Runawaynun your Expanse vids are amazing, everyone needs to watch them!!
Okay I fucking LOVE Chrisjen Avasarala. I love her in the show, I love her in the books. I fucking love where she starts at the beginning of the series and where she ends up—both in the show, and in the books Shohreh portrayed her beyond perfection. Her leadership style makes my eyes pop and I just love how she commands a room and is trying her fucking best despite all the shit happening. Her wardrobe. Her attitude. HER EVERYTHING. *flails a lot*
I watched season 1 of The Expanse and enjoyed it enough to want to read the first book after I finished the season. Just to hold me over until the second season. Well…I read the first book and then gobbled up the second book Caliban’s War. I lost my utter fucking mind when Chrisjen met Bobbie and then spent the rest of the hiatus waiting and salivating for Bobbie and Chrisjen scenes. THEY WERE MAGNIFICENT. Season 2 was incredible. 10/10 amazing stuff.
One thing that was readily notable after I read the first three books and continued to wait for the show to return, is how much cursing they wrote out of her dialogue in season 1. There was a noticeable uptick in her salty language once the show moved to Amazon and for that I am grateful (but still fuck Jeff Bezos, and I know the irony wasn’t lost on the authors that a real-life inspiration for Jules-Pierre Mao saved their show).
Anyway, I love the series but also the trilogies have some AMAZING QUOTES. Here are a few that I’ll share from the books. ItReachesOut compiled most of these on motivational posters which is linked below.
“My life has become a single, ongoing revelation that I haven’t been cynical enough.”
― Chrisjen Avasarala, Babylon's Ashes
“…and a familiar voice was coming from the terminal, "Going to be monitoring anything we fucking say. If you wanted to discuss menstruation at great length and detail, this is probably our best chance. He's always been squeamish about women. And no one likes a Peeping Tom, even if he is Prime Minister.”
― Chrisjen Avasarala, Nemesis Games
“It'd be a better world if there was always at least one right answer instead of a basket of fucked.”
― Chrisjen Avasarala
Realizing you've got shit on your fingers is the first step to washing your hands.
-Chrisjen Avasarala
Always good to have a penis in uniform in the room.
-Chrisjen Avasarala
I don't give a fuck whose birthday it is, you make this happen before my meeting is over or I'll have your nuts as paperweights.
-Chrisjen Avasarala
I have crates of anti-herpes drugs that are more legitimate than you are.
-Chrisjen Avasarala
I don't mean that they all fuck men. I mean they're all men, the fuckers.
-Chrisjen Avasarala
That man's asshole must be tight enough right now to bend space.
-Chrisjen Avasarala
Try not to put your dick in this. It's fucked enough already.
-Chrisjen Avasarala
324 votes and 106027 views on Imgur: The magic of the Internet
runawaynun's AMAZING EXPANSE VIDS:
Sexy Back (Chrisjen) THIS COVER is fucking brilliant.
Solid (Bobbie/Chrisjen) THEM!! god I love Bobbie.
Poor Atlas (Chrisjen) the lyrics and tone of this song is so devastatingly perfect omg
Thes are all STUNNING incredible amazing frothingly good Expanse vids with Chrisjen! runawaynun also has some delicious-looking femslash fic I have not dove into yet cause I haven't really had the brain to read Expanse fic but OH MY GODDDD. I love Chrisjen Avasarala.
om nom nom - Cooking/Baking shows I've been watching
Usually my go-to comfort show and things to have on in the background is Star Trek. I’ve been rewatching Lower Decks and want to start rewatching Strange New Worlds but my mind has not been able to relax and I feel like I've needed to try something new to occupy the weary brainmeats.
So! I’ve fallen for cooking/baking competitions over the last two months. These are all things I found on Netflix.
The Final Table - a dozen teams of two chefs from across the world compete in country-themed challenges. I haven’t been up on cooking shows for awhile so I was surprised and fell in love with the depth and nuance that some chefs bring to their work. The sheer artistry and love of their craft! But also a lot of these chefs were thrown into the deep end when they haven’t had Japanese food before or their partner had more ideas/ability to pull off the idea for their dish for the challenge. It was very exciting. It also was filmed on the biggest soundstage and the most fake sounding studio applause and cheering but I had a great time following the chefs around the world.
Cook At All Costs - three people are given $20,000 each to bid on secret boxes of food and ingredient add-ons to create a dish for specific challenges. Whatever people have left in their bank is the money they get to bring home. There’s a lot of bidding wars and strategic haggling going on in the show and the set’s got a cute conveyor belt that brings out the ingredients and other competitive quirks that I quite liked. Very refreshing and fun.
Bake Squad - this is basically capturing the feel-good vibes of Queer Eye and puts it to baking feelings! Instead of competing against each other, their competitions for the chance to make a guest’s Big Event with a magnificent cake. It features four bakers who have different specialties and everything is so gorgeous, sweet and funny. Really really fucking heartfelt and delightful. 10/10 will watch again.
Baking Impossible - this show pairs baker and an engineer and gives them a challenge that requires both amazing design and flavor. There are cake robots! Cake cars! Cake buildings!! Their work is judged on the engineering/design merits as well as aesthetics/flavor/presentation. It’s hilarious and gripping and extremely outlandish and FUN.
Pressure Cooker - Top Chef meets Big Brother. 12 chefs enter a house. There are no celebrity judges. The chefs judge each OTHER’S DISHES and votes them out of the show. The ego! The mind games! THE FOOD! I was engrossed in a way I haven’t been with reality shows for ages.
Snack vs Chef - chefs/food scientists compete against each other for money. The challenge?? They are given classic snacks and are asked to recreate them and then also recreate their own version of it. Pringles. Oreos. This was fucking brilliant and tasty.
Drink Masters - Basically a bunch of bartenders/mixologists are putting together the most delicious concoctions I’ve ever seen. I want to drink almost everything I saw, even when I thought it would probably be personally offensive, because damn. The presentation and ingredients were so beautiful and interesting. There was a whole challenge where they made like, alcoholic boba pearl things. Molecular Gastronomy!! It's a whole chemical thing! Fucking wild stuff.
Crazy Delicious - This show is not... good, I don't think, but it is entertaining enough for me to turn off my anxiety brain for a half hour. It's your usual 3 contestants and a cooking challenge with certain ingredients. Except they've designed a set on a soundstage to look like a magical forest where contestants will go and 'forage' for their ingredients. There's random shots of parrots and fluffy bunnies chilling out in the forest, and a delightful host with gorgeous bright dresses and colorful eye shadow. The food judges on the show are cast as 'gods' so everyone is cooking to 'please the gods.' The gods are all dressed in white and bestowing judgment and advice. Some of the contestants are really, really terrible home cooks but some of have managed to make goodies worthy of the show's title. It's definitely ridiculous.
Fried, Fresh, and Crispy - not a competition, but a travel food show featuring Daym Drop touring all the fried foods in the US. Daym is amazing and I am losing my mind at every episode and all the fried delights he’s bringing to my screen. I want to eat all the non-seafood/crispies please. Daym has me howling because he's so much fun and a delight to watch.
Got any cooking/baking shows that you’ve enjoyed? I’m also going to probably get into all the glass blowing/metalsmithing and flower decorating shows on Netflix at this rate. Also probably the interior design shows, too.
WIP GAME tell me more about “witcher allergies” pls
Alright, so this is an idea/scene that I have that I haven’t put on AO3 yet cause part of me wants to include it in one of my longer Leshkel stories. But I probably should just leave this as a standalone scene since it’s pretty funny on it’s own. My Scrivener doc says I created this allergies file in January of last year. That’s how outstanding some of my WIPs are, omg. 😭
The idea is that you turn a mutated witcher into an ancient monster of the woods and that witcher-leshen pollen might affect the immune systems of only witchers. 🤧 And some witchers more than others.
Here is a draft that's still rough but gets the point across. 😆 (yo it's scary to put my ideas into the light of day. Hope you like?? Want to see more? Let me know.)
Seasonal Allergies
TWN. post-Voleth Meir. Leshen Eskel AU
Gen, but implied Geralt/Eskel, maaaybe vaguely implied sex pollen.
~1300w
Jaskier reached the great hall and found Ciri and Yennefer sitting across the table from Geralt and Coen, chatting with one another. Coen was hunched over his bowl of food, looking utterly miserable like he hadn’t slept a wink, and Geralt looked like he was ready for a nap.
“Fancy meeting you all here for a spot of dinner,” Jaskier said. “Training going well?” Jaskier asked and Ciri nodded distantly.
Jaskier picked at his food and the loudest godsdamned sneeze he’d ever heard erupted from the table, startling him so much that he dropped his knife.
“Whaaat the!” he said, looking around the table.
Coen’s face was in his palms and the witcher sighed morosely. Jaskier eyed the tatter of scars on the man’s head, the slouch of his shoulders. The witcher sniffled. Sniffled.
“Are you sick?” he asked and Coen sighed again and leaned back to pull wadded linen from his thigh and blow his nose which surely looked like a yes.
“I thought witchers don’t get sick,” Ciri said.
“They don’t,” Jaskier said. He looked at Geralt. “In twenty years the only time I have seen this one sneeze was when he was clearing his nostrils of selkimore guts.”
Ciri pulled the spoon from her mouth and gently tapped it against her plate, her face twisting in thought. “My friends—the ones I used to play with on the streets when I back in Cintra—they used to have a rhyme whenever one of us got too sick to come out and play,” she said.
“Sixth sneeze, let me breathe, selkie please,” Ciri rhymed. She tapped out a beat on the table and Jaskier smiled a little, the pride warming his chest. He never thought it was the smartest or cleverest rhyme, but it had been memorable enough that she could recall it all these years later. Jaskier happily tucked that pride away.
“That was you?” Ciri asked, her eyes flicking from Geralt to Jaskier and back again. Jaskier grinned.
“Sure was,” he said. He was about to reminisce for her, but he glanced at who Geralt barely nodded, and Jaskier lost his train of thought. Geralt still looked half-asleep at the table.
Lambert came stomping his way over with his plate of food steaming mug. He looked far from sleepy.
“Fucken hells,” Lambert growled, obviously congested, and sat down on Jaskier’s other side. Jaskier recoiled when the ginger witcher wiped his nose on his sleeve.
“They’re allergies,” Yennefer said and that didn’t make a lick of sense to Jaskier. He looked at Lambert and back to Coen. Sickness didn’t make sense either, he supposed, but Geralt was still sitting there sleepy-eyed between the two of them.
“Witchers don’t have allergies,” he pointed out.
“It’s the pollen,” Yennefer said and Jaskier frowned again.
“What pollen? I haven’t sneezed since we got here,” Jaskier said and finally took his first bite of the stew. “And it’s the middle of winter.”
His stomach growled and Coen blew his nose on a rag. The sound made Jaskier lose his appetite.
Ciri looked between Coen and Lambert with an amused pity.
Yennefer, on the other hand, was looking at Geralt with a knowing twist to her lips and Jaskier was equal parts curious and confused.
“Jaskier, do you know what animal has the longest orgasm and how long they orgasm for?—And don’t bother saying claiming it’s you,” she said, preemptively rolling her eyes at hi.
“Isn’t it the goat? Because they’re horny. With the horns and,” Jaskier paused, eyeing Ciri for a moment, not sure what the protocol was for discussing animal genitalia and orgasms in front of a Princess. But Yennefer was the one who had asked, “the giant goat balls?”
Jaskier’s heart skipped in surprise again the force of Coen’s sneeze rocked their side of the bench.
“The average length of a pig’s orgasm is 30 minutes. It can sometimes last up to an hour and a half,” Yennefer said carefully, her eyes leveled on Geralt. Jaskier frowned and looked at Geralt who inhaled and he did sound a little congested now that Jaskier was listening.
“Okay… what’s that have to do with pollen in winter?” Jaskier said.
“The average pollenating season of most trees last anywhere between 2 to 5 months depending on the region,” Yennefer said just as Coen was blowing his nose again.
“That tree?” Jaskier eyed the medallion tree which looked quite dead to his eye, but then again he didn’t know much about trees.
“The tree,” Coen mumbled sadly, which was of no help to Jaskier.
“Eskel?” Ciri asked and Yennefer nodded.
“Uh,” Jaskier said and frowned. “What?”
“Eskel is part leshen,” Ciri said as it was obvious…which it was. “Leshen are part tree, part monster,” she added.
“There’s… leshen pollen. In the keep?” Jaskier asked and looked around. “Why aren’t we sneezing? Do you have allergies?” he asked Ciri and Ciri shrugged, showing no sniffle as far as he could see or hear.
Jaskier sniffed. “I’m inhaling leshen tree pollen now?” He couldn’t see any of it or smell it for that matter.
She nodded. “Didn’t they teach botany at Oxenfurt?” Yennefer asked.
“Wait… Pollen, tree. Seeds. Seeds spread their—seed to reproduce and—” Jaskier said and Yennefer’s grin broadened. Jaskier looked at the two witchers again, trying to connect the sneezy thoughts to Yen’s words. “Does that mean Eskel… is orgasming?”
“Fucken hells,” Lambert muttered.
Ciri looked amused and concerned and Yennefer was smiling behind her mug. Jaskier peered over at Geralt who was not sneezing, nor did he seem sniffly.
“Are you still immune?” Jaskier asked.
Geralt took a deep breath and looked over at Jaskier for the first time. It was a strange sight to behold: yellow eyes that were red-rimmed and almost puffy, but he was inhaling like he couldn’t get enough of the air. Like he was scenting blossoms in spring. Clear nostrils, but still affected somehow.
“No,” Geralt said and Yennefer cleared her throat.
“Geralt and Eskel have been working together understand his new leshen anatomy, haven’t you Geralt?” Yennefer asked. It was mild and leading in a way that Jaskier didn’t have to see the way she raised her eyebrows in mirth. Jaskier looked back at Geralt who avoided both Jaskier and Ciri’s eyes and instead ate another bite of food.
“The pollen shouldn’t bring anyone to harm,” Geralt said and took a bite of food, giving Yennefer a brief look that was both pleading and amused.
“Is it because you went through the Trials twice that it affects you differently?” Ciri asked.
“Different? Different how?” Jaskier asked and Yennefer’s smile grew. Before Jaskier could ask another six follow-up questions, the doors to the courtyard opened. He only managed to identify the approaching witcher as Tolbert from the axes hanging from his belt because his face was covered with an unusual helmet. There was a clear plate for his eyes and two knobs protruding from his face.
Lambert sat up so suddenly that Jaskier’s bowl rattled on the table and pointed a spoon at Tolbert. “Oi, where the fuck you get that contraption?”
Tolbert sat down next to Ciri but didn’t take the helmet off. On closer inspection it looked more like a mask with thick straps that kept it firmly attached to his face.
“Dwarf named Avlaf. S’what they use in Mahakham,” Tolbert said and his voice was thick and muffled. Lambert leaned forward, nearly twitching and tried to swipe it from Tolbert’s face. Tolbert punched Lambert in the elbow.
“Get your own. I found ‘im through a guard in Vergen. He’ll be able to pretty up your face,” Tolbert said and although half his words were muffled through the mask. Lambert cursed and knocked back half the stein of tea.
WIP Game List
@ghostinthelibrarywrites tagging you since you had also asked about my Leshkel fic in a previous ask!!
oh my god these are all so good! So I guess I will start with 1 & 2 for the Fanfic Day Meme
Hello to this meme ask from a million weeks ago. Let's! Go! (finally)
What is your favorite fic you have under your belt?
Well until I finish anything else, it’s still going to be stories we tell, memories we share and the words we hold dear, aka the post-canon Scribe Fic. Aka the one where Jaskier’s hands hurt and he asks Geralt to write poetry that he dictates to him. Geralt is naked while doing this for his old bard.
What is your favorite snippet of dialogue?
I already shared a few of my favorite Scribe Fic snippets over here. Let me give you another snippet from the Scribe Fic.
(p.p.s. special shoutout to @castillon02 who listened to me write whole story paragraph-by-paragraph for a year and helped see me through my mess of feelings. and three rewrites.)
--
Geralt looked up and Jaskier was sighing as he sat down on the couch, spreading his arms above his head in a stretch, crossing his ankles and propping the wolf doll on his thigh. The fondness in Jaskier’s expression seemed to be clearing the tangents in his mind.
Jaskier opened his mouth to speak and licked his lips. “If it’s my quill and your inkpot,” Jaskier began, gesturing at himself and at Geralt and leaned forward. His gaze was direct, perched on the edge of seriousness, those snowy brows arching in mirth. “Then it would be your pestle to my mortar. Juxtapose our prose.” Jaskier waved an open palm. “So it goes.”
He was so accustomed to the ways Jaskier took things too far when he got carried away that the urge to poke him was reflexive.
Geralt nodded. “Needle dick and fat cock. Got it,” he said.
Jaskier kept grinning and waved again. “The metaphor grows a life of its own. It practically writes itself.”
“I’m the one doing the writing,” Geralt pointed out and dipped the quill again.
“Then write down something about grinding out a concoction of pleasure. You never found my girth wanting, so don’t you dare and try to tell me differently,” Jaskier said.
“I was juxtaposing,” Geralt said and Jaskier’s laugh was sharp and bright.
Ooo, super curious about the real bros of crookback bog fic!
Okay, The Real Bros of Crookback Bog is the second story in my Velen Cannibals AU and it is pretty ridiculous.
This story takes place before Nilfgaard’s first invasion and my interpretation of the Velen cannibals: basically they are a Weezer song. They just want to be left alone so they can hang out with their bros and eat whoever they want and sleep in all day.
It’s 90% original characters and more about my love for all of the strange/weird/funny elements I took from Witcher 3 and Velen in particular. I don't know why I got so hung up on these ideas but I have like 15k scattered across three stories for this AU so I was really gung-ho about it for awhile.
This story is 80% shenanigans. I have a POV character named Remy who ran off and ended up with the cannibals (there is a whole sequence that is ‘eat cute’ intro and his future boyfriend snares him in an actual trap).
Some scene things from The Real Bros of Crookback Bog:
Remy discovers the cannibals play Capture the Chef in which they do semi-violent raids on each other in order to kidnap the best cooks and bring them to their own camp for the season.
At one point Remy’s camp finds some loot in the forest and brings it back to camp, only to discover that there’s a ghost haunting a piece of jewelry or other item. They befriend the ghost and keep them around as an early warning system for drowners, bandits, and witchers.
Remy also discovers one of the cooks has trained the local crows to find/retrieve goodies and snoop on enemy camps.
There is a red-eyed scruffy hare who is an emissary or watcher for The Crones who is named Ištikimas and tends to appear at strange times.
One of Remy’s new cannibal friends gets a tattoo from a bog witch, only to discover the bog witch has enchanted a revenant in the tattoo. So they wake up in the middle of the night thinking this guy is talking in his sleep except it’s the old spirit in his tattoo who ends up being a really amazing shit-talker. When that cannibal bro gets kidnapped, they let go because the tattoo is too creepy for the abductors.
And then there’s a little scene like this where one of the cannibals got turned into a fox. Because strange shit happens in Velen all the time, okay:
Rated Mature. ~400w.
So far the truce to their war was holding steady. Liver Burlap was playing the fiddle, some sort of jaunty tune that Remy found himself enjoying himself despite the concern he had when they put their weapons away. Serril was to Remy’s left, tucked against a giant rutsack containing the loot from the merchant’s cart. Pav was to his right, nursing the bottle of rye. The weather was warm and no one was piss-drunk and throwing punches yet. With any luck, they’d be able to get through the night without spilling any intestines.
Remy elbowed Pav to hand over the booze but Serril grabbed it before Remy had a chance to drink. He finished wrestling the bottle from Serril who flicked his cheek and grinned. Remy’s skin felt hot, his gut churning pleasantly before pressing the bottle to his lips. He was looking around the fire, falling into the rhythm Anton was slapping on his knee with the beat of Liver Burlap’s fiddle but Anton stopped suddenly.
The older man held his arm up high and called out into the darkness, “Elias! That you? Where the fuck’ve you been?”
He looked where Anton was calling, seeing nothing but the grassy silhouettes beyond the campfire. Remy took another sip and startled when a fox hopped on top of the barrel behind Piotr. The chorus of “Elias!” echoed around the fire and the woodland animal trilled at them, bird-like and eerie as fox were under the guise of night.
Remy had to blink through the haze of drink and took another look at the animal. It’s snout was short like any fox, firelight showing off a bushy tail, red with a white tip and tucked against it’s body. It was no larger than any fox Remy had seen frolicking through the meadow or darting through the swamps. Except there seemed to be a pair of human balls and a sad, very small human cock between it’s hind legs.
“Long time no see,” Piotr said, dumping some of his spirits into a mug and placing it on the barrel next to the animal.
“That fox has a cock,” Remy blurted out and there was a heavy moment of silence that followed, the wide eyes of Anton and Liver Burlap boring holes into him. Piotr murmured something to the fox and Remy swallowed, looking over at Serril, wondering if there was some faux pas he just committed when they were supposed to be making friends with this crew. Serril gave him an encouraging wink amidst the silence.
“No wenches or vixens for Elias,” Piotr said, breaking the silence and Liver Burlap played several sad notes on his fiddle and Anton roared with laughter.
WIP Game List
Posting meme- What's the in-progress vid you've been working on the longest? (from beatrice eagle)
What's the in-progress vid you've been working on the longest? (from beatrice eagle)
Oh I have a ton of non-active WIPs that are technically 2-5 years old that I do plan on getting back to Someday.
But currently these are the longest (active) WIPs I have:
A Green Knight vid started in 2021 that I keep meaning to finish. I rewatch my draft occasionally in longing. I've been having some minor technical problems working on this that I haven't had the attention to troubleshoot. My laptop is very old, too, so it doesn't help when I'm working with 1080p files, alas.
I haven’t really added to this Green Knight vid in over a year or a year and a half. If I can sit down long enough to figure out why my playback is lagging, maybe I can finish it for VidUKon this year…It would be so good. The music is Panic At the Disco. Stompy-stompy beats of delicousness.
I also have a Moonhaven vid I started this past November. If I sat down during a weekend and rewatched the opening episode that will probably light the fire under my ass. Maybe finish the vid for VidUKon?? Hmm…
The other longest/current in-progress vid I have is from October which is a Witcher 2 fanart (hi @sassaffrassa) vid. This vid is super exciting for me because not only do I have amazing art that I can play with and construct a narrative from some comics, I actually have the artist in my DMs who will draw me new scenes or shots FOR THE VID. CUSTOM MADE SOURCE FOR MY VID. It’s incredibly intoxicating to have this in my vidding arsenal!!!! It is a lot of fun and extremely explicit so I won’t be able to put it on YouTube and it's probably too explicit for tumblr even with a mature label so I'll have to go download only option for it. Which... I don't even know if people outside the vidding communities even download vids anymore to watch? But if I say I have Iorveth/Roche porn in a vid will you come and download it?? Guess I'll see, heeeeee.
I really should get back to this W2 vid but I’m also building a lot of it in After Effects first and plopping things down in my timeline. Bit time consuming in a different way than my usual process. But it’s good and a fun exercise for me since I always want to vid comics more often... Maybe, maybe, maybe. Other vid ideas might jump my brain queue between now and the summer..
[image ID: A photoshopped screencap of Bob Ross with the face of Klingon High Chancellor Gowron. The painting behind him is of a Klingon Bird of Prey. Episode titled: "The Glory of Painting with Bob Gowross." Bottom text reads: "There are no mistakes. Only honorable accidents. Glory to you and your paint tray."]
Posting meme- is there a vid idea that you have, but it probably won't get made? (from archersangel)
Is there a vid idea that you have, but it probably won't get made? (like not enough material or can't find the right music, or whatever) (from archersangel)
Most vids that I want to do and won't make is more from the lack of time and focus, not a lack of source or ideas or right song. I have spent years waiting until I found a right song or the right source for my idea. The other things that basically stop me is just the time investment and amount of source I have to track down to put it together. I have fallen in love with making thematic, sweeping multi-vids but it's so much work.
HOWEVER I managed to pull a vid idea out of my vault for you, archersangel!
I have a Darth Maul vid that I wish I had the focus and time to make. I would use this Gary Numan song “My name Is Ruin” and strategically include Sam Witwer reading excerpts from one of the audiobooks that he narrated from Maul’s POV. It would be like a 4 and a half minute vid but holy fucking fuck, Sam Witwer’s voice acting is SOOOOOO GOOOD. I just am like this catastrophically screaming blob of squee about Maul ever since I made it through The Clone Wars.
