Cabinet of Curiosities

A second marriage is supposed to last longer (you should know what you like now that you've had practice with your first!) but you need a 'cooling off' period between marriages so many people don't get second married until their late 100's or early 200's... and of course you want to match with someone who is also on their second marriage, though 'mixed' marriages do occur. The calculations for the appropriate end date of a marriage based on age and previous status is a complex affair.

In the later stages mixed marriages are less of a problem and often considered ideal- towards the end of one's life one wants a slightly younger partner to be able to take care of them after all. Young enough that they'll have time to find a 'ending' partner of their own once their current spouse has passed, but not so young that they at completely different stages of life. Match makers are much more common for older folks than younger ones for this reason.

Of course this also creates avenues for unique tropes in the elven romantic annals. Star Crossed lovers who found each other when one was near the end and the other was just beginning; remarrying your first partner centuries later as you realize they were what you wanted all along; people coming to the end of their marriage who realize they don't want it to end- but does their partner feel the same???

fun fact about me! I have hyperadrenergic Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (hPOTS). this means I am prone to fainting when I change positions or when I feel a strong surge of emotion, positive or negative. for me, laughing is my worst non-postural trigger.

MRI of a neuroscientist kissing her 2-month-old son offers a modern, unforgettable take on the classic mother-child portrait. They're curled up inside a 3 Tesla MRI scanner, surrounded by its loud beeps and bangs. Despite the noise, the baby sleeps soundly on his mom's chest, allowing for a clear image of their brains. Capturing this took several minutes, and even a millimeter of movement could blur the scan.

“…forgive us for the presumption,” Edrehasivar said, tone slightly strangled in the way it always is when he doesn’t like what is coming out of his mouth. “But we thought, if we… that is, if we, er… attended… then you would not have to… no one would have to…" He sagged under our stares. “…stay behind,” he finished feebly. We were at that moment visited by a terrible, inevitable vision of the Ethuverazhid Zhas cornered by our mother, and we confess we had to lean on the wall in a brief violation of Alchenar IX.I.VI. Even the edocharei seemed taken aback; even Cala. Edrehasivar looked horribly dismayed at this non-reaction, and immediately started to backtrack. "We do not wish to inflict ourself," he said wretchedly. "It was only a— a thought…" He trailed off, but the pause persisted. In it, we reflected to ourself that while we had taken knives for this boy, and would willingly take plenty more, he had — indeed, has — a talent for making us want to scream in dismay. -- the alcethmeret's annual springnight gala goes… interestingly.

he set up the most beautiful teepee of sticks that anyone has ever seen and brought out the big guns by also setting up a log cabin arrangement of the thicker logs to make sure they'd have a good burn time on this fire. the mathematical precision in the angles and choice of thickness? gorgeous. stunning. he even shaved off wood shavings for tinder instead of using paper or pre-bought firestarter. if he wasn't afraid of fumbling it and ruining it, he would have used flint. as it is, he got it with one match, and he KNOWS how good this fire creation he just did is.

and yet it is spent on an audience that simply does NOT appreciate any aspect of it because his city kid ass truly might be experiencing a firepit for the first time. ilya has no frame of reference for how sexy shane's firestarting skills display just was.

ilya already mad firepit time has to happen at all because shane already said no sex on the patio furniture so this planned chunk of time is already a wash and ilya was then so mad about shane immediately going to fuck around with sticks that he didn't pick up on the no being one of the "convince me to say yes" variety 😔

he confessed it later in their relationship together because by that point it was funny that he had tried so hard to impress her with his fire skills at bonfires and hangouts and it just hadn't worked because she just. hadn't really noticed at all. and now it's a playful/teasing thing ("oh? you're building a fire? david, we're already married." "yuna, i'm starting a flirting fire can you come look at it, please?"), and shane who hasn't consciously decided to copy his parents but also hasn't gotten the full story of them dating and WHY they mention david building fires so often (because ewwwww parents being in love which means kissing. GROSS.), but he's seen his mom standing by or sitting and watching and both of them looking so content and happy and his mom teasingly complimenting his dad on how well he builds fires.

and then he tries it on ilya and it just. doesn't work. excuse me, please be impressed by this fire i made. from watching my parents, this is supposed to work. play your part here, please.

and now i'm feeling extra-soft imagining yuna and david coming over one night and seeing shane keep glancing at ilya as he's making the fire and understanding EXACTLY what he's trying to do here.

really helpful technique ^ once you know how to divide by halves and thirds it makes drawing evenly spaced things in perspective waaay easier:

(It's fine. No one was hurt, just some people's dignity.)

no more national debt tracker I want america's butter debt tracker.

Blood of Christ

Supporting roles from America's sweethearts corporate cranberries and hotdogs

Wisconsin's version of the Candy Land game

this sounds like a bad supervillian's origin story

I texted this screenshot to aforementioned bestie, who replied "I wish I was there" and "what dreams are made of"

shoutout to a real one. braver than any marine

BUTTER SPILLS??? PLURAL?!?!

I need dimensions of this river. I need to know its path, its flow, its everything.

That's a big oopsie. But at least no one was hurt and we can all sleep soundly tonight knowing that there is no terrorist organization targeting America's vast dairy reserves.

and i'm just like?? he is THE shane hollander. he is where he is because he is THAT fucking good. even ilya says that shane is the better hockey player.

and he doesn't get to be openly proud of that.

we see the difference in interviews between him and ilya in the show. ilya gets to be confident and smug about his skills (which is earned! he's ilya fucking rozanov!! shane's only true competitor to always challenge him on the ice!), but shane has to SO carefully toe the line of being confident but not cocky because he is a minority in this sport and doesn't get the grace a white man would. shane KNOWS he's good. he KNOWS he's the fucking best at this. but the closest he gets to come in an interview is saying, "i'll listen if he catches up to me," which has an underlying current of "i'm better than him" but isn't him openly getting to say how good he is.

shane doesn't need to be humbled. he is not out here bragging about himself constantly (not that ilya truly is, either, but shane doesn't get to be openly proud of how good he is in the same way around other people). so i don't love that there's sometimes a sense of, "this is good for him" when he has to give up something he fucking EARNED with hard work and talent that he already doesn't get to be openly proud of already.

especially when like. it's noted that ilya has been the captain of every team he's ever been on. he was initially (playfully, but every joke has a little truth in it) annoyed at svetlana saying that he should wing shane instead of being center. (and also?? the teamwork went fucking CRAZY when they were in this arrangement. when ilya allowed himself to set down the expectation he's been raised under that he HAS to be in charge of the team and has to be the star or he's a disappointment, he had fun and it went GREAT.)

and again!! i am speaking on behalf of #myshane and #myilya and also with the caveat of hockey doesn't exist without expectations and politics and ilya has seniority on the team which is a factor in this beyond pure skill, but *i* feel like the arrangment that actually supports both of them growing is ilya winging shane and shane keeping center. we know shane and ilya are each other's main competition and the only people who can truly match each other, and we know from what ilya's said that even he thinks shane is the better player, so in my head, shane IS the best center of the two of them, but ilya has better flexibility in being able to move to other positions. and i feel like it honestly could be really good for *ilya* to be able to set down the expectation he's been raised under that he has to have The Big Role or he's failed.

conversely, i think shane's best potential growth happens off of the ice and involves interpersonal relationships and learning how to connect to people. i think shane is by nature very self-focused because he is so painfully aware of himself and how he's appearing all of the time (partially because he fucking HAS to be), and this does tend to contribute to him keeping himself apart in a lot of ways on an emotional level. and it's not that he doesn't care about other people or that he's not interested in getting to know people (hayden invited him to come home to dinner and we see him ending up doing things like going to the aquarium with him and his kids on the weekend and rose invited him to sit down with her and they chatted for hours and then started dating! he can ABSOLUTELY do it when he has a direct "come sit down and let's get to know each other"), but i think it doesn't come naturally to him already, and he's usually so tied up in his head about his own shit that it takes conscious effort for him to look around. i feel like the better point of growth for him, then, is learning how to build strong relationships with people on the team as friends instead of as just teammates even if the other person doesn't initiate.