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The last time I posted easter eggs here, I had no idea this stuff would ever become political - yet here we are. Anyway. I don't celebrate, except I really enjoy painting eggs. (I do not think I would enjoy painting potatoes. I mean, I'd have to try before I judge, but...) Happy Easter if you celebrate. :3

Nothing but Seagulls in Sight (1114 words) by EllerWrites
Chapters: 1/?
Fandom: Original Work
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Original Characters, Original Female Character(s), Original Male Character(s)
Additional Tags: Romance, Paranormal Romance, Shifter Romance, Shapeshifting, Shapeshifter, Billionaire Romance, Parody, Humor, Crack, Breaking the Fourth Wall, Fake/Pretend Relationship
Summary:The world's worst writer makes another attempt at shifter romance. A billionaire shifter businessman makes her an offer she cannot refuse.

This is a sort-of-sequel to the gnat shifter romance (well, "romance") I wrote a while ago. Same bad writer, new bad adventure. The beginning of one, at least. I'm not yet sure if I should continue this at all, but, uh, I had fun?!?

My most recent ATCs. (6,4 x 8,9 cm)





I didn't take pictures of my art supplies this time, but it was again a mix of fineliners, watercolors, acrylic pens, gel pens, and a lot of glitter. :)

So, if you ever thought historical dueling was all about "honor" and shit, think again... and maybe take a look at this extremely amusing 1611 German illustrated treatise on rapier fencing by Michael Hundt (yes, the guy was really called that and did not speak English so he would not have been bullied over it), who has some fascinating suggestions. We'll look at some pretty funny and (more or less... okay, hopefully less) relatable situations he describes! (I'm using my own translations and not the ones provided on that site.) None of this is supposed to be combat advice, or, worse, legal advice.

The first snippet I'm going to show here describes a somewhat unpleasant situation that's probably self-defense, unless the author himself started the fight. Context: Mike Hunt (:p) is talking about a hateful (that is, "real" and not regulated) fight that breaks out, and everyone is wearing different weapons, so there are no clear rules of engagement. Mike Hunt (:p) has, however, a good reason to assume his opponent is superior at whatever bladed weapon they are brandishing.

"
[...]und der eine hat nichts darinnen gelernet: So nemen E.G. an stat des Dolches ein kurz Rohr, allda wird sichs wol außweisen, was das beste bey der fache thut, oder nicht, Wo nich gleiche Wehren für dem Manne gebrauchet werden, denn in der noth muß man brauchen, was man erdencken kan [...]
"
([...]and one has learned nothing in it: so Y.G. take instead of the dagger a short barreled weapon, and it will become clear what works best in that case, or no, where not same defenses are used by men, because in an emergency one must use whatever one can think of)

Very pragmatic, that. "Just shoot him if you know you can't beat him in a bladed fight" is such a charming and down-to-earth approach to the problem! Not necessarily one the guys who obsessed over honor would approve of... but I think that shit is typically reeeeallly exaggerated in "historical" and fantasy novels, and most real people also would have chosen survival.

Generally, many situations Mike Hunt (:p) describes are much closer to self-defense than what today's writers understand as a "duel".

"
Es kömpt bisweilen, das einer bey der Nacht von etlichen angegriffen wird, es sey wo es wolle, bißweilen von vier auch von fünf oder mehr Personen, und wird mancher also uberfallen, daß es ihme sein Leib und Leben kostet, und forderlich, wenn einer sich bey der Nacht wil auff die Bulschafft begeben, do offt ein ander ihme auff den Dienst wartet, wie es denn wol bißweilen kommen kan, so thunn E.G. ein ding, und verwaren sich mit einem guten Rappier. Werden aber E.G. im heimgehen uberfallen, von den ganzen Hauffen der Feinde, so nemen E.G. das Rappier zu beyden Feusten, und schiessen es nach dem nazen hauffen, und sehen hernach, wo E.G. weiter können schuz erlangen, Denn nith bricht bißweilen Eysen, ehe man das Leben dahin giebet.
"
(It sometimes happens that one is attacked at night by several, no matter where, occasionally by four or five or more persons, and some people are ambushed in a way that costs them body and life, so if you are out at night in order to have an affair, and someone else is lying in wait for him as can happen sometimes, so do a thing and defend yourself with a good rapier. But if Y.G. is attacked while going home, by the whole group of enemies, you Y.G. take the rapier in both fists, throw it into the whole group, and afterwards see about getting safety. Because sometimes necessity breaks iron before you give life away.)

Yep. If you're ever attacked by a group of thugs while you just wanted to go and, uh... Look, this is reeeeaaally ambiguously phrased, and unless I'm very wrong about this man's mindset, this is entirely intentional. He's either out at night to visit a lover or to have intercourse in public. (With this guy, it's probably the latter, but there's just enough plausible deniability.) Either way, he's describing something that's clearly a genuine self-defense situation. "Throw your rapier at them and run" sounds like excellent advice when faced with multiple attackers, too.

Some other situations are just what you'd expect in a modern German bar fight. (Some things never change.) Mike Hunt (:p) is, of course, perfectly aware of the oldest trick in the book!

"
Wollen E.Gn. einem ein bossen reissen, es sey im fechten oder im balgen, im Dolch unnd Rappier zugleich, so brauchen E.G. nicht mehr, als diese wort, ich balge mich nicht mit ihr zweyten, sondern mur mit einem, und sich der wil umbsehen, so kömpt er zu kurz, und können ihn E.Gn. durch und durch stossen, auch ihn um hawen verleßen, wenn er nicht recht ist vor der Thür gewesen, und heisset recht: Biete dinem Feinde das Gesichte, trawe ihme nicht zu viel, das heist recht verführet, im fechten und im balgen, man kan es auch aunem aus kurzweile thun, wann E.G. lust zu einem haben im fechten, aber un der noth und in grossen unfällen ist dieses stück auch gut zugebrauchen.
"
(If Y.G. wishes to trick someone, whether it's in fencing or in grappling, same for dagger or rapier, so Y.G. does not need more than this word, "I will not fight you two but only one", and he wants to turn and look, so he comes up short and Y.G. can stab him through and through, or strike him down when he was not right at the door, and it is said correctly: "Face the enemy, don't trust him too much", this is a proper deception both in fencing and in grappling, you can also do it for fun if you are yearning for a fight, but in trouble and great emergencies this piece is also useful.)

If you now suspect that Mike Hunt (:p), who apparently not only stabbed people from behind for fun (let's be clear: that's not self-defense, that's just murder), but actually thought to publish the suggestion in an instruction manual (I think this, at least, is really just German humor and not a genuine suggestion... look, one can hope, right?), was generally not necessarily the most law-abiding guy ever...

"
Sehen E.G. daß einer mit einem Flegel bey der Nacht zu ir kömpt, vö wil nach E.G. schlagen (wie es denn bißweilen der gebrauch ist auff Universiteten, wenn man von Tische gehen, und von der Wache wird angegriffen, wenn offt einer etwas zuvor bey der Wache gethan hat, und ein anderer kömpt [...]
"
(If Y.G. sees that someone goes after you with a flail at night, and wants to hit Y.G. (as occasionally happens at universities, when you leave the table, and you are attacked by the guard, because often one has previously done something to the guard, and another comes [...])

...you might be correct. The guy this just occasionally happened to is, however, an excellent resource, providing priceless advice. (The actual fencing advice is less interesting, though - looks solid as far as I can tell without ever having used a real rapier, no obvious nonsense like in some other pamphlets of the time - but you find the same information also in other old publications... And the illustrations are clearly more interested in fashion design than fencing, which makes the whole thing hilarious.) By the way, he's also describing the classic "brick in a sock" (well, a bag of stones, but same thing) as "sometimes superior to three or four bare rapiers". That bag of stones would not have shown up in a "honorable" duel, either, but Mike Hunt (:p) values practicality over formality. (The whole thing just screams North German, right? Well. Mike Hunt (:p) was from what's Saxony-Anhalt today.) Strong reading recommendation! :)

This is for your amusement! A tube of watercolor that's a) old (the company hasn't been using this tube design in 12 years, so this thing is at least that old) and b) was stored with the cap not entirely closed. So, I want to make clear that what happened to this poor tube of paint was not the manufacturer's fault. It's not a quality issue. Anyway - I got this (and some other art supplies in questionable state) from a friend who apparently used it in some tentative painting attempts, then stored it and forgot about it. I was, of course, overjoyed to take someone else's trash. (I'm North German, after all! This can still be used!)



So, what do we have here? YES! It's completely dry! This is actually quite impressive and not something I've seen before. (It's much better than half-dry, which always causes a huge mess.) This enabled me te get all the paint out of the tube... By cutting the tube away! XDD (By the way: this is not a case for a good knife; this is what cheap boxcutters are for.)



I was able to, ahem, surgically remove the dried-up paint, roll it up (thanks to the gum arabic in the binder, it's elastic enough) and cram it into pans. (I used a few drops of water in the pan to glue the paint in once that dried.) I'm glad to inform you all that, hey, it works just fine! I mean, it's no different than refilling a pan from a tube in a more conventional manner, right? XD Anyway. This is a perfectly fine (well, if you are as good at ignoring aesthetics as I am) two half-pans of good PV23, and I fully intend to use them!

...abused to make a watercolor box (well, if we're being generous with that term, anyway) from corrugated board, wire, duct tape, and a piece of string. Clearly, it's a masterpiece - even the "button" (generous with the term) is simply wire wrapped in duct tape! XDDD Duct tape is my friend!



But then, it's not supposed to be pretty. It's just that I had this dot palette (again, generous with the term: it's just a postcard-sized piece of paper with colors on it. Why use "real" palettes when there's a primitive solution that works just fine?) of Michael Harding watercolors lying around, and I wanted a way to store them so they don't catch dust. (They are excellent paints, but of the kind that re-wet very easily, so when they catch air humidity, the surface is always a tiny bit sticky. Leaving them on my desk without some kind of cover is not an option.) Here, you also have the unique chance (haha) to see how tidy I am while doing art.



I'm still not sure what I'm going to do with the cover of the box, though. I could leave it in "cardboard color", but also, I could draw something on it. Maybe with a silver acrylic pen included to match the duct tape? After all, color coordination is very important. ;) Any suggestions what to draw?

An ATC I made today, with material mainly from my advent calendar! Because it's one of my more detailed cards, I took photos during the process, so if you're interested you can view the step-by-step (with materials and methods) behind the cut.

( Documentation of the ATC )

Here's the finished picture:

This ATC was for the advent calendar, so, I drew this some time ago, but I'm posting it now after the fact. Maana is a character from a story/project of the person my calendar was for. :) A lot of fun, especially because it's not the kind of thing I typically draw at all! (As in, she's clearly not a plant... LOL) Leaving my comfort zone at least occasionally is a good idea, I know! XD

...or, sexist subtitle, "Why Men* Never Cut Bread Properly", because that's what it seems to amount to in real life. ;) Ahem. So, a few nights ago, I met up with some other ladies for drinks. Somehow, this turned into one of us complaining bitterly about how her husband keeps producing Catastrophic!Bread!Spirals when cutting bread. Two others also agreed that, yes, their respective men also produce spirals rather than proper bread slices and how annoying that is. Well. I'm into technology and into knives, so, of course, I immediately took out pen and paper and produced some shitty construction drawings to show why the issue really comes down to hand size...

*I hope it's obvious this is not really a gender issue. Just that, statistically, any technical problem that exclusively hits people with very large hands is going to affect significantly more men than women.



In (1), you can see what cutting bread with an entirely straight bread knife should look like: In order to produce a clean cut, the knife is held completely horizontally, with all the teeth arriving down on the cutting board at the same time. At this point, if your hand is small enough and nothing else went catastrophically wrong, you should have produced a nice, regular slice of bread. (Because I was drunk while drawing, I'll provide translations. Tisch: table. Schneidbrett: cutting board. Brot: bread. Messer: knife. Kleine Hand: small hand. Also, no, this is not supposed to be an illustration of how to hold a bread knife... LOL)

But, oh noes, if the user's hand is too large, suddenly there's a problem! In (2), you can see that the fact that the fingers can't sink into the table surface causes the knife to be held at an angle! Under those circumstances, of course, there's an area of bread (marked orange) that's not going to be cut! And that's where the problem starts: the two main approaches to solve this are to either rip the underside of the bread (which results in really ugly slices for obvious reasons) or to rotate the bread. If you rotate the bread and your second cut does not perfectly align with the first (which it never does, not just because aligning two cuts perfectly always requires unusual levels of precision, but mainly because, hey, bread deforms when you suddenly exert pressure from a different direction, and while it's theoretically possible to correct for that, not everyone wants to fuck around with tensors during an otherwise uncomplicated kitchen task)? Catastrophic!Bread!Spirals are the logical result. Ladies, your men are neither malicious nor stupid, it's just that handing a completely straight bread knife without any kind of offset to a person with large hands is a shitty idea! (The same, of course, applies to any blade that's designed to arrive on the board surface completely horizontally. Like, also, absolutely anything with a sheepfoot blade...)

A possible solution is shown in (3): there are some bread knives with a bit of an offset that lowers the blade in relation to the handle, which means there's extra space for thicker fingers under the handle. (If you now immediately think "but this costs stability!, congratulations, you've been following my knife nerdery closely! Displacing the blade does cost stability. A knife like this will not withstand any hard impact. However, a bread knife is intended for cutting bread. If you are experiencing any kind of potentially blade-shattering impact on bread, there's most likely a bread malfunction... That is, unless you're the world's worst baker, or you intend to go into a knife fight with a bread knife - which I'd strongly advise against, even under the best of circumstances - this should never become an issue.) This extra space means that a person with large hands is now also able to hold the knife horizontally while cutting. YAY!

Other possible solutions to the problem, of course, include...
- using a thicker cutting board (which would also provide extra finger space, albeit in an impractical way... Generally, there's the recommendation your cutting board should be exactly as thick as your fingers* - not just for being able to place cuts in completely horizontal position at all, but also to provide a measure of when you've arrived on the board, with your fingers as the spacer, so you'll stop exerting pressure then, which protects your knives so you have to sharpen them less often - but at some point this becomes impractical as it results in very unwieldy cutting boards...)
- cutting at the edge of the table (which is going to be uncomfortable because you'll have to stand at an awkward angle or strain your shoulder, but, sure, this also provides extra finger space)
- cutting with reeeeaaally long arm motions (which is unergonomic as fuck, and you lose most of the advantage of that lovely serrated edge - as in, unless your knife is excellent, you're likely to shred the bread - so it only "works" in a very theoretical way but comes with other issues in practice)

*Yes, "a finger thick" as a measuring unit is not merely a historical relic; there are use cases when using your finger as a measuring unit actually fulfills an important practical purpose! Generally, when talking about tools, ergonomy, and so on, so much depends on an individual's hand that units like "a palm width" also have to be taken literally, and followed precisely, not as a guesstimate.

...but, really, it comes down to technology. I understand how painful it can be to watch Catastrophic!Bread!Spirals, but really, there's no need for a relationship conflict over this issue! (I simply got my boyfriend a bread knife he can actually use. It's now one of his favorite knives because, hey, if you like bread, the difference between being able to cut bread and not being able to cut bread really matters. Also, I guess it was a relief to learn that, nope, he's not that clumsy, he just had the wrong tool for the task.)

I'm also tagging this entry with Germany, because - obviously - this conversation scored very high on the VFGI (Very Fucking German Indeed) scale: People getting extremely emotional over bread - check. People getting extremely emotional over knives - check. Overly technical approach to, well, absolutely everything - check. Alcohol, alcohol, and more alcohol involved - check. The only reason this doesn't get a perfect score is that one of us arrived at the bar three minutes late.

Boyfriend and I are not really "celebrating" New Year's Eve with fireworks or anything, but we were making Raclette. That's a Swiss tradition and not a German one, technically speaking, but it's common enough in Germany that all the supermarkets have the special cheese as a seasonal product. (Also, it's popular as a party food because you can vary the ingredients so you can accomodate different dietary requirements at least to some extent.) Because I think some of you guys here are interested in food culture, I decided to document it this year with some pictures. :) So, uh, what is Raclette? Okay, so, first and foremost, Raclette is a type of cheese. The word, however, does not only refer to that cheese but also to... Okay, kind of difficult to explain, but I guess we'll need to look at this specific table grill thingy...



Obviously, on top of it, you grill stuff. This part is easy. We are simply talking about a thin metal sheet with a heating spiral below it. It gets hot when you switch the electricity on. You throw food on it.

The interesting part, however, which makes it a Raclette grill rather than a "normal" table grill is that you put these small triangular pans below the heating spiral, so anything in those pans is grilled from above. Look at this, I pulled one of the pans out:



Basically, you put the stuff you want to eat in there, put cheese on it (Raclette cheese, obviously - hence the name of the whole dish. Yes, other cheese will work fine, it will just taste" wrong", that is, like a perfectly normal gratin. LOL) and push it under that lovely heating spiral.

The other ingredients are... extremely flexible. Basically, you can put in there whatever you want. It usually involves various vegetables. This is what we had today:



Those are...
- Red bell pepper. (Only I ate that.)
- Potatoes. (This is Germany, after all. Potatoes need to be added to absolutely every dish. It's a law. Or something.)
- Zucchini. (Because, if you bother to bring out that table grill, not having grilled zucchini is a fucking crime. Seriously. It's just soooo good.)
- Eggplant. (Ditto, though grilled eggplant only really works if you pre-treat the stuff with salt and lemon juice. Also, it always takes more oil than you think.)
- Champignons. (Yes, eating mushrooms while being North German is a cultural crime, but whatever. Sue me. Also, no worries, they are from a supermarket and should be safe to eat.)
- Red onions. (Boyfriend prefers those to the white and yellow ones; I'm entirely indifferent. That is, I like onions just fine, I just don't notice that much of a difference.)
- Beef. (We even put the raw meat on a separate plate and not on the board with the vegetables. Damaged by civilization...)
- Raclette cheese. (Because.)

Technically, the dish also involves bread, and we had bread, but I don't eat much cereal-based food (unless it's cake), so, Boyfriend ate most of that. (Cultural differences.)

Oh, and to be complete, those were the (somewhat nonclassical) spices we used:



Those are:
- Pommessalz. (As required by law! XD Uhh. No. I mean, we're talking about a convenience mix of mostly salt and paprika that's typically put on fries but will work in any food with potatoes... Which is almost every German food... Which is why you'll find this type of mix in almost every German kitchen. It's the quintessential spice that screams "lower-class German" - of course, people will never admit in polite company that they use the stuff. You know the deal. It's the kind of class disqualifier like... uh... I guess the American equivalent of being "very classy" would be the bottle of ketchup to complete that nice, upscale meal?!? Of course, we totally didn't eat that, we only put it on the table for, uhhh, decorative purposes! Also, of course, it tastes really fucking awesome.)
- Black (fermented) garlic. (Totally nonclassical in this context, and this is the first time we had the stuff. It tastes really good, but adding it to a Raclette was maybe not the best idea because it seems to lose some flavor when heated. Oh well, live and learn.)
- Granulated pepper. (This is classical.)
- Hibiscus salt. (That is, a mix of salt and powdered hibiscus flower. Again, something we had for the first time. That is, I had it in my Advent calendar. It turned out to be really tasty, though! Boyfriend and I both really loved the stuff! It's very intense and kind of fruity, which worked really well with the meat.)
- Plum-Chili-Sauce. (Okay, this one is weird. Theoretically speaking, plum-based sauces for meat dishes are classical - in the sense of "archaic", really - in many parts of Germany. Chili is... NOT. XD So, this is a modern variation on something very, very traditional. I found it because a lady in the supermarket was filling her basket with, like, seven or eight jars (!) of the stuff and told me it's "the best thing ever for Raclette". I'm glad to confirm it's really very, very good. I suspect it's even going to work in a traditional roast dish. Will definitely buy again.)
- "Raclette spice mix". (Again, super weird, because afaik there is no classical "Raclette spice mix", so it absolutely has to be a modern invention. I bought that mainly because I saw it in the supermarket and went "WTF???", and obviously, I tend to buy anything that looks weird enough. The ingredients say it's composed specifically for cheese-based dishes and it consists mainly of pepper, nutmeg, onion powder, garlic powder, smoked paprika, parsley, salt and sugar. Somewhat surprisingly, turns out this really works well with grilled vegetables and cheese, so, its existence can be justified.)

At midnight, we'll have some sparkly wine. Until then, we are having a nice, relaxed evening. :)