#anyway does anyone have any recommendations?

[sewerfight]

feel like the last few years I've really honed my "I've got something cooking" smile. Great tip for being social enough is having a vague grin like you've got something really good in the back of your personality that you're not gonna give away to any old chump. and it can't be any conceivable favor, or your virginity. it has to be something else. Now a constant winsome smile always runs the risk of making you look very stupid- but it does wonders long-term even with that occasional side affect. especially if you pair it with always hinting at shit. boxing around subjects. subtly implying. swinging on the back of your heels and whistling with exaggerated contentment. even if it's over absolutely nothing. you can get yourself into a Lot of fucking events/opportunities this way. half of the time you don't even have to lie or cheat or beg to get what you want, you just have to act like you are perfectly happy without it, and anyway, you had some secret you weren't going to spill to anyone, that you treasured a thousand times more than the objective. the easiest way to gain the "I've got something cooking" smile is by being in love or by thinking about a crazy fucking book you've been reading. for those of us who find the first prospect daunting, I recommend picking up house of leaves. you'll get that odd, faraway curve to your mouth about two hundred pages in. For me currently it is cycles of insomnia that no longer make me aware of my facial expressions, and probably the Count of Monte Cristo, but it can be anything if you're willing to apply yourself and practice

[bambi-kinos]

loved ur recent post on paul whump !! besides the linked one(which I've never read so thanks!) do you have👀👀 any recommendations👀👀👀👀

tl;dr - it's slim pickins out there.

First let's bring back an old differentiation: there's physical whump and then emotional whump, and that was an important distinction back in the day. I have looked for both and while there are some good emotional whump pieces, there is no readable physical whump besides the su!c!d3 fic. Physical whump is more of an action movie thing and in general Beatles fandom is not terribly interested in action and adventure so they don't write it. And the thing is, that's fine, that's a valid choice that anyone can make and we should write about the things we enjoy and not what we think others expect. But it also means that Paul whump fics basically don't exist in modern fandom as we know it. There are probably some on LJ or in the Google Docs McLennon archive since Stargate and Smallville were so big on LJ at the time and there was more x-fandom pollination but I don't want to Snipe hunt right now.

(For the record, I do have something in the works to fix this hole but it won't come out until next year if we're lucky.)

Emotional whump is more plentiful and there's well written stuff out there for sure. Most of the emotional whump I've enjoyed is centered around John's suffering and while Paul's misery is apparent it's not the focus of those pieces. So this took some digging into my bookmarks and memory. What I like in a good Paul whump fic is how his own arrogance and narcissist tendencies come back to bite him OR he's having to put up with John's shit when John is being horrible.

In that spirit, here are my recommendations for decent emotional whump focused on Paul:

Barcelona - Selena. I enjoy this one because Selena let's Paul be a whole person here. It's not just John and Brian bothering him, it's the fact that he's trapped with someone who reminds him of what he's lacking and how this hurts him, both now and in the past. Parallels to the Barcelona situation are subtle and well drawn so you get all of the agony without being hit over the head with it. John is opaque to Paul who doesn't understand why he's acting like this which is a nice change from what we often see in fanfic where John just blurts out what he's feeling. Here we see how much Paul suffers when John is trying too hard to be clever.

A Hole in the World - RosalindBeatrice. Linda bears witness to the aftermath of John's murder in Paul. Easily the absolute best fanfiction on this list.

Birthday - Selene. Love this one because Selene writes Paul as an actual character instead of the heteronormative girly thing he often gets slapped with. Paul is once again bitter, angry and unhappy because the boy he fell in love with has already disappeared. He is forced to be the adult in a room full of manchildren and he hates it...but he also sucks it up and does it anyway. Because he is Paul McCartney and being the foundation of The Beatles and cleaning up John's messes is exactly what he signed up for and he will do it because no one else can. I think of this one all the time. It lives rent free in my head.

Red Sky - thinkpink20. What I appreciate about thinkpink20 is that she is brave enough to let John be absolutely awful but she also humanizes him so you can see his inner pain and confusion driving that horribleness. This is a nice one where John is no where near to figuring himself out but Paul is, and then when Stuart's living shadow gets into the mix, no one is happy.

From Barcelona To Santa Cruz - thinkpink20. Another post-Spain fic but this time John articulates his defense well which of course humiliates and angers Paul even further because John proves he is human and capable of empathy, which Paul didn't want to write into the equation.

the crane wife - mynamesbetty. Betty was showing me the first drafts of this one and all I could say was: "Paul is a horrible person. He's a fucking homewrecker. He deserves this." That's what I like best about this story. Paul is a selfish asshole and he hurts everyone and himself by being self centered, petulant, and cowardly. Every single awful thing that happens to him is strictly the result of his own actions. He manages to make himself the Coyote in a Looney Tunes cartoon including the bit where he runs straight off the cliff, doesn't realize it, and then looks down just as he starts falling before he shoots the viewer a look asking for help. And then the ACME anvil falls on him.

So those are my recommendations on Paul whump. It ended up being a longer list than I expected so that's something. Hope you enjoy the recommendations and please check out the other fanfics by these authors, they're all great.

[blue-flare10]

Desperately craving for an over confident, full-of-himself character who believes he’s invincible getting knocked down a peg by the antagonist, being reminded that he’s not as indestructible as he had originally believed, and coming to the realization that his hubris might actually get him killed.

[rhys-is-puffs]

Oh folie a deux (2008) we’re really in it now

[coffeeandcalligraphy]

lonan and harrison fanfic where all they do is watch movies & throw popcorn at each other

[softfatboytoy]

Tag ranting again <3

[whattadroid]

This is such a niche thing to complain about but I think I've exhausted the list of books I can read with android/human relationships that aren't just straight up fetish porn and I'm starting to get desperate

[all-hail-trash-prince]

"simplified software" "streamlined" "we've removed everything you won't need" NO actually I WILL need everything because I'm a WHORE for OPTIONS and SETTINGS, give me a MASSIVE fucking sidebar with eighteen buttons that each fold out into ten more selections PLEASE, I don't care if it'll make the learning curve stupidly steep, I NEED THREE HUNDRED DIFFERENT BRUSH OPTIONS AND THE ABILITY TO PUT MY LAYERS INTO UNNECESSARILY NESTED FOLDERS

[reformedmercymain]

officially started my pc journey. immediately lost my first qp game but we won a few team fights against broken heroes so that counts for something, right? 😭😭

Congrats! Welcome to the world of KB/M <3

[zelkam]

oughgh I wanted to get a new tattoo when I come back home for Christmas and even the tattoo artist that I wanted to go to has a spot free when I would be in the city but then my dumb ass remembered that like 3 weeks later I will be in like you-must-wear-spf90 and salt water situation and I guess this would not be the best for fresh tattoos

[wizard-irl]

You know, even despite consuming all this Judaism content YouTube keeps shoving in my face (rightfully so, because I keep consuming it), and despite my fascination with the religion, I have never felt a pull to take from it and add it to my own practice.

What's the pull? What's the pull especially when people say that the Jews stole such-and-such from [insert group] so its not real appropriation?

[vergina-spva]

my concentration today sucksss. I start writing one story, then reading something else, then go to tumblr, then back to the story, then I decide to write something of another story, then go to tumblr, then read somehting again, then write something for the first story again, then google Eustass Kid with piercings (which did not give me a satisfactory result, so if you know of fanart of Kid with piercings, please send me the links to it), then go to tumblr again, etc, etc.

[unidentifiedfuckingthing]

i hate having to like archeological style rediscover the music i like because the records of it are all just YouTube downloads on long lost ipods and by god i am not downloading itunes to my personal computer

[eroraf]

i think that perhaps fanfic and booktok culture have had a negative impact on the way people interact with books

[hyliagirl42]

🦇

(For the "send me an emoji and I'll tell you which oc i associate with it and give you a headcanon" post)

To be honest, the first oc this made me think of was Blake, who I know you know a lot about XD but I'll give you a headcanon anyway!

Ok so like. Blake LOVES pirates. He doesnt have any experience manning a ship or sailing at all or even singing sea shanties but he loves the idea of pirates, who can go wherever they want and do whatever they want and swear as much as they want, and basically he just likes the idea of having that much freedom. He would make a good pirate probably, other than the fact that he would probably go stir crazy if he was confined to one singular ship.

...oh wow i really have become obsessed with pirates lately if this is where my brain immediately went

Anyway though! For a headcanon more related to bats! It probably comes as very little surprise to anyone who has seen my designs for Blake but his demon wings absolutely look like bat wings, and that is on purpose, because I just love the vibes and they fit him so well, especially since bats are fuzzy little critters and you cannot convince me that Blake isnt also a fluffy little bean. But other than that, I also lowkey made dreamworld Blake very similar to Batman, even though I'm only recently getting into that fandom. I love the idea of a slightly overpowered antihero that has way too much money to burn and doesnt hog it like most irl rich people but instead uses it for the sake of helping people, and who is also an overdramatic angst lord who likes wearing capes lol

I dont know if ive talked about that much, actually. Blake has a lot of money. My dream world Ganondorf made this huge company that gathers and distributes information and he hired Blake as like, the person who trains the bodyguards and other warriors who protect said information from physical threats, and as such he naturally gets tons of money from it.

He and Vivi have that much more rivalry between them because of it (Vivi hopes to someday have more information than Ganondorf's company does and also they like the idea of "eat the rich" so this is the main reason they hack into Blake's bank account to pay for any clients that they get that can't pay their prices. Blake doesn't like this at all obviously but, despite the fact he would never admit it, he gets why Vivi does it and thats why he never actually does anything to Vivi for it, he just makes empty threats and waves his scythe around and pretends to be mad)

So yeah anyway Blake is basically Batman but hes a bratty teen demon lord instead of a playboy billionaire that accidentally adopted a bunch of superheroes and I only just now realized this lol. I wouldnt say i have a type but DANG there are certain character tropes that just click with me, huh

[mageofcolors]

debating if i wanna just. spoil myself fkr the rest of the dlc bc i cant get myself to actually play much