#And then some more on mares and stuff which I'm also looking forward to

[jackdaw-sprite]

Fic Author Self Rec

I got pinged by @murphy-kitt in the fic authors self rec (Thank you!) so here we are a couple of days later.

I actually only have 14 published works on AO3, and one of them is a collab so unlike some I don't have too many to be indecisive over! This did not keep me from being indecisive.

The Horologist's Paradox

Summary: A quiet little domestic lost time oneshot where Danny lives with Clockwork. That doesn't mean that everything is good. Clockwork in particular has some regrets.

Reasoning: This is my most recent complete fic, and there's a bit of a recency bias in my head. But also I love how I balanced the domesticity and Clockwork's inhuman nature in it, and finally managed to include some more of Clockwork's snark in a characterization that still made him care deeply about Danny and be soft with him. The build to Clockwork's fantasy of fixing Danny feels properly slow to me, and I loved writing it -- I wrote most of that fantasy in a single night, compared with a few hundred words here and there for the rest of it.

A confession: I decided on submitting the 'Danny discovers his insides are turning into clockwork' prompt for phight before writing this. The prompt got so far into my brain that I needed to write it (well,something related :)) myself. Well. More than I already had. I do have a lot of WIPs :D

Funerary Rites (ongoing)

Summary: Alternate portal incident. To save his parents' lives, Danny agrees to a deal with the fae who tends the veil after they rend a hole in it.

Reasoning: I'm happy with the writing thus far, but really this is more on my list because of how much I'm looking forward to writing the rest of it. Unlike everything else on this list, this is incomplete and very slow going -- the planned character interactions are difficult to write and it's only going to get worse as things, uh. Get worse. The outline for this thing is 13k words, about 7k of which is specifically for the incident in question. The moment I reread the outline it bores directly into my head again and inflicts me with more Thoughts.

Mare

Summary: Danny goes on a fetch quest to the moon. A ten years later fic, set in a spirit world au somewhat inspired by Natsume's book of friends.

Reasoning: While this fic ended up being about moving on, growing up, (not) letting go, and the fear of change it started as an excuse to just go completely nuts with description, which I consider one of my strong suits in writing. It shows! The pacing here is honey-slow but I still adore a lot of the description I used. I'm going to indulge in copying a scrap from the start, in fact:

At his left, the swells of hills and mountains began to sway, as the boughs of the forest covering it caught in a breeze. In the razor-edged light, the leaves gleamed silver and for long minutes it was as though Danny were flying between not one but two seas: one a mirror, and one of blades. In the real world, neither existed. The lunar soil was barren and dry. But Danny hadn't existed in the real world for a long time.

Cosmic Horror

Summary: Clockwork comforts Danny in the wake of the cloning incident. But Clockwork is not human, nor anything close to it, and his lair is vast and deep.

Reasoning: This was my first published fic for the fandom, and really I'm still fond of it! Again the description here is a strong point but it's less of a vivid spirit world situation and more of an eldritch god that loves Danny situation.

Solanum

Summary:

After she mentions that one of her tomatoes isn't doing well, Danny and Tucker decide to cheer Sam up by sneaking a replacement tomato plant into her greenhouse. It does not go well.

Short and sweet, at just under a thousand words.

Reasoning: Really I just like how light this was, and how fun! Most of my stuff is varying shades of fucked up and most of that is lost time. This is just Danny and Tucker meaning well but not really thinking things through, and not really knowing anything about plants.

As for tags... here are some no-pressure tags:

@gamma-radio-dp @strawberrycamel @reading-wanderer @datawyrms @seaglass-skies @echoghost1

[hypersonic04]

Aaaaaah just so you know, I love you so much and you are an exceptional writer.

I’ve been thinking about teacher! ross and reader going on Duke of Edinburgh with their students 😭😭😭 I don’t know if it’s just me but I absolutely hated DofE

i love you too!! that is the loveliest compliment, thank you so so much for reading what i post, it means so much. people on the internet that use their precious time to read the delusions i write in my bedroom! you're the best!

Oh, I love love love this. I never did DofE, but my brother did, so I'm going to use that as my references. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong lol (i definitely will be wrong). I'm pretty sure I also would've hated it, anon.

The weather is a bit shitty, you've got walking boots on that you hate, and you're not exactly the biggest lover of a long walk, but having Ross there makes it all the more bearable. When he was sorting his stuff out that morning, he packed two of everything - another flask with tea in it, a snack bar of sorts, maybe some plasters because you were complaining about how your work shoes were rubbing your heels the other day. He's smiling to himself as he remembers you hopping around with one shoe on to your resource cupboard, almost hearing the way you were laughing at your own clumsiness (something you hate, but he finds so endearing).

Anyway, I think you've set off and you're on the walk, and you're just talking about anything and everything. Similar to the school trip, it's ended up with the two of you behind all the kids. He brings up music and you end up talking about your favourite bands and whatnot, which makes him fall even more in love with you when you both realise you have very similar taste. I think maybe you stumble a bit and he catches your elbow, a hand on your shoulder too, steadying you. You thank him graciously, cheeks a bit pink.

You get to where you're pitching your tents up, and I think he's having a bit of a mare. The kids are giggling at him as he struggles with it, so he's grateful when you're to the rescue.

"Thought you didn't like camping, hm?" He teases, nudging your side with his elbow as you hammer the spike into the ground (he finds it very attractive, like yeah he knows you're an independant, self-sufficient woman, but he's still flustered).

"I don't!" You giggle, him shaking his head as you expertly pitch the tent.

Fast-forward to the evening - all the kids have made their meals and are in their tents, exhausted after a day of walking, and it's just you and Ross up. You're sat in those pop up camping chairs, your heads essentially touching as you both look at something he's showing you on his phone. Maybe it's a video of his nephew and you're both giggling, and it's like an insight into your future life. It's very wholesome, the light of the campfire and the blankets wrapped around you both as you talk in whispers, trying not to wake the kids up. You share a bag of sweets, him leaving you your favourites, and it's just so cute <3

[hextiger]

More Research Excerpts

This time it's Der Alptraum in Beziehung zu gewissen Formen mittelalterlichen Aberglaubens. (English: The Nightmare in Relation to Certain Forms of Medieval Superstition).

You can find the PDF here via Project Gutenberg, but it's in German.

For context though: this appeared in 1902 in a magazine published by Sigmund Freud. That fact is very much apparent throughout.

Introduction

"My focus is not on the historical side but the deepest psychological meaning" phrases that clue you in that there's a lot of nonsense coming

Nowadays the word "Weib" really just reads as "woman (derogatory)"

Dream and Belief

"the breath soul and the shadow soul" I'm sorry what. What! Shadow soul?????

"Freud's discovery of psychoanalysis" I don't know that I'd call it a discovery rather than "wholesale invention" or maybe "ass-pull" but sure

You can at times REALLY tell this is influenced by Freud. Example: "The more people have a certain type of dream the more likely it is that its' subliminal content is of a sexual nature" good (?) news for all the people who dream about their teeth falling out

Something something dreaming of your dead mother or father something something oedipus complex repressed in childhood

You can really tell this was written in the early 20th century. Take me back to the 18th/19th century weirdness please

"In a court in 1516 the jury of Trojes admonished the caterpillars who had devastated some distracts on punishment of curse and excommunication to leave within a certain number of days" I have SO MANY questions

The source for the above is "Cesaresco. Essays in the Study of Folk-Songs, P. 183" which I now have to read

Nightmares

"It is generally known that nightmares have a greater influence on the fantasy of waking life than any other dream" my dude you JUST went on for a whole chapter abt sex dreams so like are you sure

"I have added that the repression of female masochistic sexual urges is more suited to the creation of the typical nightmare than that of the male one, a view that Adler agrees with" I just wanna read abt weird hairy creatures sitting on people's chests, not this nonsense

Ok HERE'S something interesting. Dude's talking about how nightmares express deeply repressed wishes like yes. This I can vibe with

"Digestive problems do not explain the appearance of beautiful women from keyholes" sure but if that were a thing I'd sure as hell take the digestive problems

Incubus and Incubation

"In the middle ages the belief was generally that there were evil spirits whose sole function was to have [...] intercourse with sleeping people" HE JUST SAYS THIS. WITHOUT A SOURCE

"A favorite form that incubi took was that of clergy. Hieronmyus reports the story of a young lady who called for help against an incubus which her friends found under their beds in the form of the bishop Sylvanus. The reputation of the bishop would have suffered if he had been unable to convince them that the incubus had taken his form"

People at the time reacted by saying "Oh an excellent example for the wizardry of Sylvanus" so I don't think this bishop was believed

Anyway I WISH that had been an incubus but it really sounds like it was just a creepy old dude

Sir why do you keep randomly throwing untranslated French quotes in this German text

Oh hey another mention of people who were supposedly children of incubi. This time it's Alexander the Great, Caesar, Martin Luther, Plato, all of the Huns and everyone who lived on Cyprus

You're right, it would be unnecessary to linger on how snakes are phallic symbols thank you for not doing that

"The belief that the soul leaves the sleeper in the form of a snake which escapes through the mouth" UM HOLD ON

I checked the source and yeah, that sure is a thing

This one's from Thorpe. Northern Mythology, 1851, Vol I. P. 289f https://archive.org/details/northernmytholog01thoruoft/page/n309/mode/2up

The Vampire

"The wish for reunion, which has its origin in the living person, is here partially projected on the dead" FINALLY some good content

"Widows can get pregnant by their vampiric husbands visiting" uhuh sure

"After the transformation into a vampire is complete it can be discovered by finding the unburied body with red cheeks, tightskin, full blood vessels, warm blood, grown hair and nails and open left eye"

May have found another source on alps here. Features slut-shaming of sphinxes as far as I can tell

"The Wallachian myth wherein dead redheaded men appear in the form of frogs, bugs etc. and drink the blood of pretty girls"

So depending on which church you were a part of before committing heresy you'd either become a werewolf (roman-catholic) or a vampire (greek)

"Like the vampire the Alp can be the soul of a dead person and suck the blood of sleeping people" whhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhy do I only read this now

The Werwolf

Apollo's apparently associated with wolves, which I did not know

Oh yeah I forgot about the part of werewolf lore that's like "Yeah they turn their human skin inside-out cause the other side is a wolf pelt"

If you're born on christmas day you're apparently destined to become a werewolf as punishment for your parent daring to deliver on the same day as Mary

"The seventh son is destined to become a werewolf, the seventh daughter a mare" mmmmmmmmm there's Something here I may be able to use

Quick gallows, wow what's that? Oh. Oh it's a gallows where the person has their hands bound behind their back, is pulled up by their bound hands on a pulley and then dropped from great height??????? That's uh. That doesn't sound like a good experience

Armenian werewolves are women who sinned and were thus punished by having to live for seven years as a werewolf.

There's also a creature that's somewhat between werewolf and vampire which, apparently sucks blood from the soles of the feet of people walking by

Very rough translation but "One has to burn the werewolf because otherwise he will rise from his grave a few days later. In ravenous hunger he will eat the flesh from his own hands and feet and when he has nothing else on his body to consume he will burrow out from his grave at midnight, fall into the herds and steal the animals or even go into houses, lay down by the sleeping and suck their blood from them" this is good, actually

I cannot stress enough how openly freudian this thing is

Werewolves can apparently also leave behind their bodies and wander about at night

Devilworship

"Belief in devils can be traced back to an oedipus complex" ok. sure

Apparently the devil used to be a close parallel to jesus. The whole deal: twelve apostles, went to hell and was reborn, hot bod

The devil had his own bible which was written down in Bohemia and is now in a library in Stockholm k so who's down for a trip to Stockholm after [waves hands] all this is done

"One of the later bynames of the devil was Grendel (english Grant)"

The devil is canonically bisexual and bigender

He can only impregnate folks if he previously acts as a succubus

....Merlin was a son of the devil? He was born because the devil was imitating God? His purpose was to defeat Jesus? Is this what Fate Grand Order is about

"if a woman sleeps alone the devil sleeps with her" well good for her

The devil has a second face on his butt that looks like a beautiful woman's face. He sits the wrong way around in chairs. His genitals are on his back

The Witch Epidemic

Witches like to eat babies, especially unbaptized ones

Witches apparently sometimes turned men into horses to ride to sabbath??? rad

Or they rode the devil himself in form of a horse or goat. sure

Why would witches have stigmata. I want to know, but not enough to check the source that's cited for this

The roman-catholic church is at fault for witchcraft

Apparently 40 year old witches turn into Drude which are also similar to alps

In Conclusion

This entire thing was a trip but I cannot recommend reading it or a translation. It's far too Freudian for my tastes. At least there's a little bit here that I can use for A Pale Imitation and its potential sequels.

[insertmeaningfulusername]

2, 4, 38, 39!

Thank you mid!

Did you have any reading goals? if yes, did you complete them?

I did not set myself any reading goals! Well, if you don't count stuff I had to read for uni. There were some books I wanted to read and then forgot about, but that doesn't really file under goals. Goals kinda take the fun out of hobbies for me.

What was/will be the last book you read this year?

Read or finish? If simply read, then either Dracula or Emma. I'll probably finish neither of those two though. What I did finish last, I think, was Shelley's Frankenstein (or Shakespeare's Sonnets if you want to count them as a book. they certainly came in book form).

Releases you’re looking forward to next year.

Definitely the last (?) book of the Skulduggery Pleasant series, Until the End. It looks very much like the main protagonist will die, though, and I Don't Like It (also she broke up with her gf in the last book and like. hey. you can't do that). Also, this made me look up if any more books of the Dragon Whisperer saga had been released, and apparently there's one on the way. I guess I know what I'll spend my money on next year.

Five books you absolutely want to read next year?

Dead or Alive, which is the book that comes before Until the End. A re-read is in order so I'm not completely lost reading the new book. Otherwise, I'm pretty open-minded. I'd like to read George Sand's La Mare au Diable (a gift by @camillechaoswritter) and a collection of short stories by Guy de Maupassant (bought the book at a second-hand shop in Barcelona in summer and it's been gathering dust ever since), and to maybe give Cyrano and Dumas' Musketeers a re-read.

[jackcowboyhero]

"Jack? I'm glad you're here."

Look, I ain’t sayin’ Sarah didn’t mean it when she said that, but she was also halfway through gettin’ a big-headed baby outta her and into the world, and that prob’ly makes ya say crazy things.

I mean, I hope she was glad I was there.  But I ain’t sure I was all that helpful.

I guess I ain’t said much about Danny’s arrival yet (besides complainin’ that he took his sweet time), and apparently birth stories are like women’s versions o’ dime novels.  So, now that I got half a second (at least, until His Highness decides it’s time to get another diaper dirty), I figured I’d tell ya what happened.

(I ain’t givin’ out too many details, though.  Let’s just say things are a lot more….intense than a horse birth when the parties involved can actually talk to ya.  Also, Sarah didn’t hide out in a field and come back with a long-legged kid by her side like the mares do half the time.)

Anyway, my first clue that September 16, 1904 was gonna be a big deal was when I was walkin’ the horses up from the field after work, and Sarah showed up at the barn and said she could feel somethin’.  That’s when I sent Johnny Appleseed to get Red’s wife Becky, Skipper to town for Mrs. Halloran (an old lady who’s delivered half the kids in the county), and Boxcar to get the horses unharnessed and fed so I could walk Sarah back to the house.

It’s also when Sarah first told me to “CALM DOWN, I’M FINE.”

Well, if ya read the updates, you’ll remember that Danny Kid took FOREVER to show up.  At first, Sarah was doin’ okay, so we took a walk around the orchard (which is when Nell ate her soup), helped clean up the supper dishes (can you believe that?!  Sarah’s words were, “I AIN’T SO FAR ALONG I CAN’T HELP”), sat on the porch for a while, and eventually moved inside when things started pickin’ up.  At that point, besides thinkin’ it was takin’ a long time, I wasn’t too worried ‘bout stuff.

But lemme tell ya, that changed awful quick.

If you’ve ever been someplace where you were scared to death (like maybe the Refuge) but had to fake like you weren’t so you wouldn’t spook somebody else, you’ll kinda know how I felt for the longest night o’ my life.  But Sarah was braver’n I was, and I don’t even think she was fakin’ it.

Pop always said girls were stronger’n boys, and if I hadn’t believed it before, I sure woulda after seein’ all that.

Point is, it weren’t as sudden an’ dramatic as I’d been led to believe.  But it was the craziest, best thing I ever saw.  And even if Sarah could tell it was makin’ me nervous (wouldn’t you be, if havin’ kids is what killed your own ma?), I hope it helped some that I got to be there.

And I, for one, am real glad I got to see Danny take his first breath…which, o’ course, sounded kinda like “wwrrrrrrrAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!”

He was not happy to be born.

But he’s settled down now (even though he don’t hesitate to tell ya if he’s hungry, not hungry, wet, too dry, wants attention, don’t want attention, or just wants to make noise), and he’s a pretty good kid, I think.  (Not that I got nothin’ to compare him to.)  But he didn’t cry when he met Nell for the first time (she gave him an approvin’ sniff and didn’t try eatin’ him, which I think Sarah was kinda concerned about), and he likes goin’ for rides in the wagon (Sarah won’t let me ride around with him on Nell yet–all we can do is stand there), and he don’t cry any more when the boys pick him up than he does when I try it.  (He better get used to havin’ a ton o’ uncles lookin’ out for him.)

I drew a couple good pictures for Sarah’s folks and for Pop, but it took me two weeks to get ‘em done ‘cause it’s hard snatchin’ time when he’s sleepin’, so I’m gonna give ya an abridged picture for now:

Mostly Sarah keeps him wrapped up in a blanket (Hana was awful smart makin’ us one that could get washed easy), but every once in a while his hands pop out like an award-winnin’ boxer’s, and she keeps him outfitted in these tiny hats she and her ma can crochet in about half a minute.  (I told her she should look into makin’ him a cowboy hat next time, and she said she’d see what she could do.)  If you’re wonderin’ ‘bout the smile–well, I thought it was just ‘cause he was happy, but Mrs. Jacobs busted that thought by explainin’ that when a baby’s this young, he only smiles ‘cause he’s gotta burp.  (But she says he’ll start smilin’ for real before too long, so I guess we got that to look forward to.)

Mrs. Jacobs came up from Manhattan for a month or so (with a whole pile o’ piecework she’s been sendin’ back as she gets it done, in between helpin’ with laundry an’ cleanin’ an’ a million other things–women are amazin’.) and Dave and Les and Mr. Jacobs are hopin’ to meet Danny soon–maybe not ‘til Hannukah, but I know Dave’s searchin’ for stories to chase up this way.  We’re gonna bring him to meet Pop as soon as we can, and when we make it down to Manhattan the boys’ll all meet him, and overall, things are goin’ pretty good.

–Or, they were, ‘til just now, ‘cause Danny’s decided Things Ain’t Good At All.  So I’m gonna go see what he wants, and if you’ve got any baby advice, send it my way.  I ain’t gonna throw in the towel, but I need all the help I can get.