Hello!

We buy games we know we'll enjoy, try them out, then put them down for a month, 2 months, 3, 4, a year, etc, until we finally pick it back up and *actually* get into it.

We say we're starting a project we won't actually start or finish for months.

Our brains take a lot of time to *do* things, as well as understand them.

This often leads to situations where people will poke us about a project we said we were starting 2 weeks ago that we haven't actually started, and won't start for another 2 weeks, and just

Being ashamed

Because we couldn't start when we said we would.

"my parents were killed by a (vampire/evil wizard/raging maniac/whatever)" but you're the one who killed someone's parents and now they're out to fucking Get You.

"my spouse/significant other died and I'm out to avenge them" but you're an undead or have the Reborn lineage or something and you're the dead spouse trying to find your revenge-obsessed lover before they do something they'll regret.

"my village was taken over by a tyrant" but you're the tyrant who's been chased out and fallen out of power and now you have to get Away From Here Fast.

"my noble family's manor burned down and I want to find the person who did it" but you're the housemaid who's been cast aside and put out of a job, and needs a quick way to make some money.

it sort of instantly gives the character more depth and makes the backstory feel more three-dimensional. Your character has done something wrong, whether by accident or on purpose, and that makes them feel more human. Not to mention the fact that many of these automatically create the easy-to-harness plot device of Someone Is After Me.

"[C. S. Lewis] was just a marvelous lecturer: he made the dullest topics absolutely shine. He lectured in the very largest of lecture halls, which was a huge “L” shape, and it was packed, with people standing in the aisles, even early in the morning. Everybody drank it in. Obviously a whole lot of people took this away and thought about it, and began writing - mostly for children because in those days you couldn’t write fantasy for anyone else.     Tolkien was a different matter. He was just a kind of eminence grise and a legend. You couldn’t hear him lecture. He worked at not letting you hear, because he wanted to go away and finish writing The Lord of the Rings. So he had the very smallest lecture room. First of all it was packed out, so he spoke with his back to the audience and mumbling. Unfortunately he was talking about - meditating on, really - what a plot is like and how it mutates into other plots, and this I found so fascinating that I went back the next week as did one other person. And this meant that he couldn’t stop lecturing and still get the money, which apparently in those days you could if no one turned up - it was a dreadful racket, really. He could have given just the one lecture and then been paid for a term if we’d all stayed away. But this other person and I attended diligently week after week, so he was forced to go on meditating about plots mutating, and what I could hear was fascinating, because he was busy with the really large orchestration of the latter part of The Lord of the Rings at the time. But all I retain is a sense of how marvelous the way plots work is. That was all I got out of it, but I kept going in case I might understand a bit more next week - let alone hear a bit more."

It was only a dumb exchange but it stuck with me, DWJ the obscure nobody. As a kid I remembered when Harry Potter came out and everyone was like “well, bookish child, don’t you love it?” And I would reply that for British boarding school fantasies about witches you couldn’t do better than Witch Week, and would receive the same reaction. “Who do you mean and why are you bothering?”

Pudu, if you're not familiar with the species, are the smallest species of deer in the world. They're found in a very limited range in South America.

Needless to say, I took a very cursory turn past the lions, and then spent a couple hours camped out at the pudu habitat waiting for the fawn to venture out of his hiding spot.

It was worth it.

(Tags via @romanceyourdemons)

Extremely correct response, leaving out the inevitable debacle over citizens declaring counterfeit genders in order to have rarer pronoun pins to sell to collectors in the underground pronoun market.

Dibbler, only mildly discouraged, eventually realizes he can sell embellishments for your pronoun pin, which he claims will upgrade your gender.

Also of note is that there are no cops present at Ankh-Morpork Pride. This is not because they aren't welcome (everyone knows Nobby is as kinky as they come), but because the festivities include throwing bricks at the City Watch building and they are busy trying to make sure they still have a place to work the next day. The Night Watch prepares each year with a barricade, and pre-marriage Vimes always collects the good bricks so he can save for a house. Nobody is really sure where the tradition came from, but it's good fun and usually nobody gets hurt too badly.

Moist von lipwig would have pride-themed stamps made; these would inevitably have some kind of issue, which would create some outrage and ultimately make the stamps more valuable as collectors' items.

I don't get the impression that Ankh Morpork ever had anti-sodomy or crossdressing laws, so I don't think the queer community's history with the police would be the same as it is in the real world. Especially because Cheery Littlebottom literally started the Dwarf trans/feminism movement as an officer of the Watch, with the Watch's support.

Dibbler would totally sell pride flags with the wrong colors (and then insist it was the "new, updated version" if anyone questioned him)

The nobility are all scandalized, meanwhile the Seamstresses Guild has a float in the parade

Adora Belle Dearheart is deeply involved with at least one queer organization and is one of the main organizers of the Pride festival, but refuses to answer any questions about why

Ridcully decides the wizards should be involved, and Ponder Stibbons should make a float and organize the refreshments for them to eat while riding on the float. Ridcully's concept of allyship is loudly saying, "Well done, that man!" and pointing at anyone he thinks is exhibiting particularly queer behavior.

Madam Sharn and Pepe release a whole new line of Pride-themed chainmail

Bengo Macarona is embraced as a gay icon

It was there the 2nd time too, but not quite as strongly.

Even TALKING about it now makes me feel anxious.

Out in the Flat Places* there’s nowhere to goddam hide from the sky. It’s all nothingness from horizon to horizon, and that nothingness wants to grind you under its boot like an ant, I swear to god.

Donbas steppe

But, simultaneously (and that’s the crazy part), the sky triggers my threat response.

And I know friends from plains/field/steppe-country who find it stressful to have mountains “looming” over them (their words, never mine).

Them: comforting wide horizons, I could see any threat coming. Me: I am exposed, I will fall into the sky :(

And my second thought was "oh huh it really WOULD be easy to unconsciously steer her away from playing in the dirt. Unlike my son, whose outfits are usually some kind of solid dark easily washed pants plus a shirt that doesn't trail in the dirt like a dress does."

Needed a lil bag to hang in the kitchen for collecting dirty tea towels and the like.

So I made a lil bag for myself.

Also it's past midnight here, so I'm getting a bit sleepy emotional about being able to make things? That then exist in the world? Because I decided that should happen?

So here it is, my great mystery project - now finished!

On my search for a new crochet project that's at least sort of unique, I had the insane idea to recreate one of my favourite works of art. And well, I did. I'm honestly pretty proud of this one too because it took obviously quite a bit of effort and I'm still a beginner at crochet. Well, I'm sure someone else did it before and most likely even better, but if so I couldn't find it ;) (Not even a crochet pattern for the full thing!)

And because my photo skills aren't the best, just as usual...here's another photo taken with flash where you can actually see the stitches pretty well. Not sure if you should actually look at them closely though, lol.