makeroftherunes

[makeroftherunes]

tfw the fake variety article you do an interview for turns into a real article about the episode of your show you didn't know was happening

[makeroftherunes]

Can’t wait to not sleep at all on September 11th

[makeroftherunes]

I don't care about Dungeon Meshi otherwise but "Tallmen" is SUCH an elegant solution to placing humans in a fantasy setting that it's still blowing my mind. Just the term itself is enough to instantly recontextualize humans. They're no longer the default race. They're those big goobers with long legs, striding about all the time. I can so easily envision much more interesting relationships between humans and non-humans because of it. Like perhaps "tallmen" are stereotyped as shepherds by other races because they can watch over their flocks better, or as vagabonds because they are better suited to long travel on foot. And of course, they don't *literally* have to be taller than everybody else, they were just the tallest around whenever the label became the norm, or something like that. I just feel like it's so much better than what I've seen in settings like D&D that go "and humans are the... adaptable, generalist people :)!"

[makeroftherunes]

[makeroftherunes]

#Happy Labor Day to Shrek I guess

[makeroftherunes]

“go early, it’s hard to find parking” you want public transit. “don’t go on weekends, traffic is terrible” you want public transit. “once i parked i had to walk half a mile to the entrance” you want public transit. “it took me an hour to get out of the area after the concert” you want public transit. “ugh somebody needs to DD” you want public transit. “can you drive? my car won’t start” you want public transit. you want public transit. you want public transit. you want public transit.

[makeroftherunes]

You know how some people have a “Roman Empire”—like, the thing they think about at least once a week even when no one brings it up? Mine is Delia Derbyshire.

This woman joined the BBC in 1960 and was so good at sound editing for classical music that she could literally see where the trombones were on a vinyl record. Like she’d just look at the grooves and be like, “There they are.” People thought she was doing actual magic. She basically said, “Yeah, I am,” and walked into the BBC Radiophonic Workshop like it was her birthright.

She didn’t wait to be assigned to the Workshop like everyone else. She just said, “I want this,” and got it. By 1962 she was creating entire soundscapes and electronic music for hundreds of BBC radio and television productions.

Then in 1963 she casually created the Doctor Who theme—one of the first pieces of music ever made entirely with electronics. It completely changed the landscape of TV sound design. She took Ron Grainer’s notes and turned them into something nobody had ever heard before using tape loops and pure experimentalism. When he listened to it, he literally said, “Did I write this?” And she, ICONICALLY, replied, “Most of it.”

He wanted to credit her. The BBC said no.

She was a woman in a deeply male-dominated space. And not just “wow, there aren’t many women here,” but like explicitly—officially—“women don’t get creative credit here.” Engineering was seen as men’s work. Sound design was men’s work. Women were allowed to assist, to type memos, to splice tape if a man told them where. But they weren’t allowed to author. They weren’t allowed to be the genius in the room.

So they handed all the glory to Ron Grainer.

She wasn’t paid royalties. She didn’t get a credit. She didn’t even get her name on-screen. Not for fifty. actual. years.

Delia also composed music for other BBC programmes, including the Blue Veils and Golden Sands, The Doctor Who story Inferno even reused some of her music that had originally been made for other productions—because that’s how good her work was. It got recycled because nothing else came close.

She hated the remixes of the theme they did after 1980 because they kept sanding down the weirdness, the dissonance, the edge—everything she had fought to put into it. 

So yeah. Delia Derbyshire is my Roman Empire. Every time I hear the Doctor Who theme, I think about her physically slicing tape by hand and looping it to build something no one had ever heard before—and I just sit there like: 🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡

(When I have enough time I'll make a post about the BBC Radiophonic Workshop as a whole because it is so fucking cool.)

[makeroftherunes]

someone found a dollar this morning

[makeroftherunes]

Why does “falling in love” have pretty much exclusively romantic connotations it’s such a good phrase. I’ve fallen in love with every single one of my friends

[makeroftherunes]

i'll never not be drawn to the existential horror of angels as beings without free will, incapable of doubt or refusal, and how attempting to "free" them from that state which seems so unfairly cruel from our perspective necessarily requires destroying them on a fundamental level and condemning them to an eternity of suffering. how a halo is a perfect closed loop which interrupting would render no longer a halo but something else, irregular and jagged.

[makeroftherunes]

i'll never not be drawn to the existential horror of angels as beings without free will, incapable of doubt or refusal, and how attempting to "free" them from that state which seems so unfairly cruel from our perspective necessarily requires destroying them on a fundamental level and condemning them to an eternity of suffering. how a halo is a perfect closed loop which interrupting would render no longer a halo but something else, irregular and jagged.

[makeroftherunes]

[makeroftherunes]

Y'know, I've heard of gamer girls, but I've never heard of a "gamer guy." I wonder why not. Maybe it's because guys don't play videogames as much as girls do. I mean basically all girls are gamers.

[makeroftherunes]

trans people will literally go “i have a complicated relationship with my history with gender and sometimes see it as a gender i ‘used to be’ and i don’t really look like a cis person of either gender and i don’t think i can fit it into simple categories” and everyone will spontaneously combust

[makeroftherunes]

WHAT!!!!

[makeroftherunes]

Now that this project has been delivered to its recipient, I can brag about it online a little.

I made this Elizabethan petal hussif for a friend who received an award for her historical costuming work. Hussifs were often used as sewing kits with spots for all of the notions you need for a project. Wives would send them with their husbands to war with extra uniform buttons and repair supplies. This one has an inner pouch area that can fit a small project or pieces thereof.

My friend likes owls, pomegranates, blurple, and starlight. Hopefully this mashup harmonizes nicely. I worked almost entirely from scraps already in my stash.

I self drafted the pattern, but it's approximated from this write up and Sheila Marshall's book "Elizabethan Needlework Accessories". My library didn't have the book, so I relied on Google images.

This little owl friend is a needle minder by greennerddesigns on Etsy. I chopped up a pin and stuck a magnet on there.

The lucette braided cord nearly thwarted me, but we got there in the end. I opted for fancy silk ribbon for the inner pouch instead. I swear lucette gave me arthritis.

I'm still pretty new to embroidery, so this was a real level up project for me. I used wool felt for the leaves and pomegranates to give them a little dimensionality (and to better hide any satin stitch sins) TIL, embroidering velveteen sucks.

The pomegranates are so crunchy! I fondled them frequently throughout the making of this. But the lattice stitch with tiny gold details is my favorite part.

The laurels are a symbol of the award she's receiving. I don't love how they turned out, but they hold up okay from a distance.

Blue beads are from my local embroidery shop, Country Crafts. Silver loops came from my stash. Owl scissors from onethriftystitcher on Etsy. Wool pieces are from my local wool store Black Sheep Wool.

Overall, I have some improvements to make if I ever do another one, but after some 100 hours of work poured into this little guy, I couldn't be more proud of myself. I hope she loves it and uses it until it falls apart.

[makeroftherunes]

Now that this project has been delivered to its recipient, I can brag about it online a little.

I made this Elizabethan petal hussif for a friend who received an award for her historical costuming work. Hussifs were often used as sewing kits with spots for all of the notions you need for a project. Wives would send them with their husbands to war with extra uniform buttons and repair supplies. This one has an inner pouch area that can fit a small project or pieces thereof.

My friend likes owls, pomegranates, blurple, and starlight. Hopefully this mashup harmonizes nicely. I worked almost entirely from scraps already in my stash.

I self drafted the pattern, but it's approximated from this write up and Sheila Marshall's book "Elizabethan Needlework Accessories". My library didn't have the book, so I relied on Google images.

This little owl friend is a needle minder by greennerddesigns on Etsy. I chopped up a pin and stuck a magnet on there.

The lucette braided cord nearly thwarted me, but we got there in the end. I opted for fancy silk ribbon for the inner pouch instead. I swear lucette gave me arthritis.

I'm still pretty new to embroidery, so this was a real level up project for me. I used wool felt for the leaves and pomegranates to give them a little dimensionality (and to better hide any satin stitch sins) TIL, embroidering velveteen sucks.

The pomegranates are so crunchy! I fondled them frequently throughout the making of this. But the lattice stitch with tiny gold details is my favorite part.

The laurels are a symbol of the award she's receiving. I don't love how they turned out, but they hold up okay from a distance.

Blue beads are from my local embroidery shop, Country Crafts. Silver loops came from my stash. Owl scissors from onethriftystitcher on Etsy. Wool pieces are from my local wool store Black Sheep Wool.

Overall, I have some improvements to make if I ever do another one, but after some 100 hours of work poured into this little guy, I couldn't be more proud of myself. I hope she loves it and uses it until it falls apart.