#makicarn

[nostradamus0]

do you think maybe @makicarn is like a pigeon that’s learned how to get onto tumblr???

i am a huge fan of this hypothesis. how shall we test it

[eqt-95]

HELLO AND HAPPY FANFIC WRITER’S APPRECIATION DAY!

i was suddenly reminded by @makicarn’s tags on your post of this OTHER set of tags by @makicarn:

#more importantly#quinn#does mrs. fischer also think sam is a harlot

🤓🎣

what a FANTASTIC question.

the short answer is 'no, mrs. fischer does NOT think sam is a harlot.'

but not because her reckless treatment of clothes doesn't fall under 'harlot activities' because boy oh boy it does.

instead, it's simply because mrs. fischer doesn't know sam exists. unlike kara, sam knows what it's like to live out of her car, to rub pennies together, to hustle. things like paying for tailoring, while totally within her tax bracket now, is still something she can't bring herself to do. when ruby was starving, the last thing on sam's mind was getting a patch fixed or a button replaced. which means she's gotten especially good at repairing her own clothes.

even more of a reason is because sam is freaking the heck out that all of her clothes are magically buttonless. she's... hang on let me just:

- - - - - -

"Ruby, if you aren't ready in the next five minutes I am going to toss that phone in a blender and drop its sad remains over the balcony-"

"I'm up, jeez," called Ruby's sluggish voice from behind the door. "Why choose violence so early?"

Sam shoved her toothbrush back in her mouth, a tiny smirk of victory made less effective by the drool of toothpaste on her chin. She traipsed her way into her bedroom then into her private bathroom then further into her walk-in-closet. It was still so much space to get used to.

Toothbrush hanging idly in her mouth, she whipped through hanger after hanger of blouses. Blacks and greys and creams and off-whites... maybe Ruby was right. Maybe her wardrobe did need a splash of color.

Though What it needed now though were less empty hangers.

Which was... odd.

She looked again. The click of hangers rapping against each other faster this time.

Odd.

Again, faster. Her eyes glanced to her hamper.

Odd.

It was overflowing. It was never overflowing.

She huffed and marched over to the nest of clothes. A yank sent an avalanche of fabric to the ground. Sam held up the first garment.

Odd.

The second, third, and fourth were all the same. All missing buttons. All frayed with broken threads. All in a state Sam certainly would have remembered leaving them in.

She did not have time for this today. She had meetings lined up and lunch with Lena and Ruby's recital and... the list was endless.

It didn't matter. It was a problem for later. She dropped the shirts back onto the ground and reached for the closest blouse on the rack. Disgarding her toothbrush and giving her mouth a quick rinse on the way to her bedroom, she didn't think twice about the ease with which the blouse came off the hanger. Or the way it fell open when she dropped it over her head. It only raised a red flag when her fingers grazed the edges of fabric and felt... nothing.

Sam looked down, a breath caught in her throat.

Odd.

So odd that it sent her tearing through her bathroom cupboard, ripping bottles of moisturizers, make-up, and cleaning supplies onto the floor.

"Mom? Mom we're gonna be late-"

"Just a second," she called from the floor, fingers shaking, thread wavering, needle trembling.

A prick. An instinctive hiss. A quick press to her mouth.

She pulled her finger back; examined; scowled.

There wasn't a mark. There wasn't any pain at all.

Odd.

[sssammich]

ok sam, obvi Nia and Brainy are great, but because you've already emptied out the box of corps, what about dreamercorp??

i do not ship it because they are sisters to me. i just never got the vibe of romance from them. it's the same way that i don't really ship nia and kara.

what i DO believe in is the sisterhood. or, more aptly, the potential of their sisterhood. especially with their relationships re: mothers, siblings, etc. what i think nia can represent is the barometer for the rest of the world outside of the superfriends bubble. and i think that lena wants that, and nia offers that without requiring anything in return. i think there's kind of a different level of sisterhood as well that exists in comparison to alex and kara. kara is her mentor at work and i think because alex is so...alex, nia just falls in line like kara but almost has the Youngest privilege about it, you know?

the point is that i think the kind of relationship fulfillment that they have is more familial than anything else. i think it helps that there's someone around lena whose path she understands having taken not too long ago even if the circumstances are different, and just being able to lend a listening ear and not try to Solve or Fix or give advice is something that lena realizes she appreciates more since she's rarely allowed herself to just be in that situation.

but lena comes around a bit more laterally, so to speak, but there's like a crush that nia has. that's one thing i will definitely believe though, that nia has a girlcrush with lena and at first is like freaked about it (not because it's a woman but because she's so Affected by lena's presence) and then eventually, once she's learned about lena a bit more and spent more time, she really leans into it. it's all the more supported by brainy before they're a thing. and i just imagine that lena has to sit nia down and is all "listen i like being your friend but that's all we'll ever be"

and nia's all "because you're in love with kara. got it. say no more, sister." and that's a whole host of things.

(for non-supercorp version, nia's all "yeah babe chill. but also the night is young, who knows!" kisses her on the cheek and skips away for the bit. anyway it's a fun confusion for lena and that's what she deserves)

[ekingston]

“This is going to be a thing now, isn’t it? The two of you ganging up on me?”

—from Treats and Collars on ao3

This is part 2/2 of the artwork the wonderful @makicarn commissioned for @trashpandato’s adorable fic. Thank you, again, it was an absolute joy working with you both!

[ekingstonart]

“Here they are. We have a few different lines of toys here, different sizes, and the squeakers themselves vary from brand to brand. Some of these are very loud.”

—from Treats and Collars on ao3

Thank you so much @makicarn for commissioning me to illustrate this scene from @trashpandato’s ADORABLE fic! It has been an absolute pleasure working with/for you both!

[iglowindark]

@sideguitars and @makicarn you may regret engaging me about my 2025 Pasta Shape Rubric of Awesome (TM). 😜

i was getting quite annoyed with the New Year's Resolution questions from friends and fam - like, i consistently fail to overhaul my life during the other 11 months of the year, why would January be a magical success month? but i was also bumming everyone out during Resolution Reveals so i decided to pick something that would be fun for me and mildly upsetting for my elders!

the initial format was to "try every pasta shape in 2025". but. there are more than 400 pasta shapes. do you know how often i would have to eat pasta to accomplish this? i mean, i had to use a calculator because i forgot a year had 365 days, but it's MORE THAN ONCE PER DAY. i love pasta, but i also love other food, and i need to leave room in my life for every other cuisine.

so then i settled on "52 pasta shapes in 2025" - but glowy! (you might say) how will you decide which 52 pasta shapes to eat??? out of more than 400???

the answer is, of course: arbitrarily! but with a spreadsheet twist, because my first love in life is hot sauce, and my second love in life is a spreadsheet - no, i lied, i forgot about ms underfoot 😸, ok, she's #1, then hot sauce, then spreadsheets, then probably my family i guess.

ok, so please understand, i literally spent 7 hours and 40ish minutes over the past week assembling, editing, auditing, and admiring this spreadsheet. i started with trusty wikipedia, which helpfully broke down pasta shapes into groups like "long/medium" and "short cut" and "soup". it also had a group for "filled", but maki, sorry to say, this group i eliminated wholesale. there was just so much variation in what they might be filled WITH, and i needed some sort of control element. i didn't think it would be fair to compare cheese ravioli with 3-cheese tortellini? the cheeses are not equal! 🧀🧀🧀

so THEN: i did my own sub-grouping. (actually, first i split long and medium into their own groups, because, duh, they're different) long-flat and long-rolled, for example. i also started combining shapes that were really similar. like linguini and tagliatelle are kinda just the same noodle with slightly different widths/shapes/ingredients? (please, nonnas of the world, do not come for me in the comments, this was SO HARD). this part involved a lot of googling. my ad content for the next 4 months is gonna be all pasta related. through many gruelling rounds of re-googling to remind myself what shape was what, and some painful, tearful cuts (lasagne noodles are for lasagne, not for unserious noodle frippery) i finally finally finally culled my list down to 52 pasta shapes. 🍝 (editor's note: the single emoji does not represent this publication's favored pasta shape)

then the FUN part: how was i going to score these 52 pasta shapes? every google result went to pains to insist that different shapes were meant for specific sauces, and i'm sure that's true, but what's the fun in scoring something based on what it's meant to do? (also i didn't want to commit to having to make 52 different sauces/soups) so i came up with this scientifically rigorous scoring rubric:

BUTTERED/RED SAUCED (depending on my mood and whether or not i have red sauce available)

a pasta may earn up to one (1) point for being really good at holding butter/red sauce

a pasta cannot lose points in this category

PRIMAVERA (my version of primavera just means that i diced up whatever veggies i had handy and tossed them w/ the pasta)

a pasta may earn up to one (1) point if i can make one perfect bite that includes veggies/sauce/pasta

a pasta cannot lose points in this category

ALTERNATE USES

a pasta may earn one (1) point (max 5 points) for every non-food alternate use that i can dream up. for example, orecchiette could be used as hats for frogs! or to decorate the ramparts of a sand castle! 2 points for orecchiette!

a pasta may not lose points in this category

MISC/GENERAL (here's where i let my freak flag fly)

a pasta may earn one (1) point if i think the name is fun to say

a pasta may earn one (1) point if i think the shape is "cute"

a pasta may earn one (1) point if it works in a soup

a pasta may earn one (1) point if it might stick (cooked) on the ceiling

a pasta may earn one (1) point if it could probably be used to build a bridge for matchbox cars

a pasta may lose one (1) point if it sticks together unreasonably

a pasta may lose one (1) point if water gets stuck in it and surprises me with pasta water bites

a pasta may lose one (1) point if i can't eat it with a spoon

a pasta may lose one (1) point if it won't fit in a pot without being broken up

a pasta may lose one (1) point if it breaks when dropped from 5 feet (dried and uncooked)

all pasta shapes must be eaten twice (once with butter or red sauce, and once in a primavera), and once i've submitted my scores to myself, i cannot be influenced or bribed to change them. at the end of the year, a Champion Pasta Shape will be announced and celebrated.

so... was that a lot of senseless work for an absolutely pointless goal just so i can eat lots of pasta? heck yeah it was!!

[fazedlight]

Tagged by the wonderful @casualkoalatea! ❤️

rules: shuffle your spotify 'on repeat' playlist and list the first ten songs

Starlight by The Wailin’ Jennys

Ragdoll Princes & Junkyard Queens by Ante Duvekot

Bailando by Enrique Iglesias

Fireflies by Owl City

What About Us by Pink

Starstrukk by 3OH!3 & Katy Perry

50 Ways to Say Goodbye by Train

Cake by the Ocean by DNCE

Watching For Comets by Skillet

Boston by Augustana

No-pressure tags for @beefcake-penguin @nottawriter @katiemcgrathisdaddyaf @kitch3nw3nch @makicarn @waytooinvested @rustingcat @theredcapeofk @thatonebirdwrites and anyone else who'd like to do this!

[stuckinthisdamnhellsite]

@sideguitars , @makicarn

we got more snow! just shovelled, now am gonna enjoy some hot chocolate! :D

[trashpandato]

Tagged by @makicarn , here are 4 photos from my camera roll from last week

tagging anyone who wants to participate

[oreoambitions]

tagged by @makicarn :) Last Song: Bug Bite - Fantasy Camp. This is one of those songs I could listen to for a couple of hours uninterrupted. Favorite Color: Desaturated blues Last Book: Wind and Truth. Prose? Mediocre. Actual story? Excellent, 4/5 stars, cannot believe I'm going to wait SEVEN YEARS to find out what happens next. Last Movie: Elf. I hated it. I don't want to talk about it. Last Show: I'm not going to lie to you, I'm currently rewatching Supergirl. H o w e v e r, I'm also watching Alone Season 10, and I just finished The Bear a week ago. Sweet/Spicy/Savory: Sweet > Savory > Spicy. I'm baby about spicy. Relationship Status: :) Last Thing I Googled: "conclave 2024" bc someone was posting really lovely fanart and I needed to know what it was about Current Obsession: this gd fic I'm not writing, boston fleet, and Veilguard Looking Forward To: my housemates are moving out and that's going to make my living situation so much cleaner and more pleasant and ALSO I get Sundays off all this month so I get to do my favorite kind of streaming AND go to the farmer's market Tagging @ragingscooter and @bisexualgoof and @zealouseagleface but no pressure ever :)

[nostradamus0]

Nate, I wanna hear more about this pocketknife! :D Sincerely, your fellow forest-dweller Maki who is left-handed and clumsy and thus afraid of her pocketknife

first and foremost, i am also left-handed and that is no reason to be afraid! you and your pocketknife can still be good friends <3

mine was a gift from my grandfather shortly after i began transitioning, actually! i had one before that, but it didn’t hold any special meaning. anyway, it was his when he was younger and had been a gift from his father, who it belonged to for a long time. his dad was the Actual Worst Guy Ever, but my grandfather held onto his knife and gave it to me and i felt SO special being entrusted with it.

i remember he said to me “he always wanted a grandson,” which at the time felt so affirming but in retrospect is very odd because i have a brother who had, at the time, existed already for about 13 years, and we lived less than a 15-minute drive from his house for all of them. but i digress

[sssammich]

Dear Quizno's, if you would be so kind:

💖🍰🌝

hahah thank you for playing along!

💖 What do you like most about your own writing?

pffft um that because i've thankfully always stayed loyal to myself, they're exactly the types of fics i like to read, so their value actually increases over time. i read my own fics and i enjoy that i can do that and entertain myself as planned. especially when i forget what i've written and i go "wow! i wrote this! and it's exactly what i wanted to happen in the fic!"

in terms of perhaps style and technique, that they all somehow miraculously are paced well enough to feel organic and not rushed. considering the chaotic out-of-order style of writing that i do, this is really very much a miracle tbh

🍰 Name one of your fave comfort fics (doesn’t have to be your all time fave).

like mine? or like someone else's? well you get to have both

mine: don't touch me, touch me more that i wrote for a rare pair in revue starlight remains one of my most favorite "maya unclenching" fics that i take a lot of comfort in. i really said "let me pretend i invented physical intimacy"

also mine: rituals for swanqueen is an incomplete vignette style slowburn of a story that i have. it's incomplete because i don't actively write for it only when i feel the tenderness flowing extra but it's such a comfortable universe that i actually sit in it for a while even as i think about other swan queen fics

not mine: Something Borrowed by janewithawhy is probably one of the most tender and quiet and understated fics there are and i love it so much i just cradle it in my heart

🌝 Who is one character you haven’t yet written for that you would like to?

um for supergirl i'd say probably sam or brainy, maybe nia. i've technically had them in small spots in existing fics but i'd like to center them a bit more. even sam in my rojarias fic is very much at the mercy of andrea's thoughts and emotions

i hope to have a sam-centered fic before the year ends but who knows (she's gonna be in a kind of supercorp triangle of sorts but i am not emotionally ready to write that fic just yet)

fanfic ask meme

[sssammich]

Ssssam's Club, how about 2,3 and 5? :)

lmao oh thank you, maki.

2. What are some of the things that have made you who you are?

uh moving to america??? that has definitely impacted every facet of my identity

fandoms??? honestly without fandom and writing fanfiction i probably would not have become an english teacher (which eventually led me to my career now)

beyonce? lmao (happy belated beyonce birthday to all those who celebrate (sept 4))

my shellfish allergy LOL

my hoarding mother has affected me and my own hoarding-lite tendencies

3. What are some of your pet peeves?

dirty fingernails i cannot handle

when people don't pick up after themselves (this is a shameful pet peeve yet i am guilty of it and that's why i am peeved at myself double for it)

when someone only addresses parts of your email message even though you need clarity or more information than that

when people play their stupid and dumb music out loud on the train like at that point have better music???

5. Something that makes you ridiculously happy?

many things make me happy because this world can't bring me down though it's hella tryin

when meetings get cancelled. my office job has become just a marathon of meetings so i'm always happy when they cancel

and i get the hour back.

when food in new york city is filling AND under $10 like wow live the dream

when i wake up from a nap and im not groggy

ask meme

[ekingston]

Thank you @makicarn & @fazedlight (see her reblog in the tags) for finding more information!! According to the listings for the app it's only been live since October, which explains why we haven't heard much about it yet. The website also purports to provide access to AI-voiced classic novels like (at a glance) Pride and Prejudice, Moby Dick and Sherlock Holmes, all of which are all in the public domain, which leads me to think the creator of the website wrongfully assumes copyright doesn't pertain to fan fiction.

Per @echoekhi 's advice (who's done invaluable work for fandom with their project Copy-Knight) I have contacted OTW Legal, hoping they can help. Because word-stream doesn't list a formal policy regarding copyright violations, and Weitzman doesn't appear to publically own up to his connection to the website anywhere, (correction: I just watched the YouTube shorts Maki linked to and his face is right there along with the boast that we can access all of these free works for just one teensy payment, isn’t that just SO GENEROUS OF HIM) I agree with them that it's inadvisable to file a DMCA takedown at this point. I wouldn't trust it 1. with my personal information and 2. for it to actually go anywhere. That being said it's definitely something to keep an eye on and obviously anyone whose work is listed there should do their own research and decide for themselves which steps they want to take.

Sorry to bring attention to such a crummy thing right before the holidays!!

does anyone know wtf word-stream.com is or where to send them a takedown request? i just found a bunch of fics, including my own, hosted on this AI slop site—apparently offering what I assume are AI-generated audiobook versions & (equally AI-generated) ratings and reviews. i can’t take a closer look without signing up, which, no thank you, but it looks like they’re hosting the full fics and are peddling a paid subscription for the trouble of hosting them. can someone more knowledgeable than me explain what our options are in this situation?

[iglowindark]

one of these days i'll create a master postt of the Pasta List and all of the scoring to date. today is not that day. sigh. i'm struggling to human over here, but i did eat pasta!

Fusili - 7 total points (i am very heavily biased toward fusili, so it took some moral strength to be fair about this)

the name is fun to say, the shape is ADORABLE - c'mon, it's a springy lil noodle!!! it works in a soup. it cannot stick to the ceiling, and i would refuse to drive my matchbox car over a fusili bridge, altho now that i say it out loud, "Fusili Bridge" kinda sounds like code for "Completely Futile Infrastructure Project", so that's fun!

it doesn't stick together or retain water (maybe just a little, but as i mentioned above, i am biased and i know how to shake it. the pasta, not my ass.) you can eat it with a spoon, you don't need to break it to fit it in the pot, but it definitely shatters when dropped.

points earned for the perfect red sauce bite and for the perfect primavera bite. (holds sauce REALLY WELL)

alternate uses: well, it would make a spectacularly unsafe waterslide for like, baby ants. i could see a cooked or uncooked fusili noodle starring in a rube goldberg device. oh, or have you ever seen the show Vikings and when they are trying to invade Paris (i think for the second time) they roll their boats over land by rolling them over a succession of logs? ok, imagine if those logs were giant fusili noodles. that would slap.

Anelli - 8 total points (this one surprised me! and is also a new to me shape. and is also SPAGHETTIOS and i never knew it)

no points awarded for "fun to say" partially because i've accidentally been calling it Annellini all day. they're not going to let me into italy anymore. cute shape, yes. soup worthy? yes. might stick on the ceiling? ok, you know it didn't stick on my ceiling HOWEVER. it's a cute lil ring. i think it COULD stick on the ceiling so i'm awarding a point. bridge material, nope.

sticks together? kinda, but not enough to annoy me. sheds water delightfully. can eat with spoon, and can pour into pot, no breaking required. these hardy little rings do not break from 5 ft! i don't advise 6 ft.

holds sauce relatively well, can def make the perfect primavera bite.

alternate uses: wedding ring for ferrets or otters. i need an otter wearing an anelli ring, stat. hardest carnival ring-toss game ever. and controversially, i am awarding a point for an alternate use that is still a food, because ANELLI ARE SPAGHETTIOS. i am just (clearly) blown away by this discovery, and spaghettios barely count as food, so i'm calling Spaghettio Stand In a valid alternate use.

@sideguitars i am really excited to see what you get up to with your Anelli, as i am now tempted to sub them in everywhere. i want watch an itamae slice into a specialty roll and see anelli tumble out.

cc: @makicarn, @cinnis, @waytooinvested-main

[iglowindark]

@waytooinvested-main i tried to stack my anelli.... this pic took me about 20 minutes to capture because uncooked spaghettios are.... not even!

extra credit is now available for any anelli stacks taller than 1 inch.

cc: @sideguitars, @makicarn, @cinnis