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sroloc--elbisivni · 4 months

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Something from the Transformers Band AU or Regency AU? Those were super fun.

Five times Drift’s new bandmates were weird and one time he embraced the chaos

The first time Drift realized how weird his new bandmates were, he hadn’t even joined the band yet. They weren’t his bandmates. They were just Arcee and Rod’s friends he was meeting at a diner because they were about to go on tour without a bassist and one of them had heard him practicing on the couch. Drift was kind of expecting to get about five questions in before they figured out he wasn’t worth it and moved on.

What he got instead was the guy he was pretty sure he hadn’t met going, “So you’ve done tours before, right? You know you can handle it?”

“Yes,” Drift said, and got ready for it to fall apart as soon as they asked him about those tours.

“And double checking—you’re not using anything, right?’ the guy he was pretty sure he had met said. “Like, no shade, no harm, it’s not a problem, we just gotta know.”

“Using…?” Drift said, carefully.

“Drugs,” Rod elaborated from where he was playing games on his phone and stealing fries from the guy who must have been the one Drift had already met.

“No. No, I’m not.”

“Do you snore?” the guy he hadn’t met before asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Yeah,” Rod said. Drift tried not to wince. That didn’t seem like an answer they’d want to hear.

“Okay, you’ll bunk with Percy,” the guy he’d met before said. “So how this is gonna work is, we’ll run you through the schedule and the set basics and if it all sounds good, we’ll get you in to talk with our lawyer and—do you have an agent?”

Not anymore. Drift just shook his head, cautiously.

“—that’s fine, you can borrow ours. You can talk to them two and get the contract shit straightened out and call the first tour leg a trial run. Doesn’t work out, that’s fine, we can track down someone else and you can get back to your life?”

It went up at the end like a question. Drift was still trying to figure out what was going on. They hadn’t told him to leave yet.

“He’s in,” said Rod, who had managed to figure out how to interpret Drift’s blanking face in the past two months. “Hey, you should let me be your agent.”

“Don’t do that.” The guy Drift had just met today, whose name he would learn in short order was Impactor, pulled out a pen and grabbed a napkin out of the dispenser. “So here’s what the first few shows are going to look like—”

===

Drift had actually learned what band he was gigging for by the time the publicity circuit started. Seemed like the ‘Wreckers’ were pretty well known in the States. They had pretty regular radio interviews, and after they’d wrapped a very successful first leg of the tour and were starting to talk about him sticking around, they had him come along to one of them.

Drift hadn’t absorbed much of Springer’s rundown besides “Are you kidding me, that’s fucking hilarious, please say that,” when he checked if it would be okay for him to say that he’d never heard of the band before he joined if the interviewer asked. About the only other thing he’d tracked was “Oh, and if we all stand up, that’s a signal that the lady asked a walkout question and we’re getting the hell out of there.”

He’d assumed this was them trying to fuck with him and nodded accordingly. As such, it took him a couple seconds to notice when the rest of the group went silent in response to a question to Springer about some kind of anniversary.

“Welp,” Impactor said, and slapped his hands against his thighs. They were all standing now, and Drift scrambled to his feet to follow them out. The radio host was staring at them with baffled offense, but none of the rest of them even looked at her.

Whirl led the way out of the radio station at a confident saunter, losing his helmet that he wore for all official band business into his backpack in a quick slight of hand Drift couldn’t catch. That plus Perceptor’s sunglasses rendered them just about invisible, as a group.

“So, ice cream?” Whirl asked. “I’m feeling ice cream.”

“What was that?” Drift asked, still glancing back. No one was coming out of the station after them, not even Kup. Were they in trouble?

“I told you about walkout questions, right?” Springer asked. “Stuff about my dad who’s in jail qualifies.”

“...I thought you were joking.”

“Oh, super not joking.”

“It’s in the contract,” Perceptor said. “All of us have things we’d rather not discuss publicly. Some of the press don’t read it, or think that the ‘right to terminate immediately’ isn’t something we’ll actually exercise.” He adjusted his sunglasses. “Kup will take care of it. We haven’t had to show we’re not bluffing in a while.”

“Sorry, dude,” Impactor said, clapping Springer on the back.

“It’s whatever. Drift, you wanna put anything on the list? Shit people absolutely cannot ask about?”

He did. Might as well start big and let them help him figure out what was unreasonable, right? “My entire career before this.”

“Fuck yes,” Whirl said. “I love it. Walking enigma of a man number two. Do you want help making up a fake backstory or are we just calling it a void?”

Drift’s new bandmates were very weird, but he couldn’t say he minded.

===

They were through the second of three tour legs and taking a night to celebrate—both making it this far and that Drift had decided he’d be joining the band. They’d crammed into the same room, along with Rod and Arcee and a bunch of things from the game shop down the road that looked fun. Everyone except Impactor was drunk and Arcee had her head in Springer’s lap while he petted her buzzcut. Drift was pleasantly buzzed for the first time in a while

“Hey,” Arcee said, reaching out to pat Drift on the arm. “Hey. Hey Drift. If you’re with the band now. What’s your carsona.”

“What?”

“OH FUCK YES,” Whirl said, sitting up so fast he fell off the bed. Perceptor dropped a pillow on top of his face. It didn’t dampen the effect. “Did I tell you guys, I had the coolest fucking idea for the next one. First off, I’m going to need a bunch of guns—”

“What are you fucking talking about,” Drift said, because he’d learned that Whirl explaining one of his ideas could take an entire conversation’s worth of words and he didn’t want to move on without an answer. “Impactor?”

Impactor was already scrolling on his phone, and five seconds later he shoved it in front of Drift’s face. Drift could recognize the opening notes of Wreck and Rule before it even got four bars in, playing over an animated shot of a tank rolling down a deserted road. The song built to the opening fermata, and as the saxophone held out the note, the tank started to break into pieces and reform into a helicopter.

“What,” Drift repeated.

The helicopter launched into the sky as the bass dropped and the drums kicked in, and two cars shot off a ramp in the background to come crashing into frame as another helicopter dive-bombed the camera. An unsupported microscope flew through the air to keep up.

“What.”

The next three minutes featured car chases, helicopter acrobatics, and absolutely no concern for the laws of physics. It came to the end and Drift immediately dragged the video back to the beginning to watch it again, this time complete with commentary as everyone had to tell him which vehicle they were and why and the cool effects.

“What,” Drift said, helplessly, again, when it had finished. “Why is this a thing.”

“Percy’s idea,” Whirl said. “Because he’s a weeb.”

“Revolutionary Girl Utena is a masterpiece,” Perceptor said to no one in particular.

Drift hit replay on the video again, because he could. This was so weird. It was so cool.

“I wanna be a racecar,” he said, when it had finished again.

“ONE OF US,” Hot Rod cheered, and tried to wrestle him into a noogie. He failed, of course. Springer helped pin him down while Drift got his revenge.

===

“Hey,” Whirl said, somewhere during a long overnight drive on the bus when he and Drift were the only ones awake. “Do you like instrumental stuff?”

Drift looked up from his book. “Sure?”

Whirl waggled a pair of headphones at him. “Wanna give something a listen for me?”

“Sure.”

Drift knew Whirl did a lot of the band’s instrumentations, and that he got bored easy, so he was expecting this to be a new riff on one of the songs they’d been playing so far, or maybe a completely unknown song for the album that was scheduled for work when they were done with the tour. Instead, he got a string quartet.

Even with the tinny, unvarying tones of automated transcription software, it flowed. It was elegant, all the notes interlocking like clockwork, the instruments passing around the melody and making it their own. It cut off abruptly enough that Drift could feel how much he wanted more.

“Okay, this bit. Is the cello doing enough?” Whirl asked, and played the last thirty seconds again.

Drift hadn’t done instrumental music in years, but he had a pretty good understanding of bass parts thanks to this tour. “It’s kind of boring. Syncopate it, maybe?”

“Well, fuck you too,” Whirl said, and snatched the headphones back. He clicked something and scowled at his screen. “Fuck. You’re right.”

“You’re writing this?” Drift asked, instead of going back to his book.

“Side gig. Cyclonus listens to the classical music station all the time. I will get something on there. He can’t escape from me.”

Every time Whirl mentioned either of his housemates Drift wasn’t sure if he was dating them or not, and at this point Drift was honestly kind of scared to ask.

===

Drift was already nervous on the first day of recording for the new album. It was going to be the first time he’d been in a recording booth in almost a year. He might completely fail at this, and not know how to work with them, or not be able to adapt, and just stick to being a touring backup. Which he liked, it was great, but it wasn’t like he could live on that, and it was pretty damn unlikely that he was going to trip into gigging for any other bands the way he had for this one.

So his nerves were running high even before he let himself in with the code and wandered down a hallway towards the sound of raised voices and found Perceptor, of all people, having a shouting match with a stranger in the production booth. The rest of the band was in the recording booth, all doing things completely unrelated to music. Drift snuck in to join them.

“Uh…” At least it was quiet in here. “Are they…”

Impactor flipped a page in his motorcycle magazine. “They’ll need another couple of minutes.”

Drift decided to take a very long time tuning his bass.

Sure enough, a couple minutes later Percy stormed out of the recording booth and slammed the door open to join them. The stranger, grinning smugly, flipped on the mic to chat with them and waved. “Hey! You must be the new guy. I’m Percy’s ex-boyfriend.”

“I told you to stop telling people that!” Perceptor shouted at the booth. “He’s my husband,” he added in a far calmer aside to Drift.

“Oh,” Drift said. He’d vaguely known Perceptor was married, but he hadn’t really expected...this?

“Mwah!” The guy who must be Brainstorm blew a kiss at the booth. “Oh-kay, if you gentlemen would like to get this show on the road, I need some sound checks.”

“Our regular producer is your husband?” Drift asked Percy, quietly. He was pretty sure this wasn’t standard, even for the American music industry.

“He works for takeout,” Springer said, and played a rimshot.

Well. At least his nerves were gone.

===

The album recording process went...fine? It went fine. It went great, actually, Drift didn’t have to do any singing at all and finally understood enough about how they liked the bass to fit into their songs that he could improv some of his own parts instead of asking Kup for help or trying to follow Impactor’s increasingly incomprehensible whims. The album was coming together, they were creeping towards release and planning the next tour, the paparazzi still hadn’t figured out where he was, and he only slept on Rod and Arcee’s couch when he didn’t feel like going home after movie night.

They were doing their first show in a while, to build hype for the upcoming album, and Drift was wandering around the venue after sound check doing nothing in particular. Springer was nearby, challenging people to dance-offs with the camera guy who was doing a documentary for the upcoming tour and also enabling Springer’s burgeoning social media empire trailing behind him.

“Hey, Drift!” Springer waved at him. “Dance-off?”

Drift thought about it. He was less scared of being found than he had been a year ago. He liked it here, he liked his band mates, his old agency hadn’t tried to get in touch with him at all. He’d found a life after washing out of Kpop. Why not?

“Sure,” he said, and launched into an old routine. Not one of the ones from his last tour, that had ended with him falling off the stage, but one of the ones from before that when his health hadn’t been as bad. It wasn’t one of his flashier ones, but he’d drilled it a lot and it looked good close up.

It ended with him facing his audience, one hand outstretched, so he had a fantastic view of the shocked and delighted awe on Springer’s face two seconds before he tackled Drift into a nearby couch shouting “What the FUCK was THAT?”

Drift was going to assume he’d won.

#talky talk #becauseforoncethisisme #sroloc writes stuff #prompts 2023 #maccadams #is this transformers

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phoenixyfriend · 8 months

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I now know one of my characters makes her own mayonnaise because sweet mayonnaise offends her thank you

I grew up eating my mom's homemade mayonnaise and can assure you it's not particularly hard, and is also much tastier.

#becauseforoncethisisme #basics: egg + oil + dijon mustard + vinegar + salt #there are other things you can play with (like parsley or dried shallots or use a different kind of oil or vinegar)#but those are the basics #phoenix answers asks #food #mayonnaise

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professorsparklepants · 1 year

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The slugs are not three. The three year olds are genocidal assassins. Long story.

Okay phew.

#that tracks tho three year olds WOULD commit genocide by accident #ask #becauseforoncethisisme

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mihrsuri · 4 months

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I really want to do my end of year sappiness post right now so I am going to do it. This year. This year, this year was the year that the fact that I made it is something I have to talk about it, because honestly I wasn’t sure between everything. And in the trauma (the activated Jewish Trauma Genre), in the hate I have also found love. Am Yisrael Chai. We live. I live.

Which is why I have to first send my love to my Jewish Mutuals/Friends and to Jumblr - @cephalopodvictorious @captainlordauditor and just, every one of my Jewish Mutuals and people who have sent kind words. Who have made me, a patrilineal mizrahi jewish woman reconnecting with her heritage and faith because of abuse feel Jewish enough to go to Synagogue.

This year was, despite everything the year I reconnected with old friends (shout to my friends in physical space - E, R, C and C), I took an art class, I swam more, I wrote a bunch of words, I found my love of art again and discovered that I might, might be good at it, I even asked for things like gifts even though it’s Terrifying.

To my saatis. My sisters. My chosen family. Thank you for everything - the phone calls you let me schedule, the chats and the wise words and the blorbos and from some of you the in person hugs (there will be more I will offer hugs to and I will also hug again). @shes-a-voodoo-child @bibliothekara @wheresonichedgehogwnt @pearlsthatwereeyes @star-anise @notabuddhist @kawuli lemonsharks @maevedarlings @ruffboijuliaburnsides @taibhsearachd @blackeyedgirl-writes @armyofthedaegiloth @strangeetudes @findingfeather

@bessemerprocess @sarking @jesidres @kshandra @amadistuff FRIENDS. FRIENDS. Love you to the moon and back - and we are here. We are here.

And @geeoharee - The Sherlock Content <3.

To the Pocket Friends Who Have/Are Becoming(If It’s okay obviously!) Become Friends: @rahabs whose kindness I will never ever forget. To @theladyelizabeth who patiently answers my questions about all kinds of Tudors Things and who is like, The Best. To @nocompromise-noregrets for Ellie, for answering archives questions and just in general. To @gen-is-gone - a saati in the making, holder of correct Doctor Who Opinions forever. To @herawell - the bravest when scared, indulges my OT3 verse. To @miabicicletta - one of the best fic writers, so generous and kind and whose comments make my entire day. @eidetictelekinetic - my favourite Tudors Fic Writer is my Friend Now and is awesome.

@jkthinkythoughts <333333.

@lorata - whose worldbuilding leaves me in awe and who is just, frankly absolutely great.

@isagrimorie because CORRECT DOCTOR WHO AND BEST META

@feuillesmortes for never failing to make me think, to post beautiful poetry and for the best H7/EOY sources and for always, above all being kind.

@hoursofreading @becauseforoncethisisme (special shout out to you <3) @disredspectful (oh my gosh your words)

@anhaga @goshawke @beatrice-otter @alexseanchai <333333

Also @nurselaney for indulging my Thomas/Mihrimah Content and also the women of the SOE.

@sherwoodknights for Scarlet Pimpernel and also Patrick Gibson feels.

@quillington - for correct Anne Boleyn and Scarlet Pimpernel thoughts and also being The Sweetest.

@lordlykisses - kindness and Taylor Swift. And @cleoselene for Taylor Swift and kind words I will also never forget.

To The Cromwell/James Frain Appreciation Brigade - @uncheckedaggression @reallyginnyf (also a fellow hurt/comfort enjoyer) @cinemaocd - thank you <3.

To all the West Wing Discord People - I adore you. Thank you for being so kind and welcoming and wonderful.

And to all my mutuals. Thank you for bearing with me this year, with so much kindness. I know it’s been A Lot but I have, despite everything felt so so loved.

#lil is a sap

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docholligay · 2 months

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Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Thank you @becauseforoncethisisme for sponsoring this! Regulars know this, but if you're new here, all opinions are mine and it's fine to disagree with me, but please don't get weird about it.

Nonspoilery:

Good God in high heaven and low hell, this is so much better than the first book. This is both a personal and professional opinion. The only problem with it being, I cannot in good conscience tell anyone to read the first book in order to get to the second. I don’t think it’s so good as to justify that. That’s a pretty tall order. In all, though, if you read Gideon the Ninth and thought, “Hm. Okay, that’s enough for now,” this might whet your whistle a little bit more.

Spoilery:

Wow did I like this better than Gideon, you were all so right and it does not bother me even one solitary bit to say so. I think it starts slow, and I don’t know that I really ever connected with the second person bits--once I figured out what it meant, i wanted it to be confirmed and stop-- and of course Muir’s style occasionally grates on me (Muir and I are the same age. I know we grew up in the same fandom environment, and part of the reason I know that is I recognize elements of her style from fanfics being written then as now. This is stuff from like, sporking days. She’s so talented, and so loves these strange, memey asides even in lovely moments. That being said, i think this book strikes a much, much better balance with that and there were even times I found it fun, so, things are improving) But overall I would say I liked this book just fine, and would consider reading it again on some winter night. LEAPS AND BOUNDS over my experience of GtN

I struggled so hard with the first 150 pages or so of this book. I think it was a combination of how little I remembered from the first book, the taste the first book left in my mouth, and the fact that I am just, too stupid for high-concept fantasy. So all the stuff about thanergy and thelergy and conversion, I just, sat there not possible caring less about any of it. I don’t care now, and I came away liking the book! This is for someone, certainly, but I am not it. If this hadn’t been a commission, I think I would have given up at a certain point. I usually give a book 100 pages and this wouldn’t have done it for me*

At the end of the day, I think one of the things this book can be about--for me, it’s about more than one thing, but this is the easy reach--is about grief. And how being willing to give yourself a Fantasy Lobotomy, if that’s what it takes, to avoid the hurt and loss that grief brings in, and the guilt, only ends up hurting yourself and everyone around you.

Also, it doesn’t bring them back. Forgetting them in every way possible does nothing to bring them back. Now, Harrow is a special case, so for her it can’t only be about avoiding pain, because what she’s also doing, because of how the whole Lyctorhood thing works, is, in a sense, keeping Gideon on life support. Like is said later in the book, shoving her in a drawer she can’t open, but so long as the drawer is never opened, Gideon is alive. It’s Harrow living her entire life in the doorway where where a policeman stands, ready to tell you someone you loved is dead, and she won’t let him speak. Because it’s not true until he does.

I like Harrow so much more in this one by virtue of the fact that this book cares so much less if we like or forgive her. Because of the way it works with perspective, and the way it’s trying not to tip its hand to the fact that Gideon is our second-person narrator, we get a much more neutral version of Harrow’s life

How Lyctors work: Love it. What a choice. My favorite takeaway from the first book, and perhaps the only thing I still think about actively while lying in bed at night, is the necromancer-cavalier system. I think it is fantastic, I love it, it works perfectly for imagining all shades of relationship and is very fun to do to your blorbim. I can’t remember if we found this out so explicitly at the end of the first book--as I said in an aside post while I was reading HtN, the pool scene in GtN pissed me off so much that I had a rage blackout for much of the book and forgot it the second I wrote about it--but the idea that the necromancer can only become this sort of ultimate power by killing this person they, by necessity, have some level of intimate bond with? Exceptional. I love that they are, in a sense, protected and powered by a person who loved them, that they murdered. I am so unbelievably into this idea, and the idea of those who can DO this, and who can’t. Reeled me back to my blorbos all over again.

Which of course makes the whole thing with Harrow so interesting, because Harrow is someone who can’t deal with the cost of it. In full fairness to her, it wasn’t a choice she got to make, but she certainly does Gideon’s memory no honor by refusing to even acknowledge her sacrifice. She’s spitting on the roast lamb on the altar, so to speak. It’s sort of the murdered children problem all over again, though a million times better done: If an impossible sacrifice is made for you, what do you do to earn it? It’s Saving Private Ryan, and you have to spend your whole life hoping you earned a sacrifice someone made without your consent. And you should! What will you do, to earn your place? I know, i know, we all hate that except for me, but if Gideon died to make you a demigod, earn your power, and take your responsibility.

Ianthe: I love a good horrible, manipulative cunt, and Ianthe certainly is that. This isn’t even me joking, she’s one of my favorite characters in the book (Though not my absolute favorite) and also my poster child for “I support women’s wrongs.” I think it’s so smart and great that at the end, Ianthe makes the wrong choice, and that you are sitting there screaming for her not to do that, and yet when she does it, it feels completely correct. Of course this is a thing that she both can and would do. Ianthe is about hedging her bets, and above all else, about Ianthe. She killed Naberius as soon as she figured out the deal. We get the sense that she feels…i’m not sure how I want to say this…it’s not that she doesn’t feel about it, but she feels inevitable about it, also. To her, there was no other choice.

She is willing to help Harrow destroy herself, shut herself off, because Ianthe loves a good “you fucking owe me” but also because other than how it benefits or hurts her, what the fuck does she care? I love her, it’s how I wish I could write Minako if I could get away with it. She’s clever and fun and terrible. I think she’s also, narratively, a great balance for Harrow’s whole ‘That girl in homeroom in an Invader Zim hoodie” vibe.

Mercymorn my beloved: If Ianthe is my poster child for, “I support women’s wrongs” than Mercymorn is my ‘tag yourself.’ The longer the book when on, the more I liked her because the more I understood her. As an old lady who has been a part of things for many years, who has seen them grow and fall apart, who has lost people I loved and worked with people I hate, I loved everything about her. I love how utterly done she is with the whole thing. The way she so clearly loved Cristabel, and how she reacts to the pain of that love in a way I understand, and didn’t realize how clearly I understood her until Mercymorn killed the Emperor. Then it all hit at once, I remember that moment pretty early on in the book where it mentions that is you say Cristabel’s name to Mercymorn, she reacts like she’s stung. The way she yells at Harrow to never use her name with her, filled with rage. That is a kind of grief I recognize. I don’t want to talk about it and i’ll fucking kill you if you remind me.

I felt every ounce of hurt, a plucking of a twin string, when she said, “This is the chance for unloveable Mercymorn--critical Mercymorn--to show you that she is the most capable of her name.”

And then she kills the emperor. Do I think he was sorry? Do I think he never wanted any harm to come to Cristabel**? Does Mercymorn think that? It doesn’t fucking matter. Whether he feels bad about it or not, it’s academic at best. She murdered Cristabel because a man she trusted, a man she took to be her God, lied to her about it. He told her she, to save the world, had to give up a person she adored. Had to do it herself. I, too, would rip him atom from atom, if I were Mercymorn***. Maybe she does forgive him, but only because he is about to make repentance in blood.

She’s my favorite character in the whole fucking book, bar none.

(On that note, sort of, I actually came to very much love Augustine.)

Oh! One thing I loved, so much, and I don’t think anyone I’ve seen say anything even offhandedly about the book, is during the fight with the Sleeper, how Ortus’ BELIEF and PASSION form the basis to call up Mattias Fucking Nonius. Is that not incredible? That faith, can be so strong, that Abigail could call up a man that none of them ever knew, who is basically an idea more than a man, to fight? I think it’s such a lovely little lesson tucked in there, because we have been making fun of Ortus’ belief system for the entire book, mocking the way he recites this, and in the end, his deeply held belief matters, it matters so much, and I adored that as a real reversal of mocking someone faithful.

I think part of the underlying problem with GtN is I just don’t like Gideon. I don’t like her point of view, I don’t like her character voice, I don’t like her general vibe, and the narrative does like her, and wants you to like her. In this book, it’s fine because so much of it is not from her perspective, but it became pretty clear to me that so much of what I disliked (though not all) of the first book was a Gideon-based problem. And you can’t escape her in the first book.

This all flew immediately back to me when Gideon is taking up Harrow’s body and also the narrative duties. I cannot stand her character voice. Muir is capable of being so smart and so beautiful in her prose, but not only is Gideon herself irritating, but she inspires Muir to do this…recitation of memes, the one I can think of off the top of my head is “Jail for mother” Tamsyn i will fucking kill you. I will not read Nona, because the back page tells me, threateningly, that Gideon will be back in Nona, and not only can i not handle reading another word from her, but also that will unmake the beauty of telling Harrow that she has to let Gideon go, that she has to let them become one and thus lose Gideon, because of course it does because it’s a fantasy book, and fantasy just Does This A Lot. Stop letting people come back! Kill these motherfuckers and leave them dead!

The thing about Pyrrha and Wake having an affair with Gideon’s body, and wake having God’s baby in order to open the locked tomb, it’s such a weird aside in a weird moment, that I can see I am going to forget about it. It’s so strange! I mean, it explains why Gideon didn’t die when she was supposed to, and I don’t have a problem with it per se, but I also don’t know that I have any feelings about it other than, ‘hm. Strange.”

In all: Not a bad book! Enjoyed it more as the book went on, Mercymorn for Lyfe. I hope Ianthe continues being the world’s sexiest and worst person.

Did you want to ask me something? As long as you’re not a dick about it, ask away! Let’s have fun.

*I suppose that’s my own personal de jure vs de facto, because truthfully I can’t remember the last time I straight up did not finish a book. Perhaps I’m just lying to myself. I dnf shows and movies all the time, but not books.

** No, I don’t think that.

***Although I’m actually not all that sure in my marriage if I’m the necro. I think I’m actually the cavalier. I don’t think Jill would feel a whole lot of patience over having murdered me either, though.

#Doc reads #now mom is gonna read them both I'll report back

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wowerehouse · 1 year

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@becauseforoncethisisme incidentally! The reason Sylvanas likes Ihz, the reasons she will ADMIT to liking Ihz, and the thing that made her REALIZE she liked Ihz are completely different bullet points

Reasons Sylvanas Windrunner Admits To Liking Ihz:

She has a clear and consistent concept of honor, which makes her predictable.

Predictability makes someone easy to manipulate. It also makes them safe.

Her aversion to any kind of personal loyalty means her loyalty can’t be bought or leveraged to change the math on how she’ll react in a given scenario.

Can’t fucking intimidate her into submission, either. Sylvanas ought to know, it drives her up the wall.

She’s an extremely reliable operator who keeps her word and obligations, out of professional pride if nothing else; which, see above re: predictability, but also, Sylvanas would LOVE for people to, occasionally, ACTUALLY just do what she tells them to do without going rogue and fucking all her plans six ways from Sunday, for fuck’s sake.

When she does deviate from the plan she does so in a way that keeps her head down and generally doesn’t cause many ripples, which is a fancy way of saying she generally has good judgement.

The longer and more formal the title she uses, the less she respects you. Sylvanas can vibe with that.

She responds to being spied on by a political officer by making the political officer act as a stablehand, but only if she respects them. ....Also, Anya liked her.

Anyone who can out-stubborn an entire mule string deserves at least a little respect.

Reasons Sylvanas Windrunner Actually Likes Ihz:

She’s been fighting a losing battle of attrition against the extinction of her race since Arthas marched on Silvermoon, the Forsaken are more precious to her than she knows how to comprehend, any acceptance they’ve earned has been conditional at best, an outright lie at worst, and generally looks like being used as shock troops with undisguised revulsion.

She can justify it until the heat death of the universe. She may not be able to admit it even to herself--she’s Sylvanas, after all--but that irritable, uncomplicated gentleness means the world.

The Thing That Made Sylvanas Go ‘Lmao Okay I Think I Like Her’:

That time Ihz called her an upstart piece of shit, pulled rank, and shoved her ass-over-teakettle into a hedge.

I should clarify that Sylvanas was very much undercover at the time

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randomcanbian · 2 years

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Ten fandoms, ten characters

Tagged by the incredible, amazing @tuiyla!

It was so incredibly hard to limit this to a top ten lmfao, but I guess I eventually managed it 😂 Priority was given to characters who made a huge impact on my life, then next to characters who gave me immense Blorbo Feels at the time and whom I still remember fondly, with one or two currently giving me brain worms at the moment.

In alphabetical order:

Antigone Funn (Wooden Overcoats)

Bak Sun (Sense8)

Byleth Eisner (Fire Emblem)

Carmilla Karnstein (Carmilla)

Cousland (Dragon Age)

Fatin Jadmani (The Wilds)

Kanaya Maryam (Homestuck)

Renee Montoya (DC Comics, specifically Greg Rucka's run)

Santana Lopez (Glee)

Shepard (Mass Effect)

Tagging @hopefulobjectmiracle, @wherenightmaresroost, @orangepeels89, @dorothycampbell, @fruitybishop, @becauseforoncethisisme, @santinacedes, and @calpernia-for-archon because I'm super interested to see your ten characters if you're up for it! (But no pressure lmao).

And anyone else who wants to do it, feel free :D

#ask game #shoutout to the following characters because i still love them so much / they gave me such insane brain worms at the time #alex chen from lis #shoutout to victoria chase because she made me insane before alex came and made me fall in love with her #there is one thing i can never forgive her for but everything else about her and her immense self-hatred makes me want her #carol danvers during kelly sue deconnick's run at marvel #inej ghafa from six of crows #tahani al jamil from tgp #korra from lok #veronica lodge...like i like her a bit less because i just cannot stand rd in general but on paper and with camila she will always be queen #gabriella montez from hsm the first character i truly went insane for #daisy tonner from the magnus archives...to fight against your nature and bring yourself to the brink of death because you no longer #want to harm others...baby #delphine cormier from orphan black #america chavez...altho it hurts me how less i feel for you because of how your potential was wasted by your future writers #kieron and that dude who wrote ultimates are the only ones who treated you with respect imo #JOAN WATSON HOW COULD I FORGET #HOW CAN I DISRESPECT THE QUEEN #WAIT I NEED TO EDIT THIS

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uchidachi · 2 years

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@illusivesoul tagged me in this Mass Effect meme! thank youuu!

"Let’s spread some positive vibes by remembering what we love about the trilogy. Fill in and tag your friends. Feel free to add your own categories to this survey."

I'm tagging @razrogue, @butwhatisit, @barbex, @amarmeme, @becauseforoncethisisme, and @onionjuggler (no pressure!)

I've been a fan since: I watched my roommate play when ME2 came out, but only started playing myself when Andromeda came out!

Favorite game of the series: Can I say Andromeda ;). From the original trilogy I think 2, but in my own playthrough I'm only halfway through 1

MaleShep or FemShep?: Femshep

Earthborn, Colonist or Spacer?: Spacer

Paragon or Renegade? Oh you know I play "evil" hehe, Renegade

Biotics or Tech? Biotics

Favorite class: Infiltrator? i think

Favorite companions: Garrus, Tali, Legion

Least favorite companions: I love all my children equally. But Kaidan and Ashley got me stuck in a corner once and I had to restart the mission, so they get put in time-out

My squad selection: I honestly cycle my squad so much it is hard to pick? I like using everyone

Favorite in-game romance: I had an unreasonable investment in my roomate's romance with Tali

Other pairings I like: ALL OF THEM *laughs in multishipping* um but seriously any alien & human pairing. Because.

Favorite NPC: Um that one hanar shopkeeper is my friend

Favorite antagonist: Matriarch Benezia

Favorite mission: So far? The one with the rachne queen

Favorite loyalty mission: I keep wanting to answer with Andromeda answers because Liam's is the best.... from the trilogy i think garrus'

Favorite DLC: I've not played any of the DLC

Control, Synthesis or Destroy? *chanting* Synthesis! Synthesis! Synthesis! Synthesis! Synthesis! (I know I'm the only one)

Favorite weapon: Sniper rifle

Favorite place: That planet with all the space monkeys

A quote I like: I don't remember any specific quotes, sorry!

#mass effect

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sparklecryptid · 2 years

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@becauseforoncethisisme said: Holy shit WHAT

LISTEN. Obey Me! Had already fucked with occult lore. I can fuck with it some more!

(Basically! It’s all politics and hidden identity and sexual tension and then Adrian’s siblings and daughter show up and the seven demon brothers look at his daughter and have a ‘What.’ Moment because Adrian’s kid looks like a baby Lilith.

Of course said daughter and siblings show up unexpectedly! And during a time where Adrian’s identity just got revealed. It’s neat.)

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theauthoressdefiant · 1 year

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I posted 5,508 times in 2022

That's 1,811 more posts than 2021!

9 posts created (0%)

5,499 posts reblogged (100%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@cloudc0la

@glowyjellyfish

@becauseforoncethisisme

@crazycatsiren

@nightshine629

I tagged 345 of my posts in 2022

#star trek - 51 posts

#ofmd - 44 posts

#solarpunk - 42 posts

#wwdits - 40 posts

#tng - 28 posts

#our flag means death - 27 posts

#wwdits spoilers - 16 posts

#mdzs - 16 posts

#mm - 15 posts

#art - 11 posts

Longest Tag: 109 characters

#guy who lives in a cave and his only frame of reference for how to act in modern society is dora the explorer

My Top Posts in 2022:

pretty fucked up that depression and anxiety can manifest physically. i thought this shit was all in my head

0 notes - Posted February 17, 2022

See the full post

2 notes - Posted October 31, 2022

does anyone have a pic of stede holding the plant its urgent

6 notes - Posted April 20, 2022

hm. what makes you think that

11 notes - Posted September 26, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

captains and their silly little plants

45 notes - Posted April 20, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

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suzukiblu · 3 months

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So how DO soulmarks work in the verse where Kon thinks his is fake?

This is one of those "you're born with your soulmark(s)" AUs, so baby Lois back in the day and even baby Kal-El all the way back on Krypton were both born with the marks they've got even though Kon didn't actually exist yet. Matching marks "resonate" with each other, which basically means they recognize and respond to each other and also means they share a low-level empathy bond that can strengthen and develop as the soulmates interact more and use it more. The bond is not particularly affected by physical distance, though probably being in the wrong reality would be an issue. EMOTIONAL distance, however, DEFINITELY has an effect.

If people who share a mark touch each other's marks, the bond's effectiveness is increased for the duration of the contact and it sort of "verifies" both the existence of the bond and the TYPE of bond. Due to the nature of the whole soulmark thing, the only way to convincingly fake a mark is either magic or straight up just telepathically lying to someone, but the magic option doesn't last very long and the telepathic one has to be actively on all the fucking time, so neither tends to work too well long-term. Non-magical shapeshifters have a fucking TIME of it whenever they're trying to sneak around as someone else, let me tell you.

At least, that's currently how it all works in my brain, haha. Editing may fuck with some of these rules later, but who knows. 🤷🏻‍♀️

#becauseforoncethisisme #meta ecetera

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sroloc--elbisivni · 2 years

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💙 but specifically can I hear more about the bandom AU because that sounds REALLY COOL

god the bandom au.

so this is from six months ago in a transformers server. the following conversation included @magicalspacedragon, @the-lunar-system, cat, and @gelpenss among others and took over the channel and our brains for the next three days. it has its own dedicated thread. there's a google doc with memes. actual publication of anything is going to have to wait until i write the fandom primer to go with the band primer that already exists which i will attempt to summarize here. both of those things are written as in-universe documents compiled by a fan.

please understand that this au was brainstormed by people who know, collectively, maybe 3 things about the wreckers trilogy and maybe 4 things about how music works. NOTHING about how the music industry works. this is not meant to be plausible it is meant to be fun HERE WE GO

LINEUP for what is theoretically a rock band but really plays whatever they want: Impactor: lead vocals and second guitar. front man. worked shitty construction jobs with megatron back in the day. they both got blacklisted from a lot of places for unionizing. impactor spiraled for a bit and got into drugs and got into rehab and started clawing his way back into a stable life and was selling his old motorcycle for spare cash to this dude named Springer when they started talking music together and then started jamming together and Impactor never actually finished selling him the bike. he's in his 40s and does all the vamping between songs and one of his jokes is that he did it backwards, you're supposed to have the drug problem after you get famous, not before. He writes a lot of lyrics.

Springer: drums. he's crazy good at music theory in an intuitive way, he's one of those people who can pick up an instrument and be playing it ten minutes later and also harmonize by ear, but his first and only love is drums. also backing vocals. he has a mullet and a relationship (working? platonic? romantic? who can say) with Something Unbearably Pretentious, this folk-punk duo (Rod and Arcee) that predates their music days. one of his dads is a convicted serial killer and the other is a lawyer who doesn't usually do contract law but DID come along when they first signed with a major studio and made the company lawyer cry, as a favor. he also writes a lot of lyrics. if their touring schedules don't overlap he moonlights as the drummer for the backing band of Verity Carlo, girl rocker. he's a friendly guy.

Whirl: lead guitar, technically, but he plays whatever the hell he wants, including but not limited to saxophone, theremin, and otomatone. they've got albums where liner notes for half the songs are just 'we bet Whirl he couldn't play this and lost.' this is actually how whirl got involved, Impactor started writing music while jamming with Springer and asked Whirl who he knew from group therapy to start covering some parts. Whirl is actually a registered composer with ASCAP under a different name. he lives with tailgate and cyclonus and his dream is to write a piece that shows up on cyclonus's classical station without ever telling cyclonus what he's doing. tailgate has no idea what whirl does for a living. Whirl has some major facial burn scarring so he always wears a helmet with an LED screen on stage and tells people he's the bastard child of daft and punk. he does a lot of instrumental writing but not many lyrics but the lyrics he does write are devastating. i swear this is a summary. we came up with so much shit.

Perceptor: keytar! Springer brought in Perceptor, who's a classically trained pianist. Brainstorm's their producer because he produced the band's first EP because he was already married to perceptor and was willing to work for takeout Perceptor is a brian may 'phd and also a rockstar' type--he got his degree and was working and then lost his eye in a lab accident and needed to do something else for a bit during rehab and whoops now he's in a band. he wears a bedazzled eye patch on stage. he doesn't really write songs, which, thank god, he can be the impartial judge when the other three are having artistic differences, but he has MANY opinions on sound levels and mixing. he's the one controlling any on-stage looping. he also sometimes links sound effects into his keytar to react during shows.

Kup: manager, and album bassist! Springer's foster dad for a bit after both his bio dads got arrested, was a roadie back in the day for some other groups so he has more connections than a phone bank. he can't keep up with performing, though, which is why they have a series of touring bassists for a while and eventually

Drift: bass. VERY RARELY vocals. he used to be Kpop artist Deadlock until he had some escalating joints/blood pressure problems that led to him fainting onstage, his label cutting ties, him having a mental breakdown and getting on a plane going anywhere, and ending up on Rod and Arcee's couch for six months after they ran into him at an airport getting back from their own tour and going 'dude you look like you need some fries'. (this is also how rod befriended springer back in the day). Springer was bemoaning to them how their latest touring bassist had to drop out the week before they had to leave and Rod and Arcee went 'hey funny story.' Drift jokes that the first time he met them he couldn't tell Springer and Impactor apart. They had no idea who he was and he had no idea who they were but he could play bass and one tour later they'd hit it off and he joined them permanently, especially because they are happy for him to do Zero social media or public persona work.

this wasn't supposed to get this long. i'm amazed i kept it this short. there are so many more details i could put here. i will close with a fun snippet written the very first day of this au. they’re making like, road videos for social media and springer keeps challenging people to dance-offs and he challenges drift, the new tour bassist who seems like he’ll be sticking around because he meshes well and they could really use a long term bass and Drift busts out a routine so impressive that Springer is staring at him and the video ends with him tackling drift going ‘WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT'

#talky talk #ask game #ask meme #becauseforoncethisisme #wreckers bandom au #is this transformers

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