#posted this like 2 weeks ago and forgot to link it here

[zukoisgayforsokka]

Chapter 3: The Earth Kingdom

What if Sokka and Suki had an arranged marraige, and were at least 10 years older? (And also trans): A Suki Joins The Gaang canon rewrite of Book 1

Word count: 5k for chapter 1, 20k+ for the full 4 chapters

Ship: Sokka/Suki

Key tags: Arranged Marraige, Enemies to Lovers, Miscommunication, Trans Suki, Nonbinary Sokka, Book 1 rewrite

Happy birthday @queerplatonicsolid bet you thought you'd escaped gift-free but no such luck<3

Thanks as always to the lovely @unacaritafeliz for beta'ing

[blueskittlesart]

profs will set the due date for the final as april 24 and then STILL NOT HAVE THE FUCKING ASSIGNMENT UP TO SUBMIT THE PAPER BY 11PM ON APRIL TWENTY FUCKING THIRD

[the-smiling-doodler]

What is the difference between twitter and tumblr

there's a lot of differences between them, from community to functionality. we'd be here all week if i listed every single one, so i'm just gonna name a few: 1. the community on tumblr is a lot more chill than the one on twitter. tumblr users HIGHLY encourage curating your own experience, it's basically impossible to be on tumblr for a while without seeing at least one post encouraging you to unfollow/block people you dont vibe with, not respond to hateful asks and block mean anons, and filter tags you dont like. this isn't to say that other apps don't do the same thing, but in my experience, tumblr users are far more vocal about it. it's very ingrained in the app's culture as a whole. linking this back to the SC fandom real quick: I've only been faced with one drama on tumblr, compared to twitter where it seems like every fucking day some new shit pops up. tumblr-exclusive SC fans are largely unaware of any of the crazy shit that goes on on twitter. i keep saying this to my moots but it is genuinely far more peaceful on here than on twitter. 2. tumblr is also more slow-paced than twitter because the character limit on this app is HUGE (4096 characters per text block, and tumblr allows a total of 1000 content blocks per post, meaning that if you use every content block you have exclusively for text, the total character limit is 4,096,000 characters per post. thats like 630154 - 819200 words !! also, reblogs count as their own post, and you can reblog a post a near infinite number of times (ignoring the 250 post limit a day.)), which i think is part of the reason why this app is more chill. it's less stressful, it feels like you can take your time on here. this isn't mentioning that you can attach up to 10 images to a post, making tumblr a better app for both writers and artists compared to twitter. the more you stay on this app, the more you notice that a lot of posts are very long. 3. i've said this on another post of mine (which i really recommend reading if you have the time because i talk a lot about the importance of reblogging posts on tumblr, among other things), but I'll say it here again: while the community on tumblr is more chill, it's also very quiet. a lot of tumblr users have become very passive in their engagement with posts, only liking and never reblogging. in my personal experience, i've found that you get far more engagement and reach on twitter than on tumblr (emphasis on personal experience, because a few of my friends have told me that they actually get more interaction on tumblr than on twitter.) in short: twitter is where you go to get famous, tumblr is where you go to hang out with friends. 4. this point came from my friend @buggyboo-exe, he said: "I'd add the fact that Tumblr allows for more, how do I say, personal interaction? On Twitter sure, you can follow people and see just your follower's posts and everything but Tumblr not only has the ask box, it also gives you the feature to answer those asks privately. I think it's just easier to make friends on Tumblr and actually keep those friends long term than on Twitter. Likely due to the slow paced thing as well. I'm not sure how to explain it better. Tumblr also started the whole "moots" thing I believe so followers are always seen more as friends then anywhere else." I think this point is very solid because, yes, although I think twitter is better in terms of quantity of engagement, tumblr allows for deeper, more personal interaction. a lot of my closest friends on this fandom are ones I've made on tumblr. I feel way more comfortable goofing around and being silly with them publicly on here than on twitter.

5. this is something I wanted to add to the post i linked in point 3 but forgot to, and that is that tumblr is more or less timeless. it's very, very, VERY common to come across posts from as far back as 15 years ago. you basically never see twitter posts ever again if they weren't made this year, but on tumblr? it's not unusual to see a post from 2015 circulating. it's not weird to reblog art or writing from months or years ago. it's also not weird to go through an artist's blog and just reblog/like all their posts in one sitting. (also, reblogging a post means you get to keep a copy of it on your blog forever. meaning that even if a user deletes their blog, or deletes the post itself, as long as you've reblogged it it's never truly gone. reblog your favorite posts if you wanna keep them with you forever!!) 6. tumblr users REALLY stress anonymity. one of the first things i told my twitter mutuals was to PRIVATE YOUR LIKES AND FOLLOWING TABS !! no one wants or needs to see that stuff. this is your personal blog, you're allowed to and even encouraged to keep things about yourself private. it is usually extremely easy to tell who is and isnt a tumblr user, because twitter users tend to: have their likes and following visible, don't have a blog title, dont have a personal blog theme, and only like posts with little to no reblogs.

I'll cut myself off here because this post is getting very long, but yeah, there's a LOTTTT of differences. i hope this answered your question !! and to anyone reading this, feel free to ask me if you have any other questions about being on tumblr. I know a lot of you are new here and i LOVE to yap, so i'd be happy to answer !!

[theleastprofessionalchef]

Ah jeez, I started making this post end of May and saved it as a draft so I could come back with the recipe, and fully forgot to do that for uh. Yeah. A long time. I've since made a few more batches of successful mead, and have a couple more fermenting right now! I'll reblog with pics of them later.

Well! better late than never. Leaving what I'd written initially unchanged, so-

-

Two months apart - start and end - my first successful batch of mead! I've tried a handful of times over the years, but had an unfortunate habit of doing... SOMETHING wrong each time that resulted in lightly sweetened cleaning alcohol 😅

But finally, a success! Real mead! Sweet, but not too sweet, and boozy enough without being straight up moonshine

Recipe:

Roughly three pounds of honey

3? 4? Of those little mandarin oranges, quartered

1 packet ale yeast, I used this

Various whole mulling spices, I used a stick of cinnamon and a few cloves this time, but I've also tossed in cardamom pods and anise occasionally, maybe a couple peppercorns. Go wild

So much filtered/distilled water. So much. Like two gallons?

I'll be real folks, I used a cheap shitty online guide that I don't remember the link for, that said it was a good basic way to learn how to make garbage mead and that any brewer worth their salt would cringe at. It is also coincidentally the same guide I used years ago in the aforementioned cleaning alcohol incident; I haven't changed what I used or did, so I honestly don't know why that came out bad and this good. Shrugs! Yeast can't read.

Dissolve the honey in warm/hot water. Not boiling- you don't want to kill the yeast when you add it in. Think a nice, warm shower. Stir it well, add the oranges and spices, and mix in the yeast until also dissolved.

Load it all up into a large glass container like the one pictured. I ordered a carboy online for this, which is the 'proper' thing to use, but you can honestly get away with an old milk jug you've thoroughly cleaned and sanitized, if you again, don't care about it being the highest quality. Carboys come with the fermentation/filtration Thing on it to let gases out and nothing in (the little doohicky plugged into the top of the lid) but you can also get away with stretching the mouth of a balloon over where the lid would go and poke a teensy hole in it with a needle. The goal is to let the gases that build up during fermentation escape the container, but not to let outside air in.

Fill the container the rest of the way up with water, but leave a couple inches of space on top. This thang's gonna bubble like crazy once the yeast start feeding, and you don't want it to overflow and make a mess of your cupboard.

Put it in a dark, cool space, and wait a few days!

It'll bubble a lot those first days; DON'T mess with it. Leave her be. Let her have her hot girl summer. After a few days, maybe a week, it'll calm down a bit; now you can top off the water supply.

Fast forward uhhhh two months or so, and it's done! There's a more legit way to know for sure when it's done that involves watching the tiny bubbles that form near the top as part of the fermentation process, and figuring out when they'll stop, but I'm impatient and don't know jack and am here for a good time not a long time.

Enjoy mead! And maybe do some better research than I did if you want something fancy.

OH AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DO NOT STIR IT WHEN YOU GO TO DRINK THE FINISHED STUFF

You'll want to scoop the fruits and spices off the top and then siphon it off into another container, or do what we did and simply ladle it off the top (because on a ship of 10-13 sailors, 1 1/2-2 gallons of mead won't last longer than an off day), and NOT drink the detritus off the bottom. You can kinda see it in the picture above. It is not like unfiltered apple cider. That stuff tastes gnarly.

Do not shake the mead before drinking.

[curioussubjects]

Kara/Lee Fic LiveJournal Links

It occurred to me a while ago maybe not everyone is familiar with navigating LiveJournal, much less how to go about finding fic there. I figured it could be helpful to have a list of personal journals and communities to make that easier, or just to have on hand. What's included on this list: * Authors (prolific and/or widely rec'd, some with partial AO3 archiving); * K/L Communities (great sources for other fics and fanworks); * General Battlestar Galactica (2003) fic communities; * Friend-Locked and Deleted Journals (for reference and archived links, if applicable); * Authors that moved all their fics to AO3 (not linked, also for reference). All that being said, this post is neither a rec list or comprehensive. Mainly, I wanted it to be a point of entry for new fans or fans who aren't familiar with LiveJournal. With that in mind, if I forgot a community or user you think should be here, let me know and I'll edit the post to include them. Let me know if there are any issues/questions!

If you see your username on this list and you'd like to be taken off of it, just let me know and I'll edit the post, and likewise if you have your fics listed on LiveJournal and you'd like me to link to them.

Note: You might notice reference to a specific archive for Kara/Lee fic, called Fallout Shelter, as you explore these links. The bad news is that the site is offline. Unfortunately, the site wasn't archived very well either, so pretty much all the fics that were exclusively archived there are gone. The good news is that the archive was a repository for fics originally posted on the ApolloStarbuckFic yahoo group, which was saved during the massive archival effort to backup YG back in 2019/2020. The even better news is that the data for that group might become available some time next week. I'll make a post explaining how to go about sifting through all the messages if/when the data becomes available. Keep in mind though that I haven't seen this data yet, so I have no idea what, if anything, is saved in the group's messages and files. Still, though, definitely something to be excited about!

Fics under the cut! ☺

General Communities

Battlestar Recs BSG 2003 Fics BSG Creative BSG Epics BSG Fic Finders BSG Kink BSG Remix BSG Slash

Kara/Lee Communities

The Applecart Beyond Insane KaraLeeFic No Takebacks Pilots Big Bang Pilots Presents Reel Pilots SASA HQ (additional fic tag)

Authors (A-Z)

alissabobissa (general k/l tag, ffn) anr (general k/l tag) apodixis bantha-fodder (general k/l tag on dw) that i should suffer (archived) brynnmck (general bsg tag) coffeesuperhero (general fic masterlist) daphnaea (general fic masterlist) dionusia (general k/l tag) elly427 (general k/l tag) embolalia (general k/l tag) fahye (general fic masterlist) hackaddict indigo419 kate98 (lj deleted, find on ffn) kdbleu leavingslowly leda13 (general fic tag) letterstonorah (lj deleted, general k/l tag on dw) liminalliz (general fic tag) lint (deleted lj, fin on ffn/ao3) lotus79 meyerlemon (lj deleted, find on ffn) mnemosyne olaf47 sangga (general bsg tag) shah-of-blah (general bsg fic tag) stars-like-dust (general bsg fic tag) svilleficrecs (general fic tag) tamsibling thefannishwaldo (general bsg tag, also on ffn) voleuse whatimages (general bsg tag) widget285 (general bsg tag) wisteria- (general bsg tag) zeplum (saintstreet, plumunited) F-Locked Journals queenofthorns (f-locked on dw) rawles/peri-peteia (ao3, dw) workerbee73

Deleted Journals/Fics

kag523 latteaddict nancy777ca (some fics on ffn) oxymoronassoc (archived, see below) Look Him Straight in the Eye Just Something Out of Step shawngf sloanesomething (archived, see below) And So I Woke (1 [might be gone], 2, 3, 4, 5) All the While Byzantium (SVU crossover) Terms Five Things that Didn’t Happen on Colonial Day Untitled

Find on AO3: callmeonetrack elzed Innibis ninjamonkey73 rachelindeed rayruz scifishipper SomewhereApart

[oreharuuu]

éta ritual (1)

Summary: You didn't know why you agreed to do some stupid ritual on the first place. You've never had believe on the supernatural. Maybe you will after this encounter.

Warnings: none

A/N: oop first post, reminder this will be a yandere series. and I'm planning on making it a bit towards horror. Oh, and it's ot8 ;)

Going back to a few days ago, you really weren't paying attention to what your friends have been talking about. You were mindlessly scrolling through Instagram when Jieun, one of your oldest friends, tapped you on the shoulder.

Your whole life you've never been this stressed out. Not even your siblings could make you almost faint at how stupid they were at believing stuff.

"Hey, (name)! Have you been hearing us this whole time?" She pouted. "So mean! I was explaining something fun here."

"Sorry," You sheepishly apologized. "What were you explaining again?"

Jieun smiled as she clapped her hands. "I found this website, super creepy! They have an interesting ritual where—"

"Yeah nope."

"(name)! I swear it's so interesting," Jieun smiled as she grabbed her phone, typing something for a while. "Oh wait, I forgot to turn on the VPN."

You sighed before looking at Hyein, only for her to shrug her shoulders. "It's kinda interesting, the ritual said you could potentially summon hot demons."

"That's what you focus on? Not the weird creepy ritual Jieun somehow find through an obscure internet site?"

"Hey! For the record, it wasn't me who founded it. It was Kim," Jieun wagged her finger before pulling up her phone. "See? Super creepy."

What you're looking at seems to be like one of those dark web stuff that you usually watch from YouTube. How it's supposedly blocked from any access unless you know the code or something. It's corny but it works, with how minimalist and not threatening the website.

Jieun then tapped on one of the links and there it was. The summoning ritual. It's the same as the website, minimalist in every way. It only has a few steps that you apparently should follow if you want to summon a demon. Or demons.

1. Make sure you're in an empty and dark room, prepare an unlit candle in the middle of your circle.

2. Hold hands with each other, make sure there's four to eight participants.

3. Close your eyes, don't open them. If you open them there will be consequences.

4. One of the participants will read the chants slowly and clearly.

5. Listen to your surroundings, there will be sounds.

6. If the ritual is successful, then the candle will be lit.

"Weird. Usually candles are lit before right? Then some freaky stuff happens before it's blown by a wind," You hummed.

"Or maybe a hot demon," Hyein smirked.

"Yeah, again, no."

You placed the phone back to Jieun's hand before closing it. "Jieun, I love you—"

"I know."

"—but you seriously better not be doing this. It's bullshit. It's make believe."

Jieun sighed. "I know, but it's been so boring lately that I've been searching for stuff to do in our free time. And when Kim offered us to do the ritual I can't just reject the offer!"

University was closed for a few weeks. You don't know for sure but whispers around the hall said it's related to someone's death. Who's death? You don't know for sure. You don't even know if it's a rumor or the truth. But then again, free from stress and annoying professors? Sounds like a good time for you.

You hummed before stopping. "What do you mean by offered?"

"It means," Hyein started. "That Jieun and I already agreed to do the ritual, and you're going with us!"

"What?!"

●

That's how you find yourself in some abandoned building that Kim found, with the printed instruction held on Hyein's hand. She hands the paper to Jieun, who excitedly grabbed it before facing the both of you.

Jieun squealed. "This is going to be so awesome!"

"Of course. If we succeed, then we'll have the experience of a life time," Kim hummed as she grabbed the candle from her bag. You glared at her from the corner of your eyes, not liking how calm and reserved she is.

You've never been close with Kim. Only Hyein and Jieun were close to her because they have the same course in university. Sure she's nice to you, but she somehow always unnerves you at times when she just stared into oblivion without blinking. Even then you could still sometimes hear her mumbling something, like she's talking to someone. She wasn't like this when you first met her, this strange behavior only started when university got closed off.

You tried to dwell your nervousness and slowly walked to the rest as they sat around in a circle. You sit between Hyein and Kim, ignoring the shiver you got when you noticed how cold her hand's were. You ignored her when she glanced at you a few times, focusing at how Jieun was practically moving with excitement.

"Ok, I have the papers in front of me. It's already dark, so now we just have to close our eyes."

You exhaled before closing your eyes. You're scared of the dark but at least you're holding hands with someone to know they're still there. Even though it's Kim but you tried to ignore it.

"Everyone has their eyes closed?" Jieun asked, and you all answered a soft 'yes'. "Alright, let's start."

You regulate your breathing and tried to listen to any of the sounds mentioned in the instructions. Well it didn't really specify what sound you're supposed to hear, but you kept listening anyway.

Jieun's still chanting, so you assumed the ritual wasn't working. You held back a yawn before changing into a slouching posture, trying to stay awake. For some reason Jieun wanted the ritual to be held at midnight so you don't want to argue with her. You just want this to be over.

The chanting abruptly ended, making you frown in confusion as to why Jieun stopped.

"...I hear something."

Your heart plummeted, gripping Hyein's hand before waiting for someone to speak up again. Hyein's grip turned lax, making you curse.

"I-I hear something too!"

Mentally cursing out your friends, you tried to think that this was all not real. Maybe they're just pranking you, right? They're the ones who founded it, maybe Kim asked them to prank you because they know you don't believe in this kinds of stuff.

"(name), how about you?" Kim suddenly asked, making you jolt in surprise. You didn't answer, not when you're trying to regulate your breathing so you would calm down. You ignored how Kim's grip turned even tighter than before, her nails seemingly more sharper than ever. You tried to take your hand away from her, struggling slightly when it's apparent she doesn't want to let go.

That's when you heard it.

(name)...(name)....

You scream in surprise, tilting your head downwards and closing your eyes even tighter. There's no fucking way the ritual actually worked, you don't even want to open your eyes. Kim's grip turned normal as if she could hear what you just said.

"It's time to open our eyes. If we see the candle lit then it means someone's with us," Kim explained before taking her hand's off you. You decided whether or not to open your eyes, mentally debating if it's the right thing to do.

You shivered when the cold air hits you suddenly, before you felt like someone or something touching your shoulder softly.

open your eyes, darling

You snapped your eyes open, glancing back to see nothing. You looked back at the unlit candle before noticing that all of your friends seemed to be waiting for it to be lit. Not even a second later, the candle was lit.

"What the fuck?!" You screamed, moving backwards. Hyein seems to be scared and hesitant as well, following you to hold your hands together. Jieun just seems excited while Kim blankly looked at the candle.

"Wow, it actually worked!" Jieun awed in wonder before moving closer to the candle. "Jieun! What the fuck? Move away from it," Hyein hissed.

"Oh, don't be a big baby. Besides, if the ritual works then—uh...what's the purpose of the ritual anyway?"

Sometimes you want to strangle Jieun so hard when times like these happens, when her stupidity knows no boundaries that it could cost you harm to you and your loved ones. But these kinds of things intrigued her, she loves the unknown territory. You're happy for her to have a hobby like this but this was really out of your boundaries.

"When the candle is lit, it means that someone is here for you. It hears all of your desires and needs. It wants to help you," Kim answered as she grabs the candle, blowing it out before grabbing her bag.

"Wha—Is that it?! What the fuck should we even do after this?" Hyein gawked. Kim glanced at her before standing up, walking slowly to the both of you.

"Wait and see. You'll notice when it's there, you just have to be patient. If they show themselves—"

"Wait, we're gonna fucking see them?!"

Kim glared at Hyein before continuing. "Yes. If they show themselves, it means that they're ready to help you."

You bit your lip, grabbing Hyein's hand tighter before looking up to Kim. "Why...why do we need to wait for them to show up?"

Kim tilted her head at you, looking up into the dark abyss before smiling down at you. You really didn't like how she smiles, it's creepy.

"Well, you're not getting the help for free. You have to earn it."

You moved your gaze to Hyein as she looks anxious, even Jieun was starting to fidget with her fingers as she listens to Kim. You yelped when Kim suddenly squatted in front of you, making Hyein move away.

Kim brush your hair behind your ears, humming slightly. "I'm jealous of you. I was the one who summoned them, well not all of them. But they wanted you. I don't know why...but I'm intrigued," She whispered. Moving her mouth next to your ears, you could've sworn to hear a growl nearby. Or maybe growls?

"Just a reminder, once they take a liking to you, they'll always be there. Always."

And with that, Kim stood up and walked away. Leaving the three of you to comprehend what the fuck just happened.

[adorkablenerd]

How To Defeat MC

(Or how to Defeat The Great Mammon p.2 lol)

Bruh I haven’t posted any fics in so long, I’m so sorry y’all 😭 I’m trying to get back into the habit of writing again tho!  I hope y’all like it and I’m also gonna put the link to the first one of these right below this!

1st part

Mammon x MC (Gender neutral)

Words: 1372

MC couldn’t help but feel like Mammon was plotting something.  They had been a bit on edge ever since Mammon declared he would get his revenge on them.  That was over a week ago, and he hadn’t made any attempts yet. It’s not like MC had avoided him either, as they had still been hanging out regularly.  MC couldn’t tell when he was going to attack, but they started wishing he would just get it over with.  This was all they could think about as they were sitting on the couch next to the demon, watching a movie in his room.  

“Oi, MC!”  They jumped hearing Mammon's voice call out to them.  They realized that they had been spacing out for a good few minutes and didn’t even hear the first couple times he said their name.

“Y-Yeah?”  They looked over to the demon on the other side of the couch.

“Could you pass the popcorn, it’s on your side.”  MC looked down to the popcorn bag next to their leg on the floor.

“Oh, sure. Here.”  They handed it to him and tried to focus on the movie, but couldn’t help but get lost in their thoughts again.  They almost jumped again when Mammon’s hand touched their forehead, pressing themselves to the back of the couch in surprise when they realized how close he was.  

“Are you feeling okay?  Your face seems kinda red and you’ve been acting so jumpy lately?”  The genuine concern in his voice made them feel a bit bad for making him worry.

“Don’t worry Mams, I’m fine, just… thinking about the essay we have due next week.”  They hoped that was believable enough, and by look on the demon’s face, it seemed to be.

“Aaah I see, I wouldn’t worry though, you always ace those, you’ll be fine!”  He smiled and gave them a pat on the head.  MC closed their eyes and leaned into the hand, warm and comforting as always.  What they weren’t expecting was the demon’s other hand to randomly trace under their chin, making them move away from the touch with a quiet squeak.

“M-Mammon?!”  He smirked at their reaction, moving on top of them to pin them onto the couch.

“You didn’t think I forgot about my promise, did ya?”  MC could already feel the giggles building up in their chest, of course they didn't forget, it’s all they had been thinking about for the past week.

“I figured all that waitin’ you made me do, I should return the favor.  That’s the real reason you’ve been so jumpy around me, right?”  As he spoke from his spot sat on top of their thighs, he hovered one hand over their tummy, the other pinning both of their hands down by their wrists, smirking down at them.  Sometimes it was easy to forget how strong he was, since he was always so gentle with them, but even now he was making sure his grip wasn't too tight.  

“If you knew, thehen why did you bother to ask?”  A small laugh couldn’t help but slip out as they tried to keep some composure, though the little they had was already crumbling.  

“Honestly, just wanted to see what you’d say, I wonder if you would’ve just asked for it if I waited a bit longer?  Guess you’re lucky The Great Mammon is super generous and won’t make you wait any longer.”  

“You just couldn’t wait any more yourself, cohould you?”  This time the laugh wasn’t just out of anticipation, but at the demon himself, always trying to play so cool, but usually just ending up looking too cute for his own good.  Just like now, face slightly flushed, knowing you had seen right through him.  

“Grr just stop talking and laugh already!”  He released their hands and quickly started squeezing their sides, causing them to let out a quick shriek and break into loud giggles.

“Nahahaha Mahahams plehehease!” Even with their hands free, there wasn’t much they could do, settling for holding onto his wrists, despite it doing nothing to deter the demon.

“Please what? Please keep going? Please keep tickling you? I think I can do that for ya.”  He smirked down at them, keeping his hands at their sides, but now scribbling his nails around the area.

“Yohohou knohow thahat’s nahat whahat I meheheant!”  MC felt their face heating up at the teasing and couldn’t help but squirm side to side, trying to dodge his fingers, but failing miserably.  

“Oooh, I’m sorry. You meant please tickle your tummy, didn’t ya?”  He moved his hands to their stomach, still using his nails to lightly scratch all over. 

“Nohohoho Mahahamon!” Mc could barely get out any words through their laughter.  They knew the demon could be merciless from seeing him wreck his brothers, but this was their first time being on the receiving end of one of his attacks, though they couldn’t say it wasn’t deserved.  

“Oh? Still not the right spot? How about your ribs?  Your underarms? Your neck?”  He quickly jumped from spot to spot, pinching their ribs, then spidering under their arms, and now tracing all around their neck.

“Eehehe yohohou’re soho mehehean.”  Both knew that that was a lie, and that if MC ever wanted it to stop, they could make him easily.  They also knew that it wasn’t necessary anyways, and that if asked or if they seemed uncomfortable, Mammon would stop on his own, but neither wanted it to end yet.

“You haven’t seen mean yet, human~”  MC felt a small shiver go down their spine at his tone.  They felt his hands moving down to their hips, one of their worst spots, at the same time his head lowered to their neck.  They closed their eyes, trying to prepare themselves.  After a bit, they realized he hadn’t moved at all, and peeked their eyes open just a bit.  They were greeted by Mammon’s grinning face right in front of theirs.

“Gotcha~”  That was the only warning they got before both of his hands squeezed at their hips and he began blowing raspberries into the side of their neck.  They let out a shriek and quickly broke down into high pitched laughter.

“NAHAHA W-WAHAHAHAIT!  MAHAHAMOHOHON!”  It was hard to think with how much it tickled, but they still couldn’t bring themself to say stop yet.  Mammon stopped the raspberries to allow a little relief and so that he could speak.

“Wait? Wait for what? I thought you’d be sick of waitin’ by now, or does it just tickle too much for ya’?”  MC felt like their face was on fire, it was unfair for him to be this good at both tickling and teasing.  

“SH-SHUHUHUT UHUHUP!”  Despite how bad it was, of course MC had to instigate it even more, it was just too fun to mess with the demon.  

“Tch, how rude, someone clearly wants more tickle tickle tickles then~”  He put his head back into their neck, this time lightly nibbling at the skin.  MC couldn’t help but let out a couple snorts at how tickly the action was.

“OHOKAHAHAY OKAHAHAY, IHI’M SAHAHARRY!”  Mammon took that as the sign to stop, instantly pulling his hands and head away and moving to be next to them rather than on top.

“That’ll teach ya’ to challenge The Great Mammon, remember this next time you plan on attacking me, human.”  Despite his prideful tone, he was keeping a careful eye on how MC was doing, making sure he didn’t go too far and ready to get them whatever they may need.  MC curled into his side, residual giggles still slipping out.

“Ahand you called mehe evil.”  They let out a yawn, feeling the exhaustion kicking in, and started drifting off to sleep, head in Mammon’s lap.

“Y’know, you’re pretty cute like this, all tickled out, I might have to do it more often.”  He smiled down at them, starting to feel pretty sleepy himself.  

“I wouldn’t mind, as long as I get to tickle you too.”  Hearing this, Mammon felt himself getting flustered again, but both were too tired to really care about what they were saying.

“I guess that’d be alright.”  They both had good dreams that night.

[cerealmonster15]

ok twst sims update from when i was playing last night, continuation of my blabbing here lol + some DOODLES about it

opens discord dms...

ok so i think i literally was planning on just going to my heartslabyul household and organizing their garden a little but i did not end up doing that at all, bc i immediately got distracted by i guess the new(? idk when they implemented it) 'event' system in sims 4 in real time where theres like, weekly goals for shit you can unlock? anyway this one was about the grim reaper and i wanted to unlock the reaper scythe earring for my diasomnia boys [i unlocked it and then forgot to give it to them lol]

but i had tasks to do! including asking some sims about ambrosia. this is what silver had to say about it

hes really excited about necromancy or whatever i guess

i did complete this week's tasks for the event thing but i immediately got distracted in the middle of it because i forgot that i'd ALSO toggled recently the story progression for relationships, as i mentioned in the other post i linked. so i see this stuff

and im like. when did sebek start dating jamil. when did silver start dating cater. why do they look like Hell [they had just come home from work and were Exhausted lol]

so i've been sleuthing around trying to find other relationships that have spawned [i cant always remember if it's something i did or if it happened on its own lol] and like i checked beloved son juice spade, where i could see i had been working on forming the first year's polycule with him last time i played- but also. chenya was there.

meanwhile ACE had formed no new romances but he DID form HATER BEEF with ORTHO FOR SOME REASON SKDJHKGSJD

[sorry ortho literally doesnt look like ortho LOL i dont use CC and i believe i didnt have the option to make kids hair blue]

one day ill learn how 2 draw chenya but NOT TODAY IM BUSY SOWWY KING

trey also had started a strong romance with floyd,,, and like i think i had him start something with jade a while ago but never maintained it / a while ago before i got a certain mod to help w/this, there used to be a lot of relationship decay bc i had trouble keeping up w/all the different households lol so i think jade and trey just hadnt gotten much attention but they look so funny in treys relationship slots

i think when the game does it by itself it just slots them as partners immediately so like im assuming it's treating floyd and trey as partners, idr exactly, but this just looks like trey and jade are best friends w/some budding romantic tension, and then floyd just walked up to trey and was like hey wanna go smash our faces together KLFHSLKDJGKL. godspeed trey good luck w/whatever that is

and then cater and trey have a romantic bond but i guess hadnt actually kissed yet so i decided to move them along so they could be an Official Couple but like.

right after they kissed, caters son walked up and was Not Having It kfsdhlkJFDSKLJKLG

anyway we got the item that let us summon the grim reaper

i tried so hard to get cater to hook up with him but sims 4 said NO FUN ALLOWED THIS TIME >:'(

thats ok tho he can just be an ace aro king and we can be besties instead :] it's also really funny seeing The Grim Reaper respond to social interactions like an average sim ksdlghkljf

ANYWAY,

chenya was scared of him. but also still dressed for the pool. and thinking about flirting with trey fdjksjfgklsd deuce was also scared of the grim reaper bc my poor boy is like constantly Haunted. i think he has three fears now and i dont know how to Help Him

i jumped around a bit more and found rook and jade have a romance and i truly dont remember if i did that or if the game did it kfdsjfkljsd but i DO like jade/rook so theres a good chance It Was Me, but i have no memory of it kfdsjklfs.

vil also has beef with jamil and azul

but thats been there for a lil while and i think i remember seeing it sometime after i was playing jamil or azul and they were on a date at a convenience store that vil was Also At, and vil was 🧍 standing like right in the midst of them so i think it did that thing where he inserted himself into a group convo with them and then got mad that they were flirting, bc i think sims usually get mad when 2 are flirting within a 3+ convo LOL

hes in his crumplebottom era. no pda in my lobby.

i had idia hit on cater by bragging about his gamer skills

then i found out idia also had a game-spawned romance with none other than

KALIM JSKFJSDLKJKFLKSD despite the fact that he was like actively currently annoyed by CHEERY PEOPLE [i think bc rook was there and i have him as cheerful lol]

idia voice wow all these bubbly extroverts suck wheres my boyfriend kalim al asim kJFLDSJFD

ok almost done now we're back at silver and cater again where kfdljsfkljs silver was still Yearning so i had him invite cater over to try and clear the wish to Smooch Boyfriend but like. i could NOT get the make out option to appear and thats specifically the one he'd rolled for so i was trying to spam romance w/them and it was like

i had them do their first kiss. then cater auto kissed silvers cheek and it was cute!

[i'd also given silver a small makeover lol]

then i saw shortly after the convo turned to very awkward and i was like huh why, theyre having positive reactions, theyre both flirty still, what- LILIA?!?!?!?!

dad walks up from behind them and is like ARE YA WINNIN SON??? so i got him the hell out of there klsdjflk he was embarrassing his son.... then as soon as he was out it swapped back to romantic interactions lol but i still couldnt get make out to appear. but u know what did if you saw the other post where i talked about this

silver nearly instantly had the option to propose to cater but he coudlnt bc their friendship is BARELY ANYTHING [you can see it peeking out on the right over there lol] so like. flash fire romance of them spawning something, me spamming romance interactions to try and fulfill the want, and no friendship progression fdksjgkldf

anyway then they all went to work can cater just kinda hung out in the kitchen w/their broken stove

OKAY THAT'S ALL FOR NOW BYE!!!

[calyptrion]

Post about big angel plushy part 1!!

Hi! Sorry for 2 long absence! I was into one big project and I am ready to show you THEM! This is a 60 cm tall action figure of a biblically accurate angel It’s not ready yet but I can’t wait longer!

I divided post in 3 pieces because it was too big! I will post second part later on a week and third on the next one. After posting them I will put links here for a better access to whole story🤍

It’s not a tutorial or a step by step description of all project. Below I just wrote about overall work that was done and altho placed couple more photos of this cutie pie 🧡

So wants the deal:

Year ago i had a brilliant idea to make a HUGE biblically accurate angel because I needed a support plushie or something like that.

I drew a concept art that looked fine and I LOVED IT!

I wanted him to be something like a seraphim. I knew they have 6 wings but I decided to work on a two extra pair later on the project.

After two weeks of work they started to get in shape

And then I forgot about project for weeks, months aaand after long time… i looked at him… and It wasn’t what I wanted.

Biggest problem was in legs and arms.

First ones was too long and worked like two long sticks , they wasn’t able to band as it was though in a concept and overall looked to rough for this design.

Arms had the same problem but altho they were completely static which made toy even more clumsy-looking.

Some minor mistakes occurred too. They face was TOO small even wings on it didn’t helped!Wings was white and boring.

But I liked this little guy so much and they had puppy eyes so I decided to redo some parts! For this of project air drying clay, golden paint, wire and silicone was mostly used.

Firstly I changed form of a legs and made them more human like! I read about seraphims using their wings to cover up legs so a thought making smaller one would be better and although will mare them more manageable. On this moment they are not painted yet, but I thought about maybe make some toes and greek type golden sandals later.

Look at how cute this little creature look after this!!

Ok I got kinda tired wile writing this soo all the rest will be in second and third parts! Sorry for making parts short i just have a lot of photos and a wanted to share all of them! Thank you for reading this It’s really important to me to be able to show people my work and I am really happy to be able to do It here!

The end of part one🧡🤍💛

[coolfire333]

Y'know I was gonna say something like "sorry for not posting the link earlier but I've been really tired all week and when I wasn't tired I just forgot to post it yadda yadda"

But I just checked in the general pizza tower tag and everything posted more than like 2 hours ago is just...gone??? Huh, that's really odd. Anyways here you go, my latest fic! Hope you enjoy :)

[millymoonstar]

Custom 2/2 for talinatera on Flight Rising

I'll let you know a secret: I did this one first, just forgot to post it after a couple of hours from the green little guy I posted a couple of days ago. Lol. Dragon: www1.flightrising.com/dragon/…

I would usually post a link to my commissions here, but uh... I kinda like, want to do personal art after I finished the last two in my line... So, uh. Yeah. It'll still be open, but like, it might be weeks before I finished any commissions after the two, I still have.

[ehh-is-the-name]

Happy (late) Holloweeny!!

It may be like almost a week after the holiday but whatever! I decided to be Jyushi this year since I already made the hat like 2 years ago. That led to me wondering how much I could do for the costume without buying things, and well... I think the only thing I really bought was the baseball uniform but I had to dye it and whatnot so idek what I was planning with that. I think I just wanted an excuse to make stuff and this is what I got to show for it. I think it turned out well!

Though, I think I really like just dressing up as characters at this point, and of course work in process photos under the cut!

Gonna go in chronological order, so starting with the hat.

The photos of it are at the other post linked above if you wanna see it but I'll say my process/thoughts on it here.

If I went back in time to redo the hat I would've changed the way I did the white base. I did it with a spray primer and it made the hat really stiff. I used to wear it out, but also because of the primer, the fabrics not breathable anymore so you get sweaty FAST. Even with the wig on above, it made my head hot. It also made it not able to like stretch easily, so when I had it on with the wig, it kinda looked weird from some angles. Otherwise, It's pretty good. It's just the fact it has so many paint layers.

I unfortunately forgot to take wip pics of the bat and ball, but I have all the resources I used to make them if that counts!

I used the ball pattern from Supergurumi here. For the bat, I used Jay Hen's pattern linked here.

The only thing about the bat is that I switched up some things for this. Like I barely used any stuffing (mainly bc I didn't have much) but also because I just don't think the silhouette of the one on the site matches what an actual metal bat looks like and Jyushi got a metal bat. So I just crocheted around a pool noodle. And gotta say, very fun to hit my friends with, 10/10. Another thing, is that I made the whole bat the grey seen above and just wrapped some old fabric around it, since sometimes Jyushi has it and sometimes he doesn't?? It's weird.

Like in the earlier season (top right), he doesn't, but later in the show (bottom left) he has one and the grip is black? Oh but in the game (top left) he has a yellow grip! BUT THEN THE FUCKING NENDROID DOESN'T HAVE IT EITHER??? SO WHAT????

Idk. The whole thing kinda pissed me off since I didn't know what would be right. In the end, I just went with the yellow grip to match the uniform. I saw all of this like I care about accuracy- I fucked up the baseball stitches anyways, but that'll be our little secret.

I bought the whole uniform from a bulk sellout sports company for like only a handful of dollars. Even with shipping and everything, it wasn't even $20. The only thing was that they weren't selling yellow ones, so I had to dye it. Wouldn't have been that bad if it weren't polyester! Do you know how hard it is to dye polyester??? Well I didn't when I bought it, so lemme tell you.

You gotta make your witch's brew with synthetic fabric dye and soap. It took me a while, but I'd found some of RIT Dyemore in a store (but there are also some online like iDye Poly that should work). I just used a broken hanger to stir that shit for like 30 minutes since I didn't wanna ruin a spoon. Then I had to soak it in a dye fixative, which I did not buy 'cause fuck that. I'll just made some with water. vinegar, and sodium carbonate which you too can make at home. I will stay thanking NileRed for everything here, love his content. I think I soaked it for about 10-15 minutes, and from the pics above I wouldn't say much washed out.

This was probably the dumbest thing I've done. I could've just bought a wig for like $12 but no, I chose to make one instead. Also, I know he doesn't have blue strands in his hair, I just ran out of black yarn and had to make do. These are trying times, ok!! Anyway, I got one of the mesh wig caps meant to cover hair and then started tying strands to every couple of rows and holes. I guess this is where the stiffness of the hat came into use since I used that to hold the mesh cap. I got the idea from this video which helped with telling me what not to do if I wanted to make a wig like this. I was about as far into tying as the first pic below before I found cosplay veteran, Kind of Derp's, yarn wig series which put the idea in my head to press it. The only issue was that I couldn't brush out the twist since they were already tied and it would've pulled out all my hard work. So, I had to individually spread out every piece before pressing... That took the most amount of time, tbh I spend days doing that. I do not recommend it. If you're gonna make a yarn wig either do it KoD's way or like Uropa Queen does it here. That vid helped me quite a bit with styling.

Lastly, although the final photos don't show it, I did put Jyushimatsu's lil ahoge thing! I made it out of a spring and wrapped it with a shitload of yarn before stitching it in place.

And the last thing was stitching their last name! I thought about doing it directly onto the shirt, but since the uniform shirt is kinda stretchy and I don't have any fabric stabilizers, I chose not to.I wanted the stitches to be really crisp and nice, so I just did it on a different piece of fabric and pressed it on. I also kinda wanted to have a yellow shirt by the end of this without the kanji, so I wanted the chance to peel it off afterwards. But, me being silly, I didn't check if the iron-on adhesive was permanent before ironing it onto the shirt. Not the end of the world, I'll still wear it anyway. Though I think I could've cut the edges closer to the word since you can see it pretty clearly irl and even in the photos, but again the damage is done, what am I gonna do about now.

For the sketch, I used an erasable pen to draw 松. And for the stitches themselves, I just used the satin stitch to fill and some back stitches for the outline. This was probably the easiest and quickest part of the process.

I did the little "14" wristband thing a similar way. I just whipstitched the numbers onto some strap material (poly webbing, I think?) and attached some velcro. I folded it in half and stitched down the sides since I didn't ant the stitches to show on the back side of the cuff.

And I would put stuff for the mask, but that was super last minute. I literally just took one of my cloth masks and painted his smile on it with some acrylic paint and pouring medium, 'cause I was too lazy to whip out my actual fabric paint. Took about an hour to get it done, max.

But yeah, despite all the corners I cut, I still like the way it turned out. I can really see why cosplayers do what they do. It's fun to do stuff like this. I don't know if I'll have the time to squeeze in a DIY-heavy costume like this next year, but for Jysuhi and Airy, it was nice to do it.

And as always, I share the process because OH MY FUCK PEOPLE SHOULD!! The cosplayers that share their processes, I love you I love you I love you so much. Their stuff was really helpful for doing this! Hence, that's why I linked so many things. Plus, I know there are others out there who are trying to do the same and if it was helpful for me to stumble across other people's processes it'd probably be helpful to them too.

This is your sign to make a costume if you've been putting it off because you don't know how to do it. Start with something small, just for the hell of it. Hey, in 2021 I didn't think that painting his hat would lead to this, but look where we are. I believe in you, go forth and be creative!

And if you've made it this far, thanks for reading!!

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Last night, I decided to again look up a mystery that I got into during the summer. It was a subset of a larger mystery, the larger one got answered quite substantially but the subset did not.

Here’s what I have so far: I first found this video in the summer, when I decided to dedicate a week to figuring out what the fuck the Chocolate Milk Gang meant. I kept seeing it referred to as the name for a group of comedians from the 00s, and I got that they were grouped together because they were friends and appeared in each other’s shows at times, and I got that the name had something to do with them being seen as the nerdier side of things and chocolate milk being not the coolest drink in the world, but it really got to me that I kept finding little references that just said “Chocolate Milk Gang” like that’s a thing, and would not explain it to me. I eventually ended up finding the answer in David O’Doherty’s episode of the Comedian’s Comedian podcast – it’s because they got chocolate milkshakes together while everyone else was drinking alcohol after late shows at Edinburgh. Thank you, DO’D, that’s all I needed anyone to say.

But there was a while when I did not know this, and that while happened to occur while I did not have much going on at work and was experiencing some insomnia symptoms, so this seemed like a good time to fall hard down a rabbit hole of trying to figure stuff out. It was after an entire day spent going all A Beautiful Mind on the mystery – Googling different combinations of phrases and following all the links in one article like a rigorous student reading all the citations in one journal for an academic paper, getting distracted by little collections of videos of old stand-up nights that I happened to come across along the way, digging up increasingly obscure archived material. I enjoyed the process. That process is what started the hobby I have now, of just going through videos of old comedy festivals in general.

This particular video was one I found at 2 AM, after spending all day and all night up until then deep in the rabbit holes. I kept finding increasingly strange and obscure stuff, until I finally hit upon this one, and realized it was time to go to bed. I made a post at the time that joked that I had clearly already gone to bed and was having a fever dream, because this video does not fucking exist. Come on, this didn’t happen. But I think what I actually believed was that it seemed so weird to me because it was 2 AM and I had been sleep deprived lately and had spent so much time frying my brain with this mystery, and I’d look at it again in the morning and understand what was going on. Well I looked again in the morning, and… I mean you tell me if this makes any sense at any time of day:

So that became the sub-mystery: what the actual fuck are they doing? Not that I object. I sort of think comedy may have peaked on the night of August 26, 2003, and everything anyone has done since then is just trying to live up to that. I’m not sure this can be equaled. It might even be a little like the current storyline in the Night Vale podcast, which is about how the beauty’s in the unknown and the surreal, and explaining a mystery ruins it. Maybe that would be the case with this. But I want to know anyway.

I spent some time on this mystery a few months ago, and then moved on with life. But it came back to me last night, because I’ve finally got back to coaching practices (after contracting COVID at one and being too anxious about going there again for some time, preferring instead to bury myself in this sort of bullshit, videos like this might imitate fever dreams but can’t literally cause them), and last night at practice, Lose Yourself came on. I immediately started giggling and humming “I can’t see at all” under my breath, in honour of the time Adam Hills forgot what Eminem song he’d been singing in the middle of a sequence, and went from Lose Yourself to Stan. Last week, Adam Hills began the 26th season of the popular Channel 4 show he’s been hosting for ten years, and during that opening episode, he showed off his recently received MBE. But to me, he remains first and foremost the guy who switched Eminem songs while rapping about Daniel Kitson, David O’Doherty, Demitri Martin, and John Oliver taking apart a cow. Just like to me, Lose Yourself is now first and foremost the song that played while that occurred, even though it comes on somewhat often at my actual sports practices and tournaments, because this Britcom thing that was supposed to just be a distraction during lockdowns has invaded my real life.

Anyway. This made me decide to revisit the mystery. Here's a recap of what I already knew. This occurred on August 26, the last night of the 2003 Edinburgh Festival. At first, I thought the cow must have been on stage every night, because you also see it in this video, posted by the same channel (a channel that I assume is run by the Gilded Balloon, the venue in Edinburgh where this occurred):

However, I have since learned that both of those videos are from the same night. I learned that because I found another video, posted by a different person, that’s a montage of events from August 26. It includes both another angle on the cow destroying, and the beginning of the Kitson vs. DO’D rap battle that ended with the video above. I remain fucking amazed that this one exists, that the night when comedy peaked has been captured twice in forms that can be found on the internet nearly twenty years later.

By the way, I’m being… like, 90% facetious, maybe? About the whole comedy peaking with that night thing. And that might seem like a high number, but for a claim like that, anything below 100 is pretty bold. Like I am joking but I also genuinely think about all the different aspects that came together in this, a cumulation of things from before and an influence on what came after, that’s a hell of a lot of the good aspects of comedy in one spot. Anyway, here’s the second video:

In this, we see that the cow was there all night, and importantly, that early in the night, Daniel Kitson was on it and was playing the crowd about it. Pointing out that they kept challenging him to do unimpressive things, like jump off it. This suggests that the cow was not there every night, as if it were, the crowd would not be that excited about it by the final night. It was clearly a novelty to them. Also, I know it wasn’t there every night because I’ve found this montage from the same show on August 19, 2003, about a week earlier:

As you can see, no cow in that one. So I’m guessing it was only there on the last night, that’s why the crowd made such a big deal about it. From this, I formed a theory a while ago that maybe the idea to end the show that way came from what you see at the beginning of the August 26 montage. That video shows Kitson complaining that the crowd was giving him insufficiently difficult cow-related challenges – it’s possible that after the video cut off, the crowd challenged him to take the thing apart, and he went with it, making that the end to the night.

The issue is that I’m not sure whether they could do that, if they hadn’t planned it beforehand. I suppose whether you can do that depends on what the hell the cow was. After a comment I got on here from a helpful person, followed by a bit of my own Googling, I think the answer is it was an art installations, possibly as part of the international Cow Parade. The flaw in this theory is that the cow parade was not in Edinburgh in 2003, but it was in London in 2002, and I remember reading something that said the remaining I cannot find again that said the cows may have been distributed around the UK after the London festival ended. I don’t know why I can’t find it again, but I’m almost sure I’ve seen something that said that. So that cow could have been left over from the previous year’s London Cow Parade, sent to Edinburgh to spread art or some shit.

The other flaw in that theory is that the cow says “Metro” on it, which doesn’t seem like what one would expect in an art instillation. A YouTube comment on one of the videos from that night says: “I was there too!  One of the funniest comedic nights ever.  The Metro cow got smashed in two and crowd surfed over everyone out the back door....” That commenter said “the Metro cow”, not “a cow that said Metro on it”, in a way that suggests other people at the time, who were familiar with the Edinburgh Festival, would know what the Metro cow was. So maybe it was just a piece of advertising for Metro, a cow with that word on it moving around the festival. Maybe it was a leftover piece of art from the London Cow Parade that Metro had painted with its logo to display throughout the Edinburgh Festival, and actually, destroying it at the end of the festival was the Chocolate Milk Gang’s way of protesting against art being turned into advertisement (I’m definitely joking about that being a possibility but that would be awesome if it were the case).

My best guess is that it moved around the Edinburgh Festival throughout August, and was at the Gilded Balloon for the last night. This would explain why the crowd was excited about it and why the YouTube commenter called it “the Metro cow” - it was a sort of festival mascot that everyone knew about. But on the night in question, it was still an exciting novelty to see it in that particular location, which is why they were shouting at Daniel Kitson to do things with it. The question is whether it was moved to the Gilded Balloon and then they decided to take it apart, or whether it was moved to the Gilded Balloon because they decided to end the festival by having the Late ‘n’ Live people take apart the de facto mascot.

The origins of the cow matter (I mean... as much as any of this matters, which is quite a lot and I won’t hear otherwise) because how important it is tells us whether they could just decide, between the beginning and the end of a show, to destroy it. I’m thinking that whether it’s an advertisement owned by Metro, or some piece of art, they wouldn’t be allowed to just take it apart without permission. So they probably planned it beforehand, which means the whole thing did not just come from Daniel Kitson agreeing to a challenge from the audience. On the other hand, it’s my understanding that “anything can happen” is the point of the Late ‘n’ Live thing, and maybe that cow was only meant to be there for the festival and they were going to get rid of it anyway after that festival ended, so it wasn’t a big deal to decide to actually take it apart on the final night.

Beyond this, I can look to the video itself for clues as to what the fuck was going on. At the beginning, Adam Hills says they have “three chances”, which suggests it was some sort of challenge, whether one issued by the audience at the beginning of the night or one planned out beforehand. I’m also not sure how they measure those chances, since it’s not like they took only three shots at it. They just went at the cow until it came apart.

One guess is maybe the three chances are John Oliver, David O’Doherty, and Demitri Martin. Maybe the challenge was to see if only three people could get the cow apart. The flaw in that theory is that Kitson ends up jumping in to help, so if those were the parametres then they failed the task. But Kitson jumps in after he sees that they’re getting nowhere, after he gives up on joining Adam’s comedic narration and just starts giving instructions (“combine the chisel and the hammer”), clearly realizing that if they don’t start using a better system, they’ll be there all night. He may just have worked out that parametres be dammed, if he didn’t actually get in and help they would never be able to finish this fucking show and go get their chocolate milkshakes.

Evidence that this was not planned beforehand seems to occur at 1:28, when someone walks in from off stage and hands John Oliver a pipe. If they had planned this better, they’d have all come in with tools, instead of John just going at it with his bare hands and feet until he was given a weapon that looks like it was recently scrounged from a dumpster.

There is this line of Adam Hills’ song (which are a couple of words I can’t write without thinking of Tim Minchin, but that’s a separate thing): “There was a fire at the Gilded Balloon. The police found no one else was to blame. If this season doesn’t go well, this fucking venue’s going up in flames.” This is at true story. In December 2002, about eight months before this video was recorded, there was a huge fire in that area, doing significant damage to the Gilded Balloon, which is the venue where this took place. The Gilded Balloon was rebuilt, obviously, because they still needed a place to host rap battles and cow destroying challenges. But it had, in fact, recently gone up in flames. And I think Adam Hills was implying that if they didn’t make enough money from that year’s festival they’d have to burn it down again, but I’m not quite sure, and I don’t think he was either, he wasn’t even sure what Eminem song he was singing.

But here’s the thing I only learned while looking this up yesterday. Look at this article:

On this day 2002: Cowgate fire devastates Edinburgh's Old Town

I’ve checked, and Cowgate seems to be the name of the street and/or neighbourhood. The Gilded Balloon itself is not on Cowgate Street, but there is a street right next to it called Cowgate street, and I think the whole area around that street is called Cowgate. This is probably a coincidence, but it’s definitely a fun coincidence, given that "Cowgate” would be a pretty good name for the events of that first video. It turns out that Cowgate actually took place in an area called Cowgate. And it’s possible that somewhere along the chain of events, that’s not a coincidence. Maybe Metro advertised there with a cow because it’s Cowgate.

A few months ago when I first found this, I briefly wondered if there was another connection, in one way or another. Maybe they destroyed a cow because they were called the Chocolate Milk Gang and they thought that would be funny, or maybe they named themselves the Chocolate Milk Gang because they’d destroyed a cow together. I formed that theory before finding the actual answer to the CMG’s name meaning, and now that I have found that, I’m quite sure that their milk based name + participation in Cowgate is just a coincidence. Cowgate occurring in a place called Cowgate is probably a coincidence too, but it’s one that I like.

I think that’s all I have, at the moment, in terms of explaining what the fuck they were doing on that night. I do like I found the detail about it taking place in Cowgate, though, because I am absolutely going to refer to that event as Cowgate from now on. Please let me know if you have any information about the events of August 26, 2003, at the Gilded Balloon in Edinburgh, Scotland, also known as Cowgate.

[shadowsong26x]

A week or so ago, I posted a summary of a BSG fanmix I made a decade+ ago. I made two other mixes around the same time, and yeah let’s go ahead and give them the same treatment XD

This one is Heart of the Machine, and it is a (mostly) complete set of all canonical ships* involving at least one Cylon.

Full disclosure: this one, I’d found at least the tracklist awhile ago, so there weren’t any Surprises on here the way there were for Days Upon Our Knees. And...like...there are a few tracks on here that I could have done better, for various reasons, but there aren’t any that Confused me the way there were on the other mix? I more or less can figure out what I was thinking with each choice. And there are quite a few that are just. Perfect. (I particularly like tracks two, ten, twelve, and sixteen)

*So, I don’t have any of the notes involved in Constructing this mix--it was done for a fandom charity auction back in the day, i think help_japan after the earthquake?--but to the best of my recollection the rules were:

1. Canonical pairs only; meaning the couple had to have an Explicit romantic or sexual encounter On Screen.      1a. There is a pair that I apparently forgot--I haven’t gotten there in my rewatch, but I am told that this actually happened and wasn’t just made up for a TFLN blog so whoops.      1b. Presumably there was a Threshold for what counts as a ‘romantic or sexual encounter’; because there are a few I can think of that are borderline ‘was this just general flirting or could I have included it’ (and there’s another that...even if it met the threshold requirement (which I’m not sure it does) it’s. Like. I’ve built Corinne/Armistice Station Six up in my head recently but she’s not really. Uh. We don’t actually know anything about her so...yeah. but I like her and her name is Corinne in my head which is the main reason I brought it up lol)      1c. There are two others that technically count that I don’t remember being discussed; I’m not sure why Caprica/Head!Baltar was excluded (other than maybe redundancy?); the other is a Spoiler for late S4 and was doing something Very Cruel and Specific and I’m not sure I could have found a song for it anyway.      1d. There were three that were specifically excluded for squick reasons; namely Gina/Cain; Cavil/Boomer; and Cavil/Ellen.

2. The pair has to involve At Least One Cylon.      2a. Fairly self-explanatory, lol.      2b. Eleven of the twelve Cylon models are included here nobody loves Doral      2c. If we count by model, the Sixes (unsurprisingly) have the most tracks, with six (heh) total.      2d. If we count by individuals, the highest number (five tracks) is not actually a Cylon. Three guesses. The first two don’t count.

With those rules in mind, I ended up with the seventeen pairs listed below. The mix is structured in model order--the Significant Seven in number order, then the Final Five. I don’t 100% know why I ordered them the way I did, other than I think I started where I did for Alphabetical reasons but then didn’t stick with it for whatever reason. With one exception, for Cylon/Cylon pairings, I went with the lower model number. That exception made for an Excellent final track, though, so there it is. Within a model number, I went more or less chronologically in terms of when in canon the relationship starts.

...I think that covers it, lol. Lots of notes on this one XD Tracklist (complete with youtube links, as before) is behind the cut! (I should dig up the covers for these, I know I have them saved somewhere...)

1/one/tough!six - so immortal (international victim)      so this is probably the weakest on the list, mostly because...they’re a hard pair to find a song for, lol. i do think it fits, and i don’t think i could do better, but it is what it is. (also i named her vera for serenissima and the name has stuck so whenever i see her i’m like “VERA! :D :D :D” anyway i love her)

2/leoben/kara - on the street where you live (my fair lady)      tell me i’m wrong.

3/d’anna/baltar - dangerous game (jekyll and hyde)      i go back and forth on whether this one works better when it’s gender-flipped or not, but the vibe works. i do think i could do better than this for these two, but i don’t have anything specific in mind, if that makes sense?

4/d’anna/caprica - strange and beautiful (drew sarich)      yeaaaaah i cheated again on the ‘no repeating artists’ rule, like i did with the other mix. i think i did for all three mixes i made...anyway, that aside. this is another pair that’s hard to find something for, because we don’t get much that’s about them. it’s all about either the triad as a whole or the baltar/d’anna arm. that being said, i do like this song for d’anna/for what little we do get of them. (do i remember why i split the triad and picked two songs? nope! but i am glad i did; i might even--if i were doing this now--do three songs; one for each arm (other than the one accounted for Elsewhere) and then one for the triad as a whole)

5/simon/gianna - the next ten minutes (the last five years)      i love this song, and i love the...simon knows what’s coming And Yet. that whole sense of ‘for as long as this lasts’ has a Whole Different Meaning in this context and i think it’s beautiful. basically, i love them, and i think this song really fits for them.

6/caprica/baltar - measure of a man (clay aiken)      so i think this is actually one of the weaker examples on this mix. not because it doesn’t work--it does; it fits where they land at the end of the series--but because there are so many better songs for them. i don’t know why i settled on this one specifically, but i think i’d pick something else if i were doing this now.

7/gina/baltar - lithium (evanescence)      it’s hard for me to listen to this song without thinking of these two and their Extremely Fucked Up This Could Never Be A Happy Or Healthy Relationship dynamic now. not because it’s a Perfect Match necessarily, but...just...the Vibe.

8/lida/baltar - crash and burn (savage garden)      i don’t have much in the way of commentary on this one but i like it. it’s a pretty song, and it suits what’s going on in-story here.

9/boomer/chief - without you (rent)      not much to say about this one, either. but it’s a good fit for how they are in the back half of season 1, after he breaks things off.

10/athena/helo - as long as you love me (backstreet boys)      shut up it’s perfect okay

11/sweet!eight/gaeta - hallelujah (jeff buckley)      i think this works really well for the two of them (and for my best beloved most ironically named man in the universe felix gaeta in general, i think). i don’t know that there’s anything better i could pick, but i almost wish i had found something different? this song is such a heavy hitter, and i wish i’d saved it for...idk, maybe the season 4 mix i never got around to making, or a gaeta mix? ah well.

12/anders/kara - smoothie king (bowling for soup)      HOLY MOOD WHIPLASH BATMAN XD

13/anders/tory - when i’m down (chris cornell)      this is another pair that’s hard to pin down. but they’re definitely sleeping together during crossroads when sam is at his lowest and they’re being pushed towards activation and...i don’t know, it felt right? still does.

14/tory/baltar - spy (carly simon)      don’t really have all that much to say about this one either, lol. but it Works.

15/chief/cally - nothing without you (vienna teng)      this song is less Frantic and Scared and Angry than the moment it lines up with in canon, it’s more...sad. such a hard bit to watch, though, and i can’t say it doesn’t fit. ...also i know enough of the behind-the-scenes about why cally left the show that. well.

16/saul/ellen - grace is gone (dave matthews band)      SUFFER WITH ME. also, fun fact--the recording i have goes ‘take my heart/take my eyes’ (which. i’m pretty sure is taken Way more literally in this context than in the original lol). but EVERY SINGLE VERSION, whether lyrics or an actual recording, that i’ve been able to find online says ‘take my eyes/take my heart’??? and since i got my version on a burned cd and i forget who gave it to me i will Never Know the original source or why it’s different, lol. it’s definitely not because it’s a cover, i know that much for sure. his voice is Distinctive. (i do think heart-eyes flows better than eyes-heart but that’s a separate conversation)

17/saul/caprica - and so it goes (billy joel)      look, we all know this is a find-and-replace relationship. explicitly so on his end, implicit on hers (as upset as she is with the corporeal version at this point in the timeline, head!baltar is still hanging around sooooo). also it’s...just a nice song to end the mix on, i think.

[postcards]

*reporter voice on*

ma'am ,ma'am ma'am pls few words on the baymax plushie..ma'am ma'am pls few words

what was your inspiration? what made you choose baymax? what does it symbolise/represent? was it your own design? where'd you learn to crochet? how would you describe the process? anything you learned from the process of making him?

P.S. pls note that a camera guy that looks like the guy behind Sam(reporter girl/heroine) from 'cloudy with a chance of meatballs' is standing behind me as i do this.

P.P.S i really hope i didn't fuck up and u don't like being addressed as ma'am. if u don't like it , I AM Soo SORRY colonel.

P.P.P.S yes that's right i would have used colonel ....or something else that wud require braincells i cannot loan ryt now. also, am i spelling colonel ryt?

P.P.P.P.S did u get the cars 2 reference i am doing here? i am not sure if it's cars 2 , it's the one where mater becomes a spy.

*professional crocheter being interviewed voice*

my inspiration for this project and the reason i chose baymax was 'i need something to hug and it needs to be fumking huge' (typo intended). it symbolises my need to hug something the size of a baby gorilla (thank you @gayshitinfinite for the beautiful comparison).

it wasn't my own design. it was a pattern i found online that i forgot to link in the original post (i'll go do it rn). i learned to crochet from youtube! lots of things you can learn by yourself on there. still just a beginner though :)

the process itself was long and what i learned from it was that i am a master at procrastination :') fr i finished the body literally like 3 months ago and didn't pick it up and finish it til this week lmao.

P.S thank you for doing this interview, Sam from cloudy with a chance of meatballs <3.

P.P.S ma'am is cool but colonel is definitely cooler.

P.P.P.S yes I think that's the correct spelling.

P.P.P.P.S yes I got the cars 2 reference :))) and thank you so much for this wonderful ask, Vani! ❤️

[questinwitchface]

Apology Post

I posted the first chapter of my fic, “You Probably Think This Poem Is About You (And That’s Because It Is)” and created a Tumblr post to promote it on November 2. This post was shared by @logicheartsoul (A-chan) on Tumblr with tags asking if I’d been inspired by her post. I couldn’t remember what had originally sparked my idea for the fic, only that I’d had the idea months ago, and I told her so in the replies. She came back and said I’d reblogged her post in August. Again, I couldn’t remember what inspired me to write my fic, so I agreed that the inspiration probably came from that post, and I went ahead and added credit to her for the inspiration at the beginning of my first chapter author’s note, adding links to the post as well as her Tumblr and AO3 accounts.

From the interaction we had, I thought A-chan seemed satisfied with that outcome—at the very least, she did not say she was unsatisfied—so I assumed we were good and moved on. I completed the fic and finished posting it on November 14, and I created a companion piece (called “Bucky Barnes’s Poetry Project”) where you can read just the poems, since people liked the poems specifically so much.

On November 16, two weeks after I’d had the initial interaction with A-chan and two days after my fic had already been completed, I received a reply to my Tumblr post telling me that I should also credit A-chan in the promotional post, and within minutes of receiving said message, I edited my post to add that credit. There was no reply after that, so I again assumed we were good.

I was apparently incorrect. I later received a private message (I won’t say from whom since they were kind enough to try to discuss the matter with me privately, but I will say that it was not A-chan). In this private message, the person informed me that I’ve “breached fandom etiquette” by “taking a fully fleshed-out idea for a fic in a post and making it into my own post without asking permission.” The main problem with this, according to the person who sent me the message, is that now if A-chan writes a fic, people will think she is taking from me instead of the other way around. I’ve been informed that my actions would have “gotten me a callout post in the not so distant past.”

For the record, it has taken me three days to respond because I had a funeral to go to shortly after receiving that message (I made the person aware of that as well as my intent to apologize in a private message of my own, which they responded to very kindly) and since then, grief has been eating my brain and I simply have not had the energy or mental clarity to respond to this situation. I’m not sure that I really do now, but I feel bad letting things go much further without some kind of response, so here we are, and I apologize if any of the brain fog is apparent in this post.

As I’ve already said in replies on my original post, I am sorry to A-chan for taking inspiration from her post without crediting her. It was an honest mistake; I did not remember where the inspiration for the fic had come from when I began writing it. Though I had worked on the poems for it for months, the fic itself was all written in the span of about two weeks at the end of October/beginning of November, so it had been months since I’d seen the post. I genuinely forgot about her post until she brought it up to me, and I am sorry for that.

Further, I’m sorry for taking the inspiration in the first place. I feel that the fic I wrote, including the fifteen poems it features, is significantly distinct from the post A-chan made. From what I remember of it, A-chan’s post is about Bucky going to a poetry reading and discovering the magic of poetry and a desire to write it himself; the focus was on Bucky’s feelings and the conversation he had with the poet at the reading. In my fic, Bucky is mostly-retired and enrolled in online college courses; the story is from Sam’s perspective, and it focuses on the relationship between Sam and Bucky as Sam discovers Bucky’s writing about him. The people I’ve spoken to who have read both A-chan’s post and my fic have told me that the differences are obvious and substantial. The main inspiration that I took was that Bucky writes poetry to get out the feelings he struggles to articulate verbally.

I saw A-chan’s post and assumed she was using a Poet!Bucky trope. Since people don’t typically credit tropes (even smaller ones like Florist!Bucky or MobBoss!Sam), I didn’t realize I was doing anything wrong taking the trope and using it without permission. I’m aware that Poet!Bucky isn’t a common thing, but then, I’d seen Writer!Bucky a few times before, so I figured Poet!Bucky was just a very rare trope, since not a lot of people write/post poetry in this fandom. Aside from that, I’ve seen multiple people write for the same trope without mentioning each other, so I didn’t realize it was something that was needed/that I was supposed to do. I apologize for not asking A-chan’s permission to write my fic. I didn’t realize I was doing anything wrong.

I received word that A-chan’s feelings had been hurt via her friend’s private message instead of from her. I haven’t spoken to A-chan personally since that initial discussion when I promoted the first chapter of my fic because, again, I thought after that interaction, we were fine. I wish A-chan had reached out to me more directly about her feelings. I would’ve stopped writing the fic before it had been fully-posted, before so much damage had been done. Unfortunately, I’m hearing all of this from someone else after the fic is complete, and there isn’t much I can do about it now that it’s already done and out in the world, as the person who messaged me pointed out.

Regardless, A-chan, if you’re seeing this, please know I’m sorry to have stepped on your toes and caused hurt feelings. I’m sorry I made the mistake in the first place, and that my attempts to correct it were not enough.

If you are reading this and you are not A-chan, please go check out her post because it’s a really sweet work with a lot of heart, and the love for poetry really comes through in it. Please send her love, share her work, boost the hell out of it, because it’s really lovely.