#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.

[zenosanalytic]

And you're Right.

And you know WHY the Republican Party gave up on Reconstruction, Gave Up on true, multiracial democracy, Gave Up on fighting against racist terrorism in the South?

Because they wanted the USian cotton trade to recover faster, and they needed to get free blacks back to growing cotton for that to happen, and racial terrorism was the fastest way to do that. We COULD be a better country, but Capital didn't want us to be, and that same social force which sabotaged democracy THEN, continues to sabotage it NOW.

we lost the culture war so bad after 1865... we should live in an america where every single citizen looks back with patriotic fervor at how bad the union kicked the confederacy's ass. that should be universally regarded as a triumph of the capital U capital S capital A U-S-A. everyone regardless of geography should feel themselves living in the legacy of the union. the fact that confederate generals went down in anyone's history as anything but a bunch of delusional war-losing loser traitor weenies who dragged their states into a bloodbath and couldn't even keep their own men from deserting in droves is perhaps our greatest historiographical sin and one i truly with all my heart believe we are paying for as americans to this day.

[burberrycanary]

End of Year Stucky Picks #3

Stucky as a fandom is lucky to have a lot of classics and I rediscovered some old favorites this year!

Title: When the Season Comes Around

Author: theheartischill / @prettyboysdontlookatexplosions

Summary:

The other problem is that Steve loves him, and Bucky isn't sure he remembers how to love.

—

A great post-WS recovery fic that ends up feeling like an examination of the human condition. The storytelling is thoughtful, well-paced and with a lot of earned catharsis as Steve and Bucky slowly confront what the world has done to them, how to start healing and what they need to learn how to carry, even if the load is heavy, in order to come back to each other. Theheartischill really gets at how life is shockingly beautiful and shockingly unjust—and that the one doesn't have much to do with the other even if our moral intuition would want it otherwise. How do you find the strength to keep going is a big question that lies at the heart of what makes these two characters so fascinating. If you're not a fan of certain reductive codependency tendencies in post-WS recovery fics, just trust me on this one. Highly recommended. - B.

Art: William Herbert Hampton, Bombsite

[sashayed]

nine books i'm psyched to read in 2025! chosen from those i actually have already in my house or phone or libby waitlist. thank you @septembriseur for the tag and in turn i am tagging uhhhh @crimsonclad @unbornwhiskeyy @prettyboysdontlookatexplosions @roundtop @baking-soda @veryspecificfantasies @clarabeau @comedownstairsandsayhello @vincentpriceless @nimmieamee @ofgeography @nohoperadio @sleepnoises and you if you are reading this. boop. tagged right on the nose

[gowns]

recent things

tagged by @midnightcowboy1969

Last song you listened to: currently new york new york by liza minelli lol but generally this week i'm listening to a lot of norma tanega, dusty springfield and sondheim

Last movie you watched: i have been watching documentaries in the background while i WORK, but the last movie i actually sat down and paid attention to was "all we imagine as light" -- i think it's a beautiful movie and most people should watch it!! it could have been gayer tho

Last show watched:

^ all background stuff while i work. ratings: A, A+, D+

Currently reading: woman running in the mountains by yuko tsushima; i had read "territory of light" this summer and i really like her writing. territory of light pairs well with the movie "perfect days." i'm also reading this anthology of solo performance excerpts for RESEARCH REASONS

Current obsession: DIY theatre, how a joke is constructed (always thinking about this), how to write a musical (always thinking about this), how to hold the audience's attention (always), autism, the importance of letting your freak flag fly, barnacle anatomy

tagging @transmutationisms @indielowercase @quoms @pettydemon @lifesgrandparade @milkshakemotel @prettyboysdontlookatexplosions @mappingthemoon @superdiscochino @drumlincountry @therearepeoplewho

[voyaging-too]

I've had a problem with Dracula adaptations for a while now, but I've found it hard to articulate, because it's tied up with all sorts of baggage about the cultural depiction of sexuality and violence. And now I think I've found a way to verbalize it, thanks to @prettyboysdontlookatexplosions screenshotting a post that complains that Dracula's supposed to operate with "seduction and eroticism" as opposed to "brute force." She screencapped it to point out that the Dracula of the original novel absolutely does operate with brute force. You may or may not think he has erotic appeal, but he doesn't bother to seduce people, to make them like or want him. He never has a full conversation with Lucy or Mina, his interactions with Jonathan are backed up by brute force, the closest he gets to seducing anyone is his subjugation of Renfield. If you want a vampire story where a suave predator charms his half-willing victims, that's Probably Not Dracula.

And then a ton of Dracula adaptations, but especially the 1992 Coppola movie, make it all about this game of seduction, about giving in to the sexy liberating forbidden temptation. The recent Danse Macabre audio adaptation also pared the story down to a flirtation between Dracula and Mina. And I super hate this trend.

If you take a story about a vampire that uses force and subterfuge to attack his prey, and the first thing you do is soften the element of predatory violence, you're literally defanging the vampire. If you make the whole thing about how the victim actually really wanted it, and also how the predator was really in love with the victim as opposed to just wanting to eat someone, you'll lose everything that was genuinely interesting or transgressive in the original. I'm offended by the idea of Mina being even somewhat seduced, and I hate it when people fudge and blur a story about assault into a boilerplate edgy romance. Which of course also deprives the reader of the full experience of the vampire who's fascinating, powerful, and unambiguously bad. I'm serious here, wanting to fuck a seductive Dracula is much less interesting to me than wanting to fuck the legit horrorific hairy-handed wolf-bat-mist creature.

TL;DR: The moral dilemma of having the hots for the evil vampire takes place within the reader, not the character!

[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!

[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!!

[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

[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 :)

[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

[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

[zykamiliah]

#prev saved by the power of pathological uptightness 🥰#the sexiest spell in the world is no match against quentin’s years of ironclad repression mechanisms!#actually i would love to read more fic where quentin saves the day by being immune to magic because he is so crazy#like if there’s a siren creature or magic mirror or something that tells people the most flattering things they could hear#and it doesn’t work on quentin bc he has a phd in self-loathing#the evildoer is like ‘you are so smart’ and quentin’s like ‘i mean not as smart as julia though’#‘and also like when people say i’m smart i mean mostly they just mean i test well on certain standardized assessment measures’#‘like yeah i’m okay with numbers and i can read it’s not like a superpower. if you#are talking about intelligence that actually means something real in the actual world beyond a parlor trick by a precocious reader#like where would i even fit into that situation?#like i don’t have major insights or some superb clarity of analysis in anything#i’m not even an expert in any field. i’m just kind of a jack of all trades except minus any actually useful ones.#anyway. can i get that magic staff or whatever. it’s getting kinda late’#the creature disgusted is like ‘ugh. just take it. whatever’#later his friends who faced the ordeal and failed are like ‘omg q how did you beat the spell???’#and he’s just like ‘what spell?’#‘we talked about the culturally constructed nature of IQ testing and then i went home’ (via @prettyboysdontlookatexplosions)

[nellie-elizabeth]

WIP Game

Tagged by @eliotqueliot

Thanks!!

Rules: In a new post, post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it! and then tag as many people as you have WIPs.

Okay, here goes... I'm only posting the ones that have active file names and not the bullet points that exist on my "list" docs that are literally just an idea with nothing written yet!

Magicians/Queliot

trespass sweetly urged

Sexcapades (Qualice/Queliot/Malice)

wake up my body

Also I have 7 active Magicians WIPS that are all the continuation "snippets" in my Immortality 'Verse, so I have active docs for each of those. You can find them all here.

Roswell New Mexico/Malex

never really had a doubt

should've somehow realized

nightmare-scape

And then there is the actively-posting WIP tell me that we belong together, which is part of a larger series that has future-wips that don't have their own docs yet. :)

Feel free to ask questions about any of these!

Tagging @portraitofemmy @prettyboysdontlookatexplosions @r-dtoblack, @aydann-runs, and anybody else who wants to play!

[nellie-elizabeth]

i wanna know about queliot post-s5 infidelity.....

It's ten years later, after season five or four or whatever. I'm ignoring bullshit I don't care about from the show, but point is, Quentin's dead. Eliot is married to a nice guy who he actually loves. I've named him Ben and I've grown quite fond of him.

But don't get too attached because Quentin is BACK from the DEAD after all this time, and he and Eliot have sex about it? Which is, you know, not great, since Eliot has a husband. But unfortunately it's also hot.

I have so many fucked up scenarios planned for this one, my favorite two being:

Ben finds out about the cheating and he's being super reasonable about it (he too lost a loved one, that's how he and Eliot first connected, by sorta openly acknowledging that they'd both lost the great loves of their lives but could still find some measure of peace with each other). So he's like "hey, I understand, if my person came back from the dead I'd cheat on you too, babe." And Eliot is like NO, you should be MAD at me, so he proceeds to like... graphically describe the sex he and Quentin had, including not only the sexual details but stuff like "he told me he loved me and I said it back".

At one point Quentin and Eliot are hooking up and Quentin starts demanding that Eliot tell him all about Ben and what he's like in bed, and Quentin starts to like... act out what Eliot's describing, essentially role-playing Eliot's husband and trying to one-up him, and it's very fucked up lol.

I'm honestly really excited to get to this one, I really like the vibes and I've written like... snippets from several scenes. Gotta figure it out structurally though.

Would end with Queliot together but like... they're both kinda horrible along the way to poor Husband Ben who actually does not deserve this shit and might actually have been good for Eliot, honestly. I don't want people to be too mad at Eliot but he's kind of being a shitty person, no real way around that.