Winter Bird

So, I am lactose intolerant (or something, my last attempt drinking lactose free milk went pretty badly, too—in any case, I really oughtn't drink milk from a mammal) but I tend to find that my alternate milk of choice (oat) doesn't really work with Oreos, so when I have Oreos I also have (a very small amount) of just regular cow's milk (to be fair it is the A2 kind, because that's what my family gets anyway, but I've very rarely had milk with A1 proteins in because A2 is what my family gets anyway so it's a mostly academic distinction in my case).

Anyway, my dad, my sister, and I shared a pack of Oreos (double stuff, "dark chocolate mud cake" flavour) this afternoon, and while the others were dipping theirs in respectable (though smaller than usual, as we were lower on milk than we thought, ran out mid way, and had to redistribute) glasses of milk, I had mine in one of those little dishes one might use for a dipping sauce, which is functionally what it was. As such, the same amount of Oreo-crummage that would usually make milk-with-some-Oreo-bits (a delicious beverage I have been barred from these six years) instead created a mixture about half Oreo, half milk—my Sludge.

Herein lies the actual point of this entire post: we had finished off the pack of Oreos, only crumbs remained, and I said (while taking the actions thus described) "going to pour the crumbs into my Sludge #mysludge". My sister, who is also on Tumblr (hi @lilyp-hi) had nevertheless not encountered the particular meme I was referencing there, and I must admit I was not entirely sure how to translate it into speaking aloud—what she heard was "mysludgysludge" (a truly incomprehensible utterance, which is to be fair exactly what came out of my mouth), which she put down to my echolalia (I am, as I am sure all reading this post will find shocking, Autistic).

I thus had to explain the joke, and she wound up looking up the original post I was referencing... it was all rather embarrassing, and culminated in the following exchange.

Me, playfully despairing: "I was trying to be funny."

Her: "Thank you for trying."

I read “mysludgysludge” as my-sludgy-sludge, which would have been more comprehensible than what it actually sounded like, my-sludge-I-sludge.

At first I thought it was palilalia, but then I realised I had never heard you do that before. I was shocked because I probably would have noticed it at least once before if it were normal for you.

my mom is in fact aware that dandelions exist. she temporarily forgot the name and there was some miscommunication.

the truth is actually weirder

she’s aware dandelions look like this

she is familiar with this flower. she knows the name of this flower. she declines to believe, however, that these are also dandelions

she does not believe these are the same plant. I tried to explain, and she thought I was either misinformed or lying. so I asked her what exactly did she think the yellow ones were called?

gosh I enjoy this website

Thank about it. Rocky's a spitfire and bounces off the walls at baseline and they looked at that little autistic, bossy ball of energy and went 'yes. that's them. the creature I want to spend the next 500+ years with'. They have to at LEAST match their energy somewhat. And if you think you wouldn't be a fucking ball of PTSD and bitterness at your culture and society after fifty plus years of not knowing they were alive or dead, you're fucking operating on moon logic. Honestly, Adrian and the other families were probably begging for a rescue mission that never happened for various political and logical reasons; and while it probably would have ended in mass fatalities as well, so thank goodness that figurative and literal ship never got off the ground, the fact that it didn't happen probably burns more than a little, reasonable or unreasonable.

So one day Adrian gets some Eridian diplomat on their doorstep, and they're expecting the formal condolences at long last, but instead they go into this whole spiel of ' so. So! Turns out twenty two of the original crew died, but your mate survived! When did they die? Oh, early on, so your mate was submerged in crippling and literal deafening loneliness for over four decades; and now he's back and acting weird, and he's become codependent with this weird fragile squishy human being that's the only reason he came back at all, and he's refusing to send down the cure unless we make the blob an aquarium. Could you come to the space elevator and tell him to stop being so unreasonable?' If that were MY mate? I'd fucking lose it.

Just throwing things at this poor messenger and shrieking like " Oh! Oh!! So it's somehow Rocky's fault that you're refusing to take a few months out of the several hundred Eridian years we have left to ship the cure we already have to Threeworld before things actually become problematic to make sure one of the two saviors of our entire species doesn't die?! To give the sole survivor of the mission--my mate, who's been alone and in silence, with no one to watch him sleep, for hundreds of years--some sort of solace and peace?! And you're wondering why he's acting erratically?! Maybe you wouldn't be in this position at all if you'd sent the rescue mission for which we've pleaded for years at every single thrum! I don't care if this Grace thing is a literal giant space amoeba; get the fuck out of my house and tell the powers that be to give it literally everything it wants and needs!" And they're all 'be reasonable' and Adrian's like " I've been reasonable for hundreds of Eridian years, and you would not be in this situation if you'd actually sent a rescue mission and not simply wrung your claws and hoped for the best, so fucking live in the nest you made. All I'm going to do if you get me on the radio with Rocky right now is tell him he's doing amazing and give him advice on how to properly parboil the Taumoeba so that you can't even recover even the slightest scrap of DNA if you don't give the flesh blob that saved his life and saved OUR lives PLURAL goddamn vitamins." Like, they think it's bad that Rocky basically stands over Grace's sleeping body and hisses? Wait until they get the MUCH LARGER ERIDIAN doing that for Grace and Rocky. Wait until the much large Eridian leads the families of the dead twenty-two crewmates to the space elevator to riot because this sure sounds like a coverup to them!! This sure sounds like the deflection of blame on the sole survivor!! This sure sounds like the same paralysis that left them to die alone in space because you didn't want to admit failure!! Yes, I know, I'm weaving some sort of political intrigue plot that probably doesn't exist in canon. All I'm saying is that you all are missing the delicious implications of a mission that went radio silent for fifty plus earth years with no word from the government and no obvious attempt at rescue, followed by your partner coming home with the only being that's been around to watch him sleep since the rest of the crew died forty-some years ago, and people are calling him weird and changed. You'd be horrified. You'd be sick.

graces earth amigurumi/stress ball, good luck quilt, and fox cardigan which is a slightly altered version of an actual vintage mary maxim knitting pattern! it gives grace this very strong visual tie to humanity by having him seen in/with items that are so distinctly human created, even in space or on erid. it also serves as a nice little love letter to fibre crafts at the same time to see them kept and treasured to the end of the film

rockys little finger knitting instruments for his xenonite! in the book they are just two liquids that get mixed together (part a and part b) but this little knitting-esque contraption is such a nice detail to add, and it ties in with graces handcrafted items as a similarity across the species that is recognisable, kind of like mirrors of each other!

i love a fox motif i love a fox motif i love a fox motif

the first meeting on ship where this room full of people are staring at grace and the hangar doors are open behind them, it gives this really eerie feeling of being stared at which is made worse by grace standing in front of the projector screen. i dont think the doors are open in the book.

grace opening the crew members belongings and Seeing them as people through the photos before sending them out to space. in the book he doesnt open them until later and there arent many details about what is in the photos so it feels more emotional when he sends them out (and he sends them out together and not one then the other!)

carl. he adds a lot to the earth sequences (especially a lot of fun!), and the “you know who you are” is just. yeah. hes a small introduction when a lot of characters from the book are lost in the movie, but hes impactful and i love him.

james ortiz kind of in general. im glad they went with puppetry as much as they could because it looks beautiful and i love puppetry. i know they chose to go with having rocky have a tts kind of setup to avoid having subtitles throughout most of the movie, but james adds a lot vocally to the character! kind of boggles my mind that he was doing like 45 min long improvs SO in character WHILST puppeteering when he wasnt even meant to be the voice of rocky and was just line reading for ryan. im glad they didnt have someone else do the voice acting. of course also his appearance as the news anchor at the very beginning and the tts option they go with being called “James” are also super nice

grace and rocky and the shared pain of picking a tts voice that works also MERYL STREEP

the costuming storytelling. obviously it wasnt really in the book because its much more of a visual medium but the colder and colder clothes progressively on earth, stratt closed off in her turtleneck and grace in the squeaky yellow raincoat thats so jarring when she tells him shes putting him in the hail mary against his will, the stupid science shirts, and the fibre arts pieces all add so much.

the inclusion of the projector/led screens and the beach motif

the video logs! its a good way to tackle graces internal monologue (kind of like how carl is in the early earth days), but it gives grace a feeling of being able to say goodbye to earth above being able to send the taumoeba. i wish in the book that grace had told earth that he was choosing to turn back and save rocky/erid even though he would starve shortly after, as it would have asserted to earth that he wasnt a coward

speaking of, the removal of the coward talk that both stratt and grace do when grace doesnt want to go. book stratt doesnt actually believe that grace is truly a coward otherwise she wouldnt have sent him. she knows that when he wakes up and doesnt know who he is, he will still be grace and he will do everything that is needed to help. the film was probably going to lose the nuance of this bit where they had to compress everything so im glad they removed it. i like the addition of grace running and being tackled instead

kind of along the same line, rocky not having shame about eating in front of grace!

entirely for visual purposes, having grace be able to see the petrova line whilst hes in it because its beautiful and i love beautiful shots in movies okay

also the big window on the hail mary. solves like two chapters worth of grace working out hes in space by dropping random objects and looks cool whilst doing it

armando. dont know why we needed an additional robot on board but i cant imagine not having him now.

Let’s play the biggest game of kick the can on the internet.

* New student, very small. Grace said it was pebble. Pebble is small Earth rock. Pebble likes name.

* He found out Eridians have no gender rules.

* Students brought him mineral sample. After he stopped crying he said he loves show-and-tell game. Human naming conventions oddly literal.

* I told him Earthsun grew bright.

* I took him up atop atmosphere bypass elevator to look at stars.

* He woke up from nap and found me still with him. I did not wait on his chest; he says I am heavy like “elephant” and he “couldn’t breathe.” I laid my arm over him instead, kept him close, feeling safe. He said “cuddle” was warm.

* Before class he heard younglings singing.

* He has plants in house from sprouts on ship. Plant grew “bud.”

* Engineers got seawater temperature right. He took off shoes and stood in water, sighing. He didn’t care about pants getting damp. Cried until shirt was also damp. Humans very endlessly wet.

* He missed “Doritos.”

* Adrian helped food scientists make taumoeba dried paste. Made it crunchy after heating. We fused it into triangle form. Told him it was Tauritos. That made him laugh-cry. Laugh-cry is rare and precious.

* He remembered Eridians have no gender rules.

* We made him celebration outfit. Used metals he calls pretty. He can see frequencies named “colorful” and “shiny.” These make humans happiest.

* I gave him hug when he wasn’t expecting it. Easier to hug close now with exosuit. Hug when Grace sitting down so he does not fall over.

The Apothecary Diaries toad is a European toad (Bufo bufo), confirmed by Natsu Hyuuga. They’re usually 5–9cm in length. They aren’t found in China though.

Maybe Natsu meant it to be an Asiatic toad (Bufo gargarizans), which used to be classified as a subspecies of the European toad. They’re usually 6–12cm in length, and are used in traditional Chinese medicine.

Keep in mind, Studio Ghibli can be quite stylised. They focus on making the scenes very expressive, and that involves exaggerating the sizes of toads sometimes.

ok in case this breaks containment the relevant context here is that I work at a pottery studio and you get THREE MONTHS to pick up your pieces once they're done in the kiln, after which they're free game and anyone who comes into the shop is allowed to take them home.

well after months of failing to get into contact with the owners of this plate it became abundantly clear that the painter in question wanted nothing to do with it. more often than not this happens because it was a relationship piece and the happy couple had broken up in the two weeks between painting their piece and it being ready for pick-up. Genuinely. This has happened more times than I can count.

Which is frankly devastating because, without a shadow of doubt in my mind, this plate (which I can only imagine was made by the handsome "Bryce" in question) is nothing short of a national treasure. to me.

Tucker, the cat behind Lady Normalgirl’s noble eunuch, passed away on Tuesday morning.

From about the time I could talk, I dreamed of having a pet cat — and when I was ten, that dream finally came true. But in all my tiny child dreaming, I don’t think I could have imagined a cat better than Tucker. He’s been my constant companion for the last thirteen years, through all the best and worst bits of my life and as much as I know it’s good he’s no longer in pain, it seems very wrong that I have to do this next worst bit without him.

I’m thankful that we were able to spend so long together (even if it doesn’t feel quite long enough) and I’m so very grateful that over the last year and a bit I was able to share him with all of you. Knowing that he will be remembered so far and wide means more than I can really express. He definitely knew how insanely much I loved him (and I know how much he loved me back), but I’d like to think he knew how much so many of you loved him and how much joy his noble likeness’s comics brought so many people. While I know I will never stop missing him and that my sadness might never truly go away, it will always be a comfort to know my little cat has left behind such a grand legacy of love and happiness.

<3