#maculategiraffe

[svartikotturinn]

Look, it’s @maculategiraffe

[the-haiku-bot]

wish she’d yell “no snack!!!!

more swing!!!” like my nephew. who

knows I’m listening

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

have been helping a bit to look after a little girl who is almost three, about six months older than my nephew, but who unfortunately hasn't been looked after as well as my nephew has.

had her in the kind of baby swing that you buckle a baby into, and she was being very very quiet and meditative. not smiling or engaging with me at all as I chatted away at her, or even looking at me. which is fine of course

but after awhile I said "are you all done swinging?" and she didn't answer or look at me. I said "are you still having fun in the swing?" and she didn't answer. I said, "do you want to keep swinging?" and she didn't answer. I said "are you hungry? ready for a snack?" and she didn't answer

I knelt down in front of her and said "let's unbuckle you and we can go get a snack, ok?" and she just stared at me. but when I reached for the buckles she whimpered and sobbed and tried to push my hands away from them

so of course I was like "oh! you do want to keep swinging!" and she didn't answer, but when I pulled the swing back to get her swinging again she smiled really widely

and it got me thinking about how sometimes, especially if it doesn't seem like anybody ever listens to you, or cares what you think or feel, it's hard to think of language-- including the language of gesture-- as a tool to communicate. because even when she started to cry and pushed at my hands it wasn't really like she was trying to tell me something, or even ask for something. she can talk, I've heard her say a three word sentence, and her speech and articulation are probably better on a purely technical level than my nephew's. but why should she? grown-ups do whatever they want. she didn't communicate her wishes to me, not because she wasn't able, because why bother? she cried because she was sad and frustrated, not because she thought I wanted to know what she wanted. she smiled because she was happy, not because she wanted me to know she was happy.

and I get it, you know? sometimes you have a breakdown because it's easier to get to the point when things are so bad or upsetting that you just have to cry out in protest, in organic despair that just overcomes you, because it's too hard / it seems too hopeless to choose to ask for something before it gets to that point. even if people are actively asking how they can help. because how do you know they mean it? what if you choose the wrong answer? better not to imagine you get to choose.

wish she'd yell "no snack!!!! more swing!!!" like my nephew. who knows I'm listening

[outragedtortilla]

rent free in my brain, this post

[believerindaydreams]

@maculategiraffe hey that mood when you've made several phone calls in *one* morning, you know?

they all went well! hurrah!

[elizabethgoudge]

Rid yourself of the induced boredom of school and start letting yourself be enthusiastic about things. This is your life. Love things in it.

"why do you know that" i am curious about the world around me

[rjalker]

[ID: A tweet by Owl!at the Library that reads:

"'Why is everyone suddenly being diagnosed with autism--' Because in the past no one knew about autism, and we were literally thought to be faerie children who had snuck into human homes and taken the place of ordinary children."

monty / visual butch adds on: "The first person to be diagnosed with autism is still alive".

The tweet was posted March 4th, 2023, at 8:53 AM.

It has 1.6m views, 6,640 retweets, 183 quotes, and 59.9k likes.

This is followed by a screenshot of tumblr tags by maculategiraffe that read:

"'Why is everybody queer now' because we used to be your maiden aunt who sadly never married but lived with her best friend Dorothy? 'why is everybody allergic to peanuts now' because a lot fewer toddlers are dying tragically for no known reason? Try to keep up Cynthia".

End ID.]

Unfortunately, Donald Triplett, the first person diagnosed with autism, died on June 17th, 2023, at the age of 89.

"https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/17/us/donald-triplett-autism-dies/index.html"

(Archived link)

[dsudis]

I was tagged by @pellaaearien to share the story behind my url!

dsudis is really D. Sudis, short for Dira Sudis, in much the style of @mpoetess who was mpoetess on LiveJournal in the days of yore when I was forming my ideas of how to elegantly abbreviate a pseudonym into a login name (eight characters or less, all lowercase, no spaces).

I chose the name Dira first, when I was dipping my toes into fandom by coming up with ideas about my shiny faves that all seemed to involve them S U F F E R I N G--I was taking Latin at the time, and the Latin name for the Furies, the Kindly Ones, who pursue someone endlessly and make them suffer and suffer and suffer, is dirae.

So if you ever had just one by herself, she would be Dira.

I didn't choose Sudis until a bit later, when I was really getting into fandom for real and decided I needed a second name. I wanted to declare my special dedication to making one particular fave from Buffy fandom suffer, but I didn't want to be too obvious about it, so when I was looking for possible Latin translations of the possessive form of his name I went with the second option, sudis, instead of the first, which was the depressingly transparent spicus.

Tagging @maculategiraffe, @fishfingersandscarves, @delta-pavonis, and @quarra for the story behind your URL, if you want to play!

[crackinglamb]

Self Fic Rec, Fave Edition

Tagged by @pikapeppa to rec five of my favorite fics that I've written. Thank you! 🥰

Rules are to pass the self promotion on to five others, so tagging @ir0n-angel, @fasterpuddytat, @lilbittymonster, @maculategiraffe and @bogunicorn. No pressure!

In no particular order:

Hope Is a Fragile Thing - Dragon Age, Solas/OFC, rated T, ~13K words. A post-canon romance between a Fen'Harel who succeeded in taking the Veil down and an MGIT. It's softer and gentler than you think, as well as sadder. I love this one because it's just so...atmospheric. It's 'the love was there; it didn't change anything but it was there' taken to one of its possible conclusions.

Unexpected - Fallout 4, Kellogg/F!SoSu, rated E, ~30K words. My first truly canon divergent fic. A Sole Survivor who was a Chinese PoW meets a battered merc and together they both get redeemed. Still really proud of this one for a lot of reasons, and it's one of my FO fics that I've reread more than once.

With You - DA:I, Varric/F!Hawke, rated E, ~4800 words. Hawke and Varric finally get together. Finally. I love this one simply because I have a deep, abiding adoration for this pairing (as it was the first one I wrote for DA), and of all the Hawke's I've created for various fics, Elly is my favorite.

Into the Current - DA, Iron Bull/OFC, rated E, ~80K words. I love MGIT's. There is simply so much room to play. This one is a paramedic transported to Thedas before the events of the games and becomes a Charger, falling for Bull along the way. Takes place between 9: 28 - 9:40 Dragon.

Different Animals - Fallout TV, Lucy/Cooper Howard, rated E, ~9500 words. A long oneshot about Lucy becoming more than just a Vaultie and Cooper remembering that he used to be a halfway decent human being. (It's now turned into a whole series of these, and I'm still writing them currently.)

Honorable Mentions:

Junkyard Dogs - Fallout 4, Hancock/F!SoSu, rated E, ~107K words. My very first fic. Mostly a retelling of the game, with a happy ending and a whole series of related stuff. Without this fic, there would be no crackinglamb.

What a Wicked Game to Play - DA:I, Solas/OFC, rated E, ~412K words. My grand epic. No list of my own fics would be complete without mentioning it. I set out to write a huge, all encompassing story of an MGIT changing Solas's mind, and I did. It was over two years of blood, sweat and tears and while I exhausted myself writing it, Imogen will forever hold a special place in my heart.

*On a final note, these are all complete.*

[birdofmay]

Tumblr just assigned you a different blog for some reason? When I clicked on it it showed your blog, but when I followed and went to my following list, it showed @maculategiraffe. I love this functional website.

Hah interesting 😂

[trans-elrond]

Tagged by @moonatoms thanks <333

Last song: push sung by ryan gosling from the barbie soundtrack hahahaha

Currently watching: good omens s2, silo s1, strange new worlds s2, star trek prodigy s1, what we do in the shadows season 5, the afterparty s2, farscape s3, ms fisher's modern murder mysteries s1!! yes i LOVE watching 5000 tv shows at once

Currently reading: reread murderbot 1 and starting murderbot 2, halfway through holly black's cruel prince (...i don't really like it), just started i'm glad my mom died

Current obsession: barbie & greta gerwig in general, farscape & bialar crais (always always always)

tagging @songpasserine @thesophiawestern @aadmelioraa @elrondsscribe @maculategiraffe @equalseleventhirds @detectivechen @famig @firstelevens @trantors @plangentia @b2em-ho (long list i know it's been a while since i actually uhhh answered a tag game)

[svartikotturinn]

Phew, I’m glad at least this one non-Israeli person on Tumblr has the good sense not to talk about foreign politics they know jack shit abou—oh nope, nope, here she goes reblogging a post asking for support for fucking UNRWA based on reports by Al Jazeera through a website with a name that’s not even trying to hide its Arab colonialist agenda because ‘genocide’ (nope) like fuck I thought she was one of the few good ones

[the-haiku-bot]

baby, opening

up the wings: ba need to

know what time it is.

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

baby was showing me his little watch in the form of an owl whose wings open up to reveal the clock face and I said "that's so cool! so any time you need to know what time it is, you can just open up his wings!"

baby, opening up the wings: ba need to know what time it is.

me: what time is it?

baby: time to go to de pool :)

[pierrotwrites-hc]

ok so this is probably gonna be weirdly specific but. ages ago, when i read the previous version of tgb, i seem to remember an author's note that said you rewrote an even earlier version of the story to make luca less like yourself & more into his own character (or something along those lines, it was a very long time ago). would you ever elaborate on what that meant? from what i understand you have been working on tgb for a really long time and even if i misremember that note, your writing process facinates me. i only read the version that was previously published on ao3 and the current one is definitely better but i'd love to hear what the rewriting process was like, as it apparently wasn't the first time you'd done it? huge fan of your work, i hope you have the best day :)

HA we are actually on the...*drumroll*...third revision of this story.

The first version was only a few chapters posted on the orig_slavefic community on Livejournal (shoutout to @maculategiraffe). I was still working out the sort of story I wanted to write and took an everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach, which meant there was MAGIC and DEMONS and god knows what else. I couldn't pace a story to save my life (did I mention I was 17) and the style and voice and characterization were wildly inconsistent, a patchwork of things I liked in books by other, better writers (Terry Pratchett, Diana Wynne Jones, Holly Black, etc).

Anyway, an LJ writer I admired wrote a post in which they sarcastically excerpted some of my writing, and I realized that the chapters I'd produced were not just unsuccessful but mockable. I thought about what I wanted the story to be, where I wanted it to go, and how I wanted it to sound. I identified a serious tone problem with Luca's POV: it was written too lightly, and made him come across as far too...well, plucky, for lack of a better word. It just wasn't how someone so broken would think or speak or see the world.

I rewrote that draft completely. This resulted in the version originally posted on Ao3. It was miles better, but I had miles to go, and I knew it, but I didn't know how to get there.

At that point I was in undergrad at a school which offered no creative writing classes and whose professors really and truly disdained the sort of books I liked best. (I'll never forget proposing a thesis on children's fantasy in postwar Britain and my advisor forbidding me from "applying my theory pyrotechnics to a pile of crap"). So I started a reading group with a friend, a very serious reading group with books assigned at the beginning and end of every semester and hours-long weekly meetings. It was here that I began to figure out what actually worked about the books I admired, and how I might adapt successful structures and strategies into my own work.

Then I went to graduate school for writing. This was the first time I'd gotten deep critical feedback on my creative work. I was also diagnosed with CPTSD by a therapist who assigned me a lot of reading (my love language). Now I could work on technical issues like tone and pacing while also developing a deeper understanding of how trauma shapes a person's identity and worldview.

Looking at the second draft of TGB through this lens, I felt that Luca and Robert were not distinct enough, either from each other or any of the other characters (many of whom were pretty cartoonish). I also realized that I hadn't been thinking of Luca's plot arc as a progress arc, a reparative curve along which we see him moving chapter by chapter and book by book. And I wanted to give myself room to illustrate his relationship with Robert in more nuanced shades of moral gray. Robert and Luca are both products of a society like but also quite unlike our own, and they don't have to be (and shouldn't be) "good" or "likable" in the way we're used to thinking about. Robert is not (or at least not initially) an abolitionist. Neither is Luca. Indeed, Robert is the one most willing to question the institution of slavery because he's also the one whose imagination hasn't been (as Kemp says of Luca) "hopelessly limited by slavery." Of course those limitations aren't actually hopeless, but they are very real, and they're something Luca will be chipping away at in increments for a long, long time.

It was useful for me to think about who I wanted Luca and Robert to be at the beginning of the story, and what I wanted their relationship to be, and then to think about who they and their relationship would become by the very last page of the very last book. Knowing our starting point and our destination allowed me to plot the distance between, and to shape that plot around the trauma recovery (with all its fits, starts, and setbacks) these characters needed to go through, both together and individually.

And then I started writing.

[raineydaywrites]

15 QUESTIONS FOR FRIENDS

I was tagged by @lesbiankiliel thank you!!♥️

Are you named after someone?

- sort of. my mom WANTED to name me after my grandmothers, but she hated both of their names (patricia and hilda). So instead, she gave me the same middle name as my grandma, Anne. Also, my name is biblical and a character my mom liked was named it as well, so while i'm not exactly named after them, i'm kind of named after them.

I am also, somewhat uniquely, unnamed after someone. I was almost named Hillary, but my mom was concerned that people would think I was named after Hillary Clinton because I was born during Bill Clinton's presidency. So I have a different name, which I appreciate because I don't like the name Hillary.

When was the last time you cried?

- well. unfortunately my nana's funeral was on Wednesday. so then.

Do you have kids?

- no. I'd like to have them someday, but I don't currently.

What sports do you play/have played?

- I did ballet and jazz dance as a for a cumulative decade and I played basketball in elementary and middle school. I was not good at either, but I was very enthusiastic and a hard worker

Do you use sarcasm?

- yes

What the first thing you notice about people?

- clothes. my mom once told me that compliments are a good way to make friends and clothes are a good thing to compliment on someone you don't know well and my autistic ass latched onto it SO HARD. I look at clothes to find a conversation starter and randomly compliment people's clothes

What’s your eye colour?

- brown

Scary movies or happy endings?

- I prefer happy endings! I don't like scary movies

Any talents?

- crochet, writing, singing

Where were you born?

- michigan

What are your hobbies?

- writing, reading, singing, puzzles, crafts

Do you have any pet?

- no. I had birds when I was a kid but I wasn't great at taking care of them. I like animals a lot. My family has a dog and a cat and I love them. But I don't think I'm in a great place in my life to take care of a pet of my own.

How tall are you?

- 5'6"

Favourite subject in school?

- english language & literature, physics, history, spanish

Dream job?

- writer and part time daycare teacher

TAGGING: @staarblaster, @vvendybird, @sgrumby, @barry-j-blupjeans, @maculategiraffe, @lightblueminecraftorchid, @happygiraffe, @spursthatjinglejanglejingle, @kirbymybeloved, @flipzmclego, @brinnanza

[sluggardly]

“Saint Sturges in his church, looking to fix all the Commonwealth’s problems with duct tape.”

This is just some meta related to my Fallout 4 fanfic “Salvage, Salvation and Rust”, and some of the headcanons it explores regarding Sturges. If you have an interest in the character, I’d recommend reading that first before this. I felt like some of my interpretation of the character deserved some expansion, but that a lengthy author’s note would take away from the impact of the ending. So instead I’m putting my thoughts here:

As I was getting ready to post the fic, I almost felt like I needed to apologize for writing it. The character depicted in the story is very different than the Sturges we see. While building to the (hopeful) swerve of that realization was part of what made writing the story enjoyable, it was also something that I’ve been concerned some readers might find upsetting.

Before Maculategiraffe's fics secured my obsession with Deacon and X6-88 and the weird little vampire story that followed, the character I was really intrigued by was Sturges.

The original fic I set out to write, when I first played the game, was the story of Sturges discovering his (marginally canon) synth nature through the tape of stolen Institute data, and bonding with Danse over same. And I may still write that fic one day. But as I played through the ending of the game while plotting it, it struck me just how little we actually know about Sturges, which when measured against how key a role he plays in a Minutemen victory is kind of mind-boggling.

He's presented when we meet him as a simple wasteland tinkerer, a jovial, kindly, humble guy who insists he's not a fighter. But as the questline progresses, there's a lot that doesn't add up. In Concord, he needs you to go downstairs to hack a terminal claiming that kind of security is above his pay grade, but later he not only builds the Interceptor, he also hands you a holotape capable of data-mining the Institute's archives. Once that data is securied, he manages to locate an entrance to the Institute, manages to hijack their teleporters once more once inside, and he was more than likely the one who built that bomb you use to blow up the reactor at the end.

Weird that there's these hints in the game data, even loose ones that are never alluded to, that he might be a synth.

The idea struck me as supremely interesting. Not just that the Minutemen might have secretly had a synth on their side, but that he would have been the one to make their victory possible. You’re the one who pulls the trigger on the Institute’s destruction, but he’s the one who built the gun. He’s the one who put it in your hand. And no one says anything. No one even knows.

And maybe no one knows because he wants it that way.

A very different image of Sturges started to take shape in my mind. A version who knows exactly what he is. A version who had been placed as a spy in Quincy, a spy who came to love the people he had been put in place to betray, wrestling all the while with a quiet, strangled despair. A spy who spent years in an impossible situation, with no avenue for escape that wouldn’t end with him and the people he cared about dead or worse.

And then, one day, his long-thought-impossible freedom is handed to him in the worst possible way when the Gunners hit Quincy, creating a situation where the Institute almost certainly wrote him off as dead.

The Institute made a monster in the mold of a gentle man, and behind his seemingly guileless smile he's been waiting. And when the opportunity came he went on to make them pay for every horrible thing they ever made him do, using the very skills the Institute built him with to erase them from the map.