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silverbirching · 23 days

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I know y'all have been conditioned by years of media telling you that the chief activities of a detective are being a shit to your homoerotic besty and having upmarket facebones, but

my favorite thing about the mystery genre is that we all accept the concept of "world famous detective" without hesitation even though that is absolutely not a real category of celebrity

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silverbirching · 2 months

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I made a slight adjustment for verisimilitude:

You may have seen a video on the internet recently. As have I!

A comic strip, Vampigeon by Josh Jennings.

Panel 1: Caption: It’s not all bad, James Somerton fans. Now that you know his formula, you can make an infinite number of his videos using only the power of your imagination

Panel 2: [A title card, with Stock Footage of cows with color filters and the text "Moo, Britannia by James Somerton."]

Panel 3: [YouTube Other People's Words Reader James Somerton presents a video.] James (Encyclopedia Text): Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as mad cow disease, is an incurable and invariably fatal neurodegenerative disease of cattle. Symptoms include abnormal behavior, trouble walking, and weight loss.

Panel 4: James (Standard Dialogue): Historians theorize that the first Mad Cow was, big surprise, straight and female. These symptoms, the abnormal behavior in particular, mimic what people with vaginas are like all the time.

Panel 5: James (Standard Dialogue): I don't acknowledge nonbinary masc people or trans men, and, as such, their silence on the issue of Mad Cow…is deafening.

Panel 6: James (Standard Dialogue): Once, I was walking down the street at night, when a pack of roving vaginas attacked me.

Panel 7: James (Standard Dialogue): They brandished Mad Cow Burgers, screaming about I needed to kiss a boy in front of them.

Panel 8: James (Standard Dialogue): I managed to get into my home, but I could still hear the scraping of their claws against the glass. Hear their sickening howls, bragging about how women don't have problems.

Panel 9: [beat]

Panel 10: James (Encyclopedia Text): Currently the only reliable test for Mad Cow is examination of tissues during a necropsy citation needed.

#james somerton #hbomberguy #yeah you can really see that $8000 dollar camera pulling its weight #dude always looks like he's about to declare a meeting of the Midnight Society officially begun #you know #in addition to the million other ways he sucks

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silverbirching · 4 months

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WHAAAAAAT AAAAAAAAAH WHAAAAAAAT

Chapters: 4/? Fandom: Shadow and Bone (TV) Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Ivan/Fedyor Kaminsky, The Darkling | Aleksander Morozova/Alina Starkov, Nikolai Lantsov/Alina Starkov, Matthias Helvar/Nina Zenik Characters: Ivan (The Grisha Trilogy), Fedyor Kaminsky, Alina Starkov, The Darkling | Aleksander Morozova, Nikolai Lantsov, Kaz Brekker, Jesper Fahey, Wylan Van Eck, Nina Zenik, Matthias Helvar, Inej Ghafa, Zoya Nazyalensky, Genya Safin, Jan Van Eck, Jarl Brum, Mei Kir-Azaan (Original Character) Additional Tags: Shadow and Bone (TV) Season 3, Or What It Would Have Been, Post TV Canon, Obligatory Fuck You Netflix, Ice Court Heist (Six of Crows), The Darkling Is Dead But Doesn’t Let That Stop Him, Future Fic, Mad Queen Alina, Lots of Fivan Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Crows Shenanigans, You Know All That Good Stuff Series: Part 2 of Shadow and Bone Seasons 2 & 3

Summary: Mei hesitates a final moment. She doesn’t know how this request will be taken, but has to work with what she has. “Their names are Ivan Sakharov and Fedyor Kaminsky, Your Majesty. They are both Heartrenders, well known to you and the entire Grisha order. We traveled together for a time, from Ahmrat Jen to Ketterdam, and then were separated in the course of several misadventures. But we were pursuing a deadly weapon, the one that was used against you at your own coronation. It is called jurda parem. If you help me find Ivan and Fedyor, I will tell you what I know about it.”

There is a very long pause. Alina’s eyes remain that same unsettling, hungry black, until she looks up. “Indeed, Mei Kir-Azaan,” she says, and smiles. “I would very much like to take that bargain.”

Sequel to we could stay like this forever [lost in wonderland].

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silverbirching · 4 months

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To specify I would like my ghosts to be a trio of those fucked-up Japanese toilet ghosts, please and thank you.

reblog to send three ghosts after elon musk

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silverbirching · 4 months

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I'm not crying ur crying shut up

I would like a newly reunited Helnik figuring out what their new, non-child-soldier winter traditions are going to be plz and thnx

The condensation on the grimy window-pane drips slowly onto the scarred wooden sill, the Ketterdam winter light slants like iron and frost from the high garret windows, and as she sits on the bed and watches Matthias wrestle with the embers in the dirty fireplace, Nina wonders timidly if she should get up and help him. Not that he needs it, not in the least. Aside from the general ferocious competence, she can't fathom how anyone could grow up in the frozen boneyard of Fjerda and not know how to make a decent fire. Of course, it's not as if Ravkan winters are a basket of roses, but Fjerda has always seemed much colder to her, in any number of ways. Yet it's the principle of the thing, one of the thousand tiny struggles and questions she's been left with ever since their fraught reunion and Matthias's eventful extraction from Hellgate. Does he want her help, or would it seem patronizing, pointless, stupid?

Uncharacteristically paralyzed with indecision, Nina doesn't move until Matthias utters a sound of triumph and gets to his feet, regarding the restored fire in the hearth with satisfaction. Saints, this is excruciating. They've been shut up in the attic for two days, waiting out the aftermath of the prison break, and Nina has a feeling it will either repair their bond in a surprising fashion or sunder it for good. Kaz probably also wants to see if they're going to kill each other before he really commits to anything, or a further employment of their services. For which it's hard to blame him, but --

"There," Matthias says. He doesn't turn around, but his voice is likewise somewhat less cold than before. "That's better."

"Yes," Nina says, after a fraught pause. She watches the glow limn the fine blond hairs on his arms, the scruff of his beard, the back of his neck, the roughness and the scars that she doesn't remember from before, which must be another poisoned gift of Hellgate. She doesn't want to ask too closely, even though she should. They've spent much of the time so far like this, in lapses and pauses, walking on eggshells and flashes of guilt and anger alike. He knows he should be grateful to her and the Crows for getting him out, but when it seems like just another manipulation, another necessity, using him worse than Jarl Brum ever did and not even having the decency to admit it --

"Matthias," Nina says convulsively. His name tastes odd in her mouth, sharp and dry, and he looks up with a bit of a start. Do you hate me, will you hate me forever -- the only question she wants to ask, the only one that seems to matter, but she can't get her tongue around it. Instead, as he looks at her expectantly and her words fail, she gropes for an acceptable, less-world-ending alternative. "It's almost the Winter Fete," she says, as if what either of them really have on their mind is the holidays. "Is there -- do you want to do anything for it?"

Matthias's mouth twitches in something almost like amusement, but he duly ponders the question, more than it deserves. She can't fathom what a celebration might be like in Fjerda, or even if they allow such things; it seems like it must entail hours of prayers on cold stone floors and the penitential consumption of lutefisk. Or maybe there are parties for the common people, but not for the drüskelle. Not for an orphan boy raised in the frozen Ice Court, a child soldier just like -- well, just like her. Back in Os Alta, Nina might have had the benefit of a lavish party in the Little Palace, feast and merriment and festivity, but it would all be under the watchful eyes of Tsar Pyotr (well, Tsar Nikolai now) and General Kirigan (well, before Alina Starkov killed him) weighing them up and deciding where to send them into the field, as soon as the winter snows melted enough to start the spring campaign. Nina can't remember any time when that awareness didn't shape her entire existence, and how little she thought of it, at least until she did. Until she decided that it was profoundly wrong for Grisha to be bound in lifetime service to anyone, and took the job as a freelance intelligence agent. It gave her the illusion of freedom, that way. The illusion of choice. And with Matthias, for such a short time, the illusion of love. But that's the thing about illusions. They're not real. They never were.

"We... didn't do much," Matthias says at last, half to himself. "Prayers, mostly. The winter solstice is a moment of great importance for Djel. Was," he corrects himself, as if he too doesn't know what's next, what he believes in, any of it. "What about you?"

"I don't know." Nina looks down, twists the worn quilt between her fingers, forces herself to speak. "Well, we did have a party, in -- in Os Alta, but I don't think either of us would be up for it now. The old traditions all seem a bit... empty."

Matthias considers that for a long moment, unhurried and remote, implacable as a glacier, tall and solid as stone -- still there, still unbroken, still him, even after everything, and it closes Nina's throat. Then at last, he moves over and sits on the bed next to her, not too close, but just enough for their fingers to brush. The silence aches, all the space and all the hurt between them, the way they fell into each other's arms and then fell out almost as quickly -- Ravkan and Fjerdan, Grisha and drüskelle, ancient enemies by right and yet just two scarred lonely children who just didn't care about that, not really, when they were desperate to take hands and walk together. Nina aches with her whole being to take his hand again now, but she doesn't. After what she did, she has no right to presume.

"Well," Matthias says at last. He gets up, digs around in the wardrobe, and finds a pair of candles, which he sets on the mantel. Gets a taper and lights them -- a small flame, especially compared to that in the hearth, but still a beacon of simple and quiet hope, a moment of truce, the first one they've really had. "We'll have to start somewhere with making new ones, won't we?"

"Yes," Nina says. She means it more than she can possibly express, tangled and torn-up, somewhere in the ruins of her chest and the darkness of her mind -- but there too, in the bleak midwinter, another flame is burning, and perhaps, this time it will stay. "We do."

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silverbirching · 4 months

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Feel free to answer one or all of them 🤲🏻

1) what's your rarest or weirdest ship?

2) tell us about a vivid dream you still remember

3) if you were a dessert, what would you be and why?

Well, after season 1 of Umbrella Academy, I wrote a Kliego fic or two -- they're not actually related, put the shovel down -- but the later seasons leaned much more heavily (and effectively) on the surrogate family vibes, so I put that one to bed. I came late to fandom and I'd have to peer really far back into my personal Palantir to the early 2000s to remember anything I was REALLY into. And there's literally nothing on this earth that could make me do that.

Unfortunately I only have like, ONE dream, and it's of being behind a panoramic glass window against which the ocean is absolutely losing its shit during a storm. Sometimes, there are bodies in the water. This bad boy has been a recurring visitor to me since I was about 11 years old, and if I ever have any other dreams, I don't remember them. Fun, right?

I would be a Cold Stone Creamery concoction of baffling ingredients (strawberry, junior mints, bubblegum, shaved coconut, heath bar, kiwi) mixed up for the person you were chatting with on Tinder, as your first subtle warning that this person is a psychopath.

#ask me stuff

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silverbirching · 4 months

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fic promppptss

I am stuck in an empty office through the 23rd, so feel free to send me winter-related fic prompts! Or ask me obscure questions. Something, anything, JUST MAKE ME FEEL ALIVE.

#my fics #ask a gemologist #ask me stuff #fic prompts

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silverbirching · 5 months

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When you win, but because of the drugs you took you have an erection that lasts more than three hours, that's a classic priaphyyric victory.

And you should probably consult your doctor.

When you win at great cost by draining your opponent’s blood call that a vampyrrhic victory.

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silverbirching · 5 months

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So, anyone else want to put money on James Somerton emerging from whatever dank hole he's hiding in a couple months from now and making right-wing pivot, rebranding himself as a human centipede of Ben Stein and Milo Yiannapolous in a turtleneck? Anyone?

#That seems to be the move #The LIBS couldn't handle me #The WOKE LEFT canceled me #At least his blatant mysogyny and erasure of trans voices will help him fit right in #Seriously fuck that guy #On a bed of crispy lettuce

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silverbirching · 5 months

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LOVE IS WAR (AND WAR IS HELL) - CHAPTER TWELVE

Chapter 12

“Grand,” Jesper says, adjusting the lapels of his coat and rolling his shoulders; he’s got most of his personal arsenal on him, and he suspects he’s not the only one. Wylan’s jacket has a few errant bulges here and there, as well as a slight chemical reek. “Boss, do you think this is a trap?” “Certainly,” Kaz says calmly. “It always is.” “And we’re walking directly into it because…?” “We always do, don’t we?”

ACTION! ADVENTURE! SAPPHIC UNDERTONES! GAY JUDGEMENT! AN IRATE SOMMELIER! EYELINER! This fic has it all! Eat this shit up before Greg Peters cancels it!

#love is war (and war is hell)#wesper #shadow and bone #fivan #Nina Zenik #It Just Won't Stay Dead #Buddy Cop Shenanigans #Jesper and Ivan: The Ultimate Team #ok or at least A Team Sort of #they hare having some shakedown problems #but bless them they're trying

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silverbirching · 6 months

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Guys we shouldn't *SNERK* make fun of them, people were injured, this isn't a cause for---

BAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME

--ahem. So let's hope that none of the Bored Apes suffered permanent injury. Just because they're sociopathic techno-grifters hoping to bootstrap their way into being 2 Jeff 2 Bezos on the back of a bunch of ugly-ass ape cartoons that no person is ever, EVER going to want to purchase in the name of a brain-dead speculative bubble that has already done popped...

Uh, what was I saying? Lost the thread. Hi guys.

#crypto bullshit #man fuck a lot of crypto #and your little NFTs too

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silverbirching · 6 months

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Spodermans

Alright gang, those of you playing Sony's Marvel's Disney's Steve Ditko's Insomniac Games' Spider-Man: The Second One, what's YOUR least favorite side activity?

[For fun, let's say that you CAN'T choose the excruciating Mary Jane forced stealth sections that they retained from the first game for some reason!]

MINE is the "take a photo, and then some rando from Peter's checkered employment history calls you on the phone and delivers three lines of unskippable slam poetry about how fucking great New York is."

#seriously #what's with the MJ sections #nobody liked those #I think the answer was to not have them in the sequel #not have MORE and also make her fight a BOSS #I'm from the west coast and every time New Yorkers start rhapsodizing about their city I feel like someone is trying to sell me a car

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silverbirching · 6 months

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Bahahahahaha surprisingly no! These are fun ideas. The whole concept of 'birthstones' was invented to prevent men from hyperventilating in jewelry stores. Buy whatever you want. Pick the color that celebrates you. Live your best life. Eat hot chicken wings. Stab a clown. You do you, is my point.

Would also like to highlight that August babies need to get over it because Peridot is an awesome stone. If it was good enough for Cleopatra, it's good enough for you.

Here is a potentially silly question: how do you feel about birthstones? Do you think they fit the months (by season or astrological sign)? Do you have other stones you'd rather see as birthstones?

Okay, so, birthstones make absolutely no sense.

I mean, look at this mess. We’re doing beryl and corundum twice! I get that they get Special Different Names for their Special Different Colors, but it's just lazy. And why are we giving some months cheap, common gemstones like garnet and amethyst while the poor June birthdays have to shell out tens of thousands of dollars for FREAKING ALEXANDRITE? That’s incredibly unfair! We should be picking birthstones that are all roughly the same price. And why do some months get multiple gemstones? I’ll tell you why: because nobody can agree on an official list and every attempt to standardize this thing has just added MORE birthstones to every month.

So obviously the answer is to standardize it again, by throwing out everything and starting over. Here are our goals:

Fair pricing. You should be paying roughly the same amount regardless of what month you were born in. We’re getting rid of those ridiculous outliers like diamond and alexandrite.

More customization potential! Nobody should be stuck with a stone they hate. We’re picking gemstones that come in multiple colors or varieties, so that everyone can choose a variant they like.

Wearability. Some birthstones are too fragile to be worn as jewelry. We need to replace them with stronger stuff.

No more duplicate gemstones. Every month gets a stone or family of stones with a unique chemical composition.

Now without further ado, I present to you:

The New And Improved List Of Birthstones With No Problems Or Flaws That Everyone Will Definitely Agree On And We Can Start Using Right Now Immediately

JANUARY: GARNET

I've got no problem with garnet. It's a fine, classic birthstone, so January can keep it. But I would like to see a little more garnet diversity. January birthdays shouldn’t be confined to just red. The garnet family of minerals contains a rainbow of different colors, like orange hessonite, green uvarovite, pink rhodolite, yellow grandite, and many more. They’re all garnet, so we should be wearing them all!

FEBRUARY: QUARTZ

The original birthstone of February was amethyst, which is… kinda boring. Super cheap and common and you only get one color? No, we can do better. February gets ALL the quartzes now. Keep wearing amethyst if you want, but also feel free to branch out into clear quartz, citrine, rose quartz, smoky quartz, rutilated quartz, tiger eye… actually, take all the agates too. If it’s quartz, it’s yours!

MARCH: SPODUMENE

March was originally aquamarine, but I’ll be giving all the beryls to May, so we need a different stone here. Let’s stick with that theme of pale pastels and go with spodumene. For an April birthday, bedeck yourself in green hiddenite, pink kunzite, or yellow triphane. Despite its subtle colors, your birthstone has some amazing fluorescence, with really cool pinks and oranges under a UV light.

APRIL: FELDSPAR

Diamond is too pricy for this list, so we’re replacing it with something less expensive and way more interesting. April will now be represented by the feldspar family. We’re talking labradorite, moonstone, amazonite, aventurine, and sunstone. While you don’t have much variety in color, your stones are full of shimmery schiller which glitters and shifts as it catches the light.

MAY: BERYL

May’s original birthstone was emerald, which is great and can stay, but we’re also adding its siblings! May is now represented by all beryls: Emerald, Aquamarine, Morganite, Bixbite, Heliodor, Goshenite, and whatever other varieties I’m forgetting to list. A bright and saturated rainbow of colors is represented here, so everyone born in May is sure to find something they like.

JUNE: ORGANIC GEMSTONES AND FOSSILS

It’s time to address the alexandrite in the room, and obviously we’re getting rid of alexandrite. A stone worth $15,000 to $70,000 a carat does not belong on the same list as friggin amethyst. Instead we’ll look at the other traditional June birthstone, pearl. The problem with pearl is that it’s a clear outlier in this list. An organic gemstone, by some definitions not even a mineral. Should we replace it? NO. We are OWNING it. All organic gemstones now belong to June. Pearl is joined here by jet, amber, coral, ivory, ammolite, petrified wood… in fact, June can have every fossil ever.

JULY: SPINEL

July was originally represented by ruby, which is a fine stone and won’t be kicked off the birthstone list - we’re just shuffling it down to September. Replacing ruby for July is spinel. (See, it’s funny because historically spinel has often been mistakenly identified as ruby! That's a little gemology humor for you.) Available in any hue you could possibly desire, spinel offers some nice color options to a month that previously only featured red. Of course if you want to keep wearing red, red spinel mimics ruby so well that you’ll barely notice the difference.

AUGUST: PERIDOT

Nope, we’re not changing this one. Peridot is the ideal gemstone and you ungrateful August whiners can die mad about it. HOW ABOUT YOU LEARN TO APPRECIATE PERFECTION

SEPTEMBER: CORUNDUM

Sapphire is a wonderful, classic stone and it deserves its spot on this list. But the corundum family has been separated for far too long, and we’re finally going to reunite them. Joining sapphire in September is its sister ruby. Between the pinks and reds of ruby and the many, many colors of sapphire, these two stones give September a nice variety of colors.

OCTOBER: TOURMALINE

Look, as gorgeous as opal is and as much as I love it, it is both way too pricy for our list and also TERRIBLE in jewelry. This stone is just too brittle to wear around from day to day and can be ruined just by getting it wet, which makes wearing your birthstone a huge hassle. We’ll kick opal out and hang on to October’s other traditional birthstone, tourmaline. Pink tourmaline may be classic, but this stone comes in plenty of other colors. Whether it’s brown dravite, watermelon elbaite, or the rare and beautiful blue indicolite, you can wear them all!

NOVEMBER: TOPAZ

November can keep topaz, but we’re not confining it to the color yellow. This stone comes in a huge variety of colors, and now they can ALL represent November. No further notes; it’s a nice, classic stone.

DECEMBER: ZIRCON

I dunno, I’ve had to come up with 12 of these, I’m burnt out. Sure, zircon, whatever.

“BUT WAIT,” you say. “Now instead of having a single color assigned to each month, almost every month is represented by almost every color, making it impossible to tell anyone’s birthstones apart and removing what made them special and recognizable as symbols!”

Well CLEARLY you didn’t read the title of this list.

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silverbirching · 6 months

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This cat looks like a Edwardian chimney sweep with a filthy mouth and an impenetrable Cockney accent who would assist in literally any crime for tuppence.

how silly is this cat do you think

definitely one of the silliest to ever do it

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silverbirching · 7 months

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Let me check my notes from my initial viewing.

Hmm, all I've got is "Oscar Isaac Salt and Pepper Space Daddy", sixteen hearts, 37 X's and O's, and something incoherent about Best Picture.

Me: Fine, I'll watch the first 20 minutes of Dune just so I can understand some stuff on tumbr better.

Me 2.5 hours later: OH MY GOD

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silverbirching · 7 months

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Y'ALL BETTER BUY MY BEST GIRL'S BOOK OR I'M GONNA BURN THIS WHOLE BUILDING DOWN

THE WIVES is here!

After much procrastination, I have finally gotten my act together and published one of my two finished original novels. I have worked hard to create multiple options for purchase (i.e. not just on Amazon); you should be able to order it from most ebook retailers and hard-copy distribution platforms, such as Barnes and Noble and Ingram. However, I will link the direct purchase options here.

Title: The Wives Genre: Fiction (Literary, Thriller, Crime) Summary: One day, a young woman marries a famous Hollywood movie star two decades her senior, and is drawn into his glamorous world and its dirty secrets. She begins to uncover the scandals around powerful men in the industry, and the measures taken to keep them hidden. When she discovers the truth of just what one of those abusers is willing to do, she takes matters into her own hands. Her targets: all the men who think they can get away with this. But as the project spirals out of control, and she is drawn into increasingly dangerous attempts to go after more and more powerful players, it runs the risk of destroying her marriage, her life, her husband's career, and everything she has ever believed in.

To Read If You Like: Thrillers (crime, suspense, literary, feminist); Margaret Atwood; Gillian Flynn/Gone Girl; feral female protagonists; unreliable narrators; social and political critique; black satire Content Warning: While it focuses on abusers getting their violent comeuppance -- think the film Promising Young Woman -- the novel deals heavily with themes/depictions of sexual assault and abuse. If this is a trigger for you, please proceed with caution.

Where to Buy It?

Amazon (Kindle, paperback, hardcover)

Lulu (paperback)

Smashwords (most ebook formats)

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silverbirching · 7 months

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-Come look at me . 19′ . Nigeria

Ph. Lakin Ogunbanwo

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