#I'm actually pretty new to python

[pinkkop]

I've now posted my second weekly QL recap post and I'm honestly just really proud of myself. Not just that I've stuck to doing it but also that I've managed to make it something I might actually be able to keep doing because I've made it as easy as possible for myself. That way it's less likely that it'll start feeling like a chore or that it'll take up a lot of my time when I'd rather be talking about the shows than formatting a post.

So because I'm a nerd and I kinda wanna show off a little bit because I'm proud of what I've managed to make, let me tell you exactly what I've set up to make my weekly recap post.

The basis for the post is simple enough: an excel spreadsheet and a python script.

My Spreadsheet of BLs

The spreadsheet is based on My Watchlist on MyDramaList which I literally just do ctrl+A and copypaste into a sheet. This is then automatically compiled into a different sheet where I've made a better overview of all the shows I'm watching and have watched in the past.

Based on this I've set up the weekly overview in a separate sheet shown below

When I'm compiling my weekly recap I can then easily add any new information here.

For new shows I add the information below to the sheet

- MD Title (copied from MyDramaList overview sheet)

- Title (usually copy of MD title with minor edits)

- Site I'm watching the show on

- Tags I want to use for the show

- Episode nr. I'm starting the show on

I also make a banner for the show but I've found a good source for images so it doesn't take long most of the time.

I have to manually upload the banner for the first week but then for the second week a show is in the recap, I can add the HTML for the banner from the previous week's post to the sheet. That way the banner will just be automatically be added to the post every week after that.

Throughout the week I then write notes on each episode I watch into the sheet and before I make the actual post I add the order I want the shows to appear in on the post.

The Script is Where the Magic Happens

When I've finished filling out the spreadsheet for the week I go to my python script, change the week number in the script and run the script.

In the script I've taken the HTML code from my original recap post and set it up so the script fills the information from my spreadsheet for each show into the right places in the HTML code. Since I doubt you guys would find it riveting to look at my full script, here's a little snippet!

When I run the script it then prints out the HTML for the post which I can insert into a new post on tumblr and voila, a weekly recap!!!

I do then have to go through the text for each show and add breaks and spellcheck because that's easier to do here than in the excel cell where I write the notes to begin with. If I have any overall notes or any new banners I have to add, then this is also when I'd do it.

I'm sure there are things you could set up in a better way but this works for me and reduces the amount of time I have to set aside every week for creating the post by a lot. It just makes it easier for me to share my thoughts in a way that's nice to look at without having to spend a ton of time formatting a post each week.

Hope this didn't take away any of the magic behind my posts but just gave a cool insight into the things you can do to make recurring posts easier to make.

Any questions or comments are welcome!

Side note: if you use tumblr on the mobile app and notice that any of the lines with "Episode x of x || Watching on:[site]" are split into two lines, let me know!

That line was surprisingly the hardest to make look the way I wanted because the width of posts and look of text types change depending on whether you're on desktop or the mobile app.

[vvelegrin]

a little ambitious today. i have an arabic reading/conversation group that i'm going to try out, and i've been doing little bits of python on and off all morning (in between sleeping and icing my stupid head; i'm going to be soooo motivated and smart and beautiful if and when we ever figure out how to deal with the fact that autoimmunity is literally making my brain stupid). might meet with a few friends later, but we'll see how i feel after arabic group, i might gently pass away after that. god knows that trying to figure out the fucking syntax of functions is actually stealing the life force from my body.

i had a support group yesterday (and then crashed most of the day after it) and got a couple of good tips for dealing with insurance and doctors for ivig from someone who might have the same diagnosis as me? so that is heartening. gonna deal with that in the next two to four business days or whatever.

[painted-bees]

We arrived home safely yesterday, and so did Domino!!

We set up her enclosure with a quick, temporary little set-up including a bunch of pothos clippings for cover and 4 different hides scattered around

Glare so bad u can't see most of what's in there, but that's ok cuz it's not very pretty atm lmao. It's a 40 g. We'll be rearranging and adding to it as we go, but in the meantime, she has found the biggest hide and made that her preferred sleeping place. Before she settled in there, I watched her explore the enclosure, and she actually tried each hide before settling into the big one lmao I was very happy to see that she was interested in exploring the furnishings without any desire glass surf.

I was suprised she didn't choose the snug little dig pit hide. For some reason, I assumed she'd be like my ball python and seek out a snug, enclosed space.

I'm sticking with paper towel as a liner for the enclosure rather than a loose substrate or bioactive just because Phuket is extremely hot and extremely humid, and mold can happen really, really fast. I could gaslight myself into believing that I'll always be on top of cleaning and maitenance so that mold will never be a problem...but I know myself better than that and paper towel allows me to see the cleanliness + presents a much lower barrier of entry to clean/replace. A dig pit that I can remove and dump the substrate out of is an easy compromise, I think. But seeing that she seems to prefer a larger hide, I definitely want a bigger pit.

I also want to get some properly potted pothos growing in here, and I want some more climbing surfaces like some driftwood and rocks. All things that are easy to remove for cleaning.

No heating or humidity devices in here because we are on an equatorial tropical island and already have too much heat and humidity as is. However, there's a type of clay hide that you can pour water into the top of, and it creates a cooler hide space. We bought one but it's too big to fit nicely into this enclosure...so we might diy a smaller one for her.

Once the enclosure looks more presentable and Domino is settled and feeling more secure in her new environment, I will take some more and better pictures.

I assumed that once she found a place to hunker down in, she would stay there for a few days without venturing out until she felt safe. But this morning, while I found her sleeping in the same big hide this morning, fresh droppings betrayed her late night wandering. So...I am glad!!

[kitkatt0430]

Welp, I've been using external methods of auto-backing up my tumblr but it seems like it doesn't do static pages, only posts.

So I guess I'll have some manual backing up to do later

Still, it's better than nothing and I'm using the official tumblr backup process for my smaller blogs so hopefully that'll net the static pages and direct messages too. But. My main - starstruckpurpledragon - 'backed up' officially but was undownloadable; either it failed or it'd download a broken, unusable, 'empty' zip. So *shrugs* I'm sure I'm not the only one who is trying to back up everything at once. Wouldn't be shocked if the rest of the backups are borked too when I try to download their zips.

There are two diff ways I've been externally backing up my tumblr.

TumblThree - This one is relatively straight forward in that you can download it and start backing up immediately. It's not pretty, but it gets the job done. Does not get static pages or your direct message conversations, but your posts, gifs, jpegs, etc are all there. You can back up more than just your own blog(s) if you want to as well.

That said, it dumps all your posts into one of three text files which makes them hard to find. That's why I say it's 'not pretty'. It does have a lot of options in there that are useful for tweaking your download experience and it's not bad for if you're unfamiliar with command line solutions and don't have an interest in learning them. (Which is fair, command line can be annoying if you're not used to it.) There are options for converting the output into nicer html files for each post but I haven't tried them and I suspect they require command line anyway.

I got my blogs backed up using this method as of yesterday but wasn't thrilled with the output. Decided that hey, I'm a software engineer, command line doesn't scare me, I'll try this back up thing another way. Leading to today's successful adventures with:

TumblrUtils - This one does take more work to set up but once it's working it'll back up all your posts in pretty html files by default. It does take some additional doing for video/audio but so does TumblThree so I'll probably look into it more later.

First, you have to download and install python. I promise, the code snake isn't dangerous, it's an incredibly useful scripting language. If you have an interest in learning computer languages, it's not a bad one to know. Installing python should go pretty fast and when it's completed, you'll now be able to run python scripts from the command line/terminal.

Next, you'll want to actually download the TumblrUtils zip file and unzip that somewhere. I stuck mine on an external drive, but basically put it where you've got space and can access it easily.

You'll want to open up the tumblr_backup.py file with a text editor and find line 105, which should look like: ''' API_KEY = '' '''

So here's the hard part. Getting a key to stick in there. Go to the tumblr apps page to 'register' an application - which is the fancy way of saying request an API. Hit the register an application button and, oh joy. A form. With required fields. *sigh* All the url fields can be the same url. It just needs to be a valid one. Ostensibly something that interfaces with tumblr fairly nicely. I have an old wordpress blog, so I used it. The rest of the fields should be pretty self explanatory. Only fill in the required ones. It should be approved instantly if everything is filled in right.

And maybe I'll start figuring out wordpress integration if tumblr doesn't die this year, that'd be interesting. *shrug* I've got too many projects to start a new one now, but I like learning things for the sake of learning them sometimes. So it's on my maybe to do list now.

Anywho, all goes well, you should now have an 'OAuth Consumer Key' which is the API key you want. Copy that, put in between the empty single quotes in the python script, and hit save.

Command line time!

It's fairly simple to do. Open your command line (or terminal), navigate to where the script lives, and then run: ''' tumblr_backup.py <blog_name_here> '''

You can also include options before the blog name but after the script filename if you want to get fancy about things. But just let it sit there running until it backs the whole blog up. It can also handle multiple blogs at once if you want. Big blogs will take hours, small blogs will take a few minutes. Which is about on par with TumblThree too, tbh.

The final result is pretty. Individual html files for every post (backdated to the original post date) and anything you reblogged, theme information, a shiny index file organizing everything. It's really quite nice to dig through. Much like TumbleThree, it does not seem to grab direct message conversations or static pages (non-posts) but again it's better than nothing.

And you can back up other blogs too, so if there are fandom blogs you follow and don't want to lose or friends whose blogs you'd like to hang on to for your own re-reading purposes, that's doable with either of these backup options.

I've backed up basically everything all over again today using this method (my main is still backing up, slow going) and it does appear to take less memory than official backups do. So that's a plus.

Anyway, this was me tossing my hat into the 'how to back up your tumblr' ring. Hope it's useful. :D

[velvet-cupcake-games]

We had an ask today that touched on Will's sprite and its layout, so I thought it'd be fun to do one of my backstage in game development posts.

One of my favourite things in Ren'py (the Python-based scripting system I use to create Made Marion) is its layered sprite system. Layered sprites allow creators to link different images together so that they don't have to make an entirely new sprite for every facial expression and outfit change that a sprite has. Instead they can make transparent images that layer on top of each other like paper dolls.

Will happens to be my most complex sprite for two reasons. First, he has two major outfits because he wears a flamboyant swashbuckling outfit when he's not incognito and a dark hooded outfit when he's doing more thiefy tasks. He also has two major arm poses that are used with all of his outfits because I wanted to visually indicate when he's feeling more closed-off versus more open.

Add a cape and hat to the deal and poor Arrapso (our lead/sprite artist) was going nuts with all the layered sprite bits and bobs. Will's sprite has quite the base setup. If I'd just gone completely basic with the sprite layout, I would have to type the following in every time I called up Will's sprite as he appears above: show will normaldowncloak hat_gloatinge gloatingm hathair normal normaldown That's a lot of typing. Early in the process, I spoke with Feniks, our awesome code consultant, about how to link sprite bits together. They showed me a great system that I used so that now all I have to do to call up the Will above is type: show will normaldown gloating Most of my sprites are sorted by outfit, but because Will is special, he's actually sorted by his arms. "Normaldown" is his hand on hip pose while wearing his normal swashbuckler outfit. If I type "normaldown" my code settings call up that set of arms and add on his normal outfit, the appropriate cloak background, and his hairstyle with him wearing his hat. "Gloating" is my compound facial expression that combines his "gloating" eyes and mouth.

I also have facial expressions that combine different eyes and mouths (angrye smilem often makes a really good sarcastic expression!). Will even has two sets of eyes, one normal and one with his hat's shadow over them. The shadowed eyes are automatically linked to the presence of his hat, so I don't have to type anything extra there when I'm coding in a scene.

Here's an example of what my layered linking code looks like for Will:

Yeah, he's got a LOT of bits and bobs. It was a ton of work to set up, but it made it soooo much easier during the bulk of my coding since 90% of the time I now only have to type in an arm pose and a facial expression to call a properly attired Will onto the scene.

This does somewhat limit my flexibility. As I mentioned in my ask, the automatic linkage of Will's casual arm pose to his hatless hairstyle means he cannot easily wear his casual outfit with his hat. That's fine, since generally he isn't going to. And I've added and removed some outfits here and there if they weren't working for how I ended up using a sprite.

Anyway, as a player, layered sprites are why Made Marion can have such cool sprites with tons of facial expressions, different arm poses, combat poses, and multiple outfits without the game being 10 gigabytes in size and without its coder going entirely bananas. That's pretty cool!

[copperbadge]

Amateur Translation Programs

So I had a lot of imaginative and informative responses to my post about looking for an amateur translation program -- something where I could load in a foreign language and it would insert a box where I could add a translation every-other-line. The idea was that this way I could practice translation with more advanced texts, and texts I chose, and thus move away from Duolingo, which at this point is good for drilling and daily practice but not for more advanced learning.

I didn't find precisely what was needed but I did get some inspiration for further explanation, and I also learned that adding the term "glossing" (thank you @thewalrus-said) into my searches helped a great deal in terms of weeding out programs that were either "Let this AI translate for you" or just endless promotional links for Babbel and Duolingo and such. I thought I'd collect up the suggestions and post them here; at the end I'm including my best swing at designing what I wanted, and why it doesn't work yet.

Suggestion one, from many people, was various ways to generate a page that is simply fixed Italian text with space underneath each line to add in a translation. This is pretty simple as a process and there are sites that will do it for you, such as this one that @ame-kage suggested. However, most of these don't allow for movement in the Italian text, and many produce a PDF which you would need to print out in order to write on unless you're willing to open it in Acrobat (and deal with Acrobat). A good solution for some but not what I'm looking for purely because I'm trying to make this super frictionless so that (knowing myself as I do) I will actually do it.

I did find this version interesting, suggested by @drivemetogeek: Have one word doc saved as your "template" doc and set the line spacing as 2.0 or higher. Select your text from source and paste it into the template doc as text-only. Ctrl a, ctrl c to select all and copy, then open a new document and "paste special" as picture. Right click and set the "wrap text" as behind text. Now you have a document where you can, basically, type over the existing text because it's the background of the page. This seems like the most frictionless version, because you could set up a bunch of them ahead of time. If you wanted to move between desktop and mobile, however, you'd need to ensure that the pasted image was fairly narrow so that you don't have to sideways-scroll.

Relatedly, people suggested generating a document that is simply the Italian text with empty space beneath it for typing in of the translation. This can be done either semi-automated, using a macro or a language like Python, or find-and-replace on, say, the stops at the ends of sentences. It basically outputs the same as above but with a more digitally accessible format, without any more effort than above. If you were to do this in Google Sheets you could also fix the column width so that it didn't do anything weird when you opened it on your phone. But it is still very friction-y, and does not allow for easy shifting of the Italian as needed. There's high probability of the translation breaking weirdly across the page. Still a top option in terms of simplicity and access.

@smokeandholograms suggested another variation illustrated here where essentially you're converting the text to a series of tables, with each paragraph a row, and an empty cell next to it for the translation. I might play around more with this one eventually, since I think I could possibly make it a three-column and put the Italian in one, the translation in the next, and the auto-translate to let me know where I might be slipping in the third. (Not that I trust auto-translate but comparing a hand translation to an auto translation can be useful in terms of working out when I've messed up the way a tense or mood is read. I tend to read indirect verbs as automatically imperative because I'm a weirdo.)

@wynjara linked to an add-in for Word specifically designed for translators, known as TransTools; this appears to employ a macro to do the same thing, though it does have a format where you can place the translation next to each sentence directly rather than in a separate cell. The full suite of tools is only $45 which is reasonable for my budget, but for what I need I think I could also just create the macro.

Using LaTeX as a tool specially designed for glossing was an option on offer, but I don't know enough about LaTeX to figure out the pros of this one, which is in itself the major con -- there's a learning curve that I think varies widely by person but for me is unfortunately a wall. It came out of a discussion on Reddit about trying to find something like what I want; also in that discussion is a link to a code generator that allows you to…do something…to the initial language, but it's not entirely clear to me (I'm sure it's clear to people who understand coding) what you would then do with it that would allow it to be output in the way I'm hoping for. Like, I could turn a paragraph of text into HTML, I understand that far, but any Italian I find is already on a website.

Moving more into apps that might work, Redditors on the LaTeX discussion suggested SIL Fieldworks, which is a professional language tech tool. Fieldworks isn't a program I'd previously encountered but much as with the ones I had, it looks like the learning curve is fairly steep and it is definitely overkill generally for what I need, though it might also harbor within it the thing I want. It is free, so I may download and play around with it.

@brightwanderer suggested using note-taking or "whiteboard" apps such as Freeform or Nebo; these are generally a kind of "infinite canvas" in which you can drop objects, text boxes, or handwriting. I don't know that Freeform would be measurably different to just using Word and a macro, since I'd still have to input/format all the text and then be stuck with the same "fixed text" setup -- and it's also iOS only -- but for some folks it might be more helpful. Nebo is a similar infinite-canvas with unfortunately the same issues, though on the plus it's available for Android, which is where most of my mobile property resides.

@bloodbright suggested that I was looking for a CAT tool, a professional translation tool mainly used by translators working in the field. This was a concept I'd encountered, but I hadn't found a good starting place. They suggested Smartcat and OmegaT. Smartcat bills itself as an AI translation platform and is HARD pushing the "don't translate it yourself, hire a translator or let AI do it" angle, so it's difficult to tell what it offers in terms of actual tools for translators, and it's also cagey about pricing, so I can't really evaluate it. OmegaT is free and gives off big "some weirdo homebrewed this in their basement" vibe (which I am here for) but I also recognized it from screengrabs that were the reason I veered away from professional-grade software: it looked too complex. Realistically, the major downside of OmegaT is that I don't think I can put it on my phone. One thing I did find interesting is that once you translate a portion of the text, the original language goes away, though I assume you can turn that off if needed. I do kind of like that because it means my distractable brain is looking at Less Stuff.

So where did I end up?

Well, it looked like I was going to have to try a homebrew myself. I had the idea of trying some of the initial suggestions but in reverse -- designing a document where every other line was a single-cell table fixed to the page. You could paste in the Italian, which would wrap around the cells, and then enter the English in the cells.

You can fix a table in place in Google Docs -- you click on the table, then under Table > Style select Wrap Text, Both Sides, and Fix On Page. Getting the whole page set up is a little labor intensive but once you did that, you could just save it as a template and make a duplicate of it each time. And this actually works….on desktop.

Unfortunately, if you open it in the mobile Docs app, the app can't handle the fixed tables and automatically moves them all to after the text that's been pasted in. I tried redesigning it so that it's a table within a table -- one for the Italian, then within that a series of them for the English -- but when you nest a table in Google Docs, it doesn't let you fix the second table in place. And you are also still dealing with the wrap issue, although you can resize the page and add a large right-hand margin as a kludge of a fix for that.

You can build this same kind of document in Word, so I tried building one in Word and then uploading it to Drive, but when you open the Word file in Docs (or in Microsoft Word for Android), it still strips the fixed positioning -- there's just some functionality missing from both apps that doesn't allow them to handle fixed-position tables.

So, the design is sound, just not the final execution. If I could program an app, I could probably remedy the issues with it -- it's simply a series of text boxes nested inside one another with different formatting. I would imagine that's relatively basic to set up, although given that neither Docs nor Word can handle fixed tables in mobile, perhaps I've stumbled on a much bigger problem that everyone is ignoring because nobody actually needs or wants fixed tables in mobile. :D

Experimentation is ongoing, anyway. I might simply have to resign myself to the fact that my translation study is going to have to be in front of a computer, which might be for the best anyway when I inevitably want to compare my translation to an auto-translate to see where I might have read something wrong.

[thewertsearch]

Second part of the giga-ask compilation!

@publicuniversalworstie asked: Why assume the Horrorterrors would know that changing events would create a doomed timeline? That assumes both A) that the horrorterrors know the future and B) that they don't think it can really be changed. Maybe they genuinely thought they could change things, such as by perhaps fulfilling all the requisite loops a different way? Imagine a scenario where a time traveler learns of their death, therefore being destined to die, and instead fake their death to create the conditions under which they learned of the death originally.

It's possible. But if the Horrorterrors do have a way to trick the Alpha Timeline like that, then they've really been holding out on us by not mentioning it to the Players. Such a revelation would completely change the game - we might even be able to fake the Earth's death.

Anonymous asked: i want to learn more about coding to analyze homestuck better - do you have a place i could start? resources? idk love the liveblog hope you're doin well :]

Absolutely! I've got two separate answers for you, depending on what your goal is here.

If your main goal is just to analyse Homestuck, then you’re probably best off picking a language whose syntax is easy to understand, such as Python. You'll pick up on the basic logic pretty quickly, and the ~ATH snippets will start to make a lot more sense.

If you’re actually interested in programming for its own sake, then I recommend you start with my own first language, C. It’s a lot harder for a newbie to get to grips with, but doing so will give you a much more solid theoretical foundation then ostensibly ‘easier’ languages.

W3schools is a decent starting resource for both languages - but if you need more specific guidance, let me know, and I'd be happy to help!

@skelekingfeddy asked: actually grubmom having the same color wires as in that pic of sahlee wasnt intentional! i based it on how sollux’s game grubs have red and blue wires attached to them

Serendipity!

Anonymous asked: Did you run any mysterious ~ath programs on that computer of yours?

Honestly, running ATH on that thing would probably have improved it.

Anonymous asked: One voice headcanon I have for Terezi is the English dub of Power from Chainsaw man

Honestly, she sounds pretty much exactly how I imagine Terezi does. She even has the horns!

@martinkhall asked: I'm surprised none of the suggested instruments for a time player were an ocarina.

Some fruit is just too low-hanging.

@delicate-ruins asked: what's an animal you like that you think doesn't show up very much in media, be it fiction or news or just generally? example: i like secretary birds. but except for videos about them, i have never heard them references.

They're not obscure, per se, but there will never be enough sloths in media. The only fictional sloth of note is Sid from Ice Age – and he does not do them justice.

Capybaras are also underrated as hell – so much so that LibreOffice, which I'm using to edit this compilation, doesn’t even recognize the word as real!

Anonymous asked: “I’m trying to figure out if it’s fully a Breath outfit, or if there’s some Heir stuff too.” the general rule for god tier outfits is that the colors and symbol represent the aspect, the clothes represent the class. so, for example, if two princes of different aspects ascended, their clothing style would be the same but they would a have different color scheme. @skaiandestiny asked: If you haven't already figured it out, class informs the godtier outfit and aspect informs the colors and icon!

In that case, there is something about John’s outfit that says ‘heir’ – but nothing really stands out to me.

@driventopoison asked: Hey, I don't know if it's just me but it seems like you've skipped ahead. I have been following your liveblog daily, but I haven't seen you come across the windy thing yet. Is this because you were using the app or something? Also just want to let you know that I love your liveblog. Keep up the good work!

Thank you! Anyway, John’s Windy Thing is indeed documented on the liveblog, and it’s visible to me. I was using the app for some of that segment, though – are app-made posts particularly buggy?

@classpecting-guide-official asked: story about a modded game of sburb where the characters notice that something isn't right and slowly realize that their world is a lie

Back in Act 1, this is pretty much what I thought was happening. It was a simpler time.

@ignis-cain asked: Note the colors the capslock flashes for WV.

When WV locks his capsule, the button’s light flashes red and green – but I’m not sure what the significance of these colors is, in this situation.

Anonymous asked: i know i'm SUPER late to answer this, but i think the instantiation thing is the same as any video game, newly made with a prebaked history. when you name your character, that has been their name for their whole life, even though you thought it up a few seconds ago. when you enter the medium, the planet has a history and the denizens have memories, even though they just showed up when you entered.

Yeah, I’m pretty sure this is indeed what’s going on. The implications are just a lot more wild when the game is physically real, rather than virtual!

@kintatsu asked: So, I know I'm a little late to the party, but I have to point out: Alternian sunlight doesn't need to be THAT much stronger than Earth's to blind Terezi as quickly as it did. Trolls are nocturnal, which means they almost definitely have a tapetum lucidum (eyeshine membrane), which means that however much light entered Terezi's eyeballs? Her retinas were blasted by every photon twice.

Damn, Vriska. For a second, I thought this ask was explaining why Terezi wasn't in as much pain as I'd thought - but this alternate explanation might actually be worse than what I was picturing!

@delicate-ruins asked: It's delightful to see somebody read Homestuck and be as charmed by it as I and a lot of my friends were way back when we first read it, and the calm, digesting pace at which you're enjoying it is honestly so nice. I rushed way too much to catch up since my friends recommended it in about 2016, which means I went from knowing nothing about the comic to being caught up on it in like a week. I never sat down with the ideas and thought "hey, does this mean XYZ?" because quite often I got the answer five seconds later as I rushed to catch up. But seeing you asking those questions is so so fun. Yeah, DOES it mean that?? Guess we'll find out! In the meantime, we get to guess, which means we basically get to have fun twice. It's reigniting my enjoyment of homestuck quite significantly, I think!

Thank you! It’s really nice to be able to engage in a dialogue about the comic through these asks, which is something that wouldn't be possible if I was speeding through it. As I always say, I'm here for a good time and a long time.

@manorinthewoods asked: Alright, here's another transtimeline fun fact. Each of the kids was supposed to have a Quest related to their associated material - John had a land covered in oil, Rose's ocean was polluted with chalk, the gears of LOHAC were gummed by amber, and LOFAF was in a nuclear winter. Ultimately, while the ocean of LOLAR is still chalky, nothing but John's oil made the cut. ~LOSS (16/5/23)

I think it was a good change, then. Not everything has to be a pattern, and Dave's two weird maybe-quests are a lot more unique and interesting than a generic 'materials quest'.

@captorations asked: oh hey, this walkaround! so funny story, i used to run a blog where i posted one of terezi’s canon appearances each day, in order. yes, i completed my task, and more besides. however! when i was wandering through this as terezi, a glitch rendered me trapped. i decided that this counted as a noteworthy appearance, and took a screenshot. then, by sheer coincidence, it ended up being posted on… halloween. it was pretty great (also don’t forget to check out ctrl + t)

You accessed the double-secret version of Past Karkat: Wake Up, which plays the Earthbound Halloween Hack version of Megalovania rather than the Homestuck one.

Anonymous asked: Personally, I think John gaining so many levels so quickly is tied to his role as the heir - he gains so many levels without really trying, not because he's better than the trolls or his friends, but because he just kind of falls into it. The game rewards him for taking the path of least resistance.

That certainly makes sense if we just look at John - but I have trouble reconciling this interpretation with our other Heir. Equius certainly has some advantages, but they aren't exactly unique to him, as you'd expect them to be if his Heir class was responsible for them.

Yes, he's a highblood, but he's outranked by three non-Heirs - and his strength doesn't seem to be unique either, as Feferi seems capable of similar feats. Perhaps Equius will trip and fall into more unique privilege, but it hasn't happened yet.

Anonymous asked: my personal headcanons for midnight crew claspects: Slick - Prince of Blood, Droog - Mage of Space, Boxcars - Knight of Heart, Deuce - Bard of Doom. knowing you youre probably gonna attempt to analyse these LOL

Slick has had ties to Blood since he first met Karkat, so that tracks - and Boxcars is a shipper, so Nepeta's aspect is probably the best fit for now. I'm not sure about the other two, but I'll revisit them later!

[geekgirles]

If there's any TV Troper in the Wakfu fandom, please, let me know!

TV Tropes is my Bible and it breaks my heart to see it hasn't been updated in months, not even after The Great Wave dropped. Is there something I'm missing? Are there rules about when it's appropriate to update?

Because I know for a fact there are shows that update their information within hours of a new episode dropping.

Please, I've been obsessing over Wakfu and the different tropes that could be applied to both old and new characters for months! If you'd like to know in order to update the site yourself, then hit me up! We can discuss tropes and see if they actually fit or not, but for the love of everything good, update the damn character sheets!

Seriously, I'm pretty sure the only characters who've received a notable update in the last few months are Oropo and Echo, but mostly Oropo.

I'm sorry, I'd gladly do it myself, but I don't know how and if it requires to write in HTML or Python or that kind of language, I have no idea. So please, if anybody here has access to TV Tropes and is willing to edit the Wakfu page, don't hesitate to reach out to me 🥹🥹🥹

[daydreamgoddess14]

Truth or Dare?

Sshhh, we're not going to talk about how late this is. I still have, like, 3 more to write, sooo... 🤷‍♀️

This one is for the wonderful Kellie ( @acrackintheteacup ) who wrote me a beautiful Birthday gift 🥰

Hi, hello! I wanted to request something from your Valentine's Day prompts. If you feel up to it, would you do prompt #7 for Slow Horses? It can include OCs or new characters. No pressure, I know you've got a lot going on and I'm loving "this love left a permanent mark." 💜

7. A group of friends playing a daring game of Truth or Dare on Valentine's Day, leading to some unexpected revelations 💞

So here we have Truth or Dare 🤗

There's a fair bit of Shirley/UK slang in this, so a couple of translations might be useful:

kegs = pants/trousers / munter = ugly / bog = bathroom

River Cartwright x Reader (gn, no pronouns, no yn/ln), fluffy, sweet, no warnings other than language, featuring the incomparable Slow Horses band of misfits. The tense feels a little wonky to me, so if it is, I apologise.

“Is it just physically impossible for you not to be an arsehole for longer than ten minutes?”

“Truth or dare, stop being an utter cock.”

“I can show ya if you want?” Roddy Ho stood, and began unbuttoning his jeans.

“Gross. I'll report you to HR. Truth or fuckin’ dare?!”

“Truth.”

“Is it true you have a micro penis? Cos that's what Louisa tells everyone?” Shirley put her elbows up on the table, and rested her chin in her hands with a bored sigh.

“Ha! She wishes she's seen my python. It ain't micro, it's massive. Like a baby's arm. Like a giant's finger -”

“Are you talking about your dick or the crap you couldn't flush earlier?”

“Fuck me, Cartwright, that was actually pretty funny,” Shirley sniggered.

“Why are you idiots playing truth or dare?”

“Bored.”

“Valentine’s day innit? She’s got the horn, wants to see how hung the Ho is -”

“I'm gay, you twat. That thing is literally the last thing I want to see. I'm not going to dare you to get your kegs off.”

“No one wants to see you with your kegs off, Ho.” River agreed, taking a Red Bull from Ho's mini-fridge.

“Same, dickhead, same.”

“Oh, I dunno about that, I can think of one person -” Shirley swivelled on her chair with a wide grin.

“Don't do that,” River warned.

“Do what?”

“Be a nasty cow, there's no need.”

“But it's true!”

“Says who? You?”

“Yeah, Shirley, don't be a bitch,” Ho wiggled his finger at her.

“Point that thing at me again, and I'll bite it off,” she snarled. “I was just saying. There is at least one person, miraculously, they're not blind or a total munter, who finds Cartwright fit.”

“Can we get back to the fucking game now? I ain't bothered about Cartwright getting his dick wet,” Ho asked miserably.

“Your turn, idiot,” Shirley rolled her eyes.

“Truth or dare?” He asked her with a grin.

“Dare, obviously.”

“I dare you to go up and take a piss in Lamb's bog.”

“You've got to be -”

“Are you giving in?”

“No, I just need a minute,” she grimaced.

“I don't think it's ever been cleaned, y’know,” he teased with a wicked smile.

“Fuck off.”

“Bet he's pissed on the seat every day for a fuckin’ decade.”

Shirley heaved.

“I don't think she's gonna do it,” River shrugged.

“If she forfeits, I win,” Ho reminded them both.

“You're not winning,” she said through gritted teeth.

“Go on then,” he insisted, gesturing towards the stairs. “Off you pop.”

Shirley slapped her hands on her knees and stood up.

“He'll be back soon,” River warned.

She booked it up the stairs, passing your office on the way.

“You ok?” You asked as she whipped past.

“Need a piss,” she called back, feet stamping up the stairs, and then along the corridor above your head. “Oh, fuck me,” you heard her squeal.

She reappeared moments later, looking visibly scarred.

“Don't go in there,” she muttered, trudging back down stairs and lingering by your door.

“Why would I even - , what're you lot doing down there?” You asked, unsure if you want to know the answer.

“Truth or dare. Wanna play?”

“Not a chance,” you declared firmly.

“Go on, it’s basically just me and Ho dicking around. And Cartwright, but he’s such a goody -” she paused, frowning slightly. “You are too though. Y’know what, never mind. Enjoy your,” she reached out and took a file off your desk, “‘Belmarsh Inmates 1975-1985’ file. Fucking kill me now, that sounds like hell.”

“It’s a pile of crap,” you admit. “But thank you.”

She gave you a quick wink and stamped down to the floor below, declaring her victory.

“... didn’t even puke,” she gloated loudly.

You don't hear the rest of the conversation, they talk over each other too fast and it sounds more like squabbling than playing Truth or Dare. It’s easier to tune them out.

“Can I borrow a shoe?” Ho asks ten minutes later.

“Will it come back in one piece with no bodily fluids in it or on it?”

He thought for a moment.

“You can have it back exactly as it is now.”

“Well what are you doing with it then?”

“Shirley dared me to lick the sole of hers, yours, and Cartwright’s shoes.”

“That’s disgusting.”

He shrugged as if that wasn’t remotely an issue for him.

“Wanna win, don’t I? Fucksake.”

You hand over the shoe.

“That doesn’t count,” you heard Shirley admonish him a few minutes later, “get your tongue properly in there!”

Your nose wrinkles in disgust.

It goes deceptively quiet for a while. You’re well into 1983 in the file when the next ‘dare’ makes itself known to you.

River appears in the corridor, loitering outside.

“You’re not having my other shoe,” you smile. “Ho hasn’t returned the first one yet.”

“Umm… don’t need a shoe,” he mutters, wide eyes darted around the room.

You didn’t look up from the file but you feel him still, filling the doorway.

It occurs to you to ask if there’s anything else he needs.

Before you can, he crosses the room, places his palm flat on your desk and leans right over.

You look up in surprise just in time to feel his lips tentatively brush over yours.

His hand slips a little on the paperwork and the kiss accidentally becomes a little more insistent.

The tops of his ears go pink.

“Sorry, Shirley dared me,” he breathes.

A dare. Of course.

Then he’s gone.

You sit for just long enough for the anger to settle, and then march downstairs to find Shirley doing a handstand on one of the swivel chairs.

“You're going to break your neck.”

“Nah, I'm an athlete,” she puffs.

“Athlete? You thought you were having a heart attack when you ran upstairs yesterday?” River laughs.

“That's like, cardio. This is all about core strength,” she grunts.

The three of you stand and watch as her arms begin to tremble, the chair wobbling precariously. It starts to turn slowly, forcing Shirley to shift her gaze.

“Why did you do that?” You ask, tearing your eyes from the agonisingly slow chair to look at his side profile.

He shrugs, not looking away.

“She dared me,” he points at Shirley who faces the window and breathes heavily.

“You do not use me as a dare,” youdemand through gritted teeth.

“It was only a peck, what's the problem?”

“Shit, shit, oh balls,” Shirley huffs.

“Will you pair shut up, I'm gonna put this on TikTok,” Ho sniggers, holding his phone to video every second of Shirley's downfall.

On hearing your open palm make contact with River's face, the camera is turned on you, missing the clatter of Shirley falling from the chair.

“Shit, missed both!” Ho complains.

“Ow, fuck,” Shirley groans from the floor. “You hit him?!”

“Don't do that again,” you warn him with a glare.

You snatch your missing shoe from Ho's desk.

By the time the front door slams a moment later, and Lamb appears, River is nursing his red cheek, Shirley is still sitting on the floor, and Ho is rewatching his footage to see if he'd captured any of the drama.

You’re long gone.

“Alright?” He asks on his way to the top floor, cigarette pinned between his lips.

You hold up the file.

“All good, Belmarsh 1975-1985.”

“Tidy couple of years that was, nice one,” he nods.

The closest you'll get to a compliment.

The game downstairs goes quiet, River returns to his desk.

At 5pm, there's still a glimmer of pink in the horizon. You've planned a wild Valentine's night doing absolutely nothing.

“You hit me.”

“I slapped you.”

“What's the difference?”

“If I'd hit you, it would have hurt more.”

“Why?”

“... Because I can punch?”

“No, why'd you slap me?” He asks, exasperated.

“You kissed me because of a stupid dare. I'm not a bloody prop for your childish games with Ho.”

“You kissed me back.”

“I really didn't.”

“I felt it.” He insists.

“You imagined it.” You sigh, throwing your phone into your bag and shrugging on your coat.

“Truth or dare?” He asks boldly.

“I'm not -”

“Truth or dare?”

You know what this is. If you say truth, he'll want to know whether you did kiss him back.

“Fine, dare,” you challenge, expecting some kind of pathetic ‘steal some chocolate from Ho's office’ request.

“Dare you to kiss me again,” he grins.

“But I didn't -”

He moves to block the doorway.

“You did, you know you did. And now I'm daring you to do it again.”

“River,” you fight the urge to stamp your foot in defiance.

“I've got no plans, I can wait here all night.”

“You're so smug, you know that? How do you even fit through the door with an ego that big?” You ask, taking a bold step towards him.

“I'm only smug when I know it'll pay off,” he smirks.

“Oh, as if!”

“Are you going to do it or not?”

With a growl of anger you pitch forward on your toes and kiss him squarely on the lips.

His hands go to your waist to stop you falling forwards and he steps in to close the A shape made by your bodies.

His sudden closeness makes you gasp and you feel him smile against your mouth.

You can feel the heat radiating from his body, and lean into him, pressing yourself against his chest.

He breaks the kiss, and you pull back slightly, breathless and dazed.

Your eyes meet his, and you can see the need blazing within them as he looks at you, his hands still on your waist.

“Truth or dare?” He asks, looking at your mouth.

“Truth,” you request.

“You want me to ask you out?”

You smile shyly.

“Truth or dare?” You ask, turning it back onto him.

“Dare?”

“Dare you to ask me out.”

“Alright, I will.”

He leans in closer, his gaze never leaving yours.

“How about dinner, tomorrow night?”

Your heart skips a beat, but you keep your composure.

“I'd like that.”

“Good, happy Valentine's day,” he murmurs before claiming your mouth in another kiss.

FIN

[tods-void]

Breaking fictional canon isn't inherently bad actually

Gonna write something out that's been on my mind ever since I watched a let's play of Fallout New California. For those that don't know about it, it's a prequel mod for New Vegas. It's mostly pretty good, starts off great, some of the companion characters are uhhh... let's just say they have a faint stink of "my precious OC" if that makes sense. The story itself is for the most part interesting tho near the end it goes into some Mary Sue crossfic bullshit that might turn some people off and turned me off at first. But after watching that playthrough, there was one small part that made me reconsider my opinion of the ending, as well as what canon means for a piece of fiction.

=SPOILERS FOR FALLOUT: NEW CALIFORNIA AND FALLOUT IN GENERAL=

So the story's big reveal at the end is that the area you play in is what will become the Divide in New Vegas and you are the Courier. And the story is about a top secret government experiment using some pre-war symbiotic organism discovered in the Marianas Trench (i think?) that makes you basically immortal. You're immune to disease, radiation, don't age, can only be killed by taking a nuke to the face, that sort of shit. And you're the child of a super mutant who somehow figured out a way to not be sterile anymore. Oh, and you're also genetically a clone of the Vault Dweller from Fallout 1.

Now I know what you might be thinking: this sounds so fucking dumb, it breaks canon in half, all in an effort to canonically explain why the game's protagonist can do the ridiculous shit they do, like surviving a headshot at point blank, not needing food, water or sleep, getting stronger ridiculously fast (i.e. leveling up) and tanking damage that would drop a normal person if not outright vaporise them. And overall it turns both your character, the Courier and the Vault Dweller from opportune shmucks whose accomplishments were a mix of skill, perseverance and luck, into deity-like figures whose accomplishments were genetically predestined or whatever.

And yes, all this is true.

BUT!

Hear me out: in the mod when you are faced with that revelation as the character, there's a Wild Wasteland dialogue option which turns into a reference of the Vader/Luke confrontation from Empire Strikes Back where the antagonist that tells you all this breaks the 4th wall and goes "Damn your canon" and it's kinda cringy but also it made me laugh. It's honestly kind of funny. And it was the devs basically laying out their mission statement "Fuck canon, rule of cool, canon isn't a divine gospel to be followed". And I like that. I'm a long-time Fallout fan and the series as a whole has some great writing and worldbuilding but it has a lot of dumb shit in it as well. Dumb shit that was put in because the devs thought it'd be funny. No, it doesn't make sense that you find the TARDIS randomly in the desert or come across a weirdo in a robe guarding a bridge and asking you to solve 3 riddles to proceed or a group of BoS knights who are LARPing as medieval knights from Camelot (both being Monty Python and the Holy Grail references) or the cast of the original SW trilogy chilling around a campfire or a fourth wall breaking cafe where characters from Fallout 1 are hanging out and talking like actors discussing their roles off set. But it's the exact kind of dumb shit as the revelation in New California.

There's more tho. If it was just funny, sure, it made me laugh but it would still be bad writing. A decent joke at the expense of the writing wouldn't negate that. I'm someone who hates Fallout 3's story and worldbuilding for shoehorning in super mutants, the Enclave and the Brotherhood of Steel just because they're "iconic" to the Fallout setting and barely giving them the justification to be there. Super mutants?

"Oh, there was a vault experimenting with FEV."

On the other side of the country. Meaning that the entire plot and worldbuilding of Fallout 1 went from something unique with long-lasting consequences for the entire Wasteland to a cheap threat you can find anywhere from Alaska to Florida.

Why are all the mutants stupid brutish savage cannibals that scream at you and keep human remains in literal gore bags?

"Uhhh... there's one super mutant who's smart, friendly and will join you as a companion."

Why's the Enclave here? They were destroyed in Fallout 2. They were literally nuked out of existence. What few of them remained off the oil rig would not have had the resources or manpower to A) mount an expedition across the continent and B) present as big of a fighting force and threat as they do.

"*cricket noises*"

Why are the BoS here? They were isolationist pseudoreligious weirdos who were almost wiped out by the Enclave. How the fuck did they get here and why are they the default good guys now?

"*vaguely gestures at internal schism*"

Okay to be fair, there is a tiny bit more justification for how and why the BoS are there and the way they are.

Why are there fucking deathclaws in Washington DC?

"*radio silence*"

You get the picture, you know the song and dance. Hbomberguy made all these criticisms and more years ago.

So why do I shit on these retcons for feeling cheap and cynical on top of ruining established canon but the bullshit in New California doesn't feel as bad?

Well, I have a lot of love for Fallout but I've also embraced the reality that Bethesda doesn't give a shit about the lore or art of the series, or the labor of its original creators, and will shoehorn in whatever they need in order to churn out a marketable inoffensive product. I have no faith that they can make anything as even remotely good as New Vegas or as stupidly sincere and sincerely stupid as The Frontier or, to a much lesser extent, New California. I don't need Fallout to be gravely serious or follow strict canon and relative realism (although that would be nice), what I want most is to experience something that makes me feel, something that was made by people who wanted to make it, who had genuine love and passion for what they were making, and the source material they were drawing from. Does it matter if it's fanfiction? Not really. Fallout London is technically fanfiction and it's one of the best Fallout games I've played. It's also the queerest Fallout game I've ever played and as a filthy queer, that matters a lot to me. (You can join a faction of punk anarchists who are actual political anarchists and not just the pop-culture bastardisation of what anarchism is. Play it, it's great). All this to say that merely breaking the canon of a piece of fiction doesn't have to be inherently bad. It matters who does the retcon, how and why. Even moreso if the creators have the balls to say "we know it breaks canon, we don't care, we just want to do it".

(Also should go without saying that retcons made out of bigotry are pathetic and "creators" who do that should be sealed in a vault with a panther)

[undomesticated-animal]

Anyway, painslut and size queen are pretty hand in hand for me and I love the kind of dick that gets all up in them guts without fail but I do think it's easy for a fun sensation-seeking behavior to turn into a way of shaming someone's body for not being able to crrate that sensation for you without intervention

Like I'm an accidental size queen, ya feel? Do I like strap so big you can watch it fuck me from the outside like xray porn? Obviously, but also it just took me a while to end up fucking people who wern't fucking massive and like. I didn't actually know that at the time. It legit neverrrrrr fucking occurred to me that the dick was huge, just that when it was inside me I was fuckin feral for it.

But now sometimes I fuck people and if they are at all aware of my size queen tendencies they get nervous about "measuring up" and like. Hey. Hey. You there. The person who wants to fuck me. The person that I have explicitly said I want to fuck you back. Whyyyyyyy are you apologizing for your dick before you find out how it feels? Cuz like, I am many things in bed and one of them is "so tight that sometimes you literally can't force your dick back inside without hurting one or both of us after I cum" so I don't really care WHAT size your dick is, I'm about to wrap around it like a fuckin python and if you're gonna make it weird, I'll just have to bounce on it until your brain leaks out your ears I guess.

I dunno man. Bodies are great. People are great. Sex is great. Penetration is great. Why do we act like every combination of those things has to be everything all the time? Why did we decide size was the end all be all of this?

We need to start a new trend until it gets weird too, I'm in favor of people bragging about how the head of their dick has a clearly defined ridge along the full circumference of it thereby replicated g-/p-spot dildos like the god of squirters themself, like please I don't care how long it is, tell me if I can feel the texture of your veins when its in my fuckin mouth

[b4mpyre-k1zz3s]

First!!! Ofc you don’t have to write this if it makes you uncomfortable!

Johnny Knoxville x gn!reader where reader is actually in a relationship with bam for a while and they sorta stay on set while they film something for jackass. The relationship is good at first but the rest of the crew starts to see it go down hill (doesn’t have to turn abusive or anything intense unless you want to I don’t mind either way). Reader is good friends with everyone but it’s kind of obvious that R and Johnny are pretty close. Johnny sees how reader is struggling and comes to comfort them when something shitty happens with Bam, and they end up getting together. (Maybe it’s when Bam gets fired or for the early era/story sake just leaves set)

Heat

An end to a friendship and the beginning of a new romance. As Y/N’s love for Bam smolders, the fire in their heart burns hot for Johnny.

Johnny Knoxville X Gn!Reader, Bam Margera X Gn!Reader

(Fluff, Angst)

2.8k Words

Warnings: Very suggestive content, very crude language, flirting, jealousy, wound care, fights, drinking, kissing

An: Thank you so much for this request!!! Honestly I think this is maybe one of the best things I’ve ever written! XD Troubled relationships are a very interesting topic to delve into and I had a total blast with this one! I am on a writing kick so keep the requests coming! :D

Bam pulled you closer on his lap as you sat under the shade of a tree in between filming stunts. His skin was sticky with sweat, but so was yours, so you didn’t mind, adhering together in the thick Louisiana humidity. The guys all sat around, shooting the shit. Sweat ran down Steve’s head and into his eyebrows as he patted Johnny on the back like how you pet a big dog, “Dude! You took that like a champ!” Rubbing the back of his neck, the sun reflected off of Johnny’s glasses as he leaned his head to the side, his pretty bone structure highlighted by the sun’s golden glow, “Yeah- i'm still kind rattled from that one if I’m bein’ honest…” You chuckled as your boyfriend put the edge of the bottle to his lips, taking a swig of his beer.

Swallowing, he reached a hand around to the back of your head, grabbing your hair and roughly pulling you into a kiss. His lips were soft, but his tongue tasted like stale beer and cigarettes as he shoved it into your mouth, your teeth almost touching. Bam bit your lip just a little harder than comfortable, licking at the raw skin he exposed as he held you there. It was rough but lazy and painfully slow, making your brain buzz in the humidity. Pulling away, he grinned, pressing his forehead against yours.

He kissed you like this all the time, and you loved it. But this time, you found your eyes were still on Knoxville, and even though you couldn’t see his, you knew he was looking back at you. Johnny was your friend- when you were on set, all the guys were- but there was something about the way he looked at you that made you want to stare back at him for a little longer.

Of course, it would take Bam a while, given how self absorbed he was, but he would start to notice the little things. Like how Johnny would always show up on set with his little Starbucks coffee, and how he’d always buy you a cup too, or how you started to stand just a little too close to Johnny every now and then. The jovial laughs, the silly banter- the pining.

You lobstered in the sun, while pretty much everyone else tanned like Greek gods who were too good for SPF. Jeff, who had a similar dermatological predicament as you, came up to you on set one day, about an hour in the sun away from looking like he should be fed to a python. “Y/N- Think you could grab some sunscreen from the trailer fr’me?” Squinting in the sun, you nodded. It wasn’t even a week into filming and you had already started peeling, so it wasn't an awful idea. Leaning over your shoulder, Johnny grinned, his broad torso pressed against your back. His low voice had a smirking, suggestive tone to it, “Yeah. Why don’t I come with you?”

“I think Y/N’s fine.” Bam sighed, stepping in front of you out of nowhere. You said nothing while Johnny made it out to be a big joke like he always did, “Aww, c’mon Bam. I mean, I could even get you some for you…” The teasing tone in his voice made Bam even redder, but he tried to play it cool in front of you, “No way. You’d probably jizz in it anyway.” Bam put an arm around your shoulders, tugging you closer with enough force to make you stumble a little. Johnny's eyebrow twitched before he cracked a grin, “You know, that’s not too bad an idea. I think I'll keep that in mind!”

As you two walked away, Johnny went back to sit with the other guys in the grass. He grabbed a beer from Chris, staring out at the tree line. You and Bam had been together for almost half a year, and from what anyone could see, everything had been just fine so far- just peachy. Sure, he got a little too into the PDA stuff sometimes, which the guys would always childishly gag and roll their eyes at, but that was it. As of the past few weeks however, it really seemed to be going downhill- anyone with eyes could see that. Answering nobody but hearing everything, Steve piped up to Johnny, “I dunno, man.” He took a drawl, “S’got some kinda stick up his ass about you- Bam ‘gettin all territorial.”

“Yeah, no shit. But, I mean- it’s not like we’re fucking in the porta potties. Y/N and I are friends!” Johnny knew how you felt about him, and he especially knew how he felt about you since this whole ordeal started, but it really didn’t sound good to say it out loud like that . “Oh Cmon, they’re totally into you!” Chris, always positive, mentioned, “I mean, who wouldn’t be? I’d fuck you in the porta potty!” Chucking, Johnny sheepishly nodded, “Well, thank you, Pontius- that’s real sweet.” Ashing his cig into a dented, empty beer can, Steve sighed, “You know, if it was me, and Y/N told me they were sick of Bam’s gherkin pickle dick…I mean, I’d hit that.”

Whenever you were on set, you were usually designated as the in house nurse because you were the only one trusted to not try to get drunk from rubbing alcohol. It wasn’t like you really minded it either, but it could get a little awkward whenever any pants needed to be dropped. This was one of those situations.

Grimacing, you stared at Bam’s ass, unsure about how to approach it. The raised lines of dick shaped burn stood out from the angry pink skin of his butt, heat still radiating off of it onto the back of your hand. He groaned, bent over a folding table as you examined him, almost scared to touch it. “I- I don’t even know what to do with this…”

“Just disinfect the thi- agh! Bitch!” He groaned as you poured alcohol on the wound. His head hit the table as you wound up a pad of gauze, pressing it against his burn. Bam’s belt buckle clinked as he stood up, pulling up his black boxers and turning to face you, his pants still undone. There was an air of tension as he leaned back against the table.

“I’ve seen you eyeing Knoxville.” Annunciating every word nice and slow, he stared up at you with a look you only see in Kubrick films. “…What?” You were thrown off, especially after what you had just done for him. I mean, who confronts you after you just bandaged their ass? He grinned mockingly, “Don’t think I don’t see you. I’m not blind, Y/N.” He leaned toward you, his lips almost touching yours as he made eye contact that could kill, “Knock it off.”

Of course, Johnny would hear about this. You’d stopped talking to Bam about how you felt a while ago. Johnny seemed to listen to you better than Bam ever did, and that kinda made you feel sick. Sure, you weren’t screwing, but what you were doing was arguably worse. Of course, it wasn't like he was your therapist- he’d recommend you Johnny Cash songs and you’d tell him ideas you had for cool stunts, but whatever it was you had, it was definitely genuine.

So Johnny came up to him on set like he would any other time he had something to ask him, “Hey, Bam. You gotta sec?” He said nothing. Johnny continued, “I heard about that thing with Y/N earlier.” This got his attention. Bam turned around to him swiftly, “What?” In comparison to him, Johnny seemed totally collected, taking a step back as Bam jutted a finger in his direction, “Did they say anything to you?”

“I just mean-“ He wasn’t having any of this, “You know what? You need to stay the fuck away from them.” He squared off, like a wolf defending his territory, “If you care so damn much, why don’t you just date’em already? Clearly you don’t give a shit they’re mine.” And just like that, he stormed off. Of course, Bam was usually pissy, but he wasn’t usually this pissy- but who could blame him?

The bar top was sticky as you leaned your forearms against it, sighing. Your boyfriend invited you to come out with him, and since the moment you stepped through the door, he hadn’t said a word to you. He’d spent the whole night laughing and chatting with his buddies like you weren’t even there. A fire burnt in your stomach, nauseating you as you chased it with your beer. You seethed quietly, staring daggers into the back of his head.

“Bam.” Trying your best to sound polite, you vied for his attention. He paid you no mind, so you spoke up a little louder to be heard over the commotion of the bar, “Bam!” Oh, now he was ignoring you. The rage inside you bubbled, the kind that made your head buzz. Getting even louder, you nearly yelled, “Bam!!”

“What?!” He whipped his head around like he had any right to be mad. “Are you serious? You are such an asshole!” As you stood up from your stool, Bam shot you a look like you were crazy, “Me, an asshole? What the fuck!” The yellowing lights of the bar made his eyes even greener as he glared at you, standing over him. “You know what? I- I can't believe you! Three hours- three fucking hours and I don’t hear a word from you!” At this point, all of his buddies had gone silent, as did a good chunk of the bar. Bam pinched the space between his eyebrows, sighing, “God- do you ever stop complaining?” Fuming, you threw your hands up exhausted, shaking your head. Standing up, Bam got about an inch from your face with a snarl.

He was so close you could feel his breath hot on your face as he spat his words, “If I wanted you’t mouth off at me, I would’ve just jiggled my zipper.” Staring into his irate gaze, you couldn’t see what you ever saw in him. He was a manchild.

And that’s what led you to lean against the rough brick in the alley next to the bar, your face burning in the cold night air. Sticking a cigarette between your teeth, the flame of your lighter shivered violently, making any attempts to light it futile. You felt the heat from inside caress your skin as the door opened, a tall figure standing next to you. He spoke in a familiar, sweet accent as he held out his hand to you, “Lemme get that.”

Cupping his hand around the flame, Johnny leaned down close to you as he flicked it, amber light cascading onto his wide palms. Your eyes flitted up to him as you took a drag, pulling away. “Didn’t think I’d see you out here, Knoxville.” He chuckled, leaning back against the wall next to you, “What? Is it cause I’m asthmatic?” You took a drawl. “Yeah. Sure.”

He sighed, looking away from you as he pulled out a napkin from his pocket and passed it to you. It was crumpled, but as you unfolded it, you noticed that the blue ink scrawled on it was still wet and half smeary. “What is this- your number?” You squinted, trying to read it under the dim light of a half burnt out street lamp.

Glancing up at him, you saw Johnny with a genuine expression of concern, his eyebrows slightly furrowed. He noticed your wide eyes and covered up his worry with a wry, infectious grin. “I- I mean, he’s an asshole but that’s excessive- even for him.” Smiling at him, you shoved it in your pocket. “Thanks.”

Johnny was so charismatic that his personality walked in the room half a second before he did, or in this case, up to the craft services table. He stuffed the last half of a granola bar in his face, finishing his story about his trip to the bar a few nights ago, “So, after I changed my pants, I go back to the bar, and Jeff does it again- pisses down the other leg! At that point, I just kinda gave up.” You raised an eyebrow, eyeing his dickies, “So that’s why you smell like that?” Snickering, he rationalized, “I mean- if I change ‘em again, I figure he’s just gonna do it on set!”

Fanning yourself with your hand, you felt a bead of sweat roll between your shoulder blades as you laughed, the heat of filming in Louisiana all too familiar. Johnny tossed his jacket over his shoulder, wiping his brow with the back of his hand, “If it ain’t 90 in the shade..” Your eyes wandered over to him. The sun shone off of his tan, glistening skin like a tall boy can with condensation, his muscles flexing. You never noticed before, but the shirt he was wearing really showed off how defined his arms were. God, you really had to like him to find him hot with another man’s piss on his pants.

About a hundred feet away, Bam leaned against a trailer with a bitter look on his face. “Dude! They’re totally eye-fucking him.” Ryan rolled his eyes, taking a sip of his beer while he continued ranting, “Like, seriously? Can you be any less obvious?” He looked at you with bile on his tongue, watching. Watching how you giggled when he made a joke, how Johnny smiled when he noticed you staring- god, he was probably saying something like, “y’see somethin’ nice, doll?” That hick asshole. “Dude. You have got to chill out.” Breaking the silence, Ryan almost sounded earnest, “They’re just friends. You are being paranoid.” Bam sputtered, “Dude! Back me up here!” He earned a shrug.

Bam had trouble keeping his clothes on, especially when you were around. This was no different. Discarding his shirt in the grass, his pants sat dangerously low on his pale hips, showing off your favorite tattoo of his as he walked over to you. He stood an inch closer to you than Johnny did, which was already pretty close, feigning coolness. “Hey, what’s up?” There was some underlying anger in the way his torso was held tensed, the way his jaw was clenched hard enough to crack geodes- it unnerved you. You shrank a little, “Nothin.”

Leaning past you, Johnny looked down at him, “What’s got’cha so hot, Bam?” It was a subtle gesture, but powerful. Bam scoffed, “Whaddya’ mean? Its hot as fuckin shit out here.” Johnny put a wide palm on your shoulder as he took a step towards Bam, standing in front of you. “I mean,” His dark, emotionless eyes looked over the silver rims of his glasses as he spoke softly, “What’s gotcha’ so pissy?” Your boyfriend stared up at him, his gaze beady and full of rage.

And in a flash, he was on him. A flurry of white, limp wristed punches and broad fisted thwacks as the two men clashed. Starting on their feet, they ended up on the ground after Johnny got Bam under the arms in a mock wrestling hold. “LA pussy!” “Philly-trash bitch!” It was like a dogfight- gnashing wet teeth, choked out obscenities- you could’ve sworn you saw Bam with raised hackles. You just stared at the action in front of you, jaw on the floor.

And as soon as it started, Jeff swooped in, grabbing Bam by the hair as he straddled Johnny and yanking him to his feet. Blinded by rage, he swung at nobody in particular as he was getting hauled off set, held a good arm’s length away like a rabid animal. You would’ve thought he was one too, with the foamy mixture of spit, blood, and sweat that dripped down his chest and the crazed look in his wide eyes as he stared back at you. The emotion behind them was indiscernible- anger, desperation, desire- just a slurry of hormones.

Glancing down at Johnny, you watched him as he wiped the cut on his lip with his thumb, blinking hard. His hair was tousled, slick with sweat that dripped down his face, making the little cuts where Bam’s tattooed knuckles hit him sting. Sitting up, he gingerly removed his glasses that were shattered against his face. “Holy shit…” You almost shook a little as he stared at you, unphased by it.

His breath was heavy as he got to his feet, looking down at you. Everything was kinda still for a moment before he snickered, “Dude. He totally got a hard on.”

[midnight--capricorn]

ok so this is the other jjba swap au (there are 3 of them, this one just actually has designs for everyone I want to swap now- not sure if I'll actually swap faye and trish but if I do I will also add her here too)

it feels weird still putting alm in a sweater these guys are now part of the italian mafia. in italy. which I'm pretty sure is hot. Especially in Naples because Naples is closer to the Mediterranean than the Alps

currently not sure if I want this to basically just follow the plot of golden wind from the start (so everyone already comes equipped with a stand) or if I want them to basically just be switcheroo'd into a new universe and have to struggle. They don't even speak Italian. They don't even have the invisible mostly-punchy creatures. I don't know which route I want to take.

Anyway to list who is swapped with who: Giorno- Alm Bruno- Lukas Abbacchio- Python (sorry forsyth if I go for that second option you're now stuck with the italian mafia and they're probably about 10 times worse than any deliverance member on the scale of violence.) Narancia- Tobin Fugo- Kliff Mista- Gray

[asteria7fics]

Can we have some of your personal style headcanons?

Why yes, dear anon, you absolutely can!

I'll only share SFW ones here, but if you're interested in NSFW ones please let me know d(･∀･○)

This also contains some mild spoilers for the fic I'm currently working on - NOT The Song of Broflovski. If you'd rather go into that totally blind, then maybe skip this answer. Otherwise, read on!

Alright, so let's start from the beginning. I personally write Kyle as figuring out his feelings first, while Stan acts on them first. Neither one is stoked on the idea of coming out (Stan for Randy-trauma related reasons, Kyle for Cartman-trauma related ones) so they don't publicly come out/start actually dating until late high school when they know they're about to skip town and move away to college.

That doesn't stop them from messing around of course, but I'll save that info for a NSFW drop. (¬‿¬)

I also really like the idea of their relationship not changing massively even after they've become an official couple. They still fight, they still do a lot of the same activities together, and they never really adopt any pet names outside of still calling one another 'dude' all the damn time. Just two straight dudes in love, honestly.

Kyle is Stan's #1 defender, and will go to war with douchebags in the comments of Stan's social media posts (hard headcanon him as still being a musician/leaning really hard into his passion for music. Crimson Dawn is definitely still a thing in the Asteriaverse). You dare to talk shit about Stanley Marsh on the internet?? In front of God and everyone?? Baby you're getting doxed. Bye.

He also just unironically loves the music Stan makes, with Crimson Dawn and otherwise. Like, shitty phone recording from a performance as his ringtone kinda love. I think Kyle would have pretty eclectic music taste in general, but I like the idea of them bonding over the kind of stuff Stan would want to make.

I like to think Stan is more of a bad/freeing influence on Kyle. My Kyle has a little bit of a stick up his ass, especially as he gets older and there's more pressure on him to excel in school. Stan really becomes the person that wraps him up in a blanket after a long day of studying, passes him a drink and puts on Monty Python so they both can just relax and have fun together.

And they're absolutely the guys at the party standing in the corner by the drinks, cracking jokes to one another while they watch everyone else make complete asses of themselves. Just in their own little world, until they get properly drunk and end up making out in a bathroom or some shit. Just messy bitches.

They simultaneously communicate extremely well and absolutely horribly. They have the kind of connection where one look says it all, but when it comes down to deeper issues and arguments they're both trash at communicating their feelings. Kyle gets too heated and just starts RANTING while Stan can barely articulate a singular feeling. Eventually Stan figures out that he kinda just has to let Kyle get his shit off his chest and eventually he'll calm down enough to help Stan sort out his feelings too, but those first couple years? Rough haha no smooth sailing for my boys I'm afraid.

Alright, I'm gonna stop here because I could probably sit here and talk about these losers all day. These are pretty surface level, both because I don't want to spoil too much and because I'm always forming new headcanons for them! Really specific ones usually come to me in the moment while I'm writing, so I'll definitely come up with more before this next project is finished!

Thank you very much for the ask!! ( ´⌣`ʃƪ)

[glass-needles-and-futurisms]

I keep thinking back to Muse playing Survival at the closing ceremonies of the 2012 London Olympics, and I keep saying that one of these days I'm just gonna spew all my feelings about how it's not just one of my all-time favorite Muse moments, but also a hilarious, if perhaps unintentional, moment of social commentary.

I still remember our postgrad professor showing those same closing ceremonies in class, explaining the not-so-subtle propagandistic purpose the entire spectacle served on the global stage. (For those who don't know, the 2012 Olympics closing ceremonies were essentially a three-hour star-studded tribute to UK music and pop culture.)

Picture this: you just sat through about two hours of the UK's various national exports - One Direction, the Spice Girls, the Pet Shop Boys, George Michael, Ed Sheeran, Annie Lennox, erm, Russell Brand. You've just seen live performances of Bohemian Rhapsody, Imagine, Wonderwall, and Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, alongside tributes to David Bowie and Freddie Mercury. And you still have Queen, Take That and The Who to go after this.

Interestingly, that class glossed over what an afterthought the Muse performance felt like by comparison. You could argue a lot of extenuating circumstances: the controversial reception of Survival as the official London Olympics theme song, the infamous NBC debacle where it inadvertently got cut from the US broadcast of the ceremonies, or the simple fact that this far into the festivities, a fairly straightforward stage performance* by a band with slightly less name recognition than Coldplay was pretty underwhelming.

* Not sure if this is common knowledge, but apparently this performance was mostly playback with the exception of Matt's vocals. Which also makes this an underappreciated entry in the annals of Muse miming shenanigans.

But something becomes very apparent once you actually reach this part of the show: Survival is fucking bananas. I'll never forget that one internet commenter calling it the world's most epic villain song that doesn't know it's a villain song. I mean, just look at the lyrics:

Life's a race / and I am gonna win

And I'll light the fuse / and I'll never lose

And I choose to survive / whatever it takes

You won't pull ahead / I'll keep up the pace

And I'll reveal my strength / to the whole human race

This is how the song starts! You can sort of see the logic behind making it the Olympics theme song. And then it gets weirder from there:

Yes, I am prepared / to stay alive

I won't forgive / the vengeance is mine

And I won't give in / because I choose to thrive

Yeah, I'm gonna wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin

Good grief. No wonder it's called "Survival". The song makes slightly more sense in the thematic context of The 2nd Law, the album it was released on. But on its own it's just.... yeah.

And this performance ramps up the insanity even more by just taking the piss. Between Matt Bellamy peacocking in a sparkly suit and Union Jack t-shirt, the batshit guitar solo, the pyro, the backing choir, and the fact that everything onstage (including the grand piano) is pretty much just for show (and wobbling like mad), Survival feels cheesy and irreverent in a way that makes you suddenly hyper-conscious of how tightly orchestrated everything else you just saw (including the Monty Python and Mr. Bean stuff) was. Remember that this was all broadcast to an international audience of millions.

Pairing the sheer pageantry of the ceremonies thus far with the actual lyrics of Survival kinda puts everything in an uncomfortable new light. Then it dawns on you that you pretty much just watched an accidental three-hour love letter to British imperialism. (Okay maybe that's overselling it a bit but it's still pretty funny.)

[thessalian]

Thess vs Corporate Amnesia

I check Facebook for, like, three people who haven't got into this Hellsite (affectionate). I mean, obviously it shows me more "Things We Think You'll Like" than my actual friends, but I knew what I was sticking with.

Anyway, one of those "Things We Think You'll Like" was this one vid probably stolen from TikTok (because if it's on Facebook, it's generally stolen from either TikTok, Twitter, or right here on Tumblr), along the lines of, "No one under the age of 70 knows all these songs". And the songs originally came out in, like, approximately the 60s with some overlap? And a lot of them were used in the soundtracks for movies in the 80s and 90s. It said that no one under the age of 70 knew them all. I am not even 50 yet and I could sing along with each and every one of them. I mean, it was like "Pretty Woman" and "My Girl" and stuff like that.

Then I thought back to a whole bunch of videos I got recommended on YouTube because I like reaction videos that largely involve people in their 20s and 30s getting their minds absolutely blown by their first hearing of, say, Queen. I mean, a couple were, "Wait, Queen did that?!?" about stuff like "We Will Rock You" and "We Are The Champions", but none of them had ever heard Bohemian Rhapsody.

So I'm looking at the dichotomy between the experience of, like, me knowing music from well before my time and kids not knowing music from 30-ish years ago and thinking ... this has to be deliberate. And I'm thinking that a lot of it has to be about the ongoing death of physical musical media. Which I say that way because I have been around since vinyl and 8-tracks were a thing and all I used my little Fisher-Price cassette player for was audiobooks.

(No, I'm serious - when I was seven, I had a very small vinyl collection that involved Muppets Greatest Hits, songs from a Quebecois kids' show called Passe-Partout, Men At Work's Business As Usual, and a single of Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It". And books like Watership Down on tape. I was weird, okay? ...That has not changed much, but anyway.)

...Okay, thinking about it, I guess that's half of it. Like, it's harder to get into your parents' music collection when it's not physical media that you can look at and get curious about. I know I was into my mother's records before I can even really remember - everything from Black Sabbath to Suzanne Vega to her Monty Python's Greatest Hits album and everything in between. But parents cannot possibly be encouraging their kids to try their playlists either. And the radio's generally no help because unless you're on an "oldies" station, you're not getting anything that's more than maybe a year or two old at best. And that's assuming anyone listens to the radio instead of switching on their Spotify playlist.

(Or they're like my stepfather who keeps the digital radio in their car tuned to the BBC World Service.)

I'm grateful that there are still kids and young adults curious enough to go out on YouTube and find something interesting. Watching a twenty-something rapper and rap enthusiast losing his godsdamned mind at Metallica's Master of Puppets, or two kids in their maybe early twenties watching Queen's Live Aid concert and being entirely mind-blown by it, gives me life. But it feels like it should happen more often. Like, let your kids listen to your playlist. Hell, encourage them to do it. Don't be pushy; just be like, "Hey, here's what I listen to - give it a try, and if you don't like it, you don't like it".

I figure everything is someone's classic. We just need to make it easier for people to find theirs. But ... I mean, come on. Capitalism keeps trying to turn the art form that is music into just another consumable commodity, same way they do with TV, movies, video games. It's in their interests to have people forget the old because maybe we won't buy The New if we feel that The Old is serving our needs ... or because we're comparing The Old to The New and seeing how much their attempts at homogenising it for the biggest mass market appeal diminishes the art form.

Not to throw shade at those who enjoy current music, by the way. That shit's been happening since boy bands and girl bands were being focus-grouped into existence. Just not having Mum's Record Collection to dig into when you're bored after school kind of limits people's options, even as things like Spotify give the illusion of choice. For instance, my Liked music is full of bands from my childhood and early teens, and older stuff that I really enjoy. It gives me The Doors more often than you'd think when I put my Liked songs on shuffle. And yet my "Music Chosen For You" lists never include anything that's more than five years old. Why can't it recommend some gods-damned Rolling Stones?