Nearly every poem, at heart, is a questioning, a way of saying, "We don't have the whole story," or "We may not have been looking at this thing in the right light," or "Let's check behind this curtain to see if there's somebody else in the room."
Here's some of the notes, starting with the things multiple people brought up:
SHRIMP COCKTAIL:
banahbanah: #flashback to that one fic where Peter Parker frets about drinking shrimp cocktail because of the alcohol
generaldeliciousness: adding: what a prawn/shrimp cocktail is
#why is your character turning it down because they're under 21 #do you think prawn cocktail is a cocktail #this lives in my brain rent-free constantly #the rest of the fic was so normal #and good enough that i'll still re-read it #but bro
And then many, MANY, people wondering if this was actually authour mistake, since Peter really would do this!
POMEGRANATES:
zhajhassa: #haha where's that post that was like someone describing someone eating a pomegranate but they ate it like an apple
thornhands: #once someone wrote persephone biting into a whole Pomegranate #had to stop and stare at a wall for a minute
sungsingsanguine: I once saw someone very confidently write about a character eating slices of pomegranate.
FRUIT TREES:
zagreuses-toast: #given a very endearing glimpse into a writers blindspots by seeing them describe someone sitting under a ''pineapple tree''
salatrash: I remember something about picking watermelons... OF A FUCKING TREE
baander: #cranberry trees
DOUGH/BATTER:
maycelium: #I'm a chef so I'm really used to people not accurately describing how to cook food #But I was surprisingly flabbergasted when someone was writing making a cake and was kneading it. Which uh #Not necessary for cake. It was interesting for sure but just bizarre
livebloggingmydescentintomadness: #the one that drove me nuts was when a character set aside a batch of PASTA DOUGH 'to rise' #pasta doesn't have yeast!! #it does need to REST but it will never RISE #you do not want an airy crumb on your noodles
lovesodeepandwideandwell: #THE ONE WHERE THEY MADE COOKIES BY LADLING BATTER INTO A TRAY
Some other topics:
ANIMALS:
catenarwhal: #mandatory 'how cows produce milk' mention#i'll never recover from that one I fear
piromantic: #one time i saw someone fake their way through describing how spiders behave
pluto-lichen: horses
misskittypotter: #stardew valley faking its way through what fresh fish smell like
pa-pa-plasma: #saw someone faking their way through knowing what a seal is once #i still am fucked up over that one to this day. they just straight up did not know #& they were NOT good at guessing it either like it was clear they had never googled that animal ever #& was only just now realizing via answering questions from anons that seals are not!! what they assumed. initially
SEX:
dykevandyke: #what a prostate is #and where it is located #as in. external.
dreamyeyedrose: #I remember back in the ff.net days reading an Ichigo/Renji fic where the writer assumed the penises go inside each other #and I was like “I mean I don't know how it works for sure I don't have one but idk if that's how it works”
SOME OTHER FOOD STUFF:
thetrekkiehasthephonebox: #add another one to the list bloggers#this character is cooking a salad
shosta: #still baffled about the published work that didn't know food could freeze
sun-dari: #once i read a fic where the author didn't understand cinnamon
alto-tenure: #read something recently where the author was just. blatantly wrong about spices
dramatic-dolphin: #i saw someone try to fake their way through what ramen is once. like 14 years ago.#but i remember.#i was very confused about ramen for a few months. they were writing it so authoritatively.
the-celery-stalks-at-midnight: #i will never ever forget someone putting leftover fries in the microwave to reheat them and setting the timer for five minutes
typeghost: #this sparked a memory of a hannibal fic where the author had to fake their way through writing about gravy
draculin: #the one fanfic where the author knows about coffee only as a concept wrote a character as a coffee drinker#was very interesting#I don't remember the fandom or the plot but I was mesmerized by the coffee actions and choices
11235811235811: #there's a lot of faking their way thru congee in the svsss fandom i'll also note
fishali3n: #read one where the person clearly didnt know what tofu is
emmy-everafter: #in the aftermath of shadow and bone s2 i saw a lot of people pretending to know what stroopwafels are #babes they are more like cookies than breakfast waffles #like yes there is a waffle pattern but you're not gonna cut into a stack of them with syrup and sugar#🤣🤣🤣
NON-FOOD STUFF:
red-umbrella-811: Shoutout to Dame Agatha Christie for faking her way through what a wrench is in a very popular published work.
bluebeetle: #once saw someone have a character put an entire phone book in their pocket
nonametis: #- sex talk in languages other than english #<- or just the petnames in a different language other than English
sadisticpony: #the fanfiction i saw this week where op DIDNT KNOW HOW AUTOMATIC DOORS WORKED #and that they arent in peoples homes!!! of course. also opening the automatic door for someone is unironically very funny but its not #its not like. grabbing the door handle to let someone in. helpppp
danmeichael: #reminds me of the fic with the figure drawing class where the character started with the feet. #i love you feet first figure drawing author
meowmix1100blr: #me watching this one fic absolutely obliterate what the board of directors does
vexedhexes: #one time i read an architect character making a doorway bigger by building a bigger door #what a beautiful world. #OH. also gravity falls fic where they go 'oh piedmont is in california so its warm all year round'
leveragehunters: #characters going to a beer garden #And it's literally a garden outside the pub#It was a very cute mistake
fitofpique: #yes! #grown men do not get blind drunk off two beers #but i am possibly guilty of the hypothermia one #assuming it does not make you very horny?
dadvans-likes: #always thinking abt the soup kitchen fic #the entire setting of the fic was 'soup kitchen' #and i very quickly realized #the author did not know what a soup kitchen was #and they thought that soup kitchens only served soup #fic
msmargaretmurry: #i love fanfiction #once read a fic where the characters played 20 questions #but the author seemed to not know how to play 20 questions and was just kind of winging it........ #immaculate
shakespeareaddict: #Look I know not all of us are hockey experts #But it takes about ten seconds of research or any attention paid to the show to realize #That the Stanley cup playoffs are not in fucking September
baejax-the-great: #the funniest one i saw #was someone faking what church is like #like 1. they really didn't have to write an entire church experience for their fic #and 2. they had clearly never even watched a show where people went to church #it was bonkers weird
twosunson: #things ive seen authors faking #knowing how to unclog a drain #knowing. literally any history #knowing what ketamine looks like (apparently- oregano) #(you know who you are)
waterhorseyblues-ao3: #beltane being celebrated in winter #wales being portrayed as a completely separated land from england (i wish) #characters getting up after weeks of bedrest like that dosnt completely fuck you up
violetfairydust: #i once read a fic where the flight time from london to seattle was 3 hours
purekesseltrash: One time, in a fic set specifically in Des Moines, IA, two of the characters casually drove 20 minutes to the ocean. The memory continues to delight me. I want to know where that author thought that Iowa was.
In my household we talk about "pathways in the brain" being like deer trails in the woods -- the more the deer walk along one route, the more their hooves wear down the grass until it's just a strip of bare dirt.
But if the deer start traveling a different way, the grass grows back.
Yellowjackets 2x02 - “Edible Complex” // Sarah Covington, Wounds, Flesh, and Metaphor in Seventeenth-Century England // House of the Dragon 1x07 - “Driftmark” // Karmen MacKendrick, Word Made Skin: Figuring Language at the Surface of Flesh // Benedetta (2021) dir. Paul Verhoeven // Karmen MacKendrick, “Sharing God’s Wounds: Laceration, Communication, and Stigmata” in The Obsessions of Georges Bataille: Community and Communication // Richard Siken, “Wishbone” // Jennifer’s Body (2009) dir. Karyn Kusama // Covington, Wounds, Flesh, and Metaphor // Caravaggio, The Incredulity of Saint Thomas [detail] (c. 1601-1602)
[ID: Four photos or scans of a poem titled A Toast to the Alchemists. The pictures are cropped so that the text is almost taking up the entire image. Behind the poem one can see the text on the back of the page shine through. The poem reads:
A Toast to the Alchemists
Alchmists,
you were right, it is
possible.
We have the proof now.
There are equations.
If you could come back
for a day, if you could
conjure yourself into
this chemistry classroom,
if you could read the
textbook or watch the
professor writing the
answers on the board…
Alchemists,
you would see that you
were right, even though
you didn’t know about
alpha and beta radiation,
even though you didn’t
understand isotopes,
you knew it was possible,
that some elements can
change into other elements,
that transmutation can
occur.
Alchemists,
there is proof now that
it is possible, although
each new element, having
a brief half-life, would
keep changing into other
things.
Alchemists,
you were right, you can
make anything, anything,
uranium, plutonium, tel-
lurium, mercury, copper,
cobalt, platinum, silver,
and gold, you can make
gold, an isotope so
radioactive it would
sparkle before your eyes.
bared teeth. As in celebration. As in
carving the body out of the carcass. Not gay
as in rainbow cop car for a policed pride parade,
thin cis men washing the walls
white – not gay as in
NO FATS, NO FEMMES –
but trans as in -cendence. Queer
as in scribbling sharpie
over the shadow of the she I was never
going to be. Fag as in piercing
my ears with my lover’s Mars earrings.
Tranny as in tracing the chest’s twin lines,
the ricochet of the real name, the loving
someone else even when you don’t love
yourself – Transfag
as in T-dick. Shot & chaser. Building bodies
out of boats untethered to the banks of bend
yourself until you break so I won’t be made
uncomfortable. Transfag as in fuck your
“female erasure.” Transfag as in stomping your
boots to the beat of I am here, real, alive.
Not gay as in
gunshot, left to bleed on the concrete,
save only yourself, sneering.
But queertransfag as in
echoing in every hallway. Scratched out
of the history books. Pushed to the back of every
line. Making our own lines anyways. Writing
our books. Building hallways.
Queertransfag as in wrapping
the wound. Celebrating the scar.”
turnnoffyourmind
jbbartram-illu
baratheonpilled
theartofmadeline
origamiaround
snowghoul
kianamaiart
stormborns
dededos
