I think you dialed the wrong romcom

Nell, 30s, she/hers/her, floundering my way through life as best I can and writing stories while I do so. Lots of fandoms, depending on the time of year and my mood. Other than that, quotes I like, pretty pictures, the occasional adorable animal. You know, the usual. Be warned: this is not a spoiler-free blog!

[jennchecks]

God, what am I doing? Naïve, provincial girl. Entirely too tight-wound. Such a cliché. I outta know better. Gee, thanks. And yet, there is something about you… Maybe it's my keen fashion sense. No, it's definitely not that.

[steampunkcorgi]

Harrowhark the First

[buckofalltrades]

Buck of All Trades Fest!

*with thanks to @ponyregrets for the excellent title suggestion.

Enough people seemed enthusiastic about the idea I (@frightfullytreeish) suggested on this post that I thought why not make it a reality.

The goal of this fic fest is to explore Buck's seriously underutilised jeep life backstory and all the skills he must have picked up (or, to be fair, discovered he was awful at) along the way. Tim Minear might have forgotten that Buck wore a cowboy hat prior to Nashville, but WE WILL NOT FORGET. In the postcards to Maddie in Buck Begins, we learn he did construction, mixology, dude-ranching, and picked up odd jobs, but those are just a few from a whole stack of postcards! What was his oddest job? Can he sex chicks by hand? Does he make a mean balloon animal? Let the spinning wheel decide.

Schedule

Between now and the 17th August, send me suggestions for jobs you think Buck might have/should have tried his hand at before he found his way to firefighting.

On the 17th August, I will post a link to a spinning wheel with all the suggestions (consolidating repeat/overlapping suggestions into one as necessary). Spin the wheel, receive a nugget of inspiration from Buck's employment history, and write a fic or create some fanart inspired by it! Contributions can be gen or shippy, pre-canon exploring Buck's time as e.g. a balloon animal artist or present day casually mentioning his balloon animal skills during an emergency, or some combination of the two.

On 7th September - when else but Labor Day? - post your fic to the AO3 collection here or on tumblr with the tag #buckofalltradesfest

Tagging people who I think expressed interest in participation, neath the cut

@turtlewritestoo1425 @theladyragnell @clownsinspace @leothil @sunflower-eddiediaz @dessvelado @bugbugly @bucklesdiaz @rhodeys @thatbuddie @wayward-buddie @allisonrw96 @agentsnickers @diazboys @lasagnatheory @buckme @miminwords @glorious-spoon @crappylineofbestfit @tweetsongs @fraddit @diazbuckleys @regina-cordium @lookforanewangle

[trangoldin]

[ethos-labrador]

for those like me that want proof this is real:

[thelovers-thedreamers-and-me]

tags from @egg-tats have made me mentally categorize this movie as part of the Purgeverse in which single people fucking has been designated a crime, so i am imagining the entire thing going on but with the purge shenanigans in the background and i'm already more interested

[kosmogrl]

[jkottke]

Checking in with Theo Jansen’s Strandbeests, kinetic machine sculptures that move under their own power along the beach. Some of the most recent versions are quick fast and can even tow humans along behind them.

[knitmeapony]

Gorgeous.

[frcz78]

Ok, it's finally done. Home is a place, home is a person.

This story is my first major piece after several years of art block, and I'm so glad I could finally get back to drawing.

Huge thanks to my dear friend @chancekey for the support.

[peg-the-empire]

shoutout to everyone in small fandoms who takes a character with one minute of screentime and decides to build an entire universe around them. to the oc creators, the rarepair shippers, the canon-divergence enthusiasts and the people who can’t stop asking “but what if?” and then proceed to spend 50k words answering their own question.

i genuinely think your joy is contagious. fandoms grow because people see someone having fun and think, “wait, i want to play too.” <3

[luna-azzurra]

The most interesting question you can ask about any character is not what do they want. it's what do they believe they deserve. because those two things are almost never the same and the gap between them is where your entire story lives. a person can want love completely and believe they don't deserve it and that belief will destroy every good thing that comes toward them in ways they won't even notice they're doing. write the gap. the gap is the character.

[asystolle]

to build a home: bobby nash

I never wanted to go. If I could choose, I would stay with you. Always.

[nastywizard]

Is that a trebuchet in your pants or are you just happy to siege me

[buddiesblr]

makes total sense, especially coming from you.

[ralfmaximus]

What If We Made Advertising Illegal?

What if we banned all advertising? Not regulate it—abolish it. This proposal would transform manipulation machines, and maybe save democracy

Even as an advertiser (especially as an advertiser), I am convinced that outlawing advertising is the best thing we can do for our world now. More than gun control. More than tackling climate change. More than lowering the price of eggs. Removing these advanced manipulation tools would force everyone—politicians included—to snap back into reality. By outlawing advertising, the machinery of mass delusion would lose its most addictive and toxic fuel.

I started out reading this smugly saying to myself yeah, right.

But by the end I'm sold. Let's ban advertising.

We can start small, maybe with city ordinances. Then roll it out county wide, then at the state level. Once other states see how quiet and sane things can be, they'll adopt the ban too. The ones that don't will remain snarling islands of rage & delusion until the people move away.

Let's ban advertising.

[luna-azzurra]

If you're a new writer and you're asking yourself "is this too personal, is this too much, will people think this is weird" that feeling is the exact location of your actual voice. The stuff that makes you want to close the laptop is the stuff nobody else could write. The safe version is always worse. Always. I have never once read something and thought "this would have been better if it was a little less honest." go further. It's always go further.

[70sscifiart]

Bob Eggleton

[vividciggy]

Her Most Serene Highness, Crown Prince Kiriona Gaia, The Saddest Girl in the Whole World! 🖤

[soulren]

One single spider has been descending from a very long thread all the way from the moon and will very soon, we hope, carefully touch down on earth.