#48 shades of brown

[pinnochiro]

if u write. for the love of god. pleaaaase do not do alternative formatting for the dialogue. please do not italicise it all. please do not bold it all. the commonly accepted dialogue markers in english are " and " at the start and end. u can get two quotation marks by holding shift and apostrophe on most computers. dialogue should also been on a new line.

u can and will just alienate an audience if u format differently. please do not try to revolutionise the literary world with ur alternative dialogue markers please just follow the standard ones

[silvcrignis]

U ever see a celebrity that multiple ppl think is hot & just don’t... Get it??? & every time you see a posted photo of them ur like “plz get this hideous THING off mine screenth”?

[parkerslatte]

Congratulations :) 21, 48 with azriel :)

A/N: Thank you so much and thank you for your request :)

_____

Hands To Myself

Azriel x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 2.8k

Warnings: none

Summary: At a family dinner, Y/N and Azriel can’t seem to keep their hands to themselves.

Prompts Used: 21. You can't keep your u hands off each other, even though no one knows about the two of you. 48. "You've been smiling much more recently."

3000 Follower Celebration

A Court of Thorns and Roses Masterlist

•••

From across the dining room table, Y/N met Azriel’s hazel eyes. The eyes that she loved more than anything. From a distance, all of the colours that made up the unique colour blurred together but Y/N knew all of the different shades of browns, grey’s and the small flecks of green. Looking into Azriel’s eyes was Y/N’s own personal work of art that Feyre could never quite capture accurately. They were so unique to him.

Y/N watched Azriel raise his fork to his mouth, clearly trying to fight off the smile trying to break out on his face. Even though she knew that it was a bad idea, Y/N smiled in Azriel’s direction. There was a lot to love and admire about the shadowsinger but the one thing that stood out amongst the rest was his smile. It was what drew Y/N in in the first place.

At first it was those small smiles he would only offer to people he barely knew as a greeting. Then it progressed to his smiles of comfort, and Y/N had been on the receiving end of one too many of those smiles. However it wasn’t long before those smiles of comfort transitioned to the smallest of smiles where a sliver of Azriel’s teeth were visible. Those were the smiles that his family usually bore witness to. Those were the smiles when Azriel was most at ease. 

However, as they grew closer and closer, Y/N began to notice Azriel’s smiles begging to get larger and larger. Showing off his one dimple on his left cheek. And it didn’t take Y/N long to notice that those smiles were reserved strictly for her. 

Y/N found herself smiling down at her food as she cut into a potato. Underneath the table, she stretched her legs out until she brushed against Azriel’s foot. Touch he didn’t react visibly, Y/N felt the slight brush of his leg against hers. Y/N glanced up and met Azriel’s eyes once more. All she wanted was to abandon dinner completely and drag him all the way back to her apartment on the outskirts of Velaris. 

But, alas, that was not an option. 

Y/N and Azriel had only been together for a little over five months but they had known each other nearly two years, ever since Y/N had been brought in to help Feyre with her pregnancy. Of course two years was nothing compared to both of their considerable lifetimes, but to both Y/N and Azriel, it was like they had known each other their whole lives. 

Soon after Y/N took Azriel out on a date, the two both agreed to keep their relationship private. Not because of what the rest of the Inner Circle would say, but because they both simply preferred their privacy and they knew that if the rest of the Inner Circle knew, it would only mean relentless teasing. 

At first it was easy to keep their relationship private but as soon as it began to get more serious and the attachment grew, it was harder and harder to keep their hands off one another.

After dinner, the group headed into the living room to relax in a more comfortable environment. As they all walked the short distance to the living room, Y/N and Azriel hung back, his arm caressing her lower back. Goosebumps immediately spread across Y/N’s body. She had wanted to feel his touch all night and now that she finally did, she craved more. 

“I can’t wait to drag you back to my apartment,” Y/N muttered, her hand wrapping around his. 

Azriel bent down so his lips grazed her ear. “And do what?”

Y/N tilted her gaze to look at him, her eyes meeting his. “Whatever you want.”

That beautiful smile lit up his face as his grip on her tightened the smallest amount. “I really want to kiss you right now.”

Y/N glanced to where everyone had disappeared in the living room, the hallway was empty. “Well there’s no one out here right now.”

As soon as the words left her mouth, Azriel’s lips were on hers as he pressed her against the wall. Y/N sighed in content as she parted her lips and just let Azriel devour her. From hours of being deprived of his touch, all of Y/N’s senses were heightened and she could already feel herself becoming putty in Azriel’s arms to shape and mould however he wanted and she would allow him. Her fingers threaded in his hair and pulled him even closer. Azriel obliged and wrapped his strong arms around her body and pressed her against his. One arm was around her waist while the other gently cradled the back of her head so she wouldn’t bang it against the wall. 

The feeling of being in Azriel’s arms was like no other. Of course Y/N had had her fair share of lovers in the past but none had been as attentive and caring as Azriel. He had waited over five hundred years for a love like Y/N and now that he finally had it, there was no chance he would ever let it go. Y/N savoured every touch, every word of affirmation, every single moment they spent together. She savoured them all. Of course she knew that there would be many more to come but that was just how it was with them, the amount of love shared between the two was unlike any other either of them had experienced before. They were each other’s salvation. 

“Come on you two!” Cassian’s voice chimed from the living room. “We have Rhys’s good wine!”

Y/N and Azriel pulled away from one another and Azriel reluctantly stepped back. “We should go, before they get suspicious.”

“Yes we should,” Y/N agreed.

Neither of them made a move for the living room. Y/N simply chuckled as she leant up and pecked Azriel’s cheek. “Come on, or we never will.”

Azriel followed, his hand clasped in Y/N’s but as soon as they were outside of the living room door he dropped it. Y/N immediately felt the warmth of his hand disappear and she sighed. 

“There you two are,” Cassian exclaimed. “I was about to search for you.”

Azriel simply rolled his eyes and took a seat on the couch and Y/N followed, squeezing herself in the only available spot next to him. Her whole side was pressed against his. Y/N wasn’t sure that this was a particularly good idea as all she wanted to do was curl up to his side. As hard as it was, she refrained herself. 

Y/N tilted her head to look at Azriel and he sent her a smile. Y/N returned it. 

***

The alcohol had hit everyone and Y/N had found herself with her back against the arm of the couch while her legs were draped over Azriel’s lap. She was on her fourth glass of wine and the only thing she could think of was the male she loved so dearly. His hand rested on her shin and his thumb traced patterns upon the soft skin. Of course when she and Azriel were more sober, they had refrained from any touching that wasn’t necessary, but now that had gone out of the window. Y/N wasn’t even entirely sure that Azriel realised what he was doing. 

While Y/N sipped on her glass of wine, she threw her head back and laughed at something Cassian had said. The grip on her shin slowly rose until it rested just above her knee and Y/N felt like her body was on fire. She was just glad that everyone else was affected by the wine as she hoped that none of them even noticed. 

“What about you, Az?” Rhys said.

Azriel tore his gaze away from Y/N for a brief moment to look at his brother. “What about me?”

“You’ve been smiling much more recently,” Rhys said, his arm tightening around Feyre’s shoulders. “Care to tell us the reason why?”

Azriel shrugged, though his grip on Y/N’s thigh tightened. Y/N knew that she should move position, maybe sit away from Azriel but his touch was simply addicting.

“I don’t know,” Azriel answered, looking around at the rest of his family, his gaze lingering on Y/N for a second longer. “I’m surrounded by my family.”

Cassian laughed, throwing his head back. “We should get you drunk more often, you turn into much more of a sap.”

Azriel glared at Cassian before his hand travelled higher on Y/N’s thigh. 

“Oh, Cass, leave him alone,” Y/N said, laughing. “It’s not his fault that he loves us all so much that he smiles when he thinks about it.”

Azriel looked at Y/N and tried to fight the smile but failed miserably. 

“See? He’s doing it now,” Y/N said, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. 

Y/N wasn’t sure exactly what came over her as everything about their position was not subtle. Somehow throughout the duration of the conversation she had found herself sitting on Azriel’s lap and one of his arms was wrapped around her tightly holding onto her hip. She wished she had never drunk as much as she did, maybe then she would have more self control. 

It seemed as if Azriel didn’t care as he only looked at her, nothing but love in his eyes. There was a smile on his face though not the one only she was allowed to see. This was different, it was one Y/N had never seen before and she wished to see again. This smile communicated so much in such a smile gesture. I love you, the smile seemed to say.

Those three words had never been exchanged between the two, of course they both loved each other but neither had said it yet. Saying it made everything real and even though both Y/N and Azriel were very sure that the only thing they wanted was each other, it was still scary. 

Y/N found herself leaning closer to Azriel. She closed her eyes, wanting nothing more than to press her lips against his and utter those three simple words they held so much weight. But she couldn’t, not with everyone around. 

Reluctantly, Y/N pulled away and Azriel pulled her closer, unable to keep his hand off her. The desire for him gradually rose the more he touched her. Even when he conversed with Cassian and Nesta and Y/N conversed with Elain and Lucien, she was hyper aware of the places Azriel was touching on her body. She needed him desperately. And from the way Azriel was gripping onto her, he clearly felt the same. 

As soon as Azriel’s attention was back on her, Y/N leant down to whisper in his ear. “Let’s go home.”

Azriel looked into Y/N’s eyes and that one look held the same three words his smile did and he knew in that moment that he needed to leave with her in his arms.

Y/N finished the final sip of her wine before slipping from Azriel’s lap. “I’m going to head home, I’m quite tired and I’m meant to be at work early in the morning.”

“I can walk her home,” Azriel offered almost immediately, rising to his feet. Y/N smiled up at him before bidding goodbye to everyone.

As soon as they left the room and were safely around the corner, Y/N gripped onto Azriel’s hand and as soon as they were in the cool night air, she tugged him down and pressed her lips against his. 

“I love you,” Y/N said, wrapping her arms around his neck. 

Azriel smiled, the one smile Y/N had fallen in love with. “I love you too.”

Y/N sighed in content as she rested her forehead against his. “I am going to love hearing that every day.”

Azriel didn’t respond as he captured her lips once more in a short and sweet kiss before wrapping an arm around her waist. “Let’s go home, my love.”

Y/N smiled and happily walked home with Azriel, her heart bursting with love.

***

As soon as the group heard the front door close, Cassian turned to the rest of the group. “For the spymaster of the Night Court, he is not very subtle.”

“Did you see Y/N?” Nesta said. “She was practically undressing him with her eyes at dinner.”

“How long do you think they’ve been together?” Elain asked. 

Rhys leaned back on the couch. “I can tell you exactly how long they’ve been together.”

“Oh yeah?” Nesta challenged. “And how long exactly, Rhysand?”

“A little over five months,” Rhys replied. “Az was late for a meeting with me and when he finally arrived over an hour later, I had never seen him smile as much as he did.”

A soft smile made its way onto Feyre’s face. “I always had a feeling ever since they met. They just click.”

Rhys smiled at his mate. “I’m sure they are mates, the bond hasn’t seemed to snap just yet.”

“And you are so sure of that?” Feyre questioned.

Rhys nodded. “I am, because he looks at her like she holds the world in the palm of her hands. And that Feyre, darling, is exactly how I looked at you.”

Feyre smiled and pressed her lips against Rhys’s in a quick but soft kiss. “I’m glad, they both deserve all of the love in the world.”

[casual-tarot]

Pick a Pile: What your friends love about you

Pile 1

You're an optimist! You see the good in just about every situation and you see the endless possibilities ahead of you. You're not one to back down just because the going gets tough. If you get beat down by life, you always bounce back up. Your friends admire this about you, they wish they could have your optimism, could see the world from your eyes. You're also an incredibly and creative person. You're dream job may include being a creative in some way; music, art, photography, writing, etc. Your friends love your creations and are inspired by them. You are a very generous person as well, if someone needs your help, you won't hesitate to do what you can. You Love helping people if you're able to. And that's the thing, you know when to pull back and away from things. If you need time to think or to heal, you pull back and spend time alone to rejuvenate. You won't overextend yourself and that makes people admire you. You might also be a healer, a good one at that. You help lift people up without straining yourself. You welcome help from others and pat them on the back for a job well done. Inspiring!

Lucky Colors and Numbers; Shades of Orange, Shades of Pink, Fuchsia, Hot pink, White, Green, Light Shades of Blue, 5, 9, 19, 22, 48, 55, 74

Signs, Symbols, and Phrases; Skunks, Spiders, Foxes, Arctic Foxes, Flowers, Pink Flowers, Snow, Webs, The Moon, New Moon, The Night Sky, Stars, The Galaxy, Uranus, Mars, Wine and Wine Glasses, Leo, Scorpio, Pisces, 2, 22, 9, 3, 33, 12, 99

Some Advice: Spend some time with friends. Hone in on your creativity, make something new. Take a break, go on vacation if you can, maybe somewhere with a beach or a lake, maybe you can even surf a little bit. Focus on some of your hobbies, enjoy yourself. Focus on self love, though I get the feeling that you're already doing that. Buy some new clothes and/or accessories. Honestly your doing pretty well for yourself and I don't feel like I need to give you much advice, it seems you k ow perfectly well how to take care of yourself. Good for you!

Pile 2

You are kind and extremely loyal. Your friends feel like they can trust you with just about everything. You always stand with them to help make the best decisions they can, and you always lift them up. You're very supportive and your friends are incredibly thankful for that. You're very intuitive and you tend to trust your gut. Your friends admire this because your gut is usually correct. You're very good at picking up on vibes and will clock a bad person as soon as you meet them. Sometimes you get overwhelmed with priorities going on in your life, but you always take a step back and let yourself breath. As soon as you realize you're stressed, you stop and think. You plan and map things out, and you make sure to add some leisure time in there as well(although I think you could stand to take a bit more time for yourself). You refuse to let things overwhelm you, too stubborn to let things really pile up. You're friends admire your drive, and wish they could hold that same ambition. You seem to be well connected to people. Maybe you know a lot of people and are good friends with most of them, or maybe you only know a handful that you have an extremely close bond with. Either way, you are well liked and people feel like they can talk to you about anything, even if you just met. You aren't very judgmental, you tend to see everyone's point of view, even if you don't agree with them. You're friends wish they had that same optimistic view in people. You don't focus on the bad things happening in life, you take it in stride with grace. You aim for success, you're ambitious but not in a way where you let it consume you. You are very healthy about taking breaks. Your friends really admire that one lol. You seem like a very compassionate person, you're friends are very thankful for that.

Lucky Colors and Numbers; Light plum, Whites, Lighter Purples, Light Browns, Beige, Caramel Browns, Coffee Stained Browns, Shades on the Spectrum of Light Orange to Hot Pink, Gray's, Light and Pastel Pinks, 10, 8, 99, 48, 22

Signs, Symbols, and Phrases; Whales, Butterflies(especially purple ones), Peacock's(especially males), Ants(especially if they're lined up), Snakes, Seals, Hawk's, Turkey Vultures, New Moon, Waxing Crescent Moon, The Moon as a Whole(Especially Crescent), Uranus, Venus, Neptune, Scorpio, Aquarius, Capricorn, Aries, Taurus, Fire and Flames, Fire signs, Plants, Sprouts, Earth signs, Farming, Wine and Wine Glasses, 10, 6, 12, 3, 9, 2, 4, 22, 33, 7, 77, 66, 1

Some Advice: You may have a hard time listening to friends. Whether that be because you're too busy or focused on your own problems or because they sometimes bring you down, it's good to take a moment to sit down and listen to them. Lend an ear. That being said, don't over extend yourself, I'm not saying to go way out of your way to comfort someone. If you don't have the time or mental strength, don't force it. But it is definitely a good reminder for you to check in on your friends and see how they're doing. I think you have a lot of good karma, and it's coming back your way. All that good you put out into the world if finally coming back to you, good things in your future! I'm getting the vibe that some of you don't think you deserve good karma or didn't do enough good deserve it, but rest assured you did do good. You deserve all the good things coming your way, even if you don't believe it. It doesn't matter if you think you deserve it or not, the universe knows and is sending back your good karma like punch to the face haha.

Pile 3

Immediately getting the vibe that you're adventurous. You like to have fun and chill out. Maybe a night owl? You love going out with friends. You may be the type to buy the next round of drinks if you're able to. Your friends just think you're an overall cool person to hang out with. Rarely do they think of going somewhere without you. You are a strong, confident person. Someone who isn't afraid to stand up for a friend or to send back an order you know is wrong. But you're also kind, in a loud energetic sort of way. If you watch anime, think of those beefy sunshine characters(like kirishima or goku) that are always smiling and yelling, thats the vibe I get from you haha. You have a critical eye, maybe a good sense of intuition, you know the perfect path to take to get what you want. This applies with people, places, and even events. Your friends trust you make the right call in a lot of things. You seem like a leader, it might never be said but you might be the one introduce your friends to new places and experiences. Your friends really look up to you. You're not one to look back at "what ifs," you make your decisions and continue forward assured, knowing you made the right choice at that moment. You know you can't change the past and continue on into the future, knowing it's your past that has made you into who you are today. When you make a decision, you go all in on it, confidently, even if it turns out to be "wrong" later on. You pride yourself in not dwelling on past mistakes. You are very assured of yourself, whether that be in personality, looks, your job, whatever. You know your worth in all aspects and don't let people talk down to you because of it. You are very confident in spending your money, when you go out especially. Like I said before, the type to buy a round for everyone or pay for dinner. Rest assured, you're friends don't love you because of this, they love you because of you. They don't care if you have the money to hang out because they just want you to be there. You're very generous with your close friends, and they love giving back when they can. I'm getting the sense that they love getting you gifts and paying for the check as a thank you. They see your overt generosity as charming, something they fondly roll their eyes at. They are thankful to have you as a friend.

(Note: I had a lot of trouble articulating myself with this one, maybe that's something you struggle with too. You might have so much to say in your brain but your mouth can't keep up haha. I'm hearing adhd for some of you.)

Lucky Colors and Numbers; All Shades of Purple, Peaches and Light Pinks, Salmons, Fuchsia, Dark Blue, Black, White, Light Browns and/or Beiges(especially for accessories), 74, 57, 85, 88, 14, 33, 56, 55, 32, 5, 87, 91, 911

Signs, Symbols, and Phrases; Hawk's, Snakes, Whales, Blue Whales, Mice, Sharks, Cougars, Ants, Coyotes, Spiders, Rabbits, Gray Rabbits, Salmons, Koi Fish, Dolphins, White flowers, the Sea, Waves, Mountains, Snow, Yellow flowers, Blues, Reds, Twilight, Evening Sky, Pink Sky, Webs, Stars, Koi Fish Art, Dark Purple, Dark Purple Sky with Stars, A Dark Purple Sea Glittering in the Light, Chiron, Pluto, The Sun, Mercury, North Node of the Moon, New Moon, Waxing Crescent Moon, Last Quarter Moon, Full Moon, Virgo, Aries, Pisces, Aquarius, Libra, Sagittarius, Windy Clouds, Fast Moving Clouds, Storm Clouds, Puffy Clouds, Fire and Flames, 5, 55, 555, 10, 4, 6, 1010, 1, 7, 44, 3, 33, 11, 77, 444, 333, 777, 7777, 22

Some Advice: I get the feeling that you love hanging out with friends, but remember to take some time for yourself too. Go out alone, just chill, or maybe even meet new people. Maybe take a vacation for yourself, or with a loved one, away from your group of friends and just with the people/person/pet closest to you lol. Balance your alone time with the time you spend with friends, even your extroverted side needs a break sometimes. Take a day off or stay home when you would normally go out. Watch TV, play some video games, or try something new altogether. Try out some new creative hobbies, or get back into old ones. I'm getting the vibe that you haven't been letting your creativity shine lately, let it out. Your work is perfectly balanced, what I mean by that is you can take a break. Everything is ok, they can handle a day or two without you there helping. So take a day off from work too, even if you don't think you need it. It can still help! Some of you definitely overwork, so you people especially should heed this advice. Take whatever resonates with you. I guess the major message here is basically this; take a break, take a vacation, and let yourself relax alone.

[starboundpix]

i. (love is) a gift

you just want a regular scarecrow. not whatever this shiny metal scarecrow-esque thing is. too bad your aunt didn't get the memo.

daycare attendant x reader ✧ 1.3k words farm au, gender neutral reader, reader is a farmer, lots of pets and animals, reader does some heavy lifting

note: this is the first writing piece I'm posting for the fnaf fandom! my roommates have been dragging me down this hole the entire semester, so here I am >.< I hope you enjoy!

When you mentioned to your aunt in passing that you desperately need a scarecrow because the birds keep ruining your newly planted garden, you didn’t think she paid that much attention to you. She must have been listening and decided to use her rich aunt privileges because here you are in your barn, ankle deep in packaging paper and hay, staring at a large wooden crate turned on its side, jaw dropping at the sight of gold and light yellow metal spilling out of the opening.

This most definitely is not the kind of scarecrow you were planning to purchase.

A brief search through the packaging paper in the crate reveals a thin booklet titled Farm Helper Manual. The cover depicts two cartoon characters: one in the same coloration as your metal scarecrow and the other in varying shades of blue and black with highlights of a soft silvery-grey. They are like the sun and moon personified and their fun poses within the stalks of corn evoke a bit of amusement that breaks up the shock that had settled in.

You start flipping through the pages, skimming the titles and headers. You just want to find out how to set the scarecrow up because you don’t think mounting it on a wooden pole in the traditional fashion would work out.

“‘Battery and operation,’” you read out loud. One of your chickens clucks at you in response, then pecks the scarecrow, beak glancing off metal with a plink. “Henrietta! Don’t dent my scarecrow.” You wave your hand at the red-feathered hen and she ruffles her wings, disgruntled, settling a few steps away. Sighing, you keep reading the page. “‘Your farm helper-’ cute term for a scarecrow, ‘-is both solar powered and battery powered. Once fully charged, it will operate for 48 hours before reaching low-power mode and has three more hours before shutting off completely.’ What, is that it?” 

A quick flip through the rest of the pages doesn’t reveal anything about how to set the scarecrow up, which is extremely unhelpful.

Tossing the booklet to the side, you move to stand before the crate, hands on your hips as you eye the mass of metal enrobed in rather sad, brown, sack-like cloth. Well if the book won’t tell you much, you can figure this out yourself. You’ve been able to fix the machines and tools you need for farmwork, so you certainly can set this metal scarecrow up in your garden. You hope.

This scarecrow is so. Immensely. Heavy. 

Your shoulders and arms ache terribly from the odd combination of carrying, pushing, and pulling that is necessary to get the scarecrow into your wheelbarrow. It doesn’t get any easier when you have to lift the wheelbarrow scant inches off the ground to push it to your garden, careful to avoid the fresh green and yellow sprouts of vegetables and herbs.

Now, you have the miserable task of somehow getting this hunk of metal out of the wheelbarrow and set up to charge under the sunlight.

After staring at it for a moment, you make the short trip to your house and grab a chair from the wrap-around porch, awkwardly shuffle-walking with it in your arms until you return to the wheelbarrow. You set the chair down, wiggling it until the legs sink a bit into the dirt to make sure it won’t topple over.

“Okay, let’s do this,” you tell yourself, shaking out your arms to prepare for the difficult task ahead. 

First, you move the scarecrow’s legs over the edge of the wheelbarrow, each limb weighing just as much as your large Australian Shepherd who has wandered over to witness your struggles. 

You pause to rub your dog’s side when he stops by your feet, his tongue out and tail wagging. “Come to laugh at me, Pluto?” He barks once, sharp and short, before leaving you to lay down on the dirt a bit away from the chair.

Smiling at him, you continue on with your task. You pull the scarecrow’s arms to rest over your shoulders, and after a moment to catch your breath, you heave your weight forward, pulling with all your might. For a moment, you think that the scarecrow will not budge. But the weight starts to get heavier and heavier on your shoulders, the wheelbarrow falls onto its side, and the entire weight of this scarecrow is pressing down on you.

You stumble forward, then find enough balance to walk the three steps needed to get to the chair. Quickly, you shrug the scarecrow’s arms off your shoulders and lean back until you hear the scraping of metal and fabric on wood and suddenly feel infinitely lighter.

Air whooshes past your lips in an exhale. Rolling your shoulders helps to ease some of the pain and tension that has gathered in your arms, but you surely will feel the ache for the next few days. You’re used to the hard labor of farm work, sure, but you rarely have to lift this much weight at once. Why on earth did they make a scarecrow this heavy? 

Turning around, your eyes grow wide when you take in the present from your aunt. “Oh, wow.” 

Under the bright golden sunlight of a warm spring afternoon, the scarecrow is glorious despite the rough burlap sack covering the torso. There are so many fine details, more than you’d ever expect the manufacturers to include. Individual knuckle joints are coated in a shimmery light yellow paint, the same color as what you can see of the metal torso. The arms have beautifully intricate designs of vines and flowers, twining from wrist to shoulder joint, that are the slightest bit darker than the yellow so the markings are only visible when the sunlight hits them at a certain angle. The scarecrow’s face is split in two colors—that light yellow on the left and a deeper golden hue on the right—which curves to form a crescent. You wonder what colors the eyes and mouth would be, but they’re all closed, giving the scarecrow a serene expression. To finish off the wonderful craftsmanship, a set of triangular spikes crown the scarecrow’s face, starting in that deep gold and fading away to the light shimmery yellow at the tip.

“You’re like the sun,” you murmur. “Sun the scarecrow.” 

Proud of your naming skills, you take the time to properly position Sun in the chair, hoping that the battery will charge properly under the bright afternoon light. As you stand, you pat the scarecrow on the chest. “Please protect my garden for me, Sun. Don’t let the birds eat the seeds and sprouts.”

Turning away and feeling very pleased at your new addition to the garden, you call, “Pluto!” and snap your fingers twice. Your dog shakes dirt off his dappled coppery-brown fur before bounding toward you. The two of you return home, have a peaceful afternoon as you complete the necessary chores and enjoy dinner as the chill of a typical spring night starts to set in.

Late into the night, long after you have gone to bed, the scarecrow opens his eyes. They shine with a soft white light, cutting through the dark. He is deep blue and obsidian, with the night sky embedded into his arms in a soft silver that emanates the faintest light. His head, now devoid of spikes, swivels as he takes in his surroundings. 

This place is unfamiliar to him—to them. It is a relief.

Knowing that there are no immediate dangers to them, he settles back into the chair. He does not know why he has been placed here in the garden, but is sure that his counterpart will find out tomorrow. For now, he will stay on guard but enter low power mode to conserve energy as they have not fully charged, and will leave his exploration of this new territory to tomorrow night. 

He will keep watch until morning.

note: the plan is for this to be a little drabble or mini series whenever I feel inspired to add a new part! it's also a little side project for fun as I work on a larger piece hehe. I'd love to hear what you think about this first part! (especially because there's a second part in the works already ^u^)

series masterlist ✧ part two

[the-conversation-pod]

Adult Swim

We originally planned to talk about Step by Step during Work, Bitch, and Nini hadn't planned to watch La Pluie until the fall. However, because all of us refused to give up on La Pluie, Nini joined us around episode 8. Both of these shows inspired more writing than we've seen since the heyday of Bad Buddy or I Told Sunset About You. Surface-level engagement was all-but-impossible with either of these shows, and honestly wrung us out more than we were expecting.

It's time for the kids to get out of the pool for the grown folks to talk as Ben and Nini open their third eyes and discuss Step by Step and La Pluie.

Listen on Apple Podcasts!

Listen on Google Podcasts!

Timestamps

The timestamps will now correspond to chapters on Spotify for easier navigation.

0:00 - Welcome 1:15 - Intro 2:08 - Step by Step 4:40 - Step by Step: A Moment of Simping 8:40 - Step by Step: Big Themes 16:52 - Step by Step: The Romance 25:45 - Step by Step: Story Execution 50:25 - Step by Step: Where are we on Tee Bundit? 53:10 - La Pluie 57:50 - La Pluie: The Soulmate Myth 1:08:22 - La Pluie: Lomfon is Rude! 1:13:30 - La Pluie: Tai Also Deserves Some Smoke 1:18:26 - La Pluie: Tai’s Dad Read as Queer 1:20:48 - La Pluie: The Romance 1:32:06 - La Pluie: Depiction of Male Anger 1:35:50 - La Pluie: Treatment of Nara 1:40:47 - La Pluie: The Side Characters 1:44:02 - La Pluie: Sequel Potential 1:46:01 - Outro

The Conversation: Now With Transcripts!

We received an accessibility request to include transcripts for the podcast. We are working with @ginnymoonbeam on providing the transcripts and @lurkingshan as an editor and proofreader.

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0:00 - Welcome

Nini

Hello, hello! Your QL fandom aunty and uncle are here with giant sunglasses, brown liquor in a flask, a folded five-dollar bill to slip into your hand when no one is looking, lukewarm takes, occasional rides on the discourse, deep dives into artistry and the industry.

Ben

Lots of simping! I’m Ben.

Nini

I’m Nini.

Ben

And this is The Conversation. About once a season, we plan to swan in and shoot the shit on faves, flops, and trends that we’ve been noticing in the BL, GL, or QL Industry. Between seasons, you can find us typing way too many words on Tumblr.

1:15 - Intro

Nini

Hey Ben, what are we talking about tonight?

Ben

Tonight it's time for Adult Swim. Kids: out of the pool! This season led to so much more writing and meta than we've seen in a really long time. There was so much to say about both of these shows that we ended up needing to move both of these shows out of separate episodes and just shove them into one. 

Tonight we will be discussing Step by Step and La Pluie, and then we'll return with you all at the end with some final thoughts. Nini and I are bracing for this, because we have a lot to say to each other. [laughs]

Nini

This is gonna be round two of fight night apparently, not on everything but on some things. So you guys stay tuned and we'll see you at the end!

2:08 - Step by Step

Nini

Okay, Ben this time I got my eye black on for you. So let's talk Step by Step. Tell the people, what is Step by Step about?

Ben

Step by Step is a workplace drama that centers around a young man named Pat, who is maybe 25 — there was some confusion about that at the end?

Nini

Shade!

Ben

…who is returning to Thailand after completing some of his graduate studies, and is now working at a large corporation inside of an office tower. He is the low man on the totem pole in the sort of digital division of this corporation, and is having a very difficult time. Very early on, he has a kind of flirty interaction with the largest man who has ever existed in BL, and takes a shine to him, but is disappointed when he realizes he's his boss. 

Pat eventually ends up in conflict with his new boss whose name is Jeng…slowly the two of them start to work better together. Jeng ends up putting Pat in charge of a BL advertising project in a mostly queer team, and over the course of the show there ends up becoming this huge misunderstanding between the two of them about whether or not they're on a romantic arc, as the show is also unpacking a lot of really huge themes about where queer people do or don't fit in corporate structures that are more than willing to profit off of them, as Pat and Jeng try to figure out what their relationship is supposed to be.

Nini

I think that was a very fair précis of the plot of Step by Step.

Ben

If you're listening to us and you've watched Step by Step, you may be familiar with the fact that…reactions to the last arc of this show were mixed, to put it mildly. Nini and I ended up falling on opposite sides of the fence on this one, so we have a lot to unpack. 

4:40 - Step by Step: A Moment of Simping

Ben

I'm [gonna] let you have this part first: I want you to just go ahead and have your little fun before we get into the big stuff. We can begin with talking about Man Trisanu and how much you really enjoyed his performance.

Nini

His performance, yes, but before we get to his performance…I mean we say in the intro that there is lots of simping on this show, and I've been listening to our old episodes: we haven't simped nearly enough? So I'm just gonna do like a quick two minutes of absolute simping for Man Trisanu, because my god that man is large. That man is so large that for like the first three episodes, every time he came on screen, like my brain made like the boinga boinga boinga sound, like I could not actually focus [laughs] on what was happening — I had to watch episodes multiple times…

Ben

[laughs] She’s just posting awooga gifs in the chat all the time.

Nini

If I was the kind of person who would get embarrassed by this stuff I would have been embarrassed by the way I behaved. But I don't get embarrassed by this stuff, so I wasn't embarrassed by the way that I behaved looking at this man [laughs]...throughout, but especially in the first three episodes. I just kept staring at him. And then as we got like further and further into the show it was very clear that he's also a good actor, so I was invested in the character emotionally? But that also did not stop the fwarh noises in my brain. The man is large. And he's large and he's attractive. And he's large and he's attractive and he's talented. That's basically my kryptonite. 

That doesn't mean that I cannot be fair about the show—there are things that I'm gonna say about the show that are not complimentary, even though in the end—I'm just like skipping to the part where I score it, I gave it a 9—there are problems with the show, do not get me wrong. But overall, I found it incredibly enjoyable. And I can't lie to you: Man Trisanu was part of why I found it enjoyable. Not just because he is large and attractive but also because he is quite a good actor. Okay, so I got my yah yahs out.

Ben

Solid 20% of the chat is just Nini going: “THAT MAN IS BIG!”

[both laugh]

Nini

He’s a biggun! [both laugh] At one point I definitely just sent a voice message that said “Timberrrrr!”

Ben

It’s like, it would be Tuesday and everybody's in the chat just, “Lorge.” [laughs]

Ben

In terms of simping, I really like Ben Bunyapol’s work in this one. Nini and I tend to fall on opposite sides of the fence when it comes to…the guys we're attracted to in these shows? Unsurprisingly, she was super into Man and all of his work; I really liked a lot of stuff Ben was doing, and I like Nini's commentary that Ben is definitely someone's problem, right now.

Nini

Oh my god, somebody is staring at the ceiling up at night, like, thinking about Ben Bunyapol because that boy is…I mean, not my style, but I can appreciate good lookin’, I can. That is somebody's problem.

Ben

I really like what he was playing with in this. I really—we'll get into this when we talk about the queer themes in this—I really like the specific type of queerness he portrayed in this. And I know that must have been really difficult to hold with everything else he was doing on the show.

Nini

I concur, he also showed some talent. There’s quite a few newbies in this cast, Ben and Man are both newbies, and you see a little bit of that, but mostly they, I think they acquitted themselves very well.

8:40 -  Step by Step: Big Themes

Ben

Since we're disclosing our ratings early in this one: as you all know, Nini gives me a lot of shit on this show about how friendly I am to shows with my scoring? I gave this show a 7.5, because I think the problems in this show make it hard to recommend to people. And the more homework I feel like I have to give people, or pamphlets I have to hand out before they start watching, the harder it is for me to recommend. 

However, there are a lot of things to talk about in the show I think are good. And I think because it's Tee Bundit, and we have to talk about how much the sort of…irritated version of queerness that he's carrying around in his work comes through in his stuff? Think we should start with the big themes, because that's what he clearly cared about the most. So Nini, as someone who is thrilled with this show: what are the big themes you think that Tee is going for this time?

Nini

I mean, Tee is a guy who, kind of hits on the same themes in most of his work? And the themes that he likes to hit on are around like, queerness and capitalism, or like around the monetization of queerness and sort of juxtaposing it against the way that queer people are just kind of suffocating under this fog of homophobia. So that's like one of the things that he definitely gets into in this show, like all his other shows. 

Another thing that Tee is very into is playing with inside and outside, like perceptions of queer people and how queer people see themselves versus how the world sees them? I think that's a big thing. He loves a family dynamic where everybody knows but nobody says anything, that's another big theme that he's playing with in this. These are the things that show up over and over again in his work, that I tend to respond to. I find it really legible, so I quite enjoy it. 

What about you? What kinds of themes did you pick up on?

Ben

The big ideas, like core statements that I can read from this is that: corporations are more than willing to profit off of queer people. They absolutely want to use our talents, our social skills, our managerial skills, and our relationships as well as our lives…to sell shit. But they don't actually want us, particularly in positions of leadership. 

Another thing that comes through very clearly is that queer people cannot experience queer joy in environments that demand a very rigid form of conformity. And also, that everything that queer people want for themselves, including their joy, is not something you can have on the timeline of BL. It's going to take literally years for you to find your happiness. Which is so sad!

Nini

One of the things that I think we had discussed a little bit but didn't really delve into is that you feel a cynicism emanating off of Tee that you kind of don't like? I don't know if you wanted to get a little bit more into that, because we didn't really, like, discuss that too much.

Ben

Tee Bundit clearly—oh, there's a man I could simp for. [laughs] I think that man is very pretty, and I like how fucking angry he is all the time. [both laugh] 

So, Tee is a director who has a really strong eye. Don't know that he's found an editor who works well with him yet. Or has found a really good screenwriting team to hang out with? But he has a really strong eye, and he very clearly hated being on the TharnType set. That comes through so loudly in Lovely Writer, and you can see that this has affected the way he looks at being an adult professional in so many ways. 

Pat is so unhappy in this show. He's so stressed. And Jeng is also so unhappy, because he's so bottled up. It gets a little bit lost sometimes, how specifically pissed off Pat is about everything that's being thrown at him and expected of him. And you can feel that with Tee, that he has to…play to the proclivities of shipping culture, which he clearly despises.

Nini

He's made two shows about it now.

Ben

Quick aside about this, Tee leveled some I think fair criticism of BL as an industry, in that it is profiting off of the appearance of relationships of queer people, but they're all inherently fake, and they're meant to be fake. And apparently a certain set of fans did not agree or like that their ship was used as the example of this, and caused such a stink that they were forced to edit the episode and remove that commentary. And I don't know if this impacted later commentary that may have been in the show. I do not think it would have made the show more legible than it is? But Tee is just so irritated about the inescapability of heteronormativity in his professional life. 

You see this for Pat, who doesn't allow himself to even perceive Jeng as someone he could be with, because of the age difference, the class difference, the work difference…and the way that they are queer is very different from each other. You see this with Chot, who seems to be an incredibly talented individual, but is not someone apparently considered for middle to upper management in any way? You've got this with Jaab where he's just like ‘yeah I'm not playing that. I got money, I'm gonna do whatever the hell I want.’ 

It's so frustrating, because in this show towards the end sequence where they ask Pat to come back for one more ride to try and save this stupid department. They assemble a little team together of queers or queer-friendly people and they end up using everyone's queer adjacent skills in some way shape or form to sell, like, fucking gas stations? [laughs] So they end up having Pat's formerly shitty superior write like, a BL story about looking for, like, a specific fucking juice at the fucking gas station, so that Jaab can very publicly run around on Facebook looking for Jen, the side character he's also pursuing. And then to help pimp this out, they ask Pat to call his ex, who he doesn't want to engage with on this, to help sell this shit—who was also forced to go back into the closet so that he could pretend to be gay with his BL co-star. Which is insane.

Nini

Like when you say it out loud it's like, the levels of bullshit, like Tee is very much about piling on the bullshit. And he's like doing it and pointing to the audience and saying, ‘Look at this! Ain't this some shit? This is the kind of shit that we gotta deal with on the regular!’

Ben

I'm not even done! The head of the company baited them by stripping their marketing budget because he knew his son would use his own money to save this: creating a division between the gays because of lack of loyalty and such. And so like, that comes through fairly loudly. 

16:52 - Step by Step: The Romance

Ben

Part of where the struggle kicks in for me with this show is honestly with Pat and Jeng. Like, I have really strong positive feelings about Pat as a character, as an individual, and I have an incredible amount of feelings for Jeng as an individual—and I want to elaborate on those—but like Pat and Jeng as a unit, I feel, was super frustrating and really disappointing in this show, in a way that felt kind of pissy from Tee? Like I feel like…they don't feel satisfying on purpose. And that doesn't sit right with me, because of genre conventions and expectations. 

I'll let you talk about Pat and Jeng, because I think you feel a lot better about them than I did.

Nini

Yeah, because I think I had different expectations. I definitely took in at the beginning, or before the beginning of the show, some of the stuff around the show where Tee was very clearly saying this isn't a romance. And as we sort of went through the show, I started to understand what he meant by saying that. I think Tee has a, like a complicated relationship with BL, that much is obvious, and I think in a way, the story that he wanted to tell here—he almost resented a little bit, having to use the romance to tell the story. And it, it shows up on a metatextual level in terms of some of the themes and some of the story points and plot points running throughout the show. He's like, can’t I just tell this story? Why do they have to, like, make out? 

There is a tension there, there is a dissonance there. So it's not that I don't understand the problem that people had with it; I understand it entirely. But I was just vibin’. Because…I saw all of that as like, yeah, whatever Tee, like I see exactly what you're saying, but you also put this in here anyway, so I'm gonna enjoy the parts of this that you did put in here. That was my way of dealing with it, and that's why I really enjoyed it—because what he did put in there, for me, between Pat and Jeng? It resonated, because at first it was so much about ‘well this thing can't be and here are all the reasons that this thing can't be.’ It's clear that, like, Jeng is just falling deeper and deeper and deeper, and Pat is just like, I can't, I can't even hear that noise—to the point that he literally drowned the noise out in his own head. To the point where like Jeng actually had to tell him basically, ‘hi, I am actually hitting on you.’ And that, like, it came at the end of like a long tail because also Jeng's very aware that it's, like, an ethical minefield to be hitting on Pat because Pat works for him. So it's just like a swarm of things coming together, in a way that I personally enjoy? 

And I, I’ll acknowledge that my enjoyment of this show is extremely personal to just the kind of bitch I am. I just like this kind of, like, dynamics? I like this kind of exceedingly complicated and, ‘this actually is kind of a gordian knot, but still, through that all, I feel the way I feel and you feel the way you feel, and if we could just like figure some of this other shit out—and we're gonna fuck up figuring this other shit out for a while—then it would be solid, it would be golden.’ But like I said, I can completely understand why people wouldn't rock with that. It's dissonant, it's incredibly dissonant, I’m fully aware of that. But I was vibin’. That's just how I feel about it.

Ben

My issue is that the show doesn't say that. And we have to take that as the acceptable read to move on. Like, all of the ideas about how corporate life is evil for queer people are loud themes exemplified through the characters. I was consistently frustrated with Tee in this particular outing, because important gay decisions happen off screen, and that pissed me off. So much of his idea is about how queer people don't get to make choices—and he doesn't show the queer people making the choices they can make. 

Like for example, they get together and Pat and Jeng don't discuss what being at work is going to look like for them? Which was so irritating for me, because they don't really know each other? And like I'm totally fine with two bitches just being like, ‘let's just fuck about it for a little while and enjoy this ride while we go.’ But like, they don't say that! Like, we have to take that as meaning, and it irritates me, because he's not subtle about his other shit. It feels a little bit tacked on, because you're supposed to just understand this. 

Like—I took that Jeng was broken. I wrote a whole fucking piece about it, about how broken Jeng was by being in the closet as he is, because he lives in a big ass closet. Like his closet was so big I didn't even realize it was a closet, I thought it was an exercise room. No, it's his fucking closet. He lives there, that's insane. But like Pat and Jeng get together, and they don't discuss what being at work is going to be like for them. We don't really see their romance function at all, and they don't give us a sense of the two of them functioning as a pair until the story is over? And that irritates me because what the fuck are they fighting for? Like Jeng is explicitly fighting for the idea of Pat, and Pat is explicitly frustrated that Jeng is trying to manipulate him into the version of Pat that Jeng would prefer him to be. And that is not really confronted in this show. I can't be happy about these two getting together because that particular tension point is just submerged. It isn't dealt with, it's just shoved out of the way. That would have been okay, ‘we're just going to bury this’ is an okay choice, but it's a choice that feels like it happened off screen. 

It's frustrating because Pat's choice to break up with the MLM big tall, and his choice to break up with Put happen on screen. Pat processing his complicated post-breakup feelings with Put is executed beautifully on screen. We don't really get a functional version of Pat and Jeng on screen, and it irked me, but it low-key makes me sad, because what if Tee doesn't have enough to pull from in himself to do that properly? But he can handle, like, the painful shit and the breakup shit really well. Like that makes me sad for him…but, like, it irritates me as a viewer. If the desire to be a partner to Pat, and to change because Pat asked him to, is literally the driving force that moves Jeng through the plot—that is text—I hate that when he gets together with Pat, none of the talking about that occurs at all.

Nini

See I had a completely different reaction to that, because to me, from the time that all of that, like, wasn't happening, and then I saw the way that the plot was going, I was just like ‘oh it's a false start.’ That all makes sense to me, like the fact that Jeng spent all this time basically sweatin’ Pat, and finally, like okay, he gets somewhere, he doesn't want to confront the problems. He doesn't want to confront the problems, and Pat doesn't really want to confront the problems because Pat is just, ‘this man wants me, I want this man.’ Like, they don't talk about the issues. They get giddy on each other, they get high, nose wide open, and they don't want to confront the bad shit. So they don't talk about it. It's a false start. They don't talk about it, they don't talk about the fact that they don't really know each other, they don't talk about anything that matters…that to me tells me everything. There's a deep and intense infatuation happening there. And they're burying their heads in the sand about a lot. To me that's deliberate, and that's why it ends up falling apart. It works for me on a narrative level. 

25:45 - Step by Step: Story Execution

Nini

I think part of the frustration as well—and I think here we're going to start getting into, like, some of the structural issues—because I said that I did have criticisms about this show. And one of the criticisms that I continuously had was that this show feels like it was edited by monkeys on crack cocaine. There is a lack of a certain amount of cohesiveness to the editing, that makes it hard to follow some of what's happening. Like you have to sit with it and like really train your brain and do one, two, three passes at it, to be like ‘oh yeah, that's what was happening, that's what was happening, that's what was happening.’ So I do take that criticism. I absolutely do take that criticism of the show and I agree with it. That the graph of the show, like the way that it was structured in terms of when the pivot point happens—because it happens almost towards the end—I can see where the frustration comes from, absolutely.

Ben

There's so much in this show that is interesting, but is delivered so haphazardly that you have to work for it. Like, the only useful read I got about the hets and their role in this, was to model what showing up and speaking out looks like versus what sitting on your hands and not saying something looks like. With Khanun and Beam, and their attraction to Ae—who has a baby in a hilariously inaccurate birthing scene…

Nini

[laughs] I’m sorry, you said the birthing scene and I had to crack up, like that was the most like, hand wavy like, ‘I'm a gay man, I don't know how these things work’—like ‘she had a baby, like make it like—do whatever you think having a baby looks like, it's fine, moving on’ [laughs]

Ben

She's pushing the baby! And everybody’s screaming! And POP! It's out! [laughs]

Nini

I don't know how the baby came out, because she was still wearing her pants. But eeehh, let's leave that to the side for now. [laughs]

Ben

I'm okay with that, because everything else was so silly, I get them just not wanting to ask Zorzo to take her pants off.

Nini

There's a thematic reason that Ae has her baby where she does, how she does, when she does, like there's a thematic and a narrative reason for that. But the scene itself is like one of the most cracked-out things I’ve ever seen in my life. [laughs]

Ben

That's the whole problem with the show, like there are good ideas here but like, I don't feel them. I hate that you have to think so hard to get to them. Normally I'm okay with subtext for these sort of things, but…you have to basically rebuild the moments that are occurring in the show so that you can think about stuff. 

I ended up frustrated with Jeng by the end, because I feel like his arc peters out. Like there's a, a totally fine read on a lot of these things, but it is so…flat for me. It's fine for a show to make you play with the notion of disappointment? But the disappointment feels…petty, if that makes any sense? Like I don't think the disappointment is built into all the thematic structures. It's just built into the effect that the show wants to engender. It feels a little incongruous, and it's really irritating. I don't mind queer cinema making me feel negative emotions and walk out of a theater going ‘damn, bro.’ I just don't like the way this show is going for that, but also pretending that it's not, towards the end.

Nini

Okay, so here's a thing that we don't normally do, but I think would be useful for this show. So, let's fix it. Our mantra around here is generally: you meet the shows where they are. Right? But: is there a version of this show that you like, and what does that version of the show look like?

Ben

A big problem with this show is, they spend way too much time away from the Jian group office environment. The bubble of the Forge project goes on way too fucking long. The reveal in episode, like, 9? That Pat did not know Jeng was gay this whole time? Is really good, but needs to happen, at the very latest, by episode 8. Because it creates this huge compression effect on the back half of the show, that is so fucking irritating for me as a viewer. The Jeng crying and sad shit is great in episode—10, when that occurs? And like he and Pat get together in episode 11, but the gays need a solid ‘we're going to try to make this work’ episode. You have to put us in the interior of these two settling into each other. We need to understand what we have been yearning for for the whole show up to this point, so that we can understand what they're giving up when they've when they sever—it's romance, they gotta break up, you have to put the characters in a position where they have to figure out, ‘can I go back to the person I was and enjoy my life without this person in my life again?’ The answer is no, because this is fucking romance!—But we need to understand what the romance is and what they're going for. 

And all of the development of Pat and Jeng as a couple, that we're supposed to be benefiting from in episode 11 when they're trying to save the stupid little BL project they're working on, feels completely unearned. Yes, I understand that the reason we're not getting payoff is because their relationship is fundamentally flawed as a false start—but it doesn't flag very effectively as one, because we aren't constantly seeing the misfires when they're trying to do stuff romantically together. We need to fully confront the fact that Jeng is brainwashed into thinking that work life integration can work for queer people. It cannot. And we don't get that. So like when they break up, the feeling is like, ‘good, because y'all needed to.’ And not in a satisfying way that another show might have done. We need to move all of the beats from the end of the show back a whole fucking episode. 

Also, the decision for Pat to go off and start his own thing, take Chot and Ae, all happens off screen. This is a huge set of choices! Why is Chot running off to be with this twink? Like sure, he's playing fairy godmother in the whole show, but why does he choose to go with him? The audience is left to just figure that out. But so much of this show is about the difficult and complex choices that queer people have to make to survive in a corporate world that doesn't want us. So yes, we can infer that Chot was also frustrated with all this drama at work, and is more than willing to go work with the very talented, very successful little baby gay who showed up at his job, and go off and they gonna get this paper together. I get it. It's fine, it doesn't track as wrong for Chot to do that—but Chot's choice also matters in a show about how queer choice needs to be respected! And they don't show Chot making the choice. Like, the gay choices happening off screen are egregious to me. They need to be unpacked. If the show is about how our choices aren't respected, why aren't we showing the interior decision-making of the choices we're forced to make?

Nini

I'll definitely take your point about where the pivot point of the story happens. It's one of the critiques of this show that I completely agree with. The critical path of this show—like the throughline?—to me is so clear. What happens though, is that the critical path is sort of impacted by…like a bunch of these little side quests. Whether it is that the side quest is too present or too absent, the milestones are happening slightly off schedule. The way that it's sequenced works for me, but the way that things like lag behind or in front of each other are a little…squiffy. In terms of the way that the story is constructed, in terms of some of the things that you feel that you needed to see, or that would have made the story better to be able to see, rather than having to conjure up yourself…like, I get that, absolutely. I don't disagree with that, I think that is a valid and accurate critique of this show. I live in my head a lot [laughs] and so that didn't bother me enough to ding it, but I understand why it didn't work for you, and for a lot of other people. 

I think it's just for me that…I was fine with getting pulled along by the story, because I was invested, particularly in Jeng. First they got me with Man being, you know, the size of a barn. And then I started actually paying attention, and they got me with Jeng's character. That's where the show, like, managed to string me along the entire way; I got a hook in, and I'm just like ‘okay, this is what I'm going with.’ But none of the things that you and everybody else is saying about the show are wrong. You're all correct. [laughs] You're all correct. I just…enjoyed it.

Ben

I think for me, both places where this show really broke, and where I really disconnected from this show, were in both of the kitchen scenes, which you loved. Like if we could point to two scenes where things break for me as an audience member? It's the speakeasy scene, kitchen scene—throwing food on the ground, kitchen scene—Pat reconciling with Jeng. It ends up becoming a failure point when Jeng resigns from his company—in his Canadian tuxedo —

Nini

Denim on denim y’all!

Ben

[laughs] And he says to his dad, ‘I have dreams.’ And I'm like, ‘girl, what are they? You ain't said shit for the last three goddamn episodes! What are they? Please sir, talk to the camera, I need to know.’ And like we can infer these things, we can project onto him. I can infer that the restaurant is what's important to him. I can infer that food security for the underprivileged is important to him. But for someone who's as plan-oriented as him, it feels a little weird, that this feels like a undercooked and underdeveloped idea for the character, that's just sort of simmering in the back and I'm like, ‘what, did we even put anything in the pot? Is that just water boiling?’ 

And so we get to these two kitchen sequences. Chot has chided Pat for not properly receiving someone's feelings, which is an idea that's been all over BL recently, that I'm totally into. Like you can reject people just fine, like you do not owe people any booty at all. But if someone tells you that you're important to them, you should at least acknowledge that they made themselves vulnerable to you, and acknowledge those feelings. Fine, good. Go buy a carrot cake and run to that man. But he goes to Jeng and tries to acknowledge his feelings and Jeng's like, ‘okay, we're together now’ and they make out, and I'm like ‘oh okay, sure, I guess? What? No!’ 

And this is when the not talking portion kicks in, and then Pat breaks up with Jeng, for what I believe are incredibly valid reasons of feeling like Jeng doesn't trust him or believe in him, because he makes choices for them without consulting Pat. And Pat feels like Jeng is always undercutting him, and Jaab makes a point about this in the final episode—when he doesn't talk to Jen at all? whatever—and says, ‘you kind of manipulated Pat the way Dad manipulated you.’ And I'm like, ‘that's a very, very specific idea, that makes a whole lot of sense, that we're just going to walk away from because this is the last episode—roll the fluff!’ 

So we get to the second kitchen scene, and I'm trying to accept the emotions of the scene? Of Pat just deciding that he's going to let go of the anger because he really likes Jeng, and he likes what the two of them had together, and he just kind of wants to let it work and figure it out together—the same way I Promised You the Moon ended. And I like that, but it doesn't land here for me? And I ended up really irritated about it. And this is where I get frustrated, like Jeng through episode…10, works for me, but the dead-eyed Jeng of episode 11 and the sad depressive Jeng of episode 12—it feels like he never comes back to life. Which may have been their point, but they went out of their way to try and make me feel like he and Pat are together and they're happy and everything's going to be okay now because they're together in the final episode. It feels unearned, and it feels like they didn't finish the goddamn mission! when it comes to Jeng.

Nini

And for me, it feels exactly the opposite, because those two kitchen scenes are very clearly paralleled, you're absolutely correct: in the first kitchen scene when they're first getting together, they don't talk about anything that's important, they just kind of roll past it. But in the second kitchen scene, they stop, they take a breath, Jeng says, ‘let's talk about this tomorrow.’ He's happy, yeah, but they make a deliberate point of not doing the same shit that they did before. They make a point of saying the things; they make a point of taking a beat; they make a point of taking their time; they make a point of actually talking to each other. And to me that's why it works. I mean it works, as well, for emotional reasons that are just pure, like, me engaging with romantic notions, reasons, and I'll fully admit to that. But to me the fact that those two scenes were so different was kind of the point? And I quite enjoyed that part. 

Another problem with the show that I think makes it really not legible for people is the fact that you don't have any sense of the passage of time. Like you really have to work to figure out how much time has passed between any two events in the show.

Ben

And clearly we were on the wrong timeline from the show.

Nini

[laughs] I think they just made a mistake in the last episode. I did a lot of work on the show, but I enjoy that, so I was fine. The timeline is that the first 9 to 10 episodes happen over the course of roughly a year? And then episode 11 is very compressed. I think they do give us a chiron at one point, that you figure out it's like about three months maybe? And then the last episode, it spans years—not just including the time skip, but the actual episode itself. 

Ben

It feels like somewhere between three to five years for sure.

Nini

Yeah, the last part of the episode, like maybe the last half hour, is like a series of vignettes? But it's just that the way that it's edited, it doesn't feel like a series of vignettes. It feels like scenes that are happening in sequence, which they're not. 

Like I said, the editing of this show, monkeys on crack cocaine and ayahuasca, absolutely. Storyboarding, I'm not sure anybody did any? 

I did a lot of work to enjoy the show. But I did enjoy it.

Ben

And I hate that. I hated the sides, like they weren't even in the final episode, they're like ‘yeah we don't care about them, get them the fuck out of here.’ No Khanun, no Jen, just get them out of here. We're gonna be here for an hour and forty two minutes, but the sides required literally zero closure to help stick the landing with the mains? Ugh, man.

Nini

They were there to reinforce thematic ideas, and they leaned way too hard into them as a narrative point when they weren't supposed to be narrative. So yes, completely agree with you, that was a mess. 

It's not that I don't agree with you! We're saying that this is a fight night and I got my eye black on, but the reality is that I don't disagree with anything you're saying. It’s just that I was fine with doing that work, and you are not fine with doing that work because you think you shouldn't have to do that work, and that's…yeah, you're probably right about that.

Ben

I'm in the business of recommending things to people because I like enjoying things with people. I will not be showing this to Emily, because I have to explain too much along the way the whole fucking time. And like, I hate that! It shouldn't be this goddamn hard to enjoy the damn show. 

I ended up comparing the dissonance around this show to, say, something like 2gether, which I think is remembered fondly because of pandemic stuff, and less because the show is good. Because everybody acknowledges that the show is a goddamn mess, but there's things that they take out of it, they say ‘I really like this.’ And that's how I feel about Step by Step. I loved everything that Man did in this; I think he played a 32 year old repressed gay man really well. But low key…I gotta be honest, I'm a little burned out on feeling a bunch of fucking feelings about sad rich gay boys? Like, the West is obsessed with sad rich gay boys and I am burnt the hell out on it. Like ‘oh no, he's sad, in his penthouse…’ who cares? [laughs]

Nini

I think for me as well, because I've been spending so much time with Turtles’s Asian family trauma lens, that I dug into that side of things, like a little deeply with my brain, and I was kind of enjoying kicking that around to myself as part of this.

Ben

And that’s the thing that sucks! Like Jeng, through episode 10, works so well for me. Like I absolutely loved what Man was doing with Jeng, how he was playing him, how Ben was playing Pat as kind of oblivious to it but unconsciously flirting with Jeng.

We didn't even talk about Up Poompot! Up Poompot was in this show and he whipped ass! Up was so good! Put was an incredible character. So Put is Pat's ex, who was not a great ex to him. This is very clearly a failed first romance on a lot of different levels. Put is ambitious, and he wants a lot more from his life than to just stay in the poor town the two of them grew up in, and he clearly didn't have Pat's skills to go to school…twice, study in America, and come back to Thailand as a highly trained marketing professional who can go into a corporate environment, and even with every goddamn employee in there working on his damn nerves still be the best person that they have on their team. Put doesn't have that: he's pretty and he's charming, and he's an actor. He has to go into BL, and so he can't have a boyfriend. Which is very fucked, that gay people cannot be out in BL. Insane. Put is an incredible character. He is simultaneously deeply unlikable and also incredibly sympathetic. Up is so good in this show. 

And I think Ben, who has an incredibly internal character—who really could have benefited from a journal? So that we could hear his thoughts more often—also does a really good job playing someone who is barely keeping it together, and trying to restrain their quick temper. Ben does a good job as a fairly new actor dealing with some really complex internal things that have to be externalized, in a film tradition that leans towards bombastic. That's really difficult to do. 

Bruce is in this! Bruce had such a rough character to portray in Lovely Writer, and it was hard to really like that character even if you felt bad for them. So glad we got a character for Bruce that we loved this time in Chot. 

Zorzo is in this, she's incredible, we love her. She can do whatever she wants—she shows up on a set and we're just like, ‘hello Zorzo, what do you want to do today?’ 

It's just so much fun watching this cast work together. Even the new people. Saint had some difficulties with his romantic partner and I think that's because he was new and nervous about doing that right. But he was really really good with Ben: when Jaab was interacting with Pat, Saint was really good, and you can see why he was cast. His chemistry with Ben felt so natural, and didn't read as like weirdly sexual or romantic, which is very easy to fall into in BL when they put literally any boys in the same room with each other. 

They did a great job letting queer friendships feel like queer friendships in this show. There's so much that's genuinely good in this show, which is why I feel like I have to give it a 7.5. Like if it had just been kind of bad and muddled? I’d have probably given it an 8 for just pure gumption. But it's frustrating, because it feels like everyone understood what the mission was and the plan fell apart with contact with the enemy immediately, and they did not regroup at all.

Nini

This is sounding like video game stuff.

Ben

I'm kind of pissed! I'm in captain mode right now. I'm assessing the film and going over everyone's screens and we're talking about who fucked up here. 

50:25 - Step by Step: Where are we on Tee Bundit?

Ben

The most important thing to ask now is, where do either of us sit when it comes to Tee Bundit and Dee Hup House?

Nini

I am a Tee Bundit fan? I see some of the things that he wants to say. I think that maybe he needs some guardrails? And maybe to lighten up a little bit? Because he has good ideas, and the ideas, he makes them very legible, when he wants to. 

I am curious to see how he does with some guardrails. Sometimes an artist needs a few guardrails to really focus themselves. So I am still down with Tee, and I'm interested in seeing the rest of what he's putting out this year. How about you?

Ben

I just want to grab him—like William Shatner in a classic Star Trek episode—by both of his upper arms, and say very clearly: “You got to stop being mean to the audience, bro. They're on your side.” It feels like he's beefing with us the audience, in Step by Step. Like it feels like he resents that the only way he can tell queer stories and get funded is to do queer romance, which I don't know that he's interested in—even though clearly he cares a lot about queer existence. Which is a very complicated space to sit as an artist, particularly with what the zeitgeist is feeling right now? 

But I need him to not take that energy out on us as the audience, like we signed up for romance, bro! Stop making us feel bad for wanting that! It just feels like Tee is just mad, and yelling in the room, and we're like ‘I get that you're mad bro, but this is unfun for all of us: we are on your side, and you are taking this out on us.’ He's that friend, who's right…but fuck, dude!

[Nini laughs]

Ben

That's all I've got. It's a chop for me, I'm sorry. [laughs]

Nini

Nah, I mean, sometimes we disagree, my friend, that’s just the way it is. [laughs] For me it’s a 9, for Ben it’s a 7.5, so that works out to…8.25? Yeah, that sounds about right.

Ben

It’s not bad, but it’s not good.

Nini

8.25 for Step by Step, and entry into contention for the Girl You Tried award for this season.

53:10 - La Pluie

Nini

Okay, so we are talking all things La Pluie. Ben, tell us what La Pluie is about.

Ben

La Pluie is a sort of speculative fiction romance, set in a world very similar to ours, where a small subset of the population experience temporary sensory loss whenever it rains as a form of deafness. Of that incredibly small population, an even smaller portion of them, when they come of age—which is 20 in Thailand—they may begin to hear another person's voice whenever it rains. Those people are seemingly tied to each other by this rain-based connection and other people have described them as soulmates. 

Our protagonist Saengtai is a 22-year-old who experiences rain deafness. He has three brothers, one older, and both of his parents are what people call soulmates. When he turned 20, his parents wanted him to know that they were getting a divorce, and this shattered Saengtai’s faith in the concept of soulmates, and he spent the next two years actively avoiding speaking to his soulmate at all. Two years later, he happens to run into him in a cafe, realizes his soulmate is hot, and then [laughs] decides to maybe give it a shot. And the show becomes this ongoing exploration of the concept of romance itself, unpacking whether or not the soulmates concept is real, portrayed by incredibly emotionally aware characters. 

Our primary four characters are: Saengtai, our protagonist, who's a writer. Patts, his soulmate, who is a veterinarian, and slightly older than him, and very cool. You have Saengtai’s little brother Saengtien, who’s kind of a rascal, who does not have rain deafness but very much believes in the concept of soulmates. And then there's Lomfon, a boy who is also in school with Saengtien, who adamantly refuses to believe in soulmates, and causes his own problems along the way. There's quite a colorful cast of supporting characters, and this is probably…the most legible show that we've ever watched? From the very first scene, this show is nothing but constant payoff.

Nini

Hmm, I don't know about from the very first scene, because as you know, it took me a few episodes to kind of get there. I started and stopped, and then had to be cajoled back in [laughs] and I do not regret coming back in. The line on this for me is that I think soulmates are bullshit. I've never been a fan of this soulmate trope—in the first episode or two, I'm just kind of like, ‘I don't know that they're gonna do anything interesting with this’ and then sometime around…it was definitely around episode 4, and I know it was around episode 4 because isn't that when Tai bit that man? We're gonna talk about this, Ben.

Ben

[laughs] Tai did bite that man, in episode 3.

Nini

Tai, my precious little alley cat, that was when I decided I was in [laughs] and I was gonna keep watching. I mean he literally got drunk and bit Patts, and I was like, ‘okay this is gonna be fucking awesome.’ Who bites somebody??

Ben

Someone unhinged!

Nini

Exactly, that's the point! And you know I love unhinged, so I was in for the duration after that. That was like the end of episode 3 when he bit him? And then episode 4 it just keeps getting better.

57:50 - La Pluie: The Soulmate Myth

Ben

Let's get properly into the soulmate stuff. I stand by my comment that this show begins paying off from the very first scene. We read the blurb, we get our little intro, and he's like ‘we got soulmates in this world; I can't hear when it rains; there's a boy who talks to me when it rains,’ and we were like ‘whoa man, these two are gonna fuck real good!’ And then the show opens with divorce. And I was like, ‘never mind, I am seated!’ 

Right away, the show is telling you that it is going to challenge the presumptions built into its core premise. It spends the entire time interrogating its premise, with really legible characters. And I think you provided the clearest read on the sort of primary archetypes these characters fit, when you described them in the framework of faith. So, please elaborate on your analysis.

Nini

The key thing all our characters, our key characters are dealing with in the show, is whether they believe in soulmates or not? So you have Tien, who is absolutely a true believer, 100% believes in soulmates, no matter what has happened to potentially shake his faith in soulmates he totally believes in it. Then you have Tai, who I described as an apostate, because Tai used to be a true believer and then his faith was shattered, and so he's sort of gone against believing in soulmates. In terms of their love interests, you have Patts, who is sort of agnostic on the idea? ‘Eh, I don't know, maybe soulmates are real, maybe they're not, doesn't really matter to me. I don't know what to believe but I'm not going to let it affect what I'm doing, and this is the way I feel about things.’ And then you've got Lomfon, who is an atheist: not just an atheist, like a rationalist atheist. He's just like, ‘soulmates are bullshit, I don't buy this, I don't believe in anything that this is happening here.’ And then what the show does with those four viewpoints is sort of, brings them all around to a kind of agnosticism? So in the end, they kind of all get to where Patts started. 

Then one of the things the show does towards the end, really at the end, is bring Patts around to being…sort of a true believer? Not necessarily in the sense of the rain deafness connection being a soulmate connection, but believing in the idea of having a soulmate. I don't think that's in any way related to the rain deafness connection at all, but more about choices and the way that he feels about Tai, and the way that Tai feels about him and the relationship that they are building. I found that really interesting, where in the end everybody kind of comes around to the agnostic viewpoint, Patts is the one who moves towards a, a believer, but not in the whole myth.

Ben

I think what works for me really in the show, when it comes to the belief in soulmates or not, is…the show understands that belief without action is meaningless. In the case of Tai and Lomfon, their choices and inaction create immense harm for the people around them that they claim to care about. In the case of Tai, he hurts Patts, for years, with his silence. Like it is totally fine for him to want to work out his comfortability with the rain-based connection privately and on his own time, but he owed it to Patts to say that. Even just, ‘I'm uncomfortable having you in my head, please don't talk to me when it rains.’ That's all he had to say. It's the silence that was really cruel for me. He's hurting Patts and punishing him, because his parents let him down. That's really shitty. 

Lomfon glomps on to Tai, for whatever reason, and just determines he's supposed to be with Tai. Actively ignoring the growing relationship between him and Tien, hurting everyone along the way. Whereas Patts and Tien are both actively treating people with immense kindness and care, because of how they believe and how they move through the world. Tien cares a lot about his brother: he knows his brother was hurt by what happened to their parents, and he gives excuses for him and he tries to take care of his brother, he tries to make himself small to take care of his family and the people around them, even if he's a little bit feisty. And Patts, who maybe doesn't care about the soulmate shit at all, sees Tai once: is like, ‘whoa, I am inextricably drawn to this person,’ and pursues him very kindly. The people with the most angst about whether or not this shit is real are the ones doing the most harm to other people. It's the people who are most pissy about faith being the worst in their relationships.

Nini

Look at us here being a couple of lapsed Catholics on the podcast.

[both laugh]

Nini

There is so much that the show wants to say about that idea of faith without works being dead. So much that the show wants to say about the relationship between chance and choice. I think the show itself is agnostic on whether soulmates are real? But I think the show does also say: there is some mix of chance and choice in romance. You ran into this person in a coffee shop—that's chance. But what you do next is choice. 

There're little things sprinkled throughout, like Patts and Tai finding out—once they've decided to be together—finding out that they actually had a connection from earlier on, because Patts's grandmother used to live next door to Tai. So when Tai's parents split up and he was like really sad and depressed about it, Patts saw this kid crying, and he just decided to be kind to this kid, and he helped Tai through, like, the immediate aftermath of his parents' divorce. And in return for that kindness, Tai sort of helped him through the death of his grandmother? They never saw each other's faces or anything like that, this was a happenstance. This was a chance encounter, through Patts's kindness and Tai’s kindness in return, that became a connection between them. Again, chance and choice. It was by chance that Patts saw this kid crying, but it was a choice to be kind to the kid next door. 

That's threaded throughout the story in different parts, this idea that chance brings you to the table but choice determines what happens when you get there.

Ben

I feel very strongly, as a lapsed Catholic, that none of the beliefs matter if you're just trying to be right. What matters is how you treat people.

Nini

The show is more interested in the choices than the chances, but it does put the chances sort of in there. You know that the show is interested in the choices because of the way that it deals with the parents, and the parents divorce, and how the parents have made it through their divorce and continue to be people who are together in dealing with their children, who still talk to each other when it rains, who have moved out of a romantic phase and into a platonic phase in their lives. To the point where the mom can get remarried to somebody who is more suited to her, and this doesn't affect their friendship. 

I really enjoyed the aspects of the show that really harped on the idea of choice, and choosing how you're going to build a relationship with somebody whether it is romantic or platonic, rather than fate putting somebody in your path and that feeling like a predetermination of who that person is going to be to you. That's why in the end, I did come around to La Pluie after not being interested at the beginning. They fucked with soulmates, and I like that.

Ben

I feel the need to rant.

Nini

The floor is yours, sir. Speak directly into the microphone.

Ben

I'm so glad that this show ended by saying that the soulmate stuff was a trap. It was really frustrating to see everybody caught up in the soulmate stuff, and the mechanic of that, as this verification tool. Maybe it's the whole lapsed Catholic thing and having a very complex relationship with faith and doubt? Because I got the whole notion that the purpose of all of this is about choice. It's about what you do with the opportunities you're given, and how you treat the people when you're there. 

It was really frustrating to watch so many members of the audience just really struggle with this show, because they needed the soulmates thing to either be bullshit, or to be confirmed. I really like that the show very politely sidesteps answering that, because what matters is how people treat each other. The opening scroll of the show is a happy couple that is a guy with rain deafness hanging out with somebody who is not. Like these things were legible from the beginning for me, and it was so…tedious, week in and week out, dealing with the, like the weather report: “Are the soulmates real this week?” Stop. 

Nini

Since we're ventilating the show's take on soulmates so to speak…

1:08:22 - La Pluie: Lomfon is Rude!

Ben

Yeah, let's talk about somebody who clearly got it wrong, in the show!

Nini

[laughs] Let's talk about Lomfon getting that ass beat, and why it was absolutely necessary.

Ben

We're gonna begin where we always sat: Lomfon is rude! And Patts should have punched him harder.

Nini

[laughs] I like just, I heard like a million people just turning the podcast off at this point—but it's, it's true, it's a fact.

Ben

Look, I do not care. Here's the thing: Lomfon is beefing with people for no reason, from the jump. He's beefing with Tien in the store over a goddam magazine. He's beefing with other classmates. He has no goddamn friends.

Nini

He was rude to Bow! He was rude to Tai's boss, and he likes Tai, and he still couldn't muster up like a shred of interest in anything she was doing, or even general politeness to shake her hand and say hi how you doing. Rude!

Ben

He only cares about what he's thinking about, there's no regard for other people. Like yeah, sure. He's like, 20. And like, kids gotta grow up at some point. But also, tastin’ a little bit of fist will reorient your life a little bit sometimes.

Nini

[laughs] True!

Ben

He's just so dramatic! There's this development over the course of the show, where Tai ends up with two different soulmates with connections to him. Lomfon is like, ‘I'm hearing Tai’s voice when it rains.’ Instead of, like sending, like a group text, saying, like, ‘hey, I believe something very strange may have happened to me, I think we should all meet up next Sunday at four o'clock—because I've checked the weather and we should all be together for this.’ And they could have handled this like adults and talked about stuff. No. Lomfon is rude and selfish, and so he needs to corner Tai in the rain, kiss Tai, and be like ‘whoops, my bad!’ And then when Patts rolls up on him throwing haymakers, he's like ‘whoa bro, no, he's mine!’ He's yours? Little boy. Please. 

I got a lot of smoke for this motherfucker, I got some notes over here. This dude hung out with Tien at a cast party, cuddled with drunk Tien, calls his brother because Tien needs a ride home—and then while Tien is mostly unconscious, flirts with his older brother? Gross.

Nini

He's in his own zone. He's not thinking about anybody else, he's not interested in whether what he does affects anybody else and how it affects anybody else. And it takes, yes quite frankly, a jaw rockin’, for him to get his head out of his ass. Completely concur that it was needed. 

Because I mean, think about this okay? Even if he actually liked Tai—which he doesn't really—does he think that this is the way to go about getting Tai? Let's ponder this for a second, just a short second, okay? It doesn't even make sense. And then, he thinks that maybe he might feel something for Tien, he doesn't know…but instead of, I don't know maybe, hm! going on a date with Tien instead of Tai—like there's so many other ways that Lomfon could have gone about what he went about. He just did it in the messiest way possible. Everybody was already telling him, ‘look I'm seeing what you're doing here and I'm gonna need you to take a step back.’

Ben

Tien picked up on it because they were on that mountain, and he saw Lomfon starting shit and looking at his brother, and he pulled that motherfucker aside, he said, ‘I am a third son, bitch, I will bury you on this mountain! Don't ever look at my brother again! Their relationship is theirs, and if you fuck with them one more time, they will not find your fucking corpse on this mountain.’

Nini

Everybody who saw it told Lomfon, ‘yo, you need to mind your own business.’ And if they didn't tell Lomfon, they told Tai—so Bow told Tai, ‘look, Lomfon’s up in your business. You need to say something and get that kid away from your business.’ Tien told him mind your own business. Patts told him mind your own business—because Patts definitely knew that Lomfon had a crush on Tai.

Ben

And Lomfon’s like, ‘well I heard Tai's voice in the rain, so now it's my business,’ and instead of talking to Tai properly, he's going to go like beef with Patts and be like I'm taller than you, so. 

[both laugh] That boy got on my goddamn nerves! Like, he's an excellent character. 

1:13:30 - La Pluie: Tai Also Deserves Some Smoke 

Ben

Let's talk about how Tai needed that ass whooped too.

Nini

That's what I was about to say, like, we're on Lomfon and Lomfon deserved it, but Tai also deserves some smoke and I'm here to give it to him. Tai, baby boy. Patts carried you down that mountain after you ran up there in the first place offa some bullshit. He had to carry you back down that mountain, y’all come back down the mountain as boyfriends. You looked at that man in the car and told him ‘I want to stay over at your place tonight’ and that man beat land speed records to take you back to his house. You literally got the booty in every single room in that apartment. 

And then you decide to go on a date-not-date with Lomfon? I feel like it was a little bit too—like he was slightly flattered?

Ben

Let me just read Tai his rights. [Nini laughs] 

This man, after finally getting what he thinks he's wanted this whole time, realizes there may be a situation going on with his brother's friend. He coulda asked his brother, like at any moment: ‘yo what's up with Lomfon, like Bow is already saying dude was sniffing around, and he asked me you to do some sort of thing, and I dunno how I feel about it. What's up with you and your little friend?’ And Tien could have been like ‘oh noooo, I actually like him, why is he doing this like?’ He could have solved this any number of ways that were less dramatic than ‘let me lie to my boyfriend because I'm worried how he's gonna handle knowing that this little dude is sniffing around’—as if he didn't already know. 

It is so frustrating that Patts—who is clear from the beginning that his primary concern was Saengtai’s comfort and happiness—for Saengtai to just actively ignore this man's vocalized needs. Man is telling you, he wants you to say the things. And you're like ‘well, don't my actions show it?’ No baby boy, because you're out here with some other dude in the middle of the motherfuckin’ rain, and you need to do better. 

And then! That boy is at his mom's wedding. Your dad has said he is happy for her. He likes the guy that she's gonna be with, and he's happy for the life that they're gonna have. And this boy ruins their wedding, making it all about him, because he's mad that his parents’ soulmate thing didn't work out. Oh I was so mad at that boy. 

He was so frustrating as a protagonist sometimes, because he just shits on all the relationships in his life. He shits on his mom. He’s low key shitting on his dad. He relies on his little brother too much without really paying attention to him in a meaningful way, and he beats up on Patts. And he does the same thing to Bow, like he works with Bow. She's clearly covering for him at work. Because he works with a bunch of other people and refuses to ever learn their names or really engage with them.

Nini

This is not to say that we do not love my little alley cat Tai, but he is a fucking alley cat. [laughs] He has the predisposition and morals of one, quite frankly. Like he's scratching and biting…in some ways he's just as rude as Lomfon. But like, you see where all this stuff comes from. And you want him to like, just for a second like, dude, retract the claws, and stop making decisions for people that are more about what you want and what you're interested in than what they want and need and have said that they want and need.

Ben

This is what I mean, like, the show being legible and saying the same thing the whole time. Like, as early as episode 2 Tai is like, ‘hey I found my soulmate,’ and Tien says quite plainly, ‘you fucked with love: unfuck it.’ And when he finally has that confrontation with his parents where they show him the complexity of human relationships, where his dad also says, ‘when you have love you need to take care of it.’ 

It's so funny, like, for all that Tai is obsessed with his dad, Tien is the one who picked up on his dad's, like, core skills. And Tai is so much like his mom, I'm really glad the show finally recognized that towards the end. Tai recognizes that he's doing to Patts what his mom was doing to him: not giving him any information, leaving him to suffer in silence without giving him the context that he's desperately needing. And it showed a lot of growth that he finally got his ass together, and spent the whole episode running around looking for that man, because goddamn. 

1:18:26 - La Pluie: Tai’s Dad Read as Queer

Ben

I wanna get this aside in here, how Tai's dad read as queer to me the whole time, I don't know if he did to you?

Nini

He did, but I didn't know if that was the actor or the character.

Ben

I think it may have been both, and I think I like the way the show handled it. I think it was very useful for subtext to show that Tai's dad is queer? And to not confirm it at the text level. Because La Pluie is not interested in structural homophobia. But I thought it was a really interesting premise to consider what happens if a straight person and a gay person think they're soulmates. What happens if a man who knows who he is goes into a straight marriage, loves his sons, loves his wife, but they can't work, because they can't be the kind of partners they need to be to each other. Which is exactly what the show says, without saying it’s because the dad was queer. 

And I think I really like the show leaving that as subtext for us to consider? Because the show does such a great job at building emotionally intelligent gay relationships otherwise.

Nini

I think there were lots of markers for it, like there were markers in the character themselves, there are markers in the relationship that the father and the mother had, the way that the mother was the breadwinner and the father was the caretaker. There are markers in the father's chosen profession, he's a chef. There is a, sort of a marker in this idea of him being—I think it was a private chef to some ambassador and spending a lot of time with this ambassador? All of these are things that I picked up on, and I don't know if they were easter eggs or if they were just throwaways, but there were lots of like tiny little markers.

Ben

And also him being the one to actually say that they should break up.

Nini

Yeah, there, there are lots of tiny little, like I said, could be read as markers, could just be coincidental, but the show is so well constructed that I am loath to leave it to the idea of coincidence.

Ben

I agree. I think it's well done. 

1:20:48 - La Pluie: The Romance

Ben

Tai needed to get his shit together, because as far as I'm concerned Patts is maybe the most perfect romantic interest that BL has ever created. And that also feels really intentional for the themes that they're unpacking.

Nini

La Pluie is a romance novel. Like, if you look at the way it's structured, the way it's organized, La Pluie is a romance novel that is sort of an anti romance novel, almost? And in a romance novel, the love interest is essentially perfect. If they have a flaw, it's something that is, ‘my only flaw is that I care too much’ or some shit like that, you know, that kind of thing? [both laugh] 

Patts fits into that mould in a way, but it's also subverted a little bit? So, he's handsome, he's a vet, he is kind to animals, he’s kind to people. He's very sweet, he is a hundred percent into Tai.

Ben

He drives a Porsche. He has a very nice apartment.

Nini

[laughs] He's rich. You know what I mean? All the markers of like the perfect romantic hero.

Ben

He has no family drama.

Nini

None whatsoever…he has a little tragic backstory with grandmother dying…like he’s the perfect romantic hero in a trope sense. Listen, I think sometime around the time that Tai bit that man— and yeah I'm still not over it— 

Ben

He did bite that man.

Nini

I remember saying to Ben, ‘oh so like Tai’s an alley cat, but Patts is a literal angel.’ Because after he bit that man and then he threw up on him, still that man took him home, let him, like, lay in his bed. He gave him clothes, left him alone to change his own clothes, and then in the morning when he woke up hungover and couldn't remember shit, he woke up and there was a note because he had cleared out, he didn’t wanna make him feel awkward or anything like that. He cleared out, he left a note saying all the things that he did the night before, because he didn't know if he was going to remember…He was perfect about it. He was such a gentleman.

Ben

As one of the leaders of the Patts defense squad, I'm gonna have to lead a charge for my boy. Because my man is the best communicator. He clearly understands that something is wrong with his soulmate, doesn't pressure him to talk to him; just talks back to him, tries to be kind to him, tries to say nice things to him. Eventually sees a guy who he wants to pursue. He does not know that it’s Tai. But the first thing he does that night is like, ‘hey I don't know what's going on with you, but I saw the cutest boy that has ever existed, and I'm gonna pursue him, so uh, deuces!’ 

So they end up at this club, Tai gets low-key abandoned by his friends, so Patts takes care of him. Tai bites that man, tries to bite him again. Later that night starts fussing with Patts, accusing him of being a player, and then makes out with him! Like yes, he was drunk, but—makes out with him! Like bro! Patts starts pursuing him earnestly after that, by leaving the note. And then Tai, who does have communication skills and social skills, does the cutesy thing you would do in a movie. He's going to return the fucking clothes to Patts in a cute little bag waiting outside his job. And the two of them go out on the cutest little date, full of all sorts of great stuff. 

Also, like, I haven't talked about it that much here: Title is really really good. I love the way Title and Pee both play their characters in this show. The way Title played Tai during that dinner they had? Was so good. At one point when he asks Patts, ‘do you always eat like this?’ 

Nini

And he points with the knife?

Ben

And he points with the knife, it is so, so perfect! And Patts is so clever. Like Tai wants to hang out and they want to go on the date and he's like, ‘let me not…bullshit about who I am.’ They ride in his Porsche to a fancy restaurant that Patts clearly frequents regularly because the staff recognizes him. He hands Tai the menu and asks Tai what he wants. Tai, who also has social skills and is like ‘I don't know about this, I don't know what the rules are here,’ decides not to make the choice on ordering something, ‘cause he's not trying to hit him up style. So he passes the choice to Patts, and then Patts makes a neutral choice by just saying ‘we'll have whatever the chef’s special is for the day.’ By making the neutral choice to just accept the chef’s special, even though Patts picked the place, he is making sure Tai understands that Patts will not be forcing him to do anything. 

I just really love their date, like there's so much there; Patts is really charming, he's funny…and then moving along, the next thing Tai does, which is insane, is introduce Patts to his dad without warning. And the dad ain't shit either, picking on Patts the whole time.

Nini

[laughs] It was funny.

Ben

He hangs out with their dad, and immediately Patts’s instinct is to show the proper respect to Tai’s father. He doesn't get in the middle of their fight. He doesn't ask about it. He just sort of gives them a way to end the fight now, he politely asks about Tai and his other brothers, giving Tai a chance to talk about his family if he wants to. They go back to Tai’s place. Patts, not really thinking about it, walks in on Tai while he's changing, gets to see all the goodies. And then they have this intense moment, and they end up making out on the floor. 

I want to make a special note here about La Pluie: La Pluie is one of the first BLs that I can really remember, ever, that when there is a moment of intense sexual tension, releases it. So often these shows just bait us. They titillate us, they want us to get all hot and bothered about ‘whoa, they's ‘bout to kiss’ and then they interrupt it with some nonsense. Or they just don't do anything with it and they tease us and they make bits out of it. And as much as I enjoy these shows, it was so refreshing to see a show go, ‘what if we release it? What if they actually start making out on the floor? What then?’ 

I get frustrated a lot of times in BL about how they make these boys dickless. And there's this really lovely thing in La Pluie that Patts’s concern was Tai's pleasure. But they stop, because Tai isn't ready. And though Patts was a bit caught up in the moment, he catches himself. And they back off, and they have a conversation about what else is going on. Patts learns a little bit more about Tai—low key they played with some of the yaoi framing in that moment, because as big as Pee is, he crouches himself down and makes himself lower than Tai, and is kind of looking at, up at him in cute ways—because you'd expect Patts to be maybe the seme in this sort of framing—and they do that early on by putting Patts on the left with the date shit when Tai goes to see him, but Patts is queering that narrative by intentionally moving himself to the right when he's trying to get closer to Tai. 

When they're on their Chiang Mai trip, one of the most insane things this show does that I will never get over, is…they’re sharing the bed, both of them are awake. They know what's going to happen, we know what's going to happen, but everyone knows Tai is not exactly ready, because we haven't climbed that mountain yet. We haven't dealt with the core angst. We're both two men who are very attracted to each other, and we know we're attracted to each other—so they start to get hot and bothered, but Tai has them stop again, and Patts, our strongest soldier, pulls himself back again. But Tai, listening to his good sis Bow, is like ‘I can't keep leaving this man hanging, I can't keep starting these things and then not finishing it.’ He offers to blow Patts and it was very explicit that that's what happened. We know! 

It's so impressive to me that this show presented Tai giving Patts head as a way for him to maintain control over a sexual encounter. The whole notion about giving pleasure as a form of control is something we have not really seen explored in BL this way. I really liked that this show focused on the different ways that two men are going to become more physically and sexually comfortable with each other over time. And even after everything, after Tai has cast him aside, he still chooses to go back to Tai and try and reconcile with him, because he did lose his temper. And that was a scary moment. And I think I like that Patts losing his temper was made as jarring and scary as possible in the show, because I feel like really perfect characters need to have this intense rage about them. Because I have never met a chill pacifist in my life. The choice to be kind is so hard in a world full of cruelty, and I like that underneath the surface of Patts is a temper that he has to manage and maintain. I love my man.

Nini

I can't remember who it is, somebody put this on Tumblr: that Patts is kind but he's not always nice, and Tai is nice but that he's not always kind.

Ben

Exactly.

Nini

Tai seems like, you know, gentle and soft. But when it comes down to it, Tai is the one in the narrative who's actually kind of cruel? It's very interesting to put that on a romantic protagonist. How it ends up getting read is incredibly interesting, because that person is the romantic protagonist, it ends up getting…cast aside, and here I go back into Calvinism and the green flag label [laughs] that I thought I had ventilated with Bed Friend.

Ben

[laughs] As soon as you said that my third eye opened, and I was like—

Nini

Here I go again!

Ben

Where—where's my bat?

[both laugh]

Nini

I didn't get this out of my system the first time, somehow. But yeah, the way that that's received in a protagonist, the fact that the protagonist is kind of a little bit of a bitch boy, quite frankly [laughs], gets glossed over, and then the person who made a mistake has it sort of loom large.

1:32:06 - La Pluie: Depiction of Male Anger

Ben

I got a little bit mad about that with the fandom too like, we got all this bending over backwards week in and week out for Lomfon's rude ass and Tai’s rude ass. Patts loses his temper once, punches a boy, punches a wall, and we're like ‘oh! he's dangerous!’ And I'm like, ‘I hate this!’ 

And there's a lot more I want to unpack here in the future — this does not feel like the right time to do it, but we really need to talk about that at some point, as a community that engages with romance? Because we have a really fucked-up relationship with violence. Like, Patts, not leaving a mark on Lomfon was seen as egregious. Punching a door in frustration was seen as egregious. But like, Bad Buddy opens up with Pran shit-kicking Pat to the fucking ground, as these boys beat the shit out of each other!

Nini

I think like, it's a lot of things. It's a question of who gets to be angry, and how anger is portrayed, and men's anger, and the way that women—because of the way that we have to be socialized to protect ourselves, the way that we view men's anger that is sort of slightly different from how men will view men's anger? And how being familiar with certain kinds of angry expressions from men is, like, one of the reasons that women shrink from that kind of stuff. And there's so many women in BL fandom. 

Like I understood where that was coming from, but at the same time, the show is so legible. It's very legible that this is Patts…reaching the end of his rope, and it's very clear in the show that Patts would never actually hurt anybody. [laughs] He doesn't even really hurt Lomfon. Lomfon is fine! He gets his ass kicked a little bit, but he's fine!

Ben

As our great friend wen-kexing-apologist pointed out, this show has a makeup budget. My boy Tai got his shit fucked up on that mountain, and the makeup crew made sure he looked messed up even in that wet filming situation. They could have afforded to make that boy's mouth bruised the way it should have been for talking the way he was, and my man doesn't. And that's the thing that gets me. Like, everybody else is allowed to be an asshole, but Patts, who I believe deserves to be righteously angry about this shit going down at this point in their relationship—and it's like ‘aw, geez, I don't know about that brah.’ 

We see, through Patts’s relationship with Nara, that he would never actually hurt Tai. And that's why the intensity of his frustration I think should have been the focus, not the expression of it. I really resented the way it felt like everyone suddenly wanted to regulate Patts’s frustration. I hate the whole notion that he is only allowed to be upset in an attractive, gentle way. Because he's been gentle the whole goddamn time, and everyone has been so rude and disrespectful of him.

Nini

Like, there is room to talk about the expression of Patts’ frustration, but you can't have that room if you're using it in a reductive manner to just completely kick him out the window as a character. I don't buy that, I don't subscribe to it.

1:35:50 - La Pluie: Treatment of Nara

Ben

With Nara, we saw that Patts is capable of dealing with difficult romantic situations. Because Nara is treated so sympathetically about everything that went down with her and Patts. How she feels frustrated about Patts’s soulmate connection with Tai, long before they start talking, I think is valid. Because she felt frustrated. She felt frustrated that anytime it rains, Patts gets moody, and it feels like somebody else is in the middle of their relationship. And you got the sense from them accidentally making out in the rain one time, where Patts immediately cut it off and apologized, that he didn't want to put Tai through that, even before he knew who Tai was. I got that Nara felt frustrated that her intimacy was scheduled around the goddamn rain. She felt an innate jealousy in her own relationship that she knew she was struggling with and couldn't exactly cope with. It wasn't fair to either of them. Patts is like, ‘look if I can get rid of this I would, because I do care about you.’ 

Nara takes some time. She gets to reflect, she decides to grow. She knows that it's hard out here in these goddamn streets, and Patts is a keeper, and she tries to do the big romantic gesture. And that's why Tai liked her! Because that boy loves big romantic gestures! And Patts lets her down, he apologizes, he's like ‘I'm sorry I may have led you on, I want things to be okay between us. Because what happened between us was real, it mattered to me, and I still care about you even if I can't give you my heart like that anymore.’ Yeah, “we should stay friends” is kind of a cliche, but it feels earned here. 

And I also like that Nara got to be disappointed and heartbroken and upset about it too. I liked that people cared about how she felt. They wanted to reintegrate her into the group. The other vets liked Nara, even if she wasn't going to be Patts’ girlfriend anymore. But they understand that in the breakup, they're Patts’s friends. And you know those people respect relationship dynamics, because they didn't just look to Patts to see if Nara was okay to be around, they look to Saengtai, to see how the new person was going to feel about that—particularly because he just ran up a fucking mountain because of her—and he says it's okay, and they were so eager to reintegrate her into the group. 

And then she and Dream get to get rolling. And they let us have them at the end! She was like, ‘look, we only got five minutes left in this show, if you going to get this shit you better come correct and you better come now.’ And I loved that! Because the girlies deserved it.

Nini

She said, ‘I'm grown, give it your best shot.’

Ben

I saw some frustrations with the ending, and how a lot of the episode was Tai running around by himself, and meeting some random characters at the end, and…us not spending a lot of time with Patts, like Patts not really talking at the end? But it works for me. Tai had to deal with the silence, for the first time—that he inflicts silence on so many people, and now he's the one who has to sit in the shit that he made. 

And I liked him meeting a couple that had challenges to deal with in their relationship, and being told once again, ‘you just got to do the work bro, you gotta talk to each other, you gotta listen to what your partner is saying to you.’ And I like that the final scene with Tai and Patts is Tai not hesitating. 

Man! This show was so rewarding to watch because it wasn't trying to trick us.

Nini

The show was wearing its bona fides on the tin. It was very clear where it wanted to go, what it wanted to do. It wasn't playing with us. It wasn't trying to gotcha with us. It was just laying out its central idea, and continually reinforcing it throughout the story and the narrative for the entire way through. 

Does that make it, like, unpredictable and exciting? No. But it made it really enjoyable to watch: to watch something lay the path, and then walk the path, was more fun than it, I expected it to be, I have to say.

1:40:47 - La Pluie: The Side Characters

Nini

And, when we're talking about laying the path and walkin’ the path—man, let's just get to it, let's talk about Tien and Lomfon. 

Here are the polar opposites, okay, because in Tai and Patts, like you have an agnostic and an apostate, like they're not as far apart as somebody like Tien and Lomfon, who are a true believer and a total atheist. How do they get to the middle? All the shit that happens in the middle, especially, [laughs] how do they get through that and find their way through each other? Basically, Lomfon has to grovel, and I enjoy a good grovel, so I had a great time.

Ben

Here's the thing. My boy Tien deserves so much more than he got. My man initiated a gay pinky touch, and then Lomfon, was like, ‘hm! I don't know what's going on, but I know that I have these special signs from the universe about this stupid key chain, that I need to go kiss this boy's brother, not the one reaching out with the gay pinky touch while taking care of me while I'm sick, twice!’ I'm gonna stay mad at this man. [both laugh] 

This man ruined a gay pinky touch. Tien is so patient with both of them. Like Patts is beating up Lomfon, Tai is screaming at the universe, clearly suddenly they can all hear in the rain, Tien doesn't know what's going on—but he cuts through the bullshit right away with Lomfon, it's like, ‘I liked you! Why are you being like this?’ Even when Tai didn't realize what was going on, Tien holds back his own disappointment that his brother maybe didn't necessarily see him the right way, and still says, ‘thank you for always being on my left.’ 

Ahh! I love that boy so much! He's so good, he deserves so much more. He was dressing like an early 2000s lesbian the whole time, serving nothing but constant looks. He was so fun to watch, especially when he was being kind of sassy with everyone.

Nini

I like Tien as a character, I like his wardrobe…don't even get me started. That outfit he wore to the wedding? Unreal. I loved it so much.

Ben

I loved it. It's so good. Oh my god.

Nini

Un. Real.

Ben

That whole family looked good, like holy shit! [laughs]

Nini

We didn't even talk about Saengnuea! And oh god, we're never going to get forgiven by one of the clowns if we never even bring up Saengnuea.

Ben

He was so awkward and goofy! I, I liked that boy too. I loved Bow, I loved the vets—what's so great about the side characters with La Pluie, is they do their role just enough to help us understand the world in which these characters exist. Like Tai is surrounded by people trying to just pour love all over that boy, and he will just not let them. Patts is surrounded by a community that loves him, that wants the best for him, that wants to make sure that he gets what he deserves too. Oh my god, just—what an excellent show.

1:44:02 - La Pluie: Sequel Potential

Nini

The thing that I think that we want to end up on is, I said before that La Pluie is basically a filmed romance novel. If you are aware of how, like, these romance novels get set up—a lot of the time, it will be multiple stories set in the same universe, where each of the characters basically gets to fall in love. We know at least that the La Pluie people seem to want to get into all of the Saeng brothers and their various romances. I don't know if they will get to, but what do you think about the obvious setup for the Saengtien sequel at the end of the show, and this idea of going into, like, a Bridgerton-esque series of romances using all of the same characters? 

How do you feel about that?

Ben

Honestly…I’m a little bit nervous because I just worry that the audience won't respond to it really well. I feel like a significant portion of the audience just actively did not get La Pluie. They were really caught up in the soulmate stuff. And I just feel like a lot of the audience maybe didn't…gel with all the themes?

Nini

So as usual, Ben is the one thinking about everybody else while I very selfishly think about myself. [both laugh] And I'm just like, ‘give it to me.’ I'm ready, I'm here for it. I trust these writers, I trust this director, I think that if they get a chance to delve into this universe in more detail and focusing on different characters, I think that they can nail it? I'm ready to see what happens if they get a chance to do it. 

I don't care about whether people are going to get it correctly or not, I don't. I kind of care, but at the same time I don't care. So that being said: Ben, is this a ten or a chop?

Ben

La Pluie is probably in my top five BLs of all time, and it's probably in my top ten shows of all time right now. It's a 10. It's a 10. [laughs] It’s a 10!

Nini

All right? So for Ben it’s a 10, for me it’s definitely a 10, that leaves us with La Pluie as a 10 show!

1:46:01 - Outro

Ben

And we're back.

Nini

Okay Ben, so…lotta ink spilled over these two shows. I don't think I've seen so much meta being written, probably since the Bad Buddy era. We've got a strange combo here: a show that was incredibly legible, and then a show that made you work a little bit harder, and in both instances it feels like people didn't get it? [laughs] 

I don't know, what are your thoughts? What do you feel about this?

Ben

One of the big stories of this year is BL maturing as a genre and beginning to genre blend. Like in a lot of ways, La Pluie wants to straddle the line between BL and classic romance, and I think it does a pretty admirable job at it. Whereas Step by Step feels like the BL elements that it's trying to manage are holding it back from what it really wants to be. That feels like the sort of thing that inevitably happens with this type of outgrowth. 

La Pluie doesn't really want to say things sort of directly or inherently about queerness, it wants to talk about romance itself. And romance as a genre. Whereas Step by Step really wants to talk about queer stuff in a real world, and that's a whole lot messier to deal with. They both did some things really really well, and the audience connected to that. And what fascinated me so much about it was that the audience felt compelled to talk to each other about it. I felt like that happened maybe more organically on its own with Step by Step? Some of us kind of forced the issue on La Pluie. I know that I was part of it, like very, very directly, and it's been fun seeing people respond to that, by just us saying very earnestly: please tell us what you're thinking. And engaging with what people are writing. 

I think it's good for us and the genre to take it more seriously? It has been really fascinating for me seeing people engaging the way they are, but I legitimately feel a bit fatigued by it. And like, the last time I felt fatigue in BL, truly, was at the beginning. I know a lot of you don't watch as much content as I do, like you couldn't possibly do it, it's not healthy for you. I don't know how starved some of you have been for content that you can genuinely connect to, that can help you feel a little bit less lonely about yourself. And like I’d never gotten tired of queer cinema—I’d gotten hurt by it, but I'd never gotten, like, genuinely tired of just being in it that long. 

And I feel a little tired from all of the intense writing that La Pluie and Step by Step kind of demanded of us. It's a really fascinating time for me as a fan, to feel like the shows are demanding more of us as viewers, as we watch them, than to just be pleased by them or intrigued by them so that we'll engage and buy merch and stuff. It was really fascinating having two shows this season that really feel like they wanted us to think about things along with them.

Nini

I know that you and I have talked about that feeling of fatigue, like for me, this is the most anything I've watched in years. The level of exhaustion that I felt, and then to have these two shows sort of spring up at the end of the season, and demand—you’re correct—demand my attention…not just in terms of the shows themselves, but then in the reaction to the shows. It's sort of left me a little hollowed out, almost, a little wrung out? I don't know yet if in a good way or a bad way. It's yet to be seen. 

I remember saying to you at one point, I was like, I need something mindless to just sit and watch for the next couple of weeks, at least. Or, like, maybe longer, I just need something that I don't need to think about. And that's not a place that I'm accustomed to being in media? Because I am normally the let's get deep into it, let's get into the guts, put your arm in and come back with a beating heart kind of girl when it comes to the stories. And right now I'm just like, eh, I want something shallow and surface that I don't have to think too much about, please, just for a little while. And then I can re-engage my brain later. It's a very strange place for me to be in, I don't think it's a place that I've ever been in? But yeah these these two shows, they took it out of me, I gotta say. 

And that's how we end the season ladies and theydies! We are a little wrung out, and we'll probably talk about that a little bit more in the Lagniappe. But yeah! We tired, y'all. [laughs]

Ben

It’s gonna be fascinating, like, getting to listen back over this, because we talked really in the season about how slow it was for me to get into the spring season, coming off of the the winter hangover from Moonlight Chicken, Utsukushii Kare, My School President and The Warp Effect. And it's weird now at the end of the spring season, where…I don't necessarily feel like a tired hangover from it? It's a hard feeling to describe because the winter shows were really good, really hit something in me…

Nini

The winter shows were emotionally intense. There was like a heavy emotional hangover coming off of the winter. I don't feel that emotional hangover now, but I feel mentally drained.

Ben

Yeah, it's a far more cerebral feeling, and like the thing for me is, I grow stronger on that feeling. [both laugh] It's gonna be, it’s gonna be hard for me if these new shows don't keep up! ‘Cause, it's what I want! I do not want to yuck anyone's yums, like, there is absolutely a place for fluff in this genre. I will never, ever vote against the silly and fun shows. I just also really love meaty shows that make me think really hard while I'm watching them. And I love when that feels intentional—like we do a lot of hard thinking on our own about these shows, but damn is it satisfying when it feels like the show itself is in that conversation with us. And I really hope that this isn't the last time we have an Adult Swim episode because we got a bunch of really thinky shows to think about. 

Like, I was very harsh to Step by Step when we talked about that show, but I don't want Tee to stop thinking as hard as he does. I want him to stay in the guts of trying to unpack where queer people fit in modern Thai cinema. That's a really important thing to figure out, and queer people should be part of that conversation. And like even if I didn't think this was the best execution of his ideas, I don't want that conversation to get missed because his show didn't land consistently for everyone.

Nini

I'm tired y'all. I'm so tired.

Ben

[laughs] I’m so energized. Keep it coming.

Nini

My brain hurts! And this is the shit that I normally love, but my brain, it hurts, and my brain, she needs a break! And so, a break she shall have. [laughs] 

We'll be back at you next time with the Lagniappe, but that's it for us now! We are just going to wrap it up on Adult Swim. 

Our first Adult Swim episode: may there be others. We out! Say bye to the people, Ben.

Ben

Peace.

[americanwoodcockfan]

I Love Dick And Balls

The American woodcock (Scolopax minor), sometimes colloquially referred to as the timberdoodle,[2] is a small shorebird species found primarily in the eastern half of North America. Woodcocks spend most of their time on the ground in brushy, young-forest habitats, where the birds' brown, black, and gray plumage provides excellent camouflage.

The American woodcock is the only species of woodcock inhabiting North America.[3] Although classified with the sandpipers and shorebirds in the family Scolopacidae, the American woodcock lives mainly in upland settings. Its many folk names include timberdoodle, bogsucker, night partridge, brush snipe, hokumpoke, and becasse.[4]

The population of the American woodcock has fallen by an average of slightly more than 1% annually since the 1960s. Most authorities attribute this decline to a loss of habitat caused by forest maturation and urban development. Because of the male woodcock's unique, beautiful courtship flights, the bird is welcomed as a harbinger of spring in northern areas. It is also a popular game bird, with about 540,000 killed annually by some 133,000 hunters in the U.S.[5]

In 2008, wildlife biologists and conservationists released an American woodcock conservation plan presenting figures for the acreage of early successional habitat that must be created and maintained in the U.S. and Canada to stabilize the woodcock population at current levels, and to return it to 1970s densities.[6] Description

The American woodcock has a plump body, short legs, a large, rounded head, and a long, straight prehensile bill. Adults are 10 to 12 inches (25 to 30 cm) long and weigh 5 to 8 ounces (140 to 230 g).[7] Females are considerably larger than males.[8] The bill is 2.5 to 2.8 inches (6.4 to 7.1 cm) long.[4] Wingspans range from 16.5 to 18.9 inches (42 to 48 cm).[9] Illustration of American woodcock head and wing feathers Woodcock, with attenuate primaries, natural size, 1891

The plumage is a cryptic mix of different shades of browns, grays, and black. The chest and sides vary from yellowish-white to rich tans.[8] The nape of the head is black, with three or four crossbars of deep buff or rufous.[4] The feet and toes, which are small and weak, are brownish gray to reddish brown.[8] Woodcocks have large eyes located high in their heads, and their visual field is probably the largest of any bird, 360° in the horizontal plane and 180° in the vertical plane.[10]

The woodcock uses its long, prehensile bill to probe in the soil for food, mainly invertebrates and especially earthworms. A unique bone-and-muscle arrangement lets the bird open and close the tip of its upper bill, or mandible, while it is sunk in the ground. Both the underside of the upper mandible and the long tongue are rough-surfaced for grasping slippery prey.[4] Taxonomy

The genus Scolopax was introduced in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae.[11] The genus name is Latin for a snipe or woodcock.[12] The type species is the Eurasian woodcock (Scolopax rusticola).[13] Distribution and habitat

Woodcocks inhabit forested and mixed forest-agricultural-urban areas east of the 98th meridian. Woodcock have been sighted as far north as York Factory, Manitoba, and east to Labrador and Newfoundland. In winter, they migrate as far south as the Gulf Coast of the United States and Mexico.[8]

The primary breeding range extends from Atlantic Canada (Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and New Brunswick) west to southeastern Manitoba, and south to northern Virginia, western North Carolina, Kentucky, northern Tennessee, northern Illinois, Missouri, and eastern Kansas. A limited number breed as far south as Florida and Texas. The species may be expanding its distribution northward and westward.[8]

After migrating south in autumn, most woodcocks spend the winter in the Gulf Coast and southeastern Atlantic Coast states. Some may remain as far north as southern Maryland, eastern Virginia, and southern New Jersey. The core of the wintering range centers on Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia.[8] Based on the Christmas Bird Count results, winter concentrations are highest in the northern half of Alabama.

American woodcocks live in wet thickets, moist woods, and brushy swamps.[3] Ideal habitats feature early successional habitat and abandoned farmland mixed with forest. In late summer, some woodcocks roost on the ground at night in large openings among sparse, patchy vegetation.[8]Courtship/breeding habitats include forest openings, roadsides, pastures, and old fields from which males call and launch courtship flights in springtime. Nesting habitats include thickets, shrubland, and young to middle-aged forest interspersed with openings. Feeding habitats have moist soil and feature densely growing young trees such as aspen (Populus spp.), birch (Betula spp.), and mixed hardwoods less than 20 years of age, and shrubs, particularly alder (Alnus spp.). Roosting habitats are semiopen sites with short, sparse plant cover, such as blueberry barrens, pastures, and recently heavily logged forest stands.[8]

Migration

Woodcocks migrate at night. They fly at low altitudes, individually or in small, loose flocks. Flight speeds of migrating birds have been clocked at 16 to 28 mi/h (26 to 45 km/h). However, the slowest flight speed ever recorded for a bird, 5 mi/h (8 km/h), was recorded for this species.[14] Woodcocks are thought to orient visually using major physiographic features such as coastlines and broad river valleys.[8] Both the autumn and spring migrations are leisurely compared with the swift, direct migrations of many passerine birds.

In the north, woodcocks begin to shift southward before ice and snow seal off their ground-based food supply. Cold fronts may prompt heavy southerly flights in autumn. Most woodcocks start to migrate in October, with the major push from mid-October to early November.[15] Most individuals arrive on the wintering range by mid-December. The birds head north again in February. Most have returned to the northern breeding range by mid-March to mid-April.[8]

Migrating birds' arrival at and departure from the breeding range is highly irregular. In Ohio, for example, the earliest birds are seen in February, but the bulk of the population does not arrive until March and April. Birds start to leave for winter by September, but some remain until mid-November.[16] Behavior and ecology Food and feeding American woodcock catching a worm in a New York City park

Woodcocks eat mainly invertebrates, particularly earthworms (Oligochaeta). They do most of their feeding in places where the soil is moist. They forage by probing in soft soil in thickets, where they usually remain well-hidden. Other items in their diet include insect larvae, snails, centipedes, millipedes, spiders, snipe flies, beetles, and ants. A small amount of plant food is eaten, mainly seeds.[8] Woodcocks are crepuscular, being most active at dawn and dusk. Breeding

In spring, males occupy individual singing grounds, openings near brushy cover from which they call and perform display flights at dawn and dusk, and if the light levels are high enough, on moonlit nights. The male's ground call is a short, buzzy peent. After sounding a series of ground calls, the male takes off and flies from 50 to 100 yd (46 to 91 m) into the air. He descends, zigzagging and banking while singing a liquid, chirping song.[8] This high spiralling flight produces a melodious twittering sound as air rushes through the male's outer primary wing feathers.[17]

Males may continue with their courtship flights for as many as four months running, sometimes continuing even after females have already hatched their broods and left the nest. Females, known as hens, are attracted to the males' displays. A hen will fly in and land on the ground near a singing male. The male courts the female by walking stiff-legged and with his wings stretched vertically, and by bobbing and bowing. A male may mate with several females. The male woodcock plays no role in selecting a nest site, incubating eggs, or rearing young. In the primary northern breeding range, the woodcock may be the earliest ground-nesting species to breed.[8] Woodcock chick in nest Downy young are already well-camouflaged.

The hen makes a shallow, rudimentary nest on the ground in the leaf and twig litter, in brushy or young-forest cover usually within 150 yd (140 m) of a singing ground.[4] Most hens lay four eggs, sometimes one to three. Incubation takes 20 to 22 days.[3] The down-covered young are precocial and leave the nest within a few hours of hatching.[8] The female broods her young and feeds them. When threatened, the fledglings usually take cover and remain motionless, attempting to escape detection by relying on their cryptic coloration. Some observers suggest that frightened young may cling to the body of their mother, that will then take wing and carry the young to safety.[18] Woodcock fledglings begin probing for worms on their own a few days after hatching. They develop quickly and can make short flights after two weeks, can fly fairly well at three weeks, and are independent after about five weeks.[3]

The maximum lifespan of adult American woodcock in the wild is 8 years.[19] Rocking behavior American woodcocks sometimes rock back and forth as they walk, perhaps to aid their search for worms.

American woodcocks occasionally perform a rocking behavior where they will walk slowly while rhythmically rocking their bodies back and forth. This behavior occurs during foraging, leading ornithologists such as Arthur Cleveland Bent and B. H. Christy to theorize that this is a method of coaxing invertebrates such as earthworms closer to the surface.[20] The foraging theory is the most common explanation of the behavior, and it is often cited in field guides.[21]

An alternative theory for the rocking behavior has been proposed by some biologists, such as Bernd Heinrich. It is thought that this behavior is a display to indicate to potential predators that the bird is aware of them.[22] Heinrich notes that some field observations have shown that woodcocks will occasionally flash their tail feathers while rocking, drawing attention to themselves. This theory is supported by research done by John Alcock who believes this is a type of aposematism.[23] Population status

How many woodcock were present in eastern North America before European settlement is unknown. Colonial agriculture, with its patchwork of family farms and open-range livestock grazing, probably supported healthy woodcock populations.[4]

The woodcock population remained high during the early and mid-20th century, after many family farms were abandoned as people moved to urban areas, and crop fields and pastures grew up in brush. In recent decades, those formerly brushy acres have become middle-aged and older forest, where woodcock rarely venture, or they have been covered with buildings and other human developments. Because its population has been declining, the American woodcock is considered a "species of greatest conservation need" in many states, triggering research and habitat-creation efforts in an attempt to boost woodcock populations.

Population trends have been measured through springtime breeding bird surveys, and in the northern breeding range, springtime singing-ground surveys.[8] Data suggest that the woodcock population has fallen rangewide by an average of 1.1% yearly over the last four decades.[6] Conservation

The American woodcock is not considered globally threatened by the IUCN. It is more tolerant of deforestation than other woodcocks and snipes; as long as some sheltered woodland remains for breeding, it can thrive even in regions that are mainly used for agriculture.[1][24] The estimated population is 5 million, so it is the most common sandpiper in North America.[17]

The American Woodcock Conservation Plan presents regional action plans linked to bird conservation regions, fundamental biological units recognized by the U.S. North American Bird Conservation Initiative. The Wildlife Management Institute oversees regional habitat initiatives intended to boost the American woodcock's population by protecting, renewing, and creating habitat throughout the species' range.[6]

Creating young-forest habitat for American woodcocks helps more than 50 other species of wildlife that need early successional habitat during part or all of their lifecycles. These include relatively common animals such as white-tailed deer, snowshoe hare, moose, bobcat, wild turkey, and ruffed grouse, and animals whose populations have also declined in recent decades, such as the golden-winged warbler, whip-poor-will, willow flycatcher, indigo bunting, and New England cottontail.[25]

Leslie Glasgow,[26] the assistant secretary of the Interior for Fish, Wildlife, Parks, and Marine Resources from 1969 to 1970, wrote a dissertation through Texas A&M University on the woodcock, with research based on his observations through the Louisiana State University (LSU) Agricultural Experiment Station. He was an LSU professor from 1948 to 1980 and an authority on wildlife in the wetlands.[27] References

BirdLife International (2020). "Scolopax minor". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2020: e.T22693072A182648054. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2020-3.RLTS.T22693072A182648054.en. Retrieved November 13, 2021. The American Woodcock Today | Woodcock population and young forest habitat management. Timberdoodle.org. Retrieved on 2013-04-03. Kaufman, Kenn (1996). Lives of North American Birds. Houghton Mifflin, pp. 225–226, ISBN 0618159886. Sheldon, William G. (1971). Book of the American Woodcock. University of Massachusetts. Cooper, T. R. & K. Parker (2009). American woodcock population status, 2009. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Laurel, Maryland. Kelley, James; Williamson, Scot & Cooper, Thomas, eds. (2008). American Woodcock Conservation Plan: A Summary of and Recommendations for Woodcock Conservation in North America. Smith, Christopher (2000). Field Guide to Upland Birds and Waterfowl. Wilderness Adventures Press, pp. 28–29, ISBN 1885106203. Keppie, D. M. & R. M. Whiting Jr. (1994). American Woodcock (Scolopax minor), The Birds of North America. "American Woodcock Identification, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology". www.allaboutbirds.org. Retrieved September 27, 2020. Jones, Michael P.; Pierce, Kenneth E.; Ward, Daniel (2007). "Avian vision: a review of form and function with special consideration to birds of prey". Journal of Exotic Pet Medicine. 16 (2): 69. doi:10.1053/j.jepm.2007.03.012. Linnaeus, Carl (1758). Systema Naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis (in Latin). Vol. 1 (10th ed.). Holmiae (Stockholm): Laurentii Salvii. p. 145. Jobling, James A (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. p. 351. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4. Peters, James Lee, ed. (1934). Check-List of Birds of the World. Vol. 2. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 278. Amazing Bird Records. Trails.com (2010-07-27). Retrieved on 2013-04-03. Sepik, G. F. and E. L. Derleth (1993). Habitat use, home range size, and patterns of moves of the American Woodcock in Maine. in Proc. Eighth Woodcock Symp. (Longcore, J. R. and G. F. Sepik, eds.) Biol. Rep. 16, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Washington, D.C. Ohio Ornithological Society (2004). Annotated Ohio state checklist Archived 2004-07-18 at the Wayback Machine. O'Brien, Michael; Crossley, Richard & Karlson, Kevin (2006). The Shorebird Guide. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, pp. 444–445, ISBN 0618432949. Mann, Clive F. (1991). "Sunda Frogmouth Batrachostomus cornutus carrying its young" (PDF). Forktail. 6: 77–78. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 28, 2008. Wasser, D. E.; Sherman, P. W. (2010). "Avian longevities and their interpretation under evolutionary theories of senescence". Journal of Zoology. 280 (2): 103. doi:10.1111/j.1469-7998.2009.00671.x. Bent, A. C. (1927). "Life histories of familiar North American birds: American Woodcock, Scalopax minor". United States National Museum Bulletin. Smithsonian Institution. 142 (1): 61–78. "American Woodcock". Audubon. National Audubon Society. Retrieved October 5, 2023. Heinrich, Bernd (March 1, 2016). "Note on the Woodcock Rocking Display". Northeastern Naturalist. 23 (1): N4–N7. Alcock, John (2013). Animal behavior: an evolutionary approach (10th ed.). Sunderland (Mass.): Sinauer. p. 522. ISBN 0878939660. Henninger, W. F. (1906). "A preliminary list of the birds of Seneca County, Ohio" (PDF). Wilson Bulletin. 18 (2): 47–60. the Woodcock Management Plan. Timberdoodle.org. Retrieved on 2013-04-03. [1]Paul Y. Burns (June 13, 2008). "Leslie L. Glasgow". lsuagcdenter.com. Retrieved October 21, 2014.

Further readingChoiniere, Joe (2006). Seasons of the Woodcock: The secret life of a woodland shorebird. Sanctuary 45(4): 3–5. Sepik, Greg F.; Owen, Roy & Coulter, Malcolm (1981). A Landowner's Guide to Woodcock Management in the Northeast, Misc. Report 253, Maine Agricultural Experiment Station, University of Maine.

External linksAmerican woodcock species account – Cornell Lab of Ornithology American Woodcock – Scolopax minor – USGS Patuxent Bird Identification Infocenter American Woodcock Bird Sound Rite of Spring – Illustrated account of the phenomenal courtship flight of the male American woodcock American Woodcock videos[permanent dead link] on the Internet Bird Collection Photo-High Res; Article – www.fws.gov–"Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge", photo gallery and analysis American Woodcock Conservation Plan A Summary of and Recommendations for Woodcock Conservation in North America Timberdoodle.org: the Woodcock Management Plan Sepik, Greg F.; Ray B. Owen Jr.; Malcolm W. Coulter (July 1981). "Landowner's Guide to Woodcock Management in the Northeast". Maine Agricultural Experiment Station Miscellaneous Report 253. vte

Sandpipers (family: Scolopacidae) Taxon identifiers Wikidata: Q694319 Wikispecies: Scolopax minor ABA: amewoo ADW: Scolopax_minor ARKive: scolopax-minor Avibase: F4829920F1710E56 BirdLife: 22693072 BOLD: 10164 CoL: 6XXHP BOW: amewoo eBird: amewoo EoL: 45509171 Euring: 5310 FEIS: scmi Fossilworks: 129789 GBIF: 2481695 GNAB: american-woodcock iNaturalist: 3936 IRMNG: 10836458 ITIS: 176580 IUCN: 22693072 NatureServe: 2.105226 NCBI: 56299 ODNR: american-woodcock WoRMS: 159027 Xeno-canto: Scolopax-minor

Categories:IUCN Red List least concern speciesScolopaxNative birds of the Eastern United StatesNative birds of Eastern CanadaBirds of MexicoBirds described in 1789Taxa named by Johann Friedrich Gmelin

The American woodcock (Scolopax minor), sometimes colloquially referred to as the timberdoodle,[2] is a small shorebird species found primarily in the eastern half of North America. Woodcocks spend most of their time on the ground in brushy, young-forest habitats, where the birds' brown, black, and gray plumage provides excellent camouflage.

The American woodcock is the only species of woodcock inhabiting North America.[3] Although classified with the sandpipers and shorebirds in the family Scolopacidae, the American woodcock lives mainly in upland settings. Its many folk names include timberdoodle, bogsucker, night partridge, brush snipe, hokumpoke, and becasse.[4]

The population of the American woodcock has fallen by an average of slightly more than 1% annually since the 1960s. Most authorities attribute this decline to a loss of habitat caused by forest maturation and urban development. Because of the male woodcock's unique, beautiful courtship flights, the bird is welcomed as a harbinger of spring in northern areas. It is also a popular game bird, with about 540,000 killed annually by some 133,000 hunters in the U.S.[5]

In 2008, wildlife biologists and conservationists released an American woodcock conservation plan presenting figures for the acreage of early successional habitat that must be created and maintained in the U.S. and Canada to stabilize the woodcock population at current levels, and to return it to 1970s densities.[6] Description

The American woodcock has a plump body, short legs, a large, rounded head, and a long, straight prehensile bill. Adults are 10 to 12 inches (25 to 30 cm) long and weigh 5 to 8 ounces (140 to 230 g).[7] Females are considerably larger than males.[8] The bill is 2.5 to 2.8 inches (6.4 to 7.1 cm) long.[4] Wingspans range from 16.5 to 18.9 inches (42 to 48 cm).[9] Illustration of American woodcock head and wing feathers Woodcock, with attenuate primaries, natural size, 1891

The plumage is a cryptic mix of different shades of browns, grays, and black. The chest and sides vary from yellowish-white to rich tans.[8] The nape of the head is black, with three or four crossbars of deep buff or rufous.[4] The feet and toes, which are small and weak, are brownish gray to reddish brown.[8] Woodcocks have large eyes located high in their heads, and their visual field is probably the largest of any bird, 360° in the horizontal plane and 180° in the vertical plane.[10]

The woodcock uses its long, prehensile bill to probe in the soil for food, mainly invertebrates and especially earthworms. A unique bone-and-muscle arrangement lets the bird open and close the tip of its upper bill, or mandible, while it is sunk in the ground. Both the underside of the upper mandible and the long tongue are rough-surfaced for grasping slippery prey.[4] Taxonomy

The genus Scolopax was introduced in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae.[11] The genus name is Latin for a snipe or woodcock.[12] The type species is the Eurasian woodcock (Scolopax rusticola).[13] Distribution and habitat

Woodcocks inhabit forested and mixed forest-agricultural-urban areas east of the 98th meridian. Woodcock have been sighted as far north as York Factory, Manitoba, and east to Labrador and Newfoundland. In winter, they migrate as far south as the Gulf Coast of the United States and Mexico.[8]

The primary breeding range extends from Atlantic Canada (Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and New Brunswick) west to southeastern Manitoba, and south to northern Virginia, western North Carolina, Kentucky, northern Tennessee, northern Illinois, Missouri, and eastern Kansas. A limited number breed as far south as Florida and Texas. The species may be expanding its distribution northward and westward.[8]

After migrating south in autumn, most woodcocks spend the winter in the Gulf Coast and southeastern Atlantic Coast states. Some may remain as far north as southern Maryland, eastern Virginia, and southern New Jersey. The core of the wintering range centers on Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia.[8] Based on the Christmas Bird Count results, winter concentrations are highest in the northern half of Alabama.

American woodcocks live in wet thickets, moist woods, and brushy swamps.[3] Ideal habitats feature early successional habitat and abandoned farmland mixed with forest. In late summer, some woodcocks roost on the ground at night in large openings among sparse, patchy vegetation.[8]Courtship/breeding habitats include forest openings, roadsides, pastures, and old fields from which males call and launch courtship flights in springtime. Nesting habitats include thickets, shrubland, and young to middle-aged forest interspersed with openings. Feeding habitats have moist soil and feature densely growing young trees such as aspen (Populus spp.), birch (Betula spp.), and mixed hardwoods less than 20 years of age, and shrubs, particularly alder (Alnus spp.). Roosting habitats are semiopen sites with short, sparse plant cover, such as blueberry barrens, pastures, and recently heavily logged forest stands.[8]

Migration

Woodcocks migrate at night. They fly at low altitudes, individually or in small, loose flocks. Flight speeds of migrating birds have been clocked at 16 to 28 mi/h (26 to 45 km/h). However, the slowest flight speed ever recorded for a bird, 5 mi/h (8 km/h), was recorded for this species.[14] Woodcocks are thought to orient visually using major physiographic features such as coastlines and broad river valleys.[8] Both the autumn and spring migrations are leisurely compared with the swift, direct migrations of many passerine birds.

In the north, woodcocks begin to shift southward before ice and snow seal off their ground-based food supply. Cold fronts may prompt heavy southerly flights in autumn. Most woodcocks start to migrate in October, with the major push from mid-October to early November.[15] Most individuals arrive on the wintering range by mid-December. The birds head north again in February. Most have returned to the northern breeding range by mid-March to mid-April.[8]

Migrating birds' arrival at and departure from the breeding range is highly irregular. In Ohio, for example, the earliest birds are seen in February, but the bulk of the population does not arrive until March and April. Birds start to leave for winter by September, but some remain until mid-November.[16] Behavior and ecology Food and feeding American woodcock catching a worm in a New York City park

Woodcocks eat mainly invertebrates, particularly earthworms (Oligochaeta). They do most of their feeding in places where the soil is moist. They forage by probing in soft soil in thickets, where they usually remain well-hidden. Other items in their diet include insect larvae, snails, centipedes, millipedes, spiders, snipe flies, beetles, and ants. A small amount of plant food is eaten, mainly seeds.[8] Woodcocks are crepuscular, being most active at dawn and dusk. Breeding

In spring, males occupy individual singing grounds, openings near brushy cover from which they call and perform display flights at dawn and dusk, and if the light levels are high enough, on moonlit nights. The male's ground call is a short, buzzy peent. After sounding a series of ground calls, the male takes off and flies from 50 to 100 yd (46 to 91 m) into the air. He descends, zigzagging and banking while singing a liquid, chirping song.[8] This high spiralling flight produces a melodious twittering sound as air rushes through the male's outer primary wing feathers.[17]

Males may continue with their courtship flights for as many as four months running, sometimes continuing even after females have already hatched their broods and left the nest. Females, known as hens, are attracted to the males' displays. A hen will fly in and land on the ground near a singing male. The male courts the female by walking stiff-legged and with his wings stretched vertically, and by bobbing and bowing. A male may mate with several females. The male woodcock plays no role in selecting a nest site, incubating eggs, or rearing young. In the primary northern breeding range, the woodcock may be the earliest ground-nesting species to breed.[8] Woodcock chick in nest Downy young are already well-camouflaged.

The hen makes a shallow, rudimentary nest on the ground in the leaf and twig litter, in brushy or young-forest cover usually within 150 yd (140 m) of a singing ground.[4] Most hens lay four eggs, sometimes one to three. Incubation takes 20 to 22 days.[3] The down-covered young are precocial and leave the nest within a few hours of hatching.[8] The female broods her young and feeds them. When threatened, the fledglings usually take cover and remain motionless, attempting to escape detection by relying on their cryptic coloration. Some observers suggest that frightened young may cling to the body of their mother, that will then take wing and carry the young to safety.[18] Woodcock fledglings begin probing for worms on their own a few days after hatching. They develop quickly and can make short flights after two weeks, can fly fairly well at three weeks, and are independent after about five weeks.[3]

The maximum lifespan of adult American woodcock in the wild is 8 years.[19] Rocking behavior American woodcocks sometimes rock back and forth as they walk, perhaps to aid their search for worms.

American woodcocks occasionally perform a rocking behavior where they will walk slowly while rhythmically rocking their bodies back and forth. This behavior occurs during foraging, leading ornithologists such as Arthur Cleveland Bent and B. H. Christy to theorize that this is a method of coaxing invertebrates such as earthworms closer to the surface.[20] The foraging theory is the most common explanation of the behavior, and it is often cited in field guides.[21]

An alternative theory for the rocking behavior has been proposed by some biologists, such as Bernd Heinrich. It is thought that this behavior is a display to indicate to potential predators that the bird is aware of them.[22] Heinrich notes that some field observations have shown that woodcocks will occasionally flash their tail feathers while rocking, drawing attention to themselves. This theory is supported by research done by John Alcock who believes this is a type of aposematism.[23] Population status

How many woodcock were present in eastern North America before European settlement is unknown. Colonial agriculture, with its patchwork of family farms and open-range livestock grazing, probably supported healthy woodcock populations.[4]

The woodcock population remained high during the early and mid-20th century, after many family farms were abandoned as people moved to urban areas, and crop fields and pastures grew up in brush. In recent decades, those formerly brushy acres have become middle-aged and older forest, where woodcock rarely venture, or they have been covered with buildings and other human developments. Because its population has been declining, the American woodcock is considered a "species of greatest conservation need" in many states, triggering research and habitat-creation efforts in an attempt to boost woodcock populations.

Population trends have been measured through springtime breeding bird surveys, and in the northern breeding range, springtime singing-ground surveys.[8] Data suggest that the woodcock population has fallen rangewide by an average of 1.1% yearly over the last four decades.[6] Conservation

The American woodcock is not considered globally threatened by the IUCN. It is more tolerant of deforestation than other woodcocks and snipes; as long as some sheltered woodland remains for breeding, it can thrive even in regions that are mainly used for agriculture.[1][24] The estimated population is 5 million, so it is the most common sandpiper in North America.[17]

The American Woodcock Conservation Plan presents regional action plans linked to bird conservation regions, fundamental biological units recognized by the U.S. North American Bird Conservation Initiative. The Wildlife Management Institute oversees regional habitat initiatives intended to boost the American woodcock's population by protecting, renewing, and creating habitat throughout the species' range.[6]

Creating young-forest habitat for American woodcocks helps more than 50 other species of wildlife that need early successional habitat during part or all of their lifecycles. These include relatively common animals such as white-tailed deer, snowshoe hare, moose, bobcat, wild turkey, and ruffed grouse, and animals whose populations have also declined in recent decades, such as the golden-winged warbler, whip-poor-will, willow flycatcher, indigo bunting, and New England cottontail.[25]

Leslie Glasgow,[26] the assistant secretary of the Interior for Fish, Wildlife, Parks, and Marine Resources from 1969 to 1970, wrote a dissertation through Texas A&M University on the woodcock, with research based on his observations through the Louisiana State University (LSU) Agricultural Experiment Station. He was an LSU professor from 1948 to 1980 and an authority on wildlife in the wetlands.[27] References

BirdLife International (2020). "Scolopax minor". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2020: e.T22693072A182648054. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2020-3.RLTS.T22693072A182648054.en. Retrieved November 13, 2021. The American Woodcock Today | Woodcock population and young forest habitat management. Timberdoodle.org. Retrieved on 2013-04-03. Kaufman, Kenn (1996). Lives of North American Birds. Houghton Mifflin, pp. 225–226, ISBN 0618159886. Sheldon, William G. (1971). Book of the American Woodcock. University of Massachusetts. Cooper, T. R. & K. Parker (2009). American woodcock population status, 2009. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Laurel, Maryland. Kelley, James; Williamson, Scot & Cooper, Thomas, eds. (2008). American Woodcock Conservation Plan: A Summary of and Recommendations for Woodcock Conservation in North America. Smith, Christopher (2000). Field Guide to Upland Birds and Waterfowl. Wilderness Adventures Press, pp. 28–29, ISBN 1885106203. Keppie, D. M. & R. M. Whiting Jr. (1994). American Woodcock (Scolopax minor), The Birds of North America. "American Woodcock Identification, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology". www.allaboutbirds.org. Retrieved September 27, 2020. Jones, Michael P.; Pierce, Kenneth E.; Ward, Daniel (2007). "Avian vision: a review of form and function with special consideration to birds of prey". Journal of Exotic Pet Medicine. 16 (2): 69. doi:10.1053/j.jepm.2007.03.012. Linnaeus, Carl (1758). Systema Naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis (in Latin). Vol. 1 (10th ed.). Holmiae (Stockholm): Laurentii Salvii. p. 145. Jobling, James A (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. p. 351. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4. Peters, James Lee, ed. (1934). Check-List of Birds of the World. Vol. 2. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 278. Amazing Bird Records. Trails.com (2010-07-27). Retrieved on 2013-04-03. Sepik, G. F. and E. L. Derleth (1993). Habitat use, home range size, and patterns of moves of the American Woodcock in Maine. in Proc. Eighth Woodcock Symp. (Longcore, J. R. and G. F. Sepik, eds.) Biol. Rep. 16, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Washington, D.C. Ohio Ornithological Society (2004). Annotated Ohio state checklist Archived 2004-07-18 at the Wayback Machine. O'Brien, Michael; Crossley, Richard & Karlson, Kevin (2006). The Shorebird Guide. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, pp. 444–445, ISBN 0618432949. Mann, Clive F. (1991). "Sunda Frogmouth Batrachostomus cornutus carrying its young" (PDF). Forktail. 6: 77–78. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 28, 2008. Wasser, D. E.; Sherman, P. W. (2010). "Avian longevities and their interpretation under evolutionary theories of senescence". Journal of Zoology. 280 (2): 103. doi:10.1111/j.1469-7998.2009.00671.x. Bent, A. C. (1927). "Life histories of familiar North American birds: American Woodcock, Scalopax minor". United States National Museum Bulletin. Smithsonian Institution. 142 (1): 61–78. "American Woodcock". Audubon. National Audubon Society. Retrieved October 5, 2023. Heinrich, Bernd (March 1, 2016). "Note on the Woodcock Rocking Display". Northeastern Naturalist. 23 (1): N4–N7. Alcock, John (2013). Animal behavior: an evolutionary approach (10th ed.). Sunderland (Mass.): Sinauer. p. 522. ISBN 0878939660. Henninger, W. F. (1906). "A preliminary list of the birds of Seneca County, Ohio" (PDF). Wilson Bulletin. 18 (2): 47–60. the Woodcock Management Plan. Timberdoodle.org. Retrieved on 2013-04-03. [1]Paul Y. Burns (June 13, 2008). "Leslie L. Glasgow". lsuagcdenter.com. Retrieved October 21, 2014.

Further readingChoiniere, Joe (2006). Seasons of the Woodcock: The secret life of a woodland shorebird. Sanctuary 45(4): 3–5. Sepik, Greg F.; Owen, Roy & Coulter, Malcolm (1981). A Landowner's Guide to Woodcock Management in the Northeast, Misc. Report 253, Maine Agricultural Experiment Station, University of Maine.

External linksAmerican woodcock species account – Cornell Lab of Ornithology American Woodcock – Scolopax minor – USGS Patuxent Bird Identification Infocenter American Woodcock Bird Sound Rite of Spring – Illustrated account of the phenomenal courtship flight of the male American woodcock American Woodcock videos[permanent dead link] on the Internet Bird Collection Photo-High Res; Article – www.fws.gov–"Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge", photo gallery and analysis American Woodcock Conservation Plan A Summary of and Recommendations for Woodcock Conservation in North America Timberdoodle.org: the Woodcock Management Plan Sepik, Greg F.; Ray B. Owen Jr.; Malcolm W. Coulter (July 1981). "Landowner's Guide to Woodcock Management in the Northeast". Maine Agricultural Experiment Station Miscellaneous Report 253. vte

Sandpipers (family: Scolopacidae) Taxon identifiers Wikidata: Q694319 Wikispecies: Scolopax minor ABA: amewoo ADW: Scolopax_minor ARKive: scolopax-minor Avibase: F4829920F1710E56 BirdLife: 22693072 BOLD: 10164 CoL: 6XXHP BOW: amewoo eBird: amewoo EoL: 45509171 Euring: 5310 FEIS: scmi Fossilworks: 129789 GBIF: 2481695 GNAB: american-woodcock iNaturalist: 3936 IRMNG: 10836458 ITIS: 176580 IUCN: 22693072 NatureServe: 2.105226 NCBI: 56299 ODNR: american-woodcock WoRMS: 159027 Xeno-canto: Scolopax-minor

Categories:IUCN Red List least concern speciesScolopaxNative birds of the Eastern United StatesNative birds of Eastern CanadaBirds of MexicoBirds described in 1789Taxa named by Johann Friedrich Gmelin

The American woodcock (Scolopax minor), sometimes colloquially referred to as the timberdoodle,[2] is a small shorebird species found primarily in the eastern half of North America. Woodcocks spend most of their time on the ground in brushy, young-forest habitats, where the birds' brown, black, and gray plumage provides excellent camouflage.

The American woodcock is the only species of woodcock inhabiting North America.[3] Although classified with the sandpipers and shorebirds in the family Scolopacidae, the American woodcock lives mainly in upland settings. Its many folk names include timberdoodle, bogsucker, night partridge, brush snipe, hokumpoke, and becasse.[4]

The population of the American woodcock has fallen by an average of slightly more than 1% annually since the 1960s. Most authorities attribute this decline to a loss of habitat caused by forest maturation and urban development. Because of the male woodcock's unique, beautiful courtship flights, the bird is welcomed as a harbinger of spring in northern areas. It is also a popular game bird, with about 540,000 killed annually by some 133,000 hunters in the U.S.[5]

In 2008, wildlife biologists and conservationists released an American woodcock conservation plan presenting figures for the acreage of early successional habitat that must be created and maintained in the U.S. and Canada to stabilize the woodcock population at current levels, and to return it to 1970s densities.[6] Description

The American woodcock has a plump body, short legs, a large, rounded head, and a long, straight prehensile bill. Adults are 10 to 12 inches (25 to 30 cm) long and weigh 5 to 8 ounces (140 to 230 g).[7] Females are considerably larger than males.[8] The bill is 2.5 to 2.8 inches (6.4 to 7.1 cm) long.[4] Wingspans range from 16.5 to 18.9 inches (42 to 48 cm).[9] Illustration of American woodcock head and wing feathers Woodcock, with attenuate primaries, natural size, 1891

The plumage is a cryptic mix of different shades of browns, grays, and black. The chest and sides vary from yellowish-white to rich tans.[8] The nape of the head is black, with three or four crossbars of deep buff or rufous.[4] The feet and toes, which are small and weak, are brownish gray to reddish brown.[8] Woodcocks have large eyes located high in their heads, and their visual field is probably the largest of any bird, 360° in the horizontal plane and 180° in the vertical plane.[10]

The woodcock uses its long, prehensile bill to probe in the soil for food, mainly invertebrates and especially earthworms. A unique bone-and-muscle arrangement lets the bird open and close the tip of its upper bill, or mandible, while it is sunk in the ground. Both the underside of the upper mandible and the long tongue are rough-surfaced for grasping slippery prey.[4] Taxonomy

The genus Scolopax was introduced in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae.[11] The genus name is Latin for a snipe or woodcock.[12] The type species is the Eurasian woodcock (Scolopax rusticola).[13] Distribution and habitat

Woodcocks inhabit forested and mixed forest-agricultural-urban areas east of the 98th meridian. Woodcock have been sighted as far north as York Factory, Manitoba, and east to Labrador and Newfoundland. In winter, they migrate as far south as the Gulf Coast of the United States and Mexico.[8]

The primary breeding range extends from Atlantic Canada (Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and New Brunswick) west to southeastern Manitoba, and south to northern Virginia, western North Carolina, Kentucky, northern Tennessee, northern Illinois, Missouri, and eastern Kansas. A limited number breed as far south as Florida and Texas. The species may be expanding its distribution northward and westward.[8]

After migrating south in autumn, most woodcocks spend the winter in the Gulf Coast and southeastern Atlantic Coast states. Some may remain as far north as southern Maryland, eastern Virginia, and southern New Jersey. The core of the wintering range centers on Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia.[8] Based on the Christmas Bird Count results, winter concentrations are highest in the northern half of Alabama.

American woodcocks live in wet thickets, moist woods, and brushy swamps.[3] Ideal habitats feature early successional habitat and abandoned farmland mixed with forest. In late summer, some woodcocks roost on the ground at night in large openings among sparse, patchy vegetation.[8]Courtship/breeding habitats include forest openings, roadsides, pastures, and old fields from which males call and launch courtship flights in springtime. Nesting habitats include thickets, shrubland, and young to middle-aged forest interspersed with openings. Feeding habitats have moist soil and feature densely growing young trees such as aspen (Populus spp.), birch (Betula spp.), and mixed hardwoods less than 20 years of age, and shrubs, particularly alder (Alnus spp.). Roosting habitats are semiopen sites with short, sparse plant cover, such as blueberry barrens, pastures, and recently heavily logged forest stands.[8]

Migration

Woodcocks migrate at night. They fly at low altitudes, individually or in small, loose flocks. Flight speeds of migrating birds have been clocked at 16 to 28 mi/h (26 to 45 km/h). However, the slowest flight speed ever recorded for a bird, 5 mi/h (8 km/h), was recorded for this species.[14] Woodcocks are thought to orient visually using major physiographic features such as coastlines and broad river valleys.[8] Both the autumn and spring migrations are leisurely compared with the swift, direct migrations of many passerine birds.

In the north, woodcocks begin to shift southward before ice and snow seal off their ground-based food supply. Cold fronts may prompt heavy southerly flights in autumn. Most woodcocks start to migrate in October, with the major push from mid-October to early November.[15] Most individuals arrive on the wintering range by mid-December. The birds head north again in February. Most have returned to the northern breeding range by mid-March to mid-April.[8]

Migrating birds' arrival at and departure from the breeding range is highly irregular. In Ohio, for example, the earliest birds are seen in February, but the bulk of the population does not arrive until March and April. Birds start to leave for winter by September, but some remain until mid-November.[16] Behavior and ecology Food and feeding American woodcock catching a worm in a New York City park

Woodcocks eat mainly invertebrates, particularly earthworms (Oligochaeta). They do most of their feeding in places where the soil is moist. They forage by probing in soft soil in thickets, where they usually remain well-hidden. Other items in their diet include insect larvae, snails, centipedes, millipedes, spiders, snipe flies, beetles, and ants. A small amount of plant food is eaten, mainly seeds.[8] Woodcocks are crepuscular, being most active at dawn and dusk. Breeding

In spring, males occupy individual singing grounds, openings near brushy cover from which they call and perform display flights at dawn and dusk, and if the light levels are high enough, on moonlit nights. The male's ground call is a short, buzzy peent. After sounding a series of ground calls, the male takes off and flies from 50 to 100 yd (46 to 91 m) into the air. He descends, zigzagging and banking while singing a liquid, chirping song.[8] This high spiralling flight produces a melodious twittering sound as air rushes through the male's outer primary wing feathers.[17]

Males may continue with their courtship flights for as many as four months running, sometimes continuing even after females have already hatched their broods and left the nest. Females, known as hens, are attracted to the males' displays. A hen will fly in and land on the ground near a singing male. The male courts the female by walking stiff-legged and with his wings stretched vertically, and by bobbing and bowing. A male may mate with several females. The male woodcock plays no role in selecting a nest site, incubating eggs, or rearing young. In the primary northern breeding range, the woodcock may be the earliest ground-nesting species to breed.[8] Woodcock chick in nest Downy young are already well-camouflaged.

The hen makes a shallow, rudimentary nest on the ground in the leaf and twig litter, in brushy or young-forest cover usually within 150 yd (140 m) of a singing ground.[4] Most hens lay four eggs, sometimes one to three. Incubation takes 20 to 22 days.[3] The down-covered young are precocial and leave the nest within a few hours of hatching.[8] The female broods her young and feeds them. When threatened, the fledglings usually take cover and remain motionless, attempting to escape detection by relying on their cryptic coloration. Some observers suggest that frightened young may cling to the body of their mother, that will then take wing and carry the young to safety.[18] Woodcock fledglings begin probing for worms on their own a few days after hatching. They develop quickly and can make short flights after two weeks, can fly fairly well at three weeks, and are independent after about five weeks.[3]

The maximum lifespan of adult American woodcock in the wild is 8 years.[19] Rocking behavior American woodcocks sometimes rock back and forth as they walk, perhaps to aid their search for worms.

American woodcocks occasionally perform a rocking behavior where they will walk slowly while rhythmically rocking their bodies back and forth. This behavior occurs during foraging, leading ornithologists such as Arthur Cleveland Bent and B. H. Christy to theorize that this is a method of coaxing invertebrates such as earthworms closer to the surface.[20] The foraging theory is the most common explanation of the behavior, and it is often cited in field guides.[21]

An alternative theory for the rocking behavior has been proposed by some biologists, such as Bernd Heinrich. It is thought that this behavior is a display to indicate to potential predators that the bird is aware of them.[22] Heinrich notes that some field observations have shown that woodcocks will occasionally flash their tail feathers while rocking, drawing attention to themselves. This theory is supported by research done by John Alcock who believes this is a type of aposematism.[23] Population status

How many woodcock were present in eastern North America before European settlement is unknown. Colonial agriculture, with its patchwork of family farms and open-range livestock grazing, probably supported healthy woodcock populations.[4]

The woodcock population remained high during the early and mid-20th century, after many family farms were abandoned as people moved to urban areas, and crop fields and pastures grew up in brush. In recent decades, those formerly brushy acres have become middle-aged and older forest, where woodcock rarely venture, or they have been covered with buildings and other human developments. Because its population has been declining, the American woodcock is considered a "species of greatest conservation need" in many states, triggering research and habitat-creation efforts in an attempt to boost woodcock populations.

Population trends have been measured through springtime breeding bird surveys, and in the northern breeding range, springtime singing-ground surveys.[8] Data suggest that the woodcock population has fallen rangewide by an average of 1.1% yearly over the last four decades.[6] Conservation

The American woodcock is not considered globally threatened by the IUCN. It is more tolerant of deforestation than other woodcocks and snipes; as long as some sheltered woodland remains for breeding, it can thrive even in regions that are mainly used for agriculture.[1][24] The estimated population is 5 million, so it is the most common sandpiper in North America.[17]

The American Woodcock Conservation Plan presents regional action plans linked to bird conservation regions, fundamental biological units recognized by the U.S. North American Bird Conservation Initiative. The Wildlife Management Institute oversees regional habitat initiatives intended to boost the American woodcock's population by protecting, renewing, and creating habitat throughout the species' range.[6]

Creating young-forest habitat for American woodcocks helps more than 50 other species of wildlife that need early successional habitat during part or all of their lifecycles. These include relatively common animals such as white-tailed deer, snowshoe hare, moose, bobcat, wild turkey, and ruffed grouse, and animals whose populations have also declined in recent decades, such as the golden-winged warbler, whip-poor-will, willow flycatcher, indigo bunting, and New England cottontail.[25]

Leslie Glasgow,[26] the assistant secretary of the Interior for Fish, Wildlife, Parks, and Marine Resources from 1969 to 1970, wrote a dissertation through Texas A&M University on the woodcock, with research based on his observations through the Louisiana State University (LSU) Agricultural Experiment Station. He was an LSU professor from 1948 to 1980 and an authority on wildlife in the wetlands.[27] References

BirdLife International (2020). "Scolopax minor". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2020: e.T22693072A182648054. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2020-3.RLTS.T22693072A182648054.en. Retrieved November 13, 2021. The American Woodcock Today | Woodcock population and young forest habitat management. Timberdoodle.org. Retrieved on 2013-04-03. Kaufman, Kenn (1996). Lives of North American Birds. Houghton Mifflin, pp. 225–226, ISBN 0618159886. Sheldon, William G. (1971). Book of the American Woodcock. University of Massachusetts. Cooper, T. R. & K. Parker (2009). American woodcock population status, 2009. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Laurel, Maryland. Kelley, James; Williamson, Scot & Cooper, Thomas, eds. (2008). American Woodcock Conservation Plan: A Summary of and Recommendations for Woodcock Conservation in North America. Smith, Christopher (2000). Field Guide to Upland Birds and Waterfowl. Wilderness Adventures Press, pp. 28–29, ISBN 1885106203. Keppie, D. M. & R. M. Whiting Jr. (1994). American Woodcock (Scolopax minor), The Birds of North America. "American Woodcock Identification, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology". www.allaboutbirds.org. Retrieved September 27, 2020. Jones, Michael P.; Pierce, Kenneth E.; Ward, Daniel (2007). "Avian vision: a review of form and function with special consideration to birds of prey". Journal of Exotic Pet Medicine. 16 (2): 69. doi:10.1053/j.jepm.2007.03.012. Linnaeus, Carl (1758). Systema Naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis (in Latin). Vol. 1 (10th ed.). Holmiae (Stockholm): Laurentii Salvii. p. 145. Jobling, James A (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. p. 351. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4. Peters, James Lee, ed. (1934). Check-List of Birds of the World. Vol. 2. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 278. Amazing Bird Records. Trails.com (2010-07-27). Retrieved on 2013-04-03. Sepik, G. F. and E. L. Derleth (1993). Habitat use, home range size, and patterns of moves of the American Woodcock in Maine. in Proc. Eighth Woodcock Symp. (Longcore, J. R. and G. F. Sepik, eds.) Biol. Rep. 16, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Washington, D.C. Ohio Ornithological Society (2004). Annotated Ohio state checklist Archived 2004-07-18 at the Wayback Machine. O'Brien, Michael; Crossley, Richard & Karlson, Kevin (2006). The Shorebird Guide. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, pp. 444–445, ISBN 0618432949. Mann, Clive F. (1991). "Sunda Frogmouth Batrachostomus cornutus carrying its young" (PDF). Forktail. 6: 77–78. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 28, 2008. Wasser, D. E.; Sherman, P. W. (2010). "Avian longevities and their interpretation under evolutionary theories of senescence". Journal of Zoology. 280 (2): 103. doi:10.1111/j.1469-7998.2009.00671.x. Bent, A. C. (1927). "Life histories of familiar North American birds: American Woodcock, Scalopax minor". United States National Museum Bulletin. Smithsonian Institution. 142 (1): 61–78. "American Woodcock". Audubon. National Audubon Society. Retrieved October 5, 2023. Heinrich, Bernd (March 1, 2016). "Note on the Woodcock Rocking Display". Northeastern Naturalist. 23 (1): N4–N7. Alcock, John (2013). Animal behavior: an evolutionary approach (10th ed.). Sunderland (Mass.): Sinauer. p. 522. ISBN 0878939660. Henninger, W. F. (1906). "A preliminary list of the birds of Seneca County, Ohio" (PDF). Wilson Bulletin. 18 (2): 47–60. the Woodcock Management Plan. Timberdoodle.org. Retrieved on 2013-04-03. [1]Paul Y. Burns (June 13, 2008). "Leslie L. Glasgow". lsuagcdenter.com. Retrieved October 21, 2014.

Further readingChoiniere, Joe (2006). Seasons of the Woodcock: The secret life of a woodland shorebird. Sanctuary 45(4): 3–5. Sepik, Greg F.; Owen, Roy & Coulter, Malcolm (1981). A Landowner's Guide to Woodcock Management in the Northeast, Misc. Report 253, Maine Agricultural Experiment Station, University of Maine.

External linksAmerican woodcock species account – Cornell Lab of Ornithology American Woodcock – Scolopax minor – USGS Patuxent Bird Identification Infocenter American Woodcock Bird Sound Rite of Spring – Illustrated account of the phenomenal courtship flight of the male American woodcock American Woodcock videos[permanent dead link] on the Internet Bird Collection Photo-High Res; Article – www.fws.gov–"Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge", photo gallery and analysis American Woodcock Conservation Plan A Summary of and Recommendations for Woodcock Conservation in North America Timberdoodle.org: the Woodcock Management Plan Sepik, Greg F.; Ray B. Owen Jr.; Malcolm W. Coulter (July 1981). "Landowner's Guide to Woodcock Management in the Northeast". Maine Agricultural Experiment Station Miscellaneous Report 253. vte

Sandpipers (family: Scolopacidae) Taxon identifiers Wikidata: Q694319 Wikispecies: Scolopax minor ABA: amewoo ADW: Scolopax_minor ARKive: scolopax-minor Avibase: F4829920F1710E56 BirdLife: 22693072 BOLD: 10164 CoL: 6XXHP BOW: amewoo eBird: amewoo EoL: 45509171 Euring: 5310 FEIS: scmi Fossilworks: 129789 GBIF: 2481695 GNAB: american-woodcock iNaturalist: 3936 IRMNG: 10836458 ITIS: 176580 IUCN: 22693072 NatureServe: 2.105226 NCBI: 56299 ODNR: american-woodcock WoRMS: 159027 Xeno-canto: Scolopax-minor

Categories:IUCN Red List least concern speciesScolopaxNative birds of the Eastern United StatesNative birds of Eastern CanadaBirds of MexicoBirds described in 1789Taxa named by Johann Friedrich Gmelin

[maleficentmrsofallevil]

Hodge podge

Feeling better, but not paint a room better, so still working through stuff that's been hanging around the house.

I am finally finally going through the fabric hoard I inherited, and man, have I found some gems, including a gallon plastic bag full of silk (!) remnants, a vintage big suitcase full of yarn (acrylic, cotton, wool, and even some angora), and a ton of notions I didn't realize I owned. Cool beans.

Here's a close-up of the disintegrating pleather Switch-a-Witch top:

The skirt is just as bad.

Around *mumble mumble* years ago, I scored a human hair bob wig for $5 at a thrift store. I was a little surprised to see it - I figured those are rare (and pricey), and normally you would gift something like that to someone else. I think it's for a kid, cuz it was dirty. There was pink stuff that looked like gum or chewy candy in it, and the hair was coarse and grungy.

After a brief internet search ("how to wash a human hair wig"), I gently combed out the worst of the tangles, ignored the recommendation to buy specialty wig shampoo, squirted some Pantene Pro-V 2-in-1 shampoo and conditioner into a bowl of lukewarm water, put the wig in, and gently squeezed the soapy water through the hair. The water turned a shade of brown that made me queasy.

I rinsed, gently squeezed out excess water, wrapped in a towel to get the wig to damp instead of dripping wet, and then used a silicone-loaded conditioner all over it. I rubbed the conditioner into the hair with my fingers for a few minutes while watching a movie, and then back into the bowl it went for another rinse, squeeze, and towel-dry.

The next thing the instructions said to do was let the wig dry on a wig stand. I don't have a wig stand. I do have a Xin Meng Doll Magical Angel Iris, so I stuck a microfiber cloth over her head and put the wig on top to finish drying. She didn't complain, so I figure it was a decent hack.

Rainbow High combs have teeth too close together (they kept pulling out hair), so I used a Fail Fix brush to smooth out the hair. I like it:

But also, I now know why it was donated instead of gifted. The wefts are super thin. If you don't have the hair styled just so, you can see straight through the wefts to the cap underneath. Imagine trying to convince a kid to keep their wig styled just so. Yeah. I'd have donated it too.

I think I'm going to Jayne Mansfield it and use some basting stitches to tack it to the other wig underneath. There's a LOT of space between wefts, and the cap underneath is a mesh, so I might try tying on some plastic hair to add more color, too.

I looked into doll knitting, and I found a suggestion I want to try: shrink the weight of the yarn and knitting needle gauge from human to the scale of doll you want. So if a human gauge sweater is (I don't know if this is right) 16 stitches over 10 cm, to make a 1/3 scale version, smaller needles and finer yarn would result in 48 stitches per 10 cm for a 1/3 scale doll (16 x 3), 64 stitches per 10 cm for a 1/4 scale doll (16 x 4), etc.

Turns out you can get all sorts of free people knitting patterns with lots of colors and designs from places that sell yarn. They want to sell yarn, and if you want to convince someone they need to buy something, well...

Kitty. (Free pullover sweater pattern from Lion Brand yarn company) You can oh-so-conveniently choose your size and order all the yarn you need for a person. That's some clever marketing, Lion Brand.

[starstickersonmyheart]

This is for the ask game thing :))

1

3

31

48

HELLOOOO(: thanks for the ask < sooo

1) I think my easel, my window or my bed (: but if it's a little thing I'm not sure, I love everything in my room !!

3) my hair is many shades of brown :3 (brown :)

31) I'm not sure, I think weather I will be happy that's all, if it's too specific I think it takes away it's spontaneity, what is the greatest tragedy I will engure, will I be a mother (anything really I suppose)

48) YESS MANYY <3 a rabbit , he is pale brown and I love him!!, a dragon, he is gween and I love him too !! And a bird pillow :p

THANKYOU SM !! Ily and I would like to ask youuu:

3,6, 8, 13,20, ahhh there's too many/: thankyou soo mucchh !!!!

[skelpiescool]

@th3-r4t-48 its red but uses brown for shading

[highfunctioningflailgirl]

Damage Control - 1x15 The Benders

The hike back to town is long, and dawn is already breaking when they finally reach the Impala parked near the police station.

Sam notices that Dean doesn’t even debate riding shotgun this time. While they’ve both been knocked around pretty badly in the last 48 hours, Sam’s had some time to recover, and Dean’s clearly taken the brunt of the damage. His gait had been a little unsteady walking back, and dried blood is covering the entire right side of his face. He’s not using his left arm, now cradled protectively in his lap, and there’s a ragged hole in his shirt that flags an injury underneath.

“What is that?” Sam asks, reaching over to check. “Stab wound?”

Dean bats the intruding hand away. “Will you focus on driving?! It’s just a burn. Hot poker.”

Sam flinches in sympathy. “Ouch. Deep? Think you need a hospital?”

“No. No hospital. I’m still a wanted man, remember?” He peels the flap of his shirt back and squints underneath, grimacing. “No. Nurse Winchester will have to do.”

Sam frowns, not exactly thrilled at the prospect of treating a burn wound with nothing but tweezers and whiskey at his disposal. “What about your shoulder? It’s not dislocated is it?”

“No.” Dean tentatively rolls the injured limb and stops with a grunt. “Just bruised, I guess. Fucker slammed me into a door post.”

“Concussion?” Walking beside Dean, Sam had seen him gingerly touch the back of his head.

“Frying pan. No worries. I’ve got a thick skull. You?”

“Got over it.”

This is how they do it: brave banter after trauma, to cover up the hurt. It’s a tried-and-true method. A manly shorthand that keeps them functioning until they’re somewhere they don’t have to - in this case, another faceless motel Sam checks them into while Dean - looking too garish - waits in the car.

Once inside their room, painted in depressing shades of brown but at least clean and spacy, Dean disappears into the bathroom. Water splashes, Sam hears some muffled cursing, and when Dean reemerges, his face is clean and he’s holding a wad of toilet paper to the cut on his forehead. He’s shed his worker shirt, but he’s still wearing his t-shirt.

“Couldn’t get it off. Damn thing’s stuck to the wound.”

“I’ll help you. Sit down.” Sam points to one of the beds where he’s already laid out what they’ll need: tweezers, antiseptic, bandages. On the nightstand, next to a bowl with warm water, a whiskey bottle is waiting with its cap unscrewed.

“Medicate,” Sam says, tossing his seated brother a pill bottle.

Face brooding, Dean swallows a couple of Vicodin with the aid of Jack Daniels. Normally, Sam would lecture his brother on mixing alcohol with opiates, but they both know that, although the wound isn’t that big, this is going to hurt like hell and, without the benefit of a local anesthetic, booze and pills is all they have. While Dean works on his blood alcohol level, Sam searches the small kitchen counter and gets lucky: He finds a pair of scissors that he uses to cut Dean’s t-shirt off him, leaving only a small patch behind where the fabric has adhered to the wound. He soaks it with warm water, and Dean curses.

“Sonovabitch!”

“Sorry.”

Dean grunts and takes another swig from the bottle. They both know there’s much more swearing ahead.

The whiskey is a good quarter empty by the time Sam has managed to peel the cotton patch off Dean’s wound. The burn looks ugly - a mix of oozing blisters and charred, peeling flesh. It’s a partial thickness burn at least and will leave a nasty scar. There are still a few shreds of fabric embedded in the whole mess and, slightly nauseous, Sam reaches for the tweezers.

“Hold on,” he says warningly. “This’ll hurt like hell.”

He’s not wrong. In the next few minutes, Dean turns into a sweating, cussing mess, doing his best to hold still while Sam meticulously debrides his wound. At some point, they use Dean’s belt for him to bite on. And if Sam’s hands shake a little by the time they’re done, Dean is too focused on control-breathing and blinking through tears to notice.

“Okay. Okay, okay.” Sam shucks the tweezers aside and straightens, exhaling deeply. He pats Dean’s leg. “That’s it. You’re good.”

“Sonofa–...” Panting, Dean looks down at his shoulder, lips forming a disgusted rectangle, teeth bared. “That mother–” Shakily, he wipes at his brow with his good arm, smearing blood over his face. The cut on his brow is oozing again, and all the flop sweat isn’t helping.

“Gimme that.” Sam takes the whiskey from his brother and takes a swig of his own. Then he points from the bottle to Dean’s wound. “You ready?”

Dean eyes him warily, then closes his eyes for a moment and takes a fortifying breath, nodding. “Go ahead.”

Without delay, Sam tips the bottle over and douses Dean’s wound.

“Hunghhh…! The veins on Dean’s neck stand out as he bites back the pain. Sam winces in sympathy.

But at least the worst is over now. Sam bandages the wound with non-adherent gauze he finds buried deep in their medical field kit (he’s going to restock and expands its contents, Sam promises himself), then moves on to close the cut on Dean’s forehead with butterfly stitches. The Vicodin and the whiskey have mellowed Dean enough to just sit through it all in exhausted silence, propped up against the headboard, grimacing sluggishly now and then. He doesn’t even protest when Sam wrangles his arm into a sling. It’ll do both the burn and his bum shoulder good, although Sam has little hope that Dean will put up with it for more than a day.

“You good?” Sam asks, stepping back to watch his handiwork.

“Freakin’ fantastic.” Dean toasts to him with the near-empty bottle of Jack.

“Get some sleep, then.”

Sam swipes the bandage wrappers and used gauze up with his hands and goes to discard them in the trash. He’s tired and sore. It’s been a shocking two days that have taught them that, in some cases, humans were worse than monsters. But they’ve come out the other side alive and largely intact. Dean would heal up, albeit with an unwanted souvenir etched into his skin. He’d come looking for Sam and not given up until he’d found him. Had risked his skin - literally - to get him out. It’s a comforting feeling. One that trumps all the ugliness of this latest hunt. That it ended with Sam having to patch up his big brother wasn’t exactly fun, but it’s leaving Sam feeling somehow content.

They’ve got each other’s backs. And for the first time since Dean picked him up at Stanford Sam thinks that maybe he’s not just staying with Dean to find their father. Or to revenge Jess. There’s something else there. A feeling of companionship. Of family. Maybe, if he’s honest, he’s missed his brother more than he’d liked to admit.

“Huh.”

Marveling, Sam opens the freezer and grabs a bottle of beer that he’s definitely earned. Behind him, he hears Dean softly beginning to snore.

Damage Control Masterlist

Read the entire Damage Control series on AO3 here:

[kaitlinamberxo]

Kaitlin's 100 Favorite Male Muses Masterlist

Documenting some of my fictional crushes over the years. Some are justified, some not so much, and in no particular order.

There are many that I attempted, but I couldn't do them justice.

1: Nate Archibald

2: Tyler Lockwood

3: Robb Stark

4: Bellamy Blake

5: Peter Pevensie

6: Din Djarin

7: Percy Jackson

8: Anthony Bridgerton

9: Bucky Barnes

10: Sirius Black

11: Cedric Diggory

12: Tony Stark

13: Aladdin

14: Prince Naveen

15: Leo Valdez

16: Newt Scamander

17: Flynn Rider

18: Scott McCall

19: Elijah Mikaelson

20: Benedict Bridgerton

21: Luke Castellan

22: Fred Jones

23: Conrad Fisher

24: Derek Hale

25: Fred & George Weasley

26: Bruce Wayne

27: Ron Weasley

28: Nathan Scott

29: Dick Grayson

30: Lucas Scott

31: Jaime Lannister

32: Oliver Wood

33: Clark Kent

34: Obi-Wan Kenobi

35: Jon Snow

36: Jamie Tartt

37: Joel Miller

38: Alec Lightwood

39: Poe Dameron

40: Klaus Mikaelson

41: Evan "Buck" Buckley

42: JJ Maybank

43: Anakin Skywalker

44: Sam Winchester

45: Steve Rogers / Captain America

46: Jacob Black

47: Reggie Mantle

48: Hobie Brown / Spider-Punk

49: Diego Hargreeves

50: Lincoln Kom Trikru

51: Simon Lewis

52: Hernan "Shades" Alvarez

53: Enzo St. John

54: Edmund Pevensie

55: Jake Fitzgerald

56: Raphael Santiago

57: John B. Routledge

58: Art Donaldson

59: Klaus Hargreeves

60: Daryl Dixon

61: Simon Basset

62: Tobias "Four" Eaton

63: James "Jim" Gordon

64: Dean Forester

65: Matthias Helvar

66: Isaac Lahey

67: Prince Charming / Kit

68: Thomas "Tommy" Shelby

69: Oberyn Martell

70: Dean Winchester

71: Chad Meeks-Martin

72: Jim Hopper

73: Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw

74: Dan Humphrey

75: Peter Quill / Star-Lord

76: Colin Bridgerton

77: Forsythe Pendleton "Jughead" Jones III

78: Wade Wilson / Deadpool

79: Kaz Brekker

80: Draco Malfoy

81: Sodapop Curtis

82: Peter Maximoff / Quicksilver

83: Phil Dunphy

84: Scott Summers / Cyclops

85: Haymitch Abernathy

86: Finnick Odair

87: Damon Salvatore

88: Johnny Storm / Human Torch

89: Harry Potter

90: Matthew Murdock / Daredevil

91: Jeremiah Fisher

92: Peeta Mellark

93: Remus Lupin

94: Stiles Stilinski

95: Aleksander Morozova / The Darkling

96: Prince Eric

97: Nikolai Lantsov / Sturmhond

98: Regulus Black

99: Peter Parker / Spider-Man

100: Alexios / Deimos

[thaorins-gate]

The Emoth! Reaching about 4' tall, and living for around 150, the Emoth are shapeshifters. With the only exception being they must return to their original form every 48 hours (featured above). They live in the jungles of Omuin. Emoth experience sexual dimorphism, where their males are brightly coloured and females are shades of brown. If they change their sex while shape-changing, their colours change as well.

If you would like to know more, my inbox is open!

[radix-outpost]

Eternal Sailor Uranus, project no. 22 and the first of the Outers to be made. (Actually finished her a few days ago, but when it came time to edit photos/post, I got a bit... sidetracked.)

Note the first: her hair colour, "sand", is in quotes because I used Magical Mystery Yarn(TM) from the basement that had long since shed its label. Substitute for whatever shade of light brown or blonde you want.

Note the second: while the pattern lists four rounds for the skirts as usual, I had to do one extra row for both. Your navy-blue yarn may cooperate more than mine.

(EDIT: revised the arms.)

[HEAD]

{light peach} 0) MR 6 1) inc 6 (12) 2) [sc, inc] x6 (18) 3) [sc 2, inc] x6 (24) 4) [sc 3, inc] x6 (30) 5) [sc 4, inc] x6 (36) 6) [sc 5, inc] x6 (42) 7) [sc 6, inc] x6 (48) 8) [sc 7, inc] x6 (54) 9-21) sc 54 {embroider face, starting from R15} 22) [sc 7, dec] x6 (48) 23) [sc 6, dec] x6 (42) 24) [sc 3, dec] x12 (30)

--

[EARS] x2

{light peach} 0) ch 5 1) sc 4, ch, turn 2) sc 2, inc, sc (5) {top point of ear is sewn on at R15, 6 sc away from eye} {embroider earrings}

--

[TIARA]

{yellow} 0) ch 11 1) sc 2, hdc 8 2) ch 11 3) sc 2, hdc 8 {embroider gem into center}

--

[HAIR, CAP]

{"sand"} 0) MR 6 1) inc 6 (12) 2) [sc, inc] x6 (18) 3) [sc 2, inc] x6 (24) 4) [sc 3, inc] x6 (30) 5) [sc 4, inc] x6 (36) 6) [sc 5, inc] x6 (42) 7) [sc 6, inc] x6 (48) 8) [sc 7, inc] x6 (54) 9-11) sc 54 12-19) sc 26, ch, turn 20) sc 12, dec, sc 11, ch, turn (25) 21) sc 13, dec, sc 10, ch, turn (24) 22) sc 24 {embroider details and sideburns}

--

[BANGS A] (Uranus's left, our right)

{"sand"} 0) ch 7 1) sc 6 2) ch 7 3) sc, hdc, dc 2, hdc, sc, ch, turn 4) sc, hdc-inc, dc 2, hdc, sc, ch, turn (7) 5) sc, hdc, dc 3, hdc, sc 6) ch 11 7) sc 2, hdc 2, dc 5, hdc, sc, ch, turn 8) hdc, dc 5, hdc 2, sc, ch, turn 9) sc 2, hdc 2, dc 5, hdc, sc

--

[BANGS B] (Uranus's right, our left)

{"sand"} 0) ch 11 1) sc 2, hdc 2, dc 4, hdc 2, ch, turn 2) hdc 2, dc 4, hdc 2, sc 2, ch, turn 3) sc 2, hdc 2, dc 4, hdc 2, ch 4) ch 9 5) sc, hdc, dc 3, hdc 2, sc, ch, turn 6) sc, hdc 2, dc 3, hdc, sc, ch, turn 7) sc, hdc, dc 3, hdc 2, sc 8) ch 7 9) sc 3, hdc 3, ch, turn 10) hdc 3, cs 3, ch, turn 11) sc 3, hdc 3 12) ch 7 13) sc 6

--

[BANGS C] (layered over Bangs B]

{"sand"} 0) ch 11 1) sc 2, hdc 2, dc 4, hdc 2, ch, turn 2) hdc 2, dc 4, hdc 2, sc 2, ch, turn 3) sc 2, hdc 2, dc 4, hdc 2, ch 4) ch 9 5) sc, hdc, dc 3, hdc 2, sc, ch, turn 6) sc, hdc 2, dc 3, hdc, sc, ch, turn 7) sc, hdc, dc 3, hdc 2, sc

--

[BANGS D]

{"sand"} 1-2) ch 6, sc 5

--

[BODY]

{start w/ white} 0) MR 6 1) inc 6 (12) 2) [sc, inc] x6 (18) 3) [sc 2, inc] x6 (24) 4) [sc 3, inc] x6 (30) 5) [sc 4, inc] x6 (36) 6) [sc 5, inc] x6 (42) 7) [sc 6, inc] x6 (48) 8-10) sc 48 11) [sc 6, dec] x 6 (42) 12-13) sc 42 14) [sc 6, inc] x 6 (48) 15-19) sc 48 20) sc 7, inc 21) sc 10, cc light peach, sc 15, cc white, sc 29 (54) {carefully cc such that the "exposed skin" bit is always around 15 sc in length} 22) sc 54 23) [sc 3, dec] x 12 (42) 24) [sc 3, dec] x 12 (30)

--

[COLLAR]

{navy} {work in rows} 0) ch 17 1-4) dc 16 5-8) hdc 5, ch, turn 9) hdc, dec, hdc 2 10-13) hdc 4 14) hdc, dec, hdc 15-17) hdc 3 {return to other end of row 4 and repeat steps 5-17} {embroider piping}

--

[LEGS] x2

{start w/ white} 0) ch 17 1) sc 16; join round 2-6) sc 16 7) cc navy, [sc 3, inc] x 4 (20) 8) cc light peach, sc 20 {embroider star on this row before going too far} 9-17) sc 20 {sc closed}

--

[FEET] x2

{white} 0) MR 6 1) inc 6 (12) 2) [sc, inc] x6 (18) 3-9) sc 18 {begin stuffing foot} 10) [sc, dec] x6 (12) 11) dec 6 (6) 12) dec closed

--

[HAND & THUMB] x2

{start w/ white} 0) ch 7 1) sc 6, continue on other side, sc 6 (12) 2) sc 12 3) [sc 6, inc] x 2 (14) 4-6) sc 14 7) cc navy, sc 14 8) {thumb} ch 3 9) sc 2

--

[ARMS] x2

{start w/ medium blue} 0) MR 6 1) inc 6 (12) 2) [sc, inc] x6 (18) 3) [sc 2, inc] x6 (24) 4) sc 24 5) [sc 2, dec] x 6 (18) 6) cc navy, [sc 3, dec] x4 (14) 7) cc light peach, sc 14 8) cc navy, sc 14 9) cc white, sc 14 10-15) sc 14

--

[SKIRTS] x2

{start w/ medium blue; keep with it for second tier} 0) ch 49 1) sc 48 2) cc navy, dc 48 3-4) dc 48 {finish: hdc, sc}

--

[BOWS] x2

{one in yellow, one in medium blue} {work in rows} 0) ch 5 1-16) sc 4, ch, turn {fold and pinch in center}

--

[BOW TRAILS]

{navy} 0) ch 17 1) sc 16 2) ch 17 3) sc 16

--

[UPPER WAIST BANDS]

{navy} 0) ch however many you need to reach from skirt star to under back bow

[bumblebeeappletree]

Dyer's polypore (phaeolus schweinitzii) is a wonderful mushroom used to create various natural colors for your textile and craft projects. Known as a fantastic 'starter' dye mushroom, it brings a range of deep yellows and toasty browns on protein fibers like wool & silk. By adding iron, you can invite greens and darker shades to expand your natural dye palette. If you are a fungi fanatic with a love of foraging, the dyer's polypore is ready to be picked! This tutorial will show you a stove top method of making dye from this mushroom, as well as the resulting color swatch samples (wool, cotton, bamboo & silk) with alum and ferrous sulfate mordants.

CHAPTERS

0:00 Introduction - Dyer's polypore

1:30 Fungi dyes - IFFS 2022

3:14 Foraged mushroom

3:49 Miriam Rice

4:25 Latin names

5:25 Fiber options

6:01 Ratios

7:21 Fiber prep - scour

7:56 Fiber prep - mordant

9:43 Mushroom prep

10:35 Mordant process

14:48 Mushroom dye

17:09 Fiber results

17:44 Wrap up

18:39 Sneak peek of next tutorial

19:25 Blooper

SUPPLY LIST

Dyer's polypore mushrooms

Alum

Ferrous sulfate (iron)

Washing soda

pH neutral soap

Scale

Measuring spoon

Pot with lid

Spoon

Tongs

Gloves

Textile - wool yarn, silk, cotton & bamboo shown in video

[ilkitie]

ok. help a girl out y'all. anyone ever dyed their hair with herbal/plant dye? lemme know. Because I did (lol of course i did) and shit's green. It was supposed to be ''deep chestnut'' but shit's just green with purple tips loool me and my eternal hair troubles. The package said the shade will ''improve'' within 48 hours but i doubt it will magically turn from green effect shiny black to chestnut brown anytime soon.

ALSO I'm SO fucking close to snipping those layers into my hair myself and HJEEEEELP