#mostly for my own reference

[livingininsomnia]

Origins of Briar Valley

Once upon a time, there lived a simple fairy. Simple, in that she was made purely of ambition, and nothing else.

She lived upon a withered land, cold and dreary, filled of ugly, evil things.

How dreary. How drab and boring, she thought.

In this desolate land, any finery she desired must be crafted with her own hands, any luxury brought into the world through her talents.

And talented she was. She of a thousand spells, who had spun a dozen tapestries in a fortnight, who brought forth a castle into being simply through desire, what could she not do?

Yet it still wasn’t enough. All that surrounded her was an unchanging landscape of grey. But this land was resistant and unyielding. How could anyone live here but for her?

And so, she brought forth her magic, her will upon this world, and swallowed those ugly things, one after another, until all that remained were the black thorns of her will.

All that power, all that magic, she drove into the earth, fed and fed until life burst forth. First, from storm and lightning, rain to flood the lands, carving rivers and lakes into the earth.

And from that water came life. All across the land grew grass, then shrubbery and trees, until whole forests burst forth to cover the land.

And that is how Briar Valley came into life.

[goldenwanderer]

Books I Read in 2023

Thanks to a new job and a new e-reader, I managed to read 30 books this year (in contrast to only 12 in 2022).

By genre, the vast majority are fantasy, often with LGBTQ+ themes (wlw specifically). There's a bit of science fiction in here too, and a tiny sprinkling of non-fiction.

Out of the thirty, ten books were first-time reads. The rest were books I've read before. (Though one book made it on both lists - I read A Memory Called Empire early in the year, only to reread it months later before starting the sequel.)

New reads:

I Think I Might Be Autistic | Cynthia Kim

A Memory Called Empire | Arkady Martine

Harrow the Ninth | Tamsyn Muir

Rhythm of War | Brandon Sanderson

The Lost Metal | Brandon Sanderson

Tress of the Emerald Sea | Brandon Sanderson

Shorefall | Robert Jackson Bennett

Legends & Lattes | Travis Baldree

A Dawn of Onyx | Kate Golden

A Desolation Called Peace | Arkady Martine

Rereads:

Shadows of Self | Brandon Sanderson

The Bands of Mourning | Brandon Sanderson

Mistborn: The Final Empire | Brandon Sanderson

The Well of Ascension | Brandon Sanderson

The Hero of Ages | Brandon Sanderson

Beyond the Summerland | L.B. Graham

Gideon the Ninth | Tamsyn Muir

The Priory of the Orange Tree | Samantha Shannon

Elantris | Brandon Sanderson

Warbreaker | Brandon Sanderson

The Way of Kings | Brandon Sanderson

Foundryside | Robert Jackson Bennett

Words of Radiance | Brandon Sanderson

A Memory Called Empire | Arkady Martine

The Great Hunt | Robert Jordan

Skyward | Brandon Sanderson

The Unspoken Name | A.K. Larkwood

The Dragon Reborn | Robert Jordan

Oathbringer | Brandon Sanderson

Starsight | Brandon Sanderson

[7cfc00]

Cast: Hermie the Unworthy as Theatre Kid with Identity Issues!

[tastyfishistasty]

In case anyone's interested in the verb thing, this is a pretty good look at verb endings and how they've changed over the last 700 odd years!

It's a little bit snobby but it helped me get my head around what on earth strong and weak verbs were and how we are as a language deciding to be less complicated because English is... English.

Have been pondering, following the latest round of "But why don't authors LIKE it when we leave unsolicited concrit on their stuff? :|a Don't they want to IMPROVE?" discourse:

How do fan authors improve? Because it's not, by and large, through concrit. Some authors have never gotten any kind of concrit, and still improve. I've gotten some in the past, and it definitely was not helpful towards improving my growth as an author. Some authors never have a beta, and yet they still improve.

So. If not through a workshop devoted to the process, or a classroom style series of lectures, or a dedicated editor, how do authors improve over time?

I would say, based on my 20+ years of experience and observation, that improvement as a writer comes in three ways: Practice shaped by self-observation, practice shaped by non-critical feedback as positive reinforcement, and observation of other authors.

Fandom has always been a space where people of different ages and skill levels interact. How it works, generally, is that a new author comes into the scene and presents their work. Readers -- some of whom are authors themselves -- will leave feedback praising the parts they like. Writers will then adjust their style on the next piece geared towards eliciting more of the things that readers said they like. However, in a vacuum, they won't necessarily know what to adjust towards, or what new things to try that they aren't already trying.

But at the same time, these young authors are usually (though not always) reading works by more experienced authors in the fandom. They can see, based on popularity stats and feedback left by others, what people like. If they want more of that attention themselves -- or, just generally, if they want to be part of the community -- they will adjust their works to incorporate more of the parts they perceive as successful with the audience.

They will also -- the more they read, and the more they write -- come to internalize an understanding (often, not even a conscious understanding) of the moving parts that go into a story, of what makes the work work. How to pace a scene, a chapter, or a longer work. How the characters talk, and how different characters talk in ways that distinguish their voices. What sort of language works well to describe an action scene, and what is confusing and uncertain. What words are sexy and what words will jar you right out of the mood. They will pick up these tools by observation, and hone them through practice.

The down side of this, of course, is that sometimes the authors they are observing and imitating may have... less than ideal writing habits themselves. Certain tropes, flanderization, headcanons divorced from the original canon, or various other things can become endemic in a fandom due to this -- but also much simpler and more straightforward writing quirks. (The infamous oh is an example of these.) Sometimes things that I won't necessarily say are bad, I will just observe that they are not correct.

And this is how you got an entire generation of fanfic writers using strong endings on verbs that, in modern English, take the weak ending.

[karfild]

Character profiles via the making of the umbrella academy (S1)

[lucyvaleheart]

Mutual aid post

💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖

So....

...things have been goin not so great lately

I've been putting this off but my bank account went negative a little bit ago, and it's taken me about a week to get around to it.... But I made a gofundme to just kinda..... Try and catch some breathing room, yknow..?

Please do not feel obligated to donate, and don't feel bad for scrolling past, either. Trust me, I get it; and while I do desperately and immensely appreciate anyone who donates or shares this, I wouldn't dream of trying to guilt anyone into anything. Thank you for even reading all this, genuinely; and whatever I do get, I am so, so grateful for each and every one of you. 💖

[sukimas]

I made a height chart for the Touhou characters that show up in AoCF based on Hasshaku-sama's height because the one that I have seen hanging around disappeared somewhere. I converted the characters' heights in pixels to cm and inches, and put them all next to each other for a nice comparison.

[elminx]

Over the next week, life just got lifier and I feel like I did a lot less.

On Sunday, I did some plant chores - most specifically, I brought the last of my succulents inside onto my porch as a first step in transitioning them into my house for the winter. Though this isn't inherently witchy, I do walk the green path so all of the plant care that I do is a part of my practice. Monday is my favorite day of the week to be witchy. I like to make sure my kitchen is cleaned up well - I do any stray dishes, clean all of the surfaces, and replace the hand towels. I also did a bit more tinkering with the apple syrup recipe that I'm working on.

On Tuesday, I set and lit the candle that I made the week earlier with Gray and did a bit of other miscellaneous protection work.

I didn't do anything witchy on Wednesday other than cooking a spicy apple chili for some friends which I added magic to because that's how I cook.

I took a moment to connect with Jupiter on Thursday, but otherwise didn't do any witchy work.

Nor on Friday or Saturday because I had a big work project that was keeping my attention.

When I finally had a chance to unwind on Sunday, I took all of the plants and other ephemera off of my Earth altar, gave it a thorough clean, and a good re-arrange to fit my smaller succulents under the grow lights. I also cleaned the leftover wax out of a pumpkin-shaped candleholder that I intend to reuse for some later magic.

Though this is very different from the week beforehand, I'd still say it is a decent example of the type of "work" that I might get up to in a given week.

I thought y'all might like an overview of what I did this week in my practice. I won't tell you everything as there are practices that are private, but I will share the rest. Keep in mind here that I practice mostly secular cottage witchcraft which may mean that my practice is very different from yours, and that is completely okay.

On Sunday, my partner and I tore our living room apart to make space for our new grow light setup. This involved pulling all of the books off of the lower bookshelf and drilling a hole through to gain access to a wall outlet to install a smart plug, moving the couch, and many other chores - the end result was that I got to deep clean some spaces that are harder to reach. Since I had better access to my windows (behind the couch), I cleaned them with a vinegar solution that I had enchanted and pulled all of my protections out to recharge. (I also trellised a Hoya and went for a long walk in the woods which are craft adjacent)

Moonday is always my big housewitch upkeep day so I mostly did my normal house stuff. I always clean my kitchen and refresh offerings on this day. I have been working with a hearth candle which I lit while I was working.

I prefer to do my protection work under the energy of Mars, so I lit a candle to recharge my window protections on Tuesday with the help of a few plants I grow in my garden. For reference, the garden is right outside of the windows, so this is an obvious connection.

I did not do anything for my craft on Wednesday other than talk with a friend and plan for Thursday's activities.

On Thursday, Gray and their partner came over to do some "witchy crafting". I spent much of the afternoon cleaning up some more as I needed to make space for four people to have tables to craft on and then made a sweet potato jambalaya. I also made a very experimental apple spice syrup to boost creativity and abundance during Autumn. Gray and I made spell candles in fall gourds while my partner crafted for their D&D campaign and Gray's boyfriend coded on our couch.

Yesterday was a perfect Autumn day (cloudy and warm), so I decided on some cemetery maintenance. I went to my cemetery and picked up all the trash. Additionally, on my walk, I picked flowers to dry - mostly rose, marigold, and chrysanthemum. I use these in an offering I made for the dead a number of years ago - each Autumn, I replace the old dried flowers from the year before with new ones.

I would say that this week was a decent example of the amount of "work" that I do in a week. It was a little on the high end of average (my chronic illness has been very kind to me recently) but most of the projects were relatively low-energy.

[eleventhsister]

why are they so hard to draw

[beebeedibapbeediboop]

Hi I absolutely love your art first off, I would just like to know how you manage to make your ocs look the same in EVERY SINGLE FRAME, I just never feel I can never get the resemblance I wanted.

I have to tell a secret.... I trace my own drawings of my own ocs LMFAOOO

[worflesbian]

Shame is the shadow of love

[pincushionx]

Listening to ‘I bet on losing dogs’ by Mitski and all I can think of is Caleb for some reason

While I think Caleb is a hallucination, I think about the possibility of ghost Caleb. Due to his body never being let to rest and his bones used to create new life he’s unable to move on. So he witnesses brother make a grimwalker, at first he’s shocked and disgusted, horrified by this act against nature but then he falls in love. This 1st grimwalker whose an abomination to life, who looks like he’s falling a part at the seems, who looks nothing like him, this uncanny being meant to replace him, was the most the most precious thing to him. It was heavily deformed but Caleb through his horror, loved the creature as soon as its head popped up from the ground. Perhaps it was that deep parental instinct in him , or the fact that he never met his own child but Caleb feels love for the being and is sadden that he’s unable to interact with him in a meaningful way. The grimwalker dies after a hour, it’s body too deformed and unstable to hold itself, it dies thinking it’s unloved as Philip simply let it die, neglecting the being, too disgusted by the beast and making plans on how to make the next one better as he withered. Caleb is heartbroken by this. And like that the cycle continues.

Not all grimwalkers are golden guards, many are just experiments or failures, his heart shatters for those whose survival was never a choice, all he can do is weep for their injustice. Their bones the base of the pit. He sees his brother, the boy he raised only grow colder and crueler. He hates that he misses the boy this monster used to be.

He watches over and over, a new grimwalker is born, lives poorly, and dies miserably. His babies, his children being murdered by his own brother and being able to do nothing about it. He’s tries to watch over Evelyn and his child and the generations of clawthornes after but he’s drawn back to the grimwalkers, they are made from his bone, his dna alone, he doesn’t dare to think of them as clones. The clawthornes have each other, these grimwalkers have nothing. He watches as they’re made to do heinous acts against witch and demon kind for their creator, their perception of the world being warped and freedom never being an option. Caleb thinks he would grow apathetic but the pain only grows as he watches the pile of bones get bigger. He sees his skeleton be reduced to quarter of its original size, he’s sees the wild land of the boiling isles being leashed by the rise of the empire.

He’s lost hope that his children would be ever able to escape, he’s seen to many die trying. He finds himself hoping they “stay in line” just to survive even if it wasn’t living.

But then one grimwalker, made from a rib, a child, the third one named Hunter made, finds flapjack. And he survives. He escapes his brothers wretched mind and runs, and like that, Caleb sees the first free grimwalker. His brother dies and he weeps for the child he raised. The boy, Hunter escapes to the Human realm. He follows. The world has changed so much, even more than the boiling isles. He finds himself exploring the place alongside the little grimwalker, Hunter and his friends. For the first time, he feels warmth. He wishes he could reach out and touch the boy and tell him how much he loved him. He wishes that for all the Grimwalkers but he wants to tell him how happy he is that he escaped. He watches Hunter grow a bond to kind women who treats him gently, with friends who love him dearly.

Hunter is his son and his son is alive. He mourns that he can never be a dad to the boy.

His son gets possessed, he watches his brother manipulate his sons body and he’s helpless to any of it, he had spent to much time following his son he didn’t think of the possibility of his brother being alive.

His son dies and Caleb feels as if he would be weeping for all eternity…but then his palismen, who he carved with his own hands lands on the boy chest and gives him life. He’s sadden by the death of his palismen but the bird has centuries to live, the grimwalkers never really had a life. This one a child, not even an adult like the previous where.

His son lives, now scarred and brown eyes and Caleb can’t help to think he’s only further solidified himself as his son. His son has powers, Caleb is a proud father.

Another grimwalker gets possessed but falls apart and dies immediately, Caleb mourns the son he never got a chance to see in proper lighting.

His brother dies. He grieves.

His son is cared for by adults who can be there for him. Caleb feels bittersweet. He watches from a distance, he’s accepted reality but he can’t help but imagine a life where is was him being the parent.

The bodies of his dead children are found, they are buried. Theirs names only remembered by the journals made by their creator.

His own body is found, or what remains of it. It’s buried, his son pays his respects and he feels like a proud father.

Suddenly theirs an opening and he can leave. He watches his remaining son grow a life for himself.

Caleb is at peace, he wants to watch but it’s his time to go. It’s been his time for centuries. He looks longingly to his living son. He wishes he was his dad.

He looks at the other side and hopes that he may reconnect with his wife, with their born child, and meet all the grimwalker children he never got a chance to show his love.

With the first breath he’s taken in centuries, he steps to the other side and Caleb is no more.

(Made myself sad and sorry for grammar issues)

[tribbles-the-lesbian]

~✨Keep Your Smile Merry✨~

Progress made so far on my little “Smile Merry” Wally piece!! Pretty proud of it so far X3

I want to do my faux-rendering today, but I have my midterm tomorrow so I gotta studyyy,, just gonna have to wait and see how long I guess~

⬇️original sketch + anatomy changes made⬇️

[aachria]

Question 2: do you have, like, a map of the scars Ed has accrued over the course of SSSBMTY? They sure do be getting into a decent number of Scrapes:tm:

I do in fact have a scar map of Ed. You know when I was making it I realized a lot of the damage Ed takes it like... internal. Like they get kicked around A LOT.

I'm putting it under the break because it's not reeeally partial nudity — they're wearing shorts and a bra — but there's enough skin I'd rather not make anyone uncomfy if they don't wanna see.

Behold! All the shit I never bother to add when I draw Ed!

Let's hear it for the ✨rippling abs✨ and ✨mmmmm back muscles✨ Y'all anatomy is hard and I refuse to make it accurate. Idk if you can read half that shit. Goddamnit the Strawhats should have gotten Lichtenburg figure scars after fighting Eneru it would have been COOL. Now let's see how long it takes for this shit to be outdated because Ed gets their ass kicked.

[gaymakima]

I have a headcanon that 'Branwen' is not Raven and Qrow's surname from birth, nor was the name of their tribe at the time. When the tribe got their hands on the documents and decided to send the twins to Beacon, they needed to give themselves a surname. The one they were born with was long forgotten by that point (hell, they were too young to remember what their given names were before the tribe took them).

Qrow, who already rebelled against the tribe by idolising The Reaper, suggested to Raven they take a name from a story. Raven agreed, and the two began searching through what few books they owned for inspiration. Eventually they settled on 'Branwen', the name of a warrior with a close association to corvids.

Ozpin knew from the moment he saw them that their surname was made-up. It came from a story he wrote, after all (and he already figured out they were from a bandit tribe because, well, they weren't exactly discreet enough to fool him).

But the name 'Branwen' is still theirs now, regardless of its origin. Qrow was named so because of his misfortune. Raven's name was given after Qrow's, because she was an afterthought. Their abusers gave them those names. But 'Branwen'? That was all the twins. That was their first taste of freedom.

Giving themselves a name.

[kangals]

ok now that i've had a day to get my panicky moping out of the way. here's whats going on with stellina (writing down for my own reference but also bc i am a chronic pet over-sharer):

yesterday morning when i got out of bed she came out of her crate and was walking on 3 legs, completely non weight bearing on her right rear. i thought maybe her foot had just fallen asleep but when it didn't improve after a few minutes i got very concerned. i did a quick check and she seemed resistant to me bending that knee but otherwise didn't show any discomfort.

and here's the thing about stellina - i love her so much, but she is kind of a pussy. she has a very low tolerance for stress or pain - at the first sign of discomfort, she will go tuck herself into her crate and stay there. she is NOT stoic. when she fucked up her tendon as a puppy, she yelped and went into her crate and didn't leave for a week. but knowing this... she was acting completely normal, even while on 3 legs. tail wagging, alert, calm, totally at ease. which told me that while clearly her leg was not right, she was also not in pain or distress.

after a few minutes she had progressed to toe-touching lame instead of fully holding it up, so i was able to coax her down the stairs and then into the yard. after another minute she was limping, but bearing weight. again, acting normal: sniffing around, went potty, even played with kep. i took them both for a short leash walk and by the end of it she had pottied, scent marked, sniffed, etc totally normal, and only had a very slight limp by this point. cool, crisis averted!

i let them back inside and she went and layed down for a few minutes while i got their food ready. but when i called them over to come eat, she was non-weight bearing again. and again, same pattern: it would gradually improve after a few minutes of exercise, but sitting/laying down for any period of time would make it stiffen right back up.

i ended up taking her to my work's urgent care office to get looked at. the vet did a manipulation test of her knee and said that she noticed two things. first, that her patella (knee) was very slightly loose (patella laxity is graded on a 0-4 scale, with 0 being normal not-moving knees, and 4 being "this dog's kneecap has left the building." vet said stellina's was like a 0.5 - very slightly loose). second, she was able to slightly move her leg sideways in a way that you shouldn't be able to if your CCL (ACL in ppl - the ligament that keeps your knee vertically aligned basically) is intact. so her suspicion was that stellina's right CCL has a partial tear, likely due to the slight movement in her patellas slowly increasing friction on the CCL.

she also tested her left leg and said while that patella is also very, very slightly loose, there's no sign of CCL damage on that leg yet. however about 60% of dogs who injure on CCL also injure the other within a few years.

she sent her home on some NSAIDs and requested a consult with the surgery department. the good news is that after a single dose of the meds, stellina is acting like 95% better - still has some resistance if i bend her knee, but is walking without lameness and still acting very normal.

so right now, we're waiting for a consult with the surgeon so she can do an exam and either confirm the first vet's findings, find something else, and talk about options for treatment.

unfortunately once a CCL has been damaged, it can't repair itself. so assuming the surgeon agrees that there's CCL damage, it leaves us with the following options:

use NSAIDs, physical therapy, and restricted exercise for several weeks. hopefully this will let the tissue around the knee scar up/thicken enough that it creates a bit more stability in the knee. it doesn't fix the tear, and the CCL is still at risk of tearing more/rupturing in the future, but it may buy some more time - just impossible to say if that will be a month or two, or years.

go in and surgically repair the CCL before it has a chance to worsen or rupture. this is done with a TPLO surgery where they cut part of the leg bones and add a metal implant to stabilize. it's a very common surgery with a very high success rate, but it is expensive (at least $4-5k per knee) and has a long recovery period (6-8 weeks restricted exercise + 2-4 months rehab and building up muscle).

i'm trying not to get too ahead of myself on either option until we talk to the surgeon for their opinion first. on one hand, i don't want to put my dog through surgery, especially one with such a long recovery period - we've already done that when she fucked up her achilles, and it sucked. i hate the idea of signing her up for months of crate confinement and discomfort for an elective procedure. but on the other hand - if the CCL is torn, it's not going to fix itself. it seems stupid to just sit around and wait for it to rupture and become an emergency, especially if there's a chance that the other leg might go as well. if we do the surgery within the next month, she'd already be halfway through recovery by christmas time.

so yeah, that's where we are currently. hopefully we can talk with the surgeon this week and get a better idea of the options, and make a plan. i want to do whatever is in stellina's best interest, whatever that ends up being.