#so there were three of them with this subset

[aparticularbandit]

but also for someone who has definitely played around with amnesia and rebuilding and reliving and such stuff in fic before (just because i never posted it doesn't mean i didn't play around with it), i. now kind of want to figure out how to play around with that with junko. the scenario would need to be different. but.

[comicaurora]

hi red!! i'm doing an analysis of sun wukong's (and journey to the west in general's) impact on modern culture for my world mythology final, and for some reason i'm having a hard time finding sources. is there anything you can recommend?

The fact that Journey to the West has contributed an enormous number of tropes to modern media is very clear when the media in question is examined, but I don't know of a specific secondary source that's already done that analysis for you. However, this IS a very good excuse for you to plow through a metric buttload of shonen manga, since the lineage is basically Sun Wukong -> Son Goku -> like a solid third of all shonen action heroes written in the last forty years.

Dragon Ball kicks things off:

Started in 1984 and almost unquestionably the most influential manga ever made. Its first arc features the weird super-strong monkey-kid Son Goku - which is just the japanese pronunciation of the characters of Sun Wukong's name - meeting up with a wacky crew of thinly-veiled expys of the Journey to the West crew, with teen inventor Bulma filling the role of Tripitaka, Oolong the pig-man filling Zhu Bajie's role and Yamcha the desert-based bandit as Sha Wujing.

Hijinks ensue, and while the story drifts pretty far from Journey to the West's original plot, it actually stays pretty solidly referential in weirdly unexpected ways. Several the villains of the week are JttW references, and even the later appearance of three more Saiyans lines up with the surprise reveal of three more Wukong-like mystical apes in the original story.

The connection between Dragon Ball and JttW is very unsubtle and a frequent reference in the chapter covers and supplemental art.

Not every subsequent JttW reference is the result of Dragon Ball popularizing it or anything, since it was already enormously popular, but I think it's pretty hard to extricate Dragon Ball's influence on anime and manga from the original influence of Journey to the West itself.

One way that a distinction can be drawn is in the differences in characterization between Goku and Sun Wukong himself. A lot of the next generation of shonen protagonists were kind of Goku-alikes - pure-hearted dumbasses who only care for the three Fs: Food, Fighting and Friendship.

But the original characterization of Sun Wukong is not really all that similar. He's a trickster, sure, but he's far from a young, friendship-motivated goober. He's profoundly intelligent, pretty much the most well-educated entity on the planet, and routinely brings up that he's centuries older than most of his peers. The Goku-alikes from the later decades of shonen anime are tellingly far-removed from that original characterization. So you get characters based on Goku's cheerful idiocy, but it's just a small subset of the broader influence of Journey to the West on the space of literature.

In general, Journey to the West frequently shows up in very small, bite-sized tropes in other stories. It's less "this is wholly based on Journey to the West" and more "oh, I know where they maybe got this idea/aesthetic/power/weapon/villain of the week from." There are way too many to list, but some of the ones that tend to jump out at me are-

Sneaky characters with monkey motifs:

Tricksy, highly mobile characters who fight with a staff:

Characters afflicted with a magical restraint artifact that allows a much weaker character to stop them from misbehaving:

Specific esoteric weapons, eg. magical fans, rakes, gourds, namedropping The Sword of Seven Stars, etc.

Villains with prominent ox or pig design motifs:

Characters whose primary combat strat is just making Shitloads Of Disposable Copies Of Themselves:

Honestly it just keeps going like this. It's kinda everywhere. Finding the JttW in things is my favorite conspiracy theory rabbit hole because it's 100% harmless and more often than not completely correct.

[au-roulette]

AU Roulette Challenge 2024

What is AU Roulette? A casual fic-writing challenge encouraging authors to play around with different types of alternate universe stories, which will be randomly assigned to each participant regardless of the fandom they sign up with. The goal of the challenge is to encourage creativity and get authors to write fics with premises they might not otherwise have considered, with varying difficulty levels of participation for writers of all experience levels.

How does it work? Writers will be able to sign up from now through June with a fandom of their choice. At the start of July, each participant will be assigned three AUs from a masterlist using a random number generator. Each author will then have the choice of completing the challenge one, two, or all three of the AUs. Any fic exceeding a 500-word minimum will be considered a completion, so long as it employs the AU premise. The fic-writing period of the challenge will run for a month. Fics can be posted at any point during this time, and authors will have the option of having them added to an Ao3 collection for the challenge if they desire. They can also be posted to tumblr using the tag #AU Roulette 2024

What kind of AUs will be included in the challenge? The AU Roulette challenge will focus largely on popular, staple AU types with broad applicability to any fandom or relationship type. For example, a possible result might be something like a Time Travel AU (encompassing all the possible subsets, such as fix-it time travel, time loops, or other tropes under the same umbrella), but more restrictive AU types like a Soulmate AU that make assumptions about the author’s interpretation of character relationships in canon have been intentionally kept off the AU masterlist. The official list of AUs will be kept under wraps until assignments are given, but will have over 30 different prompts to ensure authors receive a good variety of options, and if you have suggestions or concerns about what AUs are being included, feel free to reach out.

What if I get an AU type that doesn’t work for the canon I chose? Limited re-rolls will be allowed on a case-by-case basis. You are also encouraged to be as creative as you want with your interpretation of your assigned AUs, which may help with making them fit. The goal of this challenge is to encourage weird, creative fanfic, not to have every author who rolls the same result write cookie-cutter versions of the same types of stories. If you were to get a Coffee Shop AU, for example, there is no requirement that the coffee shop in question be a real-world 21st-century Earth Starbucks. In fact, deviating from the mold is highly encouraged. So long as you can make a case that you filled the loose premise of your AU type, you will get credit for having completed it.

Can I participate if I am not a writer? AU Roulette is a fanfic writing challenge, so official sign-ups are for those interested in writing (regardless of skill level or experience writing AUs). However, if you are interested in the challenge but not in writing fic for it, consider having a look at the #AU Roulette 2024 tag or the official AU Roulette 2024 collection on Ao3 once authors have begun posting their stories. If one of them really speaks to you, it might be a nice gesture to draw a piece of art, make a playlist, or create some other fanwork inspired by the fic and share it – in which case you would also be more than welcome to use the official tag!

(Authors are of course also welcome to do this for their or other participants’ stories, too.)

How do I sign up? Fill out this form with your email and fandom of choice.

Looking forward to seeing the AUs everyone creates this year!

[weaselandfriends]

Post-postmodernism in Pop Culture: Homestuck’s Revenge

I recently saw an excellent video essay titled Why Do Movies Feel So Different Now? by Thomas Flight. Though the title is opaque clickbait, the video is actually about major artistic zeitgeists, or movements, in film history. Flight describes three major movements:

Modernism, encompassing much of classic cinema, in which an earnest belief in universal truths led to straightforward narratives that unironically supported certain values (rationalism, civic duty, democracy, etc.)

Postmodernism, in which disillusionment with the values of modernism led to films that played with cinematic structure, metafiction, and the core language of film, often with more unclear narratives that lacked straightforward resolutions, and that were skeptical or even suspicious of the idea of universal truth 

Metamodernism, the current artistic zeitgeist, which takes the structural and metafictional innovations of postmodernism but uses them not to reject meaning, but point to some new kind of meaning or sincerity.

Flight associates metamodernism with the “multiverse” narratives that are popular in contemporary film, both in blockbuster superhero films and Oscar darlings like Everything Everywhere All at Once. He argues that the multiverse conceptually represents a fragmented, metafictional lack of universal truth, but that lack of truth is then subverted with a narrative that ultimately reaffirms universal truth. In short, rather than rejecting postmodernism entirely, metamodernism takes the fragmented rubble of its technique and themes and builds something new out of that fragmentation.

Longtime readers of this blog may find some of these concepts familiar. Indeed, I was talking about them many years ago in my Hymnstoke posts, even using the terms “modernism” and “postmodernism,” though what Flight calls metamodernism I tended to call “post-postmodernism” (another term used for it is New Sincerity). Years before EEAAO, years before Spider-verse, years before the current zeitgeist in pop cultural film and television, there was an avant garde work pioneering all the techniques and themes of metamodernism. A work that took the structural techniques of postmodernism--the ironic detachment, the temporal desynchronization, the metafiction--and used them not to posit a fundamental lack of universal truth but rather imbue a chaotic, maximalist world of cultural detritus with new meaning, new truth, new sincerity. That work was:

Homestuck.

That’s right! Everyone’s favorite web comic. Of course, I’m not the first person to realize the thematic and structural similarities between Homestuck and the current popular trend in film. Just take a look at this tweet someone made yesterday:

This tweet did some numbers.

As you might expect if you’re at all aware of the current cultural feeling toward Homestuck, many of the replies and quotes are incredibly vitriolic over this comparison. Here’s one of my favorites:

It’s actually quite striking how many elements of the new Spider-verse are similar to Homestuck; aspects of doomed timelines, a multiversal network that seems to demand certain structure, and even “mandatory death of parental figure as an impetus for mandated personal growth” are repeated across both works. The recycling and revitalization of ancient, seemingly useless cultural artifacts (in Homestuck’s case, films like Con Air; in Spider-verse, irrelevant gimmick Spider-men from spinoffs past) are also common thematic threads.

As this new post-postmodern or metamodern trend becomes increasingly mainstream, and as time heals all and allows people to look back at Homestuck with more objectivity, I believe there will one day be a rehabilitation of Homestuck’s image. It’ll be seen as an important and influential work, with a place inside the cultural canon. Perhaps, like Infinite Jest, it’ll continue to have some subset of commentators who cannot get past their perception of the people who read the work rather than the work itself even thirty years after its publication, but eventually it’ll be recognized for innovations that precipitated a change in the way people think about stories and their meaning.

Until that day, enjoy eating raw sewage directly from a sewer pipe.

(Side note: I think Umineko no naku koro ni, which was published around the same time as Homestuck and which deals with many similar themes and then-novel ideas, will also one day receive recognition as a masterpiece. Check it out if you haven’t already!)

[alleycatchitchat]

Just rewatched The Three Caballeros and wasn't expecting such a goldmine of cute little moments that specifically appealed to a certain, uh, subset of the fandom... anyway have some Three Gay Caballeros screenshots

Donald Duck, coming on strong

Lots of dancing together in this film but I specifically like that Donald and José are reflecting the couple behind them in this scene

If I had a nickel for every time Donald leaped onto José and clung to him tenderly I would have two nickels which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice

I call this one "Gay Panic"

José and Panchito's little cuddle here is really cute. Notice that Panchito pulls José closer; their heads are probably touching underneath the sombrero.

No thoughts head empty just thinking about Donald's head resting in José's lap

José is having the time of his life right now

Donald kisses him 6 times during this sequence btw. if you even care

LISTEN. LISTEN. I HAVE REWATCHED AND REWINDED THIS MOMENT SO MANY TIMES. Slowed it down, gone through screenshots one by one, nitpicked and analyzed and I CANNOT FOR THE LIFE OF ME DECIDE WHETHER PANCHITO IS SLAPPING DONALD'S BACK OR HIS ASS

I think my general conclusion is that Panchito slaps Donald's back and then lets his hand slide all the way down before he pulls away. But again, not 100% certain.

This one isn't shippy I just think Panchito looks really cute

I love this little dude look at his goofy rooster face

This one doesn't need a caption I don't think

bruh

I tried so, so hard to find a screenshot of this moment that wasn't cursed. So hard. This was too important to leave out

But still, look at José's horrible beak, that's going to haunt my nightmares

anyway shoutout to the polycule ever! three gay caballeros truthers were right all along

[puckarchives]

sweet girl / take a break: q. hughes

blurb: in which quinn takes care of you when you need it most — this was originally an ask i wrote for @sweetestdesire and i am not finally reposting!  / word count: 1.4k / pairing: luke hughes x fem!reader (WARNING: mentions of anxiety, anxiet attack, mental health.)

When you and Quinn had first begun seeing each other, a commitment that you joked “crossed international borders” because of the different sides of the border you were both on, you had made one thing particularly clear: school was something you took extremely seriously, and something you weren’t willing to compromise. Quinn, however, understood perfectly; he understood your want to be the best, to excel in everything, and to break your own records— in other words, you two were perfect for each other. 

Now, however, as you sat on the counter of your shared apartment two years into your relationship, (along with your relocation to Canada for graduate school and to be closed to the man you loved,) you couldn’t help but rethink every single decision you’d made when it came to school. Which is how you found yourself at your kitchen island at 4AM, caught up in trying to calculate and write one of your dissertation chapters based off of your research.

“What does that even mean?” you groaned, staring at the chart in front of you, trying to evaluate what type of funding allocations had been given to a certain subset of the community you were working alongside for your Sociology and Statistics dissertation, but feeling like you were majorly failing at it. 

You had been at this project for the past three years— and now, in your final year of your graduate program, you had been working yourself to the bone— being the first one in the lab at 6:30AM most days, and not making your way home until late at night, where you would kiss Quinn as he slept in your shared bed, but not join him unless it was to shower quickly before once again getting to work.

As the numbers swam in front of you, you couldn’t help but become more frustrated with yourself. Why couldn’t you understand this material like your colleagues? Why was it so difficult for you, and not them? Why couldn’t you just be good enough? Smart enough?

As these thoughts swarmed— a suffocating feeling of self-consciousness and imposter syndrome you had worked so hard for to trample down since you you had begun your undergrad in Washington, you tried to breathe— to remind yourself why you were here, but still failing; a failure that was making the streams of anxiety and panic bubble to the surface. 

Trying to distance yourself from the onset panic attack you could feel you were at the brink of, you tried to make your way outside to your backyard— falling on your knees at the back door as you could feel your frame shake with the sobs of self-disappointment and anguish; of the amounting weight of not being good enough, and of the feeling like you didn’t belong. 

You could feel the weight of the anxiety on your chest, a blanket made up of your deepest fears that you tried to breathe through, stuttering out shaky breaths on the floor as you tried to regain your composure. By your fifth breath, however, you couldn’t hold the tears at bay any longer— sobbing and letting the anxiety consume you like an endless and hungry wildfire— one that you couldn’t even trample down when you heard the opening of the door behind you, and felt the presence of the man you loved most kneeling down next to you, bringing you into his arms.

Despite how much you both pushed yourselves to the limit in your careers, Quinn was always there the moment you needed anything. He was your (albeit grumpy,) rock, and always the fresh of breath air you looked for. In a way, he was the Sun you stretched out to during the day, never shying away when he needed you in situations just like the one you found yourself in. 

As Quinn brought you into his arms, now rocking you back and forth, he held you— understanding that you needed to be brought back into yourself before he could speak to you first; understanding that you needed to be brought back to your physical state before your emotional one. 

As the two of you sat there for what felt like an hour to you, you could feel Quinn petting your hair and leaving small kisses on your temple, the scratch of his scruff leaving tiny trails of kisses as well on your cheeks. As your fears subsided, however, and your breathing went from rapid and choppy to calm and controlled, you disengaged yourself from his arms, only to look up at him immediately— seeing the worry in his big brown eyes, and seeing his sleep tousled hair and bloodshot eyes; remnants of the anxiety he felt seeing you break apart, no doubt. 

“You back with me, Y/N?” he asked quietly, wanting to let you come back on your own terms, and without startling you. Quinn, despite everything, was still a big brother— the sibling who was pushed to always put the needs of others before his own, and who was always looking out for others before even listing what he needed. He was the most selfless person you had ever met, but also one who, too often, overlooked himself as well.

“Mhmm,” you mumbled, your throat scratchy and raw. You rubbed your thumb on the collar of his shirt, entwining your fingers with his outstretched hand. 

“Y/N, sweetheart, you have to take a break, baby,” you heard him plead with you. As you looked up at him, you could practically see the desperation in his eyes— fogged over by the concern he had for your own well-being, which he could clearly tell had been deteriorating over the past few weeks. “I know this is a big project, baby, please believe that I do— but you can’t keep doing this to yourself; to us,” he said. You could feel the tremors in his hands from his pleading, and, looking at his eyes— the dark circles under them only made the pit in your chest cave more. You were hurting him— you were hurting the man you love, and it felt like you couldn’t stop— couldn’t fix it. 

“I’m sorry I’m hard to handle, Q, I didn’t mean to wake you up” you said, now sobbing directly into his chest. “I’m so, so sorry” you repeated into his chest, the sweater he had put on haphazardly now soaked through with your anxiety. 

“No, no sweet girl, look at me— please” Quinn said, looking down at you, and pulling you slightly away from his chest. “You didn’t wake me up, baby. I missed you, and I wanted to check on you. In no way is this your fault, you hear me?” he said, holding your chin between his middle finger and thumb, angling you to meet his eyes. 

He was entirely serious, too; he had missed you these past could weeks, and before he saw you mid-panic attack over your work, he was determined to simply drag you back— but at least now he could make you take a break; make you take care of yourself, and take care of you himself. 

“Sweet girl, you are my entire world, okay? No matter what you do, you will still always— and I mean always, Y/N— be the smartest person to me; but you need to let yourself take a break baby, please,” he pleaded. Seeing you like this— your eyes bloodshot from the tears and numerous sleepless nights, had him worrying about you, but despite that, you would always be perfect in his eyes— no matter if you failed or if you passed with flying colors, he would only be proud of you. 

“Y/N, you are my light, okay? I know I can’t always express it, but you need to understand how much you truly mean to me— I would be nothing without you, baby, but please— for my sake and for your own, please rest? We can go back to bed, and in the morning we’ll call in, both of us, okay? Please, baby, just let me hold you for longer than two hours,” he pleaded, trying to rope you into resting. 

You could only lay your head back on his shoulder; you nodded slowly, encompassed in the smell of his cologne, and breathed. You were alright; you were with Quinn, your rock— and even though you might not have felt it right now, you were going to be okay— you were going to take a break. 

In Quinn’s eyes, your image was unshakeable— something to behold, and something he would work for the rest of his life for you to see, too.

[astriiformes]

AU Roulette Challenge

What is AU Roulette? A casual fic-writing challenge encouraging authors to play around with different types of alternate universe stories, which will be randomly assigned to each participant regardless of the fandom they sign up with. The goal of the challenge is to encourage creativity and get authors to write fics with premises they might not otherwise have considered, with varying difficulty levels of participation for writers of all experience levels.

How does it work? Writers will be able to sign up with their fandom of choice starting Monday, July 31st. Sign-ups will run for one week, at the end of which each participant will be assigned three AUs from a masterlist using a random number generator. Each author will then have the choice of completing the challenge on easy (writing one of the AUs), medium (writing two of the AUs) or hard mode (writing all three AUs). Any fic exceeding a 500-word minimum will be considered a completion, so long as it employs the AU premise. The fic-writing period of the challenge will run for a month. Fics can be posted at any point during this time, and authors will have the option of having them added to an Ao3 collection for the challenge if they desire. They can also be posted to tumblr using the tag #AUroulette2023.

What kind of AUs will be included in the challenge? The AU Roulette challenge will focus largely on popular, staple AU types with broad applicability to any fandom or relationship type. For example, a possible result might be something like a Time Travel AU (encompassing all the possible subsets, such as fix-it time travel, time loops, or other tropes under the same umbrella), but more restrictive AU types like a Soulmate AU that make assumptions about the author's interpretation of character relationships in canon have been intentionally kept off the AU masterlist. The official list of AUs will be kept under wraps until assignments are given, but will have over 30 different prompts to ensure authors receive a good variety of options, and if you have suggestions or concerns about what AUs are being included, feel free to reach out.

What if I get an AU type that doesn't work for the canon I chose? Limited re-rolls will be allowed on a case-by-case basis. For example, if you signed up to write fic for His Dark Materials and ended up getting a Daemon AU, your result would automatically be re-rolled. Similarly, if you were writing for a different fandom entirely but were unfamiliar with what a Daemon AU entailed and wanted to write something you didn't have to research the premise of, I would likely approve a re-roll (However, you would be free to give it a try! My goal is for this challenge to be accessible to people with all levels of familiarity with fic tropes, so you are also welcome to reach out and ask about your assignment).

You are also encouraged to be as creative as you want with your interpretation of your assigned AUs, which may help with making them fit. The goal of this challenge is to encourage weird, creative fanfic, not to have every author who rolls the same result write cookie-cutter versions of the same types of stories. If you were to get a Coffee Shop AU, for example, there is no requirement that the coffee shop in question be a real-world 21st-century Earth Starbucks. In fact, deviating from the mold is highly encouraged. So long as you can make a case that you filled the loose premise of your AU type, you will get credit for having completed it.

Can I participate if I am not a writer? AU Roulette is a fanfic writing challenge, so official sign-ups are for those interested in writing (regardless of skill level or experience writing AUs). However, if you are interested in the challenge but not in writing fic for it, consider having a look at the #AUroulette2023 tag or the official AU Roulette 2023 collection on Ao3 once authors have begun posting their stories. If one of them really speaks to you, it might be a nice gesture to draw a piece of art, make a playlist, or create some other fanwork inspired by the fic and share it -- in which case you would also be more than welcome to use the official tag!

(Authors are of course also welcome to do this for their or other participants' stories, too.)

How do I sign up? I will be reblogging this same post with a link to a Google form for sign-ups on Monday, July 31st! Watch this space and feel free to send me any questions you have about the challenge!

Looking forward to seeing the AUs everyone creates!

[afraidparade]

pardon me lumping my three most recent asks together, they're actually all relevant to each other:

there may have been stronger demon ghosts than pazu in the past, but currently he is the most powerful one. another ghost has virtually no chance against him, but a subset of people who have dedicated countless generations worth of training for the sole purpose of eliminating threats like him absolutely pose a threat. pazu did "kaiju a whole city" once a upon a time, killed A LOT of people - many of which were exorcists - and he attracted a lot of immediate attention as a result of it; that's what got him sealed away and almost completely exorcised. he underestimated how much of a threat exorcists can be, especially in multitudes, and though he would ever ever come close to admitting it, pazu has since learned to fear the capabilities of exorcists.

theo is probably the greatest miracle pazu has ever had (so you'd think he'd treat him better, but. oh well.) for a number of reasons: firstly, he's a descendant of the exorcist clan that sealed him away. this means that not only was theo one of the very few people in the world who even had the ability to fully break his seal, but pazu can indirectly keep tabs on the status of theo's family members, who theo had very conveniently moved far away from anyways.

secondly, even if it's only in title, theo is an exorcist - exorcist souls are VERY valuable. a significant amount of pazu's previous power dwindled away while he was in isolation, so aside from getting to fulfill part of the revenge he'd been dreaming of for centuries, teddy's like an emergency snack pazu keeps around as a sort of trump card. for now, he keeps theo alive and reduces the amount of carnage he inflicts for the sole purpose of not attracting any unwanted attention from competent exorcists.

and thirdly, theo is simultaneously a naive optimist and an absolute coward. he believes he can find a way to subdue pazu if he toughs it out long enough, and is firmly reluctant on getting his family involved. this is mostly out of shame, but he also isn't keen on exposing them to extreme danger. that, and pazu has promised to kill theo if he tipped off any exorcists about his antics.

so in conclusion, pazu is the most powerful ghost, but "the most powerful ghost" as it is isn't enough to enact the full revenge that pazu yearns for. which is why pazu is intent on becoming more than he is, and more than he or any ghost has ever been. that requires patience, cunning, secrecy, and a whole lot of souls. i'll leave pazu's true end goal a mystery for now, but there's the reasoning behind several facets of his current plan

[sh4wty18]

can you please do jake webber best friends to lovers. like jakes been y/ns best friend since they were kids and neither of them knew they liked eachother until they went to a party and all that. and then add some cute lil smut in there as well but theyre both virgins. ❤️thank uuu:)

omg im so sorry for the delayed response, i was not motivated to write for a while! i hope you enjoy :)

best friend.

pairing: jake webber x reader

summary: same as request except i didn't include the smut <3

cw: fluff, language, alcohol, some spice/suggestive ending but nothing too crazy

word count: 2.5k + edited

---

Since your childhood, Jake has been your best friend. You’d grown up together in Kansas, and being the only two “alternative” people at your middle and high schools, you stuck together. He’d always been the person you leaned on, and you were the same for him. Time didn’t seem to exist when you two were together, you could talk for hours and never get bored. Both your parents had expected you to end up dating eventually, and were shocked that after over ten years, it still hadn’t happened. But everyone always said you were soulmates, in one way or another. 

When Jake got famous, you were so proud of him. It had been his dream for years, he’d been posting little vlogs for a while, and sometimes you were even featured in them. But meeting Sam & Colby had caused his career to skyrocket. Then he moved to LA to keep pursuing his dream, and of course you supported him. You wanted all the success in the world for him, so you said goodbye. 

You made a point to visit him as often as possible, which he loved. You loved seeing him, and sometimes being featured in his videos. Being a side character in his on-screen persona had garnered you your own little fandom, and people loved seeing “with y/n!” attached to his video titles. Being famous was never your “thing”, though; it was Jake’s, and you respected him for it. You were happy with your small subset of fans, and couldn’t imagine constantly being scrutinized by millions of people. Jake’s rising stardom had no effect on your friendship, and now, after many long years of hard work, he is finally gaining the recognition you had hoped he’d receive since you were kids. 

With his newfound rise in fame came more money, and in turn, a bigger house in LA. Some time after his break up with Tara, Jake had asked you to move in with him and Johnnie. You worked from home, and had been visiting him so much that you practically lived with him part-time already, so of course you’d said yes. 

What he didn’t know was that for the last three years, you have been completely and hopelessly in love with him. You didn’t know why or when it started, really. You just knew that one day, seeing him kiss Tara made you want to rip your heart out. Obviously you never told him, you could never do that to him. He was in love with Tara, and you loved and respected him too much to ever come between them. You had also become friends with Tara, and would never want to hurt her. So you yearned in silence, fully believing you were going to go to take your feelings to the grave. Their breakup was unexpected, and despite being irrevocably in love with Jake, you weren’t happy about it. Seeing your best friend in pain was the worst feeling ever, so you made sure to help him through all the ups and downs until he and Tara were comfortably friends again. 

Moving in with him may not have been the best thing for your romantic feelings, but your friendship is stronger than ever. You are constantly together, and knowing how affectionate the two of you are, you’re always touching, too. Whether it be a finger linked through the belt loop, hands intertwined, leaning on each other’s shoulder, hugging from behind, or cuddled up on the couch, you always have to have your hands on each other. Jake wasn’t very drawn to physical touch with many people, only his closest friends, which made you feel special. You loved that the only people he acted like this with were you and Johnnie. And even though he was touchy with Johnnie, it was nowhere near the level of touchiness he had with you. Some people say your relationship is weird, too close, or codependent, but you guys just laugh it off. You didn’t care if people understood, you loved each other, full stop. 

For the past three years you have wanted more, desperately so. But you knew that Jake didn’t feel the same, so learning how to separate your romantic and platonic feelings for him was a challenge. You would never want to do anything to potentially ruin your perfect friendship, though, so you learned quickly.

This would all change tonight. 

You and Jake had been curled up in his bed together under a mountain of fluffy blankets, watching one of your favorite movies, when he turned to you.  

“Tara is having a party tonight at her place, if you wanna be my plus one,” He smiled, always excited to ask you to be his plus one to events.

One of the many life changes that occurred when you moved to LA was that you were now roped into “events” way more often than you were used to. Whether it be casual parties, brand deal socials, or filming videos, you were involved in more social interaction than you’d ever been exposed to back home. You were much more introverted than Jake, and the changes were sudden, but you were slowly getting the hang of it. Plus, Jake loved when you were involved, he wanted you to be there. You loved making him happy, so you were hardly one to say no. That being said, the once small group of fans you’d garnered from being featured in Jake’s early videos was not-so-little anymore, and you were gaining quite the following. This had never been the life you’d wanted per se, but it was growing on you. 

You turned your head towards Jake’s and smiled back at him, “Of course I’ll go with you.” 

He blushed, “Yayyyy, I love my best friend!” He squealed in a silly high pitched voice, and you giggled. You wrapped your arm around his waist and buried your head against his neck, spooning him for the rest of the movie. 

After it ended you let go of his waist to go get ready for the party, which elicited a whine from Jake, “Aww, I was comfy,” He pouted and let out a huff. 

You laugh, “We can cuddle later! I have to go get sexy for tonight,” You joke. 

“You always look sexy, we’re wasting valuable bestie nap time,” he gave you puppy eyes, and you blushed. It was the first time he’d ever called you sexy. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” You giggle, and look away, trying to hide your pink cheeks and hot ears. 

“Look at you like what?” He asks innocently, continuing to give you his biggest, prettiest puppy eyes. 

“Shut up,” You laugh, swatting your hand at him as you walk towards the door. 

“Hate you!” He shouts after you as you walk across the hall toward your bedroom. 

“Hate you more!” You yell back. 

–

Two hours later, you’re finally completely ready for the party. You took an ‘everything shower’, applied a full face of your favorite glam makeup, painted your nails, and put on a brand new lacy, skin-tight, black dress. You emerge from your bedroom and walk back across the hall to Jake’s room, knocking on the door.

He opens it and stares at you in awe. He could hardly stop his jaw from dropping as he got his first look at you, and you giggle with embarrassment.

“Hi,” You say, cheeks blushing.

“Hi,” He responds, still looking you up and down, unable to tear his eyes away from your body. “You look incredible.”

You let out a modest scoff and look away, “Stop it.” 

“I mean it, y/n! You are… stunning.”

He makes eye contact with you as he thoughtfully lands on the last word, stunning. You feel a wide grin spread across your face, the rosy hue in your cheeks definitely deepening even more, but for some reason, you weren’t embarrassed anymore, only confident. 

“Thanks, Jakey. You don’t look so bad yourself,” You say, finally eyeing him up in the same way he’d done to you. He was wearing low waisted baggy jeans and a cropped baby tee, showcasing the star tattoos traveling down his v-line. Your eyes lingered there for a second too long, and you couldn’t stop yourself from imagining kissing each of those stars before wrapping your mouth around his cock. 

He caught the glint in your eye and leaned against the door frame, smirking down at you, “Like what you see?” he teased, casually placing a hand in his pocket.

You feel yourself blushing again, but you stay strong, taking a step closer and smiling up at him, “Maybe I do.” 

He maintains eye contact with you for a few seconds, and before you know it you’re competing, seeing who will break the awkward sexual tension first.

He breaks, and his smug smirk falls into a grin as he playfully pushes your forehead away from him, “C’mon ya freak, let’s go to the party,” He laughs. 

You walk the few blocks to Tara’s house, listening to Jake rant about one of his recent hyperfixations. You loved listening to him rant. He wasn’t a big talker, and usually you were the one who did the majority of the ranting in your friendship, but sometimes Jake would allow himself to rant about something he loved. He only did it with people he was super comfortable with, and it wasn’t too often, even then. But tonight, he must have been in an extra good mood, because he talked the entire walk. You smiled, and nodded, and asked him questions, which he loved, both because it signified to him that he wasn’t boring you, and because it meant he got to keep talking about something he enjoyed. You loved seeing him like this, bubbly and excited and blabbing on and on about a show you’d never even heard of. When you finally arrived at Tara’s house, he turned to you and said, “Woah, I really just talked that entire time about Peaky Blinders, didn’t I?”

“Yup. But don’t worry, I love hearing your voice,” You smile, and he grins down at you.

“I love hearing your voice too, y/n.”

You knock on Tara’s door, and she opens within seconds. “Jake! Y/n! Welcome!! It’s so good to see you guys, you both look amazing!” She pulls you both into quick hugs and you follow behind her into the packed house. She had cleared out some of the furniture for a makeshift dance floor, and people were definitely putting it to use. She led you to the kitchen where you spotted bottles of liquor littered throughout. “Help yourself!” She shouted over the loud Ice Spice song that was currently playing, and walked away to greet more guests.

You and Jake shared a look, already knowing this party was going to be overstimulating unless you got some alcohol in your systems ASAP. He poured you both a shot of whatever was closest and shouted “Cheers!” before you both downed them. 

It only took a few drinks for you both to start feeling warm and buzzed. You grab his hand and begin leading him to the dance floor, social anxiety be damned. 

“Y/n are we actually about to dance right now?” Jake asked from behind you, and when you turned to face him, you saw a big, stupid grin on his face.

“Yes, Jake! I want to throw ass with my best friend, since when is that a crime?” You shout back dramatically, still tugging on his hand. 

He suddenly yanks your hand, pulling your body closer to his. In one swift motion, he’s wrapped your arm around the back of his neck, while his hands grip your hips tightly, steadying your body in front of him. He leans into your neck, lips grazing your ear as he whispers, “Ya know, I meant what I said earlier… you look beautiful.” 

You sigh at his words, leaning your head back to rest against his chest. You pull his neck closer, forcing his head down so you can whisper back, “I- I don’t just want to be your best friend anymore.” 

“I know,” He says, “I think… I think a part of me has always known. It was always going to be you, I just couldn’t see it yet. But I do now and… and I want you so bad-” You cut him off, closing whatever little space was left between your mouths, taking in all of him. You had imagined this situation millions of times– what it would feel like to envelope your lips in his. Were they soft? Warm? Was he messy or gentle? For years, you had fantasized about this moment, never thinking it’d actually happen. Yet here you are, finally. Kissing your best friend. And it was better than you could have ever dreamed, like a drug. As soon as you got a taste, you craved more. You swiveled your body so you were facing him, and his hands moved up and down your back and further down to squeeze your ass. You lifted yourself onto your tiptoes, bringing yourself even closer to him, hands tangling through his hair, as if in a desperate attempt to swallow him whole. One word rang out in your head over and over: more. 

You broke away eventually, gasping for breath, but he didn’t stop. Instead he moved down your jawline, sloppily kissing anywhere his lips landed, letting out soft grunts as he made his way down your neck, stopping to suck on a particularly sensitive area where he noticed your breath catch. 

“Wait,” You said, and he immediately stopped, placing a hand on your cheek.

“What is it? I’m sorry, did I do something wrong?” He asks, genuine concern painting his face.

“No, no! I just… I wanna make sure you mean it. You’re not just saying this because we’re tipsy, right? Because it’s real for me. You’re my best friend, Jake, and you always will be. But… I wanna be more. I wanna be yours.”

His face softens and he leans in to kiss you gently now, his hand still cradling your cheek. “Y/n, I promise, you are mine. And I’m yours. I’ve been yours since the day you moved in. I might be tipsy, but I’m still aware of what’s going on. I swear, I want this. I want you. Only you.” 

Tears well in your eyes and he wipes them away, “Don’t cry, angel.” 

“I just really love you.” You say, and the biggest smile you’ve ever seen spreads across his face.

“I really love you, too. God, I’ve wanted to say that for so long,” He lets out a relieved sigh. 

You lower your voice to a whisper against his ear, “I really think we should get out of here. You look so fucking sexy.” You’re the one kissing down his neck now, and he breathes out “Fuck.” 

You lead him through the crowd again, this time toward the front door. An Irish goodbye would have to do– being socially unacceptable would be worth it to be naked in his arms. 

---

this piece marks the end of my writing block! i have so many good johnnie requests from you guys that i'm excited to get working on :) as always likes and reblogs are appreciated!

[synesindri]

piecing through stuff from billy gibson's death scene, particularly with an eye to guessing how much of an idea he had of what was coming

relevant billy gibson background: machiavellian approach to self-preservation, has done metaphorical backstabbing, is the one who initially proposed the mutiny idea for pragmatic "there are too many guys out here" reasons, has been instrumental in the mutiny (albeit less visibly and less executively than hickey and tozer). not noting any of this to be accusatory, just pointing out that throwing people under the bus for his own sake is something he has been repeatedly willing to do. this way of thinking is familiar to him, independent of his being in cahoots with other, more physically violent characters, so it probably wouldn't surprise him at least in theory that one might kill a sick person under such extreme circumstances, whether or not he'd ever expect that to happen to him

when hickey asks goodsir if gibson can haul tomorrow, billy's attention snaps up like he is aware this is Important And Meaningful Information — perhaps more important and meaningful information than his own physical deterioration and imminent worse suffering/death

when goodsir says he doubts it, billy insists to hickey that he can. again, he probably knows not being able to haul is going to be more important to hickey's next actions than how billy is feeling

when hickey gets up, billy clings to his sleeve (albeit without much conviction...he is extremely listless in this scene but he was able to shuffle his way into the tent such that i think he probably could have made a better grab if the clinging was intended to be a real effort to bodily keep hickey from leaving. symbolic gesture)

when hickey is out getting the knife, we get a quick shot of tozer intensely watching hickey walking like he is aware some shit is about to go down

dialogue while hickey is fetching the knife: billy: "i wouldn't either, doctor." goodsir: "what's that, mr gibson?" billy: "comfort us. any of us. we're..." — this seems most probably to be about goodsir's blunt bedside manner explaining to billy what is going to happen as the scurvy progresses, but it could also plausibly be about hickey leaving after hearing the can't-haul-anymore diagnosis. this is interesting to me because in a way this is billy doing sort of a kindness for goodsir by effectively telling him he understands why he wouldn't be nicer to him (given that niceness is pretty characteristic of goodsir with his patients to this point), while also being an admission that billy himself does not regard this to be a situation in which he would be nice either...comfort doesn't really enter into it in his mind anymore (although that he brought it up at all suggests that he is probably thinking about being comforted, even while understanding why that is not happening)

billy does not seem on edge and is not looking toward the entrance to the tent when hickey is gone; if he is expecting to be killed, he probably either does not expect it to happen right then, or is so fine with it that he isn't worried about it. i'm inclined to go with the former (if he expected to be killed at all) given his feeble attempt from like two seconds ago to convince hickey that he can still haul...doesn't seem like a guy who is at "please just put me out of my misery" quite yet to me but who knows

my guess is that there had been at least one mutineer planning session including hickey, tozer, and gibson in which the eventuality of guys being too sick to haul was discussed and it was decided that this would result in culling them in some way. whether the specifics of that were addressed between the three of them (or any subset thereof), and which specifics were addressed if any, is pretty unclear to me — hickey seems like he had decided how this would work, and tozer seemed like he might have either known or guessed, but whether it was ever discussed and in how much detail and between which people...idk

i do not think this scene suggests that billy expected to be killed precisely when he was, but it does seem to suggest that he was not anticipating a lot of long-term care. he also doesn't seem to take this personally; people being unable to haul seems like an eventuality that there were plans about how to address in the abstract, and he just happened to be the first of them to reach that point. he's not expecting special treatment; he doesn't seem to really believe in special treatment for any of them anymore by this point, extended from anyone to anyone. this is very clearly not how he wants things to be progressing for him, but i don't think he really acts as if any of it is unfair either. he does not seem to me to be particularly frightened of his illness; he does not seem frightened of hickey; he seems frightened of having unluckily reached a possibly-preestablished tipping point of having become a hindrance to the group

[deatherella]

4to2 notsooldmadcatlady's Medieval Deco Sims & Wooden Carriage

Here's a conversion @notsooldmadcatlady 's Medieval Sims that @alexbgd asked me to convert and notsooldmadcatlady's Wooden Carriage that I wanted. The carriage is cloned from a coffee table so it has two slots inside on the back seat. There are two coachman, one holding the reins to drive and one leaning back and sleeping. The sleeping coachman is repo'd to the sitting one. Use "move_objects on" to place them. The reins do hold horses, but for some reason I took them out and forgot to put them back in for the preview. The rock you see is from @kayleigh-83 's Lots of Rocks set. You have to wiggle the deco sim a bit with boolprop to get him on it. It looked like the rock used in the previews of notsooldmadcatlady's set, so that's the one I used.

There are four horsemen and two of the warriors that go on horses. These are horses I converted in the past HERE but I repositioned them so that all we have to do is "move_objects on" the riders so I have a new link with the updated files. The horses are originally by Severinka and are the ones used by notsooldmadcatlady with her Sims 4 set.

Above are all but one of the Warriors - I spaced out one when I took previews from the looks of it. There are three recolors for each deco sim. The carriage has two subsets. The original templates were 1024-2048 I think and I didn't want to lose all the details, so I chopped it in half - literally - into two subsets. The woods subset has one recolor for the two wood tones, the toptable subset has the curtains and seats and more of the wood parts. There's five recolors for that and you can see which cloth goes with each wood when you use the design tool.

There's a collection files that include everything and it's all compressed. I did not convert the separate wooden carriage doors or steps.

Download Medieval Deco Sims & Wooden Carriage

Download Collection Only Deco Sims & Wooden Carriage

Download 4to2 Horse Decor

[galedekarios]

Returning to your holy alter of the best Gale blog for what might be the final time. Why did L/arian have to change the lines to make Gale more sympathetic towards A/starion running from the sun. Why. So much retcon.

i'll be sorry to see you go, anon! 🖤

as for your question, i honestly don't know.

personally, i don't think it makes particular sense to alter the companions' reaction to what is happening in this scene - not only were the original lines sufficient, but also given the way the relationships between the companions remain largely stagnant throughout the three acts and ast*rion is particular has not been empathetic or sympathetic to any of the others or what is happening to them, and gale particularly so throughout all three acts. (excluding an origin run, of course, where the player makes the choices.)

i know others have addressed it far better than i already, but this to me is a small symptom of a far larger problem with larian as a company. this lack of integrity when it comes to their own story and characters, caving to what a prominent subset of fans has been clamouring for.

i think this constant changing of text is detrimental to the final product (although with the way things are going i don't know if there will be a 'final' product in that sense), even more so when there are - in my eyes - far more pressing matters to concentrate on: the barrenness of act 2 and 3 compared to act 1, the narrative structure of act 3, and the content disparity of ast*rion vs everyone else.

[lafeeverte-sims]

🌳 4t2 wall hangings, rug, and bookcase 🌳

happy holidays! im in the middle of completely remaking my downloads folder to hopefully finally go back to playing this game, and im also cleaning up my wips to finally release some stuff out of the dungeon. i know that some of these have been done already, but i wanted some of them to share meshes, or have different subsets, or slots, or whatever. so, there.

some more info and very 'graphic design is my passion' previews under the cut

lmk if there's something to fix or if i forgot to include something!

🦷 download: 🦷 unmerged [SFS] 🦷 merged [SFS]

credits: ea, theninthwave, michelle

i cloned the bookcase from a snowy escape bookcase conversion by tnw that michelle added slots to, it has 2 subsets (the bookcase and books). hobby > knowledge, obviously.

this wall hanging from werewolves, with 2 subsets (frame and image).

the charts from my first pet and growing together, i know that the former is already around, but i wanted them on the same mesh. the dinosaur from 'hopeful futures' is on the mesh, you can delete the mfp ones if you already have them

a tooth fairy sticker with some recolors from werewolves and high school years, the file names should be like the ones here so you can delete what you don't want (remember to dl the unmerged version for that). there's also a smaller add-on, repo'd to the big one

some more stuff from hsy, three of the 'snack attack' decals are neon-y so i included them both as normal stickers in their own mesh, and more glowy as part of the 'neon dreams' wall hanging

posters from growing together and werewolves. some of them were originally on a slightly dog-eared mesh, so i included that one too to be faithful to the originals, it's repo'd to the straight one

more posters, hsy

i converted these city living scrolls last year and they got stuck waiting for me to be done w some other stuff i was working on at that time, idk if that will ever happen so i might just put them here now. technically they're not all called 'crescent cityscapes' (thats just the first one) but i didn't rename the recolors to fit their ts4 names.

growing together + some white trees from parenthood, all on one mesh. again, delete what you don't want (except the one 'hoots there?' decal that's the mesh)

and finally, some scratches from werewolves on both walls and floors, except i don't have a preview for the floor version, oops. it's mostly similar scratches + some cracks though

[fizzyginfizz]

WIP Sneak Peek

Fred clapped his hands together before folding them on his lap, as if he were about to start a serious lecture. “We were remiss in our brotherly duties last Valentine's Day-”

“-and have woken up at an ungodly hour this year-”

“-to save you-”

“-from yourself.”

Oh Merlin. Ginny’s head dropped in her hands. She took three breaths, then stood. “I don’t need saving from myself,” she hissed. “I just need breakfast. So I’m going-”

They pushed her back down.

“You say that now-”

“-but we know sometimes girls can’t help themselves-”

With a groan, Ginny’s head dropped again.

“-and we wanted to make sure you have not composed-”

“-anything that would be humiliating-”

“-if sang by a diapered dwarf.”

“You’ve had a bad year.”

"Bad couple years."

"You'll look back and laugh someday."

Ginny's jaw dropped.

"Fine. Too soon."

"We'll continue to mine basilisk comedy in our spare time."

"There's a vein somewhere. We'll find it."

Get up early, she had thought. Get first grab at the good scones, she reasoned. Stupid stomach. “I’m not going to embarrass-"

“We didn’t raise you to be one of those gushy girly girls.”

“You didn’t raise me at all!” Ginny cried.

“As if Mum and Dad did.”

“Cute.”

“You are our sister.”

“You are a Weasley.”

“This is not our holiday.”

“This is not anyone with any self-respect’s holiday.”

“You need to always remember:”

“Boys are gross.”

The clock on the mantle chimed six.

Ginny stared at her brothers. “Brothers are gross.”

“Yes. But brothers are a subset of boys. You need to understand, boys are gross.”

“All boys.”

“All boys will always be gross.”

“Nothing but gross.”

“Grosser than gross.”

Ginny’s head fell in her hands a third time. “Will you two please stop?”

“Harry Potter?”

“He’s a boy.”

“Boys are gross.”

“We play Quidditch with him, we know.”

“His socks smell.”

“They smell gross.”

“Valentine’s Day is not a magic day where boys socks stop smelling.”

“Nope. Boys are gross, and you are not a gushy girly girl.”

“You are Ginny Weasley.”

“You hold the Weasley record for most bones broken in a single incident.”

“So… pop quiz! Chocolate in heart-shaped boxes?”

They looked at her expectantly.

Oh barmy frotz, she was never going to get her scone at this rate.

“Alright! Heart-shaped boxes?" She leaned forward, almost spitting the words. “Stupid. You can fit more chocolate in square ones.”

“Ding! Correct-o. Diagonal lines, wasteful.”

“Poetry?”

So help her, she was going to grow up, get a mastery in transfiguration and force them live the rest of their lives as cockroaches. “The only poetry worth writing are dirty limericks.”

“Acceptable."

“Bouquets of flowers?”

“Plant murder.” Ginny huffed. “Shrub decapitation. Absolutely monstrous."

The twins stood up and looked at each other. “Our job is done.”

“They grow up so fast.”

Quidditch is for Losers

[ghelgheli]

17! but also using the opportunity of the ask game to get to know more about the effortless worldbuilding in sff :)

from the end-of-year book ask

17: Did any books surprise you with how good they were?

I think Three Body Problem is the only one meeting this condition this year so I'll have no trouble staying on topic :> but I'm gonna specifically talk about "hard" SF as I conceive of it—I haven't read any analysis so this may just be a jumble of improvised thoughts.

SF, being "speculative" fiction, of course has to take on the problem of speculating and of presenting things that don't (and perhaps cannot) happen. On average this is accomplished thru a healthy combination of scientific grounding and good-natured handwaving: I drop a few sentences about "quantum entanglement" and you go along with my ansible, or you tell me about "positronic circuits" and I agree that you can make a brain with them. This is the compact that makes SF work because you fundamentally cannot expect speculation without, well, ceding ground on reality.

But at least a subset of SF readers are of the kind to really want to grok how it is that this or that scientific feature of the world works or may come about. Every contraption and novel technology is like a puzzle to be riddled out. This is the place where speculation becomes sincere mechanical prediction, and it's why I love hard SF.

This subset of readers can be matched to a subgenre of writers who commit fully to filling in as many blanks in their technological, biological, etc. speculation as possible. The rows of astronomical data can't be left vague—tell me what frequency of light we're dealing with here—xenobiology isn't taken for granted—what is the neurology of your aliens??—and so on. The dots are connected, the rest of the owl is drawn for real, the image is made crisp. Like fireworks for the reader's brain.

When this kind of worldbuilding is executed well imo it looks effortless. Looks, not is, because behind every explanation of near-c travel is hours of research into at least special relativity and time dilation, along with calculations by-hand. Behind every account of an exoplanet's atmosphere is probably a few papers perused on the subject and several articles on scientific american. Peter Watts, in the note at the end of Blindsight, includes a fucking bibliography of a hundred or so references as well as thank-yous to many an academic he split handles of liquor with. And this is only the visible fragment of what has to be a library of knowledge accumulated both passively and actively to make a speculated world feel as concretely plausible as possible.

None of this is necessary for good SF. The aforementioned compact means any author can opt out of this commitment at any time. But it's what it takes to make tightly-written hard SF, where your conceptual hands are kept diligently at your side, waving an idea through maybe once every five chapters when you have no other choice.

So anyway, Three Body Problem is a tour de force in doing this and doing it cleanly. It uses a storytelling device a lot of hard SF employs to make it work: rather than stuffing dense exposition into narration (at which point, just read the source papers) it deploys a cast of characters who more than anything else, really know their shit. We get exposition trickle-fed through experts who are trying, along with us, to make sense of their novel environments and unfamiliar technologies using their knowledge of the present limits of human understanding. This is what Watts does in Blindsight too, by the way: a claustrophobic ship crewed by technical specialists makes first contact, so everyone has something encyclopedic to say about everything and it's only natural.

What astounded me about Cixin Liu's writing is that he made it work just when I least thought he would be able to. I was sure I was being shown things completely inexplicable and necessarily supernatural until he went and explained them in plain terms; better yet, he explained them in ways that made so much sense in retrospect that I was kicking myself for not seeing the answer. This has exactly the flavour of a good puzzle.

The trade-off hard SF makes is that you are often limited in the metaphorical/thematic work you can do through your speculation. I think the contrast between "calendrical science" in Yoon Ha Lee's Machineries of Empire series and Asimov's "psychohistory" illustrates this well.

Yoon Ha Lee has mathematical training, and calendrical science is a speculative field consisting of theorems, conjectures, proofs, etc. in the language of mathematics that stand in for cultural hegemony and power projection. This makes for a great operationalization of soft power: space is filled and distorted by the quantifiable effects of whatever regime is dominant there (the "calendar" here being synecdoche for culture writ large). But obviously he can't fill in the blanks of how a calendar causes spacetime distortions that specifically make one side's weapons more effective, or provide certain formations with shielding effects. This is, I guess, semi-hard (lol) SF—you can see how it's supposed to work, but it's clear that it just won't. What you get in return is pretty politically interesting storytelling.

Psychohistory is the converse: a deterministic-enough lovechild of economics and sociology explained in the Foundation series as using all the familiar methods of linear algebra and differential equations together with unfamiliar innovations of just how to quantify human behaviour in order to make reliable predictions. There are entire chapters dedicated to explaining the conceptual nuance that went into developing psychohistory ("the hand on thigh principle" from prelude to foundation is just about how the theory resolves divergence by reducing insignificant terms to zero) and an entire book to exploring one of its limitations. It's fascinating to read. But you also get little narrative depth out of it, because hard SF, even when done well, is not guaranteed to make a story thematically interesting or politically compelling. This is the Three Body Problem problem too: its political commitments are threadbare and unserious because that's just not what it's about. I couldn't recommend it on those terms, but that's not what I like so much about it. I will say the conceptualization goes a little off the rails in the final chapters, but I think most SF authors were in some kind of string theory inspired fugue state at the time.

What I would love to see (and I'm sure exists) is hard SF that also has interesting politics. Unfortunately that's an intersection of two already-narrow intersections.

ty for ask✨🐐

[thebiballerina]

Suggestions for More Varied Polyamorous Ship Tournaments

For me, half the fun of fandom-focused brackets is to learn about media that people are passionate about, maybe even ones that you are totally unfamiliar with. While I love Leverage (2008) with all my heart, it has gotten a little repetitive to see Hardison/Parker/Eliot win or place in so many OT3 or polyamory poll tournaments (at least five that I know of—see footnote), when I know there are so many interesting polyamorous ships out there. Since I understand the appeal of the H/P/E OT3 and I know Leverage fans will be dedicated no matter what, I propose that it could be helpful (and fun) to see a wider variety in types of polyamory poll tournaments. After all, there are many different ways that fans might consider a ship to be "best".

Thus I have developed a list of suggestions (thank you @doctorbeverlycrusher and @mary-louise4760 for your assistance here). This includes a mix of aspects that a ship can be ranked as "best" in, and specific ship dynamics. Feel free to ask for clarification or examples of any of the list items, add your own suggestions, and use these as inspiration for poll tournaments. (Some of these might need to be combined/altered to get enough potential contestants.)

Aspects/Dynamics to Rank Polycules By

"Do not separate them.": It is difficult to imagine any relationship within the group without the whole set being involved, whether romantically or queerplatonically. e.g. Many fans say this is why they would favor the Leverage OT3 over other polyamorous ships.

"Please do separate them.": Two or more partners should keep other partners firmly in-between them at all times. Keeping the polycule together is essential to continued civil interaction.

Rejection of canon love triangle/infidelity: Fandom took one look at that plotline and said, "No way. They have two hands." Or whatever the equivalent statement is when one runs out of hands for applicable partners.

Shipping Wars: The best resolution. Fixes many things.

Shipping Wars: The best non-resolution. Fixes nothing, but is good anyway.

Shipping Wars: Worst but technically effective resolution. Fixes the war, but creates new issues.

Shipping Wars: The funniest resolution. May overlap with some of the above three.

In-Universe Wars (or Conflict/Politics): The best resolution. Diplomatic!

In-Universe Wars: The best non-resolution. Undiplomatic!

In-Universe Wars: Worst but technically effective resolution. Diplomatic with respect to this issue, but also creates new ones.

Unexpected package deal: Essentially, the opposite of the identity porn trope where someone has feelings for multiple people that turn out to be a single person.

Seduction plans rapid-pivot: e.g. Sometimes your plans require seducing someone that turns out to be happily in a relationship, so clearly the only choice is to seduce both them and their partner.

Jealousy plot rapid-resolution: Sometimes you think someone will be angry or jealous about you having feelings for or ending up in an encounter with someone they also have feelings for, but they are very much not upset. Maybe even the opposite of upset.

Fake relationship rapid-resolution: Life hack! Turn the fake/arranged partner(s) into additional real partner(s). Often a subset of the above bullet point.

Hands-on instruction: So dedicated to helping their friend with romance/sex that they end up demonstrating. Thoroughly.

Couples (or established polycule) bonding exercise: We can fix them. Or make them worse. Or just seduce them.

Couples (or established polycule) unbonding exercise: Have you ever seen a couple mildly argue about how one of them caught up on a TV show alone when they were supposed to be watching it together? This, but with seduction.

Organization/scheduling proficiency: Have you ever tried to handle finding overlaps between multiple schedules? It's difficult. So I think there should be a competition for polycules that handle that best.

Sneak attack potential: "What's this? It's their third, with the steel chair!"

Heist crew

Band: This one can work for many different sizes of polycules, if you are flexible with the type of music group.

Ship^2: The ship crew. Works for ocean ships, starships, airships, and any other varieties.

Witch coven or assorted magical circle

Supernatural leaders: e.g. vampire colony, fairy council, werewolf pack where the alpha wolf only exists as much as it does in real wolves, etc.

Competition champions: The ideal team. Could be sports. Could be trivia night. Could be that they are just killing it at karaoke.

Competition contestants that somehow make everyone lose

Accidental legal polygamy: They weren't trying to all end up legally intertwined, but untangling that seems more effort than it is worth.

Canon co-parents: A canon plot means a kid has 3+ parents or parental figures. The ship writes itself.

"It takes a village," ("and the village takes each other"): One child (or set of children) takes so much wrangling that the polycule is just efficient.

Most awkward stepparent(s) configuration

Most chaotic potential family gatherings: e.g. In-laws who have to awkwardly try to get along when they hate each other, now with even more in-laws!

Best pet owners: Sometimes joint custody of a pet is a lot of work, and consolidation is ideal.

Using These Suggestions

All are welcome to use these ideas, altered or unaltered, in your own poll tournaments/games. No additional permission is required, though I would appreciate it if you linked this post somewhere on the poll blog, so others can find it. Also, if you let me know you have a tournament along these lines (whether directly inspired by this list or not), I will be happy to give you a shout out in the notes.

Footnote

Here are the poll tournaments I'm referencing when I say Leverage's H/P/E has won or placed in five that I know of.

Champions

@powerpolyculeshowdown (2023-03-09): Won in the final against Yoo Jonghyuk/Han Sooyoung/Kim Dokja from Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint.

@polyam-ship-showdown (2023-02-28): Won in the final against Ninth Doctor/Rose Tyler/Jack Harkness from Doctor Who.

@throuple-tournament (2024-04-04): Won in the final against Thanatos/Zagreus/Megaera from Hades and Nathan/Vlad/Ursula from Hunger Pangs: True Love Bites.

Placed

@ot3showdown (2023-05-12): Runner-up, lost in the final 49%-51% to Kirk/McCoy/Spock.

Ongoing

@bestpolyshipbracket: Currently in the final round, so H/P/E will either be in second or first place.