#north light fiber

[nasa]

NASA Inspires Your Crafty Creations for World Embroidery Day

It’s amazing what you can do with a little needle and thread! For #WorldEmbroideryDay, we asked what NASA imagery inspired you. You responded with a variety of embroidered creations, highlighting our different areas of study.

Here’s what we found:

Webb’s Carina Nebula

Wendy Edwards, a project coordinator with Earth Science Data Systems at NASA, created this embroidered piece inspired by Webb’s Carina Nebula image. Captured in infrared light, this image revealed for the first time previously invisible areas of star birth. Credit: Wendy Edwards, NASA. Pattern credit: Clare Bray, Climbing Goat Designs

Wendy Edwards, a project coordinator with Earth Science Data Systems at NASA, first learned cross stitch in middle school where she had to pick rotating electives and cross stitch/embroidery was one of the options.  “When I look up to the stars and think about how incredibly, incomprehensibly big it is out there in the universe, I’m reminded that the universe isn’t ‘out there’ at all. We’re in it,” she said. Her latest piece focused on Webb’s image release of the Carina Nebula. The image showcased the telescope’s ability to peer through cosmic dust, shedding new light on how stars form.

Ocean Color Imagery: Exploring the North Caspian Sea

Danielle Currie of Satellite Stitches created a piece inspired by the Caspian Sea, taken by NASA’s ocean color satellites. Credit: Danielle Currie/Satellite Stitches

Danielle Currie is an environmental professional who resides in New Brunswick, Canada. She began embroidering at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic as a hobby to take her mind off the stress of the unknown. Danielle’s piece is titled “46.69, 50.43,” named after the coordinates of the area of the northern Caspian Sea captured by LandSat8 in 2019.

An image of the Caspian Sea captured by Landsat 8 in 2019. Credit: NASA

Two Hubble Images of the Pillars of Creation, 1995 and 2015

Melissa Cole of Star Stuff Stitching created an embroidery piece based on the Hubble image Pillars of Creation released in 1995. Credit: Melissa Cole, Star Stuff Stitching

Melissa Cole is an award-winning fiber artist from Philadelphia, PA, USA, inspired by the beauty and vastness of the universe. They began creating their own cross stitch patterns at 14, while living with their grandparents in rural Michigan, using colored pencils and graph paper.  The Pillars of Creation (Eagle Nebula, M16), released by the Hubble Telescope in 1995 when Melissa was just 11 years old, captured the imagination of a young person in a rural, religious setting, with limited access to science education.

Lauren Wright Vartanian of the shop Neurons and Nebulas created this piece inspired by the Hubble Space Telescope’s 2015 25th anniversary re-capture of the Pillars of Creation. Credit:  Lauren Wright Vartanian, Neurons and Nebulas

Lauren Wright Vartanian of Guelph, Ontario Canada considers herself a huge space nerd. She’s a multidisciplinary artist who took up hand sewing after the birth of her daughter. She’s currently working on the illustrations for a science themed alphabet book, made entirely out of textile art. It is being published by Firefly Books and comes out in the fall of 2024. Lauren said she was enamored by the original Pillars image released by Hubble in 1995. When Hubble released a higher resolution capture in 2015, she fell in love even further! This is her tribute to those well-known images.

James Webb Telescope Captures Pillars of Creation

Darci Lenker of Darci Lenker Art, created a rectangular version of Webb’s Pillars of Creation. Credit:  Darci Lenker of Darci Lenker Art

Darci Lenker of Norman, Oklahoma started embroidery in college more than 20 years ago, but mainly only used it as an embellishment for her other fiber works. In 2015, she started a daily embroidery project where she planned to do one one-inch circle of embroidery every day for a year.  She did a collection of miniature thread painted galaxies and nebulas for Science Museum Oklahoma in 2019. Lenker said she had previously embroidered the Hubble Telescope’s image of Pillars of Creation and was excited to see the new Webb Telescope image of the same thing. Lenker could not wait to stitch the same piece with bolder, more vivid colors.

Milky Way

Darci Lenker of Darci Lenker Art was inspired by NASA’s imaging of the Milky Way Galaxy. Credit: Darci Lenker

In this piece, Lenker became inspired by the Milky Way Galaxy, which is organized into spiral arms of giant stars that illuminate interstellar gas and dust. The Sun is in a finger called the Orion Spur.

The Cosmic Microwave Background

This image shows an embroidery design based on the cosmic microwave background, created by Jessica Campbell, who runs Astrostitches. Inside a tan wooden frame, a colorful oval is stitched onto a black background in shades of blue, green, yellow, and a little bit of red. Credit: Jessica Campbell/ Astrostitches

Jessica Campbell obtained her PhD in astrophysics from the University of Toronto studying interstellar dust and magnetic fields in the Milky Way Galaxy. Jessica promptly taught herself how to cross-stitch in March 2020 and has since enjoyed turning astronomical observations into realistic cross-stitches. Her piece was inspired by the cosmic microwave background, which displays the oldest light in the universe.

The full-sky image of the temperature fluctuations (shown as color differences) in the cosmic microwave background, made from nine years of WMAP observations. These are the seeds of galaxies, from a time when the universe was under 400,000 years old. Credit: NASA/WMAP Science Team

GISSTEMP: NASA’s Yearly Temperature Release

Katy Mersmann, a NASA social media specialist, created this embroidered piece based on NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) global annual temperature record. Earth’s average surface temperature in 2020 tied with 2016 as the warmest year on record. Credit: Katy Mersmann, NASA

Katy Mersmann is a social media specialist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. She started embroidering when she was in graduate school. Many of her pieces are inspired by her work as a communicator. With climate data in particular, she was inspired by the researchers who are doing the work to understand how the planet is changing. The GISTEMP piece above is based on a data visualization of 2020 global temperature anomalies, still currently tied for the warmest year on record.

In addition to embroidery, NASA continues to inspire art in all forms. Check out other creative takes with Landsat Crafts and the James Webb Space telescope public art gallery.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

[chiropteracupola]

"Sleepers in the Peat," 2022.

two years ago I wrote a short story. finally got around to posting it.

The water was bitter here.  Beneath thick layers of branching sphagnum moss, it rose from the earth in drips and drenches, pooling in little reed-ringed ponds and lying smooth as glass.  A faint curtain of mist drifted across the bogland, obscuring the far-off tree-line and rendering the world somewhat distant from the clear light of the morning.  

It was beside one of these little wells of peaty water that she crouched, clipboard and pencil in hand, the raincoat drawn over her broad shoulders a green only a shade less saturated than the moss.  Her name, scribed in graphite across the top of her sheet of notes, was Theo-short-for-Theodora, a fact that she had had to explain nearly every time she introduced herself.  She had shaped it better to fit herself, although out in the silence of the marshes, there was very little need for such a thing as a name.

Kneeling now, Theo dipped a gloved hand into the water, pressed the acid-tangy water to her lips.  She breathed in, and breathed in bitterness.  Fibers of moss crept into her nostrils, taking root in her lungs like branching alveoli.  This, then, was the culmination of all her work, all her study, the taste of it at last on her tongue.

The faces of the ancient dead had always fascinated her.  Their empty eyes, skin smoothed by ice or desert to touch the contours of the skull, lips drawn back from ground-down teeth.  It was not the frozen explorers with their eyes still wide and dove-blue that captivated her, nor the ancient kings with their desiccated, dead-lizard hands, nor yet the strange distorted faces of those preserved beneath honey until even their bones took on a sweetness.  Theo, young, had traced the crisply-printed pictures set on slick photo-paper in the centers of her books, memorizing the images of those gone down and buried in the peat.  She became something of an expert in names that her schoolmates did not recognize, Tollund and Lindow, Windeby and Old-Croghan.   They lay still in black-and-white against their backgrounds of sand, so unlike the living people that walked just beyond her windows, and Theo, in her way, preferred that stillness.

Still, she watched the living move all the same.  There was a casual grace to them that fascinated Theo, the way in which hips shifted as the feet fell one in front of the other, how hands settled in close at the waist.  She herself stood with her hands apart, her thumbs tucked into the loops of a belt.  

Just as other children had run in gleeful circles on the blacktop while she stayed inside, book in hand, they kissed and laughed now in dizzy blue-dawn hours.  Theo preferred to sleep instead, lazing curled in bed while the world spun by outdoors.  Dressed in pajama trousers with torn-out knees and rolled-up hems, she drew layer after layer of blanket over herself, sinking deeper into the quiet dark.  In those solitary nights, though, she sought nonetheless, and dreamed of moss beneath her fingers, of the strange faces of the mire-mummified dead.  She would see them sure and true one day, Theo knew, and know the taste of the same tannin that so preserved them.

The North, that was where they were to be found, where ancient peat tracked patchily across Europe and left the dead preserved in its wake.  Her grandmother had called that place homeland, and Theo had scoffed behind her hand.  What connection had she, really, to that place?  Without invitation, she could not walk on that soil with the sort of fierce pride that her grandmother held onto so tightly.

“You’ll see one day, Theodora,” her grandmother said, and nudged back the crooked postcards of green, green hills that had slipped slightly from their places on the refrigerator.  The words sat sourly around Theo’s shoulders, and with time, refused to rot away.  

They clung, sticky and leaden, and Theo would have liked to scream at the feeling of them.  What did her grandmother know, she with her good marriage to her good man, her ticking, soap-sweet house, her fine bed in the back bedroom where she slept as contentedly as a cat?  Her grandmother’s hair was short in the fashion of old women, cut so that it hid how pale and thin it had become.  Theo’s own hair was just as short, cropped by hand in a dim mirror with a sort of ferocity intended to put the viewer in mind of steel-toed boots and hard-wearing canvas.  No use putting them back to back and calling them the same.  And so, Theo shut her mouth, dragged her hand down the side of her face as if to tie shut her jaw.  For all that she railed against those words, the postcards pinned against the refrigerator door were green, green, green.

Try as she might, Theo never slept well in her grandmother’s house.  The air was hot and resolutely mint-sweet, the blankets thin against the heaviness of summer.  Time was just as heavy there, a clock always ticking away beside the cabinets in the kitchen, machinery humming uselessly within the walls.  

Theo crept from the house and settled in the still-warm chair on her grandmother’s far-too-neat lawn.  It had been cut to within an inch of its life just that morning, the first of those two precise twice-a-week rounds of mower and rake and clippers that kept the street-facing yard perfect.  All the same, in the warm night, Theo’s skin stuck, sweaty, to the plastic slats of the chair, and the heat of it felt far too alive for her liking.  She peeled her arms away from it, drew her knees to her chest, sat folded up in herself like an Andean king of old.  Behind her eyes, all was green, the green of hollow hills and deep water.  

So she thought on it, and so she laid her plans.  She did her work with a tired slowness, her motions static and mechanical even as the tasks, somehow, managed to get done.  The grinding stasis of daily life dragged forward, every sample of moss and spreadsheet of data creeping closer to the proper work in the field she sought.  And then, all in a maze of mist, there she was in the North of the world, the treads of her boots sinking into wet sedge as the fog drew itself in close around her.

There were other sorts of bogs than the sort that made a face into such a bitter ambrotype as those that so fascinated her.  Theo had seen the ones where cranberries were grown before, red as all love in the dark water, crisscrossed with boards to serve as footpaths.  This was not such a bog, and made no such deceptions about its helpfulness or its safety.  This was peat all the way down, heavy and wet and certain.  In another thousand thousands of years, pressure would render that peat down to coal, and in another circling of time, perhaps diamond.  All carbon, just as she was, and no light.  Cool, static, stable, deep, the water still as it filtered slow and soft through the moss.  Not so kind, no, but all the same it might hold her gently in the wide green palm of its hand.  

So she knelt down into it, uncaring of the stains it would leave on the knees of her trousers, twined her fingers in among the curls of sphagnum.  Pulling it away in fraying chunks, as perhaps the ancestors her grandmother had spoken of had done, Theo dug, watching water rise, grey and changeable as the sky, to fill the opening she had made in the peat.  Down below, she knew she would find what she had searched for for so long.  And oh — her hand met slick solidity, not peat at all.

The girl in the bog was unchangeable, frozen in amber.  She was no body behind museum-glass, lying in state as if to be awoken by a kiss, but sleeping fast in untouchable earth.  Her face, leathery and smooth, was unwrinkled despite the years.  She could have been born the very same day as Theo, for all that the centuries showed upon her skin.  Her hair, falling wispy about her face, had been reddened by hundreds of years of tannins.  The sun caught upon it and turned it to the gold of autumn-dried acorns, sharp as straw.  There would be grit in her mouth, dust from the rough millstone that had ground down grain, hardly noticeable behind the rich green smell of the bog.

Gloved hands scraped away wet threads of moss, smoothing over skin with as light a touch as Theo could manage.  Under her fingers, the girl shifted, drawing up her shoulders as she yawned.  Her eyes stayed closed, but all the same, Theo felt that she was seen.  

The girl raised herself up languidly on one elbow, water sloughing off in trickles and streams from every seam and crevice of her body.  Her ribs stood out in perfect parallel, still wrapped tightly by the skin of her sides.

“Hello,” said Theo, not knowing what else to say.  The girl in the bog smiled at her with crooked, blackened teeth, and reached out to her.  Her hands were small, round, doll-like, but still soft as burnished leather, the fingernails as neatly trimmed as if she had cut them the day before the peat closed over her.  

She stroked the buzzed-short ends of the hair at the back of Theo’s neck as she leant closer, drifts of wet soil sloughing from her skin, and frowned.

“Why did they cut your hair?”

“I cut it myself.  I liked it better that way — it felt right to do it before I came here.”  Then, pausing, seeing the wind flick at her rust-red, blunt-hacked locks, “Did you—“

“They cut it before they sent me here.  But it fits, doesn’t it?  It was you that made yourself ready for me.”

“I suppose it was,” said Theo, and meant it.  There was a rightness to it, a reason that she had not put words to before.

“Come down with me,” she said, and Theo could not help but follow.  Half-laughing, she thought of the promises of the red-haired rusalki she’d read of in her books of tales.  To walk down into the sweet water and meet a maiden there, and hear her speak words just as sweet of eternal youth in her kingdom down beneath the riverbed, was an old story, and one that she might find herself believing now.  But the water of a peat bog is bitter, as are all things that keep memories safe, and it wasn’t youth, but eternity only, that the girl in the bog had promised her.

To be preserved, young arms entwined with ones that centuries ago were young, was all that she’d receive.  But what more had she desired to begin with?  The choice had been made long before she had ever set foot there.  Theo extended a hand, stripped off its pale blue latex glove like a snake shedding its skin.  Placing it atop her clipboard, she set aside the plastic barrier as if laying out an altar’s worth of grave-goods.  She shucked the green raincoat and heavy backpack from her shoulders — she’d have another coat of that same verdant color where she was going, once the moss had closed over the both of them.  Then, lowering herself feet-first into the open space amid the moss, Theo leaned down and met the girl’s mouth with her own.

The kiss was thick with pollen, and Theo inhaled it without any of the fear she had previously associated with such things.  There was a sweetness to it, a choking flavor of juniper and sap as it poured like sand into her throat.  Theo wondered, a little, that she could breathe through it, but it was no longer a time for wondering.  Instead, her eyes slid softly shut, and the cool, deep darkness was all that remained.  It was not the iron-red dark of closed eyes in sunlight, but a bitter and at the same time refreshing green-dark, a soft sort of shadow that spoke of nothing at all but the faintest edges of dreams.

Drawing the peat back over them, the girl curled herself fast around Theo’s back, cradling her in earth as if in the palm of a hand.  Twining together beneath the moss, the water crept up over them both one more.  As Theo sank, her eyelids slipped closed, and her head drifted downwards all the while.  It twisted sideways on Theo’s neck, slipping bonelessly forwards, and down with it she went into dreamless sleep, bog water growing ever sweeter in her mouth.

[ckret2]

Chapter 15 of Bill's a human prisoner and everybody's grumpy about it, featuring: NIGHTMARES NIGHTMARES NIGHTMARES NIGHTM

Remember these? We're getting 'em both in one chapter. Plus: FORD! Also: a little bit of human gore, a lot of bizarre alien gore.

This is a shorter chapter, but it's the first one with a direct glimpse into Bill's backstory and home dimension. I hope you enjoy! And are deeply horrified!

####

"You have to stop spouting this nonsense." A golden line slithered around him, weaving back and forth, her furious eye focused on him as she paced. "Nobody comes to your services for deranged muttering about points of light in darkness. They don't want to hear about things that are above-but-not-north of us! What does that mean, above-but-not-north?"

"It means what it says, Mom." Above him—above, but not north, in an endless void outside the plane of the world—countless stars twinkled in an unending dark. "That's where the third dimension is. And that's what it looks like! I don't know how else to explain it to someone who hasn't seen it!"

"Then why explain it at all? They don't want to hear it! It's a surprise you aren't already losing congregants. I know you can tell you're losing their interest."

He could tell. Sullenly, he said, "Maybe we just—just need smarter congregants. If they weren't too stupid to understand—"

"People are stupid, sweetie. That's why they follow you. You don't want the smart ones anyway, or they'd be smart enough to see through all the lies you make up about the third dimension—"

"I'm not making it up!"

"Every week you talk about impossible places that can't exist! Either you're lying or insane—which is it?"

How could he answer that? He looked up into space, as if the distant stars only he saw could help him.

"Oh, don't do that, I hate when your eye goes white like that. It might impress your worshipers but it doesn't work on your mother, young triangle." She paced around him faster, coiling tighter, surrounding him on all sides in gold, her eye peering straight into his. "I don't care whether you're a liar or a lunatic—you're still my golden child, and everyone else will see that too as long as you tell them what we say. Nobody wants to hear that the third dimension is a dark, empty void! Tell them it's full of color and life! Tell them it's filled with the spirits of departed shapes, or messengers, divine guides, muses—"

"But it isn't! I don't care what they want it to be, it's not true! I'm trying to make them understand!" He had to make them understand, he needed somebody to understand. He thought he'd go insane if he was the only one who could see how empty and awful space was.

"I've listened to your gibberish about points of light and up-not-north for months and I don't understand it, so how can anyone else—"

"You're not trying to understand!" Space and all its vast emptiness was oh, so close, so achingly close. Pressing against everyone's bodies, breathing over their organs, lighting up those tight-coiled fibers beneath everyone's skin, shining on the bloody bones and thin muscles. "Either you're not listening or you're stupid!" How couldn't anyone else see space?

"How dare you—!"

How could they be close enough to touch it and still deny what it was?

Why was he the only freak who could bend up into it?

Her sharp tail cracked like a whip behind his base. "I'll teach you to talk back to me like that!"

His mind was feverish with anger, pulsing and roiling behind his eye—and for a moment, he wasn't afraid of anything.

She could bend and flex and coil, she was the most flexible line he'd ever seen. The doctors thought he might have inherited his ability to bend up-not-north from her, some genetic predisposition to flexibility. If he could bend UP, so could she. He'd make her. He'd force her. He'd show her.

He jammed his corner into her side. She shrieked, uncoiling from around him to scrunch around her wound. "Watch your— What are you—"

"You'll see," he said, shoving her against the wall, shoving her into a corner. "You'll see if it's the last thing you do!" It was like cramming a long rope into a short box; each time he shoved, she bent and curved and bent again.

"Stop—stop, it HURTS—"

He could see it in his mind's eye: if he kept pushing and pushing eventually there'd be no more room in two dimensional space for her to fill, and then she'd be forced to bend UP, up into the third dimension, all that open free space. Then she'dsee the dark, she'd see the far points of light—

"STOP!" She howled in pain. He kept pushing. She was out of room.

She didn't bend up.

He shoved—and she splintered. Bone snapping, cartilage tearing, he could see inside her thin body as things broke and ruptured.

He didn't know what to do.

And for several long, long seconds—he couldn't remember what was happening. The world seemed to bend wrong, rippling up-but-not-north and down-but-not-south, and his head swam and his vision blurred, and he couldn't remember.

Her skin fractured and peeled off, strand after strand. He’d seen grotesque injuries and rotting bodies before—he’d been in hospitals and seen through the bandages, been in graveyards and seen into the coffins, unable not to see though the doors and walls and tombs. He’d seen the way the skin came off, the way it split into hairy filaments as it loosened from the body, bristly around injuries or sloughed off whole from the long dead. But he'd never seen dead skin curl like his mother's, loosely zig-zagging back and forth and wrapping into spirals like the centers of flowers. It filled the spaces between his fingertips, wrapped up his arms. He could shut his eye but he still saw it through his eyelid, still felt it tickling at the corners of his mouth. 

Irrationally, wildly, hysterically, watching his mother die, he wondered—when he died, when he was a corpse, when he rotted—when his body split open in half from his burst eye, as the labyrinth of his guts bloated and unwound and inverted themselves to spill in sick threads from his mouth, and his skin peeled free, layer by hairy layer, from his eyelid out—would his rotting golden skin curl like his mother's had?

He knew it would. He knew it would. He knew it would.

####

He woke to moonlight streaming through curls upon curls of golden skin dangling in his eye, choking him on rot.

He squeezed his eyes shut, batted the hair aside, and forced himself to breathe until the nausea subsided.

He hated how humans dreamt.

He decided he didn't want any more sleep tonight.

He dragged himself upright, shambled downstairs, and tried to ignore the coils of his internal organs spilling out of his head and dangling around his face.

He needed a drink.

####

Ford woke up standing over a bed and a body.

He couldn't identify the shape or size of the body under the sheets, due to how badly it was contorted and the way the dark pools of blood in the bedsheets distorted the shadows. All he could see was the head: a flash of a pale cheek turned away, and the unmistakeable Pines hair curls. The hair was matted with blood.

Ford's hands were coated in hot blood and cold blue flames. There was a nauseating metallic taste in his mouth and something thick and warm dripping down his chin.

He heard a quiet chuckle. He whipped around to face it—

And saw himself reflected in a triangular window, a gray shade. He was smiling so widely he could see moonlight glinting off his molars. His slitted eyes glowed a sickly yellow.

Ford woke up staring at the ceiling. He licked his lips; reassuringly dry. He held up his hands; clean.

He sighed.

Ford could roll over and go back to sleep. He'd gotten used to dreams like this decades ago; these days he hardly even had them. But he was already awake and irritated. He might as well pick up where he'd left his research at dinner time—do something that felt productive. He got up, fished a crumpled paper that said "Downstairs" out of his bedside stand and set it next to Stan's glasses, and crept out of the guest room to head for the vending machine.

Bill was in the kitchen.

Ford stopped in the next room, staring through the doorway. Bill was sitting in the dark, only his silhouette visible in the light through the window. He was hunched over the kitchen table, supported on his elbows, unmoving. Ford couldn't see Bill's reflection in the window. Not even his eyes.

Ford wondered what he dreamed about. Perhaps the thrill of possessing people.

He was half tempted to confront Bill—demand to know what he was up to���but, Ford told himself, there was nothing to confront Bill for. They'd given him permission to use the kitchen freely. Bill wasn't up to anything. It was well within his rights to sit silently at the table in the dark.

Ford just didn't like it.

He crept into the living room. Bill never noticed him.

####

Dipper divided the nightmares he'd been having since last summer into two categories: the Bill nightmares; and the Bipper nightmares—which were, in a way, also Bill nightmares.

The Bill nightmares were just his regular nightmares, except that Bill was also in them. For Dipper, regular nightmares were a mishmash of fears, insecurities, chaos, and random weirdness. It was natural that Bill, the most terrifying entity Dipper had ever met, occasionally guest starred in his dreams. The problem was that, since Bill actually could invade dreams and always brought chaos and random weirdness in his wake, it was that much harder for Dipper to realize he was dreaming rather than actually facing Bill—and, once he woke up, harder for him to reassure himself it really was only a dream.

(Mabel told him she had similar problems, and it wasn't even limited to nightmares. Sometimes, no matter how sweet or unthreatening her dream was—and sometimes because it was so sweet—their erratic scene-changing logic-breaking wish-making nature gave her the creeping sense that she was trapped back in Mabeland. Not often, she said. But occasionally, when Dipper couldn't sleep either, he could hear her wake herself repeating "—I wanna go back to reality—I want to go back—go back to the real world," and then meow herself back to sleep.)

On the other hand, the Bipper nightmares were like no dreams he'd ever had before.

They might start out as normal nightmares—dreaming of a near death experience, or a monster charging at him, or some humiliation too deep to endure further sleeping through—until he jolted awake. Or he'd think he'd jolted awake—in truth, he'd just woken up into another dream, so realistic he thought he was awake until he realized he was hovering over his bed, and the world looked hazy and false, and his body was still beneath the covers. Just like when Bill had ripped him free of his body.

The first time he'd had the Bipper nightmare, Dipper thought Bill had taken over him again, and that at any moment his body would open its eyes and laugh at him. When that didn't happen, he thought he'd died. He'd flown to Mabel's room, to his parents', to Waddles, to the neighbors' houses, trying desperately to get someone's attention—and when nothing worked, he returned to his still body in despair and waited there, sure that in a few hours his parents would come to get him for school and find him dead...

But then he'd woken up. For real, this time. And then he woke the rest of the house with his screaming.

He learned to cope with these nightmares, both the Bill ones and the Bipper ones. He talked about them with Mabel during the day or went to her for reassurance at night. Sometimes he called Ford, if he and Stan were in a time zone where they'd still be awake. (Ford said he'd had nightmares for years about Bill invading his dreams—and almost none of them had been real. He said that his visits from Bill were usually less chaotic than a normal dream. Bill liked his weirdness but he liked being the center of attention more; he liked to stage his dreams like a movie director, keeping a firm grip on the setting and the narrative flow, snapping from location to location and moment to moment with an artistry that natural dreams didn't have. The muddled mundanity of your average nightmare was beneath Bill.)

And Dipper learned to wait out his Bipper nightmares. Sometimes he wandered the hallways, but he found that engaging with the dream tended to prolong it; instead, if he stayed by his body and didn't do anything, eventually he'd drift back into deep sleep and wake back up. He started keeping a radio on at night—he could hear it in his sleep—and listening to the weird 3 a.m. broadcasts kept him entertained enough until he woke.

####

But since returning to Gravity Falls, Dipper had found a new way to deal with his nightmares:

Yelling at Bill about them.

Tonight, he was having his guilt-dream about his dad asking why he'd given up kickboxing; until the dream was interrupted by Bill emerging from the refrigerator to announce that Weirdmageddon was opening a second location in Piedmont and then throw a rabid skunk at Dipper's face. Dipper had woken up too angry to think straight, stomped to Bill's empty window seat, and then stomped downstairs.

He found Bill sitting in the kitchen in the dark, washing down a bag of cookies with a pack of hard cider and staring out at the night. Dipper stopped in the doorway. "You!"

Bill turned to give Dipper a bleary-eyed look. "Me?" 

"Stop messing with my dreams and stay out of my head!"

"Beg pardon?" Bill's eyelids were desynchronized as he slowly blinked. "I'm just..." He gestured vaguely around the kitchen with a mostly-empty cider can. "I am just—sitting here."

"You've been in my nightmares all year," Dipper said hotly, even as he was waking up enough to realize that Bill, down here in the kitchen, probably wasn't influencing his dreams. "So just—just..." This was stupid. "Cut it out, man."

"You've been dreaming about me? How sweet." Bill gave Dipper a mocking grin, propped his chin in his hand, propped his elbow on the table, actually missed putting his elbow on the table by at least six inches, and fell to the ground with a yelp.

Dipper stared tiredly at Bill cackling on the floor, and turned around and trudged upstairs.

Dipper found that, whenever he had nightmares about golden geometric apocalypses, it was reassuring to get an instant reminder that Bill had been nowhere near his head. Even if he thought Bill was laying on the "helpless human" act a little thick.

####

(I'm still recovering from Health Junk, so if you've got any comments, I'd deeply appreciate them now even more than I usually do. Thank you, y'all readers and commenters and friends are really keeping me going during this time of feeling like a pile of half-sentient gunk. 🙏✨)

[t34-mt]

maanul colony, a rough idea of how the build against the cliff parts looks like, the rest of the village is on top of the cliff. These are flexible plant fiber that creates platforms/structures, and there are also tunnel systems. also, black sand! More text and information under ->

this is a western colony (maak'thao), other colonies have that same similar structure but have regional differences in architecture/ the way of making certain things. This is just one side, id imagines it expanding widely on the side cliffs. Maybe kilometers long for the largest colony of each wind? (west, north, south, and East all have a "main colony" which is just the biggest of the region. Cardinal directions are called "the 4 winds" for maanuls.)

while a portion is on the side of the cliff, build against roots or just on the top of the cliffs as regular houses, a part of the structures is hidden. And is directly carved into the rock, as tunnel systems to access some specific parts easier. Carved storage rooms, small gathering places, rooms for religious practices like wall painting, and so on. this is roughly how the tunnel stuff would look like ->

id also imagine some tunnels being decorated with shells, sadly the examples I found are not the exact color I imagined because i think they would pick stupidly colorful ones since they are very fond of shiny things with color(like a magpie!). And once they start losing their color for x reason they would repaint the shells. A main tunnel leading to an important place would be highly decorated, while smaller narrow tunnels would have just a little bit of shells on the sides if none.

now with specific details id like to point out from the bottom part!

First, the statues (in yellow). The statues are placed all around in front of the habitations, they are deeply set in-ground and are lightly carved in, enough to tell a specific shape but still retain a square figure. here's a closer look at them, with additional text!

Now onto the roots (red) and the bottom platforms (white), these root-like structures are actually a sort of tree that grows down to the cliffs, not every colony has that these are mostly found in west and south. Colonies that don't have these growing around will have bottom platforms made out of wood and will be raised up from the sand floor.

The bottom platforms here are also made out of somewhat flexible but strong plant fiber. These large platforms are not made to live but more for some community gatherings. like for example teaching young ones about sea navigation! Down there is used to store some fishing equipment and boats. And when I say boats you should think of canoe-like ones, used for fishing.

And last is that large fish-net decoration in blue, that thing is used to attach many things, like sand down glass pieces that with the light give a fun colorful reflection effect around. But that fishnet thing can also be used to mourn. By that, I mean in the West if they lost a loved one to the ocean they can take a personal shiny belonging and attach it there. So they will always be remembered by everyone even if they didn't have a body and couldn't do the usual way of mourning.

now for the middle section, starting with these "flags"

the enormous "flag", takes decades to make and are a thing you find in each "main colony" of the 4 winds, the immense rope will harbor at least 3 of those and the things represented in it can sometimes be related to a local folkloric tale, symbolic drawings that each bring a good thing to the colony. Like for example one drawing of fish and waves to bring good luck to fishermen! these are much more like tapestries than flags.

extra images about the nest-like structures, id think of them being made out of leather, various plant fiber, and a bit of wood for support.

and a bit about the top layer, which extends much more but on this drawing you only see the beginning of it.

now with the high tide, there it does not get high enough to swim but still enough to take off to the sea with a canoe, id say it arrives at waist level for an adult maanul. Not every village/large colony have the tide flooding around like this, sometimes it might stops where the statues are placed. since altuyur has 2 moons (maanuls and kyhuines say 3 moons but in really the third, or also called "the infant" is an asteroid caught in the first moon, also called "night mother") i was thinking it would affect the tide cycle tho im not sure yet how it does that since im not that good at astrology.

thank you for reading!

[reticenceofladyeva]

Fiber Snippet

Sokka can feel the rhythm around the camp, an ebb and flow like the tide. It reminds him of the fish up north. They haven't spoken to each other in hours, but Katara and Zuko move around each other with a practiced ease; Zuko lights the fire with an absent flick of his wrist before settling into an annoyingly talented version of vegetable chopping (Sokka's efforts are always much more hackneyed).

As he works, Katara adds things to the beaten cookpot, stirring the water with her bending occasionally while fussing over the state of their dishware. (It's not Sokka's fault if they're a little crusty. Aang has been on dish duty). Zuko sets aside his (sharp, too sharp) knife and begins rummaging in a pack for something. Katara sets another pot on the fire and fills it with snowy white rice, and Zuko sneaks behind her and empties a bag of fire flakes into it. Sokka can feel his mouth watering, but who's to say whether it's hunger-fueled anticipation or dread gnawing his stomach.

As the rice and stew simmer, Katara swipes tea leaves from Zuko's makeshift workbench, swatting his hand away from a teapot with a flick of water. Zuko doesn't flinch. Still, Sokka doesn't miss the way he rolls his eyes, or the way Katara glares at him. Waving one hand in her direction, rather dismissively, Zuko turns away and busies himself cleaning his knife and the crusty plates Katara had been pouting over. Sokka blinks. He'd missed the bucket of water, now steaming, between them.

"Whatcha looking at?" Toph thumps down beside him, spreading her toes in the dirt and tossing her head back.

"Dinner," Sokka says, feeling that the gnawing might be from hunger after all. He's certain spicy rice is nothing to be afraid of. Probably.

"Yeah," Toph says, and Sokka can hear the smile in her voice. "I missed Katara's cooking. Next time, we're leaving you behind."

"Hey!"

[avaylee]

Better pictures, now with plans!

Astronomy photography credit to starman_astro. How he gets these images from our light polluted area is beyond me. I'm so thankful for his consent and support in using his photos as inspiration!

Ok, the first. The Elephant Nebula, and so full of colors! The green/orange on the left and the blue/orange/violet on the right are polwarth/silk. Green orange was pan dyed, then did an ice overdye with black. Blue/orange/violet was paint dyed, as was the violet. The violet is a soy silk blend, shinier but much flatter. The intent is to create a weaving using bits of each to recreate the picture. I'll be using some colored locks for additional texture.

The second is the Heart Nebula. I might have gone too literal, but eh. Also, polwarth silk blend. Planning to spin individually, chain ply, and do a scarf with the shape of the heart nebula embedded. Maybe learn to do double knitting for this?

The last is the yarn, inspired by the North America Nebula. Oh gods, the yarn. I could not have possibly planned these colors coming out so perfectly if i had even known what i was doing. The yarn is a Romney blend from Island Fibers. Pan dyed. Holy smokes, people. I had to take two pictures to show this one specific detail... in my friend's picture, there is a small spot of pink. Somehow, my yarn found itself with a similar small spit of pink. I'm over the moon. The plan for this is to knit some accessories up (hat, gloves) that more abstractly reference the image.

The next pictures will be either progress or completion photos. I'll likely do the weaving first once I get the loom warped with some colors that will enhance this whole thing.

[agirlnamedbone]

Because of its low budget, much of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was shot with natural lighting, which is part of what lends an eerie prettiness to the surroundings: their world, with its scrabble of brush and dust smeared everywhere and slowly setting sun, looks just like ours. A couple in their mid-twenties gently pushes the long amber grasses to the side to explore a neighbor’s house. House spiders weave webs, fibers shining in the afternoon light. At night things purple under dim moonlight, and in evening the film is heavy with sun, bright and sticky as a melting blood orange. Texas isn’t North Carolina, but at that moment I started to see both as not just ugly but gorgeous as well, decentering in their breadth. There, the trees and low shrubs have seen everything. There’s nothing that doesn’t promise to blossom, in one way or another, into an intimacy intractable in its depths. I entered the movie wanting to be scared because I dealt with my problems at the time by being scared. Otherwise, I’d feel too needy, too vulnerable and exposed. But that which entrances us and frightens us is so often the same.

Zefyr Lisowski, "I Loved 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' Before I Loved Myself," in Electric Lit, 2023

[sassypossum]

Hardly Free

Jon Snow x Reader ~ Angst, just pure angst ~ 1.8 k words CW: Tormund being Tormund

An idea that's been swirling around in my mind for a while now, I hope you enjoy these meager beginnings!

Death takes many prisoners. Holds many captives, haunts many a soul. And in the waning and groaning and with the creeping of the sands of time, the years have waxed long- and youth is surely gone. 

The North was a hard place, and her people even heartier. Atleast, that’s what you’d always been taught. Truthfully, you hadn’t felt hearty in a long time. Though the blood of the bear might flow through your veins it was watered down by the tepid quality of that thinner- and in your mind less valuable- blood of Oldtown. 

A swirl of arctic frost nips at the back of your neck prompting you to tug the furs about your shoulders ever closer to your skin in a vain attempt to keep the cold at bay. Nothing could keep this cold at bay though. The cold beyond the wall was far beyond anything you’d survived growing up on Bear Island. 

This cold was greedy. It sucked and sucked through your body until naught was left but scrapplings of the marrow that once had generously coated your very bones. This was the sort of cold that could play tricks on one’s mind, causing them to imagine visions dancing and swirling across the vast expanse of empty white nothingness. 

Tormund hadn’t been wrong about the walking, fighting, and fucking. One simply had to find something to occupy their time and more importantly, their minds if they didn’t want to lose their bloody mind. 

“Lady L- Mormont, are you alright?” The deep timbre of Jon Snow’s voice raising over the whir of the wind shattered your musings. Tensing, you inadvertently tightened your grip on the reins earning yourself a whinny in protest from your palfrey. Sliding your hand down her ever more increasingly coarse mane, you cood softly, easing her ire. 

“I’m fine.” You offered, eyes flicking briefly to meet his before returning to your palfrey. It was growing increasingly difficult to bear his presence- let alone having to actually look him in the eye. You knew he felt the strain. Sensed the tension betwixt you without knowing how to remedy it. 

Truth be told, you’d no idea how to mend the gap either. What had begun as an easy connection filled with conversation that flowed effortlessly had slowly become more vice like, as if it were a cord that’d been pulled taught and was slowly fraying apart- fiber by fiber. 

As if sensing your desire to be free of his presence, Jon offered you a curt nod and spurred his mount into a trot back towards the front of your long caravan. You watched his back as he rode, noting the rigidity of his posture and the slight sway of his longsword against his thigh. 

“You’re staring.” At this intrusion you bit back a groan. Dragging your eyes away from Jon’s retreating figure, you looked instead to Tormund. One look at his shit eating grin had you pursing your lips. 

“I’m not staring at anyone.” 

“And I’m king of the North.” He snorted, patting your palfrey’s flank. Even at your leisurely pace, your palfrey still outpaced any man with her gracefully wide strides- any man except Tormund. That giant ass of a man managed to keep even pace with her without so much as breaking a sweat. 

“What have I done to be graced with your ever charming company, Tormund?” Your eyes flit back to Jon who, reaching the front of the group, called everyone to a halt with a simple raising of his arm. Bringing your palfrey to a stand still, you wound the reins about one hand and looked down at the grinning man pointedly. 

“Looks like we’ll be stopping for the night.” 

“Thank you for stating the obvious, old friend.” You bit back a smile at the light that flickered in his eyes at your dig and wrapped an arm around his shoulder as he hoisted you off your mount. Perhaps in a subtle move of retaliation Tormund set you down a bit more roughly than necessary pulling a sound of surprise from you as your hand instinctively braced against his chest in an attempt to steady yourself. Releasing you he took a step back and ran a hand over his hair, surveying the various members of the caravan intently. 

“Do you need help with your tent?” He glanced down at you, the words falling off his lips in a decidedly intimate manner. You snorted at the eyebrow waggle that accompanied his ‘offer’ and dusted a bit of dirt off of his shoulder. 

“I don’t believe so, though I can think of several ladies of our very retinue who’d jump at the opportunity to have their… tents pitched.” Tormund threw back his head at that and laughed heartily, a sound that drew the attention of more than one nosey person. Your lips twitched just as your eyes locked with Jon’s again, and once more you looked away quickly. Unfortunately not quickly enough if the spark in Tormund’s own eyes accounted for anything. 

Turning back to your horse you grabbed the hefty bag hanging from the back of the saddle, all the while conscious of Tormund’s eyes boring into the back of your head. 

“If you have something to say, Tormund, say it.” You groaned, hoisting the canvas bag to the ground. Straightening, you rubbed at the muscles in your lower back and looked up at your old friend. His eyes narrowed as he tilted his head towards the head of the caravan.

“You like him.” Your heart dropped like a stone. Your pulse slowed and your skin grew ashen. 

“Tormund-” Swallowing around the lump in your throat, you dug your fingernails into your palm. Taking a step closer, he studied you carefully. 

“You do not deny it.” The corner of his lips tilted up amusedly at the nervousness of your person. Setting your jaw, you tilted your head back further to challenge his confident stance. 

“I do not deny it.” You despised the waver in your voice- a wavering born from something quite different from what Tormund most likely imagined was the cause of it. This wasn’t a lilt born from a burning in the loins, but rather something decidedly darker. Digging your nails further into your palm, you squeezed your eyes shut in an attempt to stave off the obsidian shadows threatening to overwhelm you. “Let it be, old friend.” Picking up the pack, you regathered the palfrey’s reins. 

Unfortunately for you, it had never been in Tormund Giantsbane’s nature to let things lie. Hefting his own pack over his shoulder, he matched your gate as you broke from the line to make camp near the members of your group who’d already scattered to settle in for the night. Some pitched tents, while others merely laid out furs and blankets by the fire that was quickly growing from a timid flicker to a roaring blaze. 

Those who’d thought only to pile together near the fire you thought optimistic- or foolhardy, the less charitable voice in the back of your mind whispered. There was no denying that there seemed a queer bent to the wind. Even for someone who’d spent the past decade of Summers in the Southlands, you could sense the change in your bones. This was no simple stop for the night. You’d noted how Jon had been surveying the horizon over the past 12 hours, steely gaze scrutinizing the landscape for some semblance of what could pass for ‘shelter’. 

As you dropped your sizable pack, you thought to yourself that Jon must be thanking his ‘old gods’ for the turn of events that’d led your party straight towards the small flurry of trees and humble grotto looming in the near distance. The perfect spot. The mournful cry of a lone eagle pierced the silence. Looking up, you caught the faint fluttering of gold before the magnificent bird dipped back into the distance. Catching Tormund’s eye, you shared the silent knowledge that you’d more likely than not be hunkering down in this spot for the foreseeable future. 

“Any chance I can take you up on that offer of help after all?” Your voice sounded hollow in your own ears, but Tormund smirked all the same. Kneeling down, he began untying the pack. 

“I would never refuse a pretty lady.” Your lips spread into a genuine smile at his warm tone paired with the roguish wink he gave as the deer hides fell free of the confines of their cloth prison. You could still recall the first time you’d seen them at Casterly Rock. It’d also been the last time you’d darkened the halls of your late husband’s ancestral home. It’d also been the last time you’d seen your son, Dayne. 

‘Take them please, the winds are uncommonly bitter north of the wall.’ Tyrion’s words in the wake of your protests reverberated still in your mind. Thumb coasting over the buttery hide, you bit back the ruminations that promised only regret and firmly shook the hides out, laying them flat on the frozen ground. With Tormund’s help the frame was assembled in short order, and as you draped the fawn colored hides across its expanse, you glanced down to see Tormund busy at work nailing the stakes into the ground. For not the first time you found yourself yet again silently thanking Tyrion Lannister for his shrewd foresight. 

“A good fuck might do the both of you some good.” You stiffened at his words and glanced down at the giant of a man, hunched over as he affixed the corner of the hide to the stake. 

“Tormund-” 

“I see how you eye fuck each other.” Your jaw tightens at his blunt words. 

“I hardly think either of us-” Glancing up, Tormund cuts you off with a knowing look. 

“You can use all the fancy words you like, my lady.” Standing to his full height, he towered over you easily. Eyes boring into your own, his voice lowered to a rumble as he rested a hand on the structure. “But I know the look of two people who want to fuck each other.” His gentled tone touched at something terribly fragile within your soul. “You’re both freefolk now.” 

As he said the words, your eyes caught Jon’s yet again, and you felt your throat constrict as the back of your eyes began to burn. Tearing your eyes away, you glanced briefly up at Tormund and dug your fingers into the numb skin of your palm. 

Blinking against the sting of tears, you focused on the nettling pricking of your nails against tender skin and set your jaw stubbornly. Pushing past him, you swept back the flap at the tents entrance and looked numbly at his boots. “Are any of us truly free anymore?” Your tone was icier than the arctic chill that rose with the encroaching darkness as you disappeared with the gentle flutter of hide against the tents opening.

[papermint-airplane]

15 questions for 15 mutuals

I was tagged by @simolemons, @satellite-sims, and @spaceapples98. Omg I feel so lovedddd 🥺🥺🥺🥺 thank you!

Are you named after anyone? Yep! I'm named after Laura Ingalls-Wilder, the writer of the Little House on the Prairie books. My mom was obsessed with the books and the 70s TV show for some ungodly reason. Fun fact, I hate LHotP with every fiber of my being. I'm fine with my name though.

When was the last time you cried? Oh God, it's been a turbulent few weeks. Pick a time, I've probably cried. 🙈

Do you have kids? No. Wait, let me rephrase that. GOD NO!!!!

Do you use sarcasm a lot? I feel like this question is a trap. I want to speak to my lawyer.

What sports do you play/have you played? I am not a sports person. I guess I have dabbled in the sweaty arts for fun every so often when I've lost my mind, but I've never really played on a team or a in a league or understood most sports on a basic level. Is the Sims a sport?

What’s the first thing you notice about other people? Probably their voice and their tone and the way they ask me what I'm doing in their house.

Scary movies or happy endings? It really depends on what is meant by "scary movies" because I don't do gore at all. Like Saw and shit? Absolutely not. Absolutely. not. But I do like suspenseful supernatural horror movies as long as there isn't much gore involved. I think I prefer movies with happy endings given a choice between only these two but I wouldn't say no to a good old fashioned bittersweet ending.

Any special talents? I can whistle really well. I practice a lot when I'm alone. I don't whistle for other people often because, funnily enough, despite your skill level, people find it incredibly annoying. Actually maybe being annoying is my special talent? 🤷‍♀️ Also I can do this thing where I can vibrate my right face cheek (I have to specify for you freaks) and make a sound like a horse. It's only the right face cheek, not the left. I don't know why.

Where were you born? Virginia! We didn't live there long after I was born so I don't really remember it but I've also lived in North Carolina, Georgia, and South Carolina. Southern through and through!

What are your hobbies? Sims, writing, writing for my Sims, Sim-themed writing, procrastinating writing Sims stories, miscellaneous video games, crafts, complaining, jewelry making (I'm not good at it, don't get excited), researching cults, and fashion doll collecting.

Do you have any pets? Sadly, no. It's kind of a struggle taking care of one person on my income but I'm hoping to save enough to where I can get a kitty or two and be reasonably comfortable with vet bills. I really, really, really love cats. I'm an orphaned cat lady at the moment.

How tall are you? 5'2" (roughly 159 cm). Smol, but not too smol, right at shin-kicking height.

Fave subject in school? English. Honestly liking any subject in school was a struggle because I was homeschooled and my mother is The Worst™ but English and Vocabulary and Creative Writing were my jam despite her best efforts.

Dream job? Are we talking realistic dreams or unrealistic-obviously-never-going-to-happen-but-I-like-to-fantasize dreams? If it's the former, I'd like to be an editor. If it's the latter, I'd like to be a professional kitten-cuddler.

Eye colour? Light green, bordering on light blue, but still obviously green if you look close. Kind of sea green, I guess. I've always struggled to describe my eye color and other people do, too. It's weirdly in between green and blue. If I were to remove my glasses and stare at you like 👁👁 you could very clearly see they're green, but otherwise, with my glasses on just looking at me like a normal person, you would be forgiven for thinking they're light blue. I'm not trying to be ✨unique✨ or anything; this is just what happens when your mom has blue eyes and your dad has hazel eyes and genetics just gives the fuck up.

I think most people have done this tag while I'm on semi-hiatus but let's just throw some names out there and see what sticks. 😈 @happy-lemon @monets-pixels @hurricanesims @moyokeansimblr @oasislandingresident @hazely-sims @treason-and-plot @ts3strayastray @miss-may-i @ktarsims @sharssims @amphoraeus @brannewjoint @autonomousllama @nocturnalazure

[happyllamaglama]

Llamas are members of the camelid family meaning they're pretty closely related to vicuñas and camels.

Camelids first appeared on the Central Plains of North America about 40 million years ago. About 3 million years ago, llamas' ancestors migrated to South America.

During the last ice age (10,000-12,000 years ago) camelids went extinct in North America. Now there are around 160,000 llamas and 100,000 alpacas in the United States and Canada.

Llamas were first domesticated and used as pack animals 4,000 to 5,000 years ago in the Peruvian highlands.

Llamas can grow as much as 6 feet tall though the average llama between 5 feet 6 inches and 5 feet 9 inches tall.

Llamas weigh between 280 and 450 pounds and can carry 25 to 30 percent of their body weight, so a 400-pound male llama can carry about 100 to 120 pounds on a trek of 10 to 12 miles with no problem.

Llamas know their own limits. If you try to overload a llama with too much weight, the llama is likely to lie down or simply refuse to move.

In the Andes Mountains of Peru, llama fleece has been shorn and used in textiles for about 6,000 years. Llama wool is light, warm, water-repellent, and free of lanolin.

Llamas are hardy and well suited to harsh environments. They are quite sure-footed, easily navigating rocky terrain at high altitudes.

Llamas are smart and easy to train.

Llamas have been used as guard animals for livestock like sheep or even alpacas in North America since the '80s. They require almost no training to be an effective guard.

Llamas don't bite. They spit when they're agitated, but that's mostly at each other. Llamas also kick and neck wrestle each other when agitated.

Llamas are vegetarians and have very efficient digestive systems.

A llama's stomach has three compartments. They are called the rumen, omasum, and abomasum. A cow's stomach has four compartments. Like cows, llamas must regurgitate and re-chew their food to digest it completely.

Llama poop has almost no odor. Llama farmers refer to llama manure as "llama beans." It makes for a great, eco-friendly fertilizer. Historically, the Incas in Peru burned dried llama poop for fuel.

Llamas live to be about 20 years old. Though some only live for 15 years and others live to be 30 years old.

A baby llama is called a "cria" which is Spanish for baby. It's pronounced KREE-uh. Baby alpacas, vicuñas, and guanacos are also called crias. Mama llamas usually only have one baby at a time and llama twins are incredibly rare. Pregnancy lasts for about 350 days, nearly a full year. Crias weigh 20 to 35 pounds at birth.

Llamas come in a range of solid and spotted colors including black, gray, beige, brown, red, and white.

Llamas are social animals and prefer to live with other llamas or herd animals. The social structure of llamas changes frequently and a male llama can move up the social ladder by picking, and winning, small fights with the leader of the group.

A group of llamas is called a herd.

Llamas have two wild "cousins" that have never been domesticated: the vicuña and the guanaco. The Guanaco is closely related to the llama. Vicuñas are thought to be the ancestors of alpacas.

The current population of llamas and alpacas in South America is estimated to be more than 7 million.

Yarn made from llama fiber is soft and lightweight, yet remarkably warm. The soft, undercoat is used for garments and handicrafts while the coarse, outer coat is frequently used for rugs and ropes.

Trying to tell the difference between a llama and an alpaca? Two obvious things to look for: Llamas are generally about twice the size of alpacas, and alpacas have short, pointy ears, whereas llamas have much longer ears that stand straight up and give them an alert look.

thoughtco.com/fun-facts-about-llamas-3880940.

[whump-tr0pes]

Your Part to Kill

Many thanks to @newbornwhumperfly for being so generous in letting me put their boy Morja in Situations, and many apologies to them as well for holding onto this story for so many months while waiting for myself to finish it.

My masterlist

Morja is a diathésimos, one of a class of indentured servants owned by society’s elite - though some would call them slaves. He has been tasked with a mission of critical importance by his anóteros: to infiltrate a dangerous family that has taken refuge in the north, and kill the criminal that they are harboring: Gavin Stormbeck.

Part 1

Contents: slavery, past murders, conditioned whumpee, reluctant whumper, attempted murder, nonsexual nudity

~

Morja’s feet had long since begun to ache. He felt the sting of a blister on the back of his right heel, felt the rough edge on the inside of his boot rub against raw skin. Each step down the dusty road sent a dull wave of pain through his toes where they crushed against the front of the boots. Too small, much too small – but it was better than going barefoot.

He’d walked far longer, before, and he’d done it barefoot then. That he had boots at all was a gift from his anóteros, and it was his duty to obey. What he wore on his feet made no difference at all to his duty. He was a weapon, and weapons do not feel pain.

His throat tightened as he made his way down the dusty lane, the moon shining on the lake that ran beside. He felt the first stirrings of thirst, having had his last sip of water several miles ago. He did not carry water with him. Water would only slow him down, and this mission would be over soon. Twelve miles a few miles did not require water. He carried only what he needed: a gun strapped to his thigh, and a knife tucked into his belt.

He could have gone without the gun, really, but his anóteros insisted he carry it.

“Isaac Moore is the type of man to require more than one bullet to put him down,” his anóteros had said. “If you must put him down – better to do it from twenty feet away with a gun. You stand a chance of surviving, then, diathésimos.”

“Yes, anóteros,” Morja had said, before he’d pressed his forehead to the floor at his superior’s feet.

Morja didn’t shiver, even though the night was cold. The walk was enough to keep his blood moving, and even though he felt a chill at the tips of his fingers, he was comfortable. He didn’t carry a jacket. That would only slow him down.

Morja caught a flash of white light through the bushes that ran down each side of the lane. He froze, fading instantly into the darkness of the night. Slowly, slowly, he stepped to the side, careful to keep his boots silent on the gravel lane. He blinked as the light flashed into his eyes again. He let out a breath. It was only the moon, reflecting off the windows of the house.

His target.

Morja felt the hair on the back of his neck prickle as he took another step towards the house. No lights burned in the windows, and the only sound he heard was the rustling of the wind through the trees and the quiet hum of crickets in the darkness. He checked the gun in its holster. The steel felt solid and cold in his hand. He ran his fingers over the handle of his knife. It felt almost warm to his palm, as if it was meant to fit there.

He was meant to be here. Meant to do this. He was not fit for anything else.

He shook his head against the fog that seemed to creep into his mind every time he was sent to fulfill his duty. He never liked to hear the curses, the screams, so he always made it quick. But still – the smell of blood never left him. He could feel it under his fingernails, even after he’d washed his hands over and over and over again. Perhaps that was why he left his jacket. He could never quite get out the stench of blood that seemed to be as much a part of the fabric as the fibers and thread. Perhaps the blood was a part of him, too.

Morja was perfectly silent as he made his way up the gravel driveway and to the front door. There was no security system for him to dismantle, his anóteros had assured him. There was only one thing to do: get in, and assassinate Gavin Stormbeck.

Morja’s stomach clenched as his hand closed around the door handle. He adjusted his fingers around the knob, turned it, and slowly pushed the door open.

The door swung open silently on oiled hinges. Morja let out the breath he’d been holding and rolled his shoulder as he took a step in, trying to loosen the coiled muscle and sinew that pulled taut inside him. A sudden bolt of pain shot through his left shoulder and down his arm. He gritted his teeth and forced away the pain.

His boots lighted silently on the wood floor, but he knew they would, even though these boots had not always belonged to him. He knew how to be silent, when it was demanded of him. He knew how to exist without a single noise at all.

Silence, diathésimos. If I wanted to hear your voice I’d remove the gag.

He shuddered at the sudden twinge in his chest. He pushed down the pain and moved on. The wood floor became carpet as he turned down the hall to the bedrooms. He had studied the layout of the house until he could see it behind his eyes, until he knew it better than the cell room that was his home. He had seen this house in his dreams every night this week, when he was allowed sleep. He knew every inch of it. He knew he would have to know it, if he had to fight his way out.

But he wouldn’t have to fight his way out. He would be obedient, and silent, and effective. Only one life had to end tonight, and no one would ever know he was there. He was his anóteros’s best weapon. He would not fail.

There was a door directly in front of him – not the correct room, he knew. That room belonged to the one named Sam, who was not a fighter. Morja’s stomach turned at the thought of them falling to his knife. An innocent, and injured, too, without the use of their right arm. But they did not have to die tonight.

Morja made a turn and passed by an empty bedroom. His ears pricked, scanning for any noises: normal ones, like snoring or gentle, even breathing – or ones that spelled something gone wrong, like the shuffle of feet against the floor, the squeak of a mattress. He heard nothing but the light rasp of a snore from the next bedroom he passed – the one belonging to Vera and Tori, two more innocents.

They had suffered a syndicate son in their midst, even though they were innocents.

“No one is innocent that harbors the enemy,” Morja’s anóteros had said. “They are lucky I only want the Stormbeck boy’s life. What they deserve is another thing entirely.”

Morja had shivered when he allowed himself to wonder what this family really did deserve, according to his anóteros.

He swallowed the dryness in his throat. His blister itched as he turned again, perfectly able to navigate the house in the pitch darkness. No moonlight reached him this far down the hall. He allowed himself to reach out one hand to trail along the wall, finger brushing feather-light against the plaster until he reached a wooden doorframe. He drew the knife from his belt and took in a deep breath. His throat tightened around the air as he drew it in. His right hand tightened around the handle of the knife. He found the doorknob, turned it, and pushed the door open.

Morja blinked in the sudden light. He found the source of it immediately: a night light was plugged into the wall, casting the room in a golden glow. Morja’s heart stuttered as he saw it. He had anticipated doing the killing with barely enough light to see at all. But now… he could see his target – Gavin Stormbeck, heir to the Stormbeck syndicate, torturer, murderer – nestled in his lover’s arms, pulled tight so his back was pressed against Isaac Moore’s chest. Moore’s lips were pressed to the back of the Stormbeck boy’s neck, and as they breathed, their chests rose in unison. 

The floor seemed to tilt under Morja’s feet. His hand shook on the knife. He took a step forward, then another, letting his aching feet carry him towards his mission. He drew in a slow breath, let it out, barely realizing he was matching the breaths of his target, lying warm and asleep in his bed. He gritted his teeth as he came to a stop beside the bed, standing over Gavin Stormbeck. Silently, he brought his knife to Gavin Stormbeck’s throat and let the blade tremble a millimeter above his carotid. All Morja would have to do is thrust the knife in, cutting through the vocal cords in the same strike. Gavin Stormbeck would bleed out all over his bed in one minute. His dying struggles might even seem to his lover like the mild tossing and turning of someone surfacing from sleep, and falling in again. 

His hand shook. His fingers tightened around the blade. He drew in another slow breath, let it out. 

This was his mission. He was a diathésimos. This was his purpose.

A tiny flash of movement caught his gaze, and he glanced at it. His heart dropped in his chest as he realized what the movement had been: Isaac Moore’s eyes flicked open and immediately focused on Morja with a look of protective, unfathomable rage.

Morja found himself taking a step back from the bed.

Without a word, Isaac launched himself over Gavin and off of the bed. Morja only had a moment to process that Isaac was naked, before a fist came flying at his face. He blocked the blow, and his entire forearm juddered with the force. The knife remained tight in his fist, unblooded. He jerked into action and lunged towards Isaac, knife flashing in the dim light. 

Gavin startled awake as the bed lurched beneath him. He sat bolt upright and rubbed at his eyes, trying to process what he was seeing: Isaac, naked, pinning a dark-clothed stranger to the wall with a forearm as his throat as he tried to wrestle a knife out of the stranger’s hand. Isaac slammed the man’s hand back against the wall, and the knife flew from his grip. 

Gavin’s heart pounded in his chest as Isaac grabbed the stranger by his throat and slammed him onto the floor. The stranger’s mouth gaped open as he gasped for air, throwing his arm over his head to defend himself from another killing blow. Isaac snarled as he shoved the man against the floor by his throat, other hand searching for the knife. The man clawed at Isaac’s wrist as his eyes rolled back. Even in the dim light of the room, Gavin could see his face going red, then purple.

Isaac’s hand closed on the handle of the knife. He brought it to the stranger’s throat, just above where Isaac’s palm pushed down, and pressed down to cut.

The man’s eyes went wide and flicked towards Gavin. Gavin’s stomach dropped. The look on the man’s face was so familiar, Gavin felt it like a punch to his gut – the look of someone choking beneath him, desperate for air, knowing he was moments away from death… and a terrified resignation that Gavin recognized instantly.

“No!” he croaked, unable to look away from the stranger. 

Isaac Moore went rigid over Morja. Terror swept through Morja like the lash from a whip. He tore his gaze away from the boy on the bed to stare up at Isaac, sweat stinging his eyes. Isaac was looking down at him with stark fury on his face, but he stayed the knife. Morja could feel it trembling against his throat. 

Ice clutched at Morja’s heart as he tore his gaze away from Isaac Moore and looked once again at Gavin, his chest heaving, one hand held out towards Morja. He shuddered, his mind going blank with a white fog of panic as he wondered: what does Gavin Stormbeck want with me alive?

Continued here

@womping-grounds, @free-2bmee, @quirkykayleetam, @walkingchemicalfire, @inpainandsuffering, @redwingedwhump, @burtlederp, @castielamigos-whump-side-blog, @whatwhumpcomments, @cursedscribbles, @whumpywhumper, @stxck-fxck, @omega-em-z-02, @whumps-the-word, @justwhumpitwhumpitgood, @justplainwhump, @finder-of-rings, @inky-whump, @thatsthewhump, @orchidscript, @inkyinsanity​, @this-mightaswell-happen, @newandfiguringitout, @whumpkitty, @pretty-face-breaker, @cinnamonflavoredhugs, @pebbledriscoll, @im-just-here-for-the-whump, @endless-whump, @grizzlie70, @oops-its-whump, @kixngiggles, @1phoenixfeather, @butwhatifyouwrite, @carnagecardinal​

[all-mimsy]

who names a kid dysthymia?

fanmix for the weird sensitive kid who just wants to disappear into the woods

Cavetown ⚘ Boys Will Be Bugs I'm a dumb teen boy I eat sticks and rocks and mud I don't care about the government And I really need a hug I feel stupid (stupid), ugly (ugly) Pretend it doesn't bother me I'm not very strong, but I'll fuck you up if you're mean to bugs

Young Rising Sons ⚘ SAD (Clap Your Hands) But I still hear my mama saying If you're sad and you know it And you don't want to show it Clap your hands

Blind Melon ⚘ No Rain All I can say is that my life is pretty plain I like watching the puddles gather rain And all I can do Is just pour some tea for two And speak my point of view But it's not sane

Owl City ⚘ Plant Life I've been longing for daisies to push through the floor And I wish plant life would grow all around me So, I won't feel dead anymore So, I won't feel dead anymore

Cosmo Sheldrake ⚘ The Moss Legend has it that the moss grows on The north side of the trees Well, legend has it when the rain comes down All the worms come up to breathe Well, legend has it when the sunbeams come All the plants, they eat them with their leaves Well, legend has it that the world spins 'round On an axis of 23 degrees

Bug Hunter ⚘ Pinecones I yell, "I'm gonna live to be a hundred I'm gonna see them cure disease Then I'm gonna watch them Go to war over the royalties" So if you need me, I'll be in the tree If you need me, I'll be in the tree

Coral Bones ⚘ Queensway The in-between Is where I'll find a home And watch a garden grow I'll burn it down Blend ash into the ground

The Happy Fits ⚘ Dirty Imbecile But you won't understand All the things that I am 'Cause I'm crazy in just too many ways But I get that little feel When my heart starts beating, lungs stop breathing All my fibers say to run away Count my little scars, I've got dozens down inside I come complete and invincible behind my dirty imbecile All these things I've tried, boy, be cute, be dumb, be wise, be young So don't tell me what to fear in the darkness of this atmosphere

MISSIO ⚘ The Darker The Weather // The Better The Man Distant, everything is scattered When your mind is shattered and torn apart In an instant, I can be indifferent The blame is always shifted from the start Leafless treetops in the snow Views of death and bitter cold But the darker the weather, the better the man You can take all you want, but not who I am

American Authors ⚘ I'm Born To Run I'm born to run, down rocky cliffs Give me grace, bury my sins Shattered glass and black holes Can't hold me back from where I need to go

Frances Aravel ⚘ The Child You Were Loneliness was painful And your empty life didn't like you But one day you'll see The light The child you were will not return

[aaroncward]

STATISTICS

BIRTH NAME :  Aaron C. Ward ALIAS : Ron AGE : 40 DATE  OF  BIRTH : July 15th, 1984 RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Engaged HOMETOWN : Wilmington, North Carolina TIME IN WILMINGTON: Since Birth RESIDENCE : Wrightsville Beach OCCUPATION: Fire Captain FACECLAIM : Brett Dalton

trigger warning: death, illness

EDUCATION : Business degree at Duke, Fire Academy. OCCUPATION : Fire Captain GENDER : Cis-Male PRONOUNS : He/Him SEXUALITY : Straight

HAIR COLOR : Brown EYE  COLOR : Brown HEIGHT : 6'2'' BUILD : Athletic ACCENT : American LANGUAGES : English, Sign Language TATTOOS : None

ZODIAC : Cancer LOVE LANGUAGE : Words of affirmation, Physical touch CURRENT HAIR STYLE + BEARD: ( x ) CONDITIONS : Sickle Cell Anemia ALLERGIES : None EATING HABITS : Lives on protein and fibers EXERCISE HABITS : Weights and the occasional treadmill when he's alone. SLEEPING HABITS : Light sleeper, prefers sleeping on his side.

ADDICTIONS : None DRUG  USE : None ALCOHOL USE : Socially

POSITIVE  TRAITS :  loyal, hard-working, strong, ambitious, persevering NEGATIVE TRAITS: private, secretive, reckless PHOBIAS : None FEARS : Losing his career, wasting his chances. HOBBIES : playing the guitar, reading, cooking foreign cuisine. HABITS : Whistles along to tunes, folds his arms when tense or uncomfortable, moves frequently when cold. USUAL TEMPERAMENT : Inviting, calm.

FATHER : Christopher H. Ward MOTHER : Marian M. Ward-Paisley SIBLINGS : Wesley Ward †, UTP Ward. PARTNER: Celene UTP (2021-present) CHILDREN :  None PETS : A Bernese Mountain dog called Sammy.

BIOGRAPHY

tw: death, illness.

Aaron was born as the oldest son into the Ward empire, well respected within the Wilmington borders and out. With his father having inherited the ownership of the grand Four Season Hotel, their family was soon to rise in wealth and reputation. The Ward family has been well off for generations on end, but even more so with his father's new position. It made sure that the Ward brothers had everything they would have wanted. Aaron however, had the wits and restraint of his father, rather than that of his mother. Marian Ward was known for her lavish expenses, something she passed through to her younger sons.

Rather than flaunting wealth to fit in with the popular kids, Aaron had always been the type of student to stand his own, eat lunch with the bullied kids and fighting back to those that would make fun of him or his friends. Not just for his name, but for his reputation that he was not to be messed with made others steer clear from him.

Aaron was diagnosed from a very young age with sickle cell anemia, an illness he had to learn to manage for the rest of his life. Yet it was agreed between his parents that they would keep his condition within the family, as to make sure that if Aaron was to ever take over the ownership of the hotel, his 'fragile state' would not be used as leverage for him to at one point step down. This was a lie that Aaron kept up for himself, not wanting others to judge him on his labels but rather on his actions and his deeds.

Upon having finished his bachelors degree in business, it had been every intend for him to start working for other businesses in the city to expand his horizons and experience before he would join the family business. Fate intervened when Aaron was at the right place at the right time, spotting a home fire while on a drive home. With the emergency services nowhere in sight, he had gone in when it was clear someone still had their infant inside. It had been his introduction to the world of firefighting, and though his action had been reckless, the fire captain on scene had told him that the fire academy could be a future for him if that was what he wanted. With his condition he knew it would be challenging, but Aaron never lived avoiding obstacles, and he went for it.

Miraculously, Aaron passed his firefighting training without his condition coming to light, which he knew was risky. His father disapproved, but after a conversation of how this was what Aaron really wanted, he gave in. It also gave way for his brother, Wesley, to step up and take the reigns, which caused a little friction between the brothers, as Wesley had been all too eager to rub it in Aaron's face that he wasn't the family disappointment.

Wesley truly did seem to have it all. Being the first pick for the family business, having a stunning girlfriend by his side, the wealth to flaunt -- which Ward Sr really despised, but learned to ignore -- yet Aaron kept being confronted with how his little brother didn't seem to truly appreciate what he had. He treated his possessions carelessly, would arrive at work late and neglect his relationship. Over the course of his relationship, Aaron found himself getting closer to Wesley's girlfriend, Safia. There were moments of offered support, encouragements of deserving better and even moments of kisses in heated moments and dark corners of the house that were soon forgotten, until one evening she came to him, obviously upset that she could no longer keep up with the relationship. With the sudden realisation that she had actual feelings for him, like he had developed for her, the two were going to take the plunge. She was going to call him and end things then and there so they could dating. A chance for Aaron to show her that she was deserving. And then, tragedy struck.

After his brother's funeral, things felt hard to piece back together. His mother was distraught, his youngest brother had gone to California to chase after a creative profession and his father seemed to bury himself in work, spending more time at the hotel. Aaron gave Safia space, knowing that they both felt overwhelming guilt, but it became clear that she had distanced herself from not just him, but his entire family. He tried reaching out to her after the pain had settled, just to see if they wanted to try. When his attempts had been answered by silence, Aaron eventually had to move on, whether he liked to or not.

He threw himself into his work, earning him one promotion after the other until eventually he got to call himself Captain of the firestation. It made hiding his condition easier, as he was no longer actively running into burning buildings on the daily but rather organising and directing from the outside. It was during one of his official functions where he met Celene, who had been working at the event. The two got to talking, which even got her into some trouble with her employer. The two parted with each others phone numbers, igniting something new, something exciting. It was a love that seemed to flourish, futures being discussed, being trusted with each other's secrets and conditions and keeping it safe. Their engagement was announced in the spring of 2024, to be held at the Four Seasons in the winter of 2025.

Aaron always deemed himself to be a man of honour, yet what he didn't expect was for his past feelings to resurface upon encountering Safia again, causing conflict and inner turmoil about what was right and what was wrong.

[jules-van-hering]

ok it was so fun scrolling and looking at all of those beautiful quilts!!! are you a fiber arts person? if you were to design a quilt, what kind of design would you choose?

aaaaw thank you 🥰 great to hear someone enjoyed my moment of enthusiastic madness :D

I am a bit of a fiber arts person, indeed :) currently mostly knitting socks tho, working on a neon green pair for my dad's birthday right now. but I've also started crocheting this year. I have a fancy fern scarf project that I haven't touched in months :D I usually take a small project to my lectures at uni to keep myself focused and distracted at the same time. really helps a lot and by the time I have my degree, I'll have so many socks as well. maybe even a bigger piece like a sweater at some point. I have also started a makramee project, but completely underestimated the scope of it (: took out my bedroom door to put a self made makramee curtain in there instead and so far I only have the loose threads hanging there. also like doing some embroidery, mostly silly stuff or something motivational like affirmations that resonate (a red feel your feelings fool stop sign, a reminder that actually life is beautiful and I have time, but also TEETH I know you have them for a friend)

If I made a quilt I would probably do sth maritime or cowboy or plant themed. OH! actually! I might try to quilt what I picture when I imagine my safe place: a lush greenhouse hidden in soft hilly north sea dunes with all the dune grasses, sand piper birds running along the shore, lil crab buddies and that beautiful light shimmering on soft waves and between the clouds. and I'd like to make it so dynamic that you can basically feel the wind on your face and smell the salty air when you look at it. yes, that would be my masterpiece :)

[ms-m-astrologer]

Transiting Pallas Athene enters Libra

Wednesday, September 13 - Sunday, November 19, 2023

Caveat: this probably won’t be a big deal for you, personally, unless Pallas Athene is prominent in your birth chart (closely in aspect to the Sun, the Moon, &/or an angle).

Libra is one of three signs which astrologer Demetra George associates particularly with the Lady Asteroid Pallas Athene - the other two being Leo and Aquarius. Pallas Athene likes to work with the balance and cohesion of Libra, in order to bring about creative problem-solving.

Ordinarily, then, Pallas Athene loves to be in the sign of the Scales. This particular transit, though, features a slew of challenging aspects - it will take all of Libra’s tact and diplomacy to navigate them, combined with Pallas Athene’s intelligence.

A few Libra pitfalls, to which Pallas Athene may be especially prone to experience, are (1) opting for style over substance, (2) “going along to get along,” and (3) devaluing our emotions in favor of intellectualism. Looking at Pallas Athene’s main areas:

Creative wisdom and intelligence - we’re concerned with balance; any strategies we employ might be more along the lines of countering or manipulating, rather than initiating anything. A reactive approach to problem solving.

Arts and artisans - Pallas Athene was a fiber artist, remember? We are going to come up with some beautiful, harmonious creative ideas during this transit, with an emphasis more on looking/feeling good than on utility. We want to communicate ideas through our artistic endeavors.

Political activism - we want peace and fairness; we may not be able to deal successfully with the fact that other people often do not. Negotiation and mediation skills are essential.

Professional excellence - teamwork, partnership, looking for the fairest solutions. If you want to get a good performance review, you need to get along with your colleagues.

There will be several “intermediate” aspects (semi-squares, sesquiquads, inconjuncts) between transiting Pallas Athene, and the various thingies transiting through Taurus, Virgo, and Pisces. These show delays and adjustments to whatever Pallas Athene is trying to obtain. (There were just too many of them for me to want to list; it was getting depressing!)

Here are the major aspects, giving a few days before and after:

Sunday, October 1 - Pallas Athene/Libra conjunct Sun/Libra, 8°13’. The beginning of the Sun-Pallas Athene cycle. We’re setting some lofty goals for our character development.

Thursday, October 12 - Pallas Athene/Libra conjunct Mercury/Libra, 13°06’. Ideas, of course; if our creativity runs to writing, this is like the light bulb going off in our heads to herald a new concept.

Saturday, October 21 - Pallas Athene/Libra opposite Chiron Rx/Aries, 17°12’. Not a lot of emotional sensitivity, which hurts; we may be surprised by our feelings and ill-equipped to deal with them - so we project all the hurt. This can indicate also a lot of second- and third-guessing ourselves.

Sunday, November 5 - Pallas Athene/Libra opposite North Node/Aries, conjunct South Node/Libra, 23°52’; Monday, November 6 - Pallas Athene/Libra opposite Eris Rx/Aries, 24°30’. The climax of the entire transit? It’s intense enough to have two Goddesses of war opposite each other, but throw in the Lunar Nodes too: eek. Sometimes we have to make a stand and fight; if we’ve been “going along to get along” this is where that strategy (or frankly lack thereof) will get us into deep trouble.

Tuesday, November 14 - Pallas Athene/Libra square Pluto/Capricorn, 28°11’. Wrapping our heads around some unpleasant truth. It’s crucial to release any mental negativity, blockages, and obsessions.

[unpun1shable]

Dreaming in Rouge- Chapter 1

“Diamonds are a girl’s best… friend…”

Word Count: 3.1k.

Moulin Rouge!AU - Christian!Aemond - Pretentious! Aemond - Satine!Reader - Miscommunication - Sex Work - Not Beta Read.

Last Part , Next Part.

Read On AO3.

Aemond was never a fan of smoking. Pipes were far too eccentric for his tastes. A flashy, winding piece of ivory to wave around in others faces. Cigars were fat and obnoxious. Puffing thick, black clouds of tobacco. Cigarettes? Once an indulgence for the elite tainted by mass production. Now, it was a pleasure for both the wealthy and penniless man.

Tonight, Aemond was most certainly a penniless man. A small, white stick pursed between thin lips. Legs bent and body curled on the windowsill. Smoke drifting out after long drags. Amethyst eyes lazily scanning the nightly crowd.

Three days had passed since Aemond arrived in Pentos. Three days into this little stakeout. Three days since he had lied to his mother in writing. Having spent the little coin he had for a carriage ride to King’s Landing, a ship to Dragonstone, and another ship across the Narrow Sea from there. That- along with some minor bribing and a dingy motel room across from the “Moulin Rouge”- left the boy with nothing but a few coppers to weigh down his pockets.

The streets of Pentos were reminiscent of King’s Landing, in a way. Aemond had been taken to Oldtown with his mother at a young age. However, with what he knew of King’s Landing from visits over the years to see his ailing father, Aemond saw the same, square buildings toppled over one another and running down slopes. The red light district, in particular, just had an aura of patheticness. Its inhabitants clawing and clawing to this unreachable point. In Pentos it was beggars of skin and pleasure, instead of politics and power. He supposed the only difference, other than that, was that the air of Pentos only vaguely smelt of excrement.

That was, until he heard the wind carry in from the north. A soft, running hymnal carried along on its bite. It was like a bell in the fog. A siren’s song to a wandering, bereft sailor. It caught the boy’s ear in a snatching grip. The delicate, winding hum distracts Aemond from his makeshift stakeout. His gaze shifted from damp streets to the compound that was the Moulin Rouge.

His eye befell the giant, center building of the compound. An elephant. One that he’d find himself staring at for no reason at all these past few days. Something about that building just jumped out of the skyline and grabbed him. Like poetry from the page- it took hold of his brain. Not even the echoed sounds of pleasure and excitement from the main theater of the Moulin Rouge could keep his attention. He’d come attuned to blocking it out after the second day in the city.

A heart-shaped balcony. A peak of deep, wine red. A curved silhouette against dim candlelight.

“Diamonds are a girl’s best… friend…”

The next morning, Aemond woke to the sun sitting high in the sky. The ascension of noon, and the fall of drywall. The starch, white fiber coating the sleeping man and causing him to jolt awake in a coughing fit. A passed out dornish man dangling from the broken ceiling as Aemond was curled up on his side in the dusty bed.

This led to Aemond’s current state. Clad in a sleeping blouse and a pair of breeches in a motel room that was certainly as dingy and cramped as his, but was filled to the brim with set designs and props. The grumbling blonde ignored by the band of hyperactive thespians who woke him from his sleep in the first place.

The one who roped Aemond into all of this, the dangling dornish, was splayed out over a mattress. A narcoleptic, he learned. One who was meant to play some… goat herder? The sets constructed like the alps of Sweden. A pint-sized man, Mushroom, shushing Aemond’s complaints as the four thespians were caught in a heated debate.

“The hills are animated-”

“The hills are vital-”

“The hills are incarnate-”

The thespians preened and droned. Dragging over their words as if they were trying to be artistic for arts sake. Not because it was what truly came from them. It was an imitation. Trying, desperately, to breathe the bohemian whimsy. Long words that bumbled over one another for no other point than sounding complicated.

“- euphonious symphony…”

“- intoning the descant…”

“- symphonic melodies…”

It was like a spit of fire. The flick of a match against red phosphorus. Aemond, who had just come to berate the bumbling playwrights, snapped above them all. The writer deep within him, the sense of superiority instilled in him from Oldtown, roared above all else. Flaring and rearing its ugly head as he watched these “wanna-be poets” twist and tangle their tongues.

“The hills are alive! Gods damn it, just say the hills are alive!”

***

First light for a whore came well into the afternoon. Body sore from the night before and makeup smeared. No second wasted. Not when it came to Illyrio. No diamond was left unpolished beneath his gaze. Each performer was up, practicing and cinched into tight costumes. Flaking powder puffed like a chipping building painted over with a new coat. Deep charcoal set to the water lines. Rouge adorning lips and cheeks as noon turned to dusk.

“The gods lonely men pray too” Illyrio would look at his dancers and preen, strutting around like a proud cock amongst the hens. Well, not all hens. The Moulin catered to all tastes. Evident by the prim, stark blonde by your side.

“Use the brown lip and then dab most of it off with a napkin. It’ll add some depth to your natural pink.” You tried to guide Aegon as you sat in side by side vanities. Both primping for first shift. Eventually, though, you reached a point you couldn’t sit back and watch the grungy boy fumble. Instead, you perched your rear on the wood of the vanity. Hands fussing over delicate, porcelain, Valyrian features. Trying to simultaneously tame and bring the man’s silver locks to life. Keep the dog on a muzzle but let it bark a little. Nurse the poison in small doses to keep it desirable. Heavy enough to drag you through the muck but light enough to keep you feeling high. The never ending balance of a man’s impossible fantasy.

“Stop fussing over him and get to yourself, darling.” An old whore turned madame, Saera, scolded you. She was a veteran of the streets. A mother of fledgling whores. A fledgling you still were, but more like that of a raven. Staying behind to help Mama and Papa with the new hatchlings still in the nest, even though your wings were still growing themself.

“I still have a long time before I have to go on in the middle of the number, Marie. Aeg’s barely got his pantyhose on and he has to go out first.” You laughed to the older woman as the boy himself scowled. It was always a fine line with Aegon. The boy was like the tides come to life. Coming in with unstoppable force one second and pulling out with a rip the next. Constantly toeing between pushing for affection and scratching at the hands that pet him. Like a little kitten, sopping wet from the rain.

“I may be a whore but I'm no cross-dresser!” Aegon huffed, standing up with his white, form fitting tee clinging to thin skin. A pair of black trousers trailing down long legs, set with a pair of jeweled suspenders. “That was one time!” He adds at your knowing look, already guessing the cheeky quip that was about to fall from your lips.

Truth be told, Aegon was a bit of a prude. The boy had some leftover Westerosi shame hiding between the layers of his flesh. Creeping like crawling ivy. But once he was on the floor, there was no denying the light in those shining, purple eyes. Like he had just smoked straight from the opium pipe. Like an addict with a bottle. He found something on the stage, something you did not see. Something that kept him coming back.

“One time I'd pay to see again” You smirk. “You looked like a little doll in that pink slip, even if you stank of rum” A bubbling giggle accompanied by shaking shoulders. Saera half heartedly swatting you with a hanky to play nice. Aegon sends you a narrowed glare. Such a soft warmth hidden behind costume fabric, fishnets, and spotlights.

***

“Mission accomplished, we have successfully invaded seat one.” Mushroom gave an impish grin. One that Aemond already hated, despite knowing the dwarf for only an hour or more. The man was a fool. One that belonged in a bouncing hat adorned with bells. A deluded little creature, as well. One that had him dressed in gentleman’s garb and snuck into this den of red lights and debauchery.

If there were two words to wrap up the dizzying experience of the Moulin Rouge, it would be “a show.” Every aspect of it was a performance. One that came bright and bold and all encompassing. Diamond dogs run around, the can can resounding in ears and feet.

“Here we are now, here we are now…”

“Can can can can can…”

After only hearing the sounds of the night for three days, Aemond had to say the show up close was just as… noisy. The girls ran and swayed and bucked on the floor. Their skirts turned up to show the garments that laid beneath. He supposed they were meant to look like flower petals revealing the bud beneath. However, to Aemond’s eye, it was like a chimpanzee curling up their lip. Baring yellowed teeth in some barbaric mating ritual.

He was not a fan, to say the least. Much less when he caught sight of the ringleader. A man of curling hair and white, painted face. A garish clown, pumping his cane into the air. Repeating that same word “can” over and over and over again.

For some reason, Aemond thought of Helaena in the midst of the storm. He wondered how she would’ve reacted to this display. Perhaps she would have jolted away like she does from mother’s touch. Curled up with her hands over her ears. Perhaps she would look at the dancers like she looks at her prized bugs. She did seem to like controlled chaos. Twirling and swaying to the drums of string bands at feasts she chose to attend.

“Exquisite! Incanfederous! You two simply must write the show together” Mushroom had cheered when Aemond spoke his piece on their lyricism. “Oh! We should take you to our star! I’m sure she would adore you, considering how she primps over that other Valyrian boy.”

That was what had drawn Aemond in. The simple mention of his brother had him with his nose to the ground like a pig after truffles. He had to bring Aegon home. Back to his mother and back to Helaena. That was why he was in this city of sin. That was why he was dressed in the narcoleptic dornishman’s best suit and down a cup of absinthe. That was why he was in this noisy den. For Alicent and for Helaena. Nothing else.

That was, until the world was doused in blue. For a moment, he thought the green drink had taken him. This was it, this was death. I’ve been killed by a thespian dwarf whose weapon of choice is a bottle of liquor. A shining light bathed the writer in its encompassing glow. That soft, supple hum from the winds the night before reaching his ears.

“The Pentoshi are glad to die for love…”

That voice. That silhouette once a wine red now a moonlight blue. Caressing and enveloping him like a baptism. A tunneling wave breaking above the surf.

***

“Is lord Tyland here?” You ask, heaving and full of nerves. Crouched in a circle of upturned, ruffled skirts. Switching from the blue jewels and black canvas to pink lace and white fur.

“Of course he is- just for you, my little kitty cat” Illyrio said with one of his famous grins. One that could trick death itself.

“Will he invest?” That question comes first as you shimy the top of the corset. Tugging to get it to fit your chest just right.

“After a night with you, my darling? A man would buy the moon.”

“What do you think’s his fancy?” A furrow caught your brow as you spoke. “Wilting flower?” A soft whimper and a pout. Eyes up like a doe in the grass. “Bright and bubbly” A beaming grin and giggles. Shoulders rising and falling and body lilting to the side. “Or a smoldering temptress?” A cocky grin and a growl. Eyes half-lidded and predatory.

“I’d say smoldering temptress” Illyrio smirks, fussing over your features. “We’re all relying on you. Remember, leave him satisfied and leave him-”

“With his balls empty- yes, I remember” A dismissive giggle left your lips. Then, it was time for the show to go on. Illyrio and you popping out of the ring of diamond dogs like the prized pieces of a cornucopia.

“Which one is lord Tyland?” You turn your head to the side to whisper. Back to back as your hands rock in side to side arches. Your hips following the movement of the song.

“In the booths in seat one- pale hair and light eyes.” Illyrio returns and spins around. The man takes you by the arms and spins you. You only have one chance to catch a glance at the velvet nooks. A shimmering, lilac eye and flowing, silver hair catching your gaze like a moth to a flame. A light emanating from that single eye more intense than any seen in two. Holding your form in its possession like a knife.

“Oh, light eye’s an understatement” You mumble, before Illyrio throws you to the VIP section. The costume was a subtle nod to the god, Pantera. Adorning six tails instead of six breasts. Plush pink and creamy whites adorning the furs that sprouted forth from your backside in a ruffling arch. The tails sway as you swing your hips. Putting on a show for the man that would make all your dreams come true.

“I believe you were expecting me?”

***

You were a whirlwind. A temptress. A feline who had him caught between your teeth like a pitiful mouse. Sprouting out of a bloom of skirts and pantyhose. Bursting through it like life from a womb. A shining, radiant, splendored thing.

“I believe you were expecting me?” That voice came like a purr. Lidded, wanting eyes staring through him. Making Aemond excruciatingly aware of just what he was. Skin and bones. A sack of skin, bones, and blood at your feet. At the mercy of your fingers that brushed down his chest.

“We should take you to our star!” Mushroom’s earlier words break through his sputtering mind. The machine is on and reeling but the cogs are not exactly turning. Or, perhaps they turned too fast and all flew off.

“Yes!” He said, eager like a boy with a wrapped present. Desperate to just get something out instead of sitting there with his lips parted and collecting flies. Before he remembered himself. A wave of embarrassment and shame became the man as he coughed and regained his normal pitch. “Yes, I-”

“I see you already met my Westerosi friend” Mushroom cut in, from his spot by Aemond.

You were like a spitfire, grabbing Aemond before he himself could even process it. Hauling him off, not even listening to the drunken dwarf as he called out.

“He writes the world’s most modern poems!” Mushroom’s words fell on deaf ears. Your siren’s song of flesh calling to Aemond like a feast to a starved man. His feet forced to fall in line with the cacophony of steps. Stiff and unsure. This was not like the dancing of Westeros. The fluttering sways and brushing touch. Your form encapsulated him. Rough canvas against his borrowed suit. Legs so close they almost intertwined. So wrong. So, so wrong. Burning his skin like forbidden knowledge. Burning.

“So wonderful for you to take an interest in our little show” Your voice rolled over the second word. Catching it in your mouth and rumbling the syllables. Tossing it over your tongue to vibrate against Aemond’s ear and send a buzz straight through his body.

“You two simply must write the show together!”

“Oh” Aemond cleared his throat, on his toes to keep up with your flurry. Your movements were like a storm. Pushing and pulling and swaying and shaking like the winds of a hurricane. How blessed he was, to be in its eye. How cursed he was, to think it a blessing. “I assume he told you it would be a private… poetry reading… of sorts. But, I-”

“Ohhh” You giggled after a second, cutting the man off. “Hm. A poetry reading? I do love a little wordplay.” Gods, that voice. It curled around Aemond and held him like savory molasses. Like a pool of tempting, shimmering tar tearing him from faith.

“I shall dine on your words tonight.” The promise burnt his skin like a brand. Aemond’s entire being stuck to your form as your palms dragged down his chest. Drawing him in so tantalizingly close before pushing him away. Like a fleeting night of drinks and passion, followed by a heavy, withering withdrawal. Aemond’s legs simply were not the man’s own as they stumbled back and his ass landed on the upholstery of the private booth. Your form swung and drawn away, effortlessly taken to the skies by trapeze.

“… Who was that?” The words fell from Aemond’s voice. Well, no, not Aemond’s voice. This was not the prim and proper man of Westeros. This was… trembling. Breathless like a newborn. Quivering in naked vulnerability.

“That?” Mushroom, whom Aemond even forgot existed for a moment, spoke. A look of momentary confusion on his face, before a knowing, impish grin replaced it. “Ohh, that, good sir, is the shining diamond. Stage Name: Satine.”

“Satin?” Aemond echoed, looking down at the dwarf.

“Satine” Mushroom corrected.

What a stupid name, Aemond thought to himself. Adding an extra flair just to give it that bohemian twist. However, the man did admit… it fits you perfectly. That soft, smooth voice. Those legs, dangling from the edge of the trapeze. One hand brushing over the crowd of reaching men. Just grazing their fingers, so close yet out of reach. A beaming smile fluttering about the theater in an arching circle.

Petite Mort.