#and it needs more attention

[some-stars]

also im halfway thru another rec post and it’s going great 😊 theme is poolverine hidden gems (or in some cases fics that do have a lot of comments but i never see anyone TALKING about them) and let me tell you there are some GEMS in there

also i find it very fun and adorable that this fandom is 16 weeks old and there’s already a literary canon. like we have the Big Three (Void, Where Soul Meets Body, Come Hell or High Water) that just, EVERYONE has read and loves and recs. as they should bc all those stories are extremely fucking good! but the group consensus is a cool emergent phenomenon and i wish i had the brain and energy to Analyze it.

anyway rec list that does not include any of those three incoming soon, probably! after this one the next theme is gonna be either cablepool or the best honda odyssey fics, bc the first 2 weeks after the movie came out there were SO many shockingly good ones that are now buried at the bottom of the tag.

[stimmingandstruggling]

more good news from tiktok: they’ve started blocking celebrities.

they’re calling it block party 2024. just blocking and ignoring countless celebrities who havent said shit about palestine. influencers, actors, anyone who went to the met gala, whatever, they’re getting blocked. and people keep talking about how cathartic it is, how good it feels, how they never realized they could DO that. there was some kind of subconscious law against blocking famous people, but it’s broken, and people are LOVING it. and it’s WORKING. a social media/digital advertising coordinator was talking about how ad companies are PANICKING, because they can’t accurately target anymore. so many big influencers, including fucking LIZZO started talking about palestine the MOMENT their follower counts started going down. and the best part? no one is forgiving them. lizzo posted a tiktok asking people to donate to palestinian families, and all the comments just said you’re a multimillionaire. put your money where your mouth is. blocked.

i feel like i’m witnessing the downfall of celebrity culture, right here right now. people are waking up.

[radiaurapple]

Lucifer animals appreciation post

[folyxfanart]

[drrav3nb]

AYO EDEBIRI as Sydney Adamu WILL POULTER as Luca THE BEAR SEASON 3 | Episode 10 - Forever

[cherubheartz]

ponyposting time

[acesluvrxx]

NO ONE TALKS ABOUT HIM.

ughh him at 40 is so MMMFHGGFHUJVKUVIFHKDJDSLK the way we're growing old together :3 WE DO IT EVEN WHEN HIS BUSH HAIRS TURN GRAY or idk maybe i really REALLY like him with stubble BUT?? HES HOT WITH STUBBLE LIKE IM SNIFFING THE SCREEN SO HARD UGHH I CAN SMELL HIS MERA MERA

[bixels]

Learning that fans hated Applejack and called her "boring" is crazyyy to me because I genuinely, unironically believe AJ's the most complex character in the main six.

Backstory-wise, she was born into a family of famers/blue collar workers who helped found the town she lives in. She grew up a habitual liar until she had the bad habit traumatized outta her. She lost both her parents and was orphaned at a young age, having to step up as her baby sister's mother figure. She's the only person in the main gang who's experienced this level of loss and grief (A Royal Problem reveals that AJ dreams about memories of being held by her parents as a baby). She moved to Manhattan to live with her wealthy family members, only to realize she'll never fit in or be accepted, even amongst her own family. The earlier seasons imply she and her family had money problems too (In The Ticket Master, AJ wants to go to the gala to earn money to buy new farm equipment and afford hip surgery for her grandma).

Personality-wise, she's a total people-pleaser/steamroller (with an occasional savior complex) who places her self worth on her independence and usefulness for other people, causing her to become a complete workaholic. In Applebuck Season, AJ stops taking care of herself because of her obsessive responsibilities for others and becomes completely dysfunctional. In Apple Family Reunion, AJ has a tearful breakdown because in she thinks she dishonored her family and tarnished her reputation as a potential leader –– an expectation and anxiety that's directly tied to her deceased parents, as shown in the episode's ending scene. In The Last Roundup, AJ abandons her family and friends out of shame because believes she failed them by not earning 1st place in a rodeo competition. She completely spirals emotionally when she isn't able to fulfill her duties toward others. Her need to be the best manifests in intense pride and competitiveness when others challenge her. And when her pride's broken, she cowers and physically hides herself.

Moreover, it's strongly implied that AJ has a deep-seated anger. The comics explore her ranting outbursts more. EQG also obviously has AJ yelling at and insulting Rarity in a jealous fit just to hurt her feelings (with a line that I could write a whole dissection on). And I'm certain I read in a post somewhere that in a Gameloft event, AJ's negative traits are listed as anger.

Subtextually, a lot of these flaws and anxieties can be (retroactively) linked to her parents' death, forcing her to grow up too quickly to become the adult/caregiver of the family (especially after her big brother becomes semiverbal). Notice how throughout the series, she's constantly acting as the "mom friend" of the group (despite everything, she manages to be the most emotionally mature of the bunch). Notice how AJ'll switch to a quieter, calmer tone when her friends are panicking and use soothing prompts and questions to talk them through their emotions/problems; something she'd definitely pick up while raising a child. Same with her stoicism and reluctance at crying or releasing emotions (something Pinkie explicitly points out). She also had a childhood relationship with Rara (which, if you were to give a queer reading, could easy be interpreted as her first 'aha' crush), who eventually left her life. (Interestingly enough, AJ also has an angry outburst with Rara for the same exact reasons as with EQG Rarity; jealous, upset that someone else is using and changing her). It's not hard to imagine an AJ with separation anxiety stemming from her mother and childhood friend/crush leaving. I'm also not above reading into AJ's relationship with her little sister (Y'all ever think about how AB never got to know her parents, even though she shares her father's colors and her mother's curly hair?).

AJ's stubbornness is a symptom of growing up too quickly as well. Who else to play with your baby sister when your brother goes nonverbal (not to discount Big Mac's role in raising AB)? Who else to wake up in the middle of the night to care for your crying baby sister when your grandma needs her rest? When you need to be 100% all the time for your family, you tend to become hard-stuck with a sense of moral superiority. You know what's best because you have to be your best because if you're aren't your best, then everything'll inevitably fall apart and it'll be your fault. And if you don't know what's best –– if you've been wrong the whole time –– that means you haven't been your best, which means you've failed the people who rely on you, which means you can't fulfill your role in the family/society, which makes you worthless . We've seen time and time again how this compulsive need to be right for the sake of others becomes self-destructive (Apple Family Reunion, Sound of Silence, all competitions against RD). We've seen in The Last Roundup how, when no longer at her best, AJ would rather remove herself from her community than confront them because she no longer feels of use to them.

But I guess it is kinda weird that AJ has "masculine" traits and isn't interested in men at all. It's totally justified that an aggressively straight, misogynistic male fandom would characterize her as a "boring background character." /s

At the time of writing this, it's 4:46AM.

[keymintt]

got an impulse to animate a little

[seiishindraws]

forgot to put these for pokemon day oops!

me and (one of) my faves :D

[inkedinserendipity]

just finished re-reading all systems red and the way martha wells' narration directly tracks murderbot's thoughts is, like, diabolical in retrospect.

because on my first read-through, i'll be honest. i did not remember the presaux crew at all. pin-lee and gurathin show up in exit strategy and i, remembering nothing about those two except ":D! presaux friends!" expected them to be like "omg hey murderbot!" because i figured the presaux crew would be excited to see their secunit again. i did not remember pin-lee's temper or gurathin's skepticism. because the presaux crew kinda blurred together for me in the first book. because that's how murderbot saw them too!

all systems red has the most en media res of all en media res beginnings. not just because it starts in the middle of an action sequence, but because it also starts in the middle of an emotional sequence. the survey has been happening, for, what - a couple of weeks? - by the time asr starts. murderbot has already met the crew. they have already formed impressions of it. but, crucially, it has formed almost no opinions of them*.

it's been watching media and half-assing its job. and at this point in murderbot's journey, and therefore its internal narration that forms the text, a human is a human is a human. it is not invested in their work, so we don't hear about the start of their survey. it literally starts paying attention to them when they are in danger and when they start to realize that it is a person, because that is when murderbot has to start paying attention.

and this is why i remembered almost nothing distinct about the presaux crew. there are a lot of crew members, but murderbot spends very little time thinking about them as individuals. so the narration tends to skim over their distinct personalities, because murderbot doesn't really consider them* at all!

and then of course we come to exit strategy and network effect, and the contrast could not be more clear. now it's got opinions about everyone, and because it has a better grasp on their personalities, the narrative does too. oh yes that's arada, wibbly bulwark, the human murderbot trusts to not be overconfident and ignore its advice. that's gurathin. it doesn't like gurathin. that's pin-lee, the combatunit of lawyers, well-dressed and sharp-tongued. and of course, that's ratthi (tag: bestie!!), who stays in the car because he will get himself killed by something.

and of course, there's dr mensah. but she was always an exception.

*dr mensah is, as she always is when it comes to murderbot, an exception to this generalization. that's tag: intrepid explorer like blorbo from my shows! that you're talking about. even when murderbot mostly tried to avoid humans at all costs, even murderbot paid attention to her. from asr to now, that has been and remains perfectly true.

[i2rizz]

Ngl im CRAVING dante content from the netflix adaptation and its not even funny anymore...

Trust im boutta BUST

Steamin Hot!

The door shut with a familiar thunk—heavy, careless, like the man himself. You didn’t even flinch.

You’d grown used to it: the clink of his weapons, the way he dropped his coat on your chair like it wasn’t your favorite, how his boots always left demon gunk on the rug you’d begged him not to ruin.

And still, your stomach fluttered.

He was already halfway to the bathroom, shirt hanging from his shoulder, the slice of pizza you’d made him take on the way up still dangling from his mouth like an afterthought.

"Long day?" you asked without looking up from your spot on the couch, cross-legged and wrapped in one of his shirts—oversized, a little torn, and still warm from the dryer.

Dante grunted. "Demons don’t take weekends. Apparently" He bit the slice, chewed, and finally turned to look at you. "You wearing my shirt again?"

You smirked, flipping the page of your book. "You left it here. Possession’s nine-tenths of the law"

"Is that so?" he muttered, already tugging off his belt. "Guess I should start leaving more stuff around, then"

You didn’t look—but you felt it. The weight of his stare. That flicker of something heavier behind the teasing. He was tired. You could see it in the way his shoulders slumped just before he disappeared into the bathroom, muttering something about "needing to boil off the stink"

The sound of the shower filled the apartment a moment later—hot, hissing steam bleeding into the hallway like smoke curling off a cigarette. You let out a slow breath and stared at your book without reading.

Five minutes passed. Ten.

You heard the water stop.

He didn’t come out right away.

Eventually, the door cracked open.

You didn’t look at first. You were trying to be normal. Chill. Unbothered.

But then you caught the sound of his bare feet padding across your wooden floor—and the scent hit you. Clean skin. Soap. A little sweat, still. All him.

He appeared beside the couch like a ghost: towel low on his hips, hair wet and slicked back except for the few silver strands that clung rebelliously to his forehead. Drops of water rolled down the carved lines of his torso, trailing down into the soft dip of his abs. His necklace—the one he never took off—glinted against his chest.

"Shower’s all yours" he said lazily.

You finally looked up, slowly, your eyes trailing from his face to the rest of him with zero shame. "Did you even dry off or did you just steamroll out to flex?"

He smirked, one corner of his mouth tugging up. "Can’t help it if you’re the one staring, sweetheart"

You tossed a pillow at him. He caught it effortlessly, didn’t even flinch.

"Cocky bastard"

"Your cocky bastard" he said, dropping the pillow and then—uninvited—dropping himself onto the couch next to you, his skin still warm and damp. "Unless that changed while I was gone"

You rolled your eyes, but didn’t move. His thigh pressed against yours. You could feel every heartbeat in that contact.

"I don’t know," you murmured, "depends. You planning on stealing all my hot water every time you crash here?"

He leaned in, slow, so close his breath brushed your cheek. "Maybe"

You swallowed. Your brain short-circuited for a second.

Dante noticed.

His grin deepened, but he didn’t pull away. Instead, he reached behind you—his arm brushing your back—and grabbed a piece of cold pizza from the coffee table, taking a bite with zero shame.

"I hate you" you said softly.

"No, you don’t"

"No, I don’t" you agreed, even softer.

He leaned back, stretching with a low groan, his head tipping back against the cushion. The tension in his body—always there, even when he laughed—slowly melted out of him. His chest reflecting the light. His jaw relaxed.

You tilted your head, watching him.

He looked… younger like this. Almost soft.

"You okay?" you asked, nudging his knee with yours.

He cracked one eye open. "Took a demon’s blade through the ribs. You tell me"

You frowned instantly. "Dante—"

"Relax" he said, waving you off, but his hand found your thigh, grounding himself. "Didn’t hit anything vital. You’d be crying over my corpse if it did"

"I wouldn’t cry"

He looked over at you, serious for a flicker of a second. "Yeah, you would"

That shut you up. His hand stayed on your thigh.

You leaned into him, shoulder to bare chest. He didn’t move away.

Minutes passed like that. Just the two of you, half-dressed and quiet in your cluttered little apartment. The night hummed around you. Steam still curled in the hallway. The city beyond your window was loud and filthy and alive.

You turned your head slightly. "Hey"

He looked down.

You pressed your lips to his—quick, soft, but enough to remind him.

I’m here. You’re not alone.

When you pulled back, Dante blinked once.

Then he leaned in and kissed you again—slower. Thicker with something unspoken. His hand gripped your thigh tighter.

"You’re damn dangerous" he murmured against your lips.

You smirked. “hilarious coming from you"

[lucyllawless]

KATHRYN HAHN as Dessa in "I Know This Much is True"

[straight-into-the-animus]

cheer up matt murdock you've still got a fat ass and they elected an american pope things are looking up for you

[yellow-kudzu]

This guy fucks hard I know it

[ravenpureforever]

On one hand, Young Justice is kind of neglected by the actual superheroes that should be looking out for them in a lot of crucial ways and very much failed by the adults around them

But on the other hand Red Tornado straight up hosts a parent-teacher conference where their respective legal guardians all show up, barring Batman who’s in traffic so Nightwing fills in instead because Robin’s dad does not know he’s a vigilante which is objectively hilarious