#bad poetry i think

[rottenentity]

broken crown | rdr2

redemption marks him like the scars of a hunted beast, noble yet weathered, as time carves its claim.

contains: introspection, self reflection, guilt, penance and what you would usually except to come out of a shitty fic about arthur morgan.

He moves through the dawn like a deer startled from the underbrush, all sinew and silence, the weight of him pressing into the earth yet leaving no mark behind. The man—if he can still be called that, for there is so little left of him—wears his penance in his shoulders, sloped beneath the burden of a life spent taking more than it ever gave. His breath steams in the frigid air, slow and heavy, curling upward like smoke from an extinguished fire.

His steps are deliberate, unhurried, as though he knows the end of the trail lies not far ahead and there’s no need to rush toward it. Each movement of his body tells a story of injury, of repair that never quite took; there’s a hitch in his gait where something once broke and healed crooked, a shiver in his hands that speaks of wounds too deep to close. The way he tilts his head, listening to the creak of the trees, suggests a man waiting for the crack of a rifle—always listening, always ready.

The air around him feels heavy, laden with the gravity of a storm yet to break. It clings to him, as if the world itself knows what he is and cannot let him go. A predator? No. That would be too simple, too clean. A predator hunts without malice, kills without remorse. He is something messier, a creature whose purpose was undone by its own hand. The blood on his skin has been scrubbed away, but the scent of it lingers, sharp and metallic, a stain that cannot be seen yet never fades.

His face is gaunt now, the hollows beneath his cheekbones deepening with each passing day. A beard cloaks the sharp angles, but it cannot hide the erosion of time, of sickness, of guilt. His eyes, though—those are the eyes of a stag caught in the sights of its pursuer, wide and wet and wild. They glint with something primal, something feral, as if he might bolt at any moment, gallop into the trees and vanish into the wilderness where no man could follow.

Yet he doesn’t. He stays. He faces the world with the quiet dignity of a beast resigned to its fate, a creature that knows the hunt is over but will not bow its head until the blade is upon its neck.

The wind pulls at him, whispering through the tatters of his coat, a garment too worn to keep out the cold but too familiar to cast aside. He wears it like a second skin, a patchwork of his own making, each tear and stitch a testament to the miles he’s traveled and the battles he’s survived. The weight of it drags at his shoulders, yet he doesn’t shed it. Like the antlers of a stag in winter, it is both a crown and a curse.

His hands are calloused, thick and rough like bark stripped from a tree. They are not the hands of a man who should cradle life, yet they do. In the crook of his arm, he carries a rabbit—its body limp and bloodless, its fur damp with the dew of an early morning hunt. He sets it down with reverence, laying it on a bed of moss as if it were an offering. To what god, what spirit, what fleeting notion of salvation, he doesn’t know. Perhaps he offers it to the earth itself, the only thing that has ever held him without judgment.

The mountains loom in the distance, jagged peaks scraping at the clouds like the ribs of some great beast long dead. He stares at them as though they are a mirror, their barren slopes reflecting his own erosion. He has climbed them before, felt their chill bite into his lungs, but now they seem insurmountable, unreachable. The effort it would take to ascend them would be his undoing. He knows this. Yet he yearns for the summit, for the thin air and the silence that comes with it.

There is a sickness in him, an unspoken thing that gnaws at his insides, hollowing him out from within. It is not a predator, but a parasite—a slow death, creeping and insidious, feeding on the marrow of his bones. He feels it in the ache of his joints, in the fire that burns low and steady in his chest, in the way his breath catches and shudders with each exhale. He does not fear it. He welcomes it.

For what is there left to fear? Not death. He has seen it too many times, met it in the eyes of men and beasts alike. He has carried it in his hands, felt its weight, smelled its stink. It is an old companion, one he neither loves nor loathes, only acknowledges.

What he fears is living. Not for himself, but for the weight of what he leaves behind. The ripples his absence will create in the lives of those who have clung to him despite his failings. He is a stag with a broken antler, a creature marked for death yet still standing, still breathing, still fighting to stay upright in a world that would see him fall.

And so he moves forward, step by step, stride by stride, the weight of the world pressing down but never breaking him. He is both beast and man, both hunter and hunted, a creature caught between life and death, forever treading the thin line that separates the two.

There is no salvation for creatures like him, no heaven or hell, only the endless expanse of the wilderness and the quiet hum of his own breath. And that is enough. It has to be.

[inkskinned]

okay is she being actually immature or is it just a woman over 30 expressing a human experience you find to be immature.

like yeah. at certain ages... let shit go. im not defending the real immature shit. im not defending the karen you're picturing. i worked in retail i hate those people too. (once somebody got mad at me because she didn't like how our winter window decor was a snowman smoking a pipe. i wish i was joking).

but men at 57 will write books about how 17 year old girls are soooo sexy. they will invent worlds where women have to be naked for "armor reasons." they will write songs that treat women as objects. people rush to defend them. meanwhile a woman at 35 will be like "heartbreak is hard, actually" or "i feel betrayed by a friend" or "i am struggling with something emotionally." immediately people will say stuff like this woman is 35 by the way. by the way this woman is SO OLD to be experiencing this. BY THE WAY.

im 31, almost 32. the other day a poet was blasted online because at her "big age", she had written a poem about feeling unloved. top comment was "this woman is 29 by the way." this woman is too old to still be useful, by the way. she has to behave better . maybe if she was a good wife and mother she could stop existing loudly, and the story could continue on without her. this woman has served her purpose, by the way. she's so cringe, by the way. at 29 - so old! - she still hasn't figured out that her existence should be one of shame.

[torsamors]

On Seatbelts and Sunsets - Hanif Abdurraqib

[thilsiktonix]

small little doodle page for you @niceguyanonymous !!!!!

((I tried my best, I'm not a very good writer, but I hope you like it <33 sorry I didn't put too much detail into this one, I wasn't sure how exactly to interpret it!))

[thebrainrotsreal]

EVIL MARK, EVIL MARK, EVIL MARK!!! I want to be coherent about this season but please picture me foaming at the mouth and running on the walls. S2 being what if Mark's just like his Dad? Insanity. I love this show. Anyways, AU where an Evil!Mark tries to make Our!Mark worse, and Our!Mark tries to make the other better. Something something confronting your idea of the worst version of oneself. Plus, tweaked black and yellow costume because I saw it and immediately went murder hornet lookin' ass and knew I had to draw it. Evil ass Mark. Horrible. I think he should be dragged kicking and screaming into redemption.

[talon-dragonbeast]

would you love me if i was a worm?

would you love me if i was a bird, a dragon, a piece of stardust?

if my hands were claws and my teeth were sharp and my edges were rough and my body uneven

if i was so much more than what your eyes could see

would you be scared of me? would you be scared for me?

if i told you i was different from what you thought i was

would you believe me?

would you ask me questions, would you try to understand?

if i showed you this vulnerable part of myself

would you judge me? would you laugh at me?

can i bare my chest for you knowing of the knife you keep pointed at me?

can i present my brain for you to dissect knowing you could pick out the parts that make me unique?

can i put my beating heart in your hands knowing you could crush it between your fingers?

can i trust you? do you trust me?

would you still love me if i was not who i told you i was

and would you still love me if i tell you who i am?

...

would it be worth it?

[sadmages]

Durge thoughts

[28ms28]

Ferrari hopes and dreams

[djarins-cyare]

Wedding Day

The air is thick with the scent of wildflowers, the earth hums beneath your feet. A copse of trees rises before you, a cathedral carved by nature herself. There, beneath a wooden arch crowned with blossoms, he waits.

For countless years, he hid his heart — a wanderer forged by loss, a heart hardened by solitude, a hunter cloaked in shadows and whispers. Yet beskar was no match for your affection. He chased you, and you chased back, and now he revels in new strength uncovered.

The courage to love.

Now, ancient vows bind your fate, soft as petals, yet strong as roots. Promises made of knowledge eternal — ni kar’tayli gar darasuum — before trembling hands lift his helmet.

Nobody sees but you. You are your own witness as brown eyes, once dimmed by sorrow, now alight with quiet wonder, look upon you with singular devotion.

And you know: From this place, your journey begins.

No longer hunter and prey, two hearts, once adrift, now stride across the stars, towards a horizon of endless wonders — together.

[h0use-fly]

Northern Star

Northern Star

Northern Star

Northern Star

[annabelle--cane]

media made by addicts always has a certain je ne sais quoi that I can't quite describe but I feel like I have sixth sense for identifying. even when a work is in no way about substance use or compulsive behavior, there are just ways that authors treat subjects like guilt or secrets or self-control that make me go "hang on. You 🫵." and then when I check it always turns out that I'm right. it's even happened to me a few times, I'll make what I think is a generic tragedypost and people in the notes will say "op am I reading too much into this or are you. maybe. yknow. 👀"

[writingthethoughtsaway]

“For a year it was like you and I were the only ones who spoke the same language.

I don’t know how you could just let yourself forget that.”

- S. C. C.

[hopeless-eccentric]

i dont do a lot of book recs on here (i think ive done one before?) but the Henry Rios books by Michael Nava are so criminally underrated!

They're these mystery novels from the 1980s-1990s about a gay, Latino lawyer (Henry Rios, our protagonist/narrator) solving mysteries--usually while trying to prove his client's innocence. He's a long-suffering idealist written as this kind of hard-boiled detective.

This is actually something the whole series tackles, subverts, and deconstructs in a really interesting way! Instead of being this stoic detective, the archetype gets broken down in a lot of really fascinating and human ways earnestly discussing love, grief, intergenerational trauma, racism, homophobia, illness/disability, toxic masculinity, and substance abuse.

What I love is that these books realize that the hard-boiled detective is stuck in a point of hurt and trauma, and so the Henry Rios series makes a big deal out of fighting tooth and nail to GET BETTER--whatever it takes to improve yourself and your surroundings. While the books maintain a lot of the dark and morose vibe of the original genre (especially given the looming, perpetual grief of AIDS-era queer lit), they always come back to a death match against apathy. It's really moving stuff, especially as the books take this approach to Henry's recovery from alcoholism.

if you're interested in queer history, the books are in touch with queer legal/political history during the HIV/AIDS crisis. The first few books have been rewritten/published as well since Michael Nava's retirement, so I think a comparative reading could be really interesting. For the record, Nava was a civil rights lawyer, so this is all done REALLY well (not to mention the legal drama is engaging, theatrical, petty, gutting, and sometimes hilarious).

if you're interested in detective fiction, they're brilliant deconstructions of the genre. instead of taking the depressed alcoholic white guy with repressed desire for male companionship at face value, the series considers a gay Latino man struggling with machismo, racism and homophobia, intersectional identity, and processing/recovering from grief, childhood trauma, alcoholism, and Catholicism.

Stylistically, the books are smart, poetic, introspective, dark, and witty. There's a lot of suffering, but there are also a lot of intense moments of joy and catharsis that feel really earned.

Also, if you read the rewrites. uh. there's a lot of smut! Happy retirement, Mr. Nava!

[trickstersaint]

a few people have asked to see the full text for aromanticism which i would love to provide in a nice beautiful format where it all looks how it does when you play it. however the insides of it look like this!

and that is 6161 words across 93 passages and i am just not willing to go in there and copy/paste or screenshot them all one by one. so! what i do have is like. almost the raw data, just all of the text of it; not organized by anything and it's got all the command language in there, but it is searchable and you'll be able to follow the little titles through it if you'd like. linking that for you here on my little webbed site in case that satisfies anyone's needs <3 you just have to promise not to judge while you're looking at the guts of it i was learning to use twine as i made this and it is not as gorgeous beautiful when you're not looking at it through the reader interface haha <3

[theonekierce]

Moreover, we dropped into a very desert of a country road, nor saw a soul when we doubled back beneath the outer study windows, nor heard a footfall in the main street of the slumbering town. Our own fell like the night-dews and the petals of the poet; but Raffles ran his arm through mine, and would chatter in whispers as we went. -The Field of Phillipi

[javierduffy]

just a few javieran horse headcanons because i like them a normal amount

branwen

- tall AND fat. kieran makes sure he’s always fed (maybe even accidentally a teensy bit overfed. just because kieran can’t help but indulge him when he butts him with his head or nuzzles at his pockets when he knows there’s treats in there. but never too much because ‘obesity is a problem, even in animals !’). probably about 17hh, taller than average for a kentucky saddler but nothing too big. especially since kieran himself is quite tall

- VERY well-tempered, both naturally, as well as because kieran has literally made him bulletproof. bagged him, blanketed him, stood, jumped, backflipped onto and off of him. this kindly gentleman of a horse only spooks when he wants to be bratty specifically.

- i think he’s about 6 or so, came from the stables kieran worked at after being orphaned, he was just a colt when kieran was just a kid. kieran learned how to birth foals quickly, and branwen happened to be one of them. with the way that they fell in love with each other and the way that branwen whinnied and pranced up to the fence when kieran came back to buy him after the army didn’t work out, you’d think that horse was born just for him.

- his favourite treats, in order, are rutabaga (kieran’s secret for branwen’s glossy coat. also why he’s kinda fat.), boiled potatoes mixed into his oats, apples, and fresh greens. he’s simultaneously incredibly easy to please because of the simplicity of the latter parts of his favourites list and also very needy and complicated because kieran so loves to make his pony happy with his absolute favourite treats, so he tries his very best to get branwen’s eccentric tastes pleased once falling into the VDL’s.

- i always say “a horse’s favourite thing to do is hurt itself”, and i think this statement holds relatively true for branwen as well, though there’s a 25% chance that he’s actually hurt, a 50% chance that he’s only mildly injured or spooked and he’s playing it up to get kieran to dote on him, and a 25% chance that he will protect kieran with his life when they’re in a dire situation (see: snake on the ground or gunfire nearby. or even god forbid a spare tumbleweed find it’s way rolling nearby.) despite kieran’s last wish being his horse getting injured. branwen thinks that he’s gotta be The Man and protect his dad sometimes. it does not help in any situation ever whatsoever.

- branwen is the PERFECT companion for a trail riding date. he’s settled, calm, has a great gait, and as a gelding, truly is not worried about other horses being “faster” than him, so he never gets rowdy nor has any problems when partner riders/horses crowd him. kieran is allowed to ask for as many kisses as he pleases because branwen will never jump when javier’s gold-tipped boots poke him in the side and boaz irritatedly flicks his flank with his tail. truly a goated wingman. also never complains about long rides, and enjoys being out of camp with his rider for as much as physically possible for both of them, so he’s never barnsour in either direction.

boaz

- as an american paint, he’s naturally short and stocky. saddle ends up being a bit loose, though, as javier isn’t as dedicated to keeping him perfectly fed or groomed. he loves him, sure, but horses are somewhat of tools to him, so he kinda does slightly more than bare minimum to keep him kempt and healthy. around 14.5hh, slightly shorter than average and quite dense with muscle

- temperamentally a bit volatile. this horse has just as much drama as his rider, if not a little more. doesn’t like something ? ridden too long ? that stick looks too much like a snake ? hasn’t spent enough time with kieran that day ? he will snort and grunt and bunny hop if javi isn’t on him, and shudder hard enough the saddle shakes underneath him if he is. boaz likes to please his rider, but he also demands pleasure himself, and has no issue with “accidentally” placing a hoof on his owners nice, intentionally clean boots, and subsequently slowly leaning more and more of his weight onto it when he doesn’t immediately get what he wants. bratty pony. generally, he keeps javier safe, though, when it comes down to it.

- around 5 years old. after dutch found javier trying to steal chickens the first time they met, he soon took him back to that ranch and their first take as gang leader and member was a 1 year old grey paint colt for javi to train and subsequently ride. until he was rideable, javier rode a morgan that was formerly hosea’s, named carolina, while he lead boaz everywhere behind him.

- favourite treats, in order, are corn cobs (especially dried), prickly pear fruit AND cactus, sugar cubes, and sliced apples. will force javier to share his maiz with him. javier has always sliced his apples up since he was a colt, not only because javi simply finds comfort in toying with his knife, but also because boaz will not eat them otherwise. javi will also cut all of the spines off of the cactus before letting boaz eat them.

- in terms of injury, boaz is the most dramatic tank on the planet. this horse could arthur morgan-style run face first into a tree and then fall off a cliff and walk it off. but not before he gimps and limps and whines and teeth grinds his way into javier leading him instead of riding him for the next mile or two. once kieran started taking care of him, there is also a 25% chance of boaz faking a terribly painful injury just to get kieran to dote on him.

- kinda the worst wingman ever LMFAO easily annoyed, easily aroused, easily offended, and as a stallion, HAS to walk in front of the “herd” (his rider’s boyfriend and his horse). pins his ears back, smashes into personal space, flicks branwen with his tail (and preferably kieran, if he can reach him) even sometimes will nip at branwen if the latter tries to calmly make this date a date and not a life or death race (whoever loses, their dad is gay) and walk side-by-side to aid their riders’ hand holdings. will make executive decisions via stopping or veering off for fresh green grass beside the trail, will at points actively attempt to shudder javier out of his saddle (has succeeded once when javi was distracted by a story being excitedly told by kieran), and will also spook and take off running so fast javier thinks it must have broken his neck from the velocity. generally makes trail rides a living hell, but kieran finds it charming, and it makes for some cute shoujo-style “omg … *reaches out to help you up after your horse bucks you off because he saw a log that looked nothing at all and everything like a cougar and pink and white soft bubbles surround me* are you okay ? here, let me help.” moments. maybe some day boaz will be allowed off of the national american terrorist list written by javier “rizzless rider” escuella

ok im tired and that’s all i can think of please enjoy and feel free to contribute 👍 i love them so bad im gona cry