sometimes i really feel like i couldn’t be anything but queer simply because i’m a tall woman, and so many common heterosexual woman fantasies are dependent on relative size/intimidation factor/etc with a man. i have never experienced this. men aren’t bigger than me. het stuff seldom speaks to me.
like i really do think that one quality alone managed to alienate me so much from heterosexual woman fantasies that i didn’t have any choice but to find relatability elsewhere. there is a lot of het stuff where i read and relate to the man bc i’m big! i imagine myself as the dude!
i am tall, assertive, loud, goofy, ambitious, nerdy, and actually very much a woman (mostly) who is attracted to men (some of them) but my experience is just kinda off the beaten path of womanhood that expects the man to be the listed qualities. fertile fields for queerness.
i am just reminded of this any time i try to get more into hetero romance spaces and there is just…this really specific size-related fetishization (and not just size, but general dominance of personality, economics, etc) that makes me feel like, welp, i do not exist in these fantasies as the girl.
“running around with the heroine in his big burly arms”
ha yeah i can definitely imagine that. sure. currently remembering running around with an ex-gf in my arms because she weighed like feathers.
this isn’t hostility! just like, HOW COULD I NOT BE QUEER when i just popped out of my mom like this
if you told my childhood self that i would deliberately order bugs to release in my house, multiple times, i would have probably broken into tears asking “why????” because i was so scared of bugs
now i’m like, how many thousands of larvae should i get this time
i used to get beneficial nematodes with my orders, but nowadays the only mini-livestock i release indoors are ladybugs (2-3x a year), then beneficial mites and lacewing larvae (1x a year usually)
there are upsides and downsides to this, but it’s mostly upsides – as someone who has many plants
i just don’t need the nematodes bc i don’t have fungus gnats anymore. i haven’t brought new plants home in a while. but mealybugs, thrips, and aphids seem to enter through my windows periodically, and i am Very Opposed to using chemical pesticides. treating plants manually is doable but annoying.
if you spray isopropyl alcohol on visible infestations, it will kill basically anything/everything. you just visit every couple days and spray all the plants. allow to air-dry before returning to the sun. but my collection is 100+ plants and i’m not doing that much inspecting or spraying thank you
i like the bugs tbh. the ladybugs are a friendly presence. they’re both terrifying pest serial killers and hapless tiny cows that fall off things
lacewings are a little more !!!! when they hatch but they disperse quickly, no sticking around like ladybugs
you don’t see the mites
with both the initial release of ladybugs indoors, when they are most numerous and confused, and with the green lacewings post-hatching, they will basically leave people alone and go toward light sources/water. it’s really not a big deal. initial ladybug swarm can be a lot though!
you can limit the ladybugs exploring the house by releasing them directly near the most intense infection and making sure they have fluker’s or some other nutrient gel available. they will start eating/drinking/breeding immediately. but also you’ll get a couple tiny cows trundling on your arm
tbh my dogs think that ladybugs who have been walking on nutrient gel are not tiny cows, but like bonus snacks that they get to slurp off the floor if they fall off a plant
