Title: the road to being a family
Summary: At least one road trip is always needed to help family members bond.
Prompt: road trip
for @tamaraneankori‘s christmas stocking! happy holidays, and I hope you enjoy!
“…A road trip,” Tim asked slowly, almost like he didn’t
believe it.“Yes.”
“Why?” Damian asked.
“Alfred wants all of us out of the house for a bit, and Dick
decided that meant it was a good idea for some… family bonding,” Bruce replied
with a sigh.
[Image shows two tweets from The Mountain Goats, @mountain_goats.
The first says, “if you count your blessings like the Count on Sesame Street counting anything, it throws even one solitary blessing into awesome relief.”
The followup says, “One! One functional spine! Ah, ah, ah!!”
End ID.]
i always know when a fic writer has never experienced a hickey
How? It’s not like you’ve experienced one either.
“[Character A] licked and nibbled [Character B]’s collarbone, leaving dark purple spots along the way.”
either they’re tossing away the meaning of “nibbled” for the advancement of smut or they have a solid misunderstanding of hickeys. it takes like four or five straight seconds of hard suction to make a spot “dark purple”.
okay so two options here:
“[Character A] licked and nibbled [Character B]’s collarbone, leaving faint pink spots along the way.”
OR (and this one is better imo)
“[character A] sucked on the skin of [character B]’s collarbone harder than a vacuum on high power, leaving behind appropriately dark purple hickeys”
“[Character A] puckered their lips and absolutely Hoover™’d the life out of [Character B]’s entire neck. ‘You DirtDevil™’ [Character B] said with a breathy sigh.”
CHARACTER A sucked on CHARACTER B’s neck for a suspiciously long time and caused a sharp fucking pain leading CHARACTER B to shout FOR FUCK’S SAKE I HAVE TO GO TO WORK TOMORROW
Character A cries “I’m sorry, I gave you a hickey!”
Character B says “That’s okay, it’s fine.”
CHARACTER A yells “YOU HAVEN’T SEEN IT YET!”
Character A makes sure to create their suspiciously mouth shaped bruises far below Character B’s neckline. It takes forever, and they have to redo several of them, because they didn’t suck for long enough. The next day, every single one is visible, no matter which shirt Character B wears.
32, 49, 50, 82?
32. Do you like watching scary movies? Hhahahaha!!!! … No. No, I’ve watched one or two accidentally. It was very bad.
49. Is your life anything like it was two years ago? Yes. A bit harder, with Eldest in school and Not Liking It. Little Sister doesn’t live here anymore. But it hasn’t changed that much. Which is good, because it’s a good life.
50. What are you supposed to be doing right now? Maybe folding laundry? Or playing with the kids?
82. Is there someone you will never forget? I don’t really forget people. My grandparents. My husband and kids. My parents and siblings. My cousins. They’re going to be important to me forever.
Some real creepy questions, I will answer any.
1. Think of the last person who said I love you, do you think they meant it?
2. Would you date an 18-year-old at the age you are now?
3. When’s the last time you were aggravated and happy at the same time?
4. Would you ever smile at a stranger?
5. Is there someone mad because you’re dating/talking to the person you are?
6. Have you heard a song that reminds you of someone today?
7. What exactly are you wearing right now?
8. How often do you listen to music?
9. Do you wear jeans or sweats more?
10. Do you think your life will change dramatically before 2015?
11. Are you a social or an antisocial person?
12. Have you ever kissed someone whose name begins with the letter ‘A’?
13. What about ‘R’?
14. Can you drive a stick shift?
15. Do you care if people talk badly about you?
16. Are you going out of town soon?
17. When was the last time you cried?
18. Have you ever told someone you loved them?
19. If you could change your eye color, would you?
20. Is there a boy who you would do absolutely everything for?
21. Name something you dislike about the day you’re having.
22. Is it cute when guys kiss you on your forehead?
23. Are you dating the last person you talked to?
24. What are you sitting on right now?
25. Does anyone regularly (other than family) tell you they love you?
26. Have you ever wanted someone you couldn’t have?
27. Who was the last person you talked to before you went to bed last night?
28. Do you get a lot of colds?
29. Where is the shirt you are wearing from?
30. Does anyone hate you?
31. Do you have any empty alcohol bottles hidden somewhere in your room?
32. Do you like watching scary movies?
33. Do you want your tongue pierced?
34. If you had to delete one year of your life completely, which would it be?
35. Did you have a dream last night?
36. When was the last time you told someone you loved them?
37. Do you think you’ll be married in 5 years?
38. Do you think someone has feelings for you?
39. Do you think someone is thinking about you right now?
40. Did you have a good day yesterday?
41. Think back 2 months ago; were you in a relationship?
42. In the next 48 hours, will you hang out with a girl?
43. Has anyone told you they don’t want to ever lose you?
44. What’s the best part about school?
45. Do you have any pictures on your Facebook?
46. Do you ever pass notes to your friends in school?
47. Do you replay things that have happened in your head?
48. Were you single over the last summer?
49. Is your life anything like it was two years ago?
50. What are you supposed to be doing right now?
51. Do you hate the last guy you had a conversation with?
52. Are you nice to everyone?
53. Have you ever liked someone you didn’t expect to?
54. Do you think you can last in a relationship for 6 months and not cheat?
55. Are you good at hiding your feelings?
56. Do you think you like someone?
57. Have you kissed someone whose name starts with a ‘J’?
58. Do you prefer to be friends with girls or boys?
59. Has anyone of your friends ever seen you cry?
60. Do you hate anyone?
61. How’s your heart?
62. Is there something that happened in your past that you hate talking about?
63. Have you ever cried over a guy?
64. Who is probably talking a load of crap about you right now?
65. Are your toenails painted pink?
66. Will your next kiss be a mistake?
67. Girls love it when boyfriends cry; correct?
68. Have your pants ever fallen down in public?
69. Who was the last person you were on the phone with?
70. How do you look right now?
71. Do you have someone you can be your complete self around?
72. Can you commit to one person?
73. Do you have someone of the opposite sex you can tell everything to?
74. Have you ever felt replaced?
75. Did you wake up cranky?
76. Are you a jealous person?
77. Are relationships ever worth it?
78. Anyone you’re giving up on?
79. Currently wanting to see anyone?
80. Name something you have to do tomorrow?
81. Last person you cried in front of?
82. Is there someone you will never forget?
83. Do you think the person you have feelings for is protective of you?
84. If the person you wish to be with were with you, what would you be doing right now?
85. Are you over your past?
86. Have you ever liked one of your best friends of the opposite sex?
87. Is there anyone you can tell EVERYTHING to?
88. If your first true love knocked on your door with apology and presents, would you accept?
89. So, the last person you kissed just happens to arrive at your door at 3AM; do you let them in?
90. Have you ever liked someone who your friends hated?
91. Will you be in a relationship in 2 months?
92. Is there anyone you know with the name Michael?
93. Have you ever kissed a Matthew?
94. Were you in a relationship in January? How was it going?
95. Were you happy with the person you liked in March?
96. Don’t tell me lies, is the last person you texted attractive?
97. Who do you have texts from?
98. If the person you like says they like someone else, what would you say?
99. Have you ever kissed someone older than you?
100. Who’s in your profile picture with you?
101. Ever kissed under fireworks?
102. Has anybody ever given you butterflies?
[image shows a woman pulling her purple braids back. She has dark skin and a what looks like claw bone earrings. Tattoos decorate both arms.
End ID.]
Feedback culture is dead, long live feedback culture!
AO3, fanfiction, and comments: the system isn’t working.
Fic authors have a problem with feedback – or rather, with the lack of it. Fanfiction has a notoriously low ratio of comments to hits, and many of us have expressed our frustration that we can get a hundred, two hundred, five hundred, even a thousand views on our stories, but only a handful of readers will leave kudos, let alone comments.
Unfortunately, this only gets worse for long, multi-chapter stories (aka, the longfics we know, love, and would sell our souls in a second if it meant an update), which also happen to be the stories that authors need the most support to continue and complete. Law of diminishing returns, y’all, and it sucks.
We’re not here to guilt you into leaving comments.
We want to address the problem by changing the format, and we need your help to do it.The goal is to increase the amount of feedback authors get from readers, especially on stories with multiple chapters, and to make it easier for everyone to show how much we love fics. We’re opening a discussion with ao3 to figure out how/if any of these options can be implemented, but first we need options to present!
Some of our current ideas:
- Ability to leave a form of kudos on every chapter, instead of only once on the entire story: this lets authors know that you’re here and you’re reading their updates, so their hard work isn’t getting tossed into the internet void.
- Comment templates: suggested comments that can be customized or posted as-is. Many of us draw a blank or get nervous when we try to think of a comment, so having pre-made options will both increase the total level of feedback and serve as practice, making it easier to leave more in-depth comments in the future.
- Upvoting/leaving kudos on comments themselves: positive reinforcement makes giving feedback more fun and rewarding, and it lets the author know that readers are present and agreeing with other comments, even if they don’t leave one themselves.
We’ll contact AO3 to discuss the possibility of adding any of these as native features, and if that won’t work, we’re looking into creating and sharing a user script.
What you can do to help:
- As a reader, what would you like to have? What would you be most likely to use? New ideas, opinions on ideas that are listed here, they’re all good.
- As a creator, how would you feel about each of these options? Can you think of other ways of receiving or encouraging feedback?
- Pros and cons of these (note: our thoughts on this are discussed in this google doc)
- GET THE WORD OUT! Reblog this post, send it to your friends, link to it from your stories. We need as much input and support as possible to get this off the ground.
Feedback makes for happy authors. Happy authors make for more stories. Let’s keep this part of fandom alive!
More details about our thoughts, discussions, and ideas can be found in this google doc.
wow, changing the format itself to facilitate comments! and interesting and rad way to go about helping authors
Okay being able to have more dynamic kudos and leave more kudos for chapters: yessss
Things I’ve thought of/wanted at one point or other:
- Inline comments: ability to click anywhere and add a word or short sentence, so I am able to immediately act on my desire to comment, and don’t feel like I have to write an entire essay at the end. Maybe they’d show up at the end of the story for the author, with the line they were added to?
- Emojis that work? They don’t for me, but that might just be me. Still, I want to be able to communicate wordless emotion, and pictures are good for that.
- DEFINITELY allowing more kudos!
- Easy link to reblog to Tumblr/link to the Tumblr version? I can reblog on Tumblr! Which allows the story to spread! It’s hard right now, because I don’t want to reblog instead of repost if there is a Tumblr version, but I have no way to tell.
- One of those annoying, “want to comment?” options when leaving a story?
- Showing a comment along with the story in the dash? Maybe? So people could see it there?
- Something to make the site seem less formal? The layout really makes things seem formal and you feel a little inadequate adding your dumb words to the stylish page.
- ¡¡¡NON-WRITER ACCOUNTS!!! Getting an account takes effort, and commenting without an account is kind of weird. Going through all the work of getting an invite, just so you can comment? Add reader accounts!
did you know that at some point dick wanted to adopt jason? i just found out and my mind is blown lol
I Did Not Know This, No.
Yep, Precrisis seems really weird viewed from the present. Precrisis Jason’s acrobat parents were friends with Dick, and were spying for him when they died. He felt responsible.
guys my humorless architect parents laughed at a meme for the first time today
damn i feel like the proud parent
Always reblog the Bauhaus Jesus.
i am so proud of humorless architect parents finally learning to laugh. it is the true meaning of an arbitrary day near the winter solstice.
[Image is captioned, “Time to haul out the Bauhaus nativity.” On a base of dark wood, a number of wooden rectangles are set up. They are slightly different sizes. In the centre, one is on its side, presumably representing the manger. One has a diamond inset into it’s top. Otherwise, only slightly different shades and wood grains distinguish them.
End ID.]
So i just came out to my dad abt being nb, and he said something really wise about names, i think.
He said “Gifts are not obligations. You give things to people, and you hope they like them. And your name was a gift from us to you. If it doesn’t work for you anymore, you’re not obligated to keep it.”
and i just thought maybe other people could use hearing something like that.
that’s so beautiful
Reblogging for people since it sounds very, very wise.
kiragecko 