#prettyboysdontlookatexplosions

[nellie-elizabeth]

🌹

It is EXTREMELY difficult to do just one sentence without context lol. So here's three sentences because I have no self-control. Eliot sits there, on the verge of seething at Quentin’s social victory. When he’d met this mousy little nobody, this Ivy League dropout with Baby Hedge written all over him, he could barely string a proper sentence together. Nowadays he’s so good at his job he keeps tripping Eliot up, getting him to admit things he’s not supposed to say, trapping him into accepting a gift from another coven’s representative when he’d been trying to gain an upper hand by making the offer.

[leguin]

12, 20!

12. How many WIP’s do you have in your docs for next year?

hmm good question. let's see... 1) this louis/lestat thing i'm writing via thinking of an argument writing it in my notes app at work and then not looking at it for three days. 2) the last chapter of the long winter fic which is...so close to being done. i don't think i'll manage to both finish it and get it beta'd in a month, but i am tentatively hopeful that it'll be done by...february? that seems pessimistic enough to be possible. 3) the last half of the elsewhere, which i could probably finish tonight if i wanted to, but i need to be in the zone. the evil succession zone. it'll come to me. 4) long winter fic 2: 2 long 2 winter. planning proceeds apace. i need to actually rigorously outline it bc otherwise it'll turn into a multi-chaptered thing and i deeply want it to be like a 20k oneshot. we'll see... 5) untitled kajillionaire fic. i have 2 or 3 of these on the backburner at all times, and i think i will manage to finish one soon. 6) kady/julia space au which i have now rewritten 3 times. i actually have figured out what i need to do to fix it structurally, but i am feeling very lazy. 7-50) many assorted magicians fics, most of which i look at once a month, write a sentence of, and then don't think about until the next month. 51) part 2 of the johnny lawrence high school era series, which i regret making a series bc now i feel honorbound to complete the sequel. another case of knowing what i need to do to finish it but not wanting to.

anyway tl;dr too many things, and that's not counting all of my vague 'currently this is a horrible concept but at any moment it will sprout legs' vampire show ideas...

20. Which work of yours have you reread the most?

in terms of fics published this year, definitely making mountains out of molehills is a good habit to get into, mostly bc i compulsively read and re-read the first 4 chapters while writing the final chapter this summer, trying to figure out if any of it was going to make sense in a way that wouldn't lead to a small avalanche of angry anons with opinions on psychiatry. not that that was likely to happen, but....prelest is also coming in as a late entry, bc i keep accidentally reading it a few times in a row. i like it, but it's got some issue that i've yet to figure out, so i keep reading it thinking i'll discover it this time around.

[asofterhibou]

continuing train of thought like two weeks later: in the same vein as the s4 rambles was thinking about how this and also @prettyboysdontlookatexplosions' fic looks like the road to heaven was reminding me that my favorite version of the mosaic years/mosaic fic are the ones that also treat the mosaic as that third option between escaping into fantasy or "growing up" by resigning yourself to the shittiness of being an adult/the real world; where the mosaic isn't the secret door that actually worked this time, not destiny or paradise or a miracle cure, but where the point is that Quentin and Eliot are friends who walk through a door and find an empty clearing with a shack and an impossible puzzle, and everything else they build themselves. it's not there waiting for them, the mosaic/the quest/the gods/the universe/Jane Chatwin's time magic doesn't give them that. in the beginning they're clearly not having a good time, they're snippy and Eliot's drinking and Quentin wants to leave, they have a fight about Quentin wanting to leave! they make the life in spite of the quest. they plant the garden and paint the cottage and get flowerboxes and furniture and fall in love and have a family, and work on a puzzle/quest and fail at it every day, and keep trying the next day, and do it again for fifty years, and it's good because they make it good.

[another-chaotic-bisexual-vampire]

Inspired by @prettyboysdontlookatexplosions' solid analysis of David J. Skal's definitive biography on Bram Stoker "Something In The Blood," my favorite parts were:

Apparently the Jack the Ripper cold cases were finally solved (?!), identifying the killer as a Mr. Hyam Hyams, and

Stoker's best friend, Hall Caine (to whom the book is dedicated with the Manx nickname 'Hommy-Beg") was in a toxic, gaslighting, and abusive relationship with Mr. Hyams - having feared he could've been the Ripper's next victim

For all the speculation that Dracula may have been inspired by news articles of Jack the Ripper, I never would've thought Bram Stoker would've actually met the notorious serial killer - or at least heard a firsthand account from his best friend how he felt trapped like Bluebeard's Wife by the monster!

[power-chords]

@prettyboysdontlookatexplosions good Manhunter takes:

Bonus good General Mann Take:

[rgr-pop]

story time on that for @prettyboysdontlookatexplosions and everyone

in the girl group we are doing a new thing where at a meeting someone volunteers to lead a training, skill share, activity or reading based on their area of knowledge. a is starting by presenting an adapted organizing conversations workshop. she’s really a pro at this and it’s a great first experiment

- this is not a closed group. i would not join a closed group with a bunch of irritating anarchists no offense. the only closed group i would join would be about doing drugs and hosting dinner parties and talking about things like the oklahoma city bombing. (practically speaking i do have this in my life: judaism. anywho)

- we are still ironing out details of the org, but have agreed on some norms about inviting people—the gender question stays complicated, people can’t be in the chat til they come to a meeting, and we may have social media but need to debate it first. we have at length discussed inviting people to meetings for many months. we even role played invitations. can’t emphasize enough that if your group doesn’t at least try to invite people in some way or another, it’s not organizing, it’s a red flag, and also these are NOT MY FRIENDS. i actively dislike at least 30% of them on a taste level

- a specifically requested people bring people to this, especially coworkers. cannot emphasize enough that this is organizing 101. we discussed this so at length we even had a vote on whether the activity should go at the front or end of the meeting based on which would be more accessible to new visitors. we had a discussion about communicating the accessibility situation of a meeting in a house

- a asked me specifically to model some of this organizing 101 and go into the chat and talk about how i invited people. so i did this

- the social worker in the group who always needs to be the boss of everything but anarchistly (deleted a mean sentence but you have to understand i find her more distasteful and difficult to be around than almost anyone alive but i do so anyway because those are the basic terms) made a whole to do in the chat asking me why i invited those people. like what do you mean why?? what is this, your birthday party? shut up

- side point, she was really weirdly confrontational about me having invited this one particular woman — who is in her anarchist org with her (but is not an anarchist). this woman is cool, older, divorced, labor organizer kind of wobbly style, working class philosopher, queer, principled red, and funny and outgoing. she kept telling me she wanted to get involved with girl group so i wanna keep on top of that - again organizing 101. the social worker though? this is the second time accusations of overt anticommunism have arisen..

- related, i had been reading about people calling robert miles “klanarchist” and me and my friends were joking about how i’m going to get cancelled for calling someone that lol. anyway it’s actually deranged how personally authoritarian and overtly exclusionary so many people are in anarchism. it never gets better

[drcloyd]

writing patterns

rules: share the first line of your last ten published works or as many as you are able and see if there are any patterns! tagged by @cliophilyra 🥰 1. It felt like all Buck ever did these days was worry. (in my voice you will know the sound of hope, bucktommy foster a bb fic) 2. “Did you know that Los Angeles has one of the most diverse urban forests in the world?” Evan asked, about five milliseconds after Tommy managed to open his eyes to the early morning sunlight. (pretty as a vine, bucktommy earthday fic) 3. There’s nothing strictly defined between him and Tommy. They’re just going with the flow - a couple times a week Tommy’ll end up at his loft, occasionally he’ll end up at Tommy’s house, and sometimes they’ll grab a beer or two, maybe some pizza. (reason comes on the common tongue, bucktommy rimming fic) 4. Being with a man is well - it’s different. Obviously. (trembling on some new beginning, bucktommy pwp) 5. It figured that the only time he'd ever left Georgia, it wasn’t as Daryl Dixon. (whatever you say, say nothing, twd daryl dixon/jesus witness protection au) 6. It’d been three weeks since the war had ended. (talking about love (to a cigarette), twd daryl dixon/jesus) 7. It’d been almost six months since he and Paul called it quits. (bits & pieces, twd daryl dixon/jesus tumblr prompt fills) 8. “Dunno why you can’t just wait for me,” Daryl grumbled, watching as Paul slid some essentials into his pack. (through your prism of love, twd daryl dixon/jesus jesus goes missing fic) 9. There are colorful sprigs hung at random below deck of the Urca. (of distractions and mistletoe, black sails silverflint holiday exchange fic) 10. It's just after dawn when Paul stumbles through the gate, the scavenging run he'd thought was just going to take a few hours ending up an exhausting day and a half. (our corner of the universe, twd aaron/daryl/jesus poly fic)

i do lean heavy on the 'it's/it...' beginning. That or start with some dialogue lol. tagging: @herrmannhalsteadproduction @smilebackwards @alchemistc @prettyboysdontlookatexplosions and whoever else wants to!!

[grimweathers]

fic tropes tier list

tagged by @cranberrymoons! 💖 link to chart maker here

some caveats/thoughts:

given that my current ship/fandom revolves around people who are either in high school or just out of high school, it's obviously fine there lol but if the author is taking canonically 21+ year old characters and placing them in high school (or older and then putting them in college) i am not reading it lmao. idk but if it's like... a fic about their time in high school, that's cool. does that make sense. i'm just not interested in reading about characters-but-they're-younger-and-in-SCHOOL i guess

wasn't really sure where to put "magic au" given most of my fandom interests usually involve a fantasy element lol

feel wary of fics tagged "humor" and "crack fic" because tbh they are usually not funny to me lol. not "not funny" as in "offensive" but "not funny" as in i guess our senses of humor do not match up

i'm just here to have a good time not a sad time lmao!

no pressure tags: @highkingpenny @sparklyslug @impossibletruths @awildwickedslip @prettyboysdontlookatexplosions @vviridescence @postmodernau and anyone else who wants to! just say i tagged you!

[buttercreamdicks]

@prettyboysdontlookatexplosions These bozos I started posting about did an entire "How long can you hold your pee" episode like they were inspired by that Tomlinshaw piss kink fic plz help me

[aeide-thea]

people complain a lot about Reading Comprehension on this site, and like, sidebar: imagine framing yr complaints with any genuine concern or compassion for people who have reading difficulties either bc of the way their brains are wired or bc they haven't received adequate teaching, cf amarocit on literacy problems and a lot of posts from prettyboysdontlookatexplosions on the abandonment of phonics, but also—

was just reading a post on anonymous forum olderthannetfic where someone was like 'it's dumb to make yourself age faster on purpose as a fuck you to beauty culture,' and inevitably some people had reblogged it to be like 'no fuck you, there's value in aging!!' and it was like. you guys are literally not responding to the words that are on the page here. but also that's because the words on the page here do not actually in themselves constitute a full sensical point, because who the fuck is out there 'making themself age faster on purpose' and what would that even mean, anyway? so you sort of have to start reading things into it like 'failing to apply sunscreen on the daily,' and from there you get closer to 'failing to try to prevent physical signs of aging = making yourself age faster on purpose = dumb,' and once you're in that territory of course people's backs are going to be up

but anyway this is a long way of saying that i think the common habit of making assertions that aren't fleshed out with context or evidence or analysis also has a lot to answer for in the so-called Reading Comprehension Wars, because shocker, when you just gesture in the direction of a point, and don't take people's hand and bring them along with you, they sometimes extrapolate in the wrong direction! and i think it's honestly a real mistake to get smug about how Other People Are Dumb and Pinging Off My Post in Inexplicable Directions without also doing some introspection about whether you've done a good or even half-decent job of explaining yourself. communication is in fact a two-way street

[elucubrare]

tagged by @caddyxjellyby for five favorite books that I’ve read since September & i uh. haven't done that, it's been a weird year, but for the year overall I've got:

Arkady Martine, A Memory Called Empire - my new favorite space empire. I love Martine's prose & her characters and worldbuilding also really worked for me.

Walter Jon Williams, Metropolitan. This is a weird little novel that's evidently the first of two, but mostly works on its own - a very fun secondary world with a 1920s America vibe, with magic ("plasma") as electricity, or vice versa.

Mark Mazower, The Greek Revolution - what it says on the tin, but it's a good intro to the period.

Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall - i just got around to it, and, while i honestly didn't love it, I very much respected it.

and honestly same about Piranesi.

tagging @aeide-thea @literarymagpie @prettyboysdontlookatexplosions & anyone else who'd like to (seriously, if you see this, tag me and say i tagged you :))

[nellie-elizabeth]

Rules: without naming them, post 10 gifs of your favorite TV shows, then tag 10 people.

I was tagged by @kitsungari, thank you!! Okay, this should be interesting, I feel like the answer to "ten favorite TV shows" might change depending on the day.

I'll tag @portraitofemmy, @eliotqueiot, @spiders-hth-is-an-outlier, @prettyboysdontlookatexplosions, @eidetictelekinetic, @r-dtoblack, @tasyfa, and if you want to play and haven't been tagged, consider yourself tagged :)

[cpmhew]

ooh! @spiders-hth-is-an-outlier tagged me to share 10 movies I love! Here's the first ten that came to mind, in no particular order (not even the order I thought of them, lol).

Mean Girls

Everything Everywhere All at Once

Frozen 2

Moana

Lord of the Rings trilogy

(I'm counting all three as one for the purposes of this list!)

Greatest Showman

(tbh I'm not sure I've even seen this full movie but I've listened to the soundtrack so many times that I'm counting it)

Ocean's 8

Moulin Rouge

Down with Love

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse

no pressure, but I'm tagging @r-dtoblack, @bredalot, @thegingergal, @buckthefutcher, @prettyboysdontlookatexplosions, and anyone else who wants to share! I'd love to see yours!

[chadlesbianjasontodd]

havent really been dailying the draculas this year (i did such a close reading last year i think i need a longer break lmao) but experiencing the second year of draculaing vicariously through @prettyboysdontlookatexplosions is a DELIGHT

[power-chords]

I just think it’s so great that Michael Mann made the American Heist Film of All Time and that going to a Heat 1995 showing in 2023 is, and I quote @prettyboysdontlookatexplosions, like “Rocky Horror for straight men” but the entire ideological iceberg beneath the surface is GAY JEWS GAY JEWS MARXIST SECULAR WEIRDO JEWS.

[cafeshopau]

Get to Know Me

Thanks for the tag, @ravens-words!

Rules: Tag Nine People

Three ships: Tarlos, Pynch, Pacey x Joey

First ship: First one I actually read fic for was Pacey x Joey but I definitely shipped Uncle Jesse x Rebecca during my Full House obsession in like 5th grade 😂

Fave colour: Indigo

Last song: Santé by Stromae

Last show: New Girl (my current go-to while I eat)

Last movie in the theater: NOPE

Currently watching: Lone Star, New Girl, National Treasure Edge of History (it is so fun, ok) but so much comes back in March that I can’t wait to watch!

Currently reading: I’m in grad school so...my brain only has room for fic lol

Currently working on: Essays :(

Current obsession: Lone Star ofc

Tagging: @bilestat @chaotictarlos @good-ways @prettyboysdontlookatexplosions @rmd-writes @mvgicshopp @strandtk @madsbuckley if you want!