#gray bunting

[psuedox]

[butcherlarry]

Exercise Fic Recs 16

More fic recs!  Majority of them are Superbat, but there’s a few Batfam thrown in too.  I guess this should go without saying, but check the tags of the fic to make sure it’s something you want to read.  I try to give a little description of the fic, and if there’s anything big or triggering, I’ll warn for it.  Otherwise, check the tags :D

ship-to-ship combat by pomeloquat (Superbat.  Clark is a fanfic author who writes for bruce wayne/batman ship, Bruce draws fan art of his fic.  Shenanigans ensue)

mission parameters by shipyrds  (Superbat.  Fake marriage trope, my beloved)

Known Unknowns by amyritter  (Superbat.  Bruce doesn’t become Batman, he becomes a doctor, saves Superman’s life.  Only one chapter, but SO GOOD)

borderline by TheResurrectionist  (Batfam.  More batfam hivemind)

Guardian Dog by BombusBombus  (Superbat.  Clark investigates Batman.  Bruce investigates Clark.  I just.  REALLY LOVE the characterizations of the two in this fic.  This is BombusBombus’s second Superbat fic, and I loved the first one too.  I can’t wait to read more of their work!!)

Adventures in Bat-Dadding by Sparkypants  (Batfam.  A reread for me.  Bruce being a dad to 3 tiny children)  

My latte and croissant from this morning 

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!  I saw some new birds today!  And was able to get pictures of them too!  Here is an indigo bunting, a pretty blue bird:

I *think* this is an eastern wood-pewee:

A red-eye vireo.  He was being very loud, so he was easy for me to spot in the branches of the tree:

Not a bird, but a deer!  There was two of them moving through the trees, I was able to snap a pic of this one:

Some nice scenery of the river:

More bugs are coming out!  Here is a neat picture of a little butterfly I was able to take:

A female goldfinch:

I didn’t know what this guy was until I got home and did some googling.  A gray catbird:

I’m pretty sure this is a juvenile tree swallow.  They aren’t as shiny or blue as the adult tree swallows:

YOU GUYS.  I SAW TWO EASTERN BLUEBIRDS.  AND I WAS ABLE TO GET SOME NICE PICTURES OF THEM TOO!  I was Very Excited when I saw them.  It was completely by chance too!  One flew by me and I was able to follow them up to the tree they landed in.  And then I saw the second one too!  I think they’re a male and female:

There was also another tree swallow perched in the same tree!

There weren’t a lot of birds at the bird station, but I wasn’t too disappointed since I saw so many birds on my walk.  

Here are some nice plant and scenery photos I got as well:

[balconybirds]

Sunday Birding 7/23/23

Many excellent birds this morning!  Even though I didn’t see as many at the pond (sob sob), the arboretum made up for it!

First bird to be seen was this handsome cardinal!  He was also the first bird I heard at the pond too:

My funky lil’ guy was back!  So many good (and silly) pictures of a green heron:

This neat frog was out too!

I always make a stop home before I go to the arboretum, and was very pleased to find this goldfinch getting some breakfast at my feeder:

Oh hey, a cardinal was the first bird that I saw at the arboretum too!  I wonder what he’s looking at 🤨

some pretty sunflowers:

A turtle and his buddy!

I was surprised to even see this guy up in the tree!  A ruby-throated hummingbird:

I like to think they are all gossiping at the bird feeder:

Another hummingbird!

A tufted titmouse up in a tree:

They also wanted to join in on the gossip:

Let them in!!!

I was so happy to get a picture of this little guy, a blue-gray gnatcatcher!  I was surprised they stayed still long enough for me to get this picture, lol:

An eastern bluebird!  She was just chillin’ up in a tree, on the lookout for her next snack:

Looking good up there king:

An indigo bunting!  

This dragonfly was polite enough to pose for me while I took their picture:

There were also a pair of tree swallows flying around:

Another eastern bluebird, male this time:

She’s just living the life, in the shade, relaxing, with some tasty snacks:

A downy woodpecker, male:

It was fun watching him crawl around to get to the food:

I just like this white-breasted nuthatch’s silly pose:

They look more dramatic in this one:

A titmouse, crawling down to get a treat:

A red-bellied woodpecker!  I loved her pose here:

Another titmouse:

I love this guy’s poufy hair (well, feathers):

Here is another goldfinch, sitting on a flower:

Some pretty flowers:

Beeee!

A red-eye vireo, they were singing at me while I was walking in this area:

Another hummingbird, this time at one of the feeders:

Some more flowers!

[pmg227]

Favorite Bird Pics May '24

“On a day like this, I can’t imagine anything better that might happen in a person’s life than for them to start paying attention to birds—to become aware of this magical world that exists all around us, unnoticed by many but totally captivating for those who know its secrets. This kind of spring day, with its bountiful myriads of colorful sprites just arrived from tropical shores, has to be one…

[playfullygrownup]

Super restful fox felt bunting by deeegrant at PrettyFelting on Etsy. I can feel my blood pressure go down already.

[shelbyfrommelby]

Another three in one! Staring with a male painted bunting on the suet feeder, a gray cat bird, and then a common grackle at the platform feeder! It’s so amazing to see who shows up in my backyard!!!

[eppujensen]

Such a handsome outdoor celebratory space, isn't it? You'd never guess it's actually a dressed-up carport! The rugs are painted, too. Kudos! By Laura Valo; found via Meillä kotona. (NB. Finnish only.)

[jesuisgourde]

A list of all the books mentioned in Peter Doherty's journals (and in some interviews/lyrics, too)

Because I just made this list in answer to someone's question on a facebook group, I thought I may as well post it here.

-The Picture of Dorian Gray/The Ballad Of Reading Gaol/Salome/The Happy Prince/The Duchess of Padua, all by Oscar Wilde -The Thief's Journal/Our Lady Of The Flowers/Miracle Of The Rose, all by Jean Genet -A Diamond Guitar by Truman Capote -Mixed Essays by Matthew Arnold -Venus In Furs by Leopold Sacher-Masoch -The Ministry Of Fear by Graham Greene -Brighton Rock by Graham Green -A Season in Hell by Arthur Rimbaud -The Street Of Crocodiles (aka Cinnamon Shops) by Bruno Schulz -Opium: The Diary Of His Cure by Jean Cocteau -The Lost Weekend by Charles Jackson -Howl by Allen Ginsberg -Women In Love by DH Lawrence -The Tempest by William Shakespeare -Trilby by George du Maurier -The Vision Of Jean Genet by Richard Coe -"Literature And The Crisis" by Isaiah Berlin -Le Cid by Pierre Corneille -The Paris Peasant by Louis Aragon -Junky by William S Burroughs -Absolute Beginners by Colin MacInnes -Futz by Rochelle Owens -They Shoot Horses Don't They? by Horace McCoy -"An Inquiry On Love" by La revolution surrealiste magazine -Idea by Michael Drayton -"The Nymph's Reply to The Shepherd" by Sir Walter Raleigh -Hamlet by William Shakespeare -The Silver Shilling/The Old Church Bell/The Snail And The Rose Tree all by Hans Christian Andersen -120 Days Of Sodom by Marquis de Sade -Letters To A Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke -Poetics Of Space by Gaston Bachelard -In Favor Of The Sensitive Man and Other Essays by Anais Nin -La Batarde by Violette LeDuc -Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov -Intimate Journals by Charles Baudelaire -Juno And The Paycock by Sean O'Casey -England Is Mine by Michael Bracewell -"The Prelude" by William Wordsworth -Noise: The Political Economy of Music by Jacques Atalli -"Elm" by Sylvia Plath -"I am pleased with my sight..." by Rumi -She Stoops To Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith -Amphitryon by John Dryden -Oscar Wilde by Richard Ellman -The Song Of The South by James Rennell Rodd -In Her Praise by Robert Graves -"For That He Looked Not Upon Her" by George Gascoigne -"Order And Disorder" by Lucy Hutchinson -Man Crazy by Joyce Carol Oates -A Pictorial History Of Sex In The Movies by Jeremy Pascall and Clyde Jeavons -Anarchy State & Utopia by Robert Nozick -"Limbo" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge -Men In Love: Masculinity and Sexuality in the Eighteenth Century by George Haggerty

[arbitrary line break because tumble hates lists apparently]

-Crime And Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky -Innocent When You Dream: the Tom Waits Reader -"Identity Card" by Mahmoud Darwish -Ulysses by James Joyce -The Four Quartets poems by TS Eliot -Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare -A'Rebours/Against The Grain by Joris-Karl Huysmans -Prisoner Of Love by Jean Genet -Down And Out In Paris And London by George Orwell -The Man With The Golden Arm by Nelson Algren -Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates -"Epitaph To A Dog" by Lord Byron -Cocaine Nights by JG Ballard -"Not By Bread Alone" by James Terry White -Anecdotes Of The Late Samuel Johnson by Hester Thrale -"The Owl And The Pussycat" by Edward Lear -"Chevaux de bois" by Paul Verlaine -A Strong Song Tows Us: The Life of Basil Bunting by Richard Burton -Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes -The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri -The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling -The Man Who Would Be King by Rudyard Kipling -Ask The Dust by John Frante -On The Trans-Siberian Railways by Blaise Cendrars -The 39 Steps by John Buchan -The Overcoat by Nikolai Gogol -The Government Inspector by Nikolai Gogol -The Iliad by Homer -Heart Of Darkness by Joseph Conrad -The Volunteer by Shane O'Doherty -Twenty Love Poems and A Song Of Despair by Pablo Neruda -"May Banners" by Arthur Rimbaud -Literary Outlaw: The life and times of William S Burroughs by Ted Morgan -The Penguin Dorothy Parker -Smoke by William Faulkner -Hero And Leander by Christopher Marlowe -My Lady Nicotine by JM Barrie -All I Ever Wrote by Ronnie Barker -The Libertine by Stephen Jeffreys -On Murder Considered As One Of The Fine Arts by Thomas de Quincey -The Void Ratio by Shane Levene and Karolina Urbaniak -The Remains Of The Day by Kazuo Ishiguro -Dead Fingers Talk by William S Burroughs -The England's Dreaming Tapes by Jon Savage -London Underworld by Henry Mayhew

[lunchboxpoems]

I AM TRYING TO LOVE THE WHOLE WORLD

but you can’t keep everything.  

You can only enter the sleepless 

             rooms repeating, more slowly  

& in alphabetical order   

the names of birds: albatross bunting cormorant dove. Albatross

             bunting cormorant  

instead of your dead friends

don’t you mean?  

Mean egret. Mean grackle. Mean humming.

Keep humming. Keep jay.  

Say kingfisher. Say loon.  

Say despite the racoons screeching

             all night like blown timing belts  

high in the trash trees  

while the skeletal fence cats carry on

            their cage match over moonlight.  

Say Katie Rhonda Shimi T I mean  

mocking mocking  

           & still we haven’t finished  

cleaning out your studio, your drawers

           full of heart-shaped catalpa leaves  

sketches of standing ovations

           for melancholic rock stars, charm  

bracelets & the chiseled gray

           mountains of Spain, over which  

we had yet to fly.  

& your laugh like an ambulance,

& your laugh like the elephant grass.

JENNY BROWNE

[flickeringflame216]

O Come O Come Emmanuel// Holding On, Andrey Samarin// Unbreakable, BUNT// Barefoot Kid, The Arcadian Wild// Endless Summer, The Gray Havens// The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien// Conditor Alme Siderum// Isaiah 9:2 // Looking for Some Light, Colony House// Olaf Langner// A Living Hope, The Gray Havens// Resist, Wayne O Connor// Fearless, Malinda// October, Louise Gluck// Silver on the Tree, Susan Cooper// 26, Paramore// Matthew 12:21// The Veil is Torn, Matthias Zegveld// Isaiah 9:6// God With Us, Harpidiem// The Visitation, Amber Knorr

And the light shines on in the darkness, but the darkness has not mastered it.

[shirecorn]

did you design Starcatcher with bleeding-heart doves in mind? the heart on her chest reminds me of them

Yes indeed! I base all my Pegasus and alicorns off birds that are thematically relevant. For starcatcher, I couldn't figure out something that matched with her color off the top of my head, so i asked local bird enthusiast @silksinging for help. We went back and forth suggesting things that either matched thematically (indigo bunting > flycatcher) or colorwise (budgie > victoria crown dove) we agreed dove was a good choice, but Soli wanted a tropical species since starcatcher lives on a tropical island. Blue ground dove was too plain, pink headed fruit dove was too green. But then soli was like Bleeding heart ludor. and it was PERFECT because the colors could reinterpreted in Starcatcher colors, and the bleeding heart is so good for this hopeless romantic who keeps granting her crush's wishes to the sky

her wings are also based on the gradient of peach to gray, with the bright blue chosen based on starcatcher's toy.

So yes, and it's thanks to @solilakoi (art blog) expertise in all things avian (and MLP)

[rippleclan]

RippleClan: Moon 30

Puddlespeckle went missing for a few days.

[Image ID: Weedfoot stands alone, calling “Father?”]

Rabbitjoy told Weedfoot that outsiders often saw the Clans as “imprisonment”, where others bossed you around and controlled your every step. This was far from the truth, of course. While apprentices had to be escorted due to the danger of the wilds and the Clan asked all who could to share the load, once you completed your tasks for the day, you were free to do as you may. No one would force a cat to follow commands all day.

But they still returned home. They weren’t supposed to be gone so long. Especially not an old, tired elder lost just before the start of winter.

“Father?” Weedfoot called. Harsh wind whipped her voice through the trees. “Father?”

“Puddlespeckle!” Parsley yowled from somewhere unseen. “Are you here?”

“I know you don’t like us much, but there’s no reason to leave!” Oilstripe half-laughed beside Weedfoot, nearly piercing her ear. Weedfoot shivered and rubbed her ear. Somewhere far behind her, the distant calls of the codekeeper’s patrol fluttered in the wind. With two patrols scanning every part of the territory for Puddlespeckle, someone was bound to find him, surely.

Oilstripe gently bunted Weedfoot’s shoulder. A soft trill slipped out of the ginger molly’s throat.

“I’m alright,” Weedfoot sighed, rubbing against Oilstripe. “I hope I didn’t drive him off.”

“He’s a stubborn old fool, but he’s grown to like the Clan!” Oilstripe chirped. “Somewhat, at least. He wouldn’t run off.” An emptiness swallowed the space after her words. Oilstripe was right. Puddlespeckle wouldn’t run away. But that meant something far worse had happened.

Soft pawsteps approached from behind. It was James. The former kittypet shook out his faded black ribbon and fluffed his fur against the early winter chill.

“James,” Weedfoot sighed, touching noses with her friend. “Did the codekeepers find anything?” James tucked his face into Weedfoot’s chest. His ribbon tickled her nose. His tail searched for Weedfoot’s. 

“Weed…” James sighed quietly. “Rustshade says he’s been out there for a while. I don’t think you should see it.”

[Image ID: Oilstripe is surrounded by the spirits of StarClan as she says, “I see StarClan whenever they come to visit. I’m tired of pretending I don’t.”]

Weedfoot didn’t want to know the details, but when that was all RippleClan could talk about, she was bound to hear them. According to Mousepaw, Puddlespeckle’s body had decayed enough that bringing it back to camp for a proper vigil would be worse than taking it straight to the graveyard. They couldn’t tell what did him in. Or maybe they did, but they were better about keeping it from Weedfoot’s ears than anything else.

Since the body was unpresentable, Fennelspot, Rabbitjoy, and Rattlepelt crafted a proxy. There were still some wilted forget-me-nots in the elder’s den from the last flowers Puddlespeckle managed to find to decorate his pelt. Rabbitjoy wove the petals into tufts of Puddlespeckle’s fur and Rattlepelt wrapped the creation in a freshly tanned pelt. With a simple blessing from Fennelspot, the wrap would be, in every spiritual sense, Puddlespeckle. At least for the night.

Weedfoot couldn’t say she was broken by this. She could never characterize her relationship with her father as something really positive, after all. But they had gotten better, hadn’t they? They were closer, even if Puddlespeckle sneered a bit when Weedfoot talked about James and complained about having to share his den with Parsley. Things were better. She should have had the chance to say goodbye.

James and Oilstripe were her closest companions during the vigil. She had expected Downstar to make an appearance, to say something, but as she had been prone to do for moons by that point, she stayed in her den. James and Oilstripe kept Weedfoot occupied with various stories of Puddlespeckle. Oilstripe had a shocking memory of the old gray tom; had Puddlespeckle actually told her about her apprenticehood misadventure at the Great Northern River? That didn’t seem like something he would share with her. At least she had stories to share, Weedfoot supposed.

Most cats did not stay long at the vigil. The search had taken up most of the day, leaving the whole Clan craving sleep. Even James bid farewell come moonhigh. Weedfoot and Oilstripe were the only ones stil awake at the end. 

“You can sleep, Oilstripe,” Weedfoot eventually sighed, running her paw over the leather wrap in front of her. “Thank you for staying up with me.”

“I don’t think I can sleep tonight,” Oilstripe mumbled. Her eyes were half closed and her ears constantly twitched. Her nose would curl up on occasion before she forced her face to relax.

“Try to,” Weedfoot suggested. “You look exhausted.” She bunted Oilstripe’s shoulder.

“I’m going to the dirtplace,” Oilstripe suddenly snapped. She stood so quickly, she knocked Weedfoot aside. Oilstripe scampered to the dirtplace, kicking up sand as she went. Was she more hurt by Puddlespeckle’s passing than Weedfoot first thought? She didn’t think the pair were that close. Oilstripe never really spoke to Puddlespeckle unless she was spending time with Weedfoot, after all. 

Weedfoot wouldn’t be a very good deputy (or friend) if she let Oilstripe suffer. She patted the leather wrap and followed the path to the dirtplace. The ocean’s hum filled her mind and tried to muffle Oilstripe’s words. Words? Yes, words; Oilstripe was speaking to someone. Weedfoot paused in the darkness of the shipwreck and listened.

“Why would I tell you?” Oilstripe snapped. “I don’t tell anyone about this.” Weedfoot spared a glance into the dirtplace. Oilstripe was alone, but she stared at the empty space beside her with what little fury her exhaustion let loose. “If you wanted a vigil over your body, maybe you shouldn’t have left camp!” Weedfoot knew Oilstripe had a tendency to talk to herself, muttering half a conversation when she thought no one else could hear. Wasn’t Fennelspot helping her with that odd quirk? How severe were her symptoms to have her arguing with shadows.

“Puddlespeckle, I told every story you asked me to share,” Oilstripe growled. “What else do you want from me? From Weedfoot? She loved you, you old mousebrain, even if she isn’t broken about it. Go to StarClan already and leave me alone! You’re pushing me into madness!”

“Oilstripe,” Weedfoot huffed, stepping into the dim moonlight. Oilstripe stiffened, one ear cocked toward Weedfoot. 

“Not again,” Oilstripe muttered, closing her eyes. “I’m alright, Weedfoot. Go back to your vigil.”

“We need to see Fennelspot,” Weedfoot said. She marched up to her old apprentice and gently coaxed her toward the dirtplace exit. Oilstripe, however, stood her ground.

“No, we don’t,” Oilstripe snapped. “I told you, I’m fine.”

“Your symptoms are getting worse,” Weedfoot grunted. “Fennelspot will know what to do for you.”

“My…” Oilstripe stammered, “my symptoms?” Weedfoot nudged Oilstripe forward, but Oilstripe looped behind her. 

“There’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Weedfoot insisted, turning to face her friend. She kept herself small as Oilstripe’s fur rose. “You haven’t slept much. It makes sense that your hallucinations—”

“StarClan, Weedfoot,” Oilstripe gulped. Her voice cracked like cold water splashing on a hot stone. “I, I know other cats see me talking to myself, but I didn’t think… you think I’m mad? How many cats think I see things that aren’t real?” 

“It’s—” Weedfoot said.

“I am not hallucinating!” Oilstripe cried, stomping after each word. “I see ghosts, Weedfoot, real ghosts. I see StarClan whenever they come to visit. I’m tired of pretending I don’t.” She wildly waved her tail to the empty spot beside her. “Puddlespeckle has been here all night. He hasn’t stopped complaining about how long it took us to find his body. I’m tired because he’s been ranting in my ear all day!”

“Oilstripe—” Weedfoot tried to interject.

“You want to see Fennelspot?” Oilstripe snapped. “We’ll see Fennelspot. He knows they’re real. Locustseeker proved it to him. And once he makes you believe, he’s going to tell the entire Clan. I won’t have my friends look at me and think I’ve lost my mind.” Oilstripe stomped up to Weedfoot and paused beside her. “If you believed I was seeing things this whole time, you should have said something. I don’t need you to pity me.” Oilstripe marched past Weedfoot and whipped out of sight.

“Oilstripe, wait!” Weedfoot cried. She ran after Oilstripe. All the clever and soothing words she planned to say fell away as she hurried deeper into the rising chaos.

(Weedfoot: 79, female, deputy, charismatic, very clever, formidable fighter)

(Parsley: 124, female, elder, righteous, great speaker)

(Oilstripe: 34, female, historian, charismatic, ghost speaker)

(James: 106, male, caretaker, charismatic, den builder, formidable fighter)

Graythroat recovers, but her tail is scarred.

[Image ID: Graythroat stands with a scar on her tail, saying, “Do I look wonderful or do I look wonderful?”]

---

“Do I look wonderful or do I look wonderful?” Graythroat purred. She stretched her scarred, freshly healed tail as high as she could. Most of RippleClan were enjoying their sunhigh naps, soaking in the sunshine of a uniquely warm winter’s day. Mousepaw and Rattlepelt, meanwhile, were more than happy to look at Graythroat’s new scars.

“They don’t hurt?” Rattlepelt wondered, her eyes following the trail of each scar like one watches a river’s current.

“Not at all,” Graythroat insisted. “I’ve always wanted a battle scar. I wish it covered more of my tail though. It’s hard to see without craning my back.”

“It’s a shame it isn’t from a grand battle, then,” Mousepaw mumbled. “Shadowdrop says you killed a fox minding its own business.”

“My brother also said a fox may have been the beast that took Puddlespeckle from us,” Graythroat huffed, tucking her tail away from Mousepaw’s judgy gaze. “Foxes are dangerous.”

“Not much more than a cat,” Mousepaw pointed out, whiskers twitching. Before Graythroat could come up with a clever response, something shifted in the corner of her eye. Downstar limped out of her den. She managed well on three legs, although the splint that bound her broken bone would likely come off soon.

“Mom, look at my scar,” Graythroat chirped. She wiggled her flank in front of her mom. Downstar studied the scar quietly. She then limped in front of the Shiprock, her face still and expressionless.

“All cats old enough to catch their own prey, gather below the Shiprock for a Clan meeting!” Downstar called, making Rattlepelt and Mousepaw jump. The sleeping masses scattered around camp stuttered to life, trying to collect themselves. Fennelspot stumbled out of the medicine den with weary eyes.

“Downstar, why are you calling a meeting in the middle of the day?” Fennelspot yawned as the rest of the Clan tried to wake up.

“You’ll see in a moment,” Downstar said softly. “Graythroat, come sit by me.” Graythroat happily trotted up to her mother. She nuzzled her mother with a deep purr. 

RippleClan was slow to gather. Their yawns and grumbles turned into quiet questions as they glanced between each other. Graythroat’s paws danced over the sand as she silently yowled for the group to come together already. Graythroat couldn’t take the suspense!

[Image ID: Downstar faces Graythroat, now called Wildclaw. Under Wildclaw, it says LEVEL UP! GRAYTHROAT -> WILDCLAW. Fennelspot sits in the foreground, saying, “Downstar, I don’t know about this.”]

“Since the day she became an apprentice,” Downstar began, “my daughter Graythroat has put her all into the defense of this Clan. She would gladly lay down her life if it meant RippleClan would survive.” Graythroat puffed out her chest. “She is everything I would want in a strong and loyal caretaker. She takes initiative to keep us safe and will always rise to the occasion. Her new scar is proof of this commitment. She deserves to be honored for her bravery. As such, today she will earn an honor title, which she will carry with her to StarClan.” 

The rest of the Clan faded away. An honor title? Graythroat was getting an honor title? She was getting a new name? Only the greatest in the Clan ever got an honor title! And they didn’t get theirs from their mother!

“Downstar, I don’t know about this.” Fennelspot’s worry tried to pierce Graythroat’s fog of joy, but Graythroat ignored him. She stood in front of her mother, chin and tail high, ready to erase her new name like pawprints in the sand.

“Spirits of StarClan, you know every cat by name,” Downstar declared. “I ask you now to take away the name from the cat you see before you, for it no longer stands for what she is. By my authority as Clan leader, and with the approval of our warrior ancestors, I give this cat a new name. From this moment on she will be known as Wildclaw, for her wild and daring spirit deserves to be honored.”

Wildclaw. Wildclaw. Wildclaw! What a beautiful name! Wildclaw’s heart fluttered as her Clan’s sleepy voices called her new name. It sunk into her very being. It was everything she was, deep inside. She didn’t care that the strained looks in her Clanmates’ eyes did not match the pride of their voices. She was proud of herself. Her mother was proud of her. That was enough.

(Wildclaw: 22, female, caretaker, fierce, trusted advisor)

(Rattlepelt: 13, female, artisan, fierce, prey cleaner)

(Mousepaw: 7, female, codekeeper apprentice, loyal, oddly observant)

(Downstar: 89, female, leader, adventurous, trusted advisor, very clever)

(Fennelspot: 87, male, cleric, insecure, trusted advisor, incredible runner)

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

🌈 Queer Books Coming Out in February 2024

🌈 Good afternoon, my bookish bats! Struggling to keep up with all the amazing queer books coming out this month? Here are a FEW of the stunning, diverse queer books you can add to your TBR before the year is over. Remember to #readqueerallyear! Happy reading!

❤️ We Ate the Dark by Mallory Pearson 🧡 The Paper Boys by D.P. Clarence 💛 Skater Boy by Anthony Nerada 💚 Your Shadow Half Remains by Sunny Moraine 💙 A Vicious Game by Melissa Blair 💜 Clarion Call by Cayla Fay ❤️ Relit: 16 Latinx Remixes of Classic Stories edited by Sandra Proudman 🧡 The Absinthe Underground by Jamie Pacton 💛 Truthfully, Yours by Caden Armstrong 💙 Outsider by Jade du Preez 💜 Cross My Candy Heart by A.C. Thomas 🌈 The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett

❤️ An Education in Malice by S. T. Gibson 🧡 The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles by Malka Ann Older 💛 Never a Bridesmaid by Spencer Greene 💚 The Rewind by Nicole Stiling 💙 Good Christian Girls by Elizabeth Bradshaw 💜 The Fox Maidens by Robin Ha ❤️ The Terrible by Tessa Crowley 🧡 Blood Rage by Ileandra Young 💛 Call of the Sea by Emily B. Rose 💙 Sign Me Up by C.H. Williams 💜 Ways and Means by Daniel Lefferts 🌈 Peaceful in the Dark by A.A. Fairview

❤️ We Are Only Ghosts by Jeffrey L. Richards 🧡 Dead Ringer by Robyn Nyx 💛 Somacultural Liberation by Dr. Roger Kuhn 💚 Stormbringer by Erinn Harper 💙 A Saga of Shields & Shadows by A.J. Shirley 💜 Ghost Town by R.E. Ward ❤️ I Heard Her Call My Name by Lucy Sante 🧡 The Night Alphabet by Joelle Taylor 💛 Remedial Magic by Melissa Marr 💙 Bloom by N.R. Walker 💜 Entwined by Alex Alberto 🌈 Queer Newark edited by Whitney Strub

❤️ Tristan by Jesse Roman 🧡 How to Live Free in a Dangerous World by Shayla Lawson 💛 Daniel, Deconstructed by James Ramos 💚 Of Socialites & Prizefights by Arden Powell 💙 Lost Harbor by Kimberly Cooper Griffin 💜 Hannah Tate, Beyond Repair by Laura Piper Lee ❤️ Bunt! Striking Out on Financial Aid by Ngozi Ukazu & Mad Rupert 🧡 How You Get the Girl by Anita Kelly 💛 Blackmailer’s Delight by David Lawrence 💙 Tile M for Murder by Felicia Carparelli 💜 Impulse Buy by Jae 🌈 Live for You, Die With You by Kalob Dàniel

❤️ Fairest of All by A.D. Ellis 🧡 Goddess of the Sea by Britney Jackson 💛 A Taste of Earth by Nico Silver 💚 The Moorings of Mackerel Sky by M.Z. Emily Zack 💙 How the Boogeyman Became a Poet by Tony Keith 💜 V is for Valentine by Thomas Grant Bruso ❤️ Crushed Ice by Ashlyn Kane & Morgan James 🧡 When Tomorrow Comes by D. Jackson Leigh 💛 Bugsy & Other Stories by Rafael Frumkin 💙 The White and Blue Between Us by Kiyuhiko 💜 Guide Us Home by CF Frizzell & Jesse J. Thoma 🌈 The Friendship Study by Ruby Barrett

❤️ Infinity Alchemist by Kacen Callender 🧡 Heart2Heart edited by Annabeth Albert 💛 No Time Like Now by Naz Kutub 💚 Bless the Blood by Walela Nehanda 💙 Vengeance Planning for Amateurs by Lee Winter 💜 Who We Are in Real Life by Victoria Koops ❤️ Prove It by Stephanie Hoyt 🧡 Mewing by Chloe Spencer 💛 Awakenings by Claudie Arseneault 💙 Born of Scourge by S. Jean 💜 Disciples of Chaos by M.K. Lobb 🌈 To Cage a God by Elizabeth May

❤️ Greta & Valdin by Rebecca K Reilly 🧡 What Feasts At Night by T. Kingfisher 💛 You Had Me at Merlot by Melissa Brayden 💚 Turning Point by Cathy Dunnell 💙 For the Stolen Fates by Gwendolyn Clare 💜 Season of Eclipse by Terry Wolverton ❤️ These Haunted Hills by Jana Denardo 🧡 Samson & Domingo by Gume Laurel III 💛 Lies that Bind by Rae Knowles & April Yates 💙 We Got the Beat by Jenna Miller 💜 The Diablo's Curse by Gabe Cole Novoa 🌈 Blessings by Chukwuebuka Ibeh

❤️ Out There by Iris Eliot 🧡 At Her Service by Amy Spalding 💛 Green Dot by Madeleine Gray

[april-is]

April 19, 2024: Dear Proofreader, David Hernandez

Dear Proofreader David Hernandez You’re right. I meant “midst,” not “mist.” I don’t know what I was stinking, I mean thinking, soap speaks intimately to my skin every day. Most days. Depending if darkness has risen to my skull like smoke up a chimney floe. Flue. Then no stepping nude into the shower, no mist turning the bathroom mirror into frosted glass where my face would float coldly in the oval. Picture a caveman encased in ice. Good. I like how your mind works, how your eyes inside your mind works, and your actual eyes reading this, their icy precision, nothing slips by them. Even now I can feel you hovering silently above these lines, hawkish, Godlike, each period a lone figure kneeling in the snow. That’s too solemn. I would like to send search parties and rescue choppers to every period ever printed. I would like to apologize to my wife for not showering on Monday and Tuesday. I was stinking. I was simultaneously numb and needled with anxiety, in the midst of a depressive episode. Although “mist” would work too, metaphorically speaking, in the mist of, in the fog of, this gray haze that followed me relentlessly from room to room until every red bell inside my head was wrong. Rung.

--

Today in:

2023: The Socks, Jane Kenyon 2022: Ode to Friendship, Noor Hindi 2021: Heartbeats, Melvin Dixon 2020: Sunday Night, Raymond Carver 2019: Virginia Street, Jennifer Hayashida 2018: What Seems Like Joy, Kaveh Akbar 2017: Aunties, Kevin Young 2016: For the Union Dead, Robert Lowell 2015: The Cambridge Afternoon Was Gray, Alicia Ostriker 2014: Spirit of the Bat, Peggy Shumaker 2013: Thanks, W. S. Merwin 2012: Sweetness, Stephen Dunn 2011: I Remember, Anne Sexton 2010: Letter, Franz Wright 2009: 23rd Street Runs Into Heaven, Kenneth Patchen 2008: HOUSEHOLD ACTIVITY NO. 26, J.R. Quackenbush 2007: from Briggflatts, Basil Bunting 2006: The Chores, Frannie Lindsay 2005: Direct Address, Joan Larkin

[uwmspeccoll]

A Catbird/Towhee Feathursday

The Catbirds have been meowing under our windows of late, but the Towhees have been fairly inconspicuous this summer. There are a variety of catbird and towhee species around the globe, but in our neck of the woods we have the Gray Catbird (Dumetella carolinensis) and the Eastern Towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalmus). The Catbird is in the family Mimidae along with Mockingbirds and Thrashers, while the Towhee is a sparrow in the large Passerellidae family of New World Sparrows.

We present these brilliant chromolithographs of the Gray Catbird and the Eastern Towhee (referred to here as the Towhee Bunting) from Nests and Eggs of Birds of the United States by Thomas G. Gentry and published by J. A. Wagenseller of Philadelphia in 1882, which includes chromolithographs of around 50 paintings of North American birds, eggs, and nests by the American naturalist painter Edwin Sheppard. Eastern Towhees typically nest on or near the ground, which Sheppard depicts here.

View more posts from Nests and Eggs.

View more Feathursday posts.

[pfctipper]

[ euphoric ] for a celebratory kiss - for LiebTip?

hello george ty so much for the lovely prompt (tip!) and for your patience! <3 also never has there been better evidence of this post than how i managed to interpret this

[ euphoric ] for a celebratory kiss

Is that you, he says, to the first blurred face, as gentle hands ease him down on to the French cobblestones and someone says his name over and over again in a voice that’s soft even over the machine-gun fire and the shattering glass, until it all fades to black.

The faces that hover over him to change his bandages and lower him on to stretchers to move him from sand to truck to ship to truck again, over and over until he loses track, grow cleaner and clearer; the accents shift, and for a little while they’re almost something he can almost place, brogues like his father’s but sharper, but the only thing that’s ever really familiar is the same carefully-schooled expression they all wear and how they all call him private.  

Three months after the redheaded nurse the Marine corporal in the next bed tells him is pretty hangs up colorful red-white-blue bunting and he watches the vague shapes of people dancing in the street through the window, a doctor stands at his bedside, close enough that Ed can make out his gray hair and the weariness in his shoulders but not the look in his eyes, and tells him you’re going home.

The house in Detroit is familiar, the same broken roof tiles and fence pales his father never seems to get around to repairing, at least until he sees the way his mother looks standing under the hand-painted banner hung over the porch and hears the way she says oh, Edward before she puts her hands over her mouth.

He doesn’t recognize any of the faces in the railcar going west, even though the ways they look at him are familiar: the wide-eyed young man who hurries out of his seat, the woman who averts her gaze and the little girl in her lap who stares, the shamefaced conductor who refuses his money and then lifts his bag when they pull into Union Station in the dark, saying, thank you for your service, sir, solemnly as he sets it down on the platform.

But outside, by one of the battered taxicabs, there’s the orange tip of a cigarette and just enough moonlight reflecting on the rain-soaked sidewalk for him to make out narrow shoulders hunched defensively, in just the same way Ed had pictured when he’d looked at the painstaking handwriting on the letter that had come through the door a month earlier, that had made his chest ache before he’d even read the words.

‘Hope you didn’t turn down any fares for me,’ Ed says, leaning heavily on one of his crutches in the warm light of the streetlamp. ‘A fellow can get pretty used to not paying his way.’

‘Tip,’ says Joe Liebgott, softly, and looks at Ed like he’s the fucking sun.

Joe opens the door of the cab for him, lifts his bag into the trunk and then out again all without asking, and at first Ed supposes maybe it’s without thinking, like he does for all his fares, but then he watches the way Joe stares down the girl at the door of the boarding house when she spares a startled glance over at Ed.

‘You look good, Joe,’ he says, in the cramped twin room, and Joe doesn’t, really, clothes hanging loose on his too-thin frame and hair cut unevenly, patchy stubble on his jaw and dark bruises under his eyes illuminated starkly by the flickering bare bulb, too-bright in a way that reminds Ed of the weeks where he’d blinked awake and not been able to make out anything but light.

He finds he likes looking at Joe anyway, the familiarity of it, only up close there’s a scar on his neck that Ed hasn’t seen before, doesn’t know about, not yet; he leans one crutch against the bed and lifts a hand to rest his fingertips against it, watching how the pink healed skin goes white when he presses down.

‘Fuck,’ Joe says, ragged, and there's a moment where it's as though neither of them breathe. ‘It’s just – it’s fucking strange, Tip. Fuck. Seeing you.’

Ed’s legs are aching and sore, stiffer from the journey; he shifts on his feet and sees the way Joe’s eyes flick down before he closes them. ‘Not – fuck, Tip, they told us –’

‘Joe,’ says Ed, starting out sharp but then softening in the same way Joe’s features had when he’d drifted asleep against Ed’s shoulder in the barns and hedgerows of Normandy, and then he lets the other crutch slip to the ground and presses his hand over the dog tags he knows he’ll still find under Joe’s faded shirt. It makes him unsteady, and he feels the way Joe’s hands come up to his waist to hold him even as he lets Ed fall into him anyway.

When Ed presses his open mouth to the scar on Joe’s neck he can hear the shallow breath Joe takes. ‘Joe, I’m here,’ Ed says, lips moving against the chain of Joe’s dog tags, tasting faintly metallic in his mouth, and then, ‘We’re here.’

And afterwards, when Joe has kissed him the same way he had that last morning in Normandy, mouth hot against his behind the barn as everyone else slept, eyes closed against the too-bright sunrise and hands on Ed’s waist over the webbing and ammo belt, Ed lies in the unfamiliar bed and blinks up at the too-bright light, filling his vision with nothing but white, and it feels somehow like home.