Bored HQ

The episode in which:

- Lestat is very unsubtly trying to get his ex-husband to come over;

- Dee picks a girl for her and Lestat to have a threesome/bloodsucking session with;

- Lestat kisses a male groupie on the tourbus;

- Larry kisses him in the club;

- Alex and Salamander pretty much sit on top of each other in that same scene;

- There is a fucking m/m/f/f elevator foursome that includes what looks an awful lot like Lestat bouncing on that bell hop's dick, and kissing and oral sex between two people who go by she/her.

The rest of the season has also included: confirmation that Salamander wants to fuck Lestat, more EXTREMELY gay drama between Lestat and Louis, Louis's new gay not-companion, Gabriella kissing a female stripper, Daniel asking Louis 'did you like my book, senpei?' with the most pathetic puppydog eyes, an episode focused on Lestat’s gay lover and his gay abuser, Armand asking Lestat 'what are we?' and telling him he loves him, multiple characters confirming that Lestat and Armand were having sex all over Paris including in government buildings, Louis telling Regina he's gay gay gay, Lestat taking a ragebait blood shower in front of Armand who openly ogles his crotch, Daniel casually mentioning he loves Louis, and a Devil’s Minion love confession.

But I guess the fact that Lestat also kisses and bones his mom makes him and the entire show straight now. 🤷‍♀️

I think there is a broad cultural problem with the current state of fanfiction that likely stems from the proliferation of fics-turned-published-novels wherein fic authors now feel they have a duty to churn out a high volume of content at an inhuman rate. and in order to meet those demands, they resort to AI. and that sucks.

I think readers and consumers of fanfiction broadly speaking also have a bad habit of feeding into this culture by demanding and expecting a high volume of content churned out at an inhuman rate, and it often prevents them from accurately assessing the quality of what they're reading, leading to a general degeneration of fic quality, feeding an audience that is getting worse at recognizing good art vs. bad art. and that sucks.

going from 1,800 fics to over 38,000 fics for a single ship in less than six months is not normal and should have been a warning sign for people that there was likely a fuckton of slop being produced and posted. and that sucks.

I don't like the excuse that some authors are using that they only used AI to beta their work. there are plenty of humans who would happily beta your fic for you. and if your reasoning for not using a human is because you wanted your work beta'd faster, I would implore you to examine WHY you feel like you are on some kind of binding schedule in a hobby space. kill the profit-driven manager in your brain and take your time making shit.

generally speaking, I believe this is a problem that is driven by both readers and writers but at the end of the day, the real driver - as ever - is capital, and its influence on art and creativity. I don't blame authors or readers for falling victim to this because the world around us sucks, but my god we all need to at least try a little harder to resist.

if you're a reader, be critical of what you're seeing and consuming. and if you're a writer, stop giving away any piece of the creative process to AI. silence the part of you that insists you must post as much as possible all the time. you do not have to capitulate to hustle culture and also your fanfiction will probably not actually make you rich and famous, even if all those comments and kudos are making you feel important.

are we the baddies: SFF subgenre focused on agents of an imperial power realizing that and grappling with what to do next, in contrast to stories focusing on the scrappy rebels resisting said imperial power

I could fix him (the empire): SFF subgenre where the colonized subject being nice and/or sexy enough Ends Colonialism, frequently tied to the John President of Racism problem

librarian bait: books centered on the transformative life-changing power of books and libraries, cousin to books focused on the transformative life-changing power of storytelling and narrative in general

college brochure fiction: stories where the protagonist has an artfully arranged group of diverse friends who are as flat as paper and whose cultural backgrounds never come up meaningfully

It hails from an immortal tumblr post by penultimate-step, except not immortal apparently because I get 'not found' when I try to go back to the original. So here's the text:

Look at this man experiencing freckles and awkward Canadian politeness and developing a fat crush.

My favourite part however is as Shane is leaving clearly uncomfortable with how their conversation went (he does a head tilt like "well, that went horribly")

Ilya notices and that's when he chirps, immediately making Shane more comfortable as he chirps back. And thus, their lovingly teasing, when they say "asshole" and "boring" they really mean "I love you" dynamic is born.

Shane’s surprisingly quite relaxed. He’s confident in their relationship, excited to be married, and knows that even if something goes wrong, it doesn’t matter, because at the end of the day he’ll be with Ilya.

Ilya is stressed. He keeps crying. This is the best day of his life. Shane deserves better, why would the greatest man on earth want him. He’s never been happier. Something’s gonna go wrong, he knows it. Bood, Troy, and Sveta have to keep calming him down and reminding him that Shane loves him and they deserve to be happy together. He locks himself in the bathroom.

Shane’s getting dressed with Hayden, JJ, and Rose, sipping champagne, feet up as he waits for the ceremony to start.

Once they manage to coax Ilya out of the bathroom, David comes in and does his canon speech about Ilya being his second son. The waterworks start again.

And no one is ever ready for the switch, and even after it happens they can never fully prepare themselves for what they’re going to get. Shane has learned that when he’s going to do that he should take them aside to give them the card rather than in front of people

Once Shane feels comfortable with Hayden as a genuinely good friend in his birthday card that year he writes out a whole thing about how he’s always wanted a best friend like other kids had but never had one and had accepted he never would, and then Hayden came into his life and gave him a level of love and friendship he never thought he would get and he loves everything about Hayden and can’t wait to be by his side as friends and brothers for the rest of their lives. Hayden fully breaks down and loses it, Jackie notices they’ve been gone a while and walks into the kitchen to see Hayden hugging Shane and sobbing into his shoulder. She raises her eyebrows at Shane and Shane just gives her the OK sign and goes back to rubbing Hayden’s back

Ilya learns about the card thing when it’s yunas birthday and he notices her opening Shane’s card like she’s deactivating a bomb. She stares silently as she reads it and Ilya starts freaking out a little when she starts to tear up and then pulls Shane in for a long silent hug. He looks at it later and sees that Shane wrote about how the last year made him realize over again how lucky he is to have someone as strong and supportive as her as a mother and he hopes to one day be half the parent to his own kids as she was to him

When it’s their first time having Ilya’s birthday together he’s legitimately nervous because this is his first Shane Card and he doesn’t know what to expect and part of him is afraid he’s built it up too much in his head and Shane won’t have as nice things to say as he did with other people. And then he opens the envelope and there’s no card but instead multiple pieces of paper because Shane couldn’t fit it all into a limited space. Ilya spends the better part of the next hour walking around the house reading it, taking breaks occasionally to cry or hyperventilate before going back to reading it because holy shit does Shane Hollander love him. Like he knew logically that Shane did but now he’s got pages and pages of Shane walking him through his feelings over the last decade of their life and every moment he remembered and cherished. Shane finally catches up to him and he’s on the floor of the kitchen, face a splotchy red mess, chugging Gatorade because he’s dehydrated from crying

As i roar into the sunset you have to swerve* to avoid the small flotilla of hacked Towyota devices trailing behind me