it/they, adult
I like sci-fi, birds, nature, old machines, crochet, pottery, and many other things.
The only rule for my blog is be kind to each other :)
“This means… of Rocky, possessive. Of the speaker.”
“My.”
“Correct. But only for names.”
“So you’re calling me…?”
Rocky repeats the word: “My Grace. Yes.”
“Are there other Graces? Why do you need to specify?”
Rocky considers this, tapping his xenonite-encased claws idly against the floor.
“No other Grace,” Rocky says. “We just do this.”
“Like an honorific,” Grace guesses. “It goes before everyone’s name? Everyone you know?”
Rocky whirs in surprise. “No, no, no. Not at all.”
“Okay, then who? What makes me qualify?”
Rocky is silent for a moment.
“...Does this offend Grace?” he asks, voice lower.
Grace blinks. “No! I don’t think so. Is there a reason to be offended?”
“Good,” Rocky says, relieved. Grace is starting to recognize what Eridian relief sounds like. “No, no reason.”
“Who else do you call that?”
“You don’t have this on Earth?”
Grace considers. What for, friends? He couldn’t call Marissa “my Marissa.” That would be weird.
“I still don’t know what it means,” he settles on. “So I couldn’t tell you.”
Rocky groans in frustration. He’s a very impatient tutor. “We just say it.”
“Are you my Rocky?” Grace asks. He hits the two keys to make the my note.
“I don’t know!” Rocky says. “You decide this.”
“I decide? Who do you use it for?”
“You. Adrian. I will use it for my pebbles.”
Grace blinks. “So few?”
Rocky shifts. “I am… you do not have the word yet. Eridian who works alone often, not close to many other Eridians.”
“What, mechanical engineer?”
Rocky chitters with amusement. “Acceptable.”
“Is Adrian your only friend?”
Rocky draws back, like he’s taken offense. “I have friends. Coworkers. But different.”
So just Adrian. And him.
“This worries you,” Rocky says.
“Adrian is your mate,” Grace points out. “I’m not your mate.”
“Correct. You are not. You do not like to be a mate.”
Grace isn’t sure how to respond to that, so he ignores it.
“I’m your friend,” Grace says.
Rocky hesitates, for a second. “...Correct.”
“Like your coworkers.”
“No.”
Grace sighs, rubbing his hand across his face. Okay, maybe that’s fair. It’s not like he felt about any of his coworkers like he feels about Rocky.
“Best friend,” Grace amends. “You’re my best friend, too.”
Rocky hums. “Acceptable.”
“Just acceptable? Now you are offending me. Can you just explain?”
This makes Rocky fall silent for a minute longer than usual. Grace is half-ready to apologize and to say let’s move on and to retype his own name without the superfluous my.
“The Earth ‘best friend’ is not strong enough,” Rocky says finally. “It does not translate this way.”
Grace runs his fingers through his hair, a little nervous, for some reason. “Okay.”
“It is…” Rocky pauses. He has to pause more often, now that they’re not using the translator, to simplify his language. “It means that I am not Rocky without my Grace. You are part of… of the whole. When I wake up, I think of you. When I work. When I eat. When I think I am going to die.”
Rocky speaks slowly, but it’s still a lot of Eridian for Grace to grasp all at once. Even as he works out the sentences in his head, he can feel hot tears rising in his eyes.
“It means that when you are sick, I am sick,” Rocky continues. “And it means I will take care of you, because taking care of you is taking care of myself.”
Grace bunches up his sleeve, wiping it across his face, blinking furiously.
Rocky’s voice is soft. “So Grace is part of Rocky. Grace is like a cell. You see? My Grace.”
Grace is quiet, for a moment, trying to get himself together. When he speaks, his voice is shaky.
“...Oh.”
Rocky hums, pressing his carapace gently against Grace’s arm. “You are leaking. Does this make you sad?”
Grace shakes his head, sniffing, crossing his arms across his knees and resting his chin on his sleeves. “Not at all.”
“Good, good.”
“I feel like that,” Grace mumbles. “Just like that. Just exactly—exactly like that.”
“About your old mate?”
“Don’t act stupid. You know I’m talking about you.”
Rocky hums, burrowing closer. Grace curls one arm around his carapace. That’s not enough, so he leans over, dropping his head down so his forehead presses against the xenonite.
“My Rocky,” Grace whispers in English.
“My Grace,” Rocky echoes in Eridian. Grace can recognize the note at the start. He will add it when he plays Rocky’s name.
“How long have you called me that?” Grace asks. “Must’ve been a while. I didn’t notice it change.”
Made me think of how hard it is to translate the 우리 from korean. It's literally "our", but it is used to mean "my" so a lot of fans fall into a shipper mind, because western society, specially anglophone people, sees "my + name" as something just for romantic partners, but that's just very inaccurate.
My mom, but you love her, so she is "uri", that friend who's so close, they are like part of your soul family, your partner, your kids, your pets, your house. You might live alone. It's still our. It's not about ownership, like how you own a bag, it's about belonging.
And beyond that, you are your relation to people. "our jiwoo's-daughter", "our jihoon's-dad", "our jisoo's-husband".
Some better pictures of the leafkerchief. It’s made of a plain green cotton, with facings in a much lighter weight cotton, and after I sewed and turned all the points right side out I topstitched as close to the edge as I could. The inner edge of the facing is hand sewn with a slipstitch, and the veins are painted on.
I got a lot of questions about this, so I will do a blog post about it, and will include a pattern diagram!
If you're someone who wants to be able to find (or avoid) ships while reading on AO3, odds are good that a fan coder out there has created a user script that could help you out.
User scripts are similar to extensions. You add them to your browser to automatically adjust web pages for you. User scripts allow you the opportunity to personalize them, however, which is wonderful for things like AO3 filters.
Here are a few that might be worth a look:
AO3 multishipper saviour - if you want to read about a particular character in a relationship without specifying any other person. The relationships can be specified to be romantic or platonic or both.
AO3: Reorder Ship Tags - Automatically reorders relationship tags on work blurbs so romantic ships (/) always appear before platonic ships (&).
AO3 Relationship/Character Highlighter - highlights the ship/character you’re looking for if they appear in the first two relationship/character tags.
AO3 romantic relationship savior - hides all romantic relationships in sort & filter page that has "/"
AO3 First Relationship Tag Filter - toggle on the script if you're browsing a relationship tag and all the works that don't have that tag as their first tag will be hidden. Works on both romantic (/) and platonic (&) relationships.
AO3 relationship savior - hides works that have too many relationships in them.
AO3 Only Show Primary Pairing - will hide fics that don't have the designated pairing listed first in the tags.
AO3 Only Show Primary Pairing (Auto) - The difference between this and Neeve's script is that it automatically detects the primary pairing, little to no configuration needed.
AO3 Show every pairing except THAT one - Remove relationship tags from script which you do not want to read.
If you want to save your filters, there are two ways to go about it.
If you do the same search/filter every time, just bookmark the results page with your browser. The URL contains all of your filters, so every time to visit that URL, you'll get the pre-filtered, updated results.
If you use the same filters on different searches (e.g. always filter out Character Death in every fandom), then you can use a bookmarklet to run your filters for you. Instructions on how to set it up can be found here.
Thank you to @securityunit-ese for the excellent prompt and to @emily-e-draws for making me want to immediately draw mb at the rainforest cafe when I saw your art 💖
when you’re a gay lion and you accidentally tried to introduce your lesbian lioness friend to one of her own exes at a gay bar and she goes into the bathroom and bitches you out for not being able to tell her endlessly rotating cast of girlfriends apart which isn’t really fair because first of all they all keep dyeing their hair different colors and second of all she keeps getting back together with different ones at different times and meanwhile you’ve been “single” for like 8 months but are spending a lot of time with one specific guy who works at your old co-op and were going to excitedly tell her about it tonight but now you’ve ruined the whole subject of dating by trying to introduce her to her own ex at a gay bar (which is a watering hole. because you’re lions.)
The leaves are hand printed - original linocut on fabric. Then I painted them with Tsukineko ink to get an ombre effect insides the leaves. The leaves and stems were attached by machine applique to a Hoffman Super Nova panel. My mom loved caladiums (and quilting) and so do I!
I see a lot of folks defending their vitriolic repugnance towards toddlers with cries of "but my sensory needs!" as if children are not also in possession of sensory needs. As if you, an adult here on Tumblr.com, do not have the capability and resources to learn the skills or acquire aids for coping with competing access needs. Or, y'know, just the option to leave, the way children most often do not.
You're holding an actual child to higher standards than you hold yourself, but it's the child that should be removed from public and community spaces. For your comfort.
don't ever look up what your childhood friends are up to now!!!!!!!!!! like girl you're a nuclear safety engineer. i put on matching socks today. we played tag a thousand years ago.
janainaart
yousharknotpass
theartofmadeline
dededos
