not because I somehow think julien ‘self-destructive coping mechanisms galore’ doesn’t do whatever the hell fantasy drugs araman has, because me and other fic writers have been predicting that shit since ep one

but specifically because other characters seem to have forgotten that julien doesn’t live in dol-makjar

is it possible he lived in the city for a while post-falconer’s rebellion and went on a bender that bolaire fueled? sure, why not? but it doesn’t seem likely or reasonable given his attachment to house royce, or the fact that legal proceedings against thjazi were happening at the golden orchard.

and he’s been with the barrowguard for an undetermined amount of time, but long enough that he’s well-known and actually respected for more than just name. he trained alogar, who isn’t a new recruit. when not with the barrowguard, his primary duty seems to be to lady aranessa, who does not appear to have spent much time in the city.

Bolaire's not claiming to be a drug dealer, i.e., someone Julien pays for drugs; instead he's claiming Bolaire and an unspecified co-collaborator financed the "distractions and drugs," and he's talking like Julien would know that. Why? Julien's a rich boy with money to throw around for his own shit--why would Bolaire be financing this and why wouldn't that seem super-suspicious to Julien?

To keep him "away from this" has no obvious "this" to refer to except stuff similar to Tsul'rekshi and her workshop. What would bring Julien into contact with stuff like that if he weren't "distracted" and doing drugs? Not his actual, legitimate jobs (Barrowguard and protecting Aranessa) which he was doing, nor voluntary thrill-seeking, because this whole argument is coming out of the fact that he didn't want to be there and was upset about being dragged into it. So presumably he'd only be here if he were doing something similar to what they're doing now--trying to track down stuff that Thjazi was up to. (Stuff that Bolaire didn't even know about himself until the Schemers started retracing Thjazi's steps.)

Here is what the backside looks like. OP notes this takes more fabric than paper piecing, but that excess fabric makes it already triple-layered. Besides not needing backing fabric, I don't think you'd need batting for this quilt at all. It's already thick and soft just from folding all that fabric into a hexagon.

Each hexagon begins as a 6" circle. camelscrafts does this by creating a paper template using a compass. According to the video, a 6" circle will create a hexagon that is 2.5 inches tall.

These hexagons are hand-sewn. Thread the needle.

With the fabric right side facing, find the center of the circle by folding it in half right sides together, then folding it in half again (wrong sides are facing). The top of the triangle shape is the center of the fabric circle.

Make a small stitch into the center of the fabric. The wrong side is still facing.

Unfold the circle. There will be a small stitch in the center.

Now the hexagon is created by folding the circle into itself: Take the needle to one of the edges of the fabric (it doesn't matter which one). Pull the needle through and pull the thread tight. This will fold down the fabric and create an edge of the hexagon. Crease the fold with your finger.

This fold has two corners, one at the top and one at the bottom. Put the needle into one of the corners and pull the thread taut. This will create another fold.

Continue this going around the circle until all of it is folded down, creating the hexagon. camelscrafts notes that the last corner pulled in may be a little bit "wonky" (no precise point in the corner) if the corners were not done precisely. However, that corner is pulled into the back, so is not visible from the front.

The hexagon is now formed. Sew around the folds in the middle of the circle to hold the folds in place. Tie off and cut the thread.

Here's the sillies from the last episode.

There are real labor problems here. Base pay is often insulting. Customer tips carry too much of the burden. Workers need better protections, more transparent algorithms, protection from arbitrary deactivation, and actual recourse when the app or a customer screws them over. Car-dependent delivery is also an environmental and infrastructural problem, though in a denser city I’d still be doing this work; I’d just be doing it by bike.

But when people talk about delivery work, I rarely see them talk to actual delivery workers. I see a lot of abstract arguments about convenience, consumer decadence, “hustle culture,” and internalized neoliberalism. Meanwhile, when I’m out working and waiting in restaurants for orders, the other Dashers I meet are usually people who only speak Spanish, people who read as neurodivergent, visibly physically disabled people, or some combination of the above.

I have not met this mythical Disco Elysium poor ultraliberal hustlegrinder-wannabe people seem to be arguing with. Maybe that archetype exists somewhere. If it exists among any kind of gig worker, it would probably be rideshare drivers. But most of what I see looks less like “rise and grind” and more like “this is one of the few forms of work available to people who need flexibility, low barriers to entry, limited managerial surveillance, or a way to work around language barriers, disability, burnout, chronic illnesses and injuries with symptoms that come and go unpredictably, caregiving, résumé gaps, or discrimination.”

That does not make the current system good. It means the current system is filling a real gap that a lot of supposedly better systems do not even acknowledge.

As a disabled person who is burnout-prone and demand-sensitive, contracting as a delivery driver has given me an unprecedented level of financial flexibility. I can work when I have capacity. I can stop when I’m deteriorating. I can build my day around my actual body instead of being trapped under a manager who thinks “reliable” means “able to perform the same way every day no matter what.” That matters. It does not cancel out the exploitation, but it is also not fake just because it is politically inconvenient.

And delivery itself is not some inherently decadent evil. Sometimes people live alone. Sometimes they are sick. Sometimes they are disabled, exhausted, overwhelmed, grieving, overloaded, or recovering from something else - perhaps the stress and fatigue induced by their own job. Sometimes they need medicine, groceries, or a meal that will actually unplug their sinuses instead of whatever generic community-care slop someone thinks they should be grateful for. Humans are allowed to need specificity. “Food” is not the same as “the food I can actually eat right now.”

A serious labor critique would ask how to make delivery work safer, better-paid, less tip-dependent, less car-dependent, less algorithmically punitive, and less precarious. It would ask what kinds of flexible, accessible work should exist for people who cannot thrive in conventional employment. It would ask how cities could support bike delivery, worker cooperatives, public infrastructure, and real protections without simply replacing one bad system with a moral sermon about how nobody should ever want takeout.

But a lot of the discourse does not do that. It treats convenience itself as suspicious. It treats wanting flexible work as false consciousness. It treats the needs of disabled people, immigrants, and other people who can't fit into traditional employment structures as details to be swept aside in favor of a cleaner political image.

Thaisha: "you're so pretty"

Tsul'rekshi: "what about you, pretty boy?"

Talcydimir: "the pretty boy, the one with the rapier, kind of like this one"

it's also interesting in the difference between the elves of the Old Path and the practitioners of other races. if the ability to have children was decided to only be granted to the most faithful then elves like Hannan and his wife were foregoing the possibility of ever passing on their traditions to their biological children as the other races of the Old Path could. of course, biological family isn't the only type of family, but it does mean the elven druids had to put themselves in more danger in order to find others who shared their beliefs. there were no generations of secret worship. they had to intentionally seek each other out just to learn about the Path, let alone find community with each other, and if they were discovered, if they confided in the wrong person, they were persecuted the most harshly by their goddess of life and nature.

that said! i am fascinated by the way that murray seems a little blind to struggles that aren’t in line with her own until she’s directly and pretty aggressively confronted with them.

we get to see this first with occtis, and how she sees his name and knows his house and immediately assumes that he’s just like the rest of them. she doesn’t see the implication of a child of a sundered house having to resort to studying wizardry when he should have all manner of magic at his fingertips without a lick of effort by his birthright. she doesn’t see the truth of his situation, doesn’t look for it at all, until occtis is dead at her feet, murdered by his own family.

on the other hand, there’s demodus, who has the same struggle as her in her eyes, of not being taken seriously with the talent he’s studied to cultivate, and working for the funding and freedom to continue studying as murray has fought for continued funding and freedom for her school

and then there’s azune, who she’s taught same as demodus, and who has struggled on his own the same as demodus and she have. but his struggle ends with him aiming to be useful, it’s ended with him in a position of power (as much as being a magic cop under the thumb of a noble who has said azune should be afraid of him is holding some power), and murray doesn’t seem to see how hard that is for him, even when he says in no uncertain terms to her that he worries she hates him for his position in a corrupt system. it’s not until he’s devolving into a gasping panic in front of her begging for her help and saying he’s scared and can’t do this anymore that she sees that he’s truly, severely struggling with the burden he’s under.

and even then, she tells him he’s a boy scout, and one of the good ones, and that he has to keep going he has no choice. in the same breath that she’s telling him that demodus, who is only maybe 4 ot 5 years younger than him, is too young and innocent to risk, she’s telling azune that he is worth risking for the cause and he has to buck up and get over it. he has made his bed and must lie in it.

which is true, he has made this bed for himself, but only because he’s been living in this level of isolation where he only interacts with what passes for his support system when thjazi needs something from him, to the point where even thimble doesn’t know where he lives or if he has anything to go home to.

What he was actually saying during his breakdown is closer to: "I am coming to terms that I might be able to reunite with my long lost sister, and I am terrified that there is nothing of the child I once was left, and that the person she remembers is gone."

He is cognizant that not only has he been lying a lot, but he has been VERY good at it. Possibly, he is afraid that he is TOO good at it, that he may lose himself to the act, and that people whose opinions he greatly values (Murray in specific) are starting to view him differently because of how good at lying he is. Also, he is just really stressed out because, again, revolutionary leader.