paperandburgundy

jiang cheng apologist first human second

[barbie-verse]

do you have any super fluffy fic recs or maybe some hurt/confort? learned some very life altering sad stuff recently and would love a pick me up

sorry you've been having a rough time! these recs lean a bit more hurt comfort cause I don't really read pure fluff, but hopefully these help a little <3

Pure fluff!

i could take away the shaking knees - gurlsrool - Scott POV of the Hollanov wedding

gurlsrool actually has a lot of cute fluffy fics! would recommend just checking out their account

Mr. Emergency Contact - @zee-has-commitment-issues - Ilya is an emercency contact for the Pike kids, the internet sees him with them and Hayden has to admit to the world that they're friends

it's all fun and games until someone has been secretly gay this whole time - thegreenempty - Hayden POV with a high on painkillers Shane

Young and Hopelessly Smitten - @beforejuko - really cute childhood friends au

Plot with fluffy/feel good moments

the best person to be stuck in an elevator with - Sporkess - Yuna and Ilya get stuck in an elevator for 2 hours. It takes about 30 minutes for Yuna to decide she's adopting him

Good - @shanastoryteller - Hollanov's second dinner with Shane's parents goes better than the first

Haydenov Phone Swap - @exactphoify - Hayden and Ilya accidentally swap phones and become bffs in the process

Is Ilya Rozanov Really….? - Ubiquitously_Ubiquitous - 5+1 fic from Ilya's neighbours in Ottawa

Vibes Are Not Data - GlitterCity - Wyatt Hayes POV (how he became Ilya's bestie)

if you're looking for socmed fics I made a post here

[whosebob]

You know that feeling when you finally read a book you've been meaning to get to, and it completely blows your mind? Like, why did I wait so long? I'm a longtime fan of Joan Didion—I frequently re-read her books because they’re so sharp and smart, and I just admire her intelligence so much. Years ago, I read The Last Love Song and loved learning more about her. Then I picked up Hollywood’s Eve and discovered Eve Babitz. That book was incredible, but for some reason, I didn’t dive into Babitz’s own writing. A mental block, maybe?

Well, I finally read Sex & Rage, and wow—it kind of blew me away. And here’s the kicker: this isn’t even the book most people rave about! Her memoir Eve’s Hollywood is the real favorite. I just finished it, and boy oh boy, it does not disappoint. Maybe it resonates more because I’ve been a Hollywood resident for a long time, but it’s just so good.

Now, I’m excited to read Didion & Babitz by Lili Anolik. She wrote Hollywood’s Eve, which was excellent, so I’m expecting great things.

[izzyhill]

[camiekahle-deactivated20190815]

THIS IS THE BEST THING I HAVE EVER SEEN

[macncheese-blog]

I’VE BEEN TRYING TO FIND THIS FOR SEVEN YEARS

DO YOU UNDERSTAND HOW HARD IT IS TO ?????

[pinkifingers]

That last fatal scream tho

[flawlessputaa-deactivated201610]

THE TERROR IN HIS SCREAM OH GOSH

[piss-pirate]

[chillyfeetsteak]

i’m crying

[smore-692-deactivated20170712]

WAAA-

[veritashopian]

I will always reblog this on the off chance some other poor soul has been searching for it

[molten-by-determination-deactiv]

IT’S BACK

[llibratin-deactivated20170617]

HOYL SHIT ITS B A CK

[not-a-recommended-url]

IT’S BACK?? ON MY DASH?

[keymageheartfilia]

re-blogging again xD

[lionowlonao3]

what was that we were just saying about still having posts circulating from ridiculous numbers of years ago? 😂

[best-of-reblogs]

[peptothesi]

I feel like it’s a duty to reblog such a natural treasure

[bogleech]

All those accounts though….

[thegeekogecko]

[yukalovestopgungays]

So I just read the best fucking IceMav fanfiction on Ao3 and I just wonder how have all the stars aligned for me to be here, in this Earth, in this exact timeline and being well alive and breathing the same air as the author of the fic. I left the longest, most incoherent comment ever known to humanity (pretty sure it's over 1k words but let's ignore that) and I'm almost vibrating out of my skin. I hope the author doesn't think of me as a freak when they read my comment

[icemavman]

i really like fics that emphasize how much bradley takes after ice. the way he flies, of course, but i like to think that he's got the Admiral Voice down. that he's good at twisting words and getting away with shit because he knows the navy rulebook like the back of his hand. that he'll bury his emotions as deep as humanly possible.

maybe they even share mimics. they've both perfected the stare down.

and sure, he's got his showman habits from goose and carole. he's got mav's temper and tendency towards the mechanical.

but a lot of him is just – tom kazansky. that's his kid.

[passumbapper]

it's almost summer do you guys want my stupid hyperoptimized lemonade recipe that takes half a day to make and whips absolute ass

[passumbapper]

Fruited Lemonade That Makes You Reconsider It All

ingredience:

lemons/limes (this needs to make up the bulk of the fruit being used, like at least 80%)

whatever other fruits or fruit scraps you want, plus any herbs/other flavorings you want to try. by fruit scraps I mean things like cherry pits, apple peels, pineapple cores, strawberry ends, things like that.

granulated white sugar, the coarser the better, 50% by weight of total citrus rinds + 100% by weight of any additional fruit. you'll measure this after you prep the fruit.

water as needed

equipment:

a few nonmetallic mixing bowls

a mesh strainer

a chinoise, ricer or some cheesecloth

a kitchen scale

a citrus juicer or reamer (manual or electric)

a potato masher

juice the citrus through a strainer - saving all rinds -  and refrigerate the juice for the time being. dice the rinds and other fruits if any, keeping the rinds separate. make note of weights, and measure your sugar.

 Place sugar in a large nonmetallic bowl. If using non-citrus fruits and/or any other flavorings, mix them in with the sugar and mash with potato masher. add diced citrus rinds, mix thoroughly, and mash again. cover and let stand at room temperature for at least 4 hours. this allows the sugar to draw out flavors that would otherwise get discarded with the rinds, and the rinds' acids should be enough to dissolve the sugar into a syrup.

Afterward, mash one last time, then collect the syrup by pressing the macerated mixture through a strainer/chinoise or ricer, or squeeze it through cheesecloth. if you want, this can be saved as a standalone syrup at this point, for use in cocktails or desserts. if not, slowly pour the reserved juice through the solids to to help get the remaining syrup out, and squeeze/press again. do the same thing one more time with warm water (roughly the same amount of water as juice). discard solids (or try making sangria with them!).

taste the mixture and add more water if necessary. a stronger mix is totally fine if you anticipate serving over ice on a hot day, or adding booze, or if there was a lot of non-sour fruit. keep in mind that it will taste a bit less sweet once it's chilled. pour into a pitcher and refrigerate.

citrus oils will float to the top, so stir/shake before serving. love you. enjoy.

some tried and true flavor combos:

straight lemon or lime, or any combination of the two, is of course an untouchable classic

lemon & strawberries (that's pussy babe!)

lemon & orange with a hint of vanilla (creamsiclemonade...?)

lemon & apples or apple peels with cinnamon/ginger/allspice (for late summer)

some cocktail type combos, booze optional:

lemon or lime & berries with basil + gin

lime & mint + white rum

lime & ginger + dark rum

lime & cucumber + gin

lime & orange (berries optional) + tequila

lemon, orange & cherry + brandy, bourbon, or rye whiskey

[madgastronomer]

holy gods

[ur-daily-inspiration]

Kevin the Kitten and Satan the Cat 🖤 Artist: 📸@vanessastockard

[jadedbirch]

For @naewitchcraftinvolved and anyone else who's interested, here are my recs of "good" queer historical fiction novels. I put "good" in quotes because obviously there's no accounting for taste, so this is only my personal opinion. Some (okay a lot) of these do not have a happily ever after for the main characters, but I still think they're very good books that are worth your consideration. In no specific order:

1. Literally anything by Mary Renault, but especially The Persian Boy and The Last of the Wine

2. The Radiant Emperor duology by Shelley Parker-Chan (contains magical realism)

3. As Meat Loves Salt by Maria McCann

4. Julian by Gore Vidal

5. Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar

6. The Burning Kingdoms trilogy by Tasha Suri (has magical realism and the third book is just about to drop, but assuming it'll be awesome)

7. Under the Poppy by Kathe Koja

8. The City Beautiful by Aden Polydoros

9. A Tip for the Hangman by Allison Epstein

10. The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley (magical realism here too, you can skip the sequel IMO)

11. Brothers of the Wild North Sea by Harper Fox

12. Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin (I'm not sure this counts as historical fiction because it was written in 1956 but it should be mandatory reading for basically everyone)

13. The Vintner's Luck by Elizabeth Knox (okay so one of the queer main characters is literally a fallen angel, but who's to say that can't be real 🤷🏻‍♀️)

14. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (is Greek Mythology technically historical fiction? I say it belongs here!)

15. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas (LOL I know, I know, it's not "canon", but I dare you all to read it and then tell me they aren't all disaster bisexuals! Just consider this a free bonus.)

[laurenillustrated]

Cutesy Costumes! 🦇🍁

Here are all of my vintage inspired costume designs for the spooky autumn season!

Prints available on my inprnt!

[thoodleoo]

>looking for a new retelling of ancient myth

>ask the reviewers if the book is classical reception or modern tropification

>they don't understand

>i pull out a diagram explaining the difference between what engages with ancient sources and depictions of the story and what relies on reduction of the story to its most marketable aspects

>they laugh and say "it's a good retelling"

>read the book

>its tropification

[thoodleoo]

complaining about tropification isn't complaining that a story has common themes or tropes. contrary to popular belief (what my middle school students think about me) i don't sit around reading nothing but hesiod and persius all day long. i read a lot of books, including very trope-y fiction. tropes are fine. read whatever you want forever and ever. i don't care about booktok all that much even if that's not how i want to engage with what i read because why should everyone have to read things the same way i do?

the problem with tropification is that it turns a larger story into catchy taglines that often ignore the cultural context of books that aren't america- or- anglocentric. why would an ancient greek epic share the same intentions in its narration as a romance or adventure novel written in the 21st century? the iliad isn't even authored by one single person. it's a story passed at first orally and only committed to paper far down the line. there's an old post of mine of a screenshot of tvtropes where the page for tsundere quotes catullus 85. and while that's insanely funny as a joke, if you tried to get me to seriously interact with catullan poetry by referring to catullus with a cultural concept that far removed from the time and society he lived, i would absolutely never pick that version of the story up.

i get that i'm not the target audience for a lot of these retellings, because i'm the kind of guy who wants to spend 3 hours contemplating the same 10 lines of the aeneid. but in so many of these retellings there's often almost like...a hostility toward the original story? like they're trying to "fix" aspects of it to make it more palatable to a modern audience, which feels disrespectful to the cultures they came from and disrespectful to the audience. i'm always going to be more intrigued by a story like mccullough's masters of rome- which makes some REAL bizarre choices at times but ultimately engages so deeply with our sources on rome's history that it's still a really neat read- than i am by yet another story where it turns out persephone is a girlboss and hates her mom and she and hades are a power couple. put a little more faith in your readers, y'know? and go read ursula k. le guin's lavinia. i'm begging all of you on my hands and knees to do this. do it for her (the aeneid)

[invisible-pink-toast]

one of my favourite genre's of music

[gerec]

Master List of X-Men Fic Recs - Part 2

Jealous!Erik/Charles +Others Kid or Young Cherik Kinkmeme Dirtybad Fics Life at Xavier's School Long Fic (>100k) Love at First Sight Major Character Death (Charles or Erik) Part 1 Major Character Death (Charles or Erik) Part 2 Mansion Fic Meeting as Kids / Growing Up Together Mob AUs Mpreg Charles Part 1 Mpreg Charles Part 2 Mpreg Erik Nina Lives Obsessive/Possessive Erik Part 1 Obsessive/Possessive Erik Part 2 Old!Cherik Older Charles/Younger Erik Part 1 Older Charles/Younger Erik Part 2 Outside POV Period AUs (i.e. P&P, Jane Eyre) Polyamory Porn Star AUs Post Beach + Happy Ending Post Dark Phoenix Post Solitary Confinement Post XMA Part 1 Post XMA Part 2 Prison AUs Prostitute!Charles Prostitute!Erik Public Sex Royalty AUs Rule 63 Girl!Charles Secret or Forbidden Relationships Serial Killer AUs Sex Addiction AUs Smitten Charles Space AUs Part 1 Space AUs Part 2 Spy AUs Part 1 Spy AUs Part 2 Sugar Daddy / Sugar Baby AUs Part 1 Sugar Daddy / Sugar Baby AUs Part 2 Tentacle Porn Time Travel Part 1 Time Travel Part 2 Time Travel Part 3 Top 5 Canon + Top 5 AU Fics Underage Charles Vampire AUs XMFC Fix-It (Erik stays)

OTHER PAIRINGS Charles/Kurt Marko + Charles/Older Men Cherigan (Charles/Erik/Logan) Shaw/Charles Shaw/Erik Xavierine Hurt/Comfort Xavierine Master Rec List Xavierine Master Rec List Addendum

FAVORITES BY YEAR Gerec’s Favorite Fics - 2023 Gerec’s Favorite Fics - 2022 Gerec’s Favorite Fics - 2021 Gerec’s Favorite Fics - 2020 Gerec’s Favorite Fics - 2019

Click Here for Master List of Fic Recs - Part 1

[blessyouhawkeye]

my favourite mdzs/cql character dynamic will always always be jiang cheng and lan wangji. born to be mortal enemies forced to be in laws is the funniest relationship of all time. that brief establishing shot in cql episode 2 of them sitting in a tea house at different tables, facing away from each other, not talking is like a sister to me. wei wuxian's death turned a mutual disdain into outright hatred and now sixteen years of boiling rage down the drain because wei wuxian had to get RESURRECTED like an IDIOT and now they have to MAKE NICE and try their utmost not to THROW THINGS at each other at FAMILY DINNERS. which they have now because LIFE SUCKS. such an unparalleled dynamic that i'll be thinking about until i die.

[thestuffedalligator]

Character crossover interaction I would kill to see: Maia from The Goblin Emperor and Fabian Aramais Seacaster from Fantasy High.

I watched Junior Year the same month I read The Goblin Emperor and honestly. Teenaged half-elf of quasi-noble upbringing with a fucked up family dynamic who’s also profoundly lonely solidarity

[muskoxen]

Vibin'

So I've been thinking about how some of my favorite books vibe with one another, and a map might be a better format for this and this is really just for me to quiet my brain a little but whatever, here's the list:

(The top line book will be the ur-book that sets the vibe, usually a childhood favorite; this does not mean that these are necessarily kid-friendly books!) (If you actually see and read this post, please reblog and suggest books because I'm going to throw down some ur-books that I have yet to find any simpatico fellows for!) (I will update my list as I read and discover)

Murderbot

Is it just me or would El Higgins and Murderbot coexist well??? Also, can’t believe I almost forgot to put my favorite traumatized construct on this list!

Howl's Moving Castle

Emily Wilde and its sequels

Ten Thousand Stitches

Sabriel and its sequels

Vespertine

Sorcery of Thorns (specifically, Lirael and there's also a UU library but also a Mogget)

Nettle & Bone

The Blue Sword

Crown Duel

The Goblin Emperor

Crown Duel

The Vorkosigan Saga

The Queen’s Thief

Discworld

T Kingfisher's World of the White Rat, incl. The Saint of Steel series. The gnolls esp. feel Discworldish.

A Deadly Education and The Scholomance series. Both El and Vimes understand The Beast

To Say Nothing of the Dog, Doomsday Book and Connie Willis at large

The Lord Peter Wimsey series

PG Wodehouse

Ella Enchanted

Half a Soul and its sequels

The Lord of Stariel

Thornhedge awww

The Hunger Games

The Locked Tomb

Also Vespertine (above) a bit. Lots of dead things, and sassy ghosts in your head, and religious fanatics, and eldritch horrors. TLT is A Lot so I don’t want to overpromise but the main character is an neurodivergent nun and she’s wonderful. Also there’s a hot priest. It is YA so significantly less gore.

His Dark Materials

Godkiller also vibes with THG a bit. Def a dash of Peenis.

Temeraire, except obviously Lyra would be friends with Temeraire and Pan and Lawrence would commiserate

Pride & Prejudice and Austen at large

An-Ever Fixed Mark and its universe

A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting this author is so wildly unknown and underrated where is the discourse wtf

A Lady's Guide to Scandal

Memory of Morning. It’s a one hit wonder but it really, really hits for me. She’s a ship doctor who gets shore leave and gets to hang out with her bluestocking family during the season in a not-Britain. There’s language of flowers. There’s alien-intelligence-giant-glowing-octopodes. There’s a wee little doggy. I haven’t enjoyed anything else by this author but damn do I keep rereading this one.

Kate Daniels

Hidden Legacy but only the Nevada books sorry IA

The Inkeeper Chronicles obv

[captainkirkk]

I'm looking for books that focus on the reality of being royalty/ rulers, similar to The Goblin Emperor and The Hands of the Emperor. Preferably where the focus is on royalty actually doing something for the common good, but I'm obsessed with this trope now and will take anything. Anyone have any suggestions?

[itsmythang]

[eldritchmage]

This is why every vote matters. YOUR vote matters. Please vote!

[stele3]

Actually that’s exactly how it works. Here, lemme break down the numbers. I’ll be using the 2020 presidential election voter turnout.

In 2020, the total U.S. population was about 332,450,000.

Of that number, about 240,000,000 were eligible to vote.

Of eligible voters, only about 66.1% actually voted. And that’s a high turnout, historically speaking.

Of the 158,427,986 eligible voters who actually voted,

81,283,501 voted for Biden. That’s 24.5% of the overall U.S. population.

74,223,975 voted for Trump. That’s 22% of the overall U.S. population.

(I’m guessing the graphic used updated number from 2024 for population size.)

But yes, that’s exactly how it all works. Not everyone in the U.S. is eligible to vote (sometimes due to voter suppression, but also due to being too young).

Of those who ARE eligible to vote, as many didn’t vote as voted for either Biden or Trump.

Who wins is determined by who fucking shows up to vote.

Democracy works exactly as well as how much you participate in it.

Trump voters are only 22% of the general population.

They’re only 31% of eligible voters.

They’ll be easy to defeat.

IF PEOPLE ACTUALLY FUCKING VOTE.

[vergess]

Which is why it's important to pair posts like this with actual resources on, for example:

Who can vote

How to register

How to fill a ballot

Where to vote

What to expect on your ballot

How to report if your voter registration is illegally denied or mishandled

How to process a change of name or address

How to get an ID card (financial assistance not available)

See, the thing a lot of people don't get is, the US system is designed to SUPPRESS AND DENY votes. Fun fact for those who went to school elsewhere: none of the stuff I linked is actually required learning in our schools. Followup fact: the reason I mention financial assistance for ID cards is, our free ID (social security card) is not valid for voting in half of states; expensive photo IDs are required.

For the Americans, you must understand: Most places with elections take the exact opposite approach. Do you know how fucked up it is that in the US you can't even get a whole day off work, despite voter queues often being several hours long due to lack of polling places? How absolutely pigshit bonkers it is that people have to PAY to vote (via ID fees)?

The international folks are appalled because that's fucked up! 18% picking your president is unhinged! It actually truly does represent a broken system!

In other words this is a real, systemic issue that can take years to overcome IF you even have the ability to do it at all.

If you're lucky enough not to face any of the hurdles, stay informed on the subject so you can help the rest of us out.

Voter suppression is not caused by personal moral failing.

It's caused by the broken system.