(no subject)

[feminine_menace]

YT is ensconced in a chair by the fireplace. Instead of her coverall, she's wearing jeans and a t-shirt. She is knitting a sock.

What, do you have a problem with YT knitting? Do you think it's funny? If so, better keep it to yourself, because she is armed with double-pointed needles and having and already irritated because she's having a hard time with this sock. Any snarky comments will be made at your own risk.

CURRENT rapidRadish [CRR] RIGHT NOW opened memo on board DOGS I MET TODAY

CRR: got two today
CRR: a large main dog and a small emergency backup dog

CURRENT rapidRadish [CRR] sent file "lion_dog.jpg"

CRR: the large main dog is a Tibetan Mastiff
CRR: they are friggin' huge
CRR: seriously, i could ride one like a pony
CRR: they're guard dogs
CRR: and probably pretty good ones, because who would want to fuck with a dog that big?
CRR: now, the small emergency backup dog is a toy breed
CRR: so quondamGryphon, you don't have to look at it if you don't want to
CRR: (because I know you are :/ about toy breeds)

CURRENT rapidRadish [CRR] sent file "chinese_hot_water_bottle.jpg"

CRR: this is a Pekingese
CRR: and a smiley one
CRR: i did not know this before
CRR: but Pekingese were like hot water bottles back in the old days
CRR: Chinese people would stick one in each sleeve
CRR: to keep warm in the winter
CRR: guess it was a good deal for the dogs too

Comments

[angry_friendship_wolf]

"You knit?"

Yamato doesn't sound amused or surprised, but then he doesn't sound much of anything, because he so rarely expresses an emotion other than 'gruff' anyway.

He is curious, though.

[feminine_menace]

"It's a thing Mom and I do together."

Well, YT's mom used to do it, and recently took it up again. YT is learning.

[angry_friendship_wolf]

"Oh, right."

Momentary awkwardness! Yamato's relationship with his mother remains not the best.

"I guess that makes sense, then."

[feminine_menace]

"I don't know how she just breezes through these. Double-pointed needles are a bitch. I keep dropping stitches off the ends of the...shit! I just dropped another one." YT attempts to pick the stitch back up with the end of her needle before it drops further.

[angry_friendship_wolf]

"- So, I'm guessing you're pretty new at this, huh?" Yamato asks wryly, sitting down.

[feminine_menace]

"I can do, like, a scarf, or even a beanie," YT says. "But this is my first sock." She manages to snag the dropped stitch. Success!

[angry_friendship_wolf]

"I guess you'll get the hang of it pretty quickly. I mean, socks are pretty simple, right?"

[feminine_menace]

YT gives Yamato a flat look and holds out the sock-in-progress, with its rather intimidating set of double-pointed needles. "If it's so simple, genius, why don't you give it a try?"

[angry_friendship_wolf]

"I'm not the one who's knitted scarves and beanies before, am I?" Yamato fires back. "You really trying to say that a sock is that much more complicated than a beanie?"

[feminine_menace]

"Fuck, yes," YT says. "Took me half a day just to get the toe started. I had to line up the double-points to cast on, like, twelve stitches, and then do increases from there, and now I'm on the main part of the sock but I'm gonna have to do short rows for the heel and I've never done it before."

It's all really technical.

"I mean, like, learning to skateboard is hard too, and you fall down a lot and it hurts, but it's not so fiddly."

[angry_friendship_wolf]

So much of that just flies over Yamato's head.

"I understood basically none of that, but point taken," he says, glancing at the sock. "-- I should introduce you to Sora some time, if she shows up here or you ever visit my world. She's really gotten into knitting and sewing and making-clothing-stuff in the past couple of years."

[feminine_menace]

"Hey, all right. Maybe we can start a knitting circle." YT frowns. "Can you have a circle with only two people? I guess it's more like a line."

With three it would be a triangle, or possibly a coven.

[angry_friendship_wolf]

"Don't think you can, but I don't know anybody else who knits, so you're pretty much stuck there."

[bringspeopletogether]

CURRENT quondamGryphon [CQG] RIGHT NOW responded to memo

CQG: ...
CQG: I want one
CQG: No
CQG: I NEED one
CQG: The big one obviously
CQG: I didn't even bother looking at the little one
CQG: Thank you, RR, if I do nothing but inspire warning signs for dogs so small they could ride in your pockets, I will consider my life well lived
CQG: How are you?

[feminine_menace]

RR: if you get a Tibetan Mastiff
RR: you will make your mabari dogs jealous

YT feels this is an important thing to point out.

RR: i'm doing okay
RR: at least until the regular school year starts
RR: i'm not exactly looking forward to it

[bringspeopletogether]

CQG: No reason I can't have both
CQG: I'm sure they'll get along splendidly
CQG: And Brother Fuzzy will always have me wrapped around his paw, don't worry

(Denton's been making noises lately about the esteemed brother accompanying Alistair around the palace, as further part of his training. The mabari puppy hardly leaves Alistair's side whenever he visits the kennels; if he hadn't imprinted before, he certainly has now.

It is so great.)

CQG: Why not?
CQG: What sort of schooling is it?

[feminine_menace]

RR: just regular high school
RR: it's not the classes and homework and stuff i'm really worried about
RR: it's all the social stuff
RR: all the students are upper middle class or rich
RR: mom and i are more lower middle
RR: so were most of the kids at my old school

YT and her mom have a lot of money now, but YT knows that class isn't just about money. It's about your upbringing and social expectations and all that stuff.

[bringspeopletogether]

QG: Ah, yes
QG: Mingling with the fancy nobles
QG: I know how that goes
QG: It's never fun

[feminine_menace]

RR: lol fancy nobles
RR: oh shit wait that's not a figure of speech is it?
RR: you have actual barons and dukes and stuff
RR: we don't, our rich assholes have no titles

(Because it's America, dammit.)

[bringspeopletogether]

QG: Sometimes it's the ones WITHOUT titles that are the worst
QG: All that money and no recognition for it
QG: Drives them mad
QG: The sort of madness that manifests as being utterly obnoxious and prone to talking about their wealth at every opportunity
QG: "How's the weather, Ser Asshole?"
QG: "Not as nice as the fifty horses I bought yesterday!"

[feminine_menace]

RR: man now i'm thinking of girls at school
RR: trying to one-up each other
RR: talking about what fancy cars their daddies bought them
RR: or fancy camps they went to over the summer

To YT it's as weird and foreign as the Raft, if not more so.

[bringspeopletogether]

QG: Ugh >:(
QG: I wish it were possible to yell "NOBODY CARES" at the top of your lungs whenever that happened
QG: And have it actually be true
QG: I'm sorry you have to put up with it, too

[feminine_menace]

RR: you have to deal with that shit at work?

YT hopes he doesn't have to work for the fancy nobles or asshole rich people. With sounds bad enough.

[bringspeopletogether]

QG: All the time

Alistair hesitates with his thumbs over the keys. He gnaws his lip. If he weren't already reluctant to tell people in the tavern that he's king, his last conversation with RR -- all that talk about how much she hates authority -- would've done it.

Surely he can put it off a little longer. Can't he?

[feminine_menace]

Possibly. YT has developed an idea of QG's position relative to the fancy nobles/rich assholes - an idea that happens to be totally wrong.

RR: they don't order you to beat peasants or anything do they?