This^^^
It’s weird, I don’t feel emotionally destroyed by Infinity War? Or even, like, affected? Just a sort of, “Hm. Wonder how they’ll fix this.” Because like, clearly this is not the end. To the point that I’m having trouble understanding the upset. And like, I SOBBED over Yondu, and cry easily in movies, but this just… didn’t feel like there was any permanence. Maybe I will feel more when anything solidifies. The most I can muster right now is mild concern.
I just wanna let y’all know that you do fanfic tropes all of the time, we just don’t describe them like beginning writers do. You:
- Push your shoes off with your toes or with the tip of your shoe, most likely. Props for drama if you yank your converse or your vans or your boots off like a soldier in a scyfi drama, but otherwise, you’re “toeing your shoes off”
- Humans are much better at dissecting scents than we give ourselves credit for. If you sit there long enough, you could dissect how your friend smells. I smell like “old, beat up cars, the sour citrus he isn’t supposed to have, and something musty and natural and unique to him that clings to all of his clothes.” In order that’s old flannel, three day old hair mousse, and fish tank water. Smells like cigarettes and oils cling to your clothes, stuff like fishtanks and the food in your kitchen seeps into your belongings. Don’t feel bad about describing scents, people carry our houses with us everywhere.
- Have you ever pet someone else’s hair? That’s “carding your fingers through.” That’s it. It’s the same thing.
- Ever walked around barefoot? Its three am and you’re trying to make Dark Lunch? You’ve padded around. You signal to other people nonverbally whether its coughing or sighing that you’re there so that you don’t scare them.
- Smirking is a thing most of us do with our face. Grinning, looking cheeky, and raising our eyebrows are also all things your face does. Sorry
- You might not get this if you’re a straight girl whose never had sex, but sometimes that little strip of skin between ya shirt and ya hips? The mouth can go there. That’s an intimate place to touch and its a vulnerable place to be exposed. Overused maybe, but a valid way to show a shift in the situation.
- We all sigh!! Are some of y’all really saying that sighing isn’t a thing you do ten thousand times a week?? You don’t sigh when someone says something stupid as shit?? You don’t sigh when you gotta get up??
- SAID IS A VALID WORD
- Everything on your face casts shadows, I’m sorry you have weak eyelashes, or that somehow your brows are flat with your eyeballs
- People laugh silently! I’m sorry you’ve never laughed that hard!! People giggle! People snort! People double over and move and flail! Have you ever fucking laughed?
- For that matter how do y’all not blush and can you teach me
- I’d also like to say sorry if: your heart has never skipped a beat reading something terrible, or when you saw someone you liked even platonically, or if you’ve never been so surprised all you could do was blink, that you never looked at someone like you loved them, and that you somehow never fucking show any emotion in your voice or your posture at all
Tl;Dr: Some of y’all are dragging people for shit you don’t know how to describe and damn if you ain’t still reading things and then telling beginning writers that they’re describing impossible things and writing weirdly when y’all don’t even write shit, its obnoxious as hell. To y’all that do write and are aggressively against this post, I bet you sure as hell use EPITHETS INAPPROPRIATELY ANYWAY, DON’T YA?
^^^^
Canon Polyamory Recs
For this month’s Polyshipping Day, I thought I might rec some canons that have canon polyships. I don’t just mean strong subtext, or things that could be interpreted as poly, but actual explicit nonmonogamous relationships. I love non-canon polyships as much as the next person but I thought some folks might like to try out some canon ones!
The Magicians on SyFy
This has the best polyamory rep I’ve seen on television, period. The Magicians is a show about students at magic grad school. It started out with minor characters, showing us one student’s parents in a triad relationship with another magician. Then it brought polyamory into the foreground with a main character, Eliot, who is a king in an alternate reality where it is custom for royals to have both a husband and a wife. The show’s exploration of Eliot’s complicated emotional life is an absolute delight to watch.
The Broken Earth Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin
This is one of the best fantasy book series of all time, in my opinion. It’s an epic set in a secondary world where a brutally oppressed class of geomancers are the only buffer against a tectonically active planet hostile to life. One of these geomancers, Syenite, and her friend and mentor Alabaster, enter into a long-term V relationship with a charming pirate named Innon (who is the hinge of the V.) I love the books’ loving, tender depiction of the metamour relationship between Syenite and Alabaster, who are so important to each other, and united by their love for the same man.
The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
Rosemary, a human woman from Mars, and Sissix, a female lizard alien called an Aandrisk, end up in a committed open relationship by the end of the book. Aandrisks as a species are non-monogamous by default, and an important part of their relationship is Rosemary accepting that Sissix does not love her any less because she goes off to join Aandrisk orgies sometimes. Their romance is very sweet.
The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold
The Vorkosigan Saga is an epic space opera centered on Barrayar, a planet that was cut off from the galaxy and regressed technologically, and was recently reintegrated into the galactic fold. It begins with a dramatic romance between Aral, a Barrayaran, and Cordelia, who basically comes from Space California. In the latest installment of the series, Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen, we learn that Aral and Cordelia were secretly in a committed V relationship (with Aral as the hinge) with Oliver Jole, Aral’s secretary. I liked how this newest book explores the metamour relationship between Cordelia and Oliver.
Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand by Samuel Delany
This book is centered around an epic romance between two men from different planets and radically different backgrounds. Korga is an ex-slave who went through hell to get where he is in life, while Marq is wealthy, respectable, and surrounded by a family that loves him. They end up in a committed open relationship. There is a scene where they go to a public bathhouse together and fuck a dragon. I don’t know what else you want from a book, honestly.
The Books of the Raksura by Martha Wells
These books explore a culture of dragon-people who live in colonies much like social insects. The worldbuilding is very interesting. In this culture, polyamory is normalized, and the main character is in a committed relationship with the queen of his dragon-hive, and later on a lower-ranked man of his hive as well.
The Red Threads of Fortune by J.Y. Yang
Set in a fantastical historical China, this book is centered on Sanao Mokoya, a magician on the run from her mother’s tyrannical regime. She is in an open marriage with a monk named Thennjay, and over the course of the book she falls in love with a mysterious naga-rider, who goes only by Rider, who she isn’t sure she can trust. Mokoya and Thennjay have a difficult marriage, but for reasons that have nothing to do with Mokoya’s lover. This book and its companion novel The Black Tides of Heaven are great new releases.
Why Bisexual Men Are Still Fighting to Convince Us They Exist
‘Ultimately, bisexual men themselves will continue to be the most powerful force for changing hearts and minds. I asked each bisexual man I interviewed what he would want the world to know about his sexual orientation. Some wanted to clear up specific misconceptions but so many of them simply wanted people to acknowledge that male bisexuality is not fake.
“It’s important that bisexuality be acknowledged as real,” said Martyn, 30, adding that “there’s only so long someone can hold on to a part of themselves that seems invisible before it starts to make them doubt their own sense of self.”
“I am happy being bisexual and I’m not looking for an answer,” said Dan, 19. “I’m not trying things out, I’m not using this as a placeholder to discover my identity. This is who I am. And I love it.”’
“And Michael, 28, added that bisexual men are ‘symbolically dangerous’
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a ‘big interior threat to hetero masculinity’ because of a shared attraction to women. It’s easy for a straight guy to differentiate himself from the modern gay man, but how can he reassure himself that he is nothing like his bisexual counterpart?
The answer is obvious: He can equate male bisexuality with homosexuality.”
This article presents some very insightful ideas and questions. Well worth the read.
Why Bisexual Men Are Still Fighting to Convince Us They Exist
I absolutely love ships where one character is usually serious and distant, but when they talk to that one person, their voice turns soft and gentle and is suddenly filled with fondness that they don’t show to anyone else.
My biggest pet peeve is when people come into the salon and have literally no idea what they want done so they keep asking “Well what do you think I should do?”
A. What I think your haircut should look like and what you want your hair to look like are two very different things. Especially when you have no fucking clue what you want.
B. You have to wear your hair out of the salon. You have to wear your hair every day until you get it cut again. If I give you a haircut you hate because you couldn’t be assed to find a picture on Pinterest this is not my problem.
C. I am so fucking done with people having no idea what the hell they want to do with their hair and after I give them a style that looks nice they get mad because I couldn’t read their fucking minds AFTER I ASKED THEM 25 QUESTIONS AND THEY RESPONDED TO EVERY SINGLE QUESTION WITH “WELL WHAT DO YOU THINK?”
D. If you go into a salon with literally NO IDEA of what you want, just go home. Please.
E. When you go into a salon and tell a new stylist ‘no one has ever been able to cut my hair right’ we don’t take it as a challange. We know, right from the beginning that no matter what we do you’re going to hate it.
F. Seriously. Stop.
G. And please understand that even if I give you the exact same haircut as the celebrity picture you brought in. YOU WILL NOT MAGICALLY LOOK LIKE THAT CELEBRITY. WE WORK WITH HAIR NOT PLASTIC SURGERY.
My biggest pet peeve is when I go into a salon and tell someone exactly what I want and the stylest says no.
‘No, you won’t look good in bangs!’ (Screw you lady, people have stopped me on the street to tell me my bangs look cute).
‘I won’t cut that much hair off – you’ll regret it!’ (it grows back fast and I’ve done it before!)
Etc
Verilidaine's Scrapbook 