Grilled cheese, my one true love!

Help help these look delicious.

Further adventures in the mixed-up files of Mrs. God I. Love-Crostini.

File under: things that look delicious and that need to be in my mouth immediately.

“Watanuki-kun has no parents,” he had said, “and the closest thing he has to guardians are a pair of apartment managers—oddballs, if you ask me. They have trouble keeping their phone connected.” He’d waved a wrinkled hand at the folder in Tezuka’s hands. “You have my permission to read that, as you are going through a homicide investigation. Just don’t harass any of our students without just cause, if you please.” // I love, love, love fic that views the main characters through the point of view of someone else-- this outside view on Watanuki, in particular, is so great.

It began as a meme. Or maybe it wasn't a meme. Maybe it was something more insidious, more predatory, disguising itself as a meme so it could slip into our space, into fandom, unnoticed.
<i>Is there anyone here?</i> // Wonderfully creepy fandom ghost story.

Oh man, this looks so good.

To us, the Web is a sort of shared external memory. We do not have to remember unnecessary details: dates, sums, formulas, clauses, street names, detailed definitions. It is enough for us to have an abstract, the essence that is needed to process the information and relate it to others. Should we need the details, we can look them up within seconds. Similarly, we do not have to be experts in everything, because we know where to find people who specialise in what we ourselves do not know, and whom we can trust. People who will share their expertise with us not for profit, but because of our shared belief that information exists in motion, that it wants to be free, that we all benefit from the exchange of information. Every day: studying, working, solving everyday issues, pursuing interests. We know how to compete and we like to do it, but our competition, our desire to be different, is built on knowledge, on the ability to interpret and process information, and not on monopolising it. //

Very, very interesting.

Super-cool tilt-shifted video of the Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro.

"Karkat," you say, because it feels amazing but you can't help yourself, "is that an octopus in your pants or are you just happy to see me?"
"That is the stupidest pickup line in either of our universes," Karkat says, his face gray-red and his pupils huge, "and I dare you to find out." // Charmingly hot. Oh, I do so love fic that plays with human/troll differences in physiology.

CEB: i wish you didn't look so sad.
PCG: I. WHAT.
PCG: I DO NOT LOOK SAD, WHAT THE FUCK.
PCG: I AM FUCKING UNCONSCIOUS.
CEB: you do. you look really sad, dude. //
This is hilariously cute, with inter-timeline memo shenanigans galore (which are, coincidentally, perhaps my favourite kind of shenanigans), and a pitch-perfect John.

TT: Dave, are you quite alright?
TT: Is this perhaps a new conversational fraymotif based on the subversion of audience expectation?
TT: If so, it’s shockingly effective.
TT: I was actually quite looking forward to your colourful eight-line demolition of valerian, herbal remedies, new age medicine, hot drinks, my lifestyle choices in general, and a number of other topics only tangentially related to the point at issue.
TT: The cosmetics industry, for example, or China.
TT: I even threw in an iterative usage of the verb ‘to tell’ in a context of proffered admonishment. //
I would read PAGES UPON PAGES of Rose and Dave bantering back and forth and caring about each other in their own strange way. Which is basically what this is. That, and hilarious.

There are no hospitals in space. The closest E.R. is back on Earth, and astronauts can't exactly jump in a cab to get there. So what happens if the sun burps out a massive blast of radiation while an astronaut is space-amblin' by? // Super, super interesting. I love hearing about inventions that were developed for space, but that have endless applications on earth, as well.

Squarewave wasn't built to be the smartest bot around, he knew that. But any bot worth its weight in scrap knew the rudimentary facts about electricity. How much they needed, where to get it, how to make sure wires were safe. That sort of thing is built into a bot's programming, like instincts in an organic animal. Some things, however, weren't built in and you had to figure them out for yourself. Or, if you were really lucky, have a great friend like Sawtooth to show you. // Robots making out!

You know patience. You are actually really fucking good at patience. But this is not a thing that your patience is made for. Your patience is for flowers and the sky and dogs who know how to fold the universe in half but not how to fetch an irradiated steak. You don’t know how to do this part at all. // A really, really good remix from Jade's POV. Just as heartbreaking as the original-- I spent half of this going OH, JADE, and the other half going OH, KARKAT.

Gorgeously illustrated, charming story about, well, a Turkish lieutenant with a love of tea meeting up with Delilah Dirk, adventurer extraordinaire.

A really cute series of pictures with couples wearing each other's clothes.

Winter, mused Momoko, as her feet lost contact with the icy ground and her arms flailed for balance, was the most elegant of seasons. // I wish I could say something more insightful about Kamikaze Girls fic than "THIS IS SO CUTE AND I WANT THEM TO SMOOCH ALL THE TIME."

She thought about other things, too - about how the only times she ever laughed were with Ichigo. How Ichigo had just decided that they were friends, and had managed it, despite Momoko’s own vaguely hostile apathy, so successfully that Momoko had been willing to about give up her own dreams because Ichigo's friendship was somehow more important. How ludicrous and crass and remarkably pretty and adorable Ichigo looked, a stupid yankī ex-bōsōzoku girl playing with a lolita doll. How when she rode with Ichigo, she would snuggle into her back and lean her head on her, like a lover. // This is SUPER-CUTE, oh my god. The Momoko voice is so, so spot-on-- detached and trying to be apathetic to everything, but finding herself caring for this strange biker chick despite everything. UGH THEY ARE SO GREAT.

Gorgeous gallery of Eyvind Earle works-- his backgrounds for Sleeping Beauty are so amazing, and it's really cool to see that same stylized vision in his paintings and screenprints. :D

Made this with gnocchi, and it was absolutely delicious.

PRINCE OF TENNIS IS A VERY SERIOUS SPORTS SERIES.


WITH DINOSAURS.

In 1990, prominent Muggleborn research wizard Cromwell Albertson embarked on an ambitious project. Inspired by Muggle Michael Apted’s “Seven Up!” documentary series, he chose six students from controversial headmaster Albus Dumbledore’s list of Muggle-borns to be admitted to Hogwarts in 1991 and 1992 and went to their homes to interview them – before and after their life-changing discovery of their wizarding talent. He continued these interviews over the next nine years, a period of time which spanned both the Chamber of Secrets attacks in 1992 and Voldemort’s second rise and subsequent persecution of Muggleborns in 1997. The Pensieve Projection that resulted won a Superbius award for artistic excellence in 2002 and has been required viewing in the Hogwarts Muggle Studies course since 2008. // Holy crap, this is so, so well done. The concept alone of a Seven-Up series focusing on muggleborns is simply genius, and the characterization and the world-building is beautifully done. There's so much addressed here that I wish had been addressed in the books, and the characters here provide a lens on a lot of different aspects of wizarding culture and the way they treat muggleborns. Just-- really, really good.

These 1920s posters for Chicago are all absolutely fantastic. I want prints of alllll of them. All of them.

Okay, this is a vid for Maru the cat, and it's made of complete and utter JOY.

Oh my god, it's just a video of a guy demonstrating tiny, tiny little food toys, and it's completely entrancing.

Awesome, awesome stuff. That first track, in particular, is great.

Oh no! All of Eiko Ishioka's work is just absolutely stunning-- it's her costumes that pushes The Fall from pretty to stunning.

OH, John K. Samson. Oh, academia.

Super-cute webcomic about a guy and his brother working at a fish shop!

Why is this so funny oh my god

Ms. Frizzle teaches not-Dorothy Ann about molecules and atoms, about protons and neutrons and the inside of things. She even tries to explain quarks—up, down, and strange, charm, bottom, and top—despite the fact that they have not yet been conceived of, Mr. Murray Gell-Mann and the particle zoo still a hundred years away. She has to shrink them very small to do it—too small, almost. The Bus that is a wagon doesn’t quite understand, and when they get there everything is sideways and swimming. // Whoa. An amazing, amazing take on Ms. Frizzle. I love the way different timeframes overlap and mix for her, and the way that she's still fundamentally a teacher at her core. Really affecting!

He still has no vocabulary for Damien's movement besides smooth, or hateless, even though there are a thousand words, most of them obscene, for what watching it does to him. // Oh man, this is some seriously well-done uniform kink and UST. I love the way this manages to be both really thoughtful and really, really hot-- the connection between Damien's uniform and the authorities that both Damien and Leito mistrust brings such an interesting dimension to this.

After five years, Smith goes back to stay with the Eihons again. Some things have changed; some things stay the same. // Lovely and quiet, and just right for this canon.

"All the greatest hits of the Cairo school." Mollya flushed hot at what the captain might have seen in her mind, but Rydra simply bowed her into the tall narrow room with a magician's flourish, and headed, not for the poetry, but straight for the visual storage media. "That's poetry too, you know—taking the words in someone's head, polishing them up, putting them back in a little better order. And Asma Nour does it while doing high kicks, which is more than I can do." // This is just such a lovely, thoughtful look at Mollya, and I'm honestly at a lack for words to describe how much I love this. I am seriously amazed at the way that this captures the scope of the world in Babel-17 and all its intricacies, and especially the importance and uses of language in the book. Really, really well-written.

It is a well-established fact in marine biology that the octopus is the drunk texter of the cephalopod family. // OH MY GOD, IF YOU LOVE ANYTHING WONDERFUL IN THIS WORLD, YOU WILL DROP EVERYTHING AND READ THIS IMMEDIATELY. I. I LOVE THIS TOO MUCH TO EXPRESS.

“We were running out of options,” Alek says. “Trapped as we would have been in the brig of that ship.”
Deryn nods. “And Alek had this mad plan to dress up as ladies because they wouldn’t suspect us as girls half as much as they would if we stayed boys.” //
Oh my gosh, I have wanted fic about this idea ever since I put down the book. My only complaint is that I want more!

Tonight on Top Gear: Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond suggest some Christmas gift ideas from their travels in history, Charles II is the star in the reasonably priced car, and we see whether Vikings are any better than Top Gear at building amphibious vehicles. // Hahahaha, oh my god, the mere concept of this is AMAZING. I love that this reads exactly like a Top Gear episode-- and that Jeremy and company misusing time travel for ridiculous challenges involving vikings sounds downright plausible.

Lanterns in the Hole tend to be decorated with zodiac animals, for luck in the coming year, but these ones have been painted with bats and skulls and eyeballs, and they fizzle gently with smoke as they light up. One look at those and there's no way Shin could pretend that he's celebrating back in the Hole. // FIC FOR DOROHEDORO. GOD I LOVE YULETIDE. I love the way this is completely adorable in that slightly off-kilter way that's so very true to the tone of Dorohedoro-- I love that getting frozen chunks blown out of one's shoulder happens in the same fic as charming new year's parties. And oh my god, everyone's characterizations are so, so spot-on. THIS IS THE CUTEST THING EVER, BASICALLY.

Mihashi's smile had felt like that - sudden and intense, sun-warm and radiant and infectious, moving through Abe and knocking the tension out of him. // Holy crap, I LOVE this. The Abe voice is just spot-on, and I love the gradual, drifting realizations that he makes in the first part, cataloguing empirical physical sensations, and the way he can't help but connect these back to Mihashi. And that last scene between Mihashi and Abe! Oh my god, I just want to roll around in it forever. It just feels so true to their relationship, tentative and difficult, but also ringing with this connection that neither of them knows quite how to approach.

First she makes the pancake batter, because it has to sit the longest. She weighs the ingredients, it's more accurate. While the batter rests she starts the bacon. She fries it on a low setting, rendering most of the fat out over a slow period of time. Sophie prefers her bacon crispy and worries constantly about the size of her arse. Hanna doesn't understand this particular concern, it's a very fine looking bottom as far as she can tell. Nonetheless, bacon, cooked slow to extreme crispiness. // My lovely yuletide story! I love the way that this captures Hanna's strangeness and differences from normal people, and that last section about Hanna preparing breakfast for Sophie is just so perfect.

See also: pairings I had never before considered, but now ardently desire more of. I especially like the way that Abe and Mihashi's relationship is just as imperfect as you'd expect, and that Tajima has his own vulnerabilities.

Harvey wins Mike in a poker game. // Oh my god, I totally stayed up way too late reading all the way through this. Long, well-done, engrossing h/c, which is exactly what I was in the mood for. Drags a bit towards the end, but it's still immensely satisfying.

Ridiculous overview of relationship possibilities in Oofuri. Includes gems like Abe: Made of Bitterness and Piranhas.

Before they became celebrated authors, most literary figures had day jobs. When did they start thinking of themselves as "writers"? // Interesting article on the different ways that authors have approached being a writer as a profession.

It was supposed to be the three of them. // I love the sense of longing that permeates this-- the way that Makoto and Kousuke go on with their lives, but are still missing something. (Excuse me as I bookmark all the Makoto/Chiaki/Kousuke available. Ughhhh they are so great.)

The second thing Chiaki discovers about the past, no matter how much he tries to bury it somewhere deep within himself, is the beauty. Color seeps out of each shape and surface; the sky is enormous, a warm film pulled over the expanse of the earth, blue and bright and unobscured by smoke, ash. // Absolutely gorgeous. I love the whole section at the beginning about Chiaki discovering the world of the past.

A lot can change in twenty years. Some things don't. // Really, really lovely future fic, with Makoto and Kousuke making a life for themselves and waiting for Chiaki to come back. Oh man, this is pretty much exactly what I wanted after the end of the movie.

Video game photography, I guess! Really cool and really well-done-- I like the way these shots show off the care put into the visual aspects of games.

....Well hello there. Get in my mouth immediately.

WHAT. Well, dang.

Is there a more natural crossover? I think not.

His hand is now definitely in the penis rhombus; it verges on the wang circle. The sanctity of your bone-bulge, so long guarded by the impenetrable fortress that is adolescent insecurity, is now in serious jeopardy of being violated by the chapped hand of John Egbert. In his seminal work, Trolita, Troll Vladimir Nabokov wrote, "Beggin' on my knees, baby, won't you please run your fingers through my hair?" You know now of what bony fingers, of what uneven nails and freckled thumbs he wrote.

"The shlong oblong," says John. //

OH MY GOD. Just. What can I do but weep, when faced with such utter perfection. Set in the Promstuck universe; Karkat and John finally get it on.

Mock-fireworks made by flinging molten iron at a wall, in Nuanquan, China. Holy crap.

A group of more than 200 Japanese pensioners are volunteering to tackle the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima power station. Volunteering to take the place of younger workers at the power station is not brave, Mr Yamada says, but logical. "I am 72 and on average I probably have 13 to 15 years left to live," he says. "Even if I were exposed to radiation, cancer could take 20 or 30 years or longer to develop. Therefore us older ones have less chance of getting cancer." // Oh. Oh my gosh.

Awesome, awesome music video set to a super-cut of Marina and the Diamonds. I love the way this reinterprets the endings of a bunch of fairy tales-- the little mermaid's prince is the one to change for her, Cinderella goes to do her own thing, Beauty embraces the not-so-ladylike side of her nature, and so on. Man, the lady playing Beauty is FIERCE.

Do I want “The Howard” (the nickname for the World Fantasy Award statuette. Lovecraft’s full name is “Howard Phillips Lovecraft”) replaced with the head of some other great writer? Maybe. Maybe it’s about that time. Maybe not. What I know I want it to face the history of this leg of literature rather than put it aside or bury it. If this is how some of the great minds of speculative fiction felt, then let’s deal with that... as opposed to never mention it or explain it away. If Lovecraft’s likeness and name are to be used in connection to the World Fantasy Award, I think there should be some discourse about what it means to honor a talented racist. // Amazing post by Nnedi Akorafor, with some bonus China Mieville as well. Well worth a read.

Scythes are tricky weapons. It takes skill and finesse to get the sharp end of the weapon around anything, and if you can’t do that you’re just smacking around blunt flimsy clubs. // Fic based off Karkat having a balletic fighting style. Really lovely!

Sassy, 60s-inspired, and full of lovely prints.

He’s the one that kisses her though.  He bridges the distance like he’s friendleading his tongue on an expedition into the recesses of Jade Harley’s tonsils.  // Has there ever been a more perfect line about John Egbert making out with someone? Indeed no. This is just really lovely and absolutely perfect for the Prospit twins.

A trailer proposing that Batman is a creation planted inside Bruce's mind by inception. Holy crap, awesome. Where is the fic.

A cool, sketchy animation.

MCR does Yo Gabba Gabba, and it's utterly ridiculous and kind of wonderful. THOSE PARKAS. RAY, YOUR FACE.

Pretty darn cool trailer for Homestuck! That John voiceover at the beginning is great.

This giant bug should not be nearly as cute as it is. :D

He's good at hiding. He's good at running everywhere at once, five or seven or twenty-three of him scurrying all over the three worlds. He's good at distracting her, because Rose knows that for all she's watched him, she's never seen him just stand still and take it all in. She's never seen him stop, and she's never seen him cry. John is dead, Jade is dead, their guardians are dead and their whole world destroyed, and Dave Strider does nothing but run around doing everything he possibly can to keep it from catching up to him. // Anything with Rose and Dave in the doomed timeline is always so heartbreaking. I love the vulnerability they're both showing here-- Rose and Dave are both so wrapped up in their protective layers that it's deeply intimate and a bit scary to see them bared like this. Really nicely done.

Some really gorgeous manuscript pages.

“You’re not too big to spank!” Okay, so it’s not the first time Dick’s said that to Tim. Or even the fifth. But it’s Dick, who uses flirtation the way most people use small talk. // Well, that pretty much says it all. Hello yes. And the playful rapport between Dick and Tim is always so nice.

She’s exquisite like this. The princess of Alabasta, the hope of a nation, sprawled across dark silk sheets. // Robin and Vivi. And Robin's hands. A lot of them. Oh my gosh. Yes.

When weeks turned to a month, Flora, Fauna and Merryweather finally agreed to allow Snow White to accompany Rose into the forest, and a new routine was born. Together they would climb trees and splash in streams and sing with the sounds of the birds. Rose showed Snow White her very favourite place, the incline of a steep hill in the heart of the forest from where they could look out over rolling fields towards the shining castle that pierced the distant sky. // AU where Snow White finds Aurora's cottage in the woods. I love this reinterpretation of the movies, and what might have been-- the relationship between Snow White and Aurora is wonderful.

In an effort to get people to look
into each other’s eyes more,
the government has decided to allot
each person exactly one hundred
and sixty-seven words, per day.

John doesn’t use any of his words at work. He becomes adept at sign language, has a vast array of flashcards with careful illustrations of the human body on them and another set with instructions: SHOW ME WHERE IT HURTS; STAND UP, PLEASE; BREATHE IN; AND OUT AGAIN; VERY GOOD, THANK YOU. // Oh. Oh gosh, this is just too beautiful. The concept itself is great-- a world where you only get one hundred and sixty-seven words per day-- and the way this condition is interpreted by John and Sherlock is just so true to their personalities and to the people they are together. Really stunning.

Surprisingly enough, it didn't take them much time to fall into a comfortable routine. Doumeki was the first one up (and that had been surprising for Kimihiro to find out) and he'd make tea and rice before Kimihiro had woken up. Then, as he started with breakfast, Doumeki would go to the bathroom and get ready, and half through making breakfast Himawari-chan would join him in the kitchen, hands wrapped around a cup of tea, telling him about what she was going to do that day. // Lovely and quiet, with the three of them balancing each other out perfectly, and the underlying current of the things that Doumeki and Himawari have so willingly given for Watanuki. Gorgeous.

These are the things Karkat Vantas tells himself: he is strong, he is a hatched leader, when he grows up he will be a threshecutioner. Leaders do not show weakness in mind or body; they lead by whatever means necessary, force or fear or respect; Karkat will prove foremost among them. These are the things Karkat Vantas tells himself, and does not believe. // A really nice bit of interaction between Karkat and Kanaya as they hunt frogs together. Oh, KARKAT. I love his utter determination in trying to prove himself worthy of everyone, and the way that Kanaya provides a reprieve from that constant tension.

Karkat is staring at him, intense and full of bright awful pity, his own hurts completely forgotten. He is admirable and pitiful in his laser focus and the Signless wants to know how much more he could have accomplished, had he been the one on the meteor landing in the Dolorosa's time, he and not the Signless. // Karkat meets up with the Signless in a dreambubble. Oh my gosh, this is unbelievably lovely. I love, love the rapport between the two of them and the way that they are very much the same, but different, and the way they both have this drive to take care of everyone they meet.

Karkat groaned, burying his face in his hands. He wasn't sure why he'd thought things would go any more smoothly once they'd managed to meet up in person; at least when they'd been limited to a Trollian window, he'd had the filter of blue and gray text between him and the walking cloud of utter stupidity that was John Egbert. // This is too cute, and I love the way it demonstrates why Karkat and John do get along in the end, despite all of Karkat's bluster.

Saul Bass kicks so much ass, it's unbelievable. A really nice collection of his title designs. Anatomy of a Murder and Psycho, in particular, are great.

Through the artist’s manic attention to detail, Kunert’s miniatures authentically construct and simulate the structures and spaces they portray. The artist goes to great lengths–working months at a time on a single model–to ensure the work’s realism: the models exists in physical space, casting shadows on the dirty road below them, and obey the laws of gravity, with precarious cantilevers accounted for by accurate structural design. His ”constructed” photography here devolves into a kind of “magical realism,” whereby the precise recreations of physical structures are subverted by playful narratives, such as a subway track elevated into the stratosphere amid the clouds, ostensibly awaiting the arrival of a commuter plane. // These are strange and lovely.

Gliese 581 g is a hypothetical extrasolar planet of the red dwarf star Gliese 581, 20.5 light-years from Earth in the constellation of LibraGliese 581 g has attracted attention because, if it exists, it is near the middle of the habitable zone of its parent star. That means it could sustain liquid water on its surface and could potentially host life similar to that on Earth