Professional Elf Nerd

Started a new vest project this week ! Test swatch + bottom section ⛪🌿

Happy to report that the vest is vesting chaps

Helloooo

how come in every disco Elysium post I see, the mustache one is being a massive cringe fail loser (usually face first on the floor), while the bald one is off to the side serving metric tons of cunt

folks, we’ve finally done it. we’ve receded his hairline too much

being a writer leads to a genuinely helpful but also very stupid kind of mindfulness where you'll be having a sobbing breakdown or the worst anxiety attack of your life and think "okay, I really need to pay attention to how this feels. so I can incorporate it into my fanfiction."

i haven't been posting about the new Dragoned Age game because i am sitting in my fallout 4 themed glass house and looking out of my clear window and my clear wall and i'm drinking from my extremely see through mug but what i'll say about it is this: there's a dusty old bitch in it you can pair up with your little guy and he's old as all shit and this has not swayed me even a jot. do you have any idea how hard that is to do. do you have any idea how much i love mid. and older men

Ian Fallout I drew a few months ago, finally posting cause why not.

you know how it is with snow days

bonus:

why on earth is this getting notes again two years later?? and people are doubting me???

like i would joke about defenestrating myself at the ass crack of dawn as some sort of sadistic sacrifice to the snow gods for helping me get out of work, grow up

are you ready to see the prettiest feather in the WORLD

You may have to click to get better quality, but this is an eye feather from an ultramarine peacock. This is, currently, the rarest peacock in the world- including the congo peafowl. This won't remain the case, as it's just a mutation in the indian blue species and will be swiftly propagated now that it's in the USA, but at this moment, there's only a few dozen in the world.

Given the coloration, it's likely that this is an axanthic mutation (reducing/removing yellows) of some sort, resulting in a deeply blue and purple iridescence.

These birds currently run $6,500-6,800 EACH, and are only available from two breeders in the USA- Bill Vinduska at Spring Creek Peafowl, and Brad Legg of Legg's Peafowl. Due to the rarity and difficulty in telling ultramarine from the wild type before a year of age, so far only yearlings have been sold. All of the stock descends from a single bird found in the Netherlands, which was brought to the farm of Els Van de Steeg. The mutation was nearly lost to predation in its first couple years of existence, after foxes beset the farm, and Els has since moved birds to several trusted breeders for propagation (Jens Poulsen and Isabela Consorti that I know of) and protection of the mutation, as well as exporting to the USA to Bill and Brad.

Bill gifted me this feather when I visited this past week on my 11 days road trip around the east/eastern midwest/south visiting friends, family, and other breeders.

What an enchanting feather!

if somebody you knew for a year said "listen. im just gonna be honest here. i know ive known you too long to not know your name. but i simply do not. i dont know how this happened. im reasonably confident you told me your name at some point. could you remind me please" how would you react

just remember, one day you're going to open tumblr and the crabs will be raving like they never have before

--Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

GODSDAMMITALL PTERRY!

Tell me a soft memory

we would find out later i had burned off my entire cornea - about 65% of my eye. my doctor told me it is the organ with the highest concentration of nerve endings - i was in an amount of pain that can't be spoken.

and i was blind. for the first time in my life, i was totally blind. i kept thinking about reading, about writing. weirdly, just once, about driving. we had no idea if i would ever see again. just like that - my entire life was different.

it is a strange place to reference for a soft memory, to begin here.

my siblings were taking excellent care of me, but there was a moment in the hospital where, just through bad luck and timing - both of them had to step away for a moment. i was crying at that point; not emotionally. for 3 days after this i would still be crying, my tears, like a mermaid's, a frothy pink with blood.

my brother worried about leaving me. he had another, just-as-bad emergency.

"i got her," someone said. "don't worry."

a soft hand held mine, and then she started talking.

her name was jess. she has a wife named clyde. they live a few blocks up the street. clyde fell down, but the x-rays seem to be coming back better than expected. jess says she's got long dark hair and "more wrinkles than an elephant". jess describes every chair in the room and every person. she talks about her two kids and her cats and her favorite memories from college.

a doctor came. i had to switch to a different waiting room. i tried to stand up to follow the voice - i found jess's hand, following me. she didn't let go. she kept talking the whole way: lamp to your left, just a few more steps, okay to your right is the ugliest painting, good, now a little more walking straight, you got it baby

in the new silence of the next room she sat me down and called my brother for me, telling him where we'd gone to. and she stayed there for a bit, just chatting, her voice echoing in the eerie quiet. gently describing the room to me. and then someone was rude. from the sound of the voice, a kid, i think.

"why is she crying?"

"she just lost her vision," jess said. "she can't see."

"oh." said the kid. "that's scary."

the kid tells me he is here because he has peas stuck up his nose. that makes me laugh, his mom (?) groans. she tells me about the kid (he's 6, he likes paw patrol and eating cheese), about herself, about moving from cali.

jess says she's sorry, but she has to leave now, she's gotta go check on her wife.

"don't worry," says the mom. "i got her." and then i felt her hand press into mine.

for hours like that: i am taken care of by strangers. each person just talking with whatever comes to their head - not for any reward or celebrity or real reason, i guess. just because i am scared and alone and in the hospital and blinded and need to be distracted. not everyone even got told the story - they would just pick up in the silence with - oh by the way the television is playing HGTV - do you like that kind of a thing? yeah, me too, but could never quite get into those open-floor plans, i'll tell you -

by the time my brother is able to come back, the room is buzzing. we talk to each other like old friends, laughing, cracking jokes about if you don't like hospital food wait until you get on an airplane and can't believe i'm up past two in the morning what a party animal i'm becoming. i am holding the hands of someone named drew, who likes my crow tattoo and making crochet snails.

there are many dark moments full of pain in this world. this - in the low of absolute-dark, absolute-pain: people find a way to paint in it anyway. the color splash of their voices: this triumphant, radiating kindness of - let's be here together, let me help you, let's keep going.

i never saw their faces. i can't remember many of their names. but i think about them often, and the way we all took a deep breath - and did something gentle amongst the pain.

Most of us could probably stand to benefit from reading this. I did. It’s really lovely.