One thing I appreciate about my cat son is that if he, who knows how it feels to be trapped in a room, so much as begins to suspect that I, his father, am trapped in a room, then he will immediately do everything in his meager power to rescue me
I have to admit that, over many years of solo dining, I've grown a soft spot for this kind of seating in restaurants. It's one of the few situations in which an unaccompanied woman can get some reading done during her meal without getting hit on.
And if you want something while seated in such a spot, you just chuck a bread roll at a passing waiter. Eventually somebody'll come along to clean it all up. Quicker than eventually, if your aim's worth anything... :)
(Of course, once you're set in these habits, that's when you run into a place where you say "Just one..." and they clear off a table for eight in the middle of the room and give it to you. [Ah, memories of Chalet Suisse...])
oh, so when SPIDER-MAN can sense a bug moving on the wall across the room, doesn’t have the fine motor control to get the right amount of toothpaste, and can feel each individual drop of sweat down his neck, it’s a “super power,” but for me it’s a “sensory processing disorder” yeah okay sounds fake doc I think you just don’t want me to stop you from committing crimes, how about THAT
i was crying on the subway after seeing infinity war and this nice-looking old lady came up to me and went “aw poor girl, what boy are you crying over? he sure doesn’t deserve a sweet girl like you” and i screamed/sobbed “It’S sPiDErMaN” and that lady just walked away from me praying for jesus
tbh @ people who write spiderman fics - peter parker has all his senses enhanced. in the comics it’s said that he’s learnt to control some of them, like he controls his strength and probably has to focus much to not hear everything 10 times louder. take advantage of it. if for you the noise in a school hallway is unbearable, imagine what peter feels - it’s like a bomb exploding by his ear. he uses the lenses in his mask to focus his sight a bit, so when he’s without it, he needs to focus to keep his eyes on one thing. when he touches someone’s hand, he probably can count their heart beats. when he kisses someone, it’s ten times a feeling when you kiss someone. writing superhuman characters is both difficult and fun, own it. don’t just say his senses are enhanced, own it, show it.
five short stories to appreciate from my archives!
l'espirit de l'escalier by catherynne m. valente - modern orpheus and eurydice retelling if orpheus succesfully bought eurydice back, but in a reaminated corpse state.
let's play dead by senaa ahmad - ahistorical anne boleyn getting murdered by henry viii only she seems to keep coming back to life.
fish (in 13 sections) by eric ozawa - a man post break-up contemplates the word fish. sometimes it's fun to read an absurd tale
the man who ended history: a documentary by ken liu - observational time travel used to reckon with japan's unit 731 and the atrocities committed there; a heartbreaking exploration of historiography through multimedia
story of your life by ted chiang - a linguist encounters aliens.
and i'll do anything you say (if you say it with your hands)
link | rated E, chapters 10/?, 34k words so far
promoting my kataang friends with benefits fic (which is much more about tender acceptance and recognition of yourself and care than FWB)! i'm here again! :)
He’s grinning. Oh, she’s certainly had dreams like this before.
“But I really… wanna help you," Aang murmurs.
“Keep talking.”
“And if your hands are bothering you…” Oh, she likes the way desire paints his face clever, paints him coy. “I could be your hands.”
Dealing with a serious nerve injury, Katara hasn't been able to use her hands for months. She can't waterbend, or write, or... do other stuff. What's a girl to do?
Or: the one where Aang is so, so down bad for his roommate and has no idea how to ask if he can help.
Katara loves him well, always has, ever since they were children. He sobbed into her neck and she held him in her bed, shaking beneath the storm. He showed her how to count on the insides of her fingers, the thirds. Sokka put his arms over their shoulders and they danced in the woods and tried to go fishing with twine and broken branches.
But Aang’s an idiot, and he thinks about marriage far more than he needs to.
“I love you,” he says of their particular friend-love. The care anoints him gold and knocks him down, dizzy with care, insane over the brush of her hand and the way she scribbles smiley faces into the margins of his notes before handing them back. He feels it all so much, so madly.
Aang gives her the words very carefully, in case his mouth warps it into the truth — that romance and friend-love aren’t two sides of the same coin, or black and white complements of one another, or a silver and a gold medal. It’s amorphous. He doesn’t know how to say it. He just wants to lie in her glow, on his side, and gaze at her forever. There isn’t really a greeting card for that sentiment. It sweeps together in his chest, waters one and the same.
They’re companions. Kindred spirits. There’s no perfect word for what he means.
And her forehead’s on his, and she does that little nose-laugh-exhale thing there also aren’t words for. Not yet, at least; look out, world, he’ll invent something once he gets around to writing poems about her.
Aang can feel her breath against his eyelashes.
Aang can feel everything, and everything washing over him, salt and the grief of the coast and the linger of jasmine blossoms and the curve of her mouth. It’s an ocean, she makes oceans out of him.