;°;

they/it queer pervert | multi fandom | ao3 fanatic | lurker | mxtx | technoblade | batfam | naruto | whatever interests me :)

[official-keyes]

He’s named Pickotup & he’d like a tuppence please

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

[the-dragon-hearted]

I raise you:

[elumish]

It's hard to have conversations about representation in fandom (and specifically the lack of female main characters) without resorting to going I personally would like to be able to find more stories about women but it is also extremely frustrating how hard it is to find stories about female characters, even in fics that they are tagged in.

If I look at the top 100 kudosed Marvel fics tagged with Natasha Romanov (the 4th most tagged Marvel character and top tagged female character), generously, one of those fics may be about her--but in reality it's probably more about Peter Parker, I just can't tell without reading it. It takes 171 fics to find one that seems to be definitively (sort of) about Natasha Romanov, and it's a Boku no Hero Academia fic with Natasha being reborn as Bakugou Katsuki. It takes another 141 fics after that to find a second fic that is actually about her, and it's a Harry Potter crossover. The next fic about her, 110 fics later, is another Harry Potter crossover.

In all, looking through the top-kudosed Marvel fics tagged with Natasha Romanov, it took 893 fics to find one that wasn't a crossover that actually centers her. Not her as an outside POV about male character, but actually focusing on her.

I have no idea how many more it would take before I would find the next one.

In so many fandoms (and it's worse in popular fandoms just due to the sheer number of fics), it is really hard to find fics that actually center female characters, even when looking at fics that those female characters are tagged in.

I want to be able to read about female characters! I want there to be enough fics about major female characters in major media that I don't have to spend half an hour scrolling through (in this case) 45 pages of fics to find one that is actually about them.

It's so frustrating.

[xtec]

"you're just fucking the hints guy for hints"

-guy who's fucking the save guy for saves

[urmumsbriskit]

Am I missing extremely important context

[xtec]

Sounds like you should've fucked the hint guy

[the-muppet-joker]

MY MIND IS A MUPPING PRISON.

[teaboot]

The number of times I have been delighted by witty banter only to find out later that I was “Flirting” is both unfortunate and disappointing.

[teaboot]

“haha so what about that guy, huh?”

Me: what about him

“Well you seemed super into him”

Me: what why

“…dude you were flirting all night”

Me:

Me: Whoms't™™

[trainerdelaney]

I found out several of my female coworkers were planning on trying to get our male coworker to ask me out because “You guys kept flirting” but I was like “We were literally just goofing around. Like we literally just told jokes to each other. Literally just stuff that friends do, the same stuff you and I do.” I was definitely 100% NOT flirting but everyone thought I was

[trainerdelaney]

“You were laughing at everything TJ did!”

“He paper clipped a banana to the ceiling, Isabelle. That’s fucking bonkers”

[spindletrees]

This might be a good time for Ms. Psych degree here to step in and let ye all know that People Are Unable To Identify Flirting. There are double-blind studies to support this, if you instruct participants to flirt or not flirt with another participant, neither the second participant nor onlookers are able to accurately tell which instruction the first participant was given. Even if you get the flirting participant to rate their attraction to the person they’re flirting with, and only count trials where people are either flirting with people they find attractive, or not flirting with people they don’t find attractive NO ONE CAN TELL WHO IS FLIRTING OR WHO ISN’T.

[gallantblade475-blog-deactivate]

I’ve heard that people actually have a *less than 50% chance* of guess whether someone is flirting or not.

[saxifraga-x-urbium]

Thank fuck this isn’t just me failing at humanity

[stammsternenstaub]

SagePub has one such study here, dated 2014. There might be more recent work, however.

[mckitterick]

[rip-quizilla]

[werewolf-transgenderism]

only 62 more frogs until we hit 8,000 species described. the moment we've all been waiting for

[werewolf-transgenderism]

there are an average of about 150 new amphibian species described per year so I remain hopeful that 2026 will be the year of 8,000 frogs

[werewolf-transgenderism]

I do love that somebody tagged tumblr's own frog scientist on this post. chop chop dr scherz, we've got 62 more frogs to discover and you're the only frog scientist any of us knows

[werewolf-transgenderism]

GUYS amphibian species of the world is still at 7,994 species of frog BUT amphibiaweb is at 8,008 species of frog, and do you know who is a co-author on the 8,000th species of frog there???? TUMBLR'S OWN FROG SCIENTIST DR SCHERZ

[markscherz]

[strong-resilient-indigenous]

yall we did it

we made it to boob frogs

[markscherz]

[ratingpostsbytheamountoffrogs]

8008/10 ‼️‼️‼️

[woodsdyke]

ok there's also something funny i'm mad about. i know he lost so it's a moot point or whatever but What was ryland grace doing in that tumblr sexyman poll. that's not a tumblr sexyman. That's Ryan Gosling

[lesbianshepard]

waaaay back when I was a cashier in retail we would talk about dumb shit while unloading the truck, and we got to the "what would you do in a zombie apocalypse" me and another worker were like yeah we would just die. End it all, we can't fight or run or shit. I refuse to put that much effort into survival.

And my manager was like no!!!! If that happened, I would drive to find you guys in my truck and we could eat stuff from my wife's garden and I would make sure everyone I know survived!! I would carry you all on my shoulders away from the zombies!!

Anyway, random shout out to that guy. You were too kind for retail management, Devin.

[lesbianshepard]

also afterwards everyone who was talking about their cool bunker fantasies were like "Damn, Devin's right, we should also be considering helping people around us." which is the only recorded instance of a retail shift making people better human beings.

[grakkie]

TIMMY

[inklinn]

The concept of Grace living on Erid for a long while

[swagvo1d]

dead end

[solradguy]

Going to the library tomorrow to find out if I'm allowed to print hypothetical boobs for the GG copybook I wanna do

[solradguy]

Libraries don't fuck around when it comes to copyright law

[okayyoureacab]

Hexagon Quilt

[rumade]

This is the second time I've seen a video of this technique and this explanation is so clear! It does use more fabric than English paper piecing (EPP) but you end up with a double sided hexagon so don't have to source fabric for the backing.

I'm doing EPP at the moment but I have a hole punch to make the papers and just use leaflets and junk mail, so it doesn't feel wasteful. I don't think it's difficult either- in the video she mentions it's not for beginners, but I don't have that much experience with hand sewing or EPP and I've been finding it pretty easy so YMMV

[lindstromm]

I saw this video yesterday and was seized with the need to try it out immediately. Lookit my cute lil' hexagon baby!!

Here is what the backside looks like. OP notes this takes more fabric than paper piecing, but that excess fabric makes it already triple-layered. Besides not needing backing fabric, I don't think you'd need batting for this quilt at all. It's already thick and soft just from folding all that fabric into a hexagon.

[lannamichaels]

Hexagon quilt tutorial video by tiktok user camelscrafts. Method:

Each hexagon begins as a 6" circle. camelscrafts does this by creating a paper template using a compass. According to the video, a 6" circle will create a hexagon that is 2.5 inches tall.

These hexagons are hand-sewn. Thread the needle.

With the fabric right side facing, find the center of the circle by folding it in half right sides together, then folding it in half again (wrong sides are facing). The top of the triangle shape is the center of the fabric circle.

Make a small stitch into the center of the fabric. The wrong side is still facing.

Unfold the circle. There will be a small stitch in the center.

Now the hexagon is created by folding the circle into itself: Take the needle to one of the edges of the fabric (it doesn't matter which one). Pull the needle through and pull the thread tight. This will fold down the fabric and create an edge of the hexagon. Crease the fold with your finger.

This fold has two corners, one at the top and one at the bottom. Put the needle into one of the corners and pull the thread taut. This will create another fold.

Continue this going around the circle until all of it is folded down, creating the hexagon. camelscrafts notes that the last corner pulled in may be a little bit "wonky" (no precise point in the corner) if the corners were not done precisely. However, that corner is pulled into the back, so is not visible from the front.

The hexagon is now formed. Sew around the folds in the middle of the circle to hold the folds in place. Tie off and cut the thread.

Attach hexagons to each other along the sides. With right sides together, whip stitch the sides together.

[serial-unaliver-deactivated2024]

HELPPPPP

[charlesoberonn]

Reminds me of Jason Kander, former Missouri Secretary of State. When he went to the VA hospital to treat his PTSD, he told the nurse that Obama told him he should run for president, and she thought he was delusional.

[charlesoberonn]

Correction: It was worse. She asked him how long he's been hearing voices.

[therapyhorrorstories]

I think I'm gonna make this my go-to story. It's not the worst I've ever heard, which is an asset because people won't believe you if you tell them the actual bad stuff those people do. And it just perfectly sums up the casual arrogance everyone working in mental health seems to have. The way they treat you as inherently Lesser for being in their care.

[therapyhorrorstories]

If they can't even handle basic, easily verified shit like "I'm a lawyer" they are never going to believe you when you tell them that you know how to manage a condition you've been dealing with for decades better than they can or will.

[homoqueerjewhobbit]

And then there's Alexander Morris, who was put in a straitjacket, called racial slurs, and denied treatment for his potentially life-threatening heart condition when he told them he was the lead singer of the band he was lead singer of.

Four Tops singer sues hospital alleging racial discrimination after he says he was placed in a ‘restraining jacket’ | CNN

The lead singer of the Motown group the Four Tops has filed a federal lawsuit against Ascension Macomb Oakland Hospital in Warren, Michigan,

[plum-soup]

There are multiple parts of that article that are Jae droppingly awful but this one really gets me:

They almost let this man die in a straight jacket simply because they were too racist. And then when they realize their "mistake", they tell him that his life is worth a 25$ supermarket gift card. Of course he's suing them for $75,000 as he should but like. Can you imagine how insulted he must've been. The 4 Tops were one of the top Motown bands of all time. You can be at the top of the music scene and still, they'll kill you because you're black. And they'll use fake claims about mental illness and "aggression" to justify it

[genderkoolaid]

& to be clear: none of this is good for anyone. actually delusional people, people who actually hear voices or see things, do not deserve to be treated like this. there is nothing about a person harmlessly believing something fantastical (or which sounds fantastical to you) that requires you to put them in a straightjacket and drug them or deny them necessary drugs. Black mentally ill people do not deserve to be tortured and murdered in a hospital for being Black and mentally ill.

this kind of system is a weapon which can be pointed at anyone. in order to prevent shit like this from happening, we also need to deconstruct how we view mentally ill people, including people who are delusional and hallucinate, and what we view as "reasonable" or "necessary" when it comes to such people.

[doberbutts]

Black people- including famous black people- have been arrested for "breaking and entering" their own homes due to a neighbor witnessing them unlocking their own house door with their own house key and calling the cops. College professors, celebrities, politicians, and everyday people such as my own father.

It's common enough that young black kids are told to keep any identifying information on them at all times just in case someone reports a black kid breaking and entering by walking into the house they've lived at since they were born. Because that has happened.

When you add mental illness and the healthcare industry into the mix, things only get worse from there. To be clear, you don't need to be black or mentally ill to be treated poorly by a doctor or nurse that's decided they know you better than you do. But it sure doesn't make things easier.

And people have died as a result- or have we already forgotten the death of Adriana Smith who went to THE HOSPITAL SHE WORKED AT AS A NURSE reporting severe headaches and was dismissed as exaggerating and imagining the severity, only to be declared brain dead upon arrival less than 24 hours later and artificially kept alive to force her dead body to carry her baby to term- which couldn't even happen and they had to remove him via C-section anyway.

These are related problems. And until we fix the root cause, they will keep happening.

[alexseanchai]

[image 1: Tumblr reply by thepolterheist: "lol I read an interview w a lawyer who was briefly in inpatient and he told a nurse he was a lawyer and she put “delusions of grandeur” on his chart"]

[image 2: a paragraph from the linked article, which reads: "The lawsuit states Morris was offered a $25 gift card to a supermarket as an apology by the hospital, but he refused the offer."]

[ao3commentoftheday]

5+1

If you have several connected ideas that don't quite work as a regular multichap story but also don't quite feel like a series, a 5+1 style of fic might work for you.

In general, the fic is six chapters long (although you can format it however you'd like if that doesn't work for you). It chronicles 5 times that one thing happened and 1 time that something else happened instead.

For example: 5 times A and B didn't kiss... and one time they did.

It's an easily recognizable structure for many and it's a handy way for writers to get to "the good bits" without agonizing over transitions etc. in between. Each chapter hits with the power of a oneshot, but you still get the build up and release of a multichapter fic.

You don't have to follow the numbers exactly. 5+1 is just the most common format.

If you want some examples, check out the nearly 70K fics tagged with 5 Things (and synonyms). If you want to dig into the history, checkout the fanlore page.