Finest Kind

I GOT A FUCKING RAISE THE POTATO WORKED WTF

This potato works. Every. Fucking. Time.

Then bring me luck

the day after I posted this last time I was notified that I was selected for a really cool mentorship gig and got an unrelated glowing review at work

Reblogging because I really need some good luck

Even if this isn't lucky, potatoes are awesome

happy birthday cas!

¨you'll never find love if you don't take the risk!¨

me taking the risk:

What’s with me and drawing spn men bloody

trek rainbow!!

My lovelies

Gorgeous Gorgeous Girls work in space <3

YOU THERE! YES YOU! FIC READER!

I just read a fic from 2013 and left a comment on the end. The author responded within 3 hours.

Please leave comments on fics. It doesn't matter if you don't know what to say I literally made a joke about a space worm. Please comment on fics it'll make the authors day even if its from 9 years ago.

A few weeks ago I read and commented on a fic that had been posted to AO3 in 2013 but had actually been written in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The fandom itself is for a show from the mid 90s and afaik there is no active presence on Tumblr at all.

Both authors responded to my comment by the next day, beyond thrilled to have received it. Both expressed joy in knowing the fandom still lived on in some form and that my comment reminded them of how much fun they had writing the fic together over two decades ago.

Please please please comment on fics -- especially older ones -- even if it's just to leave a heart emoji or a key smash. Doing so really does mean a hell of a lot to the authors.

All of this. Fanfic and fan art are not like advertizer-focused social media, where posts are eaten up by the void within hours or minutes, and novelty is not only encouraged, but expected. Not even like Tumblr, where old posts that circulate are usually those that have remained popular. Fanfic is a smaller space. Outside of specific foci of popular interest, authors aren’t getting bombarded with messages. Your comment can be seen for what it is--the thoughts of a real, live person who took the time to look at something they created.

And that can really brighten somebody’s day.

I still get comments on Stealing Harry (the bulk of which was written prior to 2005 and is dated as such in AO3) or even my earlier Discworld fic, and it’ll be absolutely delightful and very flattering comments that will start or end with something like “I know this fic is super old and I don’t know what you’re doing now....” 

And I’m like *Tony Hawk Voice* “Thank you! I am here. Doing this.” 

Absolutely do leave comments on old fics, authors love it! 

But also if you love a fic, like, go ahead and click that author name because the dumbass who wrote that fic you like in 2003 is possibly writing gay romance novels you will enjoy in 2023. 

The M/M Romance industry: a portrait.

Star Trek: Picard - 3.08 “Surrender”

i really love how many ppl are like “i’ve never watched star trek but i would die for data” because that’s truly the biggest mood

literally everyone regardless of whether they’ve seen every single episode of TNG or absolutely zero:

star trek heritage post (August 6th, 2019)

I wanna tell a story.

So, rewind a little more than a year. I'd just started my new job, which is unimportant to the story apart from the basic nature: I get on the phone with people to help them open financial accounts, and I spend maybe 15-30 minutes helping them do so. It's complex, the computer systems I have to use are finicky, and it's laden down with a lot of bureaucratic red tape.

My very first day live on the job, I was a nervous wreck. There were so many things I needed to keep track of, and I was having to talk to people over the phone for the first time in years, which meant my voice dysphoria was at an all-time high.

Then I got this client. I don't actually recall his name and I couldn't tell it to you even if I did, so let's call him Bob.

Bob was elderly and had lived a hard life. He was transferring the contents of his pitifully small 401k from Walmart into a more accessible account, and I was helping him set that up. He came on the line cranky and more than a little paranoid. He asked me repeatedly if we were going to tell the government about his money, grumbled at me about the information I had to collect to get the account opened, made a few political statements with which I heartily disagreed. It was not a bad call, but I was definitely on edge.

Then it came time to set up a beneficiary on his account -- someone who would inherit the account if he passed away.

And he paused, and then he said, "My daughter."

I asked for her name and date of birth for the listing, and Bob told me. But then he went on.

"I want to tell you about her," he said. "She's very special to me.

"You see, I didn't always have her. Years ago I had a son. And my wife and I, we loved our son so much. He was our perfect boy. We watched him grow up, he made it into college, he got a job. I never went to college, you know? But he did. I was so proud of that.

"Then, one day, he disappeared. Stopped calling, stopped visiting, stopped everything. Six years, we didn't know what had happened to him, if he was alive, if he was dead, nothing. It was..."

He paused there, his voice creaking like it was about to break. I could see where this was going, and I was rapt.

"Then we got a letter," he went on. "From her. She told us everything, explained it all. That she was--" He paused, then said "transgender" as if it were a foreign word that he wasn't entirely sure how to pronounce. "That he'd -- she'd -- disappeared like that because she was afraid of what we'd say. What I'd say. Maybe what I'd do. But she missed us and she wanted us to get to know her as she really is."

He paused there, pretty clearly waiting for my reaction. I said something -- I barely remember what -- about how scary it must have been for her, and how hard for Bob and his wife not to hear from their child for so long.

"It was," he agreed. "But you gotta know this. I love my daughter." He said it with his whole being, with every bit of power and meaning that his thin, aged voice could hold. "I love my daughter, and I'm so proud of her. She's getting married next month, and I thank God for letting me live long enough to walk her down the aisle, just like every girl deserves. She is the light of my life."

At the end of a long, intimidating, tiring day, his fierce love for his trans daughter took my breath away. I'm always going to remember Bob -- remember how he wasn't perfect, wasn't progressive, didn't really know the etiquette or the language, but how deep and intense his love for his daughter was. How he told this to me, a stranger, as though daring me to say even the slightest rude word about her.

There is love in this world. Sometimes, it comes from the people you would least expect. It might not look quite like you think it will. But it is out there.

"I love my daughter," Bob said, intense and emphatic, and I will never forget the sound of his voice.

He’s got six hands let him use them!

small part of the whole picture.

T^T