Seen around the internet lately:

List your top fanfic on AO3 for every year, sorted by kudos.

I'm starting with 2008 because everything else I have there is backdated. Also terrible. I mean, my 2008 fic is also terrible, but, uh... at least I've improved as a writer?

2008
Rebirth (Harry Potter/Highlander, Snape/Methos, 7276 words)
Lysimache wanted me to write her a Snape fix-it story where Snape, her problematic fave, was an Immortal and slept with Methos, her other problematic fave. I love her, so I wrote it. I think it's probably pretty bad. I can't bring myself to look at this again.

2009
Stars Apart, Shine the Same (Star Trek AOS, Kirk/Spock, 7699 words)
You know how it goes: get in on the ground floor of a shiny new fandom, write porn for the kink meme. I don't know why the only Trek fic I have been successful at writing is AOS when TOS is my favorite. That's probably why this is at least 25% secretly a TOS story.

2010
One True Way (Valdemar, gen, 4385 words)
I didn't even remember writing this one until I did this meme. This was a Yuletide treat for ysobel, an AU where all the Companions are evil. Happy Yuletide! (This was apparently the year I wrote a Harry Potter/Pros crossover but I guess that was... less popular.)

2011
Coax Me (The Eagle, Marcus/Esca, 6259 words)
Ah, yes, the beginning of Eagle fandom. I wrote a lot of fic. I'm not sure why this story was the most popular; honestly, I think it's a pretty generic first-time PWP. It's not the one where I forced myself to write poetry in Latin and I was hoping the universe would reward me for that, but alas.

2012
Anywhere on This Road (The Eagle, Marcus/Esca, 31074 words)
This one is basically "the movie, but from Esca's POV, and with sex at the end," so I guess that's why people liked it. Coming in second is the one where Esca is a werewolf, and third is a soulmate AU. Yay tropes?

2013
Chosen Man (The Eagle, Marcus/Esca, 116551 words)
Well, I'm not surprised about this one. Hello, my Eagle fandom legacy. I wish I'd actually had someone beta this.

2014
Slipping off the Page into Your Hands (Marvel 616, Steve/Tony, 68149 words)
Oh, look, the year where I slipped and fell into Steve/Tony. This was basically my first Steve/Tony story and it's currently my second most-popular story overall so it's been very popular for a while. I guess people really like identity porn plus soulmates. I am curious if anything I am writing now or planning to write will ever surpass it because it's been five years and I... was not thinking I would peak in this fandom with my first story. Give me room to improve!

2015
Follow in Your Footsteps (Marvel 616, Steve/Tony, 6788 words)
I don't understand how this is the most popular story I have EVER WRITTEN and I wrote it in twelve hours. Why do I even try writing 100,000+ word stories? Why this one, fandom? I mean, it's not bad, but why this?

2016
The Jar (Marvel Adventures: Avengers, Steve/Tony, 9728 words)
I get it. It's cute and fun and fluffy and people like it. I understand this. (Secretly I was hoping the Star Trek AU would win this year, though.)

2017
The Opposite of a Problem (Marvel 616, Steve/Tony, 2490 words)
A fake-married story. What I am learning from this meme: people like fluff a lot.

2018
Thrust Issues (Marvel 616, Steve/Tony, 132827 words)
People also apparently really like stories where the characters have sex a lot while refusing to acknowledge that they have feelings for each other. I mean, this wasn't news to me about fandom, but I hadn't written one of my own before.

2019
Hide Your Love Away (Marvel 616, Steve/Tony, 33514 words)
The winner for this year so far, a soulmate AU I did for the RBB. I'm thinking this will continue to win because my current giant WIPs are... slightly more niche... and apparently everyone likes soulmate AUs. Also this one has amnesia!

There.

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Via ambyr who got it from James Davis Nicoll's Tor post, the suggestion that we go to this website, look up the week of our birth, and make a meme out of whether we've read any of the NYT bestsellers, other books by those authors, et cetera:

1 NOBLE HOUSE, by James Clavell
2 GORKY PARK, by Martin Cruz Smith
3 GOD EMPEROR OF DUNE, by Frank Herbert
4 GOODBYE, JANETTE, by Harold Robbins
5 FREE FALL IN CRIMSON, by John D. MacDonald
6 MASQUERADE, by Kit Williams
7 THE WHITE HOTEL, by D.M. Thomas
8 THE GLITTER DOME, by Joseph Wambaugh
9 THE CARDINAL SINS, by Andrew M. Greeley.
10 XPD, by Len Deighton
11 LICENSE RENEWED, by John Gardner
12 THE COVENANT, by James A. Michener
13 CREATION, by Gore Vidal
14 TAR BABY, by Toni Morrison
15 REFLEX, by Dick Francis

I, uh, yeah. I haven't read any of the other authors (I guess I've never read Toni Morrison) but mostly all I remember is that God-Emperor of Dune was trippy as fuck.

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Okay, so that wasn't a nap. That was a $100 trip to the emergency vet and it turned out the dog had a burr in her paw. Lovely.

But now it's the fandom meme!

( All fandom all the timeCollapse )

I am so behind on comments and also reading anything. Sigh.

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It's the writing meme that I do every year!

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Up next, the end-of-year fandom meme! Which I will write up soon. Probably after I nap. Ugh. Still sick.

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Boo, I need to pay for Dreamwidth again to get my icon meme icon back. Anyway, here's Wonderwall.

( Fandom memeCollapse )

( Writing memeCollapse )

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It is I, the person who reads only comics! Why are the rest of you even still here? I'm sorry.

What I Just Finished Reading

The Marvels Project: More Cap-IM BB research. Not to be confused with Busiek & Ross' Marvels (though if you like that, you might like this), this is a Brubaker/Epting miniseries that basically traces the origin of superheroes in 616 up through the formation of the Invaders, with a lot of focus on the Invaders themselves. It basically reads like Brubaker's Cap run but with more of an ensemble cast, and man, if you do not have ~feels~ about Jim Hammond (the original Human Torch) before reading this, you will afterwards. And during. My only objection is that it does Rebirth with Steve accidentally killing the assassin because he doesn't know his own strength and... I kind of don't like having his first act as Captain America being manslaughter.

What I'm Reading Now

Comics Wednesday!

Planet Hulk #2: I may be meh on Hulk, and I may be meh on Bucky (sorry, friends) but I am here for Gladiator Steve and Devil Dinosaur fighting dinosaur things in the savage wilderness. And also for Doc Green quoting John Donne and telling Steve that Doom wrote it. And also the part where the letters page was answered entirely by Devil Dinosaur.

What I'm Reading Next

I still want to read Naomi Novik's new book, I swear, and I just bought the first book of that Jo Walton series about fantasy Alexandria that looks good, and my comics-research backlog is Iron Man Noir (again), the first run of Invaders, and (yes, still) the Iron Man: Director of SHIELD run, but I have been incredibly distracted by the exchange fic I'm trying to write (I did nearly 9k since Sunday) and, uh, yeah.

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Not much this week and it's all comics anyway, because apparently I can either read things or write fic but not both and apparently I just wanna write all the fic.

What I Just Finished Reading

Iron Man and the Armor Wars: Okay, so, in #cap-im the question "how flexible is Tony Stark?" was raised and the answer is clearly he's very bendy and also he's going to kill his wrists and shoulders. It turns out that this panel is from this all-ages version of Armor Wars, which is notable for (a) Tony in Doombot armor (WTF) and (b) Omega Red (double WTF) which means bonus tentacle fights. I have very simple tastes. (Also the cover of issue #1 is really pretty. They're all on Marvel Unlimited.)

What I'm Reading Now

Comics Wednesday! Not much this week, though.

Armor Wars #2: Apparently we're going to try to solve the "who killed Spidey?" mystery and discover whose fault it is that everyone in Technopolis has to wear armor to live. I bet they're connected. It's fun!

Thors #1: Okay, I am not a big Thor fan. But this is police procedural Thor and ONE OF THE THORS IS FROG THOR. Eeeeee.

What I'm Reading Next

Things. Stuff.

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It's all comics this week! I'm sure you are shocked.

What I Just Finished Reading

Iron Age: I have a big list of comics I should read to write my Big Bang. This is not one of them. This is the one where Tony ends up timetraveling through his own past and is basically the story of how he epically fails at life. Which is always a good Tony Stark story. Seriously, he gets thrown into the past and at the end of issue #1 is sitting in an alley next to an actual dumpster sobbing mostly-naked in the rain because in the future his friends are all going to die! A good Tony Stark story! (Good Tony Stark stories include two of the three elements of Tony (a) naked, (b) crying, and (c) in the rain.) This is how you know the writer has nailed the essence of the character! (And then none of his friends in the past believe him because this is that time when tried to date Jan and fell off the wagon and gave Rhodey the armor! Nooooooo. And then he hits on himself.) It's great. I might need to get myself a paper copy of this.

What I'm Reading Now

Wednesday comics!

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What I'm Reading Next

I'm gonna read an actual book, I swear.

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Via gwyn and melannen, a meme: "Pull seven lines from the seventh page of your WIP."

I have a lot of WIPs but only one of them is long enough right now to have a seventh page, so:

"Keep smiling," says a woman somewhere behind the camera. She has snakes for hair. She's holding some sort of futuristic rifle, with the kind of trigger discipline that suggests she knows exactly what she's doing and she's not afraid to shoot him. "And keep talking. We'll edit it all together later. Tell me how you feel about Tony Stark."

No amount of interrogation training has ever prepared him for this.

I am having A RIDICULOUS AMOUNT OF FUN writing this story. I've never written AMTDI before! Whee!

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What I Just Finished Reading

No reading this week, only fic writing. Someday there will be reading. Someday.

What I'm Reading Now

Comics Wednesday!

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What I'm Reading Next

I swear I'm gonna read the new Naomi Novik book. Really.

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What I Just Finished Reading

Andrew MacKenzie, Archaeology in Romania: The History of the Roman Occupation: Last minute Dacia research for the RBB! There was actually some interesting stuff about the standing stones at Sarmizegethusa here, but mostly the book was more political than I was expecting for an archaeology survey, being as it mostly wanted to make the point that Transylvania had been inhabited for a really, really long time and was therefore not empty, and not rightfully the territory of the invading Hungarians.

What I'm Reading Now

Comics Wednesday!

I thought that the A-Babies and X-Babies thing was supposed to be this week, but it is apparently next week. Aww. My picks for the Secret Wars weirdness this week:

MODOK Assassin #1: I... what. What.

Secret Wars 2099 #1: I have no way to describe this except "deeply weird corporate future dystopia."

Secret Wars Journal #1: The "Young Avengers do a medieval heist" story was cool.

X-Men '92 #1: This is a Battleworld realm set in the canon of the 1992 X-Men animated cartoon series. YES YES YES. ALL THE NOSTALGIA. IT IS AWESOME. AWESOME.

Anyway, uh... definitely read the X-Men one, if you were ever into that. It starts with them playing laser tag at the mall, okay? It is THE BEST.

What I'm Reading Next

I guess Naomi Novik's novel? I also really want to get started on the giant swath of Marvel canon I need to read to write the BB. Because, yes, now it's time to start thinking about the Big Bang fic.

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What I Just Finished Reading

Judith Tarr, A Wind in Cairo: I think overall I liked the premise of this one (guy gets turned into horse, falls in love with rider) more than the execution. There were a lot of big complicating plot elements (like, uh, history) and a massive sideplot involving one of the main character's servants and overall it was a little more rape-y than I would have wanted. But the setting was nice, and the main plot was decent; it just got kind of muddled.

Judith Tarr, Writing Horses: The Fine Art of Getting It Right: I read this in case there was anything valuable I needed to know about horses that I had forgotten, in order to write about centaurs. It didn't really help me, but it's a good reference if you need to write about horses.

What I'm Reading Now

Comics Wednesday!

A-Force #1: The all-female team is awesome. Sharks were punched. You can't really ask for more than that. I'm going to have to keep reading. And possibly backread She-Hulk, Captain Marvel, Young Avengers, and Runaways. Yeah, yeah. So many comics. What with the massive ensemble cast I feel like it's really too early to see them meshing together, but this is a promising start.

Planet Hulk #1: Steve is a GLADIATOR and with his friend DEVIL DINOSAUR (who is, you may recall, A TYRANNOSAUR) he goes to the vast and trackless wastes full of HULKS in order to FIND BUCKY. (I mean, he is Steve Rogers, after all.) I'm not sure this is going to hold my interest for very long, because there are a lot of things I like about Steve as Captain America specifically (justice, freedom, blah blah) that are absent in Steve as a gladiator. And I am not a big Hulk fan. But, on the other hand, DINOSAUR.

Secret Wars: Battleworld #1: Meh. Do you want to see fights? There are fights. It's an anthology of fights. I guess the MODOK one was cute. I mean, if the main draw of Secret Wars for you is "many people punch each other in the face" this is probably good to pick up.

Ultimate End #1: OMG OMG OMG. Okay, so this marks the end of the Ultimate Universe, and, since I finally read a bunch of Ults, I have become rather fond of the characters, much to my surprise. Earlier this week on Tumblr I made a big post about why I like Ults Steve (to which Teaberryblue added additional commentary). So I was pretty excited for this. ( Spoilers...Collapse )

What I'm Reading Next

Naomi Novik's new book. I actually just started it! It looks pretty good so far!

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What I Just Finished Reading

Didn't finish anything this week.

What I'm Reading Now

Judith Tarr, A Wind in Cairo: This is the book I mentioned in my previous post, in which a dude gets turned into a horse and falls in love with his rider. I'm not sure yet how it will all turn out but I feel that I should mention, for other people who were interested (as I was) based on that summary, that the dude is turned into a horse as punishment for rape. So I will keep you posted on how this one goes. I'm not too far in yet.

Comics Wednesday:

Captain America and the Mighty Avengers #8: If you want to see Steve Rogers attempt to defend his participation in the Illuminati to a bunch of very appalled Mighty Avengers, you should read this! I am here for this! Granted, it elides a whole bunch of the... moral complexity... of the incursion situation and the superhero response, but Steeeeeeve. Yes. Also Monica Rambeau continues to be one of my many faves. (Also bonus points for the panel of the conspiracy nut with the STAMFORD WAS AN INSIDE JOB poster. Ouch.)

Secret Wars #2: The art is gorgeous. The plot is... trippy as hell. I have to say I am along for the ride, though. I'm a pretty easy fan as far as comics go (uh, excepting anything Remender writes). If Marvel wants to spend the summer telling me a trippy fantasy AU, sure, why not? I'm sure they'll bring everyone back to status quo somehow eventually. I do miss Steve and Tony, though. But basically, I am here for the end of the multiverse! Now bring me my cowboy town! And my unending Civil War! And my '92 X-Men! And Ults Tony drinking at the end of the world! And, hey, that all-female team of Avengers! And baby Avengers!

(I am unable to take anything with Doom seriously, though, which might be a problem. Like, I spent ten seconds cackling at the page labeled GOD-EMPEROR DOOM, mostly because of the flashbacks to my least favorite Frank Herbert book.)

What I'm Reading Next

Uh... books.

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Another Wednesday, another meme.

What I Just Finished Reading

Marko Kloos, Angles of Attack: Pretty good mil SF; surprise background queer character -- an especial surprise when you consider that. I posted about this already. Basically, if you want a very readable mil SF series, you might want to read this series. Lots of stuff goes boom in entertaining ways.

What I'm Reading Now

This week in comics:

( There is only Secret Wars. Okay, there is Secret Wars and other stuff that seems to be kind of ignoring Secret Wars, but whatever.Collapse )

What I'm Reading Next

Books! Or probably just writing fic, who am I kidding.

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It's the screaming-about-comics special Wednesday meme edition.

What I Just Finished Reading

Nothing, actually, as I am still trying to finish writing this fic.

What I'm Reading Now

As you may have guessed, today was the END OF HICKMAN'S AVENGERS RUN. I have a lot of feelings. I have been screaming about them on Tumblr.

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What I'm Reading Next

Tears and sadness. *shakes fist* MARVEL.

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Today I got a haircut!

What I Just Finished Reading

Nothing! On the plus side, uh, my Cap-IM RBB draft just hit 40,000 words. So that's what I've been doing. And I have a posting date! May 27! I am still not done writing! (The thing that cracks me up is that posting is, theoretically, all of May and so far no one has elected a posting date earlier than May 13. Well, at least it's not just me.)

What I'm Reading Now

Comics! I was SO VERY EXCITED that New Avengers #33, the last issue, was supposed to come out today (like, the thought that actually got me out of bed was "if I get up I can read New Avengers!") and then... apparently it got pushed back to next week. (Marvel.com still says it releases today.) Boo. Although I guess that way it can come out the same day as the last issue of Avengers and me and the approximately five people who enjoy this run can read the whole ending all at once and make loud screeching noises. Which is what I'm planning on doing. I am way more excited about that than about Age of Ultron.

Anyway! Comics I actually bought:

All-New X-Men #40: The woman at the counter was like, "Oh, you're buying the controversial issue," and, well, yeah. I had to know. For those of you who may not be familiar with the controversy, in this issue, we find out that Bobby Drake is gay. (Well, a young teenage Bobby Drake from the 60s who time-traveled to the present, because comics.) Bobby Drake (Iceman) is someone fandom has been slashing for a long, long time, by which I mean at least the late 90s -- the first slash story I ever wrote was Bobby/Remy slash, okay? -- and he's the one who kind of gets coded queer in the first set of X-Men movies due to the "have you tried not being a mutant?" coming-out conversation. So on the one hand I am thrilled at the representation and I feel so vindicated, because, man, the other big slash ship was Rictor/Shatterstar and they're also canon! (The OTHER other big slash ship was Charles/Erik, and, uh, no word there yet. Everything else was, I think, canon het. 90s Marvel fandom was a very different place.)

On the other hand -- which you know if you are aware of the controversy -- the way it is handled is really kind of lousy and involves Jean Grey basically telling Bobby he's gay because she can read his mind. I will say that the leaked panels I had seen on Tumblr prior to reading the issue elided a bunch of the conversation, including the part where Bobby expresses discomfort at Jean basically non-consensually outing him, which both makes it better and worse because (a) at least Bendis knows this is a lousy thing to do to someone, but (b) then if he knows it's a lousy thing to do to someone, why did he write it like that? Sure, they're all kids, whatever, it is a plausibly tactless thing to do, and the entire conversation is plausible, but there aren't so many queer superheroes that we're at a place where telling a coming-out story like this makes sense, I think, because there are so few and I want them to be good and happy and positive, you know? So in that sense, yeah, I wish for metatextual reasons that it had been a more idealized scenario, but within the text I think it makes a lot of sense.

But back to the first hand, BOBBY DRAKE IS GAY and this is everything I wanted when I was an emo confused teenager who didn't know why I was identifying so hard with all the queer protagonists in fiction and thinking girls were pretty. So, you know, representation. Aww, yeah, Bobby. I never imagined it could come true. (At the time my options in superhero comics for queer superheroes were, uh, Mark Millar's Authority run. I read it anyway.)

Yeah, yeah, probably I should take this post to Tumblr instead. Whatever. Maybe I will. I don't know. I have feelings. I just don't want to fight about it on Tumblr, which is what Tumblr seems to be doing.

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #4: Once again, if you are not reading this, you should, because Squirrel Girl fights Galactus on the moon and discusses gender-neutral pronouns with him. I might need an icon of the "I did not come here to discuss linguistics" speech bubble.

Also when I bought my comics I got a free-with-purchase Avengers magazine, which (judging by the bits I flipped through) looks reasonably entertaining and has a bunch of stuff about early canon and kind of makes me want to write fic about Cap's Kooky Quartet.

What I'm Reading Next

Dunno. Ask me after I finish writing this fic. (Which is clearly never.) lysimache just bought a book about Roman slavery that looks interesting so I might steal it and read it at some point.

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In this week's news, I would like to report that I still have a cold (and I gave it to lysimache) and that Daredevil is a very good show to watch when you have a cold because it doesn't require a whole lot of brain to follow, being that a lot of it is Matt Murdock punching people in the dark. I am up to episode 8 now. Also it's done a way better job grabbing my interest than Agents of SHIELD or I guess Agent Carter, which I still haven't finished.

What I Just Finished Reading

Eleanor Arnason, A Woman of the Iron People: This was one of those books that's been on my to-read list for years, because I like anthropological SF and I generally like Tiptree Award winners. It was well-written and I enjoyed the worldbuilding, but generally I thought it was a lot longer than it needed to be, and the final section of the novel, in which the anthropologists meet up with their spaceship again, was somehow really really boring and I just kept hoping they would go back to wandering the world. Also I intensely disliked the male anthropologist dude.

What I'm Reading Now

Nothing yet except this week's comics, of which I read, uh, Cap & the Mighty Avengers (in which Monica Rambeau is still my fave, and also there's a bonus appearance from old Steve) and Superior Iron Man (which I still actually enjoy reading, and yes, I am here for watching Tony fight his own armor). Mostly I am just waiting impatient for the end of Hickmanvengers, because I have to know what happened in that secret meeting they have alluded to.

What I'm Reading Next

Books? Though I really really have to finish this RBB draft soon. Progress seems to have slowed.

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I wish to thank everyone for their lovely comments on my last post; I got to talk to my dad again today and he sounded a lot better.

Right. Uh. This week I read some books.

What I Just Finished Reading

Nancy Kress, Yesterday's Kin: Hard SF (well, it is Nancy Kress) about aliens who are really long-lost humans coming to visit us and everyone curing space diseases. I liked the virus plot but the actual characters were awfully flat, which is not a problem I remember the author having in, say, the Sleepless books. (If you like SF at all, you at least need to read the first Sleepless book.) Also this was really, really short, and could easily have been a third again as long. And been better.

Joe Haldeman, All My Sins Remembered: I guess I was feeling like revisiting more new-to-me SF by authors I once really liked. Everything I have read by Haldeman (well, okay, this and The Forever War) has pretty much been on the theme of "the Vietnam War was hell: space version," and while, yes, I am sure that the Vietnam War was hell, that makes it all pretty sad reading. Forever War was the one about the guy who signs up to fight in space and through the magic of near-relativistic travel, gets back to an Earth centuries later where no one really understands what it was like, and yeah, I think you can see what the author is getting at. This one... well. This one's about a Buddhist who signs up for a not-entirely-military space organization because he just wants to go see exciting places and then he ends up getting turned into a brainwashed spy where they give him plastic surgery and personality transfers to make him go be new people and investigate corruption (this involves a lot of shooting people). And then there are really upsetting debriefing scenes where he is alternately listing all the people he's killed and being horrified at what he's done, and I was hoping for an ending where he was at least going to be able to heal, but, uh no.

R. A. Thorn, Untethered: WW2 m/m romance between a pilot and his crew chief. Very sweet, and all the history was very well done, and overall I just really enjoyed it. So you should definitely read this one if you think it might be your sort of thing.

What I'm Reading Now

Nothing yet, and nothing much in the way of comics (I think Spider-Woman was the only thing I read today; it's good.) Mostly I am sitting and watching Tumblr fandom as Jonathan Hickman continues to compare Steve and Tony to a married couple.

What I'm Reading Next

Not sure yet. Books.

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