Aliit ori'shya tal'din

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis had the state pave over the memorial for the 49 Pulse Nightclub massacre victims.

Members of the community responded

(Branching out into historical costuming for everyday wear is like your one shot at variation, and even then, the ratio of men's to women's patterns on every website is frustrating to say the least.)

Twig and Tale on Etsy have a modest selection of slightly more unique men's and unisex patterns, I'd really love to make their Pathfinder vest and Ridgeway shirt, among others

Merchant and Mills have a small selection as well, including their Billy gillet and unisex Landgate raincoat

Wardrobe by Me has mostly basics, but I do like their Ozark vest and utility jacket -- and as a very small trans guy, I appreciate that their men's patterns go down to a 2XS

Thread Theory is one of the places I absolutely have my eyes on for modern menswear -- I'd particularly like to make their Gosling short-sleeved button-up, Jutland pants, and Belvedere waistcoat

Folkwear are absolutely inching into the desperately-needed much more unique zone -- I have plans to make both their varsity jacket and vintage vests, and also have my eyes on their frontier shirts, sailor pants, shirts of Russia and Ukraine, and poet's shirt

Black Snail Patterns does historical clothing patterns ranging from 1700 to 1910; I just nabbed their Victorian/Edwardian walking trousers and lounge jacket patterns the other day

Laughing Moon Mercantile also do historical patterns, likewise I am planning on making their Victorian shirts and neckwear (which has 15 different historical neckwear suggestions included) and Victorian notched collar vest

The Tudor Tailor do 16th century clothing, which might be a bit bold even even for historybounding for most people, but they do great work, and I highly recommend their bias-cut footed hose as well as their excellent books

(Last but not least, I would be remiss not to mention Norah Waugh's The Cut of Men's Clothes, which is a book and not a pattern retailer might be best for slightly more advanced sewers, but I did make a really excellent 1600s cassock using a pattern from it that has gotten a lot of compliments as everyday wear!)

Ambulance Driver (259826 words) by Wolha_m Fandom: Downton Abbey Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Mary Crawley/Matthew Crawley, Tom Branson/Sybil Crawley Additional Tags: World War I, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, Suicidal Thoughts, Disability,

Summary: He can barely think, his brain switched off from exhaustion and terror, reduced to sheer instincts, following orders and a horrible routine, ingrained into his very body by now. He is carrying Lewis, a grown man thrown over his back like a sack of potatoes. He has no idea how far he has been walking, focused solely on the next step and on hopefully avoiding shells falling all over them. There is an ambulance in sight, waiting for them, hands reaching to help him take Lewis off him without injuring him farther, and settle him promptly into the back of the car. He raises his head to look at the driver and freezes in shock, certain that he finally has snapped, that his mind could not take it anymore and went straight into hallucination.

The driver is a woman, not an uncommon sight those days, but this particular woman has no business being here, in the middle of most literal hell.

“Mary?” he rasps, disbelieving.  

Posted by: birdylion

Fandom: Lord of the Rings Pairings/Characters: original hobbit characters, cameo of elven characters Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Length: 50k words Creator Links: Ithrenwen Theme: Journey and Travel, Pre-Canon, Backstory

Summary: "In den ältesten Erzählungen finden sich Andeutungen, daß sie einst in den oberen Tälern des Anduin gehaust haben mußten, zwischen den Ausläufern des Großen Grünwaldes und dem Nebelgebirge. Die Gründe, warum sie später das schwierige und gefährliche Wagnis unternahmen, über das Gebirge nach Eriador zu ziehen, sind nicht mehr bekannt. Ihre eigenen Berichte erwähnen, daß sich die Menschen vermehrt hätten und ein Schatten auf den Wald gefallen ist, so daß er sich verdüsterte, und sein neuer Name war Düsterwald." (J.R.R. Tolkien, Herr der Ringe, Einführung: Über Hobbits)

Reccer's Notes: Die Geschichte beschreibt die Wanderung der Hobbits über das Nebelgebirge, die im Intro von HdR nur erwähnt ist, und deren mögliche Hintergründe. Der Fokus liegt dabei sehr stark auf der Reise und ihren Gefahren und Schwierigkeiten, denen diese Gruppe von Hobbits dabei ausgesetzt war.

English description, for the curious: The story describes how a group of hobbits made their way from the upper valleys of the Anduin, where they lived in earlier times, over the Misty Mountains. The story focuses on the travel itself and its dangers to which which this group of hobbits were subject.

Content Notes: depictions of violence and fighting, character death

Fanwork Links: "Die Wanderung" on fanfiktion.de

I think book!Ilya is just as selfish as book!Shane, though it comes out in different ways. Really Shane is more self-centered than he is selfish. While Ilya's more perceptive (and yes that word has been ruined for me by its overuse in fics but it's the canon trait so) and connects with people more easily but he's also self involved, especially to start out.

This is a major point of contention people are going to fight me on but No I do not think book!Ilya was happy in Boston. The Ottawa plan is still questionable but it's not as simple as "Boston exciting and good Ottawa boring and bad." Book!Ilya doesn't have any friends and crucially, has never had any friends. He describes his life in Boston as a whirlwind of partying and meaningless sex:

This is not the picture of a guy who was living a fulfilled life. Not that there's anything wrong with partying, but you know, not being able to name a single close relationship from a place you lived in for eight years is maybe not great. (And yes I know fandom has endowed Cliff Marlow with Ilya bff status. He very simply isn't this in the books. I can write a post about it, but book!Marlow is obviously just Ilya's most reliable party friend. Every conversation they have is about having sex with random women.)

As far as we know Shane is Ilya's first ever friend and their relationship is, you know, gestures. And even post-cottage Ilya denies himself emotional intimacy with Shane because he's afraid of it ruining their romantic and sexual relationship. Ilya's captain of the Centaurs for two full years before TLG and the strong implication is that he barely knows any of them. He's not doing a great job and everyone kind of knows it.

Ultimately Ilya has to be therapized into basic relationship building because he doesn't know how to do it, because his entire life up until that point has been living entirely for himself except for meeting familial needs out of obligation, not love. When he moves to Ottawa he makes Shane his whole world instead but that's not sustainable either.

It's easy to assume Ilya struggles in Ottawa because it's boring and the hockey is bad and that's not not true. But the bigger thing is that Ilya is undergoing a very serious shift in his self-identity and that's uncomfortable. Ilya's entire life up until like 26 was about escaping to America to be successful and rich and materialistic and to fuck beautiful women, and he accomplishes it. And then throws it away for Shane. That's a deeply destablizing thing.

Ilya's journey in TLG is about how to reconcile the person he understood/understands himself to be (Mr. Sex-and-Hockey) with the new person he actually is, who's the kind of guy to give up peak years of his career to be near his (gay! secret! monogamous!) lover. This is nicely shown in how Ilya's persona slips away over the course of his sessions with Galina.

All of this makes me think about Jacob Tierney talking in a random podcast about Shane using a recipe to make burgers. Many viewers responded to Shane using a recipe to make simple backyard burgers with such disbelief, and I loved Jacob's answer. It was something to the effect of:

"These guys have never done this before. Shane has never cooked for someone or hosted someone like this at his house." (not a direct quote, just from my brain)

And when you take that observation and apply it to other things, so many things make sense. There are so many things Ilya and Shane both have just never done. They haven't lived normal lives, they were always exceptional and alone at the top, which is what brings them together, the understanding they have between them as the two best players in their sport. But where Shane has support systems in parents and some friends, Ilya has next to nothing.