For those who don't know: Ikumi Nakamura is the woman who was senior artist on Bayonetta, and designed the titular character along with Hideki Kamiya. Their greatest moment of bonding was over their insistence that Bayonetta keep her glasses on at all times.
Nakamura cannot go to horny jail. She is the warden.
I’ll tell you what I look for in a fic rec list and then we’ll see what everyone else thinks is good :)
all one fandom, and if it’s shippy then all the same ship
titles of the fic link over to AO3
include the rating of the fics and a brief description (or the reason why you like it)
tag the authors so they know they’ve been rec’d
I’ve definitely seen fic rec lists with a specific theme to them as well, for example “[ship] hurt/comfort recs” but I’m personally good with just the description and picking from there.
Do any of you make rec lists? Do you appreciate them? What makes a good list?
Ooh, I love rec lists, but I have fairly different preferences for them:
All one fandom is good, but it doesn’t need to be all one ship. I don’t have anything against multifandom rec lists, but the odds of me being familiar with multiple fandoms on them are slim. The important thing is to be clear about the rec list’s theme before you actually list the recs themselves (e.g. random works I liked, coffee shop AUs in small fandoms, m/m slash in Specific Fandom, etc).
The reason you like it, or the reason you think other people should read it, is absolutely 100% necessary, and ideally it consists of at least a couple sentences (unless it’s a 100-word drabble you’re reccing). Without this, and especially if I don’t know anything about your taste in fic, it’s not any different than skimming a work listing.
If there’s something that you had to overlook while reading the fic, or something that made you hesitate to rec it, mention it! If I know the reccer would usually consider a lack of empty space between paragraphs a dealbreaker, I might be willing to give the fic a go despite the fact bad paragraph spacing is usually also a dealbreaker for me. But if I just click on a link and find a wall of text, I’ll probably back button from not just the work, but possibly the rec list as well.
I think of recs as being for potential readers, not authors, so if I were making a rec list, I wouldn’t tag them. (But I would try to comment on the fic!)
Hello! I recently started a fic rec blog so I have some thoughts:
I agree that single-fandom (or theme) blogs are more preferable to find, but think about what you want to run also. I wanted a place to archive all my favourite works, and I definitely don't have the energy for multiple blogs so this blog is multifandom. It's not for you (random folk on tumblr) it's for me (person having fun making the blog)
similarly, think about the maximum amount of effort you can spend on the task and still complete it. It would be nice to create a highly polished blog with a written summary and full tags and clear themeing, but that is actually a lot of work!
I've gone with a bullet point summary of author, rating, fandom, ship and then my own thoughts. You can check out the about pages for more information on how I'm organized.
I disagree strongly on tagging the author for a couple reasons - for one, you then have to go through the effort of finding the author (do yourself a favour and avoid giving yourself additional work)
also because as sarking mentioned, it's good to bring up both flaws and personal taste in a rec that may end up being very rude to mention to an author. If I'm reccing you something with the caveat that I really don't like how [important side character] was handled, it would be super rude to tag the author!
Additionally:
Think about longevity! I publish one rec a day through my queue, which means I don't have a lot published yet, but also means my queue is very full and I can chillax between doing a few recs in a row
if you are doing a specific fandom or ship rec blog, it is entirely possible to actually run out of good fic. Don't rush to publish a whole bunch of works just to keep your blog from looking empty! it'll fill up!
tags are your friend, but they can also be your enemy. Don't go overboard on keeping things organized - again! keep your work manageable!
it's very easy to absolutely burn out on a long term project, set yourself up for success at the start!
i think one facet of why I am so bothered by the framing of interpersonal harm/violence as always being perpetuated intentionally and knowingly as part of some sort of Evil Plan is that frames instances of interpersonal harm/violence as successful interactions. they wanted this thing and they went out and took steps and accomplished it. whereas I very VERY strongly feel that interpersonal violence and abuse is a profound social failure! human beings want and need genuine social connections. while people may lack a concern for the experience and well-being of those around them, etc, I think in general most people want to succeed in having interpersonal connections with others. and so, patterns of harm and violence are a failure in that. which is why I often find myself characterizing ppl who can't get out of the patterns of causing that kind of harm as pathetic, I guess - being pathetic in no way means I'm saying they're not responsible for that harm, obviously. it's just like. well for example with my evil abusive grandma, like... being herself is her own worst nightmare. I don't think she wants to have the kind of relationships with her family where we're only here out of a feeling of obligation rather than any kind of genuine affection and desire to be around her. but she is fundamentally unable to move beyond her comfort zone of coercive control to try to learn new ways of interacting that might result in the changes that she would probably admit she desires deep down. and ultimately that IS ALSO selfish, like, she is unwilling to endure the discomfort of taking responsibility for her behavior! she can't psychologically face the reality of what she has created and so she displaces blame onto everyone but herself in order to maintain any psychological stability. but it's also fucking pathetic. and it's a profound failure to end up in that situation. it doesn't mean she has it "worse" than the children she has abused and coerced for decades, because like. these things don't get weighted like that. ultimately she is responsible for the harm she has done. but the harm isn't a success, it's a failure. framing her as a manipulator who just Likes Hurting People because she gets some sort of inhuman pleasure from it would frame the results of her abuse as a success. and I just don't think that's true! at all! I think she's a failure! I think interpersonal violence is failure!
eta: to clarify this is a response to social constructs such as The Criminal, The Abuser, The Killer, etc, which posit people who do certain things as being fundamentally different from other people. I am not trying to come up with some sort of Abuse Formula. I am in fact speaking to the complexity of human behavior lol
#yeah.#I think also sometimes part of why these behaviors get so entrenched / escalate so much#Is the combined effect of a short-term emotional reward with the lack of a long-term one#You get something you want you ride the adrenaline high of being mean you make sure the situation goes your way#But you don't build the types of social relationships you crave.#So you squeeze harder and harder trying to turn that short-term reward into something that lasts.
#.... I think this is maybe also related to the phenomenon of love bombing.#and of abusive people becoming extremely upset about being abusive and making the people they've hurt comfort them.#It's often talked about like that's totally calculated and performative. Which is deeply unhelpful when you're trying to process#a relationship in which that sort of thing happened in ways you're almost certain were genuine expressions of emotion.#That doesn't make them better. Literally it does not make anything about the situation better at all.#But it's just. Like. This person hurt you because they were trying so viciously hard to meet their own emotional needs#and everything that happened to you is basically.... collateral damage. From that.
#Of course it's compounded when people have structural forms of social power that modulate the limits of how far they can go without#consequences. And when they've learned across many domains of their life how much they can accomplish materially#by being a bully. Of course people are going to bring that into interpersonal relationships as well#And when it fails to accomplish their goals in those relationships - goals that may also be unexamined or willfully denial -#it spirals.
Again. Into people applying the tactics they're convinced are safe for them and effective#harder and harder regardless of consequences because it still just Isn't Working Yet#and sometimes panicking and switching to different tactics (like love bombing) but without consistency or dedication#being soft and affectionate when you crave softness and affection and then switching right back to#manipulation or petty digs or blowing up mad when you're back to wanting to Get Your Way#a lack of clarity about the long-term shape of the relationship and how your patterns of behavior affect it#Or a willful fiction that casts that narrative as something other than what it is - again to meet your moment-to-moment needs
THANK U for adding your tags in here, you've articulated a lot about this that I have been thinking about and been unable to quite get out of my head in a way that I feel makes sense.
I know I talk a lot about making plushies and shoving them in everyone's faces but like it's the one skill I really feel somewhat comfortable with and that I'm actually somewhat good at it
Like I went from this in 2013
to this in 2014
To this in 2022 (and I'm gonna be real Mousey plush truly is me peaking)
To this now in 2025
And like...I dunno I think I've made some pretty good progress you know and I'm proud of that (and thank god for jayvik pushing me back into plush making)
#what if spike had fallen madly in love with joyce instead of buffy #imagine that au#the only thing worse than spike being obsessed with you is spike dating your mom (via dollsome-does-tumblr)
I think the best part of Murderbot is its staunch belief that it’s average at its job, and it only does better because it doesn’t have a working governor module
It’s always like, I’m just a SecUnit, the only reason I’m better is because humans somehow have worse judgement than me in my very narrow field of expertise, and I have the ability to process multiple things at once, and I don’t die when I get my shit wrecked. None of these are advantages over other bots, so I’m actually just average as far as skills go.
Meanwhile, Murderbot’s track record is something like ‘regularly takes out other SecUnits, regularly hacks fairly complicated systems, takes out multiple hostiles while saving and protecting clients/hostages, beat two Combat Bots in succession, and went toe to toe with a Combat SecBot while taking out two other SecUnits, rounding it off with inhabiting spaceships and crushing the incredibly difficult and malicious killware infecting them.’
That’s not even counting the guts, skill, and determination it takes to hack your own hardware/code which is fully capable of frying your brain in the first place
Something I love is that a large chunk of Murderbot’s success is just - it literally asks for help?
There’s a line in Exit Strategy, “Bots are instructed to report and repel theft attempts, but no one ever tells them not to answer polite requests from other bots.”
Murderbot makes use of this a lot. It talks to other bots, like ART and Miki. It offers equal trades of assistance, like with the Combat SecUnit in Exit Strategy, SecUnit 3 in Network Effect, and the ComfortUnit in Rogue Protocol.
In Exit Strategy, it reached out to the human supervisors to get Dr. Mensah an opening to get onto the shuttle. Even at the very beginning, in All Systems Red, it warns the team about the external combat over-ride.
Murderbot makes itself out to be a natural loner, but ‘ask for help’ has literally been one of it’s go-to strategies since book 1. And I think that’s beautiful.
Here's some of the notes, starting with the things multiple people brought up:
SHRIMP COCKTAIL:
banahbanah: #flashback to that one fic where Peter Parker frets about drinking shrimp cocktail because of the alcohol
generaldeliciousness: adding: what a prawn/shrimp cocktail is
#why is your character turning it down because they're under 21 #do you think prawn cocktail is a cocktail #this lives in my brain rent-free constantly #the rest of the fic was so normal #and good enough that i'll still re-read it #but bro
And then many, MANY, people wondering if this was actually authour mistake, since Peter really would do this!
POMEGRANATES:
zhajhassa: #haha where's that post that was like someone describing someone eating a pomegranate but they ate it like an apple
thornhands: #once someone wrote persephone biting into a whole Pomegranate #had to stop and stare at a wall for a minute
sungsingsanguine: I once saw someone very confidently write about a character eating slices of pomegranate.
FRUIT TREES:
zagreuses-toast: #given a very endearing glimpse into a writers blindspots by seeing them describe someone sitting under a ''pineapple tree''
salatrash: I remember something about picking watermelons... OF A FUCKING TREE
baander: #cranberry trees
DOUGH/BATTER:
maycelium: #I'm a chef so I'm really used to people not accurately describing how to cook food #But I was surprisingly flabbergasted when someone was writing making a cake and was kneading it. Which uh #Not necessary for cake. It was interesting for sure but just bizarre
livebloggingmydescentintomadness: #the one that drove me nuts was when a character set aside a batch of PASTA DOUGH 'to rise' #pasta doesn't have yeast!! #it does need to REST but it will never RISE #you do not want an airy crumb on your noodles
lovesodeepandwideandwell: #THE ONE WHERE THEY MADE COOKIES BY LADLING BATTER INTO A TRAY
Some other topics:
ANIMALS:
catenarwhal: #mandatory 'how cows produce milk' mention#i'll never recover from that one I fear
piromantic: #one time i saw someone fake their way through describing how spiders behave
pluto-lichen: horses
misskittypotter: #stardew valley faking its way through what fresh fish smell like
pa-pa-plasma: #saw someone faking their way through knowing what a seal is once #i still am fucked up over that one to this day. they just straight up did not know #& they were NOT good at guessing it either like it was clear they had never googled that animal ever #& was only just now realizing via answering questions from anons that seals are not!! what they assumed. initially
SEX:
dykevandyke: #what a prostate is #and where it is located #as in. external.
dreamyeyedrose: #I remember back in the ff.net days reading an Ichigo/Renji fic where the writer assumed the penises go inside each other #and I was like “I mean I don't know how it works for sure I don't have one but idk if that's how it works”
SOME OTHER FOOD STUFF:
thetrekkiehasthephonebox: #add another one to the list bloggers#this character is cooking a salad
shosta: #still baffled about the published work that didn't know food could freeze
sun-dari: #once i read a fic where the author didn't understand cinnamon
alto-tenure: #read something recently where the author was just. blatantly wrong about spices
dramatic-dolphin: #i saw someone try to fake their way through what ramen is once. like 14 years ago.#but i remember.#i was very confused about ramen for a few months. they were writing it so authoritatively.
the-celery-stalks-at-midnight: #i will never ever forget someone putting leftover fries in the microwave to reheat them and setting the timer for five minutes
typeghost: #this sparked a memory of a hannibal fic where the author had to fake their way through writing about gravy
draculin: #the one fanfic where the author knows about coffee only as a concept wrote a character as a coffee drinker#was very interesting#I don't remember the fandom or the plot but I was mesmerized by the coffee actions and choices
11235811235811: #there's a lot of faking their way thru congee in the svsss fandom i'll also note
fishali3n: #read one where the person clearly didnt know what tofu is
emmy-everafter: #in the aftermath of shadow and bone s2 i saw a lot of people pretending to know what stroopwafels are #babes they are more like cookies than breakfast waffles #like yes there is a waffle pattern but you're not gonna cut into a stack of them with syrup and sugar#🤣🤣🤣
NON-FOOD STUFF:
red-umbrella-811: Shoutout to Dame Agatha Christie for faking her way through what a wrench is in a very popular published work.
bluebeetle: #once saw someone have a character put an entire phone book in their pocket
nonametis: #- sex talk in languages other than english #<- or just the petnames in a different language other than English
sadisticpony: #the fanfiction i saw this week where op DIDNT KNOW HOW AUTOMATIC DOORS WORKED #and that they arent in peoples homes!!! of course. also opening the automatic door for someone is unironically very funny but its not #its not like. grabbing the door handle to let someone in. helpppp
danmeichael: #reminds me of the fic with the figure drawing class where the character started with the feet. #i love you feet first figure drawing author
meowmix1100blr: #me watching this one fic absolutely obliterate what the board of directors does
vexedhexes: #one time i read an architect character making a doorway bigger by building a bigger door #what a beautiful world. #OH. also gravity falls fic where they go 'oh piedmont is in california so its warm all year round'
leveragehunters: #characters going to a beer garden #And it's literally a garden outside the pub#It was a very cute mistake
fitofpique: #yes! #grown men do not get blind drunk off two beers #but i am possibly guilty of the hypothermia one #assuming it does not make you very horny?
dadvans-likes: #always thinking abt the soup kitchen fic #the entire setting of the fic was 'soup kitchen' #and i very quickly realized #the author did not know what a soup kitchen was #and they thought that soup kitchens only served soup #fic
msmargaretmurry: #i love fanfiction #once read a fic where the characters played 20 questions #but the author seemed to not know how to play 20 questions and was just kind of winging it........ #immaculate
shakespeareaddict: #Look I know not all of us are hockey experts #But it takes about ten seconds of research or any attention paid to the show to realize #That the Stanley cup playoffs are not in fucking September
baejax-the-great: #the funniest one i saw #was someone faking what church is like #like 1. they really didn't have to write an entire church experience for their fic #and 2. they had clearly never even watched a show where people went to church #it was bonkers weird
twosunson: #things ive seen authors faking #knowing how to unclog a drain #knowing. literally any history #knowing what ketamine looks like (apparently- oregano) #(you know who you are)
waterhorseyblues-ao3: #beltane being celebrated in winter #wales being portrayed as a completely separated land from england (i wish) #characters getting up after weeks of bedrest like that dosnt completely fuck you up
violetfairydust: #i once read a fic where the flight time from london to seattle was 3 hours
purekesseltrash: One time, in a fic set specifically in Des Moines, IA, two of the characters casually drove 20 minutes to the ocean. The memory continues to delight me. I want to know where that author thought that Iowa was.
I've realized recently that every time I'm asked for socials my response is sorta "oh i don't have twitter" "I'm not on Instagram much" "i uninstalled TikTok a few months ago" and this has led people into believing I'm just someone who doesn't do social media but in reality you can find me in here lets get it on cunts monday through shawty like a melody sunday, 9am to 12am, posting blorbo.
The slide in the first post bothers the fuck out of me because he’s using his right leg to slide on the ground.
So, I ride a motorcycle and I know at least the theory of doing a power slide (still cool but you don’t slide nearly so much and you need a pretty light bike to do it most of the time). You have to lock the back wheel until your back wheel looses grip on the road and then turn sharply to the left. Rear wheel slides and the front wheel turns.
But how do you lock the back wheel you might ask? Well with your rear break of course.
WHICH IS UNIVERSALLY UNDER YOUR RIGHT FOOT! How the FUCK is he locking the back wheel, with his shifter on his left foot??? Not possible. The creators of Akira knew it, and so did everyone that homaged it. The post above gets it right even if he’s likely on a slider and being pulled back.
This is why I love tumblr. Where else could I find gifs of back to back tribute references and a perfect explanation of why the above doesn't work and how you would need to do everything to ideally execute to move in question? Thank you for explaining, fellow tumblr friend.
I’m going to level with you. I have listened to The Devil Went Down to Georgia for most of my life. We were a country music household, this was a staple of my childhood along with Johnny Cash, Garth Brooks, and that one Chipmunks country album.
I have no idea what “Fire on the mountain run boys run/The Devil's in the house of the rising sun/Chicken in the bread pan picking out dough/Granny does your dog bite no child no” means and at this point I’m too scared to ask.
I think the solution to kids on the Internet is to have specific, kid friendly spaces on the Internet. Kids wouldn't come across "adult content" on YouTube if barbie dot com still had flash games and this is a hill I will die on.
Oh! Then I know the EXACT person you should be mad at! Michael O'Rielly! He's the one that gutted the Children's Programming Rules, which covered internet as well as television.
#so the death of the Saturday morning cartoon is THIS motherfuckers fault?????
Indeed it is! The FCC controls how much of broadcasting has to cater to children and that includes how educational that programming has to be, and exactly how much and in what way you are allowed to advertise to kids. That's why for the entire 90s and up to the early 00s, kids shows had shorter commercial breaks, and ads that talked about a website had to say "ask your parents before going online", and those websites had to be non-commercial--i.e. they could not be shops, and could not have any way you could spend money or were encouraged to spend money. That's why Barbie.com was flash games, and O'Rielly LIFTING that ban is why Barbie.com now takes you directly to a storefront instead.
If you're mad about Saturday Morning Cartoons, dark patterns in ads targeted at children, online protections for kids, or wondering why educational children's shows aren't as much of a thing as they used to be, get mad at the FCC and the person in charge of it who is gutting the Children's Brodcasting Rules (sometimes called the Kid Vid Rules), because those rules control all of that!
While O'Rielly is responsible for gutting the rules in 2019, he was replaced in 2020 by Nathan Simington as head of the FCC, and Simington resigned in June of this year. The post remains vacant as of the time of this writing (August 31, 2025).
And a side note: Things like KOSA and SCREEN and all those other censorship bills that use "think of the children" are not going to protect children at all; if you want to protect kids online, there is already a way to do that it's called the Kid Vid Rules and the FCC is the one that can update and change them to keep up with the times! It doesn't need a congress vote, it already got voted on in 1990!
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