Blather

Fanwriter since 2002, wizard rocker since 2020, unapologetic blocker of transphobes, white supremacists, & givers of unsolicited concrit. On Dreamwidth & BlueSky, & selected works at AO3.

[mundungus42]

…as his aching body melts into the on-call room’s institutional mattress, his last conscious thought is wondering who the fuck in Oncology is playing show tunes and why the music lines up perfectly with the beep of a cardiac monitor…

A reimagining of Stephen Sondheim's Company, this time with charcters I actually like.

Read Pitt ED, or, The Pitt: The Musical, After Stephen Sondheim's Company on AO3!

Complete in 8,056 words and 15 song/scenes

Gen/Jack Abbot & Michael "Robby" Robinavich

Rated Teen+ (language)

Spoilers through Season 2

Featuring the songs Patients That You Treat Together, Shitty-Awful, (So) Getting Fired, Nurses Who Punch, Saving a Life, AND MUCH MORE! A/N: My first foray into The Pitt. God help us all.

[succubusboyfriend]

you have permission to pick that 2 year old "abandoned" project back up. it's not mad at you for setting it aside. and maybe time and distance have helped ease or erase the things that made you put it down in the first place.

[mundungus42]

...what about 20-year-old abandoned projects? In seriousness, whyyyy is the internet conspiring to make me remember/realize this week:

My One Abandoned Fic at FFN (MOAFF) was last updated in 2005, but since I started it in January of 2002, it's literally the first piece of fanfic I started writing/posting.

MOAFF was a crossover between my OG fandom, in which I lost interest during its denoument, and the fandom I've been active in for a quarter century, so it's my first primary-fandom fic, too.

My beloved friend @kinasecrystal, who has been gently encouraging me to finish MOAFF for as long as it's existed, and I are planning to chat this week.

The reason MOAFF came to mind at all is because one of my Discord friends shared a now-closed 'how many finished fics do you have on AO3" poll, and we all checked in with our finished/total fic ratios, and I had a half-written comment along the lines of "ha ha it's a good thing this is AO3-specfiic because I'm 55/55 if I don't have to count MOAFF..." but then had to check FFN to see when I last updated it and found that...

MOAFF, despite being unfinished, is the longest thing I have ever written at 86K words...

...which really struck me because just this week I realized that I've now posted 909K words of fic at AO3 and decided that I wanted to throw myself a Proust Party when I hit 1M words.

Y'all.

I don't even want to attempt reading MOAFF with an eye to revising/completing it because I know it's cringe and self-insert-y and I've completely forgotten all the lore of my OG fandom, and my primary fandom, which was active when I started/abandoned the story, is now complete so I know I'll need to un-canon-shaft myself. I also have no idea WTF I was doing with the side plots, I know it's not going to end happily, and my headcanon and taste have had nearly a quarter-century to mature.

But heaven help me, I still feel that old frisson of interest when I think about the central conceit.

No, I don't want to think about doing it. But I might.

[veronicamarsconfessions]

🪷

[desolendate]

im literally in tears what the fuck

[luigis-slut]

[mckitterick]

[ ID: screenshot of a web search beginning “did Trent reznor…” with the first result being “...ever specify which animal”

and a second screenshot of a music playlist called "furry confession" with song titles that spell out, "I wanna fuck you like an animal, specifically Garfield, so bend over and repeat after me, I don't like Mondays" /ID ]

[jacobwren]

"But AI can't do your job. It can help you do your job, but that doesn't mean it's going to save anyone money. Take radiology: there's some evidence that AIs can sometimes identify solid-mass tumors that some radiologists miss, and look, I've got cancer. Thankfully, it's very treatable, but I've got an interest in radiology being as reliable and accurate as possible. If my Kaiser hospital bought some AI radiology tools and told its radiologists: "Hey folks, here's the deal. Today, you're processing about 100 x-rays per day. From now on, we're going to get an instantaneous second opinion from the AI, and if the AI thinks you've missed a tumor, we want you to go back and have another look, even if that means you're only processing 98 x-rays per day. That's fine, we just care about finding all those tumors." If that's what they said, I'd be delighted. But no one is investing hundreds of billions in AI companies because they think AI will make radiology more expensive, not even if that also makes radiology more accurate. The market's bet on AI is that an AI salesman will visit the CEO of Kaiser and make this pitch: "Look, you fire 9/10s of your radiologists, saving $20m/year, you give us $10m/year, and you net $10m/year, and the remaining radiologists' job will be to oversee the diagnoses the AI makes at superhuman speed, and somehow remain vigilant as they do so, despite the fact that the AI is usually right, except when it's catastrophically wrong. "And if the AI misses a tumor, this will be the human radiologist's fault, because they are the 'human in the loop.' It's their signature on the diagnosis." This is a reverse centaur, and it's a specific kind of reverse-centaur: it's what Dan Davies calls an "accountability sink." The radiologist's job isn't really to oversee the AI's work, it's to take the blame for the AI's mistakes. This is another key to understanding – and thus deflating – the AI bubble. The AI can't do your job, but an AI salesman can convince your boss to fire you and replace you with an AI that can't do your job. This is key because it helps us build the kinds of coalitions that will be successful in the fight against the AI bubble." - Cory Doctorow, The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Criticizing AI

[rianarchy]

[aureutr]

Unfriendly reminder that if you're displeased with a piece of fanfiction your courses of action are:

Read something else

Bitch PRIVATELY to friends

Write your own take on the premise (strongly recommend!)

All of the above

Under no circumstances should you try to "politely" critique the author who put the story up as a hobby. For free. Especially if the story in question is multiple years old. Ao3 is not Goodreads

[qwantzfeed]

tell enough stories about a someone and you will inevitably hit the Turned Into A Horse episode

[mundungus42]

I’m getting ready to head off for my first-ever choral residency across the pond with a boadload of friends from both my morning and evening church jobs, so auspices for an exceedingly silly and musically satisfying time are good. In celebration, I’m sharing one of my sillier wizard “rock” projects, which is Hoggy Warty Hogwarts, aka the Hogwarts school song, which canonically can be sung to any tune. So naturally I chose the emo choral banger to rule them all, Gregorio Allegri’s setting of Miserere mei, Deus. I put this together this track with the help of the inimitable @dream-quaffle on the T/B lines as part of the House-Elf Tavern Choir book-accurate rendition of the Hogwarts School Song, masterminded and executed by the wonderful @dotsandlines. The full House-Elf Tavern Choir rendition may be enjoyed here, and if anyone wants to sing my Allegri version live, here’s the sheet music.

[emilyhopebunny]

Have a listen to my choral setting of text post memes that originated right here on tumblr!

My piece, Copypasta (performed here by the First Readings Project) is in three movements and uses these texts:

Spiders Georg by @reallyreallyreallytrying

Hot Plum by @utopians

I Think That's Beutiful by @nerdgul

Sheet music is available here.

(If your choir performs this piece, please let me know!)

[penny-anna]

Legolas pretty quickly gets in the habit of venting about his travelling companions in Elvish, so long as Gandalf & Aragorn aren’t in earshot they’ll never know right?

Then about a week into their journey like

Legolas: *in Elvish, for approximately the 20th time* ugh fucking hobbits, so annoying

Frodo: *also in Elvish, deadpan* yeah we’re the worst

Legolas:

[penny-anna]

~*~earlier~*~

Legolas: ugh fucking hobbits

Merry: Frodo what’d he say

Frodo: I’m not sure he speaks a weird dialect but I think he’s insulting us. I should tell him I can understand Elvish

Merry: I mean you could do that but consider

Merry: you can only tell him ONCE

Frodo: Merry. You’re absolutely right. I’ll wait.

[penny-anna]

#legolas’ hick accent vs #frodo’s ‘i learned it out of a book’ accent #FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT

Legolas: umm well your accent is horrible

Aragorn: *hollering from a distance* HIS ACCENT IS BETTER THAN YOURS LEGOLAS YOU SILVAN HICK

Frodo: :)

[storywonker]

Frodo: Hello. My name is Frodo. I am a Hobbit. How are you?

Legolas: y’alld’ve’ff’ve

Frodo, crying: please I can’t understand what you’r saying

[ramshacklefey]

Ok, but Frodo didn’t just learn out of a book. He learned like… Chaucerian Elvish. So actually:

Frodo: Good morrow to thee, frend. I hope we twain shalle bee moste excellente companions.

Legolas: Wots that mate? ‘Ere, you avin’ a giggle? Fookin’ ‘obbits, I sware.

Aragorn: *laughing too hard to walk*

[reformedkingsmanagent]

@ghostriderofthearagon

[cryptidscrypticcrosswordclub]

dYinGggGggg…

[whetstonefires]

i mean, honestly it’s amazing the Elves had as many languages and dialects as they did, considering Galadriel (for example) is over seven thousand years old.

english would probably have changed less since Chaucer’s time, if a lot of our cultural leaders from the thirteenth century were still alive and running things.

they’ve had like. seven generations since the sun happened, max. frodo’s books are old to him, but outside any very old poetry copied down exactly, the dialect represented in them isn’t likely to be older than the Second Age, wherein Aragorn’s foster-father Elrond started out as a very young adult and grew into himself, and Legolas’ father was born.

so like, three to six thousand years old, maybe, which is probably a drop in the bucket of Elvish history judging by all the ethnic differentiation that had time to develop before Ungoliant came along, even if we can’t really tell because there weren’t years to count, before the Trees were destroyed.

plus a lot of Bilbo’s materials were probably directly from Elrond, whose library dates largely from the Third Age, probably, because he didn’t establish Imladris until after the Last Alliance. and Elrond isn’t the type to intentionally help Bilbo learn the wrong dialect and sound sillier than can be helped, even if everyone was humoring him more than a little.

so Frodo might sound hilariously formal for conversational use (though considering how most Elves use Westron he’s probably safe there) and kind of old-fashioned, but he’s not in any danger of being incomprehensible, because elves live on such a ridiculous timescale.

[whetstonefires]

to over-analyse this awesome and hilarious post even more, legolas’ grandfather was from linguistically stubborn Doriath and their family is actually from a somewhat different, higher-status ethnic background than their subjects.

so depending on how much of a role Thranduil took in his upbringing (and Oropher in his), Legolas may have some weird stilted old-fashioned speaking tics in his Sindarin that reflect a more purely Doriathrin dialect rather than the Doriathrin-influenced Western Sindarin that became the most widely spoken Sindarin long before he was born, or he might have a School Voice from having been taught how to Speak Proper and then lapse into really obscure colloquial Avari dialect when he’s being casual. or both!

considering legolas’ moderately complicated political position, i expect he can code-switch.

…it’s also fairly likely considering the linguistic politics involved that Legolas is reasonably articulate in Sindarin, though with some level of accent, but knows approximately zero Quenya outside of loanwords into Sindarin, and even those he mostly didn’t learn as a kid.

which would be extra hilarious when he and gimli fetch up in Valinor in his little homemade skiff, if the first elves he meets have never been to Middle Earth and they’re just standing there on the beach reduced to miming about what is the short beard person, and who are you, and why.

this is elvish dialects and tolkien, okay. there’s a lot of canon material! he actually initially developed the history of middle-earth specifically to ground the linguistic development of the various Elvish languages!

[bowditch]

Legolas: Alas, verily would I have dispatched thine enemy posthaste, but y’all’d’ve pitched a feckin’ fit.

Aragorn: *eyelid twitching*

[linguisticparadox]

Frodo: *frantically scribbling* Hang on which language are you even speaking right now

Pippin, confused: Is he not speaking Elvish?

Frodo, sarcastically: I dunno, are you speaking Hobbit?

Boromir, who has been lowkey pissed-off at the Hobbits’ weird dialect this whole time: That’s what it sounds like to me.

Merry, who actually knows some shit about Hobbit background: We are actually speaking multiple variants of the Shire dialect of Westron, you ignorant fuck.

Sam, a mere working-class country boy: Honestly y'all could be talkin Dwarvish half the time for all I know.

[sainamoonshine]

Pippin, entering Gondor and speaking to the castle steward: hey yo my man

Boromir, from beyond the grave: j e s u s

[esser-z]

Tolkien would be SO PROUD of this post

[runiaimperii]

It got better

[peaceheather]

there may come a day when i do not reblog this post, but it is NOT THIS DAY

[bluebellofbakerstreet]

Holmes questions a reticent witness. For Holmestice, summer 2026

[mundungus42]

My first and forever Sherlock Holmes. <3

[qwantzfeed]

sherlock put on a hamburger costume and deduced it felt all wrong for him.  he was a polish sausage costume guy or he was NOTHING

[mundungus42]

Another glorious round of @holmestice over on Dreamwidth resulted in 54 new works in 21 different Sherlock Holmes universes, and to my very great pleasure, I got to play along even though I wasn't able to sign up initially!

I had the pleasureof pinch-hitting "the weird crossover/fusion of your dreams" for @beamkatanachronicles:

The Facts in he Case of E. A. P—.

An all-ages OG ACD casefic wherein Holmes and Watson are invited to solve a forty-year old mystery: who or what killed Edgar Allan Poe? Contains crytpography, reminisces upon Afghanistan, Victorian medicine, and a soupçon of parody!

Rating: G (there is one deliberately placed ejaculation, though...) Word: 7,135 Relationships: Holmes & Watson, Holmes & Watson & Client

Read on AO3!

[lalulutres]

worried that squirrels were eating all the birdseed, so we set up a camera

[felthief]

i do not think that is a squirrel

[camwyn]

Goddamn raccoons

[trochaic-mutant-ninja-tetrameter]

🎶We set up a camera! Goddamn raccoons!🎵

[ltwilliammowett]

The Danish training ship “Georg Stage” (1934) dresses in rainbow colour, 2021 

[dragon-in-a-fez]

not the kind of gay ship I’m used to seeing on tumblr but cool

[dubiousculturalartifact]

ship georg is an outlier but SHOULD be counted

[mundungus42]

Ooooooooh sail HO! 😍🌈⛵

[dduane]

The Star Trek title card generator is over here:

Star Trek Title Card Generator

Make your own era-accurate Star Trek episode title cards in seconds. Boldly go!

The sitemaker (Josh Mayfield at https://bsky.app/profile/bean525.bsky.social) has asked for people to come in and kick its tires so he can work out any bugs they turn up. So do give him a hand, if you feel inclined. :)

(also, deeply amused by this one...)

[journalbye]

i have loved you since we were eighteen /rabbot fanvid x 18