Hemlock B Bootsalotta

1.
I'd love for the weather to settle down; over the last week I think I've had... two days of feeling Actually Definitely Human, two days of feeling terrible (weather-linked migraines yay), and the rest in muted tiredness where I'm like "well this is tolerable but still not good." Tomorrow evening is when the next storm is supposed to hit here, which means probably both tomorrow and Tuesday are going to be very "haha you wanted to have a brain? and function?" days, which is frustrating but... so it goes, shall manage.

2.
seasonalremix's due date for works came by yesterday and everyone got things in on time! It's delightful! I'm excited for the remixes to be revealed next week so everyone can see them!

If you're interested in participating in the next round, sign-ups will open next week and we're currently inviting people to suggest tropes to add to our trope list.

3.
Yesterday afternoon a friend organized a party that was six people (inclusive of them) who had all gone to college together (not all in the same year, but I think we all overlapped by at least one year) and one person who (a) knows me and the organizing friend well and (b) has a house that's good for hosting groups. Fascinating set of people. Mostly we played board/card games! And learned that we could understand the rules for Four Doors (co-op game about gathering relics and lighting a beacon), a game none of us had played before (and which was very fun; would play again. the last round was especially delightful as we worked out how to min-max our way to finishing the game in one turn rather than three. and by "we" I mean "one other friend and I, as the people who understood the rules and Cared A Lot"), more easily than Zounds (Shakespearean Go Fish with a few extra rules, more or less), a game which... also none of us had played before but you'd think that "it's basically Go Fish" would be more comprehensible. xD (Unsurprisingly, the Shakespeare nerd who owned that game won it even before the extra points for completing the quotes on the cards were tallied up.)

It's also a bit... mm, I hadn't seen two of those friends since graduating, pretty much? So it's been like a decade? (Might've seen them once or twice in passing since then, but not for an extended time?) But yeah, nah, fundamentally we're still the same kind of people/friends as back then, despite that time. Just one of those things where you have a bunch of introverts and only sometimes can manage the whole "keep in touch when an external force isn't maintaining that connection for you" thing.

(Also I think that the Zounds thing of "the person who goes first is the person who most recently acted in a play" should've been expanded to "person who most recently played a ttrpg/larped" for that group, since that would've gotten it to something that happened in the last month rather than something from uh over a decade ago. xD Whatever, we can Play By The Rules I Guess since people did have an answer for that. But I think that roleplaying games are Close Enough when you've got a group of nerds who are mostly not theater nerds but who have, at some point, played a ttrpg...)

4.
hafnia wrote me a 15k story as a celebration of two years of friendship. <3 Unsurprisingly, I adore it (it was written for me! by someone who knows me very well! with like zero input from me other than "idk, you could write me wingfic?", a thing that she was like "well YEAH OBVIOUSLY" about, so it's like no input at all xD) (she's going to be like YOU HAD INPUT and yeah I guess but it was all "yeah that sounds good <3" and "yesssss :3" and the like) and I would like more people to read it.

The fuzzy line between intimate friendship and romance! Knowing where you fit in each other's lives! Finding balance between two lifestyles which might seem incompatible at first glance! Wings! Art and language and community!
The Winged City (Original Work, 15k, F/NB, rated E for "oh yeah there's a short sex scene in there" but mostly it's T-rated FEELINGS)

5.
Have some more Mouse <3 I think it's funny that this chapter is one I'm calling "The Voyage" and it has been 2.6k and the ship has not yet departed on said voyage. This is fine. The vibe/focus is still accurate, and I'm almost to the ship taking its leave...

Mouse orbits the atrium. The priest watches from their vestibule, but Mouse knows when their attention turns away, the priest satisfied that Mouse knows the rites and is comfortable performing them alone. There is ease in them, a kind of dance as they make their bows and sign their wishes—words being too easily overheard—to the symbols of the moon’s many phases. The entryway is the closed eye; opposite it is the open one. The walls between are lined with other doors framed with idols, most of which would open into full shrines to the god’s aspects.

They halt at the moon’s open eye, which here—in a city of contracts and arguments of truth—is considered the primary aspect of the Lord of the Moon. Mouse doesn’t know if they believe that. The closed eye is the one they turn too most often, but right now…

“Your eye is upon me,” they murmur, and hear it ripple through the open chamber and up the tower to the god’s ears. “May it continue to bring me good fortune.”

To say anything else here, where the priest listens as well as the god, would be too much. Mouse bows again, then continues their unhurried honoring of every phase of Jiraci Mooneye. They are all one, in the end, and Mouse cannot say for certain which showed him House Ilizana’s sigil and thus the path to a new life.

When they return to the entryway, the closed eye of the god inset in onyx above it, the priest says, “Walk in the moon’s light, sibling mine.”

“I’d rather walk in the moon’s shadow,” Mouse says, and for a moment they think the priest will scold them.

Instead, the priest laughs. “Perhaps one day I will see you wearing his eyelid as a cloak,” they say. “May he watch over you until you find your path.”

Mouse turns to face the priest, unsettled, but their eyes are closed and a smile peaceful on their face as if they’ve been dozing the whole time.

There is nothing to be done but to make their final prayers—May your shadow be warm and welcoming, may those who wish ill upon me overlook my presence, may my footsteps be quiet and my eyes open to the night’s mysteries—before they exit to rejoin Rhei in the city’s streets.