Dear Donnie, today I mixed creamy coconut doctor pepper, chocolate syrup, and almond milk together in a small glass. This probably shouldn't ever happen again, but what should I call it if it does? Please name my senseless concoction. - Jacole The Unquenched
Hi Unquenched-
The low hanging fruit answer would be something like "Dr. Almond Joy" or "Dr. Bounty" but I think "Wasting Away Again In Chocolatetown" is my choice. The name is a subtle and tasteful nod to the beachy themes of Jimmy Buffet's work, much like the coconut and even almond flavors at work. Chocolatetown is a tourist trap owned by the Hershey's chocolate company, which produces Almond Joy and also a popular chocolate syrup.
Hope this is the answer you wanted to hear and if it isn't, too bad.
What are some of your favourite aspects of working w ceramics?
:0 i have an answer for this because i get asked this irl a lot actually!
i really struggle w perfectionism keeping me from creating. because nothing is ever good enough to me. but with ceramics it's so unpredictable that you have no choice but to let go of some of that sense of control over your work. you could spend hours on something and it still won't be perfectly symmetrical or clean OR it could even break in the kiln. sooooo it really helps me embrace... idk. like imperfection and wonky-ness and just getting the piece/concept/idea completed rather than just thinking about it and being held up by the fear that you won't be able to complete the piece how you want. that's my experience w it anyway.
There were minecraft bananas at the store and I thought of you. Tricker treat
The banana brand crossover promotion is wild because like there's not even bananas in the game. there's not a way to make Minecraft themed bananas like you can't have special designs or flavors because they're just bananas. wild
Salt the Earth is a story idk what to do with but basically it's about this group of 5 people and a chicken who are all trying to get to the Southwest US from the PNW as some sort of lichen mutation virus thing causes all plants, fungi, and algea to grow unreasonably large and out of control and maybe dangerous? They figure the desert is the safest place for them (maybe). But the journey is hard especially when you just have a golf cart. I kind of wanted to explore themes of personal growth and returning home after changing as a person through it. It came about because I realized I hadn't written any sort of extremely personal works lol. I think I planned on just having it be something I do VisDev for and never write, though I think it would make an interesting animated series or something if it became a thing.
Salting the earth is a historical practice/metaphor for preventing things from regrowing after being conquered. I kinda wanted to invoke it as a title for making things uninhabitable, somewhere between knocking down a house and burning a bridge.
My WIP document for it just has some character bullet points in it that were a little vague so I'll expand on them here:
Cricket (they/them; on top of the golf cart) is the protagonist of sorts. They're from Arizona and are trying to get back to their family there. They've been away from home for a long time, since they were a young preteen, and have no idea what to expect, and how their family will receive them. They like bugs and are outdoorsy in general.
Hau (he/him, driving) is ferrying these youngin's on his way back to New Mexico, where his daughter lives. He's been kinda nomadic the last few decades, and not really in her life, but since the world is ending he's decided to make some changes. He's upbeat and a little silly and also has every disease ever. The chicken, Hattie (she/her) is his, a show chicken who is remarkably intelligent. For a chicken. He calls Hattie his daughter and it's really obvious she's a metaphor for his real daughter.
Raelynne-Brooklynn "Ray" Holdfast (she/they? it's complicated; passenger seat) left Utah the second she turned 17, getting legally emancipated. She immediately moved to Seattle, dying her hair, getting piercings, slutting it up. Her family was part of a small fundamentalist christian sect, and were family vloggers. Now that the world is ending she wants to go back and save her little brothers (twin 9 year olds) and bring them to Arizona with Cricket's family. Yes that's probably kind of kidnapping but who cares, her parents will find a way to get content out of it anyways. Her and Cricket are in wuv
Laurie (she/her, glasses back seat) is a biologist researching what the fuck is going on. She's trying to find the border of the incident, and study it's spread. She's also studying her boyfriend, Aiden, who was consumed by the fungus itself. She's processing leaving her home behind, potentially never to return. Her and Aiden are t4t and through them I want to explore personal change from that angle as well.
Cordy, previously known as Aiden (they/he/it, asleep in the backseat) is a human that is being puppeted by a sentient fungal hivemind. Its unable to infect the rest of the party since they're all on a potent antifungal medication, but it doesn't seem too interested in spreading to them anyways. It's a little sluggish and spacey, but particularly good at problem solving and also doesn't seem to ever lie. Also it makes better music than Aiden ever did. Cordy refers to Aiden's body as 'home', which unnerves everyone except Laurie, somehow. Aiden's still in there, she thinks, and hopes he's at home too.
That's about it, idk where to go with them, i don't really have any major plot beats planned out, but tonally I feel like it's between Scavengers Reign and Kipo and the Age of the Wonderbeasts.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the movie was super intense and I've been really wanting to read more translated literature but goddamn. The book was a bit much for me.
There's a few other books i didn't finish this year but they're mostly nonfiction that I just wasn't into in the moment but I plan to eventually finish. They aren't like, books that sucked so much shit or anything they're just things I didn't get around to finishing. oh and there was some popular YA gay omegaverse or werewolf book that got recced to me and i read like 2 pages and hated it. i dont even remember what it was called but it was pitched as soft a/b/o, which is fine but like the writing stank badly. it seemed exactly like something id like but nah
