#proxykiwi

[patricianandclerk]

Hey, I just wanted to drop in & let you know I absolutely adored your eden house series! It was so much fun, but you also write kids so well. Crowley's fondness of them is just precious (same goes for the nanny Asthoreth series which I also loved for the same reasons)!

Aaaah, thank you so so much! <3 I really love writing the Eden House series, and Nanny Knows Best is so fun to work on as well. 

[destinationtoast]

Cooking-related replies:

@proxykiwi ooh, thanks for the tips! And I don’t think I’ve ever had Pangasius, but now I’m intrigued! :D

@redbuttonhole Interesting! Do you have recommendations for other methods of learning? I wonder if I make this method sound worse that it is. XD I certainly make a bunch of mistakes with it, but it does have some advantages – like not having to shop for food or measure things out, and having plenty of tasty non-wheat recipes. I’ve also tried self-teaching before in the past, and walked away several times… But I’m not sure yet whether this time will stick.

[theemperorsfeather]

proxykiwi replied to your post: I see these memes going around about how you...

What’s missing in these kinds of advice, like in most of those corner-cutting pieces of advice, is balance and a bit of feeling for the situation. I think it’s primarily aimed at the kind of person who’ll apologise for literally everything - this kind of behaviour is horrible for self esteem and makes you look weak/annoying in the eyes of others. Saying ‘thank you’ instead of 'sorry’ projects confidence. However, you’re right to point out that there are all kinds of (½

Yes, and that missing balance and situational appropriateness is pretty gross. “Do this and it will give everyone warm fuzzies!” The fuck it will. They’re encouraging replacing one kind of problematic automatic people-pleasing scripting for another, which might in some cases actually be LESS sincere.

If I am late for something, I am genuinely regretful!

“Thank you for waiting” is what customer service people say to try and de-escalate situations.

[jabberwockypie]

First off, you look super cute in that Renfaire outfit! And I think you're a strong and courageous person. But as one bully victim to another, I wanted to say you shouldn't give your sis attention like this. I can see her words still hurt you by how strongly you react and defend yourself. Please don't give her the satisfaction! It also traps you in negative emotions and hurt, and you deserve better than that! You're brave, and you rock!

*hugs* Thanks.

I cut contact with my biological family 3 years ago.

The thing is, I ignored the last several messages.  When she made a Tumblr account specifically to harass me, I told her to leave me alone - in case there was any ambiguity in that - and blocked her.

And Tumblr’s anon IP blocker worked for a while, but either she moved or Tumblr’s code is just a mess of angry wasps.

Regardless, I got this one and I’m ANGRY.  And I mean …  I don’t want to keep this secret anymore. The way I grew up was FUCKED UP.  “Don’t tell anyone Our Business” or “They wouldn’t UNDERSTAND” or “I had to do it because you were such a difficult teenager”.

And several of these threats have the same echoes of that secrecy - of that “If you tell anybody, they’ll take you away” - “If you tell anybody what happened, they’ll think YOU were the bad one, so you’d better not”

I do not WANT to keep that secret any longer.  Drag it out into the daylight and say “This was wrong.  That any of this continues is STILL wrong.”

[aboxthecolourofheartache]

Saw your tag under the bog butter story, could you maybe elaborate on how you get parasites from bog butter? Do they lay eggs in the butter? Thanks!

Hey!  Okay, first of all, I apologize for the confusion.  That tag was less a statement of fact and more an example of my skewed sense of humor.  

I work in a field where I’m often confronted with people’s... very unsound ideas of historical life.  For the sake of the post, I’m going to (pray) assume that the bog butter person actually knows what they’re doing and won’t give themself and their family food poisoning through unsafe bog-buttering practices.  Perhaps they are a bog butter pro.

But we live in an age of badly researched health food trends based on limited/inaccurate/or outright false “evidence.”  Combine this with the worrisome “pure” health and lifestyle movements, and you get fads that claim to be based on ~ancestral practices~ which are somehow ~better for you~.  What with the proliferation of dubious information on the internet and an alarming lack of critical thinking skills in the general public, people sometimes do things they should not be doing.  Or, they are doing very real and historical things but not doing them safely or accurately because they got their information from a poor source.

What you read was an archaeologist with public education experience staring horror-struck into the distance imagining the conversations she will have to have with genuinely nice people who are very, very misinformed about history, food safety, and historical food safety.

I have no idea if parasites would actually lay eggs or spawn or what have you in bog butter.  They’re opportunistic bastards, though, so you never know?  Microorganisms are honestly the larger concern, but on the other hand bogs are goddamn weird when it comes to preserving things. (Look up bog bodies if you are not faint of heart and are prepared for some smooshed/leathery human remains.)

Tl;dr This was an in-joke more or less with myself combined with a public service announcement not to play around with untreated groundwater.

Sorry about the misleading tag!! 

[caitlynlynch]

proxykiwi replied to your photo “Full title: Medieval Underpants and Other Blunders: A Writer’s (&...”

Does it come with sources? Cause it also sounds great as a reference book for historians

Yes, there is a JOLLY USEFUL appendix at the back with references to different periods in history. One thing Alleyn recommends specifically for fiction writers, though, is that if you want to write a novel set in a particular time period then you should, wherever possible, read fiction from that time period.

Which obviously gets tricky the further back in history you go, but there’s no excuse once you get to the 1700s and later.

[mintygrimoir]

Generally curious person here that might dab one toe into witchcraft/herbalism occasionally: love you mom's witch/tarot tips! Please keep 'em coming. Also, love the rest of your blog so you've got yourself an extra follower :)

Well thank you so much for following me! I really appreciate it (sorry for taking so long to answer, tumblr refuses to notify me every). 

This is my favorite masterpost of herbs and their magical properties.

If you want to start looking at herbalism, this is a great resource. 

[theemperorsfeather]

proxykiwi replied to your post “Dear hivemind, I would appreciate some book recommendations. I am...”

NK Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy might be interesting to you; the civilisation is not standard western/white and the earth is literally the villain.

Cool! That one’s been on my to-read list for a while, because I loved her Hundred Thousand Kingdoms series so much.