Trying my bestest

you are in the medieval era and you have this role!

Next up someone is going to claim that the Narnia series isn't kids books.

I really and truly believe that the "treat yourself" culture and people living well above their means and going into a ton of debt just to have fun and live lives of luxury with no regard for the future is a form of passive suicidal ideation. I am only now dragging myself out of a hole of suicidal ideation after being in it since my very early teens and the idea that what you do now doesn't matter because you don't have a future is like. Classic passive suicidal ideation. You aren't actively planning to hurt yourself, you don't actively want to die, but subconsciously or not, you are envisioning a future where you do not exist.

"It doesn't matter if I max out a dozen credit cards because I don't have a future anyway." Okay, why? Why don't you have a future? Where are you in this mystery future where none of your actions now can touch you? I am not trying to be mean, but I need people to really think about this and realize that they are setting up a future for themselves where they are not present and there's only one way that can happen.

I started smoking at fifteen because it didn't matter, I figured I'd never make it to twenty-five, why should I care about cancer? (classic passive suicidal ideation).

I'm turning forty this year and I really really wish I'd been aware how much building up debt would fuck me and what options there were for me to save when I was younger.

You probably aren't going to die before you retire. You are probably going to live past the age where you will be able to work. There is a tomorrow and we want you in it and we want you to be okay.

Wait, what? Maura's hands... What had she said, all that time ago? Something about sex and immunogoblins. If Maura were to take the matter into her own hands, did that mean...Jane had been tempted--for a moment, only a moment, because Maura had been so close and smiling with those shiny lips--Jane missed that lip.gloss she used to wear--because Maura was persuasive, not because Jane wanted to have sex with her. Jane had remembered, all these years later, because she rembered all these little ments that could have gone either way, Maura gently nuding Jane to admit what was between them. Friendship, the kind that wasn't common between women in their thirties. Friendship, and a tension that Jane had never been brave enough to name.

Jane shook her head. Did Maura mean she'd take Jane in her surprisingly strong hands and touch her? Would she...

Jane gulped.

"Sore throat too." Maura wrote something on a notepad. She was taking Jane's symptoms. "Really, your immune system would benefit from a boost."

"I eat those damn oranges you keep giving me," Jane complained. It was kind of sweet, really. Maura peeled them until all the little strands were gone. Only the best for Jane.

Maura would be the best. Men were pretty hit or miss, mostly miss, when it came to women's pleasure. Jane knew first-hand. She looked down at Maura's hand, fingers still wrapped around her pen. They were nice hands, hands Jane wouldn't mind being in.

Maura chuckled so low and sweet that Jane almost gave in there and then.

"It's a good start," Maura conceded, then her eyes flicked over Jane. Jane had discarded her button down a few hours ago and now she wished she hadn't. The morgue was cold; that must be why her nipples stiffened under Maura's gaze. "But are there really no romantic or sexual prospects for you? I find that hard to believe. Even a solo release..." Maura looked around her office. "Well. Not at work, perhaps."

"Not at all," Jane said, answering all the questions at once.

"Tonight, then." Maura smiled up at Jane the way she did when she solved something. Jane swallowed again, and Maura's brows furrowed a little. "I'll make soup."

Jane was unaccountably nervous when she knocked on Maura's door that evening. Maura hadn't truly been offering, had she? Not that Jane was interested. Of course she wasn't. It was just that it had been such a long drought, and she'd worn out her vibrator. She'd need to buy a new one. Maybe that would keep Maura off the topic of her sex life, and offering to enhance it. Maura probably had a dildinator 6000 to sort herself out, rather than an embarrassingly old Hitachi. Something designed for the job. She probably hadn't blushed when she'd bought it, either. She probably used it all the time; she was rarely sick, even though she hadn't been dating. Ma had cramped Maura's sex life for sure, but Jane couldn't be annoyed about that. Fewer annoying men hanging around Maura was always a good thing. Jane wasn't annoyed that they dated Maura; she was annoyed that Maura...

@drifting-knightjar it's like... The philosophy behind American meds is just different. You can always tell the American meds because they feel like they were developed by Victorian mad scientists with access to Space Future pharmaceutical labs. The first time I tried Cepacol - which, for those unfamiliar, is a sore throat lozenge that's sort of a salt sugar lick of local anaesthetic - I thought I was going into anaphylaxis. Fisherman's Friends just blast your sinuses with menthol.

We also medicate more frequently - when I lived in Germany and asked a pharmacy for Vitamin D they told me, "Just go to Italy??"

is there something wrong with me? do you see it? do you know what it is?

can you tell me?

can you tell me?

Here are my initial test pages, from just before I came on board to draw the book. Suvi & Ame's first meeting, plus my first Eursulon design sketches.

earlier this week Twitter user ppuccin0 tweeted about a fashion article that advised against tops with large floral patterns, saying the wearer was in danger of looking like a "ロマンティックおばさん," or a "romantic auntie." the tweet went viral with many agreeing that a "romantic auntie" sounded like a very nice thing to aspire to be, and some even posted illustrations or photos tagged with the trend

illustration by Toyota Yuu (author of Cherry Magic)

illustration by 141shkw/Sora Midori (author of Beautiful Curse)

photos by Takinami Yukari (author of Motokare Mania and Watashi-tachi wa Mutsuu Ren'ai ga Shitai or "We Want A Painless Romance")

illustration by m:m (mangaka of Matataki no End Roll)

illustration by ooinuai (mangaka of Onikui Kitan)

illustration by ma2 (mangaka of The Reason We Fall In Love)

BONUS:

I love not farming

I respect the hell out of farmers and I'm glad that's someone's dream. because it's sure not mine

I would not be taken in by the tradwife influencer grift about milking a cow in a sundress. I have been around cows. my uncle was a dairy farmer. I love not milking a cow. I love getting milk from a store. I love getting vegetables and fruit and meat and bread from a store.

would I rather it be a local farm's store or a local bakery or butcher shop? yes! maybe when I make more money!