#and another ryan verse entirely

[noskipnotability]

I swear trying to find Liam fics or even drabbles feels like searching for water in the desert😓💔💔

Could u do likee hcs or maybe just some drabbles we need to be fed🙏

Hear me out hear me out: childhood bsf liam !! But they grew appart bc of the fame but he always liked her and u know the drill🤭

Bye babes‼️

Can i be ⛄️ anon or summat

I know, trying to find anything for Liam can be impossible, I’m always rereading the same things

you can definitely be ⛄️anon, and please bare with me as I try to figure everything out, I’m not well versed with tumblr

I’ll do a part two to this one, but this will be the childhood friends part

enjoy, my lovely ❤️

It had been a shocking sight to witness the boy you had know for your entire life turn into a rather arrogant man.

For as long as you can remember, Liam was never how the papers depicted him. He wasn’t rude or loud-mouthed, the worst of it had been his slight ego. He was confident in nearly everything about himself. He knew he was good looking, that he could sing, he was charming, he knew he wasn’t the smartest but that had never bothered him. Not when he was with you, at least.

You had met Liam when you were both six years old, sharing the same irritating, old teacher. You were sat in front of the boy and his group, forcing you to hear all the snide remarks his friends would make and the way he would passively tell them off if it went too far. You yourself had a small group of friends that chatted around your table, though you had never gotten very close to them.

In fact, you could remember the day you made your first real friend.

The boys behind you were loud, as usual, drowning out all your peers as you waited patiently for your teacher to walk into class at the bell. Your girls were deep in conversation about ‘Grease’, the movie had come out over the summer but you had found no interest in watching it, instead opting for the second Jaws movie.

Your closest friend, Dani, who sat next to you kept glancing back to the boys behind you with an angry glare. In sheer confusion at the seemingly spontaneous grudge she grew towards them, you leaned over to whisper, “What did they do?”

She huffs out and looks back again then looks back at you, “He keeps kicking my chair,” your eyes travel to her hand that’s bunched in a tight fist, her knuckles turning pale. “I already told him to stop, but—“

She’s interrupted by another kick, you sneak a look over to whoever had been bothering her that morning. The snide face of Ryan, widely known as your year’s resident bully, pulled in a smirk at Dani’s anger. Flicking to the boy to his right, he’s shaking his head discreetly, as if he knew what you were thinking of doing. You roll you’re eyes at his dismissal of his friends behaviour, “Ya don’t need to be a prick, she told you to stop kicking her chair!”

You shout at Ryan, stomping on his foot as it reaches out again. By this point, most of the class had turned their attention to you and him.

Unfortunately for you, the bell had rung while you were deciding how to get the boy to stop and your teacher had already filed over to his desk as everyone else had gotten their books out. When Ryan starts whining, Mr. Hanes knows he has to intervene before the fight could brew. His chair scrapes violently against the tile floor, making you, and just about everyone, flinch in pain from the sound.

He puts forth your name strictly, stealing your attention, “You know there’s no violence allowed. I’m going to have to give you detention today, after school. And you must apologise to Mr. Trainor.”

Your face turns to one of disbelief at the man, “But I didn’t do anything wrong! It’s all his fault! My mam will kill me if I get in trouble!”

He sighs in frustration, already tired and the day had just begun. “Shall I make that two days?” “But—Sir!” “Very well. If you act up again I’ll be seeing you this entire week,” he goes to turn back but pauses, “And your mother should expect a call home.”

You slumped into your seat as he started class, Dani apologising for having gotten you in trouble, but thanking you for trying to help. Unbeknownst to you, one Liam Gallagher had watched the entire thing.

He felt ashamed, ashamed that he had said nothing as your teacher attacked you for no reason. He just watched and let you take the blame for his friend’s teasing. When dismissed for lunch, he waits until the room is cleared to walk up to Mr. Hanes. “Sir…”

He looks up from his papers and slowly pulls off his reading glasses, “Yes, Mr. Gallagher?”

”Well— I just wanted to say that it was Ryan’s fault.” His brows furrowed at the boy’s remark but continues to listen, “He was kicking Dani’s chair and she was just trying to stop him. It wasn’t her fault!”

“You’re sure?”

Liam nods his head quickly, Mr. Hanes returning the act then waves him off for lunch.

When you get back a couple of minutes before the bell, a few of the other students back in their seats, your teacher calls you over for a word. He explains his changed mind, but that if you act up again that you would be receiving both detention and a call home. You thank him profusely, “Don’t thank me, thank Mr. Gallagher.”

You turn to the boy walking into the room, hidden behind all his friends with a small smile. He has a worn out uniform on and scuffed Adidas on his feet, both clearly hand-me-downs, ones to match your own. You’d see him leaving everyday from a few houses down as you lived in the same estate as each other. His older brother, Noel you think it was, would always walk with him despite how much you would see—and hear—them fight.

Later, as your running over to your mother’s car that afternoon, you see the scrawny boy making his way to his brother waiting for him and call out his name. He turns around, surprised to see you trying to talk to him. You run to him and capture his small body in the tightest of hugs, thanking him endlessly for getting you out of trouble. He wasn’t one to hug, but he couldn’t help wrapping his own arms around your equally small frame.

After extensive teasing from his brother, he soon started inviting you to walk with them in the mornings.

He’d grown on you quickly, it hadn’t taken long for you to consider him your best friend, as he did for you. You both grew much closer than you would have thought. He’d told you all about his horrible father, and you about the bad habit your mother had over getting high out of her mind then violent towards anything that moved. He felt sorry that you didn’t have anyone, like he did, to protect you.

Over the years he took on that role himself. He was always around after school, whether that be spending time at yours or his house. He could see your bedroom window from his own and whenever your mam would shoot up, you’d flash a light and he would sneak into your room. He’d even helped you find a make-shift lock so you could prolong the time between her wrath and your body.

You much preferred staying with Liam. Peggy had welcomed you with open arms into their home, and despite you not wanting her to know, Liam had told her. You hated him for it at first but it didn’t take long to understand why he did it or for you to be grateful he had. Their house was more of a home than yours, they were more family than your mother ever had been.

There were faint memories of your growing up together. Your first time smoking after Liam had been able to convince the man behind the till to sell him some smokes and the addiction that followed you both after. Or when you first got high from the supply Liam had stolen off some kid who left his things out. When you looked back on your childhood, you found that most of your firsts had always been with him. Besides one obvious one.

That had been with your first boyfriend. He was shorter than you with bright green eyes and jet black hair that contrasted. You were fifteen. You tried introducing him to Liam but the latter would only send glares and tell the most embarrassing stories in attempts to scare him off. You guessed it worked, you were only together for a month, but in that time you had finally done it. It was more like a task you had to be finished with, your friends already being ahead of you.

Not only did he do it with your first, but everyone after. You never understood why and he never explained it to you.

It came out of nowhere, when he told you about his band. You knew that he had been more interested in music than usual, but when he told you that he was the singer you felt a wave of shock flow through you. Liam, a singer? It was like someone hit you over the head.

When Noel had come back from roadieing for Inspiral Carpets and joined the band, all air had been knocked from your lungs.

It didn’t take long for him to start distancing himself from you. It was gradually at first, but then one day he stopped answering your calls altogether. And when you would go over to his house, he was never home. You didn’t know what happened but your sweet boy was gone and you feared never getting him back.

Until he showed up on your doorstep a year later, drenched in rain and panting desperately to catch his breath.

#liam gallagher x reader #liam gallagher #oasis band #britpop

[nerdygaymormon]

Gather Conference - Day 2

On Sept 15 & 16, 1400 people gathered together, making it the largest-ever Conference of LGBTQ+ Latter-day Saints and their friends, relatives, and leaders.

The speaker's messages were powerful

The day began with GENTRI The Gentleman's Trio performing. They concluded by having their pianist share his story of coming out and being upset at God, and receiving a message from God which became their song Believe.

Most people first heard of Liv Medoza Haynes when at the 2021 BYU Women's Conference she introduced herself and included the label "queer."

In a church that emphasizes being of good cheer, she points out that Jesus wept and cried, he got angry, and it's fine that we also feel our emotions.

She was wearing a shirt that said, "Keep queer children safe," and she said in choosing what we wear and in our other decisions, choosing to promote love and not hate is the only choice worth making. She also said the only thing straight about her is her hair 😂

Her most powerful statement is that "no verse of scripture is worth losing another life over"

Michael Soto is a transgender man who grew up a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Mesa, Arizona and is a leader in the U.S. LGBTQ+ rights movement. He spoke about Bridge Building. Choose to be uncomfortable, to learn, to grow, to change. God gave us agency so that we can change and be better to each other. The most important change you can make is to love yourself the way God loves you.

Ben Schilaty is well known inside the LDS Church as a gay man who is active and chooses to follow church standards. He said sharing our stories is letting people see and feel our wounds as Jesus did. When they can feel our hurts, they can share in feeling the pain and empathize with what we've been through. Ben is co-host of the podcast Questions from the Closet and their episodes which receive the most interaction are those where someone has been very vulnerable as they emotionally shared the difficult choices they had to make and the situations they were forced into as a queer person.

Ben Schilaty shared this poem by Carol Lynn Pearson that really hit home for me

I dim I dim I do not doubt If someone blew– I would go out.

I did not. I must be brighter than I thought

After 50 years of experiencing gender incongruence, Bree Borrowman came out as trans in 2019. Bree shared that the hiding, sneaking, and shame led to a loss of Spirit. Being authentic, being vulnerable, leaning into the LGBTQ spectrum brought the Spirit back into her life.

Coming out as trans has brought her great blessings. She feared she would lose everything, but God and Jesus turned out not to be the vindictive judges she thought they were. She was able to lay down her burden and has discovered and learned about herself.

Ashley Hess was a finalist on the 2019 season of American Idol. She performed 4 songs for us, each were beautiful, and each were meaningful. "To the Girl I used to Be" and "Grain of Salt" were wonderful, but my favorite was "Yet." I don't hear many songs from this perspective of ‘I'm trying, so God please don't give up on me.’

Charlie Bird shared with us that he is now married!!!! Big congratulations to him and Ryan. Charlie gave a powerful talk.

Satan's big lie is that an integral part of who we are and which we can't separate ourselves from is incompatible with God. We feel like we are only half a child of God, that we are only half worthy. These beliefs damn us and marginalize an entire demographic.

We do not have to choose between being a child of God and a member of the LGBTQ+ community. We are both.

Allison Dayton is the founder of Lift+Love and along with Ben Schilaty she conceived of the Gather Conference.

She shared a number of scripture verses about God's people in the wilderness and said we find God in the wilderness. Queer people and their families often feel like they are in the wilderness and that's where they find God.

Allison also shared that we are not supposed to be just friends, Zion means we are to be one. We are to be united, not dividing up people by who is good enough and who isn't.

We were never meant to be alone. Ever! The very first thing God called "not good" was loneliness. We can start Zion in our own homes by pulling people in who need a place to belong and welcome them

Jenny Richards & Kelly McConkie Stewart are musicians, members of the LDS church, and committed allies to the LBGTQ community.. They played the piano and cello. Their music was beautiful. At the conclusion of the conference, one of them said they wanted to buy some LDS/LGBT swag from the vendors in the lobby. I offered them some swag that isn't for sale out front. Jenny took the pin and said she is going to wear it to church the next day. Kelly took a sticker while commenting she will put it on her cello case

Jeff Case says we shouldn't focus on outcomes but on the process. For example, we can focus on the outcome of exaltation, or we can focus on the process of becoming Christlike. The process is what will lead to the the outcome we desire.

There are many processes which can lead to the outcome, but when we focus on the outcome we tend to shortcut the process. He spoke of being the father of a son who likes to play Yu-Gi-Oh! and he would tease him, like 'Aren't you too old to still play that game?' He was focused on what he wanted his son's life to look like when he grows up that he lost focus on the process. This is something his son loves so he could choose to participate as a way of spending time with his son and strengthening their relationship. Instead, by focusing on the outcome, he is indicating to his son that he may need to hide things from his dad, which, ironically, would not lead to the outcome that Jeff would want.

Tom Christofferson interviewed Darius Gray, and it felt like we were in the presence of one of the great ones as Darius shared his experience of choosing to join the LDS Church, being one of only 2 African-American students at BYU, meeting regularly with 3 apostles about how to improve life for Black members of the church, and living through the 1978 announcement and change. I nodded in agreement when Darius declared he's heard more Jesus talk at this conference than he hears in a typical LDS Sacrament Meeting.

John Gustav-Wrathel is married to his husband and chooses to attend church despite having been excommunicated many years ago. He said that when he looks back on his life, even as he was one of the most faithful people he knew, he was convinced he had no faith because he was taught that if he had enough faith that his sexual orientation would be changed. He believed the teachings of the time instead of listening to God and the Spirit and trusting his own experiences.

Steven Kapp Perry was host throughout the conference and took a moment to share a thought. You can never know that you are truly loved unless you share who you truly are.

Meghan Decker is a gay Latter-day Saint and has written 2 books. She began by sharing that life is hard and can be dark. She encourages us to share with each other what is saving our life now.

She grew up in the 1970's hearing all the harmful church teachings about queer people and it has left scars in her. She now knows that God loves her and has good intent for her.

When Meghan moved to Provo, UT, the first person in her ward to greet her was Janice Kapp Perry. Janice composed a song for the Gather Conference. She recognized the LGBTQ experience is not hers and needed help to get the lyrics right. She contacted Meghan and Meghan's words were used to create the verses of the song.

While reviewing what Meghan had written, Janice commented that the word "broken" is so strong and they should find an alternate word, but Meghan insisted that's how she and many other queer Latter-day Saints have felt. Meghan pointed out that during this day of the conference 8 of those who spoke used the word "broken" to describe how they felt.

Janice then asked, "Do you think my two boys felt that way?"

That question really hit my heart, a mom gaining insight into the pain of her queer children.

Janice wrote a song titled "All Are Alike Unto God." It was performed on the first day of the conference by Molly Flake and John Bowers. I wished I had recorded it as the words mean a lot to me. The final act of the conference before the closing prayer was for all those in attendance to sing the song. Janice has made the song available for free, you can access the sheet music on the Gather Conference website

Click here for a summary of Day 1 of the Gather Conference

#gather conference #queerstake #long post

[officialgleamstar]

dndads couple songs

okay. i wrote out all of this, and then deleted it all by accident as soon as i finished, so now i’m rewriting it. originally oakworthy was on here too as a bonus ship, but it ended up being the only thing i didn’t delete and so it’s getting cut out of spite. fuck them kids. no one gets to know what small musician’s song i assigned to the freaks.

anyways! i like to collect songs that remind me of the relationships between the parents of both seasons, and i thought it would be fun to share my top picks for them all here with some of my reasoning :D i’m smart. come closer. look at my music, boy/girl/enby/etc.

Season 1: Odyssey

Darryl/Carol - I’d Have to Think About It by Leith Ross

I had a few different options for them but this is the best choice

Yes, I know this is a lesbian song. Hear me out: I am a lesbian and I like them.

They need to be divorced so badly but I truly think Darryl will be in love with Carol forever

“I’ve been a liar and you’ve been a pill” LITERALLY THEM?? Darryl lies about his life/feelings and Carol is hard to talk to, that’s literally them, oh my GOD. Please see my vision

Henry/Mercedes - Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)

Literally the easiest song on this entire list

They’re hippies. They’re so fucking in love. I rest my case

I picture it from Mercedes’ perspective (just because Henry is a druid, so things literally grow wherever he goes), but it works both ways

Ron/Samantha - Lay All Your Love On Me by Dominic Cooper and Amanda Seyfried

Yes, it’s important that it’s the Mamma Mia version and not the ABBA original, because Cooper’s verses fit Ron and Seyfried’s verses fit Samantha

“I wasn’t jealous before we met”, “And I’m possessive, it isn’t nice”, etc. are so so Ron about Terry Sr.

“I still don’t know what you’ve done with me, A grown-up woman should never fall so easily” Samantha is so so in love with Ron despite the bizarre way they met

In conclusion: this song is so them, thank you

Glenn/Morgan - I’ll Never Love Again by Hamilton Leithauser

I have a few different Glenn/Morgan songs but we’ll go with the sad one because I love it

I don’t need to explain this one. You get it from the title. He never loved again (until he met another timeline version of her, I guess).

Jodie/Morgan - Wedding Singer by Modern Baseball

I do need to explain this one because I have a very specific interpretation of the song that may not be entirely accurate, but it’s real to me

This song is about a dying relationship that you feel like you should be able to fix, but you just can’t

This song is about to clinging to your past even though everyone just wants to move on

This song is about being unsure if your lover is your lover anymore. This song is about love not being what romantic movies have shown it to be. This song is about being stuck in a relationship that is on its last legs and you can’t tell if you want to let it go or fight for it kicking and screaming.

Most importantly, it is about Jodie’s endless pining over his ex-wife!

“The selfish side likes to think that my execution’s more of an honest one, these artists all cut cloth with underscore” is definitely aimed at Glenn, by the way. ‘My pathetic pining over you is more honest than whatever he’s doing with you and his dead no longer real wife.’ etc etc

Season 2: Quest

Grant/Marco - God in Jeans by Ryan Beatty

If you know this song, you know I don’t even have to explain this. But I will, because I love this song.

God in Jeans is about worshipping your homosexual lover like he’s your God, and how rewarding it can be to place your love in trust in him

Grant placing his love and trust in Marco despite everything that has happened to him is so deeply personal to me, and this song is essentially all about that

Also Grant just needs more Catholic guilt. He also needs to kiss his husband more. Please. Please I miss Marco so much

Sparrow/Rebecca - Strawberry Mentos by Leanna Firestone

This was another one that was hard because I had too many options. This time, I went for the happy one, because I know I can make it sad but also it’s a happy song and I really want Sparrow to be happy

This song is all about comparing your love to something sweet! Rebecca runs an ice cream parlor! It all adds up!

“So I pick up black licorice from every candy aisle even though I hate the taste of it, because I know when I kiss you, it’ll make you smile” Sparrow is shown to sacrifice parts of himself to accommodate the people around him, and molds himself to fits others whims. This is the sad part.

“You’re not afraid of your feelings and you’re not afraid of mine” Rebecca is shown to be confident in herself. She’s a girlboss. I think Sparrow depends on that sort of sturdiness a lot, since he’s… y’know, Sparrow. Having someone who is so confident in themself helps him be more confident in their relationship

“Taking weekly trips to my dentist, but I know it’s worth it” Sparrow looks over the faults in their relationship (cough cough THE AFFAIR cough) because he wants this marriage to work. He loves his wife!

That’s the end of my case, thank you

Lark/Rebecca - Rebecca by Against Me!

Literally no fucking contest

We are not in love but we ARE fucking. I’m obsessed with you. There’s vague implications that I might have feelings for you but we will never address it because neither of us want more. The song is literally about a woman named Rebecca

It’s their song. Moving on

Terry Jr./Veronica - Be Your Man by Ivan & Alyosha

This feels like a bit of a weak pick but it’s just so them, okay?

The entire song is about wanting to be a dedicated husband to your wife. Terry Jr. does everything in his power to fit himself into Veronica’s life and be a part of her family

Plus, considering what we know about Veronica’s ex-husband, I think Terry would do his best to be almost overly giving and caring in contrast to him

It’s a sweet song, Terry is a sweet man, and this song is so so so them

Nicky/Cassandra - Breathless on DVD by Antarctigo Vespucci

Not to brag, but my Nicky playlist on Spotify has two whole likes. This does not mean that I am confident in this pick. It’s really hard for me to narrow down a song that fits their vibe considering they don’t interact

The closest we get to them interacting is Cassandra saying Nicky was a good man, and also that they’re divorced. I also feel like maybe it was said that they argued, but I may have imagined that based on the divorce line? I dunno

Breathless on DVD is a song about an ex-relationship that ended in a place you’re not fully happy with, and looking back on it now, you’re not sure how you feel about the relationship as a whole

“I wanted to see you to see if I still wanted to see you, but that’s not fair” Being unsure what you even want anymore, etc etc

It’s a reach, I’m sorry, but their vibes are so hard for me to pin down personally LOL

BONUS: Jodie/Scam - She Hates Me by Puddle of Mudd

The girls are fightiiiing lmao

#mine #dndads #music #collapses. i rewrote it. wahoo #not at all relevant to anything happening in canon rn btw #just something ive been thinking about for ages now #as always. sorry this is so long. the hyperfixation wants me dead.

[this-daydream-is-dangerous-13]

Is the song happiness Taylor telling him to move on? How do you interpret it?

Thank you for this ask. I am working on a whole evermore analysis post but am swamped these days so it is on pause right now. I will take this instead.

So based on the songs on Fine Line, there was clearly still something there for him. And on folklore in songs like The 1— “persist and resist the temptation to ask you ‘if one thing had been different, would everything be different today?’” — and the teenage love triangle exploration and exile, she also had some unexplored, unfinished feelings.

So I think these fictional worlds allowed her to work through all the stuff she couldn’t do in diaristic writing *because H has been so hidden from her actual, public-facing narrative.*

I initially thought is might have been exactly what you suggested, but now I think it is more *her working through her feelings to see how she would react if he actually DID move on.*

Because besties? She has not historically been great with him and women who are not her.

In Hits Different she tells us:

And when he is actually pictured with other women?

Jan 17, 2014, at and Eagles concert.

Which is followed almost immediately by some throw-down and rapprochement about which…

Ryan Tedder tells us. And look at the song they wrote. Look at the dates!

And we have all heard Question…? She certainly gave in to the temptation she described in The 1. During my first listen to that song, my jaw hit the floor. She’s been in a different relationship for at least 5 years and she is asking him “do you wish you had made different choices and NOT lost me? Is everything 2nd best compared to me, including your ‘suitable girlfriend’? Do you still dream of touching me?” The chutzpah! And she already knew the answer!

It’s linked to verse 2 of happiness, I think:

She does not seem to excited about the prospect of being replaced, huh?

Which, to his credit, he tells her will likely never happen entirely in As it Was:

He is NOT “a boy who wouldn’t stay” Blondie; stop calling him that!

But back to happiness, where Blondie drops her biggest truth bombs in the bridge (as is her habit):

He is a good man. She is a good woman. They hurt each other. And she doesn’t know how deal with that, nor how to transition to friendship with this person with whom she once shared absolutely everything. She loathes the fake niceties, most significantly because she? Spent years getting so much more that that from him. Love and devotion and care, in physical and emotional form. After screaming colour, who wants to go back to black and white?

And so - the final verse. She is steeling herself for the moving in, convincing them both that:

And she concludes that “the new her” can offer forgiveness and a new, fresh friendship start because despite everything:

What a lovely sentiment. And fleeting!

Because she totally walks it back with Question….? and her admissions in parts of Maroon, but that is a story for another day.

[raan-miir-tah]

DO YOU LIKE COMIC BOOKS?? LIKE AT ALL???

Then you’ll love the massive-verse and all it’s medium bending glory! Image Comics’ (whose totally creator owned, btw) favorite superhero shared universe has something for everyone, from sci-fi to crime noir.

Look at this incredible art!! The entire team is balls off the wall talented and you should throw money at them!! You probably already know Kyle Higgins and Ryan Parrott from their power rangers runs, and their original characters are twice as impressive.

So here’s radiant black issue one. Here’s rogue sun issue one. Here’s the radiant black and rogue sun podcasts, and here’s the podcast for NO/ONE. Here’s the radiant black Wikipedia article, and for the Massive-verse itself. Here’s another article. Here are some youtube videos about the massive-verse. And here’s the animated fight scene.

This has been a brief and incomplete propaganda post. For the love of the gods go read these fucking comics they’re incredible I promise

#kaan’s #image comics #comic books #bookblr #radiant black #massive verse #rogue sun #radiant pink #the dead lucky #inferno girl red #radiant yellow #radiant red #no/one #book recommendations #propaganda #PLEASE #I DONT WANT TO BE HALF OF THE AO3 TAG ANYMORE #TUMBLR PSPSPSPSP COLORFUL COMICS WITH A FANTASTIC CAST OF CHARACTERS AND COOL SUPERPOWERS PSPSPSPPSPSP #I’m earning my blog title fr

[moldygreenblue]

Regarding the WIP names you posted, "Can I Have ONE Normal Idea" sounds very intriguing to me ;)

@gellavonhamster, you picked the most wild of all wips from the list:

“Nice work, lad.” The way ‘lad’ was drawn out made Duke uncomfortable. There’s a radio crackle, and then a long sigh of relief.

“But it’s time to end this little masquerade,” continued the voice. No longer it sounds like the friendly, concern, baritone man from before. It sounds like nothing, as well a bit tired. It’s like the man on the radio had forgotten how his real voice sounded like. “And masquerade is a word which Lemony Snicket —the real Lemony Snicket that is— would probably define as, ‘A lie someone can fall for with either little or no amount of force.’”

“I say using a code phrase is contradictory to that.”

The man ‘tsks’ several times. “Was that phrase ever spoken when you volunteer your assistance for justice regarding the death of a sweet young child?”

Duke didn’t answer. All he does was grip the radio tighter in his hands. The entire room began to shake violently.

“A human being, even one that is genetically modified in a laboratory, is like any other animal,” continued the man. “If it wants something enough, it will do anything at all. You, young man, wanted to do good in this watery-hellhole. You volunteered yourself in a task of self-righteous justice. All I did was gave you a push in the right direction.”

Another violent shake. Duke stood firm where he stands.

“Considering everything, I owe you a little honesty. The name is Hangfire.”

so. context: this wip is from an asoue/atwq and bioshock fusion-crossover fic i was working on awhile back. in it, most of the snicket-verse characters take the place of bioshock characters; only two bioshock characters are in the au.

bioshock is a first person shooter with horror/sci-fi survival elements video game series. in the first two installments, it's about an underwater city known as rapture that gets torn due to a civil war that started on new years. by the time of the games, rapture is well on its way to being ruined and dead for good.

in the first game, you play as jack, a young man whose plane crash into the ocean and ends up entering rapture, where he must survive the horrors with the help of the man name atlas, the leader of one side of the civil war mention before, over the radio. atlas has a wife and child and he asks jack to help save them, but they get kill, and long story short atlas gets jack to go kill one andrew ryan, the ruler of rapture, and the leader of the other side.

at a very pivotal moment, which this fragment wip is inspired by, jack learns a few things. the most important things related to the snippet:

a. atlas isn't real. atlas is instead the disguise of frank fontaine, a rival to andrew ryan who faked his death in order to take control of rapture.

b. jack is a hidden agent for frank fontaine, with the phrase 'would you kindly' getting jack to do as told without question.

the fusion-crossover snippet here has:

armstrong feint/hangfire in the role of frank fontaine/the fake lemony snicket. the real lemony snicket is alive and around in rapture in his own story that is loosely inspired by the second game.

duke, an original character, is in the role of jack. duke is a bit more talkative (a hell lot more actually; jack is your typical silent protag), and well, let's say duke has beef with hangfire after this.

i'm sorry for the delay respond; i had trouble trying to figure out WHICH part of the wip to select because only fragments of the fic is actually written; most of it is just summaries of events and lore/world building to blend the snicket-verse elements with the world of bioshock. so i put it off and did other stuff (re: the widdershins and olivia friendship post on my side blog). picked this because while major spoilers, it's the best of the snippets i do have written.

#ask #replies #gellavonhamster

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Ryan Burge

Published: Feb 23, 2024

There's been no bigger term in religion and politics over the last five years than "Christian Nationalism." I went to graduate school between 2005 and 2011, and I can say with a great deal of certainty that I never read that term in any research I combed through for my coursework or dissertation. My, how things have changed.

I just did a quick search for the term on Google Scholar, and across the first thirty articles and books that appear, 21 of them have been published in 2020 or later. That's not typically the case with other queries of the literature; it's usually heavily tilted towards older works that tend to have a lot of citations. All that to say - academic work on Christian Nationalism is very much in its embryonic stage.

I can easily list seven books specifically dedicated to Christian Nationalism that have been released in the last few years:

Taking Back America for God by Perry and Whitehead (2020)

The Flag and the Cross by Gorski and Perry (2022)

American Idolatry by Whitehead (2023)

Preparing for War by Onishi (2023)

Red State Christians by Denker  (2022)

The Everyday Crusade by McDaniel, Nooruddin, and Shortle (2022)

The Full Armor of God by Djupe, Lewis, and Sokhey (2023)

It's all happened so fast that it's hard to get our arms around a pretty basic question in the discussion about Christian Nationalism - are those sentiments increasing or decreasing in the general public? Well, now I can answer that with a great deal of specificity.

If one is looking for the empirical foundations of the Christian Nationalism debate, it’s in a series of statements that were posed to respondents in the Baylor Religion Survey back in 2007 - Wave II. They are as follows: 

The federal government should advocate Christian values

The federal government should allow prayer in public schools

The federal government should allow the display of religious symbols in public spaces

The federal government should declare the United States a Christian nation

The federal government should enforce strict separation of church and state

The success of the United States is part of God’s plan. 

Response options ranged from strongly disagree to strongly agree. The middle option is undecided. I know that there's a lively debate about defining Christian Nationalism and whether these questions are tapping that concept accurately. I am going to sidestep that discussion entirely here. The authors I mentioned above are much more well-versed in those debates than I am. My focus here is narrow - I just want to see how responses to those questions have changed over time.

I can do that because the fine team at Baylor did another survey in 2021 that asked the exact same questions. That’s fantastic because we can compare apples to apples in terms of longitudinal changes. So, enough with the preamble. Let’s get right to it. 

I think it's fair to say that the results point to the fact that Christian Nationalism is fading in the general population. That's evident in a number of these statements. For instance, in 2007, 55% of folks said that the government should advocate Christian values. In 2021, that share had dropped to just 38%. That's substantial.

Additionally, 69% thought that the government should allow prayer in public school in 2007 - that declined to 55% in 2021. There was a nineteen-point drop in the share of respondents who say that the government should allow the display of religious symbols in public spaces. In 2007, a bare majority (51%) agreed that the government should enforce a strict separation of church and state. That increased to 62% in the most recent data.

The only real oddity to me is the last statement: the success of the United States is part of God’s plan. In 2007, just 32% of people agreed with that one. In 2021, that actually rose to 37%. I don’t have a good explanation for that one.

Taken together, I think it's empirically defensible to say that Christian Nationalism has declined significantly since 2007. But, there's a caveat here. The share of Americans who were nones in 2007 was about 16%. It was nearly 30% in 2021. So, a lot more nones in the sample would drive down Christian Nationalism. In the Baylor sample, 11% were nones in 2007. That increased to 19% in 2021. So, let's just exclude them and do the same analysis.

That's reassuring because our results really don't change that much. Agreement with the Christian values statement has dropped by 17 points. It's down 14 points for the statement about prayer in public school, and it's declined a whopping 18 points on allowing the display of religious symbols in schools. The percentage who want a strict separation of church and state has jumped 12 points as well. The results in the first graph are not just an artifact of the declining number of religious folks in the sample - even the religious folks are less willing to embrace Christian Nationalism based on these six statements.

But, let's not stop there. I created a scale of Christian Nationalism. When someone strongly agreed with a CN statement, that was scored a 5; if they strongly disagreed, that was a 1. If someone was unsure, that was a 3. I added the scores from all six statements, then I subtracted six. So, the scale runs from 0 to 24.

I calculated the mean for six different religious groups in both 2007 and 2021. It's pretty apparent that Christian Nationalism has retreated among most of them. For evangelicals - their mean score was 15.9 in 2007. That dropped to 13.8 in 2021.

But the drop for mainline Protestants was huge, from 16.3 in 2007 to just 10.4 in 2021. That's six points on a 24-point scale. Maybe the discourse about CN has permeated more into the mainline, and it's pushed some members away from embracing statements that could be indicative of Christian Nationalism. I don't have a great answer for that big shift. For Catholics, the shift was a bit smaller (from 12.4 to 9.7), but still a noteworthy decline.

Black Protestants are a real puzzle that needs additional exploration. In 2007 their mean score was 12.3, and that didn't change at all in 2021. One thing worth pointing out is that the sample of Black Protestants was 351 in 2007 and only 96 in 2021. That may play a role, but I'm not entirely certain.

So, that's the change at the top level. How about looking at each of the six statements individually to get a better sense of where the movement has occurred?

To me, this is where those shifts in the mainline really become clear. In 2007, 79% of mainline Protestants said that the government should advocate Christian values. That dropped to just 40% in 2021. That's huge. And the mainline numbers are also way down on other questions too. It's a drop of 29 points on the question of allowing prayer in public schools and a 23-point decline on allowing religious symbols in government spaces. There's no doubt in my mind that Christian Nationalism is much less pervasive in the mainline today than in the late 2000s. The only problem is the share of Americans who are mainline is dropping rapidly, so this is having less of an impact on the aggregate numbers.

There are drops for evangelicals here, but they are more modest. Thirteen points on the Christian values question, six points on allowing prayer in schools, and eleven points on allowing religious symbols in public spaces. But the share of evangelicals who want the government to declare the United States a Christian nation is unchanged - 43% in both surveys.

Let's take a step back from religious tradition and move to political partisanship to finish this post. Again, the same six statements but this time the sample is broken down into Democrats, Independents, and Republicans.

A Democrat in 2021 was half as likely to say that the federal government should advocate Christian values as they were in 2007 (42% down to 20%). They were 21 points less likely to say that the federal government should allow prayer in public schools and 23 points less likely to support the display of religious symbols in public spaces. It's pretty clear to me that Democrats have become much less supportive of many of these statements compared to 2007. That's probably due in no small part to the increasing God Gap.

For Republicans, the shifts are less dramatic. There's been a ten-point decline in support for the first three statements (Christian values, prayer in schools, and religious symbols). And there's been a 21-point increase in the share of Republicans who say that the government should enforce a strict separation of church and state.

But, that's not the whole story. The share of Republicans who say that the government should declare the U.S. a Christian nation has risen by 5 points since 2007 (from 40% to 45%). And the share who say that the success of the United States is part of God’s plan has jumped 13 points during this same time period (from 46% to 59%). So, it's fair to say that it's a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to Republicans and Christian Nationalism.

When this data is looked at broadly, it's generally true (but not universally the case) that Christian Nationalism has retreated over the last several years. That's especially true for mainline Protestants, Catholics, and Democrats. But there is evidence here that evangelicals are also less likely to embrace some sentiments related to Christian Nationalism as well.

Why these declines have happened is not an easy question to answer. Whitehead and Scheitle found that the average Americans link to religious symbols is highly contingent upon current events. Thus, the aftermath of January 6th and the subsequent discussion of Christian Nationalism pushed some away from many of these sentiments.

It could be the rise of the nones, but that doesn't appear to be the whole story. It could be more people have become aware of this debate in 2021 when there was little discussion of Christian Nationalism in 2007. Or it could be simple generational replacement - younger birth cohorts are just less strident in their beliefs and the most fervent supporters of CN have largely died off in the last 14 years.

Either way - this longitudinal data should help situate the large discussion about Christian Nationalism in 2024.

#Ryan Burge #christianity #christian nationalism #religion #separation of church and state #secularism #freedom of religion #freedom from religion #rise of the nones #decline of religion #religion is a mental illness

[thesinglesjukebox]

KYLIE MINOGUE - PADAM PADAM

[7.12]

And the beat goes on...

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: "This already feels so omnipresent, so much like background noise, that it's difficult to remember actually having a strong opinion on it. I think that the sense of crushing, inevitable momentum destroying everything in its path was very much a function of its design and was already there prior to overplaying, but I can't be 100% certain." [8]

Ian Mathers: It's kind of simultaneously both the most and least surprising thing in the world that Kylie would have a hit in 2023. Having heard of the title before hearing the song I never would have guessed it was onomatopoeia for a heart beating (and a very not-fun part of my psyche points out to me every time I listen that "Padam" is not how I'd represent what it sounds like they're singing here in text), but the abstraction suits a song that always feels chilly and in control however horny and passionate the subject matter is. It's a pretty strict machine Kylie's driving these days, but she gets a lot of mileage out of it. [8]

Will Rivitz: Art often requires its context to make sense, but context does not so much justify "Padam Padam" as it does fully stitch it together from thin air. In its moment in time, the song was a two-month fever dream, bare skin and heavy-pour vodka sodas and nitrate fumes united by camp sincerity and knowing winks, "padam" as a statement of purpose and clarity. By itself, the song blows over in a light breeze, an immediately dated EDC mainstage reject immediately forgotten if lightning had not struck. On one hand, "Padam Padam" is so inextricably interwoven with the fever dream of this past summer that the climate it ushered in by necessity makes it essential; on the other hand, this is Kylie frickin' Minogue we're talking about, and the standards she's set for herself demand a song that can stand on its own. [6]

Peter Ryan: Arguably one of the progenitors of memeability, Kylie has certainly understood it far longer than it's been a thing. Some memes make better songs than others though, and after a little breather after this summer of Padam I feel like I hear it more clearly -- synths that I wish were crisper, a clattering chorus that gets muddled to my ear, and -- both in single and extended editions -- a bridgeless wonder. "Shivers & cold champagne" is up there for Kylie place-setting, but I prefer this kind of thing from her when there's a little more to it. [6]

Josh Winters: As someone who has spent much of the past few years as a hermit, I ended up avoiding "Padam"'s reign over Pride month quite naturally. I don't know what it was like for the gays, theys, and babies who weren't there for the fever she spread with "Can't Get You Out of My Head" in 2001. To me, this is typical Kylie: a well-traveled wanderer slinking her way into our common ear to get to the heart of our most primal sensibilities. This time, the dart landed on the bullseye, giving her a viral sensation that could work as a FIFA World Cup theme, Eurovision entry, aforementioned Pride anthem, any other opportunity for collective enjoyment you may be thinking of. For those who have reduced "Padam" to Another Basic Bop and were banging their heads against the wall over the summer as to WHY THEY CAN'T ESCAPE THIS SONG... well! You hear it and you know. [8]

Rachel Saywitz: Did we actually like this song in May, or were we that desperate for a song of the summer pop hit? Regardless, "Padam Padam" is cute, if not entirely forgettable. There's something kind of "robot sexy vixen" about it, which allows me to excuse bland verses like "And we don't need to use our words / Wanna see what's underneath that T-shirt." The chorus is no doubt the track's standout; Kylie's minor third "padam" gives off a false hesitancy that's commanding in its naiveté, and is even more convincing knowing the woman singing it. I don't think "Padam Padam" the song will be in our collective consciousness a year from now, but the phrase most definitely will. [6]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: I dismissed the "Padam"-mania of June 2023 as a Commonwealth-country bout of exuberance -- but then I remembered I lived in Canada now and felt obligated to check it out. On further examination, this bangs exactly the right amount. It's not a revelatory, best-of-the-century reinvention of the core principles of dance music, but it's not just "good for someone who's been making music since Bob Hawke was in office" either. Most dance pop artists in Kylie's lineage would kill for a track as well-struck as this. It's a fascinating exercise in tension and release, a song lifted up from generic dancefloor filler by Kylie's mastery of the form. [7]

Vikram Joseph: For a song so evidently catchy and meme-able, "Padam Padam" looks surprisingly threadbare up close. It certainly hints at some of Kylie's most iconic moments, in particular the motorik future-pop of "Can't Get You Out Of My Head," but it doesn't seem to aspire to the same delirium, instead content to be slinky and understated. It has strong production values and a distinct sense of atmosphere, but the line between being minimal and lightweight is a very fine one -- "Padam" is more than serviceable as wallpaper, but as an image in itself is oddly lacking in pleasure. [6]

Will Adams: For the longest time I thought the line in "Can't Get You Out of My Head" went "boy, your love is a song I think about." The concept of the one you're yearning for being like a song endlessly looping in your head just made sense. What made even more sense is said song materializing as mesmerizing Euro-pop with a wordless la-la-la hook. Realizing what the actual lyric was years after the fact didn't diminish my love for it, but I wondered if that essence could ever be captured again. In 2023, I got my answer: "Padam Padam" burst into the world, and with just two-syllables, burrowed into our brains forever. The hallmarks of its predecessor were all there, namely, that hypnotic quality that refuses to leave you, asking a very simple question -- "padam?" -- and boom: you're experiencing love as a song you think about. [9]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: The Kylie Minogue songs I love pull you into her current state of mind. In "Can't Get You Out of My Head," it's the way she convinces you of her infatuation via sustained melodies--"set me free," "stay forever and ever" -- before it fully materializes in the onomatopoeic hook. Here, I'm left to do the heavy lifting, the song all good and fine for bopping around but with none of the release, nothing resembling palpable sensuality. I don't want pop songs or dancefloor crushes to be things I have to think about. And even when I am thinking about this track, I'm left even more disappointed: It lacks the chic sophistication of her artsier '90s works, the spectacular camp of her other Eurovision-y songs, the mesmerizing arrangement of the superior 2023 single "Tension." Worst of all, it doesn't even fail in spectacular fashion. [3]

Jibril Yassin: Easily one of Kylie's best hooks since the last best one. [7]

Katherine St Asaph: I wrote at length elsewhere about the ruthless efficiency of "Padam Padam," and how much knowing Ina Wroldsen wrote the song unlocks it. How many pa-da-dams can I take? Apparently a lot! [8]

Brad Shoup: I like this because it sounds like sex -- unlike "Can't Get You Out of My Head," which sounds like business-class air travel. The synthline warps with anticipation; the pitched-down padams keep things a lil goofy. Lostboy and Wroldsen have so thoroughly written a one-night stand, they've even covered the following days' afterglow. [8]

Jonathan Bradley: Sure, when Kylie goes out, she wants to go out dancing. I've heard her attempt this disco revival any number of times over the past 20 years; it's not clear why this should be the one that hits. Even as far as heartbeat bops go -- the notion that an aortal thump could be a dancefloor beat is not new -- "Padam Padam" is particularly anemic. [4]

Anna Katrina Lockwood: What a breathtakingly perfect pairing of song with performer. Mononymous Australian legend Kylie brings a deftness of hand to the breathy minimalism of "Padam Padam" borne of her decades of experience in her niche. Much like Kylie's indelible "Can't Get You Out of my Head," the meat of "Padam Padam" is a perfectly deployed arpeggiator, building complexity without adding weight. It's both lighter than air and grounded in the physicality of the bassline, precision calibrated for moving your body. The lyrics are a bit goofy, but this is a woman who made an extended phrase of "la la la" ad nauseum into a vocal riff for the ages, so they work just fine. The only thing I dislike is the sub-three-minute runtime of the single edit--the ending feels abrupt, and wrong to my ears. Heck, I could even go for a longer version than the extended four-minute version--god knows Kylie can handle it. [9]

Alfred Soto: To argue that Kylie Minogue has spent thirty-five years (!) distilling her essence to this song's title doggerel would upset no fan. She could try harder, you can also argue: 2020's "Say Something" was my pandemic winter jam. But if she wanted to get my ass shaking she could not have tried less. [7]

Nortey Dowuona: This would've been ignored back in 2010 when it was actually groundbreaking, and millennials are now nostalgic for the Obama administration (which you really shouldn't be). When the dynamic drum programming sparks to life during the first chorus, then slides through the second verse, it gets cut off by the 4/4 kick thumping like a racing heartbeat, then slips back down. That couldn't have happened then, since building to a massive drop was the only idea allowed (until Disclosure came through and crushed the buildings). Maybe it's actually 2013 nostalgia, but 2013 wasn't long enough for nostalgia. [7]

Joshua Lu: When this song first dropped, I was reminded of "Timebomb," a similarly straightforward bop that felt focus-tested to be played on loop at the WeHo Barry's Bootcamp, replete with generic lyrics and an anonymous vocal performance from Kylie. "Padam Padam" is elevated, however, by the dark, gloopy slap house instrumental, making each listen feel like a slow descent into a swirling tangle of velvet and strobe lights. The sound suits Kylie remarkably well. [7]

Dorian Sinclair: I put off listening to this song for ages for the silliest possible reason, which is that I wanted to maintain my delusion that an Edith Piaf cover had inexplicably taken over Gay Twitter. My partners eventually convinced me to listen to the real track though, and while it may not be Piaf, it's a great, slinky dance number. Give me a moody, sinuous melody over a throbby synth beat, and I'll get on the floor -- Kylie claims another victim. [8]

Alex Clifton: I can't actually figure out a way to write an elegant, coherent review for this song because I love it so much, so: THIS SLAPS!!!!!! [9]

Aaron Bergstrom: The "sad banger" (happy music, sad lyrics) is such a time-honored pop staple that it gets NYT coverage. "Padam Padam" is fascinating because it's a rare example of the opposite. The lyrics are boilerplate club-night fantasy, but the undercurrent of darkness running through the track is unmistakeable. It's built on ever-so-slight dissonance, ominous in a way that you ignore at your own peril. Its not quite Kylie's telltale heart, but she's the only one who can tell you how this ends. [7]

Oliver Maier: Classic, clinical Kylie in a contemporary coat of paint. It's easy enough to imagine someone else singing this, it's just hard to imagine liking it as much. [9]

David Moore: This would be the blurb where I'd share my thoughts on "AI vocals," while stubbornly insisting on calling them something less snappy and more cumbersome like machine learning tools instead. But alas, this is not KylieAI (Grimes is trying that; so far it appears not to be a disaster). Just goes to show that you can get all the unsettling, impersonal, not-quite-there-ness of machine learning with a good old-fashioned celebrity work ethic and a joyless but brutally effective chorus that makes you wonder why this singing disembodied head is asking you to take off its "clothes." [7]

Leah Isobel: I was thinking recently about Britney Spears (as I usually am). Specifically, I was thinking about how -- despite the comparisons to Madonna that followed her around for the boom years of her career -- she was much more of a Kylie Min-analogue. Both women center embodied pleasure and the search of it in their work; both favor specific and brilliant deployments of texture and persona over technical vocal skill; neither seemed to ever go out of her way to court critical favor. (Well, Kylie tried it once.) The difference, though, is that where Britney's persona is guileless, Kylie knows. Her work is animated by the gap between the innocence that her songs' lyrics suggest and the omniscient, unearthly confidence that she projects as a vocal presence, a confidence that allows her to literally transcend the limits of the body and sing from the perspective of song itself. Song desires only to transmit itself, to arc across the globe from satellite to satellite, from ear to open ear; this is its purpose, its sole dispensation. From this perspective, all of humanity begins to blur into a shapeless, featureless, consuming mass: when Kylie delivers "You look a little like somebody I know," the gap between "somebody" and "I" renders the lyric as two separate statements. You look like somebody, anybody. I know. In Kylie's hands, song flattens; it is not a possibility space, but a negation space, in which people become interchangeable, sellable images. It is the void at the heart of the world, reaching out to grasp. It hears. It knows. [7]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox ]

#kylie minogue #padam padam #music #music writing #music reviews #the singles jukebox #writing #music criticism #Youtube

[omegatheunknown]

Top 10 of 2023 -- Theatrical Releases

Started using letterboxd as a journal two years ago, mostly so I could remember just how recently I'd watched Big Trouble in Little China or Hot Fuzz, but also to hit 'em with of the moment reviews and ratings fresh from the theatre. Which is to say, I'm a little nervous to see what'll come up at the top, but let's take a trip.

10- The Boogeyman (**1/2) - Technically in theatres for a week or two. Buried otherwise, a low stakes King adaptation/remake/reboot that makes the list so I don't have to say anything about AntMan, Elemental, Renfield, or, god forbid, Mario. Effective horror, kind of a neat creature at the center of it, pleasantly surprised that I didn't hate it.

9- Asteroid City (***) - Did lead to a minor personal epiphany, so not all bad. The amount of meta-fictional artifice (lest we for a second want to empathize or consider Wes' paper doll characters in his paper doll theatre as being recognizably human) has gone well-beyond the 'as Royal Tenenbaum' and 'let me tell you about my boat,' past the authorial frame of the Grand Budapest and as of The French Dispatch, Mssr Anderson is now almost entirely preoccupied with stories within stories and it is actually very annoying. (The minor epiphany is that I have also been doing this, as metafiction delights me too, Wes, but why should anyone else care?) Anyway, highlight here is the usual meticulous design, the ridiculous stop-motion sequence, some crackerjack dialogue (muted because now every character has the same blunted affect and without subtitles I sorta glazed over in parts) and these movies remain quite funny.

8- Barbie (***1/2) - Watched a lot of pablum this year, most of it with very naked corporate ambition. Barbie's central trick is to critique itself and the very cynical context in which it critiques itself and hopefully contain within it the entire discourse (good luck to you.) Wish I hadn't had to listen to people earnestly tell me how brilliant and resonant certain 'pause for applause' moments were, but the humour may well stand the test of time, and people were rightly hyped on Ryan Gosling's over-delivery on what once was seen as an unlikely bit of casting.

7- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 (***1/2) - Not too proud to admit I was, in 2023, still kind of excited to see this one (1) marvel movie. Crisp Rat aside, the Guardians deliver best on the comic-to-screen vibe and rarely seem embarrassed with their source, leading to the intense emotional journey of a CGI mutant raccoon bounty hunter reckoning with his maker, no winking involved. Rocket Raccoon is my fucking guy, anyway, no more of these, please and thanks.

6- Dungeons and Dragons, Honor Among Thieves (***1/2) - Yeah, okay, more popcorn flick pablum. Hasbro hoping to further capitalize on the pop culture rise of and monetize and micro-transaction-atize and thereby enshitiffy one of my dearest hobbies (I am diversifying away from D&D TM) looming large in the background here, given the whole OGL blowback it was briefly reasonable large portions of diehards might boycott this thing. Anyway, saw it, liked it, succeeded wildly in the goal of effectively conveying what it's actually like to play a fantasy ttrpg, all the weird in-jokes, wild variations in tone, hand-waving and quirks of 'the rules' there for snorts of recognition. Cannot imagine this was much fun for non-players, but maybe.

5- Across the Spider-Verse (****) - Extremely hyped, but hopefully not the zenith of the trilogy, a lot is riding on part 3, which is thankfully due, uhhh, sometime next year? Dragged out its ending laying more groundwork, but before then, another ceiling breaking exercise in contemporary animation, an almost non-stop kinetic kaleidoscope of visual creativity that augurs well for animation's continued evolution.

4- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in Mutant Mayhem (****) - Speaking of. Now, I've loved the Turtles since I was 4 years old, so my personal belief has always been, even though I love the 1990 rubber-suited cash grab, that the central premise is something that in the right hands can actually be objectively good, as opposed to personally delightful to me. This is that movie, the good Ninja Turtles movie. 'Teenage' -- to the point of being endearingly, obnoxiously immature, 'Mutant' -- to the point that the world around them is just as grody and fucked up looking as they are, 'Ninja' -- with sly handheld camera angles and satisfyingly fluid motion to rival Spiderverse, and uh, 'Turtles' -- they sure fucking are. I loved this. Jackie Chan forever.More, please.

3- Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person (****) - Exceedingly Quebecois take on the contemporary hipster vampire movie, Can-con for my list. Canadian Indies in 2023 are strikingly similar to American Indies from 2008, if that at all recommends. Ranks high for efficient self-contained everything, very charming, funny, just bizarre enough.

2- The Boy and the Heron (****1/2) - Easy to feel like this is a Ghibli greatest hits compilation, easier to remember that's what we all kinda want-- cute and unsettling creatures, delicious looking food, spirit worlds, quiet moments of reflection, arcane rules for how any and everything works... yet also maybe the truest return to the titanic achievements of Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away (especially.) Story forms a suitably esoteric thesis about grief and creation and, ultimately, endings. I think Miyazaki might actually be done this time.

1- Godzilla Minus One (*****) - An entirely different movie than Shin Godzilla, very possibly even better. It's tense (Godzilla hasn't felt creepy like this for a while.) It's emotional (rivals Godzilla vs Biollante in its human story.) It's very naked in its message (ah, the guilt.) The action is superb. I do not know where Godzilla goes from here. (Mothra!)

(Haven’t seen: Poor Things, Bottoms, Napoleon, the Killer, a bunch of other crap.)

[thebandcampdiaries]

Ryan Graves blurring the lines between genres, while retaining a very honest, vulnerable twist.

Ryan Graves is a musician with a focus on Christian rock and pop. Hailing from the Seattle area, he has been active since the early 90s and has had the opportunity to release many well-received projects, including 2023's "Legacy" and "Human."

His songs are personal yet engaging, drawing from influences as diverse as Alanis Morissette, Eric Champion, Michael Jackson, Justin Timberlake, Imagine Dragons, and more. Graves' latest release, "Human," is a synth-rock gem that embodies his diverse style. The album unfolds across 11 tracks, including the cinematic introduction "Enemy," with a lush electro-rock wall of sound that's sometimes reminiscent of modern Coldplay or The Killers. However, Ryan has a unique lyrical twist, with fast-paced vocal lines that are akin to rap in the verse.

The title track is one of the highlights of this album, providing a balance between electronic soundscapes and intense alt-rock melodies, not unlike artists such as Nine Inch Nails or Depeche Mode. Still, Ryan's delivery is unmistakably original, as he leaves a lasting impression with his endearing, nearly hypnotic vocals. The second track, “One Man,” is an amazing song with a stunning introduction that is somewhat reminiscent of artists such as Angels & Airwaves, especially due to the sparkly guitar melody, which offers a lush, reverb-drenched tone that’s mesmerizing and cinematic. The background vocal hooks are incredibly far-reaching and galvanizing: an amazing contrast with the gritty texture of the beat, pleasantly saturated to add some impact to the mix.

The fourth track, “Meadows,” is another excellent piece of music on this album. The song kicks in with a subtle melody, which allows the vocals to stand out. This is truly one of the most understated and personal songs on the album, and it showcases Ryan’s most vulnerable side as a songwriter and human being. The sweet sound of the guitar arpeggios adds a timeless quality to the music, and it pairs really well with Ryan’s amazing voice. The song “Dissonance” dives deeper into Ryan’s most experimental leanings, providing some interesting electronic textures and a sparse beat, which brings an intimate and somber quality to the melody.

Clocking it at 3 minutes and 34 seconds, the track “Grace” is an impressive curtain closer. As the last song on the album, this track offers a little bit of everything we’ve encountered in the set list thus far. We get roaring rock guitars, as well as synthesizers, drum machines, and edgy rock vocals with a modern flair. This is a true monolith and one of the most powerful tunes on this entire release.

These are only some of the most notable moments, but the album overall is an amazing roller coaster of quality production, insightful lyrics, and gripping melodies that won't get out of your head so easily. In conclusion, this dynamic studio work actually encompasses rock, pop, and spoken word, resulting in peppy, fun, and honest performances that are sometimes whimsical and quirky yet emotional and vulnerable. Ryan is a perfect example of how artists can stay true to their vision and beliefs while creating work that is extremely accessible and compelling, appealing to a very broad audience.

Find out more and listen:

https://www.ryangravessinger.com/

#Spotify

[masonpelt]

Stephen King’s Happiness Is A Twitter Success Metric

As a writer, Stephen King is famous, prolific, and respected. He's published over 70 novels, novellas, and non-fiction books. 'Salem's Lot is casually referenced in verse by Eminem. Neil Gaiman said he read King's On Writing and began removing adverbs from a draft of American Gods.

Famously slow writer George R. R. Martin once jokingly asked King how he wrote books so fast. Fast or otherwise, King doesn't need to write anymore. Conservatively King's net worth means he could never work another moment of his life, and he's already enshrined as a legend.

Harper Lee is universally considered a great American novelist. Most can name her entire two book bibliography in one breath. Certainly, few joke that they require reminders films they love are based on her work.

At this point, King writes because he wants to write. He has a book coming out in September of 2023. And for over nine years, he's used Twitter frequently, if not daily.

In other words, Stephen King, a wealthy, household-name author, has written for free on Twitter for nearly a decade.

Twitter Needs A Creator Class

Twitter is not a traditional publisher. But bird website shares a business model similar to that of all ads supported publishers. A circle that requires creators, advertisers, and consumers.

If content isn't attracting consumers reach drops. If reach drops advertisers leave. If advertisers go away, the publication dies. All for the want of a horseshoe nail. For better or likely for worse that's the grim reality of  ads supported publishing.

So much of Twitter's value is real celebrities choosing to use the site mostly unfiltered by communications teams, and agents.  On Twitter, King and the many other legit celebrities who actively use the platform represent the kings and queens of the creator class. And every single one of them is effectively working for Twitter for the love of the game.

Twitter is the only large social network that doesn't offer any form of ads revenue sharing with creators. Ice-T, Gwyneth Paltrow or Ryan Reynolds may successfully use Twitter to drive measurable sales of concert tickets, mobile phone service or vagina scented candles. But most of the creator class give far more to Twitter than they receive.

Ice-T has been going hard musically since the '80s. He's pre-Twitter, in fact, pre-internet. He's filled venues for a long time. Now he has mainstream fame and assuredly a well-funded team to promote shows. Save for the odd brand deal that asks him to Tweet, Ice-T is on Twitter for fun.

King has less reason to use Twitter than nearly any celebrity. If King wanted to hit billionaire status, hiring some sharky MD from Goldman Sachs to run a family office is more efficient than writing. If He wanted to promote his next book, few publications on earth wouldn't let him publish a personal essay about, well, anything he wanted, with a fat editors note that he's promoting a forthcoming novel.

If King wrote an article for The New York Times it would undoubtedly be promoted across the Time's Twitter, Facebook, Email, home page, Google News and the print addition. A distribution greater than the distribution for King's own Twitter. King could write for AARP The Magazine and the Costco Connection and reach over 30 million more people in print. What's more, no editor would turn down his article.

Twitter Does Not Drive Traffic

Citing my ad agency demon pedigree here, Twitter is a poor traffic driver for most publications. Social traffic for a typical publication is under 14% of all traffic. Search is the largest traffic source for publications normally over 55% of all traffic. Direct traffic is typically over 23% of total traffic.

Most of the traffic from social in the world of publications comes from Facebook. Across verticals Facebook is almost always over 40% of the traffic from social for a publication (something like 5.6% of total traffic). Twitter is charitably responsible for something like 20% of social referrals (2.8% of total traffic).

Those numbers are based on data I've looked at across a selection of sites, and very by topic. Crypto for example gets far more traffic from Twitter, and cooking media gets a lot of traffic from Pinterest. But on the average, Twitter is a modest portion of traffic for established publications.

Yet journalists and media types spend a lot of time on Twitter. Media types are a lower form of creator class than legit famous people, but they are needed for the ecosystem. Prior to Musk they were catered to, because the knight and bishop class were good for business.

Twitter Gains Much From The Media Class

The content of journalists, bloggers, podcasters and YouTubers backfills the content pathways celebrities leave vacant. This lower tier creator class also create content off of Twitter where they on average have far more distribution. The time these folks spend on Twitter is reflected off the site.

Twitter is linked to from virtually every page of every publication on the internet. The social network is shouted out in nearly every news, and entertainment broadcast often by media types who themselves ascended to true fame. The value of the media coverage and links Twitter's received is absurd.

Twitter in part by design, but largely by network effect became the quote builder. Everyone from truly famous people to utter randos has the chance to have Tweets end up mentioned or embedded on a popular site. I'm closer to rando than famous, and a cursory search for my Tweets embedded in media sites shows Mediaite, BuzzFeed News, HuffPost, something called Sportskeeda and a dozen more.

The network effect serves to drive celebrities, and those in the media class to use Twitter more. The circle continues as celebrities attract normal people, and normal people attract brand dollars. Twitter became a customer support hub largely dude to the size of the existing network, and that made the network effect stronger.

So What Is In It For Stephen King?

Whatever brain chemicals Stephen King gets from using Twitter is all he receives from his free work adding value to the platform. Since King has perhaps the fewest reasons to use Twitter of any famous person on earth, his happiness should literally be a Twitter success metric.

Article by Mason Pelt of Push ROI. First published in MasonPelt.com on April 3, 2023. Disclosure at the time of publication, Mason Pelt is locked out of Twitter for being Elon Musk's mother for several hours on March 31st.

#stephen king #Twitter

[vishaila]

a long awaited giant list of plots for every single muse i have. listed will be muse info & beside each connection will be gender & age range if applicable. most are romantic, but i’m 100% okay with making them platonic after some plotting. **note: some muses have powers and/or are not human. they have human verses. quite a few of these plots listed are for different verses anyway. look at my muse page for further details about these muses. also these plots aren’t very concrete, we can change them as much as we need/want to :)

PLEASE LIKE AND/OR MESSAGE ME IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN ANY OF THESE PLOTS. while i recognize that the same plot may be written out differently with a different partner, i’ll likely cap each plot at a maximum of two depending on how much attention certain ones get. thank you for understanding.

some of these plots/muses contain triggers that involve chronic illnesses, accidents, abuse, and death. please use caution. if you’d like to avoid certain triggers tell me and i’ll tell you which muses to avoid.

yvette beaumont. 24. bisexual. tattoo artist. she/her. tati gabrielle

[any, 21-29] would kill for a classic flower shop owner/tattoo artist thread. can’t really go wrong with that.

[platonic or romantic] in an au where yvette can use her tattoos as sort of magic runes, she tattoos a specific rune [muse/mun’s choice] onto your muse. whether she tells them or not can be discussed / whether your muse knows of her abilities can be discussed.

[any, 21-29] rival tattoo artists...? idk. @.@ it’d be fun. can be platonic.

juniper kelley. 25. bisexual. law student. she/her. ryan destiny

[platonic or romantic] hear me out. ever seen htgawm? please. just the entire thing. give to me. i want the murder i want the panic i want the entire angsty stupid mess of trying to clean it up.

[any, 24-30] fellow law student? rivals to lovers ? i’d like to see it. constantly trying to one up eacother in class mhm.

[any, 24-30] friend who is going through some family/relationship legal trouble that reaches out to juni to help out/for her opinion. she’s always harbored some feelings for them and is hesitant in doing so but is convinced to help out anyway.

harsh reddy. 31. bisexual. start-up ceo. he/him. dev patel

[any, 27-35] personal assistant of a sort? likely more so a best friend that harsh feels comfortable leaning on when he needs to bc of the stress of running his start-up.

[any, 27-35] fake engagement lol.... as i am indian i think it would be fun and cute to explore... wedding traditions like that.... ;___; his sibling is getting married and he abruptly says “oh well im engaged too lolll” and ur muse is roped in. haha . how fun :p

gun hwang. 23. bisexual. webtoon creator. he/they. kim hongjoong

[any, 22-28] gun and your muse are exes, and gun based a character in his ground breaking webtoon-turned-tv show after the relationship they had. hint: based. it’s not very obvious to anyone that it’s from a true story until your muse, an actor, gets cast to be playing ‘themself’ in the show. doesn’t bode well for gun, who’s invited to help out the director to really get his vision across.

[any, 22-28] haha fake dating time! gun needs someone to come to an event promoting the webtoon company they make webtoons for with them! and who better to ask than the one (1) friend they have, aka your muse :) alternatively, your muse needs to bring a s/o to a big important family event and they panic and choose gun. meanwhile, gun is very fucking terrified of big important family events considering their own family situation. this is fine :)

ilseong park. 21. bisexual. crown prince. he/they. kang yeosang

[platonic romantic antagonistic] your muse was namil (dead older brother)’s best friend. how r they acting now. esp considering.. well.. how much alike ilseong looks to namil . how sad.

[any, 20-25] SLAMS HANDS ON THE TABLE. PRINCESS PROTECTION PROGRAM ANYONE???? ilseong is sent to another country to attend college to keep him safe. maybe your muse knows who he is maybe they don’t. ilseong is looking for that #college experience. give it to them.

[any, 20-25] bodyguard :) ilseong’s reckless and stupid and needs someone to practically babysit him otherwise he’s gonna escape and put himself in danger. we can’t have that can we?

[any, 20-25] please just any dramatic royalty plots i will sell my soul..

winter hollis. 22. lesbian. streamer. she/her. chloe bailey

[women/nonbinary, 20-27] hear me out: they hate eachother online but in real life they’re besties. or vice versa. and! they don’t know the other’s alter ego. how fun!

[women/nonbinary, 20-27] established relationship! winter’s kept her relationship with your muse a secret from her fans because they get a little bit... @.@ but your muse shows up when she’s streaming a game once and everyone goes wild aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa  

james ‘jem’ maddox. 32. bisexual. vet tech. witch. any pronouns. candice patton

[platonic or romantic] jem finds your muse’s pet and returns it to your muse <3 they hit off <3 meet cute.

[platonic or romantic] your muse brings your pet in and jem saves it. can be a little bit of meet ugly LOL

[any, 27-37] idk i think it would be fun to have recent exes that just keep running into eachother and okay fine we can try again one (1) more time except it’s a mess and their friends r begging them to stop going back to eachother but they Can’t. anyway.

barbra ‘barbie’ floyd. 31. bisexual. neurosurgeon. she/they. shaunette renee wilson

[platonic or romantic] literally any grey’s anatomy esque plot. give it to me. i want the drama i want the absurdity i want the tears the angst

[any, 27-35] in a similar vein as above -- an ex-patient :) they get tangled together and fall in love ohhh~ except they end up in the hospital again ;___;

[any, 27-35] barbie uses dating apps. sometimes. when she’s desperate and needs to get her friends/family off her back. can go literally anywhere we can pretend to start from the actual dating app part like it’s from scratch.

dakota ‘kota’ lee. 21. bisexual. con artist. he/him. choi jongho

[platonic or romantic] give. me. kota’s. con. artist. squad. i can create more (private) muses for this i want a small lil squad of con artists just them against the world~ doing fun heists and things.

[any, 20-22] okay. they were friends in middle/highschool before kota went on t/got top surgery/even knew he was trans and they kinda fell apart from eachother/lost contact and kota did always have a tiny little crush on them but he was scared of ever admitting it and well now it’s been. a long time since that. and they come back into his life and he’s like ah well . im basically a new person. maybe we can try. bc he still has feelings. this is a very roundabout way of saying i want ex-friends to lovers <3 mwah

[any, 20-24] your muse is rich! kota and them have a one night stand and kota steals from them <3 maybe they know maybe they don’t

zuhi bhatti. 32. bisexual. professor. she/he. parveen kaur

[any, 28-36] okay stay with me here. give me zuhi’s ex-fiancé. the   fiancé  broke it off because they thought she wasn’t giving them enough time. they find eachother again. zuhi wants to get back together because of course she does. whether your muse agrees or doesnt is up to you but personally i’d love to explore the fall of their relationship and the rebuilding of it and the hesitance and the angst and everything that comes with it.

[any, 28-36] LOL. REBOUND!!! she deserves a little bit of a rebound. maybe it’s only one night maybe it lasts a month. maybe they stay friends after maybe they don’t maybe they were always in love with her and she sees them as temporary.

[any, professor and/or researcher] your muse work’s in the same department as zuhi at the same university :) a little bit of a rivalry. for fun :)

ender shim. 22. bisexual. hospital receptionist. vampire. they/them. jung wooyoung

[???] the vampire that made ender a vampire. please note -- ender is very bitter about it because they turned them into a vampire AND THEN FUCKING DISAPPEARED. left ender to deal with the process of figuring out vampirism by themself. its very stressful.

[???] a vampire that Didn’t turn ender BUT finds ender being a stupid vampire and decides to help them out. for the record: ender is terrified.

[any, 20-27] the one (1) friend ender has. u know that classic “you can feed from me it’s okay” thing? yeah... yeah..... lays down for a second...

LITERALLY ANY VAMPIRY THINGS PLZZZZZZZ I AM ON MY HANDS AND KNEES.

angel hart. 21. bisexual. actor. ghoul. they/them. savannah lee smith

[any, 20-26] literally any and all co-actor type things... PR relationship. co actors that can’t stand eachother off screen but have to act buddy buddy on screen. practicing lines together and uh oh they kiss. etc etc

phoenix ‘nix’ nam. 21 / 33. bisexual. college student / major tech conglomerate heir. they/he. choi soobin / lee minhyuk

unless otherwise stated, all plots are for 20 year old phoenix.

[any, 20-25] superhero-y type things (applies to benji, ember, and jacky as well). nix (& others) can be seen as heroes or villains depending on who you ask. can be their enemy? rivals 2 lovers anyone ?

same type of thing (also applies to the others) except they’re like. super spies?? yeah. missions and stuff. give me things for that.

[any, 20-25] is your muse looking for a roommate? look no further! nix lives in a penthouse all alone LOL. you know that one headline “Straight guy worries he’s being homophobic to gay roommate, realizes he’s fallen in love with him”. nix can be either one it doesn’t matter.

benjamin ‘benji’ reid. 24. bisexual. works in tech. telekinetic. he/him. chance perdomo

(super spy/hero stuff from nix applies here)

[any, 22-29] i want cheesy romantic things for benji. absolutely super fucking cheesy. domestic things. those two people who everyone is like “oh theyre definitely dating” but they aren’t. yet

jacky alston. 23. bisexual. medical student. healer. he/they. quintessa swindell

(super spy/hero stuff from nix applies here)

[platonic or romantic] your muse is a fucking klutz. they do not know about jacky’s healing abilities but he always fixes them up good as new without them knowing. hey you ever watch daredevil? how claire and matt were? he’s claire. give them a matt.

naomi shimada. 34. gay. private investigator. he/they. sen mitsuji

[any, men/nonbinary if romantic, similar age] they met years ago when naomi was still in the fbi and were partners (i mean literally, they worked together, but they could have been partners). your muse is considered dead. while naomi is working a case as a PI he comes upon something that leads them to find your muse, alive. cue angst heartbreak reconnection

[platonic romantic antagonistic] haha your muse is a criminal. naomi is tasked with finding them/taking them down. he thought this case was going to be small and easy but it quickly unravels into something much bigger than expected. game of cat and mouse. at eachother’s throats. one of them always one step ahead of the other.

alijah greene. 32. bisexual. medical intern. he/they. alfie enoch

[women/nonbinary, similar age] ex-wife! they’re on good terms, they just weren’t compatible. they have a son that they coparent/share custody of that’s around 11 now. probably never get back together but it’d be nice just having quiet chats between them and talking about how their relationship was and how their current ones are.

[any, 27-36] ah the act of falling in love with someone after being single for so long and having to balance a demanding job and a kid. it’s difficult. alijah still wants to make it work. but is your muse as invested in this blooming relationship as he is?

harin song. 26. bisexual. medical intern. she/they. han sohee

[any, 24-30] as the sibling that’s continuously overlooked, she’s trying everything to get attention from her parents, whether that be good or bad. this type is definitely the bad kind. your muse, for whatever reason, is a really fucking terrible influence and/or person. harin brings them to the family winter vacation anyway :)

[any, 24-30] your muse is haneul’s best friend. harin likes them. maybe they’ve had a relationship for a bit and are hiding it. maybe not. who knows.

haneul song. 26. bisexual. surgical intern. he/him. lee dohyun

[any, 24-30] just generally flirty vibes :) for fun :) haneul has a big ol’ crush on your muse. they may or may not return it but haneul shows off every time he sees them anyway. plz notice him.

siobhan ‘shiv’ walsh. 26. bisexual. medical intern. she/her. samantha logan

[any, 27-30] okay stay with me. we all know shiv has issues with people saying she’s only here bc of nepotism considering her aunt runs the hospital. give me a resident/attending that Knew shiv’s aunt was bringing her to work here for a Fact. they know she’s here because of nepotism. they are fully absolutely annoyed at this fact and make it their mission to make shiv’s life hell. and it’s working. kind of. because turn’s out shiv is actually very good at what she does and probably would be here anyway. enemies to lovers type beat.

beejal ‘bee’ chaudhry. 25. bisexual. author. can make avatars of herself. anya chalotra

[antagonistic  platonic romantic] your muse Knows that bee’s mom is a high profile actress and that her dad is a politician. they know. they plan to bring this to light for some reason. maybe they dont like her. maybe they don’t like her parents. whatever. chaos.

[any, 22-30] REALITY TV SHOW. i havent seen any but i just think it’d be fun to write bee in that type of environment considering how awful she can be. will likely require a lot of plotting. romantic or platonic or antagonistic i want them at eachother’s throats i want them to kiss i want them to be messy.

#havent edited this from my old blog btw . #& KEVA : OUT

[causewealwayshaveeachother]

wip challenge ask game

ty for tagging me rio @wr0temyway0ut !!

rules: “Post the names of all the files in your WIP folder regardless of  how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the  title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet of it or  tell them something about it! And then tag as many people as you have  wips. I have deemed  that this isn’t just for writing either. Sketch titles? Comics? DND  campaigns? If you have an unfinished project, it counts!!”

gonna go ahead and toss in two non jatp ones for kicks cause ive got a few of those in my little notebook of 'writing analogue doesnt exacerbate your wrist injury as much'

also a couple of these i just decided to put multiple fics in one doc for. fun. :)

GleeOmens

Sound of Stars Alice/Ellie

fractal sunset melt

a classic "where are they now?"

alex crying on reggie - plenty of space to encase

bob gadling au

but then i pass (the last place i saw you alive)

emily said - jatp fixit fic

friend date

hangs at the skatepark, hangs at the beach // busker fic // more of willie's touch issues

i take a picture of your dress - reggie has some genders in this one

Sunset Curve And Julie And The Phantoms Are Entirely Unaffiliated

god in jeans by ryan beatty

good omens au

julie and the insomniac adventurers

there's drinks and smokes and funny jokes the world ain't all that bad

i just think reggie would really love being a girl. she'd have so much fun with it

julie's free closet for wayward genderqueer ghosts <3

the artist and the art restorationist!!!!!!!!!

skillet on the stove, it's such a temptation

jatp otgw au

jatp riot grrrl au

jo emotional's greatest hits

juliereggie megamind au

life drawing model au

mercer family youtube channel au

pacedina dual plot split

reggie has genders 'verses

spirited away au

sunset curve kisses the homies and also willie at summer camp

take a look at my girlfriend

tattoo artist/reference desk librarian

the soulmate goose of enforcement

the tower, the dragon, the sleeping maiden

three part harmony platonic juluke rivals to friends

troped round 2 inspired

bmc jatp au

tagging: no one because i have too many turmoils in my life and no need to add another. THIRTY SEVEN?? i dont even have that many followers. if you see this and wanna do it you can say i tagged you and i'll corroborate that claim

#btw.have not watched glee #well technically iwatched like half of s1 but that was years ago so doesnt count #oh my god that's so many #the ones in the middle that aren't alphabeticall are the ones that are in my 'jatp bits' doc #tried to pull most of them #km #jatp #jatp fanfic #tag game

[suchatinyinfinity]

That moment when...

you have to stop the roll you’re on writing Ryan Brenner to get ready for aquatic therapy. 🚂🎸

#to be continued #and dare I say completed? #ryan brenner #ryan brenner x reader #and another ryan verse entirely #this is number 4 or 5 #someone make me stop

[psychicbergara]

i did say i was gonna share some spider verse au thoughts so i'll share some!! it's honestly a lil depressing (but not entirely) so warning for that LASKDJFDFJ

so in this au ryan is already spider man, he got bitten when he was in high school and he had his best friend shane help him out and get through it. they obviously fall in love and date for a couple years after high school. but there's this once tragic incident where a villain kidnaps and drops shane from like ten stories high and ryan doesn't get to him in time (so basically gwen stacy style im so sorry LSAKDJ) and this leads to years of grief and anguish, ryan stops pulling his punches and just digs himself deeper into being spider man rather than focus on himself as ryan bergara.

then when another villain pulls out a collider years later, he meets shane from another universe who is also spider man. shane's ryan also died, what's more tragic though is that they were married but shane lost him. and when they meet, ryan sees an older shane and what could've been (he's like 30 while ryan is 26) and shane sees the ryan he married.

more under the cut im so sorry i tend to ramble LAKSDJF

they don't replace each other's past shane and ryans though, even though initially it feels like they can't be together because it feels like cheating and that they aren't allowed to have something good in their lives. but they find the differences that was different from the other versions and it causes angst at first because they're not each other's partners and the people they're used to but eventually they learn to love each other's idiosyncrasies and realize they aren't the same people they previously fell in love with. they carve a different place in each other's hearts. it doesn't fill the void, but it eases the ache of it.

shane can't stay in ryan's universe for long though or else he'll die. so when they say goodbye at the collider, shane hesitates since he wants to stay. but ryan refuses because he doesn't want shane to die, and shane doesn't want to leave him to fight the villain because he doesn't ryan to die either. but ryan says 'it's okay, ill be okay, i promise.' and shane before he leaves, says, 'i'll find you. i'll find you again.' and ryan softly smiles and says, 'you better,' and they share a sweet kiss, a promise, before ryan sends him off to his universe. then ryan obviously defeats the villain and then at the end, shane figures out how to cross universes without it being fatal, and they visit each other's universe on a daily basis lskdjfdf :')

i also wanted other spidey variants like steven, marielle and sara to be in here somehow so they could be a lil spidey family <3

#anyways i hope this doesnt suck too much SLKFSDJF #just my lil shyan thoughts #shyan #shyan au #sophie posts

[sweater-daddiesdumbdork]

This Is Still Marvel, Right?

Summary- 2.5k Sam Wilson x Bucky Barnes x Wade Wilson x You. Deadpool the character from the comics is sitting across from the table from you, real right in front of your eyes. Not only is time travel a thing, but dimension travel is as well, and he is here for a very serious reason. Warnings- swears. Written for @what-is-your-backupplan-today​ CATFA 10th Anniversary Challenge. Prompts are highlighted. 

Masterlist

“You came from where?” Sam questioned with a tilt of his head, arms folded across his chest as he raised a quizzical brow at the man in all red. 

“And why the clown suit?” Bucky right next to him asked, trying to make sense of what was going on. 

“I’m from the X-Men verse, you know… bald dude in the wheelchair, Wolvie with butter knife hands, we have our own pigeon boy. Not as sweet as your wings though.” Wade said with a sigh. “And we had a Peter, but the winds… god the winds were too strong. I will never forget you Sugar Bear.” He sobbed in his hand a moment, sniffling a moment. 

You were thoroughly in shock, your jaw was dropped to the floor as Wade mother fucking Wilson sat in the interrogation chair, one leg crossed over the other, his ankle jiggling as he leaned forward on his elbows, planting his chin in his palms as he made an cooing sound at the two men. “Aww, they are so cute when they are confused, aren't they cute? The cutest little puppies.” He went to boop Bucky's nose, but Bucky reared his head back away from his hand and a whir of his hand closed around Wade's wrist, which caused the masked mercenary to gasp out excitedly. 

“THE WINTER SOLDIER ARM, VIBRANIUM UPGRADE. I keep telling Cable he needs this hook up, his isn't nearly as cool as yours. Mister Bucky Barnes Sir, can you sign my suit? I’m a super fan.” the white eyes of his mask widened and you finally managed to close your mouth watching all this.

Whatever this was, you were actually wondering if you weren't in some drugged hallucination right now. Mission gone wrong? You had eaten that turkey sandwich out of the compound fridge, maybe it was drugged and this was someone's payback for stealing their food.

“Come on man.” Sam snapped out, still trying to get a straight answer out of him. Bucky let go of his hand which Wade muttered to himself. 

“I'm never washing this hand, not ever.” He cradled it to his chest. “Just wait till I tell Chrome Dome who shook my hand.” 

“ANSWERS!” Bucky yelled out and Wade gasped at the outburst. Bucky reached over to grasp the mask and yanked it off, grimacing as Wade's appearance showed. Both Sam and Bucky recovered quite quickly, you were still freaking out in the corner and Wade gave a suggestive wink to the two of them. 

“Names Wilson, Wade Wilson. No relation to this saucy stud though.” He eyed Sam up and down with a purr, who scoffed at the sudden attention. “Don't worry, I know that one is crushing on you hard. The chemistry. I won't make a move on you. Winter Soldier though is fair game, eh?” He made a chef’s kiss motion after pointing at you. “So are you two… do you… fondue?” Wade asked, Sam and You looked at each other and made disbelieving faces at one another. “Oh we're not admitting feelings? My bad. I jumped ahead in the comics. So much sexual tension.” Making a donut shape with one hand and a pointer with the other, meshing them together, you could feel your throat close up and Sam’s eyes widen. Bucky was struggling to keep his calm at this point, Sam too. Wade made a motion to stand and get up. 

“Do we have any eats here?” He puts his hand on the handle to open the door and a knife flung through the air, landing right next to his face. Wade paused and turned around. “Here I thought this was still Marvel and not Dc. Tony would have offered me a snack by now.” He grumbled while sitting back down. “A falafel, blueberries, I know he likes to snack, I've seen the movies.” 

You finally got over your shock and went to sit across from him. “Mr.Wilson…” 

He put up a hand. “Pool please, Deadpool. Or Wade. Or you can call me Captain Deadpool. Too much?” He glanced up at Sam and Bucky. “Yea too much, just call me Wade.” 

“Wade.” you started again, trying to figure out how to approach this. “We’re confused, because you are a comic book character.” You pulled up your phone and pulled up a screen clip of his movie. 

Wade gasped and grabbed at your phone, studying it. “Look at that handsome son of a bitch. I'm so glad they picked Ryan Reynolds for the part, he looks just like me.” He held the phone up next to his face. “He’s so good looking, it's the Canadian genes.” Then handed it back, you tucked it away and he leaned forward to toss what looked like a beat up comic book on the table.

“What’s this?” You question, pointing at it.

“A comic book. You guys are just comic book characters and I'm here to fix your story. What? You seriously didn't know you are comic book characters in another universe?” 

“Our story?” You pulled the comic towards you and sure enough plastered on the front was Sam in his Falcon Suit, Bucky with his own gear and you were soaring in the air above slightly out of focus. 

“Yes, your story. Listen Cable, you all know Cable right? He's like a moodier you Buckaroo…” The name caused Bucky to growl a bit, but Wade continued without noticing. “... hooked me up with this cool device. Not like those stones you all have, this is some actual batman kind of future fuckery that I got rigged to not just travel back in time. But other dimensions. Whoo... “ He made wiggly fingers. “It's like magic right? Cool.” 

You were flipping through the pages as fast as possible, skimming the storyline. Amazingly all of it was there, the mission report Nick Fury brought Sam this morning, you and Bucky sparring and how he pinned you against the mat, the heart to heart about how you two missed Steve. 

Sam pinched the bridge of his nose while Bucky looked over your shoulder at the comic book. “I'm getting a headache, or I'm losing it. Did I get hit in the head?” Sam rambled a bit and you got to the end of the comic, seeing that the mission Fury had given you three was completed, successfully. 

“Says there we did just fine.” Bucky said and you closed it before pushing it towards the center of the table. 

“It's not all just fine.” Wade threw up his hands in exasperation and you shook your head so confused. 

“Explain it to us Wade.” You grasped the comic again, flipping through it, scanning the pages as quick as you can. 

“Go to page 53.” He tapped his finger against the steel table and you did, the panel showing you and Sam standing on a roof top about to enter a building from above and Bucky was shown in another panel scaling a building. 

“I don't see it…” you shook your head confused as to what he was talking about and Wade pointed at the bottom, that was just barely in view. A hot dog cart. 

“You are here, from another dimension of life… because of a hot dog cart?” 

Wade nodded firmly. “If we don't protect that hot dog cart, bad things will happen.” His voice lowered, turning shifty. “Spooky stuff… anal stuff.” He shuddered and sat back, staring at the hot dog cart in the bottom of the picture. “If we don't protect that hot dog cart, it causes issues you couldn't even fathom. Another life just poof… what did y’all call it? Spanked out of existence?”

You just automatically corrected him. “Snapped.”

“Spanked sounds better, maybe consider changing it to spanked?” 

Sam cleared his throat. “You traveled through dimensions to get here so we could save a hot dog cart? I'm just- trying to keep it all straight. This isn't entirely the weirdest thing I have heard, but it's close.” 

Bucky scoffed. “I say this guy needs some help, maybe his brain got scrambled like mine.” 

“Nah, I didn't get the mind trip you did. I was tortured by a guy named Francis.” Wade snorted gleefully. “Called himself Ajax, like the dish soap!” Slapping his knee, he busted out laughing heavily, starting to cry. 

You rubbed at your face and looked over your shoulder. “I think we should trust him guys. What if what he says is true? We’ve dealt with crazy shit before.” 

“You can't be serious Y/N.” Bucky shook his head and Sam looked doubtful. Wade giggled as he wiped a tear from his eye, pointing a finger at you. 

“I like you, you're the smart one here I can tell.” 

You all turned to Sam who hadn't said anything yet. He sighed and rubbed at his face a bit, before finally saying under his breath. “I'm never going to hear the end of this… Lets take him.” 

Wade did a fist pump in victory, leaping up to grab his mask back from Bucky. “X-Force Ass-” You were quick to cover his mouth, leaving the “-emble” garbled. 

“He's going to get us killed, Wilson.” 

“I said to call me Deadpool or Captain Deadpool.” 

“I WAS TALKING TO HIM!” Bucky jerked his thumb at Sam, gritting his teeth while he yanked open the door and left the room. Deadpool followed after him, the next thing you heard was Bucky hollar. “I'm going to kick your ass Prick.” 

“Will you? You're making me all excited. Like a fairy making a little girl's wishes come true, I feel like I could fly.” 

Then you and Sam heard something loud crack and Wade’s cooing grew fainter. “Nice boots, Tinkerbell!” 

You snatched the comic book and stuffed it in your back pocket. “Uh we probably better go stop Bucky. It's pointless for him to try to kill Wade and will just tire himself out.” 

Sam opened the door, holding it open for you. “Should we really take that away from him?” 

“True and it sounds like Wade is having himself a fan moment anyways and doesn't care.” You stepped out to see Bucky and Wade tangled together wrestling.

Just as the comic stated, You and Sam were able to go in from the top. You could see Bucky below you using rigging to scale the building. Down further below you could see a red dot pushing a hot dog cart down the street well out of harm. Speaking into the comm’s, your wings folded to pull you into a spiral, spinning towards the roof. “Wade’s got the cart moved, and were clear to enter.” 

There was a grunt in the comms and Bucky's voice crackled through. “Well damn, I'm glad the hot dog cart is safe… for reasons spanning an entire dimension that we still don't know.” 

“Who are we to question it, Bucky? I mean, we’ve seen some pretty strange shit.” You stated as Sam landed next to you, shooting at the door and ducking inside together. “Maybe this is just another one to add to the pile.” 

Silence descended on the group as you each made to fulfill the mission. Once the building was clear and the three of you were working on exiting, Wade was waiting on the roof, sitting on the edge eating a hot dog and had three more lined up next to him. “I brought you all lunch, you guys do that sort of thing right? Good Mission? yes I bet. Buckaroo has the happy murder gleam in his eyes.” He took another bite of his hot dog and chewed while studying Bucky closely. 

“Don't do that.” Bucky shuddered a bit and Wade proceeded to pop the last bite into his mouth and chewed slowly while rolling the bottom half of his mask down. 

“Do what Buckaroo?” 

“Stare at me or call me Buckaroo.” 

“While eating a hot dog? Only way to properly eat one. I know you love it James. Well my mission here is done.” He pushed off the ledge to give you a hug and handed you a manilla envelope. “This is for you, it explains everything. Toodleloo Kiddies, it was fun knowing you. Oh and if you see Hugh Jackman on the street, tell him his coffee sucks and bitch slap the prick.” He jumped back on the ledge and looked over the edge. “Oh this is gonna kill my knees but this is a true superhero moment. Wait for it…” He gave you all a salute and stepped over, plummeting down. Sam and Bucky rushed the edge, looking over. 

You knew better, a superhero landing wouldn't kill him. 

“NAILED IT!” you three barely heard, then in a flash of sparks, Deadpool was gone. 

“I thought for sure he was going to pancake down there.” Bucky said with a hint of sadness and Sam shook his head. 

“We gotta get out of here before we're caught and get this back to Fury.” Sam held up a chip that held the actual intel of the mission. 

You silently agreed and together the three of you made your way off the building and back home. 

Afterwards once you were back in the tower and changing out of your suit, you glanced at the manilla envelope Wade left you. 

Sitting down on the bench, you opened it and peeked in. What looked like another comic book was in there as well as a letter. Pulling out the letter, you scanned it. 

~To the Super Duper Trio, 

Thank you for believing me. It was crucial. We're not the only comic book verse out there living our lives. Sometimes they cross intersect in ways that I can't explain, go find the wizard, he can tell you more about it. Also ask him to your next party, because he can do the COOLEST TRICKS. But if you take out the comic book enclosed you will see on page 23 there is a hot dog cart as well as a familiar looking dork named Jake Jensen. Alias- Capt Jensen. 

Perhaps your Captain is alive in some way, the DC universe having changed him to a loveable, cat hating, Petunias loving, super smart idiot.

Tell Birdman thanks for the vote of confidence, caw caw mother fucker.

Tell Buckaroo he forgot to sign my suit, I will be back. He is my favorite after all. 

And what I wanna tell you is take care of those idiots so they dont kill each other. 

With Love, 

Captain Deadpool

Ps- Yes Cap’s as awkward with women in DC as he was in Marvel. 

Pss- Welcome to X-Force! I will be in touch. 

You pulled out the comic book and glanced at the cover seeing six people staring down, the title of the comic- The Losers. Flipping to the page, you found a photograph tucked in between the pages, showing another version of the page. One where the street looked demolished and a man lying crumbled by a cart. Also a familiar hot dog cart leaned on its side, demolished. 

Setting the picture aside, now you glanced over this panel to see the same man making a show of pulling out a crossbow, the bubble above his head with the words “That’s right, bitches, I got a crossbow!” 

The scene didn't really surprise you that much, more like the character now alive in the comic looked just like Steve. 

A thinner version, he had facial hair, and the entire get up was never anything Steve would have willingly worn. 

But it looked just like Steve Rogers and for the second time that day your jaw dropped. 

Maybe Wade Wilson was right, after all… 

Nothing was off limits and stranger things have happened.

#this is still marvel right? #amber writes #sweater writes #catfa 10th anniversary challenge #bucky barnes #sam wilson #wade wilson #jake jensen #avengers #deadpool #the losers