sometimes i think gravity is a pity

Okay, this is it. I'm (tentatively) committing to Dreamwidth again. There's something comforting about seeing the little icon I pilfered from my old LiveJournal, from a manga series I doubt anyone remembers, although it did have a little resurgence a few years ago because the author finally finished it and they released a couple of movies to wrap it up. I half-heartedly watched the movies in 2020, but there were too many new characters that I didn't care about, and, hey, there were already so many Shinsengumi members to keep track of, anyway! But, about a week ago, I started reading the final manga chapters, and I did start to cry.

There are so many iterations of Okita Souji out there, but this is the one I connected to the most, and you really get to see him die. It's both amazing closure and also something I didn't expect to be so painful... I mean, I'm pretty sure I watched a series where Okita turns into a vampire or some shit. For all the Peacemaker series dabbled in the supernatural, the way they handled his death was so visceral and human.

And all of this was inspired because I was watching Ouran High School Host Club while I was embroidering some gifts for people, and they had a Shinsengumi cosplay that really did not have to call high-school-me out like that! It's true! Apparently, I'm still a real maniac!





Anyway, speaking of embroidery, I think I've only completed three projects this year. I finished Cao Weining in February, and then I'm pretty sure I didn't do anything else until the Eastern helmock and Virginia opossum minis I made last month. I've been working on a new fandom project the past few days, just in time for Twitter to burn and for me to have nowhere to share it...

Well, I suppose I've been fairly spoiled since I started my account. I remember the first Jiang Cheng I embroidered was when I only had one fandom friend, and I kept sending her, like, text updates throughout the day, and she kept encouraging me. I guess it might soon feel more like that again, or maybe I'll exclusively post finished things on Tumblr to avoid spending too much time there but to still get some dopamine out of my hard work... We'll have to see how I feel. (Tumblr was a Bad Era in the History of Jen,)

In any case! What makes me most excited about finishing this new project is that I can finally do that "your skill in 2020 vs. 2022" meme I've seen fiber artists posting online. I could always use Cao Weining...but (as much as it pains me to say it) there are some flaws in the stitching that I find hard to look at. And I just think it would be really cool to be like "Faceless Jiang Cheng 2020" BAM "Yu Ziyuan + Irises 2022".

Look at me, already dreaming big...
 

( Pics behind cut.... )


Today was a nice day off, although I didn't do much! I woke up at 2am and couldn't fall back asleep, so I read a bit of fanfiction, made myself tea, listened to a podcast, and finally started reading MDZS vol. 3. I've been trying to finish A Thousand Ways to Pay Attention by Rebecca Schiller, but the way she imagines history has been driving me up a wall, so I'm glad I decided to put it down for something more entertaining.

This volume, in particular, includes the only chapters I've already read, so I'm excited to see a slightly more edited translation and also to relive Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian's youth/tortured adolescence. And Yu Ziyuan's in this volume, too. Truly, I am eating well tonight! (Metaphorically. I dropped most of the literal food I was cooking this afternoon.)

There were a few times on Twitter when I posted some thoughts about Jiang Cheng, and a wild stranger appeared to tell me I had poor reading comprehension and tried to school me in canon. I think maybe I took what they were saying too seriously, though. I've been telling people all along not to listen to anything I say because I have "poor media comprehension," but I'm beginning to think those strangers were just being mean, because I'm reading the actual novel now, and, your honor, Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian love each other. So much.

And I don't think I'm dumb for saying it!

Today was tough. Overall, I think I'll remember the better things, like daffodils in the sun, wearing my pretty new mask, being on campus again, my first mocha in a year, blooming witch-hazel, a rare leucistic squirrel, a breakthrough in my research project, etc. Objectively, those things were all very nice. But they didn't fill me up enough to make it through four hours of research in a museum basement and then a 1.5 hour long, in-person interview for a part-time temp job at a park. I was flagging by the time I got home, and it all just went downhill from there.

I tried taking a bath, but the water came out disappointingly cold. 

I tried making dinner, but I'm out of cooking oil.

I gave up on everything and decided to work on my embroidery project, and then I ruined it. 

I honestly think I jinxed it by being so pleased with how it was going and assuming I'd already finished the hardest parts. Faces are hard, and so is trying to figure out the right direction of stitches in jet-black hair. All of that had gone so well that I truly thought I could finish all the filler colors tonight and have it in the mail by tomorrow afternoon...

Alas, the fabric had other plans. I can usually forgive a little wrinkle here or there, but I ended up with a huge wrinkle right across his neck. So, I cut out all the stitches and tried again, but it just kept happening. I'd already cut out those same stitches multiple times due to poor color choices, so maybe the fabric was just fed up with me. I was certainly fed up with it. The seventh or eighth time I went to cut the stitches, I cut too much, and I just couldn't keep going. The stabilizer was shifting and everything was a mess.

I should have known not to work on this tonight. I work better in the morning as a general rule, and I was feeling the same buzzing, frenetic energy I felt when I ruined Jiang Cheng. I was just not in a calm or patient headspace, and I ultimately ended up committing a devastating act of violence with a pair of sewing scissors. 

(And then I absent-mindedly brought those same sewing scissors into the bathroom with me and put toothpaste on them instead of my toothbrush?) 

Anyway, I won't commemorate this tragedy by posting a picture of Xiao Xingchen in my trashcan. It's really horrible. I'm obviously upset. So little good has come up this past year that I rely (probably too much) on finishing these projects and the nice attention they get. It's been especially neat using embroidery to create fanart, because there's that extra layer of feeling like you're giving these characters a spa treatment or something. It requires such close, detailed care, and I just think they deserve that.

But the flipside of that very real emotional high is that every failure hits so hard, and I don't have any solid coping mechanisms at my disposal right now. (All my coping mechanisms are busy with, you know, the Big Stuff.)

It's all going to be fine tomorrow. I just need to talk it out somewhere so I can move on and try again. I'm still really excited about this thing. I still really want to surprise my friend, even if it takes a little longer than I'd hoped. The benefit of using a stabilizer is that I still have the original pattern, so it's not a total loss, and my second Jiang Cheng definitely came out better than the first anyway. I'm gonna drink some water. I'm gonna get some sleep. I'm gonna re-up my supply of the proper greys/whites/silvers. And then Xiao Xingchen is coming back to life whether he likes it or not.

(Xue Yang would be proud.)