#anyways this title was very interesting

[claraoswalds]

#mrs flood who are you: time lord edition

[pink-linoleum]

thousand mile ice plains

[ruvviks]

Following the chilling conclusion of All That's Left's first season, Mac and Layla and their friends find themselves scattered across a divided Los Angeles a year after their successful return to town. Matrix Corp has taken control— "With humanity's best interest in mind"— but with our protagonists' knowledge of Opportunity's destruction and Houston's unexpected fall, they know better than to trust the corporation and its near military-sized security force. Closed district gates separate them from one another and a new threat lurks just outside the city's walls— but resistance is on the rise, and it is only a matter of time before truth comes out. [SEASON ONE HERE]

taglist (opt in/out)

@shellibisshe, @florbelles, @ncytiri, @roseeway, @stars-of-the-heart;

@lestatlioncunt, @katsigian, @radioactiveshitstorm, @estevnys, @adelaidedrubman;

@celticwoman, @rindemption, @carlosoliveiraa, @noirapocalypto, @dickytwister;

@killerspinal, @euryalex, @ri-a-rose, @velocitic, @thedeadthree;

@kanos, @swordcoasts, @ordinarymaine, @claudiawolf, @strafethesesinners

[mrschwartz]

mileskane When @therealnihal asked me how I met Lana and we wrote Dealer x

[incorrectfatui]

Signora: One time I found a google doc on Scaramouche‘s computer with the title "list of parents that locked their newborn child in a domain“ Signora: out of curiousity, I opened the google doc.  Signora: it was completely blank except for the words "my mom".

[knifearo]

who up thinking about moses sumney doomed. "am i vital if my heart is idle? am i doomed?" "if lovelessness is godlessness, will you cast me to the wayside?" moses sumney 2017 album aromanticism save me... moses sumney 2017 album aromanticism... save me moses sumney 2017 album aromanticism...

[grassbreads]

im curious, whats your favorite longfic??

Oh my god anon you are enabling me so hard right now. Are we sure you're not some deep splintered section of my subconscious that split off just for the sake of sending me this ask?

Anyway, my favorite fanfiction is a Homestuck fic by oxfordroulette called Vanitas Vanitatum. This mildly pornographic novel-length fantasy au dirkjohn fic is genuinely, independent of actual Homestuck, one of my all time favorite written stories.

Vanitas Vanitatum is the third fic in a long series, but it's technically a standalone. The first fic in the series is a jadekat fantasy road trip adventure, the second one is about jadekat getting dragged into a bunch of mysterious royal intrigue at Jade's arranged marriage to Eridan, and Vanitas Vanitatum is about the aftermath of that intrigue. John Egbert ascends to the throne of their country after the death of his and Jade's evil mother in the previous fic, and he's totally fine guys! He's definitely absolutely having zero mental health troubles!

Dirk, our pov character, enters as a new member of John's secret police. He slowly befriends his new king/boss and, in doing so, begins to discover the extent to which John is totally definitely okay! He's fine Dirk so you can stop asking! And because he's Dirk Strider, when he discovers how John is struggling, he immediately wants to Fix Him. Enter a twisted mess of genuinely falling in love and horrible shadowy puppet master schemes.

Vanitas Vanitatum is the ultimate "I can fix him" romance. It is an "I can fix him" romance to the extent that Dirk's desire to "fix" John becomes one of the fic's main conflicts—in addition to John's genuine mental health crisis and the political crisis that's happening around them. If you know anything about my taste in fiction, you're probably looking at "dark fantasy story about a guy trying to unravel and understand his crush's mental health problems" and going "okay yeah. I see why Andie is obsessed with this."

If you're a Homestuck fan, even if you're not usually a DirkJohn person, I cannot recommend Vanitas Vanitatum highly enough. It's well-written, it's funny, it's heartwarming, and it's absolutely heartbreaking. The plot is twisty and, especially if you've read the rest of the series, absolutely filled with delicious dramatic irony. The way oxfordroulette writes Dirk's pov is an absolute treat. And while the fic is fairly nsfw (there's only three actual sex scenes if I remember right, but lot of discussion and thinking about sex in the interim), the real porn in this fic is the food and costume porn. The author knows what the people want, and it's decadent food descriptions and crazy fantasy royalty outfits. It's also illustrated!

Honestly, if the fic didn't require an understanding of troll romance quadrants to make any goddamn sense, I'd be recommending it to non Homestuck fans as well. It's just a really good story.

Here's the official summary:

You've determined the hobbies of the monarch you serve are as follows: 1. Ill-timed pranks. 2. Cooking. 3. Subconsciously pulling elaborate political schemes off perfectly, ad infinitum, every one of which inches his mind closer to some ineffable dark chasm you're curious to find the depth of. Anyway, he makes damn good lasagna.

Read it here :)

[skrunksthatwunk]

misguided angel / angel mine for your kuwameshi consideration

[wishesofeternity]

"Antiochos’ and Stratonike’s activities in the eastern part of the [Seleukid] empire are largely shrouded in mystery, but, as Engels has argued, Antiochos was far from idle since he embarked on a large building programme and was active in securing the frontier. There is some evidence to suggest that his new bride accompanied him for much of this period. We can perhaps identify Stratonike’s presence with her new husband in the Upper Satrapies through the gold coinage minted in Susa and Baktria in c . 287. The two gold coin sets are of the same type, the obverse features the laureate head of Apollo facing right and the reverse features Artemis in an elephant biga facing left with the legend ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΣΕΛΕΥΚΟΥ in exergue.

Figure 1: Coin of Seleukos I from Baktria Depicting Apollo on the Obverse and Artemis with Elephant Biga on the Reverse (Houghton and Lorber 2002, SC I no. 163).

Figure 2: Coin of Seleukos I from Baktria Depicting Apollo on the Obverse and Artemis with Elephant Biga on the Reverse (Houghton and Lorber 2002, SC I no. 257).

The reverse image of Artemis in the elephant biga is within the same design type as a large range of other coinage issued by Seleukos I celebrating the success of his elephants and thus his eastern campaigns. The appearance of Artemis is however unique to these coin types. This suggests the emphasis on the close links between the twin gods, Artemis and Apollo, depicted on the obverse and reverse of this coinage . Since there appears to be as a close link between Apollo and Antiochos as there is between Zeus and Seleukos, the presence of Artemis could be seen as a symbol for Stratonike. This would create a series of parallels: Seleukos/Zeus, Antiochos/Apollo, and Stratonike/Artemis. The first two reflect what we see for these two kings at the list of priests of Seleukid kings in Seleukeia in Pieria . Additionally, it may be notable that the sister-wife ideology [...] appears to be evident later in the reign of Antiochos.

As all of the Apollo/Artemis cointypes were produced on high value gold coinage, this suggests that it was issued in order to commemorate a significant event. While the type was similar to other Seleukid coinage, the shift from Athena to Artemis was clearly discernible and unique. The arrival of the new joint-King and Queen in the region to take up residence would have been a suitable moment for the issuing of the new coin type. This advertisement of their new rule certainly falls in line with Seleukos’ wedding speech which confirmed their new roles."

-David Engels & Kyle Erickson, "Apama and Stratonike – Marriage and Legitimacy", "Seleukid Royal Women" (edited by Edited by Altay Coşkun and Alex McAuley). The pictures of the coins are screenshots from the book.

[perexcri]

best friends, ex-friends til the end (better off as lovers and not the other way around) - [byler week 2023 - day 2]

aka the byler/goncharov au i needed so badly i had to write it myself

title from: bang the doldrums by fall out boy

dedicated to: my commitment to the bit

special thanks to: @cherryisgone for providing me some much-needed poetic Italian for everyone’s favorite Scorcese film

tw: mentions of falling out of a window and blood, guns

The Naples skyline burns with light in the encroaching fog of the night. His back to the stones of the tower, Mike heaves several ragged breaths, and he tries not to think about how steep of a fall it would be down to the town square below. He imagines it’d be quick: his bones would snap, his blood would spill, and there’d be his body, an example laid out on the streets of Naples for all to know the folly that is trying to outrun who you once were.

The sting of vodka on the tips of tongues, frigid nights spent maneuvering through the streets of Leningrad in search of their next hit. Being smuggled onto a rusted plane down to the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea, El nestled beneath his arm, just the clothes on their backs and the jewels on her wrists and neck and ears. Nothing makes sense–it hadn’t for a long time–and for so long, he’d been able to stay just ahead of it.

But now, the entropic forces of this chaotic life are clawing at him, gesturing him down to the street to achieve a silent and still end.

He sighs, and the glowing yellows of the skyline blur in his eyes. He can’t tell if it’s from the mist blowing off of the sea or the tears that threaten to break free from the tight hold he put on them long, long ago.

Behind him, the clock ticks and ticks and ticks–

Until its rhythm breaks: in the breaths between each tick, there’s the clicking of shoes on stones.

The gun digs into Mike’s back, right where it rests against his hip, ready to be drawn by his quick, willowy fingers.

“È questo che sono per te, ora? Soltanto qualcuno che non puoi incontrare alla luce del sole?"

“Quit the front,” Mike growls, just loud enough to be heard over the heartbeats of the clock. It had been years since he’d last spoken Russian, and despite the familiarity that will always be afforded to his native tongue, the consonants sound too harsh and aspirated in his mouth, stretched like taffy under years spent in hiding among the Italian elite.

Will scoffs from where he stands in front of the clock, its second hand ticking menacingly behind him, its gears in an endless whirl behind the clock’s face. The hand moves from behind his legs to crowning his head before he bothers to slip into that shared language of theirs that transcends words and physicality, that which fills the spaces of silence between their every pulse and breath. “And why did you want to meet me here?”

Mind spinning with the centrifuge that always comes from standing on the edge–of one’s life, of destiny, or simply the jut of a clocktower’s window–Mike looks upon Will for what feels like the first time in ages, though it had only been a mere day ago when they’d strolled down the city’s streets under the cloak of night, and he’d held an apple out to his old friend’s paint-stained hands, a silent plea for help in a quest Mike knows he’ll never complete. The pressure of years of hiding from his own desires, being on the run from his own troubled past, and being caught in the twisted web of that sickness which has poisoned all of humanity breaks all at once, and it is all too easy to pull the gun from its holster, click the safety off, and point it at the heart of the only person he’s ever truly loved.

For love is a kind of violence, after all.

“Hm,” Will hums with disinterest. He calmly reaches into his pocket, withdraws a cigarette, and sticks it between his teeth. When he pulls out his lighter, it has just enough time to make the end of the cigarette glow before being snuffed out by the ever-ticking hands of the clock.

Mike’s hand shakes in time with it, always falling into that rhythm of life he’s sought so hard to be free from, caught in an endlessly looping maze he sees no escape from.

Tick. Shake.

A thick puff of smoke falls out of Will’s mouth.

Tick. Shake.

Mike grits his teeth together.

Tick. Shake.

Will cocks an eyebrow at him. Well?

It doesn’t take much for Mike to squeeze the trigger: that indelible pressure which has filled his chest for so long has finally found release, and it presses hard against the metal, letting the gun’s ignition do the work of his anger for him. He can almost feel time stretch thin as the trigger clicks down, as the bullet flies from the gun, as it sails through the tight air between them, aiming straight and true–

Will doesn’t bother to flinch as the bullet lodges straight into the second hand of the clock. Its gears whir on, but its other hands tremble and groan with agony, time itself bleeding from the wound.

Mike swallows against what feels like sharp, jagged pieces of glass in his throat. Despite the clock’s faulty motions now, he can still hear that eternally derisive tick in his mind, a permanent reminder of the life he is chained to.

With a great intake of breath, Will pulls the cigarette away from his lips, lush with warmth from the tobacco and drizzled in moonlight. He shakes out the ashes from its end as he lets another mouthful of smoke dissipate into the night air.

“Time is something you can’t stop, Mike,” he says in a harsh, scraping whisper. He tosses the cigarette onto the ground, stubs it out with his heel, and turns away.

For a single moment, his hand clenches at his side, as if there’s something more he wants to do, reining himself in from saying anything more than the cold, empty phrases they’re now left to exchange and fill with this shared language of theirs.

When he finally leaves, Mike’s eyes drift from the cigarette stub, up to the clock and how its gears grind on, even as its hands remain still.

This time, he lets the tears fall.

- - -

Here’s what Will says in Italian (courtesy of Cherry): Is this what I am to you now? Just someone you can't meet in the sunlight?

[moonsidesong]

theyre never gonna make a new tomodachi life but also. um. they should announce a new tomodachi life tomorrow

[ladysansa]

Aemond the Kinslayer

Aemond Targaryen, House of the Dragon, 1x10 // George R.R. Martin, Fire & Blood, The Dying of the Dragons—The Greens & the Blacks, The Dying of the Dragons—A Son for a Son, A Storm of Swords, Catelyn III (Chapter 20)

[dracula-enthusiast]

really trying not to post too much abt it bc it only came out days ago but man. saw x was such a love letter to the franchise. you can feel the care for the overarching story and for the characters that went into it and it really really pays off and its really healing to see a Good saw movie, especially after the three titles before it. i will def be seeing it a third time before it leaves theaters

[menlove]

however i'm doing a lot of reading for this essay that kind of accidentally brought up a lot about zionism. the essay is just looking into the americanization of jewish masculinity, but pretty much every source i've found traces it to zionism, whether the author is pro or anti zionism. there's some very interesting intersections here about "tough" jewish masculinity a response to americanization, eurocentrism, & heterosexuality that both claimed to resist these forces while at the exact same time enfolding them as their own and rebranding as zionism..... anyway. fascinating stuff.

[batsplat]

id be very interested in any post of yours on the vale/jorge dynamic!!! and as a marc fan first human second i think this would also shed more light on how exactly 2015 became what it did… vale is, as we know, very bad at forgetting and extremely bad at forgiving

(this post is now posted) I do still have a few more open-ended asks in my inbox about this rivalry that I'll get to at some point, but I just wanted to quickly have a crack at this one specifically. you can kindaaaa read between the lines of the post I linked to if you want to know where I stand on this issue, but I don't say it explicitly and I might as well actually do that lol. and my stance on 2015 is that the valentino/jorge rivalry... really does not feature all that heavily. absurdly little, given they are the ones having an actual title fight. they retroactively remember to get mad at each other once all the drama has actually happened - and then suddenly you do get their history worm its way through the cracks. like, actually 2016 is way more interesting for their interpersonal relationship than 2015 is!! but 2015 is... well, it's just not that relevant. by valentino standards, you don't even really get the sense he's motivating himself through the power of spite or anything. he literally just wants his tenth - jorge being his title rival is only relevant insofar as that's his teammate

I don't actually think the maxim of valentino being bad at forgetting and forgiving really holds in this specific relationship. I've banged on about this distinction a few times by now, but to me there really is a substantial and noticeable difference between how valentino approaches the marc/sete rivalries and the way biaggi + casey/jorge get treated. the former camp involves rivals valentino was friends with, blokes he was genuinely fond of on an interpersonal level before they really butted heads competitively - and as a result there's a relationship to burn down. as a result, valentino is hurt by what happens. that's the basic precondition valentino needs not to forgive and forget: he needs to feel like a friendship has been betrayed. with jorge, there's none of that! they never had anything remotely like a close relationship with each other; if anything it's a fair bit colder than the casey dynamic is pre-2007. which means there's really nothing to forgive and forget! valentino gets over the entire 2008-10 dramatics comically quickly... like there's still a bit of needle in 2011 but once he realises there's no real competitive justification, he just kinda goes *shrug* eh, whatever. he's still bickering with casey in 2012, but those two did seemingly get a weird kick out of their squabbling and valentino also dropped that completely around mid-2013 (casey ofc did Not). like these people said some nasty shit about each other... but with both jorge and casey, valentino is extremely willing to drop it when he doesn't really think there's a point any more. as a result, valentino and jorge get on better in valentino's ducati years! it'd really only been a brief period where they're properly at war - but that period is so memorable it's how that teammate relationship gets remembered these days

basically what I said in the jorge/valentino post:

and this maybe deserves a more in-depth post... but of course it's worth pointing out that in their second teammate stint, they once again take their sweet time getting to the actual drama. 2013 they're being perfectly cooperative and honda's cute little internal war is hogging all the headlines, 2014 is basically fine with a bit of corporate espionage for flavour - hell, even 2015 is okay until, like, the very end. they're asked about their relationship every single week that year, to the point where valentino starts making gags about how him and jorge have been keeping relationship diaries and will release them at the end of the year. (drop the diaries, kings.) there's also a very sweet 'ooh you've learned so much from valentino' jorge moment that very much thematically follows on from the 2008-10 post:

Lorenzo explained an incident where, ahead of the season-finale race in Valencia, he approached a journalist to request a specific question was asked to irritate Rossi. "At the airport I told her that at the press conference she had to ask me if Valentino deserved the title,” Lorenzo said.  “For me it would not have been deserved. I wanted to put pressure on him to feel inferior.  “I also created that rivalry through the press."

which... good on you, jorge, but. what. and also... why

point is, even in their actual title fight in 2015, a bunch of different factors conspire to ensure that valentino is focused more on marc than he is on jorge. one big, big reason is that valentino + jorge basically never actually cross paths on track that whole year for more than like, a minute, which is one of the things that made that season so funky. it's maybe a little unsatisfying to go 'that long post I wrote isn't actually super relevant as backstory' and it doesn't not matter, but in a way the really interesting bit is... you'd kinda think it'd matter MORE. their history should be more relevant than it is to this story!! it's weird that it played such a small role! and, again, it does come back into the picture in 2016... they were proper mad with each other then! I reckon they did get to the point where they even managed to hurt each other, where that was something reciprocal! which is fun and compelling, but even there they do manage to mostly Get Over It at some point that very same year. in the end... despite all this history, despite this intense three year stint as teammates the first time round - somehow we ended up with another title fight between the pair of them with a super controversial finish but that interpersonal relationship is very nearly irrelevant. quirky innit

[konstantya]

I'm reading this vampire romance novel set in 1920s' New York, and while I wish the prose was less purple and more hard-boiled (to match the era and the general crime/murder-mystery vibe), one thing I genuinely love about the world-building is how vampires are also suffering an existential crisis of sorts from WWI?

They're like, "Humanity is modernizing and just experienced trench warfare—we aren't going to be able to rely on their fear alone to keep us safe anymore! We need to be more careful and learn to live a bit more symbiotically with them, i.e. stop outright killing them when we feed, and we also gotta start enforcing this new policy with legit punishments for those who think the rules don't apply to them."