Side Blog @wordspissmeoff - Tumblr Blog

as i slowly try to get over my arachnophobia i must confess i always thought it was silly when people told me "don't worry, they're more scared of you than you are of them!" like okay first of all i'm not even sure if thats true, most house spiders seem like they're kinda minding their own business while i am demonstrably freaking out. second of all if it IS true then it doesnt even change how scared i am. like great now we're both scared. i'm scared, the spiders scared, everythings fucked. lets just burn the house down hand in unlovable hand (and hand and hand and hand and hand and hand and hand and hand.)

signaveriss

Actually more helpful to arachnophobia is the fact that spiders hate the feel of human skin. They think you're really really gross

scipionyx

^This. Like the tags said it is veeeery hard to get a spider on your hand they just hate touching you so much. Despite the fact that I'm not even a little bit scared or grossed out by bugs I still have to let spiders outside by the paper-and-cup method because trying to get one on your skin is just impossible.

gleepgleepswonderland

no seriously i’ve SEEN them freak out and go “eEEWWWW I TOUCHED IITTT” and they shake off their feet like cats it’s so funny 😭

specialagentartemis

my petty gripe about anachronism in historical/fantasy/spec-fic worlds is attraction language.

We’ve all heard the “should you use modern queer labels or not” argument but honestly even when people go “true, they wouldn’t use the labels ‘aromantic’ or ‘asexual,’” so often the characters describe their experiences as “I never felt romantic attraction” or “I don’t feel attracted to anyone” in ways that makes me go. You are stilllllll thinking about this in an extraordinarily modern online way. That 19th century steampunk detective man will NOT be angsting about having never felt romantic attraction, he would be angsting about being unable to feel moved by the beauty or charm of a woman, or something. And I do think that “attractiveness” language is different from the identity-level idea of experiencing attraction—Sherlock Holmes does not talk about not experiencing attraction, but when Watson says “What a very attractive woman!” Holmes responds “Is she? I did not observe.” (And then Watson calls him an inhuman automaton and calculating-machine and Holmes calls Watson’s judgement biased). Never swayed by the attractiveness of a man or woman, never desirous of marriage, never charmed by the delights of love, all of these feel like some of the variety of ways that someone in this milieu might describe an ace- or aro-spectrum identity more than “never felt attraction” does. Mostly because, like the terms for aromantic and asexual themselves, nailing down an exclusively attraction-based definition of a-spec identities is a relatively new and extremely post-AVEN thing. And yet in fiction everybody knows to articulate their experience as feeling sexual/romantic attraction. And I always want to go nooo how would THIS character think about it?? Not how you think this character SHOULD think about it, how would THIS person in THIS context articulate their feelings?

huffylemon

i-am-a-fish

I don't think dust needs to exist personally

i-am-a-fish

I really love this website and the people on it a lot

tarragonthedragon

idk i just feel like "it is more acceptable and in fact encouraged to mock anything enjoyed primarily by women" and "being enjoyed primarily by women does not make thing feminist and righteous" are thoughts that can and should coexist

xekstrin

Something to keep in mind…. building muscle is so hard people compete to see who can do it best. If you’re a woman worried about “getting bulky”, i promise you that you cannot achieve that physique by accident. Now go lift weights to increase your bone density & protect yourself from osteoporosis and improve your insulin resistence and eat a fiber + protein dense meal with some carbs to refuel and fat for satiety + energy 🫵

xekstrin

trans women this goes double for you especially the part about eating 🫵 you are not immune to your bones becoming tapioca in your old age pick up the weights and the fork sister we’re all gonna build our new bodies if i have anything to say about it

shamebats

The (European) sun is a deadly laser, stay safe everyone

unfuckablebogtroll

☝️🤓 it’s because the further you move toward the earth’s poles, the lower the angle of the sun is at the hottest parts of the day, meaning the radiation hits your whole body, causing it to feel 10-20 degrees warmer than the thermometer reading will tell you. People from tropical climes, aka close to the equator, are used to the sun’s radiation hitting a much smaller target- their head and shoulders.

Also the further you move toward the poles the more pronounced the difference between the length of day and night is. Worst part of a far-north (or south) heatwave is it doesn’t get dark long enough for meaningful cooling.

It’s not the heat. It very literally is the sun.

motherfucker-unlimited

Germans completely outdid the english language by calling tv a farseer. They got their orcish shamans to name that shit

da-riya

homunculus-argument

Coming back to the subject of whether or not Mao Mao of the Apothecary Diaries bites people, I gather that the general consensus was

She doesn't bite people recreationally, or as her first line of defense, or as a natural unthinking fight-or-flight instinctive reaction.

However, she would not hesitate to bite someone if - and only if - she deemed it to be the most reasonable thing to do in the situation.

Her standards for what counts as a reasonable reasons to bite someone are not the same as most people's.

I could picture a scene of some higher nobleman coming to the emperor with a complaint of "your little freak fucking bit me". Requiring no further context of what the hell he could possibly be talking about, the emperor simply raises his eyebrows and asks "what did you do?" Because he knows Mao Mao wouldn't bite someone without a good reason. This mf did something.

Dumbstruck by not having the emperor immediately take his side about this, the nobleman explains how Mao Mao somehow went out of her way to deliberately orchestrate a situation where the nobleman's hand came close enough to her face to get bit. Not questioning that she would do that on purpose, the emperor turns to Mao Mao and asks why she did that.

Mao Mao - who has been silently sitting in a corner this entire time - explains that the poison used in this specific incident she is investigating is only lethal when consumed, but leaves a residue on skin for a long time. Had the nobleman in question been personally handling the poison at any point, she would be throwing up blood right now. She seems somewhat disappointed that she isn't.

The emperor asks her whether that means that the nobleman is no longer a suspect, and she says not necessarily, he could have orchestrated the whole thing without ever personally handling the poison.

And the emperor calmly turns to look at the now horrified nobleman, giving him a look that's meant to remind him that leaving the emperor's presence by his own free will and going wherever he pleases, instead of getting dragged out face down through the mud in shackles, is a privilege that the emperor can revoke at any moment if he pleases.

Thoroughly shaken up and deeply baffled, the nobleman wisely decides to excuse himself and fuck off.

sygni

new character rawr

caspercryptid

I would actually go as far as to say that MOST abuse is unintentional. I think most people will go through their lives without ever experiencing intentional abuse. People are abusive because they're selfish, because they're stressed, because they care more about what society thinks they should do than the impacts of their actions on their children and partners, because they think what they're doing is correct, because they've made it make sense in their own heads, because they think they can fix their victims, they think they can fix their relationships, they think they can stop you from leaving, they think they can make you a better partner to them, they think that means you need to do what they want. We've sort of constructed mental illness in a way that doing this shit to other people counts as a form of mental illness because it is anti social behavior in the literal sense— it is behavior that causes social harm.

I don't say any of this to excuse it. I think everyone needs to be more aware of this because if you think abuse has to be intentional you will never realize you are capable of abusive behavior. You will never realize you are being shitty to the people you love, because YOU know what you mean, YOU know you don't mean any harm. But you're doing harm. You need to pay attention to the impact you have on other people, and you need to do it all the time, Especially when you feel least capable of doing so. Sorry! You live in a society. Get your head out of your ass.

wolfsteax

I humbly offer this contribution.

jackalspine

Fanart as promised

*palpatine voice* do it

Ok but I will be calling any visibly twitter flavored newbies on here twittypets.. that’s just so perfect.. t

Based off of @nigft ‘s post lol

zangoonse

a party of adventurers that are all equally convinced that they are in completely different forms of media

zangoonse

the mage keeps giving smug glances in the direction they assume a camera is in. the fighter keeps getting indignant about missing attacks because of "bad dice rolls." the rogue is doubtful that a villain is gone for good because "nobody ever stays dead in comics." the paladin attributes fortune to "good rng." none of them have even considered that "tumblr post" was an option

derinthescarletpescatarian

Hey so that was a great date, yeah, but I don't think it's going to work out. Nono you didn't do anything wrong, and I have indeed had a crush on you since we started high school, it's just... well, I didn't want to bring it up at the time but we kinda got sucked into a portal fantasy midway through. We saved the kingdom over and over, relying on our knowledge of and trust in each other every time, throwing ourselves into the firing line to protect each other and using each others' conviction as a rock. We got married and lived a happy life together until the portal sucked us back mid-battle and you gave up all your memories of our journey in order to save my life right when we ended up back in the coffee shop. Yeah that was when I got a bit weird and went to the bathroom.

Anyway I thought we could push on and make the date work but I have all of these memories of secrets that this you never chose to share, decisions that this you never made, and intimacies that this you never experienced. And it's kind of screwing with the vibe yeah. Also on the date it was really, blatantly clear that you're sixteen whereas I have memories of ruling a fantasy kingdom for thirty years so like... that's a problem all on its own. Anyway this you just feels more like a daughter to me. A daughter with the woman I gave my heart and soul to over and over and received like in return, only to lose her forever on the journey home. On the plus side I can definitely help you with your math homework now.

derinthescarletpescatarian

#what the fuck#this one was actually really very short why is it still like that what

The shorter it is, the more concentrated the what the fuck can be.

derinthescarletpescatarian

I can help you with your math homework because the fantasy world's magic system was based on calculus and I was a gifted mage, stop nitpicking.

derinthescarletpescatarian

#this world's magic system is also based in calculus