#And the premise is completely BONKERS

[bluejaypirate]

Fucking DEVASTATED there's no Phineus Phibes fanfic on AO3. Not. A. One. I am so pissed off. I want to see people BABYGIRL-IFY HIM. And believe me, if anyone on this absolut hellhole of a webbed site knew who or what i was talking about? THIS SITE? You bitches would be all over him. I'm dead serious. He is a pathetic wet cat with zero morals and the stupidest haircut in the entire fucking universe. I want to study him. He fascinates me on so many levels. He's literally the worst, and i want o run him over with my car. I want to place him in an enclosure for study and spray him with a water bottle every time he dissapoints me. I think maybe, JUST MAYBE he should kiss his stupid fucked up little scientist second in command on the mouth. Their relationship is so complicated, and it get a MILLION TIMES WORSE in the final episode, and their chemistry is so fascinating, and the tension inherent to their positions in this narrative is so thick I want to BITE it with my TEETH. I am only halfway through season one, but i KNOW where their story is going and it's KILLING MEEEE.

Oh yeah also the show I'm talking about is shaggy and Scooby Doo get a clue. I decided to watch it after the Velma show ended up being. Y'know. Bad. I kind of went into this idea of "man. I wonder how bad the previous 'worst' Scooby Doo spin off compares to this, because like. Surely it's not anywhere near this atrocious? I wonder if there might be something there worth looking into." So first i did some background research (spoiling the entire plot in the process, because everyone kind of assumes you've already seen it or don't care), and then it was off to the races! And uhh. Holy shit guys. I. I love it. So much. I need people to brainrot with please.

[seekingjamaharon]

Jim, to Spock: "You are closer to the Captain than anyone in the universe."

[ao3commentoftheday]

Any tips for motivation to finish a fic in this situation:

I'm a couple chapters from the end on a fic I'm writing, when someone else in the same fandom posts an extremely similar fic but it's a one-shot. It's not exactly the same as mine, but it's the same universe and multiple plot points are really similar.

What I want to believe is that I'm so happy they were clearly inspired by mine, because their fic is honestly amazing. But I'm afraid that my ending won't be as interesting now, because of the similarities, even though I planned it in advance. And I've lost the motivation to post it. How to get it back?

You might have heard of the Two Cakes Rule, but in case you haven't, around about a decade ago tumblr artist @stuffman created a comic that really resonated in which a disappointed artist looks at a simple cake they've made as they place it next to a beautifully decorated layer cake and they say "Aw man. That guy's cake is way better than mine." In the second panel of the comic, an audience member smiles broadly with eyes lit up with joy. They hold a knife and fork at the ready and say, "HOLY SHIT! TWO CAKES!"

Right now, you're comparing your work to that other person's work and worrying that yours might be worse somehow. It's entirely possible that the other author feels the same way, in reverse. Even if they don't, though, remember that their fic existing doesn't take anything away from yours.

My first fic on my previous fandom was about two science nerds in university who are doing "sex research" with each other. I didn't realize when I started it that another author (who became my friend!) was writing the same premise at the same time. I was posting mine as I went and she was writing hers out ahead of time, to be posted for a holiday exchange. Our fics both had sex-because-science, friends-to-lovers, lab sex, a watch-like device that characters wore to take readings during the sexual activity, charts and graphs, bonkers theories about the effects of sex on the brain - and that's just the similarities off the top of my head.

She stopped reading mine at chapter 2 or 3 because she was so worried about how similar they were, but when she posted hers and we finally got a chance to read both fics to completion? We were tackling basically the same plot and tropes and even plot devices in such similar-yet-different ways. It was awesome!

If you love your story, keep writing your story. You know what you want to say and how you want to say it. Those are two things that not every writer can say when they start out.

Your story is going to be amazing because you wrote it. You got this. ❤️

[kremlin]

it is really, really funny to see these bush-league never-was dumbfuck crypto losers go out and spend $300k of borrowed money on gray market A100s in an attempt to mine cryptocurrency (which they will have no success with) just solely on the premise that those things are called "GPUs"

i was reading one account of a guy on reddit with a throwaway account freaking out because he bought SXM socket A100s which, like, it was pretty clear his thinking was that because he could manage to put together a embarrassing gamer PC, he would have no trouble with this. even experienced datacenter techs will avoid SXM if they possibly can, that shit is meant to be installed by the vendor, doing it yourself (especially on 300% marked up gray market hardware) is completely bonkers:

if you ever had an AMD cpu back in the day (i remember way back when i had a top of the line phenom 2 lol) you might remember pin sockets:

you had to align all of these incredibly fucking fragile gold pins right above their corresponding hole on the socket, you had to drop it in just perfectly and if you didn't, you absolutely could not nudge it in place otherwise you'd bend a pin and the whole thing is fucked

(i remember fucking one up & freaking out, i had worked at a grocery store all through summer in middle school to buy it, i took it to a jeweler who couldn't fix it, eventually found the pinout, and the pin i bent was unused, by the grace of god)

anyways, SXM is this but a billion times worse. the vendors that sell the server packages have special jigs they use to align them properly, trying to install freehand is just, rofl

and that isn't even the end of the story, if homeboy gets past seating it without fucking a pin up, he'll 100% not torque the cooler down properly, it won't be flush, and the thing will cook itself the moment its powered on

not that any of this matters though, even if all done correctly, the core concept would not work. if you try and run vertex CUDA mining routines on these ""GPUs"", it'll be like trying to make pesto with your garbage disposal. that is how little foresight these people have. lmfao.

[pianokantzart]

Have you seen the famous "it's a stone, Luigi" scene from... one of the Mario cartoons, I don't remember which? It's so silly, I love it

But of course! I am too deep in the world of memes and Mario to have missed it.

It is such an "ADHD older sibling" move to completely misunderstand a situation, then proceed to condescendingly correct your younger sibling because you didn't think about it longer than .5 seconds.

That, or Luigi just has a bad habit of picking up random things from nature and declaring that he made them.

It is also a very ADHD move to see a football carved from stone and ask it to be thrown to you, completely forgetting how heavy rocks are.

Luigi– holding the stone and knowing how heavy it is– went ahead and tossed it straight into the center of Mario's abdomen. The absolute madman.

Also, can I talk about the fact that in this episode Luigi gets turned into a non-sentient egg by a magikoopa? and as a result Mario is forced by The Koopalings to play football using his own brother as the ball? worrying all the while he might shatter the "egg" and kill Luigi??? That is the most simultaneously bonkers and messed up premise I've ever heard in my life.

[hyperlexichypatia]

Having children and going to college are two life activities done by people within an incredibly wide age range, so it’s completely bonkers that either one is considered an age marker.

And by “bonkers” I mean ageist, classist, and eugenicist.

There is a wide range of ages at which people go to college (many people never do, by choice or by circumstance, which is fine). There is a wide range of ages at which people have children (many people never do, by choice or by circumstance, which is fine). They don’t have to be done in any particular time, or in any particular order, or at all. They should both be far more affordable than they currently are, ideally free, but that’s another day’s post. 

Half of college students in the U.S. are over age 25, and 23% are parents. When people refer to college students as “children,” I always correct them on both points – young adults are not children, and also, most college students are not young adults. The notion that all college students are single, childless young adults aged 18-23, who are living essentially an extension of their K-12 schooling controlled by their parents, is a cultural norm of only a minority subculture of people in the U.S., one with… more financial resources than average. I’m reluctant to use the word “privilege,” because I don’t believe being controlled by one’s parents really is a privilege, but it’s certainly a bourgeois class norm. 

Similarly, the cultural norm that people can only start having children when they’re completely finished with schooling, in their late 20s at the earliest, and married or partnered, is not at all reflective of the reality of many people’s reproductive choices. 

Several years ago, I briefly did some freelance writing for a magazine aimed at college students, and in one article, I used a hypothetical example involving "babysitting your friend's kids." My editor returned it with a note that a college student wouldn't have friends with kids. Not even that a college student wouldn't have kids -- already a false premise -- but that a college student wouldn't have friends with kids. This has stuck in my mind for years as an example of how absolutely out-of-touch people in this narrow subculture are about the educational and reproductive choices of others.

There are material consequences of the erasure of student parents, too, like a serious lack of accessible childcare for students' children.

“What could a 20 year old and a 35 year old possibly have in common?? One is still in college, and the other might have kids already!” 

Actually, they might both be in college. 

Or maybe neither is.

They might have met in the same college class. 

They might both have kids. 

Or maybe neither does.

Maybe the 20 year old already has one or more kids, and the 35 year old has none. 

Maybe they each have a baby, and they met in the same parent group and hang out at playdates. 

Maybe the 35 year old is pregnant with xyr first baby and asking advice from the 20 year old who’s pregnant with her third. 

Maybe the 35 year old left school when he had his first kid, and now he and his now-17-year-old are starting college at the same time (I know there’s at least one movie with this premise). 

Or, maybe, the 20 year old is a childless college student, and the 35 year old is a college graduate with kids, and they could still have plenty in common, because age, educational situation, and family arrangement aren’t the sum total of who a person is. 

One of my mom’s longest-lasting friends of several decades was someone she met when they were 44 and 18, respectively, with a 3-year-old and 1-year-old kid, respectively, living in student housing. This is not as unusual a situation as people think it is. Fortunately, this happened before the brain maturity myth had taken hold, so no one accused my mom of "grooming" or being "predatory" or "emotionally inappropriate behavior" towards her younger friend, even if she was occasionally mistaken for her friend's mother.

Age diversity and prevalence of student parents are even more widespread at community colleges and all-online college programs (for obvious reasons, as those types of programs often have more flexible scheduling). In the online college program I'm doing now, my classmates include 20-year-old parents, 50-year-old grandparents, childfree 40-year-olds, and pretty much every combination of age and family type possible.

I'm so glad the real world doesn't conform to the ridiculous notion of "life stages."

[absolutebl]

Recommendation for something to watch and complete on a off day? I am also off today. Something soft and full of love preferably....

10 Soft BL's to Binge In A Day

(Since I don't sleep and watch high speed I binge full length Thai BL but I'm assuming you want something shorter than that, so I've limited myself to a 5hr runtime.)

1. Semantic Error (Korea Viki) - Sexy older boy discovers pouty younger boy has outed him as a slacker, starts out bullying him, accidentally falls madly in love. Korea hits it entirely out of the Parks by doing a university BL with everything we expect from BL just done exactly right. Korea's signature quality executed perfectly with added bonus good story, great pacing, stunning visuals, and fantastic chemistry. You cannot ask for more from a BL, let alone a KBL. Full review.

2. Seven Days (Japan grey in 2 parts Seven Days: Monday - Thursday, Seven Days: Friday - Sunday) - one of the best live action yaoi mangas ever made. The leads have excellent chemistry although it’s low heat, there’s still more kisses than Cherry Magic. Popular first year Seiryo has a policy of going out with any girl who asks… for one week. On a lark, third year Yuzuru tests to see if that policy also applies to boys. Seiryo agrees that it does. Along the way they accidentally fall in love. All the angst is just teen confusion. 

3. Our Dating Sim (Korea Viki) - I enjoyed every aspect from the casting to the very simple premise to the quietly smooth execution. Sure it’s very low stakes, but that makes it high domesticity and extremely warm and gentle. This is a fuzzy blanket of a story. Do we call this cozy BL? Why not? This one is going to live in my rewatch pile, I can tell already, and you know what’s best about it? Every single episode is in that pile. There’s no skipping with this one, it might be good natured and calmly sweet but it’s tight and the pacing is excellent. It perfectly suited KBL’s short-length tendencies. Full review.

4. Light On Me (Korea Viki - Korea does an elegant pastiche of traditional live action yaoi but all tropes are cleverly deployed to bolster one of the most riveting love triangles ever put on screen… and I don’t like love triangles. LoM strategically tailors classic BL tropes to 2 different semes resulting in pristine pacing, plot, and character development, explicitly serving narrative (not just to tick boxes). LoM is a master class in this trope drops. (If you write fanfic or romance you should study this show.) Full review.

5. Takara-kun and Amagi-kun (Japan Gaga & Viki) - I gnawed on my knuckles and squealed a lot with this show. Reserved cool kid who must learn to communicate to keep the tiny disaster nugget he’s madly in love with. It is beyond charming: soft and gentle, packed with cuteness and high school angst, thirst, & yearning. Was there plot? Not really. Was it emotionally tense and paced well enough for me not to notice? Absolutely. Did I enjoy the hell out of it? Oh yes. Full review.

6. HIStory 2: Crossing the Line (Taiwan Viki) - super low stakes sweetest story of the bad boy who falls hard for the senior on the volleyball team and then works to earn his love. You know it’s Taiwan so the kisses are great but in this case it also ends well. Only trigger is that the side couple is the stepbrothers trope, and some don’t like that.

7. Cherry Magic (Japan indie subbed) AKA Doutei dato Mahoutsukai ni narerurashii - the sweetest, fluffiest, most charming bit of adorable ever, full of found family and pastry and serious slapstick, the characters are utterly bonkers, but cute about it. 

8. Wish You (Korea Netflix or Viki, you want the movie version) AKA WISH YOU: Your Melody in My Heart - low stakes high pining romance about a pianist who falls in love with a busker who is on his way to being the next big idol. 

9. Restart After Come Back Home (Japan indie subbed or Gaga?) - this one is perfect if you just want a beautiful loving movie, and one that is well filmed and complex enough to appeal to those who don’t normally watch BL or romance (if you have a reluctant partner). 

10. You Are Ma Boy (Vietnam YouTube) - is there angst? Nope even what could have been angst (a gay idol) doesn’t materialize, it’s just cuties in a cafe confusing each other with cat & mouse games. The side het couple is a touch disturbing, tho. 

Also Old Fashioned Cupcake, it's a bit more complicated than soft but a FANTASTIC binge watch.

(list updated May 2023, not responsible for ones that come after that date)

[maspers]

Bionicle is weird yall

Okay so let's talk Bionicle. The Lego action figures with surprisingly deep lore and themes, and basically one of the coolest things to ever exist. You either love Bionicle or have not read Bionicle.

Who's your favorite? Mine has got to be Kopaka. For various reasons, including his general competence throughout the whole story. He's just pretty rad.

Now, you might be surprised I like Kopaka, since all things considered he's kind of a prick. He snarks at basically everything that enters his line of sight, and largely acts kind of stuck up due to his (admittedly justified) belief that he's the smartest person around. He spends the entire story fed up with everything else. He is completely and utterly convinced that he is the only sane person in the entire universe, and that nothing in the entirety of Mata Nui is behaving in a logical and rational way.

But see, here's the thing: all of that bluster about being the only rational thing around is complete bullcrap and lies, and here's why:

Kopaka, like all the original six Toa, is an amnesiac. He popped out of a magic canister in the ground and basically has no backstory to speak of since before he woke up he essentially didn't exist. And we know he's not a possible exception to this since, unlike the other Toa, he's the one we actually see it happen to. He has legit no idea who he is until Nuju tells him. What this means is simple: KOPAKA HAS NO FRAME OF REFERENCE. You can't judge something to be insane if you have not experienced sanity. Nothing is "irrational" in the abstract, you need context. Most people have extremely well-developed context obtained by living, but since Kopaka had not yet lived until he woke up he has NONE OF THAT.

And even if he did, he'd still be a massive hypocrite. Sure, the Matoran society and the Makuta are kind of weird, but Kopaka is a TOA, and Toa are a whole new kettle of craziness. Kopaka is a magic space warrior robot with the power to control the very concept of THIS STUFF IS COLD. His face is a magic mask that grants him X-ray vision and then gets even more powers later on. He can physically combine with other Toa to create a weird mega fusion Toa. Heck, after his first upgrade his primary weapon was skis. SKIS. He basically shapeshifts into a new body every time he goes somewhere else. And, as noted before, he legit just popped out of the ground one day, which makes him and his sibling Toa objectively weirder than all other Toa ever, since all the rest are transformed Matoran. Kopaka's entire existence is really freaking weird. He has no legs to stand on in his "I am the only rational being in the universe" belief. So where the heck did he get it from?

The simple answer: Mata Nui himself. When designing the Toa to act as a sort of internal anti-virus for all the weird garbage in his system, Mata Nui decided "You know what let's make the Ice one a prick who thinks he's sane" and somehow that idea perpetuated to the very end of the design process. The only reason Kopaka has to deal with everything else seeming completely bonkers to him is because Mata Nui, massive benevolent Troll that he is, *made him that way*. I bet when Kopaka finally made it to Bara Magna he was probably internally extremely relieved, because now he could judge the Agori by comparing them to the Matoran and vice versa instead of judging the Matoran on no actual justification whatsoever.

TLDR Kopaka is my favorite Bionicle because the entire premise of his personality is absurd and he probably spent the entire plot trying to internally justify it. Also ice powers go brrrrr

[branwendaughterofllyr]

Do you have any other fic recs for your poison tree fans 🙏 it's dire out here

Anon, I KNOW. There are very few HoTD fics that I unabashedly like, and even fewer long form political ones.

But there’s some I can recommend.

I recently blitzed through Dragonskin by Missybee303 and it’s one of the few Aemond/OC fics I’ve actually really enjoyed. The premise seemed just a tad far fetched to me at the start but it completely earns it by the end. Jeyne, a farrier’s daughter and secret skinchanger in King’s Landing, encounters Aemond after Vhagar’s saddle breaks, and this changed the course of their lives and the Dance. The author clearly did their homework, and this is one of the few Dance fics that I’ve seen actually tackle the politics and emotions of the Dance based on the barebones F&B gives us, and it does it with grace and style. I loved loved loved the side characters the author built in (special shout out to Jeyne’s dad, Denys, who stole my heart and the show.) and how organically they meshed into canon. This the only long form Dance fic I can pretty unabashedly recommend, especially if you are interested in world building and wider ensembles. (It even avoids the over competent Aemond syndrome trap that so many show fics stumble into.) My one gripe is there is A Lot of smut, to the point that I was like “enough! Get back to the story!” But I know that will be a positive to many people, hahah. It’s almost done so you don’t have to worry about it being abandoned and it’s very long and satisfying.

I’m keeping an eye on Scorched Earth by 0Junebug0 which is a Rhaenyra’s daughter OC/Aemond fic. But wait!! Before you run away at this tired old premise, know that so far this has been primarily been a character study of the Team Black family dynamics, particularly how Rhaenyra would deal with a daughter and how being a Targaryen women is not all it’s cracked up to be. It’s only six (normal length) chapters at the moment but it updates frequently. As of the last chapter, Aemond has finally appeared on the scene, so I can’t speak to how the main pairing is going to play out, but I have high hopes. And the prose is genuinely very gorgeous and atmospheric, so if you are were drawn to “a poison tree” by the writing style, this might just hit the spot for you.

The oddball on this list is Salvation by Targresurgence, which is another Aemond/OC fic. Jeyne Hightower (wow, I really do believe in Jeyne supremacy in HoTD fics), the daughter of Ormund Hightower is sent to KL for Alicent to make her a match. Aemond decides that actually fuck all of that, his mom’s cousin deserves only the best (him) and shenanigans ensue. I like this fic, but it’s sometimes against my better judgement, but when it’s good, it’s good. I respect this fic primarily for the massive mommy issues it gives Aemond and Aegon II, and it’s attempts at worldbuilding that are a little hit or miss (but when it hits, it HITS). It also has one of my personal pet peeves in it, which is killing off Johanna or Elenda to make Jason or Borros into sexual threats to one of the female characters (why this is so popular, I do not know. Drives me bonkers) but that’s my nitpick. It IS a bit of a wonky fic in places, so fair warning on that, and prepare to suspend some disbelief. It is unfinished and hasn’t been updated in a little while, but it’s fanfic. Never give up hope.

If you are interested in more book canon and Alicent centric fics, I really like what we’ve gotten so far of The Heretical Education of Lady Alicent by @aifsaath. It’s part of a larger ongoing series, The Sky is Always Red Above Valyria, exploring various dynamics of book canon, with a heavy focus on Alicent, Aegon II, and Baela, but this one has to be my favourite. It’s also beautifully illustrated, so even though it’s only three chapters long at the moment, for sure check it out.

In the same breath, the joint work Our Father’s Clad in Red by @gwenllian-in-the-abbey and @aifsaath is a book canon Aegon II/Baela fic that explores the aftermath of the Dance and how House Targaryen is to rebuild in a world without dragons. If you like world building, psychological exploration, good prose, and gorgeous illustrations, this may just be the book canon fic for you.

A brief shoutout to signs amidst the starry mirth by xiaolongbaobei, because I know this one is very popular and gets recommended a lot (as it should). This is a fem!Aemond fic with very GRRM-esque writing and the most terrifying and well-thought out Daemon I think I’ve ever seen in a fic. I really love gender-bending fics that really think it through and this one just has a great prose style and is actually addressing the politics of the Dance.

Obligatory witchcraft in your lips by slaymond mention. This is Aemond/Sansa crack treated with deadly seriousness and somehow. It’s really really really good. Great writing style, on point characterization, I’m sure you’ve already seen this fic recommended somewhere.

…. I also kinda vibed with @charmtion’s Daemyra fics? I’m not a daemyra stan by any means, but I’ve loved charmtion since their Jonsa days, and I liked salt more than I thought I would. If you have an inkling of an inclination towards Daemyra as a pairing, check this out. They also have a Helaemond fic, thyme, if that’s more your speed. Charmtion has a very loose, vivid, dreamy style that I have just adored for ages, so I would not count these fics out at all.

And is it even an HoTD fic recommendation list without including the one and only See, What Happened Was… by the legendary @daylander1000? This Aemond/Rhaena fic asks the question “what if the Velaryons actually had plot and character relevance and also what if Aemond and Rhaena had the chance to be weird, slightly murderous children together?” One of my favorite depictions of Alicent and Criston to boot (especially since now Mine Was The Hand You Reached For by HaughtHightower appears to be deleted 😔). It’s not been updated in a while but the author is a very busy person and I’m very happy to let her take her time.

I’ve read a lot of HoTD fics by now and these are the ones that I’m like “other people should read these too actually.”

Oh! An addendum! If you are seriously looking for a long piece of fiction that deals with a succession crisis, you might want to read When Christ and His Saints Slept by Sharon Kay Penmen about the real history of the Anarchy, the civil war between Matilda and Stephen over the English crown that inspired the Dance of the Dragons in the first place. In this time of fandom drought, if you are a fan of “a poison tree,” you should seriously consider giving this book a read. It’s so good.

[aliceisathome]

My friend who's heavily into Kdrama keeps asking me if I've watched this and that and the answer is usually no - I've been really busy and when I do find time I'm usually watching Thai stuff (without being explicit). So she only goes and finds a Thai drama on Netflix to watch together. Gah. Which is the backstory to why I watched a het drama called Ready Set Love on Saturday.

Premise: because of a mysterious pandemic the male population of the world is greatly outnumbered by the female and the birthrate for boys is only 0.009%. In Thailand there are only c.350 males and they are idolised, kept safe from birth in a government run facility called The Farm.

Plot: as they get to their 20s the boys are paired up with women on a reality type show Ready Set Love 5 boys and 50 girls- 45 of who from the wealthy elite (including a clique called 'The Organics' who were born 'naturally' rather than through IVF - shades of Mean Girls) but 5 contestants are chosen by lottery from the general pubic. Our heroine is one of these; entered by her sister she agrees to take part in the hope that, if she wins, she'll be able to access the medical treatment her sister needs. Cue shenanigans.

It's a romcom with thriller elements - there's the uncovering of a conspiracy, some disturbing actions by the government, an underground resistance etc but there's also this completely bonkers game show, and it is bonkers. It's almost Squid Game like in its madness (without the death).

Because of the set up the vast majority of the cast - from crew to security to vendors to hospital staff to, well, everyone - is female. It's a really interesting take and also, of course, it means that there are a lot of lesbian couples. What about the boys though? What if one of them were gay? Well, we do get crumbs of a side couple so if @heretherebedork watches they will be delighted.

And I enjoyed it. Only 6 eps and with a good budget which meant that the over-the-top gameshow special effects etc were excellent. Some of the comedy was cringy but hey, it's Thailand so it's only to be expected and if I can sit through a Cheewin comedy I can handle anything.

Worth a watch if you need a BL break. Or even if you don't.

[cosmerelists]

Ranking the Sanderson Secret Projects

As the Year of Sanderson comes to a close, I thought I'd put forth my ranking of the Secret Projects.

[I tried not to include any big spoilers, but I still wouldn't recommend this one if you haven't read all of these, tbh!]

Opinions? Let me know in the poll!

#4: The Frugal Wizard's Handbook

I mean...listen. I read Sanderson for the Cosmere, so a non-Cosmere book was never gonna compete, at least for me. I enjoyed it well enough--it had quite a fascinating premise that got more & more disturbing the more you thought about it, and I liked the mechanism of having pieces of the actual handbook throughout. The main character wasn't my favorite, but I had a pretty good time following him around.

#3: Tress of the Emerald Sea

Tress only falls so low (if third place is low?) because I liked the other two books so much. I really liked this book! It was relatively simple for a Sanderson book, but in a really good way; it was just a joy to read. Plus, the aethers are incredibly cool, and the way information about them was slowly revealed as Tress learned more and more things you could do with them...*chef's kiss.* I also guessed the reveal somewhat early, and that made me proud of myself, because I am not usually good at that.

#2: Yumi and the Nightmare Painter

I really loved this book! The world-building was top-notch, and so atmospheric and creepy: the Nightmares, the Shroud, the Machine. I was completely engaged with the mystery of how Yumi & Painter connected, and I did not guess it in the slightest (I really thought it was gonna be time travel). Yumi was amazing; I love an accidentally bi Sanderson protagonist. Painter really grew one me, and was not the incel I feared he would be. Design was an absolute delight. I like it when Hoid suffers. It was all great.

#1: The Sunlit Man

But my favorite had to be The Sunlit Man. In part, it was just because it felt like going home--I miss Stormlight, and I miss Bridge 4, and all of the references and allusions KILLED me (but in a good way). The "...Kal?" line still has me reeling. Plus, what an absolutely bonkers and cool world. A people who live exclusively on flying ships? Racing the sun?? A storm of fire?? Threnodites??? It was all of my favorite things served up together in one book. So yeah, for me--the best was definitely saved for last.

[godzillabreath]

wwdits s5 spoilers below

I was so deeply invested in season 3 of wwdits that every subsequent episode that releases just kind of makes me feel… sad? Nothing has since hit the high of Wellness Center and I don’t think anything will.

For me, that was the pinnacle of their storytelling because it combined humor with the genuine ways in which this dysfunctional group of people have come to care about each other. Nandor feels divorced from his humanity and is looking to find ways to regain that aspect of himself. Guillermo can’t understand because he’s fixated on becoming a vampire to fill the void inside himself where he feels self-conscious, overlooked, unimportant. It’s funny to see these genuine, emotional character moments butt heads with a vaporwave 80s aerobics cult. They expertly balanced character development that had been building throughout season 3 with a bonkers premise and it ended up very touching and very satisfying. And then, well. Season 4. It was frustrating, first of all, to see the climax of Season 3 completely swept aside in the first minute of the premiere. This season prioritized episodic, unserious episodes that had no lasting character growth, only to emphasize in the finale that nothing changes and nothing matters. You can’t make that your artistic statement for season 4 when you’ve shown your audience three seasons of dynamic relationships being built and reforged and changed in unique ways! Season 4 and even Season 5 continue to wipe the slate clean again and again. Hypnosis, Djinn wishes, other forms of deus ex machina utilized to undo everything magically and inorganically. There were no stakes for Colin’s death or rebirth, no lasting impact on the relationship between Laszlo and Colin from a season showcasing a very different dynamic between them. Nandor is petulant and rude to Guillermo in irritating ways, as if they had never built a tenuous respect and trust and eventually affection for one another. Does Guillermo care about his family, does he crave their approval, only to have him vaguely continue to push them away after what was supposed to be an emotional coming out episode? Why is Nadja appointed as a leader on the London council only to immediately abandon this position for a wanton night club idea? (Which is then abandoned again in favor of… I’m not really sure what her goals are this season? Vague mentions of a hex with unclear affect on her life.) The audience just has to sit with this continuous lack of narrative resolution.

And it sucks, man. I think it’s a mess. It’s unsatisfying. I see Season 5 trying to incorporate and juggle more plot-dense episodes and they end up feeling too long and weirdly overworked and like all of these ideas are coming too late to feel impactful.

I’ll say I really don’t like Guillermo becoming a vampire, or half-vampire or whatever is happening. I think it absolutely ruins his character arc of finding strength and value in being a human being—with kickass cool Van Helsing abilities even. It would have been way cooler to parallel Guillermo’s realization that he cherishes his own innate humanity with Nandor wanting to regain that humanity he felt he lost over centuries. At this point, I don’t understand what either of them want or need or feel or anything. And the rest of the cast feel like b-plot set dressing.

Well, that’s enough for now I guess. Every episode I just feel like… why did they write this this way. Of course, I’m sure every element of conflict will be magically undone and ironed smooth at the end of Season 5 as it always is and we’ll start season 6 with zero carryover or growth. Again.

[lavender-lotion]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

How many works do you have on ao3?

868, which is bonkers???

What's your total ao3 word count?

2,445,126 words! I'm aiming for 5mil within the next decade haha

What fandoms do you write for?

CURRENTLY I am (only) writing teen wolf fic! it's so strange to be back where I started, but it's also been really nice coming back to all these familiar characters

Top five fics by kudos:

1. (baby) maybe that matters more - Steter, 40k

2. The Perceptions of You and I - Seter, 5k

3. With You, I Belong - Stalion, 59k

4. Mates and Marriage Proposals - Steter, 15k

5. Breathing You In - Steter, 29k

... should I just call myself a steter writer at this point?

Do you respond to comments?

yes!! all the time. literally nothing brings me as much joy as comments do

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I reaaaaally don't write a lot of angst, but one of the unhappiest fics I've ever written is probably this one?

And Now? - Stetopher, 300 words

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

there actually isn't one fic I would say that fits this? I primarily write schmoop, so a lot of my fic would count as having very happy endings! p

Do you get hate on fics?

oooooooh yeah babes. I've gotten some mean comments lol

Do you write smut?

yes! not a favourite thing of mine, but I do write it here and there. I recently wrote a fic w/ smut that I really really liked it!

keep me warm in the cradle of your skin - Sterekira, 7k

Craziest crossover:

ooooh this is actually SUCH an easy answer for me! it's 100% this one teen wolf/x-men cross over (possibly my only one?) where Logan (wolverine) knew the sheriff from the way when they'd been lovers and he goes to find him, and stiles is a lil jean grey esque character. I think about this thing allllll the time, too. I freaking love it.

what-ifs (don’t fuckin’ matter to no one) - Logan (X-Men)/Sheriff Stilinski, 2k

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I have actually! I only know of one for sure, and it was a stackson fic that someone had reposted to ao3? im so glad I found it (I think someone sent it to me?) and I was able to report it and get it taken down!

Have you ever had a fic translated?

yes! I love it, it's such a crazy labour of love. if you wanna translate my work, just send me a link so I can see it!

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

me & @flightinflame co-wrote an almando series where we wrote the same fic from different pov's which was a suuuuuper super fun experience! I've started a few other co-writes, but unfortunately they've never taken off and gone anywhere :(

there's nothing i wouldn't do to make you feel my love - Almando, 27k

All time favourite ship?

nope. nope nope nope I don't knowwwwwww

What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

oh!! this is marked completed on ao3 now because honestly, I'm never going to finish it, but I love love love the premise of this one and I always wished I had finished it

Love Thy Family - Stilinskicest, 12k

What are your writing strengths?

this is soooo tricky lol I hate talking about myself. I would say probably dialogue! I also really like how I write romance, specifically getting together works, and I think I do a good job at nailing down the feelings that go along with them!

What are your writing weaknesses?

settings. actions. plot. I hate plot!

Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

I used to use a looooot more than I do now, and I would use google translate. it's never GREAT, so I mostly avoid it now. I'll translate like, a single sentence every now and again, but I don't do a lot with it anymore.

as for how I feel about it as a reader - as long as I can figure out what's going on from context clues, I really don't mind it!

First fandom you wrote in?

Percy Jackson & the Olympians!

To Long For Lust - Percico, 3k

Favorite fic you've written?

this is sooooo hard and so unfair and so difficultimpossiblehorrible to answer. if I had to pick one, gun to my head, it would currently be poly fic. it's the longest, plotiest, most developed thing I've ever written, and if nothing else, it's shown me that I can write things I've never imagined being able to write! once im done act 4, I wanna print it out lol

lift our faces, together, towards the glistening - Stisaackson, 159k

@lucky-bishop @mirrorthoughts @thotpuppy @like-lazarus @rosieposiepuddingnpie @kordyceps @whimsicalmeerkat

[empty-dream]

Just watched Sousou no Frieren

An 1000+ years old elf outlives her party members and watches them die one by one.

I watched the show exactly because of that premise ngl. So naturally I imagined it'd be fullchoke of tearjerkers.

I don't read the manga and I intend to keep it that way (because I don't have time enjoy the anime so much). So everything I'm talking about is purely from an anime-only.

The first episode did make me cry, specifically that scene where Himmel dies and Frieren regrets how she didn't try to get to know him better. Based on personal experience, it hurts to realize things too late.

We get to see how, as a being with much, much longer lifespan, her sense of time is completely bonkers. And she never felt bothered by it until Himmel's death.

After that, what with Heiter and Fern, she begins to learn to adjust to human's time. Meeting with Eisen also provides a new step to move forward meaningfully.

Fern (and later Stark) being her new party proves to be a supoprt to her development, because Fern is much more vocal to stop her from going on her own pace as opposed to her old party which was more lenient about it.

Surprisingly, the story becomes a calming experience as she and her new party explores (and retraces) the world they live in, full of magic and fantasy wonders. Even Frieren's silly magic tricks are a marvel to look at.

Stark is so funny because he reminds of me BNHA's Todoroki (the scar and the red hair) yet he acts the furthest away from the latter lmao. And holy hell his strength.

This is basically a retrace to the hero's party steps, and it shows. For one, everyone knows Himmel, Frieren keeps thinking (and gets reminded) of him, he might as well be present even though he is DEAD.

I'm intrigued by the demons as the enemies. It reminds me of Goblin Slayer's goblins: an antagonistic species that doesn't worth pity or any kind of feeling. The demons are especially cunning since they have the appearance of humans and majority (if not all, idk the lore) can speak and specifically weaponize words. It's hard to find any simpathy towardss anyone who does that, imo.

Ep8's drops one of the coolest title drop ever. As soon as I watched it, I checked the dictionary and found that the kanji of the title has double meanings. And to be honest I'm glad I didnt feel like checking the kanji before this episode because I got to experience that scene raw lol.

Yoasobi and Milet again huh. This is truly their year.

Tl;dr Girl ghosted her love interest and their friends for 50 years, regrets it, and goes on nostalgia trip with said friends' family/apprentice.

[ethantheannus]

So, update. I binged basically the entirety of Slugterra. I'm missing the Ascension stuff and one of the movies, but I've basically seen it all. ( I don't even remember the Ascension stuff. I'm assuming I stopped watching before it was y'kno, a thing. ) And oh my god. I completely forgot how?? Batsh*t this series gets?? Like. Ok. The premise itself is pretty wild. It's like Pokémon but the Pokémon are live ammunition and we are firing guns at each other--we are also hundreds of feet under the earth, also you can straight up just die. That, in of itself, is a pretty unhinged concept. What I wasn't expecting was for it to progress and get somehow even more unhinged. Like. I'm sorry. You're telling me. Essentially, hell is real? But it's like, Doom hell. And we have to fire guns loaded with our pets to fight them off. Also also. Shane's dad is alive, and he was just in hell the entire time. Oh yeah, did I forget to mention the evil slug? Yeah. The evil slug who possesses people. Can't forget that. The slugs are also really important but nobody treats them like they're important. Like. Guys. I get they're ammo. But they're also the core reason why Slugterra is still alive?? I guess?? And there's elemental slugs that every other slug is connected to?? I cannot believe I retained ANY of this. This isn't even half, pretty sure. I was watching it while hella sleep deprived ( I was at the point where I was blurting things out that didn't make sense, I should've stopped and just slept but it was like I was entranced. ). I definitely missed something, but oh my god. How did I forget how... how WILD this series was!?

The best part of me watching it was when the part of me that likes spec-bio started trying to figure out how the slugs turn larger when under a high velocity. Like I said, I was hella sleep deprived.

its legitimately bonkers man. theres a whole like. mini-movie about eli BEING POSESSED??? AND THEN THE EASTERN CAVERNS HAVE MULTIPLE PEOPLE WHO'VE BEEN POSESSED??? like my brother in christ.

the whole mall episode too with saturday. where hes zombifying people. thats HORRIFYING. why is there a slug that can DO THAT. not to mention the implications of ghouling??? and how horrific that is???

slugterra is batshit in everything it does, it fucking rules.

[hyperlexichypatia]

Can you imagine the concept of education – of learning – without artificial scarcity or competition? 

What would your educational goals be – for yourself, for your children, for your community, for your country – if you eliminated the framework of competition, hierarchy, or ranking?

I was thinking this when listening to someone say that every parent wants their children to have “every advantage,” and how completely warped that is. Why would you want your child to have an advantage? You should want your child to have the best possible life, but “an advantage” necessitates someone to have an advantage over. When I say I want everyone to have the best possible life, I mean literally everyone, and I mean “best” relative to “all possible life circumstances,” not relative to “all possible other people.” 

 The person I was talking to didn’t even understand the distinction I was making. The framework, the cultural idea, doesn’t exist, of wanting children to learn things, master skills, and have a high quality of life, without reference to learning more than someone else, being better at skills than someone else, or having a higher quality of life than someone else. Learning is an infinite resource. There is no reason it should be scarce. There is no reason someone’s ability to learn should take away from someone else’s ability to learn. 

The resources to facilitate learning – teachers, textbooks, enrollment slots in a particular school – might be finite, but learning itself is infinite. And we can always train more teachers, print more textbooks, and build more schools, if we have the public will to do it. There is no reason that anyone’s experience of learning should have to be any lesser than any other person’s, or that comparisons like that should even be the relevant frame of reference. When I try to argue that educational competition is bad, people rebut me by arguing that education is good. We could unpack what kinds of learning are considered “education,” and why some forms of learning are considered essential for everyone and others are considered optional, but that’s not especially relevant to my point. “Education” and “educational competition” are not the same thing. When I say that focusing on 2 year old children being “ready to compete in preschool” is horrifying, people inform me that preschool is good. Sure, preschool can be good. But why does it have to center on “competition” instead of letting literal babies learn at their own pace? We have a society where babies, as soon as they’re born, are put on a path of competition with other newborns, and we think this is normal. It’s bizarre. Even when people do critique the culture of educational competition, they come up with bonkers galaxy brain that reading to children is wrong because it gives them an “unfair advantage” – and that STILL doesn’t challenge the underlying premise that the purpose of education should be “competition”! 

To be clear, I want to spell out what I’m NOT saying. 

I’m not saying that competition should never be used as a tool in education. Competition can be an incentive or a way to make learning fun. If a school spelling bee makes it more fun for everyone to study spelling, that’s great. But what is the GOAL? Is it competition as a tool towards the goal of learning, or learning as a tool towards the goal of competition? There is a huge difference between “A fun class competition can incentivize students to further the goal of everyone learning more” and “Learning is useful because it furthers the goal of these children ‘defeating’ those children in competition.” And what are the consequences of “success” or “failure”? 

I’m not saying “And that’s why parents should send their kids to public school instead of private school.” Milquetoast liberals at publications like The Atlantic sometimes critique the competitive-private-school culture of educational competition (while constantly promoting it in every other context), but only to argue that, out of “fairness”, everyone should go to public school instead. Milquetoast liberals see universal public schooling, beginning in infancy, as the solution, because they identify the problem as “We shouldn’t be hierarchically ranking children on unfair things like race and class; instead, we should be purely hierarchically ranking children in some kind of ‘fair’ way.” That is still hierarchically ranking children! There is no “fair” way to do that!  Public schools rank children in a hierarchy. Private schools rank children in a hierarchy. Homeschooling families rank children in a hierarchy even when they have no one to rank against! I am not interested in making hierarchies “more fair” (which they can never be) or “equal” (which is an oxymoron). 

I’m not saying “Everyone’s educational experience should be the same, because that’s equality.” For one thing, equality is not sameness. For another thing, I’m not even really advocating “equality.” I’m advocating universal supportive education. And if everyone in the entire world had access to universal supportive education, there would probably be a wide disparity in what people would learn and pursue. Which is a good thing! No one person can know everything, so it’s good for people to diversify and specialize. The only reason there’s so much pressure to standardize educational experiences is to make it easier to assign people places in the hierarchy. Our society has really concluded “We can’t objectively rank an art student against a physics student, so the obvious solution is to eliminate art” rather than “Why are we ranking people?” Furthermore, universal supportive education can be lifelong, so there’s no time or age by which someone who hasn’t learned something has “missed their chance.”

What I am saying is that we should reimagine what education and learning can look like if we break out of the limiting framework of competition and hierarchy. We can build a society where everyone is free and supported to learn in the way that works for them without a system that necessitates “losers” to be dominated and defeated.