#without the woes this time!

[fortes-fortuna-iogurtum]

what is this?? gurt attempting to write a fanfic that's lived in her mind for like 3 years?? the night after inventory at her store wrapped up when all she REALLY wants to go is sleep for a whole week????

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The Quest Continues...

(part 1- part 2)

[sealrock]

the four horsemen.

[suntails]

bad day by alvin and the chipmunks

[cat-of-starlight]

-enjoys character- -DRAWS ANGST- -DRAWS ANGST- -DRAWS ANGST- Anyway yea, more of He <3 who lives in my head rent free (Hopefully it looks right, trying a new kind of reference to work from)

[greentrickster]

Had the most amazing experience on Saturday. Was dropping off a couple plush mages to the store that sells them for me downtown, because a couple had sold over the past few weeks and I try to be a good supplier.

It only takes a few minutes and I'd already paid for parking, so I decided to linger and look around the shop a bit, because it's a cool place where there's always a chance something new has arrived if you haven't been there for over a week. It's fantastic. If you told me there was some actual magic in this place I'd believe you, and I've been in the employees-only area.

Which is why I was present, leafing curiously through a book on the making of the movie Chicken Run, to hear a guy behind me loudly proclaim, "Forty dollars for this?! I could make this!" I'm aware that the things in this store can be pricy, but also that a lot of the stock is made by local crafters, like me, meaning prices can be a bit higher due to the fact that you're getting something hand-crafted instead of mass-produced. So I turn around to see what he's complaining about.

And this guy is holding a wooden wand that is unique, one-of-a-kind, hand-crafted from solid wood. All things I know at a glance because, as it happens, I'm not the only person in my family who sells stuff at this store... my dad does as well. And he's the one who made that wand.

Now here's the thing. My dad's part of the local woodturner's group, wood turning being a method of carving that involves spinning a chunk of wood on a high-speed lathe while holding a bit of sharp metal against it until it turns into a wand, bowl, cup, vase, what-have-you. It's a highly-skilled craft that requires a lot of practice and and specialized tools, which he picked up after retiring but before going back to work, and he's been practicing and perfecting the required skills for at least fifteen years. If he likes (and he does like), he can get a wooden sphere carved and polished to such a sheen and smoothness that it both reflects the light and feels like plastic, which is highly impressive on a technical scale and extremely disconcerting on a tactile one.

And this guy just said one of his pieces wasn't worth the price on the tag because 'he could do it too.' Which, as any crafter knows, is not the sort of statement fellow crafters make at volume.

Now, I'm a reasonable sort of trickster. As I said, my dad's part of a woodturning group, I'm well-aware that there genuinely are other people in this area who are as skilled as, if not more skilled than, my dad. Maybe he's just a skilled creep or disagrees with the pricing. So I turn to the guy and go, "Oh? It took my dad a couple years to learn how to make those."

To which he smiles at me and asks if I know what kind of wood the wand is made of.

"Purple Heart."

"Wow, you really know your stuff!"

I stare at him for a moment, because 1) Purple Heart wood is literally the easiest wood to identify on the planet because, as the name suggests, it's actually purple, which is a thing woods generally are not. And also 2) he has apparently not grasped that the reason I know this is because my father made the thing he is holding.

I do not say these things. Instead I clue him in on the situation he's in by saying, "Yes, my dad made that wand."

"Oh. Um. Thank-you!" he holds out his hand.

I look at the hand, then at him. "For what?"

"For your dad!"

...

...I do not shake his hand, and I'm beginning to suspect that this guy does, indeed, not have any clue what he's talking about when he said he could make this himself. But I could be wrong. He could just be socially awkward, I get that. So time for the final question. With a polite smile that no customer yet has been able to tell is completely fake, I ask, "Are you part of the local woodturner's group?"

"The what?"

"The local woodturner's group," I repeat, "My dad turned that wand by hand, on a lathe."

Guy, smiling, about to seal his own fate, "Ah. That is a tool I do not have."

Me, also smiling, because he's just proven beyond all shadow of a doubt that no he could not, in fact, make it himself. "Mm. And that's why it costs forty dollars."

You know, he didn't have anything to say to that?

Put a bit of a spring in my step as I left.

[gwyoi]

I want to get more involved with local orgs because frankly feeling powerless and watching the news is really making me physically ill so I want to do something but i really want a job or to volunteer where i can just put fliers up or package food/supplies because if i expend myself too much after work I might have another mental break and I really don’t want that .

[songofsaraneth]

'i've been feeling kind of disconnected lately' says area blogger who has spent 8 months increasingly self isolating

[nrivanwrites]

three days in the house of atreus ; act two

ORESTES: I was born here and can remember nothing of it. PYLADES: Did you expect to remember something? ORESTES: Someone’s face. The room I was meant to live in. The voice of my mother—the voice of my father. PYLADES: Let us find his tomb before we go deeper into this lair. ORESTES: I fear to see it. In my dreams, he is just behind a door. In my dreams, I see him still. PYLADES: What does his face look like? ORESTES: (Beat). Like mine.

finally writing tumblr's favorite cousin fuckers

[xxswagcorexx]

you know for how big that one post about that one fall out boy lyric being like "part time soulmate, full time problem" i have seen swagdoons nation not take advantage of that lyrics more . it's literally s3 swagdoons

[theangrypomeranian]

me rn

[ragingbullmode]

☹️ kikis gonna get all her teeth yanked at the end of the month & dodgers got cavities…

[iggy-hands]

Okay, I lied all those other times, but I am for real starting season 2 now

[blackvahana]

Man. I don't know why I'm so skeptical (to the point of denying it completely) that these sort of things could be conjured. Of course they can be. I currently have a flock of crows manifested from my aspects and a bunch of eye-worm-squid-slugs that are knots of threads tied together....

Anyway. If I try and tug at them... Take the knot of DNA-esque stuff for example. The Dead Children. No other way to explain that that's not mildly concerning in English. I mean. No wonder I was staying away from this lmfao but on a spirit level it's not as dramatic as it sounds. It's "souls" that never fully came into existence because they didn't have enough of a core to survive as independent beings, specifically half-formed forms and sorts of... if a Form capital f was trying to be created into a thing but couldn't fully come out of the mouth of the All Mother. They're half-made ideas

It's less that I'm summoning them and more I'm using them as Bodies. Like I resonate with the sky... I resonate with birthing and being The First to emerge from the Abyss. They're my children! They are not children. They're just floating half-made crystals in a hypersaturated solution that can cool no more and thus they can't fully condense. They can't condense anymore, they can't fully come into existence.

That's one sense of Conjuration here, condensing various Unborn Children into taking specific forms... I think it's using them as some form of gateway. First: they're possessed by me. They don't exist enough to have a self or opinions or the ability to move or to Do anything, so they get coagulated into a form that is effectively a body for my... actually, not will, not bodies, it's conjuring, it's the Lord of the Dance's Black Hole singing they dance to. anyway. Second:... yeah. creating a gateway through creating a vacuum, the gap between Progenitor and child, and Firstborn and Unborn. Specifically feels almost like Progenitor - Child - Unborn - Firstborn which opens the gate stringing them between themselves and animate them through personifying their wants which. "gives" them wants, which animate them. Not really, they're still puppets but like. the dancing of strings "gives" puppets life

[coffeeandcalligraphy]

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