#and they were only using half of it

[preposterousgreen]

[there was only one bed]

Cloud: *clinging desperately to the edge to avoid being squeezed off*

Zack: *wedged against Cloud's entire body*

Cloud: *clears his throat quietly*

Cloud: Zack, I'm starting to get pretty sweaty.

Zack: *mumbles in his sleep* S'all right, buddy. I don't mind.

Zack: *wriggles closer*

[aerialworms-art]

Lifespans.

(ID under cut)

[Image ID: A three-way venn diagram floating against a starfield. The circles are coloured; one yellow, one light blue, one a darker shade of blue. The yellow is the smallest, the two blue ones over double its size, with the darker blue the biggest. The yellow is half covered by the two blue circles, while it takes up a small amount of the two blues. The centre overlap between all three is labelled "the precious few years we three were together".

There is very little overlap between the yellow and the darker blue without the lighter blue.

The work is signed 'aerialworms'./End ID]

[inkskinned]

despite pages of poems and the entire book i wrote you - you only ever wrote me two songs. the first has the lyric coming up on 7.13, the date we first started really flirting. it's been three years from then, and my life has been utterly ruined. we haven't spoken in a month. i oscillate between being a wreck and being wildly, manically happy. i go long periods without thinking of you - and then i keep myself up, tortured by memories.

i think it's important to note we had been friends for years first. that i had learned to trust you, to think better of you. that you knew who i was - and you still fucking broke me. you knew all the ways i had worked to be okay with myself. all my independence, my hobbies. you could have left me alone, is the thing. you could have let me just keep fucking living.

i keep writing paragraphs on paragraphs about what you did, what you said - who you were. how it escalated so slowly. how i am still scared to admit the truth of things, fearing your response. you taught me that fear. it's only been a month, but still - already, how strange to think of who i was while i was with you. that was a husk-girl, cowering, servile. i can't believe let you in my fucking house.

three weeks before you discarded me; you took me ring shopping. you would tell me so many times i was the love of your life, someone that you "couldn't live without."

the last thing you sent me was that second song - a new one, finally. it's about how i'll never get what i want. about how miserable the idea of a life with me is.

my mother was furious. i had to call her - i was sobbing on the floor of my bathroom about it. She knows it kills me that i can't have kids, i said, breathless, silver and shaking with anguish, Why would she make a fucking song about how sad that is.

you know her, and you know how gentle and forgiving she is. how rare her anger is. her response was slow, deliberate. sweetheart, she said, she can write any song she wants. i know my girl. you are going to write a book instead.

i hiccupped a laugh, but she was still talking. she dropped her voice low, almost scraping through the phone and onto the floor with me. it was a strange tone, almost like feeling a storm coming when there's nowhere safe to be.

i want you to rip her apart, she said. do you think you can you do that for me?

[lunacias]

(Silence. CARPENTER tries to rally HAYWARD's spirits. She's afraid she's going to lose him.)

"All three of us - we can all go on living, Hayward. Just like you said."

[nenoname]

How Stan+Ford+Bill refer to each other

Stan

Ford:

Childhood: Stanley (9)

Teen: Stan (2)

Pre-Portal: Stanley (15), my brother (5), S (2)

Post-Portal: Stanley (33), Stan (13), my brother (7), my hotheaded brother, idiot (2), knucklehead, [Dipper's] uncle Stan, hero, stubborn mullet-haired frostbitten vagabond, wrinkly carnival barker, irresponsible shortcut-loving overgrown child, cheater, fraud, "looks like me if I gave up on life"

Post-Weirdmageddon: Stanley (16), Stan (5), my brother (2), Stanley Pines, hero (2), the man who saved the world, "selfish jerk", the most selfless man I’ve ever met in any dimension

Lost Pages: S (5), Stanley (4), my brother (3)

(S is a pre-portal incident Journal only thing + pre-portal incident Journals only has "Stanley" mentioned in code, tends to call him Stan when talking to the kids)

Bill:

Pre-Weirdmageddon: Stan Pines, Stan (6), old man, [D+M's] uncle, you idiot, Stanley

Post-Weirdmageddon: Stanley (7), Stan (10), Stanley Pines (2), fat grandpa, fumbling idiot con man, weaker copy of Sixer, Bootleg Sixer, mouth breathing carnival barker, gambler, lifelong loser, goofus, PTSD Barnum, side character, co-dependent, stupid, tacky, smug, unworthy, resume-inflating cheap trick loving past-denying overgrown child, pathetic excuse for a 5-sensed three-dimensional one-life spanned skin puppet, carbon-copy of a better genetic duplicate, conman clown, Lucky Stan

Non-canon shorts/Reddit AMA/That cut perpetual machine nightmare: Stan, Stanley, Stan Pines, slick

Lost Pages: inferior clone, brother (when pretending to be Ford)

(Most of the post-Weirdmageddon Stan mentions are for the "fun" facts in the Wheel of Shame, Bill spends the How not to Draw short never directly acknowledging Stan which I find hilarious)

Ford

Stan:

Childhood: Sixer (5), Stanford, Ford, Poindexter, bro, buddy

Teen: Sixer, Stanford (2), nerd robot

Pre-Portal: Stanford (5), pal, you jerk

Post-Portal: Stanford (3), Ford (8), Poindexter (2), my brother (11), brother, bro, the Author of the Journals, you ungrateful-, my nerdy twin brother, my dumb brother, know-it-all, dangerous-know-it-all, world's nerdiest old man, show-off, that jerk, stuck up son of a gun

Post-Weirdmageddon: Sixer (5), Ford (3), my brother (5), Stanford, Fordsy, bro, my nerdy bro, Brainiac, Mr Goody Nerd-Shoes

(Tends to use "Stanford" when shit's serious, yes i'm including the two getting traumatised by thrist comments clip come and stop me)

Bill:

Pre-betrayal: Sixer (2), Stanford, smart guy, Stanford Pines

Post-betrayal: Sixer (5), Stanford (2), Ford (4), Stanford Filbrick Pines, Stanford Pines, ol' Six-Fingers (2), Fordsy (2), my old pal, IQ, Mr Brainiac, Brainiac (2), [Mabel's] uncle, our friend, old man, kid, tough guy, pal, Mr Serious

Post-Weirdmageddon: Sixer (20), Ford (7), Fordsy (2), drama queen, fella, sad nerd, genius, idiot, partner, Mr Tabletop Gaming, backstabber, gallant, perfect pawn, pet human

Lost Pages: Sixer (7), Fordsy, Slick, pal, my old pal, my property

Bill

Stan:

Pre-Weirdmageddon + Weirdmageddon: Bill (3), all-powerful space demon, you one-eyed demon, wise-guy

Post-Weirdmageddon: Bill (3), Bill Cipher, little wise guy, Pointy, jerk of the week, narc

Non-canon shorts/That cut perpetual machine nightmare: you creepy triangle, guy (3), nacho, cop

Ford:

Pre-betrayal: My Muse (19), a strange being from a higher plane, being (3), strange whimsical creature, true friend, Bill (2, however!! this is from Dreamscaperers long before J3 was properly written)

Post-betrayal: Bill (default way of referring to him), My "muse" (3) Bill Cipher (10), Cipher (10), the demon (2), my enemy (3), you insane three sided--, The Beast with Just One Eye, the devil, liar, monster, angular psychopath, nightmare in disguise, king of nightmares, the Triangle, a has-been, a needy theater kid

Lost Pages: Bill (17), my Muse (11), Cipher (18) , Bill Cipher (2), extradimensional deity of knowledge, Cill Bipher, this Bill guy

[whogirl42]

Istg one of the most harrowing implications of 3x04 is that once the One Power was corrupted, the female Aes Sedai were forced to kill many of their brother Aes Sedai who succumbed to the Madness

[amtrak12]

After a conversation with a friend about this weird trend of fic readers who only want epic length fics (and also what seems to be a massive misunderstanding between parties on terms and their definitions), I went searching for the fandom sources I cut my teeth on. I don't have much bookmarked from those days anymore, but googling got me to this fiction length/terminology breakdown from a Livejournal blog. (Which also has good fandom definitions for other terms like A/N and fanon too, so if you're super new to fandom, go check that out.)

The definitions come from the publishing world (hence the page counts), but fandom and fanfic has always borrowed heavily from official publishing terminology. Flash fiction (aka, anything less than 1k words) is called a 'ficlet' within fandom. We call everything else a fic until it reaches the novella mark -- which may start at 20k words but as synecdochic breaks down on their Dreamwidth blog, there's a lot of overlap between short stories and novella word counts. Because, when you're not constrained by physical page counts, the real dividing line between short stories and novellas are the number of plots and themes you're using. (Seriously, go read their meta on this topic. It's fantastic!) Either way, once you're hitting tens of thousands of words, you're in longfic territory. And then if your fic is even longer than that -- 100k+ like shown in the screenshot above -- it's called an epic fic.

And these terms, longfic and epic, are important because they're used to differentiate these stories from the average fic. Because, at least in the 2000s up until the 2020s, the most common fic lengths you ran into were between 1k-20k words. "Fic" made the reader assume only a few thousand words at most. It's only when you changed the term to drabble or ficlet or longfic that they would realize 'oh this is going to be shorter or longer than normal'.

I don't really understand why that baseline assumption has changed amongst the newer demographics (and maybe amongst some long-running fandom members too?). I've seen a lot of theories and 'tiktokification' complaints, but I honestly don't know what's true. And I don't want to start a fight or even try to change anyone's minds if they are dead set against reading short story length fics. You can do what you want!

Just maybe shift your attitude about it a little bit? Remember that it's a personal preference the same way tropes are, and that one story length isn't better than another. Just like tropes, each story length serves its purpose. Some stories are best told in 1-2k words. Some are best told as 100 word drabbles -- or even a single sentence! And then, yes, some stories do need to be 100k+ in order to be told properly.

But that's not every story. And it shouldn't be expected of fic writers to pad a 1500 word plot into some sprawling epic just because they left it on a cliffhanger. The cliffhanger is probably the point of that fic! Short stories are an entirely separate art form to novels and as such are able to cover different topics than novels can or cover the same topics differently. And that's what makes them special!!

And look at that word count breakdown by genre! That's mainstream publishing standards! Now, go back up there to the definition of a novel and notice that the average published novel is 80k words long.

Let me repeat that:

The average length of a published novel is 80,000 words long.

Could a novel go longer? Sure! And if you're dipping into adult sci-fi or fantasy, absolutely it will be longer! But does your fic need to be longer than the average novel in order to be good? In order for you to feel satisfied when you finish reading it? Why does the length of the fic matter more to you than the content?

idk just some rambling food for thought, but I guess too long, don't read:

~✨~ Every story length is valid ~✨~

It just depends on the plot you have and the structure you want to use to tell it.

[spookygibberish]

who are the dogstock?

There’s quite a bit to go over with this so bear with me

Pictured: 3rd male and Virgin Queen (Uhasr)

The Dogstock are the Godstock People of the Dog, descended from an ancient warrior class of a now very dead culture. There’s still a lot of details to work out so I’m skimming over this part, honestly. The warriors of this culture ate the flesh and drank the blood of the Dog to become more like it, and were changed. The level of change that just imbibing the flesh of the Dog imparted is not sufficient to explain the level of purposed biology that characterizes Dogstock, and this culture didn’t practice active manipulation of stock in the way the Jacantese do, so the full history of their origins are somewhat mysterious. (I have ideas (not worked out)).

The Dzuzhnutte Empire perfected the Dogstock as they exist today, and their design, handling, and breeding as perpetuated still in Orimat today. The Dzuzhnutte conquered the entirety of the Dochira, the Hochkiskuph Steppes, and the isthmus in between which now holds the modern day the Kiiz principalities (Ann-Kiiz, Bel-Kiiz, Osat-Kiiz) primarily by the strength of a massive and powerful army of specialty bred and trained Dogstock soldiers. One could argue the high cost of maintenance of this army (among other factors) was the nail in the Dzuzhnutte Empire's coffin, but honestly it's all conjecture. Like the people who first captured and consumed the Dog, the Dzuzhnutte are no longer around.

There are three major broad cultural groups of dogstock that I'll be talking about, if i talk more about these guys publicly:

The Uhasr (/yhezr/) (i cannot pronounce this word correctly either)

The empire didn't collapse all at once, it shrank, it abandoned its peripheries. One of the first such regions to be abandoned was the Hochkiskuph, a relatively small, cold desert region with little obvious wealth in anything other than sheep. The Dogstock soldiers stationed in the Hochkiskuph were not retrieved, as there was no particular need for them. Dogstock are cheap to breed and expensive to feed, or so it goes. This happened about 700~ years from the modern day, and the abandoned Dzuzhnutte Dogstock warslaves formed the basis of the modern day Uhasr culture.

Uhasr Dogstock are a very decentralized culture characterized more or less entirely by their shared language. Uhasr means "ear-having", and is a reference to their uncropped ears. Dogstock slaves of the Dzuzhnutte (and descendant cultures, the tradition persists) had their ears and tails cropped as a mark of servitude, and the Uhasr, being master-less, take great pride in their intact ears and tails, enough to consider them their defining features.

The Uhasr Dogstock are nomadic hunters who exist in an ongoing state of constant conflict with the indigenous Hochki people, who are mostly nomadic herders. The Dzuzhnutte Dogstock were brought to the Hochkiskuph to hunt people, and did not stop doing that once left to their own devices.

Uhasr Dogstock practice exocannibalism (they eat their enemies' flesh), collect body body parts as war trophies (particularly hands and heads), observe religious practices that could be said to be the only surviving form of the ancient Dzuzhnutte state religion, have a strong culture of storytelling and communal theatre, and are generally known as "Feral Dogstock."

Oan Dogstock

Citizens of the Kiiz are Oan. A person from Ann-Kiiz is Ann-Oan. Oan Dogstock are Dogstock who are legally citizens of the Kiiz. The Kiiz are a trio of city states controlling the isthmus between Dochira and the mainland. They political history of this region is up in the air, I'm working on it. You'll get what you get lmao.

The Kiiz are currently undergoing a period of high art and culture, scientific developments, religious inspiration, lofty patronage of the arts. The Kiiz are an enlightened culture where Dogstock live freely among humans, slavery is illegal in the Kiiz, unlike Orimat, and all Dogstock are full members of society. In practice, it's rare to find anyone willing to sell property to Dogstock, and 95% of Oan Dogstock rent houses, or live with human sponsors, for who also often employ them in exchange for food and housing.

The Dogstock of the Kiiz exist in a strange, tense state, trapped between the Uhazr and the Orimish Dogstock in the eyes of their human contemporaries. The experience of the Oan Dogstock is one of supplication and opposition, they crop their ears to distinguish themselves from the feral Uhasr savages, and leave long their tails to distinguish them from servile Orimish slaves. A notable percentage of Oan dogstock are particularly strict adherents of the local religion of the Kiiz (idk much about it other than it's monotheistic - one of if not the only monotheistic religions on the continent).

The Orimish Dogstock

I know the least about this culture of these groups. It is the region where they're still actively kept as slaves. I'll get around to it.

[leblogreblog]

ok, but imagine a post/mid-credits scene:

We see a dark door to Bucky's apartment from the inside, then hear rattling. Bucky opens the door while on the phone with Sam, ranting about what happened during the movie.

Then, he notices that there's faint light in one of his rooms, abruptly stopping the conversation and saying he'll call back. He cauciously walks up to the room as silently as he can, pulling out some kind of weapon in the meantime. He takes a steading breath and walks in.

Near a lightstand sits a man, one Bucky knows all too well, reading one of his books, his coat folded nearby. He doesn't look at Bucky but acknowledges him, greeting him.

Then he starts to talk.

He talks about power, how it corrupts absolutely. He talks about irony, how somones impulsive want can become their only purpose, the thing that was supposed to kill them the only value keeping them alive. He talks about a mission he was sent for, how it obviously is something he wasn't supposed to return from alive. He says that they can call it paying back for his help from last time, to make them even.

Bucky only raises his eyebrow, visibly unimpressed that so little info was supposed to convince him to do anything, especially for him. He asks for more details.

The man looks at him for a moment in silence, then closes the book he was reading.

"Say James," says Zemo, tilting his head, "What do you know about Latveria?"

[a-dagger-named-fluffy]

Every time I watch 3x08 and Ray pulls out the fbi timesheet I giggle

The amount of detail in Dex’s entry compared to the others he’s so pedantic thorough

[crossbackpoke-check]

blessed be (lorscher bienensegen) | telling the bees (wiþ ymbe)

"Bees" [remixed, abridged], Claudia Emerson // "Letter to Someone Living Fifty Years from Now" [remixed, abridged], Matthew Olzmann // "Letter to my Great, Great Grandchild" [remixed, abridged], J.P. Grasser | Len Redkole, Nina Weiss, Brian Babineau, Christian Peterson, Mitchell Leff, Dave Isaac, Megan DeRuchie

[d8tl55c]

[kingslionheart]

Do you trust him wholly? I do not. I cannot.

2×06 | ALFRED TALKING ABOUT UHTRED

[elodieunderglass]

Don’t know if it’s against the rules to complete TWO egg projects. However I’m learning to become a silversmith and I’ve finished my first ring. It’s not perfect at all, but many hours of time and effort and a whole lot of learning are in it!

aaah is that labradorite? my favorite!

You can certainly pelt Killie with another egg, you've been such a good friend to him that you deserve to get him with an ostrich egg.

But in all seriousness that's a lovely ring, and you've been extremely busy this month, encouraging others, showing kindness and progressing your own creative works. Well done.

[fisheito]

... peace on planet bottom, then there's whatever this is

[niinnyu]

what is red valley and why should i listen to it? :>

Warren Godby just wants to do his job and needs some information to do with a seed vault the company he works for created. Something that, mysteriously, none of the departments have heard of. He goes to the company archives and asks the archivist if he knows where he can find said information.

The Archivist, Gordon Porlock, does have information. A full blown conspiracy even. And he's very enthusiastic to share it with someone, because he even has proof.

Thematically? I'll point you to the podcast's official description:

Why should you listen to it? Because you should allow yourself cool experiences. And because I said so.

Specifically though, because it's got

a really gripping plot

incredibly well written characters who feel like their own people who can be awfully endearing and unfortunately charismatic

amazing banter and AMAZING voice acting to carry it

meaningful character centric moments and fascinating character dynamics

banger music (diegetic and otherwise)

clear audio direction and action? Idk how to describe it really, but movement and actions are very vivid sonically.

Etc etc. So do it 🫵