#cos she's been awesome and kept me from imploding

[corvus-pica-pica]

A DOLL UPDATE. WHUT.

Yeah, I know, it’s been almost a year since I had a proper doll update! Master’s dissertations and PhD applications abound, which means Garth has been a silent companion that moves around my desk and holds my edits for my drafts as I work.  First, a background update: I AM DOING A PHD AT YORK AND I START IN NEXT WEEK WHAT THE FUCK. It will be in Medieval Art History, specifically Anglo-Saxon angels. So that’s gonna be cool. [Dissertation for the MA is Satan and his angels in Genesis B! It’s DONE PRAISE BE.] My awesome human @thebastardofgloucester and I have moved house, so we’ve been doing housing stuff, which is exciting. Our house has so much nerdy stuff in it, I love it. [Garth lives in the living room on a bookshelf with Martinus’s norman helmet, because the nerdiest gear needs a prominent home where EVERYONE CAN SEE IT.]

Now the doll stuff: 

+ Dantes is now a floating head [ ; __ ; Only for a short while, I hope. Planning a DT 17rs body for him some time after March...]

+ Wee Clove is going to go live with @dalektable10 in December. [This is a happy thing though, so I’m pretty pleased she’ll have a new home.]

+ Garth is getting a new wig and possibly new shoes. I may also actually finish [!] his vest.

+ Iris continues to V E X me and I will figure her out later. 

+ I’m building an order for my second-oldest character, D-Z. [She’s the surly looking one in the drawing] She’ll be coming to live with me as my PhD project, much like Garth was supposed to be my MA project but he was mostly finished when I brought him with me [except the buttons/snaps on his vest *cough*], so he mostly sat and held papers and stuff while I wrote. [Which was a much-needed position while writing all the papers and starting my dissertation!]

Anyway, D-Z is one of my faces of death from my novel [basically there are three living people that inhabit the role of death], and she’s sort of been my protector in the face of anxiety and doubt [Garth is the one that keeps me from sliding backwards and keeps me from curling up and dying], and she’s also going to be a big customizing project as well. She’s slated to be an Impldoll Aurora on a Star Muscular body in a custom resin color like her skin in the drawing. She’ll need:

- a midnight blue wig styled in an undercut [shaved on both sides]

- both her arms made into mechanical limbs [will be ordered in a custom resin color to be the base for whatever I paint them with. That’s the second Patone card.] 

- scar mods [chest/neck, shoulder, belly. She’s a tank of a fighter.]

- all of her specific gear [armor, long tunic, boots, helmet, maybe chainmail, scythe], which will be a sort of dystopian cyberpunk/medieval-inspired alien gear. So lots of pleather and studs with weird textures.

- horns [I reaaally want these to be a pair of horns by blueotterparadise, but they tend to be sporadic with stock and things, so these will sort of happen whenever the stars align and I have funds for horns and there’s stock in a color that works for her. They’re my grail accessory for D-Z <3] 

So yeah. New doll will be coming to join me at some point at the end of 2017 / beginning of 2018! Once the order is put in, I will more seriously start planning her bits and bobs. Already ordered a shitton of unprocessed alpaca [which has had many many washes so far, and still looks kinda sad. More work is needed.], and I have to do some dye tests before I can actually finish prepping her fiber. FUCK MY PHD STARTS NEXT WEEK WHAT THE FUCK. 

[coffeebased]

Hey! Wikathon na! I’ve started reading Relocations by Karen Tongson, about a third through now, but I had to take a little detour through Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir like I said I would. I’ve finished reading HtN but I’m not quite done experiencing it, so I’ll probably pick Relocations back up tomorrow.

But here’s what I read in July! What’s a segue?

1. Haikyu!! Volume 44 and 45 by Haruichi Furudate

A chance event triggered Shouyou Hinata’s love for volleyball. His club had no members, but somehow persevered and finally made it into its very first and final regular match of middle school, where it was steamrolled by Tobio Kageyama, a superstar player known as “King of the Court.”

Vowing revenge, Hinata applied to the Karasuno High School volleyball club… only to come face-to-face with his hated rival, Kageyama!

And with those two volumes, Haikyū has ended. I’m really glad that my cousin got me to catch up to the series because being a part of the sheer joy and love that’s poured out the fandom these past few months has been refreshing to my spirit. I enjoyed the way Furudate brought the series to its conclusion, by giving all the characters a future and room to grow. I hope to hear more from him in the upcoming years.

  2. Looking for Group by Alexis Hall

I read Looking for Group because I was reading up on Alexis Hall in anticipation of Boyfriend Material, which I will talk about later, and saw the synopsis:

So, yeah, I play Heroes of Legend, y’know, the MMO. I’m not like obsessed or addicted or anything. It’s just a game. Anyway, there was this girl in my guild who I really liked because she was funny and nerdy and a great healer. Of course, my mates thought it was hilarious I was into someone I’d met online. And they thought it was even more hilarious when she turned out to be a boy IRL. But the joke’s on them because I still really like him.

And now that we’re together, it’s going pretty well. Except sometimes I think Kit—that’s his name, sorry I didn’t mention that—spends way too much time in HoL. I know he has friends in the guild, but he has me now, and my friends, and everyone knows people you meet online aren’t real. I mean. Not Kit. Kit’s real. Obviously.

Oh, I’m Drew, by the way. This is sort of my story. About how I messed up some stuff and figured out some stuff. And fell in love and stuff.

And I knew that I had to read it. Immediately.

I enjoyed it way too much. The characters were adorable, the conflict was done well, the geeky gamer wrapper was AMAZING and the author never dropped the ball on integrating the online game into the narrative. It was very readable and I enjoyed the atmosphere of the book immensely. I also may have spent a heady week or so thinking of playing WoW, but I avoided that temptation. Made me miss uni too, and the way my friends and I would spend countless hours with each other.

  3. Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall

Wanted: One (fake) boyfriend Practically perfect in every way

Luc O’Donnell is tangentially–and reluctantly–famous. His rock star parents split when he was young, and the father he’s never met spent the next twenty years cruising in and out of rehab. Now that his dad’s making a comeback, Luc’s back in the public eye, and one compromising photo is enough to ruin everything.

To clean up his image, Luc has to find a nice, normal relationship…and Oliver Blackwood is as nice and normal as they come. He’s a barrister, an ethical vegetarian, and he’s never inspired a moment of scandal in his life. In other words: perfect boyfriend material. Unfortunately apart from being gay, single, and really, really in need of a date for a big event, Luc and Oliver have nothing in common. So they strike a deal to be publicity-friendly (fake) boyfriends until the dust has settled. Then they can go their separate ways and pretend it never happened.

But the thing about fake-dating is that it can feel a lot like real-dating. And that’s when you get used to someone. Start falling for them. Don’t ever want to let them go.

I came into this book with high expectations after Looking for Group, and my expectations were mostly met. The few issues I had were ultimately negligible, probably cultural differences or conventions of a genre that I’m not familiar with. The characters were strong, and I found the book funny. I know it sounds as though I’m damning it with faint praise, so I’ll say it plainly: it was an enjoyable read and I was totally invested in the romance. I think it’ll make a really good film as well.

4. The Subtweet by Vivek Shraya

Everyone talks about falling in love, but falling in friendship can be just as captivating. When Neela Devaki’s song is covered by internet-famous artist Rukmini, the two musicians meet and a transformative friendship begins. But as Rukmini’s star rises and Neela’s stagnates, jealousy and self-doubt creep in. With a single tweet, their friendship implodes, one career is destroyed, and the two women find themselves at the center of an internet firestorm.

Celebrated multidisciplinary artist Vivek Shraya’s second novel is a stirring examination of making art in the modern era, a love letter to brown women, an authentic glimpse into the music industry, and a nuanced exploration of the promise and peril of being seen.

If you’re a millennial and if you’ve ever had complicated friendships, this book will ring really true for most of it, I think. I kept wincing at the characters’ actions and “mistakes”, recognising them as things I or my friends have done, but there are portions of the story that I found inaccessible because Neela, the main character, just seems really opaque even when they’re the ones speaking. The music Shraya made as a companion to the book slaps and can be found here.

  5. Empowered 11 by Adam Warren

Costumed crimefighter Empowered finds herself the desperate prey of a maniacal supervillain whose godlike powers have turned an entire city of suprahumans against her.

Not good! Outnumbered and under siege, aided only by a hero’s ghost, can Emp survive the relentless onslaught long enough to free her enslaved teammates and loved ones, or is this–*gulp*–The End?

From comics overlord Adam Warren comes Empowered, the acclaimed sexy superhero comedy–except when it isn’t, as in this volume’s no-nonsense, wall-to-wall brawl guaranteed to bring tears to the eye and fists to the face!

Warren’s tying up a lot of loose ends and answering a lot of questions and I’m wondering if that means Empowered‘s ending soon. I haven’t seen any info regarding this, even though the words “The End” are right there in the summary, because comic books always lean on the whole the hero could die! thing, and more often than not they never do. But Emp has come so far in the past 11 volumes, and I think that she’s ready to confront a lot of the stuff that Warren’s only hinted at in the past. Most of Empowered is about how Emp deals with failure and how she rises above it, and recently it’s become about how other people have failed her, rather than how she has failed, and how she deserves better. I’m worried about her, but at least we are another volume’s worth of evidence for the Emp/Thugboy/Ninjette OT3.

  6. Sex and Vanity by Kevin Kwan

The iconic author of the bestselling phenomenon Crazy Rich Asians returns with a glittering tale of love and longing as a young woman finds herself torn between two worlds–the WASP establishment of her father’s family and George Zao, a man she is desperately trying to avoid falling in love with.

On her very first morning on the jewel-like island of Capri, Lucie Churchill sets eyes on George Zao and she instantly can’t stand him. She can’t stand it when he gallantly offers to trade hotel rooms with her so that she can have the view of the Tyrrhenian Sea, she can’t stand that he knows more about Curzio Malaparte than she does, and she really can’t stand it when he kisses her in the darkness of the ancient ruins of a Roman villa and they are caught by her snobbish, disapproving cousin, Charlotte. “Your mother is Chinese so it’s no surprise you’d be attracted to someone like him,” Charlotte teases. Daughter of an American-born-Chinese mother and blue-blooded New York father, Lucie has always sublimated the Asian side of herself in favor of the white side, and she adamantly denies having feelings for George. But several years later, when George unexpectedly appears in East Hampton where Lucie is weekending with her new fiancé, Lucie finds herself drawn to George again. Soon, Lucy is spinning a web of deceit that involves her family, her fiancé, the co-op board of her Fifth Avenue apartment, and ultimately herself as she tries mightily to deny George entry into her world–and her heart. Moving between summer playgrounds of privilege, peppered with decadent food and extravagant fashion, Sex and Vanity is a truly modern love story, a daring homage to A Room with a View, and a brilliantly funny comedy of manners set between two cultures.

This was the third romance novel I read in July, and that’s honestly the highest concentration of romance novel I’ve ever had in my life. I know that I’m supposed to find romance novels like super kilig and stuff, but so far I am just very anxious for romance novel protagonists all the time. I think that the whole thing about the romance novels I have read is that they’re mostly about how deeply anxious people learn how to allow themselves to be loved and that is tough! I wanted to protect Lucie all the time! I was Invested in her Welfare, and I don’t think I cared about Rachel Chu from Crazy Rich Asians half as much, even if you condensed all my attachment from the entire trilogy. Also, small spoiler, there is a hint that Sex and Vanity is in the same universe as Crazy Rich Asians, which I think is awesome.

  6. Trust Exercise by Susan Choi

Pulitzer Finalist Susan Choi’s narrative-upending novel about what happens when a first love between high school students is interrupted by the attentions of a charismatic teacher

In an American suburb in the early 1980s, students at a highly competitive performing arts high school struggle and thrive in a rarified bubble, ambitiously pursuing music, movement, Shakespeare, and, particularly, their acting classes. When within this striving “Brotherhood of the Arts,” two freshmen, David and Sarah, fall headlong into love, their passion does not go unnoticed—or untoyed with—by anyone, especially not by their charismatic acting teacher, Mr. Kingsley.

The outside world of family life and economic status, of academic pressure and of their future adult lives, fails to penetrate this school’s walls—until it does, in a shocking spiral of events that catapults the action forward in time and flips the premise upside-down. What the reader believes to have happened to David and Sarah and their friends is not entirely true—though it’s not false, either. It takes until the book’s stunning coda for the final piece of the puzzle to fall into place—revealing truths that will resonate long after the final sentence.

As captivating and tender as it is surprising, Trust Exercise will incite heated conversations about fiction and truth, friendships and loyalties, and will leave readers with wiser understandings of the true capacities of adolescents and of the powers and responsibilities of adults.

This is a book I could not stop reading and I felt gross after I finished it. I think that I enjoyed it and that the narrative flips were well-done and it was engaging, but Choi writes teenage trauma in 3D, and you can smell her scumbag characters. Very good will never read again unless looking to feel bad.

  Re-read:

Temeraire: His Majesty’s Dragon, Throne of Jade, Black Powder War, andEmpire of Ivory by Naomi Novik

Aerial combat brings a thrilling new dimension to the Napoleonic Wars as valiant warriors ride mighty fighting dragons, bred for size or speed. When HMS Reliant captures a French frigate and seizes the precious cargo, an unhatched dragon egg, fate sweeps Captain Will Laurence from his seafaring life into an uncertain future – and an unexpected kinship with a most extraordinary creature. Thrust into the rarified world of the Aerial Corps as master of the dragon Temeraire, he will face a crash course in the daring tactics of airborne battle. For as France’s own dragon-borne forces rally to breach British soil in Bonaparte’s boldest gambit, Laurence and Temeraire must soar into their own baptism of fire.

I started re-reading it because I wanted to introduce it to my girlfriend, and I outpaced her very quickly, and selfishly. She’s still at the beginning fourth of Throne of Jade, and I feel like I blinked and gulped down four of the books in quick succession. I had to stop myself after Empire, in a very belated effort to sync up to my gf’s progress. The series is amazing, and I don’t know if I’ll ever read one like Temeraire again. Being able to revisit it should be enough, really, because every time I do it’s as though I’m caught up in a strong and wonderful wind that fills me up with delight and awe. Novik’s starting a new series this September, and I hope it’s just as good.

    That’s it for July! I’m probably going to do two books at a time for my Wikathon posts, just to keep things fresh and current, so keep a weather eye out for those posts!

  July, next verse, same as the first Hey! Wikathon na! I've started reading Relocations by Karen Tongson, about a third through now, but I had to take a little detour through…

[themiddlelayer]

Maybe I AM the crazy one here

No.. definitely. I’m definitely the crazy one and it’s exhausting. 

Java Bear and I had a long talk about where he was and what had been going on with him all week. He totally validated my feelings and apologized for not reaching out sooner. He continues to reinforce how good he actually is at communication and clearly stated that if there is ever any doubt in my mind of my importance in his life that I should look at my keychain. Giving me a key to the house really IS a big thing. 

He also said that if I’m not sure about what’s going on with him or am afraid that he may be shutting down on me that I should always just reach out and let him know what I’m feeling... and if I’m not able to do that, that I can and should talk to Olive about it. The GF/metamour line is a touchy one, but she’s continued to show support for the communication between us about Java Bear. 

This weekend was more of that validation of my place in their life and just how much they care about me.

MM had a scare on Friday morning. He was having chest pains bad enough that he had a co-worker take him to the clinic because he was afraid it was a heart attack. They said it wasn’t but because of the symptoms, his health and family history they still sent him to the ER via ambulance. I ended up passing my class to another instructor and drove the hour to be with him. Once they had him in a room I had Cookie come help with getting my car home so I could get MM and his car home after they discharged him. 

The fucked up thing was on the way down I found myself wishing I still had Gypsy and Nomad there to help like they did with the last ER run when MM was losing feeling in his legs. That stirred up all kinds of crap for me, but I put on the wife face and just did what needed to be done. 

MM kept saying that he felt guilty about possibly ruining my plans to go to Phoenix so after doing dinner with Cookie and driving home I finished packing and left around 9:15pm. 

Olive was up painting a wall and Java Bear was out at a birthday thing for his buddy when I got there. She and I got a couple hours to just hang out before he got home and we all eventually went to bed. 

The alcohol had Java Bear feeling all kinds of frisky and Olive’s functioning uterus had her in the same place. But her functioning uterus meant that despite the desire being there, we all stopped short of PIV and eventually attempted to sleep. 

I say attempted to sleep because not long after finding my underwear Java Bear started to whimper in his sleep and twitch while he was holding me. It wasn’t his usual purr/growl thing but something sad, scared... I said something to Olive and we realized that he was having night terrors. I narrowly missed catching an elbow in the initial flailing before we sandwiched him and held him tight enough that he couldn’t swing his arms around anymore. It was a rough night but better that the first time I saw it was at their place with Olive there to show me how to handle him when it happens. 

Java Bear got up around 5am and Olive and I slept until after 9am. Her kiddo was playing video games with Java Bear when I came out. Java Bear and I did a grocery run and then they cooked up a big brunch with pancakes, fresh fruit and eggs. It was just a normal “family” kind of morning. 

Eventually we decided that naps needed to happen. Olive wanted to touch up the wall she’d painted so Java Bear and I curled up. There was more sexual tension but Java Bear had told me that they hadn’t christened the new bed and that Olive wasn’t okay with the two of us having sex there first. I TOTALLY understood where she was coming from so we did our best to behave. 

We’d had a talk the night before in the throes of sexy time when we both said that we weren’t ready to watch the other with Java Bear. It was different with all of us involved but with her being on her period it just wasn’t practical or really do-able. 

Olive came up to bed after giving the boy something to keep him occupied. The same tension was there with the three of us in bed and I got to the point where I just asked where the dark towels were and told her, “Please fuck your husband. You can take the kiddo out for a bit after dinner and he and I can have some time.” She objected a bit but I was pretty sure they were still going to have sex while I was downstairs with my headphones on, chatting with friends. I was totally fine with it and just relieved that the tension would dissipate.

Maybe an hour later they came down and told me that they’d been talking the entire time. They told me that didn’t want to impose any “couple’s privilege” on me and that Olive was going to take the the kiddo for a walk to go get a movie so Java Bear and I could have some time. I about burst into tears... good tears. I continued to assure Olive that I totally understood how she felt and thanked her for understanding where I was... spending most nights alone and knowing I won’t get to see either of them for at least 2 more weeks. 

Java Bear and I totally took advantage of the time but I was sure to be downstairs fully dressed when Olive got home. I also made the bed up, opened the window, turned the fan on and sprayed air freshener in the bedroom. We had both showered and were talking about dinner when they got back. The kiddo stood outside the door and they asked me to close my eyes. He had seen a stuffed husky while they were shopping and because I’d talked about my husky at breakfast he insisted they buy it for me as my Valentine. Could that be any stinking cuter?!? 

We decided on take-out poke for dinner and I stayed in my jammies and waited in the jeep while they went in to get it. The rest of the night was more of the awesome... cheesy kids movie, dinner, then Java Bear and I watched the latest Grey’s Anatomy while Olive did some meal prep. How I managed to not fall apart completely during that episode is totally beyond me. Ben and Bailey had been “on a break” and they got back together. Their separation was heartbreaking. Their reconciliation was equally emotional. And yes, I know.. fictional characters.. but it really hit home with some of the things MM has said to me lately. 

MM and I had our ‘therapy’ night on Wednesday and he talked about how he thought it would be ‘just us’ after the quad imploded. Thursday after my emotional day over Java Bear’s post he asked if I wanted anything from the grocery store and I asked him to grab me some salmon. He had plans to go out to a game night and was going to change and turn around but while I was finishing my paperwork, he got home and put my salmon on the grill. It was just one more example of him showing how much he loves me and wants to keep trying. 

I’m tearing up just writing that.

I don’t know how to go back. I don’t know how to unring these bells. Part of me wants to just cut everyone else out of my life and go back to monogamy, but I know that MM’s relationship with Pixie is still in a good place, and my relationships with Java Bear and Olive are awesome. I feel so loved and valued and wanted there. At least, I SEE how loved and valued and wanted I am there. That’s where I’m struggling right now. 

I had a meltdown on the drive home thinking about the moment when we were all in bed together fooling around. I was the center of attention but all I could think was, “Is this my life? Is this really what I want? How did I get here?” I started spinning, feeling like a lot of what I’ve been doing hasn’t been out of choice but out of a need to make the best of a bad situation. 

Polyamory made it so that MM and I could view our marriage as evolving rather than ending when we got to a certain point in the quople where we knew that we had become disconnected. Truth be told, we were struggling to stay connected before the quad... Poly made it so that we can still love each other and be partners but have our other needs met elsewhere because I’m not ready to really get all the way back in. But the longer we do this, the less I see the possibility of getting back to who we were in any way. That breaks my heart. 

The worst part of it all is this sense of being unable to feel the good. It’s that ‘taste of blue’ thing. Most people, if they are lucky, are raised being fed blue things so that they have a clear, natural understanding of what blue tastes like. People like me... we see blue, we know what it looks like and hear the rest of the world talk about how sweet it is. We recognize the blue things but don’t have that immediate understanding when it’s in our mouths that, yes.. this is BLUE. Not a blue thing but blue. Does that make any sense? 

My crazy is still really flowing and I can’t imagine that the whiskey is the cause after this many days. I’m hungry and tired. I made myself oatmeal and coffee and ran the towels that Olive said she wanted to wash this weekend before doing the drive back. From there I spent a couple hours doing Friday’s paperwork and coloring Cookie’s hair. MM is at a game night at Pixie’s today so I likely won’t see him until later, assuming I’m still up when he gets home. 

I’m trying to prep for tomorrow’s class because it’s one I haven’t taught in months and I’ve got a really big group. I know I need to make myself some real food and put the clean sheets on the bed. I need a hot shower and will probably be in bed early. I’m trying to take care of myself, really... I think this is what it looks like. Writing, eating, sleeping, maybe doing more reading in the Codependency book... I just feel so tired and empty right now.