#we are most severely out here

[ashlingnarcos]

what we do now

for day one of the narcos october challenge: create a fanwork about a canon character you’ve never written about/used before.

Victory lasted them a little while, until one night in some overpriced bar near the embassy, Van Ness looked at his glass and found it was empty.

“Damn,” he said. “I was just getting a taste for that.”

“Aguardiente?” said Feistl. 

Van Ness looked at him. Under the yellow lights, and through the thick glass of several drinks, he found that his partner looked older than he expected. Worn out, like an embassy vet. When exactly he’d lost that eager Boy Scout look, that look like a golden retriever about to pounce, Van Ness couldn’t figure out.

Feistl had undone the top button of his collared shirt and loosened his tie so the dark knot of it hung below the hollow of his throat. That was another thing Van Ness noticed.

“Hey,” said Feistl. “Earth to space cadet.”

It was no use protesting that his mind had been in the present. 

“You’re the one who dragged me here,” Van Ness said. The words came out of his mouth, bypassing his brain entirely. It occurred to him that he was drunk.

“Uh, no. I said I wanted to get arepas at the street stall Trujillo recommended, you said it was too far to walk.” Feistl chuckled, finished his beer, gestured at the bartender for another. 

“This fuckin’ guy,” he added fondly to nobody in particular. “Can’t hold his aguardiente for shit.”

Van Ness heard himself saying, “You remind me of my ex-wife.”

Feistl leaned back an inch, eyebrows shooting up comically, mouth sketching a willingness to smile just in case this turned out to be a joke. “The fuck, Dan?”

“I meant Colombia,” Van Ness said. “You’re the one who dragged me here.”

Feistl slumped his weight a little to the side, onto the elbow he had rested on the bar. Van Ness didn’t think for one minute that meant his partner was relaxing; he knew better.

“You’re the one who followed me here,” said Feistl, and they’d never had this argument before, not exactly, but it felt familiar in the way it felt dangerous. He felt his mouth go dry.

Then, magically, he got saved; Feistl’s eyes flicked over to catch something happening behind Van Ness’s back, and a mischievous smile touched his lips. “Oh shit. Pay up.”

Van Ness turned. In the back corner, Peña had just gotten up, followed by a tall brunette.

What do we do now? Van Ness had asked Peña only ten minutes ago, or maybe it had been Feistl, he couldn’t remember, it was funny how he couldn’t even remember, but anyways, Peña had said nothing. Just downed his drink, stood, and made his way to the back corner where a couple beautiful women were sitting at a table all to themselves.

Van Ness had bet that he’d go for the blonde, Feistl the brunette.

As they watched, Peña started making his way through the crowd, followed by the brunette, followed by—“You pay up,” Van Ness said—the blonde too.

At the door, Peña opened the door for the two women like a gentleman, returned Van Ness and Feistl’s little waves with a cool kid’s nod, and disappeared back into legend. 

Van Ness looked at Feistl, shrugged, and swapped five-dollar bills with him. 

“Guess that’s what you do now, huh,” said Feistl.

“Guess so.”

The two of them eyed each other, Feistl taking a swig of his new beer, Van Ness having nothing to do with himself at all but sit there, feeling unaccountably cheated. He had wanted things to go back to normal, and they had, and now he didn’t want normalcy anymore.

“You want another drink?” Feistl said. 

“No,” said Van Ness. It wasn’t at all what he said, but the way he said it, that made his partner’s expression get a little tireder, a little warmer. His brown eyes were wise; Van Ness missed the early days, when he thought the new rookie was stupid. 

He almost missed that Feistl was speaking, only maybe by now it wasn’t Feistl, it was Chris. He couldn’t be sure, and he thought another aguardiente would’ve helped. It was probably Feistl.

“Dan,” Feistl said. “Don’t.”

“It’s what we do now,” Van Ness said. He felt a little lightheaded.

“What’s what we do now?”

“What we want to do.”

Chris—it had to be Chris, by now—looked at him like he’d just pieced together a fresh, cartel-sized new lead, only a really fucking weird one, ‘cause whatever it was, it seemed to entrance him and amuse him and hurt him and piss him off all at once, and also, somehow, he was smiling. A small, forgotten kind of smile, but still noticeable. To Dan, at least, who noticed all his smiles.

Slowly, after a second, Chris said,“You do know that you don’t have to work a hundred hours of unpaid overtime and catch a cadre of internationally wanted drug lords just to have the thing you want, right? Please tell me you know that.”

“Sure, I know that. Everyone knows that,” said Van Ness “But I worked a hundred hours of unpaid overtime and I caught a cadre of internationally wanted drug lords, so I damn well better get what I want.”

He had aimed for sweeping and gruff and masculine on that last part, but ended up petulant; the difference was doubt. As always. It didn’t help that Chris had stopped smiling.

Chris said, “I wouldn’t want to drag you anywhere.”

He didn’t say it mean, but Dan flushed anyway. Dark bar, hard liquor, he could’ve gotten away with it, too—could’ve figured his way out of the conversation and fled on back to his shitty little apartment for the night. But it wasn’t his shitty little apartment he wanted to fall asleep in.

“I’ll follow you,” Dan said.

And he did.

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[ my narcos fic masterlist ]

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blame it on the alcohol? no, blame it on the @axreliono.

[hurglewurm]

me: we are Not going to worsen our life while in a minor depressive episode

the brain: :/

[fuckspn]

wrote a whole long post about dean’s relationship to his queerness and then deleted it because i couldn’t put it better than: there is a word i know. but i can’t say it. i can’t think it. i’ll just keep drawing horses

[hplonesomeart]

Hey!! So turns out a video I made between a certain “well beloved but highly sensitive/emotionally reactive T.V” and an “orange haired inkling-turned-human” has managed to sweep my YouTube channel and accumulate 100k VIEWS!! THAT’S A LOT OF PEOPLE ACTUALLY?? My most widely viewed video EVER to exist in this moment in time?? AAAAA?? Not even mentioning the various comments and staggering increase in subs! It’s so much more then what I expected or even prepared for—might even be the most impactful thing to happen for me this year <3

…aside from graduating high school + the social connections I’ve been fortunate to make lol

BUT THE POINT IS I’d been closely monitoring the YouTube growth through the entirety of October. It’s make me smile like a dork, gawk in astonishment, dance frantically in my room from the energy boosts, and grow courage to stop being so selective/self-conscious with what I wish to share with the world! It’s kept my ambitions going!

I needed to find some way to celebrate the occasion and express my thanks—because I can’t NOT acknowledge this milestone jksjskp. Typically I try to avoid getting tunnel visioned focusing on the metrics/numbers. Mr. Puzzles had already demonstrated how much those things can mess with the minds of creatives. Caring too much about chasing views or placing your artistic value in attention seeking gets damaging. But at same time…it’s hard to deny the sense of pride the 100k achievement has filled me with. I understand that reaching 100k views doesn’t immediately make me any “better” or “worse” then I was before. I’m still just me! It only helps me feel seen by others—and that’s all I really needed. To hear some nice words & receive reminders that my ideas are cared about. So thank you SMG4 fandom for that, seriously thank you.

Please accept this Mr. Puzzle drawing as a way of sharing the happiness around. He’s so entertaining. Love him for simply existing. So glad we can all collectively be super attached to him (and the rest of the SMG4 cast of course). Can’t wait to see more incredible artworks from the fandom :)

Just incase anyone is confused by my vague description over which “animated video” I’m referring to here—hopefully this photo will help clarify lol. It’s this one!! Sorry about not outright stating the title at the start, I got carried away with writing!!

I’ve been in an odd place mentally when thinking about it. Wondering to myself if any of the attention is deserved considering it’s not even fully colored and could be dismissed as “low effort” content (despite taking several days making it). It’s easy to get into a trap of comparing yourself to others and questioning how much of the videos success is based on your skills, sheer algorithm luck, or only because you used popular characters and catered to a specific fandom. And then judging yourself by looking at other peoples videos. I’ve seen several artists post higher quality works then my own but it somehow gets less views. So why did mine succeed when others (who should have gotten just as much attention if not more) didn’t? Sometimes you feel like you’ve unfairly robbed them of that chance to be seen. However I’ve realized that I can’t ever expect views to be consistent—and comparing is pointless. So why worry about it or feel inadequate? I mean it’s pretty common for funny cat videos to go viral, so who am I to question the system lol. “Popular” YouTube videos can range from a passion project which took 7+ artists…to a clip of Toad singing Chandelier or a nonsensical Vine sketch. Anything can happen when it’s the internet! And just-so-happened my video was chosen. I should stay glad about that and get rid of all the overanalyzing. So that’s what I’ve chosen to do :)

[fictionadventurer]

The worst part about reading in a genre where you have low expectations (in this case, Christian historical fiction) is that when a book impresses you, you have no idea if it's actually good or if you're just overly impressed because it was a fraction of a degree better than the usual garbage.

[lulu2992]

Anyway, after months of observation and hesitation, I’ve finally started interacting with the Far Cry subreddit. We’ll see how that goes...

[deathsmallcaps]

I realize that tumblr largely attracts insular nerds but I really want to do something extroverted for New Year’s Eve. Does anyone have keywords or suggestions for sites to find affordable but fun NYE events? Or do yall just go to a busy town and find a fun spot?

Please do not offer me advice past NYE 2024 thank you

[mercless]

🗡 dozing off writing replies but im curious how others go about writing out stuff/the order you write particular parts, and if you have a different way of writing depending on if it's a reply, ask, or a drabble 🤔 in most cases I find I write out any spoken words first, then the tones or actions done while talking, and then depending on the writing purpose add trains of thought, other actions or specific actions that convey emotions. stuff I looove getting lost in writing include describing scenes, settings, environments, food or the time of day! for drabbles I usually start with these descriptive elements to get into the mood of it.

[tevos]

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[alagaisia]

Hey if you’re still enjoying and engaging with Harry Potter in any capacity you can unfollow me 😊 please and thank you

Like. I get it. I was super into it as a kid too. I did not have the social context to pick up on the antisemitism or transphobia or sexism or fatphobia or bioessentialism or racism or anything else. I also picked up on surface-level language of Fighting Back Against Evil and ascribed my own values onto what that meant and thought we were all on the same page. I remember when the original kids who grew up with the books started becoming adult fans and picking up on the (blatant!) antisemitism and everybody was still mostly willing to give JKR the benefit of the doubt on it. (“She was writing kids books!” They said. “She didn’t know she was penning a global phenomenon! She picked a common literary trend in European fairy tales (antisemitic caricature) and didn’t examine it closely. It’s a mistake anyone could make,” we said. “She would probably do things differently now. After all, she word-of-god confirmed the vaguest hints she dropped that Dumbledore might be gay,” we said.) There was actually a span of several years where biases inherent in the actual real content of the Harry Potter series were coming to light and even the people pointing them out still seemed mostly to think it was an unfortunate accident.

That time has passed. Years ago! We are long past the first months of “maybe she doesn’t realize this seemingly-feminist tweet she liked was made by a noted TERF” and then “how could she not realize that these many veiled TERF-y things she’s retweeted have implications for the many queer fans of her work” and finally “oh wow okay JKR just dropped an entire transphobic manifesto on twitter. I guess the transphobia was the point.”

Yeah, there were a few months after that where people were still processing and still working through how they felt about Harry Potter and all of its flaws with the context of the now open transphobia of the creator. I was there for that. Remember how I was one of the kids who built it up into something noble and worthwhile based on my own beliefs about what messages it was probably trying to convey? Turns out it wasn’t trying to say any of those things, and when you take the time to examine all of the terrible shit that made its way into the text whether JKR intended it to be there or not, the whole series falls apart. It’s weird to discover that there’s a room in your house that’s rotten to the core, but eventually you figure out you can’t live like that, still going in there and holding your nose and pretending it’s still the same room you thought it was when the termites were only inside of the walls and hadn’t yet started chewing their way through the furniture. Because what’s going to happen is that they are going to infest the rest of your house. If you decide you can ignore transphobia and antisemitism and everything else just because you liked the color of the wallpaper, the rest of your principles are going to crumble too. You get rid of that fucking room. You put those books on a high shelf in the back of your closet behind other outgrown clothes and interests and you move the fuck on.

JKR uses the money made from her transphobic antisemitic children’s books to actively funding hate groups and to lobby for legislation that will and has actually affected the actual lives of trans people in an entire country. We are past the point of grieving something you were wrong about in childhood. Kids are wrong about a lot of stuff. You grow up and you learn new information and you change your behaviors based on it. You have to choose. It is transphobic to pretend there is not transphobia where there is. It is transphobic to support the work of someone who is using those funds to take rights from trans people with every fucking dollar. It is hateful to continue to engage positively with a story that at its very core is rooted in hate and bigotry and prejudice. You can choose to do all of those things but you cannot claim ignorance of them and you cannot choose those things and still pretend that choosing them upholds the values we convinced ourselves that Harry Potter stood for over a decade ago as uninformed children. You cannot choose to do those things and pretend to still support your trans and queer and Jewish neighbors. I do not want you in my neighborhood. Leave.

[nobodybetterlookatme]

nah cuz I would pass away if someone asked me if I was into them 😭 but CONGRATS ON GETTING THE DATE!! I hate to say we told you so, but we definitely told you so 😌💅

Bro I literally short circuited lmaoooo like it was not cute and I almost died fr. But yeah, date secured ahskaksk y'all were right 😭 it still feels so surreal lmao I'm still vibrating about it

[ghostboyhood]

no fucking wayyy dude

[wizardnuke]

does anyone know if we have to roll that rock up the hill again tomorrow

[gurorori]

haha oh no im definitely not at all disturbed by the prevalence of leftists on all platforms who are loudly 'anti-genocide' when it comes to the palestinian cause (and a couple others at best :3c) yet the only time ukraine [ʊkrɐˈjinɐ] leaves their mouths is in critique, in stark comparison to the former or in complaint about their (american) government sending aid.

at first what i saw often was pointing out the differences in western media framing [ukraine vs palestine], and that's fair (until the words and the agenda of western journalists are used to paint, as a whole, ukrainians who have been actively going through genocide as some kind of white supremacists hogging the blanket of global attention when they kinda just want to live and have the rights to their own land, culture, names and families)

but no one is even caring to do that anymore, today bitches just invent metaphorical scenarios and people to get mad at and to throw an entire ethnos away because wahhhh i decided that you care for X but not for Y!!!.... all while doing the exact thing they are condemning. the exact absolute same and they don't even hide it but do lack the self-awareness to realise

[starscr0ss]

i actually have a hard time understanding childe's character and is mostly because of other people's takes + im like so scared of mischaracterizing him

[queenlucythevaliant]

'Yes, that old oak with which I saw eye to eye was here in this forest,' thought Prince Andrei. 'But whereabouts?' he wondered again, looking at the left side of the road and, without realizing, without recognizing it, admiring the very oak he sought. The old oak, quite transfigured, spread out a canopy of dark, sappy green, and seemed to swoon and sway in the rays of the evening sun. There was nothing to be seen now of knotted fingers and scars, of old doubts and sorrows. Through the rough, century-old bark, even where there were no twigs, leaves had sprouted, so juicy, so young that it was hard to believe that aged veteran had borne them.

'Yes, it is the same oak,' thought Prince Andrei, and all at once he was seized by an irrational, spring-like feeling of joy and renewal. All the best moments of his life of a sudden rose to his memory. Austerlitz, with that lofty sky, the reproachful look on his dead wife's face, Pierre at the ferry, that girl thrilled by the beauty of the night, and that night itself and the moon and ... everything suddenly crowded back into his mind.

'No, life is not over at thirty-one,' Prince Andrei decided all at once, finally and irrevocably. 'It is not enough for me to know what I have in me- everyone else must know it too: Pierre, and that young girl who wanted to fly away into the sky; all of them must learn to know me, in order that my life may not be lived for myself alone.

From War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy