#this is probably short enough it didn't need the readmore but oh well

[quilleth]

7kpp week day 1: background

Happy 7kpp week everyone!!

I've been a bit stuck lately, but I REALLY wanted to have at least a few things to share. And I also want to play around with nerd Bro Noah a bit more, so here's a short attempt at writing down the kinds of notes that might be included in a delegate profile for the staff. Technically, he is also a Jiyel scholar, so there's not too much variation in the kind of background information that there would be for him I think. The big difference for them comes to what actually happens at the Summit and the fact that Noah actually did take the placements exams (and scored quite well I think! He's more of a jack of all trades kind of person than Elisabeth with her focused flora and fauna knowledge, though if she had taken the tests, she would also have beat him in history).

Delegate profile: Lord Noah Dai of Jiyel (courtesy title)

Background: As the eldest son, it’s expected by many that he will eventually take on the family’s small holding, and much of his education appears to have been focused in that direction with skills such as land and financial management. The Dai family is a very minor family, bequeathed a title and small estate near the Arlish border as a reward for agricultural research and innovations conducted by Lord Noah’s paternal grandfather a few decades ago. Records do not indicate Lord Noah’s aptitude lays in similar directions, though he scored above average in natural sciences when he took placement exams. Jiyel has sent a summary of his scores along with the nomination for his placement as a delegate (see included notes). His interests appear to lean towards more people oriented skills, as well as an interest in the arts, mathematics, and geography.

Important note: Lord Noah has an ongoing illness. Along with the usual physician’s reports, additional notations about his symptoms and treatment has been sent. No additional comments were made as to his suitability as a candidate despite this, and it seems to be well managed with infrequent episodes. Still, he may require extra monitoring. Staff have been chosen accordingly for him.

Note: Lord Noah’s cousin, Lady Jiya has also been chosen to attend this Summit. Records indicate that the two are acquainted, though their families have been distant since the marriage of Noah’s parents.

Addendum: Lady Jiya will not be attending this Summit owing to a sudden elopement. Lord Noah’s younger sister, Elisabeth is being sent in her stead.

[runwayrunway]

No. 28 - A Further Explanation of the Star Alliance Test

This is a main-series post, despite not being a review of a specific airline. I just think it's something that belongs in the series, that should be read. Don't worry. Today's airline is going to come later. This is a necessary preamble to get out of the way first, and it's also me making things right with an airline I've covered already.

Stick around and I promise it'll make sense. I had to rewrite this entire post from scratch, so if I could have changed this fact I would have, but fundamentally before I talk about today's true subject I need to talk about the Star Alliance Test (SAT for the remainder of this post). 

So let's begin with a question. You don't have to get this right. Just take a brief look at these pictures, don't try to examine them closely or anything, just a look-over, and tell me which one of these planes - we'll call them 1, 2, and 3, left from right - flies for an airline we’ve touched on briefly before, Avianca.

Got your answer locked in? Hit the readmore and let me tell you why I asked you this!

That's right! The answer was No. 1. You can tell because it says Avianca on it, if you look closer. But...why? Why would we want to be put in a situation where 'which of these three airlines with completely different liveries, identities, and brands does this plane fly for' is a question that could feasibly come up? 

I don't know. I didn't make that choice and I was probably on some other wall during that meeting. Oh, and to the best of my knowledge I also hadn't been born yet. But it's a thing airline alliances do. And Star Alliance is the subject of the Star Alliance Test - one of my metrics for determining if an airline deserves a grade of F. 

The Star Alliance test has been used precisely once - in my SAS post, regarding the 1998-2019 livery (henceforth referred to as red engine SAS or RESAS).

This monstrosity, for those blessed enough to not remember.

Here are the rules of the test. 

The Star Alliance Test has exactly one question. Would I prefer that all this airline’s planes were forcibly repainted into Star Alliance liveries instead of allowed to remain in their current state?

If the answer is 'yes', the airline automatically gets a grade of F. 

Why Star Alliance? After all, it could be better but I don't think it's that bad. Well, I choose it because the Star Alliance test isn't really about being aesthetically pleasing - at least, not exclusively. Let me explain. 

Star Alliance is the largest airline alliance in the world. Flightradar24 estimates there are 106 planes flying in a Star Alliance livery. It has 26 member airlines, shown above. Note the variance in color scheme, in logo, in origin. 26 is so many airlines. These carriers span every continent except Antarctica and basically only share three features: being international, being full-service, and being members of Star Alliance. I think it's safe to say that in any other context, nobody would ever associate THAI and Avianca, or Shenzhen Airlines and TAP Air Portugal, or Aegean Airlines and EVA Air. 

Each of these airlines has a livery of their own, except for Copa. I've covered Lufthansa and SAS already. Croatia Airlines and Air New Zealand are on my request list. Another several are on my own private 'short' list. (It is 50 airlines long. You don't want to know how long my longlist is.) 26 airlines comes out to at minimum 26 reviews, but actually more because you saw me squeeze four out of SAS. I will say up front, Star Alliance runs the gamut of liveries. There are a couple I like, a couple I think are very bad, and most I think are middling. But each of them, except Copa, is its own. Some of their designs are minimal, disappointing, ugly, but they are all designs made in an attempt to reflect the airline's identity and distinguish it from the rest of the tarmac, even if they create something ugly or boring or cowardly or all three.

A livery can be very, very bad indeed. But in my own mind an F, an outright failure, is the inverse of an A+ in a sort of cosmically symmetric ontology, and these are not the inverse of an A+ livery. They do not embody a transcendent bad to balance the scales against transcendent good. To reach this point you must be not only ugly but a gnawing void eating away at your own self. A livery worthy of the grade F do not fail to execute a good concept, or even fail to execute a bad concept. They have no concept and they fail to justify their existence.

One of the worst liveries I've covered vs one of the best.

The SAT is a litmus test for this astronomical, pernicious state of utter failure. It takes more to fail the SAT than to just be uglier than the default Star Alliance livery. Plenty of liveries are uglier than Star Alliance's and they pass by light-years. To fail the SAT requires more than bad design, blandness, or anything else of that nature. It is monumentally difficult to fail the SAT. It’s like stalling an Airbus. You can do it. We know this. People have managed to do it, when the perfect storm arises and the world enters that uncanny state where luck and circumstance conspire to make the absurd a reality. But it’s really not something you can do, broadly speaking. Just pulling the nose up too far or forgetting to keep track of your airspeed isn’t going to do the trick. Icing on the wings won’t either. Even forgetting to extend your flaps on takeoff probably won’t be enough. It’s rare enough that it straddles the border of being an urban legend. It seems so easy to do thoughtlessly but it’s only happened a couple of times. Even doing it intentionally is harder than just designing a good livery. I'm not even sure it's possible to do it intentionally.  

To fail the SAT, you must fail so comprehensively that you should no longer be allowed to design your own livery. You should, in a paternalistic manner, have your entire fleet forcibly repainted into the Star Alliance colors. 

A livery is meant to distinguish and represent an airline. Even a bad design is still a design. The reason that RESAS fails the SAT, in my mind, is that it doesn't feel like a design. It's not coherent. It's not intentional. It doesn't feel like improperly integrated parts, or even multiple liveries stapled together. It feels like it was designed by random number generator. It utterly fails to represent the airline, utterly fails to look good, and utterly fails to even seem like thought was put into it.

To fail the SAT is to get to the point where I genuinely think it is so shameful to paint this on your planes, so inept on every level, that it would be better to just not have a livery. It would be an act of mercy to become indistinguishable from other airlines instead of staying as it is, a thing you could only ever pity and never truly love. Never respect. The most wretched sort of creature. If your shirt is stained too badly, you just can't keep going on like that. People will point and laugh at you, and that's never fun. They'll say 'that guy's shirt is covered in mysterious substances', and you have to just put on a jacket and cover it up until you get home and fumigate it with kerosene. From 1998 to 2019, SAS would have been better off just not having a livery than they were flying that...thing.

It doesn't have to be Star Alliance in particular. Just something which renders the airplane mostly generic. They can keep a little logo on there but they don't get their own design. It could just as easily be, say, forcible repainting into the default manufacturer liveries Airbus and Boeing use for prototype aircraft.

Not the end of the world, right? These are surely not unbearable liveries. I don't think it's any worse giving up your identity to say you're part of Star Alliance than it is to subdue it in favor of the model of plane. If you're SAS pre-2019, this may be a decent option for you. If you're literally anyone else, the mere concept should be philosophically repugnant.

I am actually being kind, though. If I were to be even harsher, I could have easily made this the SmartLynx Test.

I asked you all about SmartLynx. To begin with, not a single person believed they could recall seeing one of their planes, or that they had flown with them. I didn't think they'd be able to. That's not a question I can really answer about myself either, at least not with any confidence. But what is SmartLynx?

The vast majority of responses just expressed bewilderment. I got 50 total replies to the questionnaire itself. Keep in mind that some people declined to answer, and I didn't include them, and even still the number of people who actively expressed that they did not know is nearly half of all responses. Few of the answers were especially confident, either. I'm fairly sure the ones about transporting animals were all jokes, and nearly everyone expressed that their answer was a guess. Someone just said 'bad', which I thought was pretty funny. I liked that answer.

I got two people who said that SmartLynx are airplane lessors. Actually, one said 'private airplane sharing company', but I've interpreted that as meaning lessor. Anyway, they're right. The people who said charter also aren't wrong.

SmartLynx are a Latvian airline which specializes in wet leases. For those unaware, a wet lease (very bad term) in aviation is a lease of an airplane that comes with a crew to operate it. Generally everything else, like fuel and various operating fees, is on the airline leasing the plane, and they're also the ones who market and sell the tickets. Basically, you could get on a flight, your ticket says, for example, Oceanic Airlines Flight 1, you bought it from the Oceanic Airlines website using your Oceanic Airlines miles, and be none the wiser that SmartLynx owns the airplane and pays the pilots flying it. These vary a little, but generally a wet lease provides ACMI (aircraft, crew, maintenance, and insurance), and if you ever see the term 'damp' or 'moist' lease that means the cabin crew is provided by the lessee rather than the lessor, but apparently neither sees much use. Which is a shame, because I think this is one of the few situations where more categories actually might make this easier to parse.

If all of that is sort of confusing and a lot of information upfront, you are not alone in feeling like this! I'm still pretty shaky in my own understanding of it. I'm a history person, not a business person. You can think of it as codesharing but never mentioning that's what you're doing, if that's any easier. It's also similar to regional brands of larger carriers, like Delta Connection flights being flown by Endeavor Air or SkyWest, though these carriers aren't going as far as to lease and are still on the hook for their own operating costs.

Every time I explain this to someone for the first time they think it's pretty deranged, and I don't completely disagree, but it's very normal. There are plenty of reasons airlines might wet lease, generally involving them not having the capacity to fulfill demand. All sorts of airlines provide wet leases, and all sorts of airlines hire them. It can create weird legal loopholes regarding who is allowed to fly in whose airspace, but typically it's just one airline not having enough planes for the holiday peak. They usually last for a few weeks or months, rather than the many years of a 'dry' lease which includes a plane only.

SmartLynx fly basically everything you can think of - passenger, cargo, holiday charter. Some airlines they've leased for are EasyJet, DHL, Finnair, and victim of the blog condor. Because they never operate flights under their own name, there is absolutely no reason for them to have their own livery. Indeed, it makes more sense not to, since it would be easier to leave their planes blank in case they want to repaint them into another airline's livery for a longer-term lease.

If you fail the Star Alliance Test, I think you would be better off painting your entire plane white.

SmartLynx has no identity because their entire point is to assume that of others. They basically do the airline equivalent of paying somebody to take an exam for you. This is a SmartLynx plane with Saudia logos on airasia color-blocking. It's a bit weird-looking, sure, but it betrays nothing about SmartLynx because their entire job is to not have a brand. Nobody has ever seen a SmartLynx plane because they exist literally but not philosophically - the job of a SmartLynx plane is to fly for a different airline. They are the stagehands of aviation, scurrying around in all black to stand out as little as possible.

But SAS isn't SmartLynx. SAS is a big airline, a flag carrier, and to say that they fail the SAT means that I would prefer their planes all be wiped from existence in an apocalyptic flood of liquid paper. I do not think the 1998-2019 SAS livery deserves to exist. I keep repeating myself because I need to stress how profoundly difficult it is to get me to this point. I would rather a livery be clumsy, bare-bones, poorly executed, cowardly, genuinely ugly, absolutely dismal, than it be non-existent. It takes something absolutely tremendous to bring me to the point RESAS has, where there is nothing, no vision, no meaning, no direction, no design, that justifies its existence.

...so what about condor?

condor was the first airline to get a grade of F. The second was the aforementioned red engined SAS livery, now mercifully retired and thus reduced to a footnote in a post about how far SAS has come. The reason I brought up the SAT in SAS's post and didn't in condor's is that condor emphatically passes the SAT. 

I began with the assumption that the SAT was a good measure of if a livery deserves an F, and maybe it still is, but it's definitely not all there is to it. condor is different from Copa and RESAS, it just is. And I think the best evidence of this is that, of all the reviews I've posted, condor is the only one where a significant portion of people who reblogged it disagreed with me. I do understand that at the end of the day everything I say is subjective, and I don't mind when people have opposing views on something, but combined with my own thoughts on the livery, and the process of researching and writing my BWIA post, it pushed me to an epiphany about what makes a truly great and truly terrible livery. And, partly out of curiosity and partly to follow this new path of personal evolution, I asked survey-takers what they think of the condor livery. Maybe I should have left it as a free-response question, but I wanted figures, numbers. So here's what I got. (Free responses have been merged into whichever category they match closest for the sake of simplicity.)

These results are fascinating. First, you may notice that this is missing two options. Not a single person said that this livery was boring, or that they felt neutrally towards it. Even people who are still making up their minds are a dramatic minority.

Second, people who had a clear-cut opinion of the livery, positive or negative, made up just over a fifth of respondents. Most people were at least to some extent conflicted, although which specific variant of conflict varied. There are people who appreciate the idea but do not like the appearance of the livery, and then there are people who find some charm in it. Around 2/3 of these people cannot force themselves to fully insult what they see as a sort of goofy creature, while the other third cannot allow their emotions to sway their rating. If my post on the matter didn't fully convey it, this is probably the closest to my own opinion.

If I was condor, and I saw these results from a focus group (replicated on a scale far larger than my survey, of course) I would probably say to go ahead with this livery. All press is good press, as they say. You're going to end up with a livery that sticks with people, and they're going to respect that even if they think it's hideous. At the very least, they're going to notice you.

Condor's livery is ugly. I will not change my stance; it does not look good. It is unpleasing to my eyes. But it is not the opposite of an A+ livery. In fact, it has a lot in common with them. The reason I love PSA, BWIA, and Amakusa Airlines so much isn't just that they make good use of the plane's shape, have pleasing colors, and generally look nice, but because they are built on the bedrock of a concept which goes beyond designing an airplane. In BWIA's review in particular I discussed the fact that it takes the approach of building a livery around an idea rather than an idea around the concept of what a livery should be; this is what distinguishes an A+ from an A, and the gulf is far larger than the gulf between any two other grades. The difference between 'it's on the better side of okay' and 'I somewhat tepidly like it' can be rather small compared to the difference between 'it's very good' and 'it's genius'. 

In the 2022 film "Nope", protagonist OJ asks if there is such a thing as a 'bad miracle'. To me, condor is something similar: bad genius. condor takes a once-in-a-decade great concept and executes it incomprehensibly poorly, and now they're the infamous ugly stripe planes. It has failed spectacularly but it has failed in perfect harmony with itself. It is unlikely that someone attempting to make an ugly livery as a joke or a parody could come up with something quite this sad. I've struggled for a little bit to think of a way to convey what it means to me, and I think I might have finally found it.

The town of Borja, Spain has a population of under 5,000. Although it was largely unremarkable as far as this sort of work goes, they were quite fond of a fresco painted on their church wall around 1930 by the artist Elías García Martínez. All art begins to deteriorate over time, and frescoes are notoriously difficult to conserve. In 2012, an octogenarian with no relevant training had a vision of a gorgeous restored painting. She definitely should have thought before acting. Just because you see something in your mind's eye doesn't mean you can make it real. And if you rush into it you might make...well, you see the picture on the right.

This picture is hideous. And it has brought in crowds of tourists hundreds of times the size of the town's actual population. Their money has funded pensions and built infrastructure. It has become a cultural icon. Nearly everyone with an internet connection has seen it. It's by far the most memorable thing about this tiny town. It is a work of bad genius.

Say what you will about condor's planes - and I myself have said many mean things about them. They are ugly and they are iconic. They are condor's grand statement, and no matter how ugly I think they are the world would be losing something if they were assimilated into identical Star Alliance liveries.

This striped livery is terrible, and it is great. It is worse than many liveries are good. And it does not fail as a livery. It is fundamentally condor's, and there is nothing like it. Distinctive, coherent, unique...and also ugly.

I've realized that condor belongs as a fundamental landmark in my understanding of liveries, just like Lufthansa or BWIA or PSA. Now that I've said all of what I've said in this post, I think giving condor an F just doesn't work. It doesn't belong in the same category as liveries which fail the Star Alliance Test. It doesn't deserve a better grade though. Something so bombastically, almost elegantly hideous requires a rethinking of the scale I've been using.

condor gets Runway Runway's first ever Z rating.

It does a tremendously poor job at being good, but a fantastic job of being a livery. In order for the Star Alliance Test to retain its meaning and the F tier to retain its coherence, condor needs to be reclassified. It is awful, hideous, sloppy, a waste of potential, but it is potential, and 'awful' originally referred to something which inspired awe.

[kirby-the-gorb]

reply roundup!

boy howdy I love being medicated

other news:

reminder that stickers and prints left over from kirb2k are finally available on [kofi], only shipping to north america without tracking rn to keep it simple

my wife fiiiinally matched into a residency program in her specialty of choice after 3 years, she'll be moving out of state starting this summer while my partner and I stay here and hold down the fort

also thank you for all the boops at the beginning of the month! and all the support and enthusiasm for finally getting better medical treatment. and even more yeehaws still coming in for [cowboy kirby] too :')

on [rare disease day] @ragefilledmunchkin said: happy rare disease day! my mom has MCAS/POTS/EDS and I’m getting tested for the trio this month

oh man I hope it went well! it's very not a fun thing to have but it's definitely way better to know than to just be afflicted by Mysterious Horrors. (although if you're lucky enough to genuinely not have it that would probably be the ideal lol)

anonymous asked: My fiancee absolutely loves your Kirbys and goes into hysterics every time I show her. Thank you for making very good kirbs!

aww how sweet! I love drawing things to make my wife laugh so I'm glad it's working for someone else too lol

on [lichen] @joekingv1 said: *has been subscribed to baby since the start*

it's true, you've been around for quite a while! (several of you have in fact! it always makes me happy to see urls that have been around since the reply roundups were so short they didn't need readmores lol)

(also thanks as always for all your little replies, you offer up so many cute ideas I don't have the energy to draw >n< )

on [lichen] @ceylonsilvergirl said: ok, so as someone who makes this joke A LOT and her kids don’t get it and her husband doesn’t think it’s as funny as she does (me. I’m the she) this is HILARIOUS!! I have a lichen growing around the door handle of my pickup truck. yes I suppose I don’t wash it enough. But it is an almost 25 year old beat up ford ranger. but I can’t remove it, it’s my lichen subscribe

lichens are precious little friends and I wholeheartedly understand preserving your little truck friend. take every harmless little joy you can get!

on [pacman] @nexus-nebulae said: i wonder if kirby and pacman are related. round. little to no limbs. infinitely consumes. chased by funny lookin but kinda cute little guys constantly. consumes Fruit for power

hmmmmm you may be onto something there...

on [normal] @graycoin said: Ooogh. Sorry you're going through normal. It looks krunkly.

it was so scrungy dude -_- (thank you as always for the supportive replies <3)

on [normal] @paperstarwriters said: sending hugs your way op I really hope you get through this and get the treatment you need

thank you! it seems like I finally am!

on [normal] @the-halo-of-my-memory said: get well soon op, and you too kirbs

thank you <3 dunno that I'll ever be well, but I'm certainly better than I have been.

on [taped] @journey-within said: i will sing for you in the car on my way to work

waaah that's so sweet, thank you ;n;

[ivansergeyevichturgenev]

reasons i'm considering leaving my job before i graduate, all taken from today:

(under a readmore bc i'm being driven borderline insane and the fact i took the time to write this out probably makes me crazy)

- a table that didn't understand why their reservation of 4 didn't guarantee them a table for 5. their children were entitled brats and shoved their menus in my face. i asked them multiple times if they need x, y, or z. they told me no to my face but would wave me down screaming ma'am!!! ma'am!!!! we need this NOW!!! like five times. and btw, they weren't things i could have anticipated. how was i supposed you needed a tonic with your dinner? finally, they pay, but the woman claims i never gave her a receipt to sign. i thought that was weird because it automatically prints and i would never not give someone their receipt? anyways i reprint it for her and she says in the most condescending tone, "it's okay. we all make mistakes" guess where the receipts were? in the fucking floor. at her feet.

- had a 6 top. they order apps immediately but say they need time on drinks. i get their drinks. they order a wine to come with dinner. i was going to bring it a little before but they said NO. it was to come with DINNER. not at all before. okay, got it. you're not getting your wine until dinner is on the table 🙄 like i get it but also this is not that type of restaurant i do not have a super small section to give completely perfect service. actually, we're incredibly short staffed tonight bc one server didn't feel well and all of the high schoolers forgot to ask off and all called out before their shifts. so my apologies. a couple at the table ordered a salad to share before dinner. they each got steaks. now, dear reader, i need you to know something: work in this industry long enough and you will realize that people will go off their fucking rocker to suggest that soup and salad can come any time than before their meal. salads and soups are starters unless otherwise specified. i heard them say we'll get a salad to start. anyways, salad comes out, i notice they aren't touching it. i ask what's wrong. they say it was supposed to come with dinner. who the fuck is ordering a salad with their dinner, unless they ordered several apps or a side. they ordered full meals. i gave people round two of silver because i could tell they wanted new silver which was fine. that included soup spoons for the man who did actually order soup for dinner and his wife because he said they were sharing. well dinner comes and he doesn't understand why everyone doesn't have a spoon to share his soup. what? WHAT? oh also, i did their bottle service right after their food arrived. same man, (not even the one who ordered it), demanded to know where it was. Um, coming. since you said you wouldn't have it until food was on the table? the one actually egregious thing i did to these people was i broke a glass on their table. never in my life had i done this before. i profusely apologized, cleaned it up, and comped some of their desserts. upon leaving, this man finds my boss to tell me how awful i was from the salad to the wine to the fact their empty wine glasses were on the table too long for his liking? but they still had a little bit of wine in the bottle. i did take them once i realized okay they were done but like? they just seemed very difficult. and i pride myself on giving each guest a great experience. but the glass breaking didn't even make it until his spiel about how awful i was. sorry i'm not a mind reader! sorry this isn't fine dining! nobody told you to spend over $500 at this restaurant where we wear jeans and t shirts! plus my bottle service was literally spotless.

- i totally have an ear infection that i can't do anything about until monday bc i do not have urgent care money. i am in pain and contemplated yelling this at the above people because the restaurant industry is a shitshow in this country and it only functions by not paying its waitstaff and not giving anyone benefits. feel free to explain insurance shit to me but i have never once been able to go to urgent care and not receive a $1000 bill so my ass won't be going! the people who serve you fine wine and good food often come into work sick and in pain because we can't fucking afford not to.

- what is even crazier is the fact that the other half of my tables wrote rave reviews about me, claiming i was a wonderful server. so i know i wasn't on my a game tonight bc i felt like shit, but it cannot all possibly be me.

[brainshock-alpha]

For the fanfic writing asks: 7, 18, 26, 29, 78

7. Post a snippet from a wip.

so here's a short one that i haven't shown you before; after the readmore i'll add a longer one that you've already seen but i still wanna post lol

"Nice outfit." [Raihan turns and sees Piers coming around the corner.] "I didn't fool you for a second, did I?" [they say, grinning.] "You kiddin'? I'd clock those mako eyes of yours anywhere." [The reference gets a good chortle out of them.] "Hahaha! I'm a first-class SOLDIER, don't you know? Macro Cosmos enhanced me with Eternatus cells." "Oh my god, can you imagine?" [They share a good laugh together.]

(the brackets are supposed to indicate like, placeholder text or stage directions that i wanna edit later but in practice i end up bracketing most non-dialogue text on the first pass LOL,,,, it's fine,)

18. Do you enjoy research?  Which fic of yours required the most research?

most of the time i do! it's fun to learn new things, of course. but sometimes, man, i feel like i'm trying to roll a boulder up a mountain (labeled "executive dysfunction" like in a freaking political cartoon) and just not getting anywhere with it. as for which fics need the most research, uh, probably any of the ones where i have to write in a language i don't speak ^-^;;; which so far is just Merlin's Bairns and The Day To End All Days. and really the former was entirely in scots whereas the latter just has scots dialogue, so you might think the former unequivocally needed more research. but here's the thing... end all days has a single line of scottish gaelic... and having to come up with that seriously tipped the scales the other way i think. lmao

26. What’s your least favorite part of the writing process?

proooobably coming up with the first draft of anything... the process of putting ideas down on paper for the first time is always so strenuous for me. for some people, being able to just stream-of-conscious that shit into the text editor is a legitimate skill that needs to be developed, and i'm one of them 😔 not that doing the editing afterwards is always a breeze either... ahhhh

29. What’s something about your writing that you’re proud of?

i've gotten this question a couple times in the past, and let's see, i've already talked about my dialogue writing... and i think i've mentioned my fluff fics too... so how about something else? i like what i can come up with when i put a word limit on myself! i feel like i can convey a fair bit even when i don't have a lot of words to work with.

78. What motivates you during the writing process?

........... divine providence mostly LMAO. uhhh in general i have trouble staying motivated throughout a personal project, or any protracted endeavor. when it comes to creative works, though, i can usually get some fuel out of wanting to see something fairly-to-extremely specific come to life. if i wait for someone else to make things that cater to my niche interests i'll be waiting basically forever, so it's up to me to write about leon trapped in a time loop, or hop trying charcuterie with his new brother raihan, or an autistic grad student falling in love with an autistic himbo jock in a surreal post-post-apocalyptic world... well, you get the point! not to mention it's fun to see people's reactions to my fairly-to-extremely specific ideas :)

the longer wip excerpt that i said i'd post:

[context: gloria and victor just got their gym challenge uniforms, before the motostoke opening ceremony]

"Glo! Get a load'a this. Did you know that numbers with leading zeroes count as different to numbers without?" [he informs her, holding up the top to show off what's printed on the back: Victor 001.] "What!" is her first, honest reaction. But she recovers quick enough to jab at him, "That just makes you a discount Leon, y'know." "Shut up," Victor retorts cheerfully, taking the locker next to hers. "You're just mad you didn't think of it first." [It's a funny move, so she is a little jealous. But she's also pretty happy with her own number, 102, even if no one but Victor and Hop is allowed to know why she picked it.] "Positively fuming, aye. So is it pronounced 'zero-zero-one' or 'oh-oh-one'?" "Uhhh, it's just, 'one'. The zeroes are, uh, silent." He can't even finish his sentence without laughing. "Okay, sure. Whatever. You gonna catch a foongus and start saying 'let's have a champignon time' too?" [cackling] "No, you git! Hop's gonna think I'm a freak!!"

[evas-apartment]

hi it's doomfax, was wondering about your thoughts on Super Mario 64! did you enjoy it overall? would love to hear what you liked or disliked, what worked for you or didn't

I love that game, I've played it so much that I can't even really enjoy it any more tbh, but also if you hated it I'd still love to hear your thoughts on it if you feel like talking about it

Oh, man I've got a lot to say. I hope this is like... readable. EDIT: I just finished writing this, and figured I'd just put all of it behind a readmore, so I don't at all feel bad about how much I write. Also it's my blog. so.. whatever i suppose.

In short, I really liked it! I played the 3D All-Stars Switch version specifically, and I think it holds up pretty well! I liked how..punchy? It is? Most levels are really short, it doesn't take that long to beat, I 100%'ed it, but each star only takes like five minutes each, and I like that. The music is great, all the characters are stylized enough that even through the blocky-ass visuals, things look cute. Some of the locations are nice to look at, but a lot of them look kinda ugly tbh, like it just looks like blocks. I think a location needs a lot of set pieces to be visually interesting, otherwise it just looks bland. Most of DDD, most of WDW, all of RR, most of HMC look really boring, but there's some cool ideas in there. Whereas basically everyone of the first couple levels are more visually striking and interesting, with SOMETHING to remember about them.

The game controls are frankly awesome. It feels like they cemented that first, and built the entire game around it. If Mario controlled just a bit worse, this game wouldn't be nearly as well-remembered cause this is SUCH a true platforming game. Not very many stars rely on anything else other than how well you can control Mario. The only thing that bugs me are more quirks of the physics engine than anything else, and playing Sunshine right after kinda cements my opinions more, in that... the game is just a bit too unforgiving, coming back to it, having never really played it thoroughly before. It's hard to wall-jump, and you HAVE to get good at it. If you don't land on a platform, or the edge of one, you just bonk your head on the side and fall, and probably die. You slide off slopes really easily, it's hard to climb hills, and basically all of these things were fixed in Sunshine, but I can also understand people growing up with 64 and thinking that the movement might be too... easy? robust? something, in Sunshine. Which I don't feel rings as true because I find the "secret" levels in Sunshine to be challenging, but it's also in part to how sparse the level design is in those segments. You're confined just to floating blocks and that's it, but I'm talking about Sunshine here, so I'll digress.

I like the consistency of the level design. Each level has Exactly 7 stars, and one 100 coin star. Each world has 8 red-coins, and you'll get them eventually. If there's something to climb, there's probably a star at the top. If there's a weird new creature in this level, you'll have to interact with it in a weird new way to get a star (penguins, ukikis, eels, you get it). It makes each level feel like extensions of the same world, with the same rules across, which makes the whole game just make more sense, I appreciate that.

The camera is weird. I love the idea of you having a Lakitu cameraperson, but in execution it's hit or miss. I like that there's three different camera options, a platforming game in 1996 didn't have to have that kinda foresight, but it did. But it's like... the Lakitu camera can't rotate, only lock a certain way, the over the shoulder camera follows too closely and it's very easy to get disoriented (for me at least), and locking the camera in place can be great but it's completely locked, and doesn't move at all. I'll say I died a bunch cause the camera didn't do what I wanted it to do, but whatever, it's not unusable, I at least understand the system in place (although in no video game should the camera ever be stuck behind any solid object in the level), and it isn't like SM64 is hard, and lives are pretty generous, and I never even game over'd once in the while 100% playthrough. (a lot more casually generous than SMS)

Overall, I'm glad I played it. I do think it's a very good game, and a hallmark of what gaming could be at a pivotal time in its existence. I can't say if I myself would go back and play it all that much, having completed it, but that isn't to say it has no replay value, I've just had my fill. It was fun. Had some quirks from being a game from back then, but an overall pleasant experience. Some frustrations in the camera, missing some jumps cause of silly reasons, dying on a 100 coin star 80 coins in, falling down a vertical platforming segment and having to come back up, the only consequence being my fucking time being wasted, but that's all part of the game, and nothing ruining, y'know? I could go into even more detail, on any specific points, if you'd like, I love chatting with friends like this. And I appreciate every ask I get (within reason lol)

Thank you for sending this! I love giving my opinions on things like this lol, feel free to ask more stuff!

[contritecactite]

OK, book omens revisited, part 2!

- Newt is just like me fr. "Someone attractive is paying attention to me oh god how am I supposed to focus on the task at hand!?"

- Anathema is just like me fr. "Oh there's a task to do and so I am very focused on that rather than this other human person."

:readmore:

(All this sums up as: I am always behaving Wrong in a situation and it was gratifying to see both kinds of my typical "oops I'm handling this wrong" play out.)

- I love the details we get about all the things Newt has tried to believe in. He wants so badly to have A Thing but they all fall short of his needs or expectations.

- The way Anathema immediately stomps on his attempt to believe in fate 😭

- YEAH OK we have several things around this point that did not age well, especially with audio involved. Sometime I might try to pick apart which things are "this word/outlook was not widely understood to be a problem at the time of writing" and which things are "humans (and therefore these characters) are messy and their opinions do not reflect those of the authors," because I think there's a bit of both.

- The pacing of the climax was actually super frustratingly slow after experiencing it in tv forme™️! Or maybe I was just getting antsy.

- All the mentions of very loyal modes of transportation allowed me to will my own car into finishing the last stretch lol. I started talking to him and telling him what a good job he was doing. Luckily he was not at any point on fire, puttering at 4mph, flying, or covered in fish.

- All the mentions of Adam's very expressive slouching reminded me to sit up and quit slumping over the steering wheel.

- Aziraphale dithered for twelve hours about telling someone about finding the antichrist. He wanted to tell Crowley and knew he should tell Heaven, but he didn't want to tell Heaven and he trusted Crowley, but he knew he shouldn't, etc., until twelve hours passed and he finally passed on the message to Heaven only as a formality that would let him allow himself to tell Crowley.

- The first time Aziraphale curses is because Crowley hangs up on him! Getting thrown into the circle is the second time.

- Descriptions of Hell from Crowley's POV are so interesting to me. For the most part, he thinks demons are generally mostly like him: doing their jobs and not that jazzed about it, just part of the "good and evil" ecosystem, and even the ones who really love their jobs and lean in don't scare him as much as humans do. But he's also clearly aware of being in a very great deal of danger if Hell finds him.

- He almost gives up when he realizes Aziraphale is gone, but he decides to try it anyway, and (I find this particularly "!!!!"): when he gets back on the road, knowing there's nothing to lose and he's probably doomed, he's called "Anthony Crowley." He leans into being human when the odds are against him and the world is at stake, and I think that's lovely.

- Aziraphale still feels sidekicky to me, but I think that's part of the point: no one person saves the world. Not even Adam does it alone.

- We really picked "enough of a bastard to be worth knowing" as the ao3 tag instead of "enough of a bastard to be worth liking"!?!?!

- At some point, Aziraphale puts a hand on Crowley's shoulder, and in the spirit of fic writers everywhere, I choose to believe he kept it there for quite some time.

- "Then he approached the couple with the bottle." Hee hee. I know the word couple isn't actually immediately referring to any particular kind of relationship, but it does have heavy connotations at this point, so it caught my attention that they were described as such.

- Likewise at some point, Crowley offers a hand to help Aziraphale up, and I choose to believe he held on until they got into the Jeep.

- Crowley being so genuine again: he really feels bad about Aziraphale's bookshop being altered, even if he doesn't really get the attachment to the books. (And Aziraphale immediately sets about working out the monetary value of the new books fkjajd. u3pxx's bad omens moment™️).

- Despite having read this thing at least seven times, I absolutely expected the bodyswap and was so confused when it didn't happen. I don't remember being surprised by it when I watched s1 the first time! I thought I remembered reading the prophecy! wtf fksjjd

- The very end with Adam in the garden has a new layer every time I read it, I think. It's really wonderful, and the ending lines manage to be haunting and hopeful all at once.

I don't know if I actually communicated all of my highlights here because I was fried from a rough driving day and it's been over 24 hours, but suffice to say: still worth a read (or reread)!

Radio omens, you're next...

Revisiting book omens via audiobook as I drive halfway across the country and here are some personal, subjective observations and highlights so far (Newt and Anathema have just met):

- Crowley tells Aziraphale everything as soon as he can. He's so absolutely genuine and knowing that that's exactly the quality that got him into trouble in the first place has me tearing curtains and yelling at the sky because it's not like it's any safer for a demon but he's being himself anyway!

- Crowley really reads as the brains of the operation and Aziraphale largely reads as sidekick (caveat: up to this point!). I felt the opposite about TV omens, oddly. Maybe Michael Sheen just gives leader vibes idk.

- Adam Young is so casually mean to his friends in the way I absolutely remember my friends and I being mean to each other around that age and it's somehow both hilarious and sobering.

- A lot of specific lines have made me say "oh fuck" out loud. Many others have made me say "oh sweetheart noooo" (this second batch is entirely directed at Aziraphale).

- I don't think I stopped smiling for the first three hours because the writing is just so engaging on the whole. After three hours I had to shift at least some of my attention to traffic because, unlike Crowley, I can't just go 90 unnoticed and slip around other vehicles at incredibly close margins.

- I would like to consider the character of Mary Hodges much more closely now that I've read her again. I think she's so interesting.

- Crowley tried and failed to hit a hedgehog 😭

- The weight the authors managed to add to some lines really is just !!! It's the way I've always wanted to write and can only ever mimic.

- I always misremembered the line about Dog going into Jasmine Cottage as something like, "Dog went inside. The horseshoe above the door went white hot, and a little more of Hell burned away." BUT IT'S: " “There,” said Adam proudly. “Good boy.” And a little bit more of Hell burned away . . ." and that. Has so many more implications to me. Posts going around lately about Beelzebub asking another demon "what would you think I told you you did a good job" or whatever and someone "who would do anything for a kind word" etc. If you're here you've probably seen me yell about how one of the points Good Omens makes, to me, is that you are what you're told you are (unless you decide to be something else). And I'm YELLING MORE NOW.

- Aziraphale, of course, does not share anything with Crowley about the Agnes' book until it's too late, but he also just. Straight up chooses reading through it over sticking with Crowley, who "suddenly feel[s] very alone." (This was a nooooo moment.)

- For context, this was an "oh fuck" moment (also a "this line weighs a lot" moment): "Aziraphale was an angel, but he also worshiped books." It just. It says so much about both who Aziraphale is and what he's capable of. I think I could write an essay on what this line alone says about Aziraphale's relation to heaven, to the world, to knowledge, to materials things, and a bit by extension about his relationship with Crowley. But I have too many things to do, so I won't.

[coldgoldlazarus]

I Ask Respectively for

Aak from Arknights

Krika from Bionicle

Maria Calavera from RWBY

Heimerdinger from Arcane

Rarity from My little pony

Quite the group of character. All people who witnessed dire situations and came out of it defeated in some way.

Except rarity. She is just goals.

Oh dang, that's a lot. Lemme put this under a readmore:

Aak:

I don't really like Aak all that much, but I'll also freely admit that I don't really have a good reason for it? I just didn't care for his vibes from the outset, then people paying more attention to him over Nian during their shared banner soured me against him further, and then people shipping him with Warfarin over their genuinely hostile rivalry thing made me actively hate him for a while.

Nowadays, my opinion has eased off considerably; I find his gimmick of attacking other Operators a hilarious expression of his character even if it ensures I'd never, ever use him even if I had him, and the Lee's Detective Agency animated short made me reluctantly admit that he does play off of Waai Fu and Hung well, and so I can kinda enjoy him in that context. I don't know a lot of his deeper backstory, so idk how he connects to the "defeated by a dire situation" motif, but that does sound intriguing.

In short, I don't think he's ever going to be a character I come to like, per say, but he's at least grown on me enough for me to enjoy what he brings to the table, in small doses at least. Still not a fan of him and Warfarin, though.

Krika:

Krika is in kind of a weird spot for me. I really really enjoy his character, he's definitely up there among Bionicle's wide cast, and one of the genuinely compelling and well-written villains during a period where most of the others were stuck in Greg's cookie cutter mould of edgy gleeful mass murderers, and also he was the first set from the 08 waves I got. I really do love him.

All the same, he kinda fades into the background for me a lot of the time unless I'm actively reminded of his existence. This is probably partially because, as I've said many a time before, the Ignition Trilogy just isn't exactly my favorite era of Bionicle, but part of it may also be that he was there and gone so relatively quickly that I didn't really get to form as much of an attachment before the inherent tragedy of his character role and arc struck. The fact that his death happened only a year after Matoro's didn't help any, even if the contexts were radically different.

I wouldn't necessarily call him overrated, strictly, but it does feel sometimes like he's rated juuuust slightly above where he actually should be, if that makes any sense. Also, I'm a hypocrite who will woobiefy and excuse him plenty, but then get annoyed by others doing it, when part of what makes him interesting to me is that his long cricket leg pincer things hands are no cleaner than the other Makuta; he's just the only one that actually cares about how awful they've become.

Personally, I feel like if he'd been given earlier appearances and more set-up in the preceding years, (not that that could have really happened given the course of the planning and development cycles for the toys) or some form of retroactive further development somehow, (either through a ressurection or a flashback serial or something) then he would more fully earn all the praises he gets. As is, he's still a fantastic character, just lacking the kind of staying power he deserves.

Maria:

I don't have a whole lot to say about her. She's a great character, especially for such a late addition, and fills her mentor role really well, reflecting off of both Ruby and Qrow really well. (It would be cool to see more of her younger exploits, but at the same time it doesn't feel necessary, you know?) Plus, she's just amazingly fun to see in action, bantering with the kids, being the perfect matchup to give Neo a much-needed asskicking (I say this as a Neo stan) and also imparting the genuinely wise insight at just the right times. I understand why she got Put On The Bus early into Volume 8, but I still really miss her and want to see more of her.

Heimerdinger:

I really like this guy.

Setting his specific character aside for a moment, as a Yordle I think his inclusion as a main cast member for Arcane was pretty genius, honestly. It establishes early that Yordles just Are A Thing, and that even with the adorable chibi proportions and furriness, they are still just as valid as serious dramatic characters as anyone else; had they had Ziggs instead it would be harder to take them seriously, and had they just waited until later altogether, introducing them would feel too dissonant and out of the blue. Establishing right away that this cute guy is not only a leader on the Council but a revered founder of the city, makes telling any other stories involving yordles they may choose to pursue far easier from the outset, at least from an audience perception/suspension of disbelief standpoint.

And then as Heimerdinger specifically, I think he plays a really good role in the story, even if I do sometimes overlook him in favor of the more prominent cast members. His presence as the small-c conservative authority figure in Jayce and Viktor's lives; simultaneously too stuck in the past and ignorant of the present, deeply alien in his perception of time and human mortality, yet not completely unjustified in his fears of Hextech and magic, and being ultimately well-meaning despite his impotence; is as refreshingly nuanced a portrayal of his archetype as the others are of theirs.

I feel like he and Ekko did kinda get the short end of the stick in the finale in some ways, but all the same we didn't necessarily need something bigger and more dramatic when the important part was that they met at all to begin with, and we can see them starting to learn from one another, while any more specific developments are ultimately best saved for season 2.

Fun fact, I initially mistook him for another Yordle character from the game, called Corki, and spent a while during my first watching of Arcane wondering when he'd get his biplane. Turns out that's not really a thing, but all the same, I have to wonder what will lead to him going all-out with the turrets and bombs after the way his character's been developed thus far.

Rarity:

I love her. Favorite of the Mane 6 (even if Twilight and Applejack are close behind) and just, an absolute icon. I support women's rights, and also women's wrongs, etc; even at her most ridiculous, I would cheer her on. Tabitha St. Germain's skill for whole-heartedly chewing the scenery is like, half the reason she holds up so well in my mind, but even without that, she just lives at a kind of extra I can only aspire towards.

She's also rather personal for me, since her becoming my favorite not only coincided with, but both fueled and reflected my coming to better understand and accept parts of myself. Even aside from that, her struggles as an artist on the show were extremely relatable to me as a writer, (and as it later turned out, also me as someone with adhd, lol.) and sometimes I still invoke her as a Muse when I'm struggling. I own a plushie of her. I miss her, Tails, I really do.

And I'm kinda salty she did't get to marry Applejack in the series finale, losing out to Rainbow Dash??? Just another reason to be glad I stopped watching after Season 6.

But dang do I really miss her, and one of these days I want to go back.

[indecentpause]

!!! full disclosure that "rb to get a question" post is eating me alive and i will Not get to everyone but I READ THAT POWERPOINT FOR YOUR SHERLOCK STORY BEFORE AND ITS REALLY REALLY COOL so please tell me your favourite parts about it (and also perhaps add me to the taglist? pretty pleaseeee)

AAAAA I didn't even realize it had had so many reblogs until someone reblogged it from me and pointed out how busy your post had gotten. I'm sorry!! Thank you for even replying though, I figured I'd get lost in the shuffle but it means a lot to me that you remembered one of my projects enough to want to ask about it! But to anyone reading this if you reblog it from me I will try to think of a question for you :p

cw: off page explosion, mention of domestic abuse, stalker mention, panic attack

So my favorite part about the Sherlock story (The Most Beautiful Puzzle) is a scene that happens later, that I have written but haven't gotten to in chronological time yet.

Josselin is terrified of fire, fireworks, thunder, any kind of explosion or thing that sounds like an explosion, because his mom died in an explosion and the resulting fire when he was thirteen, and he saw the building go down and his mom never come out. So this is a HUGE trigger for him.

At one point, during a storm, there's a surge and a scary boom and the power shorts. Josselin screams and Meara's like oh shit what's going on???? This is where Josselin starts to catch Feelings, uh oh!! Because while he's polyamorous, and he and Frankie are in an open relationship, Josselin's like "BUT I CAN'T HE'S MY ROOMMATE" (oh my god they were roommates), what if Meara doesn't like him back. What if Meara freaks out. What if they try it and it fails and then they still have to live together. Meara's recovering from an abusive ex-relationship and is still dealing with a stalker and Josselin doesn't feel like it's right to say anything, because Meara's in such a vulnerable position. Josselin doesn't want him to leave for practical reasons as well as emotional ones, because he needs the help paying the rent. And this all happens from Meara's POV and he doesn't quite Get It because Josselin is incredibly difficult to read in general, and Meara's not good at reading others to begin with.

and I'm just going to go ahead and put the inciting scene behind a readmore :)

And I will HAPPILY add you to my tag list! I haven't been super active on it recently but sometimes I still shitpost and post moodboards and stuff :) And I'm hoping to use NaNo as a boost to get moving, and hopefully finish chapter three!

Puzzle taglist because excerpt: @ohsugarfoot @abalonetea @only-book-lovers-left-alive @poore-choice-of-words @leadhelmetcosmonaut @jasperygrace @drippingmoon @chaotic-queer-disaster @viskafrer

You’re in your room wrapped up in a blanket, playing on your phone, so just in case the power short circuits in the storm, you don’t have to worry about a power surge to your computer.

You expect heavy rain and lightning and thunder, but you do not expect something to literally explode outside, so big that sparks fly past your second story window. You also do not expect Josselin to scream.

You jump up, tripping over the blanket as you unravel yourself. But you manage to right yourself before you fall, and you stumble out of your bedroom, gripping your phone tight.

Everything is dark.

“Josselin?”

Nothing.

“Josselin!”

It takes moments to run the rest of the way to his room. Oh, god, were his windows open? Did he get hit by some debris?

The ‘knock before entering’ rule completely slips your mind. The door is open so you rush inside to see Josselin curled up in a thick blue blanket, sobbing quietly.

“Josselin, hey.” You keep your voice soft and gentle and unnaccusing, because it’s not like it’s his fault this happened. You take a few steps closer and ask, “Can I sit by you on the bed?”

Josselin’s sobs quickly spiral out of control, and soon, he’s so loud people can probably hear him in the street.

“Josselin?” you urge gently. What the hell is happening? “Josselin, are you hurt?”

It takes a few moments, but finally, he nods, and without waiting for an invitation, you sit down beside him and try to lean into his view without touching him. You don’t want to upset him more.

“Where are you hurt?” you continue.

He shakes his head wildly and lets out a particularly loud gasp, wiping at his nose with the back of his wrist. “I’m okay,” he sobs.

“You’re not, and it’s okay not to be okay,” you say. “Can I touch your shoulder or would that make it worse?”

And before you can weasel an answer out of him, he collapses against you, nearly crawling into your lap. For just a moment, you freeze, but he’s so upset, and you’re the only one here, and he’s your friend. So you take the edges of the weighted blanket and wrap it around both of you. Josselin curls up as much as he can, burying his face in your shirt as he continues to cry.

So you do everything you can.

You stay there, with your arms around him, whispering comforting nonsense and giving him time to find what he needs to say.

You don’t know how much time passes before Josselin calms down enough to speak.

“Sorry,” he whispers. He pulls away and dabs at the tear streaks he left on your shirt, as if trying to dry them. You shake your head.

“Don’t apologize. We all have triggers. It’s okay.”

Josselin looks at you with wide, tearful, frightened eyes. You make eye contact for a brief moment before it becomes too much for both of you, and you turn your eyes to his left ear, and he turns his to your hand on your knee.

“What happened?” you ask.

Josselin shakes his head.

“Don’t want to talk about it?”

He shakes his head again. A flash of thunder and a boom of lighting, and he jumps again, but doesn’t cry.

“Okay,” you say.

A long, long, awkward pause.

“Do you want to listen to some music?”

A halfhearted shrug. Your arm around his shoulders tightens instinctively, and he leans a little closer, lowering his head, like he’s hiding.

So you open your phone, switch from wifi to data, and look for something to listen to on youtube.

Josselin stifles a half-laugh, half-sob when the Spanish version of the Hercules opening begins, soft and tinny in the quiet room.

Neither of you speaks for quite some time, content to listen to the music in relative silence, with only the storm in the background. Finally, when the playlist is almost done, Josselin nudges his nose against your shoulder like a sad cat. As he pulls away from you, he murmurs, “Thank you, Meara. Really.”

“Of course,” you whisper back. “You’re my friend.”

Josselin smiles weakly and his nose and ears turn bright pink. He looks away.

[bookwyrminspiration]

(Ophelia) I’d be happy to see any of your grandmother’s works if you’d want to show them. (This is in response to what you said in the tags of our previous conversation.) If you no longer feel comfortable showing it that’s okay too, opinions change over time. Either way, I’m sure the bears look lovely as they are your grandmother’s handiwork. Also, Happy Holidays if there are any that you celebrate at this time. That might sound a bit strange to say after the rest of this message, I’m sorry if it does.

oh hello ophelia!! that's very sweet of you, and I'd love to show some of my grandma's work! I don't have access to a lot of it, seeing as I live halfway across the country and also she wasn't well enough to make things for the last several years, but I do have a few things that I can show!

(I'm putting this under a readmore so I don't take up space with the photos! and also me talking)

[ID: Two white bear-like stuffed animals sitting with each other in a chair. One is a lot bigger than the other, about the size of a child. The body is stuffed a lot more than the legs and arms, making it very round. It wears nothing but a homemade hat and bowtie, a faint smile on its face. The second bear is very similar, only closer to a normal stuffed animal size and sitting in the lap of the first bear. This one wears a plain red hair with a purple plume and stripped overalls. A green tie is attached to the front and all items of clothing are made by my grandma. /End ID.]

These are the bears that I mentioned in the other post!! They're bears closer to the way a teddy bear is a bear and not like an actual bear, but they've been around for as long as I can remember. They're probably older than me. And also they do have ears you just can't really see them! My sister and I each have a specific thing associated with grandma's house from all our visits. Mine is the clock that tells time that doesn't exist (now that I type this I'm realizing I don't think I've actually mentioned that on tumblr, only on discord. so if I haven't and you'd like an explanation I'd be more than happy to!! it was always one of my favorite parts of visiting) and my sister's are these two bears.

We always stay in the same room when we visit (as in we sleep together in the same room, and the room we stay in is the same every time), and both the clock and the bears are located in said room. There's actually a huge collection of dolls that my grandma made that are currently just sitting on a the shelves in her sewing room. Wait hang on I think I actually have a picture I can add.

[ID: A very cluttered collection of shelves. Every available surface has some kind of doll or stuffed animal on it, things with faces like scarecrows, others with bodies like mice and bears, others similar to cabbage patch dolls. All are made by my grandma. It's not clear in the picutre, but the area is very dusty and looks like it shouldn't be disturbed. /End ID.]

So these are the kinds of things she would make! Well, one small section of the things she made. She made a lot of clothes, too. Anything sewing related. She made quilts (i'll get to that later) and dresses and pants and shirts and vests and aprons. In fact, the only apron I've ever had that I can remember was made by her. It's still hanging in the kitchen for whenever I need it, I just don't usually wear an apron when I bake.

Going back to the clothes thing, I wasn't around enough for her to really make me a wardrobe the way she did for my mom as a kid, but she would always make my sister and I these pajama dresses. She'd make us one every Christmas and I wore them so much. There was this one with heart fabric that I loved so much I wore it even when the cuffs fell off after so many washes (idk why we didn't just...repair the before they got to that stage, but it's fine!) I still have one of them in my dresser, but I haven't worn it in a long time. It'd probably be really short on me now (not completely unwearable, just teetering on the edge), but I wore them so much as a kid. I don't have a photo of it though.

but back to the bears real quick! I got distracted by the dolls

[ID: A close up photo of the hat the large bear was wearing in the first photo. It's covered in sewing materials like buttons, a pin cushion, and spools of various colored threads. Instead of a ribbon, a tape measure is wrapped around the base. The pattern of the base fabric isn't obvious, but it seems to be several different floral fabrics. /End ID.]

This is the hat that the big bear wears!! I think it's interesting enough to get it's own photo because it looks so cool. I don't think it would ever be practical for an actual person to wear, but it's great for the bear! and seeing as she worked at fabric stores for like a decade and a half, she had a lot of access to things like pin cushions and spools of thread. I mean, she's also got a ton of them in her sewing room, but she always preferred the magnetic pin holders and liked to use the thread to actually sew things.

I actually sewed with her at least once, but never anything like this. I wasn't experienced enough at the time, so she was mainly showing me how to use this hemming machine. I'd used a regular sewing machine before (and still use it to this day), but not the hemming one. You know how clothes sometimes have that hem that looks all loopy and crossed over itself? that's what the machine does. I'd like to have one, but I don't sew enough at the moment to justify it. I' good with the Bernina my family has, which is like a 1008 or something.

But moving on!

[ID: A quilt on my bed with a repeating pattern. The backgroung is a bunch of various colored small squares in cool colors. The squares don't really have patterns, but are more demure. This allows the yellow four-pointed stars to stand out more, and they are evenly spaced throughout the entire quilt.]

This! this quilt is the main thing I have that my grandma made. As a seamstress, she decided that she wanted to make each of her grandchildren a quilt. There are seven of us, so we each got a quilt. Mine is currently on my bed (there was a period of time where I would have it intentionally upside down because I liked the back fabric), but my sister's is stored away so I don't remember what it looks like. I also don't think I've ever seen my cousins' quilts at all, but I know we all have them.

The quilt has a little tag in the corner that isn't picture that has my name on it with a little Love Grandma on it. Well, it has my deadname, but that's because she made it before I changed my name. I actually have a few children's books sewn by her with my deadname too, but that's from when I was like a toddler so I don't mind.

I've made a quilt before myself, but never anything like this. I made a small tessellation quilt for a project in 4th grade (yea, that was an assigned project in fourth grade for some reason) and another more freestyle one for a contest in 5th grade, which I won 1st place in. But those were on a much smaller scale than this quilt.

When I was younger I loved to find the mistakes in the quilt, because even experts mess things up sometimes. In a quilt with a repeating pattern like this, the mistakes are the orientations of some of the quilt squares, so the stars and their points don't all line up properly. And given that it is a repeating pattern, it would take me a few minutes to find them each time because everything blends together and also I would forget where the mistakes were.

so those are a few of the things my grandma made that we have around the house. There are others like our sewing bag and all the photos my parents probably have of those pajama dresses, but I hope you enjoyed at least part of it! She was an incredibly talented seamstress and loved everything to do with sewing. She even requested that an image of a sewing machine be put on her headstone, though I don't think that's been done yet.

It's because of her that I got introduced to some of the crafts I enjoy like latchhooking and crossstitching, so it's nice to be able to share some of her crafts.

And happy holidays to you, too! My family isn't huge on Christmas (it technically isn't our holiday as we're baha'i, but we have enough family and friends who celebrate that we get sucked in and just go with it). And it's not a weird thing to say after that message! If you celebrate Christmas, I hope you enjoyed it <33