Recs Or It Didn't Happen

Writers talking about the good stuff.

[filmtvtoday]

SENSE AND SENSIBILITY (1995)  dir. Ang Lee

[plmq]

Would he make a good wife, Helen Gorrill, ink 80 x 120 cm

[unamusedsloth]

“Vicious” Leopard seal tries to keep national geographic photographer alive by feeding him penguins.

[bendablebananas]

@maculategiraffe tags

[trender4trender]

So You Think You Can Abolish It Without Abolishing The Social Conditions That Give Rise To It: my new game show

[femmenietzsche]

Neanderthal adhesives were made through a complex synthesis process

Birch bark was heated in underground chambers to create a tougher adhesive.

Neanderthal tools might look relatively simple, but new research shows that Homo neanderthalensis devised a method of generating a glue derived from birch tar to hold them together about  200,000 years ago—and it was tough. This ancient superglue made bone and stone adhere to wood, was waterproof, and didn’t decompose. The tar was also used a hundred thousand years before modern humans came up with anything synthetic. After studying ancient tools that carry residue from this glue, a team of researchers from the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen and other institutions in Germany found evidence that this glue wasn’t just the original tar; it had been transformed in some way. This raises the question of what was involved in that transformation. To see how Neanderthals could have converted birch tar into glue, the research team tried several different processing methods. Any suspicion that the tar came directly from birch trees didn’t hold up because birch trees do not secrete anything that worked as an adhesive. So what kind of processing was needed? Each technique that was tested used only materials that Neanderthals would have been able to access. Condensation methods, which involve burning birch bark on cobblestones so the tar can condense on the stones, were the simplest techniques used—allowing bark to burn above ground doesn’t really involve much thought beyond lighting a fire. The other methods involved a recipe where the bark was not actually burned but heated after being placed underground. Two of these methods involved burying rolls of bark in embers that would heat them and produce tar. The third method would distill the tar. Because there were no ceramics during the Stone Age, sediment was shaped into upper and lower structures to hold the bark, which was then heated by fire. Distilled tar would slowly drip from the upper structure into the lower one. The resulting tars were all put through chemical and molecular analysis, as well as micro-CT scans, to determine which came closest to the residue on actual Neanderthal tools. Tars synthesized underground were closest to the residue on the original artifacts. “[Neanderthals] distilled tar in an intentionally created underground environment that restricted oxygen flow and remained invisible during the process,” the researchers wrote. “This degree of complexity is unlikely to have been invented spontaneously.”

[andmaybegayer]

Weeping with joy over the idea of a Neanderthal industrial engineer

[lastoneout]

I do actually wonder if part of the reason people start believing ancient aliens type conspiracy bullshit is because they're so divorced from labor they don't understand that a bunch of guys could absolutely quarry a large rock, move it somewhere, and build something with it because that's not actually all that hard or complicated. I've seen people use a simple chisel and hammer to crack boulders the size of houses clean in half, this stuff is a skill that needs to be learned ofc, but the idea that it was impossible for humans to build large, complex, sturdy structures with relatively "primative" tools is so silly I struggle to understand how someone could believe that unless they legit have no idea how labor works.

It's the same beef I have with Fallout. I know they excuse humans being so slow to redevelop society with all "knowledge being lost in the war" but that's just...not how things work. Humans figured out construction and farming very early. There's no way for humans to truly forget how to do this stuff, especially since people survived and could preserve and share what they know. But I just cannot fathom how in 300 years no one's figured out construction or fiber arts or soap making or anything humans have historically figured out super early in the process of being human.

And the only way I can see someone write a world like that is if they either didn't care (fine, it's not real and I get digging the apocalypse vibe) or were so divorced from the process of labor and creation that they actually think those things are way too hard for someone to figure out on their own.

If you think humans couldn't do these things without being taught or helped you have a very warped idea of technological progress and human ingenuity. No one taught humans how to build and create, we figured it out on our own, and it was not just smacking rocks together until something clicked either, ancient humans were just as intelligent as modern ones, they could use logic and reasoning to figure out how to do something new based on what they already know.

Idk it's a theory anyway, but I really do think it's interesting how as a kid I def could believe doing these things is impossible for ancient humans to being an adult who knows things and literally cannot even comprehend believing any of the incredible things ancient humans can do were "impossible" in any way. It wasn't. Humans are incredible, stop underestimating us. And crack open some wiki pages or even youtube tutorials so you get a grasp of how the world works, it's good for you.

[spirit-of-science]

It also bothers me in post-apocalyptic settings that nobody cleans their living space

Tidying, like creating, comes naturally to humans.

No one wants to live in filth, and fixing it doesn't take much "technology" (The technology makes it easier, but most things can be improved greatly with just cloth and water in a pinch.)

What I'm afraid is sometimes happening is that the post-apocalypse is perpetually dirty because the creators think of cleaning as something done by other people. And with the collapse of society, our protagonists have lost their socially created class of other people. And of course, protagonists don't clean...

[wiionme]

[ostolero]

there's a particular romantic quality to this product image for these nitrile gloves holding a thorny rose

[drunkromanogers]

Steve: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  

[evavalor]

interviewer: would you say you’re independent?

steve: *looks to natasha*

natasha: *nods*

steve: yes

[afloweroutofstone]

Bro what

[cryptid-sighting]

I am average American man, I give up dreams of astronaut and work fifteen hours in hog farm to buy one hamburger restaurant

[severalowls]

I've never seen wikipedia express such explicit and relatable confusion. He wasn't an astronaut prospect, he didn't have a NASA job lined up that was suddenly cancelled. He was studying aeronautical engineering and a major engineering disaster in his field, of the sort that inspires young minds to dedicate life's works to solving, and faced with an industry in need of redesign and reform at the dawn of his career, decided to get into hogs, hamburgers and campaigning for aggressive cuts to welfare programs.

[vaporwavesimulator]

hey followers. have you ever wanted to know how it feels to be inside a bag of cornflakes

[officialtokyosan]

ye

[vaporwavesimulator]

enter the cornflakes domain

[runby2]

I fucking hate this website because not only did I click this goddamn link expecting it to be a joke of some sort, but it wasn’t a joke and I sat here spinning the screen around enjoying myself in a stupid bag of cornflakes like the dumbass monkey I am on Tumblr.com, enthralled by being in a bag of corn flakes in

[kerovousphoto]

My cat

[read-and-circuses]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Captain America (Movies) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Nick Fury & Natasha Romanov Characters: Natasha Romanov, Nick Fury, James "Bucky" Barnes, Clint Barton, Maria Hill Additional Tags: Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, S.H.I.E.L.D., Espionage, Childhood Trauma, Violence Committed by a Child, Racism Summary:

Natasha blew all her covers. It's a brave new world.

She'd thought about that later. A lot of life left in you. Not a lot of life before you, not a lot of life left to live, which made life sound like an itinerary, dates and locations, a mission. You could show up or not; life went on without you. A lot of life left in you— it was yours, this allotment, somehow powered by your body: an energy you pushed into the world through your skin. You were an engine of life, in this schema. She'd found that she liked the idea of it.

This is such a gorgeous character study. Wallow in it’s bittersweet beauty.

[atratum]

fic: at the ready

At the Ready. Star Wars, pre-TFA. Poe/Leia, in a one-sided pining sort of way. ~3k, and I won’t call it crack but I can’t say this is a serious treatment of the topic, either. Thanks to the usual suspects for the help with this one.

She could tell Dameron to light himself on fire and he’d say absolutely, General, happy to help! 

Of course she tried not to, but if he kept insisting on volunteering for missions without bothering to find out the parameters first, well. Maybe he deserved what he got.

[read-and-circuses]

Excellent voices for them both, and though Poe is more competent than he realizes, he also has a strange plucky dignity and is damned good at being a body man.

More impressively, Atrata pulls off the strained patience and gruff compassion that make Leia so tricky to write well.

[read-and-circuses]

Where each of the Avengers has different powers, but still get together to fight the fights we never could.

I read this series in reverse because it popped up in my incredibly specific search for longish gen fic that included Bruce Banner. And I’m kind of glad I did, because while the individual stories leading up to the final “Assembly” are wonderful, they aren’t completely necessary for the enjoyment. (Read ‘em anyway).

I love a good AU, and the premise of this one is so intriguing – what if the people were the same, but their powers were different? And it’s a beautifully literal interpretation. For the most part, the backgrounds are the same (with some variance) or at least hew to MCU (and some comics canon), but the skills and abilities they gain are different. Natasha is Captain America (seriously? That alone was enough to sell me on it), Steve is a spy, Tony a god, and Thor is Iron Man, Bruce creates the monster…but not in himself, instead in sniper and volunteer Clint Barton.

It’s team work, and the strengths and weaknesses still show through in who these folks are, but it’s a delight. Well written, well paced, and such a fun, fully realized vision of a “What If?”

[read-and-circuses]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Maria Hill, Pepper Potts, Original Female Character Additional Tags: everyone wants to hire Maria Hill, Maria Hill's terrible horrible no good very bad weeks, Maria Hill has no time for your bullshit, Pepper Potts has no time for your bullshit, Pepper Potts and her team of badass ladies, ladies in the Tower, hypercompetent women Series: Part 1 of Settle in and find your home Summary:

"No offense meant, but I'm not up for games, Pepper - what do you want?"

Pepper startles Maria by being just as blunt - not that Pepper plays around much, but she's usually one for observing basic social niceties and putting the kind of lead-up to a conversation that means you more or less know where things are going. Apparently not right now. She just takes her cue from Maria instead.

"I want you to sign this," she says, as Eva takes a folder out of her bag and leans over to place the SI-stationery file she takes out of that in front of Maria on the table, "I want you to take the job I'm offering you, and I want you to sort out the absolute fucking rats'-nest of a mess in the security and personnel end of my company. I want to make goddamn sure that nobody ever manages to do what they did on Insight Day again."

~*~

This story is competence porn catnip, and I want to roll around in it on the rug.  It’s a macaron of character work--so light and airy that the technical skill melts on the tongue.  You never question that this snarky end-of-her-rope Maria is the same person Nick Fury trusts to be his right hand, the one who infiltrated HYDRA with a half-second of notice, and who is a major score for Pepper Potts.

And this Pepper Potts is a force of nature.

There are more stories in this writer’s series, which I plan to dive into soon, but this is so excellent I thought it’d be a great re-christening for bringing back @read-and-circuses.

Roll around in the glorious wry, and don’t forget to drop the author a nice comment!

[read-and-circuses]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Bruce Banner/Natasha Romanov, Melinda May/Natasha Romanov, Natasha - Relationship Characters: Melinda May, Natasha Romanov Additional Tags: Friendship, Friendship/Love, Late Night Conversations, Drinking & Talking Summary:

Two old friends, with similar spectacularly lethal skill sets, walk into a bar. How Melinda took care of Natasha's watchful heart.

~*~

Two SHIELD agents walk into a bar...

It's a common assumption in the "girls' night out/ladies who lunch" trope that women who work together are friends outside of work.  This piece doesn't take that connection for granted, which is why I love it.

Kaffyrutsky lays out a small moment of vulnerability and fellowship here, Melinda supporting Natasha, but it's a jewel set in greater context.  This story digs into why Natasha and Melinda are friends, and how they got there in the first place.  Their relationship has weight and evolved history and is built on mutual understanding that's hard for each of them to find.

This is how and why Melinda and Natasha would be friends; not because they're both small and lethal and cool to the touch, but because they are tender in their practicality, practical in their tenderness.