#i love mashing my interests together its so funny

[chococookiez]

shout-out to me finding this post a few weeks ago because it let me do this

NEW DAVEKAT SHIMEJI TUTORIAL

(easier to install + more actions and behaviors) tutorial to install these cute desktop buddies under the cut:

This version comes with improved actions, better animation timing, and less randomness. They can now flirt, draw dicks, sleep, and lay on the floor together.

STEP 1: INSTALL JAVA

Click the download button and install it. If you need to remove older versions of Java, download their removal tool and run it before installing the latest version.

STEP 2: DOWNLOAD FILES

STEP 3: EXTRACT FILES.

Extract what you just downloaded. Find it in your Downloads and right-click it, then click Extract All. It will create a new folder called shimejiee.

STEP 4: ATTEMPT TO LAUNCH

Double-click the Shimeji-ee.jar file. If it works, skip to step 5. If it asks you what program to open the file with or gives an error message, you need to watch this video at 1:05 and follow the instructions there. You can move the shortcut you make to your Desktop to access the shimeji easier if you’d like.

STEP 5: YOU’RE DONE BABEY!

Launch Shimeji and it should work as intended. If you don’t like them throwing your windows around or multiplying, you can turn off those behaviors in the settings. You can safely remove all zipped folders, they are now useless. Click here to learn how to make the program run when you start Windows.

[vibingpyro]

English Muffin

Hobie Brown.

Hobie Brown is a menace, truly. Ever since joining the Spider HQ, he has been a lingering shadow, always poking and prodding, not to mention cracking some sarcastic yet admittedly funny comments about Miguel and the other spiders.

But unlike Hobie, I'm a much more secret menace, sometimes stealing the last coffee creamer from the cafeteria without notifying the others that work there to restock, or even taking someone's unmarked leftovers in the communal fridge of the break room. Which leads us to now.

I'm currently eating on an, what I assumed, unmarked and unclaimed english muffin in the break room of the headquarters, sitting down on one of the somewhat battered chairs in the annoyingly bright light that occasionally flickers out every so once and a while.

And right now, I've never wanted it to fizzle out so bad.

My eyes flicker up, meeting Hobies intense gaze and I freeze, mid bite. 'oh shit' I quickly think as Hobie also seems to freeze for a moment an unreadable expression on his face as he walks closer, his hands placed in his pockets of his vest.

"Is that my muffin?" He asks bluntly, although there's an amused tinge to his voice.

I shut and open my mouth, quickly putting down the English muffin back in its wrapper I had found it in, and sure enough, there is a small almost unreadable signature on the wrapper that I hadn't seen at first glance and I physically grimace.

"...maybe?" My voice squeaks out, as I gather up the courage to look back up at Hobie, I swear I hear him snicker for a moment and I can only blink in surprise as he pulls out the chair across from me, and sits down in it.

"Y'know, it's not polite to eat others food." He says, and I immediately open my mouth to apologize but he speaks before I can. "I'm just takin' the piss, love. You're fine." He says, his hand moving out of his vest pocket to make a waving motion in the air, always using his hands to speak this one.

My eyebrows shoot up at Hobies words, and as I look at him he truly doesn't seem bothered by the fact he just caught me eating his English muffin, mid bite and all. It's hard to believe that this is how he's reacting when not even last week, he reprimanded and instant mashed potato-ed another spiders front lawn before it rained as revenge for eating his cheeseburger.

"You're sure?" I ask, squinting my eyes in suspicion, gazing down at the English muffin as if it personally kicked my grandmother. "You didn't poison it or something, did you?" I question, half joking.

Hobie snorts at that, but shakes his head to my immense relief. "No, but I probably should start lockin' my food up at this rate." He shrugs and I laugh, nodding along to that. "That would probably be for everyone's best interest." I reply, my hands reaching out to take another bite of the English muffin, it truly is delicious.

It's only when I begin to think, as I take the bite that, why is he being so nice to me? Hobie and I typically don't interact unless we have been tasked together for a mission. He has always been kind to me in passing, giving an encouraging pat on the back, and telling jokes to lighten the mood when we are assigned on missions but I'm certain he does that with the other spiders as well.

After I swallow my bite, the question seemingly passes my lips before I can rationally think about it. "Why are you letting me do this?" I ask, leaning my arm on the table with my head resting on my palm. One of Hobies pierced eyebrows quirks up, and he replies amused. "We're friends, aren't we." It's not said as a question more of a statement

I blink. "So you're not planning some oddly elaborate and time consuming prank for me to clean up?" I ask.

Hobie stares at my face, "Are you going to eat my muffin, or keep askin' oddly elaborate questions?" He replies, that amused tone still there but this time with a hint of sass with his eyebrow still quirked up.

My eyes narrow, as I pick up the English muffin once more, taking another bite as my reply. Hobie rolls his eyes, with a small smile on his lips, shiny piercing at the side of his lip catching in the glint of the lighting of the breakroom. 'Look away from the pretty British man, look away from the pretty British man- oooh but he's so pretty' I think, shaking my head as a rapid blush rises to my cheeks.

I avert my eyes as, the last thing I want to do is possibly make Hobie too uncomfortable with my staring, but for a very brief moment, I think I see Hobies pupils turn into hearts.

'nah, this muffin probably is poisoned after all...'

[licensedfool]

Why do you like jesters so much?

the short answer is that im silly

the long answer primarily comes down to my fascination with what how they can be used as a narrative tool. though a jester is a job of entertainment, its existence symbolizes how art, theatre, comedy, poetry, and physicality are capable of great political influence. the general throughline of "funny guy makes biggest change" is an intriguing narrative that can be applied to just about every time period and setting in history, and i have SO many stories i'd like to tell centering around various fools.

i'm not trying to write an essay here because im honestly kind of low on time at the moment of writing this but i could talk for hours about how fascinating i think the history of Jesterism is. it's just really interesting to me how the point of a jester is to literally make a fool of themself (and of others) but it takes incredible wit and talent to be successful and looking stupid.

if i had more time, i'd go into these topics:

the "Wise Fool" archetype and how shakespeare utilizes fools

the various clowns of commedia dell'arte

beatrice k. otto's book "fools are everywhere"

jesters historical presence in political protest / control

the power of anonymity and the perception of art vs artist

jesters vs clowns compare and contrast, and why i'm often (but not always lol) pretty careful about keeping "clowncore" elements out of my jester designs (i LOVE clowns i just use them as a different thematic symbol than jesters so the distinction between them is important for me to define in my head.........but i still like to mash them together sometimes)

thank you for asking!! jesters are so interesting to me and i'd love to talk more about them

[marley-manson]

In Love and War

-- Potter sucked lol, straight up says he didn't tell Hawkeye about Kyung Soon's circumstances and let him go off about rich people because as a colonel he doesn't need to explain orders. Then topped it off by being condescending while stating the 'love during a war sucks' theme. Oh ALSO not a fan of his explanation for transfering the nurse who Donald hit on comparing her and Margaret to a car and a horse respectively. Minor in the grand scheme of things, but like, it's very Potter.

-- Loretta Swit was so fucking funny in the shower scene

-- the Kyung Soon + BJ goodbye scene parallels are so strong lol, kudos for that

-- headcanon that Hawkeye is not a lit guy heavily reinforced \o/ I only remembered like one line, but his interactions with Kyung Soon were actually full of not getting her lit and poetry references, and he even made a self-depricating joke about quoting the Divine Comedy from a comic book version - a joke I think is exaggerated, I do assume he's probably at least read some of it for school, but it does tell us that Hawkeye doesn't see himself as a literature knower

-- Hawkeye trying and failing to hammer a board, Kyung Soon takes the hammer from him and tells him his hands are for surgery. that's my guy

-- love Hawk and Margaret commiserating together at the end, sans explanation. it's a little odd this early, but not so odd that it feels implausible, so it strikes a good balance evocative of a burgeoning friendship.

-- Kyung Soon was a pretty solid character for a single episode love interest. kudos for that.

-- I've seen posts that interpret this episode as a critique of American imperialism so I was watching the ep with an eye out for it, but I don't see it as an intended theme. I think you can pick it up essentially as a side effect of the show trying to realistically portray a downer romance between an American draftee and a Korean civilian, but the ep is very on the nose about its theme (romance and war don't mix) and everything that points in that more specific and political 'critique of imperialism' direction is either a) undermined shortly later (eg Hawkeye suggesting they eat dinner in a bombed out restaurant initially seemed potentially insensitive and out of touch, but Kyung Soon and the narrative finds it romantic), b) furthering the more general war sux theme (eg the bombed out restaurant, or Hawkeye's class A uniform at the funeral, as foreboding symbols of the war poised to separate them), and/or c) something I wouldn't expect a mainstream 70s audience to understand as a critique of imperialism without further explicit contextualization (eg Hawkeye's uniform again).

Plus, rather than being critiqued as an American, Hawkeye is pointedly portrayed as ~one of the good ones~ with the way Kyung Soon explicitly says she likes him because he "cares about [her] people," and his response to Charles' racism. Maybe a little naive in a way that can be taken politically, but not in a way I believe is intended to be a political statement - it's Hawkeye's idealistic romanticism imo, since it's contrasted to Potter's world-weary realism.

Basically I can see the anti-imperialism lens the way you can view most of Mash through it, but I'm not inclined to give the show credit for a thoughtful anti-imperialism sentiment here. They've done anti-imperialism episodes and they tend to be more clumsy lol and much more overt. Imo the tragedy in this episode is the war, not the American presence in the war.

-- That said, I think the lack of intentional messaging and the focus on sad realism works in this episode's favour, because it's overall pretty good. I mean it's still a rushed one-ep romance which never actually works, but within the bounds of its format, it's successful imo. And the realistic touches do add up to an implicit, if accidental, critique of imperialism if you're inclined to see it. It's a solid lens to view the episode through, just not one I'd praise the writers for.

[thebreakfastgenie]

I’m curious why you like the newsroom? It always seemed like just like a mash of the The West Wing’s prestige thrown in with Sports Night’s setting and archetypes and trying way too hard to make us feel bad for Will.

I watched the first two seasons while I was in high school and the last season my first year of college. That's an age where media can rewire your brain. It was also the first Sorkin show I saw, I actually watched it before The West Wing.

I do think it shares a lot of traits with previous Sorkin works (they don't call them Sorkinisms for nothing) but I don't agree with how you describe it here. For one thing I've never considered The West Wing truly prestige; at its heart I think it's network television and the reason it got such a strong response is it operated on a level that network television usually doesn't. I've joked about mapping the archetypes from Sports Night onto the Newsroom before, but I don't think that's fair as a serious analysis. A lot of shows operate with the same basic archetypes just for storytelling reasons and I think that's all it is, with a little dash of Sorkinism on top. It's not the same setting as Sports Night and it's one that's much more interesting to me. Sports Night is about a sports show and it works because it's character-driven, but as the success of The West Wing and the failure of Studio 60 demonstrate, Sorkin does best when he has a setting with really lofty stakes. A major news channel has much loftier stakes than a sports show. To the extent that it's The West Wing meets Sports Night I think that's a good thing, because it melds some of Sorkin's strengths from both shows. But hey, three of his four shows are about television behind the scenes.

I think the Newsroom is very different from Sorkin's other shows, because it was on HBO, because it was made a few years later, and also because he was working with some different collaborators and you can tell. At the time it came out, it was making a very good point about the role of cable news in society (it's a bit dated now because cable news has since been largely supplanted by social media).

I responded really well to the characters, and a lot of my continuing fondness for the show comes from that attachment. I think there are some genuinely great performances in that show. I like all three seasons, but it's definitely a show of diminishing returns, but I rewatched it within the last couple years and I think the first season holds up as a really strong piece of television. I love the gimmick of setting the show a couple of years behind the present in order to use real news stories and my biggest criticism of the later seasons is Sorkin didn't stay committed to that. I think when it was new it offered a really interesting perspective on events we all remembered unfolding. I think about that a lot now when political memory seems so short.

The show is absolutely trying too hard to make us feel bad for Will and I think I love him in way more of a "god, he sucks" way than Sorkin intended me to. But Jeff Daniels is so good in that role that I can't not care about him. He's funny and that goes such a long way with me.

I've come to view Will and Mac as the kind of messy, toxic, "it's good that they're together so they stay away from everyone else" couple and I really enjoy them that way.

The moment that really gets me is when Will meets the "what makes America the greatest country in the world?" girl again and says "you do." The entire first season is a refutation of "this generation is the worst" and it drives me nuts that that clip went viral without the follow-up because it totally mischaracterizes the show.

Some of the character arcs are really messy, but some of them are great, like Don. There's enough to keep me coming back.

Also I'm a lesbian and the cast includes both Jane Fonda and Olivia Munn.

[sweetpiccolo-blog]

Hi love! Here for the mash up!

Well, I’m a light skinned Black Latina with a big dark Afro and brown eyes. I’m about 163cm (minus the hair) and I wear glasses.

I speak Portuguese, English and French which makes learning languages a hobbie for me. I love studying, especially if it involves history or philosophy. I also love reading, watching movies and talking about them, and I’m a huge Disney fan. I also love some good homemade food, traveling and music is my oxygen - I’m into a little bit of everything.

I’m a Sagittarius with a Gemini rising — don’t ask me what that means, I don’t get much about astrology. I’m a INFJ-T and a very introverted person until I get to know someone better! Very grumpy in the morning, talkative to the extreme and sometimes funny and silly. I’m very determined and creative in my life.

My love language is quality time with a hint of physical touch. I love to spend time with the people I love no matter if it is staying in, going out or crossing an ocean to explore a new country. I love good communication and vulnerability, makes me feel safe!

I dislike petty, annoying people, repeating noises, not being heard, disorganization and lack of compromise - just to name a few!

Just please don’t match me with Max or Checo! Not my favorites hihihi

Thank you already 🤍 lots of love!

Hi love! Sorry for the wait. I absolutely love your ask because I can see some similarities we have and I tried really to work on it. Hope you like it! <3💙

This is only my opinion, so be sure to let me know what you think about it later : )

LET US GET STARTED!

Header by @dvluc

Your match is...

☆George Russell☆

You are a language girl? He loves that about you. George would start learning new languages with you. He was never really into studying, but with you it´s much more fun plus you are his motivation. You get to test each other randomly if you didn´t forget some new words. You both would encourage each other when needed to use that certain language instead of English like usually.

He would have incredible respect for your culture. He would ask you to tell him something from your history or about your traditions. He wants to learn because he is naturally curious and interested. Plus he cherishes you a lot.

Your enthusiasm with history and philosophy is great for museum dates. When he travels for a race and you are with him you totally go on dates. If the weather is bad, then you visit a gallery or museum where you spend hours. There you tell him everything you know and he listens while smiling at you. He looks at you absolutely smitten. If he wants you to talk more, he asks a question and he just lets you talk. Even if it´s something he already knows. You talk, he listens.

Disney-world trip is happening for sure - because you love Disney ofc. He takes you and Alex with Lily and all 4 of you run around the whole day. And this trip wouldn´t be a one time thing for sure. 

George would watch whatever you like and then talk about it with you for the next few days. Sharing opinions, complaining about the storyline, appreciating characters, anything and everything. 

I feel like you two would kinda have a different taste in music but that´s no problem. Listening to the songs the other person likes is your love language. Just being able to learn about each other through music is very special.

You both are a little introverted. You spend time together the most. You don´t mind being around others but neither alone, just you two together. Meeting people is not really an issue but you like being with your comfort group of homies more.

You would be silly and funny together. You make jokes with him and about him. Its the same way around. Having a laugh is the main goal. And you absolutely don´t mind. He would have you grinning like silly even making you laugh so much you are on the floor holding your tummy.

George would be the first one to speak in the morning, slowly pulling you out of your tiredness and charging you with good energy from the moment you open your eyes. He charges your social battery.

Physical touch? No problem. You want it, he gives it to you and doesn´t let you go until you say you had enough. He doesn´t mind either way. He is there for you however you want. Even sitting next to each other and watching anything in silence is fine by him.

You share determination for things you are passionate about. And that´s what always reminds you how in love you two are. Just seeing the other person not give up and try harder is so admirable.

He knows he can be himself with you so sometimes, when the racing and everything gets to him and vents a bit, he knows you are there for him. Even if there are tears, he is not afraid to show it. He sees no point in hiding how he feels. 

When someone speaks over you, George stands up for you. He makes sure you are not ignored. He also remembers everything you like or are telling him and makes mental notes not to ignore it. If there are some annoying people and he sees you in discomfort, he tries to to take you away from them. He wants you to be comfortable.

His mom loves cooking for you! Or she invites you over and cooks something with you. George can´t help himself in those moment and just fall in love with you more. 

ENJOY! 💙💙💙

[cheeto-flavoured-pasta]

For the Random WIP Ask Game:

11. 🌈 RAINBOW SLOTH: Wild card! Share one thing about your WIP that you have been waiting to be asked about!

And all of a sudden I’ve forgotten everything I’ve ever wanted to be asked…

Kidding (partially).

I initially wanted to post a whole paragraph about plot twist ideas/arcs for my WIP for this, but then again, I also wanna talk about APS fun facts, but then again again, the question is asking to share only one thing, so now I have to actually make a choice and commit. :P.

I think I’ll do the second option, so here are some random APS fun facts:

The very first version of APS was some novel I wrote 3 years ago that was set in Japan (I was a huge weeb at the time and it was so cringey) and the plot was wildly different and honestly so convoluted. I tried to take the premise of “superhumans discovered by government and go through dystopic hell” and “secret underground superhuman organization that basically fights off ‘bad guys’” and mush them together. Turns out, you can’t have two main premises at once (at least for me). One of them could have been a side-premise/subplot of sorts, but nooo. I had to mash them together and squeeze them into one book to the point where the plot switched from one plot idea to the next (ex: I set up the story as a “superhumans discovered by gov’t” plot and then completely flipped it on its head and forgot the other premise halfway through). It was a hot mess. A flaming mess. I deleted that book entirely and decided to change everything about it (except the title). That was a much better decision.

Caster was supposed to be the love interest of another random side character. Decided against it later because I don’t wanna center the story too much around romance. Caster’s also aroace and not interested in any kind of relationship, it wouldn’t really be fitting anyway. Idk, the idea just didn’t stick.

There was supposed to be a scene in chapter 6(?? Was it 6?) — the one where there’s a street brawl and someone chokes and dies — where Talia actually steps in to do something. All she manages to do is splash water in one of the perpetrator’s/instigator’s faces. I only wrote that because I thought it was funny, but I took it out later because it created a big character inconsistency

APS was supposed to be a book series with dual-POVs throughout (ex: Caster and Talia for the first book, Melissa and Cassian for the second, etc. etc.) I eventually scrapped that because the second POV either became useless to the book or it could have another whomp story all by itself without sharing the story with a perspective of another character.

At one point, I planned APS to be a 6-10 book series with so many fucking prequels and sequels and companion novels. I scratched that entirely because, seriously, it was so unnecessary to have that much for no good reason at all. The plot would be too stretched and convoluted if I kept it as a 6-10 book series, and after revamping the plot events, I realized I only needed three books to tell the whole story.

To build off the previous one: I do have a slight “spinoff” series of APS called APP (A Powerful Past). It’s more of just individual books covering pieces of backstory/lore in more detail, but that’s a side-series, so it’s pretty much it’s own thing. I’m only gonna work on it after APS is finished, so for now, the most I do to work on APP is to add to any thought dump pages.

[andtheirmoonlight]

this is mainly for @fossilvirgin who's made the Horrible Mistake of inquiring about my thoughts on Community :D Here's some thoughts about my second fav episode, the Psychology of Letting Go (S02E03).

I vaguely remember writing this at around 5 AM while suffering from insomnia, so it might be a bunch of stupid hooey, but I hope you find this entertaining.

First of all: Britta, Annie, and Shirley — and the secondary storyline that involves them — represent an allegory separate from the main one. They are, in order: Second Wave Feminism, Third Wave Feminism, and Black Feminism. But lemme focus on the main one. 

We, all of us as a species, are together in this terrifying Knowledge. That we are going to die. 

The premise and the true meaning of the episode is set up not by Troy, an Innocent — a stand-in for the Child only learning to accept the finality of life — witnessing death, but by the words about human life always ending in death, “which we as a species are cursed with knowing, resulting in...soooomethiiiing”, uttered in a classroom by the Shmilosopher (more on this later).

The viewer is then provided with three intelligible, well spelled out Somethiiiings that usually form as a result of this Knowledge, and then the viewer is offered to draw conclusions. 

1. Pierce, who represents coping through religion, i.e. complete escapism and denial of death. He is the Believer, impersonating the passive response. He chooses, quite literally, to Not Think About It all, as to the Believer death simply does not exist. The guidelines for his passive thinking are provided to the Believer by someone else, i.e. organized religion in this case, and he just accepts them, transferring responsibility. The religion in question is purposefully made so funny and idiotic that we the viewer know that no part of it has a chance of being real. This hyperbole is made even more symbolic when we’re shown that, even with how ridiculous this religion is, many people do flock to it, demonstrating interest as soon as they learn of its existence, and finding points to connect to it right away (“I love Hawaiian punch”), because submerging yourself in illusions and active denial is the easiest method of saving yourself from the Knowledge (and acceptance) of the inevitability of death. It’s the path of least resistance. Yet by the end, we the viewer are set to understand that we have no right to judge even those who prefer to be in denial — if it ultimately helps them — and that respecting their capacity to believe the Stupidest Shit Ever is a sign of emotional maturity.

2. Prof.Duncan who is, I think, a simplified, mish-mash representation of various popular philosophies, ones that delve into the biggest buckets of copium. In particular, epicureanism, nihilism, and, of course and for the most part, hedonism; jumping all over the place. To me he kinda feels like the amalgam of several popular and often wildly misinterpreted quotes like “When we exist, death is not; and when death exists, we are not” or “The literal meaning of life is whatever you’re doing that prevents you from killing yourself” etc. No philosophy school provides the definitive answer, but neither do they deny the existence of death. Anyway, for even further simplicity, let’s call him the Shmilosopher. 

His way is the way of distraction through creating meaning based only on the material and not the spiritual; and partial oblivion — instead of total denial. 

Note that he is the one who sets up the premise. As soon as he sets it, we're promptly distracted by another joke about him being an inept teacher, blinded to the fact that he just told us the plot, the message, and the inference offered by the narrative; blinded, as well, to the fact that, coming from him, these words attain an individualized meaning and are in line with everything he does throughout the episode. “Something”. It’s not that he doesn’t know “because the book for this class is expensive”; it's that the Shmilosopher doesn’t care (“Act-tually I don’t care”) any longer, he doesn’t actively feel the dread while living in the moment, and he’s already achieved a state where he’s got a bunch of established and individualized coping methods that he, unlike the Believer, had developed on his own, taking charge of his life and taking responsibility, albeit in a twisted way. When the Believer offers to share his coping method, the Shmilosopher, in this case, is only interested in one aspect of the Believer’s offer (“how much wine and beer per person”), one that, again, leads to oblivion, and not to denial. Throughout the episode he repeatedly engages in offscreen alcohol consumption (his most common copium), destructive behavior (abusing Chang with the restraining order and reveling in the process; he’s not doing it primarily because he’s vindictive or feels slighted, no; watch him closely and you will see that he mostly perceives it as jolly fun — because Nothing Really Matters and Everything Is Chaos), deception (tricking the attractive girl who thinks she is in an anesthesiology class), gluttony (settling to eat a pile of delicious fatty foods just as someone next to him is lamenting their high cholesterol), irresponsibility and carelessness (when Jeff misinterprets his advice, the Shmilosopher doesn’t stop him from attacking the Believer, instead choosing to eat), lust and lascivious behavior (‘you, in the boobs’, ogling a catfight, a photo with the ‘oily co-eds’) etc. The unending process of doing these things makes him, uuh well, if not happy, then at least somewhat equipped to deal with the Knowledge and to not pay active attention to the chaos of unprocessed existential dread happening all around him. We are shown an example of a routine that helps the Shmilosopher to survive and find meaning. In the end, by demonstrating that he is not really malicious (via having him reconcile with Chang and appreciate Chang’s ‘mutually assured destruction’, with no regards to any existing moral systems, but just because it’s witty), maaaaaybe the show ultimately implies optimistic nihilism, and also reminds us along the way that no, the Shmilosopher is by no means an idiot; his words about Jeff’s religion were quite wise and poignant. 

3. Finally, there’s Jeff who represents True Acceptance. 

Both the Believer and the Shmilosopher are oblivious in their own unique ways, yet neither of them have truly accepted the Knowledge nor made peace with it. One is busy being in denial, the other is busy engaging in oftentimes destructive and self-destructive coping mechanisms, and neither of them has truly Let Go; hence, the name of the episode. The path that Jeff needs to take is the hardest, but traversing it provides growth and wisdom; it requires him to go through the whole Story Circle (Harmon's, not Campbell's, heh), hitting all of the beats, processing all of the stages, clashing with everyone else’s views, until he finally finds a healthy balance, inheriting it from another person who had achieved True Acceptance before her death — Pierce’s mom, a Mentor figure. The viewer is then left with both positive and negative implications of this way of coping. 

In the meantime, while some are busy being in denial, some are busy distracting themselves, and some are busy searching for acceptance, the circle of life just... mercilessly goes on. In the background. Nine months ago The All-Narrative LocomotiveAbed made a careless and confusing announcement over the intercom, pleading people to not use condoms. So now, over the course of the story, he is approached by a pregnant girl, talks to her, gets into a conflict with her boyfriend, and then helps her deliver the baby. All in the background, completely out of the perception of the other characters, and just a bit out of the field of perception of the viewer; so even the viewer might fail to notice. We are too busy watching the foreground. Too busy watching a funny show, distracting ourselves from the realities of life — and from our inevitable death.

[ionizingdotjpeg]

dear evan hansen ship ranking

//NO PUNCTUATION. NOT SPELL CHECKED. SUPER DUMB AND RAMBLY. I AM NOT TAKING THIS SERIOUSLY LAWLZ

PREFACING THIS BY SAYING THAT IM ONLY GNA DO THE 5 MAIN GUYS PPL SHIP. yknow. them. so no miguel sorry i havent read the manga or wtver also im leaving out the icky gross ships ok lets go!!

S

sincerely three: EYUCK!! I HATE THOSE GUYS. GROSS. /a fucking lie. i really like the idea of a stupid love triangle plot but it turns out they actually are gay for eachother and are poly. Also i am a sucker for ships where all the characters are fucking losers. cringefail squad

treebros: idk i think its cute. Maybe gay for forever animatics have rotten my brain but i think they can fix each other and make each other worse simultaneously and i find that so interesting. i dont think they’d be ‘toxic’ but i think they’d be a bit unhealthy. go to THERAPY you WEIRDOS!!! Also autism x autism + bpd realness

klienphy: WORST COUPLE WVER… STAY AWAY FROM EACH OTHER FREAKS. /positive like I am so insane about them but not like in a literary analysis way in a HOLY SHIT THIS IS SO FUNNY way.

A

kliensen: one of the more interesting ships. if i was looking at these objectively kliensen n bandtrees would be higher because zoe and jared are… actual characters. however, i am not as autistic about these 2 as i am about the S tier shipz.

Evlana?? whatevs: it’s cute. idk what else o say. i wouldn’t say that i ship it but it’s really cute.

Conlana??? Lannor?? what is the ship name: really like em, even though i heavily prefer them platonically i like the idea of connor like.. somewhat tolerating alana and alana wanting to be his friend. something something themes of alienation something.

Specifically Platonic phyklien (my very own name for zoe x jared): SO REAL. i think zoe would find him insufferable but put up with him because they are besties and best friends and they make friendship bracelets and skip down happy trails while the sun is shinibga nd theres rainbows and flowers and

B

bandtrees: cute. i like more it more platonically/evan just admiring zoe but romantic bandtrees is real too

galaxy gals: i think they could be really interesting if people actually like payed attention to them instead of mashing them together because they already paired off all the others.

i am a aro zoe truther so most zoe ships are going to be lower. sorry.

alana jared evan connor polycule (i call this one TCP): ok so i have thought about this ship exactly ONCE and it was for a silly lighthearted au where alana jared and evan try and help connor not be a total asswipe and i thought it was kinda funny so here ya go.

C

all of the ships that i don’t dislike but dont think much about: cool.

D

treebros but specifically the way the wider fandom portrays them… YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND THEM LIKE I DO!! i hate them being watered down to the generic bad boy x uwu shy baby I WILL EXPLODE YOU!!!! i also hate hyperprotective connor FUCK YOU!!!!!! DESTROYING YOU WITH MY MIND BEAMS!! I know since conar is fucking dead theres alot of ways to interpret them but this one is the worst.

[jimmawww]

My Top 10 Music

10. Neil Cicierega

I just had to put him somewhere, not exactly a parody artist but a remix parody artist? Either way mashing things up to not just be funny but also as good as a new song is a real talent, definitely up there with the likes of Weird Al.

9. Loreena McKennitt

Loreena echoes something ancient and truly foreign. Definitely have a soft spot for her music as my mother listened to it and played it for me as a baby.

8. Florence + The Machine

With the same kind of mystic energy as Loreena but more powerful and heavy. Florence invokes the feeling of yearning and love breaking through with powerful percussion and of course her voice.

7. Sewerslvt

Dealing with themes of identity loss, transgenderism, the internet age and it's chaos. Most people's introduction to break-core that involves some of the highest BPM samples, usually preceded and proceeded by some trance or dream-like composition. For me it reflects the experience of using the internet, the dream like marvel of technology entering into a higher state of consciousness only to slowly descend into the madness of information overload which then in turn lets us emerge out the other side of truth into an entirely new self or world view. Lies to truth, naive to wise. It usually deals with themes of loss of self or love.

6. She

She is simply the funkiest EDM chiptune artist ever, I could say Kaskade or DeadMau5 or Avicii but She has been so consistent with making banger after banger and is much less known.

5. Jungle

Funk. It seems ridiculous how much fun Jungle is to listen to, its smooth, its cool, its interesting, and has such a good energy. Smooth beats with high vocals make this band unique.

4. Alexisonfire

My unofficial successor to Linkin Park they tend to use more screaming in their lyrics but still hold onto that vibrant flame of struggle and suffering while keeping a fast and intense pace of emotional movements. For my their music revolves around the evolution and struggle of the soul.

3. Future Islands

They've always been on my radar but with their recent album I really reevaluated how I felt about them and really took their vibes to heart. Some of the most interesting beats and instrumentals I've heard with the lead singer also having a very weird and captivating style that can move between heartfelt brass and werewolf growls seamlessly. Themes usually revolve around lost love.

2. Foals

A band that I don't really praise for its themes but the actual composition of their music. Its just.... good. I tend to feel that every 'level' of their songs is 'full' and they rotate together in a clean and clear composition that brings my heart and mind to a higher place.

1. Linkin Park

How predictable. If people don't stop liking this band it will become a classic, which I think they deserve. Again dealing with themes of loss and yearning they just hit the right mix of rock, rap, and electronic sound in perfect balance. There's also been something about their music that's always been adjacent to anime/video game sub culture that appeals to nerds but also normies, a strange middle ground where the two could meet. The powerful and iconic voice of its lead singer hits deep into people's hearts, all the more tragic when he passed away. I was amazed when they released Lost (composed but never released) it felt like I was sent back to 2002. It really hit me how no one in my time has ever hit those same theme as hard as they did. Its like being struggled to be loved, to feel that pain but also ride it like a wave to a better tomorrow because there is hope entangled inside of despair, something to keep someone's soul alive in adversity, and if that's not the peak form of music don't tell me what is.

[thedo0zyslider]

Dual life au info dump incoming. Because I remembered I made it

Its a lot so I'm shoving it under the cut. Read at ur own risk lol

Im kinda just taking ideas/mechanics from older series and mashing them together somehow. But the soulamtes mechanic is back, and 30 hearts + a gift heart. The soulmates mechanic did make DL really short, so secret life's extra hearts and heart sharing ability can prolong the game a bit more me thinks, even with the like, 10+ extra people. (Like, exmaple, impdubs wouldn't have lost their first life to fall damage if they had 20 extra hearts, so on and so forth...) OH AND there was bad traffic idea post that I really like....(if I do use this idea all credits to you anon for it! Your brain is huge...)

Canary curse is also dead I have killed her. Goodbye I will not miss you

In my head this game doesn't come right after secret life, so all of the extra players have been gradually gathered over time. That also means more winners (which doesn't really mean anything if I disregard the "winners remember" trope. Unless I give them specially amnesia)

Now you might look at the character list and wonder why false is all by herself. Welll that's because something went Wrong, and her soulmate never actually got put in the game. He's stuck in the void (her soulmate was supposed to be pix. They were gonna pair the two newest members off together...)

I got all these teams by random spinner wheel and it honestly made some pretty good ones? Like Katherine and BigB was such a good pairing....I think they could be so silly and menacing and also surprise murders. (Because BigB loves gaslighting and no one's gonna expect Katherine to kill them. She probably played nice in her prior games)

I put fwhip and jimmy together because they've played a few games already and they were enemies everyyy time. It's in their nature. So making them have to ally more or less is funny.

Scott and Etho are just a pair that's interesting in the way the characters are. Normally they could not ever ally but now They Have To and ohh boy. One of them puts up a mask and the other one immediately sees through it. They are in hell.

Gem and Oli are just silly. Like scariest woman around and the silly guy that CAN very much kill you but might also drown in a puddle. Other players definitely don't underestimate Oli but he's also being his normal self and making dumb tunes for everything.

Scar and Skizz are mostly a good vibes team. Neither of them really want to win I think, just not die first. They definitely die to an enderman at some poings and Skizz is so mad about it...

Pearl and Cleo....spinner wheel I love you for this one....not sure how they specifically work as teammates but I think it's better than whatever their double life relationship was. Mainly because Cleo isn't fuleing Pearls insanity but whatever

MOG AND MARTYN. I NEED TO WATCH MORE MOG FOR THIS.....Marytn is absolutely betraying his ass though, soulbond or no soulbond. Martyn also isn't the type of person to go along with the soulbonds anyways so this pair was always a little doomed. (Might make martyn more evil in the fic. As a treat for myself)

Mumbo and impulse....I think they're a pretty healthy soulbond. If impulse hasn't one one of those past games I made up then he REALLY wants to win and Mumbo helping. He brings back the end crystals (and since the game mode isn't wrong theyre actually an issue this time LMAO)

Tbh I just wanted a Jizzie team 💖. Power couple moment. I'll rotate them in my head a bit more but they're absolutely killing people with lava and tnt minecarts

Tango and Shelby is more of random paring bc the wheel had matched everyone else. But they work well! Shelby and her redtsone trap guy and Tango with his teammate who's better at pvp and stuff. They're gonna die horribly but it'll be a fun ride

Bdubs and Sausgae are like....interesting? Because you have devoted Bdubs with Sausage and I feel like Sausage could have a disloyalty streak in life series. He IS prone to villian arcs and such...

I paired Grian and Ren together because they've usually end up as enemies, so them being allies is a fun twist. Also I wanted Ren back <3

(Also just because two people are soulmates doesn't mean they're a Canon ship to the au. I have a whole list of canon ships somewhere. Nature wives is real and Martyn is in a horrible polycule and hes bekng gay over Ren still 💔💔...)

[stellavesperis]

Ohhhh there's so much to talk about here! Thanks for tagging me :D First off, (I have to go back to the Harry Potter names, @erender) translating those names is so difficult, because if you were to translate them, you have to have an equal amount of word play in the translated language (although perhaps most Romance languages could pick out the Remus Lupin thing, maybe even more easily than English speakers XD). I know I'm saying nothing new here, but Tolkien was fantastic at that in his works, if you pretend that LOTR actually was translated. Especially with the way he tried to find analogous names for the Hobbits that would hold the same connotations in English, even going so far as to change the masculine ending -a to -o for the sake of English speakers, who have been so conditioned by the "a"=feminine and "o"=masculine through influence of the Romance languages. I would love to see how Tolkien would have translated the Harry Potter names-- I'm sure he would have had some great ideas for it! I'm also on board with the idea of using them as the characters would have used them, but I generally post with their Sindarin forms since that is most accessible to new fans. (My early fanfic notebooks have all their names lined up with all the different Quenya forms XD) The only difference is is that my understanding is "Maedhros" isn't exactly a direct translation of "Maitimo", but the mashing together of "Russandol" and "Maitimo", right? To me, this implies this wasn't just a natural translation, but that the Noldor picked their Sindarin names. It's more equivalent to someone adopting an Anglicized name when they move from another country to America because Americans aren't willing to learn how to pronounce their name properly, which, you know, really says something about the political situation they were in. (I also think it's interesting that the Sindar struggled with Quenya less than the Noldor struggled with Sindarin, because my brief, not at all in-depth observation, is that there appears to be more consonant clusters permissible in Sindarin, which would be difficult for speakers coming from a more restricted sound-system, but I genuinely don't know a whole lot about the languages to try and talk about that more. Maybe the grammar was hard. I've been thinking about this a lot lately so I may do more research and post about it later) And going to what @erendur said about using Elrond's Quenya name (Elerondo), it's highly unlikely that his name began as a Quenya name (for many reasons), linguistically because Elerondo is just Elrond with epenthesis to accommodate for the difficulty Quenya speakers would have saying those sounds back-to-back. The "o" is tagged on at the end because it appears Quenya prefers to not have codas at the end of words, when possible. Basically, "Elerondo" is what you get when Quenya speakers try to speak Sindarin with a very strong accent. Again, though, I don't know too extensively about the meanings of the words, so maybe it's possible that Elerondo is a direct translation of Elrond into Quenya, but it seems unlikely, and kind of pointless to use his Quenya name unless it's being used by a Quenya speaker. (Someone with more knowledge may have to correct me on this though) Honestly, reading the Silmarillion like that would be so very entertaining @dfwbwfbbwfbwf XD. I'd love a morpheme by morpheme breakdown of all these words, in their absolute most literal and original sense XD. Maybe we could get to LOTR and do the same thing klsflsfj;asf. This would make calling Cirith Ungol by its translation that much more funny to read in the book. ("we know not what dwells there". Oh really, Sufficient-Jewel? Oh really?") (I've also seen Silmaril translated as shiny rock? But I guess your version is more specific sfkdasfk) (Sorry for the long post. You tagged me on something language related, and I had to ramble. I think Tolkien would be happy with the discussion anyway.)

Hello !

Genuine question since you seems really attached to pronounciations and names' form.

Is english your native language ?

And if not, do your country used to translate names in books ?

Because, in my configuration (country which translates names), I can assure you we learnt to not give too much thoughts about how people write or pronoune names.

Is it a heresy ? Maybe ? (Because it's not really canon) But if you want to talk to someone about lotr, you should use the translate names for a better understanding. The thorn thing is nothing in comparison of some translations.

- @laisrinel

How could you suggest such blasphemy!?!?! ;)

Yeah, English is my native language. The reason I use the Quenya names ... you're gonna think I'm really petty, but basically everyone in the Silm is petty, so I'm in good company. I use them because Thingollo doesn't like Quenya.

.... Yeah, you read that right. I use Quenya because a fictional character I hate doesn't like it. And then it became habit.

But you are right. It's probably a good idea to use the Thindarin names. But it'll break my poor, fragile, Fëanorian heart. Ugh. Fëanorian instead of Fëanárion looks wrong. :(

(I might be playing it up a bit for kicks and giggles. 👉👈)

[bthump]

What are your top 10 favorite ships ever? It doesn't have to be ordered but I'd like to see a ranking if you have one.

ty for asking! This is tentative and subject to change, but I’ll give it a shot based on what I’m feeling rn. Fair warning, I have pretty basic taste in fandoms lol, Berserk is kind of an anomaly for me, I usually get into fairly popular/classic stuff.

1. griffguts (berserk)

I’m putting this in the number one spot because I’ve been consistently into griffguts longer than any other fandom at this point, and I still keep coming up with things to say about them, and also the first fanworks I’ve ever posted publicly have been for Berserk so that has to count for something too. Plus they hit like almost every one of my favourite tropes, they really are the ideal ship.

2. fraser/ray v (due south)

One of those ships that’s not always at the forefront of my mind, but always periodically comes back to catch me off guard with how much I love it. I just love their kinda lowkey fucked up dynamic - Ray is self destructively loyal to Fraser and Fraser is self destructively loyal to his own sense of duty, and it’s something that’s legit explored in interesting ways on the show. But at the same time they just have great chemistry too. Also it’s like my number one comfort fandom.

3. hannigram (nbc hannibal)

Another ship that’s practically perfect in every way. Hannibal is the ideal show for me, and hannigram is just so good. Friends to enemies to lovers, corruption, incredibly together dude ruining his life for love, compelling shifting power dynamics... and the post season 3 fandom was just fantastic for a while, there were/are so many good writers into it and after season 3 they actually often wrote the ship they way I liked it. Plus it’s unsurpassed when it comes to funny tumblr posts.

4. wangxian (mo dao zu shi/the untamed)

More of a recent ship but one of the most fun fandom experiences I’ve had in a while. Tons of great fic, excellent dynamic, delightful canon in all its various forms and adaptations, and frankly, the f/f AU porn fic subgenre has been a fucking godsent oasis in the good f/f porn desert, it would be a top ship just for that. I would highly urge anyone who wants more tropey and unabashedly kinky f/f to check it out.

5. xena/gabrielle (xena: warrior princess)

Xena is another perfect show and Xena/Gab is one of those solid classic ships that’s just incredibly fun to watch. They’ve got so much chemistry, everyone involved in the show was on board with pushing the romance til it didn’t even count as subtext as far as I’m concerned, they had the range to go fun and light, epic and romantic, delightful and tropey, and/or dark and messed up depending on the season or canon AU variation lol. There’s a reason it’s the prototype for like 75% of lesbian romances written since.

6. doctor/master (gay configurations only) (doctor who)

It’s got it all! You want bitter exes who still pine for each other with that classic frenemies dynamic? Three/Delgado. You want villain menacing wide eyed ingenue? Five/Ainley. You want enemies living in weird domestic bliss? Shalka. You want beloved iconic hero fucking over all his friends and the entire Earth for mass-murderer dick? Ten/Simm. You want fluffy romance with ominous foreshadowing? Theta/Koschei. And that’s not even getting into all the fanon and cross-era configurations. It even has its own canonical f/f variation, and even though they weren’t allowed to actually interact on the show there’s at least some fic.

7. hawkeye/trapper (mash)

I’m revisiting this rn so it’s my current thing lol and these two are just wildly fun to watch together. The strength of the gay reading rivals any fandom classic but while most of those classics are like 90% affection and chemistry and 10% jokey gay references, Hawk/Trap is 90% affection and chemistry and 110% jokey gay references - smug ones, not disparaging ones, because the point was mainly to make fun of The Man lol. It’s a very entertaining vibe.

8. d/leon (pet shop of horrors)

Idk what it is about this ship but it’s sent me on multiple wild goose chases through the wayback machine trying to resurrect old fic, I’ve read a ton of the fic multiple times, I’ve read premises I usually wouldn’t be into, idk. It compels me. The ascerbic frenemies who coparent a kid together vibe is just too good.

9. jeeves/wooster (pg wodehouse books)

This is one of those fandoms that just has a lot of high quality fic that’s a lot of fun to read, and I appreciate that. Like, the source material is all about a dude’s valet saving him from accidentally getting engaged like 50 times so you know it’s gotta be homoerotic, and it is delightful that way. But really everyone mimicking PG Woodhouse’s prose to varying degrees in fic is always just an enjoyable reading experience.

10. victuuri (yuri on ice)

This is a tough call lol but man they really were the perfect ship at the perfect horrible time. I had my eye on the show while it was airing but I didn’t check it out until episode 8 - not 7, because while a kiss was great news I wasn’t too into the assumed dynamic of awkward anxious skater/flirty confident seductive coach. Episode 8 was when dom Yuuri made an appearance and that’s when I was like oh okay this is the fandom for me after all lol. Which was great because I got to watch the episode 10 twist in real time and that was one of the most fun fandom experiences ever.

[mickstart]

i absolutely love reading all of ur star wars f1 au snippets but i am so curious how does anakin lose his arm in this verse? does dooku just crash into himdhdjsjsn

(i am so sorry losing a limb is never funny but dooku crashing into anakin and going u know what. fuck that guy and deliberately driving over his arm is a little funny. to me. dooku gets suspended from the championship w immediate effect and every time anakin wins after he gets his prostetic he writes an angry op ed that anakin is cheating bc his "robot reflexes" are faster than a human. anakin deliberately pulls a kubica and drives practically one handed next race only to win against the current sith racing driver (assajj??) to prove a point but gets a concussion climbing out of the car bc he forgot he cant use his hand to steady himself like the idiot he is)

feelfree to disregadrd all of this btw also sorry for the spelling mjstakes tumblr mobile is a pest

Okay honestly SW F1 au is pretty much just a for funsies Nothing Bad Happens Ever mashing together of my two big interests r/now. I am smashing the toys together and babbling like a toddler and just doing surface level observations of where people would fit. This is partly just BC... It's for fun! And partly because my own closeness to actual Motorsport makes me somewhat uncomfortable adapting its more serious consequences for an au for a silly space movie franchise.

That said. 1) you're so right anakin drives an unhinged amazing race and then gives himself concussion just to prove a point to an old man who got banned. 2) if there was to be a more serious version of this AU with plot. It would absolutely involve this.

Anakin being ground up and spat out by the cruel competitive world of Motorsport. Qui-Gon sells him and his mother the dream that he's going to be a world champion he's going to be everything he's ever dreamed of and bring home all the money his mum could ever need. So anakin develops this complex, devotes his life to racing, and becomes reckless in his pursuit of it. He definitely gains a prosthetic thanks to a horrible crash with dooku, but he still isn't a champion. He has to keep going and it makes him MORE reckless because now he's given up an ARM for this. He has to do it by any means necessary.

Inevitably, it ends in a fireball crash that ends his career for good without the championship he wanted so badly. He lashes out at everyone - especially obi-wan - and vanishes as soon as he's out of the hospital. This would then lead into the twins, given up at birth separately, getting into Motorsport of their own accord and anakin returning from wherever he fucked off to to try and stop them. (And tense reunions with Padme and obi-wan that are ultimately healing.)

[gogglor]

Cap-Ironman RecWeek: What-If Wednesday

Time for another installment of @cap-ironman rec week! Today’s theme: AU’s.

I know AU’s in different settings are half the reason most people read fanfics, but they’re not really my thing on the whole. AU’s where different choices are made, or different events transpire? Absolutely. Coffee shops? Not my cup of... you know.

So, here’s my AU recommendations for mostly “turn left” scenarios. This time with an under-the-cut break so I don’t take over everyone’s timelines (sorry about that last post). Also with some summaries truncated for length.

Alone Like This

Author: GotTheSilver

Word Count: 7,452

Summary: Steve, post waking up, runs away from SHIELD, and Tony's the one who tracks him down.

Why You Should Read It:

First off, GotTheSilver’s been consistently and regularly putting out solid Stony since 2012 and not only are they not stopping, they’re only getting better. This writer doesn’t get nearly the fanfare I’d expect in Stony circles for someone who puts out this much good stuff, and here’s hoping this post can be a part of changing that.

While I am always a sucker for enemies-to-friends-to-lovers, there’s something to be said for stories where Steve and Tony hit it off right away. And watching these two very different people look at each other and see the same sense of being lost, then finding each other again is... excuse me, there’s something in my eye, ignore me.

Second Chance Lives

Author: raeldaza

Word Count: 43,872

Summary: Tony's gonna die of palladium poisoning anyway, why not join a pointless expedition to recover Captain America’s body? And after, well, why not dedicate his last few months to making sure an American hero settles into his new life? What else is he going to do, get drunk at parties?

Why You Should Read It:

This writer doesn’t write a lot for the MCU but when they do, dang.

“Tony is the one helping Steve acclimate to the new century before Avengers 2012″ is a whole genre of Stony fanfics that scratch an itch I didn’t even know I had before I started reading fanfiction, and this is one of the best ones out there. It’s got it all - Steve poorly coping with his PTSD, Tony poorly coping with his immanent mortality, some breathtakingly poor communication between the two most emotionally stunted men in the MCU, and a cat named Roomba. What’s not to love?

Should You Choose to Accept It

Author: elwenyere (look, you’re gonna be seeing a lot of them this week, sorry-not-sorry)

Word Count: 27,106

Summary: After a terrorist attack and a field operation gone wrong, the Avengers realize that Nick Fury's secrets are just the start of a much bigger mystery. Steve and Tony try to keep some things from each other as well, but that can't possibly affect the mission — right? Mission Fic + Getting Together (or Mission: Getting Together) that mashes up elements from Iron Man 3, CA: Winter Soldier, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season one, and Mission Impossible 3.

Why You Should Read It:

You can see my post yesterday for singing El’s praises, but what I really liked about this fic was how how damn creative it is. The CAWS/IM3/AOS mashup is everything I wished the actual MCU gave us and more, with well-developed characters and an exciting story to put them in. And because it’s El, you know the banter’s gonna be on point, the way the characters care for each other is gonna be emotionally constipated but touching, and the pacing’s gonna be exciting enough to draw you in and keep you there. Also, this fic doesn’t have nearly enough kudos so please go read it and fix that or I’m gonna have to try to hack AO3 and that’ll just be embarrassing for all parties involved.

What Happens In Vegas

Author: sabremc

Word Count: 161,951

Summary: “What the hell, Tony?” Rhodey demanded brusquely.  Tony winced and drew the phone away from his ear.  “You’ve got cops and Feds all over the hotel.  I’m watching you perp walk out of the police station on repeat on CNN.  They’re saying you tried to bribe Stern?  Fox News has you selling weapons on the black market, and God that picture they’re using is the one from Bali in ’09.   You look like shit.  They wheeled Stern out and put him in an ambulance, by the way.  Got some paparazzi swearing you decked the guy.  Now they’ve got ‘copters following it like he’s OJ.”

“Yeah, don’t worry, Sourpatch, I’ve got it covered.   Uh, though, I should probably tell you that, purely in the interests of national security and the greater good, I kind of had to fake marry that stripper-gram  you sent.  Thanks for that, by the way,” Tony added quickly.

Why You Should Read It:

If you’re deep enough into Stony to see posts like this on Tumblr, you probably know sabre’s what we in the business call a “big name author.” They’re prolific, they’re popular, and most importantly, they write words good (technical term). Seriously, sabre just keeps cranking out high quality stuff over and over again, raising the bar for the rest of us like a jerk (not really. I’m not bitter they write stuff so good I wish I’d thought of it first. Not at all.)

I never read stripper!Steve or stripper!Tony as a rule, but this came so widely recommended that I broke that rule and boy am I glad that I did. This is also the only fic on this list that’s a true-AU, with Steve being a non-powered vet from Afghanistan who left his army career to help Bucky and is stripping in Vegas to raise money for a prosthetic arm. He’s booked to do a private show for Tony, shenanigans ensue, and now they’re fake-married. This fic’s got some top-of-the-line banter and character development, but I particularly love it for its rich setting. Sabre paints a Vegas not just with strip clubs and blackjack tables, but KISS-themed minigolf, romantic dinners on the Eiffel tower, gaudy hotel lobbies, and making out on giant ferris wheels. It’s such a richly developed playground for the characters to play on, and through it, Steve manages to find a life for himself he’d given up on, and Tony finds multiple ways to show his kindness and depth of feeling for Steve. I know the word count’s long for this one but trust me, you’ve gotta read this fic.

Wait & Sea

Author: Lenalena

Word Count: 53,244

Summary: In which Tony and Steve get sent on an undercover mission aboard a cruise ship to make contact with Hydra. In this AU the military has kept the discovery and defrosting of Captain America a secret, so Steve and Tony have never met before. Yet they are to pose as newlyweds....

Why You Should Read It:

This one’s old and popular enough to be considered one of the “classic” Stony fics, and for good reason. Lenalena doesn’t write too often and not as much as they used to, but the fics they have up there are an absolute delight.

This is another fic that I skipped a bunch of times for being outside my comfort zone, but when I finally read it I saw why everyone’s so wild about it. In this story, Steve’s defrosted a bit earlier and not revealed as Captain America. He and Tony are sent undercover to sniff out Hydra shenanigans on a cruise and, because it’s fanfiction, they’ve got to pretend to be a married couple while onboard. There’s tons to love about this fic, but the things that bring me back to reading it over and over is first, Tony’s kindness and the way he’s attuned to Steve’s feelings, which... God, just inject “kind, observant Tony” straight into my veins, please and thank you. This is also another really rich setting for a story, and Lena knows how to fold the the hokeyness of the cruise into the seriousness of the mission and the depth of feelings Steve and Tony are finding for each other in a really beautiful, layered way. It’s funny, it’s heartfelt, it’s steamy, it’s gripping... why are you still reading this here? Go check it out for yourself!

Ashes to Ashes

Author: dirigibleplumbing

Word Count: 51,582

Summary: After regrouping following some surprise time travel, the world's heroes and sorcerers come up with a plan to protect the Mind and Time Stones by taking them into space in opposite directions. The result involves a lot more time loops than Steve would like, but at least they're getting a second chance to stop Thanos. (As well as a third, and a fourth...) And if Steve takes the opportunity to try to reconcile with Tony, too—well, they have the time, and Steve's going to make the most of it.

Why You Should Read It:

Dirigibleplumbing’s another name in Stony fanfics that does not get nearly as much fanfare as they deserve. They’re consistently a really creative voice in Stony fanfics and I always look forward to their stories showing me something new. Go read all their fics, I need more people to geek out with me over them.

I tend to limit myself on Steve-and-Tony-mend-things-after-Civil-War fics not because they’re not good, but because they’re so heavy, and also the Sokovia Accords have five hundred layers of crap in them that no good fic could possibly hash out well. This one, though? When you add in the Infinity War/End Game fixit? Poetry. Art. Music to my ears. DP wrote a really engaging, twisty story where it’s hard to predict what’s coming next, in spite of it literally being a pseudo-Groundhog day scenario. The characterizations are great, the story is engaging, and the feelings are big and sad and eventually happy. Go read it, you’ll love it.

I have tons of other recs for this category but this seems like a good place to stop for today. Tomorrow’s Alternative Media Thursday, and I’ve got some real gems I’ve been saving for that day (aaaaand possibly a self-rec or two ;)

[fallout-lou-begas]

Thoughts as I’m nearing the end of Elden Ring, and just about to enter the Erdtree:

- Haven't done Miquella's Haligtree yet but probably not going to before beating the final boss. This game is so absolutely enormous that I'm finally losing steam, to where the idea of going for Malenia feels like procrastinating. I’ll probably go back for her in my post-game after a good break because I really just want to finish this game and be done with it because my file playtime ranks at about 200 hours over the course of, like...one month.

- Having gotten to level 160+ as an unga bunga STR build two-handing a halberd, I can't tell if being nearly a pure martial is actually viable or if I'm just good and persistent. I've found that I have very little interest in the more flashy and spectacular Ashes of War or the affinities like Blood that can occasionally let you nuke a boss' healthbar, and instead I've had a lot more fun with Ashes that just give me more bread-and-butter combat tools that I can use often and repeatedly. I’ve alternated between Impaling Thrust and Bloodhound Step on my halberd especially; it’s sort of funny how I’ve grafted these normally keen abilities onto my heavy halberd. Bloodhound Step especially became vital in the late game where, despite my abundance of Vigor, I needed an extra evasive option. Another funny thing is how often I’ll try powering through a boss by stacking a lot of different buffs or strategies to exploit its weaknesses but when that fails I eventually succeed by just hitting it until it dies.

- I have such a love/hate relationship with how obtuse a lot of NPC questlines are in that they will relocate to parts of the map without any indication and you will just completely miss their quests if you don't find them. I did the whole middle of Millicent's questline without her and never got to see her fight because I missed her in Altus; I know her ending is in the Haligtree but still. But this is obviously a game design decision to make everything feel much more organic and surprising instead of, like, a checklist to complete or errands to run in the open world, and as frustrating as it was to miss so much of the characters I liked, there were other times where that sense of total freedom and self-directed gameplay were a treasure.

- Co-op multiplayer in this game is like a machine for memorable moments. The combination of how thoroughly every player can customize their appearance and extremely limited avenues of communication through mechanical actions (crouching repeatedly, attacking objects, mashing the block button to twitch a little bit) and gestures (taunts) reminds me immensely of making transient friendships in Team Fortress 2. I’ll never forget the character who helped me through the last stretch of Farum Azula and Maliketh pointing out items that I would have otherwise missed using the actual in-game point gesture, or “The Overcompensator” who invaded my world and attacked exclusively with colossal weaponry, or every time I’ve been summoned into a world and saw my two allies standing in the same ridiculous pose together or just literally sitting around waiting for me. A big part of why I’m so high level and at so much playtime before the final boss is because of how much time I spent with my Golden Effigy active, getting summoned into peoples’ worlds. The mid-game, about levels 40-80, is especially fun because the lower power level makes for a lot of really scrappy co-op scenarios.

- That being said, my love for the multiplayer aspect of this game combined with my developing remorse for how deeply I’ve fallen into the hole of it for a month has made me feel like I’ve gotten addicted to an MMO that isn’t even an MMO. Not a great feeling! I don’t think that I ever want to play a game this huge ever again and if I do another playthrough it’ll probably be MUCH less completionist.