Teatime!

she/her, but call me whatever. a lesbian! this blog is probably gonna be like spn and game changers and also random text posts. i contain multitudes and all of it is gay. also, not great at replying to people, as in i don't. sorry.

[young-vandal]

[hyperfixations-and-hecticness]

I like that Supergirl says it’s okay to kill someone’s abuser so long as you don’t let the thirteen year old do it and I like that Supergirl says vengeance will not solve things but neither will allowing a cycle of violence to continue

[whyamihereat4am]

Look I don't think Supergirl (2026) is secretly a perfect masterpiece or anything (I personally thought it was like. a 6/10 fun time) but I do think it's wild that Tumblr isn't going crazy for it because this Kara is one coattailed suit away from being a Tumblr sexyman. she is the flawed messy female character people have supposedly been clamouring for. she's the popular archetype of a gruff self-destructive alcoholic middle-aged man begrudgingly having to look after a kid and growing fond of them but genderswapped and also 23. she's allowed to be visibly messy and kind of gross and her hair is constantly all over the place and she literally cries, screams, throws up, and pisses onscreen. she's caustic and mean and puts up an act of carelessness but has a heart of gold. she's heavily traumatised and coping with it terribly. if anything happens to her dog she will kill everyone in this room and then herself. she spends most of the movie in a trench coat and baggy band T-shirt. she gets into bar brawls and breaks a guy's hand. she is Going Through It 24/7 and looks the part. she stabs a guy in the throat. how is everyone else not obsessed with her.

[24x81]

despite what you want to think or believe, hayden pike is shane's judas. he even gets paid for it.

[darlingofdots]

ten years ago as part of my creative writing degree we had a class on professional development where we learned how the publishing process works for different mediums and how to choose an agent and what the role of a publishing house is and back then, the advice was "self-publishing has its advantages but a traditional publisher will provide editorial support and market your book and if your book sells well enough they want to invest in your future" and now basically none of that is true anymore. books make it to shelves with noticeable errors and structural issues that could be addressed with one or two more rounds of developmental editing, authors are expected to do more and more of the marketing themselves to the point that they are expected to be social media influencers in their own right, and publishers appear to be prioritising flashy debut novels with huge advances they don't outsell, which means the author is less likely to get a follow-up deal.

Obviously a publisher is a business and a business needs to make money, but the idea used to be that you'd have a couple of very successful authors who bring in so much cash that they subsidise the new kid who is building a back catalogue of books that sell okay until they get name recognition and pay for themselves. I was told back then that a couple thousand pounds was very reasonable for a debut novel because you want to get royalties for the sales exceeding your advance and that way the publisher sees you as a profitable investment. The last couple of years I keep hearing about six figure book deals for debut (!) literary fiction (!) novels, what on earth?

I'm not saying that the publishing industry is uniquely awful or that it's worse than it's ever been or whatever, but especially in a time when reading and talking about books is trendy and there is so much money in books, it feels very, I don't know, symbolic? Prioritising flashy one-time projects over sustained and sustainable growth. Investing only enough resources to make your product fit for sale but not enough to make it good because people will buy it anyway. It's frustrating to me as a reader and as an aspiring writer and as a person existing in a capitalist system.

[poorshadowspaintedqueens]

One of the tags referred to people thanking their editorial teams in acknowledgments, and I want to point out the growing prevalence of people thanking beta-readers and writing groups, both of which usually rely on a pre-existing community or relationship and, just as importantly, are unpaid.

My day job is as a freelance editor for nonfiction books, and I can safely say that if the publishing industry were operating as intended, I would either not have a job at all or be working for a specific press. Authors pay me directly to do the work that a press editor used to do as part of publication contracts. This is because so many presses have started outsourcing all their editorial work to either third-party contractors or, even worse, to genAI.

In short, venture capital has broken the publication industry the same way it's broken the retail, restaurant, and travel industries.

[darlingofdots]

I didn't go into this side of it in my original post but YES! Fuck! I know this is a huge issue for translators too because they're being asked to do more work in less time for less money and I've heard rumblings about human translators being brought in only to essentially proofread work done by AI, which is so disrespectful to the sheer skill and artistic abilities of (literary) translation...

Anyway, I love editing. I think I love editing almost more than writing, and I'm pretty sure that I'm better at it. Last year I edited an academic article from 11k to 9k words for my supervisor and I felt like a god when I finished it, but when my supervisor asked if I'd thought about doing this professionally, I had to tell her that there's just not a viable career in editing anymore. Publishers used to employ! editors! Several different kinds of editors for different stages of the process! That used to be my dream job!

Editing is so essential to making a text good. It doesn't matter how talented or dedicated you are as a writer, you cannot achieve the level of quality by yourself that you could achieve by working with a skilled editor. That's normal! The lone genius who comes out of the cave with the perfect novel does not exist! The manuscript that gets sold to a publisher is supposed to be handed off to an editor who tells you to tighten up that plotline and reminds you that every day can't be Tuesday and sharpens your prose so your voice really shines. Skimping out on that part of the publication process takes money out of the hands of skilled professionals, leads to consumers (ew) receiving subpar products (ew!), and is such an injustice to the writers whose work can't reach its full potential (and the writers who won't get published because they can't afford to pay an editor out of pocket!).

It drives me up the wall. I hate reading a mediocre book and knowing that a skilled editor could have easily raised it from 3 stars to 4. We should all be way angrier about it, frankly.

[24x81]

the reason why AI has become so prevalent in the fanfic community, i think, is because of the shift of fanfic and fandom from a collaborative based community to a commodity based community. it's gone from a desire to make connections and create art with people in general and in specificity to having the biggest and best and most popular work and having everyone's eyes on it. it's stopped being about the process of the art and more about the end result. and that's just the state of the internet in general when algorithm based economy is prioritized and that's the only way people know how to measure their place within an internet space anymore.

and the lack of wanting to actually sit with a piece of art you are making and being uncomfortable with it, mad at it, doubtful of it, mess around with style and syntax and plot and narration and dialogue, make an absolute mess of it, back off from it, come back to it, seek out answers from friends or other writers or other art or the world in general creates a landscape of reliance on generative AI to hurtle everyone over the difficult aspects of making art right into the end product so it can be waved around for validation and accolades. there's no desire for the act of discovery in the process of making, the spontaneous aligning of thoughts, the moment when something becomes concise and clear in your mind, when it all falls into place. the arduous relief of doing away with something that isn't benefiting the art anymore. the electrifying sense of pride when it just fucking finally works and the words flow and you get into the state of pure, uninhibited creativity. and i don't know how to solve that because there was always people who loved the idea of being a writer but didn't want to actually write and now they have a tailor-made "tool" that allows them to do this and then they get to turn around and think, "well that wasn't that hard". and that is infuriating.

[redstonedust]

its actually easy to de-enshittify your digital experience all you need to do is install this browser extension and this browser extension and this browser extension and input this custom script into the advanced box and go into your system settings and reconfigure all these options you didnt know existed and change your entire workflow and switch to this alternative operating system and this alternative web browser and this alternative chat client and this alternative word processor and this alternative- sorry that one turned out to be malware delete that one okay now double check your task manager for unwanted background processes and element block these ads and invest in a good VPN and append all your searches with AI blocking keywords and wait a few years until everything you just did becomes shitty too so you can do it all over again okay kitten. its literally that easy.

[hollanovhateai]

ohhh man. apparently when you copy+paste stuff directly from claude into ao3 it includes code. which anyone can find. people have found it in big, popular fics in multiple fandoms 😬. also heated rivalry; some of which the authors fervently denied using AI. link to thread.

link to their complete findings for those without twitter

[pluvialcity]

OK, I have questions. I am hugely skeptical of AI and do not want to see it used in fandom spaces, but this post fucking stinks and I don't trust it.

Fine, you've stated your reasons for posting this on an anonymous sideblog, whatever. I'm happy to stand ten toes down on my own views here, even though some of them are not that popular. You say that you're not one of the people who posted this, but are you connected with them? If so, are you willing to disclose that?

Why would the creators of this document not put any additional care into investigating the placement and frequency of AI usage in the listed fics? I'm not a fan of AI in any capacity, but to me there's a huge difference between using it for translation, formatting code, etc. rather than using it to generate actual writing. Is that what's happening for any of these works? I don't know, I have not yet had time to dig into the source code for all of them, but I'm not the one making an enormous callout post.

ETA: at least one of the called-out fics clearly just used Claude to generate the appropriate code to format something to look like a recipe. Again, this is a judgment call, but I find this infinitely less upsetting than someone using AI to generate fanfiction.

Corollary: why was it helpful to call out these specific popular authors? To generate hype for these posts? I think making the skin is great, because it allows readers to make choices about what they're engaging with, but archiving receipts and downloading copies of all of these in advance means that you spent a lot of time looking at the works of these specific authors and planning this. Why? If you could take the time to do that, why couldn't you take the time to look more critically at your own findings.

To be exquisitely clear, I do not personally want to read things that are generated by AI. If I suspect that something is AI-generated, I mute the author and don't recommend the fic. However, I'm not at all convinced that this is a good-faith effort at transparency in fandom, and I'm not going to assume that it's been posted by people with good intentions until I get a better explanation of all of this.

If you're someone who believes that anyone ever using AI in any capacity is a moral failing, I fully accept that as an ethical stance, and maybe this post is exactly what you need. But I spent too many years in the dungeons of fandom_wank to uncritically get up in arms when someone anonymous posts something deliberately inflammatory in a way that's clearly written to provoke a specific emotional response.

[fira211]

I would like to know why the tweet specifically calls out a fic with 2 instances, when they have one in there with over 1000.

Do I like gen-AI? No. Not even a little bit. I fucking loathe gen-AI. I hate that we even live in this timeline.

However, I do not particularly trust a post that calls out one of the most well-known authors in a fandom for two instances of formatting (in 100,000 words, and it's for formatting a recipe of all things) instead of literally anyone else in the document (like the previously mentioned 1,100 times in 61,000 words)?

Also, they say not to contact any of the authors, but specifically call them out by name? So, instead of reaching out and starting a healthy communication with someone and going "hey why did you use this for formatting, did you not know there are other ways to learn, here's some resources"; instead, one decided to put everyone on blast as though using AI for formatting and using AI for writing an entire fic are the same level of wrong.

Callout posts where the people being called out have not been contacted for comment don't accomplish anything but hate and vitriol.

I do not trust someone who had all this data, and then specifically used it to take two of the most popular fics on the list, despite not being the most prolific AI users in the doc by a longshot, to make their promo tweet about a skin they made.

I think the skin is useful! It's definitely something I would like to implement. But I also don't trust someone who takes the time to gather this much data, just to blast only two of the popular fics on the list to promote their new product.

(Also all that data and they don't even bother to make some kind of chart mapping out AI usage by word count? Again, I hate gen-AI, but ffs, this is like witch-hunting someone who broke a water restriction to water their lawn once during the summer, versus someone who breaks a water restriction to run their sprinklers every day and refill their pool after draining it. There's some nuance to be had, and we should be approaching those who only used it a few times with open questioning, and not the guillotine. Especially when the person calling for the guillotine is doing so FROM A SIDE BLOG AND NOT EVEN USING THEIR USUAL FANDOM NAME)

[jaynejezebelle]

Resurrecting my tumblr because PWHL Reddit said PWHLblr was the place to be.

I’ve been working on these tarot card (ish) designs over the last few months. I gotta get it together and finish up with Vancouver and Minnesota before the new teams announce their names/logos 💀

[penandinkprincess]

Ok so I read your shallergies fics and first of all: magical, show stopping, stupendous, thank you for your talent.

Second of all!!! In one of your fics you have like an almost throw away line where Hayden mentions he’s had to stop the other Voyageurs/Metros players from fucking with Shane’s food and like. Now my mind is rife with the ✨possibilities✨ of that scenario. Like. One of them adds peanuts or something to something Shane thinks is safe as a prank and Hayden doesn’t catch it and suddenly Shane is in anaphylaxis and everyone is freaking the fuck out. The next time Ilya plays Montreal that one player gets laid the FUCK out for some reason.

combo-ing with @pitrosa just because both of y'all were getting to the same DELICIOUS possibility of a wild amount of angst.

like the idea of someone fucking with shane's food at a party at jackie and hayden's place not because they know shane is allergic but because they're shitty and i 100% buy some bigoted asshole seeing it as a way shane is just trying to be special and other. so they knowingly do something like stir in some peanut butter or mix in some coconut oil. literally just something they see easily available in this one minute window in the kitchen they have when they're just being an asshole.

and even beyond just the nightmare of now shane has a reaction and this is one more thing that the team didn't know about previously and can spin into "so you didn't trust us?" IGNORING WHAT JUST FUCKING HAPPENED HERE, the fact that like. now shane isn't safe eating at events. or even fucking. being at events, tbh. like GOD the isolation of your team is cold to you now and you don't know which one of them fucked with you and you don't know that one or more of them won't do it again to hurt you. and it's not like any of them are going to fess up and own it because bigots are cowards and ALSO (even though shane wouldn't do it, i don't think) this is now like. pressing charges level.

and it's ONE MORE FUCKING THING that shane was afraid of!! and then it happened to him!!! what a fucking HEINOUS contribution to his anxiety getting worse while also feeling so isolated because even if hayden and jackie are equally PISSED and still invite you over when it's just y'all and you KNOW the food is safe. what the fuck are you even supposed to do here?

you are once again the kid alone at the allergy table, and this time it's because everyone else (it feels like) put you there on purpose.

[penandinkprincess]

also adding to this is that i know hayden would be fucking LIVID about this and ready to square the FUCK up with an asshole. like it's enough that they fucked with shane, but they also did it in HAYDEN'S house. where he has tried for years to make shane feel comfortable. he invited everyone into his home and they hurt his best friend, who has priority in being here over everyone as far as he's concerned.

and stuff with jj is SO complicated with the ilya of it all, but jj is shane's friend and i don't think?? was bad about him coming out?? (just being with ilya and not telling jj about that??) (if i remember correctly??) so we also have jj now angry on shane's behalf. and yeah, maybe he might be hurt that shane didn't tell him, but your friend having to go to the hospital has a way of kind of lining priorities up.

which means we now have blatant dividing lines down this team of who is falling on which side in a way that maybe wasn't even the case when it was about shane being gay. because this is a tangible and real thing that someone has used to hurt shane *could* use to hurt shane again. (and again! don't know exactly who it was!) and like it is NOT shane's fault. but i 100% see him feeling like it's his fault (and maybe even hearing that it's his fault from other people because well cap isn't keeping the team together now, is he?)

[darlingofdots]

also thinking of the awful moment when Shane realises he's having a reaction and it's a bad one, this is dangerous, and there's people everywhere and he KNOWS Jackie wouldn't be so careless and she knows what to do but he can't see her right now and he doesn't remember if his jacket is on a hanger in the entry or with the pile in one of the guest rooms and okay, wait, there's an epipen in the kitchen because he's here so often, if he gets that he just needs to find Hayden to call an ambulance for him—meanwhile the guys are watching Shane Hollander start wheezing and turning a very alarming colour and his face is swelling up and he's stumbling past people and crashing into furniture and it's genuinely scary, it's actually terrifying, what the fuck? and the Pikes are dropping everything and zeroing in on him because right, they've always been like this, fucking weird, if Hollzy wasn't gay they'd all think he was fucking Jackie, but right now she's holding his face in her hands like he's made of glass and Pike is forcing him to sit on the floor and he's on the phone and looks like he's about to punch a motherfucker and when Jackie climbs into the ambulance with Hollander the house has been deathly silent for five minutes as everyone realises, whether they know what happened or not, that another line has been crossed and there's no going back

[penandinkprincess]

GOD shane in the middle of fucking anaphylaxis having to try and think of "gotta get out of sight gotta get out of sight gotta get out of sight" because the vibe with the team is already Fucking Weird, and he sure as HELL isn't going to have THIS happen in front of them.

but like. you can only hide anaphylaxis so fucking much.

so the worst of it happens out of sight with jackie helping shane into one of the guest rooms on the first floor while hayden goes to grab his jacket for him.

and also the double whammy FURY in the aftermath of now someone has hurt hayden's best friend in his home AND scared the hell out of his children because they had to watch uncle shane get so sick and are now upset because he had to leave the house in an ambulance with mommy. and the distribution of labor in that choice was jackie also being pissed and knowing, "either i'm going in this ambulance, or i'm catching a fucking charge today." and hayden being left to try and work out what the fuck just went down here because he's equally furious but at least has some level of knowing all of the guys here, but now he's trying to get updates on shane, calm the kids down and promise them uncle shane is okay and yeah they can maybe visit him later if he feels up to it, and also work out who the fuck decided they wanted to die today.

and with all of this?? like HELL is the person who did it thinking it was just a mean ass prank going to speak up. because this is now "maybe catching a charge for poisoning cap" territory and also a FURIOUS hayden pike is visibly ready to throw hands. time to keep it to yourself and SKEDADDLE.

[penandinkprincess]

GOD 100% I think hayden and jackie would be like YEP THAT'S DONE with hosting, but now??? soooo??? where is hosting going to happen?? ain't going to be shane's house.

and now showing up at someone's house when they host is a fucking STATEMENT, especially if it's someone who is especially notably Not Cool with shane.

and the way shane would still be taking the blame for this!! both from the shitty ones on the team and also feeling like it's his fault!! because the team is literally splintering around him and what the FUCK is he supposed to do about it!!

and the growing tension!! certainly doesn't make him feel LESS like someone is going to fuck with him!!

[penandinkprincess]

YOU STOP THAT

TWENTY MINUTE TIMEOUT IN THE SANDBOX D:<

[penandinkprincess]

god and the EXTREMELY complex feelings shane would have about the rookie in the aftermath.

like NO of course he doesn't want this kid's career nuked because he was stupid and ended up being a patsy for fucking with shane-

-but also. he did do it.

like yeah the kid hero worshipped him in a way that was a little overwhelming but also?? kind of a relief?? when it felt like so much of the team was icing him out?? and yet when it came down to shane or the rest of the team, the rookie sided with the rest of the team to fuck with him. and he didn't KNOW it was serious, but he also didn't know it WASN'T.

and shane being so fucking angry that he knows he's supposed to forgive the kid here, but why does he ALWAYS have to be the one forgiving? why does he just have to take it on the chin and keep going and keep his head up and don't snap and don't not smile when you're supposed to and don't ever let that mask slip, young man, because it won't take much for those cheers to turn to jeers-

and even when he's trying SO FUCKING HARD why does it feel like he's still fucking FAILING.

[penandinkprincess]

vladi you have to STOP speaking because you are putting broken glass in the sandbox 😭😭😭

the idea of shane who is already having A Bad Fucking Time but now feeling SO fucking guilty and using what sway he has to put spin on this through The Power Of Yuna so the kid is never going to get back on montreal obviously, but A Team will take him because he IS a good player and shane issued a statement to the equivalent of, "I appreciate the pro-active response of my team," and GOD this would fucking suck to have to read over for approval because WHAT fucking response, "but I wanted to clear up a misundestanding of an unfortunate accident blah blah blah" that's as vague as possible but absolves the rookie of any active malice and plays it off as "stupid kid did a thing without realizing it would have consequences, but i get it," which helps the kid out but also makes shane look understanding and gracious and magnanimous. he got positioned as an asshole who came down hard on a rookie for no reason, so this press release does then make it, "hey, misunderstandings happened. i didn't mean for anything to happen here."

but also just. fucks him over further. montreal looks like they were a good team that just got a little overzealous in protecting shane hollander because of COURSE you would do that for shane hollander (and god the irony is thick enough to almost SMOTHER him), and meanwhile: NOTHING IS BETTER. NOTHING IS FIXED. THE VIBES ARE STILL FUCKING RANCID. SHANE STILL CAN'T FUCKING EAT AROUND HIS TEAM BECAUSE MAYBE SAFE BUT MAYBE NOT. ESPECIALLY IF HE'S ALREADY PLAYED IT OFF ONCE AS, "misunderstanding, things happen, that's life." BUT HE'S A GOOD SPORT, EVERYONE. HE'S A TEAM FUCKING PLAYER. HE IS SHANE HOLLANDER, BEST SPORTSMANLIKE CONDUCT OF THEM ALL.

AND HE IS FUCKING DROWNING IN IT.

and making this worse is that the rookie is SO fucking thankful. like his hockey HERO saved his ass here after he was stupid and could have killed him. shane has never been more of a legend to him. and the kid wants to come up to him at every game they play against each other and say thank you again which is. so not fucking helpful. for trying to Repress The Shit Out Of The All Of This. and what is shane supposed to do! tell him to fuck off??? no! can't do that! this rookie was part of a nuke designed to blow shane's life apart, but he didn't mean it and shane is SUCH a good fucking sport and that's hockey and if you're just good enough and gracious enough and work hard enough, then everyone will let you have a place, right?

right?

[penandinkprincess]

@shakespearerants

#heated rivalry#I will never shut up and this is a threat >:)#But it's truly like. Shane was the one who got hurt and now every fucking thing he does is just being#The Bigger Person™ and Keeping It Together™ and Smooting Things Over™ and Calming Everyone Down™.#Like paradoxically because he was the one hurt in the situation it's now his responsibility to manage the consequences of that situation#for everyone. He's the one with the near death experience and he's also the one not allowed to feel things about that near death experience#Because his reaction is being scrutinized and will determine how EVERYONE handles this. And if he wants a good outcome i.e. keeping his job#and not blowing up the team dynamic to a truly nuclear degree...he has to downplay it. It wasn't that serious. We were all having a laugh.#Of course rookie should still play management is overreacting. No I don't feel unsafe in the locker room why would you ask that hahaha.#And at the same time he watches EVERYONE ELSE AROUND HIM get the luxury of freaking out and leaning on their partners. Ilya turning into#a white-hot ball of rage. The team closing ranks. Hayden and Jackie and JJ on their righteous crusade. The rookie breaking down in front#of him and being carried off by his boyfriend. And if SHANE allows himself even a fraction of these reactions. Or if he even indulges#in the sin of breaking down in public and having HIS boyfriend carry him off to comfort him about it. He loses something he can't give up.#Like it truly is a fucking lose-lose for Shane Hollander and the worst part is he truly doesn't have a choice in the matter.#Like there's this thing that happens when a victim of bullying speaks out about their experience where there's a big outcry and people#are like WE HAVE TO CHANGE THINGS and often the bullies themselves speak out and go WE DIDN'T KNOW IT WAS THAT SERIOUS#WE WANT TO DO BETTER. Where you'd think this would lead to meaningful change but in reality what happens is they sit the victim down and go#“so :). Tell us what to do exactly :). So you'll forgive us :). And we're absolved :).” And then anything the victim says that isn't#YOU STOPPED BULLYING ME THIS IS ALL I EVER WANTED is proof that they just want attention. And after that sit down happens the victim isn't#allowed to have negative feelings or any kind of resentment towards the bullies anymore bc What do you mean we fixed the situation :)#and in fact the victim is often expected to kind of act as “proof” that the bullies are good people because hey look if I was a bad person#I wouldn't be friends with the guy I used to bully haha! Tell them how great I am or I'm sticking your head in the toilet again haha!#Anyways this is basically the dynamic between Shane and the team after the incident I think. Like management fired the rookie and forced#them all to sit through some training or other so now Everything Is Resolved OR ELSE. And if Shane DIDN'T try to get the rookie reinstated#and if he DIDN'T try to stick it out with the locker room and if he EVER brought it up again. Well. That's where public opinion#turns against you. Thankfully my man has Ilya & Hayden & JJ to remind him that there is a secret third option: Just Fucking Leave.#Not that Shane would out of his own free will but that's truly the only thing you can do in that kind of situation. Get out of there.#Vladi speaks

the way this ALSO then fucks him over with even being able to address homophobia on the team. like he was already trying to muscle through it, but now!! can't bring it up even if he fucking wanted to!!!! sorry, champ, you got your one (1) "hey, this sucks" card and you used it!! even though nothing changed!!! and if you try to speak out now, management is going to shut you the FUCK up because they can't risk something else happening when this ended so neatly and nicely! they look good now! they look supportive! no chance in HELL they're risking that now for a little thing like "hey, vibe's weird"!

and! if you go public about it! not that you would even fucking WANT TO! but if you tried! good chance the public wouldn't be with you! because now you would just sound whiny! like you missed being in the spotlight and had to come up with something else!

congrats champ! you good sported yourself into a corner AND YOU WERE BACKED INTO IT FROM THE START. all of your options SUCKED. and you still!! had to choose one!!!

[penandinkprincess]

#Elmofire.gif YOU GET IT!!!!!#Truly this has happened to me and it's the worst feeling in the world bc you kind of have to gaslight yourself to believe the shit you're#saying or you literally can't do it. And re: your tags - yes. The bone shattering knowledge that your acceptance in the group hinges on#their collective option which could change at any moment all it takes is someone getting annoyed at you in the wrong moment. And even worse#You try to explain this to people and they go WOW you're overreacting have you considered therapy!! And then you go to therapy#and your therapist sits you down and goes let's unpack these fears :) why do you believe this could happen to you :). And you go Well#because it literally did and if anything I'm downplaying the risk of it happening again and the consequences to my person if it did if#I'm being honest :). And then you just sit in silence for 5 minutes while your therapist visibly adjusts your whole treatment plan on the#fly. Anyways I think it takes YEARS for Shane to feel safe eating things when out of house again and I think a big step in the#healing direction might genuinely be getting an allergy service dog that's sniff trained because then at least he has an “objective” second#opinion and doesn't have to rely on trust that no one would want to poison him alone (wild sentence but like. It literally happened!!)#ONLY. An allergy service dog is a visible disability aid. Like it doesn't really GET more visible. And I think there would be a lot of#therapy needed for Shane to even get to the point where he could lead a visible reminder of a “weakness” around on a leash in public.#But I think the turning point here would be Ruby Pike who is also in therapy after witnessing her uncle Shane almost die overhearing#Shane having a whisper argument with Hayden about how he's not getting a fucking allergy dog do you know what that would LOOK LIKE

#Hayden he CAN'T he just has to be more careful - and then Ruby breaks into tears Uncle Shane you can train a dog to tell you#if you can eat something? Uncle Shane maybe you can get a dog and then you'll be safe again and you won't have to die? (bc Ruby of course i#not handling her first confrontation with mortality well and genuinely believes Shane might come in contact with something and keel over#on the street at any time) And maybe then she and Jade and Arthur and Amber can come over to his house again if the dog sniffs them#really well and makes sure she didn't accidentally touch a peanut? (all of the Pike kids have noticed Uncle Ilya is coming over alone most#of the time now and there haven't been any dinners at the Hollanov Household since the incident - though that one is coincidence).#Anyways the next week a working line German Shepherd puppy moves into Shane's appartment. Puppy showed great promise at first litter#evaluations and both parents are bomb sniffing dogs. Puppy immediately starts training and as German Shepherds do becomes SO serious#about his job. Like learns to sniff out multiple allergens and has a trained signal (paw to knee) for contamination but if he feels Shane i#getting rid of The Bad Smell fast enough he WILL start growling at the offending item. Six months into training Shane and doggo are on thei#daily morning 5 k run (working line dogs...) and suddenly dog who normally has IMPECCABLE leash manners fully starts pulling Shane off the#path with all his considerable strength. Shane is like ??????!!! turns out the guy sitting on the bench 20 m ahead was eating trail mix#containing multiple allergens. Shane feels. A lot safer going places after that.

#Also Dog of course as German Shepherds do feels Extremely strongly about The Rules and Good Behavior and thus views Anya and her antics #Also Dog of course as German Shepherds do feels Extremely strongly about The Rules and Good Behavior and thus views Anya and her antics#with a sort of stressed bafflement at first (Shane said sit why aren't you sitting???!!!) and aloofness once Hollanov more in together and#thus the dogs now live together too (Shane said sit and she's not sitting... couldn't be THIS good boy...). Ilya of course tries to#introduce some fun into dogs life because Shane look at him always so serious he has to be on vacation SOMETIMES!! Maybe at least at the#cottage yes there are no allergens at the cottage AND nobody but your parents visits he can be on vacation at the cottage at least!!!#Only Ilya's methods for introducing fun into dogs life are tailored to Absurdly Treat Motivated Counter Surfer Unholy Terror For A Little#Cheese Anya and dog is simply Above Such Nonsense (read: toy motivated) and as such couldn't care less about whatever special treat you hav#in your hand No Thank You he is Getting His Leash it is Mandatory Daily Exercise Time. But once Ilya finds the perfect squeaky toy it's#OVER for Mr Serious (it's a loon) (because of course it is) (have some dog content as apology for putting glass in the sand box)#Also I think he has a cheesy Russian name like Sputnik or Belka and it is genuinely a coincidence that's literally his kennel name but Shan#can't help feeling that it's right that the dog training to keep him safe is named in the same language as the man who's been doing that#for years already :)#Vladi speaks#Reblogging again because TUMBLR ATE HALF OF MY TAGS!!!

@shakespearerants

I WOULD DIE FOR SPUTNIK

i also love the idea of this near-puppy being SO deadly fucking serious about his job. he is "MR. PRESIDENT GET DOWN" levels of Focused on doing his tasks. if shane isn't listening to tap tap tap tap tap tap at his knee, nikky WILL just bap it right out of his hands. daddy, that is BAD. PUT IT DOWN.

also the idea of sputnik meeting anya who is a little chaos creature (affectionate) and just

at this dog who does not only not tell daddy about The Bad Foods, but also??? STEALS FOOD??? she investigated daddy's plate TO TRY AND STEAL SOME???

sputnik's fuzzy little mind is BLOWN. baby came from a working! family! this behavior is BEYOND THE PALE.

and i'm cackling about the idea of this near-puppy just YELLING at anya because no!! the rules!! you are not doing The Rules!!!! nikky is POINTEDLY doing a PERFECT sit. you want a shake paw? he'll give you the best shake paw this town has ever seen. goodest boy is a DELIGHT on the leash meanwhile wild child sister is a little MONSTER who is also papa's little princess so her correction is tragically limited lmao.

AND SPUTNIK HAVING A VACATION EACH YEAR. I AM SO FULL OF LOVE AND LIGHT. nikky with his loon toy on his patio bed chilling in the sunshine and squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak until anya comes over to lovingly bother him into a game of bitey face.

and baby fucking LOVES the water. he will dive after his toy into the water as many times as you'll sit there and throw it for him. he is a water! baby! having the time of his LIFE.

but also SUCH a polite boy going back to the house. has to get rinsed off of the lakewater and always stands so well at the door with SUCH good manners to get his paws wiped off before he goes inside. world's best little rule maker AND follower.

meanwhile if that sliding door is juuuuuust big enough for anya's to squeeze through while someone is handing a towel over??? enjoy the mud monster beelining RIGHT for the couch lmao.

also the idea of anya putting together food=tap on knee=reward??? but not really knowing what connection there is there meaning that anya teaches herself "slap the SHIT out of people's knees" as a trick NO ONE WANTS HER TO BE DOING.

but boy oh BOY is she convinced it's going to pay off in treats one day. XD

[penandinkprincess]

#THE SPUTNIK -> NIKKI PIPELINE!!!!!#Oh you KNOW that dog has 5000 Russian nicknames to the point where he basically answers to anything spoken in the right tone which is#GENUINELY his only fault. Because he is SUCH a good boy. The centaurs make a little game out of it maybe even on social media?#Who can get Sputnik to answer to the weirdest noun. Troy is the running champion simply bc he has The Shane Tone DOWN.#unfortunately the habit of calling the dog increasingly ridiculous nicknames is VERY FUN and also coincidend with Sveta giving Shane#and in depth lesson on Russian diminutives so Shane and Ilya go around baby talking Sputnik in increasingly confusing ways#Shane: Nikki found a peanut under the fridge in the breakroom today! Ilya: Oh is our Kolya doing such a good job? Shane: Kolenka if you keep#it up you'll be on track for employee of the month! Ilya: Ohhh Sputkol'ka did you hear that? Employee of the month does my good boy want to#be employee of the month? Yes you do Sputnishkolaska yes you dooooo....#Also Sputnik of course is allowed Everywhere in the building and as such has his own little Centaurs employee badge#because for some reason it's easier to list a dog as an employee than to jump through the 50 bureaucratic#hoops necessary to keep him on Shane 24/7 including airplane cabins and hockey rinks. Ilya insisted on a whole little photoshoot including#shirt and glasses (“just like his papa!”) and the pictures are up in the mudroom above the hook where his leash hangs#Of course Anya was also at the photoshoot (#Ilya we can't play favourites I know she didn't get a badge but maybe we get some bows and do a#first day of school theme? ...why are you crying?) but the best picture they got was a blurry action shot of her open mouth lunging for#the cheese balanced in the camera to make her look in the right direction. Yes it is also framed and next to Sputniks photo above her leash#hook. Also Sputnik LOVES the Pike children because they are excellent sniffing height and often hand him things to inspect and they all turn#out safe and he's doing SUCH a good job and these tiny humans NEVER bring bad things but they ALWAYS have fun stuff in their pockets and#sometimes!! It's even a squeaky!!! And if it is he'll very politely sit tail wagging so hard the whole dog is vibrating and wait for The#Signal from Shane and once he Receives The Signal he gets to roughhouse with Arthur and Jade for half an hour before he's on duty again to#inspect the snacks Jackie grabbed from the car for picky eater Amber.#heated rivalry#Vladi speaks#I know I invented him but I would also die for Sputnik

GOD the idea of sputnik the goodest boy who loves his job SO much that he'll answer to anything if it sounds like Work Voice (as opposed to anya, who decides on a case-by-case basis if she'll answer to her one (1) name lmao). running list of things sputnik is regularly called and answers to both at home and at work

sputnik

spud

potato

tater

tater tot

sputnicholas

nikki

sputnikolai

kolyenka

kolyan

kolenka

kolya

coleslaw

cabbage

houndzy

AND SPUTNIK AND HIS EMPLOYEE BADGE. I SCREAM. the idea of The Goodest Boy in his harness with his badge clipped on who stays RIGHT by shane unless he's on the ice (doesn't come into arenas during games, but will hang out in the offices "supervising" support staff and always comes to practices), and then he hangs out with wiebe, and there's an ongoing bit that sputnik makes the calls during practice games on fouls or disputed plays. a regular joke is wiebe putting the mic on his headset near sputnik's nose so over the speakers you just hear loud *sniff sniff sniff sniff SNIFF sniff* and then "alright, you heard him, boys. run it back."

and i feel like shane is still SO fucking resistant to sputnik going places with him at first. like this is a visible signal of I Have Needs, and that is AWFUL. he HATES IT. HORRIBLE. but it IS nice to have the reassurance of being able to have sputnik sign off on safe or not safe, and he's SUCH a good, polite boy who is so quiet and is so good at not making himself a spectacle. so shane slowly starts bringing him to practice with him and then to outdoor restaurants where they can sit on the patio because then nikki could ostensibly just be a pet dog who came along for dinner. and then one day a kid with a service dog comes up to him at a meet and greet and tells him how he saw that shane hollander has a service dog because ilya posted a clip of sputnik doing the "no! bad!" paw to show off how smart he is on his instagram and it's so cool! they both have service dogs!

and it's like...shane still never wanted to be A Role Model with everything that comes along with it, but it does make him feel different when there's a kid in front of him who is like "i think my service dog is cool because YOU have a service dog and YOU'RE cool." and like. okay. maybe he'll post sputnik a little more. and yeah, sure, maybe sputnik can go along to the next irina foundation thing.

and sputnik is a STAR at camp. the kids all get a kick out of nikki saying if food is good or bad. it becomes like. A Daily Ritual. at first shane is kind of embarassed because of all things, children, you want to watch THIS?? but fine. okay. whatever. shane doesn't understand kids but the threat of no sputnik judgement at lunch did get everyone quiet and focused. so now every day at lunch everyone sits down and heads are craning around and there is a drumroll while shane presents his lunch to sputnik, and there is a cheer like someone won a goal when sputnik says it's good. and sometimes they sneak in an allergen as practice for nikki, and the kids lose their MINDS about it when sputnik does the "no, bad" paw. it ends up being a reward prize of whoever showed the best sportsmanship the day before gets to get their lunch cleared by sputnik, too.

and like for shane...he's still not a fan of how much allergies are pushed into being part of his identity, but there is something in the fact that sputnik is fun and people think sputnik is cool and interesting, and it does mean being different, but not different in a bad way.

[whimsy-flags]

Some middle finger emojis for our 🐱💜 anon! Enjoy hehe~

[pronouncingitwang]

at some point in your life you will be boiling fruit, water, sugar, and lemon juice in a pot to make a syrup or jam. the instructions will tell you to simmer for a certain amt of time. your timer will go off and you will look at the pot and go, "hm, this doesn't look thick enough. maybe i'll let it go for another 10 minutes." this is the devil speaking. it's only so liquid right now because it is at boiling point. it will thicken when it cools down. learn from the follies of my youth and do not let this happen to you

[yokowan]

at some point in your life you will be making a sauce or a stew in which you need to add cornstarch to thicken it. and you will prepare a slurry of starch in cold water and think "this looks like way too little starch to thicken this amount of liquid." this is the devil speaking. cornstarch instantly polymerizes at 95°C and if you add too much it will turn into an impossibly thick goop.

[le-jardin-inculte]

at some point in your life you will be making some sort of cream based dessert that requires gelatin to thicken it. and you will soak some gelatin sheets in water and think "this is too few gelatin sheets for this amount of cream." this is the devil speaking. it will thicken in the fridge and if you add too much you will end up with milk jelly

[shithowdy]

at some point in your life you will be baking cookies. you will take the sheet out after twelve minutes as the recipe instructs and the cookies will still be glistening and soft. "these don't seem cooked enough," you will think to yourself, "i should place them back into the oven until their edges are nice and golden." this is the devil talking. this is how you get dry, overdone cookies. the cookies will continue to bake on the warm sheet for several more minutes and then harden up after sitting on a rack for a while. trust the process. trust the process.

[whitachi]

at some point in your life you will be adding a small pasta to a soup and you will think "that is not enough small pasta." this is the devil talking. the pasta will absorb the stock and expand. this is how you end up with a soup that is a solid mass of soggy ditalini.

[araceil]

At some point in your life you will be adding garlic to a dish and you will think "that is not enough garlic." These are angels speaking. They are correct. Add more garlic.

[othellho]

Ingram, John Henry, Flora Symbolica: The language and sentiment of flowers, (London: 1869).

[tea-and-violence]

sorry if this makes no sense to anyone else but I saw this thing that was like comparing a mitski quote to a hozier quote and it was something like for mitski loving you makes me love everything else and for hozier loving you makes me hate everything else except idek where I saw that and I cant find it again so I have no references but I thought something up yay

feel like hollanov is a hozier type of love ( because you love me I love you I hate everyone else) (i have only ever been in love with one person) (me too. just one.) (all these beautiful women and I am always wishing they were him) (I have ruined you," Rozanov said when they broke apart. "No one else will do.")

and destiel is a mitski type of love (because you love me I love you and I love everything) (because you cared, i cared) (I cared about the whole world because of you) (family don't end in blood) (For failing you like I've failed every other godforsaken thing that I care about!) (jack) (claire) (Team Free Will)

[tea-and-violence]

i found it!!!!!

[modern-politics111]

[disregardandfelicity]

sounds very similar to a radio story i heard in 2014 ago about credit card debt. the debt got sold to a collection company and a couple received a court summons. they knew they had taken on debt, but they were confused about who this new company was and where specifically the number they were supposed to owe came from.

they show up in court and just ask the lawyer for the collection company: can you prove where this number comes from? Do you have a contract showing that you purchased our debt? probably luckily for them, a reporter researching a book on the topic showed up and asked the same questions.

10 minutes later they get in front of the judge and the collection company drops the whole case and theyre free to go. story is below, it has a transcript in the link too

Prologue - This American Life

Ira talks to reporter Jake Halpern about a scene he saw take place in a Georgia courtroom where a couple uttered some magic words that seeme

[evolutionsbedingt]

https://twitter.com/BrianManookian/status/1674963884703088642

Link to the twitter thread for accessibility!

[forsapphics]

New York City, 1970s

[tea-and-violence]

happy pride month !!!!! :)))))))))))