sienna

Big nerd for fantasy/soft sci-fi, art, life

[dragon-in-a-fez]

one time I told my therapist "I tend to have issues with people who think of themselves as authority figures" and she burst out laughing and then said "I think we need to pause and reflect on how you phrased that"

[sailorbrazil]

thursday..... and i bet you wish you were her

[maniakminis]

quit your job

join my band of mercenaries

[notactuallyherefor]

How's the dental?

[maniakminis]

you can have all the teeth you can carry

[oliviawhen]

Just swimming by to say hello. 🦭

[teaboot]

oh this is genius

[stars-inthe-sky]

A 50-year Trekkie bestows Star Trek history upon the next generation: How fandom and fanfiction sparked the galaxy’s most controversial romance

Beam me up, Grandma

A wonderful piece about fandom history, friendships, and legacies.

[legobiwan]

Dee called AO3 a “candy store,” and said the fan art she has seen, in particular, has been overwhelming. “I cannot get over the art,” she said. “We would have jumped at this. I would’ve given my right tit for all this art when I was in my twenties. Because you couldn’t reproduce it, you couldn’t send it out, but [now] there’s this fabulous art coming out every single day.”

[skyywalkerfen]

Yes. Yes. Yes.  This is how it happened.  Excellent article.

[spockslash]

Thanks to the author for permission to share this here, and for being just a really nice human being, and big thanks to the artist who did my mom’s portrait, above. -Zachary

[wintergrey]

Link as of April 2026

[wolvesintheflowers-deactivated2]

I laughed to hard at this fucking thing.

[nattousan]

[vanessagillings]

Calico cat in a calico coat!

[deadelated]

we all have the homie that's a cautionary tale

[deadelated]

had

[daenerys-stormborn]

"There are legends of people born with the gift of making music so true, it can pierce the veil between life and death. Conjuring spirits from the past and the future." SINNERS (2025) dir. Ryan Coogler

[tainted-scholar]

Rewatching Treasure Planet (great movie, watch it) made realize something about the way that stories convey information to their audiences. There's been a lot of discussion on the overuse of plot twists and how many stories prioritise surprising their audience over telling decent stories. However, if you instead reveal the "twist" to the audience before it becomes known to the characters, you can build tension and stakes. Treasure Planet comes right out and tells you that Long John Silver is the main villain almost immediately after his introduction (And even before he's introduced we're warned about a cyborg, so you'd have to be pretty dense to not put 2 and 2 together and realize he's a bad guy). So when the audience watches him and Jim bond and grow closer, it builds tension for when Jim finds out and it highlights the tragedy of their friendship, because we all know it's not going to end well. Then, after the truth is revealed, stakes are created because we want the friendship between Jim and Silver to be repaired, because we know it was real, but we don't know if can be after what Silver's done. And all of this would have been lost if Silver's true nature had been a cheap plot twist. The tragedy would be completely overshadowed by the surprise and betrayal, and any investment in their relationship would have been built on the false impression that Silver was a good guy.

Another good example of this is Titanic. Even if you were somehow ignorant of the ship's sinking, the film makes sure you know that it sank with its framing device of Old Rose telling her story to people salvaging the Titanic's wreak. And Titanic's plot structure could only possibly work if you know the ship is going to sink. I'm not just talking about building tension, tragedy, and stakes for the characters like with the above example, I mean that if you didn't know that the Titanic was going down walking into the film, the abrupt shift from romance to suspense-disaster would be an increadibly tough pill to swallow. But it works because we expect it. You don't walk into a film called Titanic without expecting the damn boat to sink.

However, the sad thing about both of these examples, is that despite all the benefits that came from telling the audience these things ahead of time, I think the main reason the creators didn't make them plot twists was because they couldn't have. Treasure Island is the single most influential piece of pirate media out there, and you'd have to have been living under a rock for over a century to not know the Titanic sank. So, the writers had to work around the fact that these important turning points in the narratives were common knowledge, and they wound creating incredible stories as a consequence.

I want to see more of this style of writing in stories where the writers aren't forced to do it. We've clearly seen that you can tell some really damn good stories by giving information to the audience before the characters learn it, and I just wish more works would do that instead of trying to surprise people with shocking twists.

[skeleton-richard]

@the-golden-ghost !!!

[laropasucia]

This is also why most adaptations of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde don't follow the mystery plot structure of the original book, since everyone already knows they're the same person, no one will be surprised by that twist nowadays.

As a consequence, most adaptations of the story are told mainly from Jekyll's point of view, and the conflict between Jekyll and Hyde becomes the main story, which makes for really compelling drama!

[beleester]

We are now having a very innocent little chat. Let’s suppose that there is a bomb underneath this table between us. Nothing happens, and then all of a sudden, “Boom!” There is an explosion. The public is surprised, but prior to this surprise, it has seen an absolutely ordinary scene, of no special consequence. Now, let us take a suspense situation. The bomb is underneath the table and the public knows it, probably because they have seen the anarchist place it there. The public is aware the bomb is going to explode at one o’clock and there is a clock in the decor. The public can see that it is a quarter to one. In these conditions, the same innocuous conversation becomes fascinating because the public is participating in the scene. The audience is longing to warn the characters on the screen: “You shouldn’t be talking about such trivial matters. There is a bomb beneath you and it is about to explode!” In the first case we have given the public fifteen seconds of surprise at the moment of the explosion. In the second we have provided them with fifteen minutes of suspense. The conclusion is that whenever possible the public must be informed. Except when the surprise is a twist, that is, when the unexpected ending is, in itself, the highlight of the story.

--Alfred Hitchcock, on the difference between surprise and suspense.

[ilyapasta]

What’s everyone’s favorite queer book? Doesn’t have to be a romance novel or have an HEA, but I’m open to anything. For romance novels, I’m not a huge fan of Cat Sebastian but I love KJ Charles and Sebastian Nothwell (you should follow him on tumblr). I’m reading Maurice right now though and would be into some classics as well. Anything. Show me your favorite queers.

[leebrontide]

My head is presently empty but you nerds(proud) should have some good suggestions.

[lpetersonwrites]

I'm supposed to pick ONE?!

Okay, here's a relatively short list:

The Breakaway series (starting with Like Real People Do) by EL Massey (aka @xiaq) is a big comfort read for me. These are hockey romances that get me right in the feels, full of witty characters who don't want to get vulnerable but find ways to trust each other anyway.

When the Tides Held the Moon by Venessa Kelley (aka @vkelleyart) is a historical romantasy that was clearly written with so much love and so much research. It's immersive and beautiful, and it has so much to say about solidarity among outcasts and how we are all we have, but together we are enough.

Skullrunner by Vyvre Argent (aka @vyvre-argent) is an epic fantasy about lesbian pirates, colonial "democracies," the relationship between memory and truth, gods that split via mitosis, and how to trust yourself when everything you were taught was a lie. Extremely validating if you're autistic and have dealt with gaslighting.

A Lady for a Duke by Alexis Hall is a historical romance about a trans woman who's presumed dead in the Napoleonic wars, takes the opportunity to transition and invent a new identity for herself, and winds up re-encountering her childhood best friend, who's wracked with guilt over her "death." They fall in love about it eventually.

I've loved many more queer books, but these are some of my favorites.

[xiaq]

Ayyy it’s me. But also, I can co-sign every one of the others (Tides and ALFAD are both in my top ten!).

[thememedaddy]

[finaltribalcouncil]

this is the funniest thing in the entire world

[angelbud]

derry girls be like i can excuse hatred for the english but i draw the line at homophobia

[fecktrecool-deactivated20220314]

[bennywiththebedhair]

Iconic.

[butterflypeaflowertea]

ever since i was a little girl i knew i was doomed to take things too seriously and think about them forever

[kushblazer666]

[flowercrownsylveon]

[yuriwinged]

the prince has begun practicing curtseying in the mirror. which could mean nothing.

[heydocverdant]

we have good news and bad news, my liege. the good news is that we now know what that curtsying was about: you will be pleased to know that, after several heartfelt conversations between your child, the court jesters and a myriad of singing woodland creatures, you are now the parent of a proud and joyful new princess. the bad news is that, due to a series of events related to the dragon-sized hole in her bedchamber wall,

[illmoraineakoi]

I love the insinuation that the second the princess realized she was a girl and thus actually a princess, the dragon was there. That thing wasted no time. It heard "princess" and was like "I need no further invitation, here I come."

Gender affirmed by Dragon. Amazing.

[heydocverdant]

pretty sure you’re literally the only person who understood my vision on this accursed post

[mayakern]

tender 🧡