Did you hear that?

Very definitely not the final frontier

[409-conflict]

Someone tell teenage me I would end up still crushing on him, twenty years later, for his avid crypto-fraud agenda

[thefakebernadettebanner]

Happy 20th anniversary to They're Taking the Hobbits to Isengard specifically

[spaceahoy]

Doctor Who spin-off's Ianto's Shrine in Cardiff to be taken down after 17 years

Fans are "devastated" that Ianto's Shrine will be removed for health and safety work at Mermaid Quay in Cardiff.

[ginalinettiofficial]

so i just went as far back as possible in my ao3 history (and damn yall tbt a time before ao3. what a bleak world that was when we had to either go digging for forums of specific fandoms or use fanfiction dot net my most beloathed!!! we are so blessed. thank you ao3)

and apparently i have read or visited something like 11,600 individual fics since i got on ao3!!! which both feels very big and very small.

i got this number by going to history, scrolling to the bottom, seeing how many pages of history i have, and multiplying that number by twenty (cuz ao3 lists 20 results per page). 580 pages of results = ~11,600 individual fics. (ao3 sorts rereads of the same fic as one result, and also counts deleted fics in results!!!)

which made me so curious:

approximately how many fics have you read/visited on ao3, based on your ao3 history (# of pages of results on your ‘history’ page x 20)???

0 - 100

101 - 500

501 - 1,000

1,001 - 3,000

3,001 - 6,000

6,001 - 10,000

10,001 - 15,000

15,001 - 20,000

20,001 - 25,000

25,001 - 30,000

30,001 +

i do not have an ao3 account :-(

Voting ended onMar 16

[anghraine]

I am the other person that still loves the 90s might and magic games

They were so good!!

I'm not sure I am even capable of feeling more nostalgic about any piece of media than Might and Magic VII specifically (1999 so technically a 90s M&M game :D). It's one of the first RPGs that I personally mastered rather than simply watching my parents play it and eventually figuring it out; my mother and I used to play it at the same computer, with her playing our thief and wizard, and me the cleric and knight. And damn, it had so many fantastic elements:

an absolutely massive variety of potential armors to wear that often looked comically terrible together

potion experiments that you can theoretically figure out/learn (but you might die in the process!!)

ARCOMAGE

really cool class progression tied in with skills - I still really like the mechanic where e.g. your cleric has to become a full priest in order to master spirit magic

I always really liked how in-game pricing is affected by your general reputation in a specific region AND a specific character's Personality stat AND having the merchant skill to a certain numerical rank AND specifically upgrading your merchant skill to a higher tier...

one of my favorite cheats in the late game: get your high-level wizard's Water Magic to grandmaster. Get the high-level priest's Merchant to grandmaster as well. Use the priest to buy good quality non-magical goods at their exact value. Give the purchases to the wizard and cast "Enchant Item" at grandmaster level. Give your enchanted items back to the priest to sell at full value as magic items. PROFIT.

Queen Catherine, always my fave! I don't think I ever sided with Avlee, honestly, she's just so much cooler than the elf king.

your castle starting out as a trash heap and getting fancier and fancier as your prestige grows and you make friends and influence people

the barrow downs catacombs maze is one of the first gaming puzzles I ever personally solved. Everyone else in my family was baffled and I put together the trick to navigate them and get to the meditation spot.

the choice! I was using to very railroad-y games and actually being able to make a decision that changes the plot is so cool. I did try to choose the path of evil once, but I just can't, lol.

those special magic ore houses in Erathia? I loved that.

tracking down the teachers for every single skill at every single level and figuring out where they live and how to get there etc - it really does feel like an accomplishment (especially Nighon, good lord).

If the tutorial was skippable I'd probably have a zillion hours still logged on it, honestly.

[anghraine]

So I was unpacking some boxes of books that have been sealed up for more years that I could even guess at and, folded in a corner, discovered a very important relic of the past! BEHOLD

[sparklyslug]

I hope George Blagden is having a nice day

[pangur-and-grim]

read a book review where someone said "I didn't like X character so I skipped all their chapters. really wish this book had [thing present in X character's chapters]."

and.......I guess that's fine because we're all free citizens in this beautiful world, but I didn't know you could do that. I didn't know you could just skip chapters.

[curlicuecal]

#and then a friend told me that some people only read the dialogue and skip everything else#???????

One time online a homestuck fan told me that they never read pesterlogs

[exhuastedpigeon]

Catherine O'Hara 1954 - 2026

Catherine O'Hara was one of the funniest actresses of her generation, maybe of all time. She made generations laugh from SCTV to Home Alone to Best in Show to Schitt's Creek, there was no one like her. She will be so dearly missed.

[duckdotcom]

You're a boy? Like backstreet?

[yesornopolls]

if you wear glasses, have you ever accidentally left the house without them?

If you wear glasses, have you ever accidentally left the house without them?

Yes

No

See results

Voting ended onJan 6

[spaceahoy]

real life emotional jump-scare:

Respected Colleague: yeah i've been getting into a few different shows lately. Just started watching Supernatural, have you heard of it?

Me, who knows the supernatural lore after decades on this godforsaken site: well that's . . . . interesting

[a-kind-of-merry-war]

The problem with trying to come up with a way to say "this book has sex in" is that there's loads of options which all mean different things and none are perfect. Like...

clean/wholesome vs dirty - obviously this one is bullshit, we don't need to talk about why

smut/smutty - a classique. Pretty good, but feels like its falling out of favour.

steamy - as above, really. feels slightly more vague, makes me assume it's sexy but not explicit. More dated - been replaced by spicy.

erotic - erotica is a whole genre to itself, with different parameters to romance. Conflating the two weakens genre defninitions for both.

explicit - does what it says on the tin, but risks sounding a bit clinical. If steamy is make outs and fondling, explicit is genitals getting described up-close.

spicy - gets a lot of complaints, but lends itself well to a rating scale and is very popular

open/closed door - this is a good shorthand, but not very familiar to people who aren't reading romance. Again, doesn't rate very easily - a closed door is a closed door, but the open door could lead to either slow vanilla missionary or a full-on BDSM scene.

porn/pornography - comes with a lot of assumptions which makes it harder to use in certain spaces. Sits at the 5/5 end of the scale in my head. Similar to erotica in that its a distinct genre.

saucy - this is just a Carry On film. no one is aroused.

sexy - too vague. colin firth fully clothed in a pond is sexy. gwendoline christie in plate armour is sexy. that one fish from finding nemo is sexy. brushing hands described in the right way is sexy. could mean anything.

this book has sex in it - literally no

Then you've got the problem that websites like tiktok and instagram, which is where most marketing happens, can surpress content that's too sexy, especially if its queer, and authors are being forced to be over-cautious with the words they use.

And we also can't forget too that on these platforms you have to catch people's interest really quickly, and often they might not read the description. So you have to catch people as quickly as possible, using as few words as possible.

[thekijs]

[mollyjames]

Always embarrassing realizing you don't know basic facts about your friends. Like yeah hey, here's this person I love dearly, I've known them for 23 years, we've been through so much together. They're currently working in a lab.... developing... medicine? and also getting a PhD. I think. Don't ask me what subject.

[richaldis]

[modmad]

hey so this isn't a sponsored post or anything I just REALLY love this whacky family business shoe shop, and it's in trouble!

Irregular Choice are a really zany UK shoe store and they're having a HUGE sale while they're in difficulties- if you want to save a totally unique shoe store with whimsy and class in equal amounts, please go check out Irregular Choice while they're still here!

Irregular Choice - Original Footwear to Stand Out From the Crowd

Buy Irregular Choice shoes, boots, handbags and jewellery online. View the largest and most complete Irregular Choice collections, from desi

[electricbluenb]

what? this is so sad. I know many of us here are not in place to do whimsical purchases but. if you are. consider this store.

like I absolutely fell in love with these pairs from first sight

(I'm actually happy to see that the plaid model is nearly sold out and I hope they bring a lot of happiness to their owners.)

[modmad]

reblogging with this addition, it looks like people are taking action- which is fantastic! maybe you can too! get some soles for the soul!

[spaceahoy]

Love these shoes! They come in really cute boxes as well, and I find them really comfortable.

I hope they manage to find a fix and keep going as a business!

[spaceahoy]

I started watching Old Guard 2 when it came out, got distracted by something else, and forgot entirely about the rest of it until now.

Which shows how boring I found it.

I loved the first film! A fun action film with some awesome characters and great relationships, I was so looking forward to the sequel and I'm so disappointed that it just ended up being blaaaaaaaaaah.

[actordougjones]

Regarding yesterday’s Labor Day post - I keep forgetting that at my age, a black & white artsy photo, holding a flower, with a Bible verse could give some of you a scare. So sorry 🙏🏻❤️ As Mark Twain once said, “Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”

dougjones #stillalive