#meg answers things

[meggie-stardust]

Top 5 albums to put on at a party

YOU HAD TO GO SO HARD on the first question?! Like what kind of party are we talking here? What's the vibes??? Never mind. Never mind. We'll cover it all. (And also, resisting the urge to cheat and be like, I made a mix tape for a specific party, or that phase I went through in like 2008 where I just put on The Best of Bootie or Girl Talk at every party and people kept getting mad at me.)

Ok, in no particular order.

The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars by David Bowie. You cannot go wrong by playing this at a party. It has everything. Your big sing-a-longs, your slower moments, some dancey bits even. We can all lift up our drinks and yell "wham bam, thank you ma'am" together and they cry on a friend during the end of "Rock N Roll Suicide."

Purple Rain by Prince. Every punk I knew in the 90s, who had milk crates of punk and hardcore records, some new, most from the $1 bin at Amoeba records, also had a copy of Purple Rain on vinyl. It's like a right of passage. There is not a bad song on here. (Incidentally this is also how I feel about Ice Cream Castle by The Time)

Body Talk by Robyn. There was this period of time where a bunch of people had moved back to our hometown after changing jobs or whatever and both my sister and I were around and living near each other. One night when we were bored, we learnt the dance from the "Call Your Girlfriend" video and we would go to parties and get drunk and try to do the dance in like someone's living room. It was great. For us. Anyway a good album for more of a dancey vibe.

All Killer No Filler by Sum 41. I know, I know, there are so many pop-punk albums of this era to choose from, why pick this one? Well, the title says everything. This is for the party of people who are my age +/- like 2 years and we are all gonna sing along, but also talk about your friend's messy divorce. (honestly tho, YMMV with this one, so if you're using this as a guide for your own party replace with your blink-182 album of choice)

The Crane Wife by The Decemberists. You've reached that part of the night where people are just chilling in small groups, chatting, drinking. The party is basically over, but the core group is still around. That's when you put this on. No one will argue about which Decemberists album to put on, but you know this one will appease the most people.

(some honorable mentions I thought about putting on here are Born to Run, Hot Fuss, Sublime and Appetite for Destruction, again depending on the vibes we're going for. Edit to add: Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, which makes 5 more albums for 5 different parties)

My inbox is always open to send me music asks of any kind.

[dragqueenstarscream]

I think that one of the most interesting characters in Transformers Prime is Soundwave (though I could talk forever about most of the characters because they're all so fascinating!). Not just because he's a badass, but I find his actions/motives a bit contradictory. I understand that from an IRL show writing perspective, they were making the show interesting, but from an in universe perspective there are quite a few events that are extremely perplexing to me. Mostly because if we are to assume that Soundwave does indeed have cameras everywhere aboard the Nemesis that are constantly recording, and he does see/hear everything, it makes some situations kind of weird. And I was wondering what your thoughts/in universe explanations/headcanons for this kind of stuff is?

When Starscream and Knock Out are discussing their plans to convince Soundwave that Megatron should be taken off life support. They are in the Nemesis, in the Med Bay with comatose Megatron, and surely Soundwave can see and hear them, so why discuss this here, out loud? Why are the two surprised when they later cannot convince Soundwave to go along with their plans? I can't think of an in universe explanation for this one other than they forgot Soundwave is the eyes and ears of the Decepticons somehow??? Which seems...unlikely.

When Smokescreen escapes the Med Bay and steals the Phase Shifter from Knock Out. Megatron can definitely win a fight against Smokescreen, but with the addition of the Phase Shifter, you would think that Soundwave would warn Megatron about Smokescreen's approach and possession of said artifact. But Megatron is obviously not warned. In universe I guess the explanation would be that Soundwave thought Megatron would somehow be able to handle Smokescreen before he used the Phase Shifter and so didn't warn him?

Starscream sneaking onto the Nemesis and talking to "Orion Pax". In universe I chalk this one up to Soundwave being jealous/distrusting of "Orion Pax" tbh. He wants "Orion Pax" off the ship so he just allows Starscream to sneak into "Orion's" chamber and talk with him.

Soundwave tries to attack Miko even though she's in the Apex Armor. In universe I guess he was trying to immobilize her rather than kill her since the Apex Armor is impenetrable and he would definitely know that by now?

When Starscream finds that picture of Ratchet doing the Bigfoot Walk pose, but it gets deleted. Like, Soundwave definitely could have footage of that picture before it was deleted by Raf, but he's a troll so in universe Soundwave was definitely just fucking with Starscream lol.

Bonus: My guy didn't even try to stop Starscream from retreating when the Space Bridge was going to blow up in the first few episodes. Obviously Soundwave could've prevented the retreat from happening because he can highjack the Nemesis' controls, but he chose not to do so. It's kind of sad because in universe I'd imagine he was thinking that Megatron was not so stupid as to remain near an imminently exploding space bridge.

oh tfp soundwave is super interesting! a lot of what makes him so interesting is just trying to figure out what the hell is going on upstairs, both because he doesn't talk and because the only one he confides in is megatron. it's likely that a lot of what he does will only ever truly make sense to him, but let's see if we can figure things out.

1.) the funny answer i've come up with is that knock out and starscream thought that they'd get some privacy in the medbay because of hipaa violations, but they didn't take into account that soundwave does not care in the slightest.

in all seriousness, though, i think that they just thought that the medbay was the one place where they could have some sort of privacy. but, again, soundwave doesn't work like that.

2.) my best guess? soundwave didn't make it to megatron in time to warn him. or maybe he really did have that faith in megatron that he'd be able to handle himself against smokescreen with the phase shifter. either way.

3.) checks out. soundwave doesn't like orion pax potentially risking his spot as megatron's favorite, and he also doesn't like starscream's plotting. them accidentally getting rid of themselves makes less work for him.

4.) oh soundwave was definitely trying to make starscream look like an idiot. soundwave knows starscream has been plotting against megatron. he'll take whatever chance he can get to humble him.

5.) ohhhh tfp megatron can be STUPID, but that's beside the point. you probably are right, though, i imagine soundwave had more faith in his master than he realistically should've.

[mamawasatesttube]

Need an au where Lois found out Tana was dating a teenager and went into feral overprotective mama bear mode

YOU AND ME BOTH MAN. @loisinherlane and i once spitballed one au in this vein where lois, who already has jon (a baby, like 4 or 5 years old, doesn't understand why his dad isn't coming home) looks at kon and can't let him walk away. this is a kid with her dead beloved's face. she's already a mom. she can't do it.

so she absolutely eats tana alive (kon doesn't see why she's so mad, but he's like okie dokie i still think that was overkill but sure?) (kon is wrapped around baby jon's lil pinky fingers. where that baby goes, he goes.) and takes kon in.

the comedy of this au is when clark comes back, and lois is so frazzled and overwhelmed she just collapses into his arms and cries and she's exhausted and she honestly just. she forgets he doesn't already know what's going on. she forgets she hasn't told him. so poor clark walks into the kitchen, sees this teenager who clearly looks like him staring at him with a spoonful of cheerios halfway to his mouth, and thinks, oh my god. i've somehow lost all my memories of our firstborn.

[lazuliquetzal]

I keep on telling people you're the only one who knows how to plot. Can you teach all of us how to plot, please? I love you.

I AM SUMMONED? PLOT BRAIN SUMMONED?

I love plotting. It's my favorite part of the writing process. Plot is "things that happen" and the best part of writing is imagining things that happen. I'm going to assume that whoever may be reading this knows how to imagine The Happenings, so I'm gonna be talking more about structure, but in like, a kinda abstract sense.

A good plot is a little bit more than a string of events. Plot is like music: there's variation in rhythm and sound and melody, but ultimately there's cohesion, because it's all one song. You can have a bunch of wild things happening, but no matter how strange, there should be something that links them all together, because you're telling one story.

Plot structures are patterns in stories. I'm pretty sure most of them were developed as analysis tools (as in, story already exists > look! it follows this pattern) rather than as writing tools, but people use them as writing tools because it's a neat little way to organize the chaos that is "shit happens." Stories follow patterns for the same reasons music follows patterns: we enjoy the certainty of hitting certain beats. But we also like being surprised. A good pop song doesn't sound like a random collection of sounds, but it also doesn't sound like the middle slider of other songs.

There is this shared concept in both music and writing: the idea of tension and release. Basically, you're playing with reader expectation: there's an imbalance in the experience (tension), and we want to see that imbalance resolved (release). All the common plot structures deal with this basic pattern:

You set an expectation

There are complications to the expectation

You meet the expectation

And this rhythm is happening on multiple levels in writing. Scenes follow this structure (we're gonna get past that door, we're gonna find the murder weapon, we're gonna collaborate and come up with a plan) and all those scenes feed into the overarching expectation (we're gonna solve this murder!). I usually think of chapters as their own mini-story, part of the larger whole. And I think of scenes as their own mini-story, part of the larger chapter. I have engineer brain. I see the gears spinning in the clock. That's why all my chapters have at least One Important Thing happening, because that's that particular chapter's Step #3.

And One Last Important Thing:

In music, a delayed resolution is almost always more interesting than the standard resolution. In writing, that means you wanna drag out Step #2 for as long as you can. That's where the bulk of the story is happening, that's how you build tension, that's how you get people to turn the page.

So when you write a fake dating fic, those bitches better not get together until the very end. I came here for fake dating, not for real dating, damn it. If you resolve that expectation early on, you better replace it with a different expectation that's just as engaging.

But also don't drag it out for too long. Sorry. The hard part of writing is learning the difference between too short and too long. Writing is unfortunately a nuanced skill which is why my advice is like "do this but not too much teehee." But tension and resolution is just rhythm, you can build a sense for it if you engage with enough stories.

[moonmeg]

When cleaning the women's changing room at the gym: *silence. no one needs anything.*

The moment I get permission to enter the men's changing room: DING DONG PLS COME TO THE ENTRANCE COUNTER!! RIGHT NOW!! IMPORTANT!! DON'T IGNORE ME!!

(We employees carry a phone with us when we leave the counter so that if someone needs something they can ring and we can go back to the counter)

[essektheylyss]

literally laughed out loud at Matt's face when he admitted that Lester was trying to hide something, truly the scrungliest detective in Newfaire

[palms-upturned]

PSA

Hello friends, I’m sorry for being mostly offline for a little while, I’ve been struggling a bit. Please rest assured that I’m going to try to get everything running again ASAP, but here’s a short version of what’s going on.

At the moment, I’m unemployed due to my disability and trying to get a lot of things sorted out in the bursts of time when I feel well enough. I am fairly certain that my pain and fatigue is being caused by sciatic endometriosis that was made worse by a covid infection, but it’s going to take me a while to get diagnosed and (hopefully) treated. In the meantime, my pain flareups are unfortunately getting worse and more frequent. What this means is that unfortunately I have stretches of time where I have a hard time talking to people or even thinking straight. Some of the medicines I take for my pain also make me drowsy which makes things even harder on top of it all.

I’m going to continue promoting fundraisers, but I feel very bad that these periods of time are becoming longer and more frequent because every day of fundraising is critically important. So what I’d like to ask is whether any of my friends/mutuals here would be interested in helping me run @vetted-gaza-funds so that even when I’m not well, at least that blog can stay up to date. There are currently over 100 fundraisers posted there, and as more get added, the more time it takes me to update the master list, update urls for users who were forced to remake their blogs, and work through the inbox for new campaigns. Trying to push through on days when I don’t feel well has already resulted in some really stupid mistakes like accidentally deleting the original master list post, and I really don’t want to do something like that again.

One friend of mine has already volunteered to help, which I’m very thankful for, but if I could find maybe five more people, then that would mean one mod for every day of the week, which would hopefully mean that it wouldn’t be too large a commitment for anyone. The more the merrier, basically.

So to break things down, here’s what I would be doing:

Creating a discord server for the blog mods

Looking through the inbox each day for new campaigns to add

Cross referencing those campaigns on master lists/spreadsheets to see which ones are already verified and can be shared

Adding the campaign links, usernames, and other relevant information to a cryptpad document for people to plug into a post/add to the master list

Here’s what I would need help doing:

Making the actual posts on the blog (there is a template in the drafts that I use to make them)

Updating the fund amounts/progress in the master list, ideally every day

If comfortable, briefly answering direct messages to let people know when their campaigns have been added to the blog

Also, so far the blog has just been full of fundraisers for people who have contacted me directly, but if anyone helping with the blog has verified fundraisers that they themselves would like to add, of course that would be great as well!

If you’re interested in helping me out, please dm me or reply to this post! (I’d prefer not to talk via asks because when I answer asks privately I don’t have any record of our conversation and I can be forgetful 😅)

Thank you all 🙏 today I’m unfortunately still not feeling well so I may be slow to respond but I will try to answer messages and get everything set up asap!

[istherewifiinhell]

#[...]perfect to think about sopping wet g1 megs chillin in lava

scientist are still debating if joelle can just perfectly predict things that happen in tf or if i just love finding tf scenes for every concept

[ID: G1 Transformers screencaps (s3). 1. Scourge, standing on a rocky planet, pulling Galvatron, who is submerged in a pool of lava, up by the hands. 2. Galvatron rising from it, as the lava drips down his frame. END]

[meggie-stardust]

Run Howling Through the Carnage, please 👀👀

Ooh thank you!

This is actually a sequel to Know How A Man Becomes A Beast. Both titles are lines from the Mountain Goats song Werewolf Gimmick, and were just begging to be used for Steter fics.

The idea with the sequel is that Stiles has to figure out how to cope with being something else, and finding a pack with Peter. If I recall it was also going to be minor Stisaac or some minor Peter/Stiles/Isaac... but I never got that far.

“I assume you’ve talked to Scott,” Peter had said instead of answering any of John’s questions. “Then he must have told you that Stiles had been missing for at least three days before I found him, and that no one in Scott’s so-called pack had done anything about it?” Peter finished, a growl at the edge of his voice.  John leveled him with a hard stare. “He may have left that part out,” he said through gritted teeth.  “I won’t prevent you from seeing him,” Peter said softly, “he’s your son, and you will probably help him find his humanity again. But I have to warn you that he’s not the same anymore. And he’s still recovering… It might take time.” “Is he…” John started, then paused struggling for words. “Did it come back?” He eventually asked. “The Nogitsune? No,” Peter confirmed. “But they used the lingering residue, for lack of a better word, to do this. The most I can tell you is that he’s a weresomething, probably fox…” Peter trailed off. “Do you want to see him? It will be easier to explain after you see him.” John squared his shoulders and nodded. 

[brctherscnce]

What's your favorite memory of Megatron before the war happened?

Send me character development questions!

This one hurt. Indeed, there were some who were curious about his interactions with Megatron back in the day. However, the memories had become bittersweet, or simply bitter, knowing what Optimus had done (even if he knew many things during the war was also Megatron's doing... Optimus blamed himself for that, too).

Sitting down, and now beginning to fidget, Optimus awkwardly said, " My most cherished has to be when we first met. "

" I was only recently an aspirant at the time, and Stormreign brought me to the gladiatorial pits of Kaon. We were able to watch one of his matches, and... never had I seen a Cybertronian fight another Cybertronian before. It was terrifying, but the way Megatron held himself was... was so amazing. I couldn't look away. He was so powerful, he stayed tall despite all his injuries and always had such an air of... of regality to him. " A pause, and as Optimus now lost himself in the story he found himself chuckling, focusing less on the old war and instead like... like things hadn't changed. " I'll admit, I found him handsome in that moment. "

" I asked Stormreign if he could be my tutor-- we had been looking for one so then I could be prepared for duels or one-on-one battles the Knights of Iacon may experience. And when I was able to meet him after he was tended to? It was... it was almost magical. I deeply admired him. He, certainly wasn't a fan of me, at first-- he thought I was faking being kind. After all, I was an aspirant, and thus it meant I had far more opportunities in life than him, but after I'd explained my origins in the old Iaconian mines, he'd changed his tune. We were like best friends, and I even helped him join the Knights of Iacon, too! "

" ... We wanted to change the world for the better, together. "

And yet, as reality once more dawned upon Optimus Prime, his expression contorted into one far more saddened and pained.

" And then I ruined it. Megatron will never forgive me for what I did to Cybertron, and... that is okay... but I just wish... I just wish I hadn't... failed him... and everyone else... But I will at least try to make things right. I-I... I will try to find us a new home. " His voice cracked a little near the end.

[artiststarme]

We made it to 1,000 followers! Wow, I can’t believe that so many people are interested in reading my short snippets and rambling stories. This started as a way for me to keep track of my writing progress and has developed into so much more!

Thank you all for sticking around and sending me your nice comments and asks. I always love seeing what you guys have to say. If you have any angsty steddie fic ideas that you want to see written out on this momentous occasion, send them my way!

[frodo-with-glasses]

I've seen your lovely LOTR readthrough art, and I'm curious - do you draw in a sketchbook, or in the actual novel?? (If you do it in the novel, to be honest that's actually really cool since it adds a personal touch to the books!)

Oh my goodness, thank you so much! I draw in a sketchbook, haha; there’s not enough room in the margins of my copy of LotR to make any proper drawings, and even if there were, I wouldn’t dare draw in the book anyway. My art is gonna have to be waaaay better before I even think about doing that 🤣

With that being said, though, I did personalize my book a little bit, once…

[marz-mania]

"The longer we can keep building, the longer we can keep creating, the longer we can tolerate being incomplete."

- Chuck Palahniuk, Choke

[no1ryomafan]

With more older anime I watch that’s specifically about androids the more I noticed all the influence mega man pulled from it despite it not being a anime nor the robot timeline ever getting a proper anime but I think what gets me more then “the basis of mega man is like astro boy, casshern and POSSIBLY kikaider all in a blender with mega man x making the second two inspos more apparent” is realizing how many villain characters inspired proto man.

You have the obvious one, char from Gundam, you have rock holmes from Astro boy who’s not a confirmed one but seems to track given classic takes a lot of Astro boy influence and then you have Saburo from Android kikaider, the most likely inspo for proto in EVERY category- and then you remember how while these characters are evil for a complex reason, proto man really shines to be different as he changed his ways. He’s still a rival to his “brother” in a sense but bass takes more of the role of the evil mega man, while proto just watches from afar and comes in to help when he thinks he’s needed.

I’m going to rotate this red robot fuck for awhile again FUCK

[jackinalex]

https://www.tumblr.com/jackinalex/759472751919710208?source=share

Lisa is going to sing on a song that Alex wrote about an ex. This is just a new level of cringe.

Honestly, Meg is a freaking saint because she has never breathed a word about it lmao. I wish she’d do a tell-all!!!

[mad-as-a-box-of-frogs]

Finally someone else who hates Meg, she creeps me out so much. I don't think I'd hate her so much if everyone else in the fandom didn't love her. Like I get that she's a demon and an antagonist but the rapey scenes she has are too much for me personally.

I feel ya, anon 😭 like I enjoy a villain as much as the next person, but sexual assault in tv and film just gets under my skin like nothing else does and kills my enjoyment every time. And it’s not like Meg just did something weird once in s1, she’s sexually assaulted or threatened it multiple times to several characters through out her run, including using Sam’s body so aggressively to assault Jo that Jo thought she was about to be raped. And I’ve just …. Never understood why large swathes of this fandom were okay with glossing over all that. The same fandom that’ll write essays about John Winchester’s parental abuse based on a single comment evades every attempt to say anything more critical than “Hey! Sometimes I find the way that Meg wields the threat of sexual violence to be kinda off putting!”

Stay strong out there, anon 🫡