made one of those color ask games things bc im bored :)

Wait what guy who hadn't read Atlas Shrugged?

I was pretty sure I'd told this story here, but a cursory search suggests that I have not. Okay let's gooooo

Many moons ago, I worked in an emergency services call centre. I worked nights- I could get regular shifts, it paid well, and I am a huge freak, just like everyone else who works nights in a call centre. It is a lifestyle that attracts freaks. Some of my coworkers weren't full-time creatures of the night, but students or whoever who picked up occasional nights for the extra money, and one of them was Libertarian Shithead, who we'll call LS for short.

LS was a twentysomething white dude who wore a lot of name brand surfwear and designer sunglasses. I assume his parents were rich. LS loved nothing better than recreational arguing. Unfortunately, he wasn't very good at it; he had some of the most dogshit opinions I've ever encountered in the wild, and was terrible at defending them. He'd say some crap about how Gattaca-type eugenics is Fine, Actually, because if you let people make designer babies, the ~*Free Market will decide what traits are desirable! Racism and colourism and ableism and sexism and intersexism won't affect those choices at all! And I'd get mad, because I have principles to speak of, and we'd get into it, and WITHOUT FAIL, we'd get maybe halfway into an actual discussion about whatever horseshit garbage he was on tonight, and the second he thought he was losing, he'd say "oh, well. I'm an ~*Objectivist, so you can't really understand my perspective unless you've read Ayn Rand." Then he'd sigh, and change the subject.

At the time I had not read any Ayn Rand. Being fundamentally powered by spite, I withstood maybe three weeks of this shit before I pirated an epub of Atlas Shrugged, put it on my e-reader, and proceeded to slam through it at supersonic speed so I could finally get to finish an argument with this terrible boy.

Anon, I fucking hated Atlas Shrugged. The book is bad. It's way too long, every single character is an unbelievable douche, the prose sucks. Ayn Rand wants to fuck a train so so so badly, but the prose is so turgid I couldn't even get invested in how much she wants to fuck a train. And the core of the matter, the politics I was there to understand, are, y'know. Objectivist. Eye-bleedingly selfish and capitalistic, expressed in amazingly childish and blinkered terms. Even the bits where it seems like the shithead capitalist dudes want to fuck each other are too mired in the scunge of Rand's terrible views to be enjoyable.

But I read the fucking thing! I powered through it with only quite minimal complaining! I finished the book on the train to work, and when I saw that LS was on that night, I plonked myself in a seat by him, and metaphorically cracked my knuckles, ready to fuckin' party. In a perfect world, I would have been cool enough to have waited for the perfect mid-argument moment to drop, but I didn't. I think I lasted exactly until we were both off a call at the same time, and then leaned in as close as the desk dividers would let me, and said "So I finished Atlas Shrugged. I have some thoughts."

I cannot overstate how quickly it became obvious that LS had not read the book. For a hot second I thought maybe it had just been a while and the fine details had escaped him, but no; he didn't know who half the characters were, or key points of the plot, or even know any of the stuff in the John Galt speech, i.e. the big juggernaut of Here's How Objectivism Works near the end of the book about Objectivism that this fucking guy hypothetically based his Objectivist views on. It took me maybe five minutes, in between calls, to realise this, and another five for him to admit he hadn't actually read any Ayn Rand. He'd read her Wikipedia page.

ANYWAY I didn't speak to him for like a month after that, and I don't think either of us lost out there!

SARA!!!!

see you all in 3-4 years good omens fans!!!!!!

TWF/Opal Crossover (AU?)

My luv,

I had a thot.

So, remember Pedrito's hot go-go dancer summer in Spain when he was 20? I was thinking -  isn’t this just soooo Dieter-coded?? Imagine our little trash panda in his peak twink era. A drama exchange student by day, Barcelona disco slut by night. Drugs, girls, cage dancing … eyeliner.

BUT WHAT IF this epic summer was also his bisexual awaking? First time with a guy? Maybe in the bathroom at a club. His pretty face smashed up against the mirror, his lover marveling at the size and sheer beauty of his cock... 

Ahem.

Anyway, ilysm!

Hi dear anon! 💜 Oooh, now there’s a thot! It sounds like you already have a clear storyline there and are excited about it - why don’t you just give it a shot? Write it and see how it comes out! I don’t think I’ve seen much younger!Dieter fic out there, so I bet there’ll be interest in it!

YOU WANNA KNOW WHAT A GOOD SONG IS?

So, hey. How did you and your family celebrate Passover when you were a kid? How about now?

My Rhode Island aunt and uncle almost always hosted a big family Seder, and it was the absolute best. A good Seder is educational, food-filled, and legit fun—it's a ritual meal that includes storytelling, singing, prayers, and a general focus on including and teaching everyone involved, regardless of age or even whether attendees are Jewish. (If ever you're invited to a friend's Seder, go! Do not bring a challah, which my actually-bar-mitzvahed brother-in-law did once as an attempt at a thoughtful host gift. We still make fun of him.)

And my uncle (the same one who officiated at my wedding, and the wedding of my other sister) may well be the greatest host/leader there is; over the years he compiled from a medley of sources what added up to his own Haggadah (basically the guidebook to the Seder—there are a million published and informal versions working off the same template, with readings and activities and interpretations that can go kid-centric or feminist or traditional or whatever). It was always just insanely fun, and warm, and joyous, with incredible food and an increasing array of baked-in, just-us traditions.

Since I went to college basically down the street from their house, and then lived just an hour away in Boston for so long, that was pretty much the heart of my and my family's celebration most years—right up until Passover 2020, at which point the pandemic negated what had been plans to travel from our new home in Illinois for it, and they also downsized and had their own kids scatter geographically and gain very little ones, so that particular tradition is at best on hiatus now.

But there are fun Seders everywhere—well, the Zoom ones of the pandemic years were a mixed bag, but we've found friends who've make a good go of it, over the years, too, if not quite as an elaborately planned out hourslong celebration as my uncle would do. When I studied abroad in Denmark, Boyfriend and I went to an Orthodox Seder that was in a mix of Danish and Hebrew, for instance—that was novel, and so much of the procedure and the Hebrew was familiar enough to follow along.

Still working on exactly where we'll be for those two nights this year (we haven't really met any Jewish families in Pittsburgh yet to garner an invite, and none of the Reform or Conservative synagogues seem to have community events, which is surprising? And I don't really want to go to Chabad?) but we'll figure something out.

That said, as fun as the Seders can and should be, the rest of Passover is a slog of not eating bread or adjacent products, and experiencing whatever it is matzah does to one's digestive system over the course of a week. It's a meaningful observance, and the fact that the relevant rabbinical boards have stopped including rice and legumes in the "no" column in recent years has been great, but...it's ultimately a holiday recalling the story of the Exodus, and how we were slaves once, so, like, there are some less-fun elements. But the freedom celebration parts usually outweigh that!

Hello! For the fic ask game:

❓ any WIP snippet you want!

For the WIP and Published Fics Ask Game! Have a little bit of the worthy of my sword's service sequel, title pending.

Eddie grins, and opens his leather jacket with a flourish. From the inside pocket, he pulls out a tube, and the box of condoms he’d had in his room. It’s an unbelievably fucking dorky move. Steve wants to bite him. Instead, he plucks the tube out of Eddie’s hand, and shoves his door open to go around to the back. Steve’s really glad he cleans his car on a regular basis; a sweater and one of Dustin’s spare hats get tossed into the passenger seat footwell along with Eddie's jacket and the tape of Ladyhawke they're now definitely not watching, and then it's just them and the radio, playing too low to tell one song from another, figuring out how to cram two moderately-sized dudes into the backseat together. “Don’t laugh,” Steve says, wrestling with his own pants.

not a circlecat. instead…. whatever manicotti is

yeah you don't have a circlecat but what you do have here is a stiltscat - a pristine specimen. looks like he could be wearing a chef hat outside a restaurant holding a tray of sardine scones. also. TOP NOTCH cat name.

Nearly every message in my Tumblr inbox these days is some 'please help me, I'm sick/poor/etc.' fundraising message, most of which I'm pretty sure are scams (because when I go visit the blogs that sent them, they were all created very very recently).

Anyway, if you feel like it, maybe send some non-scams to my inbox? You can ask me questions, confess things to me, share something from your life or something you're into lately. Pretty much anything goes, and anon is on!

Bestie I have a very important question about your Maverick series. When you visualise him, is your Marcus Pike a clean shaven Marcus, or Marcus with scruff? Field research attached.

BESTIE I absolutely love this question!!! I'm always up for endless character talk tbh, and this one is particularly interesting for me, esp because I don't quite consider myself to be a Marcus girlie.

First things first: Marcus with the (canon) revenge beard is 100% my Marcus in general. When I see 'current day' Marcus with Tim (for my Rockford/Pena WIP), he's looking exactly like that.

It's not just because I think it's so attractive, but the actual way that Pedro plays Marcus in that final Mentalist episode is SO different from the rest of it. He holds his body differently, he takes up space differently, there's an extra confidence in how he talks (down to his cadence), his facial expressions - everything. You can really see that he has played Oberyn at that point and not only sharpened his acting skills a lot, but just generally seems more confident and aware of how he can convey a lot without even talking.

HOWEVER.

The Maverick series takes place about two years before my Rockford/Pena WIP, and in my head this is definitely clean shaven Marcus. I can even be really specific: this was the gif I had in mind of him, but then kneeled in front of (Fight Night locker room scene) Frankie who has one hand in his hair. This style is also pretty close to how I see Marcus when he and Tim met & became a couple.

So this Marcus is indeed a little younger, a little different kind of confidence, and really (as @theywhowriteandknowthings said) A Good Boy™. I was surprised to have him pop up, but I could see immediately how he and Frankie would get along in several ways; these two are pretty different personality wise, but Frankie likes how Marcus is all bright eyed, cheerful and social but without being annoying. He wasn't expecting or looking to get to know him initially, it was just a matter of attraction and lust in that locker room. But when they met up that second time, he just found himself a lot more into Marcus than he expected. He's not exactly Frankie's usual type, but that's also why they click.

Now, looking a little ahead again -- to the Rockford/Pena WIP, where Marcus is rocking the revenge beard and has the confidence etc that comes with that. Personally, I see that as some influence on him by Frankie, especially with the scruff. I feel like Frankie brings out some parts of Marcus that he maybe wasn't too familiar with yet, and that definitely impacts him, even in the way he carries himself (aka 'the Oberyn effect').

There's one fun tidbit I can tell you re: Marcus in that WIP; there are going to be some flashbacks to about 8 years ago (which would be 6 years before the Maverick series takes place) to an even younger Marcus, who meets another crucial person in his life/in that WIP. The visual for Marcus at that time is very much Zach Wellison vibes:

SO. To quote Pedro, "I bet you weren't expecting me to start telling you this long story", LOL. But this is how I see him/them in my fic! Thank you for giving me an opportunity to wax about this, I love it 💜 Feel free to ask questions anytime!

i think we (smithsblr) as a society (niche tumblr community) need to thank @some-greatreward for creating the smiths askgame cuz i've had the opportunity to talk to some AMAZING ppl