The Very Edge of Reason

[sarahtheblack]

Meme

I was tagged by @felisblanco - thank you!

Currently Reading : I'm taking a break from highbrow literature after it took me months upon months to read One Hundred Years of Solitude. Now I'm reading something called: "The Wife and the Widow" by Christian White. It's an Australian book and so far it's a decent enough read.

Last Song : I don't know, we were playing Hitster during our lunch break at work and it was some random song from that. (I looked it up! It was: "Story of My Life" by One Direction, hahaha.)

Last Film : Umm, I've mainly been watching TV shows lately. I think the last movie I watched might have been "Mean Girls". But I know that the next movie I watch will be Rogue One; I need to watch it again because of Andor.

Last Series : I'm watching Will Trent at the moment, and High Potential before that.

Sweet/Savory/Salty : Sweet is number one, then savory, then salty.

Tea or Coffee : Tea. A chai latte when I'm feeling fancy, but any black tea will make me happy.

Working On : Not writing anything at the moment. Just wrapping up my RL job before starting a new job on the 11th of August.

I’m tagging everyone who feels like doing this!

[sarahtheblack]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/66690928

Stannis the Microbiology manager!! 🤓🥰✨

[sarahtheblack]

[filmgifs]

BARBIE (2023) dir. Greta Gerwig

[sarahtheblack]

Meme

@justdelovely tagged me a while ago, thank you!

Name(s): Sarah Black is my nickname online, but my real name is different.

Pronouns: she/her

Other blogs: Dreamwidth

Zodiac signs: Taurus in the western zodiac, but I'm year of the Rabbit in the Chinese zodiac. I don't read my horoscope every day, but I enjoy the reels I see that have to do with these things. When I was little I was very disappointed I was not a Virgo like my sister, which sounded to me like a much more feminine sign. Haha.

A book you love: Pride and Prejudice is up there among my favourites (same as @justdelovely's answer! ) - I love how it has stood the test of time and how many other pieces of art it has inspired.

A musician or band you love: I love David Bowie because he's my husband's all time favourite artist and now all his songs are connected to my love for my husband and to many good memories we've had together listening to DB's music.

A movie you love: Clueless is one of my most loved. I love the Emma connection, and it's just a comfort.

A TV series you love: I love that Game of Thrones got me into being active in a fandom for good long while. But the fact that they ruined the ending sort of soured the love a bit. I love Supernatural for the role it played in creating a very cherished group of friends I still have in RL. I love House MD. for being a comfort show during my Uni years.

Who are your celebrity crushes? Stephen Dillane, Sam Rockwell, John Slattery (especially in Mad Men)

I'm tagging anyone who comes across this and might want to do this.

[sarahtheblack]

Fandom question meme

I was tagged by @felisblanco !

1. How many works on AO3?

33

2. Total AO3 Word Count?

1,744,372

3. Top 5 fics by Kudos?

1. Queen of the Seven Kingdoms (4,919 Kudos), 2. The Lady of Storm's End (4,445 Kudos), 3. An Inconvenient King (1,217 Kudos), 4. The Admiral's Eyes (1,175 Kudos) and 5. The Baratheon Patient (1,118 Kudos)

All Stannis/Sansa fics, haha.

4. What fandoms do you write for?

I mostly have ASOIAF fic to my name, but back in the olden times I used to write a bit of HP fic. I've also written one random Labyrinth fic.

5. Do you respond to comments?

Nearly always! Sometimes I get distracted and then forget for a while, but I usually always end up responding eventually. (Sometimes I won't respond if the comment is an emoji or something similar that contains very little for me to respond to.)

6. Angstiest Ending?

I think Sunrise might be my angstiest story - the ending is fairly happy, but it's not the fluffy happy ending that I tend to prefer.

7. Fic with the Happiest Ending?

I think they're all pretty happy. But I really like the ending to Queen of the Seven Kingdoms

8. Do you get hate?

I recall getting the occasional nasty comment, but nothing crazy.

9. Do you write smut?

Yes!

10. Do you write crossovers?

I haven't really done a full-blown crossover, but Discworld's Death has a cameo in A Christmas Carol 

11. Ever had a fic stolen?

I've seen a couple re-posted at different sites, but usually they still refer to me as the author. So they've been distributed without my permission, but no one has tried to steal credit. (As far as I know.)

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I don't think so?

13. Have you ever co-written a fic?

Yes! An Inconvenient King and the sequel is cowritten with @bluecichlid - good times!

14. All time favourite ship?

My most recent OTP is Stannis/Sansa, and it's the one that has inspired me to write the most fic, so I think we'll go with that one.

15. WIPs you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

There were two sequels planned for An Inconvenient King, and I actually have completed drafts, but I doubt they'll ever get edited and posted. C'est la vie.

16. Writing Strengths?

Smut that isn't too cringe? Idk.

17. Writing Weaknesses?

I'm terrible at writing descriptions/setting the scene. Mainly because I'm not a very visual reader and tend not to care what any given location looks like. I'm happy just knowing that it's a living room/kitchen/restaurant/whatever. I don't need any information about the decor that isn't directly relevant to the plot. Hahaha.

18. Thoughts on mixed language dialogue?

I don't mind it when I encounter it, but prefer that the author includes a translation if it's not something that can be easily understood through context. I can't remember if I've done much of it, tbh.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Harry Potter. Experiencing the three year summer was very special at the time, and even though JKR's decision to become a terrible person has since soured the whole thing, I will remain grateful to the fans that made that time period in my life so unique.

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

Probably a toss up between Queen of the Seven Kingdoms and Sunrise. The former because I'm just so proud of beating that monster of a story into submission, and the latter because it was inspired by @emynithilien's wonderful story: To Play it With You and I really enjoyed playing in the AU she created.

Tagging everyone who wants an excuse to do this!

[sarahtheblack]

[sarahtheblack]

[all-my-simpings]

[sarahtheblack]

[miiilowo]

days used to last all day. now days last 5 hours. If you're lucky

[tricktster]

I ever tell you guys about my ethically dubious radio show back in college? The Mad Dad Hour?

[tricktster]

it was an entire radio show built around perpetuating a very simple joke, but it was uniquely powerful in its capacity to prompt the reaction I was looking for.

so my slot was at the tail end of rush hour, and i got a fair number of listeners/callers who were on the way home from the office. And like, I had a lot of callers, who almost all wanted to request songs that really didn’t fit with the aesthetic. I had pitched a power pop show when i got my slot, but the callers were not having it; they invariably wanted classic rock.

this made sense in a way. if you think about the demographics of the people who listened to the radio for music in 2010 instead of their ipods or cds or whatever, you’d expect them to skew older right? accordingly, i quickly realized that almost all of the people who called to request songs were Dads of a Certain Age. It was honestly annoying at first - I’m all for most classic rock, but that wasn’t what the show was supposed to be.

And so one day, when i was feeling particularly annoyed with requests that just didn’t fit thematically, i came up with the joke that rapidly became the only reason I kept the show going. Per station rules, I had to play a certain number of pre-recorded PSAs during my show, and before I cut to one I was supposed to read out the song titles and artists for all the music i had played before the break. So this one day when i had to inform the world before the break that the song they just heard was, per a listener’s request, Hey Jude by the Beatles, I decided to do a goof. I said:

“and finally, that last song you heard was Hey Jude, which was of course written and performed by the Rolling Stones.”

I barely had time to get the ads going before the phone started ringing. See, I had been assuming people would realize i was making an obvious joke by claiming one of the most well-known Beatles tracks was a Stones song, but i had failed to consider that my listeners were mostly 55-70 year old dads who were irritated from a long day in the office.

And when those dads heard me, a millennial woman, get the artist of an extremely well-known beatles song WRONG???!

they HAD to call in to correct my ignorance. never in a polite way either, it was condescending and annoyed or nothing. and like, they were just SO personally insulted by my inaccurate reporting that it took a massive amount of effort for me to avoid cracking up during the call. I had never understood why some people would enjoy trolling random strangers on the internet before, but in that moment, I understood the appeal entirely.

obviously i did it again right before the next commercial break, immediately after playing Don’t Stop Me Now by Queen David Bowie.

the phone immediately began to ring.

“ARE YOU AN IDIOT?” one of the callers began, “DAVID BOWIE???? THAT WAS QUEEN!”

“I thought David Bowie was the lead singer of Queen though?” I replied with as much innocent earnestness as i could conjure.

I could hear an intake of breath as the infuriated boomer on the other end of the line struggled to figure out where to even start.

And thus, the Mad Dad Hour was born.

[tricktster]

@eduards-stuff I kept doing the same joke for an hour a week for an entire year, and the dads NEVER caught on. After episode 1 of the new format I started taking the angry dad calls on air, which added another layer of hilarity to the whole concept.

My friends on campus knew that hay I was doing and enjoyed tuning in, but only one actual listener ever figured out what I was doing, and he was literally a random 30 year old guy from the netherlands with access to an early internet connection radio service. He was possibly my only actual fan. I only know about him because he went to the effort of making a skype and paying for international service so he could call in, and while I got a few calls from him, the first remains my favorite:

me: hi there, you’ve got TST-

him: *strained, wheezing dutch laughter*

me: hey, is everything o-

him: pfffHAHAHAAH YOU MAKE THEM SO MAD. THEY THINK SO LITTLE OF YOUUUUUUUU BUT THE MEN ARE THE ONES WHO ARE FOOLISH! HA! HA! HA! YOU HAVE DUPED THEM!

me: sir i do not know you and i have never even seen you but i am in romantic love with you.

[sarahtheblack]

[ao3org]

A couple of our servers have gotten a bit overwhelmed, so we're taking some down time to give them a chance to catch up. We'll be back as soon as possible!

2024-09-02 11:30 UTC

[sarahtheblack]

[sarahtheblack]

[notsfw]

PLEASE REBLOG

Cases of domestic violence skyrocket in the UK when England are in a tense spot in an international football tournament.

Please reblog this for anyone who's partner might take the loss too heavy tonight.

Please reblog this for anyone who's partner might drink too much if they win.

Reblog this for those who are in danger tonight.

Please.