#tossiemering

[halfelven]

I can’t think of three characters I associate you with because I associate you SO strongly with mr Bilbo Baggins himself. sweet lovely hobbit who writes and knows a whole lot of things about elves and is down to cause some mayhem vibes

thank you!!!!!!!!! 🥺🥺💖🥰🥰😭😭💞💞💞

ahhh this is such a compliment! though I'm pretty much a hobbit only in height my sweet little Bilbo has been a joy in my life before I could even say his name. And I'm constantly wanting to see mountains again, Gandalf! Mountains! though I want to travel about finishing my books

I watched the hobbit (1977) when I was like 1 or 2 (bought from a yard sale on buttermilk road which is SUCH a shire road name) and was like truly my life will never be the same. truly there is a place here that I belong to (Immediately that place being Rivendell and my life needing adventures) And Bilbo was of course a very welcome guest in my house, Elrond as well.

I am very invested in recording histories and especially passed-down songs and stories, and I know a great deal about magic (but that's to be expected with my family history of Elves and Magic and Wizards. I'm being 100% honest here. my family's history is just full of magic, and I've been called magic by old women who you do not argue with, and my cousins have a lot of magic too)

Bilbo and I would team up to cause some mayhem in Rivendell. and I too have an 'okay then bitch. come fucking fight me' attitude to Very Important people who I disagree with, which is constantly getting me in and out of trouble

my mother said 'Bilbo is eccentric' and I was like 'eccentric: that's exactly what I'm going to be when I grow up'

also I think theft is wildly funny and I immensely approve of stealing from rich people who have too much <3

[urjorad]

I’ve got an unnamed Nord if you want to help name! He’s ambitious and always looks out for his little sister, but his ambition leads him to tragedy in the end.

How about Hlifur (hlee-fer)? I derived it from the Icelandic word for shielding/protecting, "hlífa" but changed it so it would be applicable as a name :) If you want to focus more on the ambitious part you can maybe use Metnar, which I derived from the Icelandic word for ambition, “metnaður”!

[halfelven]

meadow grass mahogany :)

🥰🥰🥰 that's so sweet!

here's grassy walk by the creek and a nice warm cup of floral fruity tea for you (something with passion fruit but I forgot the whole name)

also! "friends of old and new friends from distant lands" is how to live and! "Here, my friends" is truly how you start a Council 💚

[magrittr]

wait wait what are the gory sweater thoughts I’m so curious!

2 parts to this. On the one side, a slightly-mean critique of the original picture. On the other side, advancements, improvements, potential.

I’m going to be a hater first.

Here’s the original photo:

At first glance, I loved this, but when I looked at is as a knitter, I saw it as a bit… shallow? limited? barely scraping the surface?

Firstly, it’s a style of knitting that I honestly don’t really like. Unfinished edges, unshaped garments, weird gauge. I see this (and feel free to disagree or call me cynical) as being entirely in the “sackcloth that we call fashion because it’s on a skinny person” wheelhouse. There’s nothing wrong with this style (it’s certainly very chic, plus it’s popular and beginner friendly) but I want to go further. The effect currently is “alternative but extremely trendy fashion with gore elements.” Florals for spring? It just lacks the shock factor for me.

And further, I got my undergraduate in biology and anatomy was one of my favorite classes… most of the guts don’t look like guts, which, in a similar vein (HA!), kills the shock factor for me. Being realistic would make this more unsettling. Guts-knitting that is #aesthetic is fine, but we could go so much further.

End haterdom. Enter part 2.

My idea for a gory sweater was prompted by a cable motif I saw a month or two ago:

Imagine this adapted into a set of lungs, with anatomically correct lobes and a cable heart nestled between. You could use intarsia to assign lifelike colors for each (for bonus points, embroider additional blood vessels on top afterwards), then separately knit up ribs+sternum+clavicle on top. The effect would be more real and more disgusting. Amigurumi, cable, and texturing techniques can make your knitting almost realistic, then consider your fiber choices: shiny silk for the wetness of organs, cotton for the smoothness of bone, boucle for lumpiness in intestines, lungs, and pancreases, and braided yarns to give blood vessels that ropiness. In this last respect, the original artist did play with texture, and look how cool and disgusting it is!

In my vision, we’d leave the chic sackcloth behind and go grandma, go corporate, go “normal.” The base shirt or dress would be absolutely typical - something any ravelry user would make or something you’d find on a rack at Macy’s. I’m inspired by the textile artist Ýr Jóhannsdóttir (Ýrúrarí) who, among other things, knits whimsical faces onto regular clothes just like that. The addition of these elements to something typical makes them all the more magical.

Imagine that, but out of a horror movie or anatomy lab. The effect would be a strait-laced individual under dissection. It would be fun, if unwearable. Super shocking, gore to its highest potential.

Anyways… more gore, less chic.

[halfelven]

🪗

my second cartoon villain catchphrase would be

you can just do things

because that’s the thing about life. you can just do things. wicked, evil horrible things too 😈

my third would be

who hurt you? (said to someone i’m torturing)

[powerfromthegreenwitch]

you know the revels? I LOVE the revels!!

Yes!! And me too!! I first heard about them years ago (because of Susan Cooper and the Shortest Day) but I didn't actually get to see a performance until last year! I watched the livestream of a semi-local city's revels with my family last year (because covid) and this year we all got to see another semi-local city's revels live! One of the coolest experiences ever for sure. Would love to hear your revels stories!

[nuwanders]

ooooh 4 for cassathra :)

sorry about how long this took for me to answer!! i was busier than anticipated with work last week -- it also took some thinking on my part because cass is such a forgiving sort of person

4. What do they consider to be an unforgivable action? Why?

i think it would take a lot for an action to cross cassathra's threshold and head into 'totally unforgivable' territory, she's merciful probably to the point of naivety. BUT..... that being said, i think the value she places on trust and meaningful interpersonal relationships would make deep betrayals unforgivable for her. and i mean deep betrayals, like breaches of trust cutting to the very foundations of the relationship. this would also apply to betrayals against other people, especially people she's close with.

[magrittr]

hmmm 18 and 20??

18. A memorable meal this year?

Best sundubu-jjigae of my life at this spot in Toronto. The restaurant owner and I chatted and he gave me free ice cream afterwards. One of those meals where if a meteor smashed into earth after you finished and obliterated all life you’d be kinda fine with it.

20. What’s something you learned this year?

This year, I guess I finally merged my loves of art and infectious disease into a deep-dive into the Black Death. (Very morbid, I know.) Specifically, memorizing the approximate dates of the plague (1347-1352) - a tiny tidbit that me a starting point off which to build up an understanding of the context of the medieval world. In recent months this has led me down some interesting rabbit holes of Greek and Arabic medical history, past climates and economies, etc. It also broadened my understanding of and connection to a body of artwork and group of artists often derided as crude or unsophisticated.