Chris Made Me Do It.

Because really, that's my online life.

[ruibird-deactivated20170901]

since it’s a scary time to be trans: refuge restrooms is an app which maps gender-neutral/single-stall restrooms. it’s community-mapped, so it’s possible you might be the first person to log the restroom locations, but hopefully it’ll help some people.

please reblog this post if you’ve got trans followers. stay safe.

[odditycollector]

I found my favourite del.icio.us explanation:

I learned a lot about fandom couple of years ago in conversations with my friend Britta,  who was working at the time as community manager for Delicious. She taught me that fans were among the heaviest users of the bookmarking site, and had constructed an edifice of incredibly elaborate tagging conventions, plugins, and scripts to organize their output along a bewildering number of dimensions.     If you wanted to read a 3000 word fic where Picard forces Gandalf into sexual bondage, and it seems unconsensual but secretly both want it, and it’s R-explicit but not NC-17 explicit, all you had to do was search along the appropriate combination of tags (and if you couldn’t find it, someone would probably write it for you).    By 2008 a whole suite of theoretical ideas about folksonomy, crowdsourcing, faceted infomation retrieval, collaborative editing and emergent ontology had been implemented by a bunch of friendly people so that they could read about Kirk drilling Spock.

from the guy who runs Pinboard, which took in some number of the fleeing users.

He also gave a talk about what happened when he *succeeded* at getting fandom’s attention during the exodus, which I didn’t see before just now, but its kinda funny to look at normal fandom culture stuff from the POV of an outside observer who didn’t mean to get caught in the middle.

[spaceshipoftheseus]

this whole thing is super interesting

[shitifindon]

oh my god that talk is gold

There is no God, life has no meaning, it’s all over when you can’t search on the slash character.

Having worked at large tech companies, where getting a spec written requires shedding tears of blood in a room full of people whose only goal seems to be to thwart you, and waiting weeks for them to finish, I could not believe what I was seeing.

[violetcarlin]

The transcription of his talk is amazing, everyone who has an interest in fandom and platforms and the way we interact with the sites we use should read it. 

(As someone who ran a fandom newsletter at the time of the Great Delicious Disaster, this guy saved my fucking life - so much of that process was automated in Greasemonkey and independent user scripts, and after Delicious shit the pot we were able to move it over to Pinboard with relatively little issue. And then newsletters and LJ fandom in general went away relatively quickly, but that’s a different story. The point is, this dude was amazing when fandom needed someone to be amazing for us.)

But man, I feel like his talk should be required reading for anyone who runs an online platform that attracts fandom, or wants to attract fandom, or really just wants to foster community. 

[thats-what-sidhe-said]

In my foolishness I asked, “Could you make me a list of those features? I’ll take a look, maybe some of it is easy to implement.”

Oh yes, they could make make a list.

I had summoned a very friendly Balrog.

This is a really good read.

[firstlightofeos]

I remember when all of this was happening, though I was never involved to the degree that @christycorr was, and it's honestly one of my favorite fandom moments. And yes, I still follow the Pinboard guy on Twitter.

[beggars-opera]

Best of A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1st and 2nd editions (1785 and 1788), part 1

[theletteraesc]

Aesc! I'm reading a book called "The Birth of the Pill" and just read this passage about one of the scientists involved in the creation of birth control that made me think of prof!Erik: "So famous was Pincus for his post lecture questions that at least one scientist said he suffered nightmares preparing for a presentation Pincus prepared to attend..." (The full paragraph is even better, but damn tumblr's character limits)

YES. Professor Lehnsherr is infamous for his post-lecture/symposium/poster session questions. “Interrogations” probably is more accurate, although he’s been known to devastate scientists with one well-placed, cutting query. Whenever a conference program comes out, speakers scan the index to see if he’ll be there or not, but they never rest easy until the door to the conference room (or ballroom or lecture hall) is shut and there’s no Professor Lehnsherr to be found among the audience.

Although there was that one time his flight had been delayed so he arrived at a talk five minutes late, and loomed ominously just inside the door, still with his suitcase by his side and a mug of coffee in one hand, a scowl firmly in place.

There was also that first time he and Professor Xavier got into it and people are honestly surprised there wasn’t blood. (Xavier would have shed Lehnsherr’s while smiling the entire time, and that is just so unnerving.)

[firstlightofeos]

Yesssss to all of this. The full paragraph also says that Pincus would always sit in the front row and sometimes look like he was asleep but then every time he would ask the question that no one else had asked—not to show off or embarrass the presenter, but because he wanted to know, and that made me think of Charles, too.

Honestly, Professor Xavier’s questions are just as feared as Professor Lehnsherr’s (if not more so) because he will calmly pick your research to pieces (in contrast to Professor Lehnsherr’s fiery challenges) while all you can do is struggle to hold yourself together and not cry or yell in frustration because you worked. so. hard.

The worst is when Professors Xavier and Lehnsherr seem to reach some sort of truce and they sit together in the front row, their unwavering attention incredibly nerve-wracking to whatever poor scientist is onstage at the moment. And when Professor Lehnsherr leans over to whisper in Professor Xavier’s ear, it’s even worse—because he’s doing it because he wants the presenter to see, wants them to sweat buckets, because everyone knows he could just project it to Xavier and not make it so obvious. Charles just rolls his eyes and silently chides Erik, but there’s still a hint of amusement in the back of his mind.

There are special meet-ups at the local bars for presenters who had Professors Xavier and Lehnsherr in their audiences; the amount of alcohol consumed is a true wonder to behold (and given these are academics, that’s saying something).

[theletteraesc]

Yesssss. At one conference, an enterprising bartender listens to the lamentations of Lehnsherr and Xavier’s victims, and the next night there’s a chalk sign on the sidewalk outside, offering specials for conference presenters who need liquid therapy after having either Lehnsherr or Xavier, or both, in their sessions.

One of the worst things about Professor Xavier’s questions is how nice he is while he’s slowly dismantling your research and your reason for being. It’s like having a tiger purr (if tigers could purr) while mauling you. Or being eaten by an adorable wolf puppy–it’s worse, somehow, than Professor Lehnsherr’s wrath or irritation. Then at the end he beams at you with that famous smile and says he can’t wait to hear more of your work, as if this was great fun for everybody, while you try not to collapse in a disconsolate heap.

[firstlightofeos]

Yessss. A+, bartender.

And oh, Charles. At the same time, I imagine being grilled by Professors Lehnsherr and/or Xavier is almost a rite of passage—your talk was important enough, you were important enough, for them to pay attention to your research and comment on it. And, of course, no one is as hard on Professor Lehnsherr as Professor Xavier, and vice versa, so it's not like they're being unfair.

It's almost be worse, people say, if they didn't ask a question—if they just sat there and had nothing to say about your presentation, because that means it wasn't worth commenting on, and that's an even more terrifying prospect.

[theletteraesc]

Aesc! I'm reading a book called "The Birth of the Pill" and just read this passage about one of the scientists involved in the creation of birth control that made me think of prof!Erik: "So famous was Pincus for his post lecture questions that at least one scientist said he suffered nightmares preparing for a presentation Pincus prepared to attend..." (The full paragraph is even better, but damn tumblr's character limits)

YES. Professor Lehnsherr is infamous for his post-lecture/symposium/poster session questions. “Interrogations” probably is more accurate, although he’s been known to devastate scientists with one well-placed, cutting query. Whenever a conference program comes out, speakers scan the index to see if he’ll be there or not, but they never rest easy until the door to the conference room (or ballroom or lecture hall) is shut and there’s no Professor Lehnsherr to be found among the audience.

Although there was that one time his flight had been delayed so he arrived at a talk five minutes late, and loomed ominously just inside the door, still with his suitcase by his side and a mug of coffee in one hand, a scowl firmly in place.

There was also that first time he and Professor Xavier got into it and people are honestly surprised there wasn’t blood. (Xavier would have shed Lehnsherr’s while smiling the entire time, and that is just so unnerving.)

[firstlightofeos]

Yesssss to all of this. The full paragraph also says that Pincus would always sit in the front row and sometimes look like he was asleep but then every time he would ask the question that no one else had asked—not to show off or embarrass the presenter, but because he wanted to know, and that made me think of Charles, too.

Honestly, Professor Xavier's questions are just as feared as Professor Lehnsherr's (if not more so) because he will calmly pick your research to pieces (in contrast to Professor Lehnsherr's fiery challenges) while all you can do is struggle to hold yourself together and not cry or yell in frustration because you worked. so. hard.

The worst is when Professors Xavier and Lehnsherr seem to reach some sort of truce and they sit together in the front row, their unwavering attention incredibly nerve-wracking to whatever poor scientist is onstage at the moment. And when Professor Lehnsherr leans over to whisper in Professor Xavier's ear, it's even worse—because he's doing it because he wants the presenter to see, wants them to sweat buckets, because everyone knows he could just project it to Xavier and not make it so obvious. Charles just rolls his eyes and silently chides Erik, but there's still a hint of amusement in the back of his mind.

There are special meet-ups at the local bars for presenters who had Professors Xavier and Lehnsherr in their audiences; the amount of alcohol consumed is a true wonder to behold (and given these are academics, that's saying something).

[breelandwalker]

I bind you, 2017, from doing harm. Harm against other people and harm against yourself.

Like to charge, reblog to cast.

It ain’t much, but at least we can try.

[refinery29]

Rest In Peace, Carrie Fisher. Iconic Star Wars actress Carrie Fisher died this morning. She was 60

Billie Lourd, Fisher’s daughter, confirmed the death today in an official statement. Issued by family representative Simon Halls, the statement to People reads: “It is with a very deep sadness that Billie Lourd confirms that her beloved mother Carrie Fisher passed away at 8:55 this morning.” Her legacy is incontestable – and probably a lot more than you knew.

[refinery29]

Update: we would actually like to report that Carrie Fisher died by being drowned in moonlight, strangled by her own bra. We apologize for the earlier error.

[stillrestlesstymes]

Oh Carrie!

[firstlightofeos]

person: so tell me about yourself!

me:...tired

[theletteraesc]

Merry Christmas, aesc! <3 I've been realizing it's been a loooong time since I thought about Gran, and it being the season and all, I'm thinking about Charles and Raven's first Christmas with her in Scotland, just the three of them, and it's quiet and small but just right, and Charles gets the lab kit he wanted and Raven gets, idk, a pony who becomes her noble steed as she goes adventuring, and the kids give Gran something cute, but really the best present is their bright smiles, shadows gone.

Gran!!! Yes, needless to say, Sharon isn’t invited (and doesn’t bother to ask if Charles and Raven are going to go back to New York for the holidays; she does send money, though), and everyone else on Brian’s side of the family either lives in the States or is taking some kind of holiday vacation to St. Moritz or Tahiti. Gran’s traveling days are behind her, mostly, and she finds she’d much rather spend the holiday in Edinburgh with her two grandchildren.

And, after several years of enduring Sharon’s tedious, glimmering Christmas parties (which were more champagne than holiday cheer), Charles and Raven would much rather bake cookies with Gran’s cook on Christmas Eve and wake up to hot cocoa and breakfast and then sitting around the tree with Gran to open presents (and going out to the stable to see Raven’s new pony), and helping Gran put on the necklace they made for her. It’s quiet and slow and perfect, and by the time Gran tucks them in that night, they’ve both decided this is the Best Christmas Ever.

[firstlightofeos]

Yessssss this is absolutely what I was thinking.

And the cookies on Christmas Eve and then hot cocoa and going for a morning ride on Christmas all totally become a tradition among all of them, to the point where even after Raven and Charles are all grown, they end up doing the cookies and hot cocoa no matter where they are.

Charles is still a fairly terrible cook, but Erik is pleasantly surprised when the cookies he insisted on making (and kicked him out of the kitchen for "hovering terribly, shoo, I'm not going to burn down the apartment") turn out quite well without Erik's interference. And even better are the (slightly misshapen) Star of David and Hanukkiah cookies that are interspersed with the Christmas tree and reindeer cookies.

[jeanqrey]

Who am I? I am a girl who loves my island. I’m the girl who loves the sea. It calls me. I am the daughter of the village chief. We are descended from voyagers who found their way across the world, they call me. I’ve delivered us to where we are, I have journeyed farther. I am everything I’ve learned and more, still it calls me…

[minxyting]

Representation matters! 💕

[firstlightofeos]

Because everything turns into fandom and because I don't really want to think about my own stories any more: I'm at the Museum of Broken Relationships in LA (https://brokenships.com/) and I've been thinking about what various XMFC characters would send in and what they'd write about the objects sent in (Charles/Erik, of course, but there's Charles&Raven, and Erik/Magda, and Moira&Charles, and Erik&his kids, and so on...)

[theletteraesc]

All I can think of with that Fassy picture with the cocked hip and the glasses is professor!Erik who's just been asked (for once) a question that requires some amount of thought to answer, and so he's taking a moment to give the question the consideration it deserves... And, of course, by the time he answers, no one is listening to him because everyone died swooning.

Yessssss. And the student who asked the once-in-a-lifetime brilliant question that made Prof. Lehnsherr stop and think no longer remembers what they asked. 

[firstlightofeos]

RIGHT. *laughs* If this is a verse where Charles is also a professor, it's such a concentrated volume of swooning that it makes him look up in surprise from where he's effectively doing the same thing to his class but on a slightly less profound scale...

[lokincest-deactivated20180601]

Fanfiction Work-In-Progress Guessing Game

Send me a word, if it’s in my wip document I’ll answer your ask with the sentence that it appears in

[pearlo]

ahahaha, 7500 words into this threesome sex scene and we’re all suddenly super distracted planning out in excruciating detail the next 30 years of their lives and all the babies they’re going to have 

[firstlightofeos]

But it's so much FUN turning everything into kidfic

[altxrnategalaxy]

WIP game!

Tagged by @sheliesshattered !

Rules: Go to page 7 of your WIP, count down 7 lines, share seven sentences, and then tag 7 other writers.

current WIP is the space nux stuff, and it’s still in a very raw un-edited state, lol, but here:

His leg is already jigging with excitement - everyone loves a scav run, and this one has Buzzards. The flashing lights switch from green to orange, the warning light thrown across the array of pods and flyers and tugs alike. They’re jettisoning soon, and there’s a mad scramble for the last of the scavs to settle themselves before the dock doors open. With an eye on the swirl of activity through the smeared glass of his windshield, Nux watches the riders strap themselves to the back of the pods, helmets and oxygen tanks in accompaniment. A thunk-thump overhead tells him Slit is doing the same. A tinny voice sounds from somewhere overhead, echoing around the dock and crackling through Nux’s suit-system at the same time. Jettison in one-five seconds, Jettison in one-five seconds

tagging… @noely-g, @fadagaski, @hill-creature, @hippity-hoppity-brigade, @thebyrchentwigges, @iphoenixrising, @silver-89

[thebyrchentwigges]

You write such lovely long sentences. I may have cheated and included an extra for context. From my only WIP that has a page 7:

“AHOOHOOHOOOO that tickles!” 

The established Citadel man laughed, too, and put down the white clay. “Work with me - you want to get rumbled and sent back to Gastown, or not?”  

Ballard was kneeling with his shirt off in the middle of the Wire Box, the Citadel’s electrical workshop. Jumper, the chief electrical Repair Boy, was the one taking him deeper into Citadel life tonight. Ballard glanced down. The white clay was crazy different from his own brown skin. It had been one thing to escape Gastown’s Refinery, run away from that pampered but ruthless indenture to try and find a new life. Abandoning his own skin was far stranger. 

tagging… @msfenriss, @bethagain, @lioness-hart, @tafkarfanfic, @lurkinghistoric, @yourdykeinshiningarmor, @winterling42.

[fadagaski]

A little giggle hiccups out of her mouth. Furiosa drowns the rest of the hysterical laugh in a deep chug of creamy coffee.

Max sits opposite. It’s impossible to perch on a chair like this, but he’s doing his best, bent almost in half against the drag of gravity pulling him back. He picks up his mug and sniffs it suspiciously. Then, with a cautious glance at Furiosa, he swallows a mouthful.

His eyebrows almost reach his hairline.

(High School AU, chapter 12)

Tagging: @fuckyeahisawthat, @primarybufferpanel, @singlewhitecatlady, @v8roadworrier, @raffinit, @polecat-flyer, @nandamai

[nandamai]

What is this wip thing you speak of. *cries*

[lurkinghistoric]

I want to read all of these! Thank you @thebyrchentwigges for tagging me. I haven’t written anything seven pages long, so I picked a random spot and counted from there. The “she” in the first sentence is the Dag.

She smiles, though; she’s fond of him, they’re all fond of him. He’s easy to be fond of.

Max washes his hands before coming over to Furiosa, though he misses the smudge of soil on his cheek. He sits next to her in her nest of cushions, rumbling a greeting and stroking a hand down her arm. He settles himself behind her and brings both hands to her shoulders, starting to work at the muscles of her back. It’s so matter-of-fact that the Dag doesn’t tell them to get a room – an old-world phrase of Mel’s, which the sisters now shout like a war cry at every possible opportunity. Furiosa dreads the day when Shoot learns to say it.

Very optional tagging for @bethagain, @cygnaut, @sacrificethemtothesquid, @jaesauce, @livia-lerynn - and I think @youkaiyume might be writing something? 

[cygnaut]

“Yeaahh,” Max whispers, his hands on her hips again. “Like that.” He rubs his face against the back of her neck and kisses his way up to nuzzle against her cheek. Furiosa smiles, suppressing a laugh at the ticklish feeling of his beard.

The tip of Max’s cock is brushing against her inner thigh, making Furiosa shiver. She adjusts her stance, positioning herself so he’s touching her cunt instead. Max makes a strangled grunt and reaches down between them to hold his cock, giving her a firm surface to rub against.

Tagging: @ecouter-bien @black–betty @awfullythick @furiroad @jabletown @our-girl-friday

[awfullythick-deactivated2017111]

The next chapter of IMHB is only six pages when I c/p it out of Scrivener, so I’m going to cheat slightly - I went down 7 lines on the first scene, and these are the next seven sentences:

She had eyes for only two things, neither of which was Erik. The first was the girl, held in her arms, and the other was the boy, held in Erik’s. They were red and prunish, both already sleeping from the exertion of being born. And they were somehow much smaller than Erik had expected—he’d known to expect infants, but somehow he hadn’t anticipated how fragile loud and brash-mouthed Pietro would seem in his arms.

“I should get Anya,” Erik said, a few minutes later.

“You can pick her up in the morning,” Magda said, noticing him, finally.

Tagging @firstlightofeos, @gerec, @pearlo, @panzercat, @yoursidekick, @significantowl, and @zairaalbereo

[firstlightofeos]

From the Erik mpreg fic I’ve been writing for Unf for over a year now, with a very creatively titled document title of “Thing”: 

Erik waits for Charles to transfer himself to the couch, and then sits next to him, closer than usual. Charles hesitates for a moment, then places a hand on Erik’s arm. Erik exhales loudly, a <i>whoosh</i> of sound that’s almost impossibly loud in the quiet that’s settled over them.

“I have no idea what I’m going to do,” Erik says, finally, looking at his hands.

“You seem quite certain you're pregnant, despite the doctor’s skepticism,” Charles says quietly.

Erik snorts. “I'm sure, Charles. I know what I'm feeling.”

Um. I will attempt to tag (with no specific motivation or intent or pressure, just people whom I haven’t seen tagged yet): @professorofeljay, @listerinezero, @rozf, @fourteenacross, @pragula, @theletteraesc

[firstlightofeos]

Memes! (2/3)

Continuing with the meme day theme. @jabletown​ tagged me in this: 

rules: using only the song titles from one artist, cleverly answer the 9 questions

I think I’ll do Girlyman because that’s kind of my go-to band right now.

the artist i’m selecting: Girlyman


what is your gender: Viola 
describe yourself: This Is Me  
how do you feel: Amaze Me 
if you could go anywhere, where would it be: Up to the Sea or Postcards from Mexico 
favourite mode of transportation: Bird on the Wire (I actually really like air travel, but I think that’s more because of where I get to go than because I like the experience of being on an airplane) 
your best friends: Right Here 
favourite time of day: Through to Sunrise (even if I can never wake up that early, I still love it) 
if your life was a tv show, what would it be called: Best I Could or (ironically) Everything’s Easy 
relationship status: Long Time Gone

As ever, I continue to be terrible at tagging people, so feel free to do this or not if it strikes your fancy.