CaffeinaShips

the outfit you’re wearing rn is what you’re wearing when an angel possesses you to do the lords work but instead falls in gay love with a hunter and wears that outfit for the next 15 years, what are you wearing?

SPNCOLDESTHITS is making changes!

Those changes will begin with our December 2023 challenge. Here's a detailed list of what's in store!

MULTIFANDOM: We're now a multifandom challenge. All fandoms, all pairings and gen, all subject matter

ART ENTRIES ACCEPTED: SPNCH monthly challenges now include art submissions along with a blurb

WINNERS GET FIC/ART PROMOS: Winners not only get to choose the theme for the month after next, but they'll also get to pick any fic or piece of art they've previously created and we'll promo it on all our social media accounts.

MORE SOCIAL MEDIA OPTIONS: We're on Tumblr, Twitter, Bluesky, and Pillowfort. Use any of them to promo so fic/art gets more readers/viewers! We also have a Discord server, and you're welcome to join!

BOOKMARKS NOW GIVE +POINTS: Bookmarks now add +30 points to a fic/art challenge entry. This is a great way to get more people involved because a lot of AO3 users look to bookmarks for more content.

ALL COMMENTS & BOOKMARKS GIVE +POINTS: Previously we only counted comments by your fellow CHitters, but now ANY AND ALL comments and bookmarks will earn a fic/art +points.

MULTIPLE CHOICE THEMES: If no clear winner or no players enter in a month, a multiple choice poll that anyone can participate in decides the theme.

BADGES: CHitters will earn badges for number of months they've participated as well as random silly things the mods come up with because why not!

FRIEND PROMOS: Do you have a friend who doesn't get nearly as much interaction on their fic/artwork as you think they should? Submit their info via ask or message @mayalaen and we'll promo them for you on all our social media sites!

RANDOM FIC PROMOS: Once a month we'll feature and promo a previous SPNCH entry.

PROMPT HELP: Sometimes our CHitters struggle with ideas, so even if you're not a writer or an artist, submit prompts to SPNCH and we'll make them available for our CHitters. Every four months the unused prompts will be gathered and one prompt will be chosen and filled by the mods.

BIRTHDAY LIST: Submit your birthday + username + country (so we post on the right day) via ask or DM to @mayalaen and we'll give you a shoutout on your birthday!

GAMES FOR EVERYBODY: At least once a month, we'll have an SPNCH themed games and events that anyone can participate in even if they're not a writer or artist.

CROWNED BIGGEST LOSER: Every December the CHitter with the least points will be crowned CHitter of the year and will get a promo of their choice.

the women of supernatural by episode count aka the most depressing gifset i’ve ever made when the show has 200+ episodes

Actually Captain Jack Harkness is SO important. During a time when we couldn't get a single queer on screen in most shows and even those few we did get ended up dead 90% of the time, he was not only openly bisexual, he was openly bisexual and LITERALLY unable to die.

They buried that gay and he still dug himself up and kept fucking

a few days ago an irl told me about how the alphabet is on the wrong order on the doctor who wiki because in one episode a character recites the alphabet backwards but gets two letters the wrong way around and there has been no other representation of the full alphabet in any other dw media so technically there’s no proof that it isn’t canon and i’ve been thinking about that ever since

not joking (U is supposed to come before V)

actually it gets funnier. there are multiple instances of parts of the alphabet being spoken in episodes. the problem is absolutely none of these have spoken that specific section since the episode that got the order wrong.

fanfic fandom is just as likely to turn on ‘disruptors’ as the knitting hobby is -- witness what happened to the 2 techbros who bought knitting.com, thought they’d be able to leverage that, and were eaten by insulted, angry knitters like a pair of oxen in a river of piranha

https://www.thedailybeast.com/tech-bros-dave-bryant-and-mike-jackness-bought-knittingcom-it-didnt-go-well.

someone has never experienced authors talking with characters in the Author’s notes…

You think your little chatbot can replicate that level of unhinged?

You think your little

chatbot can replicate that

level of unhinged?

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

AO3 was created for exactly this situation.

"To allow people to talk to chatbots of their blorbos?" Fucking no.

To be a haven when the damn blorbo-chatbot venture capitalist assholes start looking for a new market, and the other fanfic sites offer them access to their users & archives in exchange for a cut of the nonexistent eventual profits.

We had "chat with your favorite characters." They were called ask blogs. I gather some still exist, here and there. Many people used them. Many more did not, and it's not because we didn't know they existed.

And THOSE chat-blorbos were willing to discuss porn. The venture-capitalist ones are planning to comply with Apple's ratings system.

one thing about Destiel is that, fundamentally, they are Bert & Ernie

Dean lovingly Bothering his spouse is a love language. Cas fondly Rolling His Eyes is a love language. they have been living together for years and they love each other and that manifests as them being ridiculous and domestic

one of my favorite bits in doctor who is when someone is like your time machine doesn’t work very well does it and the doctor is like Excuse You, This Is A Type 40 TARDIS That Can Go Anywhere In Time And Space. that’s like if i drove to a place where they don’t have cars but know about them and took someone for a drive and they saw cooling that only works on one setting and heat that barely works and a broken cd player despite the functioning tape deck and shaky brakes and they went mate your cars a bit shit isn’t it and you were like fuck you, this is a 2002 toyota camry, it can drive on roads

oh no it gets worse, the T40 was discontinued when the doctor himself was a kid. because they weren’t even a good model, they were unreliable, finnicky, headstrong pieces of junk that broke all the time, in extremely weird ways.

and the doctor stole one that was up on bricks in the back of an impound lot and was like ‘i can fix this’ despite having had literally no experience whatsoever with building, fixing, maintaining, or flying one.

the tardis herself says, ‘i stole a time lord’ and what she stole was the only arrogant dipshit, in an entire race of arrogant dipshits, who actually thought flying her out of shit car jail was a good idea.

it’s not a 2002 toyota camry it’s like a 1962 ford anglia. with three wheels.

and we love her.

The Doctor basically thought “I can fix her” XD

And the TARDIS thought “I can make him worse”

SEPTEMBER 2023 PROMPT - BLORBO MIXUP

POSTING DATES  September 15th - 19th

We've been on a bit of a hiatus, so I've decided to relaunch us into September with Blorbo Mixup. Simply make a selection from each category, combine them, and insert your favourite character into the resulting situation.

ACTION: is stuck in a closet with gets fucked by is hunting has a wild party with falls in love with is on the run from has an argument with is babysitting (with?) is chained/tied up with is turned into

WHO: a vampire a werewolf the Ghostfacers a demon an angel a tentacled monstrosity a ghost a clown a clown ghost a shapeshifter their worst enemy their best friend

*** Please make a list of all your promos and send them to @writergamermom​  by the end of the promo time! *** All you need to include is a list of  what type of promo you put up, which fic it was for, and where you  posted it. You don’t have to include links, but they’re helpful, and  being helpful to the one who tallies your points will earn you a bonus.

@thayerkerbasy  will work at getting everybody’s promos up on the various sites, so if  you don’t want your posts mirrored on another site, please let him know.  If you’re on PF, please feel free to post your own promos to the  community.

All Times are GMT-7 Posting Dates September 15th at 12am through September 19th at 11:59pm Promo Dates September 15th at 12am through September 23rd at 9:00pm Challenge Ends September 23rd at 9:00pm

HOW TO PLAY: Post a fic to AO3 (include it in the spncoldesthits collection on AO3) and reblog this post with an AO3 link to your fic. (Please  include the link in your reblog. The point is so your followers can see  the link to your fic when you reblog the post.)

FIC POINTS: hits +1 point  |  kudos = +10 points | comments = +20 points

PROMO POINTS:  Fic reviews, liveblogging, banners/artwork, podfic/vlogging all earn  you bonus negative points (please tag your posts with  #spncoldesthitspromo).  You can earn a LOT of bonus negative points for  making a masterpost of your promos and sending it to @writergamermom​  when you’re done. Additionally, each comment you leave on your  competitors’ fics (up to a max of 5 per fic) earns you -10 points.  Please keep all comments relevant to the fic, don’t spam the comments  section with nonsense.

If we have reason to believe you’re  commenting and promo’ing without having read the fics, you will receive a  +1000 point penalty.

We reserve the right to award negative  points on a whim for obvious time investment in promos and for general  awesomeness. This is for fun and to help people feel better about their  writing, so let’s be awesome to each other.

Remember, points are bad and the winner is the one with the lowest score. Have fun, and may the biggest loser win!

First look at ‘OUR FLAG MEANS DEATH’ Season 2 (x)

I don’t think any movie will make me feel the same ethereal sense of otherworldly sorrow and disembodied awe as that scene in Lord of the Rings where the loyal son is sent off into a doomed battle to please his vindictive father while Pippin sings a mourning song of his people

I was like 12 and high off this shit

These movies CHANGED ME

This is one of my favourite parts of the whole trilogy. It’s haunting.

And that Pippin takes actually a happy walking song of his people, because Hobbit songs are generally happy and about food and drink and gifts and things, and *transforms* it into a mourning song.

The song is from Fellowship, before all the heavy plot hits and they’re still in the Shire. It’s about walking, and how eventually all the bad things that scare or sadden you will fade away and you’ll be home warm by the fire.

And Pippin takes it, changes the lines, the key, and sings a song that is truly fit for Denethor’s great hall.

Knowing Billy Boyd gave his own melody to it and everyone had chills after hearing him sing it. This is how you get actors involved with the story and character, this is how amazingly well these films were cast. Fans have been singing that haunting tune in echoing halls and caves and towers for 20 years now and it never loses its beauty.

And even better: Billy Boyd composed the tune to the song and then performed it for Peter Jackson and everyone else while filming. They only did one take! That very first take is the one that’s used in the film! He’s just that good!!

i wish my mutuals n i could meet up for coffee .... it would b sooooo spiritually healing to sit on a patio w a little beverage and bitch rn

The Ring: If I had a quarter for every time a hobbit picked me up, I’d have two quarters.  The Ring: Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice.

Of all the bearers of Sauron’s ring, 4 of them were hobbits.

I was wrong. It’s 5. Not 4

The lineage of ring bearers is as follows.

I love how Deagol counts as a ring bearer even though he had it in his possession for all of like five seconds

He held it for the rest of of his life!

[Image description: Tweet by @banalplay saying “but something happened then that the ring did not intend. it was picked up by the most unlikely creature imaginable: a hobbit, the same fuckin thing that just had it for like 500 years.” End Image Description.] Link to original here. Otherwise reblogging for the final rb there, which made me cackle.

From the ring’s perspective:

1. Home, the finger of my creator and other self.

2. Well, I don’t like it but I can work with this. Cause some trouble, get some revenge, find my way home, this is fine.

3. What the fuck is you?

4. Right personality, wrong species, I don’t know what you are but I hate you and I don’t know why you’re so resistant to my powers.

5. NO NO NO there are goblins everywhere how did I find another one of THESE horrible things. This one’s even more resistant than the last one and also disgustingly nice. I suffer.

6. Listen, I’ll cooperate, just get me the fuck out of this hellhole full of small cheerful people my power doesn’t work on properly. No, not like that. I hate you. Please stop. 

7. FUCK

8. (Frodo again) I still hate you with every molecule of my mortal form but at least you’re not number seven. Think I’m starting to get through finally. 

9. (Smeagol again) YES it’s you I actually missed you now get me back to the Master and NO FUCK NO I HATE YOOOOUUUUU…. *fzt* 

you CHAIN The One Ring?! you chain it like the prisoner?! oh! OH! trauma! deep psychological trauma for hobbits for One Thousand Years!

Heh. :)

Ok friends, this has bugged me for awhile now so help me solve it.

In LOTR we're giving two contradicting depictions of Elves and their horses: the Glorfindel approach and the Legolas approach.

In the Glorfindel approach, we're told through various references that he rides Asfaloth with a saddle, stirrups, and reins.

While in the Legolas approach, we're told instead that the "Elvish way with all good beasts" is to ride them with none of these items and direct them solely with the spoken word.

So how do we square these, friends?

Extra points if you give me your unhinged headcanons about this in the replies/tags. I want to hear all about those.

SO.

Here is the thing that sometimes people do not realize: riding without a saddle is actively harder on the horse.

Think of it as the difference between using a really well designed long distance camping, hiking or infantry backpack, vs just having someone dump all that shit in a bag hanging off your shoulders.

Now the Noldor fucking love horses. The Noldor are big on horses. The Fëanárioni shipped across as many horses as they could in the open-decked swan-ships, Maedhros apologized to his uncle (and thus by proxy to the rest of the Indisioni Exiles) by gifting them horses, and the strong implication is that Fingon essentially gleefully lived the entire Siege of Angband as a ferocious horse nomad.

Likewise, they fought on horse-back and while it is not impossible to fight on horseback without stirrups, it's much harder and much more likely to hurt both you and the horse.

The Noldor and the Rohirrim have the same attitude, about horses.

They have also had horses for thousands of years, learned horse-care from the creators of horses, and so on. Glorfindel's first round through life was as part of those born-in-Aman Noldorin Exiles.

So of fucking course the Noldor have saddles. Similarly, of course they have reins: reins are how you communicate with a horse whose head is way the fuck over there. (As is pressure from your knees, and so on.) Now, none of these are of the coercive kind, and none are the kind that would use discomfort as a communication way, but none of those are necessary anyway.

On the other hand, the Nandor of Mirkwood-once-Greenwood . . .don't seem to have any significant equestrian history.

And why would they? They are intensely forest-dwelling people. Horses are not naturally forest creatures, and in particularly dense forests do not provide a significant transportation advantage - especially not when being ridden. A horse in Mirkwood in a battle is mostly a liability - you can see echoes of the same thing with the Rohirrim in both their relationship to Fangorn, and in their intense apprehension at getting the guidance of the Druédain through the woods to get around that one orc-host during the journey to Minas Tirith.

Sure, sure, stories of deep woods monsters and so on, but also part of the reason that the forest is part of the Rohirric Cultural Imaginary as a Terror Place is that their one major military strength doesn't work there. They're a cavalry-based fighting people, and deep tangled forest is no place for cavalry.

Horses, to get through woods, need roads. And the Nandor of Mirkwood don't seem to be big on roads. They only even seem to have roads when interaction with other cultures demands it; they prefer using rivers and using their own feet in the forest. When trade with the outside world decays because it gets dangerous, the One Road through their kingdom also decays and is abandoned. And even if you do keep around a few very sure-footed little ponies for baggage, because they're pretty good at that part and can keep their feet through the trees, well . . . you don't RIDE those. And frankly they're more likely to keep donkeys.

Legolas' people do not appear to have significant traditions of riding horses and particularly not for battle.

But you know what specifically the royal, Sindar-origin line of the Greenwood has a history of?

Pride, and being massive show-offs, sometimes in ways that get them into deep trouble.

This is how Legolas' grandfather died, and how his father became king: during the Last Alliance, Oropher got it so up his craw and his neck so out of joint about actually following the directions of Those Obnoxious Eldar and Númenórean Snobs* that he and his compatriot Nandor king charged very prematurely and got themselves and their people slaughtered, basically To Prove That They Couldn't Be Bossed Around/Did So Know What They Were Doing.

[*please note: these Eldar and Númenórean snobs had been fighting wars - significantly against Sauron, and in the case of the leadership quite personally, and in the case of one member of the leadership against fucking Morgoth - for several thousand years and were intensely good at it. Oropher did not, as far as is recorded anywhere, even participate, let alone lead, in any significant military campaign.]

Like don't get me wrong, I'm deeply fond of them, but also this is a thing they do.

Similarly, we know that Legolas personally is both a showoff and gets his nose a wee bit out of joint when he feels miffed or insulted. Gandalf has to tell him and Gimli to stop sniping at each other, and at more than two thousand years old, Legolas has a lot less excuse for getting involved in petty fights than most anyone else in the party.

When they're snowed in on Caradhras, Legolas expends no small amount of energy in exerting himself to run across the snow for relatively little gain - but damn does it make him look impressive when he gets there! He is VERY touchy about the idea that he should be treated like everyone else in the party (ie as an outsider) when they're trying to get through to Lórien, and later feels the need to make sidelong comments about feeling young, as he hasn't "since travelling with you children" when they're on the edge of Fangorn, and so on.

And right up to that point, Legolas has had a couple of unpleasant experiences - the hobbits were kidnapped and Boromir was killed and the three of them haven't been able to do anything in particular about it; Aragorn has been much more materially USEFUL in the chase than he has, even if he himself might have been able to run without stopping more; and just now this bunch of humans insulted an ally, implied insult to his entire species, and threatened to kill his friend, and then Aragorn resolved the whole issue by being DIPLOMATIC about it instead of anything else - and is surrounded by a bunch of mortal Atani.

I put it to you: might it not be a major temptation to show off?

Because to be clear, while yes Glorfindel has saddle and bridle, he is able to verbally instruct Asfaloth to ignore Frodo pulling on that bridle and run, from a couple meters away. I don't think the idea that the Quendi can get horses (and other positively inclined animals) to do what they want regardless of external measures of control is at all inaccurate. Glorfindel has a saddle because a saddle makes Asfaloth more comfortable carrying his weight (and is terribly convenient for storage and baggage), and has a bridle because laying reins across the neck is very useful way to communicate without making noise, which has all sorts of advantages.

But Legolas - given that his family trades extensively with the Atani on their eastern border - certainly knows that Atani find the way that Quendi can just naturally ~*communicate*~ with animals and get them to do what they want very impressive; and also likely knows, from the same source, that riding bareback is considered an indicator of great skill.

Also, critically: as he does not ride horses OFTEN, he may have no idea how to put a saddle on, take it off, ditto a bridle, how to care for them, how to care for the horse after having them on, and so on, and in order to learn this in their current situation he would have to ask Aragorn and there isn't really any way he could hide that incompetence from Gimli, who is certainly now his friend but is also someone he still wants to impress.

Finally, practically speaking, depending on the exact design it might well be very difficult to keep Gimli on with him if the saddle remained.

So what better way to do that, and to overawe these belligerent Atani (who insulted his friend AND his people AND the Lady of Lórien AND mutter mutter muttermutter humans being stupid muttermutter), than to pull off this great trick?

Bonus: since he's always going to have to stop to let Gimli off before they fight, he doesn't need to worry that much about staying on DURING combat, because he won't be fighting that way.

Additionally, if you take the framing premise of the book (that it is written out of the recollections of the hobbits, primarily Frodo and Sam but with some additions from Merry and Pippin who are the other major points of view we have) seriously, this is a bit that would have been added in afterwards, and you can actually see that reflected in the language used (it is a LOT more High Register, throughout the sequence with "the three hunters", than it is anywhere that it's from Merry or Pippin or Sam or Frodo's primary point of view), very possibly Gimli's or Legolas' own, or some combination, suggesting a possible origin for the claim about "way with all good beasts" as Legolas would want to maintain his image, and Gimli's sense of what Quendi can and can't and do and don't do would be primarily shaped by, well, Legolas.

TLDR: The Noldor and Eldar in general of course use (very well made and perfectly fitted/suited to the horse and rider etc) saddles and reins to ride, because they're actually horse-cultures. They don't necessarily "need" them, and can in fact communicate with and convince horses to do things via other means, but saddles are for the horse's comfort as much as the rider's, and reins are just a SMART way to communicate in a rider context.

Legolas is not from a horse-culture and is not particularly accustomed to riding horses but figures it can't be that hard if humans can do it (and does have enough unfair elven advantage to pull that off) and is a massive showoff, and therefore made a big deal about not needing a saddle etc etc.

Aragorn let him do this because it wasn't that important (the horse was strong enough to carry both of them, this was not the time) and frankly it was kinda funny.

The text has this minor confusion because it's being written by hobbits who are outside of both cultures and lack significant context, were compiling a massive BEAST of a volume based on multiple contributors, and so on.

postscript: @lireavue absolutely reblogged this in order to trigger this post, and don't let her pretend otherwise.

Alright.

You ready for a hard 'tag your oc' challenge?

Tag an oc who doesn't have childhood trauma. At all. Who's family is still alive.

I'll wait.

We're just looking to hear from people who were already aware of Coldest Hits, so there's no need to reblog this, just let us know how you feel about the state of things.