#this post brought to you by i just learned there was a mass shooting on valentines day

[fagutt]

i feel so sick with my deep deep hatred for the usa and its political climate. what the fuck am i supposed to do? i can barely afford to live here, there's no way for me to move to a different country. as if any of them are actually better anyways, everywhere is fucking rampant with transphobia and racism and misogyny. i hate that my rights could be taken away any day, they actively are in some states, or that i could get shot walking down the street and it wouldn't even make the news anymore. how am i supposed to want to fix my life when the second i sort myself out i'll just have to confront every fucking societal issue that surrounds me every day?

[melanie-ohara]

Weapons Training: A Liara/Shepard Drabble

Time to post a Mass Effect drabble! There may be more of these for other relationships or other series at some point, depending on how this does - so if you like it, please share!

“So you have been in a fight then?” the human Commander asked, leading Liara into the elevator. She leaned against the wall and regarded her with folded arms.

Liara nodded. “Mostly wild animals. And a few pirates, trying to steal artifacts from dig sites.” She could feel a blush rising in her cheeks and looked at her feet. “My biotics are quite good, but I’m afraid I’m not much use with weapons.”

The lift shuddered to a halt and the bay door slid down. Shepard shot her a disarming smile. “It’s okay, you’ll learn. If you’re coming out into the field with me you’ll need more than just your biotics. Come on.” Liara followed the human out of the lift and across the cargo bay. She wasn’t sure what Shepard had in mind, but she was more than happy to trail her around the ship and watch her flame red hair bounce ever so slightly as she walked. Everything from her steady gait to her broad shoulders and the hard muscles of her arms breathed the kind of easy confidence Liara had never had.

She shook herself as Shepard brought her to a halt next to Garrus Vakarian’s makeshift workbench. She exchanged what sounded like a grim in-joke with him - something about organs that would probably make Liara a little queasy if she heard any more of it - and the turian laughed.

The human picked up a pistol from his desk. “This one?”

“Yep,” Garrus said without looking up. “Charged and locked, I checked it myself.”

“Thanks, Vakarian.” As far as Liara had heard, Shepard called almost everyone by their surname. Never Kaidan, Ashley, Garrus, Karin; always Alenko, Williams, Vakarian and Chakwas. Not her though. She was always Liara to Shepard. She forced herself to try not to read into it.

“This,” Shepard was saying, holding the pistol up to Liara with her pale pink finger pressed along the side of the barrel, “is an M-3 Predator heavy pistol. The heat sink can take 15 shots before it hits critical. It’s lightweight, fast-firing, and accurate at short to medium range. Take it.”

Liara shuddered a little as Shepard laid it almost delicately in her palm. Liara’s fingers curled around the grip and Shepard quickly pinched her index finger and moved it away from the trigger. “Careful, Doc. Fingers away from the trigger until you’re ready to put a hole in something.”

Liara felt heat rising to her cheeks again. “Right, of course. Sorry, Commander.” She let the weight of it sit for a moment. “It’s lighter than I thought it would be,” she said. Shepard smiled.

“Precision engineering,” she said. “Vakarian and I have fiddled around with it a bit. Lightweight materials, disruptor ammo, that sort of thing.” Liara could feel Shepard’s penetrating, almost luminous green eyes following her every move as she passed the gun from hand to hand. The intensity of it, of her, made her want to lie down. She steadied herself with a long breath.

“Comfortable?” the human asked, arms folded across her chest again. Liara wished she wouldn’t do that. The way it made the muscles in her forearms stand out made it very difficult for her to focus on anything else. “Great,” Shepard said with an encouraging smile. “Now shoot Wrex.”

“What?”

“He won’t mind.”

Liara looked over the bay at the massive hulking krogan in the corner, who was currently slurping down an entire pack of nutrient paste.

“Commander, I - ”

Liara didn’t even process Shepard moving until after it happened. The human wheeled around her in a blur, and she felt the pistol leave her hand as Shepard twirled past. There was no force, no snatching - she didn’t even feel her grip as she stole the gun away. Shepard’s little manoeuvre left her with her back to Liara, their shoulders lightly touching. The human brought her gun arm up and nearly deafened Liara with two blasts from the pistol. She yelped involuntarily, immediately feeling extremely silly when nobody else in the room even reacted.

Liara looked over at Wrex. For someone who’d just been shot twice in the chest, he seemed remarkably calm.

“Shepard.”

“Wrex.”

Liara could just picture the infuriating grin on the human’s face as she lowered the gun. Liara tried to put on an indignant face to cover how rattled she was as she turned to face the other woman.

“I’m sorry, Liara, that was a bit cruel,” Shepard said, entirely failing to look bashful as she held the Predator out for her to take. “Practice rounds,” she said by way of explanation. “They’ll still kick like the real thing, but they’ll only sting your target.”

“Or tickle, in Wrex’s case,” Garrus commented. He still hadn’t looked up from the sniper rifle he was calibrating on the desk. Liara took the gun back from the human and took extreme care to keep her finger away from the trigger.

“Nice,” Shepard observed of her trigger discipline, and Liara cursed how the human’s approval made her feel. The Commander wasn’t even three decades old yet! She knew it didn’t mean the same thing for other races, but she couldn’t understand why someone less than a third her age could make her feel like a schoolgirl with a silly crush on a teacher.

“Now then,” Shepard said, all brisk manners as she stepped right up to Liara and took her gun hand in hers, rudely oblivious to the effect it had. “This button under your thumb retracts the firing mechanism and engages the mag hook for holstering to your armour. Try not to get your finger caught in the trigger array when you hit it, I used to do that all the time.”

Shepard’s thumb guided hers to the switch and the pistol whirred and folded up, then unfurled with a satisfying click when she pressed it again. Liara couldn’t help a giddy, breathless smile coming to her face when Shepard manipulated her digits. It felt so… intimate.

“These lights here show that you’re shooting disruptor rounds. You know what that means?”

“Yes, it - ” she stopped to clear her throat, far too aware of the slight warmth and weight of Shepard’s body so close to her own. “It means there’s an electrical field that charges the ammunition as it passes through the barrel. On contact with a kinetic barrier it disperses the charge, overloading the capacitors and weakening their integrity.”

“Top of the class.” Shepard’s voice was low, appreciative, and made sweat bead on Liara’s brow. Images of the commander mumbling compliments like that to her under silk sheets burst into her mind and she felt heat rising into her face as the human gave her another of those damnable smiles.

“Alright,” Shepard said, stepping away. Liara immediately missed the absence of her form in her personal space. “That’s the basics out of the way. Weapon up.”

Liara lifted the gun, stabilising it with the other hand and lowering her centre of gravity, the way she’d seen Shepard do on Therum.

“Not bad at all,” Shepard mused. Achingly slowly, she circled Liara to check her form. After a second, Liara felt Shepard against her and couldn’t stop a gasp as those strong arms snaked along her own. “Sorry,” the commander whispered in her ear as she made fine adjustments to the position of her arms. “Didn’t mean to spook you.” Liara could almost feel the Commander’s lips on her ear as her breath tickled along her skin. Shepard’s hand settled on Liara’s as the asari fought to control her breathing. The human must be able to tell, surely. The idea was mortifying.

“It’s okay,” Shepard reassured her, mistaking her shaking arousal for nerves. “Just slip your finger up against the trigger and slowly squeeze.” The Commander guided Liara’s fingers with her own as she talked her through it. “Take all the time you need, just feel it glide back.”

Shepard’s low voice flowed like liquor. The dark, rich asari wine she had shared with a colleague. A prelude to faltering touches, soft lips on her own, fingers on her bare back…

“You feel that?”

“Yes, Shepard,” Liara breathed instinctively and blushed bright pink when she heard the pure need in her voice. The trigger had settled, almost imperceptibly, under their pressed-together fingertips.

“Any more pressure and the mechanism will shave a millimetre of metal from the ammunition block, lower its mass to near nothing, and accelerate it out of the barrel at nine hundred metres per second.” Shepard’s voice made everything else disappear until all that was left was her and the weight of the pistol they were holding.

“Ready?”

“Yes.”

Liara squeezed the trigger a fraction of a centimetre more and the shot burst from the barrel. The world rushed back as the gun bucked against her palm and sent a shockwave up her arm. She felt Shepard take most of the recoil for her, and then suddenly her arms slipped away. Her body left Liara’s.

“Great!” Shepard cheered. “Right in the chest.”

Wrex rolled his eyes. “Yeah, good shot kid,” he rumbled. Liara smiled, shaking herself out of whatever strange haze always seemed to fall over her when Shepard touched her. She looked over at the Commander, hoping the human wasn’t totally oblivious to what she was doing to her.

“Okay, take a few more shots. On your own this time.” Shepard settled into that oh so familiar, oh so appealing pose with her arms folded across her chest and her weight on her back foot. She blew a stray strand of red out of her eyes and watched as Liara settled back into the position Shepard had moved her into.

“Very good,” Shepard commented.

“I’m not likely to forget it, Commander,” Liara murmured. She took aim at Wrex, who theatrically rolled his eyes and waited. She squeezed the trigger slowly, trying to forget about the warmth of Shepard’s arms around her for now. The kick was much worse without Shepard to stabilise her, but the bullet still found her target and she grinned at Shepard. She smiled back.

“Again. Five rounds, centre mass.”

It took her a few attempts and one embarrassing overheat, but she managed to hit Wrex five consecutive times. The krogan sighed and rolled his shoulders.

“Why don’t you make the turian target practice instead?” he growled at Shepard.

“Because you’re my favourite,” the Commander shot back. The massive krogan growled and stomped into the lift. Shepard waved him off as Liara laid the pistol back on Garrus’ workbench.

“Well done, Liara,” Shepard said, stepping close to her again. Liara thought she was slightly too close to be entirely innocent, but maybe humans had different expectations. She suddenly worried Shepard thought she was being aloof when she maintained a respectful distance.

“When we’re in the field, I want you to hold back, okay?” Shepard’s hand found her shoulder and gripped just enough for Liara to feel it through her uniform. “Stay behind me, use your biotics, and only worry about stripping shields with the pistol. And if anyone drops your shields, you put up your barrier and I’ll shoot them full of so many holes their mother will feel it, alright?”

Liara would have laughed at the joke if Shepard didn’t seem so intense, so instead she just nodded. The human lightly squeezed her shoulder again and let go of her.

“Okay, tomorrow we’ll start hand-to-hand practice.”

“Oh goddess,” Liara muttered.

“Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you,” Shepard reassured, completely unaware of what the thought of the beautiful human woman grappling her and tossing her on the floor so she could straddle her actually did for the nervous asari scientist in front of her, though Liara’s daydreams usually involved fewer clothes, more soft beds, and definitely much fewer people standing around working on weapons nearby.

“I’ll see you later, Liara.” Shepard nodded to Garrus once before striding towards the lift, leaving Liara flushed and flustered in her wake.

[iamnotawomanimagod]

2022 Year in Review

I'm so late, pretend I did this like five weeks ago.

I was tagged by the incomparable @lucerants for a 2022 Year in Review!! Here we go! I'm also gonna talk about 'em all so this is gonna get long!

Top 5 Movies you watched this year:

1 - The Medium (2021)

This is an excellent and disturbing Thai horror film about possession. The last thirty minutes are such pure insanity, all I could do was stare at the screen with my mouth gaping. Highly recommended if you love horror.

2 - Encanto (2022)

What a delightful and beautiful film! I loved the themes of family, being true to yourself, and the importance of acceptance. The music absolutely slaps - if "We Don't Talk About Bruno" didn't get stuck in your head this year, did you really live??

3 - The Fallout (2021)

This was one of the first Jenna Ortega films I saw, and I really enjoyed it. She and Maddie Ziegler had great chemistry and did a really good job of portraying their new-friends-but-also-maybe-more relationship. And it was a truly heartbreaking and very real depiction of what being a teenager in our mass shooting saturated society must feel like.

4 - Spiderman: No Way Home

I'm not really into Marvel, as a rule, but I had to check this movie out since they brought Tobey Maguire back. I was surprised at how emotional I got when story lines from over a decade ago got some closure, especially since that closure came with a lot of empathy for the villains. It was a really fun, meta, fan-servicey movie that made me smile, and even tear up a bit at the end.

5 - Everything, Everywhere, All at Once

Technically I watched this movie at the very beginning of 2023, but I'm going to add it here now because I think it's a movie that truly defined and reflected the feeling of being alive in the early 2020s so well. It was so brilliantly written and shot, just an absolute phantasmagorical roller-coaster of action, comedy, and incredibly heartfelt emotion. I had only heard good things going in, and this film absolutely lived up to my high expectations.

Top 5 TV shows you watched this year

1 - Station Eleven

This show changed me. It's truly one of the most beautiful, well-written, gentle, and human stories I've ever witnessed. It took a setting and premise I thought I was done with forever - post-apocalypse fiction - and made something profoundly impactful. Get the tissues. Prepare to feel everything.

2 - Interview with the Vampire

This was such a delightful adaptation, especially in the ways they changed it. Jacob Anderson as Louis captured the character in a way that brings incredible nuance, even more so in his position as a black gay man in the early 20th century. Sam Reid was an electric and terrifyingly appealing Lestat. And Bailey Bass brought Claudia to life and managed to perfectly portray her various life stages, even as she remains ageless. It's just a really, really good interpretation of a story that I already loved, so it was a joy to watch.

3 - House of the Dragon

I love messy blondes, I love tragic love stories, I love women and their complex and tender and vitriolic relationships. Also dragons. I'm interacting with the fandom via a ten-foot pole, and am very pleased that two of my most treasured mutuals (Luce, Rosy <3) were along for the ride with me for s1.

4 - The Wilds (s2)

I'll never forgive Amazon for giving this show the axe. I'll also never forgive the fandom for reacting to the boys so negatively. S3 would've been incredible. But! I'm glad that we got s2, and got to see more from the Unsinkable Eight. I'm glad we got to meet the boys and learn their stories. I'll always be impressed and grateful for the way this show handled a storyline about sexual assault between young men. And even though there are still so many unanswered questions and we needed an s3, I'm glad that pretty much all of the mysteries introduced in s1 were wrapped up by the end. Better to have loved those castaways and lost them than never loved them at all!

5 - Our Flag Means Death

This show was such a salve - a joyful little pirate sitcom that played on sitcom tropes in a way that made every episode a delight. It was funny, charming, and beautifully shot. I'm so excited for season two!

Top 5 DnD Campaigns you watched this year

The biggest shift in my life this year, especially in terms of media I consume, was my discovery of DnD actual play shows. If I wasn't actively watching a TV show this year, D20 was on in the background. I watched these campaigns multiple times each. I am obsessed.

1 - Critical Role's EXU: Calamity

One of the most heart-wrenching stories I've ever seen, beautifully told and acted by an incredible team of DnD players. The ending is so bittersweet and perfect. I caught the finale live and it wrecked me, I spent the last hour of it weeping. (It was also 1am and the end of a six-hour marathon.) What a masterpiece. The Bronze Ring endures.

2 - Dimension 20: Fantasy High Sophomore Year

This is my favorite campaign by the folks at Dimension 20. The fact that it's live, so delightfully chaotic, and has the lowest production value of any other season makes it so charming and comforting to me. Plus Kalina is easily a Top 3 D20 villain.

3 - D20: A Crown of Candy

Coming up at a close second, A Crown of Candy was the first D20 season I finished. I binged it in about two days (didn't watch the Adventuring Parties at first, though) and felt so thoroughly ripped from the world when it was over that I kinda mourned a family of candy people for like two days straight. It's such a fun, technicolor, sugary-sweet world - but the plot and characters are so complex, so dark, that I was completely swept away by their story. It's just a really well-built and clever world, and it features some of my favorite D20 characters ever (Amethar, Saccarhina, Lapin, and Calroy.)

4 - D20: The Seven

Since The Seven is set in the same world as Fantasy High, I went in with really steep expectations. I was definitely not disappointed. The vibes and relationships between all of the women at the table is so genuine and infectious. The story is touching, but there's so much chaos and so many shenanigans from the characters that there's also so much to laugh about. It's another comfort rewatch, for sure.

5 - D20: Misfits and Magic

Aabria as a GM is always a good time for me, and I really loved seeing this cast parody the Harry Potter universe (and associated "kids at magic boarding school" trope) with such affection, but also incisive criticism. It's funny, light-hearted, and also really fun to watch Brennan be a PC, and get to bounce off the other players as a single personality. (Evan + K = 4Ever)

Top 5 Songs of this year

(I'm not gonna take this from Spotify, although all of these songs were in my top 20)

1 - "It's Called: Freefall" by Rainbow Kitten Surprise

This song did it all for me in 2022. It was a comfort song, a pump-up song, a breakdown song, and a sing-a-long and dance song. I don't know why it struck such a chord with me - I'd enjoyed plenty of other RKS songs before, but never on this level. It just resonates. It was my top song of 2022 on Spotify, and given that the four next songs are all by Halsey, that's saying something.

2 - "Whispers" by Halsey

After seeing this song live, it swiftly reentered my top 5 from IICHLIWP. It's an intense experience even just as a studio track, but the way Halsey sang it in person elevated the song to something even more painfully relatable and real. It's a song that's followed me into 2023, that's for sure.

3 - "Bounce Man" by Twenty One Pilots

I didn't like most of Scaled and Icy, but this song was a huge exception. It was my go-to whenever I needed a pick-me-up. That addictively catchy chorus, the fun beat, the lyrics being hopeful in the face of a scary situation (classic TOP) - that's a combination that hits just right on a tough day.

4 - "Fucks Me Up" by Anthony Green

On the other side of the coin, this song will make you cry on that same tough day, but you'll feel better afterwards. My husband and I share a love for Saosin and Circa Survive, mostly because of Anthony Green's incredible vocals. This entire album is gorgeous, but this song (and the last verse in particular) - well, it fucks me up!

5 - "Tree House" by Alex G feat Emily Yacina

This one is sweet, fun, and calming, and is going to remain in my rotation for a long time to come. It reminds me of my best friend (she did show it to me, but it'd remind me of her even if she hadn't,) and makes me feel so cozy and safe. It's just nice. :)

Top 5 albums of this year

1 - If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power by Halsey

For the second year in a row, this album owned my entire life. Most of my top ten on my Spotify Wrapped was devoted to this album. I still go buckwild when I heard "Easier than Lying" and it's my most played song on Spotify EVER, which includes like five years of music-listening. Getting to see most of these songs live (and then some, that 2hr set was crazy) made for one of the best nights of my entire life. It was an emotional experience bordering on spiritual, which is not a place I normally visit. It's Halsey's masterpiece, a perfect marriage of her abilities as a lyricist combined with some of the best production they've ever had. I just love it so goddamn much.

2 - Boom. Done. by Anthony Green

This album is a beautiful, heart-wrenching, honest reflection on addiction, recovery, and trauma. It's sonically very soothing, but lyrically absolutely crushing, which makes for a very tender experience. My husband and I spent most of the end of the year with these songs on rotation when were listened to music together, so this album is going to hold a special place in my heart for a long time.

3 - HOLY FVCK by Demi Lovato

I feel Demi has always been destined to make an album like this. Their voice is perfect for rock music, and the honesty in her lyrics (which reflect her very difficult life experiences) just work so much better with guitars and drums behind them than snyth beats. I didn't love every song on this album, but it's definitely my favorite work by Demi thus far.

4 & 5. Hopeless Fountain Kingdom (Live at Webster Hall) and Badlands (Live at Webster Hall) by Halsey

Although these are two very different albums, I love them for the same reason, which is that they both are records of Halsey performing live. I truly think live performances are where they shine the brightest, and many of the live versions of these songs have completely replaced the studio versions for me.

Top 5 fictional characters of this year

1 - Rhaenyra Targaryen and Alicent Hightower (House of the Dragon)

As Luce said, you cannot separate them, it causes wars. I love them both so much. And I'm gonna love and hate watching them continue to tear each other apart.

2 - Louis de Pointe du Lac (Interview with the Vampire)

Jacob Anderson just killed the fuck out of this role, and made me appreciate Louis in a way I never have before.

3 - Adaine Abernant (Fantasy High)

I actually can't put into words how much I love Adaine, or why. If you know, you know.

4 - Kirsten Raymonde (Station Eleven)

I'm always a sucker for a fierce, protective woman with a metric fuckton of baggage, who still manages to maintain a heart of gold in the midst of a horrible situation. Kirsten is all of that, and so, so much more.

5 - Lizzie Saltzman (Legacies)

I just think she's a really fun extension on Caroline Forbes' character, as her heir apparent, and she was often the funniest and most emotionally engaging character on the show. Plus, y'know, Hizzie.

Top 5 games you played this year

The Quarry

The Mortuary Assistant

Animal Crossing: New Horizons

The Long Dark

Martha is Dead

5 Positive Things that happened, no matter how small!

1 - I got to see Halsey in concert at my favorite venue!

2 - I moved to a bigger place!

3 - I went and visited my best friend in October!

4 - I got a new job!

5 - I spent a lot of really wonderful time on this website making dumb jokes, crying over shows, and chatting with all of you! <3

Since I'm so very, very late in posting this, I'm not gonna tag anyone, but if you wanna tell me about something you enjoyed last year, feel free!!