look what i have cooked up :’)

F it Friday writing/from a fic i’m totally definitely not writing

I have to go to a work party tonight (joy) but i’m procrastinating by putting this scene down as it’s been stuck in my head. 

For the record… i now have three scenes half-written… and it’s one each from Mass Effect 1, Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3.  

Goddamnit plot bunny…. Can’t you give me a break??

Title: The First Spectre (aka previously known as untitled 911/Mass Effect space opera slowburn) a chapter somewhere in the back third of the story that would fit in ME3 if you’re keeping track. Might end up have ME1=the first spectre, ME2=Spectre Reborn and ME3=The Second Spectre…. But who knows.  

Fandom: 911, Mass Effect Trilogy

Pairing: endgame Buddie (MShenko equivalent).  Assume anything else is fair game until we hit ME3 territory because i’m totally making Taylor into Miranda and Abby is going to be Liara.

Tags/warnings: i’m still not committing to writing this monster length fic(and I do mean monster length if I go for it—like 600k of the slowest of slow burns).  In the meantime i’m evidently writing a beginning, a divorce-era horizon disaster, and can clearly picture the catalyst firing/’don’t leave me behind’ scene in all its angsty goodness and now i’m adding the actual ‘i’m here to help you relax scene. Author may be in deep trouble.  First draft with zero editing done.  Assume Eddie=Kaidan Alenko and Buck=MShep.  

Tagging because they asked @shortsighted-owl​, @monsterrae1​ @ajunerose​ @alyxmastershipper​  If you would like to be tagged for any updates or snippets from this one please let me know.

This scene inspired by this MShenko scene

To Eddie’s surprise, the door opens before he can knock or ask MADDIE to let Buck know he’s outside.  Buck almost walks right into Eddie, his gaze fixed on the datapad in his hands.

“Eds?”  Buck’s eyes are even bluer in the blue light from the aquarium that takes up the entire wall of the captain’s quarters, stepping to the side when he realizes that they’re almost chest to chest. “What are you—“

Eddie easily slips past him.  “Can’t sleep either?” He throws over his shoulder, inspecting Buck’s room for the first time officially.  It’s nice—if completely impractical on a battle frigate like the Normandy.  He suppresses the irritation that Cerberus thought to provide this sort of creature comfort with the hope of enticing Buck into their way of thinking.  Eddie has more than enough hard proof that Buck is on his side and not Cerberus’, otherwise he’d be dead from a bullet instead of Noah. 

No more thinking of maybes.  That’s what Eddie had told himself before coming up to Buck’s quarters.  

He needed to know. 

No more what if’s. 

Buck sets the datapad down on his desk which is cluttered with the things along with a pair of used coffee cups from the mess. Above the desk are a collection of model ships—just like Buck had on the original Normandy.  One of the ships was the Los Angelas—the last city they’d taken leave in before the Normandy Disaster had seemingly killed Buck and left Eddie to mourn his death and spend years thinking of what ifs. 

“No,” Buck finally answers the question, arms crossed over his chest as he watches Eddie inspect his office. 

“You can’t make yourself crazy over this,” Eddie tells him, fiddling with the bottle and glasses in his hands. ‘It won’t help.”

“What won’t?  I can’t know for sure that I didn’t miss something. Eds,” Buck draws out his name, huffing a bit in frustration and rubbing his face in fatigue. “I need to get back to work.”

Eddie makes a noise of disagreement in the back of his throat. “Five minutes.  Just one drink and then I’ll go,” he stalls for time, gesturing towards the low slung couch in the sitting area next to the bed, under the fish tank. 

For a brief second, Buck holds out and then he’s sighing and giving in, unable to resist Eddie’s offer  “One drink,” he cautions as he takes a seat next to Eddie.  

Eddie pours him a generous finger or two or five and hands it to Buck who sniffs at it appreciatively before giving a sip. “You know you’ve done everything you could, right?”

Buck stares at the whiskey like it has the answers to the universe in it’s amber depths.  “Everything?  It doesn’t feel like it.  I hope so.  I keep running the numbers and scenarios, wondering if I missed something.  If I could have saved one more person.”

“You don’t have to take this on yourself,” Eddie soothes, taking a drink of his own before reaching out to wrap his hand around Buck’s wrist. There’s tension in the muscles and then they relax purposefully as Buck watches him from beneath lowered lashes. Rubbing his fingertips along the tendons in a caress, Eddie tries to find the words he needs. “You’ve got a great crew you’ve built. Talented people that are all fighting by your side.”

Buck pulls away and throws back the entire glass of whiskey before getting up and beginning to pace, putting distance between them.  It’s like watching a panther stalking in front of the bars of it’s cage—lethal grace wrapped in an N7 hoodie and uniform pants, feet bare and silent on the rubber mat floors.  There’s a scowl on his face but it’s not focused on Eddie, but within and it hurts Eddie that Buck doesn’t realize how much he’s done because to him nothing short of ridding the galaxy of the Reapers will be acceptable. 

Eddie steps into Buck’s path, making him stop.  Taking a deep breath, he moves to rest his hands on Buck’s hips.

Buck stills under the touch, frown melting away but there’s still a deep furrow between the eyebrows that betrays the stress that he’s under.  Eddie doesn’t resist the impulse to smooth it away and rubs his right thumb across it before cupping Buck’s unshaven cheek so he can’t look away.  There’s faint bruising under both eyes from the lack of sleep but the blue eyes are luminous and laser focused like the sniper he is on Eddie.  The hip under his other hand shifts, pressing into Eddie’s touch and decreasing the space between their bodies seemingly without awareness because Eddie has it all now. 

He has Buck’s complete and full attention. 

Picking his words carefully, Eddie tells him that he’s enough.  “What you’ve accomplished since the Reapers arrived has been nothing short of amazing. You saved so many people, brought so many together in this fight,” he paused, then made it personal.  “You saved Christopher… and you saved me, too.”

Buck breathes out through his nose sharply, an almost wounded sound escaping him.  “I couldn’t leave either of you,” he confesses, moving closer but there’s still just a tiny amount of space between their bodies. “What are you doing here, Eddie?”

“I lied,” he admitted, voice dropping a bit into more of a husky confession. “I didn’t just come for a drink.”

“What did you come here for?”  Buck is holding his breath, waiting on his words. 

“I’m here to help you,” Eddie’s words stumble out of him, tongue tying itself into knots.

“Help me?” Buck’s eyebrows are climbing, confusion evident in his voice but he hasn’t withdrawn.  They’re still so close but not close enough. 

“Help you relax.”  

Eddie is never going to win awards for pickup lines but Buck seems to understand what he’s trying to say, if very badly.  His fingers seem to have a life of their own and Buck sways closer to him as he slips his hand around Buck’s waist to tug him closer. 

“Relax?”  Buck’s pink tongue swipes at his bottom lip, eyes dropping to Eddie’s mouth. 

“Relaxing will help you focus,” Eddie informs him before he can’t say anything further because Buck’s mouth is pressed to his.  

The kiss is gentle at first, tentative like they’re both asking the other for permission to proceed.  When neither pulls away it becomes more persistent and then a curious tongue traces the seam of Eddie’s mouth and he’s opening to let Buck’s tongue tangle with his own. 

When they part finally to inhale, Eddie is chuckling into Buck’s neck, pressing a quick kiss to the jawline. Buck is frozen against him, like he’s afraid that he’s going to startle Eddie and he’ll flee like a wild animal. 

“Eds?”

In response, all he can do is to pull Buck back in for another hungry kiss. 

headcanon explained/character study- Elu Thingol, part 2

Elwë never had any chance to return the mantle to his uncle, as he was one of those to disappear, snatched away while out hunting, together with his entire company. For many years, the whole family grieved (along with pretty much everyone, as there was hardly an elf at Cuiviénen then that did not know the grief of losing close kin), and the loss of his father kindled in Nowë’s heart a yearning for some place that was safe, like the one Lord Oromë spoke of. He always trusted the Vala, and Elwë very much tended to agree with his cousin, even if he was more reserved than Nowë towards the summons of the Valar at first. He listened to the same rumours Finwë listened to, rumours no one really knew whence they came, but that sowed doubt into the hearts of the Quendi nonetheless. Still, while Finwë was swayed to mistrust Oromë, Elwë was not. Too bright was the light that shone from the Vala’s face to be truly evil, he decided, and once his mind was made up, he convinced his best friend of the same. When Elmo was born, he was again totally caught up in his role as the elder brother. Almost grown up as he was now, their parents had no objections to their eldest stealing their baby from time to time, first to just carry him around the camp, then to teach him how to crawl and stand and even later taking Elmo with him on his adventures with Finwë. Life was good then, until the day Elwë and Olwë were startled out of their sparring-practice by the piercing scream of a small elfling, an elfling Elwë knew straight away was Elmo. They both ran after the crying, searching frantically for their little brother, and they found him, standing by a large bush, completely dissolved in panicked tears. Elwë picked his baby-brother up without paying much attention to their surroundings, so it was Olwë’s anguished yell that made him look around. In this instant, he understood, both what had happened and that nothing would ever be the same again. He tried his best to keep a thrashing Elmo in his arms, trying to ignore his screams for their mother, while at the same time making Olwë look away from the mangled body of their father, so maimed that he was barely recognisable. Their mother and two friends that had accompanied them were missing, and though they would be sought, Elwë knew from the start they would never find them. Those snatched were never found. He wondered, briefly, if their father had tried to defend Elmo, or just struggled too much, or why they had left him in that bloody heap, but it didn’t really matter anyway. Just one thing truly registered in Elwë’s numbed mind- they were alone now, and he, as the eldest, was now responsible for his brothers. He did not truly mourn his parents then, not daring to even touch upon those feelings (it would take until he himself became a father that he could truly take the mental journey back and allow himself to feel that grief), he concentrated wholly on keeping Elmo as happy as possible, and as safe. He held his little brother night and day, not daring to sleep himself lest he saw their father’s body again in his dreams, or their mother’s endless torture by the servants of the old Shadow. Being a prince of the house of Enel, their father was buried in all honours, but Elwë stayed well away from the rest of his family then, not wanting Elmo to lie eyes again on their father’s body, something that Olwë could never understand. Elwë himself had no clue whatsoever if he was doing the right thing. He only knew that sitting by the shores of Cuiviénen, rocking the baby in his arms to sleep and refusing to feel or think, was the only option that seemed bearable, and as time passed, so became the pain. As he shared the experience to have one parent snatched by the Shadows with Nowë, the cousins again drew closer together, wondering, sometimes, if there was comfort in their shared fate after all. “Do you think they’re together now? Somehow?” Círdan once asked, and Elwë’s heart grew infinitely lighter at the thought of his mother somehow finding her brother wherever it was the Shadows took them, and that somehow, they would withstand the torture together. Also, as Elmo grew older, it became more and more apparent that he had seen more than he would remember, and that the child was severely traumatised by it. He would cling to Elwë wherever he went, would have fits of rage or grief that only his eldest brother could get him out of, and whenever Elwë would manage to fall asleep and Elmo awoke before him, Elmo would frantically shake Elwë awake, unable to bear to watch him sleep. It took Elwë a little while to understand that Elmo thought him dead whenever he slept, and the pity he felt rather sufficiently melted his anger at being constantly woken. He found a way out of that plight by letting Elmo sleep cuddled against his chest so he might hear his heartbeat at all times, a way of sleeping they kept throughout Elmo’s childhood.

2500 words into this Elendil x reader oneshot I'm writing and they haven't even kissed yet, but the pining, omg the PINING.

The Foxes Hunt The Hounds

Tags: spirk, past Pike/Spock, side Chekov/Sulu, spy AU, slow burn, enemies to lovers Chapters: 1/? Words: 6236 Summary: If only Starfleet Intelligence knew who’s giving out the postcards or what exactly do they mean… just something to hold on to, a faint lead. Something! But no. They simply have a bunch of low-profile crooks that are suddenly well organised, a few crime syndicates that used to hate each other but now seem to be working together, and a lot of (probably) Romulan postcards the size of one strip of gold-pressed latinum that some people insist are playing cards.

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(Alternatively: Criminal by Britney Spears but Kirk's the one in love with a criminal.)

AO3 LINK

My notes doc for Batman for Dummies is officially longer than Robin’s Don’t Make Great Roommates... ha ha ha...

god I would be UNSTOPPABLE if I was capable of consistently initiating tasks. just you wait. you'll be waiting a while but just you wait

I saw this question posed on tiktok, but I think Tumblr would really enjoy it too.

If a fae creature offered to give one million dollars for a bone FROM YOUR BODY chosen at random, how many bones would you allow them to take?

Light clarifications; The fae is not the one choosing the bones. The bone is taken at random. Each bone, no matter the size or importance, is worth a full million dollars. You must also declare the exact number first, you can't go bone-by-bone. You either say 2 or you say 10, you can't work your way up to a higher number. The bones are removed instantaneously, and the money is given immediately as well. You will not get in government trouble for acquiring the money.

Tell me in the tags/replies how many bones you'd let the fae take. And as always, reblog for bigger sample size.

hey did you know??? that if you stop stretching and maintaining mobility in your body then it goes away?? things get tight and you can't move the way that you used to??? and when you decide to try getting a stretch routine going that the first week fucking sucks because you keep going 'damn i used to be able to do this no problem' and then you have to switch gears and be kind to yourself and just focus on getting better from here instead of berating yourself for dropping the good habits in the first place??? and your body never stops aging so you gotta keep taking care of it and sometimes you gotta take care of it extra in certain areas because of things that happened when you were younger and it's boring and sometimes hurts but it's so necessary???

i am yelling this at myself right now i am going through An Experience (trying to get into a routine of body maintenance again for my physical and mental health)

no offence but the reason tumblr is “dying” is, well, yes, of course the cursed like/reblog ratio and the change in user behaviour (because of people being used to how instagram and tiktok work) BUT also the lack of weekly shows. i say it with my whole chest, they don't produce captivating and engaging stupid weekly tv shows anymore because streaming killed that so you have spikes of activity here when Something happens in general fandom or up to three days after a new season of whatever drops and then it's a wasteland. this is obviously an old woman yelling at a cloud missing supernatural and the vampire diaries and pretty little liars and all these other shows type of post but honestly give me back weekly tv shows where i have something to watch for 40 minutes almost every day of the week after work so then i can read and reblog it on tumblr give it back for the sake of my sanity

Rowling isn't denying holocaust. She just pointed out that burning of transgender health books is a lie as that form of cosmetic surgery didn't exist. But of course you knew that already, didn't you?

I was thinking I'd probably see one of you! You're wrong :) Let's review the history a bit, shall we?

In this case, what we're talking about is the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, or in English, The Institute of Sexology. This Institute was founded and headed by a gay Jewish sexologist named Magnus Hirschfeld. It was founded in July of 1919 as the first sexology research clinic in the world, and was run as a private, non-profit clinic. Hirschfeld and the researchers who worked there would give out consultations, medical advice, and even treatments for free to their poorer clientele, as well as give thousands of lectures and build a unique library full of books on gender, sexuality, and eroticism. Of course, being a gay man, Hirschfeld focused a lot on the gay community and proving that homosexuality was natural and could not be "cured".

Hirschfeld was unique in his time because he believed that nobody's gender was either one or the other. Rather, he contended that everyone is a mixture of both male and female, with every individual having their own unique mix of traits.

This leads into the Institute's work with transgender patients. Hirschfeld was actually the one to coin the term "transsexual" in 1923, though this word didn't become popular phrasing until 30 years later when Harry Benjamin began expanding his research (I'll just be shortening it to trans for this brief overview.) For the Institute, their revolutionary work with gay men eventually began to attract other members of the LGBTA+, including of course trans people.

Contrary to what Anon says, sex reassignment surgery was first tested in 1912. It'd already being used on humans throughout Europe during the 1920's by the time a doctor at the Institute named Ludwig Levy-Lenz began performing it on patients in 1931. Hirschfeld was at first opposed, but he came around quickly because it lowered the rate of suicide among their trans patients. Not only was reassignment performed at the Institute, but both facial feminization and facial masculization surgery were also done.

The Institute employed some of these patients, gave them therapy to help with other issues, even gave some of the mentioned surgeries for free to this who could not afford it! They spoke out on their behalf to the public, even getting Berlin police to help them create "transvestite passes" to allow people to dress however they wanted without the threat of being arrested. They worked together to fight the law, including trying to strike down Paragraph 175, which made it illegal to be homosexual. The picture below is from their holiday party, Magnus Hirschfeld being the gentleman on the right with the fabulous mustache. Many of the other people in this photo are transgender.

[Image ID: A black and white photo of a group of people. Some are smiling at the camera, others have serious expressions. Either way, they all seem to be happy. On the right side, an older gentleman in glasses- Magnus Hirschfeld- is sitting. He has short hair and a bushy mustache. He is resting one hand on the shoulder of the person in front of him. His other hand is being held by a person to his left. Another person to his right is holding his shoulder.]

There was always push back against the Institute, especially from conservatives who saw all of this as a bad thing. But conservatism can't stop progress without destroying it. They weren't willing to go that far for a good while. It all ended in March of 1933, when a new Chancellor was elected. The Nazis did not like homosexuals for several reasons. Chief among them, we break the boundaries of "normal" society. Shortly after the election, on May 6th, the book burnings began. The Jewish, gay, and obviously liberal Magnus Hirschfeld and his library of boundary-breaking literature was one of the very first targets. Thankfully, Hirschfeld was spared by virtue of being in Paris at the time (he would die in 1935, before the Nazis were able to invade France). His library wasn't so lucky.

This famous picture of the book burnings was taken after the Institute of Sexology had been raided. That's their books. Literature on so much about sexuality, eroticism, and gender, yes including their new work on trans people. This is the trans community's Alexandria. We're incredibly lucky that enough of it survived for Harry Benjamin and everyone who came after him was able to build on the Institute's work.

[Image ID: A black and white photo of the May Nazi book burning of the Institute of Sexology's library. A soldier, back facing the camera, is throwing a stack of books into the fire. In the background of the right side, a crowd is watching.]

As the Holocaust went on, the homosexuals of Germany became a targeted group. This did include transgender people, no matter what you say. To deny this reality is Holocaust denial. JK Rowling and everyone else who tries to pretend like this isn't reality is participating in that evil. You're agreeing with the Nazis.

But of course, you knew that already, didn't you?

Edit: Added image IDs. I apologize to those using screen readers for forgetting them. Please reblog this version instead.

lead balloon (the tumblr post that saved me)

if this comic resonated with you, it would mean the world to me if you donated to this palestinian family's escape fund.

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no creative notes because this isn't that kind of comic.

I know I don’t owe any of you anything but I still felt compelled to write about my long term absence. And I feel far enough away from the dangerous spot I was in to be able to make this comic. I have a therapist now, and she agreed that making this could be a very cathartic gesture, and the start of properly leaving these thoughts behind me. I am still, at seemingly random times, blindsided by fleeting desires to kill myself. They’re always passing urges, but it’s disarming, and uncomfortable. I worry sometimes that my brain’s spent so long thinking only about suicide that it’s forgotten how to think about anything else. Like, now that I've opened that door for myself, I'll never be able to fully shut it again. But I’m trying my best to encourage my mind in other directions. We'll see how that goes.

I am still donating all proceeds from my store to Palestinian causes. So far, I've donated over $15K, not including donations coming from my own pocket or the fundraising streams which jointly raised around $10K. In the time since I made my initial post about where this money would be going, the focus has shifted from aid organisations to directly donating to escape funds.

If you'd like to do the same, you can look at Operation Olive Branch, which hosts hundreds of Palestinian escape funds or donate to Safebow, which has helped facilitate the safe crossing and securing of important medical procedures for over 150 at-risk palestinians since the beginning of the genocide.

You know I used to think "tumblr's absolute refusal to actually engage with the Trolley Problem in favor of insisting that there must be a third, morally pure option that doesn't require them to make a hard decision and anyone who asks them to make a binary choice is just a short-sighted idiot is really fucking annoying, but I guess it's not actually doing any harm".

Anyway that was before we asked tumblr at large to decide between "guy aiding a genocide but making progress elsewhere" and "guy who would actively and enthusiastically participate in a genocide and would also make everything else much, much worse for everyone elsewhere" and the response was that there must be a third, morally pure option that doesn't require them to make a hard decision and that anyone who asks them to make a binary choice is a short-sighted idiot.

PSA: i keep seeing posts about staying cool in extreme heat that include advice like "gatorade is bad actually!" and "don't drink fruit juice it'll just dehydrate you!" and neither of these are true!

regarding fruit juice: there's apparently a misconception that Any Sugar At All will dehydrate you, and that's simply not true. yes, sugar will make you pee more when consumed in large amounts, but 1) the natural sugar in fruits won't do this to you 2) great news! a lot of fruit juices exist without any added sugar in them! 3) honestly even having a glass of the fruit juice with added sugar won't completely dehydrate you as long as you're also drinking water throughout the day. if its hot you deserve a cold treat of a drink!!! can't go wrong with fruit juice!!!

regarding gatorade: maybe this isn't an every day drink, but guess what: if it's 110F/40C or hotter outside, and you don't have AC, or you're moving around a lot outside of the AC, and you're sweating buckets: that's when you drink a gatorade.

gatorade exists to replenish all the electrolytes (salt) and glucose (sugar) that you sweat out. YES it is meant for athletes to drink during intensive work outs and not necessarily for people who aren't doing that kind of exercise. BUT GUESS WHAT! when you're sweating buckets because you had to walk to the bus in extreme heat, that's intensive exercise. please feel free to drink a gatorade after that! that's its intended use case!!!!

no: neither of these drinks should be a total replacement for water. but drinking a lot of water and then treating yourself to a fruit juice with lunch is a good idea!!! drinking a gatorade becuase you just had to walk for 20 minutes in the heat is a good idea!!!

Please Stop Spreading Misinformation About Drinks!!! It's fine if you drink things that aren't water!!!! Yes you should probably always be drinking water but drinking something else As Well isn't going to hurt you!!!! okay!!!! its fine!!!!!!

honestly so long as you are consistently getting Any (non-alcoholic) fluids in you, you're doing great!!!!!! okay!!!! i love you stay safe <3

Of the 19 hijackers who carried out the Sept 11 attacks:

15 were from Saudi Arabia (a powerful/oil-rich country the U.S. works hard to maintain diplomatic relations with)

2 were from the United Arab Emirates (also a powerful/oil-rich country the U.S. works hard to maintain diplomatic relations with)

1 was from Egypt, 1 from Lebanon.

None of the hijackers were from Iraq.

None of the Sept 11 hijackers were Iraqi.

None of the 9/11 hijackers were from Iraq.