I should be writing

My fanfic

[shesgonnachangetheworld]

people have this tendency to believe that fandom discourse exists because people in fandoms are Stupid Nerdy Losers, but in fact fandom discourse exists because anytime you get a group of more than 100 people together, they will start creating interpersonal bullshit. fandom is not special in this regard

[lyricwritesprose]

There is sports discourse. There is yarn discourse. There is food discourse. There is academic discourse (dear sweet god is there academic discourse). If there are people out there collecting brass buttons specifically from 1921, they are going to have discourse about which buttons are trash and whether Person A cheated person B. To be human is to engage in pointless wankery sometimes.

[spinosacha]

This is Doris Pollas, the cofounder of the organisation now known as lgbt+ Denmark which by being founded in 1948 is one of the oldest ongoing queer organisation in the world.

Doris lived in a farm in Jutland as a child. She was always butch and figured out she was a lesbian in her teens. When she heard about a club in copenhagen where boys kissed boys and girls kissed girls she went just some months after and it was through that club she started a paper connecting queer people all up to seventies and co founded lgbt+ Denmark.

She is now 97 years old and wishes for every queer person to have an as loving and accepting family as she did.

I don’t see a lot of older gays from my country, so learning about Doris, a masc lesbian, was really nice.

[greaseonmymouth]

Doris passed ways last summer, aged 101. Here’s the obituary LGBT+ Danmark wrote for her - in English

Doris Pollas 1924-2025: The Last Pioneer Has Passed Away - LGBT+ Danmark

Doris Pollas 1924-2025: The Last Pioneer Has Passed Away - LGBT+ Danmark

[murderhealion]

"Your funeral was splendid!" said Koudelka. "You should've been there."

"Next time, perhaps." Vorkosigan grinned.

ADSFHDHHFHD?????

[song-of-the-spheres]

I'm re-reading the Vorkosigan Saga for the first time in a long time (I think it's been maybe 15 years since I read the earlier books) and I remembered how much I liked them, but I forgot how feral they made me. sorry to anyone in my general orbit for the next 12-14 months.

Lois McMaster Bujold really did go: here have space opera shenanigans paired with an exploration of societal upheaval and intergenerational trauma, told from the perspective of a family composed entirely of people who are deeply unhinged. A+, no notes.

[song-of-the-spheres]

I think Tumblr is sleeping on Aral Vorkosigan tbh. fascinating set of life experiences that HAS to fuck one up in new and inventive ways.

witnessed most of his family being murdered at age 11 and two years later his new emperor hands him a blade to help chop up the old emperor who ordered it. obsessed with honor and yet is constantly either flung into situations that force him to override it or lapses in his attempts to strive for it. bisexual and almost certainly weird and repressed about it at first given Barrayar's general cultural milieu, his upbringing, and his first(?) boyfriend turning out to be a sadistic sociopath. kills his first wife's two lovers in impetuous duels and twenty years later confesses this to to the next woman he proposes to within days of meeting her. repeatedly escapes consequences for the times he genuinely fucks up - and he knows this! - and gets ripped to shreds for things he tried to prevent. keeps getting handed increasing levels of political power and he hates it so so much. there are several things wrong with him but crucially I don't think they're the things he thinks.

and we never get his POV directly. 10/10 guy to me, I want to study him under a microscope.

[song-of-the-spheres]

Cordelia kind of wins the award for Most Normal by default, but a) the bar is on the floor, and b) this is also a woman who has, in order: risked her own life to help resolve an attempted military overthrow of an enemy commander that she met like a week ago, left her entire former life behind in part to protect the political secrets of a planet she had one single personal connection to, charged into an occupied city in the middle of a coup for a guerilla raid with THREE people to rescue her kidnapped son, ordered the extremely mentally unwell guy who follows her every order to chop off the head of the guy who did it, and tossed the head in the middle of a conference table to make a point.

I do not think Miles got his impulsive streak from Aral, is what I'm saying.

[song-of-the-spheres]

Often in books, especially with a younger/teenage protagonist, there's an inciting incident, something external that either gets the narrator into trouble or gets them involved with the plot. everything that happens in Warrior's Apprentice is the direct result of Miles just deciding of his own free will and with zero provocation to do the most bonkers shit imaginable. yeah I'm gonna go rescue this random drunk-off-his-ass pilot I've never met who's holding an empty ship hostage so he can keep flying. he has diplomatic immunity now. yeah I'm going to mortgage my family's irradiated land to buy the ship. yeah I'm going to take a cargo run and now the client thinks I run a real mercenary outfit. at no point will I correct him.

this does make sense for him as a character because he has a complex family legacy to live up to AND a girl to impress, however. the entire plot of this book happens solely because of who this ADHD 17-year-old is as a person, and that is kind of beautiful.

[redscharlach]

Hullo! I used to run an LJ community for Biggles fans, and I think at some point in the dim and distant internet past of c. 2008 you posted some icons of the Worrals crew that you'd drawn. I love your art, and I was wondering if these were still available anywhere? I know a few more recent Worrals fans who would love to see them (as would I!)

Hello! Yes, back in 2008 I did post some Worrals icons on LJ. I wasn't sure if I still had the image files but it turns out that I do, although they're low-resolution and very much part of my wobbly early work.

So here for nostalgia's sake are Worrals, Frecks and Bill.

[tweague]

LOOK AT THEM!!! Thank you so much!!

[mockva]

Man notices an Eagle eyeing the fish he just caught

[mexicain-sans-frontiers-v2]

[the-davest-of-uncles]

*gets back to the nest* baby you are NEVER gonna believe how i got this fish

[song-of-the-spheres]

Vorkosigan Saga re-read, two favorite bits/banger quotes per book Shards of Honor // Barrayar

[nickyandmikey]

when two musicians sing into the same microphone and lean in very close to each other… like omg are you guys gonna kiss now to relieve the homoerotic tension?😳

[nickyandmikey]

THIS IS NOT ABOUT ONE DIRECTION I DON’T KNOW WHO THIS “HARRY” PERSON IS GO WATCH BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN AND CLARENCE CLEMONS KISS ON STAGE RIGHT NOW

[irrelevantlyvalid]

op is the only valid person i’ve ever met. everyone else needs to come to the light

[chokolattejedi]

Okay, but this is really important: Bruce Springsteen occupied this really weird place in music history. His songs were all from this pessimistic, nihilistic view of an America that had let him down:

Just like the anti-Vietnam War protest songs that we associate with the 1960s, or the early nihilism that spawned punk music in the 1970s. But he didn’t *sound* like a punk anarchist; he sounded like a country rock singer. When he released Born in the U.S.A. people completely misinterpreted (or possibly ignored) the lyrics in favor of the tone of the music.

Politicians used his music to promote their ‘Murica Yes! brand, and he had to literally explain that that was not what he was about. He’s over here asking when we’re going to have jobs and heathcare, not stanning the politicians who weren’t helping the people.

It was also kind of a big deal that he had an integrated band, because even as late as the 1980s music was still kind of segregated and MTV was straight up racist. They refused to play and promote black artists and then claimed that were no black artists in the first place. Michael Jackson’s record company had to threaten a boycott of their white artists to get MTV to play his Thriller video.

Plus, the first black/white interracial kiss on TV was in 1968 (OG Star Trek). Also it took us until the 70s to get sympathetic gay characters on screen, and the 90s to get gay characters to kiss onscreen. And all of those firsts were met with outrage.

So keep that in mind when you see Bruce Springsteen not just playing with an interracial band, but engaging in an interracial, gay kiss on stage repeatedly.

Passages from American Popular Music by Larry Starr and Christopher Waterman

[executeness]

I used to think that Bruce and Clarence kissing onstage was exuberance, showmanship, and telling racist homophobes to fuck off. Like, they picked up a certain kind of audience and went “Racist homophobes? Not in our house!” And started the kissing then but then I actually looked it up and

https://www.gq.com/story/this-fucked-me-up-bruce-springsteen-singing-about-clarence-clemons

It was a story where… we remade the city. We remade the city, shaping it into the kind of place where our friendship and our love for one another wouldn’t have been such an exceptional thing. - Bruce Springsteen

It wasn’t about showmanship or rejecting bigots or anything it was just. Damn right that was one of the loves of his life and damn right he was going to kiss him onstage

It gets me a little that Bruce has had a divorce, that he’s been married twice, but he loved Clarence for the rest of Clarence’s life and will presumably love him the rest of his own

Clemons said in one interview. “Bruce and I looked at each other and didn’t say anything, we just knew. We knew we were the missing links in each other’s lives. He was what I’d been searching for.” In another version of the story, Clemons says “He looked at me, and I looked at him, and we fell in love.”

I’m having some emotions about it!

“He was elemental in my life,“ Springsteen adds, “and losing him was like losing the rain.”

Not just! I love you pure and deep and true but! I am going to love you like that in front of the whole damn world!

We have fewer narratives about taking risks and making statements for platonic love rather than romantic and supposedly it would be easier to downplay this onstage than romance and! They refused! They fucking refused! In front of hundreds of thousands of people, over the course of years! In the spotlight, in word and deed, I love you!

God I’m not okay about it

[ramshacklefey]

Now I’m mad that this is not among any of the things I was ever told about this artist.

[jbbartram-illu]

I knew about this in general (& via all those fabulous photos), but this just adds even more beautiful context <3

[eregyrn-falls]

Just to add to the pile: this was the cover of Springsteen’s break-through album Born to Run, in 1975:

I mean, will you LOOK at this:

This was the pic chosen for the album cover from an extensive photoshoot, too. A few others:

There’s a lot more online if you search. They’re all pretty amazing. But the photographer is right, the one chosen for the album cover just pops.

[book-historia]

Ah yes, the three genders

[heroineimages]

I love used bookstore labeling.

[tomthefanboy]

aka the Phil Foglio Section

[awlwren]

[id: handmade sign on a bookshelf indicating three sections: Dirigibles (to the upper left), Erotica (upper right), then Military Strategy & Theory (bottom shelf).]/end id.

[horsefriend]

This video gives me spiritually energy and power

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Me: Why does that horse look like it’s made of wet clay

Me: Oh that’s why

[tacomel420]

hot girl summer

[autumngracy]

On all levels but physical, that's a pig

[n00dl3gal]

Lost in the sauce

[urbanfantasyinspiration]

Absolute shenanigans

[onefellsloop]

the difference is that Biggles/Erich/Marie would make everything better and Jack/Stephen/Diana would make everything worse :)

[song-of-the-spheres]

I'm re-reading the Vorkosigan Saga for the first time in a long time (I think it's been maybe 15 years since I read the earlier books) and I remembered how much I liked them, but I forgot how feral they made me. sorry to anyone in my general orbit for the next 12-14 months.

Lois McMaster Bujold really did go: here have space opera shenanigans paired with an exploration of societal upheaval and intergenerational trauma, told from the perspective of a family composed entirely of people who are deeply unhinged. A+, no notes.

[winter-wise]

Koudelka voice Aral I've messed things up so badly with Drou, what can I do? Aral voice Okay here's what you do Step 1 you crawl to her on your knees Step 2 you flop onto your back so you're completely vulnerable Step 3 you let her stamp on you. This is your only intelligent course of action.

(He's correct but also. Aral. I know what you are.)

[immortalbeingz]

Via: IG@atynerantiques

[asteroidtroglodyte]

[peaceheather]

I love the humor but also that he's not hurting the little guy by putting any weight on him whatsoever

[briarpatch-kids]

I desperately need y'all to see this scam bot I just got:

[litosgoodtiktoks]