#geeky reads

[geekyzelda]

Fellas is it gay to gently wash your crush’s face of blood from their blessing ritual?

[madegeeky]

MY PRECIOUS BLORBO WINSTON

may prompt: Fake Date, Tracer and Mercy?

“We need to be going on a date. Together.” 

“Well, Fareeha will be disappointed.” 

Angela wasn’t what Lena would call together, specifically, on her best day, but today she seemed especially disheveled. Winston stood behind her, eyes wide, too polite to say that Lena had come to Boston to visit him, and that the two of them were supposed to be having a night in together, but thinking it so hard Lena wondered if Angela’s head might explode from the psychic pressure of it all. 

Lena smiled at him, and then shook her head. “Ang--” 

“I have a, a function, I have to be going, I have no choice,” she moved around the couch and sat next to Lena. “I need a date, in person, with me.You are so well-liked. Always. Please.” 

Lena reached out to pat her hand. “I promised Win--”

“I saved your life!” She leaned in toward Lena sa she said it, hair falling out around her face. 

Lena chuckled and cleaned back into the couch. “I’m not a very clever woman, but I’m reasonably sure that’s against some code of medical ethics, it is.” 

“I,” Angela wrung her hands together and shook her head, “I am so sorry, I--” 

“Ang. What is going on with you?” She didn’t wait for her to finish. “I’ll do it. Fine. Win, promise you I’ll make it up to you. I ‘ave to go buy a suit or something.” 

She whirled up and went to the door, putting her wallet in her back pocket and reaching for her shoes. Angela looked at Winston’s face, downcast as he ran his thumb over the back of his other hand. 

“I am sorry, Winston.” 

“Actually!” Lena piped up from the door, as she stood like a flamingo, tying her shoe, “Ang is going to buy me a suit, or something, and then she is going to make it up to the both of us. God knows I’d rather be ‘ere than talking…I don’t know chemistry of summat with a bunch of genius-level wankers.” 

“Please be charming tonight.” Angela whispered to herself.

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Books of 2025: OVERGROWTH by Mira Grant.

Plant-astically delighted to report that I received an ARC via Tor (Nightfire) and Goodreads! I love Seanan McGuire's writing, and my first foray into her work as Mira Grant was INTO THE DROWNING DEEP, which was phenomenal (think all the best parts of Michael Crichton--the Science, the Speculation, the Consequences--but women and queer people are Entire Characters)(we love a good sci-fi horror paced like a thriller in this house).

The premise of OVERGROWTH is basically "the pod people are coming, they've been warning you about it for decades, and no one has been listening." Stasia, our main character and (first person, past tense) narrator, has spent her whole life telling people that she's "the vanguard of an invading species of intelligent alien plants," which is confirmed via a broadcast from space.

And the chapters are time-stamped "X days pre-invasion."

Yeah.

This book was an absolute delight and all around a lot of fun--the tone was the perfect balance of funny and heartfelt and relatable and dread-inducing, and it very much read like a love letter to the genre with lots of cross-pollinated references (Seymour? Little Shop of Horrors? War of the Worlds? Jurassic Park? Hello????).

It was also very much a book about the distinction between being human and being a person, and about alienation and belief and trust and friendship, and about queerness and neurodivergence and belonging. And, y'know, mimetic plant aliens, in myriad shades of green.

I was initially surprised by the choice to tell this story in past tense and first person (because DROWNING DEEP was patently not that, and most of what I've read of McGuire hasn't been either), but it turns out that was The Only Correct Way To Do It: For most of the book, Stasia didn't have the full picture of what was going on, but her partial understanding + our readerly perspective from inside her head carried both the relatability and the horror. It was a really interesting and cool way to do an alien invasion book (from the perspective of the invader's plant)(ahaha, botanical pun). Also, the narrative frame made me pterodactyl Hunter shriek my way through the last two pages, which. OOF. WHAT A RIDE!!! I'll be rotisserie-ing over the late-game twist (page 396/465 in my copy) and the ending for a long time.

I loved that the aliens felt alien and all too much like people; I loved Toni and Hunter; I loved the biology and worldbuilding; I loved the botanical quips ("salad bar" is, in fact, the best possible term of address to an alien invader, no notes); I loved the shady government agencies and unethical experimentation; I loved the "we are the monsters you have made". I stayed up way past my bedtime several times for this, and it was worth every second. Do recommend, check this out in May!!

Half-assed spoilery content warnings under the cut (I'm not good at these because I have a weird concept of what necessitates a warning, so please do NOT consider these complete in any way shape or form):

on-page toddler death (graphic, in prologue, signposted with "look away"); transphobia (toward beloved trans character); spider (alien); bug-adjacent (alien); vampirism/blood drinking; other usual horror/alien invasion type tropes etc. (body horror? do people tag body horror?? i was an animorphs kid i'm sorry i don't know what a normal amount of body horror is but i love it all)

[cowboy-robooty]

im not going to lie i have an illuminati type theory that fanfiction has gotten so fucking bad recently as yet another consequence of the pandemic

[localthumbcache]

very slight edit to his eyebrows so now he looks even more sleepy. got that 1000 yard stare goin

[goldbiscuit]

The disinterested top baddie I've been texting postponed our date to later this week and I'm delusional so i find it kinda hot... like yes ok I can do a little begging......

[furinlegend]

“I think I might want in on some of this fun!” - Choji

ON THE H AIR PULLING? OR DOES SHORTIE WANT TO FIGHT like he usually does, to which Endo is actually quite interested in seeing.

More interested in surveying THAT than the two big boys flirtin'.

" I heard you bit that jerk. Is this like a weird omegaverse fetish or—"

[kolya-rat]

Made a biblically accurate Kenma playlist because all these mfs be givin him songs by chase atlantic, arctic monkeys, gorillaz, typa shii...

No. He listens to vocaloid and game osts like a LOSER. Specifically early vocaloid songs like triple baka or go google it or dancing samurai. ALSO SPECIFICALLY PSP games back in the early 2000s BECAUSE HE DOES OWN A PSP AND PROBABLY A PS2 BECAUSE THAT WAS THE CONSOLE BACK IN THE DAY. So it'd be games like Kingdom hearts, final fantasy 4/5/6/7, Persona 3 (PORTABLE AND FES.), Mario Galaxy, Majora's mask, Oracle of Ages, Pokemon but like specifically Emerald, Ruby, and Sapphire and BLACK AND WHITE TOO, etc.

He's a fire emblem player too 💀 Specifically Mystery of the Emblem, he was prolly a Nyna simp too 😭

I bet he tried playing the witch's house once and absolutely got shit faced, Ib player too, Mad Father made him ask Kuroo for a sleepover (So did listening to circle you circle you and secrets of wysteria) 🙏 tbf these prolly desensitized him to horror 😕

BRO WAS PROBABLY A CHRONIC PROJECT DIVA PLAYER. LIKE HYPERFIXATES ON GETTING THAT EXTREME PERFECT ON EXTEND.

Dare I say, he was one of the og Danganronpa fans. Prolly a Bloodborne player too, also Doom, Quake, AMERICAN MCGEE'S ALICE?

Loser Kenma is real. His playlist needs to reflect his geekyness 🙏‼️ BRO PROBABLY MEMORIZES THE CHOREO TO POPPIPPO AND LUKA LUKA NIGHT FEVER. HE WAS TOTALLY A LEN STAN TOO 😭😭

[saucetrnak]

if the Bruins overpay for sam bennett this summer I'm going to fist fight Don Sweeney i stg

[geekyzelda]

Devastated there isn’t more fan art for a relatively unknown book 😭

[madegeeky]

To start from the beginning, click here.

Choose Your Own Adventure– March 2024

Hello and thank you all for choosing to read this yet again! I am pleased to keep doing something. I am working on reminding mysaelf that the point of this exercise is to have something, and it is done in the sorta-kinda structure of a CYOA novel because I need permission for it to be bad, and we’re all just having fun. I keep going!

Challenges abound, in this life. They are capricious and quick as lighting, they are as slow and earned as dark patches of mold. But the challenge itself is not so much the measure of this life, as how it is met. Some houses can be built grasping to a cliff, or piled firmly into a bog, if the builder is daring and willing. 

Lena Oxton was a daring and willing builder of her own life, and relished the challenge of an impossible feat. The corner of her mouth went up in appreciation of life’s little gifts of difficulty as she stood back for a moment and surveyed the house. 

“Nothing to be done but get inside, right? Not burglary, as I’m not planning on taking nothing,’ She reassured the house, ‘it’s only so cold and wet, right? Just going to get warm, and put Fareeha and that Tenoh girl into separate corners. Act of charity, that is.” 

She barely felt the rain, however heavy. The excitement of the game was too much, as her eyes flitted, hummingbird-like, over the little pots of nectar that were each possible entrance to the building. 

There would be no getting into the large glass doors at the ground floor, not without breaking something, and Fareeha would take a more or less dim view of that, as might whatever posh person owned this house, or worse, the national trust. That would be what Fareeha called, an incident, and she did try to avoid incidents. Lena liked to avoid paperwork, so on that score they could agree. 

But there was a trellis, running alongside those bright white columns, up to the flat roof topping that colonnade. Whether the roses were supporting the trellis or the other way around, it was hard to tell, however, and Lena suddenly found herself wondering if she should have had the whole pie set in front of her at the pub. And the mash. And the three ales. 

Well, no, the three ales were necessary, because the Tenoh girl had sat in a bloody Wetherspoons and ordered chicken katsu, had picked the place because there was chicken katsu, despite Lena telling her chicken bloody katsu was a bit less than local to the area and there might be better ways of exorcising the homesickness she did not have, and then been bold enough to act surprised when it hadn’t been straight out of Tokyo. So another ale it was, for Lena Oxton, and Fareeha could look at her as crossways as she liked. 

But the ales were had, and she needed to get into the window, so regrets and second thoughts would only be extra weight, and she dropped them to the damp grass. She took off her jacket and carefully set it under the small bit of roof over the doors. As if a bit more water damage could possibly make the jacket, with its crinkled edges, and stray threads, and a patch job with a dark stain around the edges of it, look any worse.

Lena gave a broad smile to no one and nothing in particular as she bent back into a deep stretch, her hands over her head. It would be easy, if the trellis held. That window up above was almost certainly not locked, so it was only a matter of careful wriggling. Nothing this old was built quite tight. It was one of the more charming bits of England, Lena thought, that the outside was always a bit in, if something had been there long enough. Like it had become part of the country itself, and couldn’t be properly separated. 

She lifted onto the trellis, and began her climb, her fingerless gloves only protecting her slightly from the thorns of the rose that climbed alongside her. She gave a small, rare thanks for being built the way she was–her feet slipped easily into the holes of the trellis, and she began to pick speed. 

Until the trellis seemed to realize that she was there, and its voice croaked, an old and blueblooded madam affronted by the gall of a dockworker’s granddaughter to presume she was welcome. Lena barely had a moment before the trellis slipped away from the rest of the house like an evening fur, but a moment was all she needed to jump to the edge of the roof and pull herself, inelegant and flat on her stomach, to the safety of the flat space. 

She was soaking wet, but she still took a moment to roll on her back and laugh. There were warm clothes in the van, she’d change as soon as she got back. The window was all that she could have hoped for and more, rotting at the very edges of the painted wood. Lena took a tiny penknife out of her pocket and slipped it into the edge of the sill at the bottom, hoping it was stalwart enough for the job. The rain had swelled the old wood, and it stuck firmly. She leaned on it a little more heavily, but to no avail. 

Lena rocked back on her heels and tried to think. She pushed up on the sill, strong as she could. She pressed and pressed, and then–a chuck of old wood came flying off the sill, onto the ground, but the window remained shut. 

“Oh, come on!” Lena implored the house, and leaned against the window glass. “Please just let me in. It’s bloody freezing, and no one else is making use of you, and–I promise I’m very respectful. Trellis aside. Also the window frame. In general, I suppose.” 

There was a strange ripple, that ran through Lena, a sort of deep thrumming that she felt rather than heard, and she stepped back from the window. Just to the left, a french window simply popped open. Just an inch. Barely enough to be seen. But Lena watched the house let her in. 

As she walked toward the window, in the back of her mind, she could hear her father’s voice, from far away. She couldn’t hear what he was saying as she climbed inside. 

__

Challenges abound, in this life.

Fareeha closed her eyes and took a breath. People often remarked that it must be so hard, being a military commander. Giving directives on the field. It was nothing to her. It is easy to give orders, when the only consideration is the wisdom of the order itself. When people follow instructions, it is easy to give them. The matter is closed. 

Command is easy, and management is hard. Sitting in a van in the rain, attempting to mollify the feelings of an overly-sensitive potential donor while putting up with needling of little her friend, was taking Fareeha to the end of her tether. She should have offered to go on ahead, and left Lena with the problem. She was better with people. She understood how to be charming, more easily. 

When she felt inclined to, which was sometimes the trouble with Lena. She did not feel thus inclined, on the subject of the Kaioh family representatives. 

So it was on her, to make connections for Overwatch, and so Fareeha turned to Doc, who was still sitting quietly in the corner, foot thumping on the bottom of the van. 

“Help me with something.” 

Doc nodded. “Can’t hurt.” 

Fareeha rolled her eyes, but flung open the van door and zipped her collar back up to its full height. Mina and Haruka were huddled under the umbrella, looking out at the dark fields, the possibility of a small town at the edge of them. The United Kingdom was so small, and yet they had managed to get so far from anything. It seemed to defy sense, but it had happened, and therefore it must be perfectly explicable. There were plenty of places such things could happen, even here. 

She cleared her throat, and Haruka and Mina both turned to look at her. 

“I–apologize. I am from Egypt, and, so, the cold and wet irritates me. I become difficult. So I have been told.” 

The corner of Mina’s mouth raised, but she said nothing. Fareeha walked toward them, letting her eyes rest on the dark road, and the bright white of the cigarette butt lying atop it. She bent down and picked it up, looking first to it, and then to Haruka. 

“You have forgotten your litter.” She swallowed. “ An easy mistake, of course. I will handle it.” 

She pocketed the cigarette butt and let her eyes drift along the edge of the darkness. Standing in front of the two of them, their eyes on her, expectantly, she realized that while she had resolved to allow Haruka to help her with something, she had utterly failed to figure out what the thing she could help with might be. 

Foolish. She was constantly chiding Lena over her impulsivity. She did whatever came to her mind first, and never thought a day, a month, a year past it. But at least her impulse came with it a certain quality of genius, while Fareeha had no gift for improvisation. She was a careful strategist.But here she was, barelling forward without the benefit of planning, and now the very people she needed to impress were staring at her with expectation as she stammered. 

“I was–I wonder.” Fareeha turned toward them, “If, the van being broken, we should wait for Lena, or follow to the house with her. I was hoping, Haruka, that you could help me decide. Which is wiser. I have not done many country drives, in places like this. I was told you like to drive in the country, back home.” 

It was smarter to stay, of course, even allowing for the fact that Lena was just as likely drinking a few pints and watching some football highlight reel right now. But Haruka would know the same, and could imagine herself an important part of the larger workings Overwatch. 

Fareeha wrested the words from her own mouth like a bone from a starving dog. 

“I need your help.”

Challenges abound, in this life.

What should Haruka say?

results! The spooky details will be posted down here as they are used in future chapters, so don’t worry about not seeing them right now. I’ve got them!

[geekymoviemom]

It’s here!!! 🧡🧡🧡

[arrow-huntress]

Archive of our own is down, so I actually had to speak to my family today...they seem like nice people...

Hurry up AO3! I'm going through withdrawals!

[commsroom]

One more Eiffel question: do you think Eiffel likes reading? He references books fairly often but does he enjoy it? If yes what kind of stuff would he like.

... it's complicated! eiffel references books, but notably he references a lot of classics with movie adaptations. there's no way he wasn't a "i watched the movie; good enough" book report kid.

when someone asked gabriel urbina what eiffel's favorite book would be, he suggested either splinter of the mind's eye (first star wars EU novel) or something "unpretentious, like a pulpy 80s action movie of a book." and he said eiffel might like something like fight club or high fidelity, which... yeah, those are books he'd pick up because he's seen and likes those movies.

like, eiffel has read books. he is capable of reading books. he even wants to read them, sometimes. but, i think there are way, way more books he's picked up, read a few chapters of, and never went back to than ones he's read cover to cover. he likes reading out loud; he'd love to read to someone, and do character voices. i think that also helps him process it more easily; if he's reading quietly on his own, he's absolutely spacing out and realizing he doesn't remember anything from the last couple of pages on a regular basis.

(when he's reading hui's lovecraft book out loud in lights out, he says "it's no r. l. stine", which is a typically flippant eiffel remark, but also does not necessarily bode well for the last time he read regularly.)

as an aside, i think sometimes people defend eiffel's intelligence in the wrong way. like, he's smart! he's good at some very difficult, very technical things. he thinks very quickly, he makes connections, he's a lot more capable of understanding complex ideas than he makes himself out to be. but he's not an academic. he's not book smart, he does not have a four year degree in anything, and he's not reading a lot of classics for fun. (though, i think he could like vonnegut.)

in my opinion, that ties into something else gabriel urbina said - when someone asked about eiffel referencing casablanca, and whether he likes it. eiffel has seen a lot of older movies he's not even necessarily into because he was an unsupervised "tv is my parent" kid, and, as gabriel urbina said. if it's a choice between going to bed or watching casablanca, that's not really a choice at all. a lot of the classics he references are science fiction, and he'd watch a lot of those film adaptations on purpose, but others? might've just been on tv.

[gayeddiejuice]

he is literally everything to me <3

[yuniper]

another interesting point 'camgirls: celebrity and community in the age of social networks' (2008) brought up is how "branding" yourself online seems inevitable. even if you're not internet famous and making your entire self a brand, every person online still does this to some extent--even with something like what interests you decide to share and as what kind of person you present yourself online