#broromini

tagged by @broromini to post 9 books I want to read this year! (thanks lovey 💜)

1. Best Friend - Sofi Tukker

2. Shove It - Santigold

3. Young, Wild & Free - Wiz Khalifa

4. Cheers - Rihanna

5. White Sky - Vampire Week

6. Day n’ Nite - Kid Cudi

A DOLL UPDATE. WHUT.

Yeah, I know, it’s been almost a year since I had a proper doll update! Master’s dissertations and PhD applications abound, which means Garth has been a silent companion that moves around my desk and holds my edits for my drafts as I work.  First, a background update: I AM DOING A PHD AT YORK AND I START IN NEXT WEEK WHAT THE FUCK. It will be in Medieval Art History, specifically Anglo-Saxon angels. So that’s gonna be cool. [Dissertation for the MA is Satan and his angels in Genesis B! It’s DONE PRAISE BE.] My awesome human @thebastardofgloucester and I have moved house, so we’ve been doing housing stuff, which is exciting. Our house has so much nerdy stuff in it, I love it. [Garth lives in the living room on a bookshelf with Martinus’s norman helmet, because the nerdiest gear needs a prominent home where EVERYONE CAN SEE IT.]

Now the doll stuff: 

+ Dantes is now a floating head [ ; __ ; Only for a short while, I hope. Planning a DT 17rs body for him some time after March...]

+ Wee Clove is going to go live with @dalektable10 in December. [This is a happy thing though, so I’m pretty pleased she’ll have a new home.]

+ Garth is getting a new wig and possibly new shoes. I may also actually finish [!] his vest.

+ Iris continues to V E X me and I will figure her out later. 

+ I’m building an order for my second-oldest character, D-Z. [She’s the surly looking one in the drawing] She’ll be coming to live with me as my PhD project, much like Garth was supposed to be my MA project but he was mostly finished when I brought him with me [except the buttons/snaps on his vest *cough*], so he mostly sat and held papers and stuff while I wrote. [Which was a much-needed position while writing all the papers and starting my dissertation!]

Anyway, D-Z is one of my faces of death from my novel [basically there are three living people that inhabit the role of death], and she’s sort of been my protector in the face of anxiety and doubt [Garth is the one that keeps me from sliding backwards and keeps me from curling up and dying], and she’s also going to be a big customizing project as well. She’s slated to be an Impldoll Aurora on a Star Muscular body in a custom resin color like her skin in the drawing. She’ll need:

- a midnight blue wig styled in an undercut [shaved on both sides]

- both her arms made into mechanical limbs [will be ordered in a custom resin color to be the base for whatever I paint them with. That’s the second Patone card.] 

- scar mods [chest/neck, shoulder, belly. She’s a tank of a fighter.]

- all of her specific gear [armor, long tunic, boots, helmet, maybe chainmail, scythe], which will be a sort of dystopian cyberpunk/medieval-inspired alien gear. So lots of pleather and studs with weird textures.

- horns [I reaaally want these to be a pair of horns by blueotterparadise, but they tend to be sporadic with stock and things, so these will sort of happen whenever the stars align and I have funds for horns and there’s stock in a color that works for her. They’re my grail accessory for D-Z <3] 

R u Harold from Harold and Maude

ooooh okay!!

magic beach by alison lester feels like if home and the feeling of childhood were a physical book in my hands

i had a gorgeous pop up book version of the jabberwocky (probably why i used to be able to recite it off by heart before i could read it)

song of the lioness quartet by tamora pierce - i can still remember the quiet joy of discovering a battered book in the school library in my first term of year 7, it felt like it was meant to be, like the first book i had found all on my own, and alanna has been with my ever since

the fairy realm books by emily rodda - these were MY emily rodda books, i never really got into deltora quest the same way, but these made me feel like i could go on a fantasy adventure even though i was in australia and not in any of the places my fantasy books were usually set. i owe her so much.

i have to put a mem fox book on this list because it’s not an australian childhood without at least one, and i think i’m going to say wilfred gordon mcdonald partridge which is a gorgeous book about a boy trying to help an old lady get her memories back

top 5 movies from this year may end up having some retrospective things on it because i’ve been awful at engaging with new releases lately but in no particular order

wallace and gromit: vengeance most fowl i love you aardman i love you with my whole heart

better man was SO GOOD i WEPT (like literally, the four of us who went to see it together were weeping at the end)

i watched fire of love for the first time this year and it has stayed with me every day since

oh i watched la chimera this year and i LOVED it!!

favourite male character:

how can i choose between chidi and jason?? it should be illegal to choose between chidi and jason!! they are both my favourite.

favourite female character:

again with the making me choose... it’s very rude, you know. i think eleanor just beats out tahani here for me.

least favourite character:

even the worst characters on this show are incredibly funny/serve a purpose in a way that makes me enjoy them... and then there’s brent. brent can win least favourite hands down.

prettiest character:

oh boy, this is another tie, this time it’s between tahani and jason.

funniest character:

i mean, they’re all hilarious and i’m tempted to choose jason again, but also maya rudolph is right there!! the judge, definitely.

favourite season:

i loved all of them, but i think you’d be hard pressed to find a better final season of television. 

favourite episode:

dance dance resolution; rhonda, diana, jake, and trent; and how could i not say janet(s)!?

favourite romantic ship:

jason/janet, chidi/eleanor, chidi/eleanor/simone, chidi/jason

favourite family ship:

TEAM COCKROACH

favourite friend ship:

tahani and eleanor!!

worst ship:

I went with the Rogue ot3 for this one because I haven’t written them in so long!!

Bodhi can’t breathe. It’s all he can do to keep his legs moving, keep his eyes on the back of Jyn’s head as she weaves through the crowd a couple of metres ahead of him; trying to get his lungs to cooperate is one thing too many. 

He gasps, pulling humid air into his lungs. His chest burns. There are too many people. Too too many bodies to force himself through. This is the problem with carnivals. Or maybe this is just the problem with Bodhi. 

It was supposed to be a fun day out. He’s really good at ruining those. 

He’d been pressed up close to Cassian under the guise of getting the best view of Jyn throw darts at balloons, cheering as she hit her target every time. Cassian had his arm around Bodhi’s waist, he’d buried his giggle in Bodhi’s neck when Jyn punched the air in exaggerated victory. They’ve been doing that more and more lately: touching each other longer, holding each other’s gazes. He was so caught up in the feeling he hadn’t noticed Krennic and his stupid, hulking cronies until they were already on their way over, that menacing look in their eyes that never failed to make Bodhi’s stomach drop. His response to Krennic’s smirk was ingrained, after years of watching it flash before he was shoved into a locker or tripped in a busy corridor. He winced even if the smirk was directed at something else, something innocuous. He must have made a noise, twitched, something, because Cassian had pulled away, brow wrinkling, and followed his gaze across the crowd. Bodhi had barely had the thought, I thought we were fine now Krennic left for college, before Cassian had grabbed their hands and tugged them into a run.

And now he can’t breathe, and Jyn is too far ahead for him to make use of her incomparable ability to part a crowd. Her elbows are sharp, and her glare regularly made people three times her size cower, but he had dropped out of her slipstream a while back, and now he’s forced to shoulder his own way through. He keeps up a steady stream of excuse me’s, and sorry’s in between deep breaths.

He feels rather than hears Cassian behind him. It’s too loud to catch more than the occasional thud of his boots, but he is a constant warm presence. The only body Bodhi does not actively want to get away from at the moment. 

He can’t breathe. 

He can hear Jyn’s voice in his head. Clear as anything. Just breathe, Bodhi. Nice and slow. In, one, two, three. Out, one, two, three. 

He can still see her up ahead, turning around to watch them catch up. She’s finally broken out of the tightly packed crowd they’ve been moving through, and as Bodhi reaches her, she reaches out, tangles their fingers together. 

‘You okay?’ 

He nods, shakes his head, breathes deep through his nose. His lungs already remembering how to hold oxygen now they she’s close. She squeezes his hand twice before letting go. 

Cassian comes up behind them, and starts hustling them back towards the crowds milling around the food stalls. 

‘Krennic will catch up eventually. We don’t want to be waiting for him. Or, I don’t anyway.’

Jyn shrugs. ‘If we weren’t outnumbered, I’d be happy to have a chat.’ 

Bodhi rolls his eyes. Jyn catches him and winks, cracking her knuckles even though she knows the noise makes him wince. Cassian ignores her and just keeps chivvying them in the direction of a stall selling cupcakes iced in colours Bodhi has never seen before. 

There’s a gap between the cupcake tent and the tent beside it, barely wide enough for them to walk single file, which is clearly Cassian’s intended destination. Jyn slips in first, turning to shuffle sideways, reaching her hand back for Bodhi to take as he slips in behind her. He reaches back for Cassian, who takes his hand and runs his thumb over the inside of Bodhi’s wrist. 

It’s quiet between the two tents, the material dulling the hum of the crowd, and the music, holding the atmosphere of the carnival at bay. With Jyn dragging him further along, and Cassian still rubbing circles into his wrist, Bodhi feels his heart rate begin to settle, his breathing evening out, until the fear has dulled like the noise and it’s just the three of them, tangled together, like always. Caught between them is the place Bodhi has always felt safest. 

He closes his eyes, lets his head drop to Cassian’s shoulder. Breathes in, one, two, three. Out, one, two, three. 

There are fingers running through his hair. He opens his eyes to find Jyn much closer than she had been, her hand that isn’t wrapped tightly around his own is pushing his hair back from where it has plastered itself to his forehead. Her eyes are soft in the way she only ever seems to be around the two of them. 

‘How are you doing?’ Cassian murmurs, and Bodhi can feel the brush of his lips against the top of his head. 

He sighs, leaning into the push of Jyn’s fingers and the warmth of Cassian’s body. ‘Better.’ 

Cassian hums, the vibration of it sending a thrill through Bodhi. They’re so close. It’s a warm evening, and the plastic of the tents, the closeness of their bodies, should make it hard to breathe, but Bodhi lets himself relax into it. He lets Cassian turn him, until Bodhi’s back is flush with his chest. He sighs again when Cassian’s arms wrap tight around his waist, his fingers brushing lightly against Bodhi’s skin where his t-shirt has ridden up. Jyn smiles up at him, her hands on his face now, fingers rubbing his temples, smoothing out the tension he has been carrying there. 

‘You look good like this,’ she whispers. He frowns, questioning, and she reaches up, rubs the wrinkles in his forehead away. ‘Relaxed.’

Bodhi feels Cassian nod. ‘Relaxed is a very good look on you.’

He’s warm and comfortable and little lightheaded with the attention, so he says, too honest and not quite honest enough. ‘You’re the only ones who get to see it.’

Cassian tugs him closer, presses his lips Bodhi’s neck. Jyn, hands still on Bodhi’s face, leans up and kisses him on the corner of his mouth. She kisses his nose, his cheeks, and finally the opposite corner.