#I ADDED my own section at the bottom bc why not (:

[tadpoles-and-daydreams]

A witchcraft basics doc; update, resource call, interest check, and a possible second doc

Bet most of you didn't even know I was working on this >:D

Yes this is a huge post. It's a lot of things.

So, one of my first posts ever on this blog was me mentioning that a friend of mine had NO clue what they were signing up for when asking for the basics of witchcraft. The google doc I wrote took on a life of its own, and the post did as well when people started asking for it. I still plan to tag said people when I post it, assuming they haven't deactivated. The thing is, this doc had become a proper project, and it took a long time for me to have the motivation to work on it again. Now, though, it seems to me like a damn good way to reconnect to my craft after a rut! (which, by the way, is why I've been offline.)

So, my first post back is for a couple of reasons. For one, if you have any resources you'd think would be useful for beginner witches, feel free to shoot me an ask, DM, or comment/reblog on this post! I'll have a list of things I'm putting in the doc (taking recommendations there as well) at the bottom of this post.

The other thing is that I might end up making a second doc, one that's a little less "101" in vibe. It would have a MAJOR MAJOR UPG warning on it, first off, and I'm not sure whether or not I would be marking any UPG either since this would essentially be a second Grimoire/Book of Shadows for me that would be public to others for the sake of sharing information! I can't say I'd call it "advanced witchcraft" by any means, I'm not very fancy lol, but I don't want the basics doc to get too overwhelming. I do, however, want to scream about random witchcraft topics that interest me. So this is also a bit of an interest check for that, as well as the basics doc.

FINAL NOTE: I fully plan on posting this basics doc before it's done. Some sections will be unwritten or unfinished, because if I wait until I find it "finished" I'll never post it. It's going to be added onto whenever I can, but I feel as though getting it out is the best course of action.

A list of stuff in the doc that I'd take resources on (AKA everything planned in it) with * by anything that will be left unwritten/unfinished on purpose until I know more. I will take resources and recommendations on EVERYTHING though. This is in no particular order:

grounding and centering

VOCAB (intention, intuition, UPG/SPG/VPG, appropriation. probably others I'm forgetting.

candle, plant, crystals and safety* (as well as any other tools one might need safety tips for. This is left completely unwritten as I use very few tools of this type.)

deity work* (the whole debate surrounding when to start, as well as information about it. Will include smth about house rules/boundaries. My work is very casual, I'd love to see different POV's of this! This is by nature left unfinished because deity work is so unique to the witch.)

grimoire/book of shadows

tools of the craft* (common tools and how to use them consumerism in witchcraft, etc.)

cleansing

appropriation* (I don't know near enough about this, I just check what's in my own practice. I would like this to include a list of commonly appropriated closed practices, a definition of appropriation and why it shouldn't be done, open pantheons, and common open practices.)

spellwork*

meditation

where someone could go from here* (including sigils, tarot, crystals bc my friend likes rocks lol, maybe astrology but oh god I have nothing about that it makes my brain hurt just looking at an astrology chart /pos. I will probably make a list of stuff that I could add in this section.)

casual/daily/quick/low energy practices and witchcraft

paganism and witchcraft; overlap, what they are individually, why one might be for you rather than the other, etc.*

there'd be a credit section for anyone who wants to be credited for links/resources at the end! If you send me resources plz specify if you want to be included in that or not.

Things I might include in the second doc if I make it:

the craft and mental health and my experiences with it

things commonly touched on in the community (your deities don't hate you, cycles of inactivity and burnout, other things I'm forgetting rn)

deity-specific things, more specific topics of the craft, etc. yet another reminder that this would all include UPG, possibly unmarked, because it would basically be primarily used to give me motivation to research more.

[drift-compatible-poll]

Preliminary Round: Poll Runner's Choice

Ok, so this poll is gonna be a bit different. I picked six of my favorite submissions that didn't get in to put in this poll. Vote for who you would like to be in the main bracket the most, and the top three duos will be added to the bracket. So, without further ado...

Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III and Toothless(top left) vs Tsukioka Tsumugi and Takatou Tasuku(top right) vs Xingqiu and Chongyun(middle left) vs Rose Lalonde and Dave Strider(middle right) vs Mabel and Dipper Pines(bottom left) vs Lio Fotia and Galo Thymos(bottom right)

Propaganda for Hiccup and Toothless: "They literally read each others minds, they're so in sync, they trust each other so much"

Propaganda for Tsumugi and Tasuku: "they're childhood friends who started acting together in school! acting requires lots of trust in your fellow co-stars like for example if they mess up or forget a line you need to be able to cover for them and keep the show going. after years of acting they're very much in sync able to match each other's energy onstage during a performance. even the player character (default name: izumi) notes in her narration that these two have a special connection onstage that no one else in their theatre company has bc of their years of acting together <3"

Propaganda for Xingqiu and Chongyun: "They have several matching design elements that balance each other out, with Xingqiu being associated with dark blue and black while Chongyun is associated with light blue and white. Chongyun uses the ice element, while Xingqiu uses the water element, which makes them formidable (or at least troublesome, since they freeze the enemies constantly) in a team together in game. They're commonly seen or mentioned together, and while Chongyun occasionally complains about Xingqiu's pranks, they get along well enough that an entire section of Chongyun's character story (in his profile) is dedicated to his friendship with Xingqiu, and vice versa with Xingqiu's story. Chongyun is a very earnest and genuine person, while Xingqiu is a bit wily and a prankster - despite this, Chongyun trusts him over and over again, despite the trouble that Xingqiu's pranks often cause for him. sorry for submitting genshin and writing a whole wall of text lol"

Propaganda for Rose and Dave: "I'm bad explanations, but the short of it is that even though they're both very cagey people and try not to be themselves, they see through each other's façade."

Propaganda for Mabel and Dipper: "They're the bestest siblings ever. They're twins and have such a wonderful beautiful relationship. Their relationship so important for the show as a whole and Gravity Falls wouldn't be what it is if not for them. They're the reason why I strive to be a good sibling to my own brother. I've been obsessed with this show and them for so many years. They're my favourite and I love them so so much."

Propaganda for Lio and Galo: "First, the obvious- they literally co-pilot a mech during the movie, and them being in sync is required for it to function: the more they understand each other, the better they fight. Also, they're very effective foils: The ice-cold arsonist and the burning-hot firefighter, who are also (as close to canonically as Studio Trigger can get) in gay love."

[yumikoshigarakirp]

alright you said to so tell us everything about freezerburn! headcanons/canon stuff, cute things, fun facts, just everything you wanna talk about

Oh I’m trashing around, lets get it boys (some stuff on this will be added from my Tiktok because I post about them there a LOT bc ppl love them)

Manipulation, brief drugging mention (not done by Yumiko or Dabi), drinking, abuse mentions,

Under the cut cause its LONG, and anything explicitly NSFW is under its own section at the very bottom

General/During Canon Events —

Dabi fell for Yumiko first for sure, but he did not make a move on her until way later.

He listens to her conversations with the other League members, especially Jaxon and their friend Brooklyn (both ocs who weren’t born in Japan), to learn more about her since she isn’t open with him at first.

Yumiko went out to a bar one night with a couple other members of the League and got shitfaced and drugged and when they all got back Dabi was put in charge of taking care of her. During this they ended up laying in bed together since he was trying to get her to sleep and she wouldn’t let him leave, she kept staring at him as she does and he asked her why she stared so much.

— she said it’s just because she likes looking at him and he had to keep himself from rolling over and crying. And because of how close they’re laying together this is the first time he notices that her eyes aren’t just purple; they have spots of orange in them too.

Due to AFO telling her to, Yumiko did research into Endeavor and Touya Todoroki and it took like two or three months before she assumed Dabi was Touya.

They swapped shirts on accident one day and Toga immediately recognized they had switched because Dabi’s shirt was loose around Yumiko’s chest but super tight in the sleeves and Yumiko’s shirt was tight around Dabi’s chest but loose around the sleeves, cause Yumiko’s ribcage is smaller than his but her arms are way bulkier.

Yumiko loses her lighters a lot so she’ll have Dabi light her cigarettes or joints, eventually she stops buying lighters altogether cause of this.

When he saw her getting close to Spinner after they lost the hideout he maayyyyybeeee convinced her that Spinner would see her as nothing more than an extension of Tomura and that it was pointless to be with him cause he’d never see her as her own person. (Side note: not true, at all, but the lying did work because Yumiko stopped being anything more than friends with Spinner immediately after)

When they lose the hideout and have to be out in buildings without AC during the summer at some point, Yumiko throws a huge tantrum because it’s absolute torture with her quirk and she’s always two seconds from a heatstroke. She blames Tomura since it was his idea to bring Bakugo to their hideout which is partly how they got found out, and she gets into a small fist fight with Tomura before leaving the abandoned building they’re at to go find some cold water to lay in.

— Dabi is the only one to follow her and he asks her why she doesn’t just leave. This is the first time she rants about her obligation to Tomura to him personally. He doesn’t look at her for a few days following when he hears how much she’ll put up with just because Tomura is her family.

Dabi and Yumiko aren’t officially together until way after the final battle, but around the time they join the MLA they both understand there’s something between them and they’re treated like they’re dating.

Yumiko likes to rub her thumbs over Dabi’s scars and staples, and also likes to hold his chest when they sleep, it soothes her for some reason.

When Dabi isn’t using his quirk his body is cold, so if Yumiko is too hot he’ll let her lay up against him. Alternatively when its winter and her body starts getting colder than what its used to he’ll slightly heat up his body to get her back to her normal temperature.

Sometime after AFO has most control over Tomura’s body he ends up beating Yumiko in front of the League due to the little fist fight between Yumiko and Tomura I mentioned earlier, as a humiliation type of punishment. Afterwards she went off to sit by herself for the night. Dabi checks on her and she tells him she’s leaving in the morning.

— he tries to get to stay but can’t convince her. (Also tells her he’s Touya because she wasn’t nearby during the reveal.) They sleep together that night and its the first time Dabi says “I love you” to her. It completely throws her off and this is the point when she fully realizes she’s in love with him.

(Keep in mind for this next bit I deviate from canon in the sense that the time between Dabi’s dance and the final battle is way longer than what it is in canon I think)

Dabi and Yumiko end up having to fight each other during the final battle and her body reaches a low enough threshold temperature wise that by the end of the battle her heart has frozen over.

— When she’s taken to the hospital she has to have an emergency c-section and this ends in their son (Natsuto) having the same issues as Dabi quirk-wise.

During their time in the hospital Yumiko visits Touya daily once everyone has left and uses a thing I don’t feel like explaining rn to heal him little by little even though she’s advised not to by her doctors.

He for sure picks a fight with her every time she comes in to see him the first couple of weeks. He tells her that if she had stayed with him instead of joining the heroes he probably wouldn’t be so fucked up and maybe they would have won. (He’s only lashing out because when she ran off and joined the heroes he took it personally.)

Post Canon — (Using their real names here because that’s,, what they’d call each other after the dust clears.)

Yūka and Touya stay with Rei and Enji for a while after the war because they can’t live out on their own yet. Enji and Touya are both nervous that history will repeat itself with the new family, but thankfully they both end up mostly wrong.

Touya 1000% guilt trips Enji into paying for his and Yūka’s wedding. Enji’s only condition is that Touya tries his best to be a better husband than him.

They have Natsuto as their flower boy (Shoto helps guide him down the aisle since he’s like two when they get married.)

If it’s a universe where Tomura is still alive post war, he’s the one to walk Yūka down the aisle and is her “maid of honor”.

Yūka is already pregnant with their triplets (all girls) when the wedding takes place, and has a slight baby bump.

(Sidenote: I think Rei and Enji would feel that weird type of happiness where you’re also kind of sad at the same time during the wedding/any special moments with Yūka and Touya.)

These motherfuckers do not know what birth control is. They end up with Natsuto, the triplets (all girls), the twins (all girls), and one more boy. (Having seven kids makes Yūka start going grey early but it’s okay.)

Because I think it’s funny (not serious) to torture Touya, Natsuto ends up finding footage of the final battle and decides he wants to be a hero like Yūka (temporarily) was since he’s a huge mama’s boy.

— Natsuto can summon dry ice on his skin, and is immune to the gas that comes off of the chunks, but the dry ice itself gives him ice burns (yes that’s a thing, and only the canon version of him has this, Tumblr version is fine since he got done cooking fully.) and the first time they discover it hurts him Touya nearly had a panic attack especially since Natsuto wants to be a hero, was only comforted by Yūka handling the situation.

— Yūka immediately uses some shady connections to get Natsuto some support gear to wear for when his quirk acts up, since sometimes the dry ice pops up even when he doesn’t mean to.

Really anytime something happens that reminds Touya of his dad or childhood he looks to Yūka to take over because he doesn’t want to risk being like his dad and she’s normally much more calm about things.

All of their girls LOOOOOOVVEEEEE Touya, they all dogpile on him frequently.

I’ll rant more about the kids if prompted ugh.

Touya and Yūka have so much trouble switching back to their real names around each other for the first couple of years. (She almost called him Dabi during their wedding bows and he almost called her Yumiko.)

He’s like,, head to toe covered in scars after the war and Yūka still finds him so attractive 💔 as long as he’s not bald (half joking).

Alternate Universes I love putting them in that you should ask about—

UA student au (have a fic for this one rn)

College au

Pro hero au

True villain yumi au

Childhood friends au

Pro hero touya

Probs more, ask about em

Nsfw —

Yumiko likes to lick/put her tongue between Dabi’s staples. For some reason.

Yumiko tends to be the one in charge for a while when they first start fooling around, but Dabi’s a virgin when they first do anything so he appreciates extra time to just get used to even being sexually active.

Yumiko cried one time during sex and Dabi didn’t know if he should keep going or check on her 😭 (did both)

Dabi’s a quicky type of person and Yumiko’s a “let me play with your dick for a while before the main event” type of person.

Yumiko has gotten pinched by the staples on his thighs before.

Uhhh idk this is another thing that I’ll elaborate on more if prompted.

You guys can ask about other ships including Yumi btw I love pairing her with damn near everyone.

[degendog]

ayo its macgyver packer guy! ok so yeah cant lie hygienically that was like top 3 worst ideas at least, so instead of doing the sane idea of like just buying something or using a few socks (which WHAT you're supposed to pin that to you're underwear??) i committed to the bit and made a v2! party because its just fun to say "yeah i made my own cock", partly because its just kinda fun to make and i have enough art materials so that its more cost effective the buying something , and why im doing any of this in the first place is because its nice i guess to have it like attached to you..? i guess? and it not just like a sock? although its not 100% realistic (its fucking sliver), its still just pretty cool, so yeah i made a version 2. i made it using like a flimsy metal wire thats made for like crafts (to give it some bend, and so it would just be bricked) , duct tape, and hot glue. (no sock or anything in the center so no risk of mold) i first made 2 balls using hot glue, they weren't super big, i then covered them in duck tape. i made something of a heart-shaped pad using duck tape that i folded onto itself, and glued the 2 balls onto it. then for the dick part, i took the wire, folded it over about 4 or so times to make it thicker, it was about 6 inches in length. i then warped duck tape around the wire in 3 sections, tip, middle, and bottom, with a bit of space between each. in the space between, i cut strips of the tape in half, and warped it around to enforce to wire. i then put hot glue on the tip just so the tape wouldn't fray. i then split a little bit of excess wire in half at the bottom, and then attached it the the balls (would like to state that absolutely 0 wire is even remotely sticking out anywhere once i was finished). I then attached the whole thing the to a second underwear (underwear explanation: ok so i basically cut the underwear to be more like a harness/kinda a strap on when dick is added, to cut back on the layers id be wearing, and not to just wear 2 underwears, one with dick, and one encasseing said dick so that it wouldn't just be flailing around in my pants) finally, im going to be trying to see if wearing a sock just to see if thats more comfortable then using a fuck ton of lotion (the sheer redundancy and 100 degree summer be damned) and then boom! diy dick v2!! i made it in like 30mins, (tbh me writing this took more time then me actually making the dick) and if its incoherent or misspelled sorry its pretty late over here :3

okay so i tried to answer this but tumblr ate the draft augh. trial two i guess.

fucking. WIRE??!!!?!?!! bro.

yeah, you’re supposed to pin the rolled sock in place, unless you’re wearing packing underwear. you put the sock inside where the dick would go, whether that’s a pouch or a closed fly or whatever and you use a safety pin on the outside of your undies, stick it through the front of the sock, and back out the front. the safety pin should not go through the sock all the way. works best if you wear boxer briefs or regular briefs—. i use a quilting sewing pin bc the bent shape makes it easier, but anything with safety pin functionality will work. i know a guy who used a “yaoi lover” circle button pin.

the hot glue balls are lowkey hilarious. i’m imagining what those feel like lmao. “what if—hear me out—the balls got hard too” type shit. that’s hilarious. what the hell.

and while the absence of a fabric core is an improvement, from experience i know that duct tape is not necessarily watertight man. like one little wrinkle at the edge of the tape and all of a sudden you’ve got all kinds of liquid and shrapnel in there. and hair. ew.

also. wire. even if you’ve got the wire ends covered, it’s not guaranteed that they won’t poke through and stab something. idk about you but i wouldn’t risk dick impalement over the like $30-50 a real packer would be. or free, in the case of a rolled sock. seriously, if penis procurement is an issue, whether for financial or other reasons, please just use a sock.

if you’re desperate to diy something here, you probably could sew a harness for a regular packer out of elastic, or modify your existing undies to better accommodate a packer.

please let me know how the sock packing goes. if you need further advice on the matter lmk. i lost the tutorial post i made a while back, but im more than willing to remake it.

you have a bright future as a sculpture artist. i’m picturing a series of various unsafe insane diy packers in a gallery. and/or a series of photos of you wearing these diy packer apparatuses exactly one time. could be cool as commentary on transition being an act of recreating yourself with whatever you can find. or something. idk you can workshop that part.

please, please be safe lmao.

[vodid]

How do you plan your stories? Do you actually have a sheet where you write anything down? And if you do, what do you put in it?

Cause I’m planning a story and I have no idea of where to start 😭

I HAVE BEEN WAITING TO ANSWER SOMETHING LIKE THIS BC I'D LOOOVE TO REDIRECT YOU TO SUNA SCRIBBLES' AMAZING WRITING ADVICE TAG because it has helped me SO much

here's a tldr(ish) for how i approached writing a fic. we'll use my blitzbee fic as an example:

come up with a scene you really really want to write for the fic. for me, it was the first meet of blitzwing and bumblebee arguing on the cliff in chapter 2. write everything that comes to mind with that scene and do not worry about making it fic quality. important actions, dialogue, setting, etc. make typos! make mistakes! make it silly! you'll rewrite it later

when you write out a scene, you may get hints of a plot (such as conflict characters can work through, whether internal or external) and character portrayals + interactions. from the example above specifically, we have a) bumblebee is big sad, b) the autobots don't like bee for some reason, and c) blitzwing is so weirded out by bee's big sad that he doesn't want to immediately kill him. all of these can be expanded upon, so from that:

write out the main characters' traits. their strengths, weaknesses, secrets, fears, quirks. anything. then write out reasons why they may have these traits and how it's important to their character development/conflict. make it fancy if you want!

i have more things in this part, such as motivation, the actual development/struggle, why he helps the other and why he lets the other help him. these are bullets a lot more in depth (and spoilery) and were added after i wrote this:

write out a basic plot. start middle end, if you can. you do not have to figure out every little thing (i didn't!) just a general idea of where you want to take this story. it does not have to be set in stone either. after all, my fic has six plots written out. four of them are drafts (lovingly titled Plot X, Plot 2, okay a more sensible plot and basic plot) and the last two are other important plots (overarching plot and trauma plot!) i have been actively revising these as i write the fic itself and with each plot written out, they increase in detail — let it happen! make all sorts of notes, whether in an indented bulleted list under each point or comments on the doc itself. i have 32 comments on mine full of notes!

if you're stuck here, studying the shape of stories by kurt vonnegut really helped me figure out a direction. also making the plot points written in silly ways took a lot of pressure off to get it perfect! while i may not reference the shape as much anymore (especially since the plot i wrote with it is outdated) it still gave me a really good start

and a side note, the overarching + trauma plots are to help guide me through the main plot. overarching is in the background, controlling and being controlled by the main plot's events, while the "trauma plot!" is for figuring out blitzwing's trauma. how did he get bpd? why? how does it affect him? how has it and others added more trauma? this is basically a glorified character past section lol

at the bottom of my outline doc, i have a section for future scenes i want to include. i have notes/comments on various spots and plot points that all have scenes attached, but these are the ones that are more detailed and need their own space. exactly like the first scene blurb in the very first bullet (which is actually at the top of my outline! i haven't deleted any of my past notes, even if they're outdated) actions, dialogue, notes — throw it all in there!

so after posting a chapter, i tend to take a break a few weeks long (or however long others need) to get back to the drawing board, making sure everything is up to date to prepare for the next chapter. it also really helps (for me personally) to have a buddy to rant to. i figure things out best when i'm talking to someone, or acting like i am, and can get feedback on it! ..or just let my brain figure itself out bc man have i gotten stuck on certain points before lol (see: trauma plot! and thats not even half of it)

it's not something that works for everyone — it didn't for me a year ago! but once you let go of rigid formatting and needing to have EVERY little thing figured out from the get-go, and just start typing what you want — with a little semblance of organization (at least labeling which is what) — you can go pretty far. but if not then maybe at the very least, it can lead you to a technique that works best for you.

true tldr: it's good to remember that anything relevant? write it down. doesn't have to be pretty, it just has to be functional. you want it to be easy to reabsorb if you forget the info

anyway tysm @morethanmeetstheass for all your writing advice :') its really helped my writing and my confidence 💖 i hope my post here can be as helpful to you anon 🥺

[aedarisfarm]

I actually finished the clothing category in one session damn

Prepare for some ramblings below the cut on various things I discovered today, mostly pertaining to the clothes

I learned there are two identical shirts called "High-Waisted Shirt". They both require fertilizers to tailor. The only difference is on one, the top is dyeable and on the other the bottom is dyeable. I had to do a double take to make sure they were different

Also. Different counts between doing this one and my 1.5 shirts checklist. Dunno what shirts were different. But I had more shirts in 1.5 that were from character selection/couldn't be tailored than I did with 1.6

Also also. The wiki does not list "Tight Pants" under the pants section. Nor mention in that section you get Genie Pants in Emily's 14-Heart Event. The wiki does like pointing out the few shirts that somehow the Haunted Skulls drop though.

And. I wish it wasn't just chance for all the prismatic clothes. Because I remember trying to get all them and getting so many duplicates. There's 5 prismatic clothes. 3 shirts (a difference between two of them being black vs white sleeves. which are. just a few pixels.) and 2 pants. No way to guarantee a specific one. And imma say it. The shirts don't even look that great. At least there's a couple color changing shirts that use other items, like Magic Rock Candy.

Also also also I am dreading Emily's Outfit Service in the desert. That is going to make keeping track of tailored items so annoying. Because those ain't even listed on the wiki outside of the hats and a single picture of the clothes on mannequins.

That along w finding clothes when foraging is gonna mess w me a lot. Especially any that are just labeled 'shirt'. imma have to squint real damn hard for them

I also was not aware you could buy more copper pans from Willy. Nor that you can now get a crown after I'm assuming the one particular easter egg that was added (nvm i just checked its not easter egg related it just be infinity sword. in my defense i rarely remember to upgrade it and i do Not remember typing out a crown's name in my previous lists(nvm ×2 it WAS added 1.6 which is why i thought it was related to the easter egg!!!)).

I also forgot they changed the insect monster slayer goal to be less lol

Also like. Because you can now put Legendary fish into fish ponds. Imma need 10 more fish ponds on my farm. I was planning on making an aquarium shed and putting them in a nice big tank and I may do that eventually still too but they got their own special pond colors and have pretty good frickin roe prices. (also im dreading having to do perfect catches w the legends. cause i need 3 of each. i need to do it w challenge bait and get those perfect catches. those fish aint being caught til VERY VERY late game. thank stars you can now get their roe from ponds cause if i had to get a chest on top of a perfect catch w them i would have cried)

Also since when can you put coral and sea urchins in ponds. yes im doing the coral cause apparently they have a chance to produce 2 different minerals and no idc that there is a high chance of nothing. and why can sea urchins produce roe now. and yet they are not on the fishing catelogue page

It just hit me. right this second. that i need to do craft items too. fuck i forgot about that last time too. fuck.

aight bed time its midnight now tomorrow i shall actually try to get school work done bc i aint able to go into work anyways so might as well do other work

but damn will it be tempting to work on this list instead

[remcocoa]

thinking about dnfing an unfinished work and that uh. Feels Like Quitting but also it kind of feels like it’s hanging over my head like an anvil and i’m just. Not Motivated to finish it

the thing with the 2018 hookup fic is that the timeline is so long, like even just jumping from 2018 to 2021 is a lot of time where they didn’t really share many races and so either i have to fill that in myself or i just skip it and still have to provide some sort of context and justification for why they’re feeling the way they are

and then you add in the fact that the present day sections are set at the vuelta but the original idea and most of the first chapter was written before things got uh. Intense at the vuelta so you’ve got all that potential angst and tension that i just Do Not want to deal with and that i don’t want to try and work around

and i had this all planned out and even partly written last fall before i took an unplanned and very abrupt break from like. all social media and didn’t touch any writing for months and now looking at it again the stuff i have for the remaining chapters is just not feeling right at all

so i’m thinking about just. changing it from 1/3 to complete on ao3 bc i do feel like the first part kind of stands on its own? it ends on a bit of a cliffhanger but in like. an optimistic way? and i do have ideas for maybe adding to it as a series in the future and i think that would take pressure off of Making It Work as is

i do like some of what i’ve written already and i don’t really want to scrap all of it but motivation levels for this one are just. Rock Bottom and i hate feeling guilty about working on things that are more fun right now

anyway idk way more than any of you wanted to know about my thought process do Not mind me

[nocvil]

*            ‐            ․            ↺            𝙄𝙉𝙏𝙍𝙊𝘿𝙐𝘾𝙄𝙉𝙂 . . .  ｓｏｏ ｂｏｇｕｍ . hitman        .        caretaker        .        the heel        .        a masked hell        .

❝   my love     ,     my love     ,     my love     ,     won't you stay a while     ?   ❞

possible tw’s below: parental death mention, illness mentions, murder for hire mentions, and uh m,,, i think that’s it rlly. just warning ok.

GENERAL INFO

full name: soo bogum ( 수 보검 ). nickname(s): bo, sweetie pie to his mother (: gender & pronouns: cismale, he/him. sexual & romantic orientation: aromantic, demisexual. age & dob: twenty-five, november 8th, 19-- birthplace/hometown: seoul, sk. parents/siblings: only child, deceased father, living mother. pet(s): absolutely not LOL. astrological sign: scorpio. >:-) dominant hand: both! handwriting style: mostly writes in very slanted cursive. i feel like when you see things like royal documents signed or very important letters written back in the day with that vintage cursive ... that would be bogum. language(s) known/spoken: spanish, english, korean. religion: LOL. ok. current living arrangements: a two-bedroom, two bath apartment complex with his older, npc mother. it is pretty spacious given they both have their own room, a kitchen, dining space, their own bathrooms, and a patio. bo has the money if you kno what i mean ... (: occupation/major: hitman.

PHYSICAL

picture reference: uhh... this? this look rlly gives off bogum vibes so (: blood type: type O. nationality: korean. skin tone/color: lighter tanned. birthmarks & scars: heheh wouldn’t u like to kno ??? height: five-foot ten inches. 5′10″. build: pretty average, more on the lean/athletic side though. hair color: red. hair length: uhm ,, look at reference photo? eye color: brown. diet: uhm ... bo has a pretty average diet probably. he would eat just about anything, not very picky. i think he probably has his favorites when it comes to chips and candy but he doesn’t have a special diet. exercise & level of fitness: LOOOL. let me not make a bad joke here ): how’s their posture ( or lack thereof )?: bogum probably has really good posture! i think standing tall with a straight back probably adds to his uh... authoritative look?  typical style of dress: ( from his stats page ) dresses a bit old school, vintage?, almost plain. likes wearing tucked in and cuffed shirts, rolled up pants, boots, baseball caps, at least three rings on one hand, gold bracelets. the following outfits aren’t specific to him but they are probably kinda similar. it’s hard to rlly find exact examples ): (  1  /  2  /  3  /  4  ) body modifications: none, surprisingly. probably pierced ears that he never puts earrings in. that’s really it though. he would prob like a tattoos but wouldn’t do it for the sake of his career ( because tattoos are distinguishing features ).

MANNERISMS

how does your muse walk?: def with a bit of power in his step. very protective when he is with his mother. mostly, he would walk like he calculates every single step he takes. how does your muse talk?: HAHA i just talked about this with myungok’s mun ,, he would talk very plain and probably without a lot of emotion. this would make things that are usually out of pocket probably sound kinda weird.  what accent/dialect does your muse talk with?: he is from seoul and according to google, they speak with a gyeonggi dialect there (: how would you describe the tone of their voice? are they loud or quiet?: QUIET... shh... if you speak too loud you won’t hear bogum speaking with such monotoned you could probably fall asleep. bogum asmr when?  what does their laugh sound like?: bogum? LAUGHING? i feel like bogum chuckles. so he would have like a short, quiet laugh. how does your muse typically smell?: either like smoke from a cigarette or like his mom’s perfume. what kind of air do they carry?: well jinae’s mun said he would have a dark and heavy presence and honestly that rlly fits the bill. do they have a(ny) catchphrase(s)?: time to die. what are their nervous ticks?: um.. not sure. probably knuckle cracking and finger tapping.

PSYCHOLOGY

what makes your muse happiest?: his mommy! seeing his mom thrive and gain her confidence back, even momentarily, makes him so happy. what upsets them the most?: ugh. listen. i talked abt this with some of y’all but the thought that if he ever got exposed or arrested ... how everyone in his life, including his mother, would just abandon him ... CRIES. was this supposed to be a general question? does your muse have any quirks?: i think his tendency to just be way too lax in certain situations would be his infamous quirk. what are their hobbies? how frequent do/can they do them?: bogum is definitely a simple man. he would totally like puzzles, word searches, watching the news, scrapbooking ( YES, SCRAPBOOKING ), taking walks, shopping with his mom, writing, idk, he doesn’t do anything OD or over the top. shrug. do they have any guilty pleasures?: is your muse an extrovert or an introvert? neither?: 10000% introverted otl. do they have high or low self-esteem? what about confidence?: uhm... bogum probably has an average amount of confidence/self-esteem. he’s a realist, definitely. if he look ugly he look ugly. if he look good he look good. ‘nuff said. are they easily stressed and how do they normally respond to it?: stressed? bogum could be in the midst of a bank robbery and be sitting there like ok, y’all done yet? what is your muses worst fear?: his mother finding out about his job. what is your muses biggest dream?: to either escape his job for good or to be able to heal his mother of all her injuries and illnesses. but of course, neither of those will ever happen! is your muse a morning person or a night dragon?: a night dragon? ok. anyway he is probably both. i can see bogum getting like four hours of sleep and waking up like (: let’s fuckin go! how intelligent is your muse? do they acknowledge it?: OH BOGUM has street smarts but definitely probably not book smarts. at least, not a great amount of book smarts. how can he be a hitman if he’s DUMM?! describe their sense of humor: LMAO. the real question is how can someone as funny as ME play someone as BORING as bogum?

RELATIONSHIP TENDENCIES

are they currently in any sexual or romantic relationships?: HELL NO. luuuul. what is their experience with relationships?: to really think about it, bo probably had feelings for people here and there and most likely dated short term in high school but after he moved and began doing that he kind of lost all his effort to pursue romance. how does your muse view the idea of friends with benefits? have they ever had one? would they ever?: another hell naw to that sis. how important is sex to your muse?: not important at all. bogum could care less. what are their biggest turn on and turn offs?: see above pls. does your muse find it easy to make friends?: i say yes, only because most of his friends are through his mother. how important is friendship to them?: veRY IMPORTANT if bogum didn’t have the friends he has today, he probably would be a lot more sad and maybe more than just a hitman ): quantity or quality of friends?: quality! how important is family?: VERY IMPORTANT AGAIN bogum would give his life for his mother and to have his father back. are they close to their family? why or why not ?: YES. obviously asdfasdf everyone probably knows why. although bogum is now the one who runs the house, he still really values his mother because she ultimately has nobody but him in the end if she gets worse. his parents were always really good to him and when his father died, he knew that he and his mother had to stick together through it. he also knew that that he had to step up to provide for his mother because of her injuries and dementia. she is his life, really.

FAVORITES

activity: haha. you really wanna kno?... he likes word searches a lot. animal: idk. probably like. idk.  beverage: mmmm some piping hot tea. book: - color:��is red cliche to say? designer: - food:  flower:  water lilies, pansies, lilies, peonies, idk, he would love all kinds of flowers. gem: i googled these. if he had a favorite it would be garnet, smoked topaz, and morion. holiday: christmas! his mother’s favorite too, probably. mode of transportation: walking, usually. movie: -  musical artist: oh boy, uhm,, i bet bogum likes indie kpop. like dean, suran, hyukoh, but i dont rlly know a lot to give you more details. quote / saying: - scenery: hm. probably night time in the living room, mom is put to bed already, he’s watching a rerun episode of a crime drama on television and thinking about how it’s so unrealistic. he’s got a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other though he puts it out halfway through because he loses interest. (: scent: i think he’d like the smell of cleaning products, flower scents ( bc it would remind him of his mom ), and metal (: obviously. weather: cloudy or rainy weather. anything that let’s him stay inside for the day. vacation destination: UM. i bet bogum would like to travel out of country to places like europe.

ATTITUDES

greatest dream: to finally have a peaceful life with his mother by his side, healthy or not. he wants to stop being a hitman, really, but it’s kind of like an addiction, plus he’s good at it, and it brings in the bacon. greatest fear: being caught and leaving his mother by herself -- it would be like the ultimate let down since he doesn’t trust anyone with her. most at east when: pls see scenery in section above. least as ease when: out in public by himself. he doesn’t have his mom as his cover. worst possible thing that could happen: PLS SEE GREATEST FEAR. ajdfkjasdfskf biggest achievement: moving to seoul safely with his mom! biggest regret: falling back into the crime life. most embarrassing moment: idk i feel like bogum isn’t embarrassing. he’s too ,, plain. biggest secret: LMAO well ... i think we all know. top priorities: keeping his mom safe, alive, healthy, and her bills paid for. also keeping himself undercover for the most part and making sure neither him or his mother are overwhelmed.

EXTRA TIDBITS

001. bogum is an unhealthy smoker but a social drinker. he never smokes around his mother though.

002. whenever bogum’s mother is around, he is on his own best behavior. he always does his best to be nice and keep up an image of her sweet son although by himself he can be different.

003. so far the only person who knows about his job is sangwoo because he sort of saw him in the act during his first hit. the two joke about it but bogum would take him out in a heartbeat if he spills.

004. i think it’s funny because i always pictured bogum as that person would give the shirt off of his back for you if you were in trouble. but he also wouldn’t hesitate to threaten to make you disappear.

005. his mom doesn’t know how he gets the money to pay for everything but bogum has her believing he “has his ways” and to “just trust him” although she asks about it every now and then.

006. though he stays inside a lot, some of the places you might see bogum outside of his apartment, are grocery stores close to his place, bars around town, museums, little cafes picking up things for his mother, dawon’s flower shop, and very occasionally places where there are a lot of drug activity.

007. here is smth: bogum is a hitman because his father was killed in a hit!

008. despite his mom questioning where he earns his money, his family has always been pretty well off but that was because of his father. so now that his father isn’t alive, it’s kind of ... fishy.

009. lmao probably your very typical scorpio minus the s*xual stuff.

010. my brain stopped working.

AESTHETICS

a card hand full of royals. empty, dark hospital hallways. dirty hands under black leather gloves. an empty, lonely wheelchair. old black and white photographs. an ashtray full of half smoked cigarettes. ripped up diary pages. rolled up fifty dollar bills. two expensive rings on each finger. responding “k” to a paragraph long text message. tri-folded letters written in the upmost calligraphy. roman numeral clocks.

[written-beyond-the-grave]

Mikaelsons Black History Month

First off, I’m starting by saying that even though it is no longer Black history month it will always be melanin everyday and black people every day. And everything else under the sun, and if you don’t like it then the exit is to your left. Everything you own in the box to the left

Being part of the Mikaelsons is very fickle business and be some bs. Like really, you’re here with supernatural beings who are over 1000 years old. Who have traveled the world, gained endless knowledge, seen a lot of bloodshed, but you know what they haven’t seen? Their token human (black ofc) being ignant for black history month, I mean who even fully celebrates? How does one even celebrate?

Granted, they’re not racist. But with the writing Julie Pleck did she was playing honestly. That was the worst writing I've ever seen since who knows when. Maybe the nine lives of Chloe king or something? But in my originals universe they were probably racist in the beginning to an extent then grew out of it.

Anyways, they never met someone who celebrated until they met you!

Now repeat after me: I’m black y’all, and I’m black y’all. And I’m black and black and black y’all! FYM

Now…. picture this: A moderately quiet day in the Mikaelson household. Kol is minding his business for once, Rebekah is trying to find the perfect pics for her next instagram post, Elijah is enjoying a good read, and Klaus is organizing his art materials. But then here comes you, the human, opening the door and walking right in like you pay bills (none of them do but you get the picture) in the midst of the most deadly people. Walking in and greeting everyone, walking in with the most hotep, Dr. Umar bullshit getup they ever seen. Coming to America headass.

They recognize your footsteps from a mile away, so when you walk into the kitchen and no one really looks up at first it’ll be a sight to see a whole ass pelted lion on your back. The kente cloth hat (no idea the actual name for it, sorry babes), a saber tooth necklace (for my mans T’Challa), and the red stiletto nails with the afro out here banging.

SHEEEEEEEEESH

Once Elijah is done with his page he looks up to greet you, but then stops… Bitch, fuck is you wearing? This was worlds away from the sweats, and skinny jeans you wore on the daily.

“Greetings Y/N you look…. Fashionable.” Mans didn’t know what to say. Did he miss something about your Africna roots? Was there a holiday he hadn’t heard of, doubt it, but what else was there?

“Thank you Elijah.” You fluff out your lion pelt for added effect, if there was ever going to be one time you outdo the Mikaelsons’ especially Elijah in being dramatic with a coat or cloak of somesort, it would be now.

At this point the Kol and Rebekah have already looked up and were confused. Why are you dressed like that?

Kol is the first one to speak up “Darling, Rebekah likes a fashion show more than anyone, but why do you have a lion… on your shoulder.”

Lifting up your large ass shades you supplied an answer: “Black History Month”

They all looked at each other… they didn’t get it. Like they know what it is, but never actually understood how to celebrate and all that nor did they ever actually give it mind. When you saw that they weren’t making a connection, you started phase 1.

“Alexa, you know what to do.”

And there goes their manor playing: NIGGA NIGGA NIGGA NIGGA NIGGA NIGGA NIGGA I’M ONE HUNDRED PERCENT NIGGA

LMFAOOOOO you got the white people shook. Klaus just dropped one of his expensive ass bottles of art sealants and is vamp speeding to the kitchen to figure out what the hell is going on. Elijah having a mid century crisis on how tf they even found you and deemed you worthy of being in their presence so casually. Kol is having fun in the back, still laughing at your get up. And Rebekah wishes she went to the mall instead, she wanted a girl bestie and got you instead rip

“WHAT IN BLAZES- Y/N WHAT ARE YOU DO- WHAT ARE YOU WEARING! ALEXA STOP THE MUSIC-” And the big bad wolf has arrived. You put your finger to Klaus’ lips which stuns him bc… you’re still HOOOMAN like damn, death wish much? And you look this man, straight in his mit and say “Looks at, look at me” and pause for dramatic affect, “I am the captain now”

Room silent as hell till Kol starts cackling

You’ve made Dr. Umar proud, the ancestors are shining on you once again

With that you lead into a whole speech about the black struggle and black history month, bottom line: REPARATIONS. Because being the only nigga in the Mikaelsons (we don’t claim Marcel) is exhausting, white people shit everyday that you complain about in their faces

TBH at this point they’re indulging you in this escapade.

First victim is Elijah, you ask for his wallet. He gives you a look, I mean he does technically give you what you want and whatever (when y’all dating, refer back to my dating Elijah post), so he ask you why. Reparations sis why, but then you stop yourself. This man gives you his wallet every other day, half the time you not even asking. What could you rob this man of…. Ah. You ask him for the deed of one of his estates in Prague, why? Because you bitches can’t even spell Prague. And under section S line 45 subsection Y it does state that estates are eligible for reparations. Fuck 40 acres and a mule, you got 300 acres, some stallions in the back, a quite possibly haunted mansion, and a heavy dicked (yeah I said it, a sis been trying to reality shift) original who will turn you out by the end of the day and the end of the month…. Wait till women's history month boo

We know his pockets figgity fat, and it would be figgity wack to not get some

Ngl you take Kol with you so he can buy you food. Granted, he knows what you’re doing, but if he’s going to spend money on anything it will be thawed and it will be music. However, one thing leads to another and you’re both at Wal-Mart waiting to find a parking spot. You stole one off a white minivan trying to move in. Not thinking anything of it because who in this small ass Mystic Falls ass, clown ass town really about it? Apparently Karen.

But you know who else what about it? Kol (tbh mans had nothing but time, and he claims you so why tf not.) he out here NY stomping on her and coming at her for badly glued extensions. Cheap ass bitch, ain’t even blend in correctly.

After that Kol and you left with some groceries, a new story to tell, and a chopped cheese.

With Klaus, he frfr wasn’t finna do shit. Being ordered my a human? Lmfao, go find another simp sis. But… once you suggest that his art skills may not be up to par on what you have in mind as a new family room piece for your house he’s all ears. He knows what you’re doing, but… he still wants to prove you wrong. But anyways, you give him a theme… reverse racism. IK y’all, it’s not a thing, but mans has ideas. And he outdoes himself. That and the recreation of the moorish chief bc that man...mmmmm that man was giving.

Ok so Google wanna hoe me, but there was a painting of a black man in a kkk cloak and behind him were white people being hung from a tree. Say what you want, but that photo was fire. If any of you seen it please share it below.

Anyways

Rebekah tbh wants no part in this, but I feel like she’d gave when you ask her to give you all the finest dresses bc it’s an excuse to exhaust Klaus’ money.

Through the month you give the Mikaelsons a run for their money, and maybe sanity. Klaus is in the back trying to research who tf Dr. Umar is and why is he your inspiration

They had to pull you back when the sheriff asked you for your ID. You ask why you needed white man paperwork!

You are pleasing the spirits, what bonnie could never do lmfaooooo. The powers of you enemies aren’t prospering this month nor next month.

You’re not poor this month, anything you poor of is pouring a little more (bars nigga)

LMFAOOOO imaging asking the fam to go to paris, like, they not invited it’s a self trip funded my the Mikaelson Y/N Trust Fund of Public Decency ™

Klaus would be the first one to speak because this man is TIRED, “Love, why do you need a trip to paris? What’s in Paris?”

Knowing better, you look to Kol to answer the question, “I don’t know, Kol, who’s in Paris?” Niggas b. Niggas in paris…. Lemme chill

LMFAOOO enjoy

[kyidyl]

Kyidyl Does Archaeology - Part 3

(As before, parts 1 & 2 can be found via the KyidylCL tag.)

THE PITS

So, we’ve got the info about the site and we’ve got the prep work done, so what next? Digging! But archaeologists don’t just randomly dig, we dig in very precise ways. There’s, generally speaking, two ways to make a hole for an archaeologist (and this *doesn’t* apply to burials.  Burials are done differently.): a pit and a trench.  A pit is usually a specific size and meant to uncover a small area.  A trench is a long area that takes a cross section of a specific area and is meant for exposing lots of area.  When you’re doing a whole settlement often a trench is used because of the volume.  We’re doing a mixture, and we started with two 5ftx5ft pits (~1.5 meters for the non-americans in the crowd.  Good rule of thumb for ft --> meters is that 3ft = 1 yard = 1 meter, approximately.  It’s not exact but if you’re trying to imagine how big something is, it’s a good way of thinking about it.).  

Pit one only had 1 interesting thing and I don’t have any pictures of it really so I’m just gonna tell you about it real quick.  In pit 1 we found a feature, which is a spot where the dirt is a different color in an unnatural shape because humans did something.  This particular feature was a post hole from a palisade wall.  That’s interesting for two reasons: 1, the natives didn’t build palisades until they came into conflict with the colonizers. It isn’t that they didn’t need defenses previous to that, it’s that the people they were defending against didn’t have horses or guns.  Once the colonizers arrived, they started copying their method of defense.  2, palisade walls are made of large trees.  To cut them down they were first burned in the place where the cut was made to make cutting them easier.  And this means CHARCOAL.  

Archaeologists love charcoal.  We can date that shit really easily.  And this particular charcoal was sent out for dating.  Came back as 1700s, which makes sense for this area.  It took the colonizers a bit longer to push up into the mountains, so the dates for contact and treaties and that kind of thing are later than official first contact in the 1400s.  So that’s the latest date we have for the site.  

Now, pit 2.  Pit 2 was, and still is, the most interesting pit on the site so far (we’ve opened a number of others, but it’s...lots of plow scars and jumbled artefacts.).  Archaeologists, as I’ve mentioned, dig this kind of stuff in layers.  So for our site (and I know a few of you following me are also archs, so I need you to know this was the site director’s choice not mine. >.<), we have a sod layer, layer 2 - the plow layer, and layer 3 the layer below the plow layer.  General rule of thumb, at least the way I was taught is that you do it in increments or when the dirt changes color, whichever comes first.  So layer 2 for us is pretty thick.  Here’s what the pit looked like at the end of day 1 after we’d gotten the sod off and started bringing it down evenly: 

The bucket is covering the test pit that’s at the center of it.  The string is the boundaries of the pit, but also we attach what’s called a datum to it.  A datum is a known spot above sea level that you use to make measurements as to how deep something is.  It’s basically a string with a line level and you stretch it out until the line level reads, well, level...and then you use a ruler from there down to whatever depth you’re measuring.  So when we find like...arrowheads and points and stuff (and this pit had several) we record where they were by saying “_____ inches BD”, or “below datum”.  

Anyway, you can see already where there are some rocks and differences in color of the dirt.  It’s honestly not all that interesting but I figured you guys might like to see the progression.  This is that same pit about 2-3 working days later, and this is where it started to get interesting: 

Some of the difference in color there is because some soil is freshly exposed and some isn’t.  The pit in the middle is the remains of the test pit.  The lighter dirt at the bottom is sub-soil for this area, so it’s where the plow zone ends.  The rocks may or may not have been added by people, so we record them just in case.  How you deal with rocks depends entirely on where you are digging.  In Florida, where I went to school, rocks are important because 99% of what they’ve got there is sand and shell.  So if you find rocks they were probably put there by people.  Here? Sometimes it’s just part of the ground and sometimes it’s people.  It really depends on how far down you find them.  This is about midway through the pit so it could go either way.  So we do what’s called “pedestaling” where we dig around them and let them sit on a pedestal of dirt.  You’ll see that in a lot of pics going forward.  The reason that we’ve dug those upper corners differently is because we were starting to see soil color changes and we were investigating them separately.  Good thing too, because they both turned out to be part of a large fire pit feature.  Next slide! 

So here you can see that the dirt in those two areas that we’ve dug is a distinctly different color - it’s reddish.  Reddish dirt is a sign that the dirt has been heated, so we’re following the red dirt here.  The digging changes from going in layers to following these features.  And we’re really methodical about it so that we don’t remove too much or too little and lose the line of the feature.  Here we were lucky, all the dirt inside those features was full of tiny specs of charcoal.  And, in the upper left up there - which was my feature to dig - there were huge chunks of charcoal.  Also a really nice piece of pottery.  Well, I mean, comparatively.  It’s still just a large sherd that I accidentally snapped in two while removing but like it counts.  The square in the lower leftish is ust from like the foam I’d been sitting on.  Getting into a pit - rather than digging it from the sides - is something you do NOT do without permission and a lot of care.  Here, the ground is really solid so I wasn’t going to ruin anything by getting in there and the pit was getting too deep to effectively dig from the side, so I spent a lot of time in weird positions on the flat parts of this pit.  So, anyway, here’s a close up of the feature so you can see what I mean about the charcoal: 

Charcoal is very, very black so when you’re digging it stands out bc nothing else is that dark or that bright.  Everything else is covered in dirt. But you can see it there in the top half - it’s those dark flecks and blobs.  There was a ton of it, and when I say a ton, I mean we got I think almost 300g just that DAY.  And y’all know how light charcoal is.  This was the stuff we sent in for c14 testing along with the palisade charcoal and it came back, if I’m remembering right, mid-1300s.  That’s a period called the late woodland. It matches up with the pottery and points we were finding, but I’ll get to that when I start in on the finds.  

Now, I thought you might need some help with this next image so I brought it into procreate and drew on it.  I know it looks like it came before the previous stage, but it didn’t.  What happened is that we brought the whole pit down deeper to expose the edge of the large features.  We also found a post hole in the process! 

So I’ve marked the layers of dirt in the side wall for you so you can see what I mean when I’m talking about them.  I’ve also marked out the bottom of the pit bc this angle made it a little hard to see.  In the upper right you can clearly see the darker dirt of the post hole.  A post hole is exactly what the name implies - someone dug a hole, stuck a post in it, and later the post was removed and filled with moar different dirt and now it’s a different color but in a distinctly unnatural shape.  You can also see that we’ve long ago dug deeper than the test pit.  The area I’ve marked “bridge” is an area of soil that didn’t have charcoal in it between the two pits that did.  There was charcoal throughout that area - hence the blue boundary - but for the features themselves we were following the red dirt.  And if that feature on the right looks deep to you it’s because it *is*.  I dug it out and followed the charcoal and it went *under* the bridge.  

Now you guys probably don’t realize this, but this is like...stupid deep to be finding this kind of stuff.  We’re like 3ft below the surface here and still going down deeper.  Around here the rate of topsoil accumulation is like...an inch every 600 years or so.  The charcoal coming out of this pit is only 700 years old and it’s 3ft below the surface.  So we’re likely looking at a hole that was dug by the natives for their own use.  The thing that was confusing us was that we didn’t see the feature even start until we were almost at the bottom of the test pit so like...8 inches or so down.  (about 16cm.  1inch is approx 2cm.) But then I was looking through some of my earlier images of the pit and I noticed this: 

(north is the same direction in both pics)

The rocks, the ones that could be either nature or people, approximately outlined the areas we’d found the fire pits.  This is why you document shit.  Even though this is still pretty deep to be finding this kind of thing, it at least makes more sense in the context of very disturbed site.  So there might have been more evidence higher up, but it’s in the plow layer so we’ll never know.  So what was the feature? Well, the two features were actually one feature (and you’ll have to wait till tomorrow’s post to find out how I know that.), and I think that might have been one of these: 

(image credit)

Or something similar anyway, but I have to do more research about native cooking methods in this area of the country.  But it would fit with the two holes and a bridge of dirt with no charcoal that we saw while digging.  

Anyway I know this post is super long but I swear we’re almost done.  When we finally finished digging the damned thing it looked like this: 

(here I’m standing on the north side of the pit, so the top is the bottom in the other pics.) 

We think that this might actually be part of another feature so it’s a little...ah...yeah it’s just weird.  Those rocks were definitely from people, so maybe they were lining the bottom of the pit or something.  If I could draw your attention to the black crud in the wall to the right of the pedestaled rocks, I’m gonna tell you one last story about this pit.  That is a burned like...conglomerate of crud.  It isn’t charcoal (charcoal is fuel for the fire, not what they were using the fire to make).  Here’s what it looked like close up: 

(aw yis macro lense)

See those circles? Those are *seeds*.  I sent it to a former prof of mine who is an ethnobotanist for ID and she says she thinks it’s chenopodium AKA goosefoot, which was a staple food for the natives for a long time.  One variety still is: quinoa.  So basically, what we think we’re looking at is a 700 year old cooking accident.  Or, as my professor put it: 

So forgive the length, and I hope you all enjoyed this installment.  =D 

[chuckaf]

Chuck Fic Rec List: Updated

So my fic rec post was in my notifs again the other day, and I noticed a while back that the formatting on the post has gotten all messed up and it’s also had like three reblog additions to it anyway meaning there are three versions out there lol. so, I wanted to do another list of chuck fic recs! I’ll keep the other one up still, so I’m not gonna repeat every fic here, just some I really recommend. I’m also adding the fic summaries, which I didn’t on the old post, and some more of my own opinions so, buckle up for a long post!

Chuck Versus the Steampunk Chronicles | Steampunk.Chuckster

1896. A world powered by steam, where humans and machines coexist, and airships are the fashionable mode of transport. The US Empire's deepest and darkest secrets arrive at Chuck Bartowski's doorstep. Have they fallen into the wrong hands? Or will the inventor prove his mettle, even while he's forced to hide from the very people he's protecting? AU, ongoing chronicle, Charah.

A genuinely incredible AU story, with an entire crafted world and universe, so detailed it frequently blows my mind. There is heart and family and infuriatingly brilliant slow-burn, plus a buttload of danger and super fun historical/steampunk action. Oh how I LOVE it.

Chuck vs the Charade | somedeepmystery

When computer nerd Chuck Bartowski returns home to an empty apartment and a dead girlfriend he finds himself embroiled in a deadly game of espionage and deceit. Everyone around him is playing a part to get what they want and when he starts falling for the new woman in his life, he can't help but wonder if he can trust her or if she's the one he should fear the most.

An action and twist-filled AU based on the movie Charade, which is just such a brilliant fic concept I absolutely adored it from the start.

Two Sides of the Same Coin | dettiot

When you're a spy, there's all kinds of occupational hazards when you work with another spy. For Sarah Walker, though, one mission becomes a life-changing experience. Because working with Charles Carmichael leads to protecting Chuck Bartowski.

The first time I read this fic my mind was just blown to its genius. Such a brilliant interpretation of what the Intersect and its concepts set up in the show could be, and ooooof the Chuck/Sarah interactions, my HEART. Related to it, its companion piece:

A Flip of the Coin | dettiot

What made Charles Carmichael agree to become Chuck Bartowski? Well, to start, it wasn't as much of a change as you'd think. A companion to the early chapters of Two Sides of the Same Coin from Carmichael's perspective.

Chuck vs The Butterfly Effect | n7agentbartowski

Chuck Bartowski is a normal guy who just hit rock bottom. No girlfriend, no career and no super computer stuck inside his head. It isn't until Chuck meets a gorgeous stranger on the beach that he begins to think his life is about to change for the better. An AU Chuck fic without the Intersect. "Change one thing and it changes everything."

I said it on the OG post, but this story has one of my top 5 Chuck/Sarah fic meetings. So funny, so... very Chuck. The story is a little angsty overall, but a great read.

Chuck vs the Rogue Spy | Crumby

When a rogue spy from Chuck Bartowski's past shows up to help him during his first solo mission, Chuck hopes that he'll finally find out what happened to Sarah Walker. Post-S2 AU.

There’s a lot of Season 3 fix-it fics out there, which I don’t usually read bc I actually love season 3 lol, but this one’s a good one! A twisty deviation from canon, but still feels really true to character.

Chuck Versus the Nerds Rewrite | Steampunk.Chuckster and David Carner

What happens when two nerds talk endless hours about their favorite TV show? A new take on the show you know, but with the flair, twists, and turns you've come to expect from Steampunk . Chuckster and david . carner. Somewhat canon. Charah.

As the summary says, a different take on the show, which honestly makes a couple changes I would too, but also adds a bunch of fun twists and plots that make it totally new and fresh. Seeing Chuck and Sarah’s thoughts in the more canon sections is just delicious, too.

The Trapped Assassin | SarahsSupplyCloset

After a mission goes awry, the CIA's most lethal assassin is ordered to take vacation while her superiors figure out what to do with her. But when she meets a disarming tourist, their immediate connection only adds to her disillusionment with the agency and her career. Will he be enough for her to finally take the plunge and leave the only life she's ever known? Charah AU

A warning for the very justified M rating if you don’t like that sort of thing, but this is definitely a plot-heavy fic, too. A really neat Sarah-heavy AU, with a whole lotta Chuck/Sarah fancy French vacationy goodness.

Chuck vs the Second Chance | malamoo

AU from mid-season 2 and onwards. Chuck and Sarah part ways only to be reunited years later. COMPLETE.

Literal, crying-at-my-screen angst. Not even a super happy ending. But a brilliantly written, part-reflective/flashback fic, exploring what would’ve happened if Chuck and Sarah’s relationship really was an assignment all along-- and the aftermath. It’s heartbreaking. But if you want a little heartbreak, this is your fic.

Ready at Your Hand | dettiot

In the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, a Catholic plot against the queen comes to the attention of spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham. To protect Elizabeth, he develops an unusual plan: hide the passing of intelligence between two agents by a false romance. When Lady Sarah Walker and Chuck Carmichael meet, though, their pretend flirtation becomes much more.

I love Chuck fic for the very reason that it’s inspired such adventurous and totally unique AUs. Here’s some Elizabethan fake-dating Chuck and Sarah! They have to be so Proper, it’s like that hand moment from Pride and Prejudice but Elizabethan and times a billion. The pining!!

Sarah Versus Getting Married | Steampunk.Chuckster

Sarah Walker is getting married. Canon. Charah.

I’d recommend all of SC’s fics if I had the room, and I’m already recommending a ton sksks but most of my fic recs are AUs, and this one isn’t! It’s canon, and covers some of in the gap in 4x24, with Sarah just before the wedding itself. Super sweet, heart-tugging, brilliant.

A Chuckmas Carol | Mikki13

A new twist to Dickens' beloved "A Christmas Carol". When Sarah begins to shut out the world around her, three spirits come to show her the error of her ways. Season 3 AU.

Another Season 3 AU, this one written pre-series so it definitely doesn’t fit to canon, but it’s still wonderfully rich in character depth and angst and it also made me cry. Plus, festive!

Chuck Versus Thin Ice | Steampunk.Chuckster

On the doorstep of the Olympics, top American curler Sarah Walker has lost her mixed doubles partner and her boyfriend in one fell swoop. Her coaches throw newbie Team U.S.A. curler Chuck Bartowski onto her team and thrust them into the Olympics, hanging America's curling hopes on two people who only have a short amount of time to learn to trust one another. Charah AU.

Do you like curling? Or the Winter Olympics? It doesn’t really matter because somehow this fic made me extremely invested in both of those things, as well as Chuck and Sarah and them being INSUFFERABLE. Catch me now knowing a ton about curling thanks to this fic.

Walker’s Eleven | Moonlight Pilot

Not the same plot as the movie. Sarah Walker never got out of the con game or became a spy, and now she's on her final con. What happens when true love and betrayal get added to the mix? Twists, turns, and Jeffster!

Con!Sarah always interests me, and this fic is full of her. Lotta con plot, lotta Chuck and Sarah.

The Detective and the Tech Guy | thecharleses

Sarah Walker is a Pinkerton detective. Chuck Bartowski is an electronics genius. They wouldn't have met except for a case of mistaken identity and murder. Will the detective and the tech guy solve the mystery, distracted by the riddle in their own hearts? An homage to The Thin Man film series. Formerly co-written by Steampunk . Chuckster and dettiot, now ONLY Steampunk . Chuckster.

Everyone in this fic is so damn cool. There are so many martinis. But also great heart and family and like, standing up for who you love, and later also Chuck with Baby Clara content which frankly the show robbed us of. Also, PI!Sarah!!!

Gravity | Poetic4U

AU. Sarah makes a decision that altered her life forever.

This is just a one-shot, which many of these stories are not, so a good one if you don’t fancy a big read! Just because it’s short, though, doesn’t mean it’s lacking; a really awesome what-if AU, and heavy on the Chuck and Sarah.

A Yuletie Tale | Steampunk.Chuckster

Sarah Walker was dumped the day before Christmas Eve, and her Plus One at her work’s annual Christmas Eve Soiree is now officially a Plus Zero. Her best friend Ellie Bartowski has a solution to her problem, and Sarah finds she isn’t quite as sure about it as Ellie is. AU Christmas Charah.

I’m particularly in love with this fic because, instead of beginning with a meet-cute, it involves Chuck and Sarah already two years into a friendship-- Sarah is Ellie’s best friend. And she’s been crushing harrrd on Ellie’s brother. Also Chuck is in a tux. It’s pretty.

Set, Spike, Dive! | Frea O’Scanlin

Chuck never expected to even make it to the Olympics. Everything is working against him: he's too tall for a diver, too inexperienced for a medal, too much of a wildcard to really make his mark. But an unexpected meeting at the airport, some intriguing new friends, and a whirlwind romance on the sand just might set up London 2012 as the time of Chuck Bartowski's life.

A London 2012 AU, because why not. This is just a fun Olympic-y ride!

OTP (One True Pairing) Prompts | David Carner

A series of Prompts I found online about different times and places in Chuck and Sarah's life. Mostly AU, mostly one-shots. I assume mostly fluff, but I might get deep. I doubt it, it's me. Charah...ALWAYS (It says complete, but if an idea strikes me...)

If you’re not so into long stories, this fic is perfect. Individual set-ups and stories, all Chuck and Sarah, and all super cute. You could dip in and out and just pick a scenario you enjoy.

Chuck vs The Frontier | ninjaVanish

AU: Chuck was enjoying a simple life as a 19th century watchmaker until an encounter with a beautiful Secret Service agent thrust him into a world of intrigue and adventure he never wanted. But then, with Agent Walker around, it can't be all bad, can it?

This fic gets props for being historically-set but still including the Intersect. Again, a historical AU, so the pining!! the need to be Proper!!! But besides all that, there’s a lot of action fun as well.

Chuck Versus The Crosswalk: Remastered | WvonB

Will a last minute mission help our two favorite characters finally get together? This is the remastered version of my first story.

The original version of this fic is on my first list; this is the updated version! It’s not a complete AU, instead a story that diverges from canon, so if you’re more into canon characters and setting than a new AU scenario, this is a great fic for that.

Little Girls, Paper Wreaths, and Choc Chip Cookies | DanaPAH

Very AU: Sarah Walker is a single mother whose Christmas spirit needs a boost after a tough divorce. She isn't quite ready to go looking for romance, but her little daughter's affection for their new neighbor may lure it right to her doorstep, anyway.

An incredibly sweet AU one-shot where Chuck and Sarah are new neighbours, and Sarah has a super cute little girl. So much sweetness and love and hope. I love this fic so much it literally led me to write my own neighbour-kid-AU, so, not to toot my own horn but I’ll link it here anyway.

May Your Walls Know Joy | halfachance

Looking for a fresh start after some tough times, Sarah and her three-year-old daughter move to LA. When they meet a sweet curly-haired nerd who lives next door, though, Sarah realizes they might just find more happiness than they'd ever imagined, if only her past doesn't catch up to her first. AU.

It’s what the summary says; if you wanna read, feel free!

Chuck vs the Sound of Music | quistie64

AU. Chuck, nerd extraordinaire, is a man with seven children and Sarah must protect them all from Fulcrum's evil designs. Warning: there will be singing.

I mean. Not much mystery as to the concept with that title and summary lol, but this is a super fun, soft ride with a lotta sweetness, and yes, singing.

Just Two People | David Carner

Meet Sarah Walker PhD, Psychologist, specializing in personality traits. Meet Chuck Bartowski, man who has left THE electronic company of 2020. When Burton Consultants tries to figure out what is wrong with the morale of Orion Industries, what happens when a guy named Chuck meets a woman named Sarah. I'll give you a hint, it's me writing.

David’s done something pretty special with this fic. It’s Chuck and Sarah centric, but very much an ensemble piece, too, with a lot of Team Bartowski and other familiar faces throughout.

Chuck Versus the Con Game | Steampunk.Chuckster

AU. Chuck and Sarah are partners in the con game. It's an existence wrought with danger and violence. Every day could be their last. Every mission could be the end of the line.

This is where I freak out SC and declare this fic the reason I ever got hooked on Chuck fic and then wrote Chuck fic, and the reason I still love it today but. that is true lol. Just so. so good. It’s also written with the chapters out of chronological order, which is super fun from a reading perspective. But con!Sarah AND con!Chuck?? Best. The kind of fic you will be thinking about for days (if not, y’know, years).

As you can tell by the repeats, I highly recommend just about anything by Steampunk.Chuckster, dettiot, or David Carner, but there are a TON of amazing Chuck fics and authors out there. I’ve never known a writing community so wildly creative-- there are so many unique AUs and canon explorations and story concepts that this show has manifested, and it’s all so much fun.

Most of the Chuck fic community is still over on FFN rather than AO3, so if any of these whet your appetite, feel free to have a browse there for more stories. I’m sure you’ll find something great. Personally, all the incredible writing there has also led me to write a buttload; I’m at halfachance on FFN, so if you see any of my stuff or wanna chat fic, feel free to message me there or here.

Happy reading, folks!

[1025cherrystreet]

New Home for the Holidays!

happy holidays! and merry christmas to whoever celebrates it!! <3

disclaimer: kinda scared ngl, this is my first piece of writing i’m putting on tumblr. i usually use wattpad (my username is the same it is here if you wanna follow me!), so i’m still learning how to do this lmao. hope you like it! any feedback is appreciated!!!

also... i didn’t really proofread this bc i got impatient and wanted to post it before christmas lol :)

warnings: none, just fluff ;)

gf!y/n spends christmas with harry and his family.

You hear the faint chime of the doorbell ringing from inside the house as you nervously pick at your fingers down at your side. Harry notices the small action, quickly taking your hand to intertwine with his, shooting you a small smile in hopes to calm your nerves.

And it does. For a moment. Until the door swings open and Anne appears on the other side. What finally does put your anxiety to rest is the big, warm hug she pulls you into, a splitting grin adorning her face. You chuckle in surprise (mostly at the fact she hugged you first and not her own son), but return the kind action, nonetheless.

"Oh my gosh! Y/N, my dear, you look gorgeous as always!" She says pulling back just enough to look at your face.

"Thank you! You're looking quite good yourself, Mrs. Twist." You return either a kind smile.

"Oh, none of that. I've told you before, call me Anne," She looks at you with a knowing and playful scowl, waving you off.

"Wow, hello to you too mum," Harry mutters from next to you, plastering a fake pout on his lips.

She softly scoffs, releasing her hold on you and moving to embrace her son.

"You look gorgeous too, Harry. Is that what you wanted to hear?" She jokes, the familiar smirk she holds reminds you of the one your boyfriend pulls so frequently.

When they release from their tight squeeze, Anne steps inside and holds the door open before speaking.

"Well... Don't want you two to freeze out there, come in! I was just fixing a cuppa,"

The warmth of her home heats your frozen fingertips as you enter and your glad to be out of the snow. You love the snow, but since growing up not experiencing it often where you lived makes it a little hard to bear in times like these. You couldn't remember many times you've had a white Christmas before (probably could count on one hand, if your honest), but you've always remembered them being the best ones.

You've always loved the holidays. You loved the cold weather and the time with family. You loved you're yearly family tradition of opening one present on Christmas Eve night and taking a picture on the staircase in your childhood home the next morning. You loved making hot chocolate and watching you're family open the presents you got them.

You loved the holidays. But, what you love more than anything, is that this year you get to spend them with Harry.

You've been dating for two years now, but last Christmas, you spent it with your own family, as did he, because it was a bit too soon in y'all's relationship to make that step. However, this year Harry extended the invitation for you to join them and after talking with your parents (and your brother, albeit he didn't care one bit) you accepted the invite. Of course, not without making sure you wouldn't be imposing at all. And with Harry's reassuring words of, wouldn't have asked if we all didn't want you there, and besides, baby, it wouldn't be Christmas without all my loved ones, would it?, you started packing for London.

Harry shrugs off his coat as you both stand in the foyer and you follow suit as a voice shouts from the kitchen.

"Are they here?" A familiar sister calls out excitedly.

You and Harry enter the kitchen and he's immediately pulling Gemma into a bear hug. You look at the sight and smile fondly, noticing her boyfriend, Michal, behind them, but not before worrying for Gemma's breath support as Harry noticeably squeezes tighter.

They let go of each other and she playfully scowls at him, swatting his arm. To which Harry dramatically holds his arm, draining an, ow, that hurt!, receiving an eye roll from Gemma before Harry moves to greet Michal, and his stepdad, Robin.

"Hi, Y/N! It's so great to see you, feels like it's been ages," She greets you in turn, having enough of Harry's antics already. You return the greeting, along with the one to Michal and Robin, and before you know it, you're all deep into conversation.

Harry takes up spot right on your side like a leech. If you were being honest, it took you awhile to become accustomed and comfortable to how openly affectionate Harry is with you in front of his family and friends. At first, it was just small touches and light squeezes when the two of you would go out with Mitch and Sarah. The actions not bold enough for you to scold him, but just enough to make your cheeks turn pink. Not long after, the touches turned into sweet kisses to your cheek and draping a protective arm around you almost every time y'all went out. Which wasn't a problem until you realized how many stares your friends shot you when you started to get too comfortable in his warm embrace, most of the time opting to daze out in Harry's comfort than pay attention to conversation. So then, when the little affections turned into koala-esque cuddling into your side and planting heart-stopping kisses to your lips in front of Gemma and Anne this past summer, you decided to tell him to reign it back just a tad. It wasn't that you didn't like it! Quite the contrary, the sweet scent of his cologne that would flood your senses as he settled so close to you made your head fuzzy, and the pecks along your neck or on your hands or on your cheeks left you incapable of being present.

Of course, your loving boyfriend pouted a bit at the fact he claims, you don't want my kisses, but quickly got over it when you dropped to your knees before the boy to press kisses somewhere he couldn't complain about.

However, despite all of your protests to PDA, you can't help but relinquish your resolve as you melt into the couch with Harry between your legs, head resting on your tummy. The whole family (which includes you now!) is settled into their comfy spots in Anne's living room as Miracle on 34th Street plays on the TV, everyone having changed into their fuzziest Christmas pajamas. The realization when you saw Harry, Gem, and Anne had matching pajama bottoms made your heart grow tenfold and your eyes glaze over in complete fondness.

The smell of kettle corn popcorn (as Harry made it since he knows it's your favorite) and cinnamon candles fill the room. Anne and Robin are together on the couch perpendicular to yours against the wall opposite of you and Harry as the two of you are laid out taking up the whole space on y'all's blue sofa, while Gemma and Michal have cuddled up on the floor, sharing the big bean bag off to your left since they were the last ones to join the holiday movie marathon.

You love the dynamic of Harry's family. Much different than the chaotic mess of yours, and although you still love your family very much (despite their constant need to be obnoxiously loud for no reason whatsoever, fight over little things, and ignore each other on a daily basis), you admire how calm their presence is. You're family is just so... loud. And that's not necessarily a bad thing! The running joke of your family is that no one in it is capable of whispering...well, except you but you all blame it on the anxiety. But even so, your parents and brother have always argued. Over everything. Very rarely is it about something important, and seldom does it get out of control, but your family's way of showing affection is very...unique? Y'all aren't openly nice and polite all the time. As confusing as it might sound, y'all show your love in bickering. The love is more underlying than it is direct in show.

But that's why you can't get over how quiet this house is right now. Not one fight over someone breathing wrong has broke out and Harry and Gemma actually get along and enjoy each other's company. They're like... friends! The concept is crazy to you and you can't help but get just a tad bummed how your family doesn't just sit around all cuddled up, and how they'll get something for you while their up so you don't have to move from your comfy spot, or how Anne will just hug Harry out of nowhere. But the more you think about it, you realize that it's probably because Harry wasn't around much, always touring and traveling the world. He never got the time to playfully bicker with his family. So, as everyone is quiet in their comfort, you take it all in, happy that you're given the chance to experience their household dynamic.

Your fingers play with Harry's hair, running them through the long brown curls, still as wonderstruck at how soft his hair is as ever. Hearing him softly hum when you gently tug through a thicker curl.

"You're so effortlessly beautiful, ya know that?" You whisper to him, the sound of the movie, thankfully, covering you're affection from everyone else.

You can just spot the smitten little grin that grows on his face, and despite not having the angle to see, you just know his precious dimple is making a showcase right now...and that's enough to put a smile on your own face.

Instead of replying in words, he only turns his head to place a soft, melting kiss upon your thigh. Making heat surge through your entire body, in turn, making your heart warm at his love.

As y'all sit and watch the movie, you start to subconsciously braid your boyfriends hair. Starting by sectioning (albeit, a bit lazily) his hair into two big chunks, then separating three strands from the top of his head, you start braiding the pieces, adding a bit more hair as you go. He eventually caught on to what you were doing and you thought he was going to stop you, truthfully. But to your surprise, he only started rubbing gentle circles into your legs with his hands in a calming manner, causing you to release a content sigh.

When you get to the end, you tie off the finished braid with a hair tie from your wrist before moving to the other side of his sectioned head. It surprised you how long his braids are! They come down about a few inches below his chin, much longer than the only other time you had saw him in braids, which was when Lou did them right before he went on stage to perform. Now, your braiding skills aren't as refined as Lou's are, her skills making yours look rather sad, but you're having a blast doing it and that's all that matters. Not like he's going to go perform after this, right?

After securing the second braid in a hair tie, you lean forward and place a kiss to the top of Harry's head, causing him to tilt his head to look at you with a big smile on his pretty face.

Since you're sat up already and hovering over his face with him still in your lap, you press a quick, searing kiss to his lips, watching them curve into a splitting grin. You smile back at him, just admiring his features.

Despite being able to feel the loving stares from Gemma and Anne in the room, your focus is still on Harry.

“I love you,” He whispers, bringing a hand up to gently stroke your cheek.

“I love you too, bubs.” You return, because you do. You love him so much it hurts sometimes.

Looking at him now, surrounded by his family, you think you have never been so happy in your entire life. You’re so lucky to have him in your life, and you know he knows he’s lucky too.

But most of all, you’re so glad you decided to spend this Christmas with him.

[ricaffeine]

𝐇𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐥 𝐌𝐨𝐨𝐧 𝐋𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 | 𝐎𝐧𝐞

an: i'm sad because of hyunji drought and this is helping me cope :( but fr if tvn decides to make hotel blue moon then yeaji needs to be in it!!

also very annoying, i can't reply to comments bc this is a side blog (bruh wtf tumblr, i'm so sad should i make a new one?) reblog if you feel like it and my asks are open if you wanna chat 🖤✨

CHAPTER TWO

Weekdays at Seoul's National art gallery were usually the same. Buzzing curators dealing with hot-tempered clients. One thing or another was typically going not right and art directors cried about their wrong coffee order.

Although today was not the usual as to the crowds of bubbly news reporters and dazzled art critiques swarming up the wide place. As to Munyeong on the other hand, she was not pleased to the slightest.

"Just smile at the cameras, don't forget about the paycheck you're getting today." Sangin repeated himself for the fifth time. "Don't cause a scene, just think about the money."

Ah right. The paycheck.

As to The Nightmare Garden was bid off for over ten-million dollars, all of today's fanciness was dedicated to her, nation's celebrated female illustrator. However in all honesty, Munyeong barely liked her so-called masterpiece, but considering the amount of cash it will make her, she could be appreciative for the sake of it.

Behind her oversized sunglasses, Munyeong glared at her pesky manager– if looks could kill, he'd already be eleven feet under his grave. Sangin shut his mouth.

"Let's just get this over with," she simply responded, hooking off her eyewear then strutted into the hall with her long legs. Eyes whipped at her and cameras started to flash intensely, almost blinding her and Munyeong wondered how much those little pests could afford her if they got her blind.

And so the event played on. More pictures were taken– as if they hadn't blind her enough cheerful compliments flowed along with the spring breeze. The insincere joker smile she mastered whilst she met her million-dollar client– according to Sangin a hotel owner, though the woman did not have the looks for it– and the glass of filthy wine she almost had a chance to taste if Sangin's sixth sense was not so creepily fast.

Another dreadful two hours later as the dusk had set, hitting the edges with its golden flare, everyone had left. They got their articles and Munyeong will certainly be getting her pools of cash.

To her displease Sangin had informed her to wait as he had to take care of some paperworks she doubted he went to bribe the press into censoring her quoted inappropriate words. 

Nevertheless it was not her bother. She gave his plead a second before storming off to the complimentary section of the building.

Luck on her side, for nobody was there and she was able to grab one of the wine bottles with her– as for a fact it definitely was not stealing.

"Don't be shy, I know you want it."

Munyeong stopped within her steps as soon as an obnoxiously familiar voice echoed from the gallery she previously was in. Curiosity taking the lead, she peaked through the corner and had to muffle her own snort. Stood there, nation's art historian with the sharpest tongue– Choi Seojin.

She finds it hard to believe that his articles are highly known around, or even relevant, when his mouth is full of complete shit. However not disregarding the nastiest tea yet– a frightened girl seized under him. Her hands were locked, frightened eyes grew larger as the man spewed out nasty things.

Instantly, she took out her phone to film the disgraceful scene. Munyeong grinned to herself, reminiscing the rage she felt last time when he mentioned about her mother, and how her irritating manager had interrupted her before she could've sent him down the stairs to Satan.

The man reared into the poor girl's cheek when she attempted to fight him off, and Munyeong's smile dropped.

That piece of shit.

Munyeong entered the room, arms crossed, head high. Her wedge heels clicked against the hardwood as she let out an unamused wow.

Mad dog– what she personally thinks he should be called– 's head whipped at her with wide eyes. Like a child getting caught of lying.

"Oh my. Your hobbies are quite interesting Mr. Choi. Talking shit and sexual harassment?" Munyeong spat. "The girl looks like she'd rather kill herself, why are you even trying?"

As if he thought he could get away with what he just did, mad dog released his foul grip on the girl. Munyeong clicked her tongue and tauntingly held out her phone.

"Oh no, don't bother pretending. Judging by the looks, that won't even favor you at this point." She spared a glance at the quivering girl. "Why are you waiting? Go."

Shakingly and with thankful eyes she nodded and left, her footsteps filling void of silence before it coated the air again.

Mad dog snickered, as if there was something to laugh about. "Don't mess with me Ms. Ko. You know me, I won't die alone."

"Certainly I'll drag you and Mr. Lee down with me. Why do you think they call me the suicide bomb?"

Munyeong walked towards him and spreaded a smile, though even dogs could tell you shouldn't push her further. "You mean the bastard you can't fall down without dragging everyone else with him? Why?"

"I can destroy your career with the tip of my pen, I'm sure you know." He gave her a look, panning out his hand. "Now if you hand me your phone, I think we can compromise something."

Munyeong unraveled her arms, eyes hardening at his next sentence. "You think so?"

"Nation's beloved artist turned out to have antisocial personality disorder. What do you think will happen when people find out?" Mad dog sneered. "Her mother who mysteriously commited suicide–"

"Shut up." She warned. His words lit up the flame from their last encounter, adding fuel to her burning fire. Her head pounded, hard. For a moment she had hoped that if he proceeded as she said, then things would not have to get ugly.

"And her father? Spending his last days in the psychiatric hospital."

But men never listen, do they?

Munyeong tightened the hand around her bottle and striked it at him with full force. The bottom part crashed the wall behind him– just above the hung painting- glass shattered as rich burgundy stained its way down, smearing all over. Its taste fused with the air and Munyeong glowered at the creature who dodged her flawless aim.

"You crazy bitch!" He yelled, scrambled on the floor. But Mad dog was quick to lunge at her, they both hit the ground, stumbling as her open purse had been knocked away– and Munyeong's eyes landed on something very specific.

She was quicker, getting on her feet and spared the bastard a strong kick in the groin, leaving him groaning as she reached for her pen.

Her favorite calligraphy pen– its lining was stunning, coated in shiny teal with hints of gold, but most importantly, the dangerously sharp tip. The way it writes like reaping out blood from your hand– hence why it is a favorite.

She hawled back over and he screamed at her, though she didn't hear him. Her head was light as she felt blood rushed through her veins. Munyeong raised her arm and struck it back down.

Die.

Both of them froze. No, not her and mad dog, but him.

Deafening silence had lied between the walls and there they stood, eyes pierced into another's souls. Hers burned like fire, but his were dignified like the deep ocean.

Droplets of blood trickled down his forearm and splattered the floor, staining the rolled up sleeves of his crisp white shirt. What a waste.

"Let go. You can't kill him." The man– still with a bloody pen graved in his palm said.

Munyeong couldn't help but scoff, especially after that fucking bastard had just strangled her. "Don't be dramatic. I was just going to give him a few scratches."

Well maybe that's not entirely true.

Rough scrambling erupted underneath them, but when Munyeong turned to look, the mad dog had just ran off, like a lost puppy. Angrily she bit her lip, close to drawing blood until she felt the man draw his own hand back.

She watched as he did. The way he carefully slid her pen into his jacket and brought out a black silk handkerchief. Very rarely, she'd be astonished by something, and now it's him. Though she found it quite difficult to understand him– since when do you interrupt another's stabbing session by screwing up your own hand instead, and also the audacity to tell her she could not stab somebody?

So lost in her thoughts it took her a few seconds to realize her pulse was not pounding anymore.

"Did anyone not tell you that it is basic etiquette to not pry into someone else's business?" Munyeong said– seized the napkin from him, and began to tie a knot. She shot him a glance.

No reply. The man simply stared at her.

"Hmm?" She raised a brow, amused at his slight flinch when she tugged a little harder.

"Don't stress it too much, my manager will take care of our little incident." Munyeong chuckled as he proceeded to ignore her. "Do you know what? There are a lot of people in this world who deserve to die. And some very thoughtful freaks secretly take care of that, so clueless humans can sleep peacefully at night, completely unaware. Which one do you think I am?"

She dropped his hand, anticipating for his answer. Flares of light shined through the blinds, sharpening at his strong features and she noted his small– yet devilish smile.

"A clueless freak."

He finally responded, leaning towards her. His eyes traced her face, gazing down at her lips for a second too long, before their eyes were locked once again. "And of course you will have to pay, but at what price?"

taglist -> i could not tag some of ya'll :( @anotherdush @callmeashipper @ourcoffeeaddictme @nothingcreativeyet @pancat @hotstuff-benswolo @lookingatthesunset @evielovesfood @waywarm @gloster @hello-79 @ailander

[mira--mira]

Question from an aspiring writer:

How do you stay motivated on one project for such a long time?

I personally have the attention span of a goldfish, and whenever I have an idea I either have to write down everything my brain can spew immediately or have it be lost in the void for eternity.

Never mind going back and turning my outline into a fic or gasp editing.

Do you have any tips and/or tricks you use?

Ok, I got completely carried away with this just fyi, but hopefully I ended up answering your actual question 😂 tl;dr at the bottom.

To be honest, staying motivated is a tricky thing, one that I feel I'm still learning how to do even now and varies a bit between shortfics/oneshots and multi-chaptered fics/longfics. For a bit of background, I've been writing fanfic for about a year and a half, but I've been writing original fiction since I was seven, over a decade and a half, and I still wrestle with it. It's definitely a learning process.

One thing I wish someone would have told me when I was starting out was the power of ~scenes~ in either multi-chapters or one-shots. All writing is ultimately made up of scenes, but if you're struggling to put things together, focusing on an individual scene, or multiple short scenes, might help you focus on getting something completed, and it's something that eventually can be applied to longer works as well. Writing has been a snowball process for me and once I started getting anything completed, I felt more secure in knowing what I could write comfortably and what was out of my comfort zone, eventually getting to the point where I felt comfortable tackling bigger and longer projects and knowing I could stay with them.

OoT's interlude chapters and the snippet series are both good examples of scenes because I wrote them with that intention...even if most of them are actually two or three scenes combined. "Gai meets Hashirama and Madara", "Hashirama gets revenge on Kakashi", "Tatsuki and Hashirama pick flowers for Madara, then give them to him" etc. were all my starting points.

If you're first starting out and feel comfortable with outlines of some sort before you start writing I would encourage you to try and write down a bullet point list of your scene(s) and what you know you want to happen in it.

"Gai meets Hashirama and Madara"

* Hashirama meets Gai first, mistakes him for Lee.

* Madara is shopping for a gift for Hashirama

* Madara finds Gai and Hashirama, they spar, Gai kicks his ass, both of them love him.

This is how my initial outline looked for the first interlude chapter, technically each one of these "points" are their own scenes stuck together. Outlining is different for everyone, some people like super specific points, others even less detail than this. For me this is a nice middle that gives me a roadmap for the chapter, but allows plenty of room to naturally diverge and add detail. Play around with outlines and see what you're comfortable with/what gives you the best results.

I'm not sure of your individual situation, but if you're struggling to put together fics in general something like this might help. Doing this process again and again personally helps me stay on track and gives me a sense of progress.

This sense of progress is ultimately key and why I think motivation differs slightly between one-shots/short fics and longfics. If you confine the individual scene to a one-shot, that might give you the motivation to complete it. Even if you start writing and you get interrupted/can't finish having in one setting, bullet points sometimes help inspire me to finish because I'm not starting from scratch when I return to writing. The whole "eat an elephant one piece at a time" thing was difficult for me to learn, but ultimately proved true. Learning to chip away at something bit by bit is going to be the only (healthy) way to write longer projects you can't complete in one sitting.

For longer projects, it's a similar beast just on bigger levels and with an added dimension. I would actually suggest something similar to OoT for a starting project because it is ultimately broken up into arcs that you know and can reference, instead of making a lot of og content for a fan setting. Maybe not go into it thinking, 'I'll do a complete rewrite' but once you feel like you're ready for a longer project 30K+ or so, the rough outline method and the ability to follow arcs was what got me started when I eventually decided to make the fic multi-chaptered. Try writing one arc and keep yourself contained in that. Now the added dimension aspect in general for longfics is that you eventually want to plot individual chapters in a multi-chaptered longfic and individual arcs (character, plot, etc). This comes with practice. I honestly don't think there's a way to get around that. It's something that I'm still trying to work on and I can look back at my early work and see how I've improved, how I can recognize where things didn't go well in certain places, and how I would change them if I was writing today. That's a good thing to be able to do, it means you've grown! The other thing I find that helps with staying motivated week after week for longer projects is to roughly know where you're going and to try to be excited about a plot point/scene/chapter/etc that you're going to write. Really try to hype yourself up. For me, it's a moment that comes at the very end of the chunin arc and I start grinning even thinking about it because I know it's going to be awesome. It's always what gets me through the rough days, imagining the moment I'll get to actually write that scene in its entirety (it's definitely already outlined and I mentally play it out at least twice a week lol) and is a big motivating drive.

So far I think this is pretty standard stuff if you're an outliner and you've been writing for a few years, but the other thing motivational-wise for me is having a schedule. From reading this message alone, I would not suggest it for you right away. Get comfortable finishing small things and feeling confident that if you let an idea sit for a week or two, you can pick it back up and continue. But if you eventually dip your toes into longfics (and don't plan to pre-write everything before you publish) that routine and rhythm really helps keep me going. I've made a commitment, I've posted it online, I'm going to stick to it. No one is going to jump down my throat if I fail to keep it (this is still a hobby and having fun is the most important thing) but in my mind I should commit to it unless something irl prevents me from doing so. Don't put a tight deadline on yourself, I'd start with once a month or if you write shorter chapters every three weeks. This also would help you build up and get a readership, interaction being another big motivational key.

Also, it's important to accept that sometimes you bite off more than you can chew, and when you feel completely demotivated from a fanfic project...it's okay to drop it. It's okay to take a step back and work on something else. Maybe you'll come back to it, maybe you won't. If you can, try to pinpoint what it was about that project that made you demotivated, were you pushing yourself too much and you got burnt out, was it an ongoing series and your interest for canon lagged and so did the fic, was it just too stressful to keep juggling plotpoints, etc. and keep that in mind moving forward. Every experience can be a learning one and eventually make you a better writer that can eventually tackle those bigger projects. Don't be afraid to take on big aspirational projects, but don't walk into them blind either. Above all, and this is repeated a lot because it's true, enjoy what you write. Some days you might not. That's true with anything, but any project you take on the good should outweigh the bad.

This is my wrap up of the motivational section but I also wanted to throw my two-cents in about editing because "oh no editing" is a perspective I've seen from a lot of writers, and used to have myself, but I think is going to stifle your progress in the long run.

Here's the thing: you need to look forward to editing.

You don't have to be jumping for joy, but editing, imo, should be a positive thing. You have all these great ideas, you made it into a fic, something you wrote, and now you get to go back and make it even better! This is a tough attitude to adopt. I'm not going to pretend otherwise. It took me a long time to unlearn the negative attitude and even then sometimes I still wish the editing was already done once I type in the last period. But I've learned to at least appreciate what editing does and I try to think to myself as I'm going through and making changes things like "wow, this suddenly became so much better. X plot point that I thought of ten pages from now is suddenly being hinted at and doesn't come out of left field. The transition points are a lot cleaner, it's not so jarring anymore. I bet the readers are going to love this little detail. Here's some foreshadowing that I hope someone picks up bc it's going to come back in like 5 chapters from now" it's hard, especially when you start, but this is something you made, and now are actively making better and that's something to celebrate.

I hope this helps anon! I know it's a lot and I'm by no means an expert but I've been doing this for more than a decade because I love it and I want to help others get into writing to! I have no problem answering any writing questions you may have if you find this helpful!

tl;dr

-motivation is slightly different between short/long fics.

-starting out, learn to outline by scenes and focus on finishing small projects and getting to a point where you feel like you can put something down and come back and pick it up again in a week. Completion is key and will help you feel satisfied/know your limits.

-long projects also can work on the scene-to-scene outline but now with individual chapters and individual arcs. It's tough to balance both but comes with practice. Bit-by-bit is key, as is having 'one moment you can't wait to write', possibly a schedule if it works for you, and reader feedback are all huge long-term motivational points.

-editing is tough but learn to look forward to it instead of dreading it.

edited: added a bit more/few typos fixed

[adamantiline-blog]

I posted 279 times in 2021

100 posts created (36%)

179 posts reblogged (64%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 1.8 posts.

I added 96 tags in 2021

#dream smp - 25 posts

#waite draws shit - 19 posts

#technoblade - 15 posts

#philza - 10 posts

#hbsmp - 7 posts

#hoisin twitter archive - 6 posts

#ill informed sword talk - 4 posts

#my beloved - 4 posts

#hell yeah hell yeah hell yeah - 3 posts

#dream mcyt - 3 posts

Longest Tag: 130 characters

#i think its because i was consuming probably about equal amounts american and british media while i was relearning how to not talk

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

sick and tired of pig/human buff/noodle techno design discourse i wanna know everyone’s takes on what The Fuck is going on with his legs

so like presumably we’ve got red pants/shorts and then the uhhhhhhh chain mail/fishnet/checkered patterned whatever and like either maybe two toned boots or hes got like, leg? warmers? anyways

i feel like, i should be pretty confident that the bottom black part is shoes right?

but

they don’t have any soles????

like, they’re the same as his hands hooves are just out; biblically accurate techno doesn’t wear shoes? you’re telling me this man has 4 distinct leg sections and none of them are shoes? king how many layers of legwarmers do you need?

but

that isn’t fucking all-

id like to direct everyone’s attention back to the “pants”

are they pants? are we sure? because they’re a very similar color to his coat

“but waite, they’re clearly separated from the coat by the trim“

oh are they?? are you fucking sure????  dear reader have you ever noticed that the trim just stops at the front? it doesn’t wrap around

are His PANts attached?!!? To hIS coat? is IT a jumpSUit???

whatisthetruthimlosingitoverhere

716 notes • Posted 2021-08-13 08:27:48 GMT

#4

Taking a quick break from spreading rapier technoblade propaganda to instead spread messer nihachu propaganda

What is a messer?

Its a big knife, just a hugeass fucking knife, sword sized but knife shaped which is the vital distinction. Messer is like literally german for knife.

C!niki should have one and heres why i think that:

German

I think this one is self explanatory

The history of the messer

So basically messers exist to exploit this lil old loophole in 15th century german laws where most people aren't allowed to make or have swords but they are allowed knives. So a messer, in a very "behold a man" sort of way, is technically a knife bc of the construction of the handle and only having the one sharp side. (I think there's more minutia to that distinction but im too lazy to look it up rn, handle, sharp on one side is the broad strokes)

So anyway remember how during the Schlatt administration Niki specifically got her taxes raised n stuff? Now ok hear me out, hc that at some point during that time period Niki also gets disallowed from owning weapons for like, probably similar petty reasons to the taxes so she just, gets a Really Big fucking knife and goes on her merry way.

Knife like cooking like baking? Slice bread in bakery with giant knife?

C!niki is a baker so having her weapon b kind of tangentially culinary is p neat i think. Also the mental image of niki like, serving pie w her Huge Knife amuses me.

In conclusion niki nihachu deserves a giant knife, thank u for coming to my ted talk

1196 notes • Posted 2021-08-12 05:30:42 GMT

#3

So like, the new skin Phil's got on namemc huh? I know that logically probably I should be going buckwild over like is this another death flag? Wings got blown up canon??

But I will be completely honest, I just can't unsee the black as one big shirt and the green as overalls and thats the thing that my brain has latched onto today

1479 notes • Posted 2021-02-24 08:05:22 GMT

#2

"Don't talk to me, or walmart me, or Philza Minecraft, or my dog, or my dog, or my dog, or my dog, or my dog, or my dog, or my dog, or my dog, or my dog, or my dog, or my dog, or my dog, or my dog, or my dog, or my dog ever again" -Techno probably, canon killing the next sorry fucker who tries bothering the tundra cottagecore retirement bois

1862 notes • Posted 2021-01-10 08:17:46 GMT

#1

I love bird mumza as much as the next guy however if there is not enough panda!death goddess art out there I guess I will make it myself.

Well yknow,, shes American so shes got the right to uh, b-bear arms?

3751 notes • Posted 2021-06-05 06:55:33 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[ibblescribbles-archive]

Hello! Do you have any tips on how do you make the hair so glossy and beautiful? It’s one of the things I adore most out of your style!

hello!! thank u so much! i’m happy that you like it, ive struggled a lot (n still do) to make hair shading look nice ^^; i don’t know if i can give many tips but i can at least walk you through my general hair shading process under the cut! for a less wordy process, you can also check out the speedpaints on my yt!

starting with the base color, i try to pick a bright/light color bc with the way I shade the base color ends up becoming part of the highlight, if that makes sense! It’s a lot easier when I’m coloring white or black hair (see below) bc I just use straight up white for the white hair highlight or a shade of blue/purple for the black hair highlight, but w/ colored hair it tend’s to be a little trickier to envision what color will look best against the shading! i can always paint over the highlights later but it does make the process easier if i pick a color that works well right off the bat!

i started w/ a bright pastel pink for this drawing despite the character having a more muted hair color bc i think the best highlights are vibrant n saturated! also i just like pastel colors!

i then airbrushed a gradient around where her highlight will be. i picked yellow bc i think it compliments the pink tone nicely, and it means the actual highlight will have a slight gradient n appear softer in the end, though i don’t always do this step ^^; as for where to put the highlights, it varies depending on the hairstyle but i put them around the middle of the bangs kind of like a “halo” or crown effect! i use the texture lines that are in the lineart to help me decide placement as well; the HL will go right above those lines! her hair is pretty short but i also airbrushed some yellow near the ends of her hair to act as highlights for the longer strands. the longer the character’s hair the more highlights i’d add lower down

next i took a shade slightly darker than the base color and used it to shape the highlights into the basic form that i wanted them to be in! i think this is probably the most crucial step to achieving that glossy look. even though i’ll be refining it more, the hair already looks shiny w/ just the color and rough shapes! i usually go for rough “tear drop” shapes for the shadows, originating from roots and tips of the hair. the highlight shape looks like?? maybe bat wings, but it kind of naturally forms bc of the teardrops. i can’t really explain why i choose this shape, and i do change it sometimes, but i think it achieves the shiny effect bc it mimics the way reflected light wraps around shiny objects! if you notice, i try to separate the shapes by sections of hair. the more i section it out in the lineart, the easier it is to make the shapes when shading ^^

not much to say here, i just took the base color and used the marker tool to clean up the shapes! at this point since i’ve started blending colors, the eyedropper tool is my best friend

i then took a couple darker shades and used them around the roots as well as the actual shadows of the hair. i’ve also put some right up against the bottom of the highlights, under the texture lines! putting darker shades against the lighter ones creates contrast and adds to the illusion of being reflective and glossy! the texture lines themselves also help bc they darken up those areas, but they’re more of a stylistic choice :3

i added colors and cleaned up the shading a bit by blending it so it’s not as messy! every object reflects the colors of things around it, and shiny surfaces like metal tend to reflect more noticeably, so adding colors that arent the same as the actual hair tone (in this case blue n purple) can make it look more reflective as well! 

i changed the lineart color to match which helps soften it up as whole as well as color picked her skin tone and her hoodie to airbrush at the tips of her hair. not a necessary step but i think it gives it a softer look ^^

lastly i made some color adjustments on an overlay layer, and added some final shiny details like small sparkles n lighter colored texture marks, as well as thinner hair strands!! i could have refined the shading more, but since this was a procrastination doodle, i didn’t want to spend too much time on it ^^;

n that’s basically my whole hair coloring process! i’m sorry it was long winded, but since I haven’t done one of these in a while, I wanted to make sure it was thorough. no matter your shading style, i think the most important steps to achieving the glossy hair look are the colors you choose for the highlight vs shade/base and the shapes of the highlights! with those two things you can still achieve a shiny look in flat color pieces:

i often change the highlight shape to be more square or triangular as i see fit! i also find it easier to shape highlights in hair that is drawn with really clear sections, so if you’re having trouble it may help to use your lineart as a guide:

i hope that helps with your hair coloring endeavors a little bit and good luck w/ figuring out your own style of coloring!!final chiaki piece: X