Just Like A Glitter Rainstorm

N64 age and queer. While you're here, you'll mostly find: People being awesome and having faces, and gratuitous nerdgasms over things.

[datasoong47]

Justin of the Timber Lake: A mythical figure revered in the early 21st century as the Harbinger of May, thought to be the name of a deity, or possibly some sort of messianic figure

Excerpt from A History of Pre-Contact Earth, published 2903

[syrupmap]

It's our day Due South fandom!

[valtsv]

oh my god god god god god my dad just tried to complain about me wearing earrings with ghosts on them because they're "not very festive" so i said Well Actually ghosts are very appropriate for christmastime and he said tell you what if you can show me a single christmas themed thing that has ghosts in it i won't say another word about your fashion choices this entire holiday. i Promise. so i got him to lean in realllllll close as i opened up the browser app on my phone and slowly began to type "A CHRISTMAS CAROL" while the blood rapidly drained from his face.

[hellodarjeeling]

Enjoy your synthetic meatloaf turkey everyone

[meggie-stardust]

It’s so wild when you remember that “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles” is the godfather to all the tropey seasonal fanfic that we all know and love. This single film contains:

- Travel gone wrong around the holidays.

- Enemies turned friends

- Oh no, only one bed in this hotel room

-  Getting drunk together

- Inviting your new friend home for the holidays

- and so on

Like, sure. No one was rooting for Steve Martin and John Candy to get together at the end (probably), but if you replaced them with your pairing of choice, you would totally read this fic (and you probably already have).

[meggie-stardust]

I still stand by this take. This film is a) hilarious b) an underrated John Hughes and c) is made up of everyone’s favorite fic tropes.

[meggie-stardust]

Annual reminder to watch the classic enemies to lovers Thanksgiving movie: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

[stars-bean]

Sherlock Holmes (2009) dir. Guy Ritchie

[lukearnold]

[jellybracelet]

[writing-prompt-s]

A king who doesn't really want to and isn't able to run the kingdom properly catches wind of a noble woman who wants to kill him to take over and he realizes she is extremely competent so he decides to propose to her to save everyone the hassle and they have a surprisingly healthy relationship.

[sleeplessspell]

A Reasonable Proposal

King Aerlin the Third of Aelren did not like ruling.

He didn’t dislike it because of the wars, or the finances, or the elaborate diplomacy involved in placating half-drunk barons in jewel-toned doublets. No, his dislike was more fundamental. He simply wasn’t good at it.

He tried, at first. Earnestly, even. But policies blurred into parchment sludge, council meetings turned into passive-aggressive theatre, and every attempt to act “kingly” seemed to offend someone important. The advisors whispered that he was too soft. The generals claimed he was too hesitant. The high clergy said he lacked divine conviction.

He found solace in books, wandering his sprawling library with a glass of something amber in hand, or escaping to the gardens to sketch flowers he couldn’t name. On paper, his signature was elegant. In person, he was a walking apology wrapped in a crown.

But fate, ever fond of irony, had other plans for him.

And so it was that King Aerlin learned—while half-asleep at a council meeting about grain tariffs—that Lady Mirena of Lirenthal had been overheard plotting to kill him.

“...a subtle poison, Your Majesty,” droned Chancellor Vallis, squinting through his bifocals. “Very clean. Allegedly undetectable. She’s even assembled supporters, minor lords mostly. All quite impressed with her... ah, administrative acumen.”

Aerlin blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“She means to kill you, sire,” said General Rennor cheerfully, slicing an apple with a dagger far too large for fruit. “And frankly, if she were aiming to win hearts and minds, she’s doing a marvelous job.”

“Why is no one alarmed by this?”

“She’d be a more effective ruler,” muttered Lady Vyne, one of his oldest council members. “You’re sweet, Aerlin, but sweet isn’t a strategy.”

“She’s also thirty-three and unmarried,” added the Master of Coin. “Ambition tends to curdle when there’s no outlet.”

Aerlin stared at them all.

“So, let me be clear,” he said slowly. “A noblewoman is plotting to assassinate me, and you’re all... supportive?”

The room exchanged looks.

“She’s really very competent,” Vallis offered weakly.

And so, that night, Aerlin read the report in full.

Lady Mirena of House Lirenthal—originating from a side branch of her family—was born to obscurity and rose like wildfire. She managed estates with uncanny efficiency, implemented fair tax schemes in her region, and had allegedly turned a struggling orphanage into a self-sustaining institution in under a year. Her public works were admired. Her speeches circulated in pamphlets. She was rumored to read three languages and had once bested a general in a game of Go in under twenty moves.

She was, in short, exactly the kind of person Aerlin wished was in charge.

He closed the dossier and sipped his wine, thinking. Killing her would be a political nightmare. Letting her kill him would be—while somewhat tempting—not ideal for the kingdom. Or himself.

That left one option.

Mirena was not pleased to be summoned.

She arrived at the palace flanked by two silent attendants and clad in steel-gray silk, the color of dignity under threat. Her mouth was drawn in a polite, disdainful line. She curtsied with mechanical grace.

“Your Majesty,” she said, as though addressing a bee she hoped wouldn’t sting.

Aerlin dismissed the guards. “Thank you for coming. I promise I won’t waste your time.”

“Then let us speak plainly,” she replied. “You’re aware I’ve considered removing you.”

He appreciated her honesty. “Yes. I read the report.”

“Then I assume you’ve summoned me to threaten, bribe, or execute.”

“None of the above.”

That gave her pause. A tiny vertical line appeared between her brows.

“I want to propose,” he said.

A beat.

“Propose what?” she asked, cautiously.

“Marriage.”

She blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Look,” Aerlin gestured vaguely at a chair, then sat across from her. “Everyone thinks you’d make a better ruler. They’re not wrong. You’re smart. Capable. Terrifying. I, meanwhile, once got lost in my own wine cellar.”

She didn’t laugh. But the corner of her mouth twitched.

“So why not save everyone the trouble?” he continued. “You want the throne. I don’t. But if you kill me, there’s a succession crisis, maybe a civil war, probably famine—”

“I have plans in place for a famine,” she interrupted.

“I don’t doubt it,” he said with a smile. “But here’s a better way. Marry me. Rule as queen. I’ll stay out of your way. I’ll go to ribbon-cuttings and pretend to care about tournaments. You handle the real governance. And in return, both the kingdom and I survive and thrive.”

Mirena stared at him.

“This is not how power is transferred,” she said slowly.

“Neither is assassination,” he replied.

Silence fell. Then she said, “Do you have any idea what you’re offering?”

“Salvation?” he said, only half joking.

“No. Legitimacy. You’d give your crown to a woman the nobles barely tolerate, who has no royal blood—”

“Everyone thinks you’re from the side family. No one needs to know you were adopted.”

Her eyes narrowed slightly.

“So you’ve done your digging.”

“I wanted to know my potential future wife,” he said, unashamed. “Originally named Maeve, orphaned at six by the Frontier Crisis. Adopted at fourteen by Duchess Elen of Lirenthal because you looked and behaved remarkably regal. You’ve been hiding that ever since.”

She looked away. “It shouldn’t matter.”

“I agree. But it does. So use me.”

At that, she tilted her head. Studied him like one might study an unusually articulate frog.

“And what do you want out of this, truly?”

Aerlin paused. “I want someone competent in charge. I want the kingdom to survive. I want to go back to reading poems and failing at painting. And maybe... I want someone who doesn’t look at me like I’m a failure just because I hate ruling.”

There was another silence, but softer this time.

“You’re ridiculous,” she said finally.

“Frequently.”

She stood.

“I’ll consider it.”

He didn’t expect her to say yes.

But three days later, she returned.

“I accept,” she said simply.

The wedding was small, by royal standards. Mirena refused most of the excess and insisted the remaining budget be redirected to emergency granaries in the floodplains. The nobles grumbled, but they knew better than to challenge her now.

Publicly, the marriage was framed as a political union of stability and shared vision. Privately, the court whispered of the strange couple: the incompetent king and the ambitious queen.

They weren’t lovers. Not at first. But something like respect bloomed between them.

Mirena took to ruling like a sitsi to water. She restructured the tax system, appointed common-born clerks who proved capable, and brokered trade agreements that stunned the treasury into silence. She had little patience for flattery and even less for corruption. Several wealthy lords “retired” mysteriously after meeting with her.

Aerlin, for his part, became something unexpected: likable. He played the part of doting husband with a warmth that felt genuine. He hosted banquets, read to children at city festivals, and insisted on planting trees in every district.

“She rules the mind,” he said once in an interview, “and I, the heart. It works out.”

It did.

One evening, nearly two years into their marriage, they found themselves in the palace garden. The moon hung like a pale coin in the sky.

Mirena stood with her arms folded, watching the newly planted magnolias.

“You know,” Aerlin said from the bench nearby, “I used to be afraid of you.”

“You should still be,” she replied, without turning.

He chuckled.

“Why didn’t you go through with it?” he asked after a moment. “The assassination, I mean.”

She looked at him then. Her amber eyes were tired, but bright.

“I almost did,” she admitted. “But then I reread the reports. You’ve never ordered executions. You never raised taxes on the poor. You listened more than you spoke. And...” She hesitated. “You left most of the heavy lifting to others.”

“Because I was terrible at it.”

“Because you were honest about being terrible at it,” she said. “That kind of self-awareness is rare.”

He smiled, surprised.

“Besides,” she added, voice dry, “I didn’t want to run a broken kingdom. Better to fix it first, then take it.”

He laughed then, genuinely. “Romantic.”

They sat in comfortable silence.

Eventually, Aerlin said, “I like this. Us.”

She glanced at him.

“So do I.”

It wasn’t a grand love. But it was something better, perhaps. A partnership. An odd sort of love forged not from passion, but from shared purpose and trust. 

[theotherendcomics]

[peregrinethegryphon]

I guess I should have known that tumblr’s reaction to original blockbuster 1975 award winning classic Jaws was heehee gay polycule.

[thicque]

so

this picture

had me absoLUTELY fucked the fuck up for a full entire minute until i scrolled to the next one and realized it's supposed to be put on like this

and had a full ohhhhhhhhhh okay moment

but for a full sixty seconds of my life i didn't even question it i was like yeah some straps are just that freaky deaky i love that for them whoever they are

[dee-the-red-witch]

[madddscience]

An interesting sci-fi short story from 4chan.

[Imgur]

[the-real-seebs]

That is some fine writing.

[space-australians]

The Imgur link is broken so:

[Series of posts on 09/16/11]

About twelve years ago, a man died in high orbit over Tau Ceti V.

His name was Drake McDougal, and aside from a few snapshots and vague anecdotes from his drinking buddies, that’s probably all we’ll ever know about him. Another colony-born man with little records and little documentation, working whatever asteroid field the Dracs deigned to allow them. Every now and then a Drac gunship would strut on through the system, Pax Draconia and all that. But that was it.

One fine day, one of those gunships had a misjump. A bad one. It arrived only ninety clicks above atmo, with all its impellers blown out by the gravatic feedback of Tau Ceti V’s gravity well. The Dracs scraped enough power together for a good system-wide broadbeam and were already beginning the Death Chant when they hit atmo.

People laughed at the recording of sixty Dracs going from mysterious chanting to “’what-the-fuck’ing” for years after they forgot the name Drake McDougal. The deafening “CLANG” and split second of stunned silence afterwards never failed to entertain. Drake had performed a hasty re-entry seconds after the gunship and partially slagged his heatshield diving after it. Experts later calculated he suffered 11Gs when he leaned on the retro to match velocities with the Dracs long enough to engage the mag-grapples on his little mining tug.

Even the massively overpowered drive of a tug has its limits, and Drake’s little ship hit hers about one and a half minutes later. Pushed too far, the tug’s fusion plant lost containment just as he finished slingshotting the gunship into low orbit. (It was unharmed, of course; the Drac opinion of fusion power best translated as “quaint,” kind of how we view butter churns.)

It was on the local news within hours, on newsnets across human space within days. It was discussed, memorialized, marveled upon, chewed over by daytime talk-show hosts, and I think somebody even bought a plaque or some shit like that. Then there was a freighter accident, and a mass-shooting on Orbital 5, and of course, the first Vandal attacks in the periphery.

The galaxy moved on.

Twelve years is a long time, especially during war, so twelve years later, as the Vandal’s main fleet was jumping in near Jupiter and we were strapping into the crash couches of what wee enthusiastically called “warships,” I guaran-fucking-tee you not one man in the entire Defense Force could remember who Drake McDougal was.

Well, the Dracs sure as hell did.

Dracs do not fuck around. Dozens of two-kilometer long Drac supercaps jumped in barely 90K klicks away, and then we just stood around staring at our displays like the slack-jawed apes we were as we watched what a real can of galactic whoop-ass looked like. You could actually see the atmosphere of Jupiter roil occasionally when a Vandal ship happened to cross between it and the Drac fleet. There’s still lightning storms on Jupiter now, something about residual heavy ions and massive static charges or something.

Fifty-eight hours later, with every Vandal ship reduced to slagged debris and nine wounded Drac ships spinning about as they vented atmosphere, they started with the broad-band chanting again. And then the communiqué that confused the hell out of us all.

“Do you hold out debt fulfilled?”

After the sixth or seventh comms officer told them “we don’t know what the hell you’re talking about” as politely as possible, the Drac fleet commander got on the horn and asked to speak to a human Admiral in roughly the same tone as a telemarketer telling a kid to give the phone to Daddy. When the Admiral didn’t know either, the Drac went silent for a minute, and when he came back on his translator was using much smaller words, and talking slower.

“Is our blood debt to Drake McDougal’s clan now satisfied?”

The Admiral said “Who?”

What the Drac commander said next would’ve caused a major diplomatic incident had he remembered to revert to the more complex translation protocols. He thought the Admiral must be an idiot, a coward, or both. Eventually, the diplomats were called out, and we were asked why the human race has largely forgotten the sacrifice of Drake McDougal.

Humans, we explained, sacrifice themselves all the time.

We trotted out every news clip from the space-wide Nets from the last twelve years. Some freighter cook that fell on a grenade during a pirate raid on Outreach. A ship engineer who locked himself into the reactor room and kept containment until the crew evacuated. Firefighter who died shielding a child from falling debris with his body, during an earthquake. Stuff like that.

That Dracs were utterly stunned. Their diplomats wandered out of the conference room in a daze. We’d just told them that the rarest, most selfless and honorable of acts - acts that incurred generations-long blood-debts and moved entire fleets - was so routine for our species that they were bumped off the news by the latest celebrity scandal.

Everything changed for humanity after that. And it was all thanks to a single tug pilot who taught the galaxy what truly defines Man.

[fattyatomicmutant-deactivated20]

This makes me cry

[stephendann]

It had been so many cycles since the Drac incident, and even more since the Drake McDougal event, and the the galaxy had sort of come to the conclusion that humans were, well, human about things, and that they regarded their lives in completely incomprehensible ways.

Yet for all of the witnessed sacrifices, few warriors had ever been taught to recognise the most terrifying of human deeds. In a forgettable corner of the galaxy, in an unremarked planet with a previously less than recorded history, a party of six human security escorts bringing their rescued survivors to a hive ship became a party of five, 

A lone human, holding one of their handheld ‘melee’ weapons wordlessly tilted their head to their commander, and stopped, standing in plain sight in the middle of a field. 

Waiting.

When asked, the lower ranked humans simply said “She knows what’s she’s doing”.  The human captain’s inexplicable statement “She’s buying us some time” made it as if their companion had stepped into some form of marketplace. 

Katherine of Rescue Group’s fate was never confirmed, but no pursuit came that night. On the next dawn, when the hive ship was able to leave, the humans insisted we departed immediately, and did not go back for their companion.

We do not know for sure what became of Katherine of Rescue Group. All we know is that when pressed, the human captain explained to our own that the one who stayed had communicated an ancient human tradition, the rite of self sacrifice.  In words, the captain explained, the look and the nod would mean “Go on. I’ll hold them off.  It was not, as we thought, that this one warrior had sought victory over many enemies, but that they had calculated a trade off of the minutes or hours it could take to defeat a human, against the time needed by their companions.

Humans, as humans say, do not go gentle into that good night.  

Worse, they do not go gentle into bad nights, worse days, or terrifying sunsets. Dawn seems to fill them with potency and rage, as if to call upon the solar gods and tell the deities to come down here and say that to their human faces. We do not know how long she bought us, but we, the hive now called K’thrn, understand what it means to have someone expend their existence for the survival of others.

We find it terrifying.

[jazzybot4]

I love this one. Reblogging for something new. 

[bramblethekobold]

Humans had been part of the intergalactic alliance now for longer than most could remember. New member systems were typically bemused by the Dracs semi-reverence of these fragile, hairless beings, and the Hives’ blend of respect and fear. 

Until the moment when their ambassadors were shown The Film. 

That’s all it was called, because the contents weren’t comprehensible.

Over time, the Vandals had reorganized and rebuilt; they’d formed alliances, created new weapons technologies, and were completely ready to take on the Drac galactic navy.

They were utterly unprepared for the humans. 

The command ship of the Vandal fleet was unassailable. Ion weapons were turned aside, the most powerful laser arrays were useless. Physical projectiles did work, but the mass of even a missile next to the ship was insignificant.

When the human destroyer Athena began to accelerate towards it, all shields to front, full power to thrusters, the Dracs made contact immediately, demanding to know what they intended to do.

The comm channel came back with a medley of humans singing, chanting, praying, and the captain simply said, “Ending this damn war.”

And disconnected.

The Drac central command watched the remote readouts of the human ship as it soared past the Vandal fighter vanguard. The Athena wasn’t firing, and the Vandal command didn’t have a protocol to deal with this, so they directed no resources towards the destroyer.

The reactor on board the destroyer began to systematically overload. Command patched through directly to the engineering room, and were met with the chief engineer saying with a smile, “No time to explain, I’ve got to say my last words to my creator.”

And he disconnected.

The Athena was traveling at an unsafe speed when it collided with the Vandal command ship, tearing through the armor.

When the Athena’s reactors then went critical and destroyed the entire Vandal command, the human admiral aboard the Drac command vessel bowed his head and said, “May their memories be a blessing,” and proceeded to help plan the final assault on the remaining, disorganized Vandal fleet. The remaining human ships were heard chanting “For the Athena!” as they went into battle with little regard for their own safety, and less for the Vandals.

Ambassadors were always pale by the end of The Film, but none of them questioned humanity’s place in the alliance again.

[edgar-allan-possum]

When you consider that Gollum is an extremely old man who's spent most of his life in solitary confinement with heroin being injected directly into his brain every day, he's really not that unreasonable

[silvermoon424]

As an ace this is the only time "you just haven't met the right person yet" has made me laugh lmaoooo

[stealingpotatoes]

there is not a single task on earth that's more important than cat cuddles (source: my cat told me)

[digitaldeathx-deactivated202605]

self-awareness check, list five things you like that aren't media pieces in the tags now ‼️

[everythingfox]

Three options, and this was his choice

(via)