#maybe this is my one swing at the hornets nest

[babtest]

begging discworld fans to actually learn what copaganda is. you're being cringe

[lightningbig]

I think the slow ego death of fandom can be pin pointed directly to the first use of the term stantwt actually

[ceasarslegion]

Swinging a nailed bat at the world's largest hornets nest by saying that the online queer community desperately needs to internalize "some things are not ABOUT you" and I do mean that at EVERYBODY.

That post about how nasty gay/trans sex is great and fun and should be done more often is not fucking about you if you're somewhere on the sex repulsed and/or ace spectrums and the op is not aphobic or forcing you to get a FWB.

That post about how asexuality is cool and valid and how there should be options for queer spaces that aren't in sexualized atmospheres is not fucking about you if you're not ace and/or like to be in sexually-charged atmospheres and the op is not homophobic or a sex-negative puritan or forcing you to be celibate.

Someone saying "love is love" is not arophobic because that slogan is not about you if you're loveless. Someone posting loveless positivity is not against queer love because that post is not about you if you're alloromantic.

Look, one of my biggest hobbies is cooking and baking. Some of the shit you guys comment on posts that are so clearly not ABOUT you are up there with the shit i see on my baking memes subreddits when folks post screenshots of raw vegans giving a chicken pot pie recipe 1 star because "I substituted everything because every original ingredient is non-vegan or has gluten in it and then didn't bake it because I'm on a raw diet why does it taste bad. Clearly it's the recipe that's shit here, it can't possibly be that some things in the world may not apply to me and I should go looking for a raw vegan version of this instead."

If youre allergic to peanuts maybe that post about how peanuts are good for you is not actually about you and it's fucking weird to accuse the op of saying you deserve to die actually

[fllagellant]

After screenshotting my original 1:27 am rant just for safekeeping and returning to this line of thought, I think I would like to swing this bat at a hornets nest . And I shall call it ;

BG3 And Polyamory, AKA The Discourse From The Eyes Of The Polyamorous

Hi, I am now disclosing the polyamorous part of my queer identity to the internet. Yay! Remember, I am only one polyamorous person on this website and I am not the spokesperson. This is just my own opinion and my own feelings with how both the game and the fandom seem to be handling the inclusion of polyamorous relationships and characters.

And in my humble opinion: Yikes !

This should be no surprise, but the polyamorous rep in bg3 isn’t … really good . It’s there, sure, and maybe I’m the fool for expecting it to be good when it really is the first time I have ever really heard of a game having an actual polyamorous option. Like on purpose. But with how much bg3 was hyped up as being super inclusive and completely different from all other games in the genre, I had hoped that it would take a good approach to polyamorous people and relationships.

Suffice to say, it fell flat once I actually looked into it.

The companions listed as open for an open/poly relationship are Astarion, Shadowheart, Minthara, and Halsin . What’s wrong with that?

3/4 of these characters already feel like they lean into the conservative fear of polyamory . Three of them are the ‘ evil ‘ members of your party . While ( besides Halsin, but we’ll get to that ) the rest of the ‘ good ‘ character are all monogamous. Growing up in a conservative home, in a conservative province, discussions of the idea of polyamory always came back to the same argument. That only the strange and amoral would do it. Only people who can’t be trusted and don’t actually care about you want to be in a polygamous relationship. And sadly, that is what I see echoed in the choices of who is and isn’t polyamorous.

I romanced Wyll in my first playthru. I had always planned to romance Wyll, actually, since I first saw his design when I first learned of bg3 during its early access days. When I met Halsin next, and chose the options to flirt with him, I thought that a polyamorous relationship between my Tav, Wyll, and Halsin would be cute. I had hoped it would work. I had already seen plenty of Astarion and Halsin and Tav art and gifsets and every other piece of fan content floating around . I had hoped that maybe that bit I read about who is and isn’t open for polyamory was outdated, and I could have this relationship play out in my little playthru .

Of course, it came down to having to choose. And I shrugged it off, at first. Sure, Larian didn’t make Wyll polyamorous for whatever reason. It is the first game that has polyamorous options, and I can just continue the game but have that polyamorous relationship in my head as my canon for my character. That’s fine, that’s what I’ve done before. It can’t be different now, right?

But then, I looked online, opened Tumblr, wondering what other people would say. Not thinking that it would be a big debate about if it is or is not okay to pair certain characters in an ot3 or not.

Wyll can’t be polyamorous, because knightly tales of courting and the mere act of courting is strictly monogamous. Pairing him in an polyamorous relationship is fundamentally misunderstanding the character and you’ve missed the point of him if you do that. It’s wrong to want that, wrong to think about it. The game has polyamorous options, be happy with what you have.

And so, I felt guilty. Larian already set up this dichotomy between their good leaning characters having the normal and good monogamous relationship and the evil leaning characters having the strange and perverse polyamorous relationship. But then, to see that the mere act of pairing your own character with two characters because you think it’s cute, is now being looked down upon so heavily and being seen as a “ fundamental misunderstanding of the characters “. And to have those ideas an opinions suddenly become the most agreed and accepted stance on the topic? How was I supposed to feel anything other than shame. Like I had been enjoying the game wrong, in a backward way.

If Wyll was polyamorous, you do know his approach to love wouldn’t change, right? Same with Gale. Same with Karlach. Same with Lae’zel. None of them would suddenly have to have completely different approaches to love and how they want to show it and how they want to go about it. Wyll can still be replicating the courting, the dancing, the slow burn that he always heard about in bards tales and he could still be polyamorous. There’s this idea that polyamorous love is only able to be expressed in very specific, very narrow ways. That miss the point of what love is.

People don’t act like this with the polyamorous companions, I’ve noticed. You aren’t suddenly bad and misunderstanding the story of Astarion or Shadowheart or Minthara or Halsin for having a strict two person relationship with them, and not expanding into the idea of those characters taking on another partner at some point. If you have Astarion in a strict monogamous relationship, no one says anything. But saying that you have a Tav who’s dating both Karlach and Gale? People are going to talk about you. They’re going to make vague posts. They’re going to talk about how it is Impossible for those characters to Ever be comfortable in a polyamorous relationship and how it is Wrong to protray them as happy in one.

I didn’t think people forgot that the stereotype of monogamy = good and polyamory = bad is still alive and well, but it seems that when it comes to the funny dungeons and dragons video game, it’s okay to prop that stereotype up and get mad when that is possibly challenged.

Now, what about Halsin? He’s a strictly good companion. He cannot fall under the pervious argument, so is he an exception?

No. It’s worse.

Halsin being polyamorous stems in racism. Wood Elves are all described as being polyamorous, and that they do not understand jealousy. And that they do not ever settle with any of their partners. And that the relationships they have are seen as “ doomed to fail “ . This is a stereotype. Commonly associated with indigenous people. That we cannot hold a ‘ proper ‘ relationship and that we always sleep around . We didn’t fit the white model of what a (white) family and a (white) relationship should look like, so the stereotypes and misconceptions started. And, unsurprisingly, ended up as another bit of dnd racism and bioessentialism.

Halsin doesn’t uphold the pervious argument at all, but he shows another part of the discussion that I don’ t think anyone really thought of. The racism stereotypes didn’t vanish when Larian made BG3, they’re all still there. You still have good races and evil races. You still have all the dnd bioessentialism that everyone was so keen to say was gone or just pretended it wasn’t there anymore.

And Halsin is an example of those stereotypes that people are still feeding. So much content with him in it narrows him down to ‘ Big Elf that Fucks and is Horny ‘ or ‘ Big Elf that can be Sexualized no matter What he Does ‘ and it is because Larian didn’t remove the stereotypes in the first place , and fandom doesn’t care enough to take a step back for a second to realize they’re playing into them.

Am I saying you shouldn’t have an ingame polycule with the characters available? No. If it’s cute, and you like it , and it makes sense with the story you’re making for your character, and literally just because you can, go for it! But for the love of god, can we be a bit more careful with how we treat the concept of polyamorous relationships and how we talk about them? Polyamory isn’t just a fandom thing with your ot3s, it’s a real life thing. And we can see how you treat people just having fun with their characters. You understand that, once you get that torn up over the act of making three characters hold hands, it becomes a little bit hard to forget that that is the attitude you hold towards the concept of polyamory when it doesn’t fit the molds you’ve subscribed to.

[iam93percentstardust]

i hate having to defend booktok as much as the next person on this site. and to be fair, i think that there's some valid criticism of that tiktok going around about the woman who hates long paragraphs. but, like. guys. it's not just that she hates long paragraphs. it's that she hates paragraphs that take up the entire page.

and maybe i'm swinging a bat at a hornet's nest here, but as someone who does read, and reads a lot, and reads, in particular, a lot of older works... i also will put down a book with singular paragraphs that take up the entire page.

because when i see one single paragraph that goes on for one full page (or, god forbid, multiple pages), i really only see a couple of possibilities.

possibility 1: the author is just someone who's very long-winded and can take a full page (or multiple pages) to cover one singular topic that would, in a less verbose author, be covered in a much shorter paragraph (i.e. talking for a full page about someone's dress as opposed to a few short sentences). and while that's a stylistic choice and the author is more than welcome to do that, i think it's also in a reader's prerogative to go "someone that wordy is not for me."

possibility 2: the author is not someone who's very long-winded and instead just kept adding more and more topics into one single paragraph when, instead, they should have been broken up into multiple paragraphs, each one covering a separate topic. now, maybe, this is another stylistic choice, but more likely, in my mind, one paragraph covering many topics is the result of poor editing. and, to be honest, i don't really want to read a poorly edited book because, odds are, overly long paragraphs are only the tip of the iceberg.

and given the sheer number of posts that go around this site on a monthly basis complaining about fic writers who post everything as a big wall of text instead of breaking it up into manageable paragraphs--i think you all know perfectly well that the majority of people don't want to read overly long paragraphs.

you just want to be mean to booktok.

[lostinthesasuke]

probably swinging a bat at a hornets nest with this one but here's my sakura hot take. i am a sakura enjoyer but i haven't seen anyone enjoy her for the reasons that i do.

sakura is sopping wet and pathetic and the best way to enjoy her character is to look at kishimotos misogyny in the text as her own internalized misogyny.

her whole thing is being ashamed of coming from a civilian family and feeling like she needs to measure up to naruto and sasuke but she never ever will.

sakura gets in her own way with her obsession with sasuke... she thinks his validation will prove her worth. it's the best way she knows to attain greatness- by trying to use her femininity. but even when she tries to utilize her femininity to manipulate others, she fails. she represses her true personality and inner sakura because that inner self isn't girly or dainty... but she fails at that too.

watching her try and fail to prove herself over and over and get progressively more unhinged (kage summit) can actually be compelling but no one is willing to look at the sakura that was actually given to us in canon and instead either paints her as a complete monster or changes everything about her to make her a girlboss self insert.

kishimoto wrote her the way she is intentionally. she is shallow and vapid and vain. she is selfish. she was not written to be likable. to the point where kishimoto even expressed surprise that she has fans! but no one wants to dig into what that means!!! isn't it actually kind of tragic in an ironic way?

even the things shes supposed to be good at, she gets undermined by the narrative at every turn. he kneecaps her and his misogyny informs everything about her.

shes not a real person, shes a product of his mind. but what he presented us with is a character so stunted and desperate that it swirls around into a glimpse into kishimotos fractured psyche and a lens with which to view every female character in naruto. ok maybe fractured psyche is a bit intense but hating women is a disease xx

[marley-manson]

For the character ask meme: Casca (as I'm typing this I realize that I might be baiting you to swing at a hornets nest but..... well, up to you lol), and Herbert West!

lmao I love trying to answer these kinds of memes for the challenging characters, so ty! 💖

Casca

Something I like: I was gonna say how badass she is, and I do love that when we get to see it shine, but the narrative undermines it so often by forcing her into the damsel in distress role. So instead I'm saying how pettily violent she can be lol. Like when she punches Guts in his stab wound after he wakes up in chapter 13, or when she full on attacks him, fighting to kill, and stabs him when he returns, or throws a knife at him in the cave. It doesn't generally feel framed as like, cutesy tsundere violence because she's a girl and couldn't really hurt Guts either, it feels like she's a dangerous warrior on a hair trigger because she never learned to deal with her emotions effectively, because she's just as fucked up as everyone else in this story. And I'm into that.

Maybe I'm reading a liiiittle more into it than intended lol, but w/e, I'll take it. And I'd love to see that trait of hers crop up again at some point, as futile as that wish seems right now.

Something I dislike: Frankly the actual hardest part of answering this question is trying to narrow it down to one thing lol. But eliminating all the many, many things I can blame more on the narrative's treatment of her than on Casca as a character watsonianly, then I guess I'd have to say the way she's motivated by love for Griffith, then Guts, and nothing else at all, according to her own stupid suicide speech.

Granted there are ways I can argue this is deeper and more interesting than it's likely intended to be - basically falling for men who save her as an ingrained trauma response - but even if that is intentional, it still sucks that that's the token woman's response to trauma. Griffith gets building an empire, Guts gets killing monsters, Casca gets falling in love with assholes. Boo.

(There's also the way she shows a "soft" (and more traditionally feminine 🙄) side when she starts falling for Guts... tough call which aspect of her stupid romantic plotline sucks more lol.)

Herbert West

Something I like: One of my favourite things in fiction is a person with two obsessions: something fucked up, and someone they're in gay love with. Herbert West's two obsessions are resurrecting corpses and Dan, and that is a slam dunk of a character. Especially how ridiculously obsessed he is with resurrecting corpses. Will it get him thrown out of med school? Resurrected. Will they immediately try to kill him? Resurrected. Did he just resurrect it and then have to kill it again to save his own life? Resurrected. Glorious. I love a man who can't make a good decision to save his life.

Something I dislike: Now this is hard. Honestly even his misogyny is entertaining lmao. I don't think there's a single thing he did in the first two movies that did not contribute to the entertainment value I got from watching them.

So, I haven't seen it, but I'm still gonna say the fact that Dan isn't in the third movie and it sounds like he's no longer super obsessed with him.

Send me a character and I’ll tell you something I like about them, as well as something I dislike about them

[staysluttymyfriends97]

Sisters best friend , but love of my life part 2 ( Jake “Hangman” Seresin X Reader)

What you need to know: It is not very nice of Phoenix to jump to conclusions that Jake has no idea how Y/N feels about him. It is also not very nice what Jake feels he has to do to set things right. 

AN: I have some bad news... Part two might break your heart a little but do no worry I will put it back together  Also I am writing in the guy POV for the first time Im a little nerves about that. But go with me because I am so in love with how this turned out. 

Part one and part three my sweets 

There will be 3 more parts to this so just hold  on any hearts I have broken will be fixed ( that is a warning haha) 

As soon as I get to Phoenix I let her have it. “What on earth do you think you are doing?” I try to keep my voice down so Y/N doesn’t hear me.

 I want to check over my shoulder to make sure she is in the barn. I know that if I look at her she’ll be worried about how angry my face looks. 

“What did you tell her?” I let my hands rest on my hips.

“I just told her you carry her letters with you.” She was acting way too calm and I didn't like it. Phoenix was used to being in the face of danger, so I knew right now she was channeling that reserve. I raise my eyebrow at her. I know there is more.

She sighs, “I also told her to ask you about why.” 

I swear I could see red. Years I have spent keeping Y/N just an arms length away was about to go out the  window. I want to see the fact that Phoenix thinks she is being a good friend. She thinks she is helping me out by pushing myself and Y/N together. What she doesn’t know is that she is swinging a bat at a hornets nest. I didn’t think I could regret my drunken night of telling Phoenix about Y/N anymore then I already did, but here we are.  I start to pace in front of her. I know Y/N will not jump to the conclusion that what Nat is trying to say is that I love her. Y/N is the type of person who will not jump to a happy ending. She will think of the reasonable first. To her, me wanting her the same way she wants me is not just unreasonable, it is unfathomable. I hate that I know that. I hate that I feel safe in the fact she will think nothing of it. But now, she will want to come to me for an answer anyway and I will have to come up with a lie to throw her off. I can’t tell her what letters I keep with me and I surely can’t tell her why. That would be my dead give away and Then she would know. I turn my body fully away from Phoenix, and look out over the farm.  Maybe an answer will hit me in the face if I just keep looking. I hear Nat shuffle her feet and then she spoke. 

“That girl loves you, it is rude to have her think her love it just one sided.” I whip my head around to look her in the face. 

Her face softens, and she almost looks sad. I want to tell her calmly why it has to be this way, but I can’t grasp the calm part of me right now.  

“Trust me it is much easier being the person who thinks it is one sided, than being the one who knows it's not.” My voice bites out as I face her. “Stop acting like a detective who just put the pieces of the puzzle together. You think I didn’t see the hope in her eyes when she turned 18? Or again when she turned 20? You don’t think I knew she was thinking ‘this will be it. He might  finally do something’? It kills me!” Digging my boot in the ground does nothing to help release some of my frustration. 

“Then do something about it, Hangman!” She pokes at my chest. 

“I fucking can’t.” I seethe. She is poking a bear, she just doesn’t know it yet. 

“Yes you can! What the hell is stopping you? Just tell her and go from there.” She throws her hands up in the air. 

“This isn’t fear. This isn’t a scared man who doesn’t know how to commit to one person.  This is my life being narrated by a legal document. A document signed 100 years ago saying the Seversin family cannot marry someone from the Y/L/N  family. They did it so the farm would never split. If someone from my family marries someone from hers they forfeit their right to run the farm one day. Don’t you understand? This place is her life. This farm is her Top Gun.”

It finally sinks in and it stops her from pushing farther. She doesn’t move and the downcast look on her face tells me she understands the gravity of what she has done.

Drunk me seemed to have left this part out when I told her about Y/n. I don’t know how. That stupid rule has been on my brain since I was 24. Now I have my friend in front of me who is upset with herself. 

From the way I act around them I don’t really blame her. A cocky man who doesn’t want to commit to one person, I can see how she got there. It is just in this small town of Texas, my home town, around that girl, that I am not that man. I know Phoenix was doing what she thought was best but you know what they say about good intentions: The road to hell is paved with them. 

I slide my hands in my back pockets as I turn to walk back, nodding my head in the barn's direction telling Phoenix to follow. I was done talking about it. Now I have to figure out what I was going to do about it. Phoenix falls into step with me. When we get to the barn I let her walk in before me and I allow the door to shut behind us. The wind picks up making it shut much harder than I wanted it too. The sound alone makes Y/N head swing towards me. I know she is reading my face and picking up on the anger. She has always been good at reading me. I could breathe the wrong way and she would be onto me in a second. Her eyebrows raise asking me the question. I just shake my head in response. 

“So, next on the tour I could show y’all the calving barn. It’s where all the baby cows are.” Kate said as she started to bounce on her feet again. She was always so happy. She is the most carefree of us all and it truly showed. She tows Bob by the arm to get him where he needed to go. Poor man looked like his eyes were going to pop out of his head. He just went with it with a small wince. Roster and I both were laughing at the interaction. Y/N was busy looking down at her watch and this gave me a moment to finally observe her. Her hat sat snugly on her head, she has her favorite striped shirt on, the blue one. Her cut off jeans allow me to see those strong legs of hers, tan from the summer sun down to her boot clad feet, with one tapping rhythmically on the barn floor. She does that when she gets focused, my heart squeezes at how well I know her. 

She let out a sigh, I quickly looked away from her. “Well this is where I depart on the welcome home tour. I should go check fences.” She gives a wave then makes her way to her horse's stall. 

I didn’t even have time to think before I spoke. “I will go with you.” Everyone turned to look at me. I just shrug my shoulders at them. “I’ve been in this barn my whole life. Plus this is me paying back Y/N for waking up early every morning to come help me.” I give Y/N a smile before I make my way to the tack room to gather her saddle.

 As I walk through the door I hear Bob ask what her horse’s name is. I laugh in anticipation of the answer and she shoots me a look over her shoulder. That knowing look just makes my love for her grow. 

“His name is Radish.” Y/N says with a smile. That could only be because she loves the question people ask next. 

“You named your horse, Radish?” Roster looks puzzled but everyone else got the joke. Man she loves it when she can get someone to call him horseradish.

“Yes I did, you see the reddish tint he has that is why. Also,  because Jake said I wouldn’t do it.” She cuts her eyes at me as she laughs. I make my way to the tack room to gather all the things she needs. When I step out I see she has gotten Radish out so the others could pet him before we saddle him up. 

“So this is your horse?” I don’t look at Bob as he asks the question. I move to step around him and throw the blanket on Radish’s back, having already set the saddle down at my feet. 

Me and Y/N answer at the same time. “He is ours.” She is standing on the other side of the horse so I look down at her over his back. I love how her face lights up when she says that. This horse is the one thing that is just mine and hers. Growing up we were the only ones who took care of him. So many nights of just me and her in this barn brushing him down and talking about how to train him. It was just me and her. How it should be. 

“He was Jake’s but I kind of took him. So we have share custody of him. He won’t let Jake ride him if I am around.” 

“We learned that the hard way.” 

“Don’t say “we”. I knew, but you just didn’t want to listen to me.” She rolls her eyes at me. She isn’t wrong but I just like saying we. I shake the thought away and finish tightening the saddle down. 

“Fine, you can be right this time.” I give Radish a slap on the butt as I move to walk around to the side the others are on. “He is all set. I’ll walk y’all out and go grab Ranger.” I give Y/N’s shoulder a squeeze as I walk past her, with the others to the end of the barn.

“Be good to them Kate. No tricking the boys into getting on a bull.” She just gives me a toothy smile. One of her favorite things is talking people into bull riding. I have seen her do it too many times to not bring it up now. She just rolls her eyes as she takes hold of Bob's arm again and starts dragging him along. I want to be upset that she seems to have some kind of crush on him. Between him or Roster, I will say I am happy with Bob. I stand in the doorway of the barn and just watch them walk away. I know as soon as I go back in the barn Y/N is going to start asking questions. As much as I want to lie to her and just brush it off, I know with one look I will be done. Any lie I could come up with would be gone. I turn on my heels and take a deep breath. Here goes nothing. 

I walk back in to see she has already put the tack on Ranger and has the leads for both horses in hand as she walks to the far end of the barn that leads out to  the field. 

“You didn’t have to do that, I was coming back.” She turns her head slightly to give me a look then rolls her eyes as she continues to walk to the exit. We have always done this. She dresses my horse while I dress hers. It started when she was younger and didn’t know how. As she learned she would just get Ranger, doing the same as I did. 

When I get to her, I reach to take the lead from her hands but she moves them away. Oh great we are doing this now. Just for fun I try one more time to take them from her. She just moves them farther away. She then takes both leads and ties them to a post by the doors. She faces me and no words need to be spoken as she places her hand on her hip and tilts her head to the side. 

“What was Phoenix going on about?��� She asks like what Phoenix said was a joke and I was about to set her straight. What she doesn’t know is that my answer will blow her life up and tear the relationship we have apart.  

“Well, I don't know I wasn’t there.” I am trying just to brush it off. 

“Jake, please work with me here.” She takes a step towards me. Panic rushes in and I can’t think. 

“Then ask a question I can answer.” I sigh. “What letters do you carry with you?” 

“Please don’t ask me that.” 

“Why?” 

Damn her stubbornness. 

“Because I want to tell you the truth.”

“Then tell me the truth!” She exclaims. 

“I can’t.” 

“I’m not getting what the big deal is.” She’s getting frustrated with me, her mouth is doing that twitch. 

“If I tell you, you’ll understand.” 

She crosses her arms, waiting. 

I run my hand down my face in defeat. “The letter in my cockpit is one of you describing the farm with a picture of a rooster crowing at the sun.”

“And the one in your jump suit?” 

“It is the one when you were talking about your future. And your future husband. You drew a picture of two people holding hands.” 

“You have 100s of letters, why those?”

“Y/N Please stop.”

“Tell me why Jake!” She demands. 

“What good does knowing do?” I shrug. 

“Please? I will beg.” She warns. 

“You will never have to beg for anything from me. It has always been yours.” I say softly. 

Please don’t make me tell you the truth. Please just let me lie to you.

She shakes her head. “Jake.”

“The one in the cockpit is where I go home too. The one in my jumpsuit is who I go home to.”

I have been keeping that to myself for so long, it feels like a weight has been lifted off my chest. It's only when I look up at her the weight finds me again. I can almost feel her brain spinning. Her face keeps shifting. She has this joy that takes over then confusion. She then starts pacing. It's the cutest thing I have ever seen. Every few seconds she turns to me to speak but says nothing, then goes back to her pacing. I could let her do this forever. 

“So now what?” she finally turns to me. It is my turn to be confused.

“What do you mean now what?” 

“We feel the same jake. So now what do we do?” Her brow wrinkles. 

“We do nothing.” 

“What the fuck, that can’t be your answer.” 

“That is my answer.” I say firmly

“What? No. No that can’t be it. You can’t feel that way for me and want to do nothing.” She snaps. 

“Don’t you ever think I want to do nothing about it.” I warn. 

“Well here we are, Jake, you wanted to do nothing.” Her hands fall to her sides with her frustration. 

“This isn’t what I want! We can’t do anything. Why do you think I haven't told you all this time?” I plead. 

“Tell me this isn’t about the rule?” Her arms cross over her chest, and she pins me with a glare. 

“It's not a rule, it's a contract! Signed by our families saying they will never marry and if they do, they forfeit their right to the farm. You want this place right?” 

“How long have you known?” She demands. 

“Since you were 18.” I mutter. 

I didn’t see it coming but I felt it. The slap to my face was hard. I could feel the blood rushing to my face as I met her eyes again. She was full of anger now. Truth be told, I was okay with it. If she was mad at me, even if she hated me, maybe she wouldn’t want to be with me. She would keep this place. I wouldn’t have to spend my life being the one she loves and the one thing she regrets. She spins on her heels, takes the reins and rides off with Radish before I can say another word. 

Tag list: Here you are my beautiful people who wanted to be on the tag list! If you want to be added just let your girl know! Also you dont know the joy it brings me that people want to be on this tag list. 

@love2write2626​

@luckyladycreator2

@bxnnywatts

@rhirhikingston

@eternalsams

@dreamlandcreations

@topgunruinedme

@xxshea-barnesxx

@dempy

@shanimallina87

@lgg5989

@emily-b

@k-k0129

[dangerously-human]

Still fighting for my life with tuition benefit stuff, in case anyone was wondering. I would like to submit my request for this semester, but we're still duking it out over last semester because of a problem from over a year ago and I don't want to swing at two hornet nests at once, so. Took every single dollar out of my savings account to pay tuition for this semester and am just praying I can get reimbursed before another rent check needs to go out (and Lord willing, my car won't need massive repairs at inspection this year). I'm doing an actual research study for my mixed methods class this semester, and the professor keeps saying she's fine with giving us an incomplete so we have another year to wrap it up in order to actually get something meaningful out of it. I finally talked to her last night to explain that I cannot afford to take another incomplete and ask how I could do a legitimate study on such a condensed timeline. Thankfully she was understanding and came up with an idea I think will work, since it involves basically just doing the quantitative portion under an existing protocol at work and a qualitative portion that doesn't count as human subjects research, so I don't have to deal with an IRB pissing contest between institutions, nor the debatable ethics of collecting data without compensating people for their time, given that it's unfunded research (and I really can't afford to pay people out of pocket when I'm already paying through the nose to be in this class in the first place). I'm still reworking my research plan, but I do feel a lot better about this in comparison to my plan as of last week, which would have required either submitting to both IRBs (and my work IRB is notorious for having different standards than most, and they/the data lawyers that often end up getting involved move slowly in this kind of situation) or submitting twice to my university IRB, once per phase.

Anyway, dealing with all of this today had me looking at what I really have left to do before I graduate. I'm halfway through the program now, though it feels like I've done way more. After I'm done with this class, which meets my advanced methods requirement (although round 2 of statistics probably did too), I have to eventually go back and take the foundations of the program course that was a scheduling conflict my first semester and somehow hasn't been offered since; another research apprenticeship (I'll probably write another manuscript, ideally one that's already been in progress for a bit at work - if I can get a loan, maybe I can do that this summer with my brief report I'm first authoring); plus two electives, which I was hoping to concentrate on measure design but would also happily do more advanced statistics courses if I'm allowed to take them through the school of psychology (I've tapped out the school of ed on that score). I guess I should ask if I'm allowed to say my job counts as an internship, which from the course catalog it looks like it should, but idk. Theoretically that puts me graduating... fall '25? Maybe? I could go so much faster if it weren't for the financial aspect. I do have to meet with an advisor at some point, but I still don't have one at the moment (again), which really seems like a problem for future me to figure out. But future me before May, because I think I'm still recorded as supposed to graduate this semester, even though it's been clear from the beginning that I was not a full-time student. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

They really do make this grad school thing as complicated as possible, don't they?

[drabbles-mc]

OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGKNG TELL ME IM THE FIRST PERSON TO DROP AN ASK FOR THE FANDOM GAME FOR NARCOS MEXICO, PLS LET IT BE SO bc you stuck to OG narcos for the other ask with the exception of Calderoni which, fair. Like I am a Calderoni apologist through and through but I would also totally throw him off a roof. It’s complicated. But anyway, since you kept it OG specific I feeeeeellll like you must be begging for an Nmx specific ask. Am I wrong??? If not, I am here to deliver this ask.

Kay, my beautiful, wonderful mamadas enthusiast. You're never wrong. And I can never say no to you. 😌

The first character I first fell in love with: Okay so we all know who I ended up having severe brainrot over as the series went on 😂 I am not immune to the meerkat man. HOWEVER!!! I will say that the first character that I started to like right off the rip was Rafa. And also Don Neto, too, but Rafa is way prettier 😂 I just loved his chaotic energy idkidk

The character I never expected to love as much as I do now: The way that Victor blew into s3 like a hurricane and immediately threw me for a 180. I feel like at first I was just curious about his character and what the whole deal there was, but by the end of the season I was weeping. The tears I've wept. I love him.

The character everyone else loves that I don’t: Okay so I said my piece about Calderoni in the last Narcos ask. And I don't wanna repeat answers, so I shall reach into my hat and pull out another unpopular opinion. Because there is nothing I love more than swinging bats at hornets' nests lmao. I feel like I should preface this with saying, I do NOT hate him. I don't. I just, I don't really get/feel the hype around Ramon Arellano. Like I can look at him and see that he's pretty, and I enjoy his scenes well enough, but he has not bewitched me. Idk if he ever will lmao

The character I love that everyone else hates: I don't think??? I have one?? I feel like the closest I get to this is being a Walt Girlie but I don't think anyone actually hates him. He is just not the preferred entree on the NMX menu lmao.

The character I used to love but don’t any longer: Okay so coming into the series, I was already rooting for Felix because I am in love with Diego Luna lmao. Unfortunately, however, I realized that no amount of loving Diego Luna was ever going to make me love Miguel. Literallyyyyy who cheats on Maria???? Dumbass. 😂

The character I would totally smooch: God. Most of the cast??? What do you want from me?? 😂 Nah but fr I think Mayo could fix me. I'd let him try, at least. 😌

The character I’d want to be like:  Solid tie between Dina and Andrea. I love them both. I can't choose one.

The character I’d slap: A long fucking list if ever there was one, Kay. 😂 Am I allowed to put Calderoni here? In a different category?? Is that allowed? 😂 Fuck it we ball.

A pairing that I love: Miguel and jail. 😌 Sksksk no but for an actual pairing, there is just something that I really love about the whole Claudio/Dina dynamic that I just love, for as short-lived and tragic as it was. I love them. I want someone else to write fic about them so I can read it sksksk

A pairing that I despise: Ooooo this is interesting. I'm not...I'm not sure if there is one? I mean obviously allowing Miguel to be near any woman is criminal. Maria deserved so much better and so did his second wife that I don't remember the name of even though we literally just watched the fucking episodes 😂 But that has to do more with Miguel than the actual pairing hahaha. I don't think I have a pairing that I hate off the principle of it. Maybe I need to be more of a hater or something sksksk

Thank you for this!! tqm 💕

Send me a fandom!

[muninnhuginn]

*swinging a bat at the hornet’s nest* detco

ahaha... um

my favorite female character

haibara. she has the best overall arc hands-on (suicide -> living in constant fear -> wanting to live again surrounded by the new people she's met), though bourbon arc onwards she's relegated in role a lot. and her science knowledge gets massively nerfed in favour of letting conan explain stuff which is sure. a choice. (yes, I'm still mad about that time she somehow didn't know basic light refraction despite being a genius in biochem. I know they're different branches of science but the idea she wouldn't know the basics you learn in school is so ??? to me)

my favorite male character

uhhhhhh maybe akai or amuro when they're being written well (so that means exclude ztt/wps). akai gets in because competence in clash of red and black followed by the trolling era that is okiya subaru. amuro because his whole deal is that you can be clever and also stupid at the same time and let anger cloud your judgement. and his whole deal with akai. to quote that post about di feisheng and li lianhua, "his mortal enemy who he dreams of killing in battle, and on whom he has what can only be described as a homoerotic fixation"

my favorite episode (if its a tv show)

304, aka takasato bomb special. we get takasato progress, we get creepy conan in the elevator, we get genuine suspense, we get satou having an arc about moving on from her dead wif-- matsuda. also some stuff about baseball ig.

my favorite cast member

takayama minami (conan's va). she does the whole voice switch deal so well. also, she's the only one I can remember the name of. I mean what.

my favorite ship

takasato

a character I’d die defending

haro. goro. watson. hanzawa <- pets-only here (shhh)

a character I just can’t sympathize with

conan/shinichi later on in the series. I can definitely sympathise with him as of desperate revival, but when you get to rum arc and conan is pretending to akai he's not shinichi despite akai basically saying he'd exchange vital info if he admitted it I'm just there like. pls. he already knows. why are you being so stubborn here. (also the whole deal with shinran could've been so good if it went more into how ran 'waiting' for shinichi when conan is right there and continually tricking her is kinda messed up. actually, yk, this is an instance where the term 'gaslighting' is actually accurate to the situation. so many other characters know his identity at this point and yet he thinks ran knowing will be what brings the black org on his head? I wouldn't mind him thinking so irrationally if the narrative didn't seem to *agree* with him. why is this all framed romantically rather than the psychological horror that it is.)

a character I grew to love

um. h-hanzawa? hanzawa just wants a lil murder okay 🥺

my anti otp

you know what I'm gonna say here. yumi/shuukichi. also eri/kogorou. I'd like the latter a lot more if it weren't obvious they were going to get back together despite being awful for each other. if it were an arc about them learning to be properly friends or how to get on with each other or actually fixing their issues with each other? maybe then. but it's not. they're going to get back together by the end of the series without actually fixing what was broken. rip.

[atjsgf]

... that Xavier apologist part is new. Explain?

I was gonna accuse you of trying to get me killed on the guillotine fetishist website, but then I remembered I put that in my bio fully willingly knowing what site I was on, so, yeah, this one's on me.

Someday if I feel like swinging a bat at a hornet's nest I will write a whole essay about this, but the basics are:

When people say "Magneto was right" what they actually mean is "My politics, which I have projected onto Magneto, are right."

Likewise, when they say "Xavier is a liberal (derogatory)" what they mean is "the politics I have projected onto Xavier, which are the politics I associate with my IRL enemies, are liberal (derogatory)."

Both statements have little to nothing to do with the actual politics displayed by either man in canon.

Magneto (at his best) operates on the assumption that the mutant-liberated utopia is just around the corner. Xavier operates on the assumption that the world we actually have is the world we're going to have for the foreseeable future, and that it's in everyone's best interest to try to improve that world. There's value in idealism, but there's value in realism, too.

"He gave Kurt a watch to make him look human!" Yeah and that watch is the one thing keeping Kurt from getting hate-crimed on the daily so what about it

Recognizing the reality that mutants with visible mutations are often subjected to violence and giving those mutants the ability to ward off said violence =/= endorsing that violence

"But remember how Mystique said she doesn't hide who she is cause she shouldn't have to!" Good for her! This line is then followed by her son staring longingly at her because the filmmakers were allergic to the comics that co-producer Kevin Feige kept trying to sneak onto set like contraband, so maybe we can zoom out and take all of this in context, as a story with characters who have differing political opinions inside the fictional world they live in, instead of a political manifesto for the real world with real world stakes.

Just generally Xavier's politics seem more attached to the reality in which he lives than Magneto's, whose politics seem largely driven by emotion and trauma. It's understandable; that doesn't make him correct.

This all being said: I actually like Magneto as a character more than I like Xavier lmao.

This is an aside but I guess it's kind of related, so I'll throw it here: Dark Phoenix actually briefly introduced the most interesting philosophical and moral quandary in the entire XMCU via Mystique and Xavier's conflict over Xavier using the X-Men in part to garner good PR for mutantkind. Then she dies and they just forget about it lol

Stan cherik

[problemnyatic]

Ugh. I'm certain y'all've noticed, but I've been swinging bats at hornets nests online more and more lately and it's extremely because I'm unhappy with my life right now. Vent under the cut!!! woooo

I'm frustrated and feel trapped in a dearth of agency between The World and The Difficulties and the way my life has not set me up for success in any kind of way save for my small but golden group of friends and partners.

I'm constantly fighting an uphill battle to have my medications in order and every time one falls off or falters it makes keeping myself from fumbling the others that much more precarious. While i'm struggling to keep the utter foundation of my capacity to function held tohether, I need to find some way to string together enough practice with my hobbies that they can turn into marketable skills- an endeavor that absolutely kills my passion for said hobbies.

My sleep schedule is a nightmare and without external structure (read: school or a job) keeping me beholden to one, I'll never be able to keep it together because the one actual nucleation point in my life is my friends, who all have different sleep schedules and live in various time zones. And my desperation to constantly have someone around means I'm up as late as my up-late-est friend is, and then some so I have Me Time to be autistic about nothing/The Questionable in peace.

And even the one thing I do actually do, play video games all day, is frought, because i've gotten into too many at once and now I'm overwhelmed by being pulled in too many directions at the same time. It sounds like such a frivolous complaint among everything else, but it means the only fucking staple in my life- the escape from the looming stress of it all- is also fucking stressful and keeps me antsy.

to my darling girlfriend i live with who I know is reading this, please just don't read the next pragraph. its agonizing about things that there's nothing to be gained from fretting about, that you will fret so much about if reminded (we've talked about these things before, they just cannot be meaningfully changed). I love you so much and i kiss you

.

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I'm cataclysmically imbalanced right now, and the circumstances of where I live only compound it. I moved a year and a half ago, and I still have barely been outside, let alone connected with anyone new here. The pandemic combined with living in a suburb without a license mean I'm profoundly isolated here, so I cling to the digital world to feel a sense of connection. It's not good for me. These days I spend most of my time in a windowless room for most all of my day, and sleep through the day anyways.

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hiii darling welcome back

I need a serious restructuring of my life, and there's nowhere good to start. my adhd and autism have me trapped between a nigh inability to deliberately form habits, and a pathalogical contempt for manufactured rules and structures. I can't live my life by an arbitrary design, there needs to be weight behind it, not just "I said so," even and especially if I'm the bitch saying so.

Maybe I need an actual perscribed exercise routine. Maybe I need a steady supply of smokeable weed (edibles just do not fucking cut it for the nature of my needs). Maybe I need local friends, despite being well over capacity for relationships I'm keeping track of. It feels like I have a laundry list of things I need to get around to, all of which will help me actually improve my life, and the list itself feels unapproachable until my life improves. I'm just glancing off of everything I need to be doing in a circle forever.

So I'm frustrated. I feel impotent and useless and imeffective and adrift and frustrated at how much fucking effort it's taking to go absolutely fucking nowhere.

So I swing bats at hornet nests. Because it makes something happen. Something that I can see. It lets me watch myself have an effect on the world in some small, petty, ultimately meaningless way, but in a way I can fucking see, it's tangible. And much to my own fucking chagrin, that has utterly zero correlation to how healthy it is. Much like the rest of my habits, I guess.

I'm so fucking upset at the state of my life. I really hope my endless stabs at untangling this gordian knot of unstarters fucking get me somewhere soon. It feels like i'm struggling in quicksand.

[fairymint]

[[What’s something you find weird on here?]]

tumblr wide: haughtiness borne from defensiveness. lotta people make brand new posts while swinging at the hornet's nest an entire football field away. why you arguing with imaginary people? in the present tense? bitching about past experiences is one thing, putting words in mouths is another.

live action rpers: speaking entirely in GIFs (i find it overstimulating and limiting/generic, so it's nothing personal.)

select motherfuckers in rp, blockworthy: starting IMs and asks ooc while angry. like thinking that it's even remotely gonna be a good idea or effective to accuse and SCREAM and use CAPS EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!! i'm always chilling when this happens (i rarely upset people so, it catches me even more off guard.) idk if they fucking expect me to crumble and apologize or whatever, but the whole purposeful intimidation factor really doesn't cut it. for me in particular because I'm bold and don't take shit, and also it's....outdated. Very glaring when they're around my age; That bullshit might have worked in the 90s, but it's not so socially acceptable nowadays; you're still typing like we did when we were kids, really? You can't just yell at your peers the way you would about your shitty parents and other abusive adults. making people mad isn't actually effective, either. if someone screamed in my face IRL I'd probably punch them. or lecture them, or call the cops depending on the situation. akin to the tumblr-wide thing; actions have consequences?? you don't have to be an angel when you're mad but yelling at someone is a pretty fuckin stupid idea. hate anons come off like this on a more lowkey level, just replace anger with scholarly 'disappointment'. Granted, these are people who definitely couldn't take it if they were yelled at back, because that's what they're 'asking for.' I'd be willing to hash shit out with a close friend even if it wasn't fun, but not a spiteful hypocrite. it's the thin skin that makes them yell in the first place, indignantly.

me personally: how much i can fucking write on here ooc/meta wise and not in threads lmfao. how opinionated i can be while Felix-muse might act shy/civil, comparatively. Maybe it's a mood thing. maybe it's a target audience thing.

[motherfuckerunleashed]

A couple months ago my therapist casually said that maybe I don’t fit the diagnostic criteria for BPD anymore, which would make sense because I’m not longer in a volatile environment surrounded by volatile people

Until the second I’m faced with something [I perceive to be] uncontrollable in which boy howdy do I have the energy to fly so far off the handle

If you know me irl no you DON’T

Happy New Year, welcome 2024, I found a mass in my breast last night and ever since, my sense of reality is kinda spotty

I love my partner, my fiancé, my soulmate and of COURSE I told him right away — I gotta call the doc in the morning (10 minutes til they open as I write this). This is also one of those things where I kinda wanna just call my mom, but I also super don’t. Given the catastrophic decline and death of her own mother from breast cancer and subsequent estrangement from the rest of her family, I can’t imagine this won’t trigger an unresolved issue or two from that period of her life

Sure, it’s not my responsibility to manage other people’s trauma, but also if there’s a slim chance that hornet’s nest isn’t empty I think it would be unwise to take a swing at it

I don’t think it’s cancer. I don’t think it’s a fucked up lymph node. I don’t think it’s anything. Thinking it’s one thing or another just begs for self-doubt. I am the picture of Radical Acceptance — there’s a train a-comin and it doesn’t care about my feelings. Good or bad, I will receive it

Maybe it sounds like I’m playing it pretty cool, but this is more the eye of the storm. I feel absurdist. Of course a bad thing happens to me, bad things just happen to me, and nothing fucking matters.

I’m only 30. Nothing bad is supposed to happen to my tits for a long while yet. Am I gonna have to change my bio?

FUCK

[illgiveyoumygavichal]

Okay, I originally wrote a really kind and polite reply, saved it to my drafts to give myself time to think and then realized you didn't give me the same level of respect. So, fuck it. You're an ageless blog, but I'm going to attempt to not presume your age in this reply.

One: I never once said I was horny for the character, you simply presumed that I was because I was in defense of the fandom instead of you. In most cases, presuming someone's sexuality is seen as extremely rude and I've decided to take it personally. I'm offended, and I normally stay out of fandom discourse to the best of my abilities---which I admit are flawed.

But that brings us to two: your entire text is littered with aggression, which I don't think I justly earned. I wasn't attacking you. I wasn't even aggressive in my original reply. I was just stating facts: You can't police a fandom; You don't get to tell people how to enjoy entertainment.

Which leads to point number three: The mere fact that you intentionally tagged your original post to include the whole fandom and led with, which I am quoting verbatim, this: "I feel like swinging a bat at a hornets nest..." (First line in the original post.) This means that you chose to receive comments regarding the topic, which means you don't get to individually tag and attack me for sharing my opinion on your tagged post. We can discuss it, yes, but that doesn't give you grounds to call me an asshole or a horndog just because I said something you didn't agree with.

Now, on to the subject of the ace-spectrum part of all this.

First, you're infantilizing your 'own people' by, and I quote again, "...say[ing] the quiet part out loud." (First line in the original post.) You're implying that sex-repulsed aces are incapable of blacklisting keywords like 'smut' and so the whole fandom must conform to your ideology.

Secondly, they aren't your 'own people.' They are on the ace-spectrum, WE are on the same ace-spectrum. Dividing us and our identify is a radical ideation meant to dismantle the legitimacy of the Ace identity that a lot of aphobes use to keep us separate and in disarray, so that we're too busy fighting amongst ourselves instead of uniting and being allies to each other.

As for the character in question: I'm sorry you think Alastor is your only sex-repulsed rep, but if I remember correctly I do not believe he is the only one. Just the most recent and popular one, because he is a tumblr sexyman. He has been since the pilot. And personally, I think he's a shit representation of the ace-spectrum because of his stereotypical approach to things such as the implication that he doesn't understand what Rosie meant by an 'ace-in-the-hole' and that he simply avoids the subject of sex in any way possible. Additionally, I don't think it's respectful to imply all ace-identifying folk are psychotic serial killers especially when we're so often told that our asexuality is 'all in our heads' and 'we just haven't found the right person yet.' Not saying him being stereotypically ace is a bad thing entirely, I'm just not going to go and use him as a reference for good ace-spec rep whenever I'm discussing the subject to anyone outside of our community.

So, to sum all of this up in the fair and classic words of tumblr and ao3: don't like, don't read. And maybe go outside and take a break from the internet for a bit, it'll help. Then go and update your blacklist settings, you disrespectful and selfish fuck :)

I feel like swinging a bat at a hornets nest so I'll say the quiet part out loud. A lot of y'all are bein aphobic as hell when it comes to Alastor. Alastor is seen to act repulsed multiple times in the show when other characters have suggested sexual acts with him and between that and his being confirmed ace, the fact that Alastors tag is still full of smutty fics just shows that you don't respect the character or folks on the ace spectrum at all. Yes, some ace folks aren't sex repulsed but Alastor clearly isn't one of those folks and y'all doing gymnastics to try to justify your constant objectification of our only confirmed ace character says a lot about y'all and how little y'all respect us.

Y'all are doing the exact thing to Alastor that so many of us on the ace spectrum fear from those around us every single day. You don't care about the character at all, you only care about how you wish he would fuck you and there's literally a whole show of other characters you can do that with that isn't the only confirmed ace character.