#maker: brandon

[kneedeepinthecoffin]

[fntsybird]

WHO is writing Oathbringer (as in the in-book book)

[bethoftheblvd]

[unproduciblesmackdown]

maybe i already expressed specifically this amidst a thicket of tags but speaking of the Unexpected & Dynamic all throughout bsol's finale of a [hey all the characters are in the same place] beautiful stretch of vivacity, it's great that like. i mean one figures you're not gonna get [villain immediately kills hero] & you're right b/c that would be a surprise & slightly humorously so but too unrewarding in all other ways to be worth it as the end of a whole entire story & arcs here....but then the ways that banana has this like totally Self Imposed arc about wanting to be able to do whatever it takes to help the musician in return / in general, self imposed b/c the musician himself is like no you're good you're perfect my special little guy i will die without, & we're not exactly subject to any other characters' input like um btw banana you & your Failure to be as heroically bold & brave as to do whatever it takes, as the musician does, except when he feels he can't at some points including if he doesn't have banana with him on this journey, but not b/c he asks anything more of him but to be there with him on this journey....

that is to say, i say as i go "wait what was the specific thing i was gonna talk about in this specific post," that like it's a surprise banana might die of his own self imposed doing whatever it takes, but one of the Least surprising surprises perhaps, like ah yes the funny little guy devoted sidekick? what else would such a guy be For, even if the musician doesn't feel that way, see also: me taking 990 words to say it's fun how at the beginning we could think banana is misguided about the musician encouraging him with his heart words not his mouth words to dance, but then we would be proven wrong when the musician is like cough argh augh i Need banana & i will be encouraging him to dance with my heart And mouth words....but so that yeah even as it may be like Nooo & have stakes & suspense it could still be like ah well yeah that'd be what banana is for, alas, & That is the surprising & not "this was a total success for our heroes" downside to this finale. but it isn't, & banana getting miraculously saved himself as he nonmiraculously protects the musician b/c he wanted to do that himself too

just bringing all that back up to say i was thinking again about like "you wouldn't expect a private little moment following banana but you get one" and "and it's so earnest all throughout & with the more wrenching shift amidst the still perfectly [funny little guy] material & it Does make me cry" and then i was like :( and if he Had died i would have to cry about that too like nooo not banana for would-be dispensibility of the funny little devoted sidekick guy after it was like nooo banana :( (also held hostage in the evil marriage normativity larping but again also all the more "successfully" so b/c his guntoting spouse doesn't actually care about the mutual genuine affection you're also Supposed to have with this) & nooo banana :( (singing his beautiful sweet earnest prayer in this relatively brief song bookended with relative levity (relalelalevity) but still earnest b/c it's all earnest b/c where do you think we are) like yeah basically like i weep at that little moment with him Expressing the depth of his feeling about wanting to do this for the musician despite the musician being like huh wha of course i don't ask that it's nbd, if it paired with "& he does Resolve this by dying about it later" like noooooooooo. tambourine miracles (again thinking of a real tambourine with a disclaimer waiving liability for acts of god associated with? channeled through? that tambourine. sure)

wrapping up a post even less sure if i said anything novel or clearly enough what i wanted to say b/c i went on a journey like maybe it's about something else now, but i don't think so, i think it was just me like wah if banana died i'd be all the more like Oof Augh about his little solo packing its punch of perfect earnest real depth of feeling b/c Everyone's presumed to have that, and they do, and it shows, funny little nonprotagonists or no(s)

[void-botanist]

💍 - 💫 - 🃏

Thank you!! I decided to do this one for TFA:

Bran likes to play Multiverse for the pretty locations and the stuff you can wear. Anni likes to play Multiverse for high level high pressure dungeon content and the stuff you can wear. They're still figuring out how to play together.

This is just the entire conflict with Anni and Dez lol

There are lots of people Tirias doesn't flirt with. It's impossible to get her to stop when she's in the vicinity of someone she does.

[charliemwrites]

Part 6 of Charmed Slasher Simon!

Simon really ought to teach you not to look at him like that. Those big watery eyes and pouty lips make his teeth feel too sharp for his own mouth. He wants to sink them into you, find out if you taste as sweet as you look. He knows you would, knows it like he knows the slick heat of fresh viscera.

“What.” he demands, voice hard to keep the rasp of dark desire from it.

“I have a little favor to ask.”

He arches an eyebrow, does not believe you. Not when you’re looking at him so beseechingly. He’ll have to get you to make that face again, maybe when he’s got you on your knees, asking to suck his cock.

“Go on.”

You seem ridiculously, foolishly charmed by this stoic, unimpressed front he puts on for you. A little beam of sunshine refracting off of a black mirror. Wonders sometimes what cruel maker built you so unintentionally self-destructive.

“There’s this work trip coming up…”

He has to cross his arms to keep himself from snatching you up and locking you in the bedroom. Mistaking the gesture, you hurry to continue.

“And I have to go, but! We’re allowed to bring plus ones.”

Satisfaction curls warm in his gut, a purring predator cat. He wants to hear you ask, though.

“I’m not hearing the favor.”

“Riley….” you complain, face adorably embarrassed.

“I’m waiting, luv.”

You damn near stomp your little foot at him. “Will you please come as my plus one?”

He arches his eyebrows. “That’s a big ask.”

You could ask for the stars and moon and he’d make them bleed for you. Paint the sky crimson and make a necklace of the heavens to collar you in.

“I know and I understand if you don’t want to - but… but that coworker you met, Brandon? He’s going too, and he’s been looking at me weird all week. Please, Ri? I-I don’t want to go by myself and you make me feel safe.”

Oh it was a sure thing that he’d be going with you, but now there’s no question. He’s so glad for the video cameras; he going to milk himself dry tonight listening to you say please like that. Admitting that he makes you feel safe. His poor, stupid, fragile thing. It’s a good thing he found you.

“Alright, alright,” he soothes. “No waterworks now. I’ll go with you.”

Like a switch, you light up and throw yourself into his chest.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” you trill. “I’ll make it up to you somehow, I promise.”

He snorts. You’ve done him the favor by giving him an excuse to follow you - but he’s not about to correct you.

“You let me worry about that. Just send me the details and I’ll be there.”

—

Your job has rented out a ski lodge for this little trip. Not only is it secluded, the booking is for the middle of the week. There will be few, if any, people over than instructors and your coworkers.

He couldn’t plan it better.

The day is spent pretending to care about your coworkers’ names and babysitting you along the slopes. You nearly crack your head open twice, each time he scoops you up, frowning down at your giggly face.

You also nail him in the head with a snowball too. That. That’s he’s going to get revenge for.

When night falls, you squeeze his hand at the door to your room. He leans his palm against the door over your head, relishes in the way you fluster as you tilt your head to look at him.

“Thank you for coming, Riley,” you murmurs. “You’ve made this really fun.”

He lets himself smile at you, just a bit. Knows it’s lopsided and probably a little too sharp, should raise alarm bells in your pretty little head, but you only smile back at him.

“Mm, you’ll have to make it up to me. Doin’ you this big favor ‘n all.”

You laugh. “Yeah? Let me know when you want your pound of flesh.”

Oh he’ll be taking more than a pound.

“Better be ready when I come to collect.”

“Ooh, so scary!” you tease, sticking your tongue out.

“You’ve no idea.”

—

A storm hits that night. A wicked, frigid thing that brews up and boils over in a matter of hours. Whiteout conditions. The power goes out a quarter past 11.

Well, you’ve had your fun. Now it’s time for Simon to have his.

First | Previous | Next

Masterlist

[janeuary-month]

End of event round-up!

Thank you to everyone who created such amazing fanworks for Janeuary 2025, and to those who supported the creators by reading, leaving kudos and comments, and liking and reblogging!

Major kudos to Kalee233 and @arsenic-lobster who each created something for every single day of the event! Wow!

Also a special shout-out to these folks who created for over 15 of the days: @elmorinn, @jomiddlemarch, @dionysiaproductions, Kissed _by_Circe

But even if you created for only one day, we’re so thrilled you did. As of today, 57 creators together added 104 fics (view the entire collection on AO3) and 40 pieces of art related to Jane Austen into the world!

🙏 Before I give you any other stats, can I ask you to take 1 minute to fill out this survey about the event? Thanks!

Ok, now that that’s done, here's some other stats (which are subject to change as people keep submitting late works—it’s still not too late to do that, folks!):

Total # of all fanworks: 172

Fanfic: 98 works

Fanart: 27

OC art: 13

Fanvids: 6

Memes: 6

OC fic: 6

Comics: 5

Gifsets: 4

Edits: 3

Moodboards: 2

Crack: 1

Photography: 1

All fandoms: 25

Pride and Prejudice: 62 works

Persuasion: 30

Emma: 24

Sense and Sensibility: 23

Original works (no fandom): 22

Northanger Abbey: 19

Mansfield Park: 6

Rivals: 4

Sanditon: 2

Beauty and the Beast: 2

ACOTAR: 2

1 work each: Attack on Titan, Avatar: The Legend of Korra, Blackadder, The Borgias, The Good Place, Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Leverage, Lord of the Rings, Mass Effect, MCU, The Mirror Visitor, Why Didn't They Ask Evans?

We also had 2 works about Jane Austen herself, and I’m not sure what fandom to count that as: Jane Austen RPF?

Top 13 daily prompts used:

Day 1 Letters: 22 works

Day 4 Portraiture and Day 16 Gossip are tied: 16 works each

Day 2 Harp: 15

Day 6 Restraint and Day 13 Christian name are tied: 13 works each

3-way tie between Day 3 Bath, Day 8 Cravat, and Day 20 Dearest: 12 works each

4-way tie between Day 11 Card playing, Day 14 Pianoforte, 19 Lock of hair, Day 30 Garden: 11 works each

Top 10 characters used:

Elizabeth Bennet

Fitzwilliam Darcy

Anne Elliot

Emma Woodhouse

Captain Wentworth

Marianne Dashwood

Catherine Morland

George Knightley

Colonel Brandon

Henry Tilney

Top 10 ships used:

Elizabeth Bennet/Fitzwilliam Darcy

Anne Elliot/Captain Wenworth

George Knightley/Emma Woodhouse

Colonel Brandon/Marianne Dashwood

Catherine Morland/Henry Tilney

Charles Bingley/Jane Bennet

4-way tie between Catherine & Isabella, Charlotte & Elizabeth, Charlotte/Collins, and Elinor & Marianne

Observations, surprises, and learnings

Mostly canon pairings: Almost everyone depicted canon romantic and platonic pairings. Only 7 romantic ships were non-canon pairings, and they each had only 1 work. Not a single one was gay! 😢 (Which is motivating me to finally write that Wentworth/Brandon fic for next year!)

Mostly core Austen fandoms: I expected a lot more works from non-Austen fandoms, given how often I see people draw and write Regency AUs for every fandom under the sun, as well as original works, and given how many people from non-Austen fandoms I notified about the event! Also, not a single work was submitted related to a modern Austen adaptation, like Bride and Prejudice, Clueless, or Lizzie Bennet Diaries. I’m not disappointed by any of this, just surprised.

Very few gifs: While I love the 4 new gifsets made for the event, I was disappointed there were only 4, considering how many Austen gifsets I see made for Period Drama Appreciation Week, for instance, and how popular Austen gifsets are on Tumblr. Next year, I will make a concerted effort to contact more gif-makers. (And if you have any you’d love to see join, tell them about this blog! I only just found out about @regencysource yesterday, curses!)

Creativity boost: Several people told me that this event inspired them to start writing again after a block, or post a fic for the first time, or finish a fic they were stuck on. This was so wonderful to hear that the event boosted creators in this way! It made me so very happy. ❤️

Prompt interpretation: My goal with the prompts was that they be somewhat Austen/Regency-specific but not the standard, obvious choices like balls, dancing, proposals, etc., because those wouldn’t be very inspiring since they’re so common already. It was a joy to see the different ways that people used the prompts. For instance, Bath the place vs bath the activity, or literally hunting animals vs figuratively hunting men. And even the folks who used modern AUs found ways to make the very dated prompts like cravat and calling cards work! Bravo on everyone’s creativity!

👉  If you have any suggestions for prompts for next year, or other feedback, I’d love it if you shared it with me via this very short and easy survey!

I had a blast hosting this, so Janeuary will definitely be back for 2026! Keep your eyes peeled for the prompts in September!

[almacambiondaughterofsaleos]

Yep, It's Just Practically Official The Makers Just See Octavia As Manipulative Emotional Tool To Make Stolas Look Good And Disregard Her When She Gets In The Way Of Their Treasured Ship

This is supposed to be a joke, but in execution we all now Octavia at this point is just a tool to make Stolas look like a "good" dad when in practice he's putting Blitzo over her so much that it's not funny. Wasn't one of Octavia's fears is that her father will abandon her in order to pursue Blitzo.

With that comment that Brandon Rogers did it just confirms to me that at this point they are putting Stolitz so much over everything else that yes even Octavia is seen as an obstacle even though a parent's child should be more important than their booty call. And the fandom and the creators prioritize the other way around.

Seriously, in "Seeing Stars" we see him again neglect her when she wanted to keep his promise to see the stars. Also despite saying it's important to find her he slows down to watch his boy toy perform. In other words, he's all false words until next time when he breaks a promise or continues to be a lackluster dad. But we are supposed to give him slack because he's supposed to be trying hard or again invoking Stella in order to make him look good. Boy can barely do the bare minimum for his daughter without messing up and looking like a selfish pos.

And people want to point to this line as a sign of how much he loves Octavia, but again like everything else it's emotional manipulative bs when you realize in practice he has all of the power and could more easily break up. Sure, it would have be a shock to a young child but since Octavia is born he could have just packed up and kicked her ass rather than wallow in his self-pity while finally getting with his imp toy. Stella was made an obstacle from the start so that we would feel less sorry when he was cheating on her with Blitzo. However, it gets less sympathetic when we see how it affects Octavia and it makes him come across as a selfish asshole. At first the first season was condemning them, but nope season 2 basically makes him sad misunderstood woobie who can't do no wrong including ignore his daughter in favor of focusing on Blitzo.

It's funny that Loona isn't joked as an obstacle to Stolitz like Octavia is. It's probably because Octavia grew up with a married family and again doesn't like ramifications that come with the changes. One of them includes the fact that her father only pays attention to his crush while putting her on the backburner. And again despite the fandom saying Octavia and Blitzo would get along this joke panders to the idea that squashes it if Blitzo sees her as an obstacle to their relationship. And you know if it was the other way around Blitzo would be furious anyone would see Looney as an obstacle. And so would Stolas, but we know that in actual practice he would choose prioritizing Blitzo over his daughter and the narrative will say other wise.

[anim-ttrpgs]

Some History of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy

Brandon and I have played a lot of TTRPGs, from nearly every edition of Dungeons & Dragons to half-finished playtests of things you’ve never heard of. Our history with TTRPGs is a love story, but one pockmarked with frustration. We found ourselves enjoying D&D 3.5’s vast character creation options, but wishing it focused more on  grounded characters and historically informed combat; being drawn in by Call of Cthulhu’s horror and existential dread, but disappointed in its investigation mechanics for actually getting the investigators to those moments of horrifying revelation; being intrigued by Monster of the Week’s juxtaposition of both normal and supernatural PCs (for horror and/or comedy), but finding its lack of character options and reliance on genre tropes a hindrance; being unable to find anything that would be good for a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. inspired TTRPG campaign. We eventually found the OSR movement and AD&D1e and 2e to be far closer to what we wanted on the medieval fantasy front, but we still had nothing on the modern horror or urban fantasy front, and Shadowrun is… Shadowrun.

So, with around 20 years of TTRPG experience between us, we set out to make the game we wanted a reality.

The story of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy’s creation really starts in late 2021, when Brandon asked me to help playtest a very early rough draft of an investigative horror game he thought up. Living isolated, impoverished, and unable to find work in England at the time, I readily agreed. Noticing that the game didn’t have a combat system and desperate to set my mind to something constructive in between tedious job applications, I offered to write a combat system for it. I soon had to use the last of my money to move back home to Louisiana where I eventually did find work despite a variety of health issues, and continued to work on Eureka as a system for our personal use.

As 2023 drew near, it became clear that my current job wasn’t going to be a permanent career, and I needed a fall back plan. Work towards making Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy a professional release began in earnest, with Brandon and I founding A.N.I.M. a few months later. It was initially set to go to Kickstarter in April of 2023, then May, then June, but each time we realized it just wasn’t ready. No one had ever heard of us, and we wanted to break into an industry and customer base increasingly financially hostile to any TTRPG that wasn’t D&D5e compatible. We needed to build an audience, and build a greater appreciation for independent and small-budget TTRPGs within the community at large.

Thanks to some assistance from one of the team members from Tuesday Knight Games (makers of Motherhship), the first beta copies went public in September of 2023 to a splash of instant (relative) success, and the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club was founded on Discord two months later, a community dedicated to buying, playing, and analyzing less well-known TTRPGs - which includes almost everything except Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition.

Ash became friends with us through the book club, and after offering an increasing amount of assistance, joined the team proper in January of 2024, adding much needed copy-editing skills as well as another 15 years cumulative TTRPG experience.

The Kickstarter campaign for Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy launched on April 10th, 2024, was fully funded within 3 hours, and by the end of the campaign had reached a total of $15,455, 486% of the goal. That is where we are at now, working every day to put the finishing touches on the game and complete the stretch goals to the best of our ability before our tentative deadline of January 2025.

This is a far more ambitious project than a super-small team like ours should have attempted for our debut game, but with a mix of talent, luck, skill, and a whole lot of help, we have somehow managed to pull it off. We think the resulting game is a deep, robust, professional-quality TTRPG that provides a one-stop shop and extensive toolbox for any investigative or mystery game you’d like to run. A dark and moody noir, a classical British whodunnit, the lighthearted sleuthing hijinks of Scooby-Doo, Eureka does it all.  (You can also get the latest PDF for FREE for a limited time by joining the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club!)

Elegantly designed and thoroughly playtested, Eureka represents the culmination of three years of near-daily work from our team, as well as a lot of our own money. If you’re just now reading this and learning about Eureka for the first time, you missed the crowdfunding window unfortunately, but our Kickstarter page is still the best place to learn more about what Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy actually is, as that is where we have all the fancy art assets, the animated trailer, links to video reviews by podcasts and youtubers, and where we post regular updates on the status of our progress finishing the game and getting it ready for final release.

Beta Copies through the Patreon

If you want more than just status updates, going forward you can download regularly updated playable beta versions of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy and it’s adventure modules by subscribing to our Patreon at the $5 tier or higher. Subscribing to our patreon also grants you access to our patreon discord server where you can talk to us directly and offer valuable feedback on our progress and projects.

The A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club

If you would like to meet the A.N.I.M. team and even have a chance to play Eureka with us, you can join the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club discord server. It’s also just a great place to talk and discuss TTRPGs, so there is no schedule obligation, but the main purpose of it is to nominate, vote on, then read, discuss, and play different indie TTRPGs. We put playgroups together based on scheduling compatibility, so it’s all extremely flexible. This is a free discord server, separate from our patreon exclusive one. https://discord.gg/7jdP8FBPes

Other Stuff

We also have a ko-fi and merchandise if you just wanna give us more money for any reason.

[gollancz]

IDES OF MARCH STABBING SESSIONS

Pick your fantasy weapon to murder Caesar

[dcdreamblog]

What's your opinion about those movies or series based on real superheroes that clearly take some liberties with the actual events and/or people? For example, the million of WW2 movies that always try to cram an All-Star Squadron member in there (even though there is proof that they weren't present at that specific event/battle) or that one movie a few years back that made up their own backstories and civilian names for the JLA members ("Cal Smith" and "Brandon Keaton" became memes for a while)

I certainly don't envy the task of any film maker trying to make something based around superheroes who actually exist in our real world. And the well known challenges that come with making a historical film almost certainly don't help. That being said, yes of course they bug me slightly.

(A frame from WB's "Justice Society WWII" movie) When you're making a wartime period piece I understand the strong pull of including a member of the Society or the Squadron even as a cameo. They're such a specific texture of the era. This original generation of "mystery men" just weren't thought of or treated the way we treat superheroes now and any actor worth their salt would jump at the chance to play a living legend on the silver screen That being SAID, if your movie is going to be taking place during any of the actual combat fronts of WWII there's a pretty big historical inaccuracy you are choosing to make: Very famously, the Squadron COULDN'T operate directly on Axis territory during the war because of the influence of the Spear of Destiny.

Now there were exceptions of course, the mythical field around Uncle Sam allowed the Freedom Fighters to do some work around the edges of enemy lines especially as the war was coming to a close and the Spear's influence was faltering but none of the Core JSA set foot in Axis Occupied Europe until the Yalta Conference at the earliest and the events of THAT day weren't declassified until years decades the war. As cool as the scene is in your head, Green Lantern was not dog-fighting the Luftwaffe over D-Day it just didn't happen. Stories set on the home front can play with this slice of history far more but if its sent DURING the fighting then you have to be a bit more creative. Nose cone art, pin ups, USO shows, newspaper headlines, newsreels, having them be treated as common cultural reference points in conversation or the like. Sometimes the most immersive use of the Squadron in your WWII movie is using their influence sparingly. That being said when it comes to MODERN movies I think its unethical on its face to try and speculate or color in the personal lives, thoughts and feelings of still living and working superheroes. While it comes from a good place of trying to humanize them for a wider audience, the reality is that you're needling at something we as the public don't have a right to poke at. I respect movies more when they too use our heroes in these tales as we see them, appearing on the scene, fighting the good fight and then taking their leave before being too buried in praise. Which means that movies based around superhero centric can also choose to focus on the perspective of a regular person who was also there. People will grouse about the "normal people" characters in movies like Metropolis: Crisis of Infinity or No Man's Land but at least that gives some props to normal people who are actually willing to share their thoughts and experiences. Plus if your POV character comes off as a drag on the movie then that is the writer's problem.

[magixfairyix]

Driven (Darcy x Riven) Incorrect Quotes 02

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°

Darcy, talking about Riven: WHAT THE FUCK I WAS ARGUING WITH THEM AND I SAID “OOH YOU WANNA KISS ME SO BAD” AND GUESS WHAT? THEY DID. THEY KISSED ME. WHAT THE FUCK WHAT DO I DO.

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°

Riven: We should get you to a doctor for a check-up immediately. What if it happens again, and there isn’t anyone around to help you? What if it’s congenital? Oh my God! Was it me? Did I hurt you? 

Darcy: …You realize any other person that made their partner pass out on bed would simply feel really proud of themselves, right?

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°

Darcy : You are the love of my life and I would do anything within reason to make you happy. 

Riven: I would be happy if you ate, stayed hydrated and got a reasonable amount of sleep. 

Darcy: I said within reason, Riven. How about I murder that guy? 

Riven: So murder is in reason but proper self-care isn't? 

Darcy: Well, duh. What kind of question is that?

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°

Darcy: BE A BETTER PERSON! —

Riven: WHY?! 

Darcy: BECAUSE SOMEONE NEEDS TO HAVE MORALS IN THIS RELATIONSHIP, AND IT SURE AS FUCK AIN'T GONNA BE ME, SWEETHEART!

Riven: WELL I'M SURE AS HELL NOT ANY BETTER!

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°

Riven: Goodnight to the love of my life, Darcy, and fuck the rest of y'all.

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°

Darcy: Heyyy babe, how’s your… drink?? 

Riven: What do you mean drink? It’s coffee. 

Darcy: You sure?? *Looks to coffee maker* 

Riven: *Looks to coffee maker* 

*Cement sitting beside the coffee maker* 

Riven:...I’m on my third fucking drink right now, I should be dead.

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°

Riven: Hey I got you food, pick a number between 1 and 10. 

Darcy: Uh 4? 

Riven: Wrong, no food for you. 

Darcy: Wait what?! WHY?! RIVEN PLEASE—!

Riven: Then tell me something good about yourself

Darcy: ...

Riven: <3

Darcy: Okay, well it's pretty immature to blackmail me into having a healthy sense of self-

Riven: Just say it

Darcy: No

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°

Riven: I made tea. 

Darcy: I don't want tea. 

Riven: I didn't make you tea. This is my tea. 

Darcy: Then why did you tell me? 

Riven: It's a conversation starter. 

Darcy: It's a horrible conversation starter. 

Riven: Oh, is it? We're conversing. Checkmate.

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°

Riven: *is throwing stones at Darcy's window* 

Darcy: You have a phone for a reason, Riven! 

*THUD* 

Darcy: DID YOU JUST THROW YOUR PHONE AT MY WINDOW?!

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°

Riven: What the fuck? People actually tell their crushes they like them??

Helia: What the hell do you do?

Riven: I die? What kinda question…

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°

Riven to Darcy, who’s about to get married: Today, two families are becoming one.

Bloom, in an ominous voice: Two families enter, one family leaves.

Stormy: That sounds so threatening…

Brandon: The Wedding Games…

Musa: May the bouquet toss be ever in your favor.

Timmy: Beautiful!

Darcy: Fuck all of you!

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°

Brandon: Oh god, they texted you ‘hi.’’ punctuation only means one thing, Riven. They're mad at you. 

Riven: No, it's Darcy. They're just being grammatically correct! 

*meanwhile* 

Darcy: And then I used a period so they'd know that I'm mad at them. 

Stormy: A period doesn't say 'I'm mad', it says 'you're dead to me'. 

Darcy: I stand by my choice.

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°

Riven: Hey, random question, what are your favourite flowers? 

Darcy: Peonies, why? 

Riven: 

Darcy: Were you going to get me flowers? 

Riven: 

Darcy: 

Riven: ᶦᵗ’ˢ ᵃ ᵖᵒˢˢᶦᵇᶦˡᶦᵗʸ

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°

Darcy: You know, it’s fine to admit you were wrong. 

Riven: *Sipping their drink after accidentally adding salt* I just like the way it tastes.

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°

[blueiscoool]

A Rare 2,000-Year-Old Roman Pan Found by Metal Detectorist Goes on Display

A rare and almost complete early Roman copper-alloy pan discovered near Bury St Edmunds is now on public display.

The 2,000-year-old pan, which likely dates from the first century to the first half of second century AD, and may have been used for heating wine, is on display at West Stow Anglo-Saxon Village.

The pan was discovered buried in a small pit cut into a Roman ditch, perhaps as an offering. It is 30cm in length and 8.6cm deep, similar in size to a modern day 16cm saucepan.

It was discovered earlier this year by metal detectorist Tom Hyett. Realising he had found something remarkable, he contacted Suffolk County Council Archaeological Service (SCCAS).

A team from SCCAS was able to excavate the pan and record the archaeological context, before it was taken to the laboratory at Norfolk Museum Service Conservators, where the soil was removed and the pan conserved ready for display.

Cllr Philip Faircloth-Mutton, Suffolk County Council cabinet member forenvironment, communities and equality, said: “I’d like to thank Tom for quickly recognising the significance of his discovery and getting in touch with SCCAS so our team could excavate the pan, record it and help to preserve it.

“If the object isn’t classed a treasure, we will borrow it to create a detailed record and then return it to the finder. In the case of this Roman pan, the landowner and Tom kindly donated it to the museum.”

The pan is missing the middle section of the entire circumference of the bowl, due to corrosion and old breaks. It therefore now survives in three sections, the handle and rim, the remaining bowl wall and the base.

A maker’s mark is stamped onto the handle, though no parallel mark has been found. It appears that, apart from two South Italian families, the Cipii and the Ansii, which occur more frequently, most of the stamps on such pans are single examples, including those on other pans found in Brandon and Herringfleet, in Suffolk.

The pans were made in Campania, Southern Italy, and also in Gaul and are widely distributed across Europe. They may have been used for heating wine.

By Camille Berriman.

[theladyofbloodshed]

How do you feel about arranged marriages in books?

I LOVE them.

I love when they're cold to each other because they don't know each other and slowly thaw until the heat turns to passion. I love when they defend their spouse openly despite not knowing/liking them. I love the slowburn. I love an arranged married for convenience.

One of my favourite arranged marriage books is Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson. A princess must marry the God King. Her dad doesn't want to send his dutiful eldest daughter so swaps her for his youngest who is a mischief maker because he imagines that the daughter will be killed by the God King and well, she isn't pulling her weight like Vivenna. She ends up marrying him and it is THE BEST. The advisors lock her in his room for the night and are like don't speak to him don't look at him, just do your duty!!!! It's a great book in general but the parts with Siri and Susebron had me squealing! There's also a sword that talks to the person who wields it and its thoughts are "please can we kill? please?? just a little murder??"

However, an arranged marriage book needs to have a semi-believable reason for them to marry - and I also like a happy ending, even if it's not romantic but they can be buddies and just live as buddies.

There are some recs here.

[book--brackets]

[hotfuss]

Little big rant ahead:

I joined the fandom with the start of ww era after the previous i was in turned into a literal dumpster on fire. And while it was clear in hindsight that the golden era of the tk fandom was around 2012-2014 (maybe it can be stretched to 2015), ww era wasn't bad either. Yeah the majority of the old guard/bfn was inactive or waning their presence a lot and basically disappeared the moment the ww tour ended we still had:

- gif/edit/moodboard makers

- art makers (not a lot but a few at least!!!)

- people posting pics from other social media. Either band photos or encounters with fans. Like people were ''fighting'' to be the first to repost the band insta pics!!

- people who weren't content creators but that at least they reblogged with funny tags. No, i didn't mind seeing the same pic of brandon 7 times during my catch up scrolling if 4 of them put some kind of tags to read in them (funny/horny/roasting him), that was the enrichment!!

Then the tour ended and fandom activity shrunk to 1/10 of what it used to be. Ressurrected briefly for their appearance at glasto 2019.

Lol thais liked a post about me complaining about not wanting to post 2 gifsets i made bc the fandom was too dead and i didn't want to waste them. It's dated 3 years ago!!!

Then 2020 happened. The pandemic, their social media silence on the blm protests (the bar was literally on the floor... we only wanted a social media post giving support!!!! How come the bootlickers were all up brandon's ass about how difficult it was to rewrite a whole verse of land of the free to play on tv in 2 weeks but posting a black pic on insta tagged blm was too hard??? HOW?), the horrific situation of the roadie hazing happened in the past that resurfaced... like i don't blame anyone who didn't want to engage with the band afterwards (bc they are some good reasons!! I will never forget how they let us down! And while the hazing wasn't perpetrated by the band members it was still such a horrible situation that shouldn't have happened!)

But this was a complete mass extinction here on tumblr. Of all the fandom communities this seems the only one that died like this.

We are currently left with

- 3,5 gif makers

- maybe 2 art makers if i include myself

- maybe 2 people posting pics including myself

No consistent edit/moodboards/meme makers no consistent reposting of official pics from their socials. The like/reblog ratio on posts is 3:1 on good days and close to 4:1 or 5:1 on bad days. I wake to notes (when i get any) that are 80-90% likes. Most of the rare reblogs don't have any kind of commentary at all.

I could easily run my queue for 7-10 days just with posts i could find on my dash, almost zero effort bc i was fed content on my dash. Nowadays i need to spend hours on blogs/my drafts/my bookmarks to put something together, only for likes. It gets tiring easily with a soul and energy sucking job to do to survive only to barely get any reward (reblogs with tags to read). This community will never recover on people who refuse to use the reblog button

It's even harder to compare this fandom to the mcr one, yeah it's a quite unique situation bc having such a thriving fandom despite the band being broken up most of tumblr's life is INSANE but you can't help getting angry/sad at why did they survive but not us? I can reblog so much fanart on my sideblog!! People posting pics!! Many archivial blogs!! The gifsets!! It just feels so unfair!