#and my brain is a tangled skein

[mypunkpansexualtwin]

Nothing says "don't trust how you feel about life after 9 pm" like being on the verge of crying yourself to sleep over discontinued yarn (because that's at least not retreading old ground about apologies you'll never get, which is about 60% of what actually put you in this mood)

It's a test project that's a stepping stone to a bigger one. I wanna make a ten stitch twist blanket that's fuzzy yarn on one side and that ridiculous fishnet ruffle yarn on the other.

These, specifically. It's a project I've wanted to get started on for easily 5 years.

It took me two days to figure out how to attach the ruffle to the core yarn. initially thought of double knitting them together, but that doesn't actually attach the way I want and it was really easy to get them tangled. Pivoted to trying the "add scales while knitting to create a dragon scale look" technique and that worked beautifully.

Got me a cool fidget out of the concept swatch too

Now I'm just practicing it until I'm comfortable with it.

Enter The Problem.

I do not have enough of the ruffle yarn to finish the rainbow scarf I was very excited about. First project I've made specifically for myself (rather than someone else or to keep my hands busy, another thing my brain likes to retread) in also easily 5 years, and I've hit a mental roadblock

The ruffles there are the Red Heart Boutique Sashay Sequin in Champagne. This color wasn't popular enough to keep being made, but still popular enough that I've found like 3 skeins for sale, all in separate shops online, each for like $12 a pop with shipping.

I do not have $36 dollars laying around and will not be able to scrape it together before someone else inevitably buys them. Because that's just. idk. What I deserve or something.

I'm gonna go sleep this mood off.

[fairytales-and-folklore]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love 💖

Hi Grey! Thank you so much for the ask! <3

Since I did huntlow last time, I'll choose five sterek fics this time:

My Friend Thinks You're Cute

And that's when Stiles sees him, standing in the middle of the crowd, swathed in a black leather jacket, eyes alight as he flashes Stiles the most dazzlingly perfect smile. Derek The Music Major. The guy Stiles has had a massive crush on ever since they shared a class together in Stiles's freshman year. The guy who went on to graduate later that spring and leave town to go on tour with his band. The guy who composed such beautiful music that it made Stiles fall even more stupidly in love with him when he happened upon one of his live performances on YouTube the following summer. The guy who wrote the lyrics to the song he's currently up on stage singing motherfucking karaoke to. Derek Hale, Beacon Hills sweetheart, local legend, and international rising star. Derek Hale, lead guitarist of The Alphas.

Invisible String

He tries to imagine Derek taking up knitting, and has to fight to suppress the fond little flutter that stirs inside his chest at the image of Derek with a half-finished scarf splayed across his lap, yarn wrapped around his stupidly big, strong hands as he works them in an intricate pattern, the two of them sitting side by side on the couch, watching movies and working on projects together; has to bite back a bout of giddy laughter at the idea of Derek talking shop about his favorite stitch patterns, wandering down craft store aisles with a mountain of brightly colored, kitten soft skeins clutched in his arms, arguing the merits of aluminum vs. bamboo, cotton vs. wool, with those big surly eyebrows of his, as Stiles strolls along beside him. It's so absurdly soft and domestic that Stiles can't contain the longing sigh that spills out of his mouth at the thought of it.

It's A Love Story, Baby, Just Say Yes

For a while, there's a whole lot of nothing, just the sound of water splashing against tile, the scent of Stiles's Old Spice body wash wafting in the summer air, and— Wait. Is that…is Stiles singing Taylor Swift? Derek tilts his head to the side, catching sight of what is unmistakably Stiles's silhouette framed in the open window, towel wrapped around his waist, using a hairbrush as a makeshift microphone and belting out what Derek is 99% sure is the song Love Story by Taylor Swift.

Error 404: Brain Cell Not Found

He means to send the photo to Scott. Really, he does. But it's barely 9AM and he hasn't had coffee yet so his brain isn't firing on all cylinders, single brain cell chanting an endless chorus of Derek Derek Derek. Which is how he ends up accidentally sending the photo he'd just taken to Derek instead, along with the lovely accompanying caption: seriously scotty, just look at him, I think I'm in love. By the time Stiles realizes his mistake, it's too late to hit cancel. He hears the telltale chime of a successfully sent text, the little grayed-out delivered notification staring back at him with a mocking checkmark. He glances up, watching in abject horror as Derek pulls out his phone. Clocks his exact time of death as the moment Derek's eyebrows arch high enough to meet his hairline.

Hearts Like Wildflowers

Derek's presence is a solid warmth at his side, appearing through a tangle of branches in a blur of black leather and frost-bitten blue. He's been doing that a lot lately — showing up seemingly at random wherever Stiles happens to be. Stiles assumes he'd taken it upon himself to ensure that the pack's ticking time bomb doesn't go rogue and let another ancient trickster demon use his body to hurt those closest to him. He'd complain about that, only he kind of likes knowing that Derek is always there, because maybe he's a little afraid of that happening too, and he's glad to know that Derek will do what needs to be done if things go south. Derek glances over at him, careful eyes watching him as he glares down at the nemeton with a kind of fierce determination, hands balled into fists, shaking in quiet rage, and asks, in a voice that's so soft he almost doesn't hear it— "Why did you come here?" Stiles turns to look at him, eyes filled with tears that don't spill over but instead find their way into his voice. "I just—" he falters, swallows against the sudden tightness in his throat. "I don't want to be afraid anymore. I'm tired of this thing having some kind of sick power over me."

[vitxch]

the most important thing is to stop wishing and stop dreaming. that is the cause of all my problems: dreaming. i wish for silly things like gold earrings or a cloudy day or for my friends to text me back and laugh at my jokes and show me they love me. i dream of the day when i will finish a manuscript i do not hate, when all the tangled skeins of thought that crowd my brain sort themselves neatly so that i can pause see clearly, for the first time, ah, that's what it was all about. if only i could stop wishing, stop dreaming about the things i do not have, i think i would be happy. i would be forced to settle into myself, feel the edges of my body and the weight of the atmosphere spinning around me, and i would not think of the things i do not have. i would have to find purpose in the things the universe has allowed me already. i would not spend so much shopping online, or scroll through pictures of celebrities i will never, ever know. i would not hurt so much, if only i did not dream.

[a-plethora-of-peters]

I might've asked this before, but how did you come up with everyone's species/powers??

You have not asked this before and I welcome this question!

Initially, I took a look at what the Hermits say they are/what they look like on the server

So that's how Creeper Hybrid Doc, Attempted Flesh Construct Cleo, and Slime Hybrid Jevin immediately come to mind

Then I looked at popular headcanons in the fandom and went "Okay what does the fanbase like? What do I like that they like?"

Which is how we got people like Parrot/Watcher Grian, Vampire Mumbo, Werewolf Ren, Nature Spirit Gem, and Voidwalkers X & Ex

Then I went in farther and went "Okay what are the vibes that these guys personally give me?"

That's how I ended up with God of Inspiration Joe, Shadow Cryptid Etho, Demon Impulse (this was before there was that huge wave of fans making Impulse a Demon btw), and Siren Hypno.

Keralis has always vibed to me as a human but why have people insist on looking into his eyes all the time? What's so special about that? And I'm always weak for empathic bonds whether temporary or permanent. So that's how that happened.

TFC surprisingly gave me very little trouble when it came to figuring him out. I knew he was the oldest person on the Hermitcraft server and I had heard the now infamous "Philza made Minecraft" joke by this time. So I just patted TFC gently and said "This Minecraft Grandpa can hold so much love inside him!" and made him a God too lol

After that I sort of blended other people's takes with my own for everyone else.

Like I love how people make Tango have Nether Origins, but I see him being made a Blaze so much it's kinda boring to me. But a Magma Cube? Now that's cool!

Or like how after I read a series on AO3 called The Meteor Effect where a magic meteor causes the Hermits to physically change forms/give them powers, I ended up hooked on Phantom Hybrid Bdubs and Dragon Hybrid Wels. So I gave them my own little twists and boop! There ya go!

I had to do a bit of research but I pretty quickly found out ConVex/ConCorp, and all the related Vex shenanigans. But Scar and Cub don't look like Vex all the time, in fact they wear masks to show when they are Vex. So if they aren't Vex completely what are they? Well maybe they're Changelings, half-human and half-fae and they'll become full Vex when they permadie.

Sheep Hybrid Zed is a pretty popular headcanon, but I then went "Huh. What if that's just like... a suit that Zed wears?" And since Zed is one of the crazy redstone guys of the server, I figured making him a Gremlin that powers/controls a robot body would be fun!

Iskall & False were also mostly gathered from fanbase ideas that I then added my own spin on later. Like Iskall being a bit more cybernetic than the fandom usually makes him and False having the Blessing of the Blood God.

You did ask me before about how I came up with Cryptid Beef and here's a bit of extra knowledge to add to that.

So as previously explained, I had already had the idea of Beef eventually transforming into a Cryptid because of his physical changes in S8, but no thoughts on what the end result would look like beyond the Prawn from District 9 which was his original intent.

Then I saw the mantis that Doc made in s8 and my insect loving heart went 😍 AWOOOGAAAA! 😍 over it and I knew what I had to do.

I had to make Beef that Mantis.

But why would he change into a Mantis specifically? Well I already had it that being around Cryptids for too long kinda makes you a bit... not quite human yourself. So obviously Moon Big messed with him and triggered him to change into a Mantis. And that, in combination with me loving alliterative names, made them Moon Mantises.

And yeah that's sort of how my thought processes go

... actually do you want the full list of everyone? May have to censor it slightly for future spoilers but I can share it here if you'd like?

[oneblueumbrella]

The tangled skein that is my brain

I just read a Johnlock fic, based on a movie I know well, for which I just recently wrote a fic, featuring a different ship.

No wonder I have trouble figuring out where I know lines from.

[infinitesofnought]

“My Master Caeiro wasn’t a pagan: he was paganism itself. Ricardo Reis is a pagan, António Mora is a pagan, I am a pagan; Fernando Pessoa himself would be a pagan were he not such a tangled skein inside himself. But Reis is a pagan by nature, Mora by intellect; I am a pagan out of sheer rebelliousness, that is, by temperament. There was no explanation for Caeiro’s paganism, only consubstantiation.     I will define this the way one defines indefinable things, by taking the coward’s way out—by giving an example. One of the things that most clearly sets us apart from the Greeks is their absence of any concept of infinity, their distaste for infinity. Well, in that regard, my Master Caeiro shared that same un-concept. I give below what I believe to be a very precise account of the astonishing conversation in which he revealed this to me.     He was telling me—in fact, developing what he says in one of his poems in The Keeper of Sheep—that someone or other had once called him a ‘materialist poet.’ I didn’t particularly agree with this description, because my Master Caeiro is not definable in that way, but I told him that this description wasn’t entirely absurd. And I tried to explain to him, as best I could, what classical materialism is. Caeiro listened to me intently, but with a pained look on his face, then he said brusquely:     ‘But that is just very stupid. It’s the sort of thing that priests with no religion come out with, and there’s no excuse for it.’     I was taken aback, and pointed out various similarities between materialism and his own doctrine, although not including his poetry. Caeiro protested.     ‘But what you call poetry is everything. It’s not poetry, it’s seeing. Materialists are blind. You say that they say: space is infinite. Where did they ever see that in space?’     And I, somewhat confused, said: ‘But don’t you conceive of space as being infinite? Can’t you conceive of space as being infinite?’     ‘I don’t conceive of anything as infinite. How can I possibly conceive of anything as infinite?’     ‘Listen,’ I replied, ‘imagine a space. Beyond that space, there’s more space. Beyond that, still more and more and more....It doesn’t end.’     ‘Why?’ asked my Master Caeiro.     I suffered a kind of mental earthquake. ‘But what if it ends,’ I cried. ‘What lies beyond that?’     ‘If it ends, there’s nothing beyond,’ he replied.

This sort of argument, childish and feminine and therefore unanswerable, tied my brain in knots for a few minutes.     ‘But can you imagine that?’ I said at last.     ‘Imagine what? That a thing has certain limits? Of course! Anything without limits can’t exist. To exist presupposes that there is something else, which means that everything is limited. What’s so hard about thinking that a thing is a thing and not always something else beyond it?’     At this point, I had the physical sensation that I was speaking not with another man, but with another universe. I made one last effort, a detour that I convinced myself was legitimate.     ‘Listen, Caeiro...Think of numbers. Where do numbers end? Let’s take any number—34, for instance. Beyond that, we have 35, 36, 37, 38, and so on, without end. There’s no large number that doesn’t have a still larger number following it...’     ‘But that’s only numbers,’ my Master protested.     And then he added, looking at me like a formidable child:     ‘What is number 34 in Reality?’”

– Álvaro de Campos (Fernando Pessoa), from “Notes in Remembrance of My Master Caeiro”, trans. Margaret Jull Costa & Patricio Ferrari

[acdhw]

The mother of Sherlock Holmes

In a way, C. Auguste Dupin can be considered Holmes’s father, as Conan Doyle himself acknowledged having being inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s creation. The world’s very first detective is rather famous, but it seems that ACD also had more obscure sources of inspiration. Recently I watched Lucy Worsley’s documentary A Very British Murder. The series mentioned early examples of detective stories featuring female investigators. One of them is Revelations of a Lady Detective, a collection of short stories by William Stephens Hayward published in 1864.

William Stephens Hayward (1835-70) was a prolific author of Victorian "sensation" novels, historical novels, and stories for boys' papers. It is possible that ACD read his stories as a boy. Frankly, the stories gravitate towards “yellow-backed” fiction Watson occasionally favoured: the writing style and the plots are somewhat crude. But the lady detective herself is a very interesting character.

Mrs. Paschal is a widow “verging upon forty” with a “vigorous and subtle” brain. After the sudden death of her husband which left her “badly off”, she was approached “through a peculiar channel” with an offer from the Metropolitan Police to become a female detective. She is “well-born and well-educated”, resourceful, and likes an adventure. Her job is to be a police informant under different guises which she assumes “like an accomplished actress”.

Here are other very familiar features:

- Her wardrobe is “extensive and as full of disguises as that of a costumier's shop”;

- She uses logical reasoning. “I had seen a few things in my life which appeared scarcely susceptible of explanation at first, but which, when eliminated by the calm light of reason and dissected by the keen knife of judgment, were in a short time as plain as the sun at noonday.” As it was later put more elegantly by ACD, “if you eliminate the impossible...”;

- She doesn’t like to stay idle: “I was always happier in harness than out of it. I do not mean to say that I despised reasonable relaxation, but I depreciated any great waste of time”;

- She employs a street urchin “to discover minute and petty details which it was inconvenient for me to investigate myself” like watching someone on the street without raising suspicion. The urchin’s name is Jack Doyle, by the way. They met when she caught him pickpocketing, and instead of reporting him, she gave him a chance of an honest life. He became a servant in her household. She “had him washed and dressed”, “treated him kindly, gave him a certain weekly sum for wages, so that he might not be tempted to return to his own way of living from absolute want of pocket-money” and even taught him to read and write in her spare time;

- Her boss is Colonel Warner, “head of the Detective Department of the Metropolitan Police. It was through his instigation that women were first of all employed as detectives.” He is “a man of spare build, but with keen searching eyes, like those of a ferret”. He adopted the practice of employing female detectives from “Fouché, the great Frenchman”, who first came up with an idea that female informants could “assist him in discovering the various political intrigues“.

The very first story about Mrs. Paschal involves a female adversary cross-dressing as a man (hello, SCAN) and using an underground passage to steal gold from a bank (is that you, REDH?). The culprit is a rich countess, and to “unravel a tangled skein”, Mrs. Paschal gets a position of a lady’s maid in her house (just like Holmes posed as an plumber in Milverton’s house. Also, the working title of STUD was A Tangled Skein).

To follow the robber underground, Mrs. Paschal does not hesitate to ditch her crinoline, which was a sensible thing to do. Having witnessed the crime, she lamented having forgotten to take her “Colt’s revolver” with her.

Lacking a devoted companion, Mrs. Paschal narrates the stories herself. The later stories contain less personal details about her and flair in general, but if some of the better ones were adapted for TV by talented screenwriters, I’d love to see a mini-series about a badass Victorian woman in her late thirties, investigating on her own well before our good Sherlock’s time.

Revelations of a Lady Detective is available at Google books for free.

[first-and-last-neocount]

Anthony is Out, Corey is In

So, I’ve found something far more worthy of my time and thoughts than Piers Anthony’s grossness. 

A coworker of mine - who is now immediately getting upgraded to Friend status, by the way, lol - just loaned me James S. A. Corey’s novel “Leviathan Wakes”, first book of the Expanse series. I’ve had the book in my custody for about five hours, only two of which were available reading time, I’m on Chapter 7 and I’m in love. The formal second post on Bearing an Hourglass is canceled in favour of writing my next proper installment on Leviathan Wakes, so here’s my last thoughts on the Incarnations of Immortality: 

I liked Norton a lot more than Zane, but the whole of Bearing an Hourglass dragged because of those damn alternate-reality segments that had only the most tenuous relevance to the rest of the plot. It was a struggle to finish the book, and I only managed by skipping another two big chunks toward the end and just dipping back in where the thread of the main plot picked up. The third book, With a Tangled Skein, opened with some of the most skin-crawling sexism I’ve ever had the displeasure of reading: Niobe is portrayed as the most stereotyped, shallow cutout of a character I’ve ever seen. The entire book is focused on her marriage and sex life with her husband, instead of developing her actual personality and interests as the first two books did for their protagonists. Barely thirty pages into the book she gets assaulted by four college guys, which somehow puts her in the mood to have sex with her husband. I’m not going into any more detail than that, it was gross and creepy and made me feel like I needed about ten hot showers just reading it, I’m done. I’ve also been told that it somehow manages to get worse, further into the series, and I am profoundly grateful that I decided to bail when I did. 

I’m now scrubbing my brain of everything in those books, except for the general vibe of the premise, which is going through six cycles of Yuck Reduction and getting recycled into the worldbuilding for ‘Cause I Loved You For Too Long. 

NOW, ON TO LEVIATHAN WAKES. 

Proper thoughts coming in another post tomorrow (because I should really be in bed already), but oh my god, I am so incredibly invested already. The characterization is sharp and relatable, the setting is vivid and fills me with nostalgia for the old classic sci-fi from Bradbury and Heinlein, the action is beautifully paced and the intrigue has got me absolutely hooked. I’ve seen a few people talking about this series here on Tumblr, but I had no idea just what I was missing: I am so, so glad that I’ve been introduced to these books, and I’m massively enjoying myself so far. 

Get ready for a lot of sci-fi blogging from me for the next little bit XD

[lazyydaisyyy]

“I liked books about awful things - murder, illness, death. I remember selecting one of the thickest books from the public library, a chronicle of ancient Egyptian medicine, to study the gruesome practice of pulling the brains of the dead out through the nose like skeins of yarn. I liked to think of my brain like that, tangled up in my skull. The idea that my brains could be untangled, straightened out, and thus refashioned into a state of peace and sanity was a comforting fantasy.”

Otessa Moshfegh, Eileen

[janewilsonrva]

Wild Vines

Into the domain of wild vines, the narrow path emerges: all around me, nothing but contorted ropes and strands of tangled twine.

In vain, my mind tries to find order in chaos: I’m in a mad abstraction of dark skeins, haphazard silhouettes against a Delft Blue sky.

The path will lead on toward a stand of sunlit pines, and soon I will return to my ordered life. Yet my brain feels ajar – unlocked by the wild vines.

– JW (Dec. 7, 2019)

Richmond, Virginia (USA)

[youremarvelous]

On a Good Day

“You’re upset.”

“I’m not,” Yuuri fumbles the rink key free from his pocket, drops it on the floor and misses the keyhole twice before successfully unlocking the door.

“Yurik,” Viktor reaches for Yuuri’s hand as they stride through the lobby but pulls back before he reaches it, balling his fingers into his palm. “Let’s stretch before going on the ice.”

Yuuri wrestles out of his backpack straps, oblivious to Viktor’s internal struggle. “We warmed up at the house.” His words are clipped, wobbling dangerously at the back of his throat.

“But it’s cold out,” Viktor rationalizes. It’s a stupid argument because they’re standing in a room with an ice floor, and Viktor can tell from the tension around Yuuri’s eyes and the clenched set of his jaw that he thinks so, too.

Yuuri toes off his shoes without untying them because his hands are shaking too much for fine motor control. He sits heavily on a bleacher, bends to pull on his skates, and Viktor watches the crown of his head—the same skein of hair he had stared at in bed this morning, had pressed affectionate, coaxing kisses to.

“I don’t want you on the ice like this,” Viktor switches tactics, adopts his coach voice—influences of Yakov and game show judges weighing down his normally lilting inflection and leaving no room for argument. “We...you need to relax.”

Yuuri jerks his head up at Viktor, pulls his laces into a tight knot. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t really have to. Yuuri isn’t normally one to swear—barring the times he’s tripped over Makkachin or been forced to traverse a busy Russian street without a crosswalk—but the ‘fuck you’ is there in the sharp bob of his Adam’s apple, the tight line of his mouth.

He stands and Viktor steps back, lets Yuuri by, apologies and explanations tangling on his tongue. Viktor has spent a lifetime dedicating routines to memory: quad flips and practiced smiles, hair flips and manicured fingers poised around another gold medal, yet somehow he can’t nail down the part that matters most.

“No jumps today!” Viktor calls after him, sighs when Yuuri ignores him—tumbles to the ground with a sharp slap and the wringing of lungs.  

Yuuri isn’t predictable. It’s part of the reason Viktor loves him—finds him so compelling—but it’s frustrating because Yuuri’s needs are always changing depending on the time, the trigger, their surroundings, and some days Viktor feels he might as well be having a fist fight with the fog for all the good he does.

Viktor knows he can play the part correctly, he just needs to be trusted with the script.

“What’s wrong with Katsudon?” Yurio asks over lunch. Yuuri is sitting with his fork slumped in his slack grip—staring into the distance—two tables over and a million miles away.

Viktor huffs, scratches at his hairline. The atmosphere between them is charged—quiet but tense—like the slow descent of a water droplet rolling from the lip of a tap. “I’m not allowed to talk to him.”

Yurio looks to Yuuri—currently bouncing his heel so vigorously it rattles the chair legs—then back at Viktor, eyes narrowed. “What did you do.”

It’s not a question and Viktor bristles at the implication.

“Nothing,” Yuuri’s voice crackles between them, wispy and hollow. He clears his throat and tries again, “he didn’t do anything. Sorry, I’m...it’s fine.”

The ride back home is silent which doesn’t do a lot to backup Yuuri’s claim. Viktor’s nerves are wire tight and he’s leaning on the wrong side of irritated, exhausted from endlessly sifting the sands of his memory for what he did, what he should’ve done—lying in weight of the inevitable fallout. He’s already played out four separate potential arguments in his head by the time they make it back to their flat, but even then Yuuri clamps down, refuses Viktor entry. He smiles half-heartedly at Makkachin, pats her head, plods into the bedroom to change.

Viktor decides to let him go. Sometimes that’s all Yuuri needs: some quiet time alone to sort out whatever’s bogging down his brain, rattling his veins with excess adrenaline.

Viktor starts dinner and Yuuri doesn’t reappear for another five, fifteen, twenty minutes. Viktor chops carrots for a stew, tries to feed his trepidation and concern-born stress into the broth. His thoughts are fizzing out at the borders and his eyes linger a little too long at the middle distance while he tries to remember whether or not he already added pepper.

He knows what these signs mean but he refuses to allow it entry. Viktor has to try to keep his head above water because he and Yuuri will drown if they both succumb to the dark tides of their minds.

Viktor has just turned the heat on the stove to low when he feels arms wrap around his waist, hands clutch into the front of his shirt, a face pressed into his back. He starts a little, and it’s a testament to the roaring static choking out all of his senses that Viktor—normally so in tune to Yuuri’s every movement—didn’t hear his trek from the bedroom to the kitchen.

“Sorry,” Yuuri exhales, voice muffled in the fabric of Viktor’s shirt.

The words melt down Viktor’s spine, thawing out the creeping winter in his chest and flushing out his system with feelings of warm affection. He means to return the sentiment—he’d been chewing on an apology all day, for what, he isn’t quite sure—but the taste of it is suddenly stale on his tongue.

“Are you still mad at me?” He asks finally, bravely, breaking the silence.

Viktor can’t see Yuuri, but he can feel him shake his head, pressing his forehead against Viktor’s back as if to bury himself in the shrine of his ribcage. “I wasn’t really—” he begins—muffled—before pulling away, exhaling so heavily Viktor can see his chest deflate beneath his sweatshirt when he turns around to face him. “I’m just...”

“You’re allowed to be mad at me—” Viktor’s heartbeat jumps to his throat, thrumming against his tonsils—“just say you're mad.”

“It’s a bad day.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Yuuri echoes, looks somewhere between Viktor’s chin and sternum. “And I guess I’m...I don’t want you to think I’m weak.”

“I don’t think that.”

Yuuri inhales sharply, nods. “I know. I know that—” he closes his mouth, his jaw visibly working around his thoughts—“but sometimes the way you treat me. When I’m—” Yuuri hesitates—“when it’s a bad day...it can feel a little. Um, demeaning, I guess?”

Viktor’s eyebrows knit together and he opens his mouth to speak, but Yuuri cuts him off. “And I know you don’t mean that. So...” Yuuri shrugs.

Viktor knows it’s his turn to speak, but he’s having trouble translating the relief, the gratitude, the concern whirling through his head into something coherent, so he envelops Yuuri in a hug, instead.

“Are you mad?” Yuuri asks.

Viktor isn’t. Frustrated maybe—with himself, with Yuuri—but this feels like the first rung of a ladder to understanding each other, the ugly parts, the parts they don’t want anyone to see, and it’s not easy to confront but Viktor’s grateful to be granted access.

They have things to work on, sure, but they knew that going in. And they won’t know where to start unless they can open up, accept their weaknesses—that they can’t change solely by will, no matter their stubborness—and learn to meet each other halfway.

“Anxiety?” Viktor asks a few months later when Yuuri struggles to pull on his skate boot and gives up midway, running a trembling hand through his hair.

Yuuri doesn’t flinch at the previously forbidden word—a testament to his therapy, couple’s and otherwise. He curls his fingers into his thighs, hunches his shoulder over his knees and nods once. Viktor stays back and observes, waits for Yuuri to freeze him out, prepares himself to not take it personally...or at least to try not to.

To his surprise, Yuuri unfurls his fists and looks to the ceiling, then Viktor—the rink lights glinting off his glasses. “Can we go for a walk?” He asks carefully, tremulously, hesitation shimmering across his features in the bags under his eyes, the crease between his eyebrows.

“Of course,” Viktor takes his hand before he can change his mind.

They don’t make it back to the rink till after lunch. Viktor walks next to Yuuri, silently at first, a careful breath of distance between them, then Yuuri makes a comment about the clouds—thick and cotton and piled high like a field of snowmen—and Viktor reminisces about a time when he was five and utterly convinced that cotton candy was plucked from the sky—a sample of the pink sunsets he watched wash over the horizon every evening.

“Skating was my backup plan,” he tells Yuuri with a laugh, their knuckles grazing. “What I really wanted to be was a cloud harvester.”

Yuuri smiles—crooked and small but there—and weaves his fingers into Viktor’s. “I’m glad you managed to stay grounded,” he says, then looks to the sky again—stretching out in front of them like a road.  

Viktor tightens his grip, matches his pace with Yuuri.

“Me, too.”

[enby-fiber-crafts]

So yesterday was my birthday. I typically don’t really like my birthdays too much. It’s not even that I’m getting older. I think it’s that A) I hate any day where too much pressure is put on me to be happy and cheerful and B) I hate too many eyes being on me. But this was a good birthday. I stayed home and knit and read and napped and I had a good dinner and cake and that’s all I can really ever ask for. My brain even managed to contain it’s fire. Peep only some of the candles lit because my love started burning himself on the ones that were already lit and wax started dripping onto the icing. It’s a good metaphor for my life sometimes and it was perfect anyways.

The shawl/wrap is done. I was waiting to take pictures until I got it blocked but I haven’t been doing very well in the “functional brain” department (I spent a whole day having one long panic attack over, uh, I don’t actually remember now) so all I have is some FO pre actual finishing pics. But I feel like they deserve to be documented anyways.

I’m pretty pleased with how it ended up and I think I’ll be even more so once I get it blocked and weaved In and actually wear the thing over something it matches.

I got some yarn to start a scarf, but then my cats remembered that wool smells like sheep and they’re supposed to be predatory animals. So I have to decide if I want to be bothered to try and rewind an 8 dollar skein or if I want to count my losses and just get another one for scarf purposes. I kind of feel like that skein of yarn recently, to be honest. Little metaphors everywhere today. But I’m holding out during this winter to feel a bit better, less tangled up everywhere, more in control, and if you’re reading this you should too.

More later. Love yourselves in the meantime.

[egregiousderp]

@seaofolives

This is the first part of the answer to the ask meme you sent me a few days ago. I think I mentioned in the tags for the thing that it would be kind of difficult to do the word search things.

Basically? Because I’m on a phone and type my works using my right thumb and my left forefinger most of the time, and to my technology-inept knowledge there isn’t a way to ctrl-f in Apple notes.

So I spent a while trying to reread through works looking for these words myself before finding them in the more recent one. (The post GOTW fic.)

I’m kind of wondering what kind of person I am to not mention knives or dreams that frequently, but it’s possible because I was skimming that I missed it in the young monks fic.

(And come to think of it, I bet there’s both in the Jedha Threesome fic but I didn’t think to check there and I hope you forgive me for not reading through 30k of fic on a whim just on the off chance Chirrut smiles like a knife because Threesome!Chirrut is a little bit mean and Baze tones him down, and Bodhi’s probably still questioning if he’s having his brain chewed on and turned to mush by Bor Gullet. That’s my guess anyway even without a passage to context.)

So.

For the first one.

I think even in my first works more than a year ago I was fond of the headcanon that Baze and Chirrut share personal grooming in the mornings for the delight of it. Not because Chirrut is unable to care for himself, mind you, but because it grounds and comforts them both and gives an outlet to banter about and pretend about.

Baze usually shaves Chirrut and trims his hair if he needs it. (With all the lovely intimate trust implied by the mental image of him holding a nice cutthroat razor to Chirrut’s neck and Chirrut not minding at all because he knows for a fact his hands will be absolutely steady.)

And Baze’s hair is usually wrapped by Chirrut in the morning and he picks through any tangles with his fingers instead of with a comb, and oils the ends so they don’t dry out.

Taken from personal experience because I haven’t used a brush in years. (The short version on that is it makes me tangle worse and I’m lucky not to have my brother’s hair, which is actually textured.)

Baze isn’t exactly curly like me and probably doesn’t wash as frequently if the implications of the book are there/this is not a space American city and it’s very old/skuun’s working headcanon doesn’t have a tub in the ‘fresher and assumes communal bathing, and not on a daily basis because water shortages and culture among other things. But. he definitely has some volume going on.

And this particular one I think I stared at Nan’s Mer!Bazes for too long on because this particular Baze has very long sexy hair just for fun. It’s wrapped up like a skein of yarn in the warrior horn, technically.

This personal grooming headcanon habit has been broken because of Saw Gerrera and book events. Saw often seems to have the two of them separated and makes far less use of Chirrut, and my working read of the entire novel is that it takes place in an awkward, tense dry spot of tension in their relationship.

Baze has been wrapping his own hair. And Chirrut’s been shaving himself because Baze is often gone and with the rebel fighters.

A return to their old habits is a physical comfort. Simultaneously, Chirrut undoing Baze’s hair is something intimate, and only for them.

…Essentially it’s a mix of nostalgia and relief and foreplay if I can pull it off right. I’m hoping, anyway.

-

The dreams bit kind of showed up and was one of those moments where I realized in the middle of writing “Ah. Okay. So this Chirrut is going to be a bit force sensitive.”

Sometimes it works like that, I mean. I write and find out which take is going on as I’m doing it. (It’s pretty much how I found out the Jedha Threesome version of Cassian is a sex-repulsed biromantic Ace.)

It’s something where you kind of pause for a second, think about it, and realize it works with the fic so you roll with it and build on it? (“Well he hangs with a robot and makes eyes at both Jyn and Bodhi…? Yeah. Okay.” And then it snowballs into sex-as-connection and character foiling between him and Bodhi and whatever…)

Usually I favor non-sensitive Chirruts because it underlines the element of faith in what he believes. Same reason I prefer force sensitive or slightly sensitive Bazes—because it underscores his atheism and his persistence in his belief of disbelief.

Something fundamentally unfair has to happen in order to shake Baze’s faith, and there can be a few different ways you can take it. Fandom seems to agree on that much.

This particular one seems to be heading for “the Empire hurt Chirrut badly, therefore the Force is dead to me, because how could it allow such evil to happen to someone so devoted to it?” Classic Problem Of Pain. But even in disbelief, there’s the interview line from Rucka about how nothing they do surprises one another anymore.

So…given this…

Baze has to have had experiences with the Force.

It would be extremely difficult for him not to have, in his past profession. Especially if you’re working with a sensitive Chirrut.

So he has seen and felt the presence of things that are inexplicable. Even in refusal of the Force, he has the awareness that things are possible which are beyond his expectations. Things even Chirrut would find difficult to explain. If he tried to explain at all. (He probably wouldn’t. Said experiences would just be things that are, as the Force is. The Force To Chirrut is just a state of Being. A fact. A verb.)

It’s a fact in many faiths that for the existence of every miracle, you will have a person who is unmoved by it, or who refuses to be moved by it. At the very least, a person who resists the wonder.

Baze’s disbelief has to have the same kind of active “being” to it, solidified by his active will as the Force’s passive state of verb-existence. Like Resistance. Or inertia.

And yet…Chirrut has had Dreams.

Chirrut sees things that can’t be seen, can’t be combatted, and so there has to be that dim sense that his dreams might overwhelm Baze’s resolved will. A fear almost, since Baze’s identity is in part wrapped up in his very refusal to believe. Because in this case, to believe is to accept that these terrible things that happened to things and people he loved, these things that are still happening and the worse which may (read: does) happen are all fine. And they are NOT fine. Because this is a man who wants to actively punish anything that hurts the things he loves.

He’s very aware of the possibility of being overwhelmed. And he’s also afraid of what it costs if he’s overwhelmed and brought back to trusting in the Force.

All miracles are inherently dangerous.

[jouissanccs]

I remember selecting one of the thickest books from the public library, a chronicle of ancient Egyptian medicine, to study the gruesome practice of pulling the brains of the dead out through the nose like skeins of yarn. I liked to think of my brain like that, tangled up in my skull. The idea that my brains could be untangled, straightened out, and thus refashioned into a state of peace and sanity was a comforting fantasy. I often felt there was something wired weird in my brain, a problem so complicated only a lobotomy could solve it—I’d need a whole new mind or a whole new life. I could be very dramatic in my self-assessments.

— Ottessa Moshfegh, Eileen

[sussex-nature-lover]

Tuesday 7th April

Collective Nouns for Birds 

When I was at Primary School we used to have a lesson just called General Knowledge. It was always one of my favourite lessons and so much of what I learned back then has stayed with me. Collective nouns for things I’ve never forgotten and when I came across the question of nouns for birds recently some I remembered fondly and some I disputed or were new to me. It lead me into wondering how regional some are and how apt, or otherwise.

Buzzards: a wake. Not sure I’ve ever seen more than three Buzzards together and they were obviously a family.

Coots: a commotion. Well whoever decided on this one couldn’t have been more apt. In my experience Coots can cause a commotion in an empty pond and their nests look pretty much like a commotion too (taken at a pond a few minutes’ walk away)

Crows: a murder. I love Crows, they’re so intelligent and also very amusing to watch. Beyond our official garden is a large area of woodland population by huge black birds of varying kinds. Crows, Rooks and Jackdaws will often descend on the lawn together and our collective nickname is the Jets and the Sharks. It’s hard to get a photograph of just how many can be here at the same time and how they hop and dance together in a choreography of movement with wings waving.

Cuckoos: an asylum. I can’t say that I’ve ever spotted a Cuckoo and have only ever heard a single one. They must be there, but as one of life’s mysteries

Finches: a trembling. How sweet. On a more serious note, Finches are not very evident in our garden. The Greenfinch sadly disappeared altogether and quite a good number of years ago, maybe more than 12. We do get Chaffinch and infact I saw a pair yesterday, which was something to remark on. 

Goldfinch are around and about and it’s exciting when they visit and I’m still waiting for this year’s first sighting of Mr and Mrs Bullfinch now that their favourite Amelanchier lamarckii is in full bloom (seen above in a distant shot)

The blossom is followed by berries, which are always stripped from the tree.  When we did the garden here we planted quite a lot of mixed native hedging which has matured very nicely. We had five new trees in the front garden and eight at the back and made sure that the plants and shrubs we chose are bird, bee, butterfly and insect friendly.

Flamingos: flamboyance or stand. There’s something absolutely wonderful about contemplating a Flamboyance of Flamingos. It’s a new term to me, but one I won’t forget.

Geese: skein, wedge, gaggle, plump. Etched on my memory for all time...geese are a gaggle on the ground and a skein when in flight. This photograph taken in the field across the lane from us. 

Kingfishers: a crown

Ravens: a conspiracy. I can well believe it! The only time I’ve seen Ravens is at The Tower of London. We were there last Summer on possibly the hottest day in decades when the Yeomen had to cut short their tours for fear of passing out in those thick woollen uniforms. We watched a couple of Ravens for quite a time, later using the shade of a canon as shelter and delighting in the echoes they could produce from the metal as they were cawing to each other. They drew quite a crowd.

Robins: a worm. I’ve never seen more than two Robins together at one time and they’d be either a pair at this time of year, or two battling for territorial rights, or a parent and chick. I’d have thought someone could’ve come up with a better name than a Worm.

Rooks: a clamour - see as per Crows above

Skylarks: an exultation. How wonderful a thought. 

Starlings: chattering, affliction, scourge. Definitely a chattering as far as I’m concerned. Even if you’re not watching, you know when they descend as the noise level and squabbling is immense.

Starlings - flying in formation: a murmuration. NB link not updated since Covid-19 restrictions on travel 

Wrens: a chime. The lovely little Wren deserves such a quaint description, Again, I only usually see them visit alone.

Nuthatches: a booby. Ha Ha. Not come across that term before, I wonder who dreamt it up and why?

Eiders: a quilt - how apt.

Magpies: a mischief ... even more apt.

Eagles: an eyrie - also the term used for the Eagles’ nest.

Owls: a parliament. This one sticks in my mind very clearly and for quite the wrong reasons depending on the politicians of the day. Also a Wisdom of Owls, which might be more appropriate.

Sparrows: a quarrel. We’re still lucky enough to have a thriving population of House Sparrows all around our garden. We have two personal collective nouns for them which no one will have heard before. One is The Hodders, after a local builder, because they’re so busy collecting nesting material and clearing out nesting material for refurbishments and the other is The Dirks (after an old neighbour - best not to ask about that one!)

Swallows: a kettle - not sure where to start to comment on that one.

Woodpeckers: a descent. I’d have applied that to Nuthatch and gone for a Cartoon of Woodpeckers, or a Tangle, based on my own observations. Another term is a Drumming - for very obvious reasons.

Turtle Doves: a pitying. How sad.

Jays: a scold. Not sure what behaviour prompted this description. Jays here are extremely shy and very hard to photograph as they’re so quick.

And lastly, an old favourite 

Swans: wedge, ballet, lamentation, whiteness, regatta. The wedge, lamentation and whiteness can be forgotten as far as I’m concerned but the Ballet and Regatta are brilliant descriptions. Obviously not a bird I can observe at home, but always in mind as one of the most graceful and beautiful birds to watch... just look out as they can break your arm! Sorry Swans, it’s literally impossible to mention you in this house without adding that caveat.

More Collective Nouns to ponder on. There’s a comprehensive alphabetical list here. Note - with some variations from those quoted above.

♦ Outside links, shown in bold, are not affiliated

♦ I do proof read but please excuse errors and moments of brain freeze

[iopanic]

The Action: The Relationship Between God and Man

From, The Saviors of God: Spiritual Exercises, By Nikos Kazantzakis (Trans. Kimon Friar)

32. He is a power that contains all things, that begets all things. He begets them, loves them, and destroys them. And if we say, “Our God is an erotic wind and shatters all bodies that he may drive on,” and if we remember that eros always works through blood and tears, destroying every individual without mercy - then we shall approach his dread face a little closer.

33. My God is not All-Knowing. His brain is a tangled skein of light and darkness which he strives to unravel in the labyrinth of the flesh. 

34. He stumbles and fumbles. He gropes to the right and turns back; swings to the left and sniffs the air. He struggles above chaos in anguish. Crawling, straining, groping for unnumbered centuries, he feels the muddy coils of his brain being slowly suffused with light.

35. On the surface of his heavy, pitch-black head he begins with an indescribable struggle to create eyes by which to see, ears by which to hear.

36. My God struggles on without certainty. Will he conquer? Will he be conquered. Nothing in the Universe is certain. He flings himself into uncertainty; he gambles all destiny at every moment.