How Do They Keep Making Later And Later Stages Of Late-capitalism

Anne Carson, from The Glass Essay

so like I said, I work in the tech industry, and it's been kind of fascinating watching whole new taboos develop at work around this genAI stuff. All we do is talk about genAI, everything is genAI now, "we have to win the AI race," blah blah blah, but nobody asks - you can't ask -

What's it for?

What's it for?

Why would anyone want this?

I sit in so many meetings and listen to genuinely very intelligent people talk until steam is rising off their skulls about genAI, and wonder how fast I'd get fired if I asked: do real people actually want this product, or are the only people excited about this technology the shareholders who want to see lines go up?

like you realize this is a bubble, right, guys? because nobody actually needs this? because it's not actually very good? normal people are excited by the novelty of it, and finance bro capitalists are wetting their shorts about it because they want to get rich quick off of the Next Big Thing In Tech, but the novelty will wear off and the bros will move on to something else and we'll just be left with billions and billions of dollars invested in technology that nobody wants.

and I don't say it, because I need my job. And I wonder how many other people sitting at the same table, in the same meeting, are also not saying it, because they need their jobs.

idk man it's just become a really weird environment.

The fact that Fountain is pissing off trads over a 100 years later is so fucking funny

Some real relatable energy here.

It might be March, but better late than never!

While I posted more fic in 2024 (see my 2024 year in fic) than I ever have before, I also read an absolute shitload. Below the cut are some of my favourites that were published in 2024, arranged by word count.

As always, there is an absolute wealth of talent in this fandom and the amount of goodness we have here never ceases to amaze me. The fics below all really did it for me in a number of different ways. Though my opinion is subjective, I will happily vouch for all of them. Happy reading! 📚

❤️🩵💛💚

🌹Way to go, Tiger by @houndsinhades | G | 2k | 🌹

The time will arrive for the cruel and the mean You'll learn to bounce back just like your trampoline But now we'll curtail your curiosity In sweetness Way to go, Tiger Scorpius Malfoy's seventh birthday.

Read for: Scorpius at his best, Wholesome Parent/Child Relationship, Draco after the War

Note: This is technically a gen fic, but it gives major Drarry vibes so I’m putting it here anyway

🌺The game's the game by @hogwartsfirebolt | M | 3k | 🌺

Draco might be — definitely is — the world’s sorest loser, but he’s also the world’s biggest slut for Quidditch excellence, and he has it right here, holding him against his hotel room door.

Read for: Quidditch Rivals Harry and Draco, Friends with Benefits, a full story told expertly in a low word count

🌻 The sun between us by @eleadore | E | 7k | 🌻

Draco Malfoy, an omega. It was laughable until he was right in front of you, smelling like he was one shaky step from tripping into a heat.

Read for: Omegaverse, Snarky Banter, Good Characterisation (yes, I’m putting that on a PWP)

🌼 Apophenia by b6p592l11 | T | 12k |🌼

Out of the many things Sirius expected to happen after the war, having to deal with his godson dating a Death Eater was definitely not one of them.

Read for: Sirius Lives, Sirius POV, Draco/Regulus Parallels

🌷The Window by @hoko-onchi-writes | E | 15k |🌷

“I swear all you ever talk about is men.” Ron laughs and vanishes the last of the joint. “Sweet fucking Christ,” Harry says. “Remind me to never involve you in my life in any way, ever again.” He gives Harry a very handsome grin. “Padma said she saw him. At a Tesco’s.” “Who?” “Draco sodding Malfoy.” “At a Tesco’s,” Harry repeats. He’s very stoned, having an out-of-body experience imagining Draco Malfoy in a Tesco’s, holding a frozen dinner. He wonders, very briefly, what Malfoy’s been up to since the war. “I bet you wish you had a map of that Tesco’s. So you could track his name.” “Fuck off.” ~~ In which Harry grows up in darkness, falls in love, fucks up, learns some things, and falls in love again.

Note: this story also features Harry/Charlie, but it is endgame Drarry

Read for: Character Study (Harry), Adorable Scorpius, this line that I want tattooed on my prefrontal cortex: "There’s a very blond man with a laptop, and an equally blond toddler wearing a Wiggles t-shirt and brandishing a trashy romance novel like a weapon."

🪻Je te reverrai by @soliblomst and art by @kk1smet | E | 16k |🪻

When Beauxbatons visited Hogwarts for the Triwizard Tournament, Draco managed to control his attraction to fourteen-year-old Harry Potter. When Beauxbatons returns three years later for a cultural exchange, Draco's attraction to seventeen-year-old Harry Potter is impossible to curtail. In his defence, Harry's perfectly tailored blue robes, mixed signals, and French accent do not help.

Read for: Beauxbatons Harry, French Speaking Harry, Gorgeous Art

🌹Nine Days in Coventry by @sitaz | G | 16k |🌹

When a de-aged Draco Malfoy is discovered in Knockturn Alley, the Ministry appoints Family Liaison Officer Potter as his emergency guardian. Whisked away to a Muggle safehouse, Draco does not cope well, and Harry learns just how hard life can be when a five-year-old declares war on you.

Read for: De-aged Draco, Draco being a brat (but so cute), Harry taking care of Draco, Pre-Relationship

🌺 The most he’s ever said by @fastbrother | E | 16k |🌺

It takes them twenty years.

Read for: Down and Out to Redeemed and Competent Draco, Draco-centric, the Situationship of a Lifetime

Warning: Infidelity, but not between Drarry

🌻You And Me Against The World by @dracowillhearaboutthis | T | 17k |🌻

When Draco finally meets his soulmate, he doesn't want anything to do with Draco.

Read for: Soulmarks, Partial Canon Rewrite, Remus raises Harry, Draco and Theo friendship

🌼Equally Cursed and Blessed by @moonflower-rose | E | 18k |🌼

Harry's back at Hogwarts to attempt his final year, again. This time he's sure there'll be no shenanigans. Well. Maybe there'll be a few.

Read for: Draco’s artsy porn collection, Humour, Harry and Ron’s ride or die friendship

🌷Goodbye, Old You by harDeehar (dryrsheet) | E | 19k |🌷

As an alpha, Harry Potter should not have been an assistant for the newly minted Diversity department, and he definitely should not have been working under Draco. Draco seemed to be the only person who thought Harry was suspicious, but he was used to taking care of things on his own, anyway. Luckily, Draco was not as alone as he thought, and his understanding of Harry's intentions turned out to not be the only misjudgement Draco made.

Read for: Omegaverse, Coworkers, Mpreg

🪻Raising Hell! by @wolfpants | E | 21k |🪻

Harry and Draco are sent undercover as a married couple to investigate a dodgy Muggle love cult. Something evil is lurking in Glastonbury… but to get to it, the reluctant partners must be initiated first. And this is, after all, a love cult…

Read for: Case Fic, Competent Draco, Muggle Sex Cults, Good Smut

🌹The Superfluous Man by peu_a_peu | E | 24k |🌹

A child for Harry Potter is a miracle of magic. And it's the second act of Draco Malfoy's sorry little life.

Read for: Mpreg, snappy writing style, a pre-2015 feel

🌺On the divine agony of longing by @flimsi | E | 25k |🌺

Speaking to Draco is like poking a beehive - and Harry is a glutton for punishment. In which Harry makes some serious blunders and then tries to fix it. Somehow. Draco’s eyes narrow and his mouth purses, pretty and pink and wet from whatever he’s been drinking. “Any mediocre time is better than whatever you can you offer, Head Auror Potter. We’ve had this conversation. I thought I made myself clear.”

Read for: Magically Powerful Harry, Possessive Pining Harry, Competent Draco

🌻Antelucan Ruins by @rainjulyx | E | 29k |🌻

From the bloody Prophet, Draco discovers Harry Potter’s death splashed in grey ink printed on the front page. Potter is dead before Draco gets to see him again to fulfil a half-spoken promise. And yet, these days Draco has the power to bend the world to his heart’s desires, and that includes fucking Harry Potter even after he personally saw Potter’s pale, lifeless body lying in a coffin before it got buried under the soil. — "Do you realise that you're just as pathetic and insane? You're so hung up on the idea of me that you'd fuck a ghost, Malfoy. You risked your life for it." Draco puts an arm around Potter's body, "Whoever says I am sane? Certainly not me. It's calculated risk with more success rate than failure. And you are dead, Potter. You refuse to move on to the next realm because you crave for my cock."

Read for: BAMF Draco, Ghost Harry, a surprisingly hopeful tone considering one of them is pretty dead

🌼The only thing worse than heartbreak is Vermont by @jtimu | E | 31k |🌼

In the aftermath of a failed relationship, Draco Malfoy found himself with three things. His pride (tattered), Theo's luggage (stolen), and an all-inclusive couples' vacation package to Vermont (awful).

Read for: Lumberjack Harry, Banter, International Location

🌷Skipping Stones by @whimsibeee | M | 34k |🌷

Draco receives his very own prophecy. If Harry Potter could leave him alone, he might be able to figure out what it means.

Read for: Coming of Age vibes, Cosy Atmospheric writing, Complicated Family Dynamics

🪻Obscuro by @stratigraphywrites | E | 35k |🪻

Draco is grieving. His conversation partner is here against his will. It's a shameless rip-off of an insipid Muggle reality dating show. Hardly the occasion for true love, if you ask Draco. feat. a cat named Marmalade, a bird named Mumble, Lee Jordan's answer to Love is Blind, and two best friends who only want their dads to be happy.

Read For: Game Show Format, Hidden Identity, Good Smut, Epilogue Compliant

🌹Invito by PrinceMalice | E | 36k |🌹

Draco mused on the possible first use of the charm. What had the wizard been calling for? The text didn’t specify. As for the etymology— the meaning of the word itself was derived from I call, I summon— or the Hungarian variation of the incantation… To invite. Or, Harry keeps inviting Draco places. Draco keeps turning him down… until he doesn't.

Read for: Eighth Year, the sweetest unfolding of a relationship, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Party Games

🌺Gemini in Retrograde by @citrusses | T | 38k |🌺

Draco Malfoy doesn’t understand his son. Scorpius Malfoy doesn’t understand his father. It’s going to take more than one disastrous, body-swapping curse to change that.

Read for: Body Swapping, Alternating Scorpius/Draco POV, Draco being a good dad, Soft Harry, DADA Professor Harry

🌻No Harm by Tessa Crowley | E | 46k |🌻

After a long, bloody war, Draco Malfoy just wants to do something good with his life for a change, and resolves to become a healer. But magical society refuses to make it easy for him, and an increasingly dramatic series of events—all of them instigated by Harry Potter—get him kicked out of med school, force him to live in exile, and threaten to destroy the new life he’s trying so desperately to build. But Harry isn’t instigating anything—at least not on purpose. He’s just trying to work up the nerve to ask him out. His efforts don’t appear to be going great.

Read for: Down and out Draco, Pining Harry, same scenes from different perspectives

🌼Truth to Materials by lately & @toomuchplor | E | 54k | 🌼

In which Harry learns to appreciate art and other pleasures of the flesh.

Read for: Artist Draco, Paris, Good Smut

🌷Pillar of Salt by @epitomereally | E | 62k | 🌷

From the lake in the Room of Hidden Things, Draco knows three things: 1. Mirror universes exist, and he’s going to find the best one—the one where he did the right thing. 2. Harry Potter and him are awfully cosy in some of these other universes, whereas Potter in real life is starting to act very odd around him indeed. 3. Draco’s reflection—the mirror version of him, the worst version of him—seems to be growing crueler. And stronger.

Read for: Eighth Year, Alternate Universes (sort of), Magical Theory

🪻Behind Closed Doors by @stratigraphywrites | E | 77k | 🪻

Twelve years after Harry Potter disappeared from the wizarding world and from Draco's life, his daughter starts at Hogwarts.

Read for: Secret Child, Angst with a Happy Ending, Nonlinear Narrative

🌹A Soft Place to Fall by @amomorii | E | 142k | 🌹

When Harry arrives for his first year teaching at Hogwarts and is struck with a bizarre malignance, how on earth is he supposed to react when Draco Malfoy suddenly cares? Or; A darkness crawls out of Harry, and there's only so long he can keep it to himself.

Read for: Unique Concept, Managing Childhood Trauma, Reluctant Magical Coparenting (but it’s not what you think)

🌺The Star Splitter by @oflights | E | 219k |🌺

On a routine time travel assignment to the past, Draco stumbles upon 7-year-old Harry Potter and witnesses his neglect and mistreatment by the Dursleys. In the moment, there is only one solution, even if it goes against all his training as a Time Agent: he has to bring Harry back to the future with him. In which Draco burns his life down for the sake of his former school rival.

Read for: Time Travel, Draco taking care of Harry, Kid Fic

I hope you enjoy these fics as much as I did! If you read any, don't forget to show the creators some love ❤️🩵💛💚

I needed to read this, so now you will too.

Daily reminder that we do not actually live in a dystopian movie put the apocalypse down and back away slowly. You know when your cleaning a room and you pull everything out of it's draws to sort through it and you're like "what the fuck have I done I'm never going to be able to tidy all of this" I think that's the stage we're at in the world. Thanks to social media we've pulled out all the messed up shit from the cupboards of the world, it was always there but now we can see it and we're going to have to sort it all out we made this mess and we can fix it. Falling to the floor sobbing will not clean a crusty room. A group of people working systematically (preferably with music in the background) will.

….it do be like that, though. 😬

The little photo of Wolvie with a heart drawn around it is so cute. He is showing off his boyfriend. 🥺

kaveh akbar, 'calling a wolf a wolf' // doc luben, 'love letters or suicide notes' // @/nutnoce, tumblr // 'my body's made of crushed little stars', mitski // @/ojibwa, tumblr // 'spring', mary oliver

Gorgeous artwork for a gorgeous fic.

Do you want your heart broken? Yes you do:

Someone is Calling Him Shorewards by @harlotofupdog

This fic will break your heart several times per chapter but you will like it! It's a glorious fanfic.

Its about ghosts and the ocean and (at least the metaphorical ??) string of fate. Gosh I love it so much and drowning is kinda my thing but usually the other way round.

Still trying stuff out with digital painting but it's getting there. (Also I feel like this composition has been done to death (ha!) but it was fun to do!)