“It’s dusk, dearest. (In passing, isn’t ‘dusk’ a lovely word? I like it better than twilight. It sounds so velvety and shadowy and – and – dusky.) In daylight I belong to the world; in the night to sleep and eternity. But in the dusk I’m free from both and belong only to myself – and you.”
- L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Windy Poplars.
Month: July 2022
laura's mathom house 2022-07-28 16:25:13
she’s a 10 but her social battery dies before she even goes outside
laura's mathom house 2022-07-27 10:43:26
What if instead of being so hard on yourself you tried being gentle instead?
Canadian Politics
Over the past several years I’ve been more involved in Canadian politics because we are facing challenges we can no longer afford to ignore— from the existential threat of climate change to Canada’s human rights violations at home and abroad, festering social justice issues of colonization, systemic racism and the need to defund the police, our entrenched inequities, Victorian attitudes toward…
Canadian Politics
Over the past several years I’ve been more involved in Canadian politics because we are facing challenges we can no longer afford to ignore— from the existential threat of climate change to Canada’s human rights violations at home and abroad, festering social justice issues of colonization, systemic racism and the need to defund the police, our entrenched inequities, Victorian attitudes toward work, economic inequities and presumed “worthiness” for survival, the rape culture spotlighted by the #metoo movement, the ever expanding incursions into our cultural freedom being made by the voracious “intellectual property” regime (which prompted my creation of this blog), and our government’s abject failure to put aside partisanship and deal with the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent failure to even try to “build back better”— all of these things highlight our desperate need for real real change (not the phony real change Mr Trudeau promised in 2015) more than ever before.
The thing that sucked me into politics was my belief in democracy, and my realization that the reason everything has been getting worse throughout my entire adulthood because we don’t actually have the representative democracy they tell us we have.
When a lifetime of voting in every election without ever electing a representative almost made me give up hope of things ever getting better, I discovered it didn’t have to be this way. There is a means to transform this country into an actual Representative Democracy.
The way to upend the status quo so we can actually start fixing the things that are so badly wrong so we can work toward the future we need is by changing the way we elect our gover ments. Much to my surprise I discovered there have been Canadians trying to make this happen pretty much for all of Canadian History.
Now is the time to stop trying. As Yoda would tell us, we must do.
And what we must do is implement Proportional Representation.
At this point I understand that I am only one person, and it’s time to realize I only have the time to write one blog. And this is it.
And right now my focus has to be on Proportional Representation.
“The present situation [First Past the Post Plurality voting] appears to me to be one which does not appeal to logical or righteous minds, it does not give us proper representation of the thought and the political sympathies of the people; therefore, we should strive to find out something that will.”
https://www.lipad.ca/full/permalink/643321/
— Andrew Ross McMaster
vanessagillings:Two more of these two. These were paper tests,…
Two more of these two. These were paper tests, the one on the top is 300 lb, the one on the bottom 140, both arches cold press unstretched.
Thank you for the sweet comments on these characters yesterday. I’m kinda shy online so I don’t always know how to reply, but thank you. 💛
laura's mathom house 2022-07-09 11:11:05
I’ve been working on a series of short ficlets/drabbles for @tolkiengenweek on characters’ Returns from the Halls of Mandos; some silly, some serious. Most of them I haven’t finished yet, but here’s the first of them.
Fingolfin (Wonder)
“Such hurt at the least will I do to the Foe of the Valar that even the mighty in the Ring of Doom shall wonder to hear it…” ~ Fëanor
Fingolfin did not have a tranquil return to life.
He had only just opened his eyes and scrambled to his feet, blinking against the unaccustomed light - has just begun to register the sensation of air on his skin and the scents of the garden around him - when he was bowled off his feet by a sudden, vast blow.
“DUDE,” said a loud, boisterous voice far above him. “DUDE. That was AWESOME!”
Tulkas picked him up bodily and placed him on his feet again as Fingolfin struggled to catch his breath.
“That was AWESOME!” he repeated. “You kicked his ASS!”
“I did lose,” Fingolfin observed, a broad smile breaking across his face in spite of it. He’d recognized that his return to life meant the Valar had pardoned him, but he hadn’t expected them to be this…enthusiastic.
(Though to be fair, he’d only had a few Vala to draw conclusions from, and Námo had never been enthusiastic about anything in his life.)
And he had never regarded his death in exactly this light before, rather than as rash despair that had left the Noldor unmoored.
“You’re an elf! You should never have been able to scratch him! You wouldn’t have been able to if he hadn’t fucked himself up so badly, that’s why we thought you were all mad when you went away. But you hurt him! Badly! You scared him, the damn coward! I’ve never seen anything like it!”
That was an extremely enjoyable thought. A lifetime’s experience of attempting to avoid at least outward displays of ego, however strong inner pride grew, made him make one more attempt. “Lúthien won.”
“Lúthien! That was stupendous! Nessa adores her, she was crowing about it for weeks! ‘She beat him with dance, dance, dance!’ We’ve spent many years since bickering about which of you was more impressive. But Lúthien was nice about it. She didn’t stab him. I still like you best!”
Fingolfin could not stop himself from laughing, and for the first time in a long while, he didn’t even want to.
“You beat him,” he said, “and I am very grateful for it! You clearly followed my fight closely enough! - would you care to give me a play-by-play of yours?”
“Oh, that,” said Tulkas. “He was terribly boring by the end. Very little to tell. Now, the rest of the war” - brightening again - “that was marvellous! I wish you’d been there! Your little brother, he’s a surprisingly talented commander, but he doesn’t know how to enjoy these things properly!”
He regaled Fingolfin with tales of the War of Wrath all the way back to Tirion.
laura's mathom house 2022-07-06 12:49:08
BOLD and BADGER!!! Ugh, those storylines will always make me sob like a very small child- whoever put them on youtube has A LOT to answer for.
Taken from this ask meme- thank you so much, friend!
Paper- favourite children’s book?
This is SO HARD! The Crow Starver by Dick King Smith, the Wind on Fire Trilogy by William Nicholson and His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman are all up there along with Anne of Green Gables by L.M Montgomery and the Little House books by Laura Inglis Wilder.
Thank you so much!
Much love,
Phoenixflames12 xxx
Love For Other Things
It’s easy to love a deer
But try to care about bugs and scrawny trees
Love the puddle of lukewarm water
From last week’s rain.
Leave the mountains alone for now.
Also the clear lakes surrounded by pines.
People are lined up to admire them.
Get close to the things that slide away in the dark.
Be grateful even for the boredom
That sometimes seems to involve the whole world.
Think of the frost
That will crack our bones eventually.
- Tom Hennen.