#next time i'll need a more complicated pattern

[autobahnmp3]

i spent 4 hours knitting this shawl today and it sees like i made almost no progress

[roosterforme]

Aim for the Sky Part 11 | Rooster x Reader

Summary: Bradley is determined to take care of everything so you can take take care of Rose. A visit to your doctor answers a lot of questions, and Bradley is hoping he can still give you the babymoon that he promised.

Warnings: Angst, injury, potential pregnancy complications, fluff, smut

Length: 4200 words

Pairing: Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x Female Reader

Aim for the Sky masterlist. This was written to accompany my series Is It Working For You? along with a bunch of my one-shots and other series, but it can be read on its own! Check my masterlist for the reading order.

Bradley had you eating three square meals a day all weekend long. He spent more time talking to your mom than you did, and she helped him cook while you took little naps. Any time food was mentioned, in any capacity, he got you involved.

"Cam and Maria want to know if I'm interested in going out for a belated birthday brunch since I'm feeling a bit better," you told him as you read your texts on Sunday morning.

"Tell them yes," Bradley replied where he was still in bed next to you with his head on your shoulder and his eyes closed. "But I'll drop you off and pick you up." His rough fingers tracing an intricate pattern along your skin from your belly up to your breasts, and you knew better than to argue with him.

"Okay," you murmured as he kissed along the side of your breast. He'd been touching you nonstop since he brought you home from the hospital. If you were awake, his body was in contact with yours, and his hands were on your belly. And when you slept, he seemed to miraculously clean the house and walk Tramp and make edible food. But while he'd been touching you constantly, he didn't initiate sex, and neither did you.

Truthfully, your hand was still aching a bit, and every time you felt Rose move, you silently rejoiced. Your body was sore, and you just kept wanting to go back to sleep. You found yourself stifling yawn after yawn, and you knew Bradley had noticed by the way he kept ushering you back to bed. Of course he would be very gentle with you, but right now, you didn't need anything more than what he was giving you.

Quickly, you finished texting Cam and Maria, then you tossed your phone aside. When you rolled Bradley onto his back, he was smiling as he whispered, "How's my Nugget?" while he played with your necklace charms.

Your visit to the emergency room after you fell at work had been terrifying, but having Bradley around always made you feel stronger. "Why don't you ask her yourself?"

With those words, you were on your back once again, and Bradley's lips were skimming along your belly. "Hey, Rosie. You having fun in there?" He grinned and glanced up at you, letting his mustache tickle your skin as he said, "Daddy would love to be inside Mommy, too."

You snorted in response, something stirring the way it always did when Bradley's big, brown eyes were focused on you. "I mean... I don't have to be at brunch until eleven."

His biceps were on display along with his messy hair, and you were never going to stop wanting him. But he was shaking his head slowly as he told you, "I'm in no rush to make that happen. Let's see what Dr. Morris says tomorrow. You're supposed to be taking it easy, and so is Rose."

"You're right," you agreed, still biting your lip as the sensation of Bradley's mouth on your body.

"I love you," he whispered against your belly before hovering over your body to kiss your lips. "And I love you, Sweetheart. And you're never allowed to scare me again."

When he eventually drove you to brunch, he refused to just drop you off and come back. Instead, he walked you inside, his big hand wrapped around yours, and took you all the way to the table where Cam and Maria were waiting. 

"Hey," he greeted your friends, yanking his aviators down his nose as he wrapped his arm around you. "She's supposed to be eating plenty of healthy foods rich with nutrients and vitamins. Can the two of you be responsible for what she orders?"

"Roo," you whined, rolling your eyes, but your friends just nodded up at your husband.

"Yes," they recited in unison.

"Excellent," Bradley replied, largely ignoring your complaints as he added, "And you'll make sure she drinks at least three glasses of water?"

"Yes," they repeated.

"Perfect," he muttered, leaning in to give you a kiss while his hand slid down your belly. "Text me when you want me to come get you, Sweetheart."

As he walked away, you sighed, but both of your friends had their eyes glued to him. "Damn," Maria said as you took the seat across from her. "He means business."

Cam bit his knuckle before he picked up the menu as if he didn't already know what he was going to order. "You're so fucking lucky you have such a bossy husband," he complained. "And one with a mustache. If I didn't like you so much, I would hate you."

You watched Bradley's broad back as he exited the restaurant and headed toward the red Bronco, pushing his sunglasses into place as he went. "I would probably hate me, too," you murmured, picking up your first of three glasses of water and taking a long sip.

---------------------------

Bradley ran around with his checklist on Monday morning so he didn't forget anything. You mom taught him how to make overnight oatmeal in the slow cooker, which seemed to be the only kitchen appliance that he was able to master on the first try. He fucking loved that thing; you just tossed food into it, and it turned into a meal like magic. He vaguely remembered his mom having one, which just made it even better.

Every time he thought about his parents, he had to stop and catch his breath. His desire to do this right was overwhelming. After you fell at work, he knew there was no margin for error. He filled up a cup with water and carried it back to the bedroom where he hoped you were still asleep, but you weren't even there.

"Baby Girl?" he called out, but then he heard the toilet flush and the sink run before you shuffled back in from the bathroom.

"You're making me drink too much water," you grumbled as he ushered you back to bed. "I can't stop peeing."

He set the new cup down and picked up the used one. "Just humor me, please. I'll come back to pick you up at 11:45 to take you to Dr. Morris. I'll feel a lot better after she examines the two of you, and I have a list of seventeen questions for her."

You looked at him like he was joking. He wasn't. "Mmkay, Roo. Come back and get me later," you said, kissing his lips before climbing back into bed. 

When he got to base, everyone was asking about you."She's at home resting," he assured Nat. "She's sore and tired, but the baby is moving around a bunch. I'm taking them to get checked out again at lunchtime today. Oh, and thanks for getting groceries for me. And driving me to the emergency room. And making sure I didn't have a full nervous breakdown."

Nat gave him a big hug. "Literally what I'm here for, Soul Sister. Just keep me in mind when nominations come out for godparents," she told him with a wink.

"Huh," he grunted, because he hadn't even thought about that. If he had to choose someone, he would probably want it to be Nat, but he didn't know where you stood on the topic, so he didn't say another word about it. When he had to get in his Super Hornet and take off, his mind shifted back to Friday, and a flash of panic went through his body as his wheels left the runway. 

"Rooster, do you copy?" He realized Maverick had asked him something, but he had no idea what. All he could picture was your tear streaked face as you lay in the hospital bed shivering.

"Say again?" he asked, hand gripping the throttle as he tried to focus. He should have used a vacation day, but he was trying to save them up for after the baby was born. He was kind of terrified that you'd have to go out on medical leave, and he knew he wasn't going to feel better about any of this until he heard from Dr. Morris.

"Meet Payback at the rendezvous point," Maverick repeated, and Bradley pushed his nervous energy to the side. How much trouble could you get into at home with Tramp anyway?

The answer was apparently a lot. When he walked in the door to pick you up for your appointment, he headed for the bedroom only to find you sitting on the floor of the baby's nursery with the dog next to you. "What are you doing?" he asked with a sigh. "You were supposed to be resting all morning."

"Relax," you told him, holding up your hands in surrender. "I got bored, so I just started sorting the baby clothes."

He cradled his forehead in his hand. "Baby Girl. You're killing me. Tell me you at least ate lunch? And drank enough water?"

"Three glasses of water," you replied, holding up three fingers and nodding. "And a peanut butter and hot sauce and jelly sandwich. And carrot sticks dipped in ketchup."

Bradley wanted to gag just thinking about it, but he supposed that was actually pretty good for you. "Excellent," he replied, reaching down to help you stand up. "We need to get going. Now."

"Oh," you whispered, kissing his cheek once you were on your feet. "You're really hot when you're being bossy."

Bradley sighed and let his head tip back as you ran your hand down the front of his flight suit. "If, and only if, Dr. Morris says having sex is okay, I could get real bossy with you later if you give me an attitude about eating your dinner."

You squeaked in delight and practically ran out of the room. "Let's get going," you called over your shoulder. "The sooner we ask, the sooner we can potentially fuck."

Bradley grabbed a water bottle from the refrigerator on his way to help you put your shoes on, and he was trying not to laugh the entire time. "Drink this," he told you before tying your shoes. Then he kissed you hard before leading you out to the red Bronco.

Once he backed out of the driveway, you reached for his hand. Bradley drove with the radio playing softly, and eventually you squeezed his fingers and admitted, "I am a little nervous though."

So was he, but he wasn't going to tell you that. "We'll figure it out. You don't have to worry about it alone."

He held your hand in the waiting room, and he had his arm wrapped around you when the nurse called you back to be examined. They took about a million samples from you before you were allowed to get cozy on the exam table with him sitting by your side, gently rubbing your left hand without touching your stitches. He was just thinking about what he was going to cook for dinner when Dr. Morris finally walked in.

"It sounds like you had a bit of a scare on Friday," she remarked, carrying your chart in her hand.

"Yes," you said sheepishly. "It was really scary."

"Well," she sighed, taking a seat with a smile, "let's take a look."

You were gripping Bradley's hand as Dr. Morris got the ultrasound equipment ready, and a few seconds later, Rose was squirming around on the huge monitor. "She got so big," he gasped. "Sweetheart, look at her!"

"I see her, Roo."

Dr. Morris looked completely calm, but Bradley asked, "Is she okay? After the fall?"

"She's just fine. Heartbeat is good. She's nice and strong."

"Excellent," he replied while you laughed in relief.

"However," Dr. Morris added, making his heart skip a beat, "we do need to talk about preeclampsia."

Your face fell when Bradley looked at you. "I have preeclampsia?" you asked softly.

Your doctor nodded. "A mild case, but yes. The baby looks fantastic, but I'm going to need you to monitor your blood pressure daily at home. And I have a list of foods you should eat as well as ones to avoid. And you need to eat and drink regularly so you don't faint again."

"Am I allowed to go back to work?" you asked.

"Yes. With the promise that you won't overdo it. And if you start to feel light headed, you need to sit down immediately and call me."

"Right," you agreed. "And is it safe to fuck my husband?"

"Sweetheart," Bradley groaned, resting his forehead against your arm in embarrassment.

"What?" you asked while Dr. Morris chuckled. "You wanted to know, too!"

Bradley shook his head as your doctor had mercy on him and said, "You can absolutely have sex with your husband as long as it's not causing you stress or raising your blood pressure too much. Monitor it. Keep an eye on it."

"Right," you agreed again, giving Bradley side eye as he pulled a sheet of paper out of his pocket.

"I have a few more questions for you, Dr. Morris. If you don't mind." He cleared his throat and started to read his seventeen questions, nodding at each answer until he got to his last one. "And how about a babymoon vacation? Is that something we can do?"

"I don't see why not," she said with a smirk. "Assuming your blood pressure doesn't get too high, and as long as you go in the next few weeks if air travel is involved. You're only ten weeks or so from your due date."

Well, that certainly put things into perspective for Bradley. He had a few ideas of where he wanted to take you, but now he was going to have to plan quickly and try to get some days off from work. 

"Do you think I should change into my maternity tent and go to work for the afternoon?" you asked as he led you out of the appointment.

"Absolutely fucking not," he replied, feeling much better but still wanting you to rest a little more. "I'm going to take you back home where you will relax and eat a healthy snack, and then I'll come home and make dinner."

You looked up at him in awe. "Those are words I legitimately never thought I would hear you say unironically."

"Get used to them," he murmured, leaning down to kiss you before you climbed into the Bronco. "And you better not give me an attitude about it, or else I could end up getting really bossy." He clicked your seatbelt into place with a grin as you clapped your hands.

--------------------------------

"You made spaghetti?" you asked, arms crossed over your chest.

"Yes," Bradley replied easily where he stood in the kitchen hours later wearing your I Love Meat apron and holding a slotted spoon. "Is there a problem with that?"

"Yeah. I'm not eating it. I don't want spaghetti."

"Hmm," Bradley hummed, carefully setting down the spoon and turning off the stove burner. "It sounds like you're giving me an attitude."

You had to squeeze your thighs together, already so turned on as he closed the distance to you while you said, "Maybe I am." You jutted your chin out at him and added, "What are you going to do about it?"

His gaze dipped down from your face to your breasts which were practically spilling out of your stretchy tank top. He had an erection which you could clearly see through his gym shorts and the apron. "I'm going to give you an attitude adjustment," he growled, pulling you closer to him. "And then you're going to eat the fucking dinner that I made for you without complaining."

You were already panting for him, so excited over this little roleplay exercise, but you squealed in surprise when he yanked your top clear off and and immediately got handsy. His thumbs were rough on your nipples as he stroked them and pressed your breasts together. Then he let his right hand slide down your backside where he gave you one soft swat and barked, "Hands on the counter."

You did as you were told, already rolling your hips as he stood behind you and yanked your shorts and underwear down. "Bradley," you whined when you saw the apron fall to the floor at your feet, and a second later, he was pushing his cock inside your pussy as you bent a little more.

He planted his hands on the counter next to both of yours, and he ran his thumb gently along the spot near your stitches as he pushed himself deep. You felt his mustache on your ear as he whispered, "Make sure you relax. No high blood pressure for you, Sweetheart. I love you." Then he started fucking you nice and hard as he growled, "You've had a bad attitude all day. You know that? It's about time I fucked it out of you."

"Oh god!" you moaned in excitement. "Please do, Daddy."

He went hard, alternating between talking sweet and scolding you for being bad. "You're so damn hot, I can barely stand it," he crooned. "You'll eat the fucking dinner I made, and you'll say thank you," he grunted, getting you more and more worked up as you gripped at the countertop. "You gonna eat the spaghetti?" he asked, fingers dipping below your belly to find your clit. "Huh?"

"Yes!" you shouted, eyes fluttering closed as he stroked you in slow circles that got faster and tighter. "Yes!"

Bradley's lips were pressed to the sensitive spot behind your ear, and you were treated to the deep, guttural sounds he made as his hips slapped against your butt. "Come on, Baby Girl. Come on." As soon as you felt that first perfect clench of your ograsm, he was coming too. "That's it," he groaned. "That's a good girl."

You were still bumping your body back against his, coming down from your high, when he wrapped both hands around to your belly and asked, "You feel okay? The Nugget's okay?"

"So good," you gasped, finally pulling your hands away from the counter. "Perfect."

You spun in his arms with a smile on your face, and your belly bumped his abs. His cheeks were all flushed, and he looked a little tired, but he was smiling as his cum dripped down your thighs. "You hungry for the spaghetti?" he asked, stroking your cheek with his fingers.

"Starving," you replied, finally sated.

Two minutes later, you were sitting on Bradley's lap at the dining room table with one huge plate of spaghetti and two glasses of water. "I can't believe you made this. It smells incredible, Roo," you praised. 

"Your mom helped a lot," he replied, but you could hear the pride in his voice. "Did you know you're supposed to add salt to the water before you cook pasta?"

You tried not to laugh as you twirled spaghetti onto your fork and took a bite. "This is delicious. And yes, I did know that."

"Is that why it always tasted so much better when you made it? I never did that before today."

God, you loved him so much, it was ridiculous. You'd been cooking for the two of you for years now, but he stepped out of his comfort zone as soon as you fell at work, knowing you couldn't keep doing all of this by yourself. Instead of answering his question, you said, "I could never love anyone else as much as I love you."

"Same," he replied easily. "It's just you and Rosie for me. That's why I spent my afternoon planning out the perfect babymoon."

"You did?" you asked, turning to look at him over your shoulder.

"Keep eating, and I'll tell you more," he promised, nudging your shoulder before taking a bite for himself. 

Once you were eating again, he said, "As long as you can get a few days off at the end of the month, I want to take you somewhere that is plentiful with hot sauce."

"Del Mar?" you asked, thinking of the hot sauce restaurant and the reservation you missed on your birthday.

He gave you a bland look. "Come on, even I can do better than that."

"I don't know," you said with a laugh, and he nudged you again to take another forkful.

"Beautiful beaches. Spicy food. And a hot sauce making workshop," he whispered, and you nearly dropped your fork.

"You and Jake didn't try to make hot sauce again, did you?" When you thought about the disgusting bottle of spicy vinegar your husband brought home as a treat, you almost wanted to cry. "Please tell me no."

"Sweetheart," he said with a laugh. "I'm talking about Mexico!"

"Oh!" you gasped in excitement.

He looked so pleased with himself as he said, "It's a short plane ride away. We'll just go for a few days. It'll be like our honeymoon in Hawaii all over again, but this time you'll be pregnant in your little red bikini with your rooster tattoo on display."

You bit your lip as his hand settled on your thigh. "You really thought this through."

"I did," he replied. "You wanted a babymoon, and Dr. Morris said it's okay, so you're getting a babymoon. Now let's finish eating so I can check your blood pressure and clean the kitchen."

---------------------------

The next few weeks of work were tedious. Your lab mates often treated you like you were made out of porcelain, about to fall over at the slightest inconvenience. Even Bickel got into a bit of a habit of going easy on you before you met with him to tell him you were eating and staying hydrated and could carry your normal workload.

"I'm going to get something to drink," Cat told you one day as you sat in front of your computer working some calculations in the software. "Do you want anything? Maybe a snack?"

"You don't have to be so nice to me right now," you replied. "In fact, please don't."

She scoffed. "Are you trying to insinuate that I'm usually mean to you or something?"

You looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "You're certainly never this nice. And I mean that in a good way. I think I got used to you being a bit rough around the edges most of the time, and I like it that way."

"Who took care of your wedding rings?" she asked. "And who helped you battle your morning sickness in Annapolis?"

"You did," you replied easily. "But you're never this sweet to anyone besides Jeremiah and Jake. The two loves of your life."

She was silent for a beat before she said, "I'll just get you some juice." She left the lab, and you smiled. Jake wanted to get married, but she was putting up a hell of a fight even as she was steadily paying down the debt her husband accrued while Jake paid for Jeremiah's daycare on base.

You groaned and rubbed your eyes as you yawned. Getting Rose on the waitlist for the daycare was something you kept forgetting to take care of, and it really needed to be done. You were leaving for Mexico in just a few days, but there were so many things you wanted to take care of first. Maybe you could ask Bradley to take care of this one agenda item, since he kept insisting your top priority was taking care of yourself. You could practically hear him tell you that the only person he trusted with the loves of his life was you.

By the time he met you in the parking garage at the end of the day, you were yawning nonstop. "Hey, I don't like that," he said right away, jogging the last bit to get to you. "You're really tired, Sweetheart."

"I am," you agreed. "But I ate a salad and an enormous bowl of soup for lunch, and I had two snacks today."

He kissed your forehead as he muttered, "Taking perfect care of my girls. I'll get you home and feed you dinner, and then we can start packing for our trip before you go to bed early. Oh, and I got the Nugget on the waitlist for daycare today."

"Bradley," you moaned, leaning into him. "You're the best husband. And like seriously, I don't even know how to deal with how fucking much that turns me on."

He kissed your forehead again and said, "Okay, we can definitely add sex to the agenda if we stop wasting time and head home immediately."

"I'll get undressed while you drive," you joked, playfully unbuttoning your horrible shirt while he buckled you in.

"Baby Girl, those massive tits could cause an accident," he warned before he groaned. "Holy shit, all I can think about is you wearing that little bikini with your belly and fucking gorgeous tits all over the place. Everyone is going to be looking at me next to you, knowing I got you like this." His hand rested on your bump, and he swallowed hard. "Knowing that's my baby."

"Seriously," you panted. "We need to get home now."

Bradley drove at a respectable speed and made you swear you would eat the dinner he made. Then when you got home, he checked your blood pressure and had you drink a glass of water. It was only at that point that he fucked you into the mattress, really rather lovingly, before he served you dinner.

---------------------------------

Next up is the babymoon of her dreams. Then Natasha is planning a baby shower that will probably be a nightmare. Then it's time for the Nugget to make her grand entrance! Thanks for reading! Thanks @beyondthesefourwalls

PART 12

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[comicaurora]

Out of curiosity, how far ahead are you on the comic? I mean, you must have it all planned and written out, but I imagine that you are drawing the future of Aurora even while we're reading it.

So is Arc 2 already illustrated and ready for upload while you're on like Arc 5 or something? I'm by no means undermining your need for a break; I'm shocked that you've been uploading continuously for over 4 years at this point. I'm just interested to know how long it takes a person to make something this great. And also if you change any details in the final edit?

Basically: what's the workflow like?

Also I think you low-key inspired me to pick up painting as a hobby. I'm ready to pour so much money into creating things that I know I'll hate. :)

God, arc 5? That's a very generous assessment of how fast I can draw!

Typically, when the comic is updating regularly, I keep a buffer of 10 to 20 completed pages. Right now, in the interest of taking a break, the buffer is 0 completed pages.

Chapter 1 of Arc 2 is completely storyboarded, meaning it's sketched out, the dialog is all mostly finalized barring last-minute rephrasements, etc. It can be read in its current form, it just looks unpretty. In fact, just for fun, here's a sneak peek!

In the next month I'll go through and finalize as many pages from this chapter as possible - which means locking down the panel borders, fleshing out the backgrounds, lining, shading, coloring, polish, etc. - which will be the process of building up a new buffer for when the comic starts back up again in January. During that time, I'll also be storyboarding Chapter 2 and as much of the following parts as I can manage.

I have the next several chapters and sub-arcs planned out in loose timelines - event A happens at location B leading to consequences C and D, stuff like that. Chapter 2, being the closest, is a little more fleshed-out, with a more detailed bullet-pointed timeline and various character ideas I've had that might or might not make it into the final version.

What exactly the chapter breakdown is going to look like is a little more complicated. Initially I'd planned for Chapter 1 to be low-stakes downtime and Chapter 2 to quickly kick off the high-octane adventure again, but when I started bullet-pointing out the stuff I wanted to do in Chapter 2, I ended up with a big pile of slower-paced character moments I thought were well worth exploring, so the runtimes might stretch a little.

Translating those brainstormed notes into storyboards and dialog is what I would classify as the "writing" part of this process. It happens at an erratic pace largely determined by the whims of whatever muse decides to get me in a headlock that day; sometimes I go weeks with no storyboarding progress, sometimes I hammer out fifteen pages in one day.

It's kinda like weaving, to me. The soon-to-be-arriving parts of the story are the most finalized, the most densely woven. A little ways beyond that, things get looser - some patterns may be locked down, but the actual work that'll hold it together hasn't been done yet. And in the far-flung future arcs, it's just the basic bones of the story and a pile of the threads I've planned to use. I know the shape of it, but in order for it to be fun and engaging for me to make it, I need to give myself room to be creative when I'm putting the whole thing together.

I actually have a file called the "Toolbox" that contains every random character or subplot idea I've had, and sometimes when I'm debating where to go with a chunk of story, I'll crack it open and scan through to see if anything jumps out begging to be used. Lotta fun stuff in there that may or may not ever see the light of day. Dropping stuff in the Toolbox is one of the most fun and freeing parts of the process for me!

[skyrimfuckery]

How did I forget this.

This is the "next" thing I had in mind when I was working on the squire's plate redo. And the dark witch outfit! This outfit is based on the Goliath beetle. I came across one when I was in Spain last winter, in the Zamora ethnographic museum. Why an African beetle is in a spanish ethnographic museum remains a mystery to me. But I digress.

I was immediately enchanted. I wanted to make a design that captured the essence of the creature: black and white when resting, and revealing the copper wings when in flight. From the get-go I knew I wanted to do a high fantasy styled outfit, with motifs from art nouveau and quite some visual noise. When I came across this bug, back in January, I didn't find myself capable enough to actually accomplish this design. So I worked on other things that were still on the backburner. The dark witch came first, then the squire's plate.

And here it is. The Garment of the Goliath. The cloak moves in movement, revealing the flame-painted copper armor underneath. The pattern of the beetle is reflected on the cape and tabard. The design language is supposed to be somewhat organic and unconventional. I also tried straying away from generally accepted high-fantasy designs, as you get a lot of that when you're doing elvish stuff or working with art nouveau motifs. It really was a bit of a test to see how well I could pull of a more complicated design like this. And I think I succeeded. I'm really happy with the way this thing turned out. All elements of the design, compared to older outfits, look better. The pouch is big step up compared to the squire's. The coin bag's textures look splendid, and I'm also super happy with the way the cuisse turned out. Lots of relief, lots of detail. There's this one shape/motif that's constantly being repeated across the entire armor. It's in the pauldrons, chestplate, vambraces, cuisses, and the boots. Can you spot it?

I did cut some corners during texturing, which is a bit of shame. These are learning opportunities. For example, the belt is a bit bland. When I'm striving to be holistic in my design, I need to pull it all the way through. For my next design, I'm intending to do just that. And I want to get that shit going from the concept stage onwards.

What I also want to do is to continue to be inspired by nature. So for my next project, I will make something as inspired by the American hummingbird. Of course it'll be armor. This time I'll try for a contrasting design to this goliath outfit. Colourful, but not demanding. Stay tuned.

[regular-gnome]

hey..

at what point do collectors opt to turn things from puppets to scrolls? I feel like turning an entire living creature into [a piece of paper] is very complicated, while turning them into simple puppets is easier because they keep all the same parts, just simplified and wood?

It is! It depends on the person's proficiency and understanding of the mechanism regarding when and how they change the creature. Once someone gets good at it, the creature can be transformed into a lifeless object without it dying in the process, and they will move on to more complex and efficient ways.

The way I see it, archiving is a form of information compression and storage—and there is A LOT of information. When looking at Earth creatures we have everything from single-cell bacteria to whales that range up to 100 quadrillion cells, all with different sizes. The smallest single-cell critter is 0.3 μm, while the largest single cell is an ostrich egg that can get to 18 cm. So it's not just noting "a cell"—there's also a lot of information about the cell content, size, the DNA, current water, and oxygen levels, what protein it contains and how much. Then there are spatial dimensions. (While we can consider there being more, especially in fiction, I’m sticking to three; trying to visualize four fills me with frustration and existential dread xD) Every cell has its place in space in relation to the others, and all the contents' relations are also important. If, suddenly, all histones materialize inside a mitochondria instead of the nucleus, we can have a problem. Additionally, physical and chemical processes gotta be considered. There's electricity powering our brains, hearts, running nerves, air in airways traveling to lungs, chemical signals traveling between synapses that also need to be accounted for. So, you have all the contents in space, their vectors, and building blocks. Thats a ton to save. This information has to be compressed to be preserved in an organized manner while also remaining lossless so that when returned to its original shape, it's as it was. Not even mentioning that in intelligent beings, there are also minds to take care of. Jellyfish might be fine after 100 years in a static void, but a human? Yhhhhh.

I think the mechanism would work by saving information in intangible magic and assigning it to a physical medium—be it a statue, doll, book, or scroll. If it is physical and can carry information, it can be used. We can argue the mind is part of the soul, or it is a biochemical process, but the fact is nobody really knows for sure what it is and Im not a theolog, so for the sake of this universe, I'll say it's something that occupies the same space magic does and is influenced by chemical processes, meeeeaning it can also be tricked by them. And the magic.

The first degree of preservation would be spells that only change the material but keep all shapes and info in place. This wouldn't require much thought while executing and could be "automated" or worse, taught to mortals (if they have enough magic to power the spell), like petrification or changing someone into wood, metal, or any other solid material. It's not perfect, if the structure is damaged, the spatial information is damaged too. Breaking is one thing, but imagine if the statue melts.

The next step would be assigning objects with some compression and change, like toys and dolls. I feel like there would need to be a system like a content library, so not every single atom is saved each time, but chemical structures like nucleotides in DNA (the ATGC thingies) would just have a shortcut. Larger repeating patterns could also be assigned their own id to save data, and it would slowly stack up. While things are written in intangible magic form and anchored to the medium, the medium can be somewhat customized, like the decorations the Collector added to the dolls. The mind, running in controlled magic, can also be affected, as we saw with Collie trying to scare them and Luz’s dream. On the spell keeping the preserved critter stable has a link to what shortcut it uses so with countless diffrent worlds and structres it wouldnt mix up.

Then we go further into compression, reducing size and dimensions until we reach a point where one axis is almost entirely removed, and we end up with a scroll. Then there are other things—creatures saved as amber miniatures, snow globes, scrolls, or drawings, sometimes purely to annoy the sibling that has to deal with the creature in unhandy form. A more permanent binding would be in a book that can contain a bunch of different animals. Rebinding for long-term preservation is the Curator’s job.

Looking at Earth creatures, eucariotic life shares ancestry with some ancient bacteria that decided to rebel and started to cooperate, so we share similarities even with distant organisms in some strutures since they come from each other. So when it comes to preserving whole populations with relations, the library of compression doesn’t have to be separate for every single animal or plant. For each section of the archive, there would be a common library of building blocks, and scrolls being somewhat separate carrying the exact instructions for body arrangement and the soul/mind/the part that makes them alive attached.

Next is unpacking the information. I think this requires the ability to interpret and recreate what was saved that mortals lack. While they couldn't really unpetrify others, a collector could (assuming the mind hadn’t deteriorated into a husk). In the case of an automated spell, I think it would result in a very lossy transmutation—like a jpg losing pixels, the creature might lose like heart funtion. The Collector's spell also looked temporary or incomplete since an influx of other types of magic (like in Amity or Raine’s case) was able to push back on it. That might also be why they were conscious in the form they were in. Not meant for long just enough to take them to archive in normal conditions. When a creature is heavily compressed, it needs external force to rebuild, as it's essentially written fully in magic. That’s what I think happened to the Owl Beast. Lilith released it from the medium, but since it wasn’t fully rebuilt, it being a magic form attached itself to a magic source.

SO YEAH, its a process that takes quite a while for them to master and it comes with experience. But when experience is based on life it often makes it hard to practice so those with less empathetic approach master it faster. Thanks for the ask! I was dying to talk about that for such a long time and that was a perfect thing to organise thoughts

[objectbiologist]

on object sleeping habits

(image ID: a doodle of amelia from ONE on a black background, drawn with white outlines sleeping upright with her legs tucked underneath her and her arms laid out in front of her. the second picture shows airy next to her in the same position, legs tucked underneath him, waking her up. /end ID)

something that has been very heavily debated in the community are object sleeping habits, how they sleep, the science behind it or whether they even need to sleep at all. this post aims to go a little more in depth about it, though it won't cover everything.

for one, the anatomy and biology differs wildly between families and even individual object species. this of course affects their sleeping habits and even their circadian rhythm.

with people and animals, the way they sleep is much more obvious. humans are granted the freedom of sleeping comfortably on their backs or curled up on their sides without much issue (aside from certain health complications that may arise due to the condition(s) an individual might have.) many mammals sleep curled up, or on their sides. birds sleep with their heads tucked in their wings, or in flight if you're a swift. bats hang upside down and horses can sleep standing up on lying down. crocodiles shut off one part of their brain in order to keep a lookout or maintain flight. swifts remain in the sky for most of their lives and only ever land due to sickness or to nest, which means they fly in their sleep too. so this begs the question, how do objects sleep?

it's different for every species. due to their wild differences in anatomy as discussed earlier, they often have to learn unique adaptations that help them thrive. this extends to sleep as well. for the longest time, it was thought that objects did not need to sleep at all, though recent observations have shown otherwise. it wouldn't be feasible to cover every object's sleeping habits and patterns, so i'll be going into some more recent studies.

for one, as with the images above, objects that have flat bases or rounded bodies may find laying on their backs or sides difficult or uncomfortable. these objects sleep with their legs tucked underneath them, sitting upright or leaned against a wall or other surface. occasionally they may be found laying down if it is comfortable, but it is not often.

it also isn't uncommon to see boxes dozing off within seconds, limbs tucked beneath them, or for coins to flop onto their backs. both of these objects have body structures that compromise their abilities to rest comfortably in any other position.

objects that have a tendency to roll, like glasses or cylindrical shaped objects may rest on their backs or sides with their arms propped up by their elbows, providing a stop to keep them in place. these species tend to be very light sleepers as well, so that in the event of a threat they can awaken quickly and spring upright. this especially applies to glass objects, who exhibit unihemispheric sleep in order to remain vigilant (in other words, they sleep with only one part of their brains at a time). they are also prone to night terrors, and tend to sleep in groups that alternate between keeping watch.

[robezpierre]

TOTK Light Dragon Crochet Pattern

It's been a while! Here's a crochet pattern for the Light Dragon from Tears of the Kingdom. I'll post it on deviant art shortly.

Full pattern below cut. If this ends up on P*nterest, I'm going to be very disappointed with one of you.

Stitches used (abbreviations): chain (ch), slip stitch (sl st), single crochet (sc), double crochet (dc), treble crochet (tr), increase (inc), decrease (dec)

This pattern is complicated – partially because I haven’t written a pattern for anything in a number of years, partially because the Light Dragon has a lot of weird parts. There’s chaining and slip stitching into the chains to make antlers, front loop and back loop work, flattening and working through two halves of a round simultaneously, and a lot of positioning.

I typically work in the round, without joining; if you would like to join, just add a sl st and a ch 1 to the end or start of each row in the round. It may make things twist less.

Head (1 in light brown)

1: ch 3, sc 2 in 2nd ch from hook, sc 3 in last chain, turn work (so that you’re working on the far side of the chain), sc (6)

2: sc, inc twice, sc, inc twice (10)

3-6: sc around

 7: in, sc around (11)

8: sc 5, IN BACK LOOP ONLY inc, in BOTH LOOPS, sc 5 (12) (the empty loop will be used with the white head marking)

9: sc around (12)

10: sc 3, inc, sc 5, inc, sc 2 (14)

11: sc 13, inc (15)

12: sc 7, inc, sc 7 (16)

13: sc 4, inc, sc 6, inc, sc 4 (18)

14: sc 8, inc, sc 8, inc (20)

15-18: sc around (20)

19: sc 3, dec around (16)

20: sc 2, dec around (12) DO NOT F/O, continue to body

Begin stuffing here, and continue stuffing as you go

Begin Body

21:  sc 6 in brown, join cream, in BACK LOOPS ONLY, sc 6 in cream (12)

22- 25: sc 6 in brown, sc 6 in cream (12)

26: sc 1 cream, sc 4 brown, sc 7 cream (12)

Rep rows 22-26  1 time

32-: rep row 26 (12)

Continue repeating row 26 until you’re happy with the dragon’s body length; mine was a total of 89 rounds. Then, continue with the tail

90: sc 1 cream, sc 4 brown, in cream sc 2, inc, sc 2, inc, sc (14)

91-96: Sc 1 cream, sc 4 brown, sc 9 brown (14)

97: sc 1 cream, sc 4 brown, in cream sc 2, dec, sc 2, dec, sc 1 (12)

98: sc 1 cream, sc 4 brown, in cream sc 1, dec, sc 1, dec, sc 1 (10)

99: sc 1 cream, sc 4 brown, in cream sc 1, dec twice (8)

100: sc 1 cream, in brown dec twice, in cream dec twice (moving the stitch marker to after the decrease) (4)

F/O, make sure everything’s stuffed and weave in ends

White Head Marking (One in cream) On one end of the unworked loops from Head/Body round 21, attach cream

1: inc, sc 4 inc, ch 1 and turn (8)

2: inc, sc 2, inc, sc 3, inc, ch 1 and turn (11)

3: inc, sc 4, inc, sc 4, inc, DO NOT ch 1 or turn (yet) (14)

4: ch 4, turn, sl st in 2nd ch from hook, sc in next two chs, skip first sc in the row (last worked sc from row 3), sc in 2nd sc, sc one more, skip next sc, sc in the stitch next to it (you want the hole, it’s for antlers), sc 4 more, ch 1, turn

4.1-2: sc 4 across, ch 1 and turn (4)

4.3: sc, dec, sc, ch 1 and turn (3)

4.4-5: sc across, ch 1 and turn (3)

4.6: sc, dec, ch 1 and turn (2)

4.7 dec, sl st into the open loop from Head row 8, sl st into the side of the head marking until you get back to row 4, cont row 4

4 cont: skip the first sc in row 4 (this is the other antler’s space), sc 4, ch 1, turn, sc 4, sl st in 2nd ch from hook, sc 2, join into a sc in row 4

F/O, leaving a long tail

Spike numbers depend on how long your dragon is; her back spikes are arranged in a large-med-small-med-large pattern, starting with two large spikes and ending with an extra seven large spikes on the tail (two on top, four on the sides, and one of the very end). I would recommend making two large, two medium, and one small spike to start, and laying them out to see how many repetitions of that pattern that you can fit on the dragon, and how many spikes you need. I fit three repetitions, and those amounts are reflected below.

Large Spikes (in light blue) (I made 11)

1: sc 4 in mc (4)

2: inc, sc around (6)

3: inc, sc 2 around (8)

4: inc, sc 3 around (10)

5: inc, sc 4 around (12)

F/O, leaving a long tail

Medium Spikes (in light blue) (I made 6) 1: sc 4 in mc (4)

2: inc, sc around (6)

3: inc, sc 2 around (8)

4: inc, sc 3 around (10)

F/O, leaving a long tail

Small Spikes (in light blue) (I made 3)

1: sc 4 in mc (4)

2: inc, sc around (6)

3: inc, sc 2 around (8)

F/O, leaving a long tail

Under-spike gold

I found this easier to follow by working conceptually. You are making circles for each spike to sit on top of. To start, count your spikes, and chain: 6 for each large spike; 5 for each medium spike; and 4 for each small spike. (I had ch 80, but I needed ch 83, see below). Add 2 chains at the end. Those last two chains count as Tr, not as chains to skip/work into. You’ll end up working on either side of the starting chain, mirroring what you do on one side on the other.

For large spikes, skip 2 chs, Tr 5 in 3rd ch, skip 2 chs, sl st in 3rd ch

For medium spikes, skip 2 chs, dc 5 into 3rd ch, skip 1 ch, sl st in 2nd ch

For small spikes, skip 1 ch, dc 5 into 2nd ch, skip 1 ch, sl st in 2nd ch.

Combine the above to match how you want your spikes to sit on your dragon; when you get to the end of the chain, turn your work so that you’re working back up the chain, and mirror your stitches. You should have the correct number of circles, and be able to sl st into the first ch. I had to put Tr 10 into the first ch, since I did not have enough circles, but the ultimate placement worked out.

For the side spikes on the tail, do the following twice: Ch 10, tr 5 in 4th ch from hook, skip 2 chs, tr 10 in last ch, skip 2 sts, tr 5 in the next st (the same st as the initial tr 5), sl st to the first tr, F/O with a long tail. Sew to body, on the sides of the main tail under-gold.

I had to make one circle for the final spike on the tail, by ch 6, tr 5 in 3rd ch from hook, skip 2 chs, sl st into last ch, skip 2 sts on other side of work, tr 5 into next ch (again, where the initial tr 5 is, you’re making a circle), sl st onto first tr and F/O. A magic circle of 6, increasing around to 12, would probably work just as well; so would making the initial golden circles longer to accommodate this spike. I simply lost my spike and didn’t realize it until after I had placed everything.

Hair (make 1 in gold)

1: ch 21, starting in 2nd ch from hook, sc across (20)

2: ch 4, sl st into 2nd ch from hook, sc, in next ch, hdc in last ch, skip a st of row 1, sl st into front loop of next sc. Repeat across the row. Ch 1 and turn at end. (10 spikes)

3: Working in back loops only, sc across, ch 1 and turn (20 sc)

4-7: repeat rows 2-3 twice

F/O, leaving a long tail

Horns (make 2, in cream and turquoise)

In cream:

1: ch 2, sc 4 into 2nd ch from hook (4)

2: sc around (4)

F/O, and turn so that the right side is out. Leave enough tail to sew onto the head.

Using Turquoise, sl st into the cream starting ch. The horns are made from one long chain with different spikes; after slip stitching a new ‘spike’, you’ll continue slip stitching into the original chain.

Ch 12, starting in 2nd ch, sl st 4, ch 4, starting in 2nd ch sl st 6, ch 5, starting in 2nd ch sl st 3, ch 2, starting in 2nd ch sl st 5, ch 3, starting in 2nd ch sl st 4 and F/O (you should have worked all chs)

‘Bangs’(make 1 in gold)

1: ch 7, starting in 2nd ch from hook, sc across (6)

2: ch 4, sl st into 2nd ch from hook, sc, in next ch, hdc in last ch, skip a st of row 1, sl st into front loop of next sc. Repeat across the row. Ch 1 and turn at end. (3 spikes)

3: Working in back loops only, sc, dec, dec, sc, turn (4 sc)

4: rep row 2 (2 spikes)

5: in back loops only, dec twice (2)

6: rep row 2 (1 spike)

F/O, leaving a long tail

Sew this to the forehead of the dragon, directly between the horns – the 6th row points out, the 1st row attaches to the hair

Legs (make 6 in dark blue, 3 left and 3 right):

1: ch 6, join in first ch, sc around (6)

2-7: sc around (6) make sure that you’re working right side out!

8: in front loops only, inc around (12)

9- 10: sc around (12)

Flatten the previous row; you will sc through two stitches at once, closing the opening as you make fingers

RIGHT HAND 11: ch 6, starting in 2nd ch, sl st 5, sc through parallel sts in row 10 twice, *ch 9, starting in 2nd ch, sl st 8, then sc into two parallel stitches in row 10* repeat 3 more times, sl st through the last two parallel scs

LEFT HAND 11: *ch 9, starting in 2nd ch, sl st 8, sc through parallel sts in row 10* repeat 3 more times, sc through parallel sts in row 10 once more, ch 6, starting in 2nd ch sl st 5, sl st through the last two parallel scs.

F/O, leaving the leg unstuffed. You do not need a long tail, just enough to tie off and weave in.

Hips/Shoulders/Haunches (make 6 in cream)

You’ll be working directly into the legs, from their starting chain, and crocheting in the opposite direction. Make sure that the work faces out. Try to plan where you start to be where you want the shoulder to be – in row 6, you’ll begin working only half of the stitches, and they’ll be the stitches in front of your starting position.

1: make a slip st, and join into the starting chain for the legs. Inc around (12)

2: sc, inc around (18)

3-5: sc around (18)

6: sc 9, ch 1 and turn (leaving other sts unworked) (9)

7:  sc 6, dec, F/O

F/O, leaving a long tail. Stuff the haunch, leaving the arm/hand unstuffed.

Ears: (make 2)

Inner Ear (brown)

1: ch 3, sc in 2nd ch from hook, sc in last ch, ch 1 and turn (2)

2-4: sc across, ch 1 and turn (2)

5: dec, ch 1 and turn (1)

6: sc, F/O (1) your tail can be short, it won’t be used to fasten anything. I hid mine between ear layers.

Outer Ear (cream)

1: leaving a long tail, ch 4, sc in 2nd ch from hook, sc across, ch 1 and turn (3)

2-4: sc across, ch 1 and turn (3)

5: dec, sc, ch 1 and turn (2)

6: dec, ch 1 and turn (1)

7: sc, ch 1, and turn the work so that you’re working on the edge of the work. Sc into the edge of row 7. Lay an inner ear over the outer ear, and sc into both pieces, along the edge. You’re joining the ear parts together. F/O, leaving a long tail to sew the bottom of the inner ear onto the outer ear. For one of the ears, you’ll have to work backwards or upside down if you don’t want two left ears – or you can just sew both inner ears to the outer ears.

Assembly: Stitch the white head marking to the head. I pinned on the hair, and attached the spikes and under-spike gold. To make this easier, I stuffed and attached each spike onto the under-spike gold first, and then pinned and sewed the gold onto the back (be careful to keep it centered). Then I attached the tail spikes, and stitched down the hair. I added the horns, ears, and bangs, and finally pinned all of the legs. I was careful to keep the legs attached only to the cream, not the brown belly, but that was just a stylistic choice that I made. Finally, you can make and attach the eyes; I used some felt and markers, though I’m not overly pleased with the effect.

[alaydabug2]

Tag list: @sparklenarniawizard @imobsessed123 @thoughtlescat @ilikebookssomuch

Broken heart/Broken mind

Chapter Sixty-two

(Human AU)

Sophie and Keefe met in the children's hospital when they were little. Because of how long they were confined to the four walls of the hospital, they became very close during their stay.

As the years pass, they wind up being in the same classroom together due to their physical conditions. This makes their bond deepen.

But are they able to handle when life gets tough, throwing problems and complications their way?

Sophie collapsed into the waiting room chair. She pulled out her blanket she brought and started to get herself comfortable.

Ro took the seat next to her with a sigh. She rubbed the center of her forehead.

"I'm taking a nap," she decided. "I've been up for too long."

Sophie decided that was a good idea. She curled her knees into her chest, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't make herself get drowsy. It was still dark out, but her anxiety kept her awake.

If she couldn't fall asleep, she took the next best thing. She pulled the covers up over her head and pretended that nothing else existed.

She wasn't sure how long she had stayed like that for, but when she didn't come back to the rest of the world until Ro's voice said, "I'm getting a coffee from the Starbucks down the street, Blondie. Wanna come with me?"

Sophie wiggled out of the covers, taking in a breath of fresh air. "Yeah, I'll go."

The drive there was painfully silent. They ended up stuck behind a car for ten minutes.

With the wait, Sophie asked, "How long will the surgery take?"

Ro pondered it for a moment. "Usually takes about eight hours without complications or anything unexpected."

"And if there are?"

"Could be a good while longer. I'm thinking it'll probably take nine hours, but it should go fairly smooth."

She glanced at the clock. It was eight am. Surgery had only been in for around an hour. It was going to be an extremely long day.

They made it back to the waiting room. Sophie decided to pull out her book and start reading. When lunch came around, her and Ro went downstairs to the Subway.

"Think he'll want a cookie when he wakes up?" Ro mused, staring at the baked goods.

Sophie shrugged. "Can always save it for later if he doesn't."

"Good point."

They sat down at one of the tables with their sandwiches. After a few minutes of eating in silence, Ro said, "I'm planning on moving back home."

That took Sophie by surprise. "Really? How come?"

She shrugged. "I just... wanna keep a better eye on Keefe. Especially while he's recovering. I'd never forgive myself if something happened to him and I could've been there to prevent it. Already talked to Bo about it. He figured it's a good enough excuse for his parents to accept it."

"How long do you plan to stay for?"

"Not quite sure yet. At least a few months."

Eventually, Sophie wasn't able to force any more of her food down. Her stomach was sloshy with her unspoken worries.

The two of them went back upstairs soon after. Sophie decided to give another attempt at sleeping.

It wasn't long after when a nurse had come into the room. Sophie was puzzled. It was only twelve thirty.

"Family of Keefe Sencen?" She said.

Ro raised her hand. "Yes? We're here."

The nurse turned in their direction, crossing the patterned carpet.

"Hello, my name is Livvy." She held a hand out. Ro shook it. "I wanted to inform you on your... son?"

"Brother," Ro corrected. "Fourteen years apart."

"Ah, sorry about that. Anyway, I wanted to give you an update on how surgery has been going so far. It's been more complicated than we were expecting." Sophie's heart dropped. "He's been bleeding more than anticipated. Needed a blood transfusion. He also flat lined on us for a moment a couple of times. Don't worry, we were able to get him back, but be prepared for waiting longer than originally anticipated."

The nurse turned to leave. Sophie tugged at her eyelashes. The thought of Keefe flat lining, made her lunch want to come back up. Tears burned her eyes.

Ro grabbed her hand. "Hey. He's alright now. They're taking care of him."

"I know," Sophie whispered.

"I heard what you told him before he went back earlier." Sophie froze. She hadn't meant for anyone else to hear that. "And I know you're worried, I am too. But he's made it this far. He won't go that easily."

She nodded.

Not much was spoken the next several hours. When Livvy came back to say they could come see Keefe, the surgery had taken close to twelve hours.

Keefe was still extremely drowsy when they were let back into his room. Sophie cringed when she saw the tube down his throat. The good news, however, was that he was awake and responsive.

Sophie hung back while Ro went to go see her brother. The nurses were working on him. When they were about to remove the tube, she came next to the bed. They started taking out a few of the IVs he had, one being in his neck.

One of the nurses loomed over him. "Can you tell me your name?"

He swallowed. "Keefe... Sencen," his voice was just above a rasp.

"Good job!"

A time later, the nurses finally dissipated, only checking in periodically. Sophie sat by his beside, massaging his scalp and holding his hand. Ro was running her hand up and down his arm.

Keefe reached out, trying to grab something. He whimpered a bit. Ro followed to where he was looking at.

"Water?" She guessed.

He nodded. She took the water and brought it down to his level. He drank it through the straw for a few moments before letting Ro take it back.

"I got a cookie for you earlier," she told him. "You want it yet?"

He shook his head.

After a while, he fell back asleep. Sophie curled up on the chair, trying her best to get comfortable.

"Do you want the pull out couch?" Ro offered. "I can sleep in the chair if you don't want to."

"I'm good," she assured.

Sophie pulled out Ella the elephant. She gazed down at her boyfriend. Her pulse felt like it was finally calming down now that she knew he made it through. The beeps of the heart monitor eventually lulled her to sleep.

[bomberqueen17]

sewing and dyeing

I have managed to achieve some sewing!

I finished the silk dress from the yardage I'd dyed around Christmas, even hemmed it and everything, I feel very accomplished. So that's done.

And the linen bias-cut slip dress I made around Christmas, which I never wore anywhere because it was white-- I've managed to dye it, and it came out much more interesting than I'd expected! So, pictures and discussion behind the cut.

[image description: A mirror shot of me, a fat blonde white woman, in a grungy basement, wearing a clingy white knit tank top with a drapey cowl neck]

Firstly, I made this tank top (I bound the armholes, it looks nicer that way)-- started with the Cashmerette Wexford top, then used this tutorial from Threads Magazine to hack a cowl neck onto it. Ages ago I'd had a cowl neck sleevless top that I loved, and wore holes in, and couldn't find one again. So I used a yard or so of very slinky knit, probably some kind of rayon blend from Dharma would be my guess.

I tried it on, and immediately threw it in the soda ash solution to dye it because I don't need a white top like this, it'll get shit dripped on the tit immediately so I might as well give it a busy dye job. I will make more of this top in other fabrics, but 1) make the cowl just a bit longer so it drapes farther, and 2) make the self facing deeper, I feel like this one is going to flip out all the damn time.

I also think I'll hem this shorter, but I haven't hemmed it at all so far so it remains to be seen.

Secondly, I have nearly finished this button-up camp-collar shirt from the Cashmerette Club, in a natural linen that I have so many yards of from an old project I never did.

[image description: me in the same grubby cluttered mirror view of my basement, wearing a gray shirt, slightly wrinkly, with unfinished sleeve edges and I'm holding it shut because there aren't buttons on it yet. There are two breast pockets and one is significantly higher than the other.] So the breast pockets are optional and uh I am definitely only going to put one or zero on the next one of these I make because I checked and rechecked and rechecked and this is literally the best I could do at making them even??? ugh also they don't sit right because there's a bust dart and one of them went on ok and somehow the other one is overlapping the bust dart slightly, which means it's Not On Straight. Just.... not optimal. I get why there are pockets but I also super get why they're optional. No thanks!

I hate the interfacing too, it was awful to work with and feels like paper. But once I've finished and washed this I hope it will settle down. (In the past I've used shitty salvaged interfacing for things I was making, and used spray adhesive and sewed the edges where possible, and it worked fine. This, I splashed out and got the stuff in the package that's ostensibly meant to fuse on with your iron and guess what doesn't fucking work? that. So it's been just a nightmare and I'm not buying the nice stuff again because it fucking sucks. I get that you don't want to not interface the collar of a shirt like this, and the button band would be awful un-interfaced, but christ, I'm using the flimsy salvaged shit I cut out of an old bedskirt next time.

The directions on this pattern are... well as long as you know what they mean it's great. But there's a video sewalong, and that helped a ton. This is a very complicated pattern and yet somehow none of it has been beyond me, even though i sewed one bust dart inside-out first thing, and immediately also sewed the yoke to the back inside-out, and then right away also assembled the collar inside-out because I was so distracted by how much the interfacing did not actually fucking do what it was supposed to (yes i followed the package directions, no it did not fucking fuse). I got a lot of seam-ripping done, is all. (It really is a cool pattern, and if you manage to get through the directions, which are extremely specific, you wind up with a fully-finished interior with almost all the seam allowances beautifully enclosed-- it's cool as fuck.)

I have fabric already set aside to make at least two more of these. IDK how much I'll wear them but I love them. (I *have* coveted a shirt-dress for years, with one Almost Okay from Torrid that I wore a lot but have recently realized looks awful on me actually, so I will be making it a dress too, no fear.)

But then! Also: Dyeing!

So I looked on Dharma Trading for their tutorials and was not disappointed. I don't want to do traditional tie-dye, but I want the effect I got at Christmas with the silk scarves that I space-dyed. I don't have to steam-set fiber-reactive dyes, so that's a plus.

I saw this tutorial on dharma for ombre dyeing and I'm super gonna try that next, but haven't yet.

Tie Dye Tutorial on Dharma Trading: this is the one I used as a starting point.

So I dissolved a cup of soda ash in a gallon of warm water, put that in a plastic bucket, and soaked my fabric for 5-15 minutes, and then I decided to do a kind of gravity-based thing with squirt bottles and a spray bottle. I hung a clothes hanger from the gas pipe in the ceiling, put a big plastic mortar tub underneath, put a smock on myself, mixed up my dyes (and urea and in some cases salt, as directed by dharma the all-knowing-- half-cup batch size for the squirt bottles, and quarter-cup sizes for the spray bottle), and got to work one garment at a time.

I put some pleats into the garments and held them with clothes pins. Then I sort of "drew" along the pleats, picking a color to be the tops, and a second color to squirt into the valleys. I filled in with the spray bottle to highlight the pleats more, since that would hit the outer parts of the folds but the interior would be shadowed and stay white; then I could go draw in those white areas with my shadow color.

Everything then would drip down toward the hem of the garment, though there wasn't really that much movement; if I wanted a drip to cascade, i had to draw it down there myself with the squeeze bottle.

[image description: two squeeze bottles with narrow nozzles, and a spray bottle of more rigid plastic with a pump-dispenser top, sitting on top of a piece of stained scrap fabric on an old washing machine with tubs of dye powder sitting in the background.]

I also did a shirt where I spread it out on a rack in a pan at an angle, and sprinkled a mixture of dye powder and salt on it. Then I went and used the squirt bottles too, but it was a fun technique and I'd use it again.

[image description: a garment lies in loose folds, speckled with dark blue-green spots, and at the top decorated in splotches of blue and green.]

I wrapped the garments in plastic, and put the smaller ones into plastic bags, and then hung them outside in the sun so that a) the dye would flow downward rather than backstaining the areas I'd meant to leave white, and b) the sun would warm them so the dye could cure, and c) the plastic would keep them wet because the dye only chemically sets while damp.

Let them cure for 24h, and then today I brought them in and rinsed them for about a thousand years, and then washed them and gave them a soak and rinse in dye-fixative, then dried them on the line.

Here is the linen bias-cut slipdress I made at Christmas time, dry and ironed.

[image description: a dress on a hanger, with my hand pulling out one side of the skirt: the straps and neckline are bright emerald green, and then the body is streaked vertially with varying shades of green, teal, and dark blue, with a little purple at the hemline. The colors are light and a little muted, and some white shows between them in a few places.]

The linen took the dye lightest, the cotton a little darker, and a small offcut of rayon I'd had sitting around took the dye darkest of all.

here's everything still damp on the line:

[image description: under a blue sky, a metal clothes-tree-style line on the left has several small items in shades of green and turquoise, and then a line crosses the screen from right to left through the middle, with several items hanging on it. In the background are two cotton dresses, one mostly teal and the other green at the top with a white and purple skirt, then the linen dress from above in the middle, and closest to the camera is a mostly-quite sheet of fabric with geometric lines in green, blue, and purple.]

The foreground fabric is the rayon, and I sandwiched it between two blocks of wood with rubber bands holding it in place, and just saturated the edges with dyes. I'm extremely into it, it came out beautifully. i have more rayon so I am going to make something from that to ombre-dye, for sure.

I have severely overdone my physical activity the last two days though; I lay awake for a couple of hours the other night with my sciatic nerve just burning, and I expect the same tonight. We'll see though, maybe I'lll be pleasantly surprised, or just lucky.

Oh yah I'm trialing Ritalin, but just like the other medications, it's such a low dose and it's not extended-release. I looked up how to take it and the directions assumed I'd been given two or three pills to get through a day. Not so! So I have about four medicated hours in a day, and keep experimenting with where to put them. I don't notice it wearing off the way I did with Adderall though, so there's that at least.

Maybe by the end of May I can try a full dose of something, and see if that helps. IDK, it seems like it might.

[extraordinaryhistories]

#15 – 'Kill' (A Sun Came, 1998)

In 2016, a man named Marc Rebillet (yes, that Marc Rebillet) decided to search through a dumpster outside Sufjan’s studio in DUMBO, Brooklyn, which is a very mature and adult thing to do and reflects fantastically on Marc as a person, and certainly should have no consequences on his thriving music career. In that dumpster, he found an odd-looking CD – an unreleased album with a black-and-white cover titled Stalker, claiming to be performed by Sufjan Stevens. It had been recorded some time in the 1990s, and on a quick listen (the album was swiftly leaked online), it certainly sounded like early Sufjan, back when he did wild electric guitar freak-outs; his hushed but nasally vocal tone from that era is unmistakeable.

Everything seemed normal, except for the fact that the album was about tracking, sexually assaulting and then murdering people. It contained songs with titles like ‘I Know Where Your Kids Go to School’, ‘Baby Give Me a Feel’ and ‘U Kan Wrun But U Kan’t Hyde’. None of it was metaphorical. Sufjan recorded a noise rock album in the 90s that was quite literally about fucking stalking people. And then, not five years later, recorded ‘For the Widows in Paradise, for the Fatherless in Ypsilanti’. It boggles the mind.

At the time that Stalker was released, a significant portion of the Sufjan fan community cast doubt on the veracity of the leak. One of the major concerns was that the subject matter was far too direct, far too gruesome, for a Sufjan song. He would never be so brutally direct. He would never. Right?

‘Kill’ is a song by Sufjan Stevens that features the following as its chorus: ‘I want to kill him / I want to cut his brain / And when it's over / I know I'll feel okay’. Ah. Case closed.

The third-last track on A Sun Came, ‘Kill’ is a knotty piece of songwriting that may be the most multi-layered lyrical construction in his early work. Even purely on inspection one can see this to be true – it is a song with a clear narrative, some clear themes, a roiling balance of light and dark within it, which is far more than can be said for much of this era. But then you get to the allusions this song pays to other literary and musical sources, and things only begin to complicate further. I, personally, have not quite made my mind up about ‘Kill’. It is a song loaded with possibility.

An initial reading of ‘Kill’ gives the strong suggestion of a relationship narrative, and I do think that this is what lies at the song’s core. The relationship in this song need not be romantic, but given the sheer depth and fury of the passion here, it seems highly probable. There is a narrator who exists in what is very much a lopsided power dynamic with another (male) figure; very rarely is the narrator an active subject in this song, instead being subject to the figure’s curation and exploitation. The figure ‘took the stable / Bred me to be a mare / Made the brethren able / Gave me a room’, all of which are ostensible acts of kindness that nevertheless confirm a ruler/ruled dynamic. 

We receive that same confirmation in the next verse. ‘I never asked him / I never meant to stay’, says the narrator, and very quickly the song sours. The narrator finds themselves being used and abused, ‘never [leaving] the stall’ while their partner readily leaves their side. Any sense of a romantic relationship in an ideal sense – two partners, ‘riding side by side / Into the frontier’, tackling the world’s challenges as a single, symbiotic unit – is long defunct. Only misery remains for the narrator, with hope long-dashed by a pattern of careless exploitation.

With this as our narrative foundation, we reach the song’s climax, one of the most striking and instantly memorable moments in his catalogue on account of how utterly depraved it is. We are left with no doubt that Sufjan’s narrator is in a state of abject misery up to this point. But misery in Sufjan songs is so often detached, poetic, dejected, somehow fundamentally stoic. Not in ‘Kill’. The narrator has no remaining emotional bandwidth for stoicism. All that’s left is a carnal desire to exact onto the narrator’s partner some fraction of the pain that the partner exacted onto the narrator, and the only way to do this is through murder. 

You will not find a gnarlier image in the Sufjan catalogue than ‘I want to kill him / I want to cut his brain’, and the reason it has so much guttural power is because it does not quite read as psychopathic or unstable. The narrator only wants to do this. They never will, and likely never even could – the verses of this song are in the past tense, and by the time we reach the present tense of the pre-chorus, the partner has left the narrator forever. ‘Kill’ is a logical conclusion, an exhausted final attempt to lash out in a situation where the narrator knows they have no power to do so. When the chorus finally breaks down at the end into a futile repeated ‘I want’, the song’s message is complete. It is violent, but the violence is less a horror tale, more a tragedy.

This is the interpretation that a direct reading of ‘Kill’ provides us, but there are all sorts of semantic curios in this one that complicate interpretation. I am, of course, referring to the extended horse metaphor that this song seems to be pushing. Both narrator and villain are referred to as mares in this song; there is talk of stalls, of stables, of riding into battle in a literal sense. It is rather late for me to mention that ‘Kill’ has a source text, but it seemingly does – Sufjan cites an obscure Sherwood Anderson short story named ‘The Man Who Became a Woman’ as the basis for this song, but has refused to elaborate further. The surface-level parallels are very clear given that ‘The Man Who Became a Woman’ is a story about a horse trainer, but from there the complications begin, because Anderson’s story is a) incredibly obtuse and b) seems to reckon far more with gender, and to a lesser extent race, than it does dysfunctional romance as a theme. The narrative in ‘Kill’ certainly does not retell that of its source material, at least not in a manner discernible to the listener. But the connections are there nonetheless.

A Sun Came is an album that brims with loving, albeit surface-level, tributes to Sufjan’s musical and literary influences, and ‘Kill’ is one such example. But Anderson isn’t the only reference point for ‘Kill’. It is highly probable that Sufjan is intentionally referencing Elliott Smith’s ‘Roman Candle’ in the chorus of this one. Sufjan sings ‘I want to kill him / I want to cut his brain’; years earlier, Smith sang ‘I want to hurt him / I want to give him pain’. And this is almost certainly intentional given Sufjan’s professed admiration for Smith and the various comparisons that have been made between the two songwriters over Sufjan’s career. (What makes things even more interesting is that ‘Roman Candle’ is a song about Smith’s violent step-father. The same systematic patterns of abuse are present in the lyrics of both songs, albeit expressed with more eloquence in Smith’s. Even if not Sufjan’s own stepfather – Lowell Brahms is by all accounts a beautiful, caring soul – one wonders if the subject of ‘Kill’ might have a real-life referent.)

One could spend days attempting to decode ‘Kill’, and this is fortuitous, because musically it does not offer much. The bulk of the song consists of a repeating guitar figure that has a sort of leaden weight to it, dragging it down into the muck. It is vaguely reminiscent of – and inferior to – the ‘Abraham’ ostinato that Sufjan would pen a few years later, but this one is played almost entirely on the lower strings and as a result lacks the same ethereal pop and spring that many Sufjan songs capitalise on. There is some double tracking, especially in the chorus and pre-chorus, but it doesn’t add anything substantial to the arrangement. Neither does Sufjan’s strained, upper-register vocal melody, but there is certainly a sort of confessional quality to it that suits the subject matter. 

All of this comes together to create a song that is resolutely, undeniably un-fun to listen to. It is most likely for this reason that Sufjan chose never to play this one live, unlike some of the other stripped-back folk ballads on A Sun Came. When Sufjan dips his toes in depravity – ‘John Wayne Gacy Jr.’! ‘Saturn’! – incredibly compelling, listenable, rich things tend to emerge, but at this early stage of his career, it seems that the pieces are just not quite in place yet. But there’s no denying that ‘Kill’ is a fascinating and in many ways remarkably compelling song, just one that does not feel as listenable as it could be. It’s fine. Early days yet. All of these songs helped create our modern concept of Sufjan Stevens.

[cjgladback]

And that's a wrap! On the first 100 grams of this oyster-colored Wool of the Andes roving. I'm very happy as my yarn quality and understanding continue improving; definitely getting to those consistent thin yarns I wanted. The green skein is absolutely the favored child, but I swear it is actually better than everything else, not just green. Which gives me some hope for all the wool I intend to card, actually.

My rambles got extra long, as were the image descriptions, so please enjoy this cut:

I wanted to test blending fibers with the same staple length before I get into more complicated things with the fiber festival fleeces (I am still slowly accumulating what I need to wash and dry them) and was honestly a little worried about how disorganized and snaggy it felt to card and draft, both. But my oh my that squishy, soft, wonderful yarn. I'm gonna keep trying to emulate it, though I still love the organization of just spinning nice long semi-compact roving. Versus even once I get a diz aka drill a hole in my designated piece of curved laminated cardboard, I expect carded sliver to be loose and fall apart if I do things like wrap it around my wrist as a proto-distaff. For the green yarn, I tried making kinda loose sideways rolags that I both compacted and drafted the tiniest bit so they could be wrapped into nests.

So! Mayhaps I should try carding something that isn't already organized. Like the little bit of very lanolin-laden wool that was packed with the e-spinner (EEW Nano, original flavor) I recently acquired from a thrift store. And maybe I won't want to wash all the lanolin out and lose the learning experience if I also blend it with other, clean fiber. Perhaps if I cannibalize the first skein here...? Good thing I never fulled it after all!

The above is not actually the train of thought that lead me to wanting to combine those two; I'm just realizing that there are basically no projects that I want to do that would actually use that yarn as is, and I'm already planning my limit of small and patchwork projects for other things. One is that I'm planning to put together all of these oyster skeins into maybe a hat? to commemorate my improving spinning skills, maybe with lace for the underplied and color work for the green, and I already have my actual first spin in a scarf so I don't feel too beholden to preserve this. I really like textured knitting that needs even, solid or slow-transition, thin yarn, whereas this wild and lumpy almost-twenty-feet would maybe work for someone who did tapestries? But that is not me. And I think if I calm down and maybe tweed up the bright colors I'll enjoy them more, as well. So. These may be the last photos of the yarn in its current state.

Whether that's my next project or if I try to get some mileage on the Nano with the next bundle of oyster, I'm not sure. I'm already missing my fidget activity after just a couple days of washing and drying the last skein, but I also wanted to design some bookmarks with the clearance yarn I got at the same time as the roving. So if I can get a prototype pattern laid out so it's not as much ongoing brain power, that might fit the bill.

[ID: Three images of various small hanks and balls of yarn laying on a wood table with notes digitally hand-written in light purple around them.

The first photo shows all eight of the skeins in the order they were spun, all but two a light cream color. The first is a chunky, uneven skein spun from a bright purple, pink, and orange gradient, labeled "chain ply" and 6.6 yards. Next is a cream center-pull ball that is 36.25 yards, and next to it a smaller, more even center-pull ball of 22.5 yards, perhaps 21 wraps per inch. Next is a forest green skein, labeled "hand carded," 49 yards, balanced and soft! Next are two cream skeins that were "underplied and broke," 116 plus 33 yards, 30 wraps per inch. The penultimate skein is longer than the rest (having been wound around more than one chair back) and 158.25 yards. The final skein is labeled "intentionally thicker to pair with green," and 99.75 yards.

The second photo compares the green and final skeins, with winding notes starting with a cloud of hearts by the green. It is a "50/50 blend of Oyster and Aurora roving colors on handcarders," and "took no notes so of course it's balanced, soft, and sturdy." Its cream counterpart has a smoother surface, more even thickness, and is slightly more tightly plied, with the note "didn't card but made an effort to match on ply back tests -- decent weight, almost balanced, not soft" (flat-mouthed face).

The third image compares the first and last skeins, the first labeled as 23 grams of gifted cheviot or shropshire, chain plied from ball with core, for a total of 6.6 yards. The latest is 24 grams of clearance peruvian highland, plied via book-wrapped bracelet into a two-strand ball, totalling 99.75 yards. End ID]

[rou-luxe]

THEORIES

babe wake up tragic yaoi dropped *THIS ACCOUNT DOES NOT USUALLY POST ALNST FANTHEORIES. IF THAT IS WHAT YOU WANT THIS IS NOT THE PLACE. theories / commentary / spoilers under the cut

I don't know 100% ALNST lore... most of this is speculation I think some people have commented on this already but apparently the one in the couple who wears white dies (Sua, Ivan) Following this pattern, Hyuna x Luka's relationship is complicated but if we go by that Luka is dying next round... But the next round is Till vs Luka, which would be different from the pattern (Sua vs Mizi, Ivan vs Till)... so maybe to complete the pattern Hyuna puts herself in instead of Till. mom pick me up I'm scared On top of that, Ivan wore black before, but switched to white. Does this have to do with something... (Was Till supposed to die instead...) Luka and Hyuna evidently have VERY different singing styles though so that would be interesting def Also the characters look older (not only the haircut man... they're taller) so I wonder... how much time has passed in ALNST??? and is it proportional to irl time (probably not) Not sure about the other videos I need to check but this time there are human spectators amongst the aliens in the crowd for the first time??? is alnst so powerful that they want to watch the showdown too??? Till sounds like he's about to break poor bb Till's lyrics in the beginning start off hopeless, asking someone to hurt him. To dissolve and drown in someone, to become one with them. Definitely Mizi. When Till's master shoves his face towards the newspaper, he's probably telling him to snap out of it, sing properly and let go of Mizi??? Then Till gets his ahh beat and he reaches for Mizi, his one hope in the darkness "Icy lips" - he already thinks Mizi is dead??? Ivan's eyes look empty. interruption from mizisua sponsor /j Even though the MIZISUA video is more of a backstory video, it also suits Round 1. I think it might suit Ivantill as well hold on When Mizi and Sua found each other (refer to MIZISUA video), Sua has lost hope already, but Mizi's love gives her some hope in the dark. Then they are torn apart, but still want to be together. The one who lives (Mizi) is in grief. Ivan's empty eyes look like he has lost hope, just like Sua. Till gave him a reason to keep going (see: Black Sorrow, their relationship shown in Cure <- this video)

Back to the video Till laying there by himself, Ivan moves the (muzzle?) restriction, maybe to help him breathe Ivan's verse reflects Till's but it's different in multiple ways "Cold words" - Referring to Till? (well... till has always been naturally sassy...) Similar to Till's statement in the first part, Ivan is saying that Till can break him apart and build him back again (mend) I guess they fought and became friends 💀 "I'll drown in you" as well. Till would sacrifice himself for Mizi, Ivan would sacrifice himself for Till (CRIES) Ivan feels "seen" by Till, Till wants to dissolve in Mizi's gaze Why does he reach for the back of Till's neck? Till unawares (sleeping)? Are the two somewhat related? Ivan reaches for Till (love) but Till unaware (once again 💀) Consume me + licking the blood from Till's wound. they really want to become one person don't they 2:46 Ivan turns away from the camera is he giving Till a kiss on the cheek or is he whispering something to Till in his sleep we'll never know

"We shall dance", with "our story". TOGETHER. THEY WANT TO BE TOGET- *gets shot* PLEASE LET THEM BE YAOI AGGHGH everlasting memory this moment will last forever THE KISS SCENE I WAS SO HAPPY AT FIRST AND THEN WE ALL KNOW WHAT HAPPENED I rewatched this video too many times the animation just too pretty man ���� Till pushes him away I noticed this in a lot of promo arts and stuff because yk Mizi

okay back to the video Ivan's expression when he chokes Till kind of looks like him looking down at the camera like he did at the end of Black Sorrow am I reading too into this Till gives up. He doesn't even fight the choking. Normally this would be uncharacteristic but yk Mizi 😭😭 I'm confused how Ivan gets hit??? I think it's bullets but who knows maybe the rain is possessed or maybe Ivan did it himself Like in Till's song (it's been confirmed by the creators that Till killed his enemy to win apparently), if the enemy is killed then you win. Ivan sacrificed himself so Till could win, so Till could live There was also a theory I read that Luka was pissing off Mizi so she would fight back, so she would continue living BUT LUKA IS A WHOLE OTHER STORY THIS ISN'T ABOUT LUKA WE'RE TALKING ABOUT IVANTILL At the end of MIZISUA video, Mizi wakes up crying in the rain. Till stands in the rain staring at Ivan's corpse (but we don't see the body) The light is focused on Ivan, not Till. The light of Ivan's life has been snuffed out, but it also leaves Till in darkness I was expecting Till to make some sort of movement once the lights turned off but nope omg Luka vs Till... Till is gonna kill his ahh for disrespecting Mizi 💀 THE OTHER YAOI DUO!! WHAT HAPPENED TO HYUNA BRO IS MAMA GONNA DIE WHO INTRUDED imagine if the intruder was luka that would be so funny also there is a heavy heartbeat motif in the kick drums for the song omg there is no heartbeat during the music when - Kid Ivan stares deadly at the camera (it stops there) - Ivan enters stage - They build the heartbeat motif again slowly during the backstory part - back to life. Starts with a single kick then double - Ivan is falling insert ivantill my god my universe memes again, Till is literally Ivan's reason for living

thank you for reading my nonsense ramblings it's 3:30 am Ivantill is worth staying up any day THIS IS NOT PROOFREAD I am CRYING 🔥🔥 WE COPE GOOD NIGHT might draw ivantill fanart... doubt I have time though

[valeriefauxnom]

More Dragalia Minor Details!

This time, quotes edition!

I think it's interesting how Leonidas and Phares both have a sort of speech pattern in their unit quote spread as well as their general dialogue. Leonidas is the simpler one to explain, so I'll start with him. He utilizes a lot of 'Perhaps' in his quotes.

Ex, among his Gala and Summer alts, he says:

Perhaps I ought to make arrangements for the decisive battle that awaits. My brother has acquired many useful pawns. His good-naturedness perhaps has merit. Perhaps I'll go surfing. Perhaps curry for supper? Perhaps I will stop in at the cafe.

If I read into it, I might say it is a reflection on his focus on the future. Leonidas is always looking for paths to make his ideals reality, and how he acts in the present is all in fulfillment of his aims. As such, evaluating each action under how it might help said goals might be more on his mind (even when it comes to things like leisure, 'would my goals be hindered if I do so/could I accomplish something to further my aims if I did?'), leading to the overuse of perhaps.

In a broader sense, Leonidas tends to flip-flop verbally between simple, short sentences, rarely busting out the flowing complicated ones one might expect as the standard 'royal' speech patterns. Sometimes he compromises between the two worlds and throws complicated words into short sentences to get his mood across succinctly.

Here's what I mean.

Phares, meanwhile, has his own fixation on a word. Several, in fact. The biggest are 'must' and 'will', but in general sentiment, he has another tendency. It's a bit hard to describe, but while he is future-focused like Leonidas, he expresses it more in concrete terms of what to do, with no true 'deliberation' found in Leonidas' 'perhaps'.

Take these lines from his unit (emphasis mine as I try to illustrate):

My next experiment will be... I must procure a book. I must make record of this. I swear to find a treatment for wyrmscale so the tragedy of our royal family is never repeated. How many times have I envied Valyx's stoutness? I shall have to ask him for some training. I should have died, but was kept alive. My task now is to show the meaning of that to the world. I shall support you. I will not let you die here! I will investigate truth, and contribute to the people until the life granted to me is ended.

Hopefully this helps give an idea of what I mean. There's no real deliberation about his next action; he has already decided, and is dead-set on doing so unless and until it kills him. It's an interesting departure from Leonidas, since Leonidas himself is rather blunt and similarly dead-set at times but still hedges a lot more than Phares.

As for his general speaking style, Phares, whether using short or long sentences, more frames things in a bit of an atypical way than necessarily using complex words all the time. Like, instead of, 'no need to be formal / no need for formalities' he instead will say, 'there is no need for formalities among we fellows of science'. Don't get me wrong, he uses more complex/rarer words often, but they're not an absolute prerequisite to the atypical wording, if you get my drift.

Examples:

(Instead of 'it's okay' or other typical variations)

(Instead of 'don't worry')

To explain these tendencies, I'd simply line it up with his many brushes with death in the recent past. By the end of Phares' adventurer story, he's almost died an additional 2-3 times, and that's not counting his previous issues with wyrmscale and the Progenitor. He knows just how tenuous life is, and yet wishes to do so much in the future to capitalize on the many near-saves he's had. To him, he likely no longer has the luxury of indecision at all: what he wants (to live, to protect his family, the world, to learn more), he will manifest it through determination alone.

Heck, even his adventurer story ends on this, highlighting the 'will' tendency:

So yeah, when I noticed these two had a particular flair to their style of speech, I figured I'd write it down! Maybe I'll find something more for some of the other family members, but these two were the most glaring with the repetition.

[justbrothings]

I recently read an original story on ao3 that i wanted to recommend here.

The story is in German, but i hope at least someone will be able to read it (yes i'm writing this post in english anyway, no i'm not sure why)

Schuldig - Eine Liebe unter Brüdern, by callisto24 (on AO3)

Word Count: 77,139; 1 Chapter

Rating: Explicit

Fandom: Original Work

Pairing: Brother x Brother (Original Characters)

Summary:

Zwei Brüder fühlen sich auf verbotene Weise zueinander hingezogen.

(transl: Two brothers feel a frobidden attraction to each other.)

Warnings (added by me*):

CSA mention (not between the brothers, not described in detail),

Abusive family (both physically and psychologically),

On-page Death of a character (he deserves it, tho)

*i don't want to spoil it too much here, but if you need more info on any of these, feel free to message me!

Just to prevent misunderstandings:

I did not write this story, i just liked it and wanted to talk about it!

This got a bit long, so i'll put the rest under a cut:

My (more or less spoiler-free) summary:

Okay, so when i first saw this story (with it's very short description) i wasn't too excited to read it, but decided to give it a try anyway.

...there is also a big age-gap (12 years) between the two brothers that i was a bit nervous about, but i kept reading anyway and i'm glad i did.

The story follows Olaf, as he grows up, goes to uni and later takes his first steps in the working world, all exactly following the plan his strict parents laid out for him. But as he gets older, he starts to struggle with the obligations his parents put on him, especially when they try to keep him away from Christian, who they think has a bad influence on Olaf. In addition Olaf starts to develope romantic feelings as his brother grows older, which complicates his life even more.

Olaf is the son of rich parents and grows up with a lot of expectations and pressure to become the perfect heir for his father's business.

He is twelve years old when his parents unexpectetdly have another son, Christian. Olaf spends most of his time at boarding school, so he doesn't get to see his brother a lot. Still, he tries his best to be a good brother, to look out for Christian and spend time with him whenever he can. They quickly become very close whenever they are together, only to then be kept apart again for months at a time. This pattern keeps repeating over the next two decades.

The story is about Olaf and Christian's friendship and later love, but also about their relationship with their parents and the web of control they have trapped Olaf in and how he fights to protect his brother and himself.

Spolier: It has a happy-end.

Other things i have to say:

The abuse i mention in the warnings is between the father and his sons, not between the two brothers. None of it is described in detail.

It was hard to read at times, especially the power the father has over Olaf, and how Olaf complies with almost every demand, no matter how much it hurts him. Please be aware that this family is really awful.

The ending is a bit aprubt, but it doesn't drag down the rest of the story much and i still enjoyed it, even though i wish it could have been a bit more fleshed out.

I really liked the way Olaf's feelings, his yearning and longing as well as his guilt and self-hatred are described. (this is exactly my shit.) But also you really understand his struggles and the pressure hes under, his parents' influence over him and how these things keep him trapped.

(if you do read the story, please tell me, i would love to hear your opinion!)

That's all i have for now.

If you read this far, thanks and i love you <3

[pure-garbage]

Decided At Last! Down With The Gods, The Lockbreaker's Ambition!

In the safety of Shakky's rip-off bar, Lana laid on the couch, head in Zoro's lap while their crewmates conversed with the legendary Dark King. The same man who had mysteriously appeared to aide in their escape, it turned out he was also the man Hatchan had in mind to coat their ship. Lana would have been tempted to believe that the world was an incredibly small place if she hadn't seen so much of it firsthand.

"Zoro?"

"Hm?"

"I'm sorry about earlier."

"What d'you mean?"

He played with her hair while her fingers traced the enameled patterns of Kietetsu's scabbard.

"I wish... I shouldn't have kept asking about the grove number. It didn't matter that much and in the end, you got us exactly where we were most needed anyway. Next time, I promise I'll trust you. Is that okay?"

"Yeah. That's okay."

He pulled her hair playfully, making her wince.

"You've got something else on your mind too," he observed. "I can tell. Spit it out."

"It's complicated."

"It always is with you," Zoro teased. "So?"

"Well..."

Lana tried to put her feelings into words, but the vocabulary to fully encapsulate the nuance of her troubled pondering escaped her.

"I bet I already know," Zoro sighed. "You're thinking you hate this place?"

"Close. Give it a little more time and you might finally understand what goes on in here," she smirked, tapping her temple. "Actually..."

Her expression grew somber again. She pulled his hand from her hair and he let her toy with his fingers while she struggled to articulate her stormy emotions.

"I think... there's something I want to do now. Well, not right now. Someday."

"Oh? What's that?" he asked. Her fingertips travelled the familiar path they often did, winding along the grooves and lines of his palm. Absently, Zoro wondered if she had memorized the web of creases after spending so much time tracing them.

"I think I would wait until after Luffy finds the one piece," she mused, plans forming nebulously as she spoke. Vast, slow as the crawl of the continents, she realized her newfound ambition would take years to culminate, perhaps decades. The realization was daunting, but not enough to shake her resolve. "I'll need to get stronger before I could pull it off. A lot stronger. So strong I'll be as unstoppable as a force of nature, like an earthquake or a hurricane."

Zoro's brow creased, his mystification deepening as he waited patiently for her to elaborate. Gradually, her features gained animosity, twisting into a bloodthirsty expression that took Zoro's breath away with its vehemence. He found himself entranced by the flames that danced wrathfully deep within her dark purple eyes.

"The celestial dragons... they say they're gods living among us. I want to wipe this world clean of the stain of their false divinity," Lana declared fervently. "I want to purge their corrution and sweep Marie Geoise off the map. I want to erase their tyranny forever."

Her sudden eloquence left him speechless for a moment. His heart swelled, admiration for his lover's resolve nearly overcoming him. Zoro hated what he'd seen in Sabaody as much as she did, but Lana's brutality cut through the dense, manifold layers of evil and assigned judgement with all the conviction of a vengeful goddess. Her verdict was a solution to the madness that was unrealistic, impractical, far-fetched, impossible... but if anyone could do it, a straw hat would.

"Is that all?" Zoro grinned in approval, hooking his hands under her arms and pulling her up to deliver a ravishing kiss. Lana returned every ounce of his zeal, parting her knees to straddle him and tangling her hands in his clothes and hair. His grip on her bordered on bruising in turn.

The conversation broke behind them, all eyes drawn to the passionate display.

"My, my," Shaky purred, leaning on her elbows over the bar to get a better look. "Aren't those two just... entirely involved."

"Yeah, that's pretty much typical for them," Usopp sighed, too used to the behavior to even be embarrassed by his shipmates.

"They never stop going at it," Sanji grumbled, lighting a fresh cigarette.

"Ignore them," Nami put in with a roll of her eyes.

Luffy's was the only head that didn't turn, completely occupied with his raid of the fridge. Zoro and Lana wound down as the chatter behind them picked up again.

"You're not planning on doing that alone, I hope?" Zoro murmured.

"And keep all the fun for myself?" Lana smiled. "Tempting, but I'll let you get a few licks in if you ask nice enough."

"Mm, I can't wait. Luffy!"

"Yeah?" he replied past a mouthful of meat.

"Lana wants to break the world government, you game?"

"I dunno... talking to Rayleigh's got me really excited to head to the new world and start hunting for the one piece."

"I was going to do it after we find the one piece," Lana clarified, pushing Zoro down into the couch cushions as punishment for his big mouth.

"Oh, well in that case, sure! Sounds fun!" Luffy grinned.

"The captain has spoken," Lana informed Zoro. "After, eager beaver."

"Fine," he huffed. Instead of righting himself, he tugged Lana's hips, adjusting her posture until he could comfortably rest his head on her thighs in a reversal of their earlier position. He folded one knee up and clasped his hands behind his head while Lana took advantage of his open shirt, fingers dancing slowly over the defined contours of his bare chest.

"Break the world government, huh?" Shakky mused.

"It's already broken," Zoro told her. "Lana just wants to take out the trash cluttering up that so-called holy land."

"And will she also control the ensuing chaos after she dismantles this broken government?" Rayleigh asked skeptically.

"Don't tell me you'd be sad to see it happen," Zoro challenged.

"I won't shed a tear for a celestial dragon," Rayleigh assured him. "I'm just making sure you kids realize that a stunt like that, should you by some miracle manage to pull it off, would send the whole world into an age of lawless disorder."

"Would it really? Sounds like a line these self-proclaimed gods came up with to deter would-be revolutionaries," Zoro shot back.

Lana smiled at his logic. Zoro was capable of being smart when it served his own spiteful intentions. She was always charmed by his biased intelligence, usually tucked safely out of sight. The fact that his cleverness wasn't always on display only served to make him more dangerous.

"None of that matters to me," she said, settling the discussion. "These celestial dragons may have a lot to answer for, but they offended my captain. They hurt his friends, they threatened my crew."

She rested one elbow on Zoro's raised knee and the other on the spine of the couch, leaning back languidly.

"I won't forgive them for that," she declared. "Or for the crimes against humanity they're complicit in."

"Well, it's your fight," Rayleigh chuckled. "If your pride means so much to you that you’d resort to genocide to soothe it, go ahead. Chances are, the world won't miss the celestial dragons. I doubt few outside the marines and world nobles would so much as bat an eye."

"My fight," Lana agreed.

"Hey. Our fight," Zoro protested, poking her ribs.

"Fine, ours," she conceded.

Rayleigh watched them out of the corner of his eye. Of all things, he knew a dangerous dynamic when he saw one.

'This whole crew is formidable, but those two could burn the world to the ground if they decided they wanted to,' he noted silently.

________________________________________________

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== First Chapter ==

[demonicduchess]

Okay so I've gotten a lot of feedback regarding the Maleficent pairing and while I'm not out to argue with anyone, some of the feedback I've received has made me outright confused as to what people are expecting with this fan pairing.

Biggest point of contention was the gene & color combination. (Obsidian Metallic/Radioactive Bee-Shimmer/Purple Underbelly.) People wanted tertiaries like Flecks or Ghost…

When that doesn't match Maleficent's dragon design. (Big, long, black-as-night western style dragon with translucent wings and a purple underbelly.)

"So why are the wings radioactive green then?" Because that's the color (along with purple) that's associated with the character:

Granted, her purple is more of a Plum, but that color combination was impossible to find at the time (2019-2020.) I can work on this for future iterations of the pair.

I do have other reasons why I chose Radioactive and Bee. Not only is Bee translucent like her wings are in canon, but she also teleports, threatens & transforms via bright green flame:

She also breathes (technically) green fire. though it does look yellow in some shots:

The other color choices I could've chosen from the movie were Lemon for the Fire or Olive/Black for wings, which imo, wouldn't look as nice in game and would lead to more confusion as to what/who it's supposed to be.

People also had a point of contention when it came to the species, (Guardian, a plentiful breed) but, again, I have to ask you:

What other species could properly fit Maleficent? Noctune, maybe? Ridgeback?

Granted, those are some really good options that I don't mind changing Malevolent, the male, in to, but Guardian still feels like the most canon accurate, which is the driving force behind all my fan dragons: "How can I make it look as canon accurate as possible?"

As for Mav's shimmer, that was admittedly me trying to save myself 1200g and have a little variety amongst the hatchlings.

That said, it is rather hideous so I'd be open to changing it for next year. Sadly, one of the reasons I stayed with Shim' is because it was the only gene that didn't drastically change the color/appearance with complicated patterns/accent colors.

If I don't make it Bee for him as well, I'm open to Foam as it's both bright, semi-translucent and fits the "witchy" vibes even though Maleficent is more of a demon fairy, let's no split hairs here

So yeah, I'm not sure what people want/need from this pair. The one suggestion to make the next pair the inverse and veilspun...

That idea rocks, ngl 👀

Gonna make a new google (or maybe even tumblr) poll regarding this pair so I know which direction to take them for next Halloween. I want to thank everyone for their feedback and let you know I'll be making other feedback forms (and some responses like this one) soon.