#grrlcookery

Agent Afloat Atlantis!

I always wanted to do a deeper dive into Ziva David and having the team break up at the end of whatever season of NCIS that was, was a time for it. At the time (ie 2008), I was living in a studio in a house built in 1912 (that was probably illegally divided into apartments – I only had two electrical plug-ins in the entire place and one of those was powering the fridge), and I was in a job that I hated. I remember writing most of the story on my laptop while sitting cross-legged on my bed and wishing that everything was different about my life. Like I can remember that time with a vivid clarity I can’t ascribe to many other points in my life.

Anyway. I was in a lyrical mood at the time, and I think some of that immediate dreaminess translates across into the narrative in the first half of the story. Also, on re-read, I still like the banter between Ziva and McGee and Gibbs in the monster-of-the-week section of the story in the latter half.

One of the things that I would have done differently, in retrospect, in that MOTW section, would be to have Ziva’s reaction to Jenny Shepard be stronger and more resonant than it was, given what I layered into the front half of the story, but that didn’t occur to me until after I posted the story, so.

All in all, i really enjoy how this one holds together :)

I ❤️ that the girls need to snuggle outweighs the need to play on the computer!

Well, they are very insistent :D Polk will crawl under the laptop and try to push it off sometimes. 

klaus-hargreeves-katz replied to your post “lightshadowverisimilitude replied to your post “Tonight at my D&D...”

cunning action IS one of the best rogue features! ranged/bow rogue or melee rogue?

Well, melee at the moment because I have no weapons. The game we’re playing is adapted for animal play, so we’re all animals -- I have Bite and Claw, and I can USE weapons if I happen upon them, but I don’t have any of my own just yet. 

grrlcookery

When I eventually manage a place of my own mortgage, a heated rail and a 20L pressure canner and an enormous veggie patch will be my only luxuries :)

Soldier/Widow mirror q p. 2: the thing os, Natasha was going to get fallout no matter what, but I adored out you *made it important bc she's a person not a persona *let it become a mirror of Bucky, respecting both people *turned it into a fascinating illustration of how recovery spirals and fractals back into itself *did all this beautiful musings inbetwen scenes that were also utterly honest but completely ridic. Like, intermission With Llamas, or That Damned Kayak *g*

HAHAHA WELL THE SHORT ANSWER IS “COMPLETELY ACCIDENTALLY” 

the longer answer is ithlyn is an exploration of characters who have had similar traumas and losses of identity, support structure & trust. natasha and bucky (and steve and sam!) are looking for answers to the same question, basically - who am i now? what the fuck am i supposed to do? my entire world crashed down around my ears - AGAIN - and i have to dig myself out and figure out what’s next. What choices do i make this time? what wasn’t working before? what the fuck happened, where did i go wrong, how do i make my future not look like my past? 

natasha and bucky have to prioritize their bodies in this process, in different ways - bucky because he’s basically coming off pretty intensive life support with a LOT of medical problems and has to teach himself how to deal with that, and natasha because (also like bucky) her work lives in her body and her body is the primary tool of her work. since so much of her work is also tied up in identity and interpersonal relationships, how she displays herself is a direct correlation - in her own eyes as well as others’ - to what she’s doing, who she is and what message she’s trying to send. 

they both also have very practical approaches to the whole process - partially because, again, their bodies/lives necessitate it, and partially because i think by both nature and nurture bucky and natasha are very practical people. they see their bodies as tools, and there isn’t necessarily a negative connotation there -  they both have complex relationships with their bodies and minds, and while bucky’s especially is adversarial at times, a lot of ithlyn is them working hand and hand with who they are, to the full extent of who and what they are.  

it was also important for me to depict them as characters who don’t hate themselves. they hate what they’ve done, they hate things that have been thrust upon them, but not themselves - barnes goes so far as to absolutely reject and other the parts of him that he hates, so that what he’s hating isn’t self, and he keeps it at arm’s length until he doesn’t hate it anymore. I would argue that natasha is especially comfortable in herself, body and mind, and her conflict comes from what she has chosen to do and allowed herself to go along with, not who/what she is. 

As a result, both characters never really wallow in despair or failure, and always get up when they fall down; half because they have never been allowed to quit in their lives, and half because neither of them are quitters. they are both survivors, and even if they don’t think of it in such explicit terms, they believe themselves  worthy of survival, and self-protection, and success. even when they’re down they’re not out, and they know it. they are motivated to improve and heal themselves for themselves first and foremost, and i wanted to really explore those kinds of characters + that determination - i think there are a lot of stories where people motivate themselves through others and their relationships, and that’s great! everybody does that! ithlyn has a lot of that too!  but for characters who are as narratively and physically isolated as natasha and bucky are, it was an awesome opportunity to really dig in and figure out what drives these people - these two motherfuckers who survived, alone, for decades in extremely hostile territory, and how their internal engines are powered both because of that and despite of it. 

fabledshadow replied to your post“ok either tumblr’s glitching or y’all are just reblogging all the same...”

When I like these posts I am sending good vibes and positive thoughts your way ❤️❤️❤️

Thank you, dear. <3

astroloquaciousreplied to your post“mutton chops”

Nooo if you're going to change Geralt's hair, he should at least get to wear the Designated Queer Undercut! (Made famous in my household during my partner's play-through because they started a later quest where you have to talk to several of Dandelion's girlfriends, and stopped in the middle SPECIFICALLY TO GO GET THE UNDERCUT because, and I quote, "I need them [the NPCs] to know I can't take this much heterosexual nonsense seriously.")

HA I absolutely think this is right and true.

UNFORCH, Dr. Friend is A STRAIGHT MAN. This is inescapable. He’s the kind of straight man who finds it enjoyable to flirt with other men, and is so great at parties he often gets invites to events where he winds up being the only straight guy (there’s a running joke that one of the anaesthesia nurses, a gay man, is his Emotional Support Nurse, and they’re super tight, so I’m not just saying that DF is Cool With The Gays in a general Some Of My Best Friends Etc kind of way, I literally mean that he is actually specifically Cool With A Bunch Of Specific Gays and has consistently been so over the decades I’ve known him), but despite all that, he is a straight man, and sometimes, boy can you tell. 

 bittylildragon replied to your post“mutton chops”

Oh my GOD that hair and beard combo, I wasn't even aware he COULD look that bad. Geralt baby, what have they done to you

RIGHT

I mean, DF is just trolling, but. Still. 

 mikkeneko replied to your post“mutton chops”

i had NO IDEA you could change geralt's hairstyle i thought he just LOOKED LIKE THAT

No! it turns out there’s One Good Look, and then the default look is Okayish and you see that one sometimes, and then for some reason they offer other options and they’re All Super Bad and why do they offer them?? I don’t know!!! So that terrible trolls like DF can troll us all!!

akilah12902 replied to your post “mutton chops”

you CAN get stuff repaired, at any armorer or blacksmith, or via repair kits. just. it's an option!

Oh yes, we’re aware-- he actually had opted to repair it right before accidentally dying one time, and on the reload was like no, fuck this gambeson, I am not wasting a repair kit on this piece of shit, I’m just going to equip something else as soon as I can because it sucks.

grrlcookery replied to your post“ok either tumblr’s glitching or y’all are just reblogging all the same...”

Oh man I hate when my emotional bruises and my friends' emotional bruises step on each other

I would like to be a more patient person than I am but I am only one person and I only do so well. It’s okay and I’m over it, I’m just maybe taking a lil Tumblr break and opting to believe it was just a glitch, and talking myself down from unfollowing half my mutuals because I can’t deal. This is not a productive impulse and probably won’t help at all.

 bittylildragon replied to your post“Princess the Goat”

There IS actually hidden treasure in the Riordan Manor, she is not scamming you, but it's SUPER well-hidden. Also, I see you chose to have Geralt say he killed Letho in the previous games. That's a pity, Letho in this game is Grade A Witcher Beef and is a great character.

We found the Riordan Manor treasure eventually! Yes thank you.

We did not make any choices about the game, we just declined to load a saved state, and so they decide whatever for us. Alas, no Letho, but as we didn’t know who the fuck he was to start with, we had no idea how to choose whether to manifest him or not. It is weird, what they automatically decide for you though if you don’t tell them otherwise. Like... why.

nogling replied to your post“mutton chops”

Terribly Unfashionable Dad Flings Himself from Highest Point of City in Order to End His Hair Suffering.

Huh. Now I'm thinking of honey mustard, and what pumpkin pie mustard would taste like. YOU FIEND. :) But yeah. I keep my savoury & sweet mixes apart since I accidentally added spekulaas to baked beans

lol. Pumpkin pie mustard ... I’m horrified but intrigued. You know, honey mustard with like a tiny bit of clove or something could be interesting. In a good sort of interesting way and not a “we should kill it with fire” interesting way. 

The pumpkin pie spice eggs weren’t the worst thing, because I do make german apple pancake which is like, roughly, scrambled eggs with sugar, spices, and apples. So ... it wasn’t horrible? The contrast with the oregano wasn’t even awful, either. There could potentially be case for cinnamon and oregano, in the right dish, but it might be tough. I don’t think I’ll mix them again, though. Just ... no. 

Thank you. It has been really exhausting, and I am working on my last bare nerve. 

I could reformat if you like, I have spare time & spend a lot of it in bed. Only thing is, I’d need you to tell me what formatting you’d like once I captured it.