#like real authors

[inkskinned]

you know, you know. no gods, no masters, no kings on pedestals. everyone is fallible. death of the author. you know! you are balanced about your intake of media - you allow the wiggle room, the grace, the gratitude, the skepticism. nobody above criticism.

but still. a weird gut-punch feeling, something akin to betrayal. you read the article. surprise! an author you love is actually: a serial fucking predator.

well, shit. what now. no, you knew he was a person (all people are), but now you're wondering - what have i overlooked by accident? what messages have i internalized that are strange and cruel? and also, like, what the fuck?

his actions lay a thick glaze on top of everything. like each place is now ruined, opaque in a new way. but okay, fine, you've done this before. you knew better, right? you've been betrayed by many a cherished childhood author.

still, this stickiness. fuck. can you pick up that book again. will you read it to your children. you've recommended it to others - will you ever do that again? and of course, of course, no parasocial relationships. you were theoretically above this kind of sentiment. but the artist informs the art, right.

so it's not something as clear-cut as feeling he owed you, specifically (a stranger) better behavior - just that you kind of, in a distant and odd way... sort of trusted him to do better. it's not like a real trust or something speakable, just the faint hope that the product (good books) was a thin representation of the soul. now it feels like the product (good? books?) was a mask. in some small or insignificant way, your previous support of this person lent them power. your money and your time and your laughter.

and the thing is - you have this terrible, echoing sensation. how many times will this happen? over and over. you find out that the singer you love is actually a predator. you learn over drinks that your favorite high school english teacher is in jail for what he did to her. you listen to the news idly and suddenly discover that a woman you used to idolize has been abusing her kids for an actual eon.

what can you touch without the static melting off. you can't even really complain about it too much (you were supposed to know better, and besides, you don't want the same re-split "it's not your fault, love what you love" basic advice), but now it's here. somehow, it feels like - you let him into your life.

it's not that things need to be pure or an artist has to be like, endlessly perfect, mindful. demure. it's more just this terrible truth that has been replayed through your veins so often it feels criminally vain. power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. did you want any one person to be worth that power?

it's just that he wrote books where he seemed to understand that. he seemed to know about hierarchies and unfair systems and bigotry and privilege. you thought they were books about what it means to struggle. you thought they were about having power and still using it for good rather than for control. he spooned you a narrative of being a good guy, a kind soul. you fucking bought what that fucking monster sold.

maybe that's why they were fantasies, after all.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

News spreads fast.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[muppetfreak]

Mr. Riordan, it is truly a pleasure getting to experience your second draft.

[teratomatica]

you always land on all fours

[stars-inthe-sky]

if there's solid ground below

It's been five years, but I wrote a whole fic this week thanks in no small part to the singular @iphyslitterator!

[Cross-posted to AO3]

“H—hey, Tommy?”

Tommy startles and bangs his head on the hood of his truck, recovering fast enough that none of the oil he was nearly done changing spilled but not so fast that it would have escaped Evan’s notice. “You okay?”

“Yeah, just surprised,” he says, grabbing for a spare rag to wipe his hands on. “Hi.”

“Got a sec?” Evan rocks onto the balls of his feet and back again, hands shoved deep in the pockets of a hoodie that, in southern California in May, it should really be too warm for. But he runs cold, and the layers always have the added bonus of making Tommy want to rip them off in some kind of Pavlovian response.

Had. Last summer, they’d had that effect. This summer was shaping up differently.

Evan tilts his head, a little quizzical, and Tommy realizes he’s been frozen in place for a few beats too long, dazedly dragging the rag between his fingers.

“Sorry, yeah, go ahead.” He glances down at the car, which hasn’t moved, then back at Evan, who’s still rocking but who looks, Tommy’s now realizing, noticeably lighter than he has in a while—certainly since the funeral, but maybe even more so than that night in the bar all those weeks ago. His smile is far too small, but it’s there. “Although if you need another helicopter, I’m gonna have to start charging you at some point.”

“That’s okay, I heard your fees are competitive,” he chirps, and if his grin isn’t yet lethal, it’s shifted to shit-eating. Which, for Tommy, is lethal anyway, and Evan knows it. “But no, I just…just wanted to talk this time. For real, for once.”

Oh. “Okay…?”

“You can keep doing whatever you were doing; I know you like to have something to do with your hands.”

“Uh, thanks.” He stuffs the rag in the back pocket of his jeans and fishes the oil canister out of his car’s innards. This might be easier without eye contact. “What’s up?”

“I’m taking a sabbatical from the LAFD,” Evan says. Tommy freezes again, more of a twitch than a full stop, and makes himself continue the actual task at hand. “Three months. Mostly thanks to an insane amount of unused PTO, because I realized I kinda haven’t taken a vacation that wasn’t just medical leave in like…ever. And I need a break, you know, after everything? Like, I spent a bunch of my twenties driving around, odd jobs and stuff, and the world is—is so much bigger than the firehouse, or this city, and…yeah.  I think I need that space for a bit. Just got it approved today. And then I came here.”

He pauses for breath, and Tommy stares unseeing at some perfectly intact wiring he could reconnect by touch alone if asked. “That’s great they’re letting you do that, Evan. I’m sure it’ll be good for you. How’d the others take it?”

There’s a little sigh. “I haven’t told them yet. Battalion chief said I’d always have a job to come back to, but they couldn’t hold my spot indefinitely. Depends on the new captain and how they want to staff up. Makes sense, obviously, so.” His sniffle is nearly inaudible, but Tommy’s never been able to tune out Evan’s frequency.

He gives up on the car, closing the hood with a quiet click and resuming with the rag, even though his hands aren’t especially dirty. “Never thought you’d voluntarily leave the 118.”

“I know, right?” Evan’s mouth twitches, and it’s not quite a smile now, but there’s something genuine growing back. “I mean, I guess I might not be, but. Things change, and it’s…time, maybe. I’m doing this, in any case. I—I—I just need to clear my head for a while. Go visit Minnesota, never been there, but then…I don’t know, maybe touch the Atlantic Ocean again. Camp out in some national parks. Go see the sky in Montana—it’s so big, Tommy, I’ve never seen anything like it, not since those years, and the last couple of months…it’s like the smog is just in everything right now, you know?”

Tommy nods. He can relate, despite how often he gets to soar above the chokehold of Los Angeles; smoke is smoke, and heat still rises. “I get it. So…this is goodbye, then?” He swallows, bites his lip, stares down at his fingers and the rag still entwined in them.

“No!” Evan leans forward for a breath, arm lifting, but he seems to stop himself, like he’s remembering they don’t know where they stand with each other, if he’s allowed to grab Tommy’s shoulder. “No, no, I’m coming back. LA is still home, my—my stuff’s going into a storage unit next week, my sister and my niece are here, and the new baby—the job—no, yeah, I’m coming back.”

“That’s good,” Tommy muses. “So…”

“So, I wanted to ask—I—I—I’m asking if you’d maybe be up for thinking about coming with me.”

Tommy freezes so suddenly, and so thoroughly, that the rag drops to the ground. “You—you’re going on a three-month road trip to get away from it all, and you want me to come with you?”

“Yeah, I do,” Evan says softly, surely, ducking his head in that bashful way he pretends not to know is so damn effective. “I need a break from everything, and everyone—but you, you’re not everyone. I meant what I said about being together, before. I still mean it.” Tommy feels both arms drop to his sides, heavy and limp like emptied hoses, and the air jerks out of his lungs as his throat closes tight.

Evan plows ahead. “I—if—if you don’t want to, or you can’t swing it with work, or whatever—I get it, that’s why I’m asking and not—not telling you what to do. I don’t—even if you don’t come, I’d wait. And, and text or call, maybe? If you wanted to? Even if it’s just as friends, my life is always better when you’re in it. Kinda hoping that goes both ways here.”

Tommy croaks, “And when you get tired of me before we hit Reno?”

“I won’t,” he says, no hesitation. Tommy’s slack face must do something, because he repeats, “Tommy, I won’t. I won’t. I just want time with you, more time, all the time. I want to try again, so, so bad. And if we fight, we can talk, and not just think the worst, and keep going, be—because I want to eat crappy gas station food with you and not think about the inside of a gym for weeks. I want to drive out somewhere where it feels like we’re the only people on the planet, and fuck in the back of your truck, and then figure out a map that’s older than either of us because there’s no cell service. Maybe rent a chopper in Montana so we can see that sky up close—there’s, there’s so many stars, and you’re the only person I’d want to see them with like that. I want to be locked in a moving vehicle with you all day, except for bathroom stops, and see your face when you realize it’s been 16 hours and we still have more to talk about, and we’ll just keep going, because I’m never gonna get tired of you.”

He pauses and swallows thickly, and Tommy can’t look away. For all that Evan Buckley wears his heart on his sleeve so easily for anyone to see, actually opening it up and offering to hand it over to someone else—that’s still work. “So—that’s what I came to say. That’s what I want. J—just think about it. No rush, I’m not—I’ll wait. If it’s what you want. You…you get to want things, too. So. Yeah.”

Evan nods to himself, rubs the back of his neck, and turns to walk back to his car, parked on the street. Tommy has to move, has to say something, but the soles of his boots are melting, fused to the cement of the driveway, his throat is still closed, and Evan—Evan is walking away.

Tommy wants things, too.

He forces a breath, in and out, on a four-count, licks his lips, and asks, “When do we leave?”

Evan radiates a warmth that scatters out, tangible and visible like a sunrise before he even turns around, beaming. “I was thinking a few weeks after the baby comes, but—but—yeah?”

“Yeah, I, uh, I could chase some stars over the Rockies. With you.” Tommy’s insides unknot, and the life rushes back into his limbs. “And the rest, too. I noticed it’s my truck in this scenario?”

Suddenly Evan is in front of him, closer than they’d managed even that morning after, pressed gently against him from chest to knees, arms winding around his waist. “Much more cargo space. Very practical. And I kinda thought you might be in the same boat, you know, with the unused vacation. Maybe enough seniority to hang onto your spot.”

“Probably, yeah, they generally…” He doesn’t even know how that sentence might have ended, has rarely thought about anything more than a long weekend away, but then Evan’s kissing him, deep and slow and sweet like they might already be the only people on the planet. His warmth flashes over through Tommy, nerve by nerve, until he’s lit up and burning, flammable in places he’d spent months trying to forget this man could expose.

When Evan pulls back, it’s with Tommy’s face between his hands, his relief and hope palpable. Like life might go on, like the world might really be bigger, could even be better, sometimes, than it had been.

“Let’s go,” he whispers, so close and so quiet that Tommy can feel each syllable rumble against his skin, tires steady on a gravel road away from this scene and toward the next.

[zu-is-here]

<– • –>

[fabuladorah]

I would like to praise Captain Jim Kirk, who despite being 5'9 feet tall still manages to look so much smaller than every other men.

[fictionadventurer]

I love libraries.

I'm browsing the WWI shelves (as you do) and notice a very old book about the war. I glance at the first pages that talk about how one day the war will be over and we'll look at this place and not see any signs of the battlefield.

Then it hits me. And I check the publishing date.

This book was printed before the war's end. Not written. Printed. The physical object was created in 1918, while the war in question was raging and the end was as yet uncertain.

Now I'm standing on the other side of the apocalypse, with this physical link to that era in my hands. I'm living proof that the war did end and life did go on and we can all look at the end of the world as a long-ago memory.

Reading old books is cool enough, connecting our minds and hearts through the ideas of people who lived long ago, but there's something extra profound about holding a copy of the book that comes from the time that it was written. It's a physical link between the past and the present connecting me to those long-ago people. A piece of the past come into the future that gives me the chance to almost take the hand of some long-ago reader, to hold something they could have held, connecting not just mentally but physically to their era, a moment of connection across more than a century.

Excuse me while I go weep.

[dark-lord-of-awesomeness]

sigh.

I need this out of my brain, I'm trying to focus on the fics I'm already writing, so I'm flinging this into the void

Au where Stan's born Stan Filbrick Pines, only child to Filbrick and Caryn Pines. He's not a super smart genius, but without Ford to compare to his life...

Still sucks.

He's not bullied for being the dumb twin, but he's still a jerk, still barely socializes positively with his peers, is desperate for connection but doesn't know how to change himself to be more likable to everyone around him. He's still bullied as a kid for being shrimpy and weak until he picks up boxing, still finds the Stan O' War, but it becomes a hang out spot for him to be by himself and draw instead of a focal point for his dreams of escapism.

But now that he's not getting pressured to be more like Ford he can focus on his own hobbies without too much shame.

Specifically drawing.

Starts writing his lil'Stan comic, grows a little older and dang :/ kinda embarrassing to have the character be just him, he'll give him a different name!

Like Stanley. No one will ever guess its an OC thats just him like this!

Grows a little older and his loneliness manifests as him giving his comic character (who's not him!) a friend, named..... Stanford. Stanford's everything Stanley isn't, smart (doesn't struggle in school like Stan), cool (people think his actions are amazing and not something to laugh at or dismiss), a hero everyone likes but is too focused on being a nerd to realize (Stan's the town's trouble child, and is very aware no one likes him). Its not Stan's ideal! Its not Stan twice! See, Stanford different, because, uh, he's got six fingers!

So Stan's got his Lil'Stans comic, starring the twins Stanley and Stanford, one who's just him and one who's everything Stan's not (and sort of wishes he was) and are the best of friends. Life goes on, Stan hits high school, draws and doesn't get the comparison that kills his creativeness but also still isn't a super genius like his cool OC Sixer. Hits seventeen and gets scouted for some prestigious art school.

Turns out Stan's got talent! He's pretty good! Just one thing!

They don't really like his comic style, they like his more realistic, detailed style more. Stan can get in, but he has to 'grow up' and leave his comics behind (or at least, that's what it feels like everyone else is telling him).

And Stan does it. He wants to go somewhere no one knows him, where he can hopefully find someone who doesn't scowl and grimace at all of his ideas, actually make friends. Writes a final farewell comic to his characters, where Stanley and Stanford have a (typical Teen) angsty falling out and Stanley rides off into the sunset to start his own adventure, and maybe find somewhere he belongs.

This does not happen, and while Stan graduates he's just as lonely as he was when he started, parents distant, brother someone he barely knows. Through a series of events Stan's more 'mature' work gets popular and he moves out to Gravity Falls for either inspiration or just to get away from it all. Doesn't matter.

What matters is he's been living his life, drawing stories based on all the weird things around him, when a man who looks eerily similar to him bursts into his living room, claims to be his twin, and is here to take Stan on an adventure to Save Everyone.

aka

Stan's childhood comics come to life, except specifically the twin brother he dreamed up, the evil villain he based off a chip when he was out of ideas, and a few minor characters (Fiddleford, various others, idk). The world of Lil'Stans' , now fully real, is seeping into the real world and Ford's come rescue his 'long lost' brother who ditched him ten years ago and who he's still angry with over it (Stan's a little peeved about it. He was seventeen! How was he supposed to know all his day dreams were real? or something? Actually whats happening?)

(Aka, I've seen a few fics about Ford being an only child and creating Stan in one way or another, what if it was the other way around? This idea slammed into my brain the other night out of nowhere. I've got nothing but the premise and i need it Out of my Mind)

[frownyalfred]

“Why are you bullying Hal Jordan so much in this fic?” Because it’s funny. Because it’s funny and he’s not a real person.

[foxonrollerskates]

Bitches be like "Omgggg, fanon is sooooo much better than canon" and you look inside and its just

*Mischaracterization to the point of it being A Completely Different Character*

*Blatant misunderstanding or willful misinterpretation of the themes and character arcs the author was going for*

*Squeezing characters into boxes to make them fit into stereotypical relationship dynamics*

*compulsory sexuality and amatonormativity*

*flattening of characters into black and white archetypes*

*"fixing" perceived plot holes by either changing the characters actions to the point its not the same character anymore, or by creating even more plot holes*

*amplifying or straight up adding racism/misogyny*

*USamericanizing everything to a sickening degree*

Like be so for fucking real

[royaltea000]

Certified DILF chaser

[dollopole]

I was just thinking about the fact that in so many Merlin fics, Merlin keeps being an healer/doctor/medic, which makes sense, since that’s how he started his life, by helping people however he could, but now consider this:

Merlin, who has lived so long and more than probably witnessed the deaths of thousands, even of those he loved, cherished and respected. So what if a millennia of life completely flipped his view on what it means to heal and study medicine. What if after all Merlin saw, everything that happened had the opposite effect on him, which means that he stopped trying and left the job to someone else.

Merlin still helps, surely, in the end, it’s in his nature as human, but we can already see how he changed, even only after ten years of being in Camelot and witnessing death after death.

What if he despaired because disease spread and not even his magic could help it, what if his magic decided that humans had to live with their own course of actions and so his magic simply refused to help them, which got Merlin just angry at the prospect of doing this for so many years.

But now take into consideration when Arthur returns:

I believe Arthur would be the healer/doctor/medic this time around.

He would be eager to help everyone he can, because that’s also in his nature, but since he can’t do it anymore in the way he once did, he has to find another path for him, a path that would make him heal too, heal from all the times he killed, instead of helping someone in danger.

Arthur lived a life of death even before Merlin could start to think about killing someone.

Arthur had his hands smeared with blood since he was a child. Being Uther’s son was automatically, in both magical people and peasants’ perspective, who lived under Uther’s tyranny, a sin and a guilt, even before Arthur could pick up a sword.

He did not just kill sorcerers, but he was raised with a mind of a killer of justice. To defend his kingdom, his father, his counsellors, his court and his people no matter what he felt regarding it, was and had always been his main duty.

He was trapped in a murderous cycle, literally, where he couldn’t do anything but raise himself to believe that the only way to help people was to kill them.

On one side, we have a man who spent his life helping people and who got tired of death, and on the other side, we got another man who spent it killing people and still got tired of death.

But to Arthur and Merlin it happened in different ways.

Where Merlin left the responsibility to someone else, Arthur decided to take that responsibility himself, in the hope that maybe, one day, he could bring back to life all those he had condemned for the simple act of living as themselves.

[tiredandoptimistic]

Radar really is in such an interesting position relative to the 4077. The rest of them are doctors. Hawkeye frequently bemoans his role as "weapons repair" and is clearly uncomfortable with fixing people up so they can go back and get shot, but he's still fundamentally only engaging with the war as a healer. When he's off duty (and even while he's working), Hawkeye is able to focus his energy on "the war against the war" by throwing parties and pulling pranks. He takes every opportunity to show his disrespect for the whole military machine, and only plays by their rules when it goes along with his moral imperative to heal the dying.

Radar, on the other hand, is the motor that keeps MASH running. He helps Hawkeye and the others with their schemes, but he also has to be the one to deal with the fallout. When Hawkeye gets his shift as "Commander Pierce," Radar is the one frantically trying to get him to actually fill out the required paperwork, because Hawkeye's "this is dumb and I won't engage with it" attitude to the army doesn't work for someone in an organizational position. The rest of them turn up their noses at army bureaucracy, but Radar is the one to understand how it all works and get them what they want despite the layers of red tape. He has to be the guy delivering bad news and sneaking around to steal people's stoves, and he isn't choosing to do it but it still has to get done. He's the one who announces incoming choppers, meaning that he basically always has to be the person to spoil everyone else's day. Fun's over, Radar's here. His name is literally a direct symbol of his role as a harbinger. He isn't the one responsible though. If he wasn't there to sound the alarm, there'd be just as many wounded and even less time to prepare.

He's got a bit of separation between himself and the casualties (unlike the doctors who are literally digging around in blood and guts for twelve hours at a time), but his position as company clerk means that he's also unable to truly clock out. Radar literally sleeps in his office, because it's his entire life. He's always going to be the guy with a foot in reality who tempers the officers' wackiness. Even when he got offered a ticket home, his first instinct was to turn it down because he didn't think that the 4077th could function without him.

This is significant to me because of how it reflects on the characters role in the war overall. Hawkeye is able to act like he's separate from the military, but he's sometimes forced to reckon with the fact that he's a cog in the machine like everyone else. Radar is often forced to serve as the hand of the army in the 4077th, but his job of keeping things running smoothly does just as much to save lives as any of the doctors. They're all soldiers who have to play by the army's rules to some extent if they want to keep anybody safe.

[passionpeachy]

I spent staring at that little prince fanart for so long I started dreaming about him.......I don't remember what happened. his presence was just ever-present

[awzominator]

Day 12 Donnie and Leo

Geeks in their natural habitat ✨ idk I just really loved the episodes where donnie geeked over space/alien tech and Leo gushed over living his Space Hero fantasies. I can’t stop imagining them gushing over constellations and space bodies despite viewing them from diff areas (Don via science and tech lens and Leo via scifi fan) I couldn’t stop thinking of the time I went into planetarium and how breathtaking it was. Figured they’d get a kick out of it as well and that Donnie could build something similar. Also they’re ninja so they could also just break into one but ayeeeee I wanted an escuse to draw a blanket fort sue me