Like a tree, but not

Lost my mind a little and added (if my math is correct) 5,615 beads to Nim Teasdale's Odenwald pattern. Anything worth doing is worth overdoing!

The goal was “soothingly weighted but not uncomfortable to wear, even as someone with chronic pain.” It could have been a little heavier, so maybe I’ll make a shawl with larger beads another time, but I’m very pleased with this one. I used size 6/0 seed beads, applied as I go with a .6mm crochet hook.

Yarn-wise, used 2 cakes of YarnArt Flowers. I knitted the fully purple sections from both, then knitted all the way through the yellow-oranges with a single ball. When I hit the beginning of red-oranges, I used yarn from both cakes, alternating between them. (Not the entirety of both, I played it by ear to make sure I made it through the full rainbow.)

I do have edited charts with bead placements. I will only share them with Nim's permission.

lmao what a pair

People Without History Are Dust

Queerness remains one of the most stigmatized and overlooked aspects of Holocaust history, often erased due to the lingering homophobia of survivors. People Without History Are Dust challenges this silence, weaving together compelling stories of German, Dutch, Czech, and Polish Jewish Holocaust victims and survivors - including Anne Frank, Molly Applebaum, Margot Heuman, and Gad Beck - whose experiences help illuminate the hidden history of queerness in a time of genocide.

Drawing on extensive archival research, this groundbreaking book uncovers the lives of those who were doubly marginalized, not only persecuted as Jews but also as queer individuals. In doing so, it confronts the ways in which history has excluded or minimized their experiences, urging us to question normative accounts of the Holocaust.

By shedding light on these long-overlooked stories, People Without History Are Dust deepens our understanding of identity, survival, and memory, reminding us why an inclusive and complex approach to history is essential - not just for the sake of the past, but in service to the present and the future as well.

In the 10 years that I have worked on sharing queer history, I have never been attacked as intentionally and with as much consistency as I have in 2026. Most regularly, I'm called a groomer or harassed for mentioning Palestine.

I joke about it to my friends, because I don't actually have anyone in my life under the age of 20, how could I possibly be a groomer? It is easier to cope with all of it when I can laugh with people. No one finds it funny anymore, not even me.

When the first waves came calling me an anti-Semite, I felt compelled to ask some of the Jewish people in my life whether there was something I wasn't seeing. They assured me that I was doing nothing wrong, and I dug further into my studies. The further I got into researching the accusations levied against me, the more I was harassed for the moments I shared of my journey.

As a 29 year old adult, when I share that I read queer (often specifically trans) books, the comments are predictable. When I share that some of the books I read include sex, things get worse. When I post a book that discusses the experiences of queer Jewish people during the holocaust, I know that there will be immediate backlash, and there is. Then I am asked to edit a book synopsis to remove mentions of genocide from a poetry book about Palestine.

All of this to say, I have experience in what upsets these people and it is books that are being targeted. It is reading, readers, and anyone who encourages literacy that activates the worst people to respond. Which is why I HAVE to keep pushing you to read more. Read widely, read anything, read books that disagree with you, read porn, read queerly, read physically, read ebooks, read audiobooks, and fight the book bans sweeping North America.

Two of Cups and The Tower

Our town (~9,000 people) has a couple garages, but there's a big one on the main drag. My family has been going there for decades. I drive past it every day.

There used to be a huge pine tree on the corner of their lot, but last year it became a hazard and had to be taken down.

Shortly thereafter I drive by and see they've hired a guy to chainsaw sculpt the stump into a bald eagle.

Birds own my heart, but nationalism makes me twitchy. I withhold outright condemnation of the eagle, but I'm skeptical. (The original owner—an objectively Good Dude—sold the business to a younger couple a few years ago, and I don't have any knowledge of their whole deal.)

Then it turns out someone on staff is really into making costumes for the eagle. Every holiday. Every month. Stuffed turkey, witch costume, menorah headpiece, bunny ears. These people love to dress their bird.

The changing of the eagle suit becomes a source of joy every time I drive through town.

Until June, when the eagle is bare.

Now look, maybe I'm expecting too much asking my garage to celebrate Pride. But this is a small town. Every time I drive by that stupid eagle—this thing that has previously brought me so much joy—I feel hurt. I feel reminded that there are plenty of people in my liberal bubble who don't consider my community worthy of celebration. I drive to work, I feel bad. I drive home, I feel bad. The eagle is mocking me.

Then my A/C quits working.

So I book an appointent to bring my car in—and realize what I have to do.

I pick all this up at a thrift store for under ten bucks. I print the shirt with some weird heat-transfer fabric crayons I find in a cupboard. I loop gold elastic around the sunglasses and pray they'll fit on the eagle's head. (It is also important to draw your attention to the price of the feather boa.)

(Nice.)

My reasoning is thus: if I show up with a complete costume ready to go, someone will have to look me in the eye and say "We don't believe in that," at which point I'll be finding a new garage. But if they let me dress the eagle, then people in town get to have the joy I've been missing since the start of the month.

I listen to a lot of hype-up jams on my way over. I hate confrontation. I also don't wanna have to find another garage. I want to believe that this decision isn't actively antagonistic, but I'm not particularly hopeful.

I talk through the A/C issue with the guy at the desk, hand over my keys, then take a deep breath.

"Who's in charge of the eagle?"

"Oh, that's all Dylan. Second bay from the end."

I walk down the row of hydraulic lifts and find a disarmingly smiley middle-aged man pouring fluid through a funnel. I introduce myself and explain that, since the Pride parade is this Sunday and the eagle seems to be missing a costume, I have taken the liberty of making one myself, and can I get his blessing to go put it on?

Dylan grins this absolutely giant grin and goes

"Oh hell yeah."

So that's what's up now.

Thanks for the ask, Enchi!

The Cross, The Crescent, and The Star (A Discovery of Witches + Kingdom of Heaven, 2019)

Everyone comes to Jerusalem asking for something - forgiveness, glory, fame. Most questions go to God, but some come to the King, who wields a different kind of power. Baldwin the Fourth has a new chess partner, asking for land for a new monastery, and not all the members of his court are happy about it.

This was one of the first longer-format things I wrote after some time away from fandom; I like it because I set out to tell the whole story in six chapters and did. I also got to use one of my favorite original characters in a different context, which was fun to revisit and explore.

A Goddess’s Lament (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, 2014) After many years of silence, Amphitrite, the wife of Poseidon, recounts her life and how she came to be the figure she is in song and story, and how she met Percy before events in The Last Olympian. Bookverse.

There is a kind of sick, sad joy in coming into a fandom for a younger demographic than you and blowing the present state of fic out of the water, and I’m still so glad I did it. This is one of the most-reviewed things I’ve ever written, but I would love it endlessly anyway.

A Rose Among the Briars (Lord of the Rings, 2009-2015) Pressured by his father into a marriage of convenience, Boromir of Gondor is forced to reconsider his views on married life and women in general while his intended tries to come to terms with her own dilemmas.

This isn’t the best thing I’ve ever written, but it’s the story that taught me a lot on how to be a better writer. I wrote the first version in my middle school fandom salad days, and came back to it three years later during late high school. It took me six years to finish, including a year and a half when I wrote practically nothing. I love this story like it is my firstborn child and I will never stop talking about it.

The Darkening Sky (2020 - present) “Some will say that it is a sad state of affairs when a country asks its women to go to war. But there is nothing sad about patriotism, and from coast to coast, America’s women have answered the call in record-breaking numbers, happy and willing to serve in all branches of the service.”

It’s summer of 1942. America’s at war, and all kinds of opportunities are opening up for women - including, if the recruiting posters are to be believed, as co-ed additions to an entirely new unit of parachute infantry. Will they have what it takes?

If Rose is my firstborn, this fic is my secondborn triplets and I also love them desperately.

The Dark of the Lake (Dunkirk, 2018)

I will always be sad that more people didn’t read my Dunkirk fic, and I always kick these up when I’m asked to recommend stuff that I enjoy because I LOVED these pieces and I wish the fandom at the time had been more welcoming of OCs as a concept. There was a show on Netflix called Churchill’s Spies about the formation of the SOE and I used that, and my love for Collins, to come up with a new character that I always wish I’d done more with. Air.

...I need to talk to him right away."

read jurassic park for the first time this year, found out last week there was a sequel and MAN I had a blast reading it

Lissa, 36

“I’m inspired by music, the 70s, hippies, artists and activists, my friends, soccer, skaters, surfers, and editorials. I love things that don’t match but go together.The bandana is from my company called Sable New York, jacket Wilson, shirt 7 for All Mankind, skirt Nudie, belt thrifted, boots Tecovas, and sunglasses from a gas station.”