daisywords - Tumblr blog

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Your tensor timpani is a muscle in your ears that apparently most people can't control on command. It usually works reactively to mask some sounds. If you can contract them, the resulting noise is kind of like thunder or cupping your hands (or a seashell) over your ears.

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Travel posts got me thinking.

12,430 miles is the maximum distance two points on the globe can be from each other according to Google

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copies of copies of copies

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Siemen Dijkstra - color woodcuts

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there is something about absolute faith that can be a kind of betrayal. if I tell you about the depths of my monstrosity and you say "I know you, that's not what you're really like," then you're not actually listening to me. if I tell you that I'm afraid of hurting you and you say "you would never do that, and I would never hurt you," that scares the living daylights out of me, because I want to know that if and when I ever lose the plot and turn on you then I can rely on you to fight back and save yourself. I can't trust you to love me if you aren't willing to hurt me.

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nothing on a web page should move unless I am interacting with it and I mean it

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another speedpaint :)

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One worldbuilding thing that's always fun to do is take something you've encountered in the real world, and apply something similar with the same logic into your own. Like those sayings that have two halves, but people usually only know the first half and misunderstand the saying - like "birds of a feather flock together (until the cat comes)" or "great minds think alike (but fools rarely differ)." So I came up with a few for The Book I'm Not Writing:

Hungry dogs are loyal dogs (until someone else feeds them) - neglecting and mistreating your underlings may work as a short-term tactic for making them obey, but it's also a guarantees that they'll betray you at first chance.

The mouth of an idiot is as loose as the strings of their purse (so be there when gold may drop out) - just because nine out of ten things that someone says are completely useless doesn't mean you should dismiss them altogether. They might still know useful things, even if they can't tell it's useful.

Blood makes a foul dye (it stains, but it won't last) - here "foul" is often interpreted as "brutal" or "gruesome", when it's meant as "of low quality". Using violence as your way to establish dominance and maintain authority because it's easier than building networks of mutual trust and respect is as stupid and short-sighted as using blood to dye clothes because it's cheaper than proper pigment.

A fool will starve to death while waiting for grain to grow (but it is also a fool who'll slaughter an ewe an hour before it lambs) - Immediate problems require immediate solutions, but you'd better make sure that your drastic emergency solution is the right one.

A blind horse will go as you guide where a half-blind one dare not (both through the darkness and down a cliff) - an agent who doesn't know the purpose of their task will obey blindly, where one that knows some part of it might disobey out of distrust, but neither is as reliable as one that does see the big picture, can draw their own conclusions from the information they gather, and adjust their plans accordingly.

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I need u guys to see how beautiful how gorgeous how stunning how divine she is

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pulling more from my pre-2019 draft for these scenes than I thought I would.

(At this part, Alya's plans and knowledge level are different this time around, so she's not going to go about things in the same way.) But there are some pieces and descriptions I can frankenstein in, and I honestly wish there were more, because why does my writing from 6–8 years ago kind of slap? I feel like everything from the second half of that draft hits really hard, and my current draft seems lackluster in comparison

(the most notable improvement being that this draft has a much more functional plot. so we have to be grateful for what we have.)

but idk like I kind of expected to eventually reach a level of cringe regarding that stage of my writing, but I haven't yet. maybe it's good actually? idk 18yo me really knew how to write Alya in a way that is harder to capture now. maybe I'm too old?

probably just that I've branched out beyond that specific wip and voice, which I think is good for me in the broader scope of things. And I've been writing a lot (proportionally) of DaDBaB, which is sparser and more distant (read: more normal), so it makes sense for that to color across wip boundaries.

But my prose back then was so pretty! And so hard hitting! (too bad I didn't know what I was doing with the plot*)

All that to say I'm discovering a lot of dead darlings and unfortunately most of them will have to stay dead. but I might be more inclined to harvest for parts than I was planning one

*actually I rescind that. it was a mess but most of the core plot points as it stands now actually originated during that era, so maybe I was onto something?

Anyway I have to remind myself that current me is still. winning because she actually knows for the most part how the third act is supposed to go

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another speedpaint :)

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Lily Snowden-Fine - Thistle (2023)

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The road home by Stanislav Brusilov

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To spend eternity with you.