Have You Read The One...

Fic Recs and Jam for All!

[reverse-mermaid]

“He never forgot. He just put the memories away, like old silverware that you didn’t want to tarnish. And every year they came back, sharp and sparkling, and stabbed him in the heart.” ― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

[jupitermelichios]

I don't often share personal stuff on here, but my brother got married today, and it was such a beautiful and meaningful day I wanted something on my tumblr to commemorate it, so I can be randomly reminded of it in the future when I'm hunting back through my blog for something.

He's been through some very tough times and dark moments in his life, but today he married the love of his life in a ceremony conducted by the person who's been his best friend since he was 4, surrounded by people who love him and his wife, and I'm just so incredibly proud of him, so here's a photo of his morris side dancing the blessing dance over the union.

I don't think I've ever cried so many happy tears (and a few sad ones, for the people who couldn't be with us) in my life

[jupitermelichios]

on the one hand, i am genuinely interested to know what professional con-man adi shankar is going to fuck up about dmc in season 2, as a person who is very interested in bad movies and tv shows from a writing/structural analysis perspective (yes S1 was a bad dmc adaptation, but more importantly it was a bad show entirely independant of any relationship to dmc, and I wish I was capable of being more objective about it because some of the ways it's bad are genuinely interesting) (many of the ways it's bad are also the most predictable 'trying to be deep without being willing to actually engage with its own politics' and '14-year-old boy's concept of dark and edgy' stuff we've seen a million times, but then there's the mad shit. the fact that agni and rudra have heads is endlessly fascinating to me. why would you do that. it's the thing that makes them visually interesting. it wouldn't even be harder to animate them headless. objectively insane design decision. lucia and cavalier angelo are both here and they're both completely baffling. eva's death appears to have literally be traced from dmc5. everything about sparda is just ???)

on the other hand, i'm too invested in dmc lore to be objective about those fuck ups so there is no way it won't make me extremely angry and i'm trying to be better about not seeking out thing that will make me angry because it does nothing good for my mental health

[jupitermelichios]

people talk a lot about the pronoun problems of writing fic about a ship who use the same pronouns, and they're not wrong

but oh man not enough people are talking about the linguistic nightmare that is multiple it/its characters, or writing from the POV of a character who uses it/its for everyone in its internal monologue

the POV character is it. the people it's talking to are it. every single object in the building and the building itself is it. plants and animals are it. the fucking sun in the sky is it! that's actually very beautiful when you think about it and I think having the same pronouns as the sun is super cool but also there are not enough context clues on earth to make this not confusing to read!

i'm sure there's a knack to writing like this that I just don't have yet - I used to be someone who worried a lot about the 'ship who share pronouns' thing and now I barely think about it, and that's just the result of years of practise - but oh boy do I not have that knack yet.

[mmhhch]

holy water play

not safe not sane XDD

[jupitermelichios]

Went to see the new Mortal Kombat movie (it's great, highly recommend if you think you'd like a mortal kombat movie. You definitely known just from the concept if it's going to be for you, it's not doing anything unexpected except actually being decently well made, but I had a blast) but this lead to me going on a deep dive into the MK wiki to see how they adapted the costume designs

and this lead me to see the official MK11 key art for Shinook for the first time, and uh

they gave the god of necromancers big naturals?!

(to be clear, that is not an edit, that is actually the officially released art for literal god shinook. and since he's not in MK1, it's also his most recent official look, so until confirmed otherwise i'm going to assume the shinook in the current timeline also has big naturals.)

[jupitermelichios]

So I happened to see a discussion between some USamericans about nationalised health-care online, in which the argument was being made that countries like the UK pay for healthcare through our taxes, so it's not actually that different.

And putting aside all the ways it is different, it made me want to figure out what the price difference actually was. I knew the NHS would be cheaper, it's not a for-profit business afterall, but I was not prepared for how big the difference actually was.

According to Forbes, the average american pays around $7000 a year (£5,162 at current conversion rates) in health insurance premiums for one person

In the UK, the figure is harder to reach, because it's a % of income, but for someone earning the national average salary of £35,000, they pay 20% income tax on all income over £12,500 a year, of which about 20% goes to the NHS.

Which works out as £900 ($1220) a year.

And the American cost is just the premiums! It doesn't include copays, out of network fees, dental care... (The UK one sort of covers dental - we still have to pay but NHS dentists are subsidised and have pricing caps imposed by the government, and can't charge you if you're recieving unemployment or some types of disability benefits. It's not great, but it's better than nothing).

Meanwhile, the only cost to me is capped dentist fees (the maximum they can charge is currently £330, which is only for stuff like dentures, bridges, crowns, or fitting braces/retainers) and a charge for prescriptions of £10 ($13.50) per medication (only for medication I take home with me, anything administered directly by a doctor or nurse is free, so my cancer medication was free, but the medications I took at home to manage the symptoms cost £10 each). And in Scotland they don't even have prescription charges!

£900 plus vs £5162. At least.

And then you get to the comparison in private health insurance costs. I actually have private insurance through my job, the same way most americans do, on top of my NHS coverage.

I pay £65 ($88) a month, and my copay is £150 ($203) a year. And it's pretty decent insurance.

And the conservatives freak out about one health insurance CEO being murdered?!

I think Americans should be legally allowed to burn Health Insurance companies to the ground actually.

[maidthings]

i really like how the milkman exists as an entirely fossilized character who now serves no purpose other than to fuck people's wives for the punchline

[jupitermelichios]

my stereotype for milkmen is very different from the norm, because where i grew up she was a woman and also had severe narcolepsy.

obviously, people with narcolepsy cannot drive cars, however a milk float is not a car and also only goes at like 20 mph maximum so she saw no reason why this inconvinient medical condition should stop her persuing what i can only assume was her dream job, given her refusal to switch to a career better fitted to her medical needs

it was extremely common to find the milk float upsidedown in a hedge with her covered in spilled milk and still somehow fast asleep.

they're light enough that if you're reasonably strong you could just flip it back onto its wheels yourself, otherwise you'd have to camp at the side of the road until someone else came by to help out, you wake her up, flip the vehical, help her put the unbroken milk bottles back into the float and sweep the broken glass into the ditch, and off she'd go to continue causing traffic disruption on an unprecedented level for a small rural village

(and yes, breaking the bottles did mean she was wildly unreliable for deliveries, in addition to being a danger to herself and others)

whether she was fucking anyone's wife i cannot confirm, but honestly if she was it was probably deeply disappointing, what with all the passing out and the faint smell of yoghurt.

[jupitermelichios]

Look, I know there aren't a lot of 40k fans among my mutuals, but I need more people to have seen this.

Behold, one of the most high-effort april fools I've ever seen

[mmhhch]

a scene where john offers his blood to spike as payment now lives in my head rent free and makes me feel things

its from a fic by @jupitermelichios and i thank you very much for it!!!! (i do promise to leave a comment once i'll reread it!))

[haveyoureadthisdcfic]

Dick Goes Deep on Daddy Issues

Have you read Dick Goes Deep on Daddy Issues?

Yes, previously

Yes, now that you've recced it to me

No

Voting ended onMar 21

Authour: @jupitermelichios

Subfandom: Batfamily, Midnighter

Media: Comics

Relationships: Shippy (Midnighter/Dick Grayson, Minor/Background Ships)

Year: 2022

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Implied/Referenced Underage Sex

Summary:

Oh God, this is the bit he’s been dreading, where he has to warn M that he’s a pervert. He’s never had to actually say it out loud before. He’s never slept with anyone who looks like M before. “I might… I mean… I might call you…” M gives him a smile that feels as though he’s looking right into Dick’s soul and says, “I can be your daddy, if that's what you want.”

Submitted by @kiragecko

Submitter's comment:

I have AGONIZED over which part of this series to rec! Midnighter doms the three older Batboys ... or, well, he doms the two oldest Batboys and does a threat assessment for Tim! All three of the main fic have strong arguments for being the first read, and so I have decided to list them all (there's a fourth, but it comes after Human, Or Something Like It): Pretty Boy - written first, and hits my kinks best, but this is HARD BDSM with an inexperienced dom and some questionable BDSM etiquette. Also, gore, and the incest discussion is ... Jason is actually uncomfortable with the idea, which makes it a bit more fraught. Dick Goes Deep on Daddy Issues - written last, but set first. Probably the most accessible, kink-wise, and the best at easing you into the series. Human, Or Something Like It - no sex, obviously set after the other two, and references them frequently, but identity issues are my FAVOURITE and I adore Tim calming talking about learning to mimic humans! That's why I fell in love with Tim, you know - the neurodivergent recognition of a fellow alien.

[nico-the-overlord]

¨Came back wrong¨ but I actually came back better than ever, people are just stupid and refuse to believe such a fact

[nico-the-overlord]

hold up please elaborate prev

[omtai]

i knew this would happen. i meant jeremy bentham from abc’s 2004 tv show LOST (where there’s a guy named john locke (also an english philosopher))(who happens to be the same guy as jeremy). this stuff happened to him

[nico-the-overlord]

I read this too late, was into doing some research and thought you were then referring to the fact that philosopher apparently was taxidermied as ¨coming back¨

[omtai]

HE WAS TAXIDERMIED??????

[jupitermelichios]

I assumed this was referring to the fact that the taxidermied philosopher has a wax head now

(Medical students stole his actual head to play football with, expulsions happened, now one of the great minds of the 18th century is 20% candle)

[jupitermelichios]

Had a wild dream the other night. Dreamt I was Will Graham's brother, and also a builder (this will be relevant).

Hannibal kidnapped Will, and imprisoned him in a castle full of traps, but like the traps you get in Mario games, or scooby doo, lots of random jets of flame and collapsing floors.

However, all these traps had been installed by absolute cowboys, and because I was a builder, I knew all the contractors he had hired, so I was just walking over non collapsed floors and non flaming fire traps yelling "this is why you don't hire Dave the plumber, moron, Dave is a fucking conman" at the security cameras. (Plumbers being the people responsible for installing flame traps, as we all know.)

Sadly I woke up before I could rescue my beloved brother, but based on the quality of the traps, he could probably have just walked out if he actually wanted to get free, so it may have been some kind of consensual role play and/or escape room I was intruding on.

[noknowshame]

I know we’re all like lawless nonconformists but you really can’t be texting and driving. that’s one of the ones you’ve gotta listen to for real

[jupitermelichios]

I know this is contraversial, but this also applies to making/taking phonecalls. I don't care that you can do it handsfree, study after study shows that splitting your focus like that is dangerous, and dramatically increases your odds of getting into an accident.

And for those who don't drive, if you phone someone and they're driving, hang up. There is nothing short of warning them the zombie apocalypse has started that is important enough to risk their life over, or the lives of over road-users.

(Talking to a passenger feels like it should logically be similar in terms of distraction, but most studies show this is not the case, and drivers can generally more effectively split their focus taking to a passenger than they can while taking a phone call, although this might have more to do with the type of conversation than the absence of a phone. Either way, it does depend on the passenger not being a dick and being considerate of the driver's need to focus, so please bear that in mind when talking to a driver!)

Also I can't believe this needs to be said, but looking up the research on this revealed some truely depressing facts, so also DO NOT TAKE VIDEO CALLS WHILE DRIVING! I can't believe that's something people willingly do, but apparently it is!

Facts and Sources

Taking or making phone calls while driving is more dangerous than drunk driving

Fatal Distraction; A Comparison of the Cell-Phone Driver and the Drunk Driver, University of Utah

Texting while driving increases your chances of having an accident by 23%

Driver Distraction in Commercial Vehical Opperation, U.S. Department of Transportation

Talking on the Phone increases the severity of accidents, making you 4 times more likely to be hospitalised in the event of a crash

Mobile phone use & distraction, Centre for Accident Research & Road Safety - Queensland

(However, the often cited 'fact' of texting being the cause of 1 in 4 accidents is not true, as explained here we simply don't have reliable data on that)

[fixyourwritinghabits]

Heads up on some fucked up spam comments going around AO3 - a friend just got a comment claiming the commenter had their name and address and was adding them to a list of ICE agents. Any comment claiming to have your personal information is a scam designed to panic you into engaging with it. Report, delete, and consider locking your fic comments to registered users only.

[frogsandfries]

Hi, I've worked in banking and healthcare, so apart from working directly in tech, I like to think I've got a pretty good handle on scam behavior.

Most scams want you to panic.

I want you to take a second and breathe. Did you give AO3 your address when you made your profile? Is your address associated, openly, on the internet, with your personal business (i.e name, phone number, address, etc)? How would a person have found out that your email address is associated with an AO3 account?

The answer to the first question is, no. I have an AO3. They never asked for my address. They don't need that information for me to have an account.

The answer to the second question, for the vast majority of the internet, I'm going to reasonably assume, is also no. If you're using, like, your whatever-professional certificate/license associated email address for your AO3......uhh, stop that? We use personal emails for recreation, you goose.

See? Logic defeats a scam almost every time.

Don't panic. Think.

[fixyourwritinghabits]

Thank you for adding this! What my friend received was absolutely an AI-generated scam text meant to cause panic and further engagement. It's no different from those awful "I know you looked at porn" email with current levels of fucked-up added to it, and it's most likely run by a bot. Do not engage.

[jupitermelichios]

Specially, do not enage and report it! At the bottom of every page of AO3 there's a link at the labelled 'Policy Questions & Abuse Reports'

Give a link to the comment and fill out the field explaining the issue (threats, bot generated comment) and PAC will deal with it, and ban the account if they agree it's against policy.

When I reported a bot comment recently, I got a response within a couple of days. (If it does take a while though, remember they're volunteers and there's a lot of these comments going around so they're real busy rn!)

A lot of these bot comments are starting to come from newly created dummy accounts rather than anon, and reporting is the only way these accounts will get banned!

[jupitermelichios]

Sing Cuckoo Sing

Majima Goro is Dead (Long Live Majima Goro) | Part 10

Fandom: Yakuza/RGG

Relationship: Majima/Saejima (background Majima/Nishitani, mentioned Majima/Kiryu)

Tags: Magical Realism AU, Monster Majima, Literal hannya Majima, Nishitani lives because what's the point of a having monsters AU if I don't use to save my best boy?, Majima and Saejima are in True Love you cannot convince me otherwise

For a moment, he thinks the way every hair on his body stands up, the way his breathing hitches in his chest, is just from how fucked-up this new version of Majima is. And then Majima smiles, and Saejima’s world turns on its head in a moment. Majima is dead. His kyoudai is dead, and he’s talking to his ghost. Whatever restless spirit he left behind, because of course Majima Goro would never go peacefully. Except that can’t be true. That makes no sense! The Tojo have always been weird, sure, but not even they would make a ghost into a patriarch.

Saejima has been waiting 25 years to see his kyoudai again.

Discovering that Majima has been dead for 22 of those years wasn't part of the plan. Especially not when Majima's still walking around.

[Read on AO3]

[jupitermelichios]

Now with actual working links 🙃

[jupitermelichios]

Sing Cuckoo Sing

Majima Goro is Dead (Long Live Majima Goro) | Part 10

Fandom: Yakuza/RGG

Relationship: Majima/Saejima (background Majima/Nishitani, mentioned Majima/Kiryu)

Tags: Magical Realism AU, Monster Majima, Literal hannya Majima, Nishitani lives because what's the point of a having monsters AU if I don't use to save my best boy?, Majima and Saejima are in True Love you cannot convince me otherwise

For a moment, he thinks the way every hair on his body stands up, the way his breathing hitches in his chest, is just from how fucked-up this new version of Majima is. And then Majima smiles, and Saejima’s world turns on its head in a moment. Majima is dead. His kyoudai is dead, and he’s talking to his ghost. Whatever restless spirit he left behind, because of course Majima Goro would never go peacefully. Except that can’t be true. That makes no sense! The Tojo have always been weird, sure, but not even they would make a ghost into a patriarch.

Saejima has been waiting 25 years to see his kyoudai again.

Discovering that Majima has been dead for 22 of those years wasn't part of the plan. Especially not when Majima's still walking around.

[Read on AO3]