#i have three more pages to go and then another article… and then i actually need to write the essay… girl help

[felicitypdf]

dear god

[alien-girl-21]

The Käärijä Research Paper (tm)

aka: Error Analysis of the Use of English Articles in Jere Pöyhönen Interviews in 2023

(Before we start, a couple of clarifications: firstly, I am a linguistics student and this research was my final project for my psycholinguistics course, secondly, this was a group research and I have gotten permission from my friends to share these results with y'all so tysm to them, and lastly, the og work is LONG, 50 pages long, so I'm condensing it into the important bits)

Findings and explanations under the cut <3

Before sharing the actual research, i'm going to share some important terms for you guys to understand the overall layout of this work.

Error analysis: kind of self explanatory, it's the process of analyzing errors, specifically in one's speech, more on how we did this later.

Omission: The alienation of a linguistic form in speech (i.e. I go to (the) supermarket.).

Addition: The opposite of omission, putting an unnecessary linguistic form in a sentence (i.e. It's the maybe half and half.).

Substitution: Exchanging a linguistic form for another one (i.e. He admitted to have stolen a wallet. Instead of: He admitted to having stolen a wallet.).

Overgeneralization: Looking at a grammatical rule and thinking it applies to every case with no exceptions (i.e. finding out verbs conjugated in the past end in -ed and creating conjugations like writted instead of written). Also known as intralingual transfer.

Negative transfer: When your mother tongue (L1) seeps into your second/foreign language (L2) (in this case it's foreign language, but I'll still call it an L2 for simplicity's sake), if we're talking about Spanish negative transfer it can look like: the car red (Spanish adjectives go after the noun, unlike in English). Also known as interlingual transfer.

Local error: An error that does not affect the overall meaning of the sentence, making it still understandable.

Global error: An error that affects the overall meaning of the sentence, making it difficult to understand without clarifications.

Okay, with that out of the way, let me explain what we did:

We decided to make an error analysis on how Jere utilized articles (the, a/an) throughout 2023, for this we considered 2 interviews and 1 Instagram live, the interviews were: KÄÄRIJÄ TRIES LITHUANIAN FOOD (uploaded on 12/04/23) and Episode 3: Käärijä and friends (uploaded on 26/12/23), the ig live was the one he did to promote the release of Huhhahhei on 19/10/23, the dates are important for later.

Now, to do the error analysis in itself we followed Rod Ellis’ proposal for error analysis which follows four main steps:

Identifying errors: Self-explanatory, you see what errors one has committed.

Describing errors: Once you see the errors, you describe what exactly the error is, it can be with grammatical categories, or with omission, misinformation, addition, misordering, and substitution.

Explaining errors: After describing the error you need to explain why this error was committed, the two main ways are through overgeneralization and negative transfer.

Error evaluation: After all this, you identify how the error affected the overall message of the sentence being spoken, was it local or global?

We put these steps into a chart and listened to the interviews and identified the errors we found, it’s a really long chart, so if you want to see it fully you can find it here (hopefully). After identifying all the errors and doing our own error analysis we… well, analyzed the data, duh, according to the objectives we set up for the research.

Our first objective was to identify errors Jere has committed regarding articles in the three videos I mentioned. What we analyzed was more grammatical, so what grammatical structure he used the most. He usually omits an article before a noun and with adjectives, like in: “We go to bar with my producer…”, or “Käärijä goes to boat.”, or “I am fine, uh… little bit tired.”. Obviously, this is kind of expected because Finnish does not have articles, but he also adds articles when it is not necessary, like in: “I have the one festival.” Here are the charts of the grammatical trends:

Then we focused on the describing errors part of our analysis. In this part, we found out that he usually finds himself committing omission errors, with 67 in total across the three videos, like I said before, expected, however, the second most common error is addition, this means he adds an unnecessary article in a sentence, and what’s interesting is that he usually does it with the article “the”. Since this is not an actual academic article I will speculate with a full chest: I think he does this because people are usually taught that “the” is the only article in English (only definite one, but not the only one), and that nouns usually have an article accompanying them, so I think that he adds the when he is unsure if an article needs to go there or not. Finally, there was only one case of substitution: “This is the lovely story.”, not really sure why he did this, but it’s interesting that it only happened once. Have the charts and graphs:

We moved to the next step: explaining errors. When we started this research, we thought that we would only have negative transfers since, ya know, Finnish grammar and all, and we were kind of right? He has committed negative transfer errors the most, with 66 in total, but he also had 23 overgeneralization errors, which I didn’t really expect to happen with articles that much. Not much else to say here, have charts:

Lastly, error evaluation. He made mostly local errors, which is what mainly characterizes his speech, we know what he’s saying, he just usually lacks some grammatical form that doesn’t affect his overall meaning. He did have 15 global errors that unless you have the context, it can be a little confusing to understand what he’s trying to say (like in the ig live he said “here tour” when he wanted to say “here in the tour”). Charts!

Our final objective was to see the evolution of these errors, has he made more or less as time went on? Well, since we all can see and hear, he has made a great improvement! You already have the charts above to understand that, but I just have to explain it. In the first interview, in April, he made 50 mistakes in total, by the ig live he had cut those in half, and by the latest interview he gave in English he had cut the mistakes in half again! Have the graphs to accurately see this:

He has improved so much in such a short amount of time! Even more impressive when he hasn’t really taken any formal English classes, just by talking to Bojan and Alessandra. There’s a difference between language learning and language acquisition that was proposed by Stephen Krashen (cool dude, if you’re interested in language learning, go check him out). He says that people usually learn more by acquiring (unconscious) rather than learning (conscious), and you can see that Jere has learnt so much by acquiring English through his friends and his own experiences! And this is just looking at how he uses articles, there is also a distinctive change in how he uses other grammatical forms (but that was too much work for just 2 weeks, maybe I’ll do it later, no promises on anything, though). Even if we’re not talking about his grammatical and syntactical forms, his pronunciation has improved as well! My friends were fascinated by how his accent seemed to develop from video to video, which was very sweet because his accent is one of my favorite things about his speech, but that’s off topic.

The general takeaway from this research is: Jere still has a lot of Finnish tendencies in his English, he has developed his own grammatical structures to communicate in English, and how much he improved in an 8-month period is kind of insane, especially for an adult (who are the age group who have the most trouble learning languages). He’s the it-girl of blowing off a linguist’s mind (me, I’m the linguist)

That would be all!! If you have any other questions, feel free to ask! I'm more than glad to answer them

[ecoamerica]

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[eeveearoace-creative]

a speech about goncharov i made for my public speaking class!

note: this is not exactly what will be spoken for my class, as i am not reading my speech word-for-word. however, this is an outline of the speech i will be presenting, and i thought y'all might be interested in seeing it.

Introduction:

The purpose of my speech is to inform my audience of the fake movie “Goncharov” and how it has impacted me. My goal is to inform my audience of how the fake movie “Goncharov” came to be and of the value it has. 

By a quick show of hands, how many of you have seen or heard of Goncharov before? [Quick pause as I wait for no hands – or almost no hands – to go up.] Alright. So, Goncharov was a 1973 mafia movie supported by Martin Scorsese, and has been widely regarded as the greatest mafia movie of all time. It’s about the Russian mafia in Naples, Italy, and follows a variety of characters such as Goncharov himself, Katya, who is Goncharov’s wife, Audrei “The Banker” Daddano, and my personal favorite, Joseph “Ice Pick Joe” Morelli, with actors such as Robert De Niro, Cybill Shepherd, Harvey Keitel, and Lynda Carter. So, why have you never heard of this movie before? Well, everything I just told you? It’s all a lie. It’s all made up. Goncharov? Yeah. It never actually existed. 

I remember being part of the Goncharov fandom as it first blew up on Tumblr in late 2022. It was a great source of joy for me and made a significant impact on Tumblr’s culture. I am going to show my audience how Goncharov came to be, the creativity is spawned, and briefly reflect on how the website it originated on was vital for its growth. 

So, what is Goncharov, and what is going on here?

Origins:

Goncharov was a fake movie created by Tumblr in late 2022. 

Sometime prior to August 22nd, 2020, Tumblr user ZootyCoon posted a photograph of knockoff boots they had bought that advertised a non-existent movie, Goncharov, on them, claiming that Goncharov was “the greatest mafia movie of all time.” In response, on August 22nd, 2020, another Tumblr user, AbandonedAmbition, commented “This idiot hasn’t seen Goncharov”, which was then added to the post itself by Tumblr user LoserMo. 

While ZootyCoon’s original post did receive some attention, it wasn’t until November 18th, 2022 that Goncharov truly hit it off as a cultural phenomenon, thanks to Tumblr user Beelzeebub, who posted a fan-made poster for Goncharov, receiving almost 20,000 likes and over 15,000 reblogs in three days. 

Fandom:

As it turns out, you don't actually need a piece of media to be real in order for a fandom to form around it.

Countless fanworks were created for Goncharov, including fanart, fanfiction, music, scene analysis and analysis of motifs, gif sets, memes, and so much more. As mentioned in a YouTube video by YouTuber ColeyDoesThings, there was even a time where Goncharov had more fanfiction on a popular fanfiction website than James Cameran’s Avatar, the highest grossing movie of all time. 

So much lore was being created for Goncharov in such a short amount of time that efforts had to be made to record it all. Multiple individuals attempted to create a “master copy” of Goncharov’s lore, including what is now a 48-page Google doc that includes a plot summary, brief descriptions of various scenes, and links and sources to various contributors. 

But Goncharov could not be contained just to Tumblr. Various media outlets, such as The New York Times, The Guardian, Forbes, and The Washington Post all posted articles about Goncharov, an internet phenomenon. 

Tumblr:

But, why? Why this fake movie, and why on Tumblr of all places? 

As a social media site, Tumblr has an incredibly weird culture. There are no public follower counts, no verification for users, and a whole array of weird social rules. But one thing that really makes Tumblr special is the interaction between large and small blogs alike. Because anyone can and is encouraged to create their own content and add to others’ content, something like Goncharov could very quickly become a “yes, and” game among Tumblr’s users. 

Tumblr is also very much a “fandom” site. Fanart, fanfiction, and other fanworks dominate the website, and Goncharov in its heyday was no exception. Interactions between fans and fan creators is what really causes fandoms to grow and survive, so it makes sense that Goncharov thrived the way it did considering how easy it was to find fellow fans. With no pressure to reveal your “true” self, there’s a lot less pressure when you share what you’ve created. 

Conclusion:

So, what can we learn here?

The fake movie “Goncharov” was unintentionally created by a tag on a pair of off-brand boots but didn’t truly become popular until Beelzebub’s poster. Fandom quickly grew around it, creating countless fanworks, but Tumblr’s unique culture as a social media site is what truly allowed it to thrive. 

There is joy and creativity in unusual places. Whether or not you believe Goncharov to be a waste of time, the popularity of a fake movie says something about the human fascination with stories. Thank you. 

[ukrfeminism]

A UK academic who has completed a project creating a Wikipedia page for a woman in every country in the world is calling for more women to contribute to the world’s largest encyclopedia.

Lucy Moore, an archaeologist and curator who also works as an unpaid carer, began the mammoth project in 2021 from her sofa in Leeds, completing it last week – “unsurprisingly, perhaps, I got really stuck on Vatican City”.

She has now written biographies of 532 women since 2019, when she first became a Wikipedia editor, including scientists, monarchs, activists, writers and women whose faces are well known but their stories are not, such as Sharbat Gula, the refugee with striking green eyes pictured in the famous Afghan Girl portrait from 1984.

Less than 20% of the biographies on English language Wikipedia are about women, although this is an improvement on 16% in 2014, when “a range of different editors started to get together and say, ‘Actually, we really need to change this’,” said Moore.

She began by making a table of UN member states and partially recognised UN states, such as Kosovo and Taiwan, and worked through the list based on who caught her eye.

She has now also written dozens of entries for women in autonomous regions such as Hong Kong, Zanzibar and Tibet, and those in overseas territories.

There were many women she had expected to find already had pages, such as Julia Chinn, an enslaved woman who was the common-law wife of the ninth vice-president of the United States, Richard Mentor Johnson.

“She’s really interesting and I was really surprised no one had written about her before,” she said.

She tended to focus on women who share her interests, she said, such as poets, activists and coin specialists, known as numismatists, which is her own field.

“I find it really calming,” she said. “I can go and bury myself in something that is totally, totally different from my day to day.”

But it has not been easy. She said one of the issues was that Wikipedia required three reliable sources for each biography and, while there may have been a lot written on social media about some of the women, they may not have appeared in newspapers, especially in countries where women’s achievements are not taken seriously.

The reaction to her project has been positive, she said. “No one’s said anything nasty on Twitter, though I expect that will come.”

Moore points to the work of her fellow editor Jess Wade, who wrote a number of Wikipedia pages about female scientists, “and then another editor came along and nominated them all for deletion. It was really nasty.”

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She said there was some general criticism on social media that Wikipedia editors were “making (the gender balance) more of an issue than it actually is”.

“And I find that attitude really annoying, to be honest, because it’s men who say that primarily.”

She pointed to research from 2022 that found there were more Wikipedia entries about football and footballers than there were about women.

However, Moore added: “Some of the most prolific people who work to redress the gender balance on Wikipedia are men and I’m not sure they would all describe it as being a feminist, but that’s what they’re doing.”

Run as a non-profit, open-source encyclopedia that is free to use, Wikipedia can be edited by anyone but only a fifth of its 124,000 regularly active editors are women.

“We do need to get more women to edit, but it’s not just as simple as saying, ‘Hey, women, come and edit’, because we have so much more pressure on our time. There’s all these different studies that show that women have less time to devote to things of interest. And that’s before you even get on to being able to access sources, being able to access particular academic journal articles, which are paywalled.”

Class was also a factor in who contributes and appears on Wikipedia, as was access to education, especially in countries where women are not routinely educated.

“It just gets more and more systemic, the more you look at it,” she said.

Some of the women recognised by Moore

Julia Chinn (c. 1790 – July 1833) was an American plantation manager and enslaved woman of mixed race, who was the common-law wife of the ninth vice-president of the United States, Richard Mentor Johnson. She had two children with the plantation owner and congressman Johnson, who inherited her when his father died, though she would fulfil what at the time was considered the role of the wife of a politician. She was never freed.

Sharbat Gula (born c. 1972) is an Afghan woman who became internationally recognised as the 12-year-old subject in Afghan Girl, a 1984 portrait taken by American photojournalist Steve McCurry that was later published on the cover of National Geographic. The portrait was shot at Nasir Bagh, Pakistan, where Gula was living as a refugee after fleeing the Soviet–Afghan war. Having raised a family in Pakistan for 35 years, Gula was deported to Afghanistan in 2017, later being granted asylum in Italy.

Jeanne Gapiya-Niyonzima (born 12 July 1963, in Bujumbura) is a human rights activist from Burundi. She is the chair and founder of the National Association for Support for HIV-Positive People with Aids (ANSS) and was the first person from the country to publicly admit they had HIV. Gapiya-Niyonzima won the World Food Program prize in 2003, in 2011 addressed the United Nations committee for HIV/Aids in New York and was selected as the Burundian Woman of Courage of the Year in 2012.

Ólafía Einarsdóttir (28 July 1924 – 19 December 2017) was an Icelandic archaeologist and historian, becoming the first Icelander to complete a degree in archaeology. She taught at the University of Copenhagen and published many works about Icelandic sagas and Viking history. Ólafía was awarded an honorary doctorate by the faculty of history and philosophy at the University of Iceland in 2009. The journal Ólafía, published by the Icelandic Association of Archaeologists since 2013, is named after her.

[celticcrossanon]

BRF Reading - 30th of December, 2023

This is speculation only

Cards drawn on the 30th of December, 2023

Question: How does Harry feel about the 'brotherly love' between Prince William and Mike Tindall, as per the media articles?

Note: Harry's energy is very heavy in this reading. At first the cards refused to shuffle, like he was sulking and didn't want to answer, and when they did start moving and shuffling the energy was exhausting. I'm drained and all I have done is shuffle the cards and pull 4 for the reading.

I'm not going to go too deeply into Harry's energy here, instead I am going to skim the surface and give you those impressions.

I feel nauseous as well - that just hit me as I went to pick up the cards, so I will now look at them and not touch (touching gives me more of the energy they are emitting). I would say Harry is sick to his stomach over the thought of someone else being William's brother, even thought he may not admit that to himself.

Interpretation: Harry is not happy about this at all.

Card One: The Four of Cups in reverse.

The Four of Cups is one of my cards for gossip. This tells me that Harry has read or heard the gossip about Prince William and Mike being like brothers. The energy from this card is very upset, so I would say that Harry is very upset over this news. It is a temper tantrum energy as well, with the sense of Harry screaming 'Mike can't be Wills's brother, I am his brother!' and then holding his breath until he passes out (I'm actually feeling both nauseous and light headed as I write this).

The Four of Cups is reverse can mean someone wanting to have those opportunities again, and that is the other energy I am getting from this card. Harry still sees himself as Prince William's brother, and he wants to be the one having the 'brotherly love' articles with William, not Mike. He wants to be the royal brother again.

Surprisingly enough, I am getting no recognition of the pain he has caused his brother - Harry seems to think that he can go back and his relationship with William will be exactly like it was in the past. He expects William to welcome him back with open arms and not to hold any of his actions against him.

Cups is the suit of emotions, so this card tells me that Harry is having quite a few feelings about these media articles.

Card Two: The Empress in reverse.

The Empress is the maternal card, the caring and nurturing card, and it tells me that this is how Harry sees Prince William - as a caring and nurturing big brother who will always love him and protect him, no matter what he does. He sees Prince William more like a parent than like a sibling, or at the very least a 50:50 blend of both. In the reverse, this card tells me that Harry's reaction to those articles is that of a child who feels betrayed by its mother/nurturing parent.

You know when you say No to a toddler and they throw an tantrum and say 'I don't like you any more?' to hurt you because they are not getting their way? I am getting that sort of energy from this card - a petulant, sulky energy that says 'you hurt me by being friends with Mike in front of the media so now I am going to hurt you'. The hurt and outrage is not so much that Prince William is friends with Mike, but that Prince William showed that affection in front of the media and destroyed Harry's bubble that he was the favoured brother and Prince William loved him best. That is where the outrage is coming from - the parent (Prince William) dared to do something that showed the child (Harry) was not the centre of his universe, There is an energy of the child (Harry) lashing out in response to this, so I would not be surprised if another attack directed at Prince William appears from the Harkle camp quite soon.

Card Three: The Page of Pentacles

The energy from this card is quite calm, in comparison to the other two cards, but it is also nasty, and intentionally nasty. Pages can be earth sign children, and they can be messages, and Harry is the earth sign son of the King who is currently throwing a tantrum over these media stories (behaving like a child).

The Page of Pentacles is also my card for the UK, and Pentacles is the suit of material goods. The energy I am getting from this card is that Harry is comforting himself and deliberately trying to hurt his brother by saying something like the following to himself: 'Mike Tindall is only pretending to like you [Prince William] because of your position, as you can give him money and status. He doesn't really like you for yourself. You need me because I am your brother.'

It is a mix of energy that is sheer nastiness that wants to hurt Prince William and energy that wants to weasel back into place as Prince William's brother (an "I'm the favourite - you like me the best anyway' energy) that is also very insecure. Underneath it all is sheer terror at the thought of being replaced by another family member.

Underlying Energy: The Knight of Swords

This card has the same energy that it did in my reading yesterday: Two men (brothers/half brothers/family members/friends) who share a very close bond, have similar beliefs, and who will fight the other person's battles with them. Once Harry thought this was himself and Prince William. Now it appears that it is Prince William and Mike Tindall, and Harry does not like that idea one bit. I would not be surprised if he lashed out at Mike Tindall in some way, as he does seem to see Mike as replacing him or taking his place in the family, at least with Prince William.

Conclusion:

Harry hates the idea of Prince William and Mike Tindall being like brothers. In his mind, he is the only brother that Prince William has, wants, or needs. Harry is very hurt that Prince William would do something that would let the papers say that Mike Tindall is like a brother to him (I can hear screaming in my head saying 'That is my job', with an emphasis on the word 'my'). He sees Prince William as a parent as well as a brother, and like any hurt toddler, he is going to lash out at the parent who hurt him, safe in the knowledge that said parent does really love him and will forgive him once the temper tantrum is over.

As well as these hurt feelings, there is an energy of possessiveness in this reading (a sense of 'you can't have him - he is mine) and an energy of 'William will always forgive me'. Harry seems to think that the moment he goes back to the UK, things between him and William will be just like they always were - maybe not right away, but definitely in a week or two. Having Mike Tindall in the picture mars that image and brings a lot of insecurity to the surface. Harry thought he would always have the role of 'the royal brother' and he is terrified by the thought that this may not be the case - that he can be replaced by another family member in any way (replaced in Prince William's affections, in who does what with Prince William, in who Prince William walks with/sits with/invites into his activities etc).

[lamarseillasie]

Marat et Le Junius Français

I know it's been a while since I've done a post like this one, but that doesn't mean I've lost interest in writing about little-known anecdotes and adventures of Marat! One of them is the brief and chaotic existence of Le Junius Français, one of Marat's lesser-known newspapers, which he created and published during the month of June 1790.

The probable reason why hardly anyone knows that Junius Français existed (the only Marat historian I've ever seen mention it was Olivier Coquard in his Jean-Paul Marat, une lumière en Révolution : biographie d'un homme des Lumières devenu l'Ami du peuple) is that it only had 13 issues in total. Its publication was somewhat turbulent, lasting only three weeks, for obvious reasons. But it is still, in all its context, a very interesting and surprising periodical.

The creation of the short-lived newspaper comes at a complicated and somewhat hectic time for Marat, who had just returned from London in May and was keen to resume publication of L'Ami du Peuple and join the patriotic press. As usual, Marat had to remain underground, as he continued to be the target of legal proceedings and arrest warrants and the publication of L'Ami du Peuple was, unsurprisingly, banned by the authorities. In addition, there was also a constant fight against forgers - the fake Marat, plagiarists who published newspapers and pamphlets under his name, which may also confirm the influence and popularity he had gained at the time. These forgeries of L'Ami du Peuple began to appear in large numbers from 1790 onwards, and Marat made an effort to defend himself against them as soon as he returned to Paris. Not only him, but the Revolution in general was going through a turbulent situation. There had been conflicts involving bakers and grain, the question of war and federations, as well as other external crises that concerned France.

It was against this backdrop of accusations against conspirators, clandestinity and arrest warrants that Marat created Le Junius Français, a second newspaper, which was published for the first time on June 2, 1790. During its publication, Le Junius Français coexisted with L'Ami du Peuple, and both periodicals were published (almost) every day until the end of the first, in its 13th issue, on June 24.

On the structural aspects of the newspaper, Professor Coquard, already cited above as the main basis of this post, comments in Marat, L'Ami du Peuple [p.243]:

This second newspaper presents itself exactly like L'Ami du Peuple: an eight-page in-oitavo printed on poor quality paper that comes out of the workshops of "Guilhemat et Arnulphe, printers of Liberty, at 23 rue Serpent" and is distributed - door to door only - "every morning at number three rue Contrescarpe-Dauphine". Junius seems to focus more specifically on articles of denunciation, while L'Ami du Peuple is probably looking for more general political analysis. However, the two sheets are quite similar.

The name chosen by Marat for the newspaper, "Le Junius Français", also intrigued me. I found in this note apparently (?) written by G. Eljorf through Le gazetier révolutionnaire, a catalog of periodicals of the time, an explanation that seemed to me quite plausible and accurate about the title:

Lucius Junius Brutus and Marcus Junius Brutus are two figures from Roman history engaged in the struggle against tyranny, that of Tarquin and that of Caesar respectively. The pseudonym Junius had been used by an anonymous English pamphleteer around 1770 in a series of letters critical of the government of George III (Junius Letters).

We can speculate on various reasons why Marat might have created the newspaper in such a complex period. Perhaps it was one of his skillful political strategies to amplify his attacks on his enemies at a time of difficulty, but it could also have been the start of a newspaper that Marat actually planned to maintain, so that he could give L'Ami du Peuple another direction. The intentions and objectives of Junius Français, at least, are clearly explained on page 8 of the first issue:

This journal is particularly intended to follow the deaf maneuvers of the revolution's enemies, to reveal their relations with foreign cabinets, to vent the plots of traitors to the Fatherland, to serve as a cry of alarm, to disconcert their dark schemes.

The history of its sessions will be followed by reflections adapted to the subject, portraits of the authors of the most important motions, of the ministers and of the most remarkable figures in the history of the revolution. Finally, it will report on new events likely to pique public curiosity.

In fact, at least in the first issue - which I analyzed more meticulously than the others - he does what he says. He first scolds the Parisians, in the same fraternal and unmistakable style as L'Ami du Peuple, and then recounts the May 31 session of the National Assembly, where a case of conflict between the grenadiers of the Royal Navy regiment was discussed in which a group of patriots had been brutally mistreated. He speaks briefly about the decisions concerning the civil organization of the clergy and denounces the Dutch. He constantly maintains the spirit of denunciation, calling on the people to take revenge. Although his name only appears in 4th issue, it's not hard to spot Marat's pen in every word.

Marat unfortunately didn't manage to keep publishing Junius Français for long. Certainly, the newspaper ceased publication at the end of June for a number of reasons, and among them there is no doubt that Marat must have been overwhelmed with writing and managing the printing and correspondence for two revolutionary periodicals at once. Expenses, lack of time and problems involving the printers of both Junius and L'Ami du Peuple must have contributed to the sudden demise of this newspaper.

I found it interesting to bring up Junius Français because, as well as being one of Marat's most unknown and neglected works, it is also one of his writings that impresses me the most, since he managed to keep both newspapers going at the same time in a chaotic context in which he had to hide from the police, manage the publication of other of his works, solve plagiarism problems and at the same time pay attention to the political situation in France, which was becoming increasingly tense. His commitment, his incessant dedication to producing even in the most difficult and theoretically impossible times is always fascinating, to say the least, and Junius Français is an example of how Marat's revolutionary activity was frenetic and tireless even underground and under threat from the government. His attempt to maintain the two newspapers, despite failing, went beyond Marat's own limits and was, in a way, a good propaganda tool against his political enemies.

[ecoamerica]

Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared

The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!

[leiawritesstories]

I saw the below prompt and could easily imagine Aelin running a black market of printing services and I would love to see what kind of favors she’d take from a certain buzzard who is pressed for time.. especially if they’ve maybe been secretly pining after one another this whole time? 👀

Prompt: You’re the only one in our college dorm building that owns a printer so you run a black market of printing services for favors/money/food/etc. I don’t have time to walk twenty minutes across campus to the library, please help me.

Congrats on 500!

ANON DID YOU READ MY MIND????

Okay so.....this is actually real-life me at my college 🤣🤣🤣 I own a desktop printer so I don't have to use the campus printing service all the time and half the people in my building want to use it. Naturally I charge a fee--either money or food or coffee, i'm not picky lol. Anyway this is literally me in real life except for the secretly pining part bc i'm very very single and I adore this prompt, thank you so so much 😁

Here you go!!

Word count: 870

Warnings: maybe some swearing

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Hey, Galathynius! Do me a solid?"

Aelin glanced over her shoulder to find Fenrys jogging after her, catching up to her before they made it to the dorm building they both lived in. "What do you want, Moonie?"

The blonde huffed a dramatic sigh. "First of all, stop calling me that, you know it doesn't fit my mature persona." Aelin snorted so hard she almost coughed. Fen just rolled his eyes. "Secondlyyyy," he groaned dramatically, "I need to print a paper. Lemme use your printer? Pretty pretty please?" He widened his big brown eyes irresistibly.

"Your sad puppy face isn't gonna get you free printing, Moonie," Aelin drawled. "A dollar a page, or $30 flat if it's more than 20 pages."

"Highway robbery!" he gasped.

She rolled her eyes. "It's the same price I've always charged and you know it."

"Ugh, fiiiiine," he grumbled. "Unless...how about I cover your coffee for the next week?"

"Hmm." She pretended to seriously think about it, knowing full well that she'd accept. Who was Aelin Galathynius to turn down free coffee, especially when she spent somewhere around 40 dollars a week on her precious caffeine. "All right, I accept. I'll text you my drink order, and I expect it delivered every morning as I leave for my first class."

Fen saluted her. "Yes ma'am!" he chirped.

She smacked his shoulder teasingly. "Cut the flourishing, drama queen." Fen flashed her a grin and jogged off towards his next class, while she swiped her student ID in the building's card reader and walked into the dorm. She, Elide, and Lysandra shared a triple room with an ensuite bathroom on the fourth floor, so she had to climb three flights of stairs to get to her room. As she opened her door, she noticed a sticky note stuck to the wood. It wasn't uncommon; people who wanted to buy her printing service often left notes stuck to her door. She gave the note a cursory glance.

HELP! Need to print 30 pages for 2pm class! -RW, #350

Aelin glanced at her phone. It was 1:15 pm, meaning whoever had left that note was probably pacing around their room in distress right about now. So of course, she decided to go pay Room 350 a little visit.

"Ah, shit!" yelped a male voice from inside the room when she knocked. There was a flurry of noise and stumbling, and a tall guy wearing a UTerr Hockey sweatshirt opened the door, his pale blonde hair a frazzled mess. "Um, hi?"

"Well hello there, Whitethorn," Aelin smirked, delighted to see the normally perfectly put-together Rowan Whitethorn, star defenseman of UTerr Hockey, all flustered over not having printed materials for class.

"Aelin, thank the fuckin' gods," Rowan gasped. "Did you get my note?"

"Mhmm," she hummed, intentionally vague.

"Ae," he groaned, his desperation showing, "can you print my articles? Please?"

"Got payment?"

"I--yeah, gimme a sec." He vanished into his room and banged around for another couple of minutes, rummaging through drawers and probably his closet as he tried to find cash. He reappeared with a sheepish, embarrassed blush staining his chiseled cheeks. "Uh..."

"No cash?" Aelin clicked her tongue softly. "Sorry, Ro. I don't take credit cards."

"Please," he begged, dropping right down to his knees in front of her. "Fuck it, Ae, I'm desperate! I'm fucked if I don't come to class prepared, the professor already thinks all athletes are dumb jocks who pass classes on daddy's money." He clasped his hands together and stared imploringly up at her, his deep green eyes wide and pleading.

A very naughty part of Aelin wanted to tell him all the sinful ways he could pay her for printing his articles. But because she was a mature woman, she kept that part of herself quiet.

"Well," she mused, "I suppose you could offer me a favor, but it better be worth thirty pages."

Rowan closed his eyes and tipped his head back, a soft groan slipping from his lips as he frantically tried to think up a worthy favor. That gods-damned little groan of his did bad, bad things to Aelin's naughty little inner voice.

Or maybe that was just her enormous little crush on him.

"Dinner." Rowan's voice broke through her traitorous wandering thoughts.

"What?"

"I'll buy you dinner," he repeated. "Anywhere you want, as much food as you want. I swear."

Aelin couldn't have stopped her response no matter how hard she tried. "Like a dinner date?"

Rowan's face flushed a surprisingly endearing shade of vibrant pink. "Um...yeah?"

A tiny, pleased smile curled the corners of Aelin's lips, blooming into a full-blown smile the longer she made him squirm. "Okay, I accept. It's a date." Without waiting for his response, she waltzed off.

When she returned to his room, his articles in hand, he was waiting by the door. He took the papers from her with a slow, relieved smile that made a dimple in his left cheek pop out.

"Thanks, Ae."

"Of course." She waved him off. "Better not be late, Ro."

"You too." Her brows furrowed in confusion, and he winked. "Our date, darlin'. Seven o'clock tomorrow. I'll pick you up."

Gods help her, she could not wait.

~~~

TAGS:

@live-the-fangirl-life

@superspiritfestival

@thegreyj

@wordsafterhours

@elentiyawhitethorn

@morganofthewildfire

@backtobl4ck

@rowanaelinn

@house-of-galathynius

@tomtenadia

@julemmaes

@swankii-art-teacher

@charlizeed

@booknerdproblems

@chronicchthonic14

@earthtolinds

@goddess-aelin

@sweet-but-stormy

@clea-nightingale

@autumnbabylon

@darling-im-the-queen-of-hell

@llyncooljones

@silentquartz

[jazztag]

A Cure for Solitude XVI

Medic is suddenly awakened by some loud knocks on the lab’s door. He checks the cameras, quite hoping it’s W who has decided to stop being an idiot and come to him again.

It isn’t. Instead, on the black and white screen, M sees the familiar face of Army no- Amy, the soldier woman who tends to patrol around the farthest areas in the city.

“C’mon, it’s important” rushes him the soldier, when M unlocks the big heavy metal door.

“What” questions M as soon as she comes inside his humble home. She is pacing around, uncomfortable. Finally, sits down on a near couch and lets her rifle rest on the floor. She looks to the floor.

“Remember when you promised me that?”

Medic disregards his annoyance at once and relaxes a bit. “Yeah”.

She looks then at him in the eye, and his smile shines, something than not even M, who has known the woman for most than two years now, has seen previously. Amy’s eyes shine with some tears strained in them, and there’s faith in there. M steps back a bit, a little bit taken aback by everything that’s going on.

“What? What, Amy? Speak”

The woman dries her eyes and steps up. She adopts a position of rest, as far as a military does, her gun on her side.

“They have approved Protocol T” and she smiles again. But M, on his side, his mouth closes shut.

“What do you mean, Protocol Test was something that our government banned after that fiasco with the Institute, they can’t…”

“Well, they now can! Remember the coup d’etat last year? Some commissions got created, some people left the government, new ones arrived…”

Medic walks frantically around the room.

“That’s bad. That’s really bad…”

Amy grabs him by the shoulders, stopping him in his tracks. She looks at him, half smiling.

“Don’t you get it? Now we actually can find a cure! Now we will all work towards the vaccine! No more gatekeeping, finally full Countries will start trusting each other with the information and…”

“No!” yells M, fleeing from her hold. He backs away into a corner, and repeats himself again, much quietly: “no…”

Amy furrows her brows and decides to let her weapon right there by the wall. She approaches M again, cautiously, but while following the scientist around the improvised apartment, her eyes start to wander around all the papers and documents that decorate each surface. A lot of medical words she has never understood. Then, half hidden under another pile, some random newspapers. Wait…

M arrives by the coffee machine and gets a fresh cup. He gulps it all down. He tries to get his hair away from his eyes for the fifth time.

“You don’t get it, Amelia. How could you? You just wait for results, and when you find them, you just… steal them”

Amy turns to the scientist, raising one eyebrow. Then she returns her attention to the newspaper cover, one from almost three years. There’s a group of scientists there, in the first article, a big photo with a lot of people and names, everything is smiles and handshakes.

“Medic?” asks Amy, without looking up from the paper. She grabs the dusty pages, and starts reading ”Is there something I should know?”

M starts pacing around, coffee in hand. “Not a virus, not a virus” mutters the scientist while shaking his head absentmindedly.

Amy keeps reading the page and stops by the big picture. He can recognize someone from the photo. Her eyes span nervously towards the bottom line of the picture, and from left to right, a series of names are written…

“M-Mel? That was you, on the team?”

M stops dead in his tracks and turns around slowly towards Amy. He then can’t keep it anymore straight and falls onto his knees, dropping the mug and breaking it in shambles. He takes off his glasses and starts crying frantically.

“It was all a mistake” he sobs uncontrollably “We were lied to and stolen…”

Amy walks towards him and yanks from his shoulders to get him up again and away from the cutting ceramic on the floor.

“You don’t need to carry all the pain and guilt by yourself anymore, Mel…” says Amy softly. You have help, now. They will let you guide them and…

“No!” M now is angry, his past is again punching him in the gut, and what he thought was something he was keeping controlled and forgot about, has returned once more. He eyes Amy, and the woman suddenly is scared. But M’s fury has nothing to do with her, that’s something she is sure of.

“There was never a mistake” speaks M, suddenly in a lower voice, more controlled manner. “There was never supposed to be a cure. The virus was the first phase of the plan, and now they are going to start the second phase.

Amy has her eyes fully open. “What- What do you m-mean”

“Three years ago I thought I failed on my research. But turns out, I just provided humanity with the most brutal annihilation weapon ever”.

M looks at Amy, and the both of them stare in shock at each other.

“You mean-”

“Amelia, answer me this one:

If you were to invent the atomic bomb, would you share the knowledge, or burn the plans and die with the secret?”

Taglist: @whump-blog @cupcakes-and-pain @crunchypuppy06 @silly-scroimblo-skrunkl @kona-luu @hurtthemgently (comment to get added/removed from the list!)

[raining-tulips]

hi! i just found your blog :) love your commonplace book scans! if you don’t mind me asking, could you give a more in-depth explanation of what commonplacing is exactly and what your process is? i’m intrigued and considering getting into it but i wouldn’t even know where to start! thanks a lot xx

Absolutely! So my commonplace is specifically all movies, qoutes, articles, tumblr/Instagram posts, book excerpts, etc. that either resonated with me or I think I'll want to reference later. That is the heart of what common placing is - saving things for later physically rather than digitally.

Some of these just pop up in my feed, and I'll hit the like or save button. If it's an article, it usually first pops up as a preview on my Instagram and I'll open the full article on my desktop than bookmark it in a specific folder for common placing.

Sometimes, when I want to actively find something out (say, about if perfume is really bad for the environment, or I want to look at author interviews because I just loved a book) I will go out and search for that information.

Then, usually once a week I compile everything I'd like to print - i print the sources bc my handwriting is messy - into a word document formatted for two columns. I try and hold off printing until i have a full page worth, or two full page worth.

For images, I have another word document (these are printed in color, and i usually have to jigsaw to fit as many images on the page as possible, so different word document). Same thing, I try and wait until I have a full page to print. Usually x2 a month. I sometimes will print with an HP sprocket but the quality is really bad and the pictures are thick so, it's for when I'm out of printer ink or I think a photo will look okay with a sorta...uneven look.

I use just a Staples brand journal, TruRed. Cheap and easy. I draw a line at the top so I can write the date, and in the future if I want to tag it with a colored sticker or something, I can. My layouts usually include divided space on either the left or right of a page. The article goes in the bigger open space, and then the source (always write your source!!) and any commentary goes in the smaller margins.

Commentary is usually why I wanted to print it, what it reminds me of or makes me think about, etc. What I think the argument was missing, etc. Can be as little or as much as you like. As emotional and deep or as plain-jane as you like. There are no rules!

I trim printed text and images with a 12 inch trimmer bc I've got wobbly hands, but some people just use a little (blanking on the name) exacto knife? Any 12 inch trimmer will do mine is expensive but I also scrapbook so I use it all the time.

I paste things in using a tape runner (again, because I scrapbook and found a tape runner and my mom sells scrapbook supplies they're very accessible to me). Some people use tape, washi tape, glue sticks (liquid glue I've never seen).

And yeah, then I just decorate and play around. It doesn't have to be pretty. It can be really pretty if you want - I'm motivated by aesthetics, so, I like mine to be a little pretty.

If you'd like to see how I actually put it together and why I print certain things, my YouTube channel is the place to go.

Some people tape in movie tickets, receipts from where they shopped or ate, pictures from daily life. Some people mix common-placing and journaling, so including diary entries about their day or about a topic they love, or their thoughts and feelings (I keep mine in a separate journal, explained in this video). Some people mix common-placing with bullet journal or planning. Some combine all three!

At the end I just use a printer scanner (HP Envy 5500, cheap) and post them online that way bc I love the look.

People who have other styles you might try and look at are @petite-gloom (an OG who inspired me and many others) @fakelavender , @teddybearsticker .

[ven10]

hello :D! i'm curious that with the quagmires being your favorite characters, do you have headcanons for them, pre and/or post canon?

Hiya! :) I have SO MANY hcs about them so thanks for asking!!!! :D

Pre-canon relationship dynamic:

Quigley was closer to Isadora than to Duncan before the fire although he still was really close to Duncan too. I mainly think this bc in ‘The Slippery Slope’ Quigley mentioned Isadora on her own a few times, even quoting a couplet she wrote, whereas he only mentioned Duncan when talking about both of his siblings.

In order of most to least mischievous growing up I feel like it’d go Quigley, then Isadora and lastly Duncan.

Games/How the triplets would play when they were young:

Duncan: Would grab any random object of *aproximately* the right size (could be one of his mother’s shoes or it could be a spatula) and pretend it was a microphone. He’d follow people around “reporting” (more so narrating,really) what they were doing. This would REALLY annoy Isadora bc the worst thing when having writer’s block would be to have someone right beside you describing how you “stare blankly at a page in anguish. No inspiration detected for at least another treacherous week”.

Quigley: Strikes me as the kind of guy to climb trees, regardless of age tbh. He just has the vibe.

He would build forts at EVERY opportunity. Duncan once challenged him to build one in every room of the mansion and he almost did, with the exception of his parents’ office which was always locked.

He’d also draw loads. His drawing of a cave in TSS was described as an “elegant rendering” so I imagine he started doing art young. He’d get too passionate with a box of crayons and end up snapping most of them though. For his sixth birthday he’s gifted one of those pencils with multiple colours in the led and somehow angles it so that all the purple is used up first.

Isadora: She’d write plays for her+her siblings to perform for their parents+their parents’ friends that had surprisingly dark plot lines, especially for a 7 year old. Oh, and all the lines would rhyme, of course. She’d get annoyed when people read the script and asked if it was all one long song rather that the masterpiece of poetry she intended it to be perceived as.

Quigley would really enjoy acting in her plays+pour his heart and soul into the performance. Duncan would get really excited about it and do great when practicing with just the three of them but when it came to the actual performance he’d get shy+back out meaning Quigley or Isadora have to fill in for his role.

🎃 Halloween:

For Halloween one year, Isadora thought it’d be an amazing idea to dress up as Evelyn the conjoined twin bc she loved the song ‘Evelyn Evelyn’ based on her but Quigley found their story too depressing and Duncan didn’t like that it meant one of the triplets would get left out. Quigley suggests ‘Alvin and the chipmunks’ as a group costume earning instant “no”s from his siblings. They end up dressing in individual costumes based off historical figures (A poet, an investigative journalist and an explorer) but create their own story involving time-travel that connects the 3 characters.

Isadora loves Halloween as she is a goth(headcannon) so it really goes with her vibe. Quigley takes information about monsters/spooky creatures like vampires or werewolves and uses it to decide on which part of the world would be best for them to inhabit. Duncan then uses Quigley’s theories to research newspaper articles from the area, searching for any sign of the creatures.

Style/Fashion sense 🌟🧥

Duncan 📰:

Comfy green jumpers/sweaters or sweater-vests, white short-sleeved dress shirts and dress trousers/pants. (Pre-canon)

Comfy green polo-neck jumpers and (usually brown) corduroy pants/trousers and either dark green or white high top shoes. (Post-canon) Occasionally wears neatly applied eyeliner. The slight change in style is bc Duncan doesn’t want to wear clothes that feel so similar to a school uniform after spending so much time with those as his only clothes at Prufrock. He’ll occasionally wear hoodies but not if he’s to be seen in public.

Owns a few T-shirts with Dorothy Parker quotes which he cherishes and wears daily, even if they can’t be seen under the jumper/sweater. One quote he’d have is: “The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue”

Isadora+Quigley once bought him a quirky reporter’s hat with a feather in it as a joke but Duncan ended up adoring it; convincing himself it gave him an extra boost of inspiration when writing articles. 🪶

Has a Polaroid camera looped round his neck 📸

Quigley 🗺:

Initially, he struck me as a rucksack guy but I was reading over TSS yesterday and discovered he canonically uses a totebag, “I was putting an atlas in a totebag I found”-Quigley Quagmire (‘The Slippery Slope’ Chapter 8, page 148) so technically that’s a canon not a headcanon but oh well 🙃

Wears clothes more so for practicality than for style, although if he has a choice he’ll get things in dark purple.

He’d wear cargo pants bc of all the pockets; this would inspire Isadora to write a poem titled ‘Two and a half’ about a scientist who was trying to clone someone twice but messed up, resulting in one of the copies (Quigley) having no legs.

He would also wear a jacket with tonnes of pockets bc it’s practical for the explorer’s life he leads plus it looks cool. Although, it looks a little less cool when he stitches on a hood with fabric that doesn’t even match.

He drew maps on a couple of T-shirts and wears those, unfortunately he has to redraw them every time they get washed.

Wears exclusively boots bc of their grip+durability, one boot would have purple laces and the boot on the other foot would have black laces bc the original lace got stuck in a thorn bush so he stole borrowed one of Isadora’s.

As for accessories; a compass on string looped round his neck, clips shoved in at random to keep hair from falling in his face as he climbs, a hat/beanie with pins on it

Also: Frayed fingerless gloves!!! I saw this in one of Quill’s art pieces of Quigley and like the idea immensely ( @lemonysnicket ) :))

Always has the most RANDOM items in his pockets; will reach in looking for a packet of gum and come out with binoculars.

Isadora 📜:

Goth.Goth.Emo.Goth.

Wears almost exclusively black: Black boots or high top converse (with doodles on the white toe bit in sharpie),

Wore black nail polish pre-canon. At Prufrock she improvises using black markers+pens on her nails. She once tried the same trick for mimicking eyeliner…it did not turn out well and Duncan brings it up at the WORST times.

Wears winged black eyeliner, smudged under the eyes.

Likes long swishy skirts (midi skirts). They’re sometimes a bit impractical but if she’s just spending the day writing poetry it’s fine. Otherwise she likes cuffed shorts with leggings underneath.

Violet once bought fishnet gloves bc she liked how they looked but gave them to Isa after they kept getting caught in her inventions. Isadora loves them even more bc they’re from Violet.

Has a really cool leather jacket but doesn’t wear it much bc she secretly worries that she isn’t cool enough for the jacket.

Has a T-shirt with all of Sappho’s poems printed out really small and arranged into a picture of Sappho herself. Quigley owns a similar one but his contains the bee-movie script.

Cooking abilities ranked🍳:

1: Quigley 🗺- he’s the best bc he had to cook for himself while “dead”. Granted, he did just eat canned peaches, toasted marshmallows, almonds and carrots but he had to find his own food anyway so that’s a start.

2: Isadora 📜- Her meals at Prufrock were cooked for her but it’s possible she had to cook for Duncan and herself at previous guardians. This task would fall on her as Duncan used to be afraid of stoves for a while after the fire

‘ “For a long time,” Duncan admitted, “I was afraid of any kind of fire. I didn’t even like to look at stoves.”’ -The Austere Academy, Chapter 3, page 47.

3: Duncan 📰- For the reason above and also bc he seems like the kind of guy who would mess up simple dishes by trying to apply extra information, “I read in a news article once about a famous chef who’d put mozzarella in porridge for extra flavour, let’s try that!” (Made-up quote)

Choice of stationary 🖊

Isadora: Fountain pen ✒️ bc it makes her poetry look fancy

Duncan: Biro bc it doesn’t smudge easily and he needs to writes down a lot of info quickly for his journalism 🖊

Quigley: Coloured biros bc they make maps easily decipherable+they don’t smudge easily which is useful for accuracy

In a modern AU Quigley has a 6 hour screen time average and it is ENTIRELY Google maps. Duncan listens to podcasts. Isadora’s Pinterest is made up completely of quotes.

Books/Literature 📚:

Apart from atlases, Quigley reads fantasy books with maps. He would adore books in the Grishaverse bc of this, especially obsessing over the canal system of Ketterdam which can be seen in detail in a map in ‘Crooked Kingdom’ by Leigh Bardugo. 📚 🧙‍♀️ However, with the Grisha triology (Shadow and Bone, Siege and Storm + Ruin and Rising) he would be disappointed by how little the cartographer/ex-cartographer protagonist mentions maps.

Duncan would enjoy the ‘A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder’ series due to the strategic, organised layout alongside Pip-the protagonist- ‘s note-taking skills. As Duncan aspires to be an investigative journalist he’d be enthralled by the investigations that are central in these books. He would annotate the books as he reads them; filling them with his own theories as well as highlighting important information.

The poem ‘Long Distance II’ by Tony Harrison doesn’t consist of rhyming couplets but I think Isadora would find its portrayal of grief powerful regardless of whether it’s in her preferred poetic format. Especially as it’s about the loss of family members.

Quigley would create his own fantasy map using tea-stained paper with rice spilled on it, drawing around the rice to get the outline of a country. He’d be really strategic about the details he draws though; having mountains before rivers so the water runs off of them etc. 🗺

Favourite Colours 🎨:

Isadora: Pitch black 🖤

Duncan: Dark green 💚

Quigley: Dark purple💜

(Bc of their notebooks 📓)

Thanks for the ask!! :) <3

I wasn’t sure what to include so I wrote quite a bit, this was me restraining myself tho. I think about the Quagmire triplets a LOT :). This is only the tip of the iceberg ;)! :) I also have kind of detailed hcs about injuries the triplets would have after the eagle fight if u want to hear about that.

Please send more asks if you like! You can be as specific as you like, especially if it’s about the Quagmires! :D

[tweedlebat]

Part 8 of A Treatise of Embroidery, crochet, and knitting with illustrations

By George C. Perkins, Anna Grayson Ford, and M. Heminway & Sons Silk co circa 1899

Please note, this book was written in 1899, and as such uses a racist term to refer to the dyes that were used for the thread. If you'd like to read more about this period in time, the term, and the stereotypes that the Victorians had, I've actually linked the wikipedia article here that goes more in depth. It's not the end all be all of it, but it's a good starting place for anyone wanting to educate themselves on the topic.

The alt text for the page on the left containing the actual embroidery pattern is written below:

Page 31. Lessons in Embroidery.

This is the chart for the embroider by letters/numbers diagram on this page.

La France Rose. (Pink.) Flower: 580 is shade number 1, 581 is 2, 0582 is 3, 582 is 4, 583 is 5, 584 is 6, 585 is 7, 586 is 8, 0432 is 9, and 432 is 10.

Leaves and stems.

Green:

570 is Shade letter A, 571 is B, 572 is C, 573 is D, 436 is E, 437 is H, 438 is I, 439 is K.

Old Red: 233 is M, and 234 is O.

Rose Design.

Materials. — M. Heminway & Sons' Oriental Dyes, Japan and Spanish Floss.

La France Rose. — 580 to 586, 0432, 432, a645, 0645. Leaves. — 570 to 573, or 0428 to 430, or 436 to 439 Japan Floss ; 233, 234 Japan Floss. Scallop. — 691 Spanish Floss ; also 370 Japan Floss.

Description. — Work the top petals of rose with 0582, 582, shading darker underneath where the leaf turns over with 584, 585. The turn-over leaves make of the lighter shades, 580, 581. A very little of green, 0432 and 432, can be used with effect in one of the lower petals, running the green into the light pink. Also in the fallen petals of rose use these greens with yellow, a645, 0645.

Leaves. — Shade the same as Design No. 138 on page 37, using the red-brown, 233 and 234, for thorns and stems.

Scallop. — Long and short buttonhole with 691 white Spanish Floss, shading with 370 Japan Floss.

In any La France design containing buds just bursting, use darkest shades of pink, 585, 586

There is an illustration of a doily captioned Design No. 239— Double Rose. 22 inch. It has three large roses and one small one paired with one of the larger ones flowing clockwise around the doily. there are also some petals shown scattered from one of the roses as well.

There is also a diagram for the rose captioned Spray of Design No. 239. Showing Slant of Stitches. The stitches curve in the direction of the leaves and petals. I will list off the shade letters/numbers as follows:

The stem begins in D with a thorn done in O emerging on the right, and another one a ways above it emerging on the left. A small sprig of three leaves emerge from the right.

Starting from the upmost leaf which is curled and emerges from the leftmost side of the sprig, we will go row by row.

1st Row, the furled underside of the leaf: A 2nd row onwards, the upper side of the leaf: C, B. 3rd Row: B, C. 4th Row: M, D.

Next leaf, Sprig tip leaf, rows from tip to base:

1st Row: C. 2nd Row: B, A, B. 3rd Row: B, A, A, C. 4th Row: M. 5th Row: C, D, D.

last leaf, bottom leaf but the rightmost leaf on the sprig.:

1st Row: D, A. 2nd Row: C, D, B. 3rd Row: B, B, B, A. 4th Row: A, A. 5th Row: M.

Back to the main stem, we go upwards and there is a thorn done in M just before another sprig emerges from the left. This one does not have any lettering so I would go by the previous pattern or improvise. It does show the lines of the stitches curving with the leaf.

The Stem continues in D with two more thorns on the right side done in M. The receptacle of the flower, aka the green part where the petals emerge from, starts in M and then transitions to C.

There are sepals, the tiny leaves around the flower base, with one on either side. The tips are twisted to reveal the underside and done in A, while the bases are done in B.

Onto the actual rose,

Right bottom outer petal which is opened and nearly totally sideways, done in rows working upward from the bottom to the top.

Row 1: 10, 4, 2, 2. Row 2: 9, 3, 5, 5, 3. Row 3: 5, and the curled over top part of the petal is 3.

Left Bottom outer petal:

Row 1: 2, 3, 7, 6. Row 2: 5. Row 3: 2, 4, 4, 7.

onto the next set of petals, there are three this time emerging from the bottom two:

Left outer Petal:

Row 1: 3, 7, 6. Row 2: 2, 5, 6. Row 3: 2, 4, 3. Row 4:3. Row 5: 3, 5. Row 6: 5. Row 7 has just a slight furl to it which is done in two.

Center Outer Petal:

Row 1: 3, 2, 3, 4. Row 2: 3, 4, 4, 3, 5, 6. Row 3: 5, 6. Row 4 is alternating furled and unfurled bits: 3 unfurled, 3 furled, 2 unfurled, furled and has no number but is likely 3.

Right Outer Petal:

Row 1: 7. Row 2: 5. Row 3: 4. Row 4: 3, 2. Row 5: 2.

Next row of petals, we'll be going right to left this time because the rightmost petal is actually sort of cutting in front of the previous petal and the center outer petal that we just did.

Right Center Petal, both sides furl and join at the center in a point, the left furl says 2, so I would guess the right one is also done in that as well even though it's not numbered.

Row 1: 6, 5, 7. Row 2: 5, 4. Row 3: 2.

Center Petal:

Row 1: 6, 7. Row 2: 5, 5, 4. Row 3 2 is a furled edge that goes diagonally upwards towards unfurled 3, 4, 3 is the unfurled tip of the petal, 2 furled rightmost bit diagonally upwards towards unfurled 3.

Left Center Petal. The edge of this one is completely furled and goes diagonally upwards to a point and comes down. It is done in shades 3 and 2. For the rest of the petal:

Row 1: 5, 6. Row 2: 3, 5. Row 3: 4. Row 4: 4. Row 5: 3.

Now there are three petals left to do and they emerge at a diagonal offset from the previous 3. With the next set, each petal is wider than the previous one, and the first petal is the small centermost petal of the rose while the next two are the outer petals, with the last one emerging from the center of the second to last petal and the corner of the Right Outer Petal we did earlier.

Center Petal: Row 1: 5. Row 2: 3, 4. Row 3 is furled but has no number, I'd go with either 2 or 3 judging from elsewhere in the diagram.

Center Outer Petal:

Row 1: 2, 2, 3.

Outermost petal:

Row 1: 4. Row 2: 3. There is some slight furling around the 3 which is unfurled, one of which is labelled 1. *******

The next few updates will be single page updates since the alt text is very long!

[drifting-pieces-blog-blog]

Breaking down the comics: Starting the Collection (Issue 3)

Moon Knight, Issue #3:  Midnight Means Murder. 

Written by Doug Moench and drawn by Bill Sienkiewicz

YES. BACK IN IT WITH BILL AND DOUG! 

I don’t know WHY I didn’t do this one in my first plans? Why the hell did I skip Midnight man? I covered his return, but his initial issue? I can’t explain past me to you. 

So here we are, back at the beginning. Issue number three! And we see Moon Knight’s FIRST big deal. It’s his first big villain (I don’t count Bushman. I’ll explain that later) that also reoccurs. 

The title page? 

We open on a splash of the Daily Bugel. 

And boy howdy is thi creative or what? And what makes me even happier? You can actually read the paper! You'll have to pardon me as I take you through it. I love when writers actually take the time to put something worth while in little newspaper clippings like this.

Saturday, May 3 1980. A nice picture of Moon Knight beating up two bank robbers and a mystery picture of someone robbing a museum. 

"They even list Doub Moench as the "Staff Writer" and give photographer credit to Bill Sienkiewicz. 

"ANOTHER LUNA NIGHT. "

"The third national bank was robbed last night, but only up to a point. 

That point was roughly three steps beyond the entrance of the defiled bank, located at the southwest corner of Madison Avenue and 89th Street, where the two armed desperadoes were abruptly assailed by a silver and black hurricane named Moon Knight. 

As far as the costumed vigilante is concerned, the hurricane analogy is more than apt. According to the sole eyewitness, the admittedly groggy night watchman (who had been struck on the head by ne of the would-be thieves), "The guy just seemed to come out of the sky like some kind of silver ghost, and then the two robbers were on the pavement. I never seen nothing like it before." 

As for the battered thugs (whose names are being withheld pending further investigation), one supposes they never knew what hit them. Long before the police arrived the Moon Knight had vanished, leaving behind only his silver crescent-dart 'calling card'--with the foiled thieves and recovered loot in the care of the night watchman. When this writer last checked the blotter, the two new prisoners were still peacefully dreaming of sweet green and all it can buy. A rude awakening of striped shadows and iron bars awaits them. 

And speaking of shadows, Manhattanites have never been more spooked by them, despite the relentless presence of the Moon Knight, if not the police. This was the 23rd night of New York's latest uninterrupted crime wave. And although Moon Knight has figured prominently (and spectacularly) in 19 of the past 23 nights, the jet nad silver whirlwind has yet to tangle with the most celebrated miscreant currently about town--he who has been dubbed "the Midnight Man," a thief with taste and the fall to appease it nightly in all the better parts of an outraged town. Even a hurricane, it seems, cannot strike everywhere. Even so, nor can one turn back the tide of the inevitable. Like the moon and midnight, these two mysterious men go together. And sooner or later, one suspects walking through the plastered shadows of this nighted city, their paths are destined to cross, and clash. It is only a matter of time, measured by the darkness between midnights." 

He certainly does play up Moon Knight a lot, doesn't he? Doug is just so super proud of his boy. 

And it also reminds me that Moon Knight's outfit was originally silver, not white. It was supposed to give him a leg-up against the werewolf, Jack Russel. 

The other article "Midnight Man Strikes Again" talks about 'the connoisseur art thief' that has burgled a rare Monet oil painting. He has also been taunting the police by mail. The latest note being a taunt to anyone that dares try to stop him, "including that gaudy buffoon Moon Knight," Especially "now that I've amply demonstrated that the police are no match for my cunning or finesse." 

ANYWAYS. I thought it was a good title page. 

We open on Moon Knight stopping a Saturday night mugging. 

I also love how Moon Knight insults people. “Turkey”.

We continue on, Midnights of missing art. 

We also see Moon Knight stopping various other crimes. 

"Tuesday morning at Grant Mansion--where one man lives under many names... Steven Grant, Marc Spector, Jake Lockley, and Moon Knight, among others." 

We find Steven working out with Marlene. 

"Morning, Delilah." 

"Nedda will have breakfast ready in twenty minutes." 

"Okay, Marlene--Just let me hit the bag a few minutes and then I'll take my steam bath." 

"As you wish, Steven... But in case you haven't noticed, I'm waiting with bated breath. Who are you today?" 

"Huh?" 

"What clothes do you want?" 

"Oh--Give me Lockley's." 

"Why Lockley?" 

"Thought I'd sniff out a little scandal, and Lockley's got the best nose--or at least the best connections." 

Ahh... Issue 3. Absolute denial country. 

Look at this man. He goes from prim proper Steven Grant to complete Jake Lockley in the comfort of his own home. It's...It's beautiful. 

"And so, at breakfast..." 

LOOK AT THIS MAN. (He doesn’t get his trademark mustache till a later issue). 

Jake, where are you manners? How are you sitting like that? 

I also adore how Jake always addresses Marlene as “Lady”. Like he refuses to acknowledge that they are an item. She’s just a lady that he has to live with because Marc and Steven have an eye for her. 

And look at poor Nedda in the background. 

Anyways, Marlene calls Jake on wanting to go after the Midnight man. 

"You can't bluff me, Mister--You're going after this 'Midnight Man'." 

"He's goading me Marlene, playing Jack the Ripper with these taunting letters in the paper." 

"But he's NOT the ripper--He's just a common, if clever thief." 

"So who ever claimed thieves were beneath me, Lady?" 

"That's not what I mean. I just worry sometimes. You're too eager to accept challenges. 

Besides, have you forgotten the charity bash you're hosting tonight? There's plenty to do around here as Steven Grant." 

"I'll be back in time. How long does it take to shuck Lockley's rags and shrug into Grant's tux?

And don't worry about me so much---You're forgetting who I am." 

Oh? And WHO are you, Jake buddy? (I prod because at this point Jake has not figured out who he is. Early Moon Knight was in so much denial). 

"It's easy to do, dear Steven--Excuse me, dear JAKE. You've got so many different names, identities, and moods, even YOU forget who you are half the time." 

DING DING. See. Marlene gets it. She hates it and pretends she doesn't... But she does get it. I get frustrated with Marlene with the amount rejection Marlene has over the whole system. She has her mind set on the whole "He's a mess but I can fix him" thing. ANd in her mind, fixing him is making Steven the only person in that head and settling down with her. 

What does Jake have to say about that? 

"Makes life interesting, Lady--Too boring being just one character. Maybe I should've been an actor. After all, all life's a stage." 

Jake my buddy my pal my good friend Jake… 

1980s everyone… 

Outside the mansion we find Samules, the butler. He's got Jake's cab ready for him. 

"Really, sir, don't you think this...ah, vehicle could use a washing once in a--" 

"Part of my disguise, Samules, the dirt is--Gotta look like a real New York cabbie in a real new york cab." 

"Very well, sir--But I do wish you'd make up your mind one of these days. Polish the mercedes and peel the cab's paint--Press the suit and rumble the jeans--Oh dear." 

Poor Samules. 

Jake tells him to go alert Frenchie to give the chopper a once-over. 

Samules heads up to the roof to meet with Frenchie. 

He finds the chopper alone with no Frenchie in sight. 

I miss Samules. 

I love that he makes the helicopter go "vroom vroom". 

And I love that Frenchie thinks this is cute and calls him the "Daring air-ace". 

He offers Samuels a 'little...ride' 

"Certainly not! It... It's undignified for a man of my...My--" 

"Oui, Samuels. I understand. But we can all dream, no?" 

....And in re-reading this I am faced with the fact that this could 100% have all been euphemisms and Frenchie legit hitting on Samuels. I doubt very much Moench wrote it that way on purpose... But then again... He was very sneaky and found ways to get away with things that were 'forbidden' to put in comics at this time... 

(Marvel Editor and Chief at the time, Shooter, was notoriously homophobic and banned the portrayal of gay characters in the comics. Doug and many other writers had a HUGE problem with this.) 

We find outselves next at Gena's! Jake's got a box as he heads on in. 

"After cruisin' all day with no luck, guess it's time to try old reliable..." 

"Hey, Gena--How's the kids?" 

He always asks her about the kids. Always. 

Jake turns to Crawley and hands him the box. 

If you’ll excuse me… I’m going to go sob and hug 1980s Moench Jake Lockley. I’ve missed him so much. 

He knows his people and he loves his people. 

Crawley dishes it out to Jake. 

He hasn't heard anything but there are some guys over at the pool hall across the way that might know more. 

Crawley escorts Jake over and they get the cold shoulder from the gys. They claim they haven't heard anything and get a little menacing about it. 

Jake tells them that "if anyone has a memory attack, I'll be out in the alley in fifteen minutes." 

He slips out, leaving Crawley to talk to the guys alone. 

They ask Crawley if Jake's a cop. 

"Certainly NOT. I keep company in a higher social stratum than THAT." 

He tells them Jake pays very well for good info and it would do them good to get in with that standing. 

The guys head outside with intent to rob Jake. 

Unfortunately for them, someone else is waiting. 

Moon Knight says don’t rob Jake. That’s rude. 

Moon Knight asks nicely where the Midnight man fences his loot. 

The remaining conscious man tells him that Midnight Man DOESN'T fence it. He keeps it! 

"B-But the word is... He... He's gonna take you on tonight..." 

He thanks the man for the info. 

I must say... No one really appreciates that Moon Knight really does have a witty sense of humor. He amuses himself and he's just a goof. 

Jake rushes back to Steven’s party. 

"You're late, Steven--Or is it still Jake?" Marlene greets them back at the mansion. 

"Nope---Jake Lockley has just retired for the evening, my dear Marlene. As of right now, I'm Steven Grant, prominent multi-millionaire and suave host of charity fund-raisers." 

"Then hurry and get dressed, Schizo." 

Yeah.... That's Marlene. I've said it before, but at this point in age, D.I.D was not widely known about and didn't really have a diagnosis or name. MPD (multiple Personality DIsorder) was also not really clarified at that time and everything was still classified under the all encompassing branch of "Schizophrenia". ...However, Schizo had become an insult used to describe anyone with any unpleasant or abnormal behavior. 

Marlene continues to chastise him telling him that the guests will be arriving and "Chances are they'd appreciate a brief appearance by the host." 

Narration: "Steven Grant suppresses a Lockley grin... Gaining full control of his new Persona some thirty minutes later..." 

I love this. Jake's got a sense of humor and is playful and mischievous. The idea of upsetting Marlene and missing the shindig all together appeals to Jake. He hates these fancy parties. And it takes 30 minutes for Steven to do a full switch out. This is actually a fantastic approach to DID and is probably the most accurate portrayal in Moon Knight you're going to get. 

At the party, Marlene introduces Steven to the people. 

"And now if I may have your attention, ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to present the host of the benefit, and the best boss I've ever had--indeed, the best of many bosses I've got right NOW--Steven Grant." 

Clever Marlene. 

Steven certainly didn't miss that little jab. 

"Flirty with danger, aren't you, darling?" 

Steven gives a very very short speech then starts to mingle. 

He meets up with one Anton Mogart (that name should ring a bell or two). 

He offers Steven his card. He's an art collector. He asks to speak to Steven privately. 

Steven has a few paintings but admits to be just a dabbler of art. "One must do something with one's money and walls, and somehow---George Washington wallpaper is just a trifle gauche." 

LOL Steven... 

Mogart admits he's a bit worried, and this is why he wanted to speak to Steven. 

"I understand an acquaintance of yours happens to be a soldier-of-fortune named Marc Spector, who contracts for certain...ah, dangerous undertakings." 

"You've done your homework, Mogart. What sort of contract do you have in mind?" 

"Protecting some paintings from imminent theft--by the Midnight Man. The fee would be, let us say, $100,000. These canvases, you see, are valuable." 

Mogart claims to have gotten a direct letter from the Midnight Man saying that he was coming for his paintings tonight. 

Steven agrees, saying "Spector owes me a favor. I'll subcontract the job in his behalf--" 

Steven even tells him that he doesn't want cash, but would like a new piece of art for his wall where there is an empty space. (this will come back later) 

Steven heads back to the Gala and tells Marlene that he needs to go. She protests but he tells her "I just got invited to a better party. Fill in for me." 

Frenchie….What are you reading. What is this ‘action’ you are talking about? 

They head to Anton Mogart's home in Jersey. Frenchie asks if it's a trap. 

Moon Knight notes it might be worse than a trap. 

Once they reach the house, he jumps from the copter and sneaks into the house through the window (for once he doesn't crash through it and I am sad to not have to add a tally to my chart). 

And we are treated to one of my favorite renditions of Moon Knight ever.

The lights come on and Midnight Man is there waiting for him. 

While Midnight Man had no fear of the police, he did worry that Moon Knight would stop him sooner or later, so he decided to force his hand and make it sooner. 

Pulling out a gun, he intends to kill Moon Knight so he can carry on with his robberies. 

Moon Knight flings his truncheon at the light, plunging them into darkness. 

He hides in the shadows (not easy to do when you have an outfit made out of SILVER) and then wails on Midnight Man a little. 

Which... To be fair to Midnight Man, heis a thief and NOT a fighter. 

Then again…

LOL Moon Knight really? 

They get off the elevator and Mogart pulls a dagger. 

They crash out the window (this does not count for dramatic window crash because they are leaving and Moon Knight didn't make this choice.) 

He slips on glass and ends up on the ground as usual. He spends a lot of time on the ground. 

Mogart takes advantage and prepares to stab him when…

Marlene shows up randomly to straight up murder a dude. 

Moon Knight tries to save him but Mogart plunges to the water below. 

“That really wasn’t necessary, Marlene–I would have stopped him. Besides, I rather liked the man… He was….Refreshingly psychotic.” 

This is what I love about Moon Knight and is something that continues throughout the Moench run and even pops up in later runs then comes back in MacKay’s run. 

Moon Knight genuinely grows attached to his villains. He cares about them and enjoys them. We see this again in Stained Glass Scarlet. In other runs, he tends to pick small time villains and just harass the hell out of them (See Eightball in MacKay’s run). They aren’t big time hitters. They barely muster enough gusto to be considered villains. Yet he comes after them as if they were big time villains. He even enjoys it. And you know what? I think it actually helps them. He knows their real names. He knows their trademarks. He recognises them right off the bat. They know Moon Knight’s watching them. They consider robbing a bank but see Moon Knight’s shadow and go “Nawh.” and go home. 

You know what else? He treats them with respect. Where as say, Wolverine, wouldn’t bat an eye and waste time on such small petty crooks. But Moon Knight does because he CARES. He cares about the people he’s helping, about doing a good job…

And about the villain. And like with Eightball, sometimes we see that Villain come around and change their lives and do good. Bringing good back into the world. 

So why did he like Mogart? Mogart was honest. He did what he did because he was greedy and wanted to possess things. He wanted to possess beautiful things. He didn’t hurt anyone, though his risks were getting bigger and bigger and were starting to lead to someone getting hurt. He also had a huge ego and did it all for the thrill. 

Marlene urges them to leave before the cops arrive but Moon Knight takes his time. 

Epilogue: 

We see Marlene and Steven going to the art museum. Suddenly, Marlene recognizes some of the pieces. 

The three pictures from before. It’s sort of funny that any time Steven does make large donations that aren’t about just money, he always puts Marc’s name there. The money? That’s Steven. Steven made the money and Steven will organize charities and events. But Marc? Marc’s going to be the one to add to art museums, open soup kitchens, or donate park benches. Is it Marc trying to make up for the things he’s done? Or is it Steven trying to remind Marc that there are good things that can be done in the world that aren’t always about breaking a nose? 

They head back to Grant Mansion. 

Marlene is still confused as to why he gave away the pictures. 

"I learned a lesson from Mogart--Collecting does bad things to the blood. Besides, there's still too much of vagabond Spector in my blood, too little of Collector Grant." 

Marlene asks what he'll do with the blank spot on the wall. 

Steven notes that the police dragged the river and never found a body. No body no death. It’s nice that the comics acknowledge that now and then. 

He's hung up Mogart's opera cape. 

"He'll be back for it someday--He's too much the collector to let it remain at large." 

Marlene tells him that she thinks he's right. 

"You see, my gun has always fired a trifle wide. And with you and Mogart struggling so close together, I couldn't trust it with anything but... Rubber bullets." 

And Mogart DOES return in a later issue and take his cape back. 

But for now, we end the issue! 

And you know what? This was a refreshing issue. It’s the start of Moon Knight’s love of his house of villains. We see an early introduction to Marc, Jake, and Steven starting to dance around one another, we see Marlene not only do her thing of rescuing Moon Knight, but of being the one to struggle to keep their life together. It’s amazing to look back at the start after running through backwards (why do I always do things backwards? Why does it always work?). 

I miss the old classic villains. They've made a point to kill them off over the years. They were dubbed to be too boring or over used or silly. But they had a certain nostalgia to them. Something he knew what to expect and I think they brought comfort to Moon Knight.

"Refreshingly Psychotic." He liked his neurotic villains. Weird and unique and somehow also sad and alone. Perhaps he saw a bit of himself in them. A path that he knows he could have taken. Can you imagine if Marc Spector had become a villain?

[joycrispy]

So I've mentioned before that I've had a lot of arts n' crafts small creative projects on the go (and a few not-so-small ones, but that's another post), and I just kinda felt like talking about 3 of them.

SO I WILL.

1. Bookbinding

This is more of an ongoing learning process than any one particular book I'm binding --but the process is going very well. Pictured here is the latest attempt, and my most ambitious attempt in that it was mostly me going, 'huh, I wonder if that would work' and dicking around until I got some sort of result.

(Example: I dyed that cover black. Did not know if it would work. It...kinda does? Further testing required.)

The final book is far from perfect, but I'm actually very happy with it. It's like a prototype of the kind of book I've been wanting to make all along, the whole reason I picked up bookbinding. Old fashioned tomes are the goal here.

More on that in a bit.

2. DnD Character Journals

At the moment I am in three different ongoing campaigns (including one I'd been playing in for two years before Covid happened, now picked back up again, and another which is a sequel to a previously completed campaign. Exciting stuff. The third is a character I usually reserve for one-shots, but she got a whole campaign this time. Good for her!), and I have completed journals for two out of my three characters.

(If you don't know what a character journal is: it's basically just a Character Sheet, but way more extra and ~Aesthetic. Sort of a functional gaming scrapbook. I also design mine to make the game as accessible as possible to my very ADHD brain. I highly recommend it, as a practice).

Pictured here is the main stat page for my monk, Wormwood, who just reached level 5.

Speaking of DnD...

3. Campaign Journal

So anyone who has played with me knows that I take EXTREMELY DETAILED NOTES, but this time around I'm taking the notes, immediately converting them into readable prose recountings (as opposed to fast n' easy notetaker's shorthand, which only makes sense to me), and then sharing them as an editable Google document with the group. They can add anything I missed, or flesh out details I skimmed over, add their character's POV of a scene, or whatever they like!

(This also has the neat side-effect of generating material for the DM's World Anvil, which is nice. He's free to pick and choose what he wants, or ask me to write an article for him, etc.)

This makes it very easy for the group to refresh their memories between sessions, but also, when the campaign is finished...there will be a very thorough record of it.

Last year I had the thought that, with the way I take my notes, I could easily print out a campaign journal and bind it as a physical book, and then have that as a memento/give it as a gift to the other players.

That's an exceptional amount of work to do AFTER the fact, but doing it one session at a time, as they happen...that's very doable.

I mean. People bind novel-length fanfiction for their own personal collections. There's no reason I shouldn't bind a novel-length campaign, lol.

And I can personalize each book to each player, as well! No, yeah, this is EXACTLY the kind of thing I love to contribute to a game. The group's excited, I'm excited, lots to look forward to, here.

I have other projects, including two large ones that are each going to take the better part of 2024, which slows all these little ones down...but I'm consistently whittling down the daily to-do list into something more manageable.

And work is nice right now because my main job atm is something I'm really, really good at...

(charity fundraising: my location is 1st in the district and 7th in the country for donations, and almost a third of those donations were made through me. I'm very, very good at this part of my job)

(I tend to be good at things I care about --ADHD, like I say-- and our partner charity benefits local queer and disabled kids who need shelter and support, so, YES, I CARE ABOUT THAT)

...so it makes the days pass quickly and peacefully. I get to come home in a good mood to all my little arts n' crafts. It's been very fun.

I'm glad I have time to be on tumblr again, though.

[frozenreferences]

Newspaper volumes are by year, with the first year of publication being Volume 1. The issue number is the number of times the newsletter has been published that year. The "paper" says Vol LII No 172, so it is year 52 of the newspaper, and since this is a daily paper, day 172 of the year is June 21st (going by a modern Western calendar without it being a Leap Year). However, June 21st is Anna's birthday, yet there is no mention of it here. One could say it is simply on another page of this "newspaper", perhaps by Anna's request. Or, if the paper missed a day (or more) for any reason, the date would be June 22nd (or later), hence the absence of mention of the royal birthday.

Frozen takes place in July, so the earliest possible date of the Summer Snow Day would be July 2nd if it's being held on the exact anniversary of Anna's sacrifice (given that at least one night passes in the main timeline of the film, though I think it's actually two). The "article" just says the preparations are complete, so it seems that everyone finished 11 or more days ahead of the actual festival if we go with the most basic interpretation of the data.

If you want to take timeline musings a step further, given that the video shows Queen Anna and Fifth Spirit Elsa, this would be the summer after Frozen 2. If Frozen is in 1839, and Frozen II is three years later in 1842, then this event would be in 1843. Subtract 52 years, and you get 1791 as the first year of the newspaper, and possibly the year of Arendelle's founding. If you subtract 34 years, 5 months, and 23 days from an approximation of when Frozen 2 takes place (fall of 1842), you end up in spring 1808. If you take 1791 as Arendelle's founding year under King Runeard, that would make his reign 17 years. Agnarr's reign would technically be 28 years (1808-1836). I presume he would have been coronated at 21 like Elsa, but I don't know how old he was when Runeard died, so I can't calculate his official reign.

(Feel free to add any additional information or theories.)

[stressedlawsecretary]

Today's Focus

05.09.24 - I am back at work after taking two days to travel for a concert. Frankly, I wish I was back home in bed being lazy rather than here. I suppose I always have time I can take, plus I only have two full weeks of work before a paid holiday.

Work - I mean...I have to clean out my inbox for sure. I remember something from my supervisor about needing to get a hotel and flight for a couple of my lawyers to attend a CLE, and I see a bunch of emails regarding that, so that's probably going to be the main thing I tackle today. I'm sure there are some efiles in there as well but I don't expect it to be very busy.

Background Noise - I'm back to binging YT, and will be doing a lot more of that while my dad is gone visiting his sister. I wanted to bring my earbuds on my car trip; the hope was that somewhere on the 4 hr round trip drive I could get through a nearly 2 hr podcast on SSSniperWolf's bad behavior but I forgot them and so I'm catching up now.

That is not to say that I didn't watch any YT; I did eight videos over the two days, and I kept up on my news program even while my hunny started Hades II to distract me.

Study - Well it's Thursday, so I suppose I should attempt to read some of the actual books I started and not just articles. I'm still counting pages instead of chapters though.

Last time I studied was on Monday, and I read like four random articles/press releases, four Horizon Post Office scandal articles, three pages of HR 5376, and the whole Wiki page for Adamson v. California. I continued to read the other couple of decisions & complaints I started, and I got more pages in, but I haven't finished them yet.

Extras - It is Thursday, so I do need to make sure the trash goes out to the curb; I kept up on the weekly chores so I don't have extras, but I do need to go grocery shopping because the last time I did it only took me to the day before the trip. Thankfully, I can do more microwave kinds of meals while dad's gone to give myself a break; it'll probably be one of the handmade pizzas my local grocer does for tonight. Two more episodes of Carranger; we did do three yesterday and have a total of five left so I bet I can finish the series on Friday. We're also about halfway through the first episode of The Tick, but also probably won't watch more because I'll want hunny to continue playing Hades II. Mini-essay was done quick today; I'm working on another longer one to post and hope I can write a lot when remote working tomorrow.

I'm going to finish my post today by sharing some of the pics/videos from the TWRP concert.

[tskumoyuuma]

during last period the teacher who helps run english club suddenly asked me if every week i could find 2 articles about america and american events n create worksheets about the articles so we could go over one in every english club meeting. n my immediate thought was "the students wont want to do this and neither do i really want to make them on top of my actual job" (since english club is just me volunteering my time after work to do fun activites in english w students). but cause i cant say no i went to work, but w the little time i had since english club was today after school, i could only think "uh ok article about the solar eclipse" but finding a simple english article about it that my students could understand is. so difficult. n i was already busy today doing actual teacher shit so the best i could manage was cut down an article explaining what a solar eclipse is n how to safely view it, plus adding word translations n barfing out three true or false questions on a worksheet. so english club happens, n its the first time all the new first years came, n everyone is just staring blankly not understanding anything. so the other teacher has to explain a Lot in japanese n then at the end basically says to the students "todays article was very difficult but maybe future articles will be easier n have pictures to help" n like. maybe if u had given me time id have been able to rewrite the article myself w easier english and included pictures, but i barely had time to even write a few translations at the bottom of the page. even w the video i very very quickly found showing the eclipse, i could feel the disappointment from the students as they were leaving cause we advertised english club as a club where we have fun w enlgish, which is mostly what happened last year! but this teacher did this last year, where she keeps trying to making enlgish club into another little classroom instead of a club. last year she said every club meeting should start w someone making a speech in english n then everyone should make a comment or ask a question. but as soon as she got too busy to check in w the club we v quickly abandoned that n i took over to have them do more fun things, like games n stuff. and now i keep flipping between being angry that this teacher would give me such little time to do something like this causing the students to not understand, and being so sad n worried that some students will stop coming to club if thats what they think itll be the whole year. i want english club to be fun, i want them to enjoy learning english, cause they have enough studying during actual class. n im worried that cause this teacher is now a first year teacher instead of a third year teacher, she'll have more time to keep controlling english club in this way and even the second years will start dropping out.