screaming into her tea

Sholio on AO3, fic blog is at sholiofic. Over 18 (a lot over). Currently feral about Murderbot, Babylon5, Biggles; other content includes Agent Carter, MCU, books, comics, whatever catches my eye.

[sorenkingsley]

[maureen2musings]

Mornings on the lake 

daniel_casson

[theremharths]

Londo and G’Kar + Descriptions

[thelonelybrilliance]

Deserves the entire world if you even care (everyone is required to care)

[maureen2musings]

Castle Ward, Northern Ireland

nataliewhitephotography_

[trekscribbles]

This week, I read a fic that was around 20 years old, which had originally been posted on the author's personal website and which she added to AO3 a few years ago. She listed her email address with the fic, so after I finished reading, I sent her an email saying how much I enjoyed the story, how much I appreciated the work and effort she obviously put into it, and thanked her for uploading it to AO3. She responded the next day and thanked me for my message, then said she had a few more stories in the same series that she hadn't gotten around to uploading. I checked this morning--she added a 35,000 word novella and thanked me in the summary.

👏 comment 👏 on 👏 old 👏 fics 👏

[trickstertheenchantress]

What animal is Jack Thompson?

Wolf/Dog/Dingo/Coyote

Snake/Lizard

Rabbit/Hare/Bunny

Deer/Moose/Elk

Other

Voting ended onNov 24, 2025

[gemini-1970]

[lovesongs4robots]

do you think gurathin had to delete some of his own stuff to make space for secunit.

I don't mean anything dramatic like childhood memories or important like spy records, like he'd probably just sift through some technical stuff, sort it by the least used or last opened and go for it, not like he has time and brain capacity to think

...three months later mensah's having déjà vu sitting with gurathin next to a broken space wheat harvester or whatever like "right... so what you're saying is you deleted the Space Wheat Harvester 3000.PRE.X5 manual to make space for sanctuary moon" and he's like "...yeah" and then they're both just

[nicky-in-space]

I don't actually think he had to delete anything aside from a few hundreds episodes of Sanctuary Moon, but I like the way you think.

But let's be a bit angsty about it. What if he had no control over what memories are going to be deleted? And he knew it could be something important, something he saved to his augment because he cherished these memories? Like his early days in Preservation. Him getting to know the team. First dinner with Bharadwaj. Mensah taking his hands in her own for the first time. Ratthi taking him him to the planet. And yet he decides that fuck it, those memories aren't as valuable as SecUnit and its crappy (but important for some reason) show.

[tinagodiva]

The Writers' Museum, Edinburgh Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

[lambdefiant]

Bucket List location.

[psikonauti]

Scott Prior (American, b. 1949)

Valley in Winter, 2014

Oil on linen

[thepumpkinqueen53]

[itmightrain]

I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn’t it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them?

[shigure]

i'm sorry i never did your tag game. i love you

[autumnal-experience]

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

i NEED people to realise foreshadowing is. in fact. a literary device. and not a Bad Thing. the audience picking up on your hints is a Good Thing. because. it makes the story and it’s conclusion make sense. and some people will not see those but enjoy seeing them on a second read through. red herrings are one thing but if your novel consists of nothing but red herrings it’s not a coherent story it’s just a collection of paragraphs that don’t actually plausibly link to one another. you're not fighting with the audience you don’t look clever you look like you don’t know how basic fiction works. be vulnerable for once in your goddamn life and don't treat writing like a game to be won where the audience losing is a good thing.

[ineffectualdemon]

Getting to the end of a story and going "THE CLUES WERE THERE THE WHOLE TIME!" is always joyous for me whether or not I picked up on the clues leading up

If I saw the clues and caught the hints then yes! I am clever and me and the author/creator/artist etc were in on it together the whole time!

If I didn't notice the clues or got fooled but can clearly see them in hindsight then "Ha! You won this time storyteller! I am delighted by this game we play!' and then I enjoy putting the pieces together afterwards and enjoying how clever it was. I feel like the creator respects me as an audience

If there is a "twist" that comes with 0 clues or foreshadowing at all I'm annoyed. I'm pissed off. I feel like I'm being condescended to and patronised. It's not clever or interesting and makes me annoyed I ended up caring about characters and plot points that ended up meaningless.

Because it's not that these stories don't have foreshadowing or plot clues. They just abandon it for a "surprising twist"

A story that pays off the clues is letting me into the fun and makes a participant in the story

A story that just gives me a "shock" but no pay off is telling me not to engage or get attached or care. So why would I watch?

[s-n-arly]

OMG! THIS!

Random plot twists that don't connect to anything in the story are not clever. If we don't see it coming because the writer didn't provide any clues, they aren't clever and it's totally unsatisfying (and I will NEVER read this writer again). These clues need not be lit up in neon with a parade of elephants and showgirls. But they need to be present

I'm a writer and am rarely surprised. Often, if I am surprised it's because the writer was a dumbass and included a "twist" that makes no sense (and therefore isn't really a twist, it's just random bullshit). If a writer genuinely surprises me, without being an absolute dumbass, I am FUCKING DELIGHTED! I will tell everyone I know to read the book/see the movie/watch the show.

[ardentmystacina]

Foreshadowing is the reward for paying attention. It's the story letting you in on the secret like a co-conspirator because you're the clever little audience member who has been picking up on the clues the writer has been setting up.

It even makes watching/reading again more worthwhile because if you didn't notice the foreshadowing the first time you have the joy of being able to notice the things you missed!

[fallauween]

Photo by David von Diemar on Unsplash