#phtalate

oh man. how do I choose. there are so many good kinds of dog in the world and that's without even touching the glorious variety of mixes out there. it's like picking favorite children

but okay okay okay let's see here. how many of these are going to be herding dogs

(including pictures because dog photos)

1. border collies.

This is the easiest one and I know it's probably because my first dog growing up was a border collie, but also they're perfect and also I relate to them a ridiculous amount. I too am a neurotic creature who needs to have a job or I get weird. And like the specific border collie my family had, I don't know when to stop. Every time I see a border collie it rejuvenates me. Every time I see one and don't get to say hi it makes me a little sad.

(Pictured: Sadie, the border in question.)

2. english shepherds.

Another "this is a dog that I (or my family) has actually lived with" entry and also another "I'm obsessed with herding dogs generally" entry, and honestly they have a lot in common with border collies except that they are, in my experience, maybe a little chiller. But not much. But god, I have loved both English shepherds I've lived with so much and they're very special to me because of that.

(Pictured: Juno; Keely was the other one.)

3. irish wolfhounds

Honestly a big part of this might just be the THEY'RE BIG of it all - I love a big dog, despite every other entry on this list - but also I think this is partly down to one specific Irish wolfhound puppy I met who was just very precious. Also a little bit the fact that I've always headcanoned Huan (of The Silmarillion fame) as looking like a wolfhound. But it probably is at least a little bit the THEY'RE BIG.

4. corgis.

Who doesn't love a corgi, but look, they're good. Also another herding dog, don't look at me like that. It's their sweet little faces. I'm always sad when I see a fat one, though, which so many of the pets are. At college there was a professor who had two cardigan Welsh corgis and every time I was in the building I would pray to see them. (I didn't very much.)

5. rectangle dogs

This is cheating because it covers multiple breeds and is my blanket term for all of them - pit bulls, staffordshire bull terriers, etc. They look like they're built out of rectangles and it's great. I know that their reputation isn't wholly unearned, but I've never met one that wasn't a lover, and their lean, because of their sheer amount of muscle, is almost unmatched.

Ada Wong

Kimiko Miyashiro

Elle Woods

Clarice Starling

Bayonetta

#1! Yesss. I've been wanting to ramble on this one. I've rambled about it to @blorbologist before but.

Whitestone is based in the north of Tal'Dorei, it is canonically pretty cold! It is also, as I've discussed recently pretty isolated and even before the Briarwoods, trade was dangerous through the Parchwood.

And yet. We know they make mead because Percy brings some for his pre-Thordak evening with Vex. And if they're making mead, that means they've got an active beekeeping practice. And if they've got an active beekeeping practice, and especially if they've got enough excess honey to make mead out of - that suggests they've got an available, affordable source of other sugar to feed the bees during winter if they've taken much of the honey themselves.

(Yes, they could have taken less honey so the bees can use their own supply - but if they're making not just mead, but a local speciality mead! then they have a system for beekeeping. So they have something to make sugarwater out of.)

And, further, despite this isolation and cold climate, despite that this is when they're recovering from the Briarwoods and the Conclave... Whitestone seems to have a ready supply of sugar if it was so feasible for Vox Machina to set up the Slayer's Cake. Relying on trade, especially through the dangerous Parchwood, especially during the rebuilding, especially at such distance - that's a risk. But the Slayer's Cake doesn't have those troubles and maybe it's because it's VM and Keyleth could pop to Emon and tree-teleport back but Vex is involved in the rebuilding of Whitestone and she understands economics so I'm inclined to think she'd want to support local traders.

And that means Whitestone has a source of sugar.

Now, lets take a sideways step - historically, sugar was expensive. Honey and fruit was used for sweetness in foods, but sugar was not very common - it was around but it was harder to obtain and expensive at that. Way back when, refined sugar came in a loaf and it was ground or chipped off for use. It was used rarely too - because it was expensive as hell. Even when it didn't come in a loaf, you had brown and demerara sugars that were rated by moistness until more recent developments. Sugar cane just wasn't so prevalent or available and the use of sugar beet to refine into sugar was, again, a more recent development.

And, let us be clear here, Whitestone is not in a climate suited to growing sugar cane. Indeed - it's a cold climate! It's a climate well suited to root vegetables.

It seems very likely to me that Whitestone grows sugar beet and refines sugar as a local business. They produce mead as a local speciality - so they have sugar to feed their bees when there's no flowers or honey. They're able to support, even when rebuilding, a bakery with a speciality in pastries and cakes. They have a source of sugar despite a cold climate.

Whitestone grows sugar beet and refines sugar.

Indeed, as Tal'Dorei recovers and Whitestone grows under the guidance of Percy and Vex and Cassandra - it's quite likely that huge amounts of Tal'Dorei's sugar is sourced from Whitestone sugarbeet.

oooh this is where I feel like I have to reveal that I haven't read all that many translated works. outside of, I guess, a whole bunch of greek and roman literature in undergrad, I did do that, and a number of cnovels, but I didn't want this whole list to be danmei/baihe.

The Iliad by Homer, trans. Emily Wilson. I just read this one after reading Wilson's translation of The Odyssey a few months ago; it was actually my first read ever of the full text of The Iliad, which seems weird and probably is. I'm deeply familiar with it but never actually read the text itself, and I think I actually like it slightly more than The Odyssey now, at least in some ways. Some of why Emily Wilson's translations speak to me might be down to the extensive notes and detailed introduction, which is what I want to know from a translator, but there's also just the clear and deliberate care taken with transmitting a text not just from another language but from a different culture context, and trying to preserve the poetry at the same time. Mad respect.

Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez, trans. Megan McDowell. I want to read more Mariana Enriquez (and I've been told I should do so) but I'm glad I started with this one. I think I'm missing some cultural context about Argentinian history that would've deepened it for me, but even as was it was a powerful piece of work. Definitely one of the best works of horror (and more interesting works of horror) that I've read in a long time.

Heaven Official's Blessing by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu, trans. Suika, Ryuu, and Lianyin. There are technically translations (of other novels) I like better than this one, though I'm not equipped to say they are better; I mostly decided to put this one down because it was the first danmei I really got hooked into by the book specifically (as opposed to coming to it by adaptation, i.e. MDZS). It remains one of my favorites, and whatever the shortcomings of the translation in terms of how it reads in English (I can't speak, again, to any possible shortcomings in how it's conveying meaning from the original), I only had access to it because of the translators' work.

The Glory of the Empire by Jean D'Ormesson, trans. Barbara Bray. This isn't actually, like, one of my favorite books but I find it so conceptually fascinating and am so glad that I got to read it thanks to the translation. If you're not familiar with it, the conceit is that it is written as a history for an empire that never existed.

Echo by Thomas Olde Heuvelt, trans. Moshe Gilula. For some reason I thought the author himself did this translation but apparently not! Another work of translated horror on here because apparently I just like translated horror better. It's wilderness horror, more or less, and there's some imagery in there that's stuck with me.

I love the idea of Baihe November, I have to say, and The Beauty's Blade is definitely on my list!

ooh, this is an interesting one. I don't typically think of writing fics for songs, though I do love a good story-song. that being said, I have written at least one fic loosely inspired by "Thorn" from Nightfall on Middle Earth, but that feels like easy mode.

I think when it comes to writing, loosely speaking, I might have to say it would be fun to write a xuexiao fic inspired by "This Is Love" by Air Traffic Controller, most probably modern AU, because that song is so profoundly xuexiao it kills me and I feel like writing something off it could be fun.

Reading-wise, I would read a fic based on "The Elf Knight" by Steeleye Span or "The Queen and the Soldier" by Suzanne Vega, which feel both more ripe for original fiction but I feel like someone could make an interesting AU of.