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I'm too tired to word an actual post but I don't have to because Ateez dropped this so...




Discuss. (vampireteez!)

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It was 31°C here yesterday. It's 31°C again today. It's too much! I have a rotten barometric-pressure headache hanging around and next to no appetite for actual food. Argh. Rain predicted Sunday afternoon, I hope it'll break the heatwave a little. I don't tolerate these well at all, I'm fed up of people in the media always insisting on how "gorgeous" it is when the weather is this hot. It is not! (And my friend got sunburned when they spent less than 10 minutes outside, a couple of days ago! SMH)

I promised y'all a post about making my first sweater this year. Here it is!

tldr: Finished in all its glory:



(Though I have to say, the colors in this sweater do *not* photograph properly with my phone. It's a lot more brick than yellow, and there's a gradient from the bottom to the top. The digital editor in my camera is determined to edit this like there's no tomorrow.)

( more process nattering and photos under the cut )

See title... Estelline fic is requiring a lot more work than I believed it would as I continue to trim on every pass, and whilst I do of course still love it, I desperately want to be done with it so I can go back to writing about ouihaw... this is what happens when you finish Heavensward and vaguely start Stormblood and that's no longer the vibe you're looking for. I've also just been struggling with words and worth in general - I probably need a break, but I feel like I'm constantly having a break when there's days I can't write and I have to write so I don't go crazy!! It's tough. The first five chapters/27k is up, though. C6 and C7 are finalised, C8 is next.

In my "I miss my girls" state, I opened up the sims 4 after not doing so since last December and spent thirteen hours over last weekend moving my ouihaw yeehaw ranch save from a 30x20 lot to a 64x64 lot and instead of building from scratch, used the pre-existing blueprint to make each room ever so slightly bigger, so it keeps the cozy country vibes but it's not as pokey and the daughters have actual individual rooms now. And the horsies have a paddock and space to roam 🥹 I do not recommend building like this it was a nightmare, although it was worth it. I'll take some screenshots of the new and improved house next time I play.

And in the trifecta of "I MISS ASHE TAILS I MISS HER A LOT" let's talk about my Ashe stadium build.

( For a girl who was so against stadium pre-launch I sure do talk about it a lot... )

Under the cut due to the kink. Taken from the prompts on https://incestbingo.dreamwidth.org/1890.html and made via http://an.owomoyela.net/fun/bingo_generator

( Read more... )

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The creative prompt for sunshine_revival was a recipe but I rarely 'do' recipes and am more of 'let's throw these things together' kinda gal. It works most of the time. 

The journaling prompt was favourite summer associated foods, so this is just a ramble of Stuff Kat Likes To Eat When It's Too Hot To Eat

Smoothies: I make a big jug of this, breakfast solved for like three days. I tend to default to 'plain yoghurt, frozen berries, honey, water' mix (I don't like my smoothies very sweet) but recently my peanut butter jar suggested that I could add peanut butter to my smoothies and now I Am Intrigued. It feels extremely indulgent tho. Peanut butter and banana smoothie sounds like a desert! But I want to try. 

Berries: I have yet to find a berry I don't like in some form or another. It's one of the main things I miss about Finland; ready access to fresh berries, like blueberries from the forest, or various currants and gooseberries from the garden. My local Tesco tends to have berries on discount often if you hit the store at the right time. I've been known to make a dinner out of that. 

Salads: Almost anything goes. My veg box is currently delivering so much green leavy stuff I'm shoving it everywhere. I like to throw in protein (chicken, fish, tofu, hummus) to make a lazy meal out of it. Feta cheese is an indulgence. I also like adding pickled/sour things like pickled cabbage or cucumber, kimchi (should make some again), olives, capers etc. Nom. Fruit if I want to get fancy with it. Seeds definitely. 

Hummus: I make this quite often, usually heavily lemon flavoured. 

Oven omelette: Eggs and whatever suitable veg/other things you have (salmon is super nice here). Top with cheese. And add cottage cheese for extra protein and to make it even more filling. Do a whole oven tray (10-12 eggs) and your breakfast/lunch/snack is sorted for several days. 

I do also like to barbecue things but can't be bothered to do it just for me. But when dreamersdare and pushkin666 are visiting it is by now a tradition for me to make some salmon bulgogi for the bbq. And I'll probably make some flat breads and tzatziki to, you know, make it fusion cuisine :D

And finally, new potatoes with butter. With some chives. Honestly, so good.

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1) write for iddyiddybangbang before the fest started
2) post my tardis_bingo comment bingo chart 😑

Challenge #3

Journaling prompt: What are your favorite summer-associated foods?
I have to go with ice cream. I have a total sweet tooth, and I love when the weather warms up. My favorite flavor is coffee but I'm also a sucker for a chocolate/vanilla soft serve swirl. As a kid, I used to love all the popsicles and the ice pops and the orange cream bars. Also loved ice cream sandwiches and certain Sara Lee products that they don't make anymore.

Pomegranates are another favorite food that I think of when summer hits. When we moved into our house as a kid, there was a bush in the backyard and over the years, it has grown into a bigger tree. I loved when the pomegranates and ripened, which did happen in summer. Some years, they were good and others not so much. A couple of years ago, we got a lot of amazing, sweet fruit. Last year was a little hit or miss, but my cousins' kids had fun picking them and enjoying what they picked, even if one or two weren't totally ripe yet. I think of watermelon too. I have a ton of memories of enjoying it as the weather warmed up. I'm not a fan of mangoes myself but it is also a very summer fruit. My mom especially loves mangoes and is happy when the season hits and always is ready to make the most of it.

I'm sure there are more, but that is really the ones I can think of off the top of my head. :D

Creative prompt: Draw art of or make graphics of summer foods, or post your favorite summer recipes.

I got a little too into this and made 32 icons of ice cream and various fruits (cherries, strawberries, pomegranates, mangoes, and watermelon). Anyone is welcome to save/use them! :)

( icons )

Ecco (here it is), from the Latin ecce or eccum, is about presenting a person, thing, or idea and inviting you to perceive it at the very moment it appears.

___________________________________________________________________________________

It's coming.

The darkness.

A summer sunset.

End-of-the-day rays of sunlight filter through thick cloud and caress my face as I sit in the car with the windows down, filling me with a short lived feeling of warmth, before the cloud sweeps past, briefly blocking the dissipating light.

The golden, pink and peach splashes that painted the sky are slowly but surely evaporating.

The afternoon bleeding into evening.

Night waiting patiently around the corner to kill the last remains of the day.

In the still August air I light a cigarette, inhaling the toxins before breathing them back out and watching as the curling smoke poisoned the air around me.

Carbon monoxide mingling with oxygen and nitrogen.

Evening has always been my least favorite part of a day.

Something about it, and watching the sun dip below the horizon has always felt like a loss of hope.

It's always been intertwined with death.

(Ever since the day I learned what mortality is, as I witnessed a bird get shot and plummet, backlit by a setting sun when I was three. A hell of a first memory).

When I learned that the earth's natural state was darkness, that made sense to me.

It still does, literally and metaphorically.

Neither can exist without the other.

Both offer solace in their own ways, yet neither are completely safe.

There can be no light without darkness, no darkness without light.

That is something I have grown to recognize in everything.

Including myself.

Metaphorically, the darkness that dwells in my mind and my memories, my dark side so to speak, is something I can't escape from.

Those things are along for the ride with the light parts, whether I like it or not.

It's just that I'm tired now.

I grew tired of running from them and myself a long time ago, and chose awareness instead, because unlike some people I've known, I've never really mastered the art of denial.

I've always had a debilitating fear of void like spaces, and I can't sleep without some light.

On the other hand though, I love the night.

Everything feels magical, being awake and active during the night always feels like being part of another world.

At night, guards are let down, instincts are acted upon.

Everything is infinite.

Or feels it.

Until the sun rises, dawn melts into day and the light returns.

The same light that can be a smokescreen for me.

An illusion of comfort meant to render us unaware of the visible shadows and shady corners that lengthen steadily as the hour grows later and races towards the inevitable.

(When I remember how the bird dropped, a dead weight, the thing that stands out most in my mind's eye is the blazing sun at its hottest as it dipped closer to the horizon casting light on the way the bullet tore through the bird's body).


Despite my fear of those void like spaces, the sense of apprehension they bring, the dark of the night can be an ironically cathartic hiding place for those who are cognizant of thing they sometimes wish they weren't.

A dog barks in the distance, its haunting echo pulling me out of my thoughts.

With the sun's retreat, the street is beginning to come alive again since I wandered off into the maze that is my mind.

I cast a glance towards the sky, which is now devoid of color.

It's a moonless night.

(Just like the night I was born).

It's here.

"Now it's dark," I think and my eyes meet my own in the rear view mirror,

___________________________________________________________________________________

non-fiction

I'm part Italian, so I was excited to see the prompt for this week. I wanted to tackle it both literally and re symbolism. This is a memory of me watching a sunset in someone's car during a seriously horrible time of my life.

"Now it's dark." is a quote from one of my favorite movies, Blue Velvet (1986), directed by the legendary David Lynch. It is a line repeated by an antagonist and its meaning is that of being comfortable with the darkness in yourself. This resonated with me from when I saw it. Obviously I refer to memories of trauma and PTSD here and that is how it resonated with me, whereas the movie antagonist definitely had some worse issues lol, but the point is the same.

I was indeed born on a moonless night. Forever envious of those born under a full moon!

Tunnel of Love

Journaling: The romance of summer! What do you love? Write about anything you feel sentimental about or that gets your heart pumping.

Since this is what I did most of last Sunday, I'll talk about how much I love baking. I love to bake. It's something I've done since I was a child. My mom was the one who taught me, with box mixes and canned frosting to begin with, before I moved on to making cakes from scratch. I remember taking a whole tray of cupcakes for a surprise party our class planned for our teacher in elementary school (okay, it was the girls. I vaguely remember us thinking the boys couldn't be trusted to keep their mouth shut so we left them out. I think we were, like, 10 or 11?). I also remember making birthday cakes and father's day cakes for my dad. I remember taking things for all sorts of class parties throughout the years really. When we had a project in elementary school on teaching the class "how to do something", I chose baking a cake and I remember switching from mix to wanting to do a scratch cake. My dad carefully measured out the ingredients in the morning before school so it would save me time. So much of my baking memories are tied to my family.

Baking is something that calms my mind. There's a precision to it that I appreciate. I'm someone who likes really exact instructions, which is why even though I have learned to like cooking, I do like baking more. You stick to a recipe and outside of mild variables, like the oven timing, it should come out right. And I like the results too! I have a sweet tooth, but I do like when people around me enjoy my baking. I am not great with taking compliments, but I like hearing them (who doesn't, right? lol)! I do like pretty things so it's been fun learning and practicing decorating as well.

People have made jokes about me starting a bakery in the past, and while there are many reasons I wouldn't, I do just like some thing just being an enjoyable hobby. And I will keep doing it. It's a nice way to spend an evening or a weekend. Doing what I love and sometimes, for the people I love. Because they're the reason I learned to do this in the first place. :)

( cupcakes )

flashexchanges is running size difference flash, a multifandom flash exchange featuring size differences. Nominations/sign-ups close on July 9th, 11PM UTC.

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