[Image ID: The Destiel confession meme edited so that Dean answers 'JK Rowling posted upskirt photos of a woman on Twitter' to Cas 'I love you'. /End ID]
No one doing this should be allowed to call themselves a feminist.
The wealthy author escalated a social media spat that resulted in posting a photo from a 2023 event at the Institute of Economic Affairs in
Let's not beat around the bush: Children's author JK Rowling sexually harassed someone. In some jurisdictions, this would count as sexual abuse. JK Rowling has committed a sex crime against a woman and fell back on the old rape apologist standby of "she was asking for it".
3 minutes of the kittens ignoring my suggestions that they leave the crate! Apparently it just isn't time yet, which is fiiiiine. We'll just WAIT to see them stomping around the foster room IF WE MUST. (We must.) (Also, there are some awesome crate zoomies happening at the end of this video.)
a lot of people are very angry with me over this, but I'd just like you to sit down and imagine a banana. maybe a green one so it's extra firm. if you need it to be harder, you can toss it in the freezer.
and that brown end? the hard bit? pencil sharpener. or sharpened with a blade. are you following me? now, attach six of those to a harpy.
yeah. I think you're seeing the vision. you can apologize to me any time you're ready
I hope this comes across as positive/complimentary: I'm reminded of the art teacher who is quoted somewhere on tumblr as saying approximately
I do not like this style. I will never like this style. ... My biggest criticism is that I merely dislike this [art project]. Make me hate it. Make me furious over how much fun you're having with this thing I hate.
You don't need that teacher's advice, though. You're already having so much fun that tumblr is furious.
i have attempted the impossible — making banana Sharp — and i have good news and bad news
As preamble: i am one of the proud 27% who voted “good” on the first poll (didn’t see the second in time to vote). And, in fact, I found the imagery of “claws like sharpened bananas” so provocative i just had to give sharpening a banana a go (plus i remembered i threw some ripe bananas in the freezer like five months ago and thought hey, might as well! bananas, i’m sorry i failed to use you in smoothies as intended; i hope you find peace knowing you were donated to science instead. Rest In Peels.)
For my first attempt, I decided to take the easiest though least faithful-to-the-vision route first: sharpening the banana stem.
I was delighted to discover that a banana stem does fit into a pencil sharpener, so i got grinding.
And grinding.
And grinding.
Things were looking promising at first, but i rotated that thing in the sharpener for over three minutes and after a certain point, it just stopped getting sharper. I guess it became too narrow for the sharpener to like, reach?
(Pictured: the moment my wife asked me what the fuck i was doing to that banana)
But luckily my wife appeared around this time and, after expressing extreme bemusement, she acquiesced to applying her whittling skills to the task. I bestowed upon her a second frozen banana and she got to work.
What a champ.
And…it actually worked!! That bad boy was SHARP!
Like, not “draw blood easily” sharp. But yeah, if claws looking like this ^ were to shoot towards me, i’d be at least mildly afraid. That’s not nothin’ — right? right?
(I’m so good at photoshop)
But at this point i had to admit to myself the thing i’d known all along. Sharpening solely the stem wasn’t actually @pangur-and-grim’s vision.
So i tried, i really tried to sharpen the entire outer part of the banana with a knife sharpener + knife! Maybe it’s because the frozen bananas had thawed too much at this point but. it didn’t go…all that great
Then it was time for my final attempt.
I peeled one of those half-thawed nanners and shaped its soft body (which was the consistency of melty ice cream) with a combination of the knife sharpener and my bare fingers into what i hoped would be a fine point — once it re-froze.
One of them i “sharpened” the tip of; the other i tried to kinda sharpen the side of? By making a very thin ridge all along it. Because if they’re going to be claws they shouldn’t just poke people; they need to slice
Anyway that was an hour ago so i just checked on them and…
tragically, they are not sharp.
BUT i flattened them a little thinner to see if that helps, and now i’ll be patient for once in my life and wait to check on them till morning. Maybe being fully frozen will help
So yeah! The good news is you CAN sharpen a banana stem and that’s gotta count for something. The bad news is that sharpening the actual body of the banana has proven much more challenging.
if i never reblog with an update, it’ll mean I failed, no sharp peeled bananas to present. If i do update….
if you like my stuff and would like to have an artwork from me to you personally personalized according to your wishes, check out my commission info:
https://teeceratops.carrd.com
Yesterday, @lordmaddie and me had an in-depth discussion about The Blorbos. This ...incident was part of the more harmless topics. The rest shall never see the light of day :3
It's 2.6k words long and slightly suggestive. The Marksman and Andreine are just being themselves unfortunately. Jespar is there too. Unfortunately.
Jespar had grown fond of their meet-ups over the past weeks. The Marksman, Andreine and him sat at their usual table at the Nomad – a table they always found unoccupied or hastily abandoned when they entered at this point – sharing stories and opinions and watching the other patrons.
Admittedly, Jespar felt a bit selfish. The other two weren’t exactly people he usually mingled with, but they had both independently proven extremely useful during his contracts. And, more importantly, especially during their meet-ups: They were extremely entertaining when combined. It started with their similarity. Both tall, broad, quiet and dark. Both archers, both unsettlingly stealthy for their size. Both refreshingly, albeit at times worryingly unbothered by societal expectations and customs.
He had met Andreine when pulling him out of some shrubbery after a bandit attack. Apparently he had been washed ashore after a shipwreck, more dead than alive and running a fever. That and hitting his head explained his insistence on coming from a place Jespar had never heard of and the panic when Jespar had calmly explained to him that said country did not exist. Andreine had dropped the subject when his senses returned, but remained secretive about where he actually came from.
His profession was less of a mystery, his scars were very prominent and Jespar had seem him fight. Or rather, kill. Quickly, efficiently, without remorse, or any feelings, really. It was just something you did, like getting dressed or drinking a beer. Jespar reminded himself that Andreine at least didn’t kill for pleasure. Which was an extremely low bar for picking his company, but he was extremely useful during his missions and also rather docile and reasonable with weapons sheathed.
The Marksman didn’t talk about his past either. They had met at the bounty board in Riverville. Jespar had assisted with the language barrier, and the Marksman had stayed around. He was obviously Kiléan and had grown up very sheltered. Not the well-meaning kind, mind you. More the “we’ll alienate you from the world so you’re easier to control and have nowhere to go” kind, Jespar assumed. The one time he had made an offhanded remark about cooking – something about invisible worms making you sick – Andreine had gone on an excessive rant about the correct preparation of food. Jespar hadn’t said anything, mainly because it was so unusual to hear Andreine say that many words at once. And it had been entertaining enough that Jespar had made it his mission to find other topics that made Andreine monologue. So far he hadn’t been successful. Unlike the Marksman, who had gotten the stars and the night sky explained to him in great detail, interwoven with beliefs that should’ve made it possible for Jespar to finally pinpoint where exactly Andreine was from. His research in the library hadn’t gotten him any results for some reason. Some seafaring people apparently, but there were plenty of those.
The dislike for swimming and boats set the Marksman apart from Andreine, but their training had obviously been similar. The former was equally scary when it came to ending lives. Maybe even more so, with his …stillness when using his bow. He had let Jespar try to draw it once, which had made him feel rather inadequate and solidified his stance of not antagonizing the man. Unlike certain others, the Marksman seemed capable of remorse, though. He had the air of someone who regretted their past deeds and tried to be better. Jespar wasn’t convinced that hanging out with Andreine (and the Marksman’s rumored connection to the Rhalâta) was beneficial on his quest for redemption, and Jespar himself didn’t consider himself a beacon of morality either, but it was none of his business. A better man probably would’ve tried to help instead of having those two interact for his amusement, but that ship had sailed. In the end, they were all grown adults, capable of choosing their company.
Right now Jespar wondered why he chose the company of someone who hated magic and someone who was oblivious to his own.
“So you mean to tell me you can just turn invisible without using magic?”
“It’s not turning invisible,” the Marksman argued while peeling an orange.
“Right,” Andreine agreed. “It’s something everyone can learn. You just step where others don’t look, if that makes sense. Like… putting on the darkness. Like a coat. It doesn’t work when someone knows where to look though.”
The Marksman nodded. “Yes, it’s not magic at all. Andreine can do something similar, and he doesn’t use magic either.”
Yeah sure. Of course he didn’t. “But you both focus on not being seen. Like a mage focusing their magicka on an eventuality where nobody can see them.”
The Marksman snorted. “That sounds ridiculous.”
“Where I’m from mages don’t travel to alternate universes,” Andreine added.
“That’s not what they do.” Jespar threw his hands in the air. “When, let’s say, a fire mage lights a candle, they summon the flame from an Eventuality where the candle is burning.”
Andreine folded his arms. “When a fire mage lights a candle, they can fuck themselves.”
His disdain for mages, especially fire mages probably had something to do with the huge burn scars on his face and right arm, but Jespar doubted that this was the right moment to ask about his tragic past.
The Marksman chuckled, Jespar saw himself (and logic along with him) outnumbered. Well, he had one last try.
“Okay, listen,” Jespar started again. “When you tried to kill Andreine” – cause of course that was how the two had first met – “he said he felt scared. Right?” He looked to Andreine for affirmation.
“Yes.” His arms were still folded.
“See? Psionics. You may use it unconsciously, but you use it to scare people.”
The Marksman frowned.
Andreine frowned harder. “You mean everyone I ever fought can use psionics?”
Now Jespar frowned, too. “Eh – I guess not? What are the odds?”
“See? No psionics”, Andreine said smugly. “Just normal fear.”
The Marksman looked at him. “You mean you’re always scared?”
“Not always. But someone trying to kill you is scary. Unless you wanna die. But even then, I think.”
Jespar pursed his lips. He hadn’t expected discussions of vulnerability. “You look more scary than scared when you fight.”
Andreine shrugged. “I work very hard on that.”
“Have you tried to stop?” the Marksman asked so earnestly that Jespar had to stifle a chuckle.
“Sure. Doesn’t work. You can only get used to it.”
“I actually had a tutor once who talked about something similar,” Jespar threw in.
“A tooter?” the Marksman asked. He had finished peeling his orange and put a slice in his mouth.
“A teacher.” Right. Sublime thing, not a common experience. “He said feelings are like scars.”
Andreine nodded. “If you try to cut them out, you only end up with bigger scars.”
“That’s not-”
"The Marksman nodded too. “You have to ignore them.”
“No!” Jespar shook his head and took a sip of beer for moral support. “You have to accept they’re there! And you have to take care of the big ones. You have to feel them.”
“Scar care is so annoying, though,” Andreine murmured into his tankard.
“But necessary,” Jespar concluded. “And feelings are the same.”
“I knew someone who said you have to kill your feelings,” Andreine mused.
“That’s not-”
“Everyone knew it was bullshit. He got his head hacked off.”
“Ah. Okay.” Jespar suppressed a sigh. There was probably a reason why sublime tutors didn’t teach everyone. The Marksman nodded a bit too enthusiastically at Andreine’s words.
In retrospect Jespar wondered why his tutor had chosen that metaphor. Had Jespar scraped his knee shortly before the lesson?
He took another sip of beer.
The Marksman looked deep in thought for a moment, then he turned to Andreine. “I have a question.”
“About the head thing? Well, it didn’t actually get hacked off all the way, the guy who did it was bleeding out and the angle wasn’t good-”
“Not about that.”
“Oh?”
“…do you wanna fuck?”
Jespar gasped, inhaled some of his beer, violently coughed into it and temporarily blinded himself with the foam that flew into his face. He set down his tankard, some of the beer spilled on the table as he hastily wiped his eyes. He had to stop whatever hell would inevitably break loose.
The room came back into focus.
Andreine hadn’t made any considerable moves to murder the Marksman. In fact, he looked rather pensive, chin resting on his knuckes and all.
“In general or right now?”
“Right now. Me.”
Jespar made a strangled sound he hadn’t meant to make.
Andreine met the Marksman’s expectant gaze. “Why?”
This wasn’t actually happening. He had probably passed out from choking on his beer and was hallucinating.
Now the Marksman looked pensive for a moment. “I am taking care of my feelings,” he announced. “I’m feeling them. Right now I’m feeling horny.”
Jespar wished he had choked to death on his beer. Or had he? Was this the afterlife and this …performance the punishment for his sins?
“That makes sense,” Andreine had the nerve to agree. With a completely straight face. “But why me? Don’t you usually ask people you’re …drawn to?”
You actually don’t ask anyone that, Jespar thought, still unable to make any sound as the scene unfolded in front of him.
The Marksman nodded. “Yes. That’s why I asked you.”
Andreine scoffed. “That makes no sense. I’m not drawn to people like that, so people aren’t drawn to me.”
Jespar found his voice again. “That’s… not how any of that works,” he managed. And was ignored.
“You never feel drawn to anyone?”
“No.”
“But why?”
Andreine shrugged. “Probably willpower. You gotta stay focused. Most people are too easily distracted. I can’t afford that in my field.”
“It doesn’t work like tha-”
“So, is that a no?”
“Dunno.” Another shrug. “Why not ask Jespar? He’s like that too.”
“Like what?” Jespar asked, before he realized he would rather not hear the answer.
“Horny.”
“Ah. Right.”
Why did he have to agree so casually? At least it couldn’t get more humiliating than this.
The Marksman sighed wistfully. “I might, but he’s so scrawny.”
Scrawny. His accent made him struggle with the pronunciation, which somehow made it sound even more pitiful. Jespar had been called many things before. Well-built was a frequent one, actually. Handsome. Maybe even lean once or twice. But scrawny? It wasn’t his fault that compared to those two, most people looked scrawny.
They both regarded him like people picking out the best piece of meat at the market.
“I mean, he is kinda hot,” the Marksman offered. “But I’d have to hold back.” The suggestive grin was not appreciated. “It’s no fun when you have to worry about breaking them. You’re big and sturdy so I asked you.”
Andreine snorted. “Ah, so you’re one of those. I’ve known scrawny people who were pretty …durable though.” Then he paused and regarded the Marksman for far longer than necessary. There was no way he was actually thinking about it. He just pretended to consider the offer just to politely decline.
“Fine.”
Jespar’s face fell, the Marksman’s lighted up.
“I believe you won’t try to kill me. And you smell nice. So why not.”
The next lesson after talking about feelings would be about having standards. Not that Jespar was too keen on a next lesson at all.
“Good.” The Marksman nodded before hastily eating the rest of his orange. He turned to Jespar in the middle of it. “You have a room, right? Can we have the key?”
Jespar almost admired his brashness. Almost. He was too preoccupied with the unwanted images that flooded his mind. “Absolutely not. I intend to sleep there tonight.”
“It’s three in the afternoon, we’ll be gone before you go to bed.”
“I think he means the …stickiness,” Andreine chipped in.
“Ah. Hehe.”
“I can get us a room, the owner is scared of me,” Andreine offered. “And did you know you can sneak into the Bathhouse. We can go there after.”
“Or before.”
Andreine grinned. “Or before.”
Jespar let out an admittedly undignified groan and put his head on the table when they had finally left. What the actual fuck had just happened? Jespar wasn’t opposed to casual encounters, quite the contrary, but that? Jespar had seen more tact and class in the Silver Cloud.
“I hope those brutes didn’t bother you too much, mysir.”
Oh yeah great you bastard, swoop in to rescue me after the danger is gone. How fucking heroi-
Jespar raised his head to give the guy a piece of his mind and was met with an apologetic smile that, frankly, stopped him from saying anything for a moment.
The stranger put a new tankard in front of him and sat down on the other side of his table with his own. “I would’ve come earlier, but what can I say – I’m scrawny.” He grinned.
Not scrawny. Lean, Jespar decided. Definitely handsome, too. Maybe well-build, but that required further investigation. And by the Prophet’s ass, he suddenly felt very investigative.
“So you were eavesdropping?”
The man raised his hands in defense. He had dimples. An open, friendly face, green-brownish eyes and long blond hair. The scar on his left, clean-shaven cheek only seemed to add to his charm. Jespar had always hoped that his own scar had a similar effect on people.
“My apologies mysir, but you have a very pleasant voice. And I was a bit worried what those two would do to a handsome Sublime. Gods, what’s wrong with men these days? It’s so hard to find a decent one.”
Oh damn, he was laying it on thick. Maybe it was the stark contrast to the past minutes, but Jespar had the urge to fall on his knees to thank the unfortunately dead gods for sending a handsome, and most importantly, normal, reasonable stranger who was definitely interested in him his way. He decided to postpone dropping to his knees until later, though. Others would be more appreciative of the gesture than some dead gods after all.
“It was quite a predicament. But with a bit of luck those two are breaking each other’s spines as we speak. Though I can’t say I don’t admire how quickly they settled things. They didn’t waste any time.”
The stranger laughed. “Broken spines would serve them right. But I have to disagree.” He leaned forward and looked Jespar straight in the eyes. “I find the art of seduction adds to the overall experience, don’t you think?”
The lowered voice, the carefully chosen words – that guy knew what he was doing. And he was good at it. Jespar felt bad for the people who claimed to never be drawn to another person. “I’ve always been a supporter of the arts,” he said. And felt stupid immediately after. What kind of response was that?
When the stranger smiled and dragged his hand through his hair in a casual and definitely purposeful gesture, Jespar felt inclined to say even stupider things. Things that he had judged the Marksman for just minutes earlier. It could be so easy.
“A supporter, huh? I haven’t met many cultivated people around here.”
The art gallery right around the corner painted a different picture, but Jespar was only too willing to play along. He leaned forward and lowered his voice too. “I can show you how cultivated I am,” he heard himself say. Well, it was definitely not his brain doing the thinking anymore.
The stranger chuckled. “That wasn’t smooth at all, mysir. But if I remember correctly you do have a room where we could become …better acquainted?”
Jespar returned a grin. “That was pretty blunt too, mysir.”
“I can be as blunt or as subtle as you want me to be.” He winked.
Jespar pulled out his keys. “My name is Jespar, by the way.”
The stranger nodded. “My pleasure. I’m Jaheel.”
****
Notes:
sorry
no, it does not make any sense that Jaheel is there. But Jespar can have a little treat. Unfortunately sometimes your little treat is rat poison 😌
yousharknotpass
tangentwithtanner
baratheonpilled
snowghoul
theartofmadeline
dailybridgerton
