#it’s going to be kind of wild i think. i think it might make people cry. i hope it does. i hope it makes people want to live

[grison-in-space]

Y'all if you really need this to be all queer all the time I can support that but it's not that fucking hard to do. Make em both bi or pan or nonbinary or any number of fun things. The notion of a romance founded in mutually seeking an abortion and the intimacy of sharing one's desires for the present and maybe the future against the backdrop of ensuring one another's freedom from parenthood (at least, right now) is too good a concept to let go.

Couple of Texan kids, say. I spent a long time there, it's a natural pick for me. They're in college and they go to one of those keggers the frats throw, meet at a wild party as college kids, maybe they're freshmen or sophomores. Call em Sam and Kris so I don't have to specify which character has which genitals.

Sam's a nervous anxious perfectionist with huge career plans and big dreams who has life planned out in exhaustive (and exhausting) detail, only even at this party because a friend insisted on a break between exam rounds. There's a lot of internal pressure built up that's going to explode the moment Sam relaxes. Kris is a little unformed, not sure what major to pick or what career to settle on, still trying to work out what kind of person might be good to grow into, good at surface connections but kind of lonely for something deeper. The frat parties are familiar and comfortable—Kris knows how they work and how they run, and if you're friendly and you smile at people and maybe hook up now and again you get to feel REALLY connected and useful, and that's a heady feeling. They meet at the party Sam's friend picked out and immediately feel the attraction and hook up while totally shit faced—huge aberration for Sam, maybe not so much for Kris. There's a condom, but it breaks. It doesn't seem like a big deal in the moment, but in the morning, that's another story.

Sam is panicked. A baby is going to derail all their careful plans and their self control, but you can't not step up to take care of a baby. Ohhhhhh fuck oh fuck oh fuck, what do we do? Kris is quiet as they consider the mess and the possibilities. Shit. Shit shit shit. They maybe exchange numbers and withdraw for a minute until someone's period is late. They might try to find plan B but neither of them is entirely sure where you buy that shit and it takes a few days to find out, by which point it's too late. And then the period fails to show up, and it fails to show up, and the pregnancy test reads positive, and they're running out of time...)

CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE

IF SAM HAS A DICK: they are a moral and ethical enough person that they do not consider abandoning Kris as an option if the pregnancy goes to term. They may propose marriage or coparenting as a potential option but they are clearly terrified by all possible options.

Kris is touched and kind of flattered. They're not sure whether they want kids or not, but now doesn't feel like a great time with everything so up in the air. Anyway, Sam is hot but used diapers and vomiting do not sound hot at ALL right now, and Kris's parents are kind of distant and definitely aren't going to be any kind of useful. They broach a preference for an abortion, Sam sags in shocked relief, and then starts talking about figuring out how to pay for it—not what Kris expected—and making plans to skip classes and talk to teachers to figure out the logistics. Oh, Kris thinks, feeling warm and fuzzy: Kris expected to be on their own to fix this, but Sam is acting like this is both their responsibility equally to resolve. They've never felt cared for like that. Oh...

IF KRIS HAS A DICK:

Sam is hyperventilating over the pregnancy test results and acting as if going to one party doomed them for all time, and Kris inexplicably kind of wants to hug them? Shit happens sometimes. They ask tentatively what Sam actually wants as Sam starts collapsing under the weight of the impending ruin of their life and how disappointed "everyone" will be and all the bad things that might happen, and Sam whips their head over and stares for a second in astonishment before saying, huntedly, "I want for none of this to be happening!"

"Oh, okay. Do you want an abortion?"

"I can't afford to on my own, I'm going to have to ask my parents for extra money and they are not going to be happy. Shit, shit, shit, I'm going to be paying for this until the end of time, I don't have time for this—" and Sam bursts into tears. Kris feels bad and, like, look. Kris likes to help people anyway, and it's not like this situation isn't equally Kris's own fault. So they offer to help Sam figure this out and pay for the whole thing—they've got a job at a bar that can cover it—and they help Sam calm down and explore some options so that together they can find a place to get an abortion. They offer to drive, too: that means they don't have to wait as long on a bus or something but Sam can study from the passenger seat. It's not like any of Kris' classes require a lot of effort; psychology is good for that much. Let's make a day trip out of it.

Sam, who is used to having to do everything on their own, is feeling really cared about and seen right now. And, well, Kris is really hot...

There you go. It's a fucking romance. Deal with it.

there's an extremely niche plot in romance fiction wherein our invariably heterosexual leads fall in love after a night of passion leads to an unplanned pregnancy and they're now bound together by an impending child. I cast no judgment on anyone who enjoys this, but since I'm an evil gay and this is my personal nightmare scenario I want to see a zany romance novel premised on the opposite resolution: a couple falls in love while on a whirlwind roadtrip to obtain a legal abortion

[screwpinecaprice]

I was trying to eat noodles neatly and for some reason I got sad midway. So I drew them messy eating a biscuit and a strawberry to combat sad noodle blues.

[corpsentry]

april 28

now that i have caught your attention with the largeness of my deltoids. april 28. 6:30 and 8:30 pm est. my senior dance showcase (livestream link forthcoming). it will have taiko and spoken word and modern dance and jeff the livestream guy at the helm, if he likes me. it will be the best thing i have ever made. save the date

[bmpmp3]

post ankle-twisting clarity

[xoxo-ren-xoxo]

it's controversial to say this i guess but i genuinely believe last life was the least interesting life series season and youre all lying to me about enjoying it

[krogans-give-the-best-cuddles]

Reading the Orchid Thief and lemme say. So fascinating to see someone like. Try to come up with a Reason Why humans like orchids. Two chapters here in a row pretty much treating Orchid hobbyists and plant hobbyists in general like one would an entirely alien culture- and don't get me wrong I understand why to an extent. Trying to make this book marketable outside just plant circles and what have you. But some of the way the camera is angled here is just. Fascinating.

Like, she explains how there are so many unique ways orchids evolved, as an attempt to contextualize for a reader why people might go crazy for them in specific, and describes individual species unique mating strategies, and the inability of them to self pollinate- but while I think that context is interesting it doesn't explain a damn thing. For one thing, having an extremely specific mating strategy is not solely an Orchid thing- a LOT of plants do it like that. Lots are flexible but I would say a vast swath are not and require specific things. For another- apples also don't self fertilize, but you don't have hundreds of thousands of apple varietal collectors.

She discusses their beauty as a reason they're collected- I won't deny that being a factor for sure, plants that humans like the shape of have a tendency to get collected and overcollected all the time- but like. A lot of people collect things that are traditionally ugly or even smell bad- and if it was exclusively a shallow pursuit, no one would work as hard as is required for an insane amount of orchids.

Part of the reasons orchids in particular are popular has to do with colonization. I can't articulate it all myself bc I haven't done research- but a genus that largely exists in tropical regions, that became popular in the late 1800s, that, in order to get in homes, white men would travel to all sorts of regions to take plants out of to get in the home? That is gonna help it get more popular than tomato or apple varieties for sure. I'm sure she's gonna touch on this eventually, given that the story she's covering actually involves the Seminole nation so I'm not holding it against her.

I suppose I'm just fascinated by her approach so far as to trying to understand why anyone would. Work to grow something? Really like something? I mean she pretty explicitly states that she "wants to want something" as much as these people want their plants- describes hobby communities and the idea of like. Working a hobby into your schedule or having friends related to the hobby as a "religion". She's baffled by like. Putting time and energy into a hobby and gaining joy and community from it and is trying to like. Break down orchids into their component parts to understand what makes someone. Want to grow a plant? And get community out of a hobby?

I'm going to be charitable and not make presumptions that she doesn't know like. The concept of loneliness and therefore a longing for community. Or that on some level she must know what common signs of autism are (ignoring her having spent several paragraphs describing several different people with classic signs and symptoms and then settling on "weird"). But it makes me want to turn the camera lens around for a moment. What makes someone presume that it's Orchid "obsession" (the word hobby is rather rare in the book acrually) that is particularly strange or more obsessed than other obsessions? What makes one abstract others hobbies and interests as needing a solve while the ones you surely have seen all over and even participated in aren't worth that examination? The line between "normal" and "abnomal" is entirely one made by dominant society

So this is why hobbies and kink aren't so different in the way they're perceived-

Orchids are an obsession to this author, to be highlighted and examined, or a hobby, to most people. They get a noteworthy category because they are seen as atypical. Sports-watching, however, is like. Never discussed as hobby. Watching football, watching soccer. It's just normal. No one says "that's my hobby." Even if a guy had a room full of memorabilia he would be noted as a "team fan" not a hobbyist. Sports has been declared normative, so it's not really considered a hobby by anyone. Plants? Non normative, therefore the same exact behaviors will get you considered unusual and a hobbyist.

Kink is the same way. People who are attracted to women being interested in breasts is so assumed to be normal and natural that no one calls it a kink. Breasts, the fatty deposits intended for feeding young, are expected to be hidden bc this kink (which everyone refuses to call a kink or a fetish or what have you) is seen as so universal. It's seen as immutable fact that there is a sexual nature to them. Feet however? If someone's into that that's a kink or a fetish if you're feeling kind, an obsession that makes you strange and worthy of examination and explanation if you're not.

I'm not arguing for doing away with calling things hobbies or kinks- I'm actually advocating for calling more normative things those words actually- I think it's just helpful to see where the framing of something, the way in which we choose to examine it, also has a lot to say about that which we leave unexamined, and unnamed. Because we don't categorize the normal.

[musical-chick-13]

Fuck it, weird-yet-galaxy-brain take is that Love Is War is rom-com Death Note, but not in regard to the ship that everyone thinks, and what I mean by this is that Kaguya and Miyuki are NOT the lighthearted lower-stakes rom-com version of Light and L, they're the lighthearted lower-stakes rom-com version of Near and Mello.

[anthromimicry]

just thinking about how many 'lives' misao lived throughout the years and as a result, how many people could potentially be wondering what happened to her, because she affected their own lives in one way or another. like in one of these previous lives, she worked as a orchardist for this wealthy family whom would open up their apple orchard in late august to the public and close it in november. so as you can imagine, misao had to uhh. Kill a lot of people within a short amount of time.

and because this wealthy family provided her with housing + a paycheck in exchange for taking care of the orchard year-round, she would literally 'stock up' on what she needed for months ahead within it as horrible as that sounds. and everything was okay for a while, as the family mostly kept their distance from the orchard since they trusted misao to take care of it. BUT they made an unexpected visit one day and discovered all of the terrible things misao stored in her fridge. + yeah... that marked the end of her time as a orchardist with this family.

but the thing is that she had this repeated customer during the time the apple orchard was open to the public who like liked her. and he wanted to properly court her. BUT by the time he tried to do so, she had disappeared without a trace from the place. and just a few weeks later, that wealthy families bodies were found washed ashore a lake a couple of miles away.

and this begs the question whether this guy is still wondering what happened to her + whether she had anything to do with what happened to the couple. but this is only one example of how misao has unintentionally left little 'breadcrumbs' of her continued existence around the world, so there's got to be more than just that man who remembers her and that's like. DAMN... misao really has messed up a lot of people's lives AHHH and she is certainly not as sneaky as she believes she is sometimes

[rosicheeks]

I hope your days aren't as heavy and dark, I am sending all the positive thoughts your way. You deserve the best, fairy princess. <3

😭

[thethingything]

I find it kind of interesting that we have a couple of delusions (and the hallucinations that come with those) that just kind of involve gruesome stuff happening to us, especially because they weren't as gruesome at first but have gotten more so over time.

the hallucinations are all somatic ones (sensations instead of visuals or audio) but they're stuff like I guess what our brain thinks it would feel like if our organs were decomposing, or being eaten by maggots, or just stuff with a similar vibe to that?

I can put up with it for the most part, but like I did nearly throw up on the bed because of it earlier and I'd really like to not experience that again

[prettyboykatsuki]

FANG i have smth i would like to inquire about an oc i am planning to make for red dead.....have not played it yet but plan to

i tried to hold off making an oc until i actually played the fucking game but whenever u (and lamb) talk about a new fandom it makes me chomp at the bit to immerse myself and now its too late

made my oc british thinking oh that might be fun!! but realised wait don't the british have heavy beef with everyone at that time....would that cause conflict at camp?? would she have tomatoes thrown at her during dinner (head in hands)

no not at all!! my very in depth self insert for red dead has a indian/british accent on a technical basis and the game itself has a really diverse cast of characters. you have a person at camp you meet later named trelawny who is super british but nobody rlly cares

the only character who would jokingly give you any grief about it is maybe sean cause he's irish lol. but he'd do it in a silly way like he makes fun of arthur for being an englishman as he says (arthur is american af so its very funny) there's also micah and bill but they're complete pieces of shit but it's not like a point of contention at all. camp has a mexican member, two black members, one mixed member (who is black + native!!) and for the most part camp treats them just fine. the game does not shy away from racism though so npcs out in the world might have something to say. but not camp

OBVS BEING BRITISH IS NOT A RACE THING BUT i use it to make a point that the camp generally speaking leans on more accepting then not.

again with the exception of micah and bill who are complete pieces of shit no one else really cares. especially not arthur who is both kind and very accepting... my feminist king fr

so i dont think ur oc being british would matter too much !!

[dirt-str1der]

I dont get why in some kazumaji fics people make majima the jealous boyfriend when he seems quite eager (maybe not eager but willing) to matchmake his love interests with other people. Jealous boyfriends would be people like mine or yuya who is like a rabid animal when people look at daigo or kazuki respectively

[luvsavos]

til a surprising amount of people theorize that the scarlet mystery man is an elder dragon/black dragon in human form

[puppmeo]

Have you ever been assumed to be romantically attracted to someone and even just the thought of that makes you want to throw up . Anybody

[renthony]

Your personal triggers and squicks do not get to determine what kind of art other people make.

People make shit. It's what we do. We make shit to explore, to inspire, to explain, to understand, but also to cope, to process, to educate, to warn, to go, "hey, wouldn't that be fucked up? Wild, right?"

Yes, sure, there are things that should be handled with care if they are used at all. But plenty more things are subjective. Some things are just not going to be to your tastes. So go find something that is to your tastes and stop worrying so much about what other people are doing and trying to dictate universal moral precepts about art based on your personal triggers and squicks.

I find possession stories super fucking triggering if I encounter them without warning, especially if they function as a sexual abuse metaphor. I'm not over here campaigning for every horror artist to stop writing possession stories because they make me feel shaky and dissociated. I just check Does The Dog Die before watching certain genres, and I have my husband or roommate preview anything I think might upset me so they can give me more detail. And if I genuinely don't think I can't handle it, I don't watch it. It's that simple.

[icewindandboringhorror]

Other Misc. Rambling Thoughts on the topic:

(~ !!!!!!!!! if you're just reblogging this post for the Poll section, please reblog the original post without this addition* lol. ~)

(*not that there's anything super personal or weird about the addition, just that it's meant to be kind of casual Side Commentary, not really part of the Main Point Of The Poll, so it would feel kind of weird for it to be emphasized by being included in reblogs unless the reblogs were explicitly about the side commentary, etc..... if that makes sense.. ANYWAY!)

It's neat to read the written descriptions that people are mentioning in the tags, since it's almost like I can see or conceptualize the idea as well, but it's just.. I'm not SEEING it.

Like for example: I can imagine a vase, it's a muted mint green and slightly translucent, elaborate golden birds sprawled down the side in streaks of thin rough watery paint, the base material shimmers gently in the light, there's a small chip where it's cracked on the handle, etc, etc. .. But as I'm thinking about this I see literally nothing.

It seems like perhaps some people can visualize an object first, and THEN describe what they see. But I sort of work backwards. I am building the object in my mind, I can never see it, but it's a collection of concepts. Rather than visualizing all details as a whole at once, I am adding each detail one by one, building onto the IDEA of the thing.

The vase doesn't have a crack on the handle because I just automatically visualized a vase with a crack. It was more that I cognitively understand the concept of a vase, what they tend to be made out of, how they tend to look and feel, the properties they have. So based purely on that knowledge, I can imagine "a chip is something that a vase could have, it would look this way and behave this way" - more like... I'm constructing a bullet point Fact List about the object rather than seeing it.

So if you tell me to imagine an object, I can, in a way, imagine that object in great detail, but it's just.. I'm not SEEING those details, more just knowing it's qualities in a purely conceptual way. Sometimes in the tags when people are like "yeah I can see the skin of the apple, texture, little dots on the surface" it's like… I can imagine that too, I can know it's there, but just with no visual attached.

I guess rather than SEEING something and going ''ah. I know what this looks like because I have seen it''. I more just skip that visual step entirely and go ''I know what this looks like, I just randomly have a list of information about the concept in my mind.'' etc. Maybe similar to how sometimes in dreams, even though a house may look completely different and be in an entirely fake 'dreamlike' environment, you just somehow KNOW intuitively that it's meant to be your childhood home or something. Even when it looks nothing like it in reality. There's a built-in base knowledge of the properties or information of some things within a dreaming mind, etc.

--

This also makes me wonder about like.. how storytelling and myth is so important to cultures all across time. Or how this could tie also into concepts of religion.. etc. etc. If so many people really can kind of conjure these vivid images in their mind, then maybe that's part of why certain things are so meaningful to them? Like a "religious experience" being something you can actually really SEE/feel/lingering with you in your head, rather than just abstract words on a page, detached purely theoretical ideas, etc... hmmm

.

Plus also just for average emotional stuff too, even outside of broader cultural conceptual attachments..

Like, I don't think there's a direct 1 to 1 link (obviously not all people with mental illnesses that significantly reduce their emotional or expressive capacity also MUST have aphantasia or vice versa), but it's interesting as someone who DOES also have a much more lessened emotional range/pretty flat affect/etc. etc. to think like.. Maybe I WOULD be more emotional, in a way, if I could have these vivid experiences..?

Perhaps memories would hold deeper significance if they could really stay with me vividly. Or storytelling would evoke more of a deep emotional reaction to me if I could really picture and feel the things that are going on. If things were more TANGIBLE in my brain, rather than always merely conceptual highly abstracted ideas.

Kind of like, it's probably easier to get over the death of a pet or something, if after not seeing them for an hour you already don't remember what they looked like (beyond just a vague fact list of traits), and you have no vivid memories or mental reminders of them (beyond just factual information stores). COGNTIVIELY you can appreciate the idea of their absence, of course, you still miss them, but there's just no remaining visceral sensory ties. A very "out of sight, out of mind" sort of thing in terms of attachments, memories, emotions, etc. Maybe certain things are easier to "get over", when you're not having constant mental sensory reminders that occasionally rekindle your feelings about the event or etc.??

(like for example, maybe someone could remain angry about an argument longer if they could vividly replay it in their head over and over again. VS just like.. 'Yes I can factually recall the fact I had an argument, and I do have knowledge stored about what precisely was said, but any sort of sensory data such as sights/smells/feelings, etc. from the actual moment of the event are long gone and can never be conjured again in my mind." etc.)

Which again, I think lessened emotional permanence and image permanence in the mind are NOT inherently linked, can all be caused by different things for different people. And, since I can't visualize anything in my head, maybe I'm misunderstanding how it happens and the effect it may have on stuff like remembering things you miss or replaying arguments, etc. etc. But it's still a little interesting to think about, if they could influence each other to some degree.... :0c --

Lastly, It's also weird because I'm actually pretty good at estimating distance and spaces? I can quickly assemble furniture without an instruction manual, pretty easily have a concept of how much space a chair may take up in a room, how two mechanical parts might fit together - BUT, I am literally not actually visualizing anything. I cannot see 3D objects in my mind at ALL. It's like.. just based on the pure List Of Facts About Things Which I Have Observed.. I can intuitively go "oh this works like this/this is this size" just because.. I know it's that size. I don't have to see anything to know..?

But then on the other hand, I'm terrible at directions without a map (I guess because a 3d outdoor environment has WAY more complexity than like.. "Will this square fit into another square?"etc. lol ).

BUT, I also draw/sculpt/etc. entirely without references, and seem to do mostly okay at that..? Like.. I can't even remember the last time I actually used a reference or looked at anything whilst drawing. It's all muscle memory, and me just adjusting as I go until something "looks right" on paper, I never have a set image in my head (or external reference) before hand.. Hrmm....

AND.. I used to say that I had a photographic memory when I was younger, which I know NOW is not true (I always thought it was just an expression, not that people could literally see things in a photographic way). But what I was describing is, I do often associate information with imagery, just... without imagery....

Like "Oh, I know that I took my medicine earlier today because I have a distinct memory, a snapshot of a moment in time, of me rattling the pill bottle in my hands as I looked up at a stop sign while in the back seat of a car". When I say this, I can't ACTUALLY see/feel/hear a pill bottle, or vividly picture a stop sign, but it's more just a factual recall, of. Even though I don't see these things, I know they happened, the information of them happening (me hearing a sound and also looking at a stop sign at the same time) has been stored in my brain as a memory, a collection of linked facts. --

As for other senses, I cannot taste or feel anything in my head AT ALL.. wild that some people mention that. I mean, again, I can have a purely factual recall as if reading a textbook, knowing the information of 'X item typically has X texture, therefore I can imagine what it may be like to feel it' or 'X usually has this taste' etc. - but I can never actually experience those senses in any capacity in my mind alone. I would say audio is my strongest mental sense (maybe a 2.5 or 3 (if it were translated onto the above scale where 1 is most vivid and 5 is nothing)), then visual (4.5 at most, usually 5), and then taste and smell and such are just complete 5, absolutely nothing, I didn't even know people could experience taste or feeling just in their mind alone.. lol...

I know this is just a silly bad quality random screencap of a screencap that I found on facebook lol, BUT it's a succinct enough image to easily describe the concept in a quick/accessible way hopefully :

-

(and of course, feel free to elaborate in tags, etc.! (especially elaborating about other senses as well.. can you "hear" in your mind just as well as you can "see"? taste? etc.) It's an interesting topic to me, as someone who's like a 4.5 at MOST lol. I'm curious what option will be the most common :0c )