#notes from the road

[slaveclothes]

[mendingmusic]

notes from the road - Chanelle Adams

[lucabyte]

Not all who wander are lost. Some who wander, however, are extremely, extremely lost.

[astriiformes]

Wait while I'm still thinking about wedding things, I haven't shared my favorite thing we came across while looking for wedding readings, which is THIS:

(From The Nature of Middle-earth, and yes, I was looking up obscure excerpts from Tolkien's more academic writing for wedding readings)

Anyway we ended up using a lightly-edited version of it as one of our seven short readings because I can't believe that Tolkien pretty much outright said "Yeah elves have queerplatonic relationships. Here's some cute words for platonic partners, derived from the Quenya word for love because friendships are a kind of love, too"

--And I also can't believe I didn't know about it until now, although admittedly these particular notes were not properly published until 2021. The Tolkien Estate was keeping queerplatonic elves from us. Queerplatonic elves!!

[rubinowa--j]

does this count as a panel re-draw? lol

because honestly I don’t know

PS: the original panel is my screen saver

[oh-a-very-toxic-octopus]

We found an amazing place to camp on the first leg of TET Norway. This is a municipal campsite, free to visit. Our plan had been to drive further, but we stopped when we saw how well-equipped this place was, and spent an afternoon mucking about in our packraft with Max.

[slaveclothes]

[fourohfourlifenotfound]

honestly the more i skim the surface into the beat generation writers, the more i become astounded that Supernatural was EVER considered to have been intended for a straight audience

let me back up

Kripke, creator of Supernatural, has cited Jack Kerouac's On The Road as a major inspiration for the show. Dean Winchester was named for Dean Moriarty, and Sam was inspired by Sal.

The general premise of the novel is, at first glace, a story about two men roadtripping around 1940s america. (supernatural: the show about two guys roadtripping around america hunting monsters)

But the novel was ACTUALLY a roman à clef based on Keroac's own experiences with his friends, the Beatnik generation writers. The novel's main character Sal is Jack himself, Dean Moriarty is Neal Cassady, and a side character Carlo Marx is their friend Allen Ginsberg.

Allen Ginsberg, who, notably, had a sexual relationship with Neal Cassady and who published a poem extremely famous for being censored for its depictions of homosexuality: Howl.

So once you scratch the surface of Supernatural's "major inspiration", there's easy ties of gayness to Dean Winchester. Just like that. Dean's namesake is the stand-in character for a guy who fucked the guy who wrote one of the most famous queer poems of all time.

I think we all like to think of supernatural as this show that started as For The Guys that we as an audience turned gay by shipping two characters too hard. but i think that the gay undertones were ALWAYS there, whether intentional or not. we just uncovered them, brought them to light, celebrated them.

if that isn't a beautiful metaphor for queer self-discovery then idk what is

[ranger-jahen]

BG3 Morning Beverages

Gale is a coffee drinker for sure, but he's specifically an evening coffee drinker. It's what he reaches for when his eyelids start to get heavier as the sun begins to set and he's not yet ready to yield to his body's need for sleep. First thing in the morning however, he drinks a strong cup of tea. He likes black teas best, though he won't turn away white teas if they're offered. He hates green tea. He doesn't like to admit it because he considers himself to have quite a refined palette and doesn't want to be perceived as picky. But he's tried several times to like it and, alas. The taste for green tea evades him.

Shadowheart loves having a morning coffee but only with something to balance the bitterness a bit, whether that be cream or cocoa or a warm spice mix like cinnamon and nutmeg. She might drink it black if she's particularly groggy and there's nothing else available, but that would very much be a "desperate times, desperate measures" scenario. A shot of rum to the mug would even do in a pinch. Might not wake her up as much, but it would certainly put her in a good mood.

Wyll likes a very traditional cup of coffee. Two spoonfuls of cream, two cubes of sugar, and it's become a pleasant morning ritual to stir it exactly eight times and taste from the spoon before lifting the mug for a sip. Ideally he'd like a quiet moment to himself to drink the brew before getting started for the day, but with the life he's led, he's quite practiced at juggling the mug along with whatever else might have already crossed his path. If his early dawn routine is interrupted before coffee, well, he's not above pouring himself a cup of sweet wine instead.

Astarion hunts almost exclusively at night and doesn't care to subject himself to the taste of ash or vinegar just for the sake of a morning ritual, but once his companions have settled into their respective habits he realizes with distinct surprise that not only does he have a few pleasant snatches of memories associated with the scents of tea and coffee, he quite appreciates those scents. He hangs around quietly whenever anyone is brewing a pot of either, just to take in the lovely bitter smells and reminisce on something just out of reach. He wonders, but never too far. He's not about to look a friendly nostalgic gift horse in the mouth when he might not want to know the answers. 

Lae'zel's beverage of choice in the mornings is a straight cup of milk. Given a githyanki's hyperspecific nutritional needs and preference for robust meals, drinking anything as thin and punchy as tea or coffee would make her inefficiently jittery. The milk gives her a boost of fat and protein to start the day right, and her rapid metabolism easily converts it into the energy she needs, making sure she's quick and sharp within twenty minutes of rousing. 

Karlach will drink just about anything in the mornings, but she most often has a hankering for something sweet. Or, she'd also accept a flagon of ale or a pitcher of beer, but she's less subtle about her day drinking than Wyll is, and also quite a bit less restrained, so eventually her friends saw fit to intervene and request that all hearty rounds of drinking be reserved for past noontime at least. So instead, she likes an extra sweet cup of coffee, or if it's available, she loves a good cup of freshly squeezed fruit juice. Orange juice is her favorite because it was her favorite when she was a kid, but she'll also happily swig down some apple juice or grape juice. No cranberry juice though. Yuck.

Jaheira likes green tea in the mornings best, but she doesn't like to admit this because she thinks it comes across as pretentious, so she usually drinks coffee with one cube of sugar instead. That is, until she learns about Gale's furtive dislike of green tea, which gives her the perfect excuse both to drink it and give him a friendly ribbing about it first thing in the mornings. The friendly sass is often even more invigorating than the tea, and she's quite pleased about the arrangement. Gale plays the ever annoyed wizard, but it didn't take him long to see through the banter and realize what's truly going on. So in the end, he's rather pleased as well to be the easy excuse a friend needs to embrace their little morning treat.

Halsin is a master of herbal teas. He'll gladly drink any type of tea, but herbal blends are his favorites and he very much takes advantage of their versatility depending on what he might need for a given morning. Some days he might brew more for energy, to push back the cobwebs of a trance oft interrupted by restless visions, selecting ginger or dandelion, other days he might look to help himself focus for a long road ahead, anticipating precious few chances to rest, sorting through his pouches for the best lavender or vervain. And of course, he keeps a jar of honey to spoon from and mix in once the tea is ready, to lightly sweeten the herbs and lend the cup just a bit more comfort. 

Jahen drinks black coffee and often struggles to get going in the morning without it. He brews it dark and acidic, which baffles some of his friends given how much he seems to enjoy foods on the sweeter side of things. But he finds the deep, bitter flavor bracing and he tends to down it briskly enough that the flavor doesn't linger through breakfast, which is when he might be getting into something with more sugar. Shadowheart is convinced he'd like coffee with milk more if he'd give it a try, and he's told her he will, but he keeps forgetting. By the time the thought crosses his mind each day to reach for the milk, he's already finished his mug. Then he just sheepishly promises he'll try to remember tomorrow.

[morgansmornings]

And in Other News

This is where I am going to be tonight with the person that means the world to me.

@brooklynislandgirl

I don't care how little I sleep with will be worth it to see her enjoy the show. I'm so excited, and I even got dressed up for it!

[grian-in-a-plethora-of-places]

Grian is stuck in a tree!

[13eyond13]

Lawlight likers may be an insufferable presence in the fandom to other kinds of Death Note heads, but be serious, how much of the longevity of the fandom do you think this ship is actually responsible for?

[kirkwallguy]

i don't think i have time to start origins today but i might play that little orzammar dlc

[silverfoxstole]

Another entry for the 'Paul wearing his own clothes on screen' list: this camel coat, previously spotted by @know-it-all-freak in 2013's A Little Place off the Edgware Road, also features in the previous year's Notes from the Underground. Notes is deliberately grainy but I can see enough detail to be sure it's the same coat, which Paul wore ten years before for the photos taken during the recording of Big Finish's version of Shada.

Speaking of Edgware Road, they're not seen on screen but I recognise the boots Paul is wearing (along with the aforementioned coat) in a couple of behind the scenes photos:

The same boots were worn throughout The Petrol Age, and also made an appearance in Brakes, which brings me onto this denim jacket:

From the shape of the pockets and the white topstitching it looks like the same one. And they’re only just visible in the right hand photo but those might even be the same trousers!

(Paul’s trusty bag has been mentioned before; seen here in Brakes it’s also made an appearance in Perplexed Music, alongside more of his wardrobe and his car!)

[remma-demma]

:) N’ephele gives G’raha a flower before he goes to sleep. G’raha plants / propagates it to remember him. By the time N’eph makes it to the First the Crystarium is absolutely covered in them.

He cross pollinated with, like, Il Mheg flowers to vary the color so it’s less suspicious, but he keeps the original plant in his office.

For aesthetic reasons I pick rhododendrons because 1) I love big ass flowers 2) they make huge bushes that don’t stop growing, some hundreds of years old the size of small trees 3) they’d fit right in in Lakeland.

If propagating an entire plant from one bunch of flowers is unrealistic… Allagan technology beam. The tower has already proven cloning technology, it can manage a flower.

[slaveclothes]