[bubaboos]

oh btw

[smolalienbee]

it's been almost a year since i posted the last chapter of sixpence and i haven't posted a single fic since then... what happened to me

[incesthemes]

I hate being the kind of guy who corrects things like this but as someone who tags every spn episode individually I would want to know if I messed one up so uh. yeah sex and violence is 4.14 not 4.17 (that would be it's a terrible life)

while I'm here. i love your analysis and your writing and stuff ❤️ every time one of your posts crosses my dash I know I'm in for a treat. you are correct about everything ever. well. except for the episode number of sex and violence I guess. but that's okay there are more important things to be right about than that

noooooooooo thank you i had a fucky-wucky 💔 there are so many episodes in this damn show it's hard to keep all my eggs in order or whatever that saying is

anyway thank you??? that's such a nice thing to say 🥺 i can't believe people are READING the posts i make tbh like who are you. why are you doing that. kind of insane of you if you ask me (but i'm very flattered thank you very much)

i want to write more but i'm in a state of choice paralysis at the moment because i have too many posts i want to write about seasons 1-2 (and half of season 3 but i feel compelled to write everything about 1-2 before i move on) so instead i just don't do anything at all. i'm sure you understand