I woke up and decided to reblog everything in my favorites. You’re welcome
edit 3/17/26: queue has been reinstated!
edit 3/17/26: queue has been paused until this update is rolled back. I for one utilize tags heavily to keep things organized. What’s the point if even tags cause the post to be broken from the original post?
edit 5/28/25: the queue is too long. If I share thoughts in the tags, they’re scheduled for later the same day. If I reblog because I like it, it gets queued
…
Hello, feel free to call me Aether ^^ I, uh, have a lot of hobbies, but mainly enjoy writing fanfiction. My current fandoms are Star Wars, BBC Merlin, Encanto, and Sky: CotL, but I’ll reblog anything and everything that tickles my fancy. Speaking of reblogs… everything gets queued. If it didn’t, I’d never reblog anything. Plus, it has the added benefit of helping to put it in front of you again months down the road ;D
…
I guess details of my tagging system and writing will go below the cut…
Be warned, I haven’t actually thought this far ahead so it’s a bit disorganized…
Tags
Humor is Good: all the things I find funny
Quotables: worth quoting
(and that’s it, I really don’t organize around here…)
Fandoms
Star Wars
I haven’t posted anything about my wips, currently, but I have a few in the works.
BBC Merlin
Flipping the Coin: A reversal au where Merlin dies/Arthur lives and now Arthur is the one waiting centuries for Merlin to return.
Last Unicorn AU: Merlin the Magician is two things; a failure and immortal. His powers are real, and destined to do great things, but he can’t even harness them. Turning cheese into butter only causes the cheese to weep from not being eaten. Out of pity, his master, Gaius, gave him immortality so he would have time to learn how to use his powers, but it seems that will never happen. Until he meets the unicorn.
And I have other, older drafts of Merlin fics I never finished. If I find them I might share them.
Encanto
Why Tio Bruno Should Be My Papa: Little Mirabel thinks Bruno should have a kid, specifically her, so presents her parents with a list of reasons why. A collection of one shots focusing on pre-canon events. Mainly, Mirabel being adorable and forcing her tio to be a good uncle despite his attempts to withdraw from the family.
To Be Tio Again: A companion one shot collection to Why Tio Bruno Should Be My Papa focusing on post-canon events. Featuring Bruno relearning how to function in the family and Mirabel being a supportive niece.
Encanto AUs for the Soul: Like it says on the tin, this is for all of my AUs, specifically ones that tickle my soul because I need them to exist. Among this collection is: Murder, Magic, & Mugs - a modern coffee shop/detective AU; Lost Stars - a Star Wars/Encanto fusion with the characters of Encanto in the Star Wars universe (note: this is not a proper cross over as no Star Wars characters appear. Only the settings and lore are used.); Encantomorphs - a wip still but is essentially an Animorphs/Encanto fusion; A Gift of Normalcy - Mirabel’s gift is being Normal.
Misc. Fandoms
Over the years, I’ve written for various fandoms. Slowly, I’m working on transferring those works to ao3. They will all be posted under my old pseudonym, but occasionally I might talk about one here.
if you work in a creative field...or if you do creative hobbies like writing or drawing...you need to make friends with people who don't do those things. you need to befriend normie Steve who has never written a story in his life. and this is because when you are in a creative job or hobby and spend all your time doing that thing, surrounded by very capable people, who you inevitably compare your own progress and skills to, you forget what the baseline human skill at that thing is. and it's usually zero. normie Steve has not written a story since the 3rd grade when his teacher made him do it. he's very good at other things that are not storytelling - but if you tell normie Steve that you wrote a full 300-page book from start to finish, he will think you're some kind of savant. he does not know ANYONE else who has done this. you need this perspective. because when you're constantly on Let's Write Stories dot Com then everyone on Let's Write Stories dot Com will inevitably be like "oh of course everyone on earth has written a book or several at this point!" and you canNOT let yourself think that. that is not even close to the average human experience. you are in a bubble. do not put yourself down. do not give up.
alright I've got to do some quick math to explain attitudes towards AI to my boss.
we're looking to create an AI policy, and when we were talking about this, my boss (older millennial) was genuinely shocked to hear that younger people do not (seem) to view AI positively (a la the recent commencement speakers being booed)
please rb for larger sample size!
Question 1/3
What is your age, and do you feel AI is a net positive or net negative in our lives today?
My favorite scenes in the LotR books are the ones where Legolas has vital information and just decides it's not important to share.
Like when Gandalf spent literal PAGES trying to figure out why the vibes were off in Moria and Legolas chimes in with just "it's a balrog :) that shit's evil :) we're so fucked :)" like what do you MEAN you knew already and just didn't tell him??
Or at the beginning of Two Towers when Aragorn thinks there's something nearby so he puts his ear to the ground to listen, and then like 10 minutes later is like "hmmm i hear horses" and Legolas is just like "mm yep. there are 105 blond bitches with spears" like you just let your friend put his face in the dirt and you can SEE them??
It's because legolas hasn't spent enough time with non-elves to remember that they don't know what he knows.
gandalf is scratching his head in moria, and legolas is thinking "oh man, the wizard noticed something off *besides* the obvious balrog that we all are aware of??"
"I wonder what aragorn is listening for? must be hard to hear, what with all of the horses. How many horses are there, actually? 1... 2... 3..."
"What do your elvish eyes see?" is Aragorn saying, as politely as possible, "Because the REST OF US are at a significant disadvantage, Prince Dipshit."
was on the wikipedia page for charleston red rice and i noticed the photo they used was blurry. i went to the talk page to see if this was brought up and stumbled upon this banger of a conversation
Very odd and specific question, so absolutely feel free to ignore, but - do you have any advice on dealing with people treating you as if you’re a cis guy post-medical transition? Specifically, with all of the weird camaraderie around performing casual misogyny?
I just moved for work from the city I’ve lived in all my life - I medically transitioned a few years ago and now pass as cis, but since all of my friends, family, colleagues, etc. were pretty much all aware that I was trans, I’ve never really been treated as a cis man by other cis men. I’m now in a new city where I know nobody and nobody knows me, and I am apparently passing not only as cis but also as straight (which I am not), and for the first time I’m encountering, like, generalised misogyny/homophobia/etc that I am expected to participate in, rather than it being either directly or indirectly pointed towards me.
Obviously I don’t want to participate, but it’s insanely difficult to find a way to disagree without potentially outing myself (I’m not deliberately stealth and don’t want to be, but I’m still cautious about who I tell). I don’t think I’d be exposed to violence, but I’m also not particularly interested in being either ostracised or a teaching tool for casual bigots.
Once again, PLEASE feel free to ignore this, but you seem like you might have some expertise.
I think about this a lot, and my advice is going to be colored by the fact that I actually physically intimidate a lot of cis men.
Something about my height, default frowning expression, how I carry myself, and yes, being white and dressing more formally, has conditioned a lot of cis men to defer to me out of reflex. Though sometimes, the occasional "alpha" asshole will want to start shit.
I like to combine my physicality with certain mannerisms to instill a type of cognitive dissonance in toxic men that short circuits them.
Most of my examples are from the white collar workplace, because that's where I socialize the most with cishet men.
I like peppering my language and appearance with softness. I still swear like a sailor, but may suddenly say something like, "I need to bail for the night because my tummy is upset." When I used to lead Very Important meetings with Very Important Men, I enjoyed seeing eyes bulge when I put my laptop covered with colorful stickers on the table.
This is just how I am, so I was broadcasting, "I am not like you," without adopting an artificial persona. Ie, a lot of people will give "gay it up" advice here, but I am not flamboyant in the way they encourage.
(I will say that changing my style to be more ostentatious -- dressing 1940s vintage in my case -- does make more people assume I am gay.)
I avoid a lot of "pissing contest" body language with men -- I may opt for a wave instead of an aggressive handshake. I don't do that "lean back in the chair with arms behind the head" or other man-spreading around the conference table. The more a man raises his voice, the quieter and calmer I present. And when I'm in a mixed gender conversation, I make sure I let the folks who are not men speak.
Overall, I still take up space, but I act like I know I'm strong and capable without feeling the need to prove it.
(Yes, I am aware this can all ironically all be considered as still engaging in the pissing contest. There is a balance between ignoring this behavior and engaging with it on a different level.)
When toxic men try to buddy up to me with their nonsense, I take great care not to parrot misogynistic/queerphobic/etc idioms. For example, as a married man in a cishet presenting relationship, I avoid "ball and chain" gags. In fact, I may talk about my next date night or something cool my partner did during the icebreaker part of a conversation. This is an example of how I subvert expected shitty behavior before shitty men try to enlist me in it.
Sometimes, it's necessary to call out their bullshit. "What an odd thing to say." "Sounds like a skills issue." "I don't understand the joke." This takes some practice to do, and you want to be sure you're not going to have your ass beat. Sometimes, just removing yourself from the situation is what is best.
When I have to be confrontational, I tend to adopt a flat affect. Men expect other men in an argument to become angry, flustered, or smug. Showing zero emotion confuses the shit out of them and I've literally had aggressive men wanting to physically fight me turn and walk away.
In short, if you scrub a lot of toxic behaviors from yourself, you're going to throw toxic men off-guard. Don't rise to their bait, be it body language or defaulting to stereotypical phrases. Avoid these guys when you can, and confront them when it's important to make a point.
This is all very hard to make a habit, because we internalize a lot of the scripts to toxic masculinity. There's a lot to unlearn.
Again, I say this from a place where I have some social currency going into these interactions because of how I look. Being a little intimidating means I can come off as off-putting and not suffer much for it.
my absolute favorite few days of the school year happened this week… the sixth graders started shakespeare. bear with me I have a lot of thoughts about this!!!
everyone in middle and high school here spends the last nine weeks of the school year reading one shakespeare play in english class. we read the entire play out loud, in class, pausing often to talk about it and puzzle out the lines and words and what the characters are doing and thinking. kids volunteer for parts at the beginning of each class period. they do weird accents. they put real emotion into it. I read nothing except the stage directions. it is, amazingly, nearly everyone’s favorite unit. at the end of it, they do projects and write papers and put on a filmed adaptation.
the seventh through twelfth graders start out excited, because they (for the most part) did this the year before and they know that shakespeare is fun. they love it. they ask for weeks beforehand when we’re going to start shakespeare.
the sixth graders, however, are new to the middle school and new to shakespeare. they are scared!!! they think shakespeare’s language is not their own. they think it’s too complex and/or boring and/or will go over their heads and/or very serious.
in the first two-ish days, something magical happens: the sixth graders lose their fear and fall in love with shakespeare. watching it in real time is a gift.
this year we’re doing macbeth. I ask the sixth graders on thursday, day 1, when and where shakespeare lived, what kind of writing he’s known for, etc., to get a sense of what they know (very little). I give them like a five-minute rundown of macbeth and shakespeare but nothing in-depth: I want them entering the play at the level of language.
for the first couple days I put the play on the smartboard as the kids get used to how to read the lines, then we switch to physical copies for everyone. this means there’s no glosses at first, nothing to check for meaning or context — only the lines themselves.
1.1 of macbeth is super short; we read it straight through, with three giggling girls reading as the witches and stumbling over their words, and then go back to parse out the lines. I ask something like, “what do you think hurly-burly means?” the sixth graders give a variety of replies: craziness, trouble, chaos, hullabaloo, and I get to show them a gloss that says basically exactly that. they laugh at weird-sounding lines, they get used to how it should be read. their confidence ticks up because they see now that the language of shakespeare is not some crazy inaccessible building to be scaled. it’s a playground!!! they can go right in and have fun. the learning curve isn’t even that steep. and mind you, we’re still in 1.1! we’ve only barely started.
on day 2, they’re cautiously excited. maybe the beginning was just like that? we were eased into this and it’ll get harder?? then they fully relax and get into it over the course of the class period. they argue over who’s going to read for what part. a kid who has not been doing great in class, rarely volunteers in discussions and even more rarely reads anything aloud, throws his hand in the air when I ask who wants to read for today. he asks to be the “bleeding captain” and proceeds to give an amazing and totally sincere performance of an injured man delivering news to a king. it’s the most he’s spoken in a given class period.
it does require rigorous work and attention to be in sixth grade and read and understand shakespeare. we pause A LOT to talk about the lines and what they’re saying. we look at A LOT of glosses. what bowls me over is how quickly they acclimate, how excited the sixth graders get for that work. not because it’s important to learn or whatever but because it’s fun and interesting!!! they love it. and it took 100 minutes of class between thursday and friday.
Tourists in the Marvel Universe visiting New York and afterwards complaining to whoever they think the Relevant Authorities are like 'i was in New York for a WHOLE WEEK and Spider-Man didn't show up ONCE' and the relevant authorities (idk. City council?) having to issue a statement along the lines of 'we do not control the Spider-Man' (subheading: he is actually a wanted criminal)
#its like ethical dolphin swimming #we do not control whether the dolphins are present #we do not control whether the spiderman is present
company running 'Spider-man tours' where they take you around places Spider-man often visits and also locations of famous Spider-man incidents advertised like 'come to New York and see the Amazing Spider-man!'* (*no refunds if Spider-man is not there.)
constantly getting complains about Spider-man not turning up and responding like 'it is clear in the promotional materials that we do not guarantee Spider-man'
Peter Parker's work inbox getting flooded by emails from tour companies who want to hire him as a Spider-Man consultant since his photography suggests he's really good at knowing where Spider-Man will be
There is joy in just picking the colours that feel good today and doing something, without really knowing what the result will be. Pure joy of painting. :D
Dude. DUDE. HUMPTY DUMPTY JUST FELL. YOU NEED TO SEE THIS ALL THE KINGS MEN ARE THERE TRYING TO GET HIM BACK TOGETHER. THIS IS SO FUCKED DUDE. IM SO SCARED. HE'S DEAD
🖐️ stand aside. only the court necromancer can save him now. we must pray his body isn’t too broken…
