Foundinthegrass - WE KEEP WHAT BELONGS TO US

Scrapbook #5: Santa Monica 1540 (Click for full-size image.)

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Thank you for answering this so thoroughly! Your response was fascinating. Little Simra poring over charcoal glyphs scratched over the hearth is one of my favorite bits of imagery so far. But most of all I relished the chance to learn more about Simra’s mother. As with Soraya, her presence is felt more immediately through her impact on Simra and his father than through the rare glimpses we get of who she was otherwise - for me, the effect is reminiscent of the feeling you get craning your neck to see something through a barred window or the slats of a fence. What details you do manage to pick out are all the more vivid for the strain of searching. For instance, I remember returning again and again in my mind for days after I’d read it to the image of a soft leather jacket left behind with Verru (unfinished?) after her death, that she’d intended as a wedding gift for Soraya.

I have to confess, though, about an hour after I sent my question off I suddenly remembered that I already knew that Simra’s parents were literate - he writes them both at least once, doesn’t he? And the letters for his father are couched in a rather touchingly careful Dunmeris, even. So I felt like a huge dork all morning. (⌒_⌒;) Guess I should have slept on it instead of rolling out of bed in the middle of the night to ask, huh?

If I remember correctly, most Ashlanders are illiterate, forgoing a written tradition in favor of an oral one. Assuming that Simra's parents follow convention in this, then how did Simra come by his letters? And what does Simra's mother in particular, as a former wisewoman-in-training, think of his unorthodox affinity for the written word?

[This is a very good question. Mostly because it does something my favourite questions do. It asks something for which I don’t already have an answer. But it asks something that needed to be asked. It’s something useful to me. So already, thanks for that.Simra’s parents were travellers of Ashlander extraction. They didn’t spend all their time with the Zainab. So yes, while they were raised within and each participated within an oral tradition - particularly on the part of Ishar, his mother - they were literate to one degree or another.It was actually Ishar, rather than Simra’s father, who was the better linguist, reader, and writer. His father never learnt more than a few things outside of Dunmeris. Her background gave her more of a respect for knowledge, however the knowers store it and keep it known, orally or literarily.Bringing up her children in Skyrim, it was she that educated them in mixed Tamrielic and Dunmeris: reading, writing, arithmetic, bits and pieces of history, theology. She would not have her children go without the skills that they’d need to live as something other than Ashlanders.Admittedly, young Simra paid more attention than Soraya. This learning did not come from reading, however, but through listening. Even Simra’s literacy comes from watching his mother scratch letters and words in charcoal above their fireplace. And the oral nature of these lessons is perhaps part of the reason Simra has such a good verbal memory.In short, Simra’s no Zainab. He’s Dunmer, and part of Morrowind’s diaspora. He’s of Zainab blood, raised by parents who were raised Zainab. He himself admits that he’s a Dunmer of Skyrim, however — inheritor of some Ashlander traditions, but barred off from others, and proud of both.So he’s an unorthodox Dunmer in one sense. But he was raised by an unorthodox womer, after all — why d’you think she didn’t ever become a full-fledged wisewoman? For the most part it was Ishar who refused to acclimatise to this new place and new culture, his heart living with his wife and children, but belonging back in the Grazelands.]

https://mamot.fr/@setthemfree/106014810050613790

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/03/google-testing-its-controversial-new-ad-targeting-tech-millions-browsers-heres

Scrapbook #9: KP (Click for full-size image.)

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one day I’ll have enough money to buy les nereides jewellery 🥲 one day…

Out of curiosity, could you take a moment to reblog this if you believe that demisexuality exists? I’m demisexual, and I feel like demisexuality goes really under the radar, even within the asexual community umbrella. A lot of people don’t believe that it exists, and even within the ace community, demisexuality is still questioned as being legitimate, although we share the same flag. So reblog this is if you believe it exists. 

any sort of sex positivity message that refers to its readers as “dearest perverts” is invariably going to alienate ppl who are uncomfortable with sex and sexuality, and they’re the ones who need it most. “embrace how disgusting you are” rhetoric is not going to benefit people who struggle to convince themselves that they aren’t actually disgusting

Spitfire by @mayakern

What do you do when you're a dragon and the prince you're in love with is getting married? Fuck his wife.

titles/chapter headings: Cinzel Decorative headers/page numbers: Organik body text: Cardo

What can I say about Spitfire? It’s truly an amazing piece of work that is a brilliant high fantasy, queer af and completely engrossing. It gave me everything I ever wanted out of a novel; plot, genderfluid characters, PINING like you wouldn’t believe, great sex scenes, DRAGONS, and just. Women. What more do you need out of a fantasy book?

The design on the covers and the spines are heat transfer foil, the bookcloth is duo, there is variegated thread that I used to sew the signatures together, 3 colour endbands and handmade marbled papers. Spitfire deserves nothing less.

If you’d like to read it, the first 30% is available on AO3, and you can purchase it on Amazon. Go get it!!

I can’t wait to see what happens in Firebrand ✨

The 2021 Gender Census is now open!

[ Link to survey ]

The eighth annual international gender census, collecting information about the language we use to refer to ourselves and each other, is now open until 10th March 2021.

After the survey is closed I’ll process the results and publish a spreadsheet of the data and a report summarising the main findings. Then anyone can use them for academic or business purposes, self-advocacy, tracking the popularity of language over time, and just feeling like we’re part of a huge and diverse community.

If you think you might have friends and followers who’d be interested, please do reblog this blog post, retweet this tweet, boost this Mastodon post, check out this post on Reddit, and share the survey URL by email or at AFK social groups or on other social networks like Facebook. Every share is extremely helpful - it’s what helped us get 24,000 responses last year.

Survey URL: https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/gendercensus2021/

The survey is open to anyone anywhere who speaks English and feels that the gender binary doesn’t fully describe their experience of themselves and their gender(s) or lack thereof.

Thank you so much!

Asexual Awareness Week: Day 2

[ IMAGE: A 9x9 aesthetic layout; the images are as follows, top to bottom, left to right: A Moon on a dark blue background, A hand dropping stars, A silhouette against the sky with drawings of planets and stars, A purple nebula, A drawn silhouette filled with space with “You only know a part of me. I am a universe of secrets.” above it, A purple Moon as it moves across the sky above a city, A star looking into a telescope that bends in a circle with the words “Discover Yourself” in the middle, A crescent moon on purple clouds, Black and white picture of two hands (palms up) covered in glitter that looks like stars.]