Needles & Nilbogs

didn't wanna put these on Tumblr till I finished the set, need a place to host them while I draw Alleycat. murderbot characters as miraculous wielders ID: Hornet and Nightmare, two superheroes in costume. Both have light skin and dark hair. Hornet, on the left, is wearing a black suit with bright yellow stripes at the wrist and ankles, yellow boots, a yellow sash, a yellow domino mask, and light yellow wings. She also has a small bee comb holding her hair in a high ponytail and a small yellow top on a string by her waist. Nightmare, on the right, is wearing a dark green bodysuit with a brown vest on top. She also has gold gloves, belt, boots, headband, and horseshoe as a weapon, along with gold and black goggles. Her outfit has bright green stripes as ornamentation, including two streaks in her ponytail. ID: Two superheroes, Acmon Blue and Coccinellida. On the left, Blue has light skin and dirty blonde hair pulled up in a bun. She wears a formal light blue suit jacket and pants ove...

 We are BACK!!  I acquired blackberries this morning -- maybe half a pound, max -- and decided since they're (frankly) not great for eating, they're perfect for dyeing. So I started figuring out container acquisition, which led me to spend some time poking around the backs of dining halls, digging through recycling bins for any useful containers. An hour, five dining halls, one dorm, and two bruises later, I had a giant  jam jar and empty can of ketchup that wasn't going to cut my hand open.  The supplies  [id: supplies laid out on a desk, including a giant can and giant jar, a mug, a bowl of blackberries, various fibers, a measuring cup, and salt] Beginning the process! [ID: the same supplies as before, arranged on a blue towel and without the fiber, which is being mordanted] The ketchup can was my mordant container: seven cups of hot water to a large amount of salt, which helps with colorfastness for berry dyes/stains according to various internet sources...

 Spoilers abound! Thoughts are unfiltered and spoilers everywhere.  I LOVED THIS ONE SINGLE-HANDEDLY GOT ME BACK INTO THE FANDOM BRAIN

 Okay but World Burn is one of my favorite songs right now for its musicality. Just. Key changes. Accents everywhere. The way the meter gets just so much more prominent when the kids are singing, like they're getting ready to Do Something. And, really, it's just. Incredible vibes and powerful stuff.  Also the meanest thing Regina could think to call herself was fugly cow and that's. Something. (It used to be a bunch of stuff about fugly slut and whatever and this has been very very toned down I think.) Also just the way it was filmed is perfect and the way it uses the movie medium in a way that a musical can’t but keeps the musical vibes  is just so very fetch (a very good word I’m starting to use unironically) and also the social media stuff which is a perfect example of the medium adding more information in new ways. In conclusion mean girls is being rotated in my brain like a kebab. No fanfic ideas but just going around and around. 

 A list: - *everything* is green here and there’s so much water and so many trees - everything is named after a person or a place in England. There’s no saints, no “beautiful views” or “snowy mountains,” no religious names at all. - turnpikes are a real thing and not just something that shows up in a history textbook  - ITS SUMMER WHY IS IT WET WHY IS IT RAINING I DONT LIKE IT - low flow toilets are less of a thing here because, according to my father, “water is basically free” - SERIOUSLY WHY SO GREEN WHY SO MUCH WATER - wet season is all year? All roofs are peaked? Everything’s so old????? What is UP with this place????!!! - no earthquakes what the HECK - why is there farmland right outside town??? - I apparently know nothing about water. This has been told to me multiple times. 

 Here I go off to college, time zone is changing, but as always this blog will be updated… whenever I feel like it which is often never.  [ID: an open plastic box with much yarn in it.] This is the Yarn I Am Taking, parentally limited to one box (a tragedy , I tell you)  The girls (gendered) about to be stored [ID: a Snow White large doll and two American girl dolls, original josefina and beforever kaya, sitting in front of a bed.] The other set of girls (nongendered bc trans/non-binary supremacy) about to be stored [ID: all of the Ever After High dolls I own sitting on boxes.]

 Or, my senior prom is over (it was a lot of fun and I could have danced all night) and I am So Close to graduating!!! (Tomorrow!!!)  And so I have written fanfic about it. And also did fanart about it. This is my beloved high school alternate universe of the murderbot books where they’re theater kids, and these are the photos that would be on their various Instagram accounts.  ID: Arada and Overse standing together in front of two trees. Arada has brown curly hair and medium dark skin, and wears a pink floofy dress with a shimmery skirt; she also has a pink flower crown and a turquoise corsage. Overse has light skin and curly light brown hair, and wears a sleek teal gown that fades to lighter shades on the skirt; she also has a necklace, a pink corsage, glasses, and a turquoise flower crown.  ID: Ratthi and Pin-Lee standing next to each other in front of an old tree. Ratthi has brown skin and brown hair, and wears a blue-gray suit with a white shirt and red tie, cor...

Aka, I’m desperate for more city spies fans. 1. Found family with problems who try to do better and fix those problems In the Murderbot Diaries, Dr. Mensah and the rest of PreservationAux are Murderbot's found family. They purchase it, but because they don't have the opportunity to talk things over, things go badly and it runs away. But by Exit Strategy, they're trying to treat it better --- Pin-Lee sneaks it stuff to help it run away, Mensah explicitly tells it she handled things very badly, all the humans make sure it has time now to make its own decisions.  In the same way, all of the City Spies screw up in their attempt to become a family. From the beginning, Mother handles Charlotte badly and doesn't tell the others. Then he and Brooklyn don't tell the others about a project, and Sydney gets jealous of Brooklyn, and they have to handle so much emotional drama beyond just the stuff with Mother's family. (By the way, it's really hard to provide spoiler fr...

 I made myself a new pair of fingerless gloves yesterday!  They are Very Green.  That’s all that’s the post. 

To: My Family From: Me Subject: The Dye Jar That Has Apparently Been Molding On The Windowsill For Some Time Dear Family, Dye jar molded. So sorry about the smell and the fact that I didn’t notice for a couple months. <3 *penitent emojis* Love, Me. 

 Warning, spoilers for City of the Dead ahead! I GOT THE BOOK AND I LOVE IT. So I wrote down all my reactions and now here they are, by page number so you can avoid spoilers. No explanations no nothing. Back blurb: I am DESPERATE to know what's going on here PLEASE Page 7: Hi Kat, I love you. Page 23: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA OMG I LOVE THEM P27: Garfield is giving me magpie vibes P33: oh, Rio. Oh, Rio.  P38: awww, Kat, stop pretending you don't have feelings. Also AAAAAAAAA SIBLING LOVE and aaa this is something mb would say P49: Brooklyn's birthday is November 20th dang it this has already ruined one fic P54: HEY WHERE ARE MONTY AND MOTHER (also AAAAAAA SIBLINGS) P58: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA P64: AUTISTIC KAT REAL P69: definitely undiagnosed autism there kat my girl P74: oh, Brooklyn. Oh, child.  P77: six years since team!  P79: oooooh P80: well, guess we know when the book is set lol (post... 2017 I think) P84: IF SHE ISNT TALKING ABOUT CLEMMIE ILL EAT MY COPY O...

 I haven’t decided if I’m ever going to actually post the city spies soulmate au that’s been rattling around in my brain since (*checks draft creation date*) February of last year (technically: 2/16/22, 9:19 AM, hah), but I want the book 1 outline out of my drafts before book 4 comes out (THREE DAYS AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA), so this is a proposed outline for a city spies fic that has about 1/2 of book 1 written, all of book 1 planned out, and a loose outline for books 2 and 3.  This was the original idea: It's the one where whatever you write on your body appears on theirs in the same spot, starting at age 10, and it's just the person who completes you whether it's romantic or platonic; also, fate guarantees that it's someone you will have contact with even if that comes from finding out you're soulmates, you're always going to meet in person at least a bit. Often have mannerisms in common. Rio and Brooklyn get closer platonically through their notes while fighting in...

 TWO WEEKS TILL RELEASE DAY AAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!! Things we know now: IT’S A KAT BOOK THIS IS NOT A DRILL WE ARE GETTING KATHMANDU GIBBS-MONTGOMERY PERSPECTIVE AND I AM HERE FOR IT. (Also does this mean book 5 will be Rio POV????!!!!) Also, looking at a summary and a pre-reader’s review: ARE WE GETTING A NEW SPY?????? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!! I can’t wait!!  ( All of my fics that are post-canon or nebulously so are going to need tags to say when they were released, won’t they. Not excited about that part.)

 Like I said the other day , I want to talk about my writing more because there’s a lot that I want to say that I don’t want to put in authors notes (usually cause I think of stuff in the shower and then don’t remember to edit it in when I’m at my computer later), but there’s also no better place to put it. Also this is an official threat (not in a violent way) that if you ask me a question about something I wrote I will answer, and answer in depth.  So this is about my latest fic, once and for all , which is a city spies and murderbot crossover, and it’s basically an excuse to do a roleswap but across universes and also to drag in multiverse shenanigans in general (one of my favorite things). Go read it, right now it’s pretty short, and while this isn’t spoilery for the fic, it doesn’t really make sense without that context. And I had this idea in the shower last night and absolutely have to talk about it somewhere at some point   This… *drumroll*… is backstory.  ...

 If you’ve been paying any attention to me lately, you might have realized I got really into writing fanfic over the summer, and now I have an AO3 account under the name BWizard . It’s really fun and somewhat easy for me, and I’ve posted a lot, but I don’t think I’ve ever really talked about some of it in detail, and I’d like to.  I feel kind of nervous about that, honestly; I write a lot that’s intended for myself, and so while it’s fun and I’m happy with all of it (or at least everything that makes it to AO3), a lot of it has an intended audience of one person, me. (The murderbot stories about the mirror universe and high school au have an intended audience of maybe three people each, one of which is me. Just like this blog, with its four or five regular readers, including me, my dad, and a Russian spambot. [Hi spambot! Hope you enjoy leaving comments I delete instantly.]) So I do a lot of writing what I want to read and all, but that also means that I don’t get to talk abou...

 Well, it’s been a while. I’ll spare you the excuses, except for the fact that I’ve done a lot of writing (college essays and fanfic) and some crochet, and that’s about it lately. So here’s the Christmas presents, and I’ll talk about the writing soon. (read: I’m doing a few things tonight and scheduling them for various days over the next few weeks, while I attempt to get back into at least saying Something on a semi-regular basis.) I made Mom a rainbow scarf for Christmas, and finished it on December 27, instead of several months later, which happens unfortunately often. This is it in the sink, all scrunched up. An early process picture of the rainbow scarf; it’s broomstick lace, 30 stitches across with an H hook (it’s some red heart yarn that isn’t unforgettable but seems pretty similar. I have a Thing for single ply rainbow ombrés.) and worked around my 1 inch ruler in groups of 3.  More of the scarf blocking The scarf all laid out on towels; it’s Long.  Close up of it...

Sorry it’s been a while, college apps and finals and whatever, blah blah blah, okay time to YELL EXCITEDLY ABOUT CITY SPIES AGAIN (spoilers ahead I’m not gonna mark anything except the big stuff). You can find my last round of yelling about book 4 here . Okay! So!! In the last few weeks we’ve gotten a lot of news about book 4, City of the Dead (CotD), and it’s all been absolutely fascinating. From Instagram, we have: slide 8 of this Instagram post   about Ponti’s year in review [slide 8 ID: a picture of Ponti’s computer screen with the prologue for book 4 partially visible and marked up], the book trailer  and the previous trailer  [video IDs: various pictures of Egypt intermixed with pictures of the city spies doing their thing], a p iece of trivia from November 4  [ID: a slide with a picture of an Egyptian boy and a pyramid, saying “100 years ago today, King Tut’s tomb was discovered by this 12-year old boy”], and the cover announcement which is what the fir...

 Tech week happened, sorry. Brief photodump today, but I’ll probably be better able to blog starting in January after all my college apps are in — I’m thinking about maybe dumping the “only posting on thursdays” thing at least until then and probably after too, cause that’s really feeling constricting. I wanted a schedule to force me to do stuff but now I’ve gotten really busy and I should probably at least reevaluate the schedule situation.  Anyways these are all my recent projects most of which speak for themselves.

Ironically for a blog that’s on my college applications, writing college applications has mostly kept me from blogging lately. Totally coincidentally, I only have a couple of photos but they’re of something really cool!  For Halloween, I wanted to make something I could use for cosplay, and I chose the PreservationAux survey group from the Murderbot Diaries books.  The jacket is a gray long-sleeved tshirt that I cut open and sewed a zipper into, then embroidered, and the rest of the outfit is just stuff I had, except for the “feed interface” which I bought at the local ren faire.  Me in the costume Progress shots Gratuitous project and pumpkin picture. You can probably guess which pumpkin I did, and it’s not the dog.  Mirror selfie of the jacket right after I finished it. 

 So I came home from retreat with strep throat. I’ve been sick all week and so today is just a photodump from retreat so have fun with that. Lots of redwoods!