Kaymyth

My pathological need to point out that I'm not an idjit saves the day! In all seriousness, we're not terribly bothered by thread necro'ing as a general rule; sometimes new discussion on old topics is warranted. Situations like this are usually easily cleared up. It says a lot about my recent activity that it's been months since a post of mine was quoted. I am rather looking forward to being active again; I just have to get through con season to get some daily spoons back. I let myself get talked into chairing a major milestone convention this year and thus PRESSURE. Await, good Sharders, for soon the magical unicorn mod will be roaming the Mistborn threads once again, lamenting the lack of Lost Metal to read.

I plan on being there on Saturday, but my digital recorder has crapped out. Unless I can get it working again...

Well, yes, we know that now. I wrote that comment about two months before Secret History was released.

Heh. Sew-in interfacing is a lightweight, stiff but see-through fabric that I often use for my patterning. I trace the originals onto the stuff so I don't have to cut (and thus destroy the other sizes of) the pattern. As for the rest, I recommend looking up some tutorials on YouTube for how to lengthen arms and legs of patterns. They're going to explain it a lot better than I can.

Worth pointing out - I should be rolling into town the night of May 30th and staying a couple of days. @Rubix and @firstRainbowRose are being gracious hosts and (presumably) going to be in some control of my schedule, but I'll be in the area.

Most patterns have a place marked on them where you can lengthen or shorten the pattern piece. If you know about how many inches longer than the average your arms are, you can use some sew-in interfacing to create a new pattern piece to fit the length of your arm. Same thing with trouser legs - there's always a marked place for lengthening.

Hey, you never know! I've been a lot less active than I used to be! Maybe someone missed me! Or maybe I'm, like, super arrogant or something. Perish the thought! As if I would steal from the people who volunteered so graciously to host me and my husband. Besides, spikes are for staff use only. I do miss the days when I could eat mac 'n cheese with impunity. Sleeves? What's wrong with sleeves?

Sshhh! I'm trying to encourage him to be more confident! I haven't really gone anywhere, I'm just on Discord a lot more than the Shard proper these days. (I'm visiting Rubix and firstRainbowRose in a couple of weeks!) Ooooooh. That's pretty freakin' sweet. I think I need this for that SHIELD cosplay I'm probably never going to create but keep daydreaming about.

Yeah, that was meant as more in general, rather than just directed at you. Everyone is being so adorably extra careful about spoilers, but I'm just gonna be mean and say, "Nope! Thread says spoilers, so it's got spoilers!" The thing of it is, so many resources are renewable. Thanos is suddenly the most powerful being in the universe - he can just impose his will on everyone and force them into sustainable living. He can just magic up water purification devices that efficiently recycle existing water and enrich the existing arable land, then enforce everyone learning how to handle sustainable farming. Heck, he can probably even tinker with plant genetics to increase food yields. Give everybody plans for efficient renewable energy generators. Or, you know, just make sure every sentient species in the universe has access to affordable birth control. Populations tend to even out on their own when this is available. He's literally got the power of the universe at his fingertips. He can do anything. And yet he chooses mass genocide as a reasonable solution. Honestly, I think I'm understating the problem. Earth is about to dive into a massive economic collapse. After the Snap, millions will die. His history of culling planets is a lot different from what he winds up doing. At least before, people KNEW what happened. There was some control to the culling. With the Snap, it's just...random. And the vast majority of people in the universe are going to have no idea why half of their number just crumbled to dust. The mass panic that results is going to be epic in scope.

Warning: I'm not spoiler cutting. The title of this thread states that it's full of spoilers, so I don't really understand why the cuts started in the first place. (I deliberately avoided the thread until after I'd seen the movie.) It's an interesting thought, but I just don't think it's borne out by the narrative. Thanos's own words never indicate that this idea ever even crossed his mind. He's going to kill half the universe and leave it in "perfect balance" - if he had thought there were other solutions, I feel as though he would have acted on those once he had the gauntlet. Instead, he makes it clear that he thinks killing half of everybody is the only solution. And it's even worse than it looks on paper, because he never considered collateral damage. The after-credits stinger showed some of that right off the bat - how many pilots dusted, bringing their aircraft into fiery crashes? How many car accidents killed more people? How many pieces of heavy construction equipment were in mid-job when suddenly their operators were gone? To say nothing of infrastructure and simple things like food distribution - half of the personnel responsible for growing, processing, and distributing most of the world's food supply is gone. What about kids whose luck of the draw dusted all of their parental figures? What about power plant operations? What about doctors and nurses and other hospital workers? Earth is going to be lucky if even a quarter of its population survives the year.

You have out-pedanted me? I am offend! Boots!

I'll probably be checking in on Twi soon. I'm hoping to be able to stop over with her for brunch when we go through her area on vacation. Quiver's probably gotten busy and forgotten about us again. Name ping him enough times and maybe he'll pop in to tell us to knock it off. (Maybe I can summon him like Beetlejuice - @Quiver @Quiver @Quiver!) Zathoth pings in on the Discord server now and then.

I got the pattern I used from someone on Ravelry: The Geeky Hooker. If you want a pattern, you should go get hers, because it's awesome.

When I was in junior high (back in the Dark Ages when the Berlin Wall fell and the internet was just starting to think about being born), we were granted access to the high school library. I stumbled across Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey, and I was gone.

It's the one I gave to Brandon!

Brandon tends to do a lot of research into any mental health issue he puts into his books. He'll read up on it, talk to people, make sure and have someone on his beta reading team to proof everything he puts in. So yes, you're going to see that he nails the accuracy more often than not.

I do the same thing. Some days after work I'll deliberately move to walk on the textured part of the sidewalk that's meant to warn vision-impaired people that they're near the parking spaces just so I don't have to focus on which foot just hit a crack. It all feels the same there. But for me, it extends to really stupid levels. Like, come on, brain - different colored tiles on the floor at the airport do not feel the same. Stop trying to convince me that they do! Edited To Add: basically, it's a matter of extremity. One or two minor things, eh, it's not really something to worry about. My OCD tics could get very limiting if the urges were to get stronger to the point of being overwhelming. I can resist them, but most of the time it's easier and less stressful to just channel them into something that people don't notice.

A few things: What Shallan has isn't DID, but something else that manifests in a similar way. She's developing different personas in order to handle the extreme compartmentalization of her emotions. It looks similar from the outside and can easily be mistaken for DID, but it's a completely different issue altogether. Autism is not a mental illness, but rather a difference in the physical wiring of the brain. This is generally referred to as "neurodivergence" rather than a mental illness. (ADHD also falls under this category.) Now for my stuff: I actually talked a bit about this in one of the JordanCon panels, but I do have a mild form of OCD. A lot of people like to joke about how OCD people "must have the cleanest houses" but that manifestation is by no means universal. Some people have a compulsion to clean or an anxiety about germs, but certainly not all of us! I tend to need both sides of my body to be "even" which means I'll do stuff like measure my steps so that my feet hit the carpet the same number of times before moving to linoleum, or chew my food equally on both sides of my mouth. And I'm really good* at disguising this so that people don't notice I'm doing it. I also tend to silently count my steps in sets of eight, but that's a byproduct of many, many years in marching band that never quite shook itself out of my psyche. If one arm touches something cold, I have a desire to touch the other one to the cold so that they feel the same. So the compulsions can totally be weird and nonsensical, and not necessarily a way of making everything neat and orderly and perfect. That said, if you ever play Ticket To Ride with me, I will straighten the trains at some point. Sorry. I'll try to resist most of the game, but eventually my resolve will crack and it will happen. Deal. In my case, I'm capable of suppressing the compulsions, but doing so causes me stress. If I'm already under stress, the compulsions get stronger and indulging in them actually helps ease that existing stress a little bit. Just the simple act of color-sorting M&Ms and then quietly eating them two at a time (one on each side of my mouth, of course) can chill me out a bit. I also experience social anxiety where it can be difficult for me to approach people, especially in crowds, if I do not have a specific thing to talk to them about (and even then, if I don't know them, I'm likely to come off as weird and awkward). So if you ever see me at an event, please, feel free to approach me. Once that initial ice is broken and I have convinced my brain weasels that the person does indeed actually want to talk to me, I'm fine. * I told my husband about talking about the "even steps" thing after I got home from con. He looked at me in mild surprise and said, "I didn't know you did that." We've been married for 7 years.

That is indeed the correctly British spelling. (And Canadian, Australian, etc.)

For a person who claims to be British, that is a very American spelling choice there.

So! My weekend, let me tell you of it. Friday: I spent a couple of hours before Opening Ceremonies helping get artists checked in for the Art Show. I've been volunteering at JordanCon every year I've gone so far, and it's a great way for a new person to get to know folks at the con. They really, really appreciate their volunteers and make sure that they get a few special perks, as well as their very own raffle. (Tickets are given out to volunteers based on hours worked.) After Opening Ceremonies, I did a cruise-round of the Dealer's Room. Guys, there is so much more space than in the old hotel! Seriously, the Art Show/Dealer's Hall space is at least three times larger than it was last year. It was glooorious. I then went to @Ravioli's panel with Isaac on copyrights, and once I had confirmed with myself that my Porgs were not going to cause a problem, I tracked down Dragonsteel where they gathered for dinner to present them with Kaladin Porgblessed and the rest of Bridge Porg. Brandon, as expected, giggled at me in that way he does when he has encountered maximum fan silliness and wants to humor the crazy. Emily and Kara, however, went nuts over them. It was brilliant. And they were especially thrilled with me for making sure that there were enough Porgs for every member of the crew, including the ones who hadn't been able to come. Friday night brought the Speculation After Dark panel, where I and a few others sat up in a room full of Sanderfans like yourselves and spewed out baseless speculation to them all. I got to share my "polyamory solves Stormlight love triangle" theory with more unwitting victims. Bahahaha. Saturday: This was my insane marathon day. Starting at 10am (my t-shirt read, "Clearly I have made some bad decisions."), I was on three panels in a row: Orientation to the Cosmere, Cosmere Magic 101, and Book Spotlight: Oathbringer. This was my first year on panels, and it is so gloriously freeing to be able to just sit there and blather with just three or four other people rather than raising my hand and waiting to be called on. (Ask the others who had to sit in the audience how they suffered and how much they envied me.) I did wind up sharing a lot more than I expected on the Oathbringer panel; the topic turned to mental illness and I made some points about how it's not something you can just cure. I opened up about my own issues and what I do to manage them. That was...unplanned, but seemed to be well-received. After my last panel, I skedaddled up to my room to change into costume and zipped back downstairs, having missed just the first bit of the RAFOlympics. I had a question to ask (and hilariously, my own track director didn't recognize me at first after having sat next to me for a solid four hours). I thought it was a good question, but some of you might not agree. Check the transcripts for the question about how much authority the Synod holds over the other Terris enclaves in Era 2. (I wanted to know!) After that, it was to the Main Programming room for costume contest pre-judging. I actually got through pretty quickly and managed to duck out for ten minutes in order to take a glance at the Charity Auction. It only runs on Saturday and I hadn't had the opportunity to check it out; I got to see how my donated Porgs were embroiled in bidding wars. I also put in a bid on a dulcimer that amazingly I wound up getting. But I didn't know that till later. The costume contest was amazing; there were so many awesome costumes! I got a Judge's Choice award for my work, which was pretty fantastic given my skirt release tech hadn't been set quite right. There was some stiff competition. People put in a lot of time and effort into their costumes, and everyone who won an award deserved every scrap of accolades they got. Sunday: I am apparently a glutton for punishment, as I put myself into yet another 10am volunteer shift working art show sales. Why I do this to myself nobody knows. At some point lunch and general milling around happened, and then it was time for Sanderson trivia. Oh, my goodness, Sanderson trivia. My teammates were my best friend, another Sandertrack panelist, and a fourth fellow who needed a team, and we needed a fourth player. And guys? We rocked it. We answered every single question correctly. Each one of us on the team, at some point, contributed an answer that the others did not know. When all of the points were tallied up, the first place team was named: Silverlight Scholars! We even somehow beat Karen and her wiki by one point! First, second, and third places all got shiny medals and swag bags of things from Dragonsteel. I am going to be treasuring my spike and Bondsmith pins forever. After trivia, we all high tailed it down to the end of Brandon's signing. (Yes, they scheduled it at the same time. It was a bit rough. But it's Brandon, and you know how he is about making sure he stays until everything has been signed.) I asked another question - you'll find it on the transcript, but the paraphrased version is that given how too much Compounding can cause permanent changes/damage to a person, whether isolated extended bursts of Compounding could produce an effect similar to pewter drag. (It can.) Then was Feedback and Leave-Takings, and the con officially closed. But we had the gaming hall still, so Aftercon ran until at least midnight. I'm not sure exactly how late it went; my exhaustion caught up with me before then and I turned in to bed while things were still swinging. But at JordanCon, the party doesn't end until everyone is kicked out. Late Monday morning, someone pulled the fire alarm, so the hotel literally did kind of kick us out. But only for our own safety. Or me! I am hurt! Hurt, I say! Well, it's cemented. I am officially, desperately in love with Nazh.

Heh. I printed and laminated a copy of my profile pic to stick to my table tent at panels. I will be passing out ribbons at con! Find me and I will give you one!

ALL THE HYPE!

Yep. The only reason we know about that rank at all is because of Rubix trolling you.

I am happy that my ridiculousness has managed to bring a spark of joy to at least one person.