#just discomfort in my mouth

[greyeyedmonster-18]

(anyone before their period feel their gums swelling and get mouth sores and it makes you want to rip all your teeth out of your mouth once a month???

no? just me? cool cool.)

[idontmindifuforgetme]

Not made for casual intimacy at all bc why am I up waiting for sunrise and regretting every time I kissed someone who wasn’t deserving of it

[vodid]

Firmly Grasp It

[chiarrara]

i've been so fucking depressed all day

[womanfredvonkarma]

Some nights I forget I have my retainer on and other nights it is like the most uninteresting yet excruciating form of torture invented.

[tenwhiteandalusians]

is episode 8 the domitian arc ? more on this and EVEN MORE narratives i’ve been ignoring that the show said “actually,,,” about in 5

[redgearsmovin]

man .

[ajxrn-archive]

I need to be put in a waffle iron or something

[islenskihesturinn]

I’ve started riding Fjara to help my dad with her tripping (read: he likes to ride with a long loose rein and Fjara ends up tipping forward).

The first two times we were still getting used to one another, she’s still trying to gauge why the heck I’m asking her for turns and to do a few steps backwards and walk sideways a little.

Today I decided to take a different path around the farm and Fjara was particularly high in her energy, so when we turned to go back her back curled a little and her tempo went up…

And I’m sitting on her all impressed at the energy but also please don’t do a happy buck, I’m still getting used to how different you are from my regular horse 😅

[milfbro]

dude honestly I made a miraculous recovery since yesterday??? I barely feel any pain at all?

this is surreal

[du-hjarta-skulblaka]

Hhhh I put effort into making sauce for pasta but it turned out kind of crap so now im sitting here trying to force myself to eat it anyway bc I have had one slice of pizza today and i do feel some amount of hunger but its. A fucking struggle and I'm trying REAL hard not to let possibly having to bin it ruin what's actually been a pretty good day for me

[july-19th-club]

im trying i swear im trying SO hard not to be bitchy about legends and lattes getting finalized for the hugo but . okay the hugo is a prize for science fiction/speculative fiction/fantasy fiction. and words mean things and essentially this is putting a very plot-lite romance novel with a fantasy setting up against political spec fic and like, books being entered in a contest that the left hand of darkness once won. which isn't to say that the contest itself is like, sacred ground - starship troopers, 1960 - basically heinlen's treatise on why the military is necessary to whip the youths into shape - like, it's a seventy-year-old science fiction prize, there's gonna be a lot of unlikeable books on there, actually. and its not to say that lighter books or books riding a wave of hype haven't won it before (harry potter won it in 2001)...it's just. it's a weird collection this year, is all, and the contest has skewed wider in its interpretation of spec fic in the past ten-twenty years, which i'm not upset about! words mean things but im also a huge proponent of thee two-time hugo winner UKLG's thoughts on genre. genre is as mutable as the clouds. we call things 'spec fic' often because they're difficult to categorize. but, and i'm saying this huge long preface because i genuinely don't want to seem like a wet blanket, but it's just...it's the wrong contest for the book. there's been a lot of good sff this year. but that's a romance novel. and also its not hugo levels of good

[stillagoodwitch]

i just realized i’m only able to call my cats petnames

[faaun]

whenever i think/talk abt a "you" it's at least 5 different people usually

[maelancoli]

Writing Intimacy

i often see writers sharing a sentiment of struggling with writing kiss scenes which honestly bleeds into other portrayals of physical intimacy. i see it a lot in modernized styles of writing popularized by the recent trend in publishing to encourage short, choppy sentences and few adverbs, even less descriptive language. this makes intimacy come across awkward, like someone writing a script or clumsy recounting of events rather than a beautiful paragraph of human connection.

or just plane horniness. but hey, horny doesn't have to be mutually exclusive with poetic or sensual.

shallow example: they kissed desperately, tongues swirling and she moaned. it made her feel warm inside.

in depth example: she reached for the other woman slowly and with a small measure of uncertainty. the moment her fingers brushed the sharp, soft jaw of her companion, eliza's hesitance slid away. the first kiss was gentle when she finally closed the distance between them. she pressed her lips lightly to gabriella's in silent exploration. a tender question. gabriella answered by meeting her kiss with a firmer one of her own. eliza felt the woman's fingers curling into her umber hair, fingernails scraping along her scalp. everything inside eliza relaxed and the nervousness uncoiled from her gut. a warm buzz of energy sunk through her flesh down to the very core of her soul. this was right. this was always where she needed to be.

the first complaint i see regards discomfort in writing a kiss, feeling like one is intruding on the characters. the only way to get around this is to practice. anything that makes you uncomfortable in writing is something you should explore. writing is at its best when we are pushing the envelope of our own comfort zones. if it feels cringy, if it feels too intimate, too weird, too intrusive, good. do it anyway! try different styles, practice it, think about which parts of it make you balk the most and then explore that, dissect it and dive into getting comfortable with the portrayal of human connection.

of course the biggest part comes to not knowing what to say other than "they kissed" or, of course, the tried and true "their lips crashed and their tongues battled for dominance" 😐. so this is my best advice: think beyond the mouth. okay, we know their mouths are mashing. but what are their hands doing? are they touching one another's hair? are they scratching or gripping desperately at one another? are they gliding their hands along each other's body or are they wrapping their arms tightly to hold each other close? do they sigh? do they groan? do they relax? do they tense? are they comfortable with each other or giddy and uncertain? is it a relief, or is it bringing more questions? is it building tension or finally breaking it?

get descriptive with the emotions. how is it making the main character/pov holder feel? how are they carrying those emotions in their body? how do they feel the desire in their body? desire is not just felt below the belt. it's in the gut, it's in the chest, it's in the flushing of cheeks, the chills beneath the skin, the goosebumps over the surface of the flesh. everyone has different pleasure zones. a kiss might not always lead desire for overtly sexual touches. a kiss might lead to the desire for an embrace. a kiss might lead to the impulse to bite or lick at other areas. a kiss could awaken desire to be caressed or caress the neck, the shoulder, the back, the arms etc. describe that desire, show those impulses of pleasure and affection.

of course there is the tactile. what does the love interest taste like? what do they smell like? how do they kiss? rough and greedy? slow and sensual? explorative and hesitant? expertly or clumsily? how does it feel to be kissed by them? how does it feel to kiss them?

i.e. examine who these individuals are, what their motives and feelings are within that moment, who they are together, what it looks like when these two individuals come together. a kiss is not about the mouth. it's about opening the door to vulnerability and desire in one's entire body and soul.

[medicinemane]

I don't know, I get tired of a lot of positivity

Like yes yes, the world's wonderful and I'm so strong or whatever generic thing is being said (because it's always so generalized to the point of meaningless), but you know shit is what it is, and the only way forward is with changes I manage to make... which you're not helping with at all

And as for like... my internal mood, I'm deeply isolated, sorry if hollow platitudes don't sooth the gaping maw inside me

It is what it is, and I probably get my shit together enough to do stuff like teach out of my basement like I'd like, it's just I believe that I'll be alone in a crowd like I've always been

But positivity... I just... I kinda get sick of it. There's this guy on youtube I watch who talks about economics stuff, he's recently started doing positivity and... I just fucking know his personality enough where it's like sorry mate but I'm not interested in hearing you spout Secret light kinds off drivel

...I don't know, I suppose it boils down to this

One, I can barely fucking take in positive things said directly to me, about me. Generalizations don't help even a little... I'm a mess, I'd really like someone to toss me a life preserver instead of always tossing confetti at me while I struggle to stay afloat... doesn't help

Two, the world is a terribly imperfect place, and rather than taking a mentality of "everything will work out", I think it's important to acknowledge that sometimes good people live alone, die alone, and they never got the break they needed and slowly bled out

I think it's worth knowing that if you can't step in and help yourself, then maybe no help'll come at all

...I don't know, I suppose in the end the core of what I'm saying is a lot of positivity seems like self help tier stuff and... I get tired of that, and I see so many good people struggling and... eh... either I can at least come in and say something positive custom fit to them, or I can keep my mouth shut

Just fucking let me rot. Help or let me fester on my own, you know?

I got rid of the trailer, I maybe did something like cleaning though I can't tell... at what point will my pace on trying to make things better be good enough for people, and I'll be able to stop having people tell me to fix my life... as if I hadn't thought of that already

...everyone means well, it's just tiring