(no subject)

[skygiants]

Some more disconnected updates:

1. This past weekend I participated in a cake decorating challenge among friends, for fun and zero profit.


My cake was Princess Tutu-themed! The actual cake bases were a.) yellow cake for Duck, b.) chocolate chocolate chip cake for Rue, and sour cherry cake for Fakir; the cheery duck and the raven sinking into the chocolate-caramel lake of despair were made out of marzipan and frosting with frosting-confetti eyes. It's the cake decorating equivalent of a kindergarten finger-painting and I'm extremely proud of it. :D




Not all entries into the challenge have been shared online, but the ones that have include genarti's offensively impressive Dark is Rising cake, aberration's beautiful Star Wars Life Day cake, and shati's incredibly romantic mashed potatoes, each and every one a winner in its own way.

2. Two days ago I went to the most local protest I've ever been to -- a "Back the Blue" rally had been planned for the police station half a mile away, so the neighborhood organized a counter-protest. In the end, the pro-police rally never actually happened because the community was NOT into it, while the counter-protest had several hundred people, so that's something!

I was a little worried I was going to miss this one because it was the same day I had to be at my office to load 4800 video tapes into a truck to go off and be digitized -- a task that was accomplished last time around with the cooperation of seven or eight people, and this time, because of the pandemic and wanting to minimize human contact, was undertaken with only three -- but I just barely managed to make it before the group began to move towards the police station, where various hyper-local statistics about police brutality and discrimination were read, followed by a die-in. I'm really glad I was able to make it; I've been to a lot of protests at this point, but never one that marched literally down my own streets, half a block from my house. (Admittedly if I still lived in several of the places I used to live in New York I would almost certainly have had this experience several months ago already. But it still felt meaningful!)

3. Today I have accomplished absolutely nothing because Shannon Kao made an unbelievably gorgeous piece of fanart for my short story in Consolation Songs and I'm still screaming internally about it!!!

Comments

[alias_sqbr]

I can't see your cake but it sounds amazing. Not sure if the issue is my end or yours.

[sovay]

Today I have accomplished absolutely nothing because Shannon Kao made an unbelievably gorgeous piece of fanart for my short story in Consolation Songs and I'm still screaming internally about it!!!

Mazel tov!

(Did your girlfriend make a harp out of spun sugar?)

[dolorosa_12]

Wow, that Dark Is Rising cake is incredible!

[qian]

Princess Tutu cake :DDDDDDD It took me a moment to figure out their shape, but they're meant to be clockwork cogs, right?

[chestnut_pod]

I think you really captured the abject despair of the raven!

[skygiants]

Hmm, it seems like other people can see it? But sometimes people seem to have difficulty with seeing pictures that have been img/srced from outside DW ... anyway here is the link to photos as they appear on Twitter if you're curious although whatever you're imagining is probably vastly more impressive!

[skygiants]

Thank you! :DDDD

AND YEAH SHE ABSOLUTELY DID. Her first time ever working with spun sugar and she just pulled a "what, like it's hard?" and materialized a series of harps out of thin air!

[skygiants]

Isn't it gorgeous? We saved the Sign of Wood for last when we were divvying up the cake so that we could all admire the food-marker wood-grain for the longest possible amount of time. :D

[skygiants]

Yes, I'm excited you recognized them! :D I sort of started cutting the cake and then I was like 'well the teeth on these cogs are ... a little larger than I intended them to be ..... but whatever! we're in it now!'

[skygiants]

thank you, I'm extremely proud of my chocolate morass :DDD

[sovay]

Her first time ever working with spun sugar and she just pulled a "what, like it's hard?" and materialized a series of harps out of thin air!

Please tell her I am suitably, i.e. extremely impressed.

(I also enjoy that the Signs are arranged in the correct order.)

[qian]

I was like "are they ... stars ... ?" until I had an ephiphany, haha. They're fantastic!

[genarti]

Thank you! :D To be fair, I made several harps because I figured some would come out wonky and/or get broken, and indeed, I managed to break two before getting the third successfully up onto the cake.

(Ha, I'm pleased but not surprised that you caught that! Did I recite the poem to myself as I laid them out to make sure I got it right? Yes, of course I did.)

[sovay]

To be fair, I made several harps because I figured some would come out wonky and/or get broken, and indeed, I managed to break two before getting the third successfully up onto the cake.

I'm still impressed!

Did I recite the poem to myself as I laid them out to make sure I got it right? Yes, of course I did.

The gem-glitter of the Sign of Fire is especially well done.

[obopolsk]

OMG the Dark is Rising cake!

[paperback]

The swords through the cherries! The lake of despair and the cheerful confetti! It is a triumph of storytelling in cake form!

But that Dark is Rising cake is unfair! The signs, the color gradient icing on the side, the harp! Offensively impressive indeed.

Congratulations again on your story!

[skygiants]

I'm still not in any way over the beauty of her spun-sugar harp!

[skygiants]

It took me a little while to decide how to represent Fakir, because I did NOT have faith in my ability to create a quill pen out of marzipan, but when I remembered we had a jar of maraschino cherries floating around everything else really just fell into place. >.>

THE SIGNS. THE GRADIENT. It's an incredibly unfair cake. ... well, was. It is now completely devoured. But, details.

[alias_sqbr]

They are PERFECT.

[lokifan]

OMG I love the cakes so much!!

In the end, the pro-police rally never actually happened because the community was NOT into it, while the counter-protest had several hundred people

That's great!