more scribbles of Kathryn Janeway trapped in an Angevin holodeck simulation when I should be writing fic but instead I am yearning for a broken monarch crumpling beneath the weight of her own decisions and eroded nobility

Every time I'm forced by circumstance to hand-sew something, I remember a fairytale I once read. There are lead-up shenanigans as the humble protagonist helps small animals and meets the princess and all that, but in the climax, the princess rigs a contest for her hand by setting her own task: sew her a dress in a single night.

The noble suitors, who have never sewn a thing in their lives, sabotage themselves by their own ambitions: they choose difficult fabrics to work with and cut huge, elaborate patterns and select gems and pearls and beads to sew onto it, and snip such long bits of thread that they lose time detangling their stitches, and ultimately resort to pinning bits together as they run out of time, so that their offerings initially look beautiful and flashy, but when the princess tries them on they stick her with pin ends and fall apart as she moves.

The humble protagonist uses a very simple pattern without embellishments and sews using short lengths of thread (snipped off and threaded for him by little birds of course) which don't tangle and therefore save time. His dress is plain by contrast, but holds together and the princess is able to move freely in it, and so he wins the contest and her hand.

I particularly think about the bit about threading the needle with shorter lengths of thread, needing to tie off more often but avoiding tangles and thereby saving time.

I then ignore that piece of wisdom passed down through who knows how many years and proceed to cut the longest damn length of thread I can manage because I hate tying off beginning or ending knots and I will not subject myself to more of that even if it does mean more tangles along the way.

flicking back through my procreate library what the fuck was this

authors notes: there is absolutely no one true meaning intended for this piece, but I guess my thoughts while making it were the plain, boring and literal way you talk about the world after seeing something traumatic , or the way things seem to lose all meaning and significance . and also the way you minimise an event to make it sound like it's not so bad , the way you remove detail from the memory.

like .. there is something over the river . there is something unspeakable over the river . when you recount it , you have to make it seem so small . it's just a body. the state the body is in can't be made out like this . you hide the details from yourself to forget how bad it really looked . you hide it in general - so insignificant you could miss it entirely ! it was just a body and The Something that killed it looming , and birds flying away .

and the world could be full of colour , but you can't see it that way any more . the grass is just grass . the trees are just trees . the fish in the river that's just a river are just fish , and that's just a body .

Also SPOILERS for anyone who wants the solution to the eye-spy:

its actually crazy how much local art events and other potentially interesting stuff i completely miss out on just because the orgs all post on instagram and facebook only. two standouts among the worst fucking platforms in the world with the most egregious ui and slop saturation, so dogshit that id be unable to use them regularly even if i wanted to. stop it you all. get on tumblr or something

even orgs and collectives that used to have proper websites of their own now just put all their updates on fb and ig. stop! stop it! youre making me feel like an old geezer! ok well old geezers nowadays are very much on facebook... an ancient geezer. youre making me feel like A Ancient Woman

When people take pictures of common goldeneyes they mostly look for the male birds, but the females are also beautiful. Don't you agree?

https://twitter.com/vagina_museum/status/1628046312275935232

YEAH

Highlighting that this is “considered quite rare” but in actuality we have absolutely no idea how common this, or indeed a great many variants in sexual development, are. Because if it’s not visible from the outside then we only learn about it if doctors (or coroners) go looking, and doctors only go looking if it’s causing a problem.

Me for the last 15 years: Starting a timer when you have to wait for something or stand in line can be helpful, because no matter how impatient you feel you can check the timer and remind yourself it has not been several eternities and has in fact only been five minutes.

Me setting a timer when I got to bag claim just now: I'm so clever! I will now be reminded that it's only been five minutes and bag claim usually takes about twenty!

Me looking at the timer thoughtfully: ...another Very Neurotypical Moment With Sam, it appears.

FTR it was 17 minutes from "arriving at the bag claim" to claiming my bag, so right on time.

Someone tagged this post "#it’s all fun n games until baggage check takes over an hour" which is 100% legit; a common sentiment in notes is that sometimes you don't want to know how long something has taken. But that is one of the reasons I started doing the stopwatch thing in the first place!

On the one hand, timing something is about reminding myself "No, it's only been five minutes," but it is ALSO about knowing when something is taking way longer than it should.

If I'm put into an exam room in a doctor's office, I start a timer. Because I have been forgotten about in a doctor's office before, I get nervous that I'll just be sat in there forever, and the timer tells me "No, they haven't forgotten you, it's only been 10 minutes." But it also tells me if I have been there longer than appropriate (generally more than 40 minutes) so that I know when it's justifiable to flag down a nurse to find out what's going on.

At bag claim, because I know it usually takes about 20 minutes to get my bag, I don't get concerned until the timer passes the 20 minute mark without any bags appearing. At that point I know I need to take off my headphones and start paying attention -- looking at signage, maybe asking someone if I'm at the right carousel. Maybe don't worry yet, but start double-checking. Perhaps the delay is unavoidable and it'll just be an hour, but at least, having asked, I KNOW it'll be an hour, and the timer will tell me when the hour is past and I should maybe check in again.

Now, if the bags do start showing up before 20 minutes but my bag hasn't shown up by the 40 minute mark, I know that again it's time to put my head on a swivel, and at the 50 minute mark it's time to go speak to someone in the baggage claim office. This has more than once helped me locate my bag when it's accidentally been sent to the wrong part of the airport. There is no point at which, without the timer, I would go "man this is taking a long time" and then actually go ask, because I wouldn't actually know how long it had been.

The timer both prevents me from worrying before I need to and tells me when to start worrying -- essentially, because I'm both perpetually impatient and also infinitely patient, I've outsourced my patience to a stopwatch. And because I time a lot of things, I now know the average time a lot of things take, which helps me calibrate my concerns appropriately. Ten minutes is a long time to wait for a burger from McDonalds, but it's actually on the short end of the time it takes to get a burger from Shake Shack. It's not a long time to be on hold with the HR office of my old employer, but it's longer than I'd usually be on hold with my pharmacy. Et cetera.

I know I say this all the time but I still find it hilarious that I didn't know I had ADHD until I was forty years old.

just want to add that I've started timing myself doing everyday chores and tasks and having a more realistic, personalized idea of how long things take has helped a lot with my time blindness.

I only just started, and it's not yet habitual, so there's only a small bit of info, but it's already made it easier to avoid rushing or getting stuck in waiting mode because it takes out a lot of the guesswork.

And it lets me have grace for myself when something is really taking it out of me. I'm right, this *is* taking forever and it isn't usually this hard, so what's going on? Do I need to rest? Eat? Did I forget my meds? Am I overwhelmed? Etc.

I feel like a scientist gathering and applying data.

Showers on typical days only take "about ten minutes" (me, 2025), therefore, I CAN shower before my appointment that's two hours away.

Contrary to popular belief, doing a quick tidy takes "less than half an hour" (me, 2026) and will not take the better part of a day. I don't need to dread or put it off because I can start a 20min episode and I'll be done before the credits roll.

The proposed estimate of "10-30 miserable minutes in the cold when the warm blankets are right there" (time blindness and depression, 2024), is erroneous, and based on pre-medicated data. As tempting as it is to go straight back to bed after peeing, my research shows that brushing teeth, including "prep and cleanup," rarely takes more than four minutes and may even improve morale and momentum when getting up for the day.

This is awesome and hey guess what: you ARE a scientist gathering and applying data!

I'm super proud of you and everyone who is working to keep their lives together in the face of disability and the general horrors of the world right now. Keep up the great work! And if things slip a little that's ok too. None of us are perfect. Just keep taking notes...for SCIENCE!

Once you start keeping track of results, it's SCIENCE. When you start using the results in the real world, it's APPLIED SCIENCE!

Body positivity also includes people with limb differences and facial differences. For anyone with limb or facial differences I love you. You are beautiful and always will be.

GOD. still the funniest transition in the show bar none

you don't get it man... this'll be the big budget consumer friendly comedy drama prestige television show that finally wakes people up to the horrors of capitalism

indie devs will give you a cheat menu labelled Accessibility and then not let you change the size of the subtitles

scrolling through a dozen "ignore a central mechanic" toggles and noticing a distinct lack of photosensitivity mode

you have to tell them you have to tell them!!!!!!

please for the love of god tell developers about accessibility features you need. game accessibility is a field so big that professional studios have multiple dedicated personnel for it — indie developers simply do not have the knowledge required to implement comprehensive accessibility.

the only way this stuff gets in is if you tell developers you need it. ESPECIALLY after launch — once sales for the game have begun to come in, the devs will be infinitely more equipped to handle these kinds of things, possibly even to the extent of being able to hire an accessibility consultant. but you have to pressure them! please!!!!!!!

the thing that's been rotating in my head like a horrible little rotisserie thorn is that yuna says: i think we thought maybe you were gay.

we thought maybe you were gay.

we thought maybe you were gay as you grew up and became a professional athlete. rookie of the year. as you navigated this famously homophobic career path. as you tried to put together a public persona, as we guided you through sponsorships and brand deals. we thought maybe you were gay as we watched you, our shy and anxious and awkward son, as you grew into an isolated adult. few friends, no real romances. your mom still buys your shirts. you have always lived alone.

we thought maybe you were gay, but we didn't say anything.

i think - your mother, i - for a while now, we've thought maybe for a while now - we thought - we thought it, we didn't say it, never out loud - because that would mean we had to address it and that would mean we might be right. we kept our eyes down and our mouths shut and we know you so, so well, but we didn't ask and we didn't say anything, not even when scott hunter did all that right out there in front of god and the cup and everyone, and we let it slide off us and into history, past tense, and didn't look too closely at your reaction because we thought maybe you --

i'm sorry that i made you feel like you couldn't tell me.

because i did that. and i knew i was doing it while i was doing it. and i know that you know, now, that i knew i was doing that. i looked away so things could be easier for you because it's there's nothing to tell there's no need for a statement. no need for a plan.

and all this time, all your adult life, since your rookie season, the summer before, you've been in love - lovers - no, look at the way you look at him, you've been in love - and you've kept it secret while we made him your rival. pitted you against him. played up conflict and animosity against him. we sat together at tables with an empty chair where he should have been, where he is now, and hated him if we thought of him at all, and now you sit here and tell us you want to keep that secret another ten years, another fifteen because we made you think that this - this weight, this pressure, this fear we can see in the line of your shoulders and the way you breathe - that this is somehow easier.

you would have kept that secret another ten years, another fifteen. you aren't telling us now because you're ready, or because you want to. you're telling us because you were caught.

found out what, exactly? as if maybe your father was still going to keep that secret for you. as if he didn't tell me, not the whole of it. not everything he saw. as if you could have pretended you hadn't seen him, and he would have pretended he hadn't seen you. another ten years. another fifteen.

we thought maybe you were gay.

but we hung onto: maybe not.

The best thing about having a partner who also does medieval reenactment is that you can text them like “do you want a sexy leg pic 😏” and when they obviously go “of course 👀” you send them a close up of a really nice piece of leg armour. And then they aren’t even mad and go “yeah that is sexy as hell, thank you.”

It would, of course, be remiss of me to not include examples of these sexy leg pics. Try this one simple trick to find out if your partner is someone with taste!

(If anyone does do this to their partner, I’d love to know the results)

i'm going to argue that chronically online and chronically on phone are two different things actually. the phone internet is different from the real internet and companies are trying desperately to make the real internet more like the phone internet... and they're sadly succeeding. hope this makes sense and if it doesn't oh well

they pronounced her dead and tried to give her a proper burial 😭 this must have been terrifying in the moment but that’s a little sweet and a little funny, I’m glad she made it out unscathed

This is so… idk. It’s really fascinating that they do that and the implications for animals’s capacity to feel empathy are huge.

I just can’t get out of my mind how badly an elephant will FUCK YOU UP if they’re angry at you. Like if you try to walk up to one, they can get defensive and will fight you. Only it’s not a fight.

Like, I think they’re justified most of the time. But it’s a fascinating range of emotions for one type of animal to have.

AND WHAT ABOUT BISEXUAL WOMEN!

National Biways Volume 2, Sydney Star Observer (June, 1993)