#not a lot of van actually in this one

[floccinaucinihilipilificationa]

[sysig]

Last man standing (Patreon)

[red-flagging]

offering "last of the late breakers" as a title to anyone writing an f1 surfing au in the near future, free of charge to a good home

[artemisarcher22]

the crows as things my english teacher has said

kaz: "he threatened to call the police, I said they won't come because it's a civil offence, he didn't like that"

inej: "sometimes I had to pretend I was high"

jesper: "I'm sorry I didn't see the sign (there were about 50 signs)"

wylan: "until last night I didn't know what drill music was, I heard a drill outside and was like that's drill music right"

nina: "I keep getting foiled in my attempts to see the man"

matthias: "or did he say sick? cause that means good? I get very confused"

[yr-obedt-cicero]

Something that always infuriated me to high hell, was the cycling myth that James A. Hamilton didn't like either, A) being Secretary of State, or B) Andrew Jackson. All because he resigned office after 23 days. When in reality, he had to, because he was acting Secretary of State. As an Acting Secretary, the person is only serving in the capacity of the Secretary in their absence. So, James was merely a placeholder until the appointment of Martin Van Buren. It wasn't out of ill feelings for Jackson, unfortunately those two were really close.

[victorluvsalice]

Valicer OT3 Week, Day Three: Childhood Friends

Day Three of @ot3-week's OT3 Week, and we're up to a cute prompt -- "Childhood friends!" So naturally I couldn't resist writing the trio hanging out together as kids. :) This is supposed to be a Victorian!AU, though I suspect it might feel a little bit more modern than that...the important thing is, there's a grand old party happening in the halls of Christchurch at Oxford, and Smiler and Alice have already found each other and decided to sequester themselves away from all these boring adults in their own private table fort. But tummies have started growling, and so Smiler is venturing out to get snacks...

--

“I’m gonna get more snacks!”

“All right – make sure to grab some of Mama’s Welsh rarebit!” Alice said, arranging the cards into neat piles. “Then when you come back we can start building our castle.”

“Definitely,” Smiler said, shooting her a grin. They grabbed the edge of the tablecloth and lifted it – then, seeing no adults had eyes on them, scrambled out from under the banquet table that they and Alice had claimed as their personal hidey-hole. And I thought this party was going to be boring, they thought, scurrying toward the table where the Welsh rarebit sat, along with a few other cheese-based dishes the various attendees were nibbling on. Adults never want to have any fun when they get together – it’s just talk talk talk about boring stuff. Especially Father, going on about “social compliance” and all that...it’s a good thing that Alice is here! I can’t wait to hear another story about Wonderland – it sounds amazing! And I bet that, without the adults interrupting us, we can build a castle using all of the –

“Now, I don’t want you embarrassing me at this party, Victor, do you understand?”

Smiler stopped, turning toward the entrance. Standing there, having their coats taken by the coat-taking-man, was a hunched-over skinny man with a large mustache, leaning on a cane; a very plump woman in the fanciest dress Smiler had ever seen, fanning herself like it was the middle of summer; and a little boy, about Smiler’s age, wearing a suit with shorts and staring at his feet while the woman – presumably his mother – went on and on about how the Liddells were Very Important People and how they had to make a Good First Impression and how Victor was to Stay Quiet and Look Respectable, like the boys in magazines. The boy – Victor – was nodding along to his mother’s litany, trying to stand up straight and do as asked, but the look on his face...

“Now, Marmaduke, I understand that you’re a little – confused, at this age. But the simple fact of the matter is that you can’t just decide that you’re not a boy. It’s simply not done. Where would society be if people just started declaring themselves not one thing or the other? You have to learn how to be socially compliant. True happiness comes from obeying your elders – and you want to be happy, don’t you?”

Smiler frowned as the woman turned away from Victor, leaving him to tug at his tie as she swanned off to chat about boring things with the other adults. It seemed like, with a mother like that, Victor was about to have about as bad a time at this party as they’d feared they would have. And that was a really bad time indeed.

Well, good thing I’m here, then, Smiler thought to themselves, then marched up to Victor, putting on their best smile and sticking out their hand. “Hullo! I’m Smiler!”

Victor nearly started right out of his skin – maybe they should have been a little bit quieter. He stared at them a moment, glancing from their face to their hand and back, then hesitantly took it. “Uh – I’m – I’m – V-Victor,” he stammered, clearly out of his depth. Maybe people didn’t talk to him much? That would be sad if so. “Your name is – Smiler?”

“Well, it’s what I call myself,” Smiler told him, pumping his arm. “My real name’s awful. But Victor’s a nice name! Do you want to play with us?”

“Us?” Victor repeated, blinking.

“Me and Alice!” Smiler pointed at their table, where Alice was peeping out, clearly wondering why snacks were taking so long. They waved to her and pointed to Victor – she glanced over, then nodded and waved back. “She’s really nice, and she tells great stories,” Smiler informed Victor, grinning. “And she’s got cards – we’re gonna try and build a castle! Do you like castles?”

“Uh – yes?” Victor said, as if he wasn’t sure of his own opinions. “I’ve n-never made a card one b-before, though.” He dropped his gaze, playing with his tie again. “I’m k-kind of clumsy.”

“That’s all right – we can show you how to do it!” Smiler promised, taking his hand so he didn’t accidentally strangle himself. “Come on – we’ll get snacks, then we can go and play!”

“I – um...” Victor’s gaze went to his mother, chatting with some other adult Smiler didn’t know and didn’t care about. “I dunno...”

“Aw, come on,” Smiler wheedled, tugging his arm. “It’ll be fun! Don’t you wanna have fun? Be happy? Like, real happy, not grown-up happy?”

“Happy...” Victor looked at his mother a moment more, then over at Alice, patiently waiting for them to decide what they were doing. Then his mouth formed a determined line, and he nodded at Smiler. “Yes. Let’s go make castles.”

Smiler beamed. One happiness problem – solved! Take that, Father. “Great! But, first, we gotta get some of that rarebit – and I think there’s some cake too...”

[joansblondells]

Grace Van Dien as Ellie Lansing in LADY DRIVER (2020)

[the-judicial-assistants-notebook]

I actually think it'd be kind of cute if Barok did have a wife. It'd be very gothic romance-esque with the whole gentle-lady who married a nobleman with a ruined reputation knowing that he isn't what people say he is and defending him from his detractors in public. It'd be very sweet.

by the way, in canon, Albert fills in for this role pretty nicely.

[midnightfangz]

There's something about silly cafe AUs that soothes my soul so much

[adorabledaylilly]

what's your favorite cat thing? mine's when they do that bark like thing when they see something. or when they sit on their paws. or when they curl around my arm.... yes, I love cats

#ask.revival 2024

Cats are my favorite animals so this is so hard to answer lol my one cat does this thing whenever he sees me where he meows as loud as he can, tail straight up in the air and then flops onto the ground purring. My one kitty will tell me it’s time to go to bed too! He’ll sit in the doorway wherever I am and meow at me until I get up and go to bed. I guess my favorite thing they all do though is curl up on my lap when I’m at the computer 💕

[keirametzbrassknuckles]

Talking with the sales director about the summer rental market on the cape and mentioning that when I was growing up we could only rent in the winter because y'know rent quadruples after memorial day and everyone wants vacation renters as a silly aside about my experience with the topic at hand. Of course that naturally prompts the question "where did you guys stay in the summer?" At which point I realized I'd really fucked up and had to stammer something evasive about how it was fine

[numetaljackdog]

there was a girl i went to elementary school with who always wore osiris shoes and she was like the most popular girl in my grade and i wanted to be like her and dress like her because i wanted to be popular too and not for any other reasons obviously so i concluded that i would have to start wearing osiris shoes but when i got the chance to acquire some new shoes they didn't have osiris so i had to settle for the closest thing i could find which was dc shoes and then i wore dc shoes for years and years including well past the point in time that i ceased to know or think much of that girl and anytime i needed new shoes i would get as close to an identical pair of dcs as i could and even if they did have osiris i wouldn't buy them bc after actually feeling the material they seemed a lot cheaper and more likely to wear out quickly than the shoes i was buying and so even in an instance where they didn't have dcs available i bought vans as my alternative instead. and as of my most recent shoes i'm back to wearing a new pair of that exact style of dc shoes again

[fritextramole]

Gossip Girl 2x25 "The Goodbye Gossip Girl" // 3x07 "How to Succeed in Bassness"

[leonardcohenofficial]

having a brief emotional breakdown over phil ochs and antonin artaud and the ways the pathologization of what we call madness and the failures of capitalism doomed these men yeah the writing process is clearly going well 

[victorluvsalice]

-->And then it was Victor and Smiler date time at the Freezer Bunny Arcade in Newcrest! Haven’t been here in a while (I think Smiler was still living in Britechester the first time they and Victor visited), but the arcade was on my mind after watching onlyabidoang’s “Functional Objects” video featuring all the arcade stuff Cepzid created. It was raining when they arrived (and soon ramped up to a major thunderstorm -- great dating weather!), so I sent them inside into the cafe area at the back right away. They sat and chatted for a while, with Smiler telling Victor an engaging story for his entertainment --

As some random sat down at their table with his coffee. *grumble* Fortunately, he didn’t try to join their conversation, and I was able to get the pair to move to another table once Victor ordered some pain au chocolat from the barista (which went a LOT fucking smoother than it did at the other cafe – Steampunk Cafe LOOKS nice, but it doesn’t play very well, unfortunately). They continued having a very pleasant, occasionally flirty chat, sharing the spirit of the day and officially developing a “Close” family dynamic, awww. :) Randos did keep coming to sit at their table, but again, nobody actually tried to TALK to them – they just let the pair get on with their date. Sheesh, wonder why everyone kept bothering Victor and Alice...

-->Anyway – Victor finished his snack, then donated some plasma to Smiler so they could have a snack before grabbing some sleep replacement potion from the aspiration rewards store so he didn't pass out from blood loss on their date. Smiler wandered over to the skeeball machines while Victor found a table to drink his potion --

And ended up next to, of all people, JOAQUIN, who’d showed up here too. >( Fortunately I was able to keep him from trying to talk to Victor, allowing Victor to Energy himself up and join Smiler at skeeball. They both completed a level one game and ended up winning a child’s toy apiece. XD Smiler then went over to the pinball machines and had a good game there, while Victor played some Whack-A-Gnome poorly. I had him go get a gumball to make himself feel better after that (and after seeing Joaquin) –

[azumasoroshi]

i’m kinda mad that one of the only pieces of writing i have where i’m like “how did i write that” is my fuckin vanlock fanfic that’s been sitting in my drafts for over a year now