#i think i figured out a pattern. this gonna be real nice. i did not get this far with the other trials

[schadenfreudich]

Guess who started a new shawl!!

[alchemistc]

eta: based on my spiral in the tags of this post

Tommy's quiet as Buck nuzzles his nose into his neck, fingers stretched wide against Buck's back, rubbing absentmindedly.

Buck tilts his gaze up. He's staring at the ceiling.

There's nothing wrong with a little ceiling staring. Buck is actually a really big fan of ceiling staring, when needed, but Tommy's been so good at being a sounding board when Buck needs it, way better than the silently judgey rafters, and Buck wants to return the favor.

"What're you thinking about?"

Tommy hums, lifting his head just a bit, the skin under his chin wrinkling like a shar-pei.

His hand slides up, down, palm lifting so he can swirl his fingers a bit.

Buck's always been a big fan of cuddling, but there's something extra sweet about Tommy's version of it - skin to skin, even if it's just rucking up Buck's shirt so he can get a hand in there, arms and legs all tangled up in each other, his hand always drawing aimless patterns. Buck's getting too used to it - had caught himself pouting, a little, the last time Tommy hugged him in a rush out the door and didn't do the little circular motion against the small of Buck's back that usually indicated when a hug was over. He's a little worried someone else is gonna hug him and he's gonna melt into it, tuck his face into someone inappropriate's neck.

"Eddie asked me something earlier, and I didn't have a clue how to answer it."

Buck tips his chin against Tommy's chest, a little eager at the idea of providing answers. Tommy knows how much he likes that.

"What about?"

"About you." He pinches at Buck's side. "Us, technically."

Oh. Well. Buck doesn't have facts and figures and statistics about that. Yet.

He hums.

"He wanted to know why I don't call you Buck."

"Do you two talk about me enough for him to notice that?" He's pretending not to be pleased about that. He's doing a shitty job, but still.

Tommy blows out a breath, hands drifting down, over the hem of Buck's briefs to squeeze. "You are one of the things we have in common. It's not all shirtless men beating the crap out of each other and trauma bonding over enemy gunfire," he says, wry, fingers sliding over Buck's ass and around to his hip, no real intention in the motion, just touching to touch.

And that's - oh that's kinda nice. The idea of that, just being a shared interest between them.

"I didn't know what to say," he continues, like he can't see Buck really fucking enjoying the idea of being a topic of conversation between his boyfriend and his best friend. "You introduced yourself as Evan. You've never corrected me, so - I didn't see a reason to change it up."

Buck grins, a little bashful. "Yeah. It took me a while to figure out why I did that."

Tommy raises a brow, hands still wandering as he waits for Buck to expand on that.

"Buck was a work thing, to start," he tells him, still working his way through it, because he's only recently considered exactly why he'd never told Tommy to call him Buck. "And then the 118 kind of became my family, and Buck - it just felt like Buck was who I was. The person I wanted to be. Evan was just - the guy I was before I found my people." Tommy's hand sweeps over his back. "And, like - I never hated that guy. Evan. He was just - he was just there, in the background. People only used it when they had something serious to say." Except his parents, but that - that's not the point he's trying to make, anyway.

"Good serious or bad serious?"

"Just - important. Something - something that needed both of those parts of me to be present in the moment."

Tommy hums. "So when we met, and you introduced yourself..."

"I think I was just trying to manufacture some intimacy." Buck admits, like he hadn't spent a ceiling-staring evening of his own figuring out this exact thing. "Get you to call me sweetheart right out the gate."

Tommy's eyes go soft and sweet. Buck never means to do this, give Tommy all these chick flick moments of introspection, but when they stumble into his lap he can't deny the little thrill that races up his spine at the sight of Tommy tucking them away. Tommy's hand settles between his shoulder blades, fingers spanning wide. "I'm not telling Eddie that," he teases, and Buck nips at his arm in retaliation.

[alizalayne]

Hello! this will be a quick process post so that you can see how I needlefelted a fursuit head!

I began by following the "bucket head" tutorial by Matrices, then added a layer of polyfill so that I wouldn't use as much of my merino wool. This is how I typically make a doll head, my "core wool" is often polyfill because it really likes to clump together and fuse.

Overall, this project took about two months of my spare time. This is the first fursuit head I have made, but not my first needlefelt project.

I would really like to encourage other people to try making masks this way! You can do any kind of subtle color with wool and the wool fiber is very cheap. If you wanted to make a fursuit head with the entirety of starry night flowing over it, or a head with tons and tons of complex colors, I think wool might be the best material. I also did not need to know how to pattern or sew in order to make this-- it was sculpture rather than sewing, which I am bad at.

The rest under the cut!

Another angle where you can see that I am building up the structure of the head.

I then made the ears, which are translucent because they're felted, just like real ears!

I wasn't happy yet with the proportions at this point, so I spent a lot of time figuring that out and deciding where and how I'd be placing the eyes.

I made a pair of sculpey follow-me eyes by using a little soy sauce dish as a concave circular mold and tried a foam clay nose and teeth. The sculpey eyes could be more successful, they took a lot of shaving and adjusting to get right and they eventually cracked from the strain I'd put them through while making them more shallow. For a while, I intended to make wefts of white wool to use on the sides of the head, but I ended up preferring a domestic shorthair head shape because it reads the most clearly as a cat vs any other animal.

I originally intended to have the eyes behind clear plastic domes and used "shaker domes" that people use to make greeting cards to cover the eye, but in the end they made the eyes too dull. I made foam clay housing for the eyes and painted it pink with acrylic paint. I used stick-on car window tint to create the pupils. My visibility inside the head is really good!

Finally, after fiddling, one of the eyes was deeper than the other and I had to re-set both to account for it. I added spot glitter on top of the acrylic paint on the eye using some gold watercolor paint I had, which was silly because I'll need to wash the head at some point. I will probably seal the eyes before washing and hope for the best. I intend to spot clean the head until it absolutely needs to be washed, at which point I'll remove some pieces or find a way to protect them while soaking the head in a cool dr. bronner's bath.

I glued down a layer of felt fiber on top of the foam clay "tear ducts" and then felted new fiber over the tear duct skin and cheeks to blend them into the face. I also removed the teeth and closed her mouth because I didn't have time to adjust the teeth as much as I wanted before the con that my friends and I attended. I would like to modify this head so that she can open and close her mouth.

Lastly, I added wire whiskers with little glass beads looped onto the ends and paper eyelashes that I also watercolored and sealed, like the insides of the eyes. Like I said before, it's gonna be a problematic wash, but I'm confident I'll figure it out, and I can always repair her or replace her lashes if something goes wrong.

Last thing, to keep the inside of the head nice and cool and prevent fogging since in the end I closed the mouth and had sealed eyes, I made a snorkel out of a snorkel mouthpiece fitted into two collapsible auto funnels.

I would say that realistically this entire project cost me less than $150. I had some materials lying around, like the wire and the beads and the sculpey.

I added two ear vents on either side of the head so that I had options on where to feed the snorkel out. If you look at the other pictures on the blog of me wearing the head, you mostly can't even see the snorkel mouth. However, it was a little problematic to let go of the snorkel to talk. it would be perfect for a silent suiter, but I'm lucky that so many people wanted to talk to me. I'd like to try and replace the snorkel mouth with something I can talk in, but I'm not sure what to use. It should be something that can create a seal to keep my breath out of the head. it's possible that I will be able to make something with a painter's mask.

I hid the "seam" between the head and my body with two yards of tulle tied into a big bow and sewn down onto the neck so that it wouldn't move around.

I hope that if you try making something similar you'll show it to me!

[dandelionjack]

as a natural skeptic i’m gonna be real with you. i’m slamming the brakes on this whole religion thing before i figure out what it really is that i believe. one thing i know for certain is that i don’t think my experiences of the world relate to what you call “hard polytheism” at all, so i will be refraining from referring to myself as “pagan” or “heathen” or similar terms from here on out — as i learned from reddit, actual pagans, i.e. those of you who believe that the Gods from whatever pantheon you follow are literal, actual, 100% independent, non-anthropogenic, non-metaphoric entities, tend to frown upon talk of “archetypes” and co. i don’t want to be seen as insulting your Gods with my home-brewed eclectic woo-woo nonsense, so i’ll keep at an arm’s length until i’m one hundred percent sure that i can defend my own beliefs because i know what they are.

i personally lean towards the chaos magic side of approaching these concepts — although, truth be told, i need to do more reading. a lot more reading. but once again, i stress, personally, i find myself far more comfortable with the concept of egregores. metaphysical entities, congregations of energy and intent, that have been given power and consciousness through centuries of dedicated devotion and prayer from humans. if enough people direct their thoughts towards an idea for long enough, leave offerings for that idea, hold festivities in its honour, write poetry and paint artworks depicting and praising it, then it’s no wonder if it gains a mind and will of its own. i lean towards the idea of deities/other spirit entities as personified aspects of the universe, as currents of energy or patterns of thought or representations of natural phenomena that were given different (or many) names in different historical/geographic contexts and have taken on a semi-solid shape with time

which is to say, i don’t know whether the Presence that has been visiting me — the one that rekindled/sparked/ignited my interest in all of this, pun quite intended if you know who i’m talking about, is genuinely the ambiguous, controversial Norse deity that i have been referring to Them as; whether They are some kind of thoughtform or another separate spirit; a manifestation of my subconscious desire to “Aren’t You Tired Of Being Nice Don’t You Just Wanna Go A Little Apeshit”; or a character i Made Up In My Head (not outside of the scope of possibility, knowing my tendency to spot patterns where there aren’t any). i’m treading with caution. that’s what you do. because after doing some wider research, i really, really don’t wish to be associated with that sort of person — you know the one. edgy. rebellious kid. doesn’t know what they’re talking about. witchtoker

after all, i did come here through pop culture. so, maybe, all this ends up being is another hyperfixation on mythology. i’ve had those before as a way younger teen — thanks, uncle rick. don’t really know how to conclude this, so: i’ll get more educated and get back to you. if any of you (you know who you are) have any BOOK or ARTICLE RECOMMENDATIONS based on what i’ve said above, please don’t hesitate to PUT THEM IN THE COMMENT SECTION

xoxo, ivy

[dewdroppdraws]

Hi I’m new to tumblr so I’m not sure how you normally post on here but I wanted to try posting some sketches of earth from tsams! I’m not the best with anatomy so I won’t lie I did trace over some photos (REAL PHOTOS NOT ART) I found on Pinterest and modified the proportions to fit my design, but I’m trying to improve lol. For now I just rlly wanted to flesh out my design for earth which I couldn’t do while my anatomy looked like crap 😭 all the full body ones I used references for but the one in the right corner was all me so I’ve got that to my name at least 💪 I’ll include my “reference” pictures as well :> and below the pics is an explanation of the design because I love to gush about this kind of thing. Fair warning, it’s pretty long LMAO

Hehe now it’s time for me to gush about my lil design 😈

So the first major difference you probably noticed (aside from body shape) is the very fluffy clothing I have her in. The leg warmers and… fingerless gloves? Leg warmers that she put on her arms? Idk what the arm ones are called but yk what I’m talking about lol. When I first noticed earths little rainbow headband my brain immediately said “80’s workout videos”. The big hair, the rainbow headband, it just immediately jumped ot at me and stuck. I decided to give her oversized leg warmers in that same rainbow pattern because it made me sad that her actual design doesn’t have the rainbow anywhere else. It’s funky and I like it what can I say.

Next I decided I really wanted her to wear thigh-highs. I personally love thigh-highs and also it gave me an excuse not to think about her leg mechanics. I tend to draw Sun and Moon like ball joint dolls, but it gets a lil funky to draw when they are bending their limbs so having a fluffy excuse to hide them was ideal lol. I decided to go with the bold choice of putting thigh highs and leg warmers on her, which I don’t regret even tho it probably seems like a lot. I might change a few things about her later down the line since these were just basic sketches so don’t worry if you hate it.

I gave her shorts because a skirt just didn’t feel right for her. I feel like a daycare attendant would be very active, even if earth tends to sit with the quieter kids, and a skirt would be very awkward to climb around in. I figured shorts would be good. I drew them like jean shorts since that was the original intention but they could be cloth rather than denim gimme time to think about it 💀

I had a lot of trouble decided whether the thingies on her shoulders were stand-alone or like pieces of hair she keeps up front (probably attached cuz she’s a robot) I decided on making them attached to the bigger floor of hair cuz I thought it looked cutest on the pic with her shoulders up and in front of her face lol.

Onto her chest plate thing, I was considering making it an actual shirt but decided against it. I wanted her to have a crop top bc I love crop tops so I just made it so her chest area was painted like a shirt, and then her middle area was back to her “skin” color, so it’s almost like a crop top but not really…?

Last but not least is her face, I also made that her “skin” color and just put the blue and green as her cheeks! I thought it looked cutest that way. She also has heterochromia cuz when a character has two main colors I really enjoy putting them on opposite sides as often as possible haha. So her green cheek has her blue eye and her blue cheek has her green eye. I know her original model has two blue eyes but this was what I went with.

Anyways that was super long and I’m super nervous about posting this so I’m just gonna hit post and if I find a typo or decide my lil explanation was 4 paragraphs too many I’ll fix it later. Have a nice day whoever is still reading this! :>

[machine-saint]

weird tarot story time

so as background: i'm non-spiritual, a believer in philosophical materialism. have been for a decade and a half. but i'm a sucker for the symbology of tarot cards and the art people make for them. so a few years ago i decided to write a little simulator.

now, obviously if you're gonna do tarot you have to shuffle your deck, right? and shuffling a deck in code is easy; take a decent random number generator, use fisher-yates, done. hell, you don't even have to shuffle if you just pick a random card and remove it. but that's not fun. and part of tarot, as i'm told, is your intentions.

so instead what I do is I write an intentionally bad shuffler. you type your query in, and it converts it to a number using a bad hashing algorithm (CRC32) and then converts that into a stream of random numbers using a really bad algorithm (an LFSR), and then implements a shuffler that's intentionally not perfect (some hand-written thing I don't remember). i run it a few times and verify that there aren't any obvious clumps or patterns and go, okay, good enough.

(the other reason is i get to do cool UI design stuff like this)

so I decide to test it. I type in the query "Is this real?" or something like that, let it shuffle (it intentionally takes multiple seconds to shuffle), and draw the top card. and i get this:

X - History, reversed

now, if you're passingly familiar with Tarot, you might not recognize History. if you're more familiar with it, you'd probably go "wait, 10 is Fortune, what the hell". that's because I decided to use the Tarot of the Silicon Dawn by Egypt Urnash, which adds a bunch of fun extras (including some that, in the sadly-out-of-print physical deck, are gloss-on-black. very fun.) the image here is from the high-res images the artist posted on her site; she let me use them with permission, and I wrote the ascii-ifier myself because I figured it fit the aesthetic. i also did the same thing for the Neon Moon deck, which is more conventional in design (aside from renaming the suits) but has a very nice striking cyberpunk-y color scheme.

so anyway. i'm not an expert in interpretation, and Silicon Dawn comes with a booklet that i'd integrated into my program. so i look over at it and see the first paragraph, emphasis mine:

She bends the world around herself, and binds it about her with a story. Or is she the world, bending into itself, and trying to explain itself with narration? Just the whole cosmos finding a way of talking to itself. At the very least this card may be a reminder that the whole deck can just be an elaborate way of talking to yourself – what story do you bring to these cards, what begs itself to be connected in ways you wouldn't let yourself connect normally?

and I think: "well, I asked it if the occult is real, and History upright is 'this can just be an elaborate way of talking to yourself', so if it's reversed..."

and, like, I know this is just a coincidence. i i know that in a 99 card deck, the odds of getting a specific card reversed are about .5%, so it's not impossible. it didn't change my mind about anything. but it's still the only time i've had a, i guess, genuinely low-probability occurrence with occult stuff.

if you want to play around with it, here's the tarot simulator! nothing ever leaves your computer; i can't see your queries or anything like that.

[bomberqueen17]

a lil mini sew-along

So @sassaffrassa and I and a couple of friends decided to do an informal kinda sewalong just to get ourselves moving on I'm Gonna Sew Stuff One Day I Promise.

Sew Liberated was having a sale, so we decided to try the Matcha Top, which at the time was like eleven bucks. Why not. So we got the PDFs and each went through our various travails of printing them out and whatnot. And I'm just gonna talk about the process here, in case anybody else was thinking about getting into sewing, and kind of a review of the pattern. Day 1: Prepare the pattern, and look up other reviews, and figure out what the heck you're getting yourself into.

So, the Matcha Top. it's one of S-L's older offerings, and it only goes up to a size 24. Which is a 48.5" bust, by the measurement table. But it also says there's twelve inches of ease at the bust in the finished garment. Okay so yeah no, this will fit my 50" bust then, no worries. It goes on to say that the only real important measurement is your shoulder measurement. So I measure my shoulder, from where I'd want one sleevehead to be to the other, around the back of my neck, and I get 16", which puts me in a size 10. Uhhh.....

I read a bunch of reviews, which all agreed this thing fits real boxy so you can size down pretty freely, and then I looked at the pattern pieces. Well, the only thing that really matters is that shoulder fit, and the collar. I draped the collar piece around my neck and decided I did want the biggest size there, so I just. Went ahead and cut a straight size 24, and I figure I will take in excess in my toile. I am making a nice wearable toile though, with nice fabric, it's just not expensive fabric. Because I figure, it's a boxy top in flowy fabric, whatever size it ends up being will probably be fine.

Looking at the pattern pieces I am slightly skeptical of the grading. I'm used to seeing like... contours, but these are just straight-up every single pattern piece is expanded in size the same amount from one size to the next, regardless of things like... a plus-size person's skeleton is not larger than a straight-size person's, so it is bonkers to scale up the shoulder at the same rate as you scale up the squishy areas like the bust. So the pattern direction to just cut the size that fits the shoulders is probably correct. The size 24 shoulder is not actually knowledgeably scaled to fit a human being. Somebody "graded" this with a rolling ruler. Ah well. Reviews suggest the more recent patterns by this company are better, so I won't get too mad. But do keep that in mind, as you look at this.

Well, so I marked on my shoulder detail piece where the size 14 line would be, and expect I will trim it down, and use that to place the sleeve, and there'll just be a lot of excess fabric at the armscye that I'll have to trim off. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. Or I'll, idk, put some pleats in under that shoulder detail. It has you attach it pretty early. I might be prepared to unpick this thing a few times.

I fondled my fabric stash, decided on a drapey rayon-cotton(?) mystery challis, and the collar and shoulder details in a contrasting cotton-poly solid. Got that cut out one evening when nobody was around. (It does say in the pattern instructions to use something with good drape. I looked at pattern reviews and yeah anyone who used linen or a stiff quilting cotton got a boxy fit out of it. You really want drape here.)

Then I lost my mind due to the stress of house remodeling, and after I'd ironed interfacing onto the collar and shoulder details, I embroidered on them. Why? IDK but it gave me something to fixate on for a couple of hours while there was demolition happening in my house and I couldn't get to my sewing machine.

[image: two stiff black pieces of fabric with blue swirls embroidered on them, and chalk marks visible where I've futzed with sizing and the embroidery design. yeah they're wildly different sizes but whatever it's handmade charm *jazz hands*]

So anyway.

That's where I'm at, and I'm hoping this afternoon/evening I'll have time to do some sewing.

[i-can-even-burn-salad]

For Aurelia

2. What kind of skills did they learn in childhood and adolescence?

16. What's something they'd spend significant money on for themself?

For Laurent:

4. How often do they dance? Do they dance by themselves? Significant dancing moments, if any?

27. Have their morals changed over time or stayed relatively the same?

Thank you for the ask 💜 from this ask game.

Meh, it's gonna be long *snips*

For Aurelia

2. What kind of skills did they learn in childhood and adolescence?

As a child, she learned the normal things children in a major city with access to schools would learn — reading, writing, calculating, basics of history and some natural sciences (don't come at me with worldbuilding). She already had bad vision, so she struggled with some things, and when their parents got a third child, they kind of... dropped her.

They didn't bother teaching her any but the most basic life skills. In a way, they're still convinced she won't make it on her own — and she's 44, hasn't lived at home in over 20 years, and runs her own store. On the rare occasions she visits home, they still ask her if she's found a man yet to take care of her 🙃

When she was around 12, she began to hang out at a candy store and befriended the owner, Rachel. Rachel let her help for fun at first but quickly realized that Aurelia really loved what she did. So she began to teach her for real, and When Aurelia became of age, Rachel let her move in.

Finally out of her parents' house, she grew much more confident. She found a group of other blind people who shared their knowledge with her, she learned how to navigate the city, and how to live on her own. When Rachel's health began to decline, Aurelia took over more and more responsibility, ultimately inheriting everything.

The latest thing she learned is this world's equivalent of braille. It started to spread widely a few years back, and since she now has barely any usable vision left, she gladly embraced it.

16. What's something they'd spend significant money on for themself?

She loves her store, but I don't think any kind of rare ingredient or machine she doesn't have yet is really in the spirit of this question 😂 She totally would.

For herself, there is little she needs or wants. She inherited everything from Rachel, store, living quarters, furniture and all, and sees little reason to replace anything. She likes to buy nice clothes, but she also would not spend *significant* money on them.

She would probably pay people do to some things for her. At the moment, she pays to has her laundry done and her store windows cleaned, but she would gladly get someone to do all paperwork for her, clean everything else, or perhaps cook, because she doesn't like cooking. She would also love to hire and teach an apprentice, to keep the art of candy making alive and have a pair of helping hands around.

If she didn't have a contact in the Order of Fire, she might buy some of the assistive devices they make. That would probably take a while longer though; many are still prototypes and it's unlikely she would have access to one to figure out what she likes and can use if Cecelia didn't keep her updated with the newest developments.

For Laurent

4. How often do they dance? Do they dance by themselves? Significant dancing moments, if any?

He dances occasionally. Yvan refuses to show up at any pompous parties, so Laurent sometimes accompanies Cedric. He did learn it to fit in, or perhaps to get close to someone for information, it's been a while. Whatever the reason, he realized he liked it, though he prefers smaller occasions to the grand balls of Caldeia's elite.

There's something about the rhythm and pattern of steps and movements he likes, and it gives him a reliable framework of established rituals to interact with people oh no, please can one of my chars stay NT for once.

Significant dancing moments, you say? *giggle*

27. Have their morals changed over time or stayed relatively the same?

He has been friends with Cedric for over 20 years. Let's just say, with time, I think all their morals changed. In their 20s, they were much more idealistic, but they quickly figured out that being good gets you nowhere.

I think at the core, there's still the fact that they would never willingly hurt innocents—it's just that their definition of hurt and innocents has become, uh, flexible. Stealing some small things from rich people won't really hurt them, and someone who's a threat to them or their friends isn't innocent 😅

I would love to say that they're helping those in need and shit like that, but while that sometimes happens, their primary goal is their own lifestyle and the lives of those close to them.

[oldblackhat]

Todays GO passing thought on the topic of remembering this is a comedy (and cliffhangers are common) as an inoculation against freaking out over the final 15

Looking at the genre expectations for GO as a comedy

If Neil was planning to make this a 10 season megalith (Thanks Neil for not! Quality over quantity any day)

This would likely be the first of many season ending cliffhangers that will get satisfactory resolutions in the next season. There’s a certain kind of comfort and security in your third cliffhanger season ending - the feeling of a path already well trod

This is just that kinda show - it’s that kinda genre

Season 3 would likely end on a cliffhanger if there was going to be a season 4. Season 4 would likely end on a cliffhanger if there was going to be a season 5. For a cliffhanger to be effective things need to be pretty ok prior to the cliff - meaning the previous cliffhanger is resolved before the next one is introduced.

Also genre rules for a comedy endgame are so very very different from conventions for a cliffending.

Season 3 can reasonably be expected to end more similarly to season 1 - which is to say comedy endgame rules instead of comedy cliffhanger rules

———

Season ending cliffhangers are so so common. i think this one really threw us cause it’s the first time, the rest of the seasons vibe was so different, and it was real rough.

The first season ended with a nice “The End” cuz it wasn’t written for a sequel.

Most of this season didn’t give vibes that things would end badly especially interpersonally—the themes were largely about them moving closer! So it did feel pretty jarring and surprising

And then the fact that next season is the last one I think might disconnect us from mentally categorizing it as following the same rules as long running comedies—visavis things within out

On other shows by the time you hit the third cliffending to a season where something bad happens(!) and then it gets resolved next season—you’ve pretty much figured out just by looking over your shoulder at previous resolutions that hey the patterns probably gonna continue

[apocalypticavolition]

Let's (re)Read The Eye of the World! Chapter 36: Web of the Pattern

Pictured, me left, you right. If you don't like spoilers for the whole Wheel of Time series, there's no need to threaten to stab me or whatever. You can just... go somewhere else. Read the books. Watch the show. Get spoiled on a completely different website because boy howdy will the wiki do that to anyone who is even a little behind. If you do like spoilers, also maybe please put the sword down.

This chapter gives us the leaves on the vine chapter icon. As I said back when it was introduced, it's an icon that's often associated with the Ogier, and guess who's being introduced in this chapter? That's right. Hooray!

He kept the story simple, and he kept Trollocs and Fades out of it. When somebody offered help, it would not do to tell them it was all about fables. But he did not think it was fair to understate the danger, either, not fair to pull someone in when they had no idea what they were getting into.

I'm sure that Rand's making the right call here because fate and all, but I do wonder if Gill wouldn't have believed him about Trollocs and Fades all the same. If anything, his connections to Thom and general good-natured practicality might lead him to figuring out the details well before Rand does in the main timeline.

They say she has a way of feeling things, what’s happened, what’s going to happen. They say she can cut right through to what a man wants to hide.

Either this is entirely undeserved reputation and more of the general theme of falsehoods spreading about in place of the truth (her Foretelling being morphed into being a lie detector), or she actually was this canny once and Fain warps it right out of her during his visit. Either way, it's a shame she wasn't actually all she was cracked up to be, she could have been really good.

“All these people, and any of them could be Darkfriends. Master Gill promised to help us awfully quick. What kind of man just shrugs off Aes Sedai and Darkfriends? It isn’t natural. Any decent person would tell us to get out, or . . . or . . . or something.”

Finally, some delightful paranoia from Mat. Dagger's kicking in properly. Maybe it's strengthened by all the people around? Maybe not, but either way, it's very good work on the dagger's part. As soon as someone offers their approval, they're a bad guy because no good person could approve. Thank goodness Moiraine's gonna cure him soon.

The dark-eyed girl had a tendency to twist her skirt and giggle whenever she looked at Rand. She was pretty, but he knew if he said anything to her he would just make a fool of himself. She made him wish he had Perrin’s way with girls; he was glad when she left.

Rand keeps coming back to Perrin as the lady killer and I'm sure that most of it is just that Mat's right there and therefore too obviously not good with girls for Rand's delusions, but I do so wonder what evidence Rand has for his assumption. Did Perrin and Alexandra DeWit- I mean, Laila Dearn get a little flirty once before they decided not to date? Did they almost hold hands or something? What is Rand's standard of measurement here?

Rand hung his things up, watching Mat’s back. He thought Mat had his hand under his coat, clutching that dagger again.

"Dammit man, wait until I'm out of the room or asleep or something!"

Only a few had wooden covers. His eyes gobbled up the titles, picking out old favorites. The Travels of Jain Farstrider. The Essays of Willim of Maneches. His breath caught at the sight of a leatherbound copy of Voyages Among the Sea Folk.Tam had always wanted to read that.

It's so sweet that even here and now Rand is thinking about his dad's interests and hobbies.

It's very nice that we only meet one of these authors, though Willim of Maneches sounds like an interesting guy maybe. He's a philosopher who probably wasn't a Darkfriend, at least! I feel like he might be a reference to some real life guy, but I'm not sure who.

I would not be at all surprised if every detail in Voyages was a complete lie.

“So few of you remember us. It’s our own fault, I suppose. Not many of us have gone out among men since the Shadow fell on the Ways. That’s . . . oh, six generations, now. Right after the War of the Hundred Years, it was.”

Loial! Loial! LOIAL!

Also, if his use of "generations" is anything like how modern humans use the term (to refer to a cohort of people born within 20 years of each other), then Ogier live just slightly longer than the most powerful channelers do.

But anyway, fuck Gill I have a new favorite now! Loial!

My first day in Caemlyn, I could not believe the uproar. Children cried, and women screamed, and a mob chased me all the way across the city, waving clubs and knives and torches, and shouting, ‘Trolloc!’ I’m afraid I was almost beginning to get a little upset. There’s no telling what would have happened if a party of the Queen’s Guards hadn’t come along.

And this folks is why the people of Caemlyn deserve everything that's coming for them, including the unnatural winter that's already here.

“Well, as to that, now. You see, the Stump had not been meeting very long, not even a year, but I could tell from what I heard that by the time they reached a decision I would be old enough to go without their permission. I am afraid they’ll say I put a long handle on my axe, but I just . . . left. The Elders always said I was too hotheaded, and I fear I’ve proven them right. I wonder if they have realized I’m gone, yet? But I had to go.”

I love how Loial is having his own heroic adventure that has nothing to do with all of the major drama in the world. So many characters in this series absolutely could carry their own book and with Loial being in the POV spotlight so consistently we can get a good feel for how it would all play out from his own perspective in a way that's harder for some like Bayle Domon who are awesome but dip in and out more frequently. It's this aspect that I live for in epic fantasy.

You cannot make the land go against itself. Not for long; the land will rebel. You must shape the vision to the land, not the land to the vision. In every grove was planted every tree that would grow and thrive in that place, each balanced against the next, each placed to complement the others, for the best growing, of course, but also so that the balance would sing in the eye and the heart.

Points to Jordan for so effortlessly critiquing everything about modern agriculture and environmental policies so succinctly. I know that his vision of the end of the First Age was nuclear warfare (which was not so unrealistic when he got started on the series), but I can't help but wonder if climate change would have been a better aspect to focus on - both as a cause, and as something the AoL had to build itself to be so strongly against. The arrival of the Ogier being the miracle that spared humankind from complete extinction at the dawn of the second age would be quite appropriate and it's not even like the canonical AoL isn't pretty greenpunky...

Try as you will—and I have read that the Ogier who built those cities truly did try—you cannot make stone live.

With history becoming legend and all that, is it terrible of me to imagine the historical Ogier desperately trying to make robots as a last ditch effort to forestall the technological collapse of the Breaking? The image is hilarious.

But I must go back, eventually. This world is yours, yours and your kind’s. The stedding are mine.

Okay now that I've talked about my own brand of crazy, let's all appreciate how Jordan told us outright here that Ogiers are aliens. There's no metaphor here, the Ogier are from a whole extra dimension and the stedding are the places where they've made their world overlap with ours (and overwrite? or perhaps in Ogierhome there's a bunch of awful regions that any natives left behind avoid because there's just something weird about them?).

“Till shade is gone, till water is gone, into the Shadow with teeth bared, screaming defiance with the last breath, to spit in Sightblinder’s eye on the Last Day.”

I recommend everyone adapt this as their personal mantra, it's very empowering.

And good for you for being so multicultural Loial. Shame that it's falling on deaf ears.

Rand opened his mouth to say that they had come to see the false Dragon—and he could not say it. Perhaps it was because Loial acted as if he were no older than Rand, ninety years old or no ninety years old. Maybe for an Ogier ninety years was not any older than he was.

Loial is such an adorable and wonderful person that when he's in a room with the strongest ta'veren of all time, it's the ta'veren who finds himself saying things he never thought he'd say.

Rand nodded. “I could live on the farm or in Emond’s Field, and that would be a small change. If I wanted to be a king, though. . . .”

Poor dumb Rand has got it completely backwards.

Artur Hawkwing was ta’veren. So was Lews Therin Kinslayer, for that matter, I suppose.

You know, Mr. Jordan, this would have been a perfect opportunity to mention Mabriam en Shereed, the fifth ta'veren we know about (since Lews and Rand shouldn't count as separate) and the only woman. There's a lot we could say about whether or not Egwene or Nynaeve should have been ta'veren as well and it's really one of the least shocking changes the TV show made, but it's very noticeable that in a world that should be gender equal it's mostly the dudes we hear about being special. Ah well, maybe Birgitte is normally a ta'veren when she incarnates and just wasn't this time around because of how weird circumstances were.

“Will you at least talk with me sometimes?” Loial sighed, a bass rumble. “And perhaps play a game of stones? I have not had anyone to talk to in days, except good Master Gill, and he is busy most of the time. The cook seems to run him unmercifully. Perhaps she really owns the inn?”

Jordan really likes this trope too, of the men theoretically being in charge but the women really being in charge. He does at least subvert it a little later on with Lan and Nynaeve's marriage, which is the same dynamic but different, but I feel like his upbringing led him to internalize a very unstable and unlikely dynamic as some sort of universal.

Oh well, at least we have a reference to the game of stones, which is the real life game Go (or very close to it) and has been mentioned before but not by Loial so who cares? Loial is the sweetest boy and all of his interests are way cooler than Rand's road trip drama.

Sadly, instead of spending the next two chapters analyzing them in detail, we'll be cutting to some other POVs as we resolve the situation that the other non-Loials are in. See you then!

[bxttxrflybxddie]

LETS FINALLY TALK ABOUT MY FAV POOR LITTLE MEOW MEOW ((aka, me simping for mime bomb for an entire episode)) ((beware))

so starting off, i really enjoy that we see things of carmens past get to her. i love love love it when our heros arent always perfect robots and do go through emotions; including past traumas that get to them

to this day shadowsan shouldve called foul idc idc lol

black sheep doesnt get it the first time, thats fine! she knows that shadowsan is a very skilled thief. but the more she misses the more agitated she becomes until it seems like shes stealing for her life. this is a lovely detail!!

also crackle watching her w a big smile on her face bc ugh shes so cool, theres no way shes gonna fail! right?

she falls and D: but tigress is being a meanie as usual

player knowing whats wrong bc hes a great bestie

ALSO GET THIS CHILD SOME NATURAL SUNLIGHT PLEASE.

i've never personally been to san francisco so learning about the fog was a nice touch! i havent seen any movies or shows go over the fog either!

her charity fit is so slay oh my god

what an expensive stamp

i wish we couldve seen players stamp collection el oh el

devineaux yet again being a Guy, i love him lol what a Dude

SHE FR THREW A RED BOTTOM HEEL AT HIM. MA'AM I WOULDVE TAKEN IT.

julia being smart againUGH shes my WIFE.

MIME BOMB!!! THE MAN OF THE HOUR !!!!!!!!!!

THE WALKING BACKWARDS !!!! HES SO CUTE I JUST WANNA KSJDFKSUBDHSKJLF

julia being correct again.

wh. whwere is mime bomb calling the faculty from????

I think shadowsan continues to send Tigress bc he knows shes gonna fail. to this say i wish they wouldve touched on this.

i also enjoy the detail that dr bellum watches cat videos lol shes a cutie

MIME BOMB SITTING ON NOTHING??????? WALL SITTING ON AIR. THE CORE STRENGTH???????? (sidenote very attractive imo bc im crushing on him)

Brunt: "he aint what youd call the strong silent type." HES WALL SITTING ON AIR. WITHOUT A DROP OF SWEAT, NO MOVEMENT, JUST CHILL. HOW. BRUNT HOW ARE U MISSING UR CLEAREST STRONGEST STUDENT.

i think tigress' day outfit is cute. shes a fashionista.

AND THEN HES READING AN INVISIBLE NEWSPAPER, STILL SITTING ON NOTHING.

Mime Bomb is visual comedic gold. One of the many things I enjoy abt his character and how he steals the show everytime hes on screen. give him more screentime. revive the show for him, pls,.

tigress is a grown woman bringing up old shit. cmon girl.

i also enjoy the differences between how carmen and tigress open the lucky cats. I LOVE CHARACTERS.

ug hes my husband i gotta say more abt him. mime bomb is so smart, hes such a genius lil mime whos a code breaker and a quick thinker. i wish we couldve seen him be more intellectual than the rest of his peers more often. dumping the big obvious cat to not only distract carmen but to get away w the stamp? genius, he deserves a kiss. mwah.

HIS LIL STRUT!!!

"Another street clown, so what?" HES A MIME!!!! U SILLY GOOF!!!!!!

HIS DOUBE LOOK BACK STARE IM. i need him to be real. i need to omg.

miming running away to be tackled pt.2, cmon babe this is a pattern now.

THEY JUST. KIDNAPPED HIM. BAG OVER HIS FACE AND ALL.

'~' (((hes very cute)))

they handcuffed a non-verbal fella. i feel like this is more messed up then i think.

julia being pro-mime. we stan.

now rewatching this, chase straight up SLAMMED our sweet mime into a CONCRETE WALL. i need to fight a frenchman for that very reason.

yet again to mime bomb being smart, PLANTING THE STAMP ON THE SAME PEOPLE TRYING TO FIND IT AND ALSO CARMEN SANDIEGO WHO IS ALSO TRYING TO FIND THE STAMP. OH MY GOD.

his expressions r very cute. mmmmwah

slay tigress being smart!! shes not dumb she just makes some brash decisions!!!!!!!!!!! characters!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"what about 'Where did you hide it'? >:( ma'am yall are in PUBLIC. CARMEN DOES THE SAME THING.

for 2 people trying to follow a mime these acme agents are doing a bad job at figuring out what he's doing.

*how episode wouldve ended if they looked a little deeper*

julia: "Inspector, could you check your left, inside pocket?"

chase: "ugh, if it pleases yWHAT-"

and then they wouldve also seen him act this out Very Publicly to a woman that is Not Carmen Sandiego which would help them for future investigations at least

LOOK AT THE DUDE YOURE FOLLOWING PLS

mime bomb didnt even keep the 26 cents tigress gave him lol

((tw: talk about the taking care of witnesses rule)) if tigress can rip up an entire article of clothing without chase even feeling a tug, then i hate to imagine how swift she takes care of witnesses tbh

SHE JUST LIFTED AN ENTIRE MAN OUT OF A CAR WINDOW, N NOT THE ONE CLOSEST TO HIM.

((tw: mention of rule again)) also this victim was a witness. he saw her face. is she gonna come back to him orrr???

chase being a dummy dumb pt. 28374

WHY DID HE JUST LEAVE JULIA THERE????? WHAT AN ASS LMAO

okay but like. so the cleaners werent planned to pick her up given shadowsans reaction. h. how was she going to deliver the stamp?? teleporting????

this kids also is why u dont text and drive

SHE TOOK IT OUT OF HER POCKET TO SHOW THE CLEANERS THAT DEF CANT SEE IT FROM UP THERE. WHAT IF IT WAS WINDY??? CMOOOOIIOOONWKJEFSKHFKJDGSKHFJ

sidenote tigress took a precious stamp out of a little baggy in one fist close without damage to the stamp, well done!

whyyyy does tigresssss put the stamppppp in her hightop boooot ((that could not only fly out easy)) in front of the woman who has been known to be an improving thief and has crashed one of her missions before. she didnt get a dollar bill once. shes mad at that. TIGRESS, IF 2+2=4!!!

mmmm side profiles

i wanna be like "oh tigress why didnt you fight her" but at that point i wouldve gave up too

also the cleaners saw this all happen lmao

also slay devinaux being in actual danger, puts actualy fear and tension into the characters future!

tldr: WOOHOO MIME BOMB!!!!! and chase + tigress are silly geese

© BXTTXRFLYBXDDIE

[ilikereadingactually]

The Book of Love

The Book of Love by Kelly Link

all i knew going into this book was that i adore Kelly Link's work, particularly for its absorbing quality. her stories are dreamlike, and stay with me in the same way the memory of a dream does--everything in the memory seems both impossible and completely sensible and correct. this book really captures that same feeling! surreal, a little creepy and a little funny, intriguing, and written in what I think of as Link's typical style: a sort of syncopated rhythm of straightforward sentences in surprising patterns, straightforward words in surprising combinations, and little gems of imagery that pop out sparkling. there's a cyclical fairy tale quality to her work that appears here also, a real sense that these events have happened before and will happen again and i should be paying attention in case i'm involved next time.

and it IS a book about love as the title proclaims, but messy, muddy, difficult love. love in this book is smashed guitars and ill-fated gifts and spontaneous hookup choices and centuries-old vengeance, about embracing power or resisting it and how it changes you either way, about working around obstacles (there are so many obstacles). as Schmendrick says, there are no happy endings, because nothing ends.

it is a LOOOOONG book though. there was never a time when i wasn't eager to read more or wasn't enjoying the experience, but my personal preference is for things to be a little bit tighter. it's a sensation a bit like old movie musicals that have a ballet or some other extended wordless dance sequence in the middle--it's very beautiful to watch, it has that lovely dreamy quality, and it's related to what's happening in the plot but it's not necessary to what's happening in the plot. there are parts of this book that felt like watching the ballet Kelly Link's beautiful writing unfold--i would never fast forward through it, because it's beautiful, but i woudn't miss it if it wasn't there.

that said, i really loved this book--it was surprising, it was intriguing, it felt deeply archetypical and at the same time delightfully specific and real. the four main characters' voices and perspectives were so distinct, as was each new voice that cropped up to take over a piece of the story--a whole ensemble of imperfect people making imperfect choices and loving imperfectly.

the deets

how i read it: an e-galley from NetGalley! and i gotta say, i'm pretty excited to see this chonker in person! that red color on the cover is gonna look so nice on a thick spine. i'll definitely be buying this one when it's out.

try this if you: dig lyrical prose and stories that feel like mythology, enjoy memory fuckery, inevitably root for star-crossed weird ancient beings to finally be together, or were ever in a band in high school.

some bits i really liked: hard to pic faves in a book this long!

A girl wakes up in her sister's bed. "Laura?" she says. No one answers. Oh, she shouldn't be here. The one who should be here isn't. The girl's name is Susannah. She is too tall, lamentably tall, and she has bad dreams. Shouldn't her dreams be comforting? Restorative? Shouldn't she see the ones she longs with all her heart to see? But in dreams, too, they are inexplicably missing.

---

Like Mo, Mr. Anabin was brown in the way that made white people feel they should ask you where you were really from. Although at the moment Mo really did want to know where Mr. Anabin was from, because surely there weren't a lot of people living in Lovesend who could raise the dead. Right? Mr. Anabin: supernaturally ambiguous. Maybe Mo would ask. Or maybe he wouldn't. Mo: smarter than a lot of white people.

---

Kids brought their notebooks, because there were no plugs for laptops, and wrote poetry or Korrasami AU fan fiction or very sad and secret thoughts in their most beautiful penmanship.

---

"You guys are the three-time Olympic champions of poor decision-making in relationships. Like a figure skating pair who does the same routine every time: one Ina Bauer, one curve lift, spread eagle, two make-outs, one breakup, one makeup, followed by a messy-ass dismount." "Dismounts are gymnasts, not figure skaters," Susannah said.

pub date: February 13, 2024!

[foxgloveinspace]

@thoseeyeslikefire @absentviolet @kyloreno-911

It's another LONG w.i.p. Wednesday! Explanation for why I haven't been making these, I guess:

took a week off in October cause I didn't feel like taking pics, then we had company and I didn't have time to do it, and then I got sick, ugh. But now I'm back and I'm gonna try to do these when I can again, possibly not every week, maybe every other week, cause I want to spend more time reading and writing this month if I can. (it's gonna be my first 'real' NaNoWriMo. Where I have a goal and such).

first off, the confession. I frogged the cardigan part of the og skulls cardigan. I kept looking at it, and looking at it, and I went 'I'm never going to wear this, I'm just doing it, to do it'. It's gone through like, three other iterations that I haven't been talking about cause I was really just trying to figure it out. I've finally found something I'm excited about making, which is a pieced together cardigan of double crochets, where on the right side rows I crochet through the back loop only. I'm feeling very inspired by this, especially since I could work on this even when I was super foggy from having a cold. Sadly, it did not get done in time for Halloween, but also I didn't intend for it to be just for Halloween. Hopefully this is something I'll wear all winter. It's my main w.i.p. rn and I hope to get it finished this week, so I'll post finished pics when I get it done.

and another 'wellllll there was a goof' project, lol. I messed up the left sock of my hocus pocus socks. so I decided to frog it, since then it would be easier to make the heel flap and gusset of the right sock! so! i then paused the first sock until I can catch up on the second sock, and when they are both ready to knit the foot, I'll pick them both up to knit two at a time again. I just haven't been able to knit very much cause of the foggy head from my cold. But! I am really happy with these and hopefully I'll have them done before the end of the year.

I picked back up the pass the honey cardigan! mostly cause it was easy knitting while I was, again, foggy from the cold..... wow. Any way, I know it probably doesn't look like it, but I did get some progress done on it, I think like two or three pattern repeats? I wasn't sure I wanted to continue it, but then I had the thought of 'it looks like dragon scales, not just honey comb' and now I love it lol. It's my dragon scale armor now.

and now! my birthday shawl!! (The Gaia Shawl) I only did the first bit on my birthday cause I was DETERMINED to get it started on the right day. I am loving this yarn and how it's working up, and I am really liking the little bit of the pattern I've worked at well. I'm not worried about how long it takes me cause my birthday shawl last year was being worked well into January. It'll be there when I feel good enough to work on it again. The only problem is that the pattern website keeps freezing.....

small yarn haul time!

the multi colored yarn is from one of my mom's friends actually, she has sheep and she goes through the entire process with it, and I got it from her 'booth' at the Heritage Days festival in Warsaw (which is no where near where I live). I have no idea what I want to make with it?? I'm thinking a hat and some socks maybe? it is a fingering weight yarn. Definitely the hat first, and then if I have enough yarn left over the socks. It's so soft and squishy, and I really love it.

and then the blues are for a project for my sister in law.... she kinda volunteered me for it, but it'll only take me a couple days at most. It's for a pixie from Harry Potter. The yarn is nice and soft, and I guess I'm looking forward to the challenge, but also she's just...... It's complicated.

And that's it from me! Thanks for reading <3

[acedragontrainer]

I procrastinated figuring out how to use my fancy new sewing machine SO hard i made a quilt design about it, and then started making the quilt, with the sewing machine, so i think i’m procrastinating so hard it’s coming back around into productivity? this is wayyyy too fucking ambitious for my first quilt and i have no idea what the fuck i’m doing but! that will not stop me!

originally the design was much larger and for a queen size, and then i got out a yardstick and realized that’s way too fucking big so i downsized the scale and moved things around and added more buy’cese, i’m not sold on the background color and i’m prob not going to embroider the crusader’s emblem or the vizsla emblem like i had planned bc it stands out too much, but i was thinking of stitching the mythosaur symbol down the vertical sides, but i could also do lines of “bic cuyir te ara” since i’m already gonna be hand stitching so much goddamn mando’a

i’m pretty sure i can program custom embroidery patterns into my fancy machine (which is the whole thing i’m procrastinating about so finishing all the buy’cese will force me to find out) so i want to do the resol’nare in gold, but i don’t think anything with gold filament is gonna be strong enough for that so i may do yellow and embroider a bit in gold filament just to get around that, and then i’m still sorting through what patterns i wanna do across the quilt, i was thinking random concentric squares of lines of text, that way i could do kote darasuum around where cody is and a much bigger one spreading from the taung at the bottom with a version of dha werda verda (still haven’t figured out which one to use), but then i don’t know what to do about the rest of the quilt, and like do i really want to hand stitch everything in mando’a characters (resigned)

so obviously what i’m using here is a mix of different canons with some fanon sprinkled in (sue me, canon mandalor the uniter fucking sucks, basic bitch buy’ce, so i replaced that one with the irl dude’s mandalorian oc of the same title bc quite frankly it’s more meaningful to the fandom and it looks fucking sick), some of them had very little canon material to work with so i tried my best to wing it (tarre vizsla didn’t really have a buy’ce per se so i’m still debating using matte black for that one), some i picked bc they looked cool and not because they’re relevant, some i left out purposefully

i started with the darksaber, because i thought “it’s smaller and just a bunch of straight lines, how hard can it be?” but it turns out needle-point turn on all those stupid tiny corners is, in fact, a new layer of hell i had previously remained oblivious to, but i still did it, and it’s only a little wonky

ok so the quality is shit, but it’ll look real nice when i fucking needle-point turn applique this shit to the top layer and then detail it all in silver when i’ve got all the sandwich together, and i’m real fucking proud of myself for getting the first bucket done, and it even mostly lays flat!

i’ve got this stupid shiny black fabric i’m using for all the visors and it is definitely painful as hell to work with but god does it look nice

[stardust-in-my-mind-blog]

anxiety and critical behavior

one nice thing about understanding anxiety by having it

is that it makes you fucking dumb often

you're not using the best meat of your brains to think

and now that I'm understanding that most people

who have this deep obsessive desire to correct and critique

often do so because they are such a fucking wreck inside

I always had the wonderful habit of internalizing it

likely why I have a spinning knife chandelier in my head

when I really get into a state of rumination because those

knives are falling on me and not others but maybe

just maybe when someone starts tossing their anxiety

onto me with critical intentions I can show them

how much practice I have throwing knives too

and not just to stab myself with all the judging voices

of everyone in my past who found it comforting to offload

their shit onto me because they were icky inside

I always kind of found losing my temper to be rather

mean and trashy but my favorite sesame street character

was Oscar the Grouch in his trash can and did you know

his girlfriend calls him oskie and it reminds me of my

grandpa carl who was an absolute genius and skillful master

of so many things but his fucking house had to be torn down

because he was like many of the men I've known and partnered with

which is an absolute slob who expects the woman he is with

to literally pick up all the slack of his domestic incompetence

and often his underdeveloped emotional intelligence

or maybe I just had a real bad habit of attracting lost boys

and everyone always thought my grandma ruth was the slob

but man if she was anything like me and I think she was

once you get to a place of resentment because the

cognitive distance that starts to manifest

when the audacity of a man tries to tell you

how to think and where your directly communicated feelings

are irrational also can't figure out how to pick up his shit

and usually he was conditioned not to have feelings either

so you can sympathize but also fuck you me too

I dunno... it's just all injustice and I'm in a bad mood

I totally forgot to set an alarm last night or something

because I woke up really late and the kids were super late to school

but I didn't beat myself about it today like I normally do

and that my friends is improvement or something

but anyways most dysfunctional households are just

two people who never learned how to deal with their

anxiety in healthy ways and one person is always going to

dominate the situation and the others will fall into line

except for the person like me who is trying to decide

if I'm going to send the sixteen page manifesto I wrote

to my soon to be ex family about their dysfunction

for my birthday because if I'm going out I want to burn

and also maybe it'll make them think twice before trying

to turn my son into the scapegoat because they'll need a new one

families like that always do and the patterns never change

so I think what I'm saying is show me your temper if you want

let me know where you're passionate and where it's too far

but fuck your anxiety and discomfort if you come at me with it

like someone who knows more than I do

about my own reality or feelings or the situation

trust my I overthink too I just learned how to do it more creatively

and I'll even draw you a fucking diagram about it

I have a whole fucking list of things I don't like about you too

and if we're going to share them I'm ready to

because anxiety is the fucking worst and I don't want it

I borrowed some for awhile and getting rid of it was shit

and I'm no longer taking it off someone else's hands

my shadow is my protection and she's been lifting weights

her whole fucking life getting ready for this moment in time

where if you unleash your demons then I'm gonna unleash mine

and mine are going to eat yours and we're fucking hungry

someone else's anxiety is no longer my problem

nor is someone else's comfort more valuable than mine

god I hope I actually practice this instead of just writing it

but, you know... spirit into matter and matter into time

[the-firebird69]

He says the Publix Chinese food is excellent when it's fresh and it's perfect and it's real. It tastes great It's just expensive. He had like a half a size of a plate for seven bucks, but is very good and tasty then. slightly filling in the chicken was good. fried rice taste. Terrific. I mean, he said it's very nice. A lot of people like it. They say this pricey, but they have a ton of money and our son does not. We noticed it every time. but he's hungry and he needed it and it was there. So he ate it. and it's ahead of a meal. But he really should eat earlier. You guys are mean and you're holding in here against his will. No, but you're not giving him anything or getting him. Whatever you call it is not really doing anything for you. So you don't even have him do anything. And you want him to be a general **** stupid Your father wants him to be in general. BG is trying to do stuff you won't get either one of them. Anything We've had it with you losers. We're gonna cut you off.. We do know what he's saying. What he's saying is he and BG and several ideas and they put him forward and it works. And you guys don't seem to have interest. So it indicates what you're up to. Very strongly and we can make a lot of stuff because of our son. We are doing the cushion technique and a lot of people couldn't figure out how we were doing so fast Then they saw it and they said that's our stuff. And we just. let you roll with it and you're stupid. So you're running around screaming about it. Screaming you're gonna get people. So they say it too. Do you know what happens to losers? And just. sit there grinning like some sort of**** pile and you get beat up. and we started to figure out that you're dumber than hell and you need to leave. So we're gonna get rid of you. And yeah, you need to leave. We're going to make sure you're out By the way, we are. going to pass on savings to him that he should be making all. these things that he could be doing. And we're going to take it from you and we're going to shut down your accounts and take your money. And in the pseudo empire does it and we're going to start doing it a lot and blame them because what they're doing is not legal now. get much and they did it during wars and there was a lot of suffering and struggling and you're doing it out the open to him you're so arrogant that it really is stupid and we're going to have your heads now there's some things that are worth waiting for and our sunset to Mac then guy in front is getting you is getting himself It's no real reason to do it, but that's what he's doing. And it wasn't bad, but this is the pits. OK, I'm an extremely powerful person, and nobody. can see it in any way. So we're going ahead with our plan and we're going to do it. But boy, do you guys stink at his last idea was awesome It's awesome. OK he's got some mothers, and he's gonna work on it now, but we're gonna start doing his ideas, and he'll feel better. And we need that. And her ideas too. We're gonna do a lot of them. He says that she could issue designs that are DIY under. her label. They go get material. They just assemble them and they'll start making them in the separatist cities. And it's all patterns. And they can duplicate those, we think.

Thor Freya

Olympus

Zues Hera